Current Affairs Quiz 4 October 2026

The Bustard Recovery Programme is a joint effort of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India, with technical help from the International Fund for Houbara Conservation and money from National CAMPA. Rajasthan calls its effort Project GIB (2013); breeding centres opened at Sam (2018) and Ramdevra (2022); artificial incubation of wild eggs began in 2019.

The Sam and Ramdevra facilities hold 97 birds, 40 from wild eggs and 57 bred in captivity; 86 are kept for breeding and 11 earmarked for release; 24 chicks hatched in 2025 and 29 in 2026. The “jumpstart” method places captive-laid eggs in wild nests.

The wild population is about 130 in Rajasthan with a handful in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The main modern threat is collision with power lines from solar and wind projects; in M.K. Ranjitsinh v Union of India (21 March 2024) the Supreme Court set up an Expert Committee on undergrounding and recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change under Articles 14 and 21.

Captive-bred bustards released into the wild survive at only 10 to 30 per cent a year, so the release is a pilot.

Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) is a chronic infection of the skin and peripheral nerves caused by Mycobacterium leprae, spread through prolonged close contact with untreated persons and cured by multidrug therapy, free under the National Leprosy Eradication Programme. The National Leprosy Control Programme began in 1955 and became the NLEP in 1983 with the introduction of MDT.

India reached the elimination threshold (prevalence below 1 per 10,000) in December 2005, but about 90,000 new cases a year show that transmission continues in pockets, mainly Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The National Strategic Plan and Roadmap for Leprosy 2023-27, launched on 30 January 2023, aims to interrupt transmission at the district level by 2027, with zero disability among new child cases and a Grade-2 disability rate below one per million; a district qualifies after five consecutive years with zero new indigenous child cases.

Tools include active case detection campaigns, contact tracing, single-dose rifampicin post-exposure prophylaxis and the Nikusth 2.0 portal. Anti-Leprosy Day is 30 January.

India recognises 11 classical languages. The category was created in 2004 with Tamil, followed by Sanskrit (2005), Telugu and Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), Odia (2014), and Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali by a Union Cabinet decision of 3 October 2024.

The status is conferred by the Union government on the Ministry of Culture’s proposal, advised by a Linguistic Experts Committee under the Sahitya Akademi; the 2024 revision of criteria kept the requirement of high antiquity (1,500 to 2,000 years), added knowledge texts in prose and epigraphic evidence, and kept the clause that the classical form may be distinct from or discontinuous with the modern language. Benefits include international awards for scholars, a Centre of Excellence and professional chairs in Central Universities.

Existing institutions are the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai and centres for Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia at the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru. Pali and Prakrit have no native speech community today; Pali carries the Theravada canon and Prakrit the Jain Agamas and most Ashokan edicts.

Classical status is separate from the Eighth Schedule, which lists 22 languages and does not include Pali or Prakrit.

The NRC was first prepared for Assam in 1951. Its update, unique to Assam, is governed by Rule 4A and the Schedule of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, under which applicants prove descent from persons in the 1951 NRC or in electoral rolls up to 24 March 1971.

The exercise ran under Supreme Court supervision from 2013 in Assam Public Works v Union of India. The final NRC released on 31 August 2019 included 3,11,21,004 people and excluded 19,06,657.

A rejection slip stating the reason for exclusion is the document needed to appeal to a Foreigners Tribunal; the Home Ministry extended the appeal window from 60 to 120 days in 2019 and sanctioned 200 more Tribunals. The register has not been notified by the Registrar General, who is also the Registrar General of Citizen Registration under Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, because the State Coordinator has not handed over the data and the State has sought re-verification.

In 2024 the Supreme Court upheld Section 6A, treating 25 March 1971 as a reasonable cut-off linked to the Bangladesh war.

Department-related Standing Committees were created in 1993 on the recommendation of the Lok Sabha Rules Committee to give Parliament continuous, specialised scrutiny of ministries. They consider the Demands for Grants of ministries after the general Budget discussion and while the House is adjourned, examine Bills referred to them by the Speaker or Chairman, consider annual reports and examine long-term policy documents; their recommendations are advisory and they do not take up day-to-day administration.

