Current Affairs Quiz 1 April 2026

STQC operates under MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) and runs 20+ test/calibration labs across India. It certifies IT products under TEC/BIS schemes and now covers IoT/connected devices including CCTVs.

The ER norms require manufacturers to declare the country of origin of the System-on-Chip (SoC), the central processing unit controlling video encoding, motion detection, network connectivity, and remote access. As of April 1, 2026, only 507 camera models have cleared certification.

Brands like Hikvision and Dahua, which dominate global CCTV manufacturing, have not obtained STQC certification, effectively barring their sale in India.

Hikvision and Dahua (Zhejiang Dahua Technology) are the world’s two largest CCTV manufacturers. The US FCC banned both under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (2022); the US NDAA 2019 had earlier banned federal procurement.

China’s National Intelligence Law 2017 (Article 7) obligates all Chinese organisations and citizens to “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work”, creating a legal obligation that no Chinese company can refuse a government request for device access data. India’s ban is part of a broader MeitY supply-chain security push that also includes the Trusted Telecom Portal (2022), which effectively excluded Huawei and ZTE from India’s 5G rollout.

India’s biodiversity governance operates at three tiers: National (NBA, Chennai) → State (33 State Biodiversity Boards) → Local (approximately 2.7 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees at every panchayat and urban local body). BMCs maintain People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), local documentation of biodiversity.

The NBA’s mandate under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 includes benefit-sharing: between 2017 and 2025, India mobilised ₹216.31 crore in benefit-sharing and disbursed ₹139.69 crore. The three-tier structure is a model for decentralised biodiversity governance globally.

The CBD framework has three landmark decisions: original CBD (1992, Rio Earth Summit) → Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000) → Nagoya Protocol on ABS (2010). The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) adopted at COP15 in December 2022 (Montreal, Canada) is a separate policy framework, it set 23 targets including the 30×30 target (protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030).

India’s current protected area coverage is approximately 5.03%, far below the 30×30 goal. The CBD Secretariat is based in Montreal, Canada.

India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) with 34 million pages of prior art in 5 languages was developed specifically to counter biopiracy patent applications.

The removal procedure under Article 124(4) read with the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 has five stages: (1) motion by 100+ Lok Sabha MPs or 50+ Rajya Sabha MPs; (2) inquiry by a three-member Judicial Committee (2 judges + 1 jurist); (3) committee finds “proved misbehaviour or incapacity”; (4) each House passes the address by special majority; (5) Presidential order. This five-stage process has never been completed against any SC judge in India’s history.

The CEC’s institutional security enabled T.N. Seshan (CEC 1990-96) to transform the ECI, implementing MCC enforcement, penalising candidates, and seizing illegal money/liquor during elections. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1996.

The Anoop Baranwal judgment held that the appointment process for the ECI needed an independent element to prevent ruling-party capture. The Court’s interim direction (PM + Leader of Opposition + CJI) was explicitly reversed by the CEC Act 2023 (PM + Cabinet Minister + Leader of Opposition).

The government’s defence: Parliament is supreme in legislative matters; the SC cannot mandate a specific appointment process not explicitly in the Constitution. Critics argue Parliament used its majority to undermine the constitutional principle of ECI independence the court had just upheld.

The CEC Act 2023 is currently challenged before the Supreme Court.

India has 8 Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) under the Ministry of Defence: HAL (aircraft), MDL (submarines/destroyers), GRSE (frigates/OPVs), GSL (OPVs/FPVs), BEL (electronics), BDL (missiles), BEML (vehicles), and Armoured Vehicles Nigam Ltd. The NGOPV programme, 11 vessels, Rs 9,781 crore, signed March 2023, delivers vessels with ~76% indigenous content, exceeding the DAP 2020 minimum of 50% for Buy (Indian-IDDM) category.

Each vessel is 110m long, 2,900 tonnes displacement, 25+ knots speed, and carries a helicopter deck up to 15-tonne class. India’s EEZ covers ~2.37 million sq km, the third largest globally after the USA and France.

DAP 2020 replaced Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2020 and is the primary framework for defence procurement. The Buy (Indian-IDDM) category is the highest preference tier, products must be designed, developed, and manufactured in India.

Lower-preference tiers include Buy (Indian), 50% IC but no design requirement; Buy & Make (Indian), transfer of technology for domestic production; Buy (Global-MII), manufactured in India with 50% IC; Buy (Global), no IC minimum. MoD has issued four Positive Indigenisation Lists (PIL I-IV) banning import of progressively sophisticated items, PIL IV (2024) added 98 items including ship systems, aerospace components, and missile sub-systems.

