UPSC GK Questions 2026

By Archimedes' principle, the upward force, called buoyancy or upthrust, equals the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.

The IMD was established on 15 January 1875, so it completed 150 years in 2025. The IMD was set up after a devastating cyclone hit Calcutta in 1864 and famines followed failed monsoons, showing the need for a single national weather service.

Only pair II is correct: the Madras High Court has jurisdiction over Puducherry. Under Article 231, Parliament can set up a common High Court for two or more states and Union Territories.

Both statements are wrong: Gram Sabhas cannot declare Scheduled Areas, and PESA applies to the Fifth Schedule areas rather than leaving them out.

The juice in the stem of sugarcane is rich in sucrose, the ordinary table sugar we get from it. Sucrose is a disaccharide (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁) made of one glucose and one fructose unit joined together.

Magnetite is the black ore of iron, it is very rich in iron, and it is naturally magnetic. Magnetite is an iron oxide (Fe₃O₄) and the finest iron ore, with an iron content of about 60 to 70 per cent, the highest among the common ores.

All four travellers are matched with their home countries correctly. Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant, from what is now Italy, who passed through south India in the late 13th century and described the Pandya kingdom.

IMBEX stands for the India-Myanmar Bilateral Military Exercise, held between the two armies. The exercise began in 2017, and its focus has been training Myanmar army officers for United Nations peacekeeping duties, including drills on handling crowds, protecting civilians and running a peacekeeping camp.

Colin Mackenzie, an engineer and surveyor of the East India Company, brought the ruins at Hampi to light in 1800.

Biogas is mostly methane, usually about 50 to 75 per cent, and methane is the part that burns. Biogas is made when bacteria break down cattle dung, crop waste, kitchen waste or sewage in the absence of oxygen, a process called anaerobic digestion, inside a closed digester.

These monsoon forests are the most widespread natural vegetation in India. Tropical deciduous forests grow where annual rainfall is roughly 70 to 200 cm, which covers much of the peninsula, the Ganga plain margins and the lower Himalayan slopes.

Sound is a mechanical wave, so it needs a medium, and in air its particles vibrate along the direction of travel.

Moraines, eskers and outwash plains are landforms left by glaciers, and among these Union Territories only Ladakh has glaciated high mountains.

UDAN is the regional connectivity scheme meant to grow regional air travel and make it affordable while keeping the routes viable for airlines.

COP-27 was the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and its parties meet every year at a COP.

Tiny gas molecules in the air scatter short wavelengths far more strongly than long ones. This is Rayleigh scattering: the amount of scattering varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.

Australia's men's field hockey team is known as the Kookaburras, after the laughing bird native to Australia. The Kookaburras are among the strongest sides in world hockey.

Pairs I, II and III are correct; pair IV is wrong because UNTSO works in the Middle East, not Haiti.

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–2012) carried the title "Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth". The Eleventh Plan was prepared by the Planning Commission under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Deputy Chairman.

The extension is deliberately limited to companies approved under Round 4, and the reason given is practical: a manufacturer entering now needs a longer investment and operational horizon to build a plant and then scale up its capacity, which a shorter tenure would not allow.