Rules 331C to 331N of the Lok Sabha Rules and Rules 268 to 277 of the Rajya Sabha Rules govern them. The eight Rajya Sabha committees include Commerce, Home Affairs, Education, Industry, Science and Technology, Transport, Health and Personnel and Law; Finance, Defence and External Affairs are Lok Sabha committees.

Chairpersons are distributed by party strength. The share of Bills referred to committees has fallen from about 71 per cent in the 15th Lok Sabha to about 16 per cent in the 17th, according to PRS Legislative Research.

Financial committees are separate: the Public Accounts Committee (1921, 22 members), the Estimates Committee (1950, 30 members) and the Committee on Public Undertakings (1964, 22 members).

The idea of linking India’s rivers dates to Arthur Cotton in the nineteenth century, K.L. Rao’s Ganga-Cauvery proposal (1972) and Captain Dastur’s Garland Canal (1977). The National Perspective Plan of 1980 and the National Water Development Agency (1982) gave it institutional form; the Supreme Court in 2012 asked the Centre to implement it in a time-bound manner.

The Ken-Betwa link, the first to be built, was approved by the Union Cabinet in December 2021 at Rs 44,605 crore on a 90:10 Centre-State basis, and its foundation stone was laid on 25 December 2024; it submerges part of the Panna Tiger Reserve. Critics question the “surplus” and “deficit” labels, which hide seasonal variation, and point to downstream effects on flows, sediment, deltas and fish migration.

The ATREE study adds biological invasion: India’s basins are isolated, many species are endemic to one basin, and connecting basins exposes them to competitors and pathogens. India has about 350 to 400 species at some stage of invasion and no national invasive species policy, though the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (Section 36) and the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022 give the Centre powers to regulate them.

Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised on 31 October 2019 into two Union Territories under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019: Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one. Section 53 of the Act keeps police, public order and the All-India Services with the Lieutenant Governor, so the civil service reports to the LG on those matters, a dual control that the 2026 episode exposed.

The 2000 autonomy resolution asked for a Sadr-e-Riyasat and Wazir-e-Azam, a bar on Article 356, a separate Election Commission and CAG, and the rescinding of post-1954 Presidential Orders; the Union Cabinet rejected it as setting the clock back. On 6 November 2024 the new Assembly passed a resolution on special status.

The 28 September 2026 statehood resolution was framed as being in addition to both earlier resolutions, which the BJP opposed. Legislative privilege under Article 194 applies to the Union Territory legislature through the 2019 Act; a breach of privilege motion has been moved against the two officers who wrote to the Speaker.

Electoral rolls are prepared under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, by Electoral Registration Officers under the superintendence of the Election Commission (Article 324). Section 21 of the 1950 Act allows the Commission to direct a special revision of the roll for any constituency at any time, for reasons recorded.

An intensive revision prepares the roll afresh through house-to-house enumeration, as against a summary revision, which updates the existing roll through claims and objections. The forms are: Form 6 (inclusion), Form 6A (overseas electors), Form 6B (Aadhaar linkage, voluntary), Form 7 (objection or deletion) and Form 8 (correction, shifting, replacement card, marking of disability).

Uttarakhand’s SIR began in June 2026 from a roll of 79,60,762; the draft of 14 July had 71,33,785 names; claims and objections ran to 13 August and hearings to 28 September; the final roll of 3 October has 71.59 lakh electors with 12,543 polling stations. Deletions were concentrated in the “absent, shifted, dead or duplicate” category, led by Dehradun.

Financial stability in India rests on several institutions. The RBI has a statutory mandate for monetary policy and banking regulation and publishes a half-yearly Financial Stability Report (June and December) with the Systemic Risk Survey; a Financial Stability Unit was created in 2009.

The Financial Stability and Development Council (December 2010) is chaired by the Finance Minister and includes the heads of the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and IBBI, the Finance Secretary and the Chief Economic Adviser; its Sub-Committee, chaired by the RBI Governor, does the operational work. The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (2013) proposed a statutory FSDC, which has not been enacted.

Internationally, the Financial Stability Board (2009, Basel) and the Basel III norms set standards. New concerns the Governor flagged, including non-bank financial intermediaries, cyber risk, cloud and IT “critical third parties”, tokenisation and stablecoins, are the frontier of macroprudential policy.