ISM-approved projects as of 2026: Tata Electronics + PSMC (Taiwan) for the Dholera fab (Rs 91,000 crore, 28nm logic, Gujarat); Tata Electronics for Assam OSAT (Rs 27,000 crore); CG Power + Renesas (Japan) + Stars Micro (Thailand) for Sanand OSAT (Rs 7,600 crore); Kaynes Technology for Sanand OSAT (Rs 3,307 crore, first to reach commercial production). The Dholera fab is India’s first silicon wafer fabrication plant.

OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) is the packaging and testing stage, it receives finished wafers from fabs and packages them for use in products. Kaynes’s first commercial product is Intelligent Power Modules (IPMs) for EVs, industrial drives, and renewable energy inverters.

The Kunming-Montreal GBF (2022) replaced the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (2010-2020). It has 23 targets across 4 goals.

Beyond Target 3 (30×30), key targets include: Target 2 (restore 30% of degraded ecosystems); Target 15 (businesses assess and disclose biodiversity impacts); Target 19 (mobilise $200 billion/year for biodiversity finance). The GBF also established the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Fund for developing country support.

India’s 4 biodiversity hotspots are: Himalayas, Indo-Burma, Western Ghats-Sri Lanka, and Sundaland. Forest cover is 25.17% of geographic area (FSI 2023), but formal protected area (National Parks + Wildlife Sanctuaries) is only 5.03%.

India is one of 17 megadiverse countries globally, hosting approximately 7-8% of the world’s biodiversity despite covering only 2.4% of land area. India has 4 biodiversity hotspots: Eastern Himalayas, Indo-Burma, Western Ghats-Sri Lanka, and Sundaland.

Wildlife highlights: 3,682 tigers (2022 census), approximately 12,000-14,000 leopards, and about 4,000 one-horned rhinos. An IRCC (Internationally Recognised Certificate of Compliance) is a record on the ABS Clearing-House confirming that access to a genetic resource complied with the source country’s ABS legislation (Prior Informed Consent + Mutually Agreed Terms).

India’s benefit-sharing mobilised Rs 216.31 crore and disbursed Rs 139.69 crore between 2017 and 2025.

The sequence of events is critical: (1) Prior to 2023, no statutory selection committee; President appointed CEC on PM’s advice (executive monopoly); (2) March 2023, Anoop Baranwal judgment adds CJI to bring independent oversight; (3) December 2023, CEC Act 2023 removes CJI, adds Cabinet Minister (government retains 2:1 majority). The Act is challenged before the Supreme Court.

The government’s defence is based on parliamentary sovereignty, Parliament can legislate on matters where the Constitution grants it authority, even if this has the effect of overriding interim SC directions. Critics argue this violates the separation of powers and undermines ECI independence.

The global semiconductor node landscape: 3nm/5nm (TSMC, Samsung) for high-end mobile chips and AI accelerators; 7nm for premium mobile SoCs; 14nm/28nm (mature nodes) for automotive, IoT, industrial; 40nm+ for legacy devices. India’s Dholera fab targeting 28nm is a realistic and strategically appropriate entry point, approximately 40% of global chip demand by volume is in the 28nm and above segment.

PSMC (Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, Taiwan) is a foundry specialising in mature nodes. TSMC controls approximately 60% of global foundry capacity.

The US CHIPS Act (2022, $52.7 billion), EU Chips Act (2023, €43 billion), and Japan’s RAPIDUS project are all part of the same global semiconductor onshoring wave that ISM belongs to.

The Nirbhaya Fund was established by the Union government in 2013 with an initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore. It funds projects across multiple ministries for women’s safety, including Safe City Mission (MHA/MoWCD), emergency response systems (112), fast-track courts for sexual violence, and one-stop crisis centres.

The 8 Safe City Mission cities were selected based on crime data and population. The surveillance infrastructure of these cities was historically dominated by Hikvision and Dahua equipment.

Post-April 2026, all new procurement must use STQC-certified alternatives, domestic brands like CP Plus or international brands like Axis Communications (Sweden) or Avigilon (Motorola, USA).

India’s maritime domain spans three stratagems: the coastline (7,516 km — 5th longest in the world), the EEZ (2.37 million sq km, exclusive rights to explore and use marine resources), and strategic choke points monitored by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard: Strait of Malacca, 10-degree Channel (between Car Nicobar and Sumatra), and Six-degree Channel (between India and Andaman Islands). The Indian Coast Guard, established in 1978 and under MHA, has 156+ ships and 60+ aircraft.

The Navy and Coast Guard have overlapping roles in EEZ patrol, anti-piracy, and humanitarian assistance. The NGOPV’s 8,500 nm range means each vessel can cover the entire Indian Ocean without refuelling.

