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UPSC Monthly Current Affairs September 2026

15 daily editions · 162 topics · 31 MCQs · National & International · updates daily till month-end

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September 2026

Monthly at a glance

All topics — key facts for revision

5 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH EOS-05 Launched: India's First Imaging Satellite in Geosynchronous Orbit
  • 19th flight of the GSLV, flown with a 4-metre diameter ogive composite payload fairing; the vehicle is nicknamed the 'Naughty Boy' for its patchy early record.
  • EOS-05 carries a multispectral VNIR imager (6 bands, 42 m resolution), a hyperspectral VNIR sensor (158 bands, 318 m) and a hyperspectral SWIR sensor (256 bands, 191 m).
  • Designed to image a selected field every 5 minutes and the entire Indian landmass every 30 minutes at 42 m resolution under cloud-free conditions.
  • From a geosynchronous perch (~36,000 km) it gives persistent, near-real-time coverage — unlike sun-synchronous LEO satellites that revisit only once in days.
ECONOMY Services PMI Rises to 54.1; Composite Output Index Steady at 54.3
  • A PMI reading above 50 signals expansion; below 50 signals contraction. It is a diffusion index built from a monthly survey of purchasing managers.
  • Services PMI at 54.1 remains below its long-run average of 54.5 — growth is positive but sub-trend.
  • Job creation hit a 15-month high, with about 11% of surveyed firms adding staff; aggregate employment grew at the fastest pace in 14 months.
  • Output prices rose at the fastest pace since March as firms passed on higher costs of digital platforms, electricity, labour and marketing.
SCI-TECH BIO-NIVESH Launched to Channel Private Capital into Biotech Start-ups
  • The inaugural edition brought together 20 high-potential biotech/deep-tech start-ups and about 50 curated investors.
  • BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council) acts as the Second-Level Fund Manager for biotechnology under the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund.
  • The RDI Fund is designed to supply long-term 'patient capital' for strategic, high-risk projects that conventional venture capital avoids.
  • BIO-NIVESH will be a recurring platform, with subsequent editions planned in other cities to link regional biotech clusters to capital.
DEFENCE IAF Successfully Tests Indigenous Khagantak-243 Long-Range Glide Bomb
  • A glide bomb is an unpowered munition released from an aircraft that glides to the target using deployable wings and a guidance kit — no rocket motor.
  • Range of 140+ km places it firmly in the stand-off class, letting aircraft strike without entering enemy air-defence envelopes.
  • Represents private-sector + PSU + armed-forces co-development, the model pushed under Make-in-India and iDEX.
  • Officials cautioned that the trial is one developmental step, not induction into operational service.
ECONOMY GeM and Textiles Committee Sign MoU for a 'Waste-to-Value-to-Market' Ecosystem
  • Signed by Ajit B. Chavan (CEO, GeM) and Kartikay Dhanda (Secretary, Textiles Committee).
  • GeM is the national public procurement portal under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, mandatory for central government buying.
  • The Textiles Committee is a statutory body under the Textiles Committee Act, 1963, tasked with quality assurance of textiles.
  • Creates guaranteed demand for recycled textile products — the key missing link in India's circular-economy value chains.
SOCIETY President Confers National Teachers' Awards on 69 Educators
  • The 48 school teachers were drawn from 27 States, 7 Union Territories and 6 Central Government organisations.
  • The higher-education set covered 12 faculty from central institutions, 5 from State universities (3 government, 2 private) and 4 from polytechnics.
  • Selection follows a three-tier online, self-nomination based process — district, State/organisation and national jury — designed to remove discretion.
  • The President urged teachers to update knowledge continuously, embrace technology and build classrooms where students question, explore and think independently.
POLITY 31-Member Joint Parliamentary Committee Constituted on the FCRA (Amendment) Bill, 2026
  • Composition: 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha, reflecting the ratio of strength between the Houses.
  • The Committee must submit its report by the last day of the Winter Session (November–December 2026).
  • The parent law is the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs; it was last substantially amended in 2020.
  • Core tension: national security and transparency in foreign funding versus the freedom of association under Article 19(1)(c) and the space for civil society.
IR 'RAKSHA': India Unveils a 10-Year Defence Diplomacy Roadmap
  • Built on four pillars: Strategic Partnerships, Capacity Building, Indigenous Defence Exports, and Maritime Security.
  • Capacity building covers joint exercises, training slots for friendly foreign countries and knowledge-sharing.
  • Positions India as a 'Net Security Provider' in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and as an anchor of a rules-based order.
  • Frames defence exports as an instrument of diplomacy, not merely commerce — exports create long-term strategic dependencies and goodwill.
ENVIRONMENT India and Germany Sign Joint Declaration on Wetland Conservation
  • Focus areas: scientific cooperation, knowledge-sharing on wetland management, climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation and joint projects.
  • The IGEF has been the bilateral environmental policy platform since 2008; this is its fourth edition.
  • 'Wise use' is the operative principle of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971, Ramsar, Iran), which India joined in 1982.
  • India has the largest network of Ramsar sites in Asia; wetlands act as carbon sinks, flood buffers, groundwater rechargers and biodiversity refugia.

6 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH EOS-05 lifts off on GSLV-F17: India's first imaging satellite bound for geostationary orbit
  • GSLV-F17 lifted off at 2:55 am IST from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, with separation 18 minutes after launch.
  • The 51.7 m tall, 420.5 tonne three-stage vehicle used an indigenous cryogenic upper stage; EOS-05 is the heaviest payload ever flown on a GSLV.
  • The satellite will raise itself to about 36,000 km, where its orbital period matches Earth's rotation — giving a continuous 'stare' over the Indian landmass.
  • It was the 107th launch from Sriharikota and the 19th GSLV flight, redeeming the 2021 GSLV-F10 / EOS-03 failure.
  • Imagery will feed agriculture, disaster management and strategic needs; unlike low-earth-orbit satellites, the revisit is continuous rather than periodic.
SCI-TECH India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 shifts focus from fabs to equipment, materials and chip IP
  • ISM 1.0 was approved in December 2021 with a ₹76,000 crore incentive corpus; 10 projects across 6 states had been sanctioned by December 2025.
  • Approved units span silicon fabs, a silicon-carbide (compound semiconductor) facility, advanced packaging and ATMP/OSAT plants.
  • ISM 2.0 rests on three pillars: semiconductor equipment and materials made in India, full-stack Indian semiconductor IP, and supply-chain resilience.
  • Budget 2026-27 provides ₹1,000 crore for ISM 2.0 within an ₹8,000 crore modified programme outlay for the year.
  • FY27 targets include ₹4,000 crore of fab investment, ₹11,000 crore in ATMP/OSAT, support for 30 design companies and 10 semiconductor IP cores.
ECONOMY RBI to drain ₹7 lakh crore as banking liquidity surplus hits a record
  • Banking system liquidity surplus stood at about ₹10.32 lakh crore as on 3 September 2026 — a record high.
  • The auction reverses on 7 October 2026; banks may seek premature or partial reversal through the e-Kuber portal.
  • The RBI had already absorbed ₹6.02 lakh crore through two VRRