General Knowledge & Current Affairs
General Knowledge in the Maharashtra Police Constable paper leans heavily on the state itself - its formation, geography, polity, culture and government schemes - with a smaller share of national and international current affairs drawn from roughly the six to twelve months before the exam date.
Static core you must own
- Maharashtra was created on 1 May 1960 under the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960, which split the bilingual Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat.
- 36 districts; capital Mumbai; Nagpur hosts the winter session of the state legislature.
- Bicameral legislature: Vidhan Sabha 288 seats, Vidhan Parishad 78 seats.
- Bombay High Court, with benches at Nagpur and Aurangabad.
- State symbols: animal - Indian giant squirrel (shekru); bird - yellow-footed green pigeon (hariyal); flower - jarul; tree - mango.
- Rivers: Godavari (rises at Trimbakeshwar, longest course inside the state), Krishna, Bhima, Tapi (west-flowing), Narmada along the northern border.
Worked example
Which river has the longest course within Maharashtra? Reasoning: first separate east-flowing from west-flowing rivers. The Tapi and the Konkan rivers are short; among the east-flowing systems the Godavari runs roughly 600 km inside the state, well ahead of the Krishna and the Bhima. Answer: Godavari.
Marks that leak away
- Mixing up 1 May 1960 (Maharashtra Day) with 1 November 1956 (states reorganisation).
- Swapping state symbols - shekru is the animal, not the bird.
- Ignoring local current affairs: awards, sports results, new schemes and appointments reported in Marathi dailies are asked far more often than distant international news.