The full ISM-approved project list is a standard data table for UPSC. All four projects are at different stages: Kaynes (Rs 3,307 crore, Sanand) is already at commercial production; CG Power + Renesas (Rs 7,600 crore, Sanand) is under construction; Tata Assam OSAT (Rs 27,000 crore) and Tata Dholera Fab (Rs 91,000 crore) are at earlier stages.

The total ISM outlay is Rs 76,000 crore. PSMC (Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp) is a Taiwanese foundry specialising in mature nodes, a key technology partner for India’s first fab.

Renesas is a Japanese chip company, one of the world’s largest automotive semiconductor makers, making CG Power’s OSAT partnership strategically relevant for India’s EV sector.

The four-stage semiconductor value chain: Stage 1, Design (USA, UK ARM architecture; India has ~20% of global chip designers); Stage 2, Fabrication/FAB (Taiwan TSMC ~60%, South Korea Samsung ~17%; India’s Dholera fab under construction); Stage 3, OSAT (Assembly+Packaging+Testing: Taiwan, Malaysia, China; India’s Kaynes operational, Tata Assam upcoming); Stage 4, Equipment (Netherlands ASML for EUV machines, USA Applied Materials; India has minimal presence). India’s semiconductor import dependency is approximately 85%, consuming about $30 billion of chips annually (2024) against a 2030 target of $100 billion market.

The global OSAT market is dominated by ASE (Taiwan), Amkor (USA), and JCET (China).

TKDL was developed by CSIR and the Department of AYUSH and contains traditional knowledge formulations from Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and Yoga in English, Hindi, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. It has been shared with patent offices in over 20 countries.

Key biopiracy timeline: 1995, NRI researchers patent turmeric’s wound-healing properties at USPTO; 1997, India challenges, USPTO revokes (32 prior art documents produced); 1994, EPO grants patent on neem’s fungicidal properties; 2005 — India + Greenpeace challenge, EPO revokes; 1997, RiceTec (US) patents “basmati-like” rice; India challenges, partial revocation. These cases directly motivated India’s Biological Diversity Act 2002 and its proactive NBA engagement.

The significance of Kaynes’s commercial production is that it marks India’s first step from “design-only” to “design + assembly” in the semiconductor value chain. India has had chip design centres for decades (approximately 20% of global chip designers are of Indian origin or India-based).

But until Kaynes, India had zero semiconductor manufacturing, all chips used in Indian products were imported (approximately 85% import dependency, ~$30 billion/year). The Kaynes facility’s 6.3 million unit/day full-scale capacity for IPMs will initially substitute imports of power modules from Japan, South Korea, and China (India imported approximately Rs 12,000 crore of IPMs and similar products in FY 2024-25).

The Trusted Telecom Portal is part of India’s broader hardware supply-chain security architecture: (1) Trusted Telecom Portal 2022, blocks Huawei/ZTE from 5G networks via vendor approval; (2) CCTV ER norms 2024/2026, blocks Chinese cameras via STQC certification; (3) BIS certification for smart meters, IoT electricity meters; (4) Router certification (proposed), BIS for home/enterprise routers. India’s approach, certification frameworks rather than explicit bans, is strategically cautious, maintaining the legal position that Chinese firms are welcome to certify, while setting standards they find difficult to meet (especially SoC declaration and backdoor testing).

This mirrors the US approach under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (2022) for Hikvision/Dahua.

Key milestones in INS Vikrant’s construction: keel laid 2009; first basin trials 2011; sea trials began 2021; commissioned September 2022. Total construction time: approximately 13 years, total cost approximately Rs 20,000 crore.

Vikrant can operate MiG-29K fighters and helicopters. India plans a second indigenous carrier (IAC-2) at CSL, currently in design stage.

The name INS Vikrant is historically significant, the original INS Vikrant (acquired 1961, British-built Majestic class) played a decisive role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War by blockading East Pakistan ports. The new Vikrant carries forward this legacy as a symbol of India’s growing blue-water ambition.

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and its timeline: passed by Parliament 2002; NBA established 2003 under Chennai. India signed CBD in 1992, which obligated India to enact domestic ABS legislation, hence the 2002 Act followed the 1992 CBD commitment.

India ratified the Nagoya Protocol in 2012 (the Protocol was adopted in 2010). State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) operate in all 28 states and 5 UTs with legislature = 33 SBBs.

BMCs must be established at every local body level, gram panchayats, municipalities, municipal corporations, and maintain PBRs (People’s Biodiversity Registers) documenting local species, traditional knowledge, and cultivation practices. Approximately 2.7 lakh BMCs are established as of 2026.

T.N. Seshan’s transformation of the ECI involved: enforcing the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) with unprecedented rigour; introducing photo identity cards for voters; confiscating illegal money and liquor; postponing elections in constituencies where rules were violated; repeatedly clashing with the ruling government of the day (both Congress and BJP). His tenure became the template for what an independent CEC could achieve.

