UPSC GK Questions 2026

The Montreal Protocol was adopted in 1987 under the Vienna Convention of 1985 and entered into force in 1989. It fixed timetables for phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons, carbon tetrachloride and other ozone depleting chemicals, with later deadlines for developing countries.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, popularly called the Earth Summit, met at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and adopted Agenda 21, a detailed non-binding programme of action for sustainable development.

The Polar Code is the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, adopted by the International Maritime Organization and in force since the beginning of 2017.

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar and came into force in 1975.

The Fourth Buddhist Council met in Kashmir under the patronage of the Kushana ruler Kanishka I. Vasumitra presided over it and Ashvaghosha acted as his deputy, and its work of collecting commentaries on the canon went with the open division of Buddhism into the Mahayana and Hinayana schools.

The Nasik cave inscription praising Gautamiputra Satakarni was issued in the name of his mother Gautami Balashri, in the reign of her grandson.

Milindapanho means the questions of Milinda, and Milinda is the Indian name of the Indo-Greek king Menander, who ruled in the north-west in the second century BCE.

The Junagadh rock inscription of about 150 CE was issued by Rudradaman I, the Shaka ruler of the Western Kshatrapa line.

Brihadratha was the last ruler of the Mauryan dynasty. About 185 BCE his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Sunga killed him, according to tradition at a review of the army, and took the throne at Pataliputra.

The panel showing the submission of the mad elephant Nalagiri, sent by Devadatta to kill the Buddha and calmed by him in the street of Rajagriha, is among the best known carvings of the Amaravati stupa on the lower Krishna in Andhra Pradesh.

The Gathasaptasati, also written as Gatha Saptasati, is an anthology of seven hundred short verses compiled by the Satavahana king Hala.

Ashvaghosha was a Buddhist monk and Sanskrit poet at the court of the Kushana ruler Kanishka I. He wrote the Buddhacharita, a life of the Buddha in Sanskrit verse, and the Saundarananda, and he acted as deputy to Vasumitra at the Fourth Buddhist Council held in Kashmir.

Nahapana belonged to the Kshaharata family of the Shakas, the Western Kshatrapas who ruled in western India, and not to the Kushanas at all.

The main Kushana capital was Purushapura, the modern Peshawar, which Kanishka I developed as his seat of power. As the empire spread into the Ganga-Yamuna plain, Mathura on the Yamuna became its second capital and the southern headquarters of the family.

Nominal GDP is measured at current prices and real GDP at the prices of a base year, so the ratio between them isolates the effect of the change in prices.

The real rate of interest is the nominal rate less the rate of inflation, an approximation known as the Fisher equation.

The wholesale price index is built entirely from the prices of goods traded in bulk, and it has exactly three major groups: primary articles, fuel and power, and manufactured products, of which manufactured products carry the largest weight.

The Monetary Policy Committee set up under the amended Reserve Bank of India Act has six members.

If the inflation rate falls from seven per cent to five per cent, prices are still higher than last year but they are rising more slowly.

A loan is repaid in a fixed number of rupees, and inflation reduces what those rupees can buy. The borrower therefore returns money of smaller real value than the money received, so the real burden of the debt falls.