Current Affairs Quiz 26 September 2026

Cybercrime crosses borders by design: a fraud may be committed from one country, routed through servers in a second and hit victims in a third, while the evidence sits with a service provider in a fourth. Traditional mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) are slow, so States have sought faster channels for electronic evidence.

The Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention (2001) was the first such treaty, but India never joined it, objecting that it was drafted without developing countries and that some cross-border access provisions affect sovereignty. In 2019 the UN General Assembly created an Ad Hoc Committee (resolution 74/247) to negotiate a global treaty, and the resulting Convention was adopted in December 2024.

It has 68 articles: offences such as illegal access, interception, data and system interference, computer-related fraud, online child sexual abuse material, grooming and non-consensual sharing of intimate images; procedural powers such as expedited preservation and production orders, subject to safeguards (Article 24); and cooperation through extradition, mutual legal assistance and a 24/7 network. Articles 5 and 6 protect sovereignty and human rights.

In India, the IT Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the I4C under the Home Ministry form the domestic framework.

The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) sets out a staged process: consultations (Article 4), then a request for a panel, which the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), made up of all members, establishes by “negative consensus”, so a respondent can delay a panel at the first meeting but not block it at the second. Panels report within months, and reports can be appealed to the Appellate Body on points of law.

The Appellate Body has been unable to hear appeals since December 2019, when it lost its quorum after the United States blocked appointments; an appeal therefore leaves a dispute unresolved (“appeal into the void”). Some members, including the EU, have created the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) under Article 25 of the DSU as a stopgap; India has not joined.

In the CBAM dispute, Russia claims breaches of GATT Articles I, II, III, X and XI and of the Subsidies Agreement, while the EU is expected to defend its measure as consistent with WTO rules, with the general exceptions of GATT Article XX in the background. India objects to CBAM as a unilateral measure contrary to common but differentiated responsibilities.

AFSPA grew out of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Ordinance of 1942 and was enacted in 1958 for the Naga Hills. Section 4 lets officers in a disturbed area use force, even causing death, against persons acting against prohibitory orders, destroy arms dumps, arrest without warrant and search without warrant; Section 5 requires arrested persons to be handed over to the police with the least possible delay.

Constitutionally, “public order” and “police” are State subjects, but Entry 2A of the Union List, added by the 42nd Amendment (1976), allows deployment of Union armed forces in aid of civil power, and Article 355 obliges the Union to protect States against internal disturbance. In EEVFAM v. Union of India (2016) the Supreme Court held there is no absolute immunity for excessive force.

The Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy Committee (2005) and the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2007) recommended repealing AFSPA and moving its essential provisions into the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. AFSPA has been withdrawn from Tripura (2015) and Meghalaya (2018); Jammu and Kashmir has a separate Act of 1990.

The Western Ghats, older than the Himalayas, run about 1,600 km parallel to India’s west coast and feed the major peninsular rivers, including the Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri. They were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012 and, with Sri Lanka, form one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

In 2010 the Environment Ministry set up the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel under ecologist Madhav Gadgil; its 2011 report proposed treating the entire range as ecologically sensitive and was criticised by States as too restrictive. A High-Level Working Group under K. Kasturirangan (2013) confined the Ecologically Sensitive Area to the natural landscape, about 37 per cent of the Ghats.

The Centre issued interim directions in 2013 barring mining, quarrying, red-category industries and large construction in the identified area, and has issued repeated draft notifications covering about 56,825 sq km across six States, none of them final. ESAs are notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

They are distinct from Eco-Sensitive Zones around national parks and sanctuaries, which the Supreme Court has required as buffers.

India tested nuclear devices in 1974 (Pokhran-I) and in May 1998 (Pokhran-II), after which it declared itself a nuclear weapons state. The National Security Advisory Board released a Draft Nuclear Doctrine in 1999, and the Cabinet Committee on Security adopted the operative doctrine on 4 January 2003.

Its principles are credible minimum deterrence; No First Use, meaning nuclear weapons will be used only in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere; massive retaliation designed to inflict unacceptable damage; authorisation of retaliation only by the civilian political leadership through the Nuclear Command Authority; no use against non-nuclear weapon states; the biological and chemical weapons exception; strict export controls, participation in talks on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and a moratorium on testing; and commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free world. The Strategic Forces Command manages the arsenal.

India remains outside the NPT, the CTBT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but secured a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 on the strength of its record.

The Seventh Schedule splits gambling between two lists. State-run lotteries are a Union subject (Entry 40, List I), so Parliament regulates how States may run them, while other betting and gambling is a State subject (Entry 34, List II), which is why States have their own public gambling laws and why online betting has been regulated both by States and, from 2025, by the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act.

The Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 lets a State organise a lottery subject to conditions in Section 4, such as the State itself conducting draws and crediting proceeds to its public account. In B.R. Enterprises (1999), the Supreme Court upheld the Act and held that a State may prohibit the sale of other States’ lotteries only if it runs none of its own.

