State Exams GK Questions 2026

Sericulture is the rearing of silkworms for the production of raw silk, and it includes the growing of mulberry, on whose leaves the mulberry silkworm feeds; India produces mulberry silk as well as the wild varieties tasar, eri and muga, the last being special to Assam.

Palaeontology is the study of fossils, the preserved remains or traces of organisms of past geological ages, and it supplies the evidence on which the history of life and the theory of evolution rest.

Seismology is the study of earthquakes and of the passage of seismic waves through the earth, and it is from seismic wave records that the layered structure of the interior of the earth has been worked out; the instrument used is the seismograph.

Ornithology is the study of birds, their classification, habits, migration and nesting; Salim Ali, known as the birdman of India, was the country's best known ornithologist and wrote the Book of Indian Birds.

Mycology is the study of fungi, the group that includes moulds, yeasts, mushrooms and the rusts and smuts that attack crops, and a specialist in it is called a mycologist.

The reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes under Articles 330 and 332 has a time limit set by Article 334, and that limit has been extended by amendment every ten years.

It reserves seats in every panchayat for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population, and reserves not less than one-third of the total number of seats, and not less than one-third of the offices of chairperson, for women, the women's share being counted within the…

Article 334A was drafted in this way because one-third of the seats cannot be set apart until it is known which constituencies exist and how large they are, and the reserved seats are meant to rotate after each later delimitation.

Each was set up under a Delimitation Commission Act passed by Parliament for the purpose, and each worked on the latest available census: the commission of 2002 used the 2001 census after the 87th Amendment made that census the basis.

The Delimitation Commission Act gives its published orders this finality so that a general election is not held up by litigation over constituency boundaries, and the Supreme Court has upheld the bar.

Such a seat is not a separate electorate: all voters of the constituency vote, but only a candidate of the reserved community may contest.

Article 330A reserves one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha for women, Article 332A does the same for the legislative assembly of every state, and Article 334A fixes when the reservation begins and how long it lasts, tying it to the first census after the commencement of the Act…

The correct answer is B, a serving or retired judge of the Supreme Court, who is appointed chairperson of the Commission.

The 42nd Amendment had frozen the allocation on the 1971 census only until the census after 2000; as that date approached, the 84th Amendment pushed the freeze forward to the first census taken after 2026, so that states which had controlled population growth would not lose seats.

The amendment inserted Article 330A for the Lok Sabha and Article 332A for the state assemblies, and amended Article 239AA so that the reservation also covers the Delhi assembly.

Article 82 says that upon the completion of each census the allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha to the states and the division of each state into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted by such authority and in such manner as Parliament may by law determine.

The Mandal Commission, formally the Second Backward Classes Commission, had been appointed in 1979 under B. P. Mandal and submitted its report in 1980, recommending twenty-seven per cent reservation of central government posts for the Other Backward Classes.

It inserted the Tenth Schedule and amended Articles 101, 102, 190 and 191 so that a member of Parliament or of a state legislature who voluntarily gives up the membership of the party on whose ticket the member was elected, or votes against the party whip, may be disqualified, the…

The army action of June 1984 was ordered to remove armed militants who had fortified the Harmandir Sahib complex during the militant phase of the Punjab movement.

His government passed the 44th Amendment of 1978, which undid much of the 42nd Amendment, and appointed the Mandal Commission in 1979.