UPSC GK Questions 2026

Kanchenjunga rises to 8,586 metres on the Sikkim-Nepal border and is the highest peak in India's undisputed territory, as well as the third highest in the world after Everest and K2.

Nathu La lies in eastern Sikkim on the old trade route from Gangtok to Lhasa and is one of the passes on India's border with the Tibet region of China; Jelep La, also in Sikkim, is the other.

Bhangar is the older alluvial deposit of the Northern Plains. It forms terraces that stand above the present flood level, so fresh silt no longer reaches it, and long leaching has left calcareous concretions called kankar in its profile.

The Bhabar is a narrow belt about 8 to 16 kilometres wide, laid along the foot of the Shiwalik range, where the rivers leaving the hills drop their coarsest load.

Karewas are thick beds of glacial clay, silt and other lake sediments laid down in the Kashmir valley, which lies between the Pir Panjal and the Greater Himalaya.

Duns are flat-floored longitudinal valleys formed where rivers coming out of the Lesser Himalaya were held up behind the rising Shiwalik and filled the depression with gravel and silt.

The Himadri is the innermost and northernmost of the three parallel Himalayan ranges, with an average height of about 6,000 metres.

A lichen is a partnership of an alga and a fungus and takes its water and nutrients straight from the air, with no protective cuticle and no roots.

A catalytic converter holds platinum, palladium and rhodium on a honeycomb support, which oxidise carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water and reduce the oxides of nitrogen to nitrogen.

An electrostatic precipitator gives the dust and ash particles in the flue gas an electric charge as they pass an electrode, and then collects them on plates carrying the opposite charge; the plates are shaken so that the collected ash falls into a hopper.

This Act is the specific law on air pollution. It empowers the Central and State Pollution Control Boards to lay down emission standards for industry and for vehicles, to declare air pollution control areas and to require consent before a polluting plant is set up or operated.

The National Air Quality Index has six bands: 0 to 50 is Good, 51 to 100 Satisfactory, 101 to 200 Moderate, 201 to 300 Poor, 301 to 400 Very Poor and 401 to 500 Severe.

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987 under the Vienna Convention, commits its parties to phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other chemicals that destroy stratospheric ozone, and it is regarded as the most successful environmental treaty for that reason.

Particulate matter is graded by the diameter of the particles measured in micrometres, so PM10 means particles of ten micrometres or less and PM2.5 means particles of 2.5 micrometres or less, which is about thirty times finer than a human hair.

Sulphur dioxide from industry and traffic around Agra is oxidised in the air and comes down as sulphuric acid, which attacks the calcium carbonate of marble.

Sulphur dioxide, released when coal and oil containing sulphur are burnt, is oxidised in the atmosphere to sulphur trioxide, which dissolves in water droplets to give sulphuric acid.

Carbon monoxide binds to the haemoglobin of the blood roughly two hundred times more readily than oxygen does, and the carboxyhaemoglobin so formed cannot carry oxygen.

Photochemical smog, also called Los Angeles smog, forms in warm, dry, sunny weather when oxides of nitrogen from vehicle exhaust and unburnt hydrocarbons react under ultraviolet light.

A secondary pollutant is never emitted from a source; it is manufactured in the atmosphere itself when primary pollutants react with one another or with sunlight.

He was the founder of Rashtrakuta power and overthrew the last important Chalukya of Badami, Kirtivarman II, about 753 CE.