Current Affairs Quiz 29 September 2026

The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 makes the Reserve Bank of India the regulator and supervisor of payment systems; no one can operate a payment system without its authorisation. The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2019 inserted Section 269SU in the Income-tax Act, 1961, requiring large businesses to offer prescribed electronic modes, and Section 10A in the 2007 Act, barring charges on those modes.

From 1 January 2020 the merchant discount rate on UPI and RuPay debit cards was zero, and the Centre compensated banks through an incentive scheme. The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2026 delinked Section 10A from the income-tax law, so the Central Government now notifies which modes stay free.

A notification of 14 September 2026 listed RuPay debit cards and UPI payments up to Rs 2,000; an NPCI circular of 15 September set a 0.4 per cent MDR above that, capped at Rs 300, from 15 October 2026. NPCI, set up in 2008, runs UPI, RuPay, IMPS and other retail systems.

The IIP measures short-term changes in the volume of industrial production against a base year set at 100. MoSPI revised the base from 2011-12 to 2022-23 on the advice of a Technical Advisory Committee, whose report came out on 25 May 2026; the first release in the new series, for April 2026, was on 1 June 2026.

It is the tenth base revision since the first index, with base 1937. The new series has four sectors: mining and quarrying (11.053 per cent), manufacturing (76.062), electricity and gas supply (10.865), and water supply, sewerage and waste management (2.020).

The basket has 1,042 products in 463 item groups, adds minor and rare earth minerals, and gives separate indices for renewable and non-renewable electricity. Sector weights come from gross value added in the National Accounts with base 2022-23, and manufacturing weights from the Annual Survey of Industries.

The index is released 28 days after the reference month and uses the NIC 2025 classification. Output reported in value terms is deflated by the WPI until an output producer price index is adopted.

Article 124 establishes the Supreme Court and provides that its judges are appointed by the President after consultation with such judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts as the President considers necessary. In the First Judges Case (1981) the Court gave the executive primacy.

The Second Judges Case (1993) read “consultation” as concurrence and gave primacy to the judiciary, acting through the Chief Justice and two senior-most judges; the Third Judges Case (1998), an advisory opinion under Article 143, enlarged this to the CJI and four senior-most judges. The Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the NJAC Act replaced the Collegium with a six-member commission, but in October 2015 a Constitution Bench struck both down as violating judicial independence, a basic feature.

The Memorandum of Procedure sets out the steps, and the government may return a name once for reconsideration. Parliament raised the Court’s strength from 34 to 38 in 2026.

The Tenth Schedule was added by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985 to curb defection. A member is disqualified for voluntarily giving up party membership or for voting or abstaining against the party whip without permission, unless the party condones it within 15 days; an independent who joins a party and a nominated member who joins a party after six months are also disqualified.

The 91st Amendment (2003) deleted the protection for a “split” of one-third, leaving only a merger backed by two-thirds of the legislature party (Paragraph 4). Paragraph 6 makes the Speaker or Chairman the deciding authority, and Paragraph 7, which barred courts, was struck down in Kihoto Hollohan as regards finality.

Delay by Speakers has been a recurring problem: in Keisham Meghachandra Singh the Court suggested three months as a reasonable time and asked Parliament to consider an independent tribunal. Disputes over which faction is the real party are decided by the Election Commission under Paragraph 15 of the Symbols Order, 1968.

Section 10 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 says agreements are contracts if made by competent parties with free consent, lawful consideration and a lawful object, and Section 11 says a person is competent only if of the age of majority, of sound mind and not disqualified by law. The Indian Majority Act, 1875 sets majority at eighteen.

Because a minor’s agreement is void from the start, a platform’s terms of service accepted by a child are not an enforceable contract. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 approaches the problem through data law: Section 9 requires verifiable consent of a parent or lawful guardian before processing a child’s personal data and bans tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children, with exemptions that the government may notify.

The DPDP Rules were notified in November 2025, and most operative rules, including those on parental consent, apply eighteen months later, in 2027. Platforms are also bound by the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Australia set a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts from December 2025.

The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was signed in 1946 to conserve whale stocks and allow the orderly development of the whaling industry. Its Commission, with a secretariat near Cambridge in the United Kingdom, sets catch limits, sanctuaries and conservation measures in a Schedule to the Convention.

