CDS GK Questions 2026

Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water, commits countries to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources, with targets on reducing marine pollution from land-based activities, protecting coastal ecosystems, addressing ocean acidification, ending overfishing and conserving coastal and marine areas.

Oilzapper is a consortium of oil-degrading bacteria developed by the institute and used as bioremediation: the bacteria break the hydrocarbons in crude oil and oily sludge into harmless products, which makes it a cheap, low-waste option for contaminated soil at refineries and spill sites.

The hydrogen ions released when carbonic acid dissociates combine with carbonate ions to form bicarbonate, so the pool of free carbonate shrinks.

Oil spill response in Indian waters runs under the National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan, and the Coast Guard is its central coordinating agency, working with major ports, state governments, oil companies and the Navy on reporting, containment with booms, recovery with skimmers, use of dispersants and shoreline clean-up.

MARPOL is the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, adopted in 1973 and modified by the Protocol of 1978, and it is the main pollution instrument of the International Maritime Organization.

The tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound in 1989, releasing crude oil that coated a long stretch of a cold, sheltered coastline where oil breaks down slowly, and killing large numbers of seabirds, sea otters and salmon.

Eutrophication begins with nitrogen and phosphorus from fertiliser, detergent and sewage. The nutrients feed an algal bloom; the bloom is short-lived, and when it dies the bacteria that decompose the mass consume large amounts of dissolved oxygen.

Microplastics are conventionally defined as plastic particles less than five millimetres across.

Methylmercury discharged with factory effluent into Minamata Bay entered fish and shellfish, biomagnified up the food chain and poisoned the people who ate them, producing the nervous disorder named after the bay and recognised in 1956.

Carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater and reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which dissociates into bicarbonate and hydrogen ions; the extra hydrogen ions lower the pH, and they also combine with carbonate ions, leaving less carbonate for shells and coral skeletons.

Article 368(2) lists the provisions whose amendment needs a special majority in each House and, in addition, ratification by the legislatures of not less than one-half of the States: the election of the President, the extent of the executive power of the Union and the States, the Supreme Court and…

It added clauses to Articles 75 and 164 so that the total number of ministers, including the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister, cannot exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the Lok Sabha or of the State Legislative Assembly, with a floor of twelve ministers…

It added Article 31B and the Ninth Schedule so that the zamindari abolition and land reform laws of the States could not be struck down for violating the Fundamental Rights, and it also added reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech in Article 19(2) and Article 15(4) for the advancement…

The amendment also made a three-tier structure, five-year terms, reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, a State Election Commission and a State Finance Commission compulsory.

It repealed Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31 and put the right to property in a new Article 300A in Part XII, so that no person may be deprived of his property except by authority of law.

It inserted Article 246A, which gives both Parliament and the State legislatures the power to make laws on goods and services tax, Article 269A for the levy and collection of integrated GST on inter-State supply, and Article 279A, under which the President constituted the GST Council with the Union Finance…

It inserted Article 21A, which gives every child of the age of six to fourteen years the right to free and compulsory education in such manner as the State may determine by law; the law that followed was the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

The first general election held on the new franchise was that of 1989.

It inserted the Tenth Schedule, which disqualifies a member of Parliament or of a State legislature who voluntarily gives up the membership of the party on whose ticket he was elected, or who votes against the party whip.

It is called the Mini-Constitution because no other single amendment has changed so much of the Constitution at once.