Maharashtra SSC General Knowledge Grade cheat sheet

Chronology anchor points: Harappan civilisation c. 2600–1900 BCE mature phase; Vedic period c. 1500–600 BCE; Mahajanapadas by 6th century BCE; Mauryan Empire founded 321 BCE by Chandragupta Maurya with Kautilya as adviser.

Ashoka's dhamma edicts appear on pillars and rock inscriptions in Prakrit using Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts; his Kalinga war is placed at c. 261 BCE.

Gupta era begins 320 CE with Chandragupta I; Samudragupta's conquests are recorded in the Allahabad pillar inscription composed by Harishena.

Bhakti and Sufi movements: Kabir, Nanak, Mirabai, Tulsidas in the north; Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath, Tukaram in Maharashtra; Chishti order centred at Ajmer.

Indian National Congress founded 1885 in Bombay; partition of Bengal 1905 triggered the Swadeshi movement; Jallianwala Bagh massacre 1919; Quit India 1942; independence and partition 1947.

Constitution of India adopted 26 November 1949, came into force 26 January 1950; Dr B. R. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee; the Preamble was amended by the 42nd Amendment (1976) adding socialist, secular and integrity.

Fundamental Rights occupy Part III (Articles 12–35); Right to Constitutional Remedies (Article 32) is called the heart and soul of the Constitution by Ambedkar; writs are habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari, quo warranto.

Directive Principles sit in Part IV (Articles 36–51) and are non-justiciable; Fundamental Duties were added by the 42nd Amendment on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee.

Lok Sabha maximum strength 552; Rajya Sabha maximum 250; a money bill can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha with the President's recommendation and the Rajya Sabha must return it within 14 days.

Latitude and longitude: 1 degree of latitude is about 111 km everywhere; 1 degree of longitude is about 111 km at the equator and shrinks to zero at the poles (111 x cos latitude).

Standard Meridian of India is 82 degrees 30 minutes E, giving IST = UTC + 5:30; India's latitudinal extent is roughly 8 degrees 4 minutes N to 37 degrees 6 minutes N.

Tropic of Cancer (23 degrees 30 minutes N) passes through eight Indian states, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram.

Himalayan rivers are perennial (Indus, Ganga, Brahmaputra systems); peninsular rivers are largely rain-fed (Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Narmada, Tapi); Narmada and Tapi flow west through rift valleys.

Monsoon mechanism: differential heating of land and sea, the ITCZ shift, the Tibetan plateau heat low, and the tropical easterly jet; the Western Ghats force orographic rain on the windward side and create a rain shadow at Pune and Solapur.

Soils: black regur soil of the Deccan is clayey, moisture-retentive and cotton-friendly; laterite soil forms under heavy leaching in high-rainfall areas; alluvial soil dominates the northern plains.

Maharashtra relief divisions: Konkan coastal plain, Western Ghats (Sahyadri), Deccan plateau, and the Vidarbha eastern hills; Kalsubai is the highest peak in the state.

Map decision rule: contour lines close together mean steep slope; widely spaced mean gentle slope; concentric closed contours with hachures or decreasing values inward indicate a depression.

GDP = C + I + G + (X - M); nominal GDP uses current prices, real GDP uses constant base-year prices, and the GDP deflator = nominal/real x 100.

Sectors: primary (agriculture, mining), secondary (manufacturing, construction), tertiary (services); India's structural shift has moved the output share toward services while agriculture still employs the largest workforce share.

Inflation measured by CPI (retail, base 2012) and WPI (wholesale, base 2011-12); RBI's flexible inflation target is 4 percent CPI with a band of plus or minus 2 percent.

Money multiplier = 1/reserve ratio; RBI tools include repo rate, reverse repo, CRR, SLR and open market operations; raising the repo rate is contractionary.

Types of unemployment: seasonal (farming), disguised (surplus family labour on small farms), structural, frictional, cyclical; MGNREGA guarantees 100 days of unskilled wage employment per rural household per year.

Civics: the 73rd Amendment (1992) gave constitutional status to Panchayati Raj with three tiers (gram panchayat, panchayat samiti, zilla parishad); the 74th Amendment covered urban local bodies.

Fundamental duties, election of the President (proportional representation by single transferable vote of elected MPs and MLAs), and the anti-defection law (Tenth Schedule) are frequent civics test points.

Consumer protection: the Consumer Protection Act 2019 created the Central Consumer Protection Authority and covers e-commerce; consumers can complain at district, state and national commissions by claim value.