Tamil Nadu (2003) and Karnataka (2007) chose total prohibition. Kerala runs a departmental lottery; its operating surplus to the State was about Rs 1,203 crore in 2023-24, according to an RTI reply from the Directorate of State Lotteries.

Lottery tickets attract GST at 40 per cent after the 2025 rate rationalisation. The doctrine of res extra commercium means States need not justify a ban as a reasonable restriction on trade.

Article 124(2) provides that Supreme Court judges are appointed by the President after consultation with such judges as the President deems necessary, and the Chief Justice of India must be consulted for appointments other than his own. Through the Second Judges case (1993) and the Third Judges opinion (1998), the Supreme Court read “consultation” to mean concurrence and created the collegium, the CJI and four senior-most judges for Supreme Court appointments.

Parliament’s attempt to replace it with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (99th Amendment, 2014) was struck down in 2015. The Memorandum of Procedure guides the process.

Article 124(3) sets three routes to the Supreme Court, and direct appointment from the Bar has become common since S.M. Sikri in 1964, but the third route, the distinguished jurist, has never been used. The Constituent Assembly, aware of Felix Frankfurter’s appointment to the US Supreme Court from Harvard Law School, intended it to bring legal scholars to the bench.

Judges retire at 65 and can be removed only through the process in Article 124(4).

The Secretary-General is the UN’s “chief administrative officer” (Article 97) and may bring to the Security Council’s attention any matter that threatens international peace and security (Article 99). The Charter does not fix the term; a five-year term renewable once has become the convention since a 1946 General Assembly resolution.

Selection was long an opaque process of straw polls in the Security Council. In 2015 the General Assembly (resolution 69/321) made it more transparent: candidates are formally nominated with letters, publish their vision statements and appear in public dialogues with members, and the 2016 race that chose Antonio Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, was the first under these rules.

There are calls for the first woman Secretary-General and for regional rotation. The General Assembly, where each of the 193 members has one vote (Article 18), elects the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms.

India has served eight terms, the latest in 2021-22, and is a candidate for 2028-29.

The Urjit Patel Committee (2014) recommended flexible inflation targeting with CPI as the nominal anchor. The Monetary Policy Framework Agreement between the Government and the RBI (2015) and the Finance Act, 2016, which amended the RBI Act, 1934, gave it statutory form.

The Act makes price stability, “while keeping in mind the objective of growth”, the primary objective of monetary policy. The Government notifies the target every five years; the 4 per cent target with a 2 to 6 per cent band has been retained since 2016 and was renewed for 2026-31.

The MPC meets at least four times a year, and its resolution and minutes are published. The repo rate, the rate at which the RBI lends to banks against government securities, is the main tool; the Standing Deposit Facility forms the floor and the Marginal Standing Facility the ceiling of the liquidity corridor.

Monetary policy affects demand with a lag, so food-price shocks from a poor monsoon are better met with supply measures, while the MPC watches whether they feed into core inflation and expectations.

India’s food management rests on procurement at the minimum support price by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State agencies, storage in the Central Pool, and distribution under the National Food Security Act, 2013, which entitles about two-thirds of the population to subsidised grain. Buffer norms, last revised in 2015, specify minimum stocks at the start of each quarter and include a strategic reserve; stocks above the norm are costly to hold and can be sold through the Open Market Sale Scheme or allocated for other uses, including ethanol.

Export policy is a separate lever: the DGFT can ban exports, restrict them by quota or licence, set a minimum export price, or leave them free, and the Finance Ministry can impose export duties. India banned wheat exports in May 2022 after a March heatwave cut output, and restricted rice exports in 2022 and 2023 before relaxing the curbs in 2024.

Critics say such swings hurt farmers and damage India’s reputation as a reliable supplier; supporters say food security at home must come first.

APEC was founded in 1989 at Australia’s initiative as a forum to promote trade and investment liberalisation around the Pacific Rim. Its members are called “economies” rather than countries, which allows Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong, China to take part alongside the People’s Republic of China.

It works by consensus and voluntary, non-binding commitments, and its Bogor Goals (1994) aimed at free and open trade and investment. There are 21 members, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and seven ASEAN members.

A moratorium on new members was imposed in 1997 and has been extended since, which has kept India, which applied in the 1990s, outside despite support from several members. India engages the Asia-Pacific through the East Asia Summit, ASEAN-led forums, the Quad and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

The US-China summit context matters because APEC meetings are among the few regular venues where their leaders meet.

Ports are divided by the Constitution: major ports are a Union subject (Entry 27, List I), while other ports fall under the Concurrent List (Entry 31, List III), subject to Union law. The twelve major ports, including Deendayal (Kandla), Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, V.O. Chidambaranar (Tuticorin), Chennai, Kamarajar (Ennore), Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Syama Prasad Mookerjee (Kolkata, with Haldia), are governed as Major Port Authorities under the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021, while non-major ports are run by State Maritime Boards and private concessionaires.

