Current Affairs Quiz 26 July 2026

The Kargil campaign had three service components with distinct names: Operation Vijay for the Army, Operation Safed Sagar for the Indian Air Force and Operation Talwar for the Indian Navy. Operation Meghdoot (1984) was the operation to secure the Siachen Glacier, and Operation Parakram was the 2001-02 mobilisation after the Parliament attack.
Operation Rakshak refers to counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.

The Committee’s recommendations were examined further by a Group of Ministers on national security. The institutional consequences included the Defence Intelligence Agency in 2002, the National Technical Research Organisation in 2004, and eventually the Chief of Defence Staff and Department of Military Affairs in 2019.
The Naresh Chandra Task Force (2011-12) and the Shekatkar Committee (2016) were later defence reform bodies.

The Param Vir Chakra is India’s highest wartime gallantry award, instituted in 1950 with retrospective effect from 15 August 1947. The wartime gallantry sequence is Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra.
The corresponding peacetime sequence is Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra.

The 2026 edition ran in two phases from 4 to 30 June 2026, covering 74 vibrant villages in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Over 400 youth participants representing every State and Union Territory were selected through a nationwide online quiz that drew more than three lakh entrants.
The Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and the National Service Scheme are older youth mobilisation structures; Atal Innovation Mission operates under NITI Aayog for innovation and entrepreneurship.

VVP-I was approved in February 2023 with an outlay of Rs 4,800 crore for 2022-23 to 2025-26, covering 662 villages across 46 blocks in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Ladakh, of which Rs 2,500 crore was earmarked for road connectivity. VVP-II spans 15 States and 2 Union Territories and was launched in February 2026 from Nathanpur village in Cachar district, Assam.

The EAS was established in 2005, with its first summit at Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, and India is a founding member. The forum began with sixteen participants; the United States and Russia joined in 2011, taking the membership to eighteen.
It operates on the principle of ASEAN centrality and is chaired by the ASEAN chair. The twenty-one member grouping is APEC, of which India is not a member.

The 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea was politically binding but not legally binding, which is why the shift to a Code of Conduct represents a move from political commitment to legal obligation. At Manila on 23 July 2026, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also condemned attacks on seafarers, civilian shipping and infrastructure, and announced that India will host the 7th EAS Maritime Security Conference in Kochi.

Statutory conditions typically include IAEA safeguards on peaceful nuclear activities, guarantees against diversion to weapons use, and controls on retransfer. India signed its 123 Agreement with the United States in 2008, the same year it received a Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver.
The NSG itself was formed in 1974 in response to India’s first nuclear test.

Natural uranium contains about 0.7 per cent uranium-235; light-water power reactors typically need 3 to 5 per cent, while weapons-grade material is around 90 per cent. Reprocessing separates plutonium and unused uranium from spent fuel.
The US-Saudi agreement signed on 22 July 2026 contains no equivalent renunciation and does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the IAEA Additional Protocol. It instead provides for a joint two-year study on the commercial viability of enrichment, with any facility to be built and operated by US companies without transferring sensitive technology to the Saudis.

The Digital Markets Act entered into force in 2022 and regulates designated gatekeeper platforms on an ex-ante basis, meaning obligations attach on designation rather than on proof of abuse in each case. The GDPR governs data protection, the Digital Services Act governs illegal content and platform accountability, and the AI Act governs risk-tiered regulation of artificial intelligence.
Distinguishing the four is a common Prelims requirement.

India’s Competition Act, 2002, enforced by the Competition Commission of India, operates on the ex-post model. The Committee on Digital Competition Law recommended a separate ex-ante Digital Competition Act allowing the CCI to regulate large digital enterprises in advance.
The draft proposes designating Systemically Significant Digital Enterprises based on any of nine identified Core Digital Services plus thresholds including global market capitalisation above 75 billion US dollars and at least one crore end users or 10,000 business users, with penalties up to 10 per cent of global turnover.

Flight 13 was the second launch of the Starship Version 3 configuration, lifting off from Starbase, Texas at 5:51 p.m. Central Time.
The Super Heavy first stage used 33 Raptor 3 engines and the upper stage six Raptor engines. The upper stage completed a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean, while the booster splashed down faster than planned after an incomplete landing burn.
Two earlier attempts were scrubbed, on 16 July at T-0 and on 23 July for weather.

Hot staging is standard practice on Soviet and Russian launch vehicles and was adopted by SpaceX during the Starship development programme. India’s reusability work has proceeded through the Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Experiment series.
India’s heavy-lift vehicle is the LVM3, and human spaceflight development continues under the Gaganyaan programme.

The indicative requirement was 68,000 reams of opacified polymer substrate with security features, each ream containing 500 sheets, split equally across two denominations, with bids open until 18 August 2026. Reporting suggests a pilot beginning with Rs 10 and Rs 20 notes and a possible wider rollout from 2027.
SPMCIL is the Government of India undertaking operating the other currency presses and the mints. The RBI’s note-issuing authority derives from Section 22 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, while the Government of India issues the one-rupee note and all coins.

The Rajasthan State Water Plan 2047, launched on 24 July 2026, is an example of state-level long-horizon planning within Entry 17, built on river-linking projects, groundwater conservation and public participation. Article 262 empowers Parliament to provide for the adjudication of inter-state river water disputes and to bar the jurisdiction of courts, under which the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 was enacted.
The Central Ground Water Board categorises assessment units as safe, semi-critical, critical or over-exploited.