UPSC GK Questions 2026

What it does list are professional engagements in harbour and at sea of three kinds: cross-deck visits, in which sailors of one navy go aboard the other's ship; operational interactions, in which the two crews compare their drills and procedures; and sporting engagements between the ships' companies.

VARUNA is the naval exercise that India holds with the French Navy, and the supporting detail in this announcement points the same way, since the Indian ship has berthed at Toulon, a French port on the Mediterranean, for the harbour and sea phases of the exercise.

The Ministry of Defence announcement names the edition explicitly, and it is the single most asked detail about a recurring exercise, because the number records how far back the series goes and distinguishes this year's round from every earlier one.

Technology Readiness Level is a scale for how far a technology has travelled from an idea towards routine use, and the stretch named here is the late one: a system already demonstrated in conditions close to the real environment has to be engineered, tested and validated until it is proven…

The two are put on one platform because their weaknesses do not overlap: optical imaging gives rich visual detail but is defeated by cloud cover and by darkness, while radar works irrespective of daylight and can image through cloud.

This is the approved cost of the whole project, of which the Technology Development Board is supporting a part from the Research Development and Innovation Fund, the rest being borne by the company.

Keep it apart from the other money figure in the same announcement, the total approved cost of the project, which is far larger; a question will often place the two side by side to see whether a candidate has confused the support with the whole outlay.

OneSCD, described as a global partnership to advance equity and transform sickle cell care, was launched with the Government of Nigeria among its partners, along with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Africa CDC, the World Coalition on Sickle Cell Disease and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The mission was launched in 2023 and its target year is the centenary of independence, which is why that year recurs across so many national goals and why it is the one to remember here.

The Union Health Secretary cited this figure as proof that technology is closing the distance between a patient in a remote area and a doctor, and she placed it beside the other digital health number from the same speech, namely that over 900 million citizens now hold a unique health…

Both engagements India took part in were side events of that session: the ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of Universal Health Coverage and Global Health, and the launch of the OneSCD partnership on sickle cell disease.

The advisory issued to the edible oil associations and other industry stakeholders asks them to bring both of these down in step with the lower landed cost, and to advise member firms to act without delay, so that the gain from the tariff cut is not retained in the supply…

The reason it and not another ministry speaks here is that the stated purpose of the step is to moderate retail prices of cooking oil and to shield the household budget from imported inflation, which falls squarely within the consumer affairs and food distribution mandate.

While cutting the duty on crude oils, the government also trimmed the duty on the matching refined oils, but it kept the distance between the two rates at this level rather than letting it shrink.

Among the oils covered by this decision, crude sunflower oil is the only one whose Basic Customs Duty was taken all the way down to zero, from the earlier level of 10%.

NTU stands for Nephelometric Turbidity Unit. A nephelometer shines a beam of light through a water sample and measures how much of it is scattered sideways by suspended particles such as clay, silt, algae and microbes; the more the scattering, the more turbid, or cloudy, the water is.

This set is wrong because chikungunya is caused by a virus, the chikungunya virus, and not by bacteria. It is spread by Aedes mosquitoes, the same day-biting mosquitoes that carry dengue and Zika, and it causes high fever with severe joint pain.

The lens of the eye is made mostly of water and special proteins called crystallins, packed in a very regular order that keeps the lens clear so light can pass straight through to the retina.

Plasmodium falciparum causes malignant, or cerebral, malaria, the most dangerous form of the disease. Red blood cells infected by it become sticky and block the small blood vessels of the brain and other organs, which can lead to coma and death if treatment is delayed.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 is a fiscal reform: it binds the Union government to cut its fiscal and revenue deficits and to report on its borrowing.