UPSC GK Questions 2026

One Stop Centres, launched in 2015 and financed from the Nirbhaya Fund, are called Sakhi centres and bring medical aid, police assistance, legal aid, psychological counselling and temporary shelter for a woman affected by violence under one roof.

POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched there on 8 March 2018, International Women Day, with the aim of reducing stunting, undernutrition, anaemia among women and children and low birth weight through convergence of departments, use of technology and community mobilisation.

The project was launched in March 2022 by the Minister of Women and Child Development, who then held that office, in collaboration with the national mental health institute at Bengaluru, to train the staff of One Stop Centres in handling the mental health needs of women affected by violence.

The scheme, which began on 1 January 2017 and is run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, pays this amount in instalments on conditions such as early registration of pregnancy and immunisation of the child, as partial compensation for the wages a woman loses during pregnancy and after…

The scheme was launched on 2 October 1975 and is the oldest and largest programme for children in India, delivering supplementary nutrition, pre-school education, immunisation, health check-ups, referral services and health education for mothers through anganwadi centres.

Under the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, launched on 22 January 2015, a parent or legal guardian may open the account for a girl at any time before she completes the age of ten years, for a maximum of two girls in one family, and the account matures twenty-one years after it…

The scheme was launched on 22 January 2015 from Panipat because Haryana had one of the lowest child sex ratios in the country in the Census of 2011, and the launch was meant to carry the message from the worst affected region.

Cytokinins promote cytokinesis, that is cell division; kinetin was the first of them to be identified, from the degraded DNA of herring sperm, and zeatin, the natural form, was obtained from maize grains.

Jute is a bast or stem fibre taken from the inner bark of plants of the genus Corchorus, extracted by soaking the cut stems in water, a process called retting, and India and Bangladesh are the main producers.

Clove is the unopened flower bud of Syzygium aromaticum, picked before it blooms and dried, and it is grown in India chiefly in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Quinine is an alkaloid extracted from the bark of trees of the genus Cinchona, native to South America and grown in India in the Nilgiris and in Darjeeling, and it was the standard treatment for malaria before synthetic drugs appeared.

Saffron is made from the stigmas of the flower of Crocus sativus, and since each flower carries only three stigmas which must be picked by hand, the spice is the most expensive in the world; in India it is grown mainly in the Kashmir valley.

2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid is a synthetic auxin, and when it is sprayed in a heavy dose it throws broad-leaved dicot weeds into uncontrolled growth that kills them, while narrow-leaved cereals such as wheat and rice are far less affected, so it clears weeds from a standing crop.

Auxin made at the shoot tip moves downwards and keeps the lateral buds below it inactive, which is why a gardener who nips off the tip of a hedge plant gets a bushy growth of side branches.

Japanese rice plants attacked by this fungus grew abnormally tall and spindly, a condition called the foolish seedling or bakanae disease, and the substance responsible was isolated from the fungus and named gibberellin; gibberellic acid is the best known member of the group.

It is produced when a plant faces drought, salinity or extreme temperature; it closes the stomata so that water is not lost, for which reason it is called an antitranspirant, and it induces dormancy in seeds and buds so that growth waits for better conditions.

Ethylene is the only gaseous plant hormone, and it raises the rate of respiration in climacteric fruits such as banana, mango and tomato, so a single ripe fruit speeds up the ripening of those around it; the compound ethephon releases ethylene and is used in orchards for uniform ripening.

The Telugu film-maker K. Viswanath received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2016, presented in May 2017. Kasinadhuni Viswanath was known for films built around Indian classical music and dance, above all Sankarabharanam (1980), as well as Sagara Sangamam and Swathi Muthyam.

Excavations at these two localities of modern Patna have uncovered the main remains of Mauryan Pataliputra. At Bulandibagh, digging in the early twentieth century exposed long lines of heavy wooden palisade, matching the Greek envoy Megasthenes' description of a city surrounded by a timber wall with towers and gates.

The OSCE has 57 participating states and works as a forum for dialogue on early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation, but it is neither a military body nor a maker of binding law.