In 1982 the IWC adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling that took effect from the 1985-86 seasons; aboriginal subsistence whaling by indigenous communities continues under IWC limits, and Norway and Iceland whale under objection or reservation. The IWC declared the Indian Ocean Sanctuary in 1979 and the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in 1994.

In 2014 the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan’s Antarctic whaling programme was not for purposes of scientific research; Japan left the IWC in 2019. In India, all cetaceans are given the highest level of protection under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and Project Dolphin, announced in 2020, covers dolphins and other cetaceans.

The Arabian Sea humpback whale is a small, non-migratory population.

District Mineral Foundations were created by the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2015, which also moved mineral concessions to auctions. Section 9B requires each State to set up a DMF as a non-profit trust in every mining-affected district, to work for the interest and benefit of persons and areas affected by mining, in the manner the State prescribes.

Holders of mining leases pay the DMF a share linked to royalty: a higher rate for leases granted before 12 January 2015 and a lower rate for auctioned leases. The Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana, launched in 2015 and revised in 2024, sets priorities: most funds for high-priority areas such as drinking water, health, education, sanitation, the environment and livelihoods, and for directly affected areas.

Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand hold the largest DMF collections. Recurring concerns include weak identification of affected people, spending on infrastructure far from mines, and limited participation of gram sabhas, which the Odisha audit again highlighted.

The Montevideo Convention of 1933 lists four qualifications of a State: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other States. Rising seas threaten low-lying island States such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives with the loss of territory and habitability, which raises the question of whether they would remain States.

The International Law Commission studied sea-level rise in relation to international law and concluded that States are not obliged to update baselines or the outer limits of maritime zones because of sea-level rise. The UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise, adopted by consensus at the 81st session of the General Assembly, affirms a presumption in favour of continued statehood and UN membership and says maritime zones established under UNCLOS may be maintained.

Under UNCLOS, the territorial sea extends up to 12 nautical miles, the contiguous zone up to 24, and the EEZ up to 200 from the baselines; the continental shelf may extend beyond 200 nautical miles, up to 350 or other limits set by the Convention. For India, with a long coastline and island territories, stable maritime zones matter for fisheries, seabed resources and security.

Sustainable Development Goal 12 is about responsible consumption and production. Target 12.3 has two indicators: 12.3.1(a), the Food Loss Index, whose custodian is the Food and Agriculture Organization, and 12.3.1(b), the Food Waste Index, whose custodian is the UN Environment Programme.

The UN General Assembly designated 29 September as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste in 2019, and it was first observed in 2020. In India, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries commissioned a study by NABCONS for 2020-22 covering 54 commodities in 292 districts, which estimated losses of 3.89 to 5.92 per cent for cereals, 6.02 to 15.05 per cent for fruits and 4.87 to 11.61 per cent for vegetables.

Government responses include PM Kisan SAMPADA Yojana, Operation Greens, the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund and cold-chain support, while SATAT and GOBARdhan promote compressed biogas from organic waste, which also cuts methane from landfills.

The National Commission on Farmers was constituted on 18 November 2004 under M.S. Swaminathan and submitted five reports, the last in October 2006; the National Policy for Farmers, 2007 drew on them. Its central idea was that farm policy should be judged by farmers’ incomes, not only output.

The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, set up in 1965 as the Agricultural Prices Commission, recommends MSPs for 22 mandated crops, and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs decides. The CACP uses three cost concepts: A2, the paid-out costs of seeds, fertiliser, hired labour, machinery, irrigation and fuel; A2 + FL, which adds the imputed value of family labour; and C2, which further adds rent on owned land and interest on owned capital.

The 2018-19 Budget committed MSP at least 1.5 times the cost of production, implemented on A2 + FL. The difference between A2 + FL and C2 is large for crops grown on owned land, which is why the formula matters in farm debates.

The Constitution attacks caste discrimination at several levels. Article 15 prohibits discrimination by the State and, in clause (2), by anyone in access to public places and the use of wells and tanks, a response to the denial of water that sparked movements such as the Mahad Satyagraha of 1927, when B.R. Ambedkar led Dalits to the Chavdar tank.

Article 17 abolishes untouchability; Parliament gave it force through the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976. Continuing violence against Dalits and Adivasis, including massacres such as Karamchedu in 1985, led to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, with special courts and stricter penalties, amended in 2015 and 2018.

