SSC GK Questions 2026

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian scholar from Khwarizm, came to India in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni in the early eleventh century, learnt Sanskrit, read Indian texts in the original and wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind, also called Tahqiq-i-Hind, a study of Indian religion, philosophy, astronomy, law and custom that is…

After the oil shock of 1973 Brazil launched the Proalcool or National Alcohol Programme in 1975, requiring ethanol made from its abundant sugarcane to be blended with petrol and later building cars that could run on pure ethanol; it is the oldest and best known national biofuel programme.

GOBARdhan, which expands to Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan, was launched in 2018 by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Ministry of Jal Shakti as a part of the rural sanitation mission, because turning dung and farm waste into biogas is both a waste management and a…

The Global Biofuels Alliance was launched in September 2023 during the G20 summit held in New Delhi under India’s presidency, with India, the United States and Brazil among its founding members, the three being the largest producers and users of ethanol.

The Pradhan Mantri JI-VAN Yojana was approved in 2019 to give viability gap funding to commercial and demonstration projects that make ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass such as paddy straw and bagasse, since such advanced plants cost far more than ordinary molasses distilleries.

The National Policy on Biofuels of 2018 had set 2030 as the year for twenty per cent ethanol in petrol; the 2022 amendment brought that forward to the ethanol supply year 2025-26, and also widened the permitted feedstock and allowed the production of biofuels in special economic zones for export.

In this notation the letter E stands for ethanol and the number gives its percentage by volume in the blend, so E20 is one fifth ethanol and four fifths petrol, while E10 is a tenth ethanol and E85 is a high blend meant for flex fuel vehicles.

Jatropha curcas yields a non-edible oil seed, and because India cannot spare edible oil for fuel, the National Policy on Biofuels looks to non-edible oils such as Jatropha and Pongamia pinnata, or karanja, along with used cooking oil and animal tallow, as feedstock for biodiesel.

In transesterification a vegetable oil or animal fat is made to react with methanol or ethanol in the presence of an alkaline catalyst such as potassium hydroxide, giving fatty acid methyl esters, which are biodiesel, and glycerol as the by-product.

Biogas is produced by the anaerobic digestion of organic matter, and methane is its largest component, roughly half to three quarters of the gas by volume; this is what makes biogas combustible.

SATAT stands for Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation and was launched in October 2018 by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas; under it the oil marketing companies invite entrepreneurs to set up compressed bio-gas plants from agricultural residue, cattle dung and municipal waste and offer to buy the gas…

Second generation biofuels are made from lignocellulosic biomass that is not food, such as paddy straw, wheat straw, bagasse, cotton stalk and municipal solid waste; the cellulose must first be broken down into fermentable sugars, which makes the process costlier and earns these fuels the name advanced biofuels.

Ethanol is the two carbon alcohol obtained by the fermentation of sugars by yeast, and it is the alcohol blended into petrol under the Ethanol Blended Petrol programme.

A gram of fat yields about nine kilocalories, more than twice the yield of carbohydrate or protein, because its carbon chains are far less oxidised to begin with; this is also why fat is the body’s store of energy and why fatty food is called energy dense.

Iodine is needed to make thyroxine, the hormone of the thyroid gland; when the supply is short the gland works harder and enlarges into the swelling at the front of the neck called goitre, and in an infant the same shortage stunts growth and mental development as cretinism.

Kwashiorkor appears when a child gets enough calories but far too little protein, typically after being weaned onto a starchy gruel; the signs are swelling of the feet and face, a distended belly, thin and discoloured hair and an apathetic look, while the muscles are not severely wasted.

These four dissolve in fat and not in water, so they travel with dietary fat, are stored in the liver and in body fat, show their deficiency only after a long shortage, and can be toxic in excess.

Retinol is vitamin A, and it is the raw material of rhodopsin, the pigment in the rod cells of the retina that lets us see in dim light; when it is short the eye cannot adjust to darkness, which is night blindness, and a longer shortage dries the conjunctiva as…

Vitamin D, chemically calciferol, is needed for the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the intestine, so a child short of it cannot mineralise growing bone; the legs bow, the wrists thicken and the chest deforms, and the disease is rickets, while the same shortage in an adult softens formed…

Vitamin B12 is chemically cyanocobalamin, and the cobalt atom at the centre of its ring is what the name points to; it is the only vitamin that contains a metal, it is absorbed only with the help of intrinsic factor secreted by the stomach, and its shortage gives pernicious anaemia.