Current Affairs Quiz 6 October 2026

Nerve cells signal by moving ions such as sodium and potassium across their membranes through protein channels; most channels open in response to a voltage change or a chemical messenger. Hegemann and Nagel found in the early 2000s that the alga Chlamydomonas uses a light-gated channel, and that the protein made any cell it was placed in sensitive to light.

Deisseroth inserted its gene into rat neurons and reported light-triggered nerve signals in 2005; two years later the method worked in living mice. Compared with electrodes (which stimulate every cell near the tip) and drugs (which act slowly and widely), light acts in milliseconds, only where it is shone and only on chosen cell types, and the effect is reversible.

It has been used to map circuits behind memory, fear and reward, and researchers are attempting to use it to restore sight. Indian research funding for such long-horizon work now runs through the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF Act, 2023).

MoSPI’s statistical wing was reorganised in 2019, when the Central Statistics Office, which compiled national accounts and indices, and the National Sample Survey Office, which ran household surveys in numbered rounds, were merged into the National Statistics Office. The NSO runs the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey and now the NHTS.

The travel survey defines a travel-day as 3:00 AM to 2:59 AM, an overnight trip as more than 24 hours and at least 50 km from home, and the primary mode as the one used for the longest distance. It found students walk most (37.0 per cent), that urban workers spend about Rs 1,044 a month on commuting, and that metro and suburban rail carry 5.0 per cent of urban workers.

The National Urban Transport Policy, 2006 asked cities to plan for moving people rather than vehicles; such data were long missing for that purpose.

EFTA was founded in 1960 by the Stockholm Convention as an alternative to the European Economic Community; most founders later left to join the EU, leaving four members. TEPA was signed on 10 March 2024 and carries an EFTA commitment to promote USD 100 billion of investment and one million direct jobs in India over 15 years, a first for an Indian trade agreement.

In 2015 India adopted a new Model Bilateral Investment Treaty after arbitral awards such as White Industries (2011) went against it; it then gave notice to terminate older treaties whose initial term had expired, including the one with Switzerland. The 2015 model defines investment narrowly, requires investors to exhaust local remedies before arbitration and protects the State’s right to regulate.

The state visit also produced a Migration and Mobility Partnership MoU and an Agreement on the Exchange of Young Professionals (300 a year from each side, which may rise to 500).

Part IX of the Constitution, added by the 73rd Amendment Act, 1992, made Panchayati Raj institutions constitutional bodies. Article 243 defines the Gram Sabha as the body of all persons on the electoral rolls of a village; Article 243A lets the State Legislature give it powers; Article 243G and the Eleventh Schedule (29 subjects) let States devolve functions to panchayats.

The VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, which replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 and came into force on 1 July 2026, raises the guarantee from 100 to 125 days of wage work per rural household per year. Its Schedule of Permissible Works, notified by the Ministry of Rural Development, expands the list from 266 to 375 works, raises livelihood works from 1.1 to 26 per cent of the total, and creates a separate Disaster Preparedness pillar of 38 works.

Under MGNREGA, social audit by the Gram Sabha (Section 17) was the main check on ghost works and false muster rolls.

Project Cheetah began on 17 September 2022, when eight cheetahs from Namibia were released at Kuno; South Africa sent a second group in 2023 and Botswana nine cheetahs (six females and three males) in February 2026. The father of KJP21’s cubs is from Botswana, so the litter begins a third genetic line in India, which matters because a small founder population risks inbreeding.

KJP21 is the third Indian-born female to give birth, after Mukhi and KGP12, which shows a second generation breeding without fresh imports. The project’s problems have included adult deaths from infections and fights, cheetahs straying out of Kuno, competition with leopards and dependence on enclosures and collars.

Its larger purpose is grassland restoration: the open grasslands a cheetah needs also shelter the blackbuck, chinkara, Indian wolf and Great Indian Bustard, a habitat that forest-centred conservation has long neglected.

Coal supplies about three-quarters of India’s electricity. Coal mines were nationalised in 1971-73, and Coal India Limited, set up in 1975, produces most of the country’s coal through subsidiaries such as Mahanadi Coalfields and South Eastern Coalfields; it became a Maharatna in 2011.

The CEA advises the Centre on power policy, prepares the National Electricity Plan and monitors fuel stocks at plants; a plant is flagged critical when its stock falls well below the normative level. Stocks fall when demand outruns supply: a weak monsoon cuts hydropower, heat raises cooling demand, and rail logistics limit how fast coal moves from the coalfields of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Remedies include building stocks before peak seasons, first-mile mechanised loading, more rakes, imported-coal blending, battery and pumped storage to shift solar power into the evening peak, and demand-side measures such as time-of-day tariffs.

