Current Affairs Quiz 8 November 2026

The Act recognises two groups. Forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes are Scheduled Tribe members who ‘primarily reside in and who depend on the forests or forest lands for bona fide livelihood needs’ (section 2(c)); other traditional forest dwellers must meet the three-generation test of section 2(o).

In Megamalai, Tamil Nadu, the State’s own affidavit listed 4,594 persons in three categories: permanent residents, temporary residents and those living outside the forest boundary. The Court held that persons in the second and third categories ‘cannot, on the basis of such cultivation alone, qualify as FDST or OTFD’, and excluded them from consideration.

Its view that a planned commercial crop such as silk cotton cannot be a forest right is a prima facie view; the question of whether silk cotton is minor forest produce is now with the CEC. As the State’s counsel requested, the Court set up a Special Committee headed by Justice B.R. Gavai, former Chief Justice of India, to scrutinise orders under the Act and report in sealed cover.

The State has 30 days to form the remaining Gram Sabhas, and claims are to be decided within five months of their constitution.

The Agasthyamalai Ecological Landscape lies in the southern Western Ghats. According to the CEC’s interim report of 10 July 2025, it covers Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Kanyakumari, Theni and Dindigul in Tamil Nadu, and Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki in Kerala.

It includes the Periyar Tiger Reserve, the Srivilliputhur Grizzled Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Meghamalai and Thirunelveli Wildlife Sanctuaries. Megamalai (also spelt Meghamalai) is in Theni district, the district named in the Court record, and the town of Srivilliputhur gives the tiger reserve the first half of its name.

The Vaigai matters because the reserve is its upper catchment, so the protection of the forest is also a question of water for the plains. On a map, place Megamalai west of Madurai, Periyar to its west, and the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve to the south.

The Supreme Court’s first judgment in this case, of 29 May 2026 (2026 INSC 605), dealt with encroachment across the Agasthyamalai landscape; the November order is its second stage, on forest-rights claims in Megamalai.

Money-laundering needs a predicate or scheduled offence, the crime that produces the ‘proceeds of crime’. The police or another agency investigates that offence, not the ED.

Justice M.I. Arun’s judgment made two holdings. First, ‘The power of the ED is derivative and not original’, so once the predicate offence ends, even on a technical ground such as want of sanction, PMLA proceedings cannot continue.

The Court relied on Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v Union of India, (2023) 12 SCC 1. Second, when the ED shares information under section 66(2) and the police do not act, the ED cannot file a private complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C. or Section 223 of the BNSS: ‘The ED is not a super cop to investigate anything and everything which comes into its notice.’ The Court applied the rule that ‘where an act is to be done in a particular way, it must be done in that way and in no other way’.

It is a single-judge High Court ruling, not settled law across India.

Horizon Europe is the EU’s research and innovation programme for 2021-2027, with an indicative budget of EUR 93.5 billion. Pillar II, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, runs through thematic clusters such as Health; Digital, Industry and Space; and Climate, Energy and Mobility, and it is the scope of the EU’s negotiating mandate for India.

Today Indian participants are not automatically eligible for funding and bring their own; association would let Indian researchers receive funding directly and lead projects, in return for a contribution whose size has not been made public. The track ran from the EU-India Summit of 27 January 2026, through exploratory talks from 6 February and formal negotiations from 17 July, to concluded talks.

Japan shows the gap between the two steps: its talks concluded in December 2025 and it became associated on 30 July 2026. As reported by ANI, India’s association is envisaged to take effect in January 2027, once signed and ratified; that is a plan, not a fact.

The successor programme for 2028-2034, with EUR 175 billion, is only a Commission proposal.

E20 is petrol blended with ethanol, and the Ministry puts the prescribed ethanol content range at 19-21%. The release reports 893 samples from IOCL (330), BPCL (280) and HPCL (283) depots and outlets across 27 States and Union Territories, all within that range; all 56 samples tested in Karnataka recorded 19% to 20%, with an average of 19.30%.

These are the oil companies’ own tests, in refinery and company laboratories. PIB says the certificates cited by Karnataka mention ‘Ethanol % by Gas Chromatography’ without the standard method, dilution procedure or reference material, so the figures ‘cannot be independently validated’ against the prescribed method.

That is not the same as saying they have been disproved. On cost, the Ministry says a blanket 10% mileage loss ‘does not constitute a scientifically established assessment’, and, citing its response of 12 August 2025, puts the loss at about 1 to 2% for vehicles calibrated for E20 and about 3 to 6% for certain others.

The oil companies have asked Karnataka for its sampling documents and for joint testing at an authorised laboratory. A dispute of this kind is settled by the prescribed method, not by competing press releases.

Articles 75 and 164 leave the choice of Ministers to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister, with formal appointment by the President and the Governor. The cap of fifteen per cent, with a floor of twelve in the States, limits the size of the Council of Ministers but says nothing about the record of a person chosen.

