Current Affairs Quiz 17 October 2026

Basel III is the capital framework of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements, which the RBI applied through its Master Circular on Basel III Capital Regulations of 1 July 2015, the version in force in March 2020. Capital comes in layers.

Tier 1 is going-concern capital and must be at least 7% of risk-weighted assets; within it, Common Equity Tier 1 must be at least 5.5%, and the remaining 1.5% may be Additional Tier 1 instruments. Tier 2 is gone-concern capital.

An AT-1 bond must be able to absorb losses, and Annex 16 of the Master Circular gives it two triggers. The pre-specified trigger bites when CET1 falls below 6.125% of risk-weighted assets, which is the 5.5% minimum plus 25% of the capital conservation buffer; the bank then has the option to convert or write down.

The point of non-viability is determined by the RBI. Yes Bank’s CET1 had fallen to 0.6% on 31 December 2019 against a requirement of 7.375%.

The bank chose not to use the first trigger, and the RBI did not use the second. The Court also noted that AT-1 bonds, as high-risk securities, are to be offered only to institutional investors, yet Yes Bank had offered them to individuals.

The Banking Regulation Act, 1949 carries the main tools for rescuing a failing bank. Section 45 provides for a moratorium and a scheme of reconstruction or amalgamation: for Yes Bank, the Central Government imposed a moratorium on 5 March 2020 till 3 April 2020, and the Yes Bank Limited Reconstruction Scheme, 2020 came into force on 13 March 2020.

Section 36ACA lets the RBI, in consultation with the Central Government, supersede a bank’s Board for up to six months, extendable to a total of twelve months, and appoint an Administrator. The Administrator is not an officer of the Central or a State Government, must have experience in law, finance, banking, economics or accountancy, and is bound to follow the RBI’s directions.

The Supreme Court’s reading of these powers is the core of its Yes Bank judgment of 15 October 2026. The Administrator stands in for the Board, so his powers are the Board’s, not the regulator’s. His write-down of the AT-1 bonds on 14 March 2020, the day after the Scheme took effect, was held ultra vires.

In the Court’s words: ‘Any act performed by the administrator beyond the powers clothed upon him would be wholly illegal and void.’

Aditya-L1 is India’s first dedicated solar mission. Launched on PSLV-C57 on 2 September 2023, it reached a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point on 6 January 2024.

‘Aditya’ means the Sun in Sanskrit, and L1 is Lagrange Point 1 of the Sun-Earth system, about 1.5 million km from Earth. ISRO says all seven of its payloads were developed indigenously: four view the Sun directly and three study particles and fields in situ at L1.

The prime payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), built by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, takes spectra of the corona from 1.05 to 1.5 solar radii in the 5303 Angstrom green line. A coronagraph blocks the Sun’s disc to make an artificial eclipse, because the Sun is around a million times brighter than the brightest point in the corona.

ESA’s Proba-3, launched by India’s PSLV-XL from Sriharikota on 5 December 2024, does this with two spacecraft about 150 m apart, one casting a shadow on the other, and its ASPIICS coronagraph takes images. Together the two instruments caught two coronal mass ejections, of 14 and 16 September 2025, and their estimates of mass and thermal energy agree well.

Gaganyaan aims, in ISRO’s words, at ‘launching crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3 days mission’ and bringing them back safely to a landing in Indian sea waters. The launcher is HLVM3, the LVM3 with its solid, liquid and cryogenic stages re-configured for human rating.

The spacecraft, the Orbital Module, has two parts joined by a separation system: the Crew Module, habitable and built for re-entry, and the unpressurised Service Module, which supports it in orbit. Before re-entry the CM is separated from the SM through multiple, precisely sequenced events involving pyrotechnic devices and jettisoning systems; the ground tests at VSSC simulated this, including the severing of several umbilical connections.

Safety is being proven one system at a time. The TV-D1 flight of 21 October 2023 demonstrated an in-flight abort of the Crew Escape System at Mach 1.2, air-drop tests exercised the deceleration system of 10 parachutes of 4 types, and the fifth main-parachute airdrop test qualified the Main Parachute for the maximum expected loads of G1.

G1, the first uncrewed mission, is to carry the Vyommitra half-humanoid and is targeted for launch in 2026; two more uncrewed missions are targeted by 2027 before India’s first crewed orbital mission. The Union Cabinet approved Rs 20,193 crore in September 2024 for eight missions.

The Finance Ministry’s clarification on its IDBI stake turns on the limit of promissory estoppel against a statute. When the IDBI (Repeal) Act, 2003 was enacted, an amendment seeking to restrict the dilution of the Government’s stake ‘was moved but was ultimately rejected and did not form part of the enacted legislation’, the Ministry says.

In 2018, in All India IDBI Officers’ Association v. Union of India & Others, the Delhi High Court dismissed a writ petition and held the principles of promissory estoppel ‘wholly inapplicable’; in the Ministry’s summary, the doctrine ‘could not be invoked to prevent the Government from reducing or divesting its stake’. The Ministry also points to policy continuity.