Before Seshan, the MCC was largely symbolic. He made it an enforcement tool.

The current CEC removal controversy must be seen against this backdrop, the independence Seshan used constructively is what the Opposition says is now compromised.

India’s surveillance infrastructure growth is driven by: Smart City Mission (100 smart cities with integrated surveillance); Safe City Mission (Nirbhaya Fund, 8 cities); private residential and commercial security demand; and government tender activity for public spaces, railways, airports, and highways. The banned Chinese brands, Hikvision, Dahua, TP-Link, had collectively dominated India’s CCTV market before the certification mandate.

TP-Link is primarily known as a Wi-Fi router and IoT company, but its CCTV products were widely used in home/small-business security. US government reports had documented TP-Link routers being compromised for Chinese state-sponsored cyber operations, India extended this security logic to TP-Link cameras.

The DSI debate has enormous financial stakes for India: every time a pharmaceutical company uses genetic sequence data from an Indian pathogen or plant to develop a drug or diagnostic, India potentially loses royalty income if DSI is exempt from ABS. Examples: during COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 sequence data (from China) was used worldwide for vaccine development, under DSI ABS rules, source countries could demand benefit-sharing.

The Kunming-Montreal GBF (2022) called for creating a multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism for DSI, but the modalities are still being negotiated. CBD COP16 (scheduled 2024, Cali, Colombia) is the key venue for DSI negotiation outcomes.

India’s TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Digital Library) documents traditional knowledge as prior art, DSI is the reverse: sequencing traditional biological resources into databases.

NGOPVs are classified as offshore patrol vessels, a category below frigates/destroyers in capability but essential for sustaining maritime domain awareness. Their 8,500 nautical mile range and helicopter deck make them versatile multi-role vessels for the Indian Ocean.

“Blue-water capability” refers to the ability to operate in the open ocean far from home ports, India’s frigates (P17A), destroyers (P15B), and aircraft carriers (Vikrant) provide blue-water power projection. NGOPVs are “green-water” (littoral + EEZ) to “blue-water transition” platforms.

The distinction matters for UPSC Mains where questions on India’s naval doctrine require precision about vessel roles.

Key dates in the CBD family: UNCED/Rio Earth Summit (June 1992) → CBD adopted; December 1993 → CBD enters into force; 2000 → Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (GMO movement); 2010 → Nagoya Protocol on ABS adopted; 2014 → Nagoya enters into force; 2022 → Kunming-Montreal GBF adopted at COP15. India’s biodiversity credentials: 17 megadiverse countries (India is one), 4 biodiversity hotspots, 7-8% of global species on 2.4% land area, 3,682 tigers (2022), 4,000 one-horned rhinos, 12,000-14,000 leopards.

India submitted its first National Report on Nagoya Protocol implementation in March 2026.

The 2023 Act covers appointment, not removal. Removal of the CEC remains governed by Article 324(5), like a Supreme Court judge, requiring motion, judicial committee inquiry, and special majority in both Houses.

The selection committee under the 2023 Act (3 members, PM having 2 votes effectively) was challenged in the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. The SC in Anoop Baranwal had specifically said the executive should not have a majority in appointments to a constitutional body that oversees elections, the 2023 Act does the opposite.

This structural tension between parliamentary sovereignty and judicial oversight of constitutional institution appointments is the core constitutional issue.

The global semiconductor onshoring race: US CHIPS Act 2022 ($52.7 billion) → Intel, TSMC, Samsung fabs in USA; EU Chips Act 2023 (€43 billion target) → TSMC Dresden fab; Japan RAPIDUS (TSMC Kumamoto partnership); India ISM (Rs 76,000 crore). All major democracies are simultaneously trying to de-risk semiconductor supply chains from Taiwan (TSMC, ~60% global foundry capacity) and China.

India’s natural advantage is design talent, approximately 20% of global chip designers are of Indian origin, with Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune as major design hubs. Indian-origin CEOs currently lead Intel (Pat Gelsinger retired, Lip-Bu Tan), Google (Sundar Pichai), AMD (Lisa Su), and Microsoft (Satya Nadella).

The key distinction in the certification framework is not nationality of the brand but whether the device uses a Chinese SoC (System-on-Chip). A Chinese-branded camera with a non-Chinese SoC could theoretically certify; a non-Chinese brand using a Chinese SoC would face the same scrutiny.

In practice, Hikvision and Dahua use SoCs from HiSilicon (Huawei’s chip division), making certification effectively impossible under the framework. Axis Communications uses non-Chinese SoC suppliers.

As of April 2026, 507 camera models are certified for sale in India. India’s domestic CCTV market share rose from approximately 20% in 2020 to over 80% by early 2026, CP Plus (Aditya Infotech, Delhi) is the largest domestic player.