Current Affairs Quiz 10 October 2026

Article 16(4) lets the State reserve appointments or posts for any backward class of citizens which, in its opinion, is not adequately represented in the services under the State. The clause sets no number.

The fifty per cent limit comes from Indra Sawhney (1992 Supp (3) SCC 217): para 809 says reservations under Article 16(4) ‘should not exceed 50%’, and para 810 allows relaxation only in extraordinary situations. The text of the Constitution refers to the ceiling in Article 16(4B), which keeps carried-forward vacancies out of the count, and Article 16(6) adds an EWS quota of up to ten per cent ‘in addition to the existing reservation’.

On 9 October 2026 the Madhya Pradesh High Court declared the State’s 27% OBC quota contrary to the 50% ceiling and held OBCs entitled to 14% in public services and higher education. It said ‘This case is not about grant of reservation but extent of reservation’.

The same day, as The Hindu reported, the Supreme Court upheld the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s 1 October verdict that the State had failed to produce the empirical data needed to breach the ceiling.

Three kinds of court sit behind this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The ICTR was created by the UN Security Council for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda and neighbouring States in 1994, and is located in Arusha, Tanzania.

The prize announcement says that when the ICTR established that rape and sexual violence could constitute a crime against humanity, as well as genocide, Pillay’s influence was a significant factor. The ICC is permanent and treaty-based: the Rome Statute was adopted on 17 July 1998, and as a court of last resort the ICC seeks to complement, not replace, national courts.

The ICJ hears cases between States: The Gambia against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention, with public hearings on the merits from 12 to 29 January 2026. Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, born into a family of Indian Tamil origin in Durban, South Africa, has been a judge of the High Court in South Africa, the ICTR and the ICC, and was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured her ‘for her efforts to promote peace and international law’.

The circular of 9 October 2026 is addressed to all scheduled banks and issued under section 42(1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. Until now banks could keep, on any day of the reporting fortnight, not less than 90 per cent of the required CRR, provided the average of CRR maintained daily was not less than the CRR prescribed.

From the fortnight beginning 16 October 2026 the daily floor will be 99 per cent. The RBI gave its reason in one line: ‘On a review of the current liquidity conditions’.

On 7 October the Monetary Policy Committee raised the policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent. On 10 October the RBI created a Foreign Exchange Risk Reserve of 20 per cent of the notional amount on certain rupee hedges above USD two million, kept as cash with the Reserve Bank, and barred the rebooking of cancelled foreign exchange derivative contracts.

For Prelims, keep the two CRR ideas apart: the CRR is the ratio a bank must maintain on average over the fortnight; the daily minimum is the share of it that must be held every single day. Only the second has moved.

The NTA was approved by the Union Cabinet on 10 November 2017 as a registered society and an autonomous, self-sustained premier testing organisation for entrance examinations. Its CEO is the Director General, appointed by the Government.

It conducts JEE-Mains, NEET-UG, UGC-NET and CUET among others. The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 was enacted on 12 February 2024 and came into force on 21 June 2024.

It covers examinations by the UPSC, SSC, RRBs, IBPS, the NTA and Central ministries and departments for recruitment, and any other authority the Centre notifies. Parliament has since raised its penalties through the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Act, 2026 (Act No. 10 of 2026), which received the President’s assent on 31 July 2026.

The Standing Committee’s 382nd report notes that JEE-Mains, UGC-NET and CUET already run on computer-based testing and recommends that NEET move to it too. It also wants a National Registry of Blacklisted Examination Vendors, publicly accessible online, and asks the Ministry to explore reasonable age and attempt limits, since NEET (UG) at present has no limit on attempts and no real upper age limit.

India’s approach to fraudulent communications has five layers: real-time blocking of spoofed international calls; identification of fraudulent mobile connections through C-DOT’s AI-based ASTR tool; citizen participation through Sanchar Saathi; intelligence sharing through the Digital Intelligence Platform; and measures addressing emerging fraud channels. The figures cited for each: ASTR has helped disconnect over 82 lakh fraudulent connections, the Sanchar Saathi app has recorded around 25 million downloads, and the DIP connects over 1,600 organisations.

The Financial Fraud Risk Indicator has helped prevent suspected financial losses exceeding ₹5,000 crore in 15 months. Indians lost over ₹22,800 crore to such fraud in 2024.

Because fraud now crosses borders, through impersonation, digital arrest scams, AI-generated voice cloning and deepfakes, India backed ITU standards for digital verification of caller identity across international networks and suggested beginning trials between willing countries on selected international routes. In the Minister’s words, 'Fraud is a network problem.

It needs a network answer.’

The Election Commission of India capped the number of Form 7s a voter can submit, to contain bulk applications seeking the deletion of voter names during the special intensive revision (SIR) in many States. An individual elector may file at most 10 during the period of claims and objections and five a month during the continuous updation of rolls, and the cap applies to both online and physical forms.

Until now there was no limit on physical Form 7s. Booth-level agents of recognised political parties may still file in bulk during the SIR, but not more than 50 forms a day before the draft roll is published and 10 a day after it.

For an individual elector, applications are filed as per para 11.3.2(ii) of the Manual on Electoral Rolls, 2023. The Commission said bulk Form 7s filed by individual voters on unsubstantiated grounds inconvenience the elector objected upon and increase the workload of field-level functionaries.

Its directive asks the ERO to ensure that full details are filled in each Form 7 and that it is signed by the objector, and says the ERO will act against an applicant whose complaint is false or fabricated.

Mangrol is designed to detect and counter underwater threats in coastal and shallow waters, where larger warships face operational limitations. It carries the Abhay hull-mounted sonar, lightweight torpedoes, an indigenous anti-submarine rocket launcher and the Maareech advanced torpedo decoy system.

Three diesel engines with waterjet propulsion give it high manoeuvrability in shallow waters, and it can also undertake underwater surveillance, Low-Intensity Maritime Operations and mine warfare-related tasks. It can operate alongside maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters and other warships to detect and counter submarine threats.

Built with over 80% indigenous content under the Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiatives, it marks a step towards self-reliance in defence shipbuilding. The craft is named after Mangrol, a coastal town and prominent fishing harbour in Gujarat’s Junagadh district, and carries forward the legacy of the erstwhile INS Mangrol (M85), a minesweeper that served the Indian Navy until 7 April 2004.

It is the third ASW-SWC from Cochin Shipyard Limited.

UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2026 was released on 9 October 2026. As reported by The Hindu, it finds that greenfield investment, the investment companies make in new ventures in another country, is increasingly going into strategic sectors, whose share of global greenfield investment grew from 16 per cent to 44 per cent between 2020 and 2025.

India drew 5.7 per cent of global greenfield investment over 2020 to 2025, ahead of Malaysia (4 per cent), Indonesia (3.8 per cent) and China (2.8 per cent). Among strategic sectors, AI infrastructure and related technologies drew the largest share, 12.4 per cent of the $845.7 billion of global greenfield investment in the period, followed by the semiconductor value chain (8.1 per cent) and energy transition technologies and services (7.8 per cent).

Strategic investment still concentrates in Europe (28.4 per cent) and North America (28 per cent). UNCTAD warned that ‘The geographic disparity in strategic investment underscores the growing integration challenges for the Global South, especially for the least developed countries.’ For Prelims, remember the publisher and the report’s name.