Current Affairs Quiz 7 September 2026

FACT: EOS-05 was launched by GSLV-F17 from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, at 02:55 IST on 4 September 2026, into a sub-geosynchronous transfer orbit. It is India’s first Earth imaging satellite designed to operate from geosynchronous orbit.
Its principal payload is a 700 mm Ritchey-Chretien telescope feeding multispectral and hyperspectral arrays in the visible, near-infrared and short-wave infrared regions, so it is an optical and infrared imager and cannot see through cloud. ANALYSIS: Option (c) is a common trap.
The launcher inserts the satellite into a sub-GTO; orbit-raising to the working geosynchronous orbit is performed by the satellite’s own propulsion.

FACT: EOS-05 was launched by GSLV-F17, in the Mk-II configuration with the indigenous cryogenic upper stage; it was the 19th flight of the GSLV; and it is the operational replacement for EOS-03 / GISAT-1, lost when the GSLV-F10 cryogenic upper stage failed on 12 August 2021. ANALYSIS: All three statements are correct as stated.

FACT: The 9th Rashtriya Poshan Maah will be launched on 9 September 2026 at the Rudraksh Convention Centre, Varanasi, on the theme “Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari”. The 2026 observance coincides with the 10th anniversary of PMMVY, rolled out on 1 January 2017.
ANALYSIS: Statement 2 is incorrect. Poshan Maah is a September campaign month within Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, not a scheme in its own right.

FACT: POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission, was launched on 8 March 2018 at Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan. ANALYSIS: The scheme was framed around measurable outcome targets against baseline rates: an annual reduction of 2 percentage points in stunting, 2 percentage points in under-nutrition, 3 percentage points in anaemia, and 2 percentage points in low birth weight.

FACT: The Day was proclaimed by UN General Assembly resolution 74/212 of 19 December 2019; the first observance was on 7 September 2020; and the theme for the 7th observance, on 7 September 2026, is “Clean Air for Climate Action”. ANALYSIS: All three statements are correct.
The global observance is hosted at Bangkok by UNEP in partnership with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

FACT: The National Clean Air Programme, launched in 2019 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, revised its original target to a 40 per cent reduction in PM10 by 2025-26 against the 2017 baseline in the 131 non-attainment and Million-Plus cities now covered. ANALYSIS: Option (a) describes the original NCAP target as issued in 2019; option (b) confuses PM10 with PM2.5 and the baseline year; option (d) is aspirational and not the NCAP target.

FACT: TRUST is Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology, announced on 13 February 2025 in the joint statement issued at Washington by the Prime Minister of India and the President of the United States. It is the successor to iCET, which was launched in January 2023 by the National Security Advisers of the two countries under the previous US administration.
ANALYSIS: Options (b), (c) and (d) are unrelated instruments.

FACT: The TRUST Fellowship, announced at Bengaluru in September 2026, places up to 20 US postdoctoral and early-career faculty researchers each year for 12-month periods at the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, IIT Madras and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE). ANALYSIS: The other options describe other credible research institutions but are not the hosts under the TRUST Fellowship.

FACT: Zonal Councils were created by Sections 15 to 22 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. There are five Zonal Councils: Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern.
The North-Eastern Council is a separate statutory body under the North Eastern Council Act, 1971. ANALYSIS: Statement 1 is incorrect.
Zonal Councils are statutory bodies, not constitutional bodies. Article 263 is the constitutional basis of the Inter-State Council, a distinct body.

FACT: The Western Zonal Council comprises the states of Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra, and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. ANALYSIS: Option (a) includes Rajasthan, which is in the Northern Zonal Council.
Option (b) places Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the Western Zone; they are members of the Central Zonal Council. Option (d) mixes Southern Zonal Council states with the Western Zone.

FACT: The Inter-State Council is a constitutional body constituted by Presidential Order in 1990 under Article 263 of the Constitution, and is chaired by the Prime Minister. Zonal Councils are statutory bodies created under Sections 15 to 22 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, and are chaired by the Union Home Minister.
ANALYSIS: Options (b), (c) and (d) misstate at least one of the basis, character or chairmanship of the two bodies.

FACT: Caecilians are limbless burrowing amphibians of the order Gymnophiona (Apoda), the third living order of amphibians alongside Anura (frogs and toads) and Caudata or Urodela (salamanders and newts). They possess a unique pair of sensory tentacles between the eye and the nostril and practise internal fertilisation using an eversible male copulatory organ, the phallodeum.
ANALYSIS: All three statements are correct as stated.

FACT: The Western Ghats were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, as a serial property comprising 39 component sites across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The inscription was made on natural criteria (ix) for on-going ecological and biological processes and (x) for in-situ conservation of biological diversity.
ANALYSIS: The Western Ghats are also one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International.

FACT: Hyperspectral imaging captures hundreds of narrow contiguous spectral bands, typically 200 to 400, each about 5 to 10 nm wide, allowing a full spectrum for every pixel. Multispectral imaging captures three to ten broad bands, each 40 to 100 nm wide.
ANALYSIS: The value of the hyperspectral spectrum for every pixel is that it can be matched against libraries of known spectral signatures to identify specific minerals, crop nutrient deficiencies, water contaminants or trace atmospheric gases such as methane.

FACT: Pixxel closed a $100 million Series C on 7 September 2026, India’s single-largest space-tech funding round to date, co-led by Temasek of Singapore and Seraphim Space of the United Kingdom, with participation from 360 ONE Asset, IMM Investment of Seoul, Radical Ventures and growX. Pixxel operates a six-satellite Firefly hyperspectral constellation at about 5-metre resolution. ANALYSIS: All three statements are correct.

FACT: IN-SPACe was established in June 2020 as the single-window authorising and regulatory body for private space activities in India, under the Department of Space. The Indian Space Policy 2023, approved by the Union Cabinet on 6 April 2023 and released on 20 April 2023, formalised the division of roles: ISRO focuses on research, development and new technologies; NSIL is the demand-driven public sector undertaking; IN-SPACe is the interface and authorisation body; non-governmental entities are permitted end-to-end participation.
ANALYSIS: All three statements are correct as stated.