The Budget speech for 2016-17 said the Government would ‘also consider the option of reducing its stake to below 50%’, and the Budget speech for 2021-22 proposed, besides IDBI Bank, the privatisation of two Public Sector Banks and one General Insurance company. On 14 October 2026 the CCEA approved 10955230 Canada Inc. (parent: Fairfax Financial Holdings) as the Strategic Buyer of 60.72% of IDBI Bank for about Rs 52,878 crore.

RBI checks remain, so the sale is not complete.

The Press Council of India is a statutory, quasi-judicial, autonomous authority. The first Council was set up in 1966 under the Indian Press Council Act, 1965; the present one was re-established in 1979 under the Press Council Act, 1978.

It consists of a Chairman and 28 members, and after an inquiry it may warn, admonish or censure. The Council adopted guidelines for journalists covering protests and demonstrations at its meeting of 14 October 2026, PTI reported.

Reporters are to display a press identity card issued by their organisation, or a PIB or State government accreditation card. They are to stay neutral and not take part in demonstrations, take sides or provoke confrontations, and to follow lawful police instructions while calmly asserting press status when necessary.

They are to keep a safe distance from confrontations and use protective headgear and body armour according to the assessed threat. On reporting, they are to verify through multiple sources, treat the statements of protesters, organisers, police and government with equal scrutiny, and not publish real-time police positions where that could compromise safety.

Newsrooms are to designate a point of contact to monitor journalists’ locations and respond to emergencies.

In its bail order of 16 October 2026 in the alleged Jal Jeevan Mission tender case, a Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu set out the factors that decided it, as The Hindu reported. The investigation was complete and chargesheets had been filed.

The evidence was overwhelmingly documentary and electronic, so the scope for tampering was substantially obviated, and no custodial interrogation was needed. The trial, on the other hand, was large: 22 accused, three chargesheets, 124 prosecution witnesses and 20,000 pages of documents, with charges not yet framed.

Holding that prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be allowed to ‘degenerate into punishment without trial’, and that gravity alone cannot justify indefinite detention, the Court set aside the Rajasthan High Court’s order of 13 August denying regular bail. It imposed conditions: bail bonds and sureties; no inducement, threat or promise to witnesses and no tampering; and liberty to the trial court to cancel bail on breach.

Bail is not acquittal. The prosecution alleges that two firms secured 104 tenders of Rajasthan’s Public Health Engineering Department, worth Rs 979.45 crore, using forged certificates; that case is still to be tried.

The Census Rules, 1990 were made under Section 18(1) of the Census Act, 1948, and Rule 3 says who may serve as census officers. Its entry for enumerators used to read ‘Teachers, Clerks or any official or any person’; in practice, The Hindu says, mostly government school teachers and revenue and other State government officials were engaged.

The amendment notified in the gazette by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India on 16 October 2026 spells out three categories: teachers of any educational institution of the government, a local authority, or aided or unaided private bodies, societies or trusts; clerks or officials of the Central or State Government, a local authority or an establishment, including public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, banks, companies, institutions, societies and trusts; and any person a State Government or UT Administration considers suitable. The power to appoint stays with the States and UT Administrations.

The reason is scale: around 34 lakh enumerators for the Population Enumeration, which will be held door to door in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab from 1 December 2026 to 4 January 2027, and in February 2027 in the rest of the country. Private schools have gone to court: the Punjab and Haryana High Court and, in May, the Bombay High Court gave them interim relief.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed every year on 17 October. It began with a gathering of over a hundred thousand people at the Trocadéro in Paris on 17 October 1987 to honour the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger, and the UN General Assembly declared the Day through resolution 47/196, adopted on 22 December 1992.

It falls within the Third UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027), proclaimed by resolution 72/233; SDG 1 sets the goal of ending poverty. The theme for 2026-2028 is ‘United for Peace and Human Rights’, and the 2026 observance focuses on ‘Safe Homes for All’.

The UN says that ‘More than 2.8 billion people worldwide face some form of housing inadequacy’, and it names three areas of action: make safe housing a human-rights priority, design policies with people experiencing poverty, and mobilise resources for safe homes for all. The observance builds on the Doha Political Declaration (A/RES/80/5), adopted by the General Assembly after the Second World Summit for Social Development in November 2025.

Each instrument takes its force from a different law. SEBI’s circular of 15 October 2026 on the Closing Auction Session, market timings and the settlement of derivatives cites Section 11(1) of the SEBI Act, 1992, read with Regulation 51 of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) (Stock Exchanges and Clearing Corporations) Regulations, 2018.

From 7 December 2026 the Closing Auction Session will be a separate 10-minute session from 3:30 pm to 3:40 pm, stop-loss orders will not be allowed in it, and expiry-day settlement prices will be computed from volume-weighted average prices over the last 30 minutes of the Continuous Trading Session. On airfares, the Centre told the Supreme Court that rules framed under the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024 to regulate volatile airfares and predatory pricing had administrative approval and would be published within two weeks; in an earlier affidavit it had said they would replace the Aircraft Rules, 1937.

