Current Affairs Quiz 23 October 2026

Three Articles frame a Governor’s entry into office. Article 155 provides that ‘The Governor of a State shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal.’ Article 156(1) makes the tenure one held ‘during the pleasure of the President’.

Article 159 fixes the oath: before entering office, the Governor makes an oath or affirmation in the presence of the Chief Justice of the High Court exercising jurisdiction in relation to the State or, in his absence, the senior most Judge of that Court available. Appointments are announced by a communique of the President’s Secretariat.

The communique behind the latest change said the appointments ‘will take effect from the dates they will assume charge of their respective offices’, so the date of appointment and the date of taking charge can differ, and an aspirant should keep the two apart. For Mains, the pleasure clause in Article 156(1) is the starting point for any discussion of the Governor’s independence and of Centre-State relations, and the oath under Article 159 ties the office to the State’s own High Court.

India measures industry in three ways, and the exam tests which body runs which. The IIP is a monthly index of industrial output compiled by MoSPI.

Its new series, with base year 2022-23 (earlier 2011-12), was first released in June 2026 and has four sectors: mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity and gas supply; and water supply, sewerage and waste management. Manufacturing carries 76.062 of its 100 weight points.

The ICI is ‘a monthly production volume index’ of key infrastructure industries, compiled by the OEA in DPIIT. Its new series has nine industries, iron ore having been added, with a combined weight of 32.88 per cent in the IIP.

Within the ICI the largest weights are electricity (30.932), refinery products (22.572) and steel (17.584). Gross Value Added (GVA), estimated each quarter by MoSPI’s National Statistics Office, tracks value added, while the two indices track output.

Because the ICI comes about ten days before the IIP, it is read as an early signal, but it covers only about a third of the IIP’s weight.

Prasar Bharati is India’s public service broadcaster, in existence since 23 November 1997, with Akashvani (All India Radio) and Doordarshan as its constituents; it also operates DD Freedish. It was set up under the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990 (Act No. 25 of 1990), which came into force on 15 September 1997, and has its headquarters in New Delhi.

Section 12 sets its duty: to organise and conduct public broadcasting services ‘to inform, educate and entertain the public’. Its Board has a Chairman, an Executive Member who is the Chief Executive, Members for Finance and Personnel, six part-time members, the two Directors-General, a Ministry nominee and two elected staff representatives.

The Act builds in oversight: a Parliamentary Committee (Section 13), a Broadcasting Council to consider complaints (Sections 14 and 15) and Recruitment Boards (Section 10). The idea of an autonomous broadcaster goes back to the Working Group chaired by B.G. Verghese, which reported on 24 February 1978 and recommended an ‘Akash Bharti’, or National Broadcasting Trust.

Fertiliser subsidy in India runs on two different designs, and the difference is a common Prelims trap. For urea, the price is fixed: farmers buy at a statutorily notified Maximum Retail Price of Rs 242 per 45 kg bag of neem-coated urea, excluding neem-coating charges and taxes, and the Government pays manufacturers and importers the difference between the delivered cost and the market realisation as subsidy.

When costs rise, the farmer’s price stays put and the subsidy grows. For phosphatic and potassic fertilisers such as DAP, the subsidy is fixed: under the Nutrient Based Subsidy scheme, in force since 1 April 2010, the Government gives a fixed subsidy, revised annually or biannually, linked to the content of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur in each grade, and companies set the MRP at reasonable levels under government oversight.

Twenty-eight grades were covered in the Kharif 2026 round (1 April to 30 September 2026). For Mains, the two designs explain why a global price shock lands on the exchequer for urea, while for P&K fertilisers it depends on how far the fixed subsidy is revised.

The Forest Rights Act (FRA), in full the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, covers two groups: Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. Its process begins in the village: Section 6(1) says ‘The Gram Sabha shall be the authority to initiate the process’.

Among the rights the Act recognises, Section 3(1)(e) provides for ‘rights including community tenures of habitat and habitation for primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities’, the basis of habitat rights for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Progress on these has been slow: habitat rights have been recognised for only 11 of the country’s 75 PVTGs, and guidelines on PVTG habitat rights are dated 5 January 2026.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs reviewed implementation in three regional conferences: Bengaluru on 10 September 2026, Kolkata on 9 October 2026 and Srinagar on 23 October 2026. For Mains, link the Gram Sabha’s role under Section 6(1) to tribal self-governance, and PVTG habitat rights to the protection of the most vulnerable tribal groups.

The Emissions Gap Report, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) every year since 2010, measures the gap between where global greenhouse gas emissions are heading if countries carry out their climate pledges and where they should be to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. It is launched ahead of each UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) to inform the negotiations, and is co-produced by UNEP, the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre and partners.

The pledges it assesses are Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): each country’s own climate pledge under the Paris Agreement, whose goal is to limit warming to well below 2°C and to pursue 1.5°C. India’s NDC for 2031-2035 targets a 47 per cent cut in the emissions intensity of GDP by 2035 from the 2005 level, 60 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil sources by 2035, and a carbon sink of 3.5 to 4.0 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through forest and tree cover by 2035, in line with net zero by 2070. Watch the base year: the 2026 report measures cuts against 2025 levels, not 2019.

Two sets of rules govern the meeting point of drug companies and doctors. For doctors, clause 6.8 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 says ‘A medical practitioner shall not receive any gift from any pharmaceutical or allied health care industry and their sales people or representatives’, and also covers travel, hospitality and cash or monetary grants.

For companies, the Department of Pharmaceuticals issued the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices, first in 2015 as ‘a voluntary, industry-led self-regulatory mechanism’, and then as UCPMP 2024, which superseded the 2015 version and is currently in operation. The 2024 Code bars gifts, travel, hospitality and cash grants to healthcare professionals and their families.