The Constitution began with a Chief Justice and seven other judges. The 1956 Act and its amendments raised the number of other judges to 10 (1956), 13 (1960), 17 (1977), 25 (1986), 30 (2008), 33 (2019) and 37 (2026).

Judges are appointed by the President under Article 124(2); since the Second Judges case (1993) and the Third Judges case (1998), appointments follow the recommendation of a collegium of the Chief Justice of India and the four senior-most judges. The 99th Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 sought to replace the collegium, but the Supreme Court struck both down in 2015 (Fourth Judges case).

The Memorandum of Procedure, agreed between the government and the judiciary, governs the process. A judge holds office until 65 and can be removed only by an order of the President after an address by each House of Parliament, supported by a special majority, on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity (Article 124(4)).

The Prakash Singh judgment of 2006 issued seven directions: a State Security Commission to set broad policy and keep the government from exerting unwarranted pressure on the police; selection of the DGP from three senior officers shortlisted by the UPSC, with a minimum tenure of two years; a minimum two-year tenure for key field officers; separation of investigation from law-and-order duties; a Police Establishment Board for transfers and postings; Police Complaints Authorities at State and district levels; and a National Security Commission for the Central police organisations. Compliance remains uneven.

For women’s safety, the Nirbhaya Fund (2013) finances projects such as one-stop centres, the 112 emergency response system and safe-city projects. The Court’s point in the Delhi case is that CCTV helps detect crime after the event but prevents it only when a control room watches the feed continuously and responds.

Before each Census, the Census Commissioner asks States to freeze the boundaries of administrative units such as districts, tehsils and towns, because units that change while enumerators are counting produce double counts, omissions and figures that no longer match maps. Ward delimitation for municipalities, however, is a State matter: it is done under State municipal laws, usually by the State government or the State Election Commission, and municipal elections must be held before the expiry of the five-year term (Article 243U).

The two timetables can collide, which is the question now before the Court for Census 2027. Census data also drive delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies, which Article 82 and Article 170 tie to the first Census after 2026 under the 84th and 87th Amendments, and the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Census 2027 will be India’s first digital census and will record caste.

Stubble burning peaks in October and November, when farmers in Punjab and Haryana clear paddy residue quickly to sow wheat; the smoke adds to Delhi’s winter smog, when low wind speeds and falling temperatures trap pollutants near the ground. The window shrank after the Punjab and Haryana groundwater laws of 2009 delayed paddy transplanting to save water, pushing the harvest later.

Responses fall into three groups: in-situ management (machines such as the Happy Seeder and Super Seeder, and bio-decomposers), ex-situ use (straw for biomass power, pellets for co-firing in thermal plants, and compressed biogas), and crop diversification away from paddy. CAQM can issue binding directions and now administers the Graded Response Action Plan (first notified in 2017), a set of measures triggered by Air Quality Index levels.

Its flying squads report daily to a CAQM cell at SAS Nagar, Mohali, and work with the Parali Protection Force and State Pollution Control Boards.

The TDB supports industrial concerns and other agencies that commercialise indigenous technology or adapt imported technology for wider use, through soft loans, equity and, rarely, grants. VeerAI is funded under the Research Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme, which provides long-term, low-cost finance for private research and development in strategic sectors, here as Optional Convertible Debt, a loan the lender may convert into equity.

Technology Readiness Levels, a scale first developed at NASA, run from 1 (basic principles) through laboratory validation (4) and validation in a relevant environment (5), to a prototype demonstrated in an operational setting (7) and a system proven in operation (9). The gap between levels 4 and 7, often called the valley of death, is where most start-ups fail for lack of capital.

India’s semiconductor push includes the India Semiconductor Mission (2021) for fabrication and assembly and the Design Linked Incentive scheme for chip design firms.

India and the UAE upgraded ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2017, and the relationship now spans the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (2022), trade settlement in national currencies, energy and defence. Military cooperation includes the army exercise Desert Cyclone, air force participation in Desert Flag in the UAE, and naval cooperation through Zayed Talwar.

Mountain Guardian focuses on high-altitude operations: joint planning, surveillance grids, drone operations, rock climbing and integrated field exercises. India’s Bhairav battalions, raised from 2025 as light commando units, take part from the Indian side.

Joint exercises build interoperability, test doctrine in unfamiliar terrain and signal political closeness; for India, the Gulf matters for energy, about 9 million expatriates and remittances, and the security of sea lanes in the Arabian Sea.

The Great Indian Bustard is one of the heaviest flying birds and lives in open grasslands and semi-arid scrub, mainly in Rajasthan’s Thar, with small numbers in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Its main threats are collisions with overhead power lines, which it cannot see well because its eyes face sideways, the conversion of grasslands into farms and wind and solar parks, and its slow breeding: a female lays usually one egg a season.

