UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Lemongrass and its close relative citronella grass yield aromatic oils that keep mosquitoes away, so they are the base of many natural repellents.

Mandamus reaches anyone who owes a public duty, including government companies, and quo warranto can be sought by any interested person, not only the aggrieved one.

All three animals have been placed in the wrong country: the indri lives in Madagascar, the elk in the northern forests of Eurasia and North America, and the bonobo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dust is indeed concentrated in subtropical and temperate belts, but the reason is that these belts have more dry winds, not less.

Mangroves matter for climate resilience because they break storm surges and support coastal livelihoods; the other two statements describe things mangroves do not do.

A constitution can set rules and limits, but it cannot guarantee that good people will enter politics. A constitution is the basic set of rules by which a country is governed.

Podzolisation is the typical soil-forming process under the cool, moist coniferous forests of the taiga. In the taiga, cold winters slow down decay, and the needles of pine, spruce and fir form an acidic litter on the ground.

The Second Plan put its stress on basic and heavy industries, not on consumer goods, which were left mainly to small and cottage industries.

Panchsheel says nothing about nuclear weapons; its five principles concern sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and peaceful coexistence.

The Mariana Trench lies in the western Pacific, east of the Mariana Islands and near Guam. It is the deepest known part of the world's oceans.

Jaipal Singh Munda campaigned for a separate state of Jharkhand for the tribal people of Chotanagpur, not for Chhattisgarh. Jaipal Singh, a Munda from Ranchi district, studied at Oxford and won an Oxford Blue in hockey.

The Constitution does the opposite: Article 18 abolishes titles, so receiving a title is not a Fundamental Right. Article 18 forbids the State from conferring any title other than a military or academic distinction, and bars citizens from accepting a title from a foreign State.

It is a warm current that flows south along the east coast of Australia, carrying tropical water from the Coral Sea.

The Universal Declaration came in 1948, the Refugee Convention in 1951, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966 and the Convention on women (CEDAW) in 1979.

Most members of the Rajya Sabha are elected indirectly by the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies through proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.

Abubshahar Wildlife Sanctuary lies in Sirsa district in the dry south-western corner of Haryana, in the belt through which the seasonal Ghaggar passes.

This is the law under which state governments declare national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves, and under which species are listed in schedules for protection.

Kalesar in Yamunanagar district is the one place in Haryana with a genuine sal forest, a Shivalik type of dry deciduous forest mixed with khair, shisham, sain and semul, with chir pine on the higher slopes.

The crocodile breeding centre at Bhor Saidan lies in Kurukshetra district and breeds the marsh crocodile, the mugger. Kurukshetra also holds the Chhilchhila Wildlife Sanctuary, a wetland for migratory birds, and the deer and blackbuck enclosures at Pipli, so the district appears more than once in this chapter.

The blackbuck is the state animal of Haryana and survives in the open scrub and grassland of Sirsa, Hisar, Bhiwani and Rewari, where sanctuaries such as Abubshahar and Nahar protect it, helped in the south-west by the Bishnoi tradition of protecting wildlife.