The new frontier is technology: AI systems trained on skewed data can reproduce stereotypes at scale, and India’s AI Governance Guidelines of November 2025 name bias as a risk but rely largely on voluntary measures.

Most of India’s monsoon rain comes from synoptic systems embedded in the seasonal flow. Low-pressure systems form over the head Bay of Bengal and move west-north-west along the monsoon trough, which runs from north-west India to the Bay; their frequency and track decide which regions get rain.

The IMD grades daily rainfall as heavy (64.5 to 115.5 mm), very heavy (115.6 to 204.4 mm) and extremely heavy (204.5 mm or more). Seasonal rainfall is compared with a long period average of about 87 cm, based on 1971-2020; 96 to 104 per cent is normal.

Odisha created a State disaster mitigation authority in December 1999 after the super cyclone and later built cyclone shelters, early warning and community evacuation that kept deaths low in cyclones Phailin (2013) and Fani (2019). The Disaster Management Act, 2005 later set up the NDMA under the Prime Minister and State authorities under Chief Ministers.

Repeated heavy spells on saturated soil, and slow drainage across flat deltas, create flood risks that evacuation alone cannot address.

Four labour codes replaced 29 central labour laws: the Code on Wages, 2019, and the Industrial Relations Code, the Code on Social Security and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, all of 2020. They came into force on 21 November 2025.

The OSH Code covers safety, health, working hours, leave and welfare in factories, mines, docks, construction, plantations and other establishments. It sets duties for employers and employees, gives employees rights to safety information and to report hazards, creates safety committees and safety officers, and replaces the inspector with an Inspector-cum-Facilitator.

Labour is on the Concurrent List, so both the Centre and States frame rules. The ILO’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work had four categories: freedom of association, forced labour, child labour and discrimination.

The 2022 addition of occupational safety and health made C155 and C187 fundamental conventions. India has ratified six of the older eight fundamental conventions.

India’s social protection increasingly runs on direct cash: PM-KISAN pays Rs 6,000 a year to landholding farmer families, and most States pay monthly sums to women, such as Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna and West Bengal’s Lakshmir Bhandar. Direct Benefit Transfer, launched on 1 January 2013, rests on the JAM trinity of Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and mobile phones.

Evidence from many countries shows unconditional cash improves food security and well-being. For the ultra-poor, however, small transfers may not overcome the lack of assets and skills.

BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor programme combined assets, stipends, training and coaching; a six-country randomised evaluation published in 2015 by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and colleagues found lasting gains in consumption, assets and income. Banerjee, Duflo and Michael Kremer received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for experimental approaches to alleviating poverty.

The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission, launched in 2011, provides the self-help group network through which such programmes reach women.

After the Delhi gang-rape of December 2012, the Justice J.S. Verma Committee reported in January 2013, and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 widened the definition of rape and created offences such as stalking and voyeurism; these offences now sit in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The Nirbhaya Fund finances One Stop Centres (Sakhi), the Emergency Response Support System, Safe City projects in eight cities, fast-track special courts and women’s help desks in police stations.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 requires every workplace with ten or more employees to have an Internal Committee, and districts to have Local Committees. Police is a State subject under Entry 2 of List II, and the Union Home Ministry has advised States to raise women’s share in the police to 33 per cent; actual representation remains far lower.

Safety audits, gender-sensitive urban design, frequent public transport and more women in public-facing jobs are among the measures urban planners recommend.

India remains among the largest arms importers, and since 2014 policy has sought to build a domestic defence industry. The Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 sets a hierarchy of categories, with Buy (Indian-IDDM) first, followed by Buy (Indian), Buy and Make (Indian) and, lower down, the global categories.

Positive indigenisation lists, first notified in August 2020 by the Department of Military Affairs, name weapons and systems that will be bought only from Indian industry after specified dates; defence public sector undertakings have issued similar lists for components. Other measures include higher FDI limits in defence, two defence industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the iDEX innovation scheme and a reserved share of the capital budget for domestic procurement.

Defence production reached a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26, and exports Rs 38,424 crore. Critics note that “indigenous” platforms such as the Tejas still import much of their value, including engines, and that selective self-reliance in critical technologies may be more affordable than full autarky.