GS Paper 1 practice questions for UPSC Mains 2026.

• Congress accepted linguistic provinces from 1920 but the post-Partition leadership reversed course fearing fragmentation.
• Potti Sriramulu's death in December 1952 forced the creation of Andhra State in October 1953.
• Samyukta Maharashtra agitation, with about a hundred deaths in police firing, produced the 1960 bifurcation of Bombay State.
• Punjabi Suba was conceded in 1966 despite the Fazl Ali Commission having rejected it.
• Dar Commission 1948 and JVP Committee 1949 advised against linguistic states; Fazl Ali 1955 accepted language as one criterion among several.
• Article 3 gave Parliament unilateral power to redraw boundaries, so the centre selected among demands rather than merely ratifying them.
• Reorganisation strengthened the Union by channelling identity into federal bargaining rather than secession.

Open full model answer →

• The Indo-Pacific holds roughly 60% of world population and about 60% of global GDP in PPP terms.
• Around 60% of world maritime trade transits the region; nine of the ten busiest container ports are located there.
• Strategic value has migrated to Malacca, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, Sunda and Lombok chokepoints.
• RCEP, CPTPP and IPEF have deepened intra-regional integration beyond Asia's trade with any external partner.
• The Atlantic retains dominance in finance, services, standards-setting and technology frontiers.
• Transatlantic FDI stocks and EU-US trade remain the largest bilateral economic relationship globally.
• About 95% of India's trade by volume is seaborne, making Sagarmala, IMEC and naval capacity decisive for capturing the shift.

Open full model answer →

• India carries 18% of world population and 15% of livestock on 2.4% of its land area, making land-use pressure exceptional.
• Net sown area is stable near 140 million hectares but its internal composition has changed radically.
• Urbanisation towards a projected 600 million urban residents by 2036 drives peri-urban conversion of fertile land.
• Linear infrastructure fragments habitat disproportionately to the land area it occupies.
• Utility-scale solar and wind parks now claim large blocks of common and pasture land.
• Consequences include urban flooding from higher runoff coefficients, urban heat islands, habitat fragmentation and reservoir siltation.
• The binding constraint is spatial planning capacity at district and municipal level, not the availability of instruments.

Open full model answer →

• Caste in urban India is changing register rather than disappearing - ritual expression weakens, structural expression persists.
• Occupational delinking, urban anonymity and collapsed commensality restrictions are genuine weakenings.
• Reservation-enabled education has created a first-generation Dalit professional and administrative class.
• Endogamy is the strongest counter-evidence: inter-caste marriage remains around 5% and matrimonial platforms default to caste filters.
• Residential segregation in Indian cities is comparable in degree to racial segregation measured in American cities.
• Audit studies find lower callback rates for Dalit and Muslim-sounding names on equivalent CVs.
• Manual scavenging remains caste-assigned despite the 2013 prohibition Act - the clearest refutation of the disappearance claim.

Open full model answer →

• NFHS-5 put TFR at 2.0, below replacement, with median age around 28-29 - the transition is real but uneven.
• Roughly 7-8 million people enter the working-age population annually and must be absorbed into productive work.
• Growth has been services-led and capital-intensive; manufacturing employment has not risen as in East Asia.
• Kerala and Tamil Nadu are ageing while Bihar and UP remain above replacement - two demographic clocks at once.
• Post-2026 delimitation makes divergence politically combustible for states that reduced fertility successfully.
• The 60-plus share is projected near 20% by 2050 with under a tenth of the elderly holding formal pension cover.
• Low female labour force participation halves the potential dividend; anaemia at 57% among women 15-49 caps human capital.

Open full model answer →

• Over 371 million Indians aged 15-29 form the first cohort raised entirely after the 1991 liberalisation.
• Economically, IT services, GCCs and remote work opened unprecedented careers alongside gig precarity without social security.
• The aspiration-opportunity gap drives educated-youth unemployment, exam pressure and the coaching economy.
• Gains concentrate among English-fluent, urban and better-schooled youth, widening the gap for vernacular-educated peers.
• Socially: nuclearisation, delayed marriage and higher female aspiration alongside rising anxiety and loneliness.
• Politically: global rights vocabulary and cheaper participation, but also misinformation and long-distance nationalism.
• Culturally: hybridity rather than replacement, with vernacular OTT and regional music growing faster than English content.

Open full model answer →