The Indian Ports Act, 2025, one of a set of maritime laws passed in 2025 with the Merchant Shipping Act and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, updated the 1908 framework, created the Maritime State Development Council and required State Maritime Boards, and aligned port rules with conventions such as MARPOL. The mega port category, based on throughput rather than ownership, identifies India’s highest-volume gateways; Mundra, operated by Adani Ports, is India’s largest private port.

Project Tiger was launched in 1973 with nine reserves, and India now has 58 tiger reserves covering over 85,000 sq km, according to the Environment Ministry. The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006, following the Tiger Task Force report of 2005, gave Project Tiger statutory backing by creating the National Tiger Conservation Authority, chaired by the Union Environment Minister, and required each reserve to have a core or critical tiger habitat and a buffer zone, with a Tiger Conservation Plan.

Management Effectiveness Evaluation began in 2006 and has run every four years (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022), with ratings that help prioritise funds and staff; independent teams assess each reserve. The All India Tiger Estimation, conducted by the NTCA with the Wildlife Institute of India using camera traps and field surveys, is a separate exercise that estimates tiger numbers.

Other recent developments include new reserves notified in 2024 and 2025 and the Global Tiger Forum’s work on tiger-range cooperation. Management quality matters because the future of tigers increasingly depends on corridors and on coexistence with people outside reserves.

The Government finances its fiscal deficit mainly through market borrowing in dated securities (long-term bonds) and Treasury Bills (short-term), supplemented by small savings and other sources. The RBI manages the Government’s debt under the RBI Act, 1934, and announces a half-yearly borrowing calendar with the Finance Ministry, listing auction sizes and maturities so that markets can plan.

Dated securities run from 2 to 50 years; the 10-year bond is the benchmark whose yield reflects market expectations of inflation and fiscal policy. Ways and Means Advances cover temporary mismatches, and if the Government exceeds the WMA limit it moves into overdraft.

Since the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management framework and the 1997 agreement ending automatic monetisation through ad hoc Treasury Bills, the RBI does not buy government securities in the primary market except in exceptional cases. Sovereign Green Bonds were first issued in January 2023 under a framework approved in November 2022; their proceeds go to public projects in renewable energy, clean transport, climate adaptation and similar areas.

Green bonds help deepen a market for climate finance.

COVID-19 exposed gaps in the global health architecture: slow information sharing, unequal access to vaccines and weak surveillance. Two tracks followed.

First, the International Health Regulations (2005), the binding rules on reporting and responding to public health risks, were amended in 2024, adding a “pandemic emergency” category and stronger equity provisions; the amendments entered into force in 2025. Second, WHO members negotiated a new Pandemic Agreement, adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2025, covering prevention, One Health, research and development, technology transfer, supply chains and equitable access.

Its most contested element, the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing system, was left to an annex: countries that share pathogen samples and genetic sequences should, in return, receive a share of the resulting vaccines, diagnostics and treatments. Developing countries, including India, insist that benefit sharing be firm and predictable; pharmaceutical industries and some developed countries prefer voluntary arrangements.

India also promotes digital public infrastructure, such as its CoWIN vaccination platform, as a global public good.

Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay received the title “Vidyasagar” (ocean of learning) for his Sanskrit scholarship and became principal of Sanskrit College, Calcutta, where he opened admission to non-Brahmin students and modernised the curriculum. His social reform combined tradition and reason: he argued from Hindu texts that widow remarriage was permitted, gathered petitions, and saw the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act passed in July 1856; he later helped arrange such marriages, including his own son’s. He opposed polygamy and child marriage, and as a school inspector promoted girls’ schools across Bengal, supporting John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune’s school for girls.

His Bengali primers and textbooks shaped modern Bengali prose. He is often contrasted with Raja Rammohan Roy, whose campaign contributed to the abolition of sati under Lord William Bentinck’s Regulation XVII of 1829, and with the Brahmo Samaj, which Rammohan founded.

Later reformers such as Jyotirao Phule and Pandita Ramabai carried women’s education and widows’ welfare further in western India. Vidyasagar died on 29 July 1891.

The World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based non-profit foundation, publishes several indices that recur in Prelims, including the Global Gender Gap Report, the Global Risks Report, the Energy Transition Index and the Future of Jobs Report, as well as the TTDI, which it publishes every two years. The TTDI measures the factors and policies that enable sustainable and resilient tourism development, grouped into dimensions covering the enabling environment, travel and tourism policy, infrastructure and services, travel and tourism resources (natural, cultural and non-leisure) and sustainability.

It does not rank countries by arrivals or receipts. India’s strengths lie in cultural and natural resources, price competitiveness and air connectivity; its weaknesses in tourist services, sustainability and labour market indicators.

UN Tourism, formerly the UN World Tourism Organization, is based in Madrid; World Tourism Day on 27 September marks the adoption of its statutes in 1970. In India, the Ministry of Tourism runs schemes such as Swadesh Darshan 2.0 and PRASHAD, and tourism’s share of GDP is measured through the Tourism Satellite Account.