The Kautilya Economic Conclave is organised by the Institute of Economic Growth, in earlier editions with the Ministry of Finance.

India-US defence ties rest on the Defence Framework Agreement (2005, renewed 2015), the Major Defense Partner designation (2016), Strategic Trade Authorization Tier 1 status (2018) and the four foundational agreements: GSOMIA (2002) on protecting military information, LEMOA (2016) on logistics, COMCASA (2018) on secure communications and BECA (2020) on geospatial cooperation. The 2+2 ministerial dialogue, the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, the Roadmap for Defence Industrial Cooperation (2023) and the INDUS-X innovation bridge add the industrial layer; the Malabar exercise with Japan and Australia and Yudh Abhyas, Vajra Prahar, Cope India and Tiger Triumph are the exercise layer.

The US Pacific Command, established in 1947, was renamed Indo-Pacific Command in May 2018, partly as a signal to India, and resumed its original title under Secretary Pete Hegseth on 16 June 2026 while keeping Indo-Pacific Command as its statutory name; its area of responsibility runs from the US west coast to India’s western border, while CENTCOM covers West Asia and Pakistan. India buys P-8I aircraft, C-17 and C-130J transports, Apache and Chinook helicopters, MQ-9B drones and GE F404 and F414 engines from the United States.

India’s exercise calendar is a Prelims staple. Naval: Malabar (US, Japan, Australia), Varuna (France), Konkan (UK), Indra (Russia, tri-service), JIMEX (Japan), AUSINDEX (Australia), SIMBEX (Singapore), SLINEX (Sri Lanka), Samudra Shakti (Indonesia), Bongosagar (Bangladesh), MILAN (multilateral, Visakhapatnam) and AIME (ASEAN).

Army: Yudh Abhyas and Vajra Prahar (US), Dharma Guardian (Japan), Garuda Shakti (Indonesia), Mitra Shakti (Sri Lanka), Sampriti (Bangladesh), Surya Kiran (Nepal), Ajeya Warrior (UK), Shakti (France), Nomadic Elephant (Mongolia), Hand-in-Hand (China, suspended). Air: Garuda (France), Cope India (US), Eastern Bridge (Oman), Desert Knight and Desert Flag (UAE), Tarang Shakti (multilateral, 2024).

AIME was first co-hosted by India and Singapore from 2 to 8 May 2023 with a harbour phase at Changi and a sea phase in the South China Sea; it sits within the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2022). MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), announced in March 2025, succeeded SAGAR (2015) as India’s Indian Ocean doctrine.

Quantum key distribution lets two parties share an encryption key encoded in quantum states, usually photon polarisation; any interception alters the states and is detected. Fibre-based QKD is limited to a few hundred kilometres by loss; free-space links through the atmosphere are the stepping stone to satellite QKD, which China demonstrated with the Micius satellite in 2017.

India’s National Quantum Mission (approved 19 April 2023) has four thematic hubs: quantum computing (IISc Bengaluru), quantum communication (IIT Madras with C-DOT), quantum sensing and metrology (IIT Bombay) and quantum materials and devices (IIT Delhi), with goals including 50 to 1,000 physical qubit computers, 2,000 km satellite QKD and multi-node quantum networks. DRDO and IIT Delhi demonstrated a 100 km fibre QKD in 2022, and ISRO demonstrated 300 m free-space QKD in 2021.

BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics) is an autonomous body under MeitY at Gandhinagar. Post-quantum cryptography, standardised by NIST in 2024, is software-based and complements hardware QKD.

Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission, consisting of the CEC and such other Election Commissioners as the President may fix, appointed by the President subject to any law of Parliament. The Commission was single-member until 16 October 1989, when two commissioners were appointed for a few months, and permanently multi-member from 1 October 1993, when M.S. Gill and G.V.G. Krishnamurthy joined T.N. Seshan.

The 1993 ordinance, later Act 4 of 1994, added Sections 9 and 10 to the 1991 Act: business is transacted unanimously where possible and by majority otherwise, and all members have equal pay and tenure. In S.S. Dhanoa v Union of India (1991) the Court held additional commissioners were not obligatory; in T.N. Seshan v Union of India (14 July 1995) it upheld the majority rule and equality.

