IS 800:2007 moved Indian steel design from working stress to limit state, and with it came two partial safety factors for material that people routinely mix up.
Gamma m0, taken as 1.10, applies where the limit state is governed by yielding — the gross section reaching yield stress. Gamma m1, taken as 1.25, applies where it is governed by rupture at ultimate stress — the net section tearing at a bolt hole, for instance. The larger factor on rupture reflects that it is the more brittle and less forgiving mode.
The practical consequence shows up in a tension member. Its capacity is the lesser of gross-section yielding, using fy and 1.10, and net-section rupture, using fu and 1.25. Check only the first and a member with a generous gross area will pass while the connection it dies at fails. That is not a conservative error.
On the load side, the familiar combination is 1.5 times dead plus 1.5 times imposed for the ultimate limit state, with the code tabulating the fuller set including wind and earthquake cases.
The habit worth building is to name which limit state you are checking before reaching for a factor, rather than reaching for the factor first. The two numbers are close enough that the wrong one rarely looks wrong.