General Awareness
General Awareness
The general awareness portion leans on banking and economy, supported by static general knowledge, appointments, government schemes, awards, sports and international organisations. Current items change constantly, so build a category grid instead of memorising stray facts: monetary policy, budget and fiscal terms, regulators and their jurisdictions, international institutions, and major welfare schemes with their ministry and beneficiary group.
Core rules
- Monetary policy belongs to the RBI: repo, reverse repo, CRR, SLR and open market operations. Fiscal policy belongs to the government: taxation, spending and deficits.
- Repo: the RBI lends short-term funds to banks against securities. Reverse repo: the RBI absorbs liquidity from banks. Raising the repo rate tightens money supply.
- Permanent anchors worth knowing cold: the RBI was established in 1935, nationalised in 1949, and is headquartered in Mumbai; monetary policy decisions are taken by a six-member Monetary Policy Committee.
- Regulators: RBI for banks and payments, SEBI for securities, IRDAI for insurance, PFRDA for pensions.
Worked example
"The RBI raises the repo rate. What is the likely effect?"
Reasoning chain: borrowing from the RBI becomes costlier for banks, so banks raise their own lending rates, credit demand cools, consumption and investment slow, and inflation pressure moderates. The correct answer describes tightening of liquidity, never expansion.
Traps that cost marks
- Reversing the repo and reverse repo directions.
- Attributing a government scheme to the wrong ministry, or a regulator to the wrong sector.
- Choosing a current-affairs option from memory without checking the exact year, rank or number.
- Confusing GDP with GNP, or the fiscal deficit with the revenue deficit.