Current Affairs Quiz 16 September 2026

FACT: The First Additional Protocol amends Article 16 of Annex III (Rules of Origin) so that electronic Certificates of Origin carry the same legal validity as paper certificates. The Protocol was signed at New Delhi in the presence of Uruguay’s Foreign Minister representing MERCOSUR’s pro tempore Presidency.
ANALYSIS: Options (a) and (c) would require a much broader renegotiation, not a single-article amendment; (d) is not what the Protocol addresses. The Protocol enters into force after each party completes its domestic ratification.

FACT: MERCOSUR is a customs union founded by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay under the Treaty of Asuncion in 1991 (Bolivia became the fifth full member in 2024) and formalised institutionally by the 1994 Protocol of Ouro Preto. The pro tempore Presidency rotates every six months among the full members.
Uruguay currently holds it. Venezuela has been suspended since 2016.
ANALYSIS: The Treaty of Asuncion (1991) is the founding instrument; Ouro Preto (1994) is the institutional protocol; the two are complementary.

FACT: MDL is a Defence Public Sector Undertaking (DPSU) under the Ministry of Defence. Its primary role is warship and submarine construction, including the Kalvari-class submarines under Project 75 and the Visakhapatnam-class destroyers under Project 15B. The Dighi cluster MoU was signed with National Shipbuilding and Heavy Industries Park Maharashtra Limited (NSHIPML), a special-purpose company set up jointly by the Maharashtra Maritime Board and the Mumbai Port Authority.
ANALYSIS: The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways handles commercial shipping and ports; MDL’s naval-yard role places it under the MoD.

FACT: The SiCSem facility at IDCO Infovalley-II, Khordha, is India’s first commercial silicon-carbide (SiC) semiconductor fab, targeting 4.8 million SiC diodes and 91.2 million SiC MOSFETs a year. SiC is a compound semiconductor (a crystalline combination of silicon and carbon) with a wide bandgap of about 3.26 eV, versus silicon’s 1.12 eV, used in EV traction inverters, solar inverters, fast chargers and grid equipment.
ANALYSIS: Existing Indian projects like Tata-PSMC at Dholera and Micron at Sanand are silicon-based; SiCSem is distinguished by its compound-semiconductor focus.

FACT: SiC devices are used mainly in power electronics (EV traction inverters, solar and grid inverters, fast chargers, industrial motor drives), not in memory or CPU logic, which remain silicon’s stronghold. The wide bandgap gives SiC higher voltage tolerance, higher operating temperature and higher switching frequency, which together improve efficiency in power stages.
ANALYSIS: The trap here is treating SiC as a general-purpose successor to silicon; it is a power-electronics workhorse.

FACT: Ingerana aizawl was described from Hratdawng Stream on the Mizoram University campus in Aizawl; Duttaphrynus phawngpui was described from Phawngpui National Park (Blue Mountain National Park). Mizoram lies within the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, one of 36 globally recognised hotspots.
ANALYSIS: The four hotspots covering parts of India are the Himalayas, the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka, the Indo-Burma, and the Sundaland (Nicobar Islands).

FACT: The Great Indian Bustard is Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and in Appendix I of both the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The wild population is estimated at fewer than 150 individuals, concentrated in Rajasthan’s Desert National Park (Jaisalmer) and in Kachchh (Gujarat).
ANALYSIS: Options (b)-(d) all downgrade the species’s legal and IUCN status.

FACT: Project Cheetah, launched at Kuno National Park on 17 September 2022, was expanded to include Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary as a second release site to build a wider metapopulation. Both sites are in Madhya Pradesh.
The 13 September 2026 review placed the current combined population at 52 individuals, including imported adults and India-born cubs. ANALYSIS: Ranthambore, Nauradehi and Mukundra Hills are not current Project Cheetah sites; the project is confined to the two Madhya Pradesh landscapes.

FACT: The Kigali Amendment, adopted in October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda, and in force since 1 January 2019, adds hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to the phase-down list. HFCs are not ozone-depleting substances but potent greenhouse gases, with global warming potentials hundreds to thousands of times that of carbon dioxide.
ANALYSIS: CFCs, HCFCs and methyl bromide were addressed in earlier amendments; HFCs entered the Protocol’s remit only with Kigali.

FACT: ICAP was released in March 2019. India was the first country in the world to release a comprehensive national cooling action plan.
It sets a 20-year outlook (2017-18 to 2037-38) with targets to reduce cooling demand by 20-25 per cent, refrigerant demand by 25-30 per cent, and cooling energy requirements by 25-40 per cent. It also targets certification of 100,000 servicing technicians.
ANALYSIS: India ratified the Kigali Amendment in September 2021, after ICAP; the plan preceded ratification.

FACT: Kumik is in Zanskar district, headquartered at Padum. Zanskar was carved out of Kargil district and notified as a district on 27 April 2026, one of five new districts (Zanskar, Drass, Sham, Nubra and Changthang) that took Ladakh from two districts to seven.
Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena declared Kumik a Heritage Village at the launch of the 11th Ladakh Zanskar Festival. ANALYSIS: Kargil is the trap: Zanskar was a part of Kargil district until April 2026.
Nubra is itself a new district and does not contain Kumik.

FACT: The Kanjur (Tibetan bka’-'gyur, “translated words”) is the first of the two great collections of Tibetan Buddhist canon, comprising about 100 volumes in a standard woodblock edition, containing sutras, vinaya and tantras attributed to the Buddha in translation from Sanskrit and other sources. The Tenjur is the companion collection of commentaries by later masters.
ANALYSIS: The Kanjur is not a single volume, is not a Vedic corpus, and is not a court chronicle.

FACT: Sanjukta Parashar is a 2006-batch Indian Police Service officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre. She took charge as Inspector-General of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), a specialised jungle-warfare unit of the CRPF, succeeding Danesh Rana (1996-batch IPS).
She is the first woman to head the unit. ANALYSIS: The office is a Central deputation from the state IPS cadre, not a CAPF cadre appointment.

FACT: The Montreal Protocol was signed on 16 September 1987; 2026 marks 39 years since signing. The Kigali Amendment was adopted in October 2016; 2026 marks 10 years since adoption.
The Amendment entered into force on 1 January 2019. ANALYSIS: The other options misplace the base years.

FACT: Visvesvaraya (born 15 September 1861, Muddenahalli) was Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918, was knighted (KCIE) in 1915, and awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955. He designed the Krishna Raja Sagara dam on the Cauvery and developed the automatic weir floodgates at Khadakwasla.
ANALYSIS: The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was founded by Homi Bhabha; Bhakra Nangal design is not attributed to Visvesvaraya.