SSC CHSL Tier 1 2019 General Awareness Questions with Solutions

Explanation

Sambhar Salt Lake is the largest inland salt lake in India, located in the state of Rajasthan. It covers a vast saline wetland area situated in the districts of Jaipur, Nagaur, and Ajmer. The lake receives water from seasonal rivers such as the Medtha, Samaod, Mantha, Rupangarh, Khari, and Khandela. It is a major hub for salt production, accounting for a significant portion of India's overall salt output, and is recognized as a Ramsar site of international importance due to its unique ecological habitat that supports thousands of migratory birds, particularly flamingos.

Explanation

In May 2019, Sweden-based caller identification and spam blocking app Truecaller appointed former Flipkart executive Sandeep Patil as the Managing Director of its operations in India. Prior to this appointment, Patil headed Flipkart's consumer and commercial lending vertical. In his role at Truecaller, he was tasked with spearheading business strategies to expand the company's footprint and accelerate revenue growth globally, operating out of the Bengaluru office and overseeing teams in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.

Explanation

In May 2019, the Rajasthan Government increased the annual financial assistance provided to schoolgirls under the Aapki Beti Scheme by ₹1,000. Under this welfare initiative, financial aid is provided to girl students belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families studying in government schools who have lost one or both of their parents.

Following the revision, the annual assistance for girls studying in classes 1 to 8 was raised from ₹1,100 to ₹2,100. Similarly, the financial assistance for students in classes 9 to 12 was increased from ₹1,500 to ₹2,500.

Explanation

Rahi Sarnobat clinched the gold medal in the women's 25m pistol event at the 2019 ISSF World Cup held in Munich, Germany. She delivered an exceptional performance by shooting a score of 37 in the final. This victory was significant as it also secured an Olympic quota place for India in this category.

Explanation

Puducherry is a Union Territory of India that has been provided with its own legislative assembly and a council of ministers under the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963. This administrative setup grants it partial statehood, allowing the elected government of Puducherry to legislate on matters under the State List and Concurrent List, similar to a full state, while remaining under the general control and administration of the Union Government through a Lieutenant Governor.

Explanation

The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the SI derived unit of frequency, which is defined as one cycle per second (1 s⁻¹). Named in honor of the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who pioneered the study of electromagnetic waves, it is used to measure the rate of periodic oscillations, vibrations, or waves occurring over a duration of one second.

Explanation

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Indian National Congress won 8 of the 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab. This decisive mandate made the Congress the dominant party in the state during the 17th Lok Sabha elections, reflecting strong regional support for the party during that election cycle.

Explanation

The Financial Literacy Week is an annual initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to promote financial education and raise awareness on specific key themes across the country. First launched in 2016, this campaign focuses on a designated topic each year to improve financial literacy among different segments of the population. The theme for the 2019 edition was Farmers, aimed at educating the farming community about the benefits of joining and participating in the formal banking system.

Explanation

The Mundra Power Plant is located in the coastal town of Mundra in the Kutch district of Gujarat. This major power generation hub consists of two massive coal-fired power plants: the Mundra Thermal Power Station, operated by Adani Power, and the Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project, operated by Tata Power. Strategically positioned near the Mundra Port on the Gulf of Kutch, these plants utilize imported coal to generate significant amounts of electricity for the state grid and surrounding regions.

Explanation

The Indian Space Research Organisation launched the Yuva Vigyani Karyakram, commonly known as Yuvika, which is a special residential training programme for school children. Inaugurated by the Chairman of ISRO in May 2019, the programme aims to impart basic knowledge on space technology, space science, and space applications to young students, fostering their interest in emerging areas of space science and technology.

Explanation

In May 2019, during its corporate strategy meeting in Tokyo, Japanese conglomerate Sony announced its decision to exit the Indian smartphone market, classifying India as a non-focus or defocused region. Facing intense competition from major Chinese and South Korean smartphone brands, Sony's market share in India had dwindled to less than 0.01% by the first quarter of 2019. Consequently, the company decided to pull out of India, as well as several other markets in South Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, and Oceania, to focus on highly profitable regions like Japan, Europe, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Explanation

The 2019 AFC Asian Cup was the 17th edition of the quadrennial international men's football championship of Asia organized by the Asian Football Confederation. The tournament was hosted by the United Arab Emirates from 5 January to 1 February 2019. This was the second time the country hosted the tournament, having previously hosted the event in 1996.

