In order to use any object as Key in HashMap, it must implements equals and hashcode method in Java. Read How HashMap works in Java  for detailed explanation on how equals and hashcode method is used to put and get object from HashMap.

2. What is immutable object? Can you write immutable object?Immutable classes are Java classes whose objects can not be modified once created. Any modification in Immutable object result in new object. For example is String is immutable in Java. Mostly Immutable are also final in Java, in order to prevent sub class from overriding methods in Java which can compromise Immutability. You can achieve same functionality by making member as non final but private and not modifying them except in constructor.

String s = new String("Test");
 
does not  put the object in String pool , we need to call String.intern() method which is used to put  them into String pool explicitly. its only when you create String object as String literal e.g. String s = "Test" Java automatically put that into String pool.

There is a difference when looking at exception handling. If your tasks throws an exception and if it was submitted with execute this exception will go to the uncaught exception handler (when you don't have provided one explicitly, the default one will just print the stack trace to System.err). If you submitted the task with submit any thrown exception, checked exception or not, is then part of the task's return status. For a task that was submitted with submit and that terminates with an exception, the Future.get will re-throw this exception, wrapped in an ExecutionException.

Abstract Factory provides one more level of abstraction. Consider different factories each extended from an Abstract Factory and responsible for creation of different hierarchies of objects based on the type of factory. E.g. AbstractFactory extended by AutomobileFactory, UserFactory, RoleFactory etc. Each individual factory would be responsible for creation of objects in that genre.

12. Can you write code for iteratingover hashmap in Java 4 and Java 5 ?

Tricky one but he managed to write using while and for loop.

13. When do you override hashcode and equals() ?
Whenever necessary especially if you want to do equality check or want to use your object as key in HashMap.

14. What will be the problem if you don't override hashcode() method ?
You will not be able to recover your object from hash Map if that is used as key in HashMap.
See here  How HashMap works in Java for detailed explanation.

15. Is it better to synchronize critical section of getInstance() method or whole getInstance() method ?
Answer is critical section because if we lock whole method than every time some one call this method will have to wait even though we are not creating any object)

16. What is the difference when String is gets created using literal or new() operator ?
When we create string with new() its created in heap and not added into string pool while String created using literal are created in String pool itself which exists in Perm area of heap.

17. Does not overriding hashcode() method has any performance implication ?
This is a good question and open to all , as per my knowledge a poor hashcode function will result in frequent collision in HashMap which eventually increase time for adding an object into Hash Map.

18. What’s wrong using HashMap in multithreaded environment? When get() method go to infinite loop ?
Another good question. His answer was during concurrent access and re-sizing.

19.  What do you understand by thread-safety ? Why is it required ? And finally, how to achieve thread-safety in Java Applications ?

Java Memory Model defines the legal interaction of threads with the memory in a real computer system. In a way, it describes what behaviors are legal in multi-threaded code. It determines when a Thread can reliably see writes to variables made by other threads. It defines semantics for volatile, final & synchronized, that makes guarantee of visibility of memory operations across the Threads.

Let's first discuss about Memory Barrier which are the base for our further discussions. There are two type of memory barrier instructions in JMM - read barriers and write barrier.

A read barrier invalidates the local memory (cache, registers, etc) and then reads the contents from the main memory, so that changes made by other threads becomes visible to the current Thread.
A write barrier flushes out the contents of the processor's local memory to the main memory, so that changes made by the current Thread becomes visible to the other threads.
JMM semantics for synchronized
When a thread acquires monitor of an object, by entering into a synchronized block of code, it performs a read barrier (invalidates the local memory and reads from the heap instead). Similarly exiting from a synchronized block as part of releasing the associated monitor, it performs a write barrier (flushes changes to the main memory)
Thus modifications to a shared state using synchronized block by one Thread, is guaranteed to be visible to subsequent synchronized reads by other threads. This guarantee is provided by JMM in presence of synchronized code block.

JMM semantics for Volatile  fields
Read & write to volatile variables have same memory semantics as that of acquiring and releasing a monitor using synchronized code block. So the visibility of volatile field is guaranteed by the JMM. Moreover afterwards Java 1.5, volatile reads and writes are not reorderable with any other memory operations (volatile and non-volatile both). Thus when Thread A writes to a volatile variable V, and afterwards Thread B reads from variable V, any variable values that were visible to A at the time V was written are guaranteed now to be visible to B.