NDA GK Questions 2026

This nearly blind freshwater dolphin of the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna systems finds its prey by echolocation and was declared the National Aquatic Animal of India in 2009, a step meant to draw attention to the pollution and damming of its rivers.

The hangul, also called the Kashmir stag, is the only surviving Asiatic subspecies of the red deer in India and its last viable population lives in Dachigam, a park in the hills above Srinagar whose name means ten villages.

The Himalayan region is home to wild goats such as the ibex and the tahr and to the snow leopard, which hunts them above the tree line, so pair (a) is right.

CITES was drafted and signed at Washington in 1973, but a treaty begins to bind its members only after enough countries ratify it, and that stage was reached in 1975.

Silent Valley National Park lies in the Palakkad district of Kerala, in the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats, and protects one of the last stretches of undisturbed tropical evergreen forest in the country.

The Asiatic cheetah once hunted across the open grassland and scrub of central and peninsular India, was trained by rulers for coursing blackbuck, and was wiped out by shooting and by the ploughing of its grassland.

The Wild Ass Sanctuary lies in the Little Rann of Kachchh in Gujarat and is the last home of the Indian wild ass, locally called the khur, a Schedule I animal that grazes on the raised patches of grass known as bets in the salt desert.

The Red List arranges risk in a ladder, and the three threatened grades in falling order of severity are Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable.

The greater one-horned rhinoceros, the animal of Kaziranga and Manas in Assam, is placed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the schedule that carries the highest protection and the strictest punishment for hunting or trade.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature was founded in 1948 and works from Gland, a town in Switzerland near Geneva, where several environmental bodies have their offices.

Project Tiger was launched in 1973, the year after the Wildlife (Protection) Act came into force, and it was the first species recovery project of its kind in India.

On 27 October 1947, a day after the Instrument of Accession was signed by the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, the first infantry company was flown into Srinagar to meet the tribal invasion, and the day is kept by the infantry as its own.

Born on 15 September 1861, he was the engineer behind the Krishna Raja Sagara dam and the flood protection works at Hyderabad, served as the Diwan of Mysore and received the Bharat Ratna, and the day honours the profession through his name.

On 16 December 1971 the Pakistani forces surrendered at Dhaka, the largest surrender since the Second World War, and the war ended with the creation of Bangladesh.

A ship carrying explosives caught fire at the docks and blew up, and dozens of firemen died fighting the blaze; 14 April is kept in their memory and the week that follows is observed as fire service week to spread awareness of fire safety.

The physician and Chief Minister of West Bengal was born on 1 July and died on the same date, and the day was fixed in his memory to honour the work of doctors.

On this day in 1947 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel addressed the first batch of probationers of the administrative service at Metcalfe House in Delhi and described the services as the steel frame that would hold the country together, and the day is now marked with awards for excellence in public administration.

A small patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force was ambushed there in October 1959 and several policemen were killed, and since then 21 October has been kept as the day on which the country remembers all police personnel who died on duty during the year.

Armed Forces Flag Day has been observed since 1949, when it was decided that the country should contribute to the welfare of serving personnel, veterans and the families of those killed in service, and small flags are distributed in return for contributions.

The Kargil conflict of 1999 ended on this day with the recapture of the heights held in the Dras, Batalik and Kargil sectors, and the day is observed in memory of the soldiers who died in that campaign.