Newton's laws: F = ma; every action has an equal and opposite reaction; an object stays at rest or in uniform motion unless a net external force acts.

Motion equations: v = u + at; s = ut + 0.5at^2; v^2 = u^2 + 2as; momentum p = mv and is conserved in collisions absent external forces.

Electricity: Ohm's law V = IR; power P = VI = I^2R = V^2/R; resistors in series add, in parallel 1/R = 1/R1 + 1/R2; domestic wiring is parallel.

Light: reflection angle of incidence equals angle of reflection; refraction obeys Snell's law n1 sin i = n2 sin r; convex lens converges, concave diverges; power of a lens in dioptres = 1/focal length in metres.

Acids turn blue litmus red, bases turn red litmus blue; pH below 7 acidic, 7 neutral, above 7 basic; neutralisation gives salt and water; metals above hydrogen in the reactivity series displace it from dilute acids.

Periodic table: groups are vertical columns with similar valence electrons; periods are horizontal rows; atomic number equals protons; Mendeleev ordered by atomic mass, modern table by atomic number.

Biology: mitochondria are the site of aerobic respiration, chloroplasts carry out photosynthesis absorbing CO2 and releasing O2; stomata regulate gas exchange; xylem transports water upward, phloem transports food.

Human systems: blood has plasma, RBCs (haemoglobin, oxygen transport), WBCs (immunity) and platelets (clotting); nephrons filter blood in kidneys; insulin from the pancreas lowers blood glucose.

Indian space programme: Chandrayaan-3 soft-landed near the lunar south pole in August 2023; Aditya-L1 is a solar observatory at the Sun-Earth L1 point; Gaganyaan is the crewed orbital programme.

Governance landmarks: Goods and Services Tax launched 1 July 2017; Article 370 provisions revoked in 2019 and Jammu and Kashmir reorganised into two union territories.

International groupings: India is a member of BRICS, SCO, G20 (held the presidency in 2023), Quad and the Commonwealth, but not of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or APEC.

Awards and institutions: Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award; RBI regulates banks; SEBI regulates securities markets; NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission in 2015.

Sports: the Olympics are held every four years; the Commonwealth Games every four years; the Asian Games every four years; the Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial ODI event.

Environment: the Paris Agreement aims to hold warming well below 2 degrees C and pursue 1.5 degrees C; India's updated NDC targets 500 GW non-fossil capacity by 2030 and net zero by 2070.

Static GK rule: match the person to the field before matching to an award or title; verify the year of the award because the same honour may be listed with different years in distractors.

For any 'first in India' or 'largest in India' item, recall the paired superlative (longest river Ganga, largest state by area Rajasthan, largest freshwater lake Wular, longest river entirely within India Godavari).

State formation: Maharashtra was created on 1 May 1960 by the Bombay Reorganisation Act, splitting the bilingual Bombay State into Gujarat and Maharashtra; 1 May is Maharashtra Day.

Administration: the state has 36 districts grouped into six divisions (Konkan, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad/Sambhajinagar, Amravati, Nagpur); the legislature is bicameral with a 288-member Legislative Assembly and a 78-member Legislative Council.

Symbols: state animal Indian giant squirrel (shekru), state bird yellow-footed green pigeon (hariyal), state tree mango, state flower jarul; the state emblem features a stylised fort.

Culture: Ashadhi Ekadashi Wari pilgrimage to Pandharpur for Vithoba; Ganeshotsav popularised by Lokmanya Tilak; Lavani and Tamasha folk forms; Povada narrates Maratha heroic deeds; Warli painting is from the Thane-Palghar belt.

History: Shivaji Maharaj crowned at Raigad in 1674; Ashta Pradhan was his council of eight ministers; the Battle of Pratapgad (1659) pitted Shivaji against Afzal Khan; the Third Battle of Panipat was fought in 1761.

Social reformers: Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule opened a girls' school in Pune in 1848; B. R. Ambedkar led the Mahad satyagraha in 1927 and the Kalaram temple entry movement; Gopal Ganesh Agarkar and Mahadev Govind Ranade shaped social reform.

Economy and geography: Mumbai is India's financial capital and home to the RBI and the National Stock Exchange; the Konkan coast has major ports; Nashik is known for grapes and wine; Kolhapur for chappals and jaggery; Solapur for textiles.

Key institutions: Maharashtra Public Service Commission is at Mumbai; the Bombay High Court has benches at Nagpur and Aurangabad/Sambhajinagar; the state's first Chief Minister was Yashwantrao Chavan.