UPSC GK Questions 2026

The policy won Sikkim the Future Policy Gold Award given by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2018. The same small Himalayan state holds two more firsts worth remembering: it banned plastic carry bags as early as 1998, and it was the first state declared free of open defecation.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu, which passed a state Right to Information Act in 1997, the first such law in the country and eight years ahead of the central Right to Information Act of 2005.

The idea came from the First Administrative Reforms Commission, which recommended a Lokpal at the Centre and a Lokayukta in the states to look into complaints of corruption and maladministration against public functionaries.

Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Panchayati Raj system at Nagaur on 2 October 1959, putting into practice the three-tier design recommended by the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee of 1957: the gram panchayat at the village level, the panchayat samiti at the block level and the zila parishad at the district level.

It was created as Andhra State on 1 October 1953 by separating the Telugu-speaking districts of the old Madras State.

Because the rotor carries permanent magnets instead of windings that must be energised, the motor is compact, light and highly efficient over a wide range of speeds, and it gives the strong torque from rest that makes electric cars quick off the mark.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device, not an engine: hydrogen fed to the anode is split into protons and electrons, the protons cross a membrane, the electrons travel through the external circuit and do work, and at the cathode they recombine with oxygen from the air to form water.

The Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022 were notified under the Environment (Protection) Act and replaced the Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules of 2001.

The BMS is the electronic brain of the pack. It measures the voltage, current and temperature of individual cells or groups of cells, balances their charge so that no cell is overworked, estimates the state of charge and state of health that the dashboard displays, and disconnects the pack when…

The Geological Survey of India reported an inferred lithium resource in the Salal and Haimana area of that district, the first lithium find of real consequence in the country and a significant one because India had been importing virtually all its lithium and its cells.

The second phase shifted the emphasis from private cars to public and shared transport, concentrating its incentives on electric buses, two wheelers, three wheelers and commercial four wheelers, and tying them to conditions on battery type and on the share of parts made in India, while also funding charging stations.

The scheme for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles is a demand and manufacturing support scheme, offering incentives that reduce the purchase price of eligible vehicles and funding charging infrastructure, and it sits with the ministry responsible for the automobile and capital goods industries.

When the driver lifts off or brakes, the electric motor is made to work backwards: the turning wheels drive it, it generates electricity, and that current is fed back into the pack.

LFP cells are prized for safety, long cycle life and the absence of cobalt, which makes them cheaper and less exposed to supply disruption; their weakness is a lower energy density, so a pack of the same range weighs more.

The layered structure of graphite can accept lithium ions between its sheets, a process called intercalation, and release them again without breaking down, which is what makes the cell rechargeable over hundreds of cycles.

Whittingham built the first working lithium cell in the 1970s, Goodenough found that a lithium cobalt oxide cathode could give a far higher voltage, and Yoshino replaced the dangerous metallic lithium anode with a carbon material, producing the safe, rechargeable cell that was commercialised in 1991.

A BEV carries no engine at all; it runs entirely on a traction battery that is charged from an external electricity supply, and it has no tailpipe emissions.

This is a glucose analogue in which fluorine-18 replaces a hydroxyl group.

It regulates the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques, requires every ultrasound clinic to be registered and to keep records, and prohibits sex selection before or after conception as well as the communication of the sex of the foetus to anyone.

Gadolinium is a rare earth element whose ion is strongly paramagnetic, so it shortens the relaxation time of nearby hydrogen nuclei and brightens the tissue it reaches.