UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

The Swedish naturalist Carl von Linne, known in Latin as Carolus Linnaeus, arranged plants and animals in a hierarchy of ranks and gave biology the two-word system of scientific names in his works Systema Naturae and Species Plantarum, so he is called the father of taxonomy.

Section 2(1)(d) of the Act defines human rights as rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in these covenants and enforceable by courts in India.

On a ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity the President must refer the matter to the Supreme Court, and the Chairperson or member can be removed only if the Court, after an inquiry held in accordance with its own procedure, reports that the ground is made out.

The correct answer is C, 2014, when the Jain community was notified as a minority, joining Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis and taking the notified list to six communities.

The correct answer is C, 2005, the year of the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, under which the national commission began work in 2007 and the State commissions were later set up.

The correct answer is C, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, which stands on Article 338 of the Constitution; its companion bodies for Scheduled Tribes and for Backward Classes stand on Articles 338A and 338B, the last inserted by the One Hundred and Second Amendment in 2018.

Section 19 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 carves out a special procedure for the armed forces: the Commission may either not proceed with the complaint or seek a report from the Central Government, and after receiving that report it may make its recommendations; the Government must inform…

The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 bars the Commission from inquiring into any matter after the expiry of one year from the date on which the act constituting the violation of human rights is alleged to have been committed.

The selection committee has six members: the Prime Minister as its head, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the Leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and the Union Home Minister; the President then makes the appointment on…

The correct answer is B, 12 October, the date on which the Commission was constituted in 1993.

The Act began life as an ordinance in September 1993, and the Commission was constituted on 12 October 1993 with Justice Ranganath Misra, a former Chief Justice of India, as its first Chairperson.

The Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Act, 2019 reduced the term of the Chairperson and the members of the Commission from five years to three years, or until they attain the age of seventy, whichever is earlier, and it also made them eligible for reappointment.

A State Human Rights Commission is created by Chapter V of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, an ordinary law of Parliament, so it is a statutory and not a constitutional body; Parliament could abolish it by amending that Act alone.

The correct answer is B, the Hartog Committee, which reported in 1929 that most children left school before becoming literate and that the hurried expansion of primary schools had produced wastage and stagnation; it recommended consolidation of existing schools rather than further expansion.

The correct answer is A, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who launched the Urdu weekly Al-Hilal and, when it was suppressed, followed it with Al-Balagh, using both to argue for Hindu-Muslim unity against the colonial government.

The correct answer is B, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who published Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English from Pune and was tried for sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code for what he wrote in them.

The correct answer is A, W. W. Hunter, who led the Indian Education Commission appointed in 1882 to review the working of Wood's Despatch; it urged attention to primary education given in the vernacular, the transfer of schools to local boards and support for private schools through grants.

The correct answer is C, Charles Metcalfe, who as acting Governor-General repealed the Licensing Regulations of 1823 through the Press Act of 1835 and freed Indian newspapers from the need for a licence, earning the title of liberator of the Indian press.

The correct answer is A, the Bengal Gazette, also known as Hicky's Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertiser, started by James Augustus Hicky in 1780; its attacks on the officials of the Company led to its seizure.

The correct answer is A, Lord Lytton, whose Vernacular Press Act of 1878 is remembered as the gagging act because it applied only to newspapers in Indian languages, allowed the government to demand a bond and forfeit printing presses, and gave no right of appeal to a court.