Current Affairs Quiz 7 November 2026

Article 15(4) lets the State make special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, and Article 16(4) deals with posts under the State. The Office Memorandum No. 36012/22/93-Estt (SCT) is dated 8 September 1993, and it modified an earlier memorandum of 13 August 1990.

Its post-based categories cannot be applied to a Public Sector Undertaking or a bank until those posts are matched with Government posts. Because such equivalence ‘had not been formally determined’, the Department of Personnel and Training applied the Income/Wealth Test under Category VI, read with a letter of 14 October 2004, to parents employed in Public Sector Undertakings.

The Court rejected that approach in March. The November Order then settled its reach: the ratio ‘shall not, by itself, furnish a ground for reopening selections or appointments already concluded’ (para 18(v)), and equivalence and policy matters ‘fall within the domain of the executive and the legislature’ (para 18(viii)).

The issue, the Court said, was ‘confined to delineating the ambit of the operative directions’.

Original jurisdiction means a case begins in the Supreme Court. Article 131 covers disputes between the Government of India and States, or between States, on a legal right.

Article 363 is a separate bar, on disputes arising out of pre-Constitution agreements executed by Rulers of Indian States. It did not apply here, because the only proved agreement, the Merger Agreement of 15 August 1948, ‘contained no provision touching allocation of power’.

The legal right came from statute: section 78(1) of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 ‘itself conferred a legal right enforceable under Article 131’. The right was enforceable against Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and the Union, but not against Rajasthan, which had never formed part of composite Punjab.

The State’s 7.19% share rested on the proportion of composite Punjab’s population transferred to it, while its claim to 12% free power failed. The Court took the arrears at 13,066 million units, adjusted about 1,093 against the State’s capital-cost liability, and directed Punjab and Haryana to supply the balance of about 11,973 million units over 20 lean seasons, about 598 a year.

Under Article II(1) of the Indus Waters Treaty, the waters of the three eastern rivers (the Ravi, the Beas and the Satluj) are available ‘for the unrestricted use of India’. Pandoh and Pong both stand on the Beas, which flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab into the Sutlej in Punjab.

Pandoh diverts Beas water through tunnels and an open channel to the Dehar power house, which the Board describes as ‘connecting the mighty rivers of Beas and Satluj’. Pong stands in Kangra district, just upstream of Talwara.

The Bhakra Management Board was constituted under section 79 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, and was renamed the Bhakra Beas Management Board with effect from 15 May 1976. It regulates water and power from the Projects for Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh.

The judgment records the submergence of about 27,869 acres of the erstwhile State of Bilaspur for Bhakra-Nangal and over 65,050 acres in Kangra district for Beas, which is why these places matter in the case and in an answer on it.

Article 326 entitles a citizen aged 18 or above, not otherwise disqualified, to be registered as a voter at elections to the House of the People and State Assemblies. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 turns this into rules for the roll: section 16 on disqualification, section 19 on conditions of registration and section 20 on the meaning of ‘ordinarily resident’.

Section 21(3) adds the power to direct a special revision of a roll. In 2026 INSC 564, the Supreme Court dismissed the challenge to the Special Intensive Revision in Bihar, and its reasoning drew on section 16.

These tests explain why a roll cannot cover everyone who may need a welfare benefit: a citizen under 18 has no place on it, and enrolment turns on ordinary residence in a constituency. The Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) is the voter ID, and the e-EPIC is a secure PDF version of it.

Keep two questions apart in an answer: who may be on the roll is settled by law, and whether the roll should serve other purposes is a question of policy.

Article 22(3)(b) takes preventive detention outside clauses (1) and (2), so the 24-hour rule for production before a magistrate does not govern it. Article 22 supplies its own safeguards instead.

Clause (4) deals with the Advisory Board, and clause (5) requires the grounds to be communicated ‘as soon as may be’ with ‘the earliest opportunity of making a representation’. The National Security Act, 1980 builds its clocks on these clauses: the grounds under Section 8(1), a reference to the Advisory Board within three weeks under Section 10, a Board report within seven weeks under Section 11(1), and the outer limit under Section 13.

The detention order in this case was issued under Section 3(2), and cited activities ‘prejudicial to the maintenance of public order as well as security of the state’, PTI reported. Read the Article and the Act together: three months is the point at which the Constitution requires a Board’s opinion, and twelve months is the ceiling set by the Act.

