UPSC GK Questions 2026

The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974 was India’s first comprehensive law on pollution.

When fertilisers, detergents and sewage add nitrates and phosphates to a lake or a slow-moving river, algae multiply into a bloom that covers the surface.

Nitrate from fertiliser run-off and from sewage seeps into groundwater; in an infant it is converted to nitrite, which binds to haemoglobin and forms methaemoglobin, a compound that cannot carry oxygen.

Biochemical oxygen demand measures the oxygen that micro-organisms need in order to break down the organic matter present in a sample.

Minamata disease takes its name from Minamata Bay in Japan, where a factory discharged mercury compounds that were converted by bacteria into methylmercury, concentrated in fish through biomagnification and then eaten by people.

Itai-Itai disease was first identified in Japan among people who ate rice grown with water polluted by cadmium from mining waste.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court sits at Chandigarh and serves the States of Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

It empowers every High Court to issue directions, orders or writs, including habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, to any person or authority within its territory, for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights "and for any other purpose".

Under Article 217(1), a judge of a High Court holds office until he or she attains the age of 62 years.

Under Article 217(1), every judge of a High Court is appointed by the President by warrant under his or her hand and seal after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the State and, for any judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of that…

It was established on 1 July 1862 under the Indian High Courts Act, 1861, which makes it the oldest High Court in India.

Justice M. Fathima Beevi, from Kerala, became the first woman judge of the Supreme Court of India in 1989, nearly forty years after the Court was set up.

Justice Harilal Jekisundas Kania, who had been the last Chief Justice of the Federal Court, became the first Chief Justice of India when the Supreme Court began on 26 January 1950, and presided over its inauguration on 28 January.

It allows the Supreme Court, in exercising its jurisdiction, to pass any decree or make any order necessary for doing "complete justice" in any case or matter pending before it.

Article 141 says the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India.

It gives the Supreme Court the power to review any judgment it has pronounced or any order it has made, subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament and the rules made by the Court under Article 145.

It declares that the Supreme Court shall be a court of record and shall have all the powers of such a court, including the power to punish for contempt of itself.

Under Article 131, the Supreme Court alone can hear, as a court of first instance, disputes between the Government of India and one or more States, between the Government of India and a State on one side and other States on the other, or between two or more States.

Under Article 124(4), a judge of the Supreme Court can be removed by an order of the President only after each House of Parliament, in the same session, presents an address supported by a majority of its total membership and by two-thirds of the members present and voting, on the…

Article 124(2) says a judge of the Supreme Court shall hold office until he or she attains the age of 65 years.