UPSC GK Questions 2026

It replaced the Indian Patents and Designs Act of 1911 on the recommendations of the Ayyangar Committee, allowed only process patents in medicines and food at first, and was amended in 1999, 2002 and 2005 to meet the obligations India accepted at the World Trade Organization.

Under the Patents Act of 1970 as amended, a patent in India runs for twenty years from the date of filing of the application, a term fixed in line with the minimum standard laid down by the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organization, and renewal fees must be paid…

The Galapagos Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the eastern Pacific, about a thousand kilometres west of the South American coast, and they form a province of Ecuador; the finches, tortoises and iguanas Charles Darwin observed there in 1835 led him towards the theory of natural selection, and the group…

Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea is made up of coral atolls, reefs and submerged banks built by colonies of coral polyps in warm, shallow and clear tropical water, which is why the islands are low, flat and ringed by lagoons, with Kavaratti as the capital.

Indira Point lies at the southern tip of Great Nicobar, the largest island of the Nicobar group, and is the southernmost point of the territory of India; it was earlier called Pygmalion Point and was renamed, and it subsided during the earthquake and tsunami of December 2004.

Honshu is the largest and most populous of the four main islands of the Japanese archipelago and carries Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Mount Fuji, so the political and industrial heart of Japan lies on it.

Borneo, the third largest island in the world, is divided between the Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan in the south, the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the north, and the small sultanate of Brunei on the northern coast, and it is the only large island shared by three countries.

The Mozambique Channel is the arm of the Indian Ocean that lies between Madagascar and the coast of Mozambique on the African mainland, and Madagascar itself is a continental island that broke away from Africa and later from India, which is why its wildlife is so distinctive.

The Ten Degree Channel runs along the tenth parallel of north latitude across the Bay of Bengal and separates the Andaman group in the north from the Nicobar group in the south, which is why the Union Territory is named for both groups.

Barren Island in the Andaman group of the Bay of Bengal carries the only active volcano in India and indeed in South Asia, part of the volcanic arc produced where the Indian plate dips beneath the Burma plate, and it has erupted several times in recent decades.

Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra in Assam, formed by silt deposited by the river and its tributaries, is a seat of the Vaishnava satras founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva, and has been constituted a district of Assam, the first river island district in the country.

Indonesia is a chain of more than seventeen thousand islands stretching along the equator between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and the Indonesian halves of Borneo and New Guinea as its principal members, and it is the largest archipelago in the world.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark lying between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, is the largest island on earth, most of it covered by an ice sheet, and it is a continental island separated from the North American landmass.

Article 54 confines the electoral college to elected members, so the twelve members nominated to the Rajya Sabha and any nominated members of an Assembly take no part in the presidential election; they do, however, vote in the election of the Vice-President under Article 66, which is the point the…

He was Vice-President from 11 August 2007 to 10 August 2017, two consecutive full terms, and is the only person after Dr. S. Radhakrishnan to achieve that.

He became Vice-President on 21 August 1997 and died on 27 July 2002, a few days before his term was to end, the only holder of the office to die in harness.

Article 64 provides that the Vice-President shall be ex-officio Chairman of the Council of States, that is the Rajya Sabha, and shall hold no other office of profit; when he acts as President he does not perform the duties of Chairman and draws no salary as Chairman.

She was the twelfth President of India and held office from 2007 to 2012, the first woman to do so, having earlier served as Governor of Rajasthan.

In 1977 every other nomination was rejected and he was declared elected unopposed, the only President of India chosen in that manner.

Article 60 provides that the President shall, before entering upon his office, make and subscribe an oath or affirmation in the presence of the Chief Justice of India, or in his absence the senior-most Judge of the Supreme Court available.