In the PIL, as Bar & Bench reported the hearing, the petitioner asked that the discretion in selecting ministers and assigning portfolios be ‘guided by certain standards of prudence’. Justice Joymalya Bagchi remarked, 'What you are arguing is constitutional morality.

It is not binding,’ and observed that criminal law is often ‘weaponised’ against people in politics. These remarks were oral; no written order has been seen, and the Court laid down nothing on whether such persons can be Ministers.

Counsel cited an ADR analysis of 2025: of 4,092 MLAs analysed, 1,861 had declared criminal cases and 1,205 serious criminal cases. In an answer, separate what the Constitution provides (appointment on advice, a size limit) from what it leaves to political judgment (who is chosen).

Section 4 sets out a fixed sequence. The Central Government first gives two months’ notice of its intention by notification in the Official Gazette (section 4(1)).

Any person interested may object within two months (section 4(2)). On the expiry of that period, the Centre may, after considering the objections, declare the site to be of national importance by a further notification (section 4(3)), which is conclusive evidence of that status until it is withdrawn (section 4(4)).

In the Kesariya case, as reported, the site is spread over 1.63 acres and is owned by the Bihar government; copies of the notice were made available to the public on 8 June 2026, and ‘no objection has been received’. The power to declare lies with the Central Government, not the State, even where the land belongs to the State.

A declared site then falls under the Act’s protection, which is why the notice and objection stage matters to owners and residents nearby.

UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme lists documentary heritage, such as manuscripts and archives, rather than monuments or living traditions. Its registers work at more than one level, and the Asia-Pacific Regional Register is one of them; an aspirant should name the register exactly.

According to the PTI report, the decision was taken at the 11th Session of the Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the three entries take India’s total in the Regional Register to six. PIB Culture posted on X that the three works ‘have been inscribed in @UNESCO’s Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register’, PTI reported.

The three texts span different kinds of writing: an epic, a historical chronicle and a treatise on statecraft, which is why each is a favourite of questions on ancient Indian sources. The Rajatarangini is often cited as an early work of history writing in India, and the Arthashastra as a source on administration and economy.

Keep the inscription itself as reported until a UNESCO page confirms it, and keep the regional register apart from the international one.

Under Article 108(4), a Bill at a joint sitting is passed ‘by a majority of the total number of members of both Houses present and voting’, which is why a government with a large Lok Sabha majority can overcome a hostile Rajya Sabha on an ordinary Bill. The Lok Sabha records joint sittings on only three occasions: on 6 and 9 May 1961, on the Dowry Prohibition Bill, 1959; on 16 May 1978, on the Banking Service Commission (Repeal) Bill, 1977; and on 26 March 2002, on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2002.

The Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance was promulgated on 24 October 2001, and a Second Ordinance on 30 December 2001. In the Rajya Sabha on 21 March 2002, a resolution of disapproval was adopted by 113 votes to 98, and the joint sitting passed the Bill by 425 votes to 296, The Tribune reported.

The Act (Act 15 of 2002) received assent on 28 March 2002 and was repealed by Act No. 26 of 2004. Its Section 14 let the investigating officer, with prior written approval of an officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police, require any officer, authority or individual to furnish information relating to the offence.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is Act No. 22 of 2023; it received assent on 11 August 2023. Section 17 lists situations in which parts of the Act do not apply, such as processing ‘in the interest of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of any offence’.

The list names no exemption for journalism, which is the narrower point the petitioners make. Section 44(3) changes the RTI Act, which matters for the press because it narrows what can be sought about persons.

The Constitution has no separate press-freedom clause: the press works under the freedom of speech and expression in Article 19(1)(a), subject to the reasonable restrictions of Article 19(2). A three-judge Bench presided over by the Chief Justice of India has issued notice, and the matter is listed for hearing on 17 November 2026; the column reports no stay.

The column’s parallel is that in 2001 the press won by a change in the text, when Clause 3(8) of the ordinance was dropped, and not by an assurance. The assurance the column says the Centre gave in an August 2026 meeting is the column’s account.

A midterm falls halfway through the President’s four-year term (Article II, Section 1). It elects the whole House of Representatives but only one-third of the Senate, since Senators serve six years and one-third are chosen every second year (Article I, Section 3).

The veto override needs two-thirds of each House: 290 of 435 in the House and 67 of 100 in the Senate. The power of the purse is in Article I, Section 9: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’ The House has the sole power of impeachment, and the Senate tries impeachments, convicting by two-thirds of the members present.

The Senate’s consent to appointments, such as Judges of the Supreme Court, carries no two-thirds bar in the text. Contrast India: a deadlock between the Houses on an ordinary Bill is resolved by a joint sitting under Article 108, and under Article 111 the President may assent, withhold assent or return a Bill (not a Money Bill) once for reconsideration; there is no two-thirds override.

In short, a Democratic Congress can block, delay and bargain, but it cannot write its own policy into law against the President.