UPSC GK Questions 2026

In Köppen's code, C means a warm temperate climate, f means rain in all seasons with no dry season, and a means a hot summer.

The mistral is a cold, dry northerly wind that blows from the Alps down the Rhone valley of France to the Mediterranean coast.

Ziyarat means a visit to a sacred place, and in India it came to mean the pilgrimage to the dargah of a sufi saint to seek blessings.

It was set up in 1992 under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, so it is a statutory body, not a constitutional one.

The Tsangpo enters India as the Dihang and the Godavari has the second largest basin, but the Chambal and Betwa join the Yamuna, not the Ganga.

Feldspar makes up about half of the earth's crust and is light cream to salmon pink in colour, but magnesium is not its common element.

When sandstone, made mostly of quartz grains, is put under great heat and pressure, the grains fuse together and the rock turns into quartzite.

The volcanoes of Hawaii, such as Mauna Loa and Kilauea, are broad, gently sloping cones built by runny basaltic lava.

Ladli Behna sets no educational condition at all; it is unconditional income support for adult women and its tests are of residence, age and family means only.

Running since 2006, it gives financial assistance for the marriage of daughters of poor families and holds community marriage ceremonies at which several couples are married together, which keeps the cost to the family low.

The Mukhyamantri Seekho-Kamao Yojana places young people aged about 18 to 29 as trainees in registered establishments and pays them a monthly stipend in the range of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 while they learn, so that training carries an income and the trainee is not forced to drop out.

Madhya Pradesh introduced the Mukhyamantri Kisan Kalyan Yojana in 2020 as a state top-up paid in instalments to farmers who are already eligible beneficiaries of the central PM-KISAN income support, so a farmer in the state receives both amounts and the state uses the central beneficiary list for verification.

The instalment goes straight into the woman's own Aadhaar-linked bank account by DBT, and the state fixed the 10th of the month as the transfer day so that the payment is predictable and can be tracked.

The scheme's means test sets the family's annual income ceiling below Rs 2.5 lakh, and alongside it no member of the family may be an income-tax payer or in regular government service, the family may not hold more than five acres of land, and it may not own a four-wheeler…

Both schemes are run by this department, which uses its anganwadi network and project offices to register beneficiaries, verify eligibility and handle grievances, and both have their own portals under it.

The scheme was launched on 5 March 2023; applications were then taken from 25 March 2023 at camps in wards and gram panchayats, and the first instalment was transferred on 10 June 2023 at a state function in Jabalpur.

The Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana began on 5 March 2023 with a transfer of Rs 1,000 a month, that is Rs 12,000 a year, paid directly into the woman's own Aadhaar-linked bank account.

The lump sum of Rs 1,00,000 is released after the beneficiary completes 21 years, and two conditions attach to it: she must have passed Class 12 and she must not have been married before the age of 18.

The state buys National Savings Certificates of Rs 6,000 a year for the first five years after registration, and these mature into a total assured benefit of Rs 1,18,000 that is released in stages linked to the girl's schooling: Rs 2,000 in Class 6, Rs 4,000 in Class 9, Rs…

The Government of Madhya Pradesh launched the Ladli Laxmi Yojana on 1 April 2007 to improve the sex ratio and to strengthen the position of the girl child in the family, and the Department of Women and Child Development has run it since through anganwadi centres.