A conservation breeding programme, run by the Wildlife Institute of India with the Rajasthan Forest Department, has raised chicks from eggs collected in the wild. The Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment balanced the bird’s protection against India’s renewable energy goals, setting up an expert committee to decide where lines must go underground.

For Mains, the case shows how courts weigh one environmental good against another, and why grasslands, often classed as “wastelands”, need their own protection. The release of captive-bred birds is only a first step; survival in the wild will depend on safe habitat outside protected areas.

A notifiable disease is one that doctors, hospitals and laboratories must by law report to public health authorities. The idea is usually linked to infectious diseases, where reporting helps contain outbreaks, but notification is fundamentally about data: snakebite, also non-communicable, was made notifiable at the Centre’s request in 2024.

India’s cancer statistics come mainly from the National Cancer Registry Programme of ICMR, run by the National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research in Bengaluru, through population-based and hospital-based registries. These cover only part of the population, so national figures are partly modelled.

Notification would capture every diagnosis and, linked with registries, show where cancer occurs, who is affected and where patients drop out of treatment. The Concurrent List’s Entry 29 lets Parliament legislate on preventing the spread of infectious diseases between States, but cancer is not infectious, so States lead.

Any national system must protect patient privacy, as cancer data is highly sensitive. An early rise in reported cases would reflect better counting, not a sudden epidemic.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 to give effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which India ratified in 2007. It moved from a welfare approach to a rights approach, adding conditions such as acid attack survivors, autism spectrum disorder, specific learning disabilities and thalassaemia.

Its sections 40 to 46 deal with accessibility of buildings, transport and information and communication technology. In the Rajive Raturi case, the Supreme Court found the accessibility rules framed under the Act to be advisory in effect, contrary to the Act’s intent, and ordered binding standards.

The Chief Commissioner can inquire into complaints and has penalised establishments, including ministries, for inaccessible websites and apps, according to The Hindu op-ed. As artificial intelligence enters recruitment, welfare and health care, Mains answers can link these legal duties to new risks: models that perform worse for disabled users, and services with no human fallback.

Universal design, which builds accessibility in from the start, costs far less than retrofitting.

Affidavits are demanded for caste, income, residence and welfare claims, and in many court procedures. The writer of the column traces them to Act XIV of 1848, which let commissioned persons take sworn statements so that the maker need not appear in court.

Today the requirement often sends poor applicants to a typist, a stamp vendor and a notary, costing fees and a day’s work, for an oath that proves only belief, not fact. The column separates four questions: identity of the maker, admissibility, consequences of lying and the truth of the fact.

Law can answer the first three without an oath, and the fourth needs verification anyway. The United States accepts unsworn declarations under penalty of perjury, and Ireland allows electronically signed statements of truth.

The Centre has since 2013 asked departments to accept self-attested copies and self-declarations where possible. For GS2 and GS4, the theme links to citizen-centric administration, ease of living and trust-based governance, as in the Jan Vishwas Act, 2023.

Concerns include fraud if verification is weak and exclusion if authentication depends only on Aadhaar.

Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s major exporters of wheat, maize, sunflower oil and fertiliser inputs, so attacks on Black Sea ports and ships threaten food prices across the Global South. The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative showed that narrow, practical deals are possible even while a war continues: it set up a Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul to inspect ships.

India’s position since the war began in February 2022 has been to call for dialogue and diplomacy and to abstain on most UN resolutions condemning Russia, while sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine; its purchases of Russian oil have drawn criticism from the United States. In 2026 Ukraine’s Foreign Minister called India’s proposal the most comprehensive of four Kyiv had received, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said India had gone “beyond advocacy”.

For Mains, a good answer on India as a peacemaker weighs its access to both capitals and its stake in food, fertiliser and energy security against its limited leverage and Western doubts about its neutrality.

Because water is a State subject, central missions such as the Jal Jeevan Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission and Atal Bhujal Yojana work through cooperative federalism: the Centre sets norms and shares funds while States and Panchayats build and run the systems. The writers of the column, a former Jal Shakti Secretary and two researchers, set out four lessons: lead with governance, manage the water resource and the service together, root action in communities such as Pani Samitis, and build for scale.

They cite the “4 Ps” of political leadership, public financing, partnerships and people’s participation. A Mains answer should add the test of outcomes: a tap connection is not the same as a regular, safe supply, and functionality is assessed separately.

Groundwater over-extraction, water quality problems such as fluoride and arsenic, and funding for operation and maintenance remain challenges. Reuse of treated wastewater for industry, a market the writers value at about Rs 73,000 crore a year by 2047, can ease pressure on freshwater sources.