Complaints go to the Ethics Committee for Pharma Marketing Practices of each industry association, chaired by its Chief Executive Officer, which should decide within 90 days. Penalties include suspension or expulsion from the association, a published reprimand, a corrective statement or recovery of the money or items given; statutory action goes to the agency concerned through the Department of Pharmaceuticals.

Labour statistics are among the most quoted numbers in Mains answers, so the source matters. The PLFS has been run by the NSO in MoSPI since 2017.

Its sampling design was revamped from January 2025 to give monthly, quarterly and annual estimates, and information on digital platform workers, ‘a subset of gig workers’, has been collected on an experimental basis since January 2026. MoSPI also compiles the Index of Industrial Production, and its NSO estimates Gross Value Added each quarter.

The NSO has now proposed a new sampling design from January 2027, when fresh samples for the two-year period 2027-2028 are drawn; it remains a proposal until it is adopted. When an answer quotes an unemployment figure, it should name the survey, the kind of estimate (monthly, quarterly or annual) and the period it covers.

India’s maritime outreach in the Indo-Pacific rests on a vision, an initiative and a set of platforms. The vision is MAHASAGAR, Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions.

The initiative is the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, promulgated by India’s Prime Minister at the 14th East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2019; the official release says it ‘provides first-order specificity to India’s maritime vision of MAHASAGAR’. The platforms include the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue, the Indian Navy’s annual apex-level international outreach conference, with the National Maritime Foundation as knowledge partner and principal organiser.

Its 2026 theme is ‘Science, Technology and Academic Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’, and experts from 18 countries will take part. Bilateral exercises are the operational side.

INDRA, the series between the Indian Navy and the Russian Federation Navy since 2003, had a harbour phase and a sea phase in its 2026 edition; the sea phase covered coordinated manoeuvring, integrated communications, helicopter operations and medical evacuation drills.

Chennamma, the queen of Kitturu, was born in Kakati, in today’s Belagavi district of Karnataka, and married Raja Mallasarja of the Desai family. After her son died in 1824, she adopted Shivalingappa and made him heir.

The British East India Company did not accept this under the Doctrine of Lapse, under which a princely state would be annexed if its ruler was manifestly incompetent or died without a male heir. Kittur was taken over in 1824 by imposing the doctrine even before Lord Dalhousie officially articulated it; in the words of a PIB feature of 2016, Dalhousie ‘merely made it official in 1848’.

In the first battle, in October 1824, British forces lost heavily, and the Collector and political agent, St. John Thackeray, was killed by the Kitturu forces. Chennamma was ultimately captured and imprisoned at Bailhongal Fort, where she died on 21 February 1829.

Her lieutenants included Sangolli Rayanna and Gurusiddappa. For Prelims, keep the doctrine’s application to Kittur in 1824 apart from Dalhousie’s formal policy of 1848.

The FSDC is an apex-level council of the Union government and India’s financial sector regulators. It was announced in the Union Budget 2010-11, constituted by a Government of India notification dated 30 December 2010, held its first meeting on 31 December 2010, and replaced the High Level Coordination Committee on Financial Markets.

The Union Finance Minister chairs it; members include the Minister of State for Finance, the heads of the financial sector regulators and the Secretaries of the relevant Ministries and Departments. Its remit covers financial stability, financial sector development, inter-regulatory coordination, financial literacy, financial inclusion and macro-prudential supervision of the economy, including the functioning of large financial conglomerates.

The Budget speech set it up ‘Without prejudice to the autonomy of regulators’, so it coordinates rather than commands. On cyber security, CERT-In serves under Section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 as ‘the national agency for performing the following functions in the area of cyber security’, and CSIRT-Fin is its sectoral unit for the financial sector.

According to the DGFSCDHG, the Chinese aggression of 1962 and the Indo-Pak conflict of 1965 led to a re-think of Civil Defence policy, and Parliament passed the Civil Defence Act, 1968 (Act 27 of 1968) in May 1968. The Act extends to the whole of India and authorised the raising of Civil Defence Corps.

The Civil Defence (Amendment) Act, 2009 added disaster management as an additional role. Civil Defence ‘is primarily organised on voluntary basis’.

The Directorate General of Fire Services, Civil Defence & Home Guards is under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The new pilot follows the Prime Minister’s Independence Day address from the Red Fort on 15 August 2026, in which, PIB says, he ‘announced the vision of building a vibrant Civil Defence network’.

Under the pilot, Master Trainers from 12 States and UTs will go through a three-day programme at designated Indian Army training establishments. For Mains, Civil Defence links internal security with disaster management: a largely voluntary body, set up by law after the wars of the 1960s, that the 2009 amendment gave a disaster role.

India and Bangladesh share a 4,096.7 km border and 54 common rivers, and a set of agreements manages both. The Joint Rivers Commission, set up in June 1972, is the bilateral river mechanism.

The Ganga Waters Treaty, signed in New Delhi on 12 December 1996, shares the Ganga’s flow at Farakka from 1 January to 31 May by 10-day periods; if the flow falls below 50,000 cusecs in any 10-day period, the two governments enter into immediate consultations. It runs 30 years from signature and is renewable on the basis of mutual consent.

On the Teesta, a draft interim sharing agreement was agreed in January 2011 but was not concluded as of the Joint Statement of 27 March 2021. On land, the Land Boundary Agreement of 16 May 1974 and its Protocol of 6 September 2011 led, after Parliament passed the Constitution (One Hundredth Amendment) Bill, 2015, to the exchange on 31 July 2015 of 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh for 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India.

Of the border, 3,232.218 km was fenced by February 2025.