24 September 2026 Current Affairs: PBSHABD, Asian Games

Galvanisation is the coating of iron or steel with a thin layer of zinc so that the iron underneath does not rust.

Milk of magnesia is a white suspension of magnesium hydroxide, Mg(OH)2, in water, and its milky look gives it the name.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the USA, detected gravitational waves for the first time in September 2015 (announced in February 2016), and such waves were predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1916.

Vitamin D helps the intestine absorb calcium and phosphorus, so without it the bones of a growing child stay soft and bend, giving bow legs, a pigeon chest and a large forehead; this disease is rickets.

Each human kidney has about one million nephrons, and every nephron begins with a cup-shaped Bowman's capsule that encloses a knot of capillaries called the glomerulus.

Levers are grouped by where the fulcrum, the load and the effort sit. In a second class lever the load lies between the fulcrum and the effort.

Isaac Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope in 1668. In it, light from the star falls on a large concave mirror at the bottom of the tube, and a small flat mirror set at 45 degrees near the top turns the light sideways to the eyepiece.

Starlight has to cross many layers of air before it reaches the eye, and these layers keep changing in temperature and density, so their refractive index keeps changing too.

Buddhist texts list sixteen mahajanapadas of the sixth century BCE, and Gandhara, in the north-west covering the Peshawar and Rawalpindi region, had its capital at Taxila (Takshashila), near present-day Islamabad in Pakistan.

The Prayag Prashasti, also called the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, is a Sanskrit eulogy of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta (about 335 to 375 CE) composed by his court poet and minister Harishena, who held the titles sandhivigrahika (minister of peace and war) and kumaramatya.

Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General of Bengal under the Regulating Act of 1773 and held office from 1773 to 1785.

The Indo-Greek kings who ruled the north-west of India from about the second century BCE were the first in Indian history to issue coins that carried the name and portrait of the ruler, with Greek legends on one side and Prakrit in the Kharoshthi script on the other.

At its Lahore session in December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian National Congress passed the Purna Swaraj resolution declaring complete independence, not dominion status, as its goal.

The Beas rises at Beas Kund near the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh, flows past Manali, Kullu and Mandi, enters Punjab and meets the Satluj at Harike in Punjab, where the Harike barrage and wetland stand.

Precipitation is any form of water, liquid or solid, that falls from clouds to the ground. When the temperature is above freezing it falls as rain or drizzle; below freezing, water vapour turns directly into ice crystals that fall as snow.

Western disturbances are low-pressure systems that originate over the Mediterranean Sea and travel eastward with the subtropical westerly jet stream in winter, bringing light rain to Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and snow to the Himalaya, between December and February.

The Coriolis force is the apparent force caused by the rotation of the Earth that deflects moving air and water to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.

The Sun is overhead, with its rays vertical at noon, only at places between the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees S).

The 42nd Amendment of 1976, passed on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee, added a new Part IV-A with a single Article 51A listing ten Fundamental Duties of citizens, such as respecting the Constitution, the National Flag and the National Anthem, protecting the environment and developing the scientific temper.

Article 243ZD was inserted by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992, which added Part IX-A on Municipalities.

The Tenth Schedule, popularly called the anti-defection law, was added by the 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1985.

Under Article 109 a Money Bill can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha, and after it is passed there it is sent to the Rajya Sabha, which cannot reject or amend it.

The Bombay Plan of 1944 was drawn up by a group of eight, mostly leading industrialists such as J. R. D. Tata, G. D. Birla, Purushottamdas Thakurdas, Lala Shri Ram and Kasturbhai Lalbhai, with John Mathai among them.

The Second Plan (1956 to 1961) was built on the model of the statistician P. C. Mahalanobis and aimed at rapid industrialisation with a stress on heavy and basic industries such as steel, machinery and chemicals, on the belief that machines to make machines would speed up growth.

All four plans came before the First Five Year Plan started on 1 April 1951. The Bombay Plan of 1944 was prepared by eight industrialists led by J. R. D. Tata and G. D. Birla and favoured state-led heavy industry.

A greenhouse gas is one whose molecules absorb the long-wave infrared radiation given off by the warm surface of the Earth and send part of it back, keeping the planet about 33 degrees Celsius warmer than it would otherwise be.

Green plants are the producers of a terrestrial ecosystem, and NCERT's Class 10 chapter Our Environment states that they capture about 1 percent of the energy of the sunlight that falls on their leaves and convert it into food energy through photosynthesis.

The Battle of Rezang La was fought on 18 November 1962 during the India-China war, at a pass about 16,000 feet high near Chushul in Ladakh.

The Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, known as CIJWS, is at Vairengte in the Kolasib district of Mizoram, close to the Assam border.

Mrichchhakatika, The Little Clay Cart, is a ten-act Sanskrit play written by Shudraka, a king-poet of the classical age.

It is the one false statement, because the Constitution creates only the Attorney General, not the Solicitor General. Article 76 provides for the Attorney General for India, the chief legal advisor to the Government and the highest law officer.

All its 30 members are elected by the Lok Sabha alone, so the Rajya Sabha has no seat on it.

This Article deals with reservation of seats in Panchayats, including the seats for women.

The 44th Amendment Act, 1978 removed it from the list of Fundamental Rights. Before 1978, property was protected by Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31.

Article 338A sets up this Commission as a constitutional body. It was inserted by the 89th Amendment Act, 2003, which split the old combined National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes into two; the separate ST Commission began work in 2004.

The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A and made elementary education a Fundamental Right. Article 21A says the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14 years in the manner the State may by law determine.

Krishnadevaraya wrote this Telugu poem, and a part of it sets out his ideas on how a king should rule.

At Colachel in August 1741, Marthanda Varma of Travancore defeated the Dutch East India Company. It was one of the rare times an Indian ruler decisively beat a European power in open battle, and it ended Dutch hopes of expanding on the Malabar coast.

The Prayaga Prashasti, better known as the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, is a long Sanskrit poem in his praise. It was composed by Harishena, his court poet and minister, and engraved on an old Ashokan pillar now kept in the Allahabad (Prayagraj) Fort.

The Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted the Purna Swaraj or complete independence resolution.

Signed in May 1782 between the East India Company and the Marathas, it ended the First Anglo-Maratha War that had begun in 1775.

Basavanna led the Virashaiva or Lingayat movement in Karnataka in the twelfth century. He served as a minister at the court of King Bijjala at Kalyana.

The Tropic of Cancer crosses eight Indian states, and only two of them touch the sea. Running at about 23.5 degrees north, it passes from west to east through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram.

All three statements are true. Statement 1: the size of an eruption is rated on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, a scale from 0 to 8 based on the volume of material thrown out and the height of the eruption column; each step up means roughly ten times more material.

Going south from Gulbarga you first cross the Krishna and then reach the Tungabhadra, on whose south bank Hampi stands.

When rivers leave the Himalayas and reach the plains, their speed drops suddenly and they drop the heaviest load first, pebbles and boulders, in the Bhabar belt.

Tsomgo Lake, also called Changu Lake, lies in East Sikkim, about 40 km from Gangtok on the road to Nathu La.

When the government runs a deficit, it borrows heavily from the same pool of savings that private firms use, so interest rates rise and private investment falls.

The expert group headed by Suresh Tendulkar, which reported in 2009, recommended measuring poverty through MPCE on the Mixed Reference Period.

A unicorn is a startup that is not listed on the stock market and is valued at more than one billion US dollars.