UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Operation Flood was launched by the National Dairy Development Board in 1970 to build a national milk grid on the Anand pattern of cooperatives, and it ran in three phases until 1996, by which time village societies in most states were selling milk to the big cities.

The blue revolution is the name given to the rapid rise in fish output through aquaculture and improved marine fishing, which in India followed the spread of induced breeding of carp, the work of fish farmers development agencies and later a dedicated central scheme for fisheries.

A cosmic ray physicist who founded the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad, he persuaded the government that a poor country needed space technology for communication, weather and education, set up the rocket launching station at Thumba and built the organisation that became the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Raman announced in 1928 that light scattered by a transparent medium contains components of changed wavelength, a shift that reveals the energy levels of the scattering molecules, and the Nobel Prize in Physics followed in 1930, making him the first Asian to receive a Nobel in a science.

His study of the characteristic X-rays of the elements showed that the nuclear charge, the atomic number, is the quantity that rises regularly from element to element, and the modern periodic law therefore states that properties are a periodic function of atomic number.

Ohm found that for a metallic conductor at a steady temperature the ratio of potential difference to current is a constant, the resistance, which is written as V equals I into R, so doubling the voltage doubles the current.

His experiments on garden pea, in which he followed single characters such as seed shape and flower colour through generations, gave the laws of dominance, segregation and independent assortment, and showed that inheritance works through discrete factors rather than a blending of parental traits.

Pressure applied to an enclosed liquid is transmitted equally and undiminished in every direction, so a small force on the narrow master cylinder of a brake creates a much larger force on the wide piston at each wheel, which is also how a hydraulic press and a hydraulic lift work.

Working on the observations of Tycho Brahe he found that a planet moves in an ellipse with the sun at one focus, that the line from the sun to the planet sweeps equal areas in equal times, and that the square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube…

By bombarding beryllium with alpha particles he obtained a penetrating radiation that could not be bent by electric or magnetic fields, and he showed it to consist of neutral particles of about the mass of a proton, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Thomson. Working with cathode rays in a discharge tube in 1897, he showed that the rays were a stream of negatively charged particles far lighter than any atom, and he measured their charge to mass ratio, which established the electron as the first known subatomic particle.

In Einstein's special theory of 1905 the energy required to accelerate a body with mass rises without limit as its speed approaches that of light, so such a body can come close to but never reach the speed of light in vacuum, which is the same for every observer.

In Mughal times a mauza was a village, the basic unit of revenue records, not a rebellious territory. Mughal revenue records were kept village by village, and each village was called a mauza.

Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct; tropical cyclones form in tropical, not middle, latitudes. Tropical cyclones form over warm seas with surface temperatures above about 27°C, which supply heat and moisture through evaporation and condensation.

Phreatophytes are deep-rooted plants that survive in dry regions by drawing water from the water table. The name comes from the Greek for 'well plant'.

The Dharmashastras assigned the Vaishyas both the study of the Vedas and trade, along with agriculture and cattle-rearing. The Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras, such as the Manusmriti, laid down ideal occupations for the four varnas.

Brine is a concentrated solution of common salt, sodium chloride (NaCl), in water. Brine occurs naturally in seawater, salt lakes and underground deposits.

The penal indenture system in the Assam tea gardens ended in 1926, when the Workman's Breach of Contract Act was repealed.

The North Eastern Council was created under the North Eastern Council Act, 1971 and began work in 1972 at Shillong.

The Linguistic Provinces Commission under Justice S.K. Dhar was set up in June 1948 for this purpose.