In Anoop Baranwal (2 March 2023) a Constitution Bench prescribed an interim selection committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice until Parliament legislated; the 2023 Act replaced the Chief Justice with a Union Cabinet Minister, and a challenge to that Act produced a split verdict in September 2026 on whether two judges could decide it.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 came into force on 14 November 2012 to give effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It defines graded offences: penetrative sexual assault (Section 4), aggravated penetrative sexual assault (Section 6, including by a relative, police officer or person in a position of trust), sexual assault (Section 8), aggravated sexual assault (Section 10), sexual harassment (Section 12) and use of a child for pornographic purposes (Section 14).

The 2019 amendment raised the minimum punishment for penetrative assault on a child under sixteen to twenty years and allowed the death penalty for aggravated penetrative assault. Procedural protections include recording the child’s statement at home by a woman officer not in uniform (Section 24), child-friendly trial in camera with no aggressive questioning (Section 33), shielding the child from the accused (Section 36), Special Courts (Section 28) and a presumption of guilt once foundational facts are proved (Section 29).

Compensation is ordered under Section 33(8) and Rule 9 of the POCSO Rules, 2020. The National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights monitor implementation under Section 44.

NCRB data consistently show that most offenders are known to the child.

The constitutional provisions on language in education are Article 29 (right of any section of citizens to conserve its language), Article 30 (minorities’ right to establish educational institutions), Article 350A (mother-tongue instruction at the primary stage for linguistic minorities, inserted by the 7th Amendment, 1956, on the States Reorganisation Commission’s recommendation), Article 350B (Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities) and Article 21A (free and compulsory education for ages 6 to 14, inserted by the 86th Amendment, 2002). The three-language formula came from the Kothari Commission (1964-66) and the National Policy on Education, 1968, and NEP 2020 retains it with flexibility and no language imposed on any State.

NEP 2020 recommends the home-language medium in the foundational and preparatory stages, bilingual textbooks and early exposure to English and other languages as subjects. NIPUN Bharat (2021) targets foundational literacy and numeracy by Grade 3.

The Census of 2011 recorded 121 languages and 19,569 raw mother tongues; the Eighth Schedule lists 22 languages. The medium of instruction remains a Centre-State flashpoint, and private English-medium schooling continues to grow.

Extradition is the surrender of a person by one State to another for trial or punishment, under a treaty or arrangement and through courts; deportation is a State’s unilateral removal of a foreign national under immigration law, with no role for the receiving State’s request. In India the Extradition Act, 1962 governs both outgoing requests and surrender; the Ministry of External Affairs (CPV Division) is the nodal agency, and a magistrate conducts an inquiry before the Central Government decides.

Grounds for refusal include political offences, the risk of persecution, double jeopardy and lapse of time; many treaties exclude terrorism and serious violent crimes from the political-offence exception. India has treaties with about 48 countries and arrangements with about 12.

The India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty of 2013, amended in 2016 to drop the requirement of a court-issued arrest warrant, contains the political-offence exception but excludes offences such as murder. Interpol Red Notices are requests to locate and provisionally arrest, not extradition orders.

Domestic drug law rests on the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, enforced by the Narcotics Control Bureau (1986).

The West Asian chokepoints are a Prelims map staple. The Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf to Gulf of Oman) is about 33 km wide at its narrowest and carries most of the oil exports of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar and the UAE; Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea and the UAE’s Habshan-Fujairah pipeline to the Gulf of Oman are the bypasses.

Bab-el-Mandeb (Red Sea to Gulf of Aden) lies between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea, with Perim island in the strait, and leads to the Suez Canal; Houthi attacks since late 2023 have diverted shipping around the Cape of Good Hope. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

For India, over half of crude imports and most LNG from Qatar pass through Hormuz, and India supplies about 12 per cent of the world’s seafarers, so attacks on shipping touch energy security and citizen welfare at once. The Indian Navy’s Operation Sankalp (since 2019) escorts Indian-flagged vessels in the Gulf, and the Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region at Gurugram tracks maritime incidents.