The petition says there is currently no regulatory authority with the power to review or cap airfares, and the next hearing will be on 16 November. The scheme of merger of REC Limited with and into PFC under Sections 230-232 of the Companies Act, 2013 received an RBI no-objection certificate on 15 October 2026, according to PFC’s filing; the approvals of shareholders and creditors, and other statutory approvals, remain.

Electoral rolls rest on the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Article 324(1) vests the superintendence, direction and control of their preparation in the Election Commission, and Article 326 entitles every citizen of eighteen or more, not otherwise disqualified, to be registered.

Section 21 of the 1950 Act sets the method. The roll is prepared by reference to the qualifying date.

It is revised before each general election and each bye-election unless the ECI directs otherwise for reasons recorded in writing, and in any year if the ECI so directs; a roll that is not revised stays valid. Section 21(3) adds a separate power: a special revision for any constituency or part of one, at any time, for reasons to be recorded, with the existing roll in force until it is complete.

Since 1 August 2022 the amended Section 14(b) gives four qualifying dates a year, but the annual summary revision uses 1 January only. The special summary revision ordered on 15 October 2026 for 17 States and UTs, as reported by IANS and ANI, takes 1 January 2027 as its qualifying date, with draft rolls due by 12 November and final rolls expected on 4 January 2027.

Aadhaar is voluntary, and the Electoral Registration Officer must ensure that no eligible citizen is left out and no ineligible person is included.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 entitles up to 75% of the rural and up to 50% of the urban population to foodgrains, which at Census 2011 comes to about 81.35 crore people. Antyodaya Anna Yojana households receive 35 kg per family per month, and priority households 5 kg per person per month.

Each State’s coverage was set by the erstwhile Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog) on the NSSO’s Household Consumption Survey data for 2011-12, and the States and UTs identify the households within that coverage under Section 10. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, foodgrains are free to about 81.35 crore beneficiaries for five years from 1 January 2024, at a food subsidy of about Rs 11.80 lakh crore over the five years, by the Cabinet decision of 29 November 2023.

The Hindu’s editorial on the 2026 economics prize to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford draws a lesson from this. Hall and Fredric Mishkin (1982) found that around 80 per cent of the households they studied made their consumption decisions in line with the theory and the rest lived hand-to-mouth, and the Academy notes that such shares vary but ‘can be estimated’.

The paper argues that free foodgrains should be targeted with fresher data than the 2011 base.

A double taxation avoidance agreement settles tax disputes between the two governments through the mutual agreement procedure, and some add mandatory binding arbitration. A bilateral investment treaty gives the foreign investor its own route, investor-state dispute settlement, in which the investor, not its government, brings the claim against the host state.

Forum shopping is the choice of the investment route for a tax dispute, to use broader standards such as fair and equitable treatment. Two awards shaped India’s response.

Both arose from the Finance Act 2012, which amended Section 9(1)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and reached back to indirect transfers made before it. In Vodafone (25 September 2020, under the Netherlands-India BIT) the tribunal ruled unanimously for the company; in Cairn (21 December 2020, under the UK-India BIT) it found that India had failed to accord fair and equitable treatment and awarded about US$ 1.23 billion plus interest.

The Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 then gave relief for indirect transfers made before 28 May 2012, on condition that the taxpayer withdrew its appeals and any arbitration and waived further claims. India’s Model BIT text of 28 December 2015 carves tax out and lets the host State decide what is a tax matter.

The India-UAE BIT, in force from 31 August 2024, has a taxation carve-out and ISDS with mandatory exhaustion of local remedies for 3 years.

When a report says exports, check what it counts. India’s monthly trade release gives merchandise (goods) exports and a far larger combined figure for goods and services; the services figures come from the RBI, and the latest month is an estimate.

In September 2026, provisional goods exports were US$ 44.40 billion, up 23.04% from US$ 36.08 billion, while goods and services together came to US$ 80.75 billion, up 10.99%. Over April-September 2026-27, goods exports were US$ 259.89 billion, up 18.51%, and non-petroleum exports US$ 218.70 billion, up 15.56%.

The full year is flatter: goods exports in 2025-26 were US$ 441.78 billion, up only 0.93% on 2024-25. The USA is the largest destination, with exports there up 47.99% in September alone, and China the largest import source, with a goods deficit of US$ 68.9 billion in the half-year; exports to the UAE and Saudi Arabia fell in April-September.

The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 seeks US$ 2 trillion of exports by 2030. The Indian Express says the currency’s decline ‘is likely to have played a role’ in export competitiveness, but that the RBI ‘should resist targeting any rupee/dollar level’, and it asks the government to push ahead with its reform agenda: trade agreements, manufacturing and foreign investment.