The Code applies to ‘personal guarantors to corporate debtors’ through Section 2(e). In the Dhoot matter, as reported, the guarantees were invoked in February 2018 and Videocon Industries was admitted to the corporate insolvency resolution process in June 2018.

Personal insolvency resolution was admitted on 8 April 2026, and a repayment plan of Rs 600 crore over 36 months was rejected, ending that process on 17 July 2026. Under Section 128(1), the estate vests in the bankruptcy trustee and ‘shall be divided among his creditors’.

Bar & Bench reported that the Tribunal appointed Asish Narayan as trustee, directed Dhoot to submit his financial position to the trustee within seven days, and asked the trustee to invite creditors’ claims and submit a preliminary report within 90 days. The liabilities were reported as Rs 12,668.06 crore, including interest and penalties.

Keep the company’s insolvency process and the guarantor’s own process apart in an answer: the reported dates for each are different.

The order covers traders and wholesalers, retailers, big chain retailers and processors or millers in every State and Union Territory. They must ‘disclose their stock positions every Friday on the Food Stock Portal’, in six categories: Basmati Rice, Non-Basmati Premium Rice, non-Basmati Rice, Parboiled Rice, Broken Rice and Paddy.

The stated aim is to ‘ensure adequate domestic supplies, maintain price stability, prevent hoarding and safeguard consumer interests’. The concurrence went to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, and any such limits ‘shall remain in force up to 31st January 2027’.

The rice sale target under the Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) has been doubled from 25 LMT to 50 LMT for 2026-27. Private parties bought 25 LMT through e-auctions up to 31 October 2026, against 11 LMT in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

Any entity found unregistered on the portal or violating the prescribed stock limits faces action under Sections 6 and 7 of the Act, PIB said. These are three separate tools: disclosure gives information, open market sales add supply, and stock limits restrict holding.

The Union Cabinet approved Semicon 2.0 with a fiscal outlay of Rs 1,27,500 crore under the India Semiconductor Mission, PIB said on 15 July 2026, and that release has the first fab scheduled to be commissioned in 2028. The six pillars are Design of Chips; Machines and Materials; Setting up More Fabs; Further Strengthening the ATMP/OSAT Industry; Research and Development; and Talent Development.

The portal is open for the second, third and fourth of these, under the Semicon India Programme. The 12 approvals carry a projected investment of Rs 7,503 crore and projected production of Rs 39,045 crore, and are expected to generate 7,127 direct jobs across seven States: Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The scheme’s cumulative figures are expected investment of Rs 77,051 crore and projected production of Rs 5,73,146 crore. Read such numbers as projections: an approval is not yet a factory, and a projected figure is not output.

An answer should keep the Semicon programme and the components scheme apart.

Under section 26(1) of the RBI Act, every bank note is legal tender for the amount written on it, and is guaranteed by the Central Government. Section 26(2) is the power to end that status for a series of notes, on the recommendation of the Central Board.

The Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017 is Act No. 2 of 2017. It received assent on 27 February 2017 and is deemed to have come into force on 31 December 2016.

It defines a specified bank note as a Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 note of the series existing on or before 8 November 2016. According to the Supreme Court Observer’s summary of Vivek Narayan Sharma v Union of India, decided on 2 January 2023, a five-judge Bench upheld the 2016 scheme by 4:1, the majority read ‘any series’ to include ‘all series’, and Justice B.V. Nagarathna held that the exercise ‘ought to have been done through a legislation or an ordinance’.

The same summary records the petitioners’ argument that the 1946 and 1978 exercises were carried out through legislative means. So the legal question has been the route, not only the outcome.

RBI reports foreign direct investment in steps. Start with gross inflows, subtract repatriation and disinvestment to get Direct Investment to India, then subtract FDI by India, the investment Indian entities make abroad, to get net FDI.

RBI’s table shows net FDI at US$ 43,955 million in 2020-21, US$ 959 million in 2024-25 and US$ 6,947 million in 2025-26 (provisional). Gross inflows in 2025-26, at US$ 94,836 million, stood above the 2020-21 level of US$ 81,973 million.

So the fall in net FDI is not mainly a fall in gross inflows, and the table does not say why money left or why Indian entities invested more abroad. Foreign investment is presently governed by the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019, under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999.

The draft Foreign Exchange Management (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2026 are meant to rationalise them and will be finalised after public consultation. Niharika Yadav argues in The Indian Express that a rewrite of the rules will not be enough unless the statute itself changes.

That is the author’s argument, and a Mains answer should attribute it as such.