UPSC GK Questions 2026

The Home Minister said such teams would be sent soon after Cyclone Arnab to assess the impact of the disaster and to determine the further assistance the affected states and the Union Territory require.

The Home Minister spoke to the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and of the Union Territory of Puducherry, so options A, B and D were all on the list and Tamil Nadu was not.

It was after this cyclone that the Union Minister of Home Affairs and of Cooperation, Amit Shah, telephoned the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and assured the three states and the Union Territory of every assistance to ease the hardship caused by the disaster.

Speaking at the session, he said physical artificial intelligence is not merely an artificial intelligence problem but also a systems engineering problem, since an intelligent physical system works only when reliable sensors, efficient actuators, real-time computing, robust control algorithms, low-latency communication and energy-efficient hardware all hold together.

The Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Conclave of 2026, in short ESTIC 2026, was held there from the twenty-seventh to the twenty-ninth of October 2026, bringing together people from science, technology, research and industry to discuss emerging technologies and innovation.

The Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology told the session on autonomous systems at the conclave that technology innovation hubs under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems have been established at twenty-five leading academic institutions spread across the country.

That is the support price fixed for wheat for the rabi crop that will be marketed in the 2027-28 season, and it is Rs 25 above the rate of the preceding season.

When the higher support prices for all mandated rabi crops of Marketing Season 2027-28 were approved on 30 September 2026, the payment to farmers was estimated at that figure for 324 lakh metric tonnes of produce.

Minimum Support Prices are declared every year for 22 mandated crops on the recommendations of this commission, which also takes into account the views of state governments and central ministries and departments.

Its support price was raised by the largest rupee amount among the mandated rabi crops, Rs 675 a quintal, when the rates for Rabi Marketing Season 2027-28 were cleared on 30 September 2026.

The Raksha Mantri said counter-terrorism continues to be an important field of cooperation under the ADMM-Plus framework, and that India and Malaysia are co-chairing the Experts’ Working Group on Counter-Terrorism for the cycle that runs from 2024 to 2027.

This was the theme of the thirteenth ADMM-Plus, and the Defence Minister said it sits well with India’s foreign and defence policy thinking as well as the civilisational sentiment ‘Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah’, the wish that all beings be happy.

The thirteenth edition of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus was hosted at Cebu in the Philippines, and Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh addressed it there on 29 October 2026, speaking on collective regional security, counter-terrorism and maritime cooperation.

Where the Corporation had raised a demand on an ad-hoc or estimated basis, the New Amnesty Scheme, 2025 allows the employer to close the matter by paying the contribution that was genuinely owed together with the interest on it, and the claim to damages is given up altogether.

One of the three reliefs built into the New Amnesty Scheme, 2025 is meant for employers who have already cleared the contribution dues demanded of them but whose cases are still being heard.

Eligibility under the New Amnesty Scheme, 2025 is decided by the date on which the litigation began: only those court cases instituted up to 31 March 2025 may be taken up for settlement under it.

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation began running the New Amnesty Scheme, 2025 from 1 October 2025, and the window was originally set to shut on 30 September 2026.

Ashoka turned to Buddhism after the Kalinga war, but he neither abolished the death penalty nor disbanded his army. The Kalinga war, fought around 261 BCE in the eighth year of his reign, left over a lakh dead, and in Rock Edict XIII Ashoka records his deep remorse.

In May 2016 India signed agreements with Iran to develop the port of Chabahar, along with a trilateral transit pact with Iran and Afghanistan.

Section 12 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 gives the NHRC every one of these four functions. The NHRC is a statutory body, not a constitutional one, set up on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.