Explanation

The global investment banking and financial services major Goldman Sachs invested 250 million USD to establish a state-of-the-art campus in Bengaluru, India. Located at Helios Business Park on the Outer Ring Road, this campus serves as one of the firm's largest global workspaces and a major center of innovation. The facility is designed to support advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics. Bengaluru represents the third-largest office of Goldman Sachs globally by headcount and houses the second-largest concentration of the firm's engineers after its global headquarters in New York.

Explanation

Satyashodhak Samaj was founded by the social reformer Jyotirao Phule on September 24, 1873, in Pune, Maharashtra. The society was established to advocate for the social, educational, and political rights of marginalized communities, particularly women, Shudras, and Dalits, and to counter the social inequalities of the caste system.

Explanation

In June 2019, SpiceJet's Chairman and Managing Director, Ajay Singh, was elected to the Board of Governors of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). This appointment took place during the 75th IATA Annual General Meeting held in Seoul, South Korea, where he was chosen for a three-year term. This development occurred shortly after SpiceJet became the first Indian low-cost carrier to join IATA as a member in March 2019.

Explanation

The Himalayas are young fold mountains formed due to tectonic plate collisions. Specifically, the convergent collision between the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate compressed the sedimentary deposits that had accumulated in the Tethys geosyncline. This intense compressive force folded the crust upward, creating the massive Himalayan mountain system. Because this mountain-building process occurred relatively recently in geological history during the Cenozoic era and tectonic activity continues to uplift them, they are classified as young fold mountains.

Explanation

The National Institute of Nutrition is a premier Indian public health, nutrition, and translational research center located in Hyderabad, Telangana. It was founded in 1918 by Sir Robert McCarrison as the Beri-Beri Enquiry unit in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, and was later shifted to Hyderabad in 1958. Operating under the aegis of the Indian Council of Medical Research, the institute conducts extensive research in clinical nutrition, food chemistry, toxicology, and community nutrition to help formulate national nutrition policies.

Explanation

Lala Lajpat Rai, popularly known as Punjab Kesari, uttered these words after being brutally lathi-charged during a peaceful protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore on October 30, 1928. He was leading a non-violent march when the police superintendent ordered a lathi-charge and personally assaulted him. Despite suffering severe chest injuries, he addressed the crowd, asserting that every blow aimed at him would serve as a nail in the coffin of the British Empire in India. He succumbed to his injuries on November 17, 1928.

Explanation

EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory. It is a class of non-volatile solid-state memory used in computers and other electronic devices to store relatively small amounts of data. Unlike standard ROM, which cannot be modified after manufacturing, or EPROM, which requires exposure to strong ultraviolet light to erase data, EEPROM can be erased and reprogrammed electrically at the byte level. This capability allows system firmware, such as BIOS in personal computers, to be updated or customized without removing the chip from the device, while retaining the stored data even when the power is turned off.

Explanation

A Pivot Table is a powerful data summarization tool featured in Microsoft Excel. It allows users to quickly extract significance from large, detailed datasets by automatically grouping, filtering, sorting, counting, totaling, or averaging the data. This interactive tool enables users to drag and drop different fields to dynamically reorganize their data, facilitating efficient data analysis, trend identification, and the creation of customized reports.

Explanation

Pinjar is a highly acclaimed Punjabi novel written by the renowned poet and novelist Amrita Pritam in 1950. Set against the backdrop of the Partition of India, the novel powerfully portrays the struggles and trauma of women through its central character, Puro, who is abducted during the communal violence. Amrita Pritam was one of the leading female writers of the 20th century, writing in both Punjabi and Hindi, and became the first woman to win the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956.

Explanation

The International Cricket Council announced a total prize money pool of USD 10 million for the 2019 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup. The winning team received a cash award of USD 4 million, which represented the highest prize money offered in the history of the tournament up to that edition. The runners-up received USD 2 million, and the losing semi-finalists received USD 800,000 each.

Explanation

World Blood Donor Day is celebrated globally on 14th June every year to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products, and to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood. The event was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to commemorate the birth anniversary of Karl Landsteiner, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who discovered the ABO blood group system. In 2019, the day was celebrated with the specific theme Safe blood for all to advocate for universal access to safe blood transfusions.

Explanation

The Soorya Festival is a prominent annual cultural event held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Organized by the Soorya Stage and Film Society, it is celebrated as one of the longest-running art and cultural festivals in the world, typically spanning more than a hundred days. The festival serves as a major platform for showcasing Indian classical dances, music, theater, and cinema, featuring performances by acclaimed artists from across the country.

Explanation

Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet from the Sun in our solar system, orbiting at an average distance of approximately 30.1 astronomical units (AU), which is about 4.5 billion kilometers. Because of this immense distance, it takes Neptune about 165 Earth years to complete a single orbit around the Sun.