UPSC GK Questions 2026

All rose plants of one kind belong to a single species, the basic unit of classification. A species is a group of individuals that are alike in their main features and can interbreed in nature to produce fertile offspring.

The English physicist James Prescott Joule showed around 1841 that when a current flows through a conductor, the heat produced is proportional to the square of the current, the resistance of the conductor and the time for which the current flows.

The Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar for 2020 was given to the Odia poet Rajendra Kishore Panda.

Statement 1 is right: all four were declared Ramsar wetlands of international importance in 2021, Sultanpur and Bhindawas in Haryana, and Thol and Wadhwana in Gujarat.

Lhotse is not in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at all; it is a Himalayan peak on the border of Nepal and Tibet, just south of Mount Everest, and at about 8,516 metres it is the fourth-highest mountain in the world.

Gujarat has the longest coastline of any Indian state. Its coast runs from the Rann of Kachchh in the north, around the Gulf of Kachchh and the Saurashtra (Kathiawar) peninsula, into the Gulf of Khambhat and down to the border with Maharashtra near Daman.

India's first underwater metro tunnel runs beneath the Hooghly river in Kolkata. It is part of the East-West Metro corridor (the Green Line) of Kolkata Metro and joins Howrah on the west bank with Kolkata on the east bank.

The Adivaraha cave temple at Mamallapuram has two rare royal portrait panels of the Pallava kings. One shows Simhavishnu seated between two queens, and the other shows his son Mahendravarman I standing with his two queens, with labels in the Pallava Grantha script naming them.

Invisibles are part of the current account of the balance of payments, not the capital account. The balance of payments records all of a country's transactions with the rest of the world and has two main parts.

Article 12, the first article of Part III, defines "the State" for the purpose of Fundamental Rights.

Pair 1 is right: the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, set up in 1965, works from the Rashtrapati Niwas in Shimla, the building that was once the Viceregal Lodge, where the Simla Conference of 1945 was held.

Madhyamika is the ancient town now called Nagari, about 13 km north of Chittorgarh in Rajasthan. The grammarian Patanjali, who lived in the time of Pushyamitra Shunga in the second century BCE, wrote in his Mahabhashya the examples "the Yavana besieged Saketa" and "the Yavana besieged Madhyamika".

Statement 1 is wrong: alluvial soils, the most widespread soils of India, are generally rich in potash and lime but poor in nitrogen and phosphorus, which is why farmers on the northern plains add nitrogen fertiliser.

The Gulf Stream is a warm current of the North Atlantic. It starts in the Gulf of Mexico, passes through the Florida Strait, flows north along the east coast of the USA and then turns north-east across the Atlantic as the North Atlantic Drift, keeping the ports of north-western Europe…

The Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2016 went to the Telugu film-maker Kasinadhuni Viswanath, and it was presented to him in 2017.

As blood flows through the thin-walled capillaries, part of its plasma, with small proteins and some white blood cells, leaks out into the spaces between cells.

Lanak La is a high pass in the Aksai Chin area of eastern Ladakh, on the line between territory held by India and by China.

The Gujral Doctrine is a set of principles for India's relations with its immediate neighbours, put forward by I.K. Gujral in 1996 as External Affairs Minister and followed by him as Prime Minister in 1997-98.

Under Article 131 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court alone can hear disputes between the Government of India and one or more States, or between two or more States, and such a case starts directly in the Supreme Court.

Algae are the predominantly aquatic members of the Kingdom Plantae. They are simple, chlorophyll-bearing organisms with a thallus body that is not divided into true roots, stems and leaves.