UPSC GK Questions 2026

Both statements are true, and black soil suits rain-fed farming precisely because it holds moisture for a long time. Black soil, or regur, formed from the weathering of Deccan basalt and is rich in clay, iron, lime and magnesium.

Vithalbhai Patel was a pro-changer: he backed entry into the legislative councils and joined the Swaraj Party. After the Non-Cooperation Movement was called off in 1922, Congress split over council entry.

Each description belongs to a different term or says the opposite of the real rule, so no pair is correct.

Earthquakes start deep in the Earth's crust, and a reef in shallow water can do nothing to stop or soften the ground shaking.

The prose romance Vasavadatta was written by Subandhu, not Kalidasa, so this pair is wrong. Subandhu's Vasavadatta, of about the sixth or seventh century, is famous for its ornate style full of puns and long compounds.

Krishnadevaraya (ruled 1509-1529) of the Tuluva dynasty wrote the Amuktamalyada in Telugu.

The Descent of the Ganga is a huge open-air rock relief carved under the Pallavas at Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) in Tamil Nadu.

Article 30(1) says that all minorities, whether based on religion or language, have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

Temperature falls with height through the mesosphere and reaches the coldest values in the whole atmosphere, about minus 90 to minus 100 degrees Celsius, at its top.

The Deccan Traps, the vast lava plateau of the north-western peninsula, were laid down by eruptions at the close of the Cretaceous, about 66 million years ago.

A spit is a ridge of sand or shingle joined to the land at one end, with the other end running out into open water.

Nagarjuna, the Mahayana philosopher of about the second century CE, founded the Madhyamika school and wrote its root text, the Mulamadhyamakakarika.

Lithification, metamorphism and solidification are each a step in the rock cycle, the endless change of rocks from one type into another.

Excavators found a ploughed field below the Harappan town at Kalibangan, in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan, on the dry bed of the Ghaggar.

Akshay Kumar won the Best Actor award at the 64th National Film Awards, announced in April 2017, for playing a naval officer in Rustom.

Gwadar is a deep-sea port on the Arabian Sea coast of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Gwadar lies on the Makran coast, not far from the border with Iran and close to the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Natural change counts only births and deaths, so it is the birth rate minus the death rate. Both rates are usually given per thousand people per year.

Bharavi, a Sanskrit poet of the sixth century CE, wrote the Kiratarjuniyam. The Kiratarjuniyam is a mahakavya in eighteen cantos.

The Dutt-Bradley thesis was a communist document which held that the Indian National Congress could play a great and foremost part in building an anti-imperialist people's front.

Pollen first reaches the stigma, then the gametes fuse, the zygote divides to form an embryo, and the embryo inside the seed grows into a seedling.