UPSC GK Questions 2026

About two or three per cent of gypsum, which is calcium sulphate dihydrate, is ground with the clinker because it slows down the hydration of tricalcium aluminate, the compound that would otherwise set almost the moment water was added and leave no time to place the concrete.

Farmyard manure is the decomposed mixture of cattle dung, urine and bedding litter, and in general it carries only about half a per cent of nitrogen, along with roughly the same order of phosphate and potash.

Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are the three primary nutrients, and a fertiliser that carries two or more of them in one chemical compound is called a complex or mixed fertiliser; diammonium phosphate, which supplies both nitrogen and phosphate, and the NPK grades sold by number are the familiar examples.

Superphosphate of lime is made by treating rock phosphate with sulphuric acid, and the nutrient it supplies is phosphorus in the form of available phosphate, not nitrogen; it is therefore a phosphatic fertiliser.

Renukoot in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh is known for aluminium, not for iron and steel. Renukoot is home to the Hindalco aluminium smelter, set up in the early 1960s near the Rihand dam, whose cheap hydroelectric power suits the huge electricity needs of aluminium smelting.

Maulana Azad was India's first Education Minister, serving in Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet from 1947 until his death in 1958. Azad was a scholar, journalist and Congress leader who had been the youngest president of the Indian National Congress in 1923 and its president again from 1940 to 1946.

Indian Standard Time is based on 82.5° E, and a place 5 hours behind lies 75° to the west of it, at 82.5° − 75° = 7.5° E. The Earth turns 360° in 24 hours, so local time changes by one hour for every 15° of longitude, or four minutes…

The brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I founded the Vijayanagara Empire in 1336, with its capital on the banks of the Tungabhadra at Hampi.

Fuji. Mount Fuji in Japan is a volcanic mountain, built up by layers of lava and ash, not by the folding of rock layers.

The rulers of Vijayanagara claimed to rule on behalf of the god Virupaksha, a form of Shiva and the guardian deity of Hampi.

These six ceremonial gates belong to the new Parliament House of India in New Delhi. The new Parliament building, part of the Central Vista project, was inaugurated in May 2023.

The four terrestrial planets do lie between the Sun and the asteroid belt, but they are dense, not light, and their weak gravity could not hold on to escaping gases.

Oyashio, Kuroshio, Alaska and Humboldt are currents of the Pacific Ocean, while Canaries, Labrador and Benguela flow in the Atlantic.

The Purga is a cold, snow-laden local wind of Siberia and the tundra of northern Russia. In winter, a strong high-pressure area builds over Siberia, which becomes one of the coldest places on Earth.

Article 46 asks the State to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, in particular the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

All three projects, Baglihar, Dulhasti and Salal, stand on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir. The Chenab is formed by the Chandra and Bhaga rivers, which meet at Tandi in Himachal Pradesh, and it flows through Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan.

The 0° latitude is the Equator, the largest circle that can be drawn on the globe, so it is the longest parallel.

Statements III and IV describe the ionosphere and the mesosphere correctly, while I and II mix up facts about the troposphere and the ozone layer.

The Caucasus Mountains run for about 1,100 kilometres from the eastern shore of the Black Sea to the western shore of the Caspian Sea, forming a wall across the isthmus between the two seas.

The limestone hills around Sukkur and Rohri in Sindh contain rich beds of fine chert, a hard, flint-like stone. Excavations there have found hundreds of Harappan quarry and workshop sites, where long, sharp chert blades were struck in large numbers and sent to towns across Sindh, including Mohenjodaro.