Current Affairs Quiz 27 April 2026

The India-New Zealand FTA grants 100% duty-free access across all tariff lines for India’s exports to New Zealand, covering textiles, leather, footwear, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, and processed foods. This is among the most comprehensive market access India has secured in any bilateral trade agreement.

The FTA’s Health and Traditional Medicine annex specifically opens New Zealand’s regulated healthcare market to Ayurveda practitioners, yoga instructors, and Indian wellness systems under the AYUSH umbrella. This is the first time New Zealand has included such a provision in any trade agreement, creating a regulatory pathway for Indian traditional health professions in a developed, English-speaking country.

New Zealand will provide 5,000 temporary work visas annually for Indian professionals in skilled occupations, including IT, engineering, healthcare, AYUSH practitioners, yoga instructors, Indian chefs, and music teachers, with a stay of up to three years per visa. An additional 1,000 working holiday visas will be available for young Indians to live and work in New Zealand for up to one year.

India excluded dairy products entirely from its concession schedule under the India-NZ FTA, milk, cream, whey, yoghurt, and cheese will not get duty-free entry into India from New Zealand. This was essential to protect India’s approximately 8 crore dairy farmers, as New Zealand is one of the world’s most competitive dairy exporters. Similar dairy exclusions exist in India-UAE CEPA (2022) and India-Australia ECTA (2022).

PM Modi’s visit marked Sikkim’s 50th Year of Statehood. Sikkim merged with India as the 22nd state through the 36th Constitutional Amendment Act, with the merger taking effect on May 16, 1975. The 2026 celebrations mark 50 years since Sikkim’s formal integration into the Indian Union, making it one of India’s most significant northeast state anniversaries.

Sowa Rigpa is the traditional Tibetan Buddhist medical system practiced in Sikkim, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Himalayan communities. Rooted in ancient Tibetan texts (particularly Gyushi, the Four Medical Tantras), it is based on three humours, rLung (wind), mKhris (bile), and Bad-kan (phlegm). Sowa Rigpa was included under the AYUSH umbrella in 2020; the Ministry of AYUSH now oversees its promotion and regulation.

The five new districts approved in Ladakh are Nubra, Sham, Changthang, Zanskar, and Drass. Kargil is NOT a new district, it was one of the original two districts of Ladakh UT (along with Leh) before this reorganisation. After the creation of 5 new districts, Ladakh now has 7 total districts.

The Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 bifurcated the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories, J&K (with legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature). The act came into effect on October 31, 2019. Ladakh is administered by a Lieutenant Governor (LG) directly under the Central Government, with no elected legislative assembly, a unique governance structure among India’s Union Territories (most UTs either have no legislature, like Chandigarh, or have a legislature, like Delhi and Puducherry).

India’s consistent SCO position is zero tolerance for terrorism and extremism, framed within the SCO’s official security mandate against the “Three Evils” (terrorism, separatism, extremism). India has particularly pushed against state-sponsored cross-border terrorism, an agenda that creates friction with Pakistan (a fellow SCO member that India holds responsible for supporting anti-India terror groups).

Bishkek is the capital of Kyrgyzstan, which holds the SCO chairmanship for 2025-26. The SCO chairmanship rotates among member states, and the hosting country organises the major meetings during its chairmanship year. Kyrgyzstan is one of the SCO’s founding members (as part of the original Shanghai Five/SCO process from 1996-2001).

The US Department of Commerce imposed a 123.04% preliminary anti-dumping duty on solar cells and modules imported from India, adding to existing countervailing duties of over 125%, pushing the combined tariff burden beyond 200%. This followed a complaint filed in July 2025 by the US Solar Energy Industries Association, alleging that Indian manufacturers (including Mundra Solar and Premier Energies) were selling below fair market value. The final determination is expected within 75 days.

Raghu Rai was nominated for Magnum Photos membership in 1977 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the co-founders of Magnum Photos and widely regarded as the father of modern photojournalism. Cartier-Bresson’s recognition of Rai placed him in the most prestigious photographic cooperative in the world. Rai went on to document the Bangladesh Liberation War, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and the Emergency.

Raghu Rai arrived in Bhopal within hours of the December 2-3, 1984 disaster, when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant, killing 3,787 people officially (with estimates of 8,000-16,000 total deaths). His image of a dead child being held by a father, with open sightless eyes, became one of the defining photographs of the 20th century and continues to be used in advocacy for Bhopal survivors’ justice.

The Supreme Court’s ICU guidelines mandate a 1:1 nurse-to-patient ratio for ventilated patients, meaning one dedicated nurse per ventilated ICU patient. For non-ventilated ICU patients, the minimum ratio is 1:2. This standard is consistent with international critical care benchmarks (ICU nurse ratios in the US and UK are typically 1:1 to 1:2 for ICU).

The guidelines also mandate tele-ICU and e-ICU systems for smaller centres where intensivists are unavailable.

New Zealand has committed to invest $20 billion in FDI in India over 15 years as part of the FTA package. The bilateral trade target is to double trade to $5 billion in 5 years (from approximately $2.5 billion currently). These are commitment figures, not guarantees, but they create a diplomatic benchmark for tracking the agreement’s economic implementation.