UPSC GK Questions 2026

The New Development Bank was agreed at the sixth BRICS summit at Fortaleza in Brazil in 2014 and began work with its headquarters at Shanghai, with K. V. Kamath of India as its first president and an African regional centre in South Africa.

South Africa was invited to join in 2010 and took part in the summit at Sanya in China in 2011, and the letter S was added to the acronym to make BRICS.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China met for the first summit of the grouping at Yekaterinburg in Russia in June 2009, turning an analyst's acronym into a working forum.

Jim O'Neill, then an economist at Goldman Sachs, used the acronym BRIC in a paper of 2001 to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China, the four large economies he expected to grow into a major share of world output.

The New Delhi Leaders' Summit of September 2023, held under India's presidency at Bharat Mandapam, admitted the African Union as a permanent member, so that the group now has a second regional organisation alongside the European Union.

The first summit at the level of heads of state and government was called in November 2008, when the collapse of large financial firms threatened the world economy, and it met at Washington.

The Group of Twenty was formed in 1999, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, as a forum where the finance ministers and central bank governors of the major advanced and emerging economies could discuss the stability of the world financial system.

Haemophilia is an inherited disorder in which a clotting factor is missing, so bleeding continues for a long time after an injury.

The thyroid gland needs iodine to make the hormones thyroxine and triiodothyronine, and when the supply is short the gland enlarges in an attempt to trap more of it, which appears as a swelling in the neck.

Rabies is caused by a virus present in the saliva of an infected animal, usually a dog, and it travels along the nerves to the brain, where it causes inflammation, fear of water and almost certain death once the symptoms begin; it is prevented by vaccination after the bite, a…

Kala-azar, also called visceral leishmaniasis, is caused by the protozoan Leishmania donovani and is passed on by the bite of the female sandfly, which breeds in cracks of mud walls and damp soil.

Filariasis is caused by the thread-like nematode Wuchereria bancrofti, which is carried by the Culex mosquito.

Vitamin A is used to make rhodopsin, the pigment of the rod cells of the retina that allows sight in dim light, so a shortage of it makes a person unable to see properly at dusk or in a dark room.

Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is needed to make collagen, the protein that holds tissues together, so its absence weakens the gums and blood vessels and delays the healing of wounds.

This mosquito, marked by white stripes on a dark body, bites during the day and breeds in clean stored water in coolers, tyres and flower pots, which is why dengue control campaigns concentrate on emptying household containers.

Four species of Plasmodium commonly infect human beings, of which Plasmodium falciparum is the most dangerous and Plasmodium vivax the most widespread in India.

Rust of wheat is indeed a fungal disease, caused by species of Puccinia, and it is named from the reddish brown spores that appear in streaks on the leaves and stem.

Bacillary dysentery, also called shigellosis, is caused by bacteria of the genus Shigella, which invade the lining of the large intestine and produce frequent stools with blood and mucus, along with fever and cramps; it spreads through contaminated water and food.

Escherichia coli is a bacterium whose harmful strains reach the body through drinking water or food contaminated with sewage, and the infection they produce shows itself as diarrhoea and abdominal pain, which places it among the classic water-borne illnesses along with cholera, typhoid and hepatitis A. Option A is wrong…

Asia supplies more than half of the world's tin, because the great tin belt of South East Asia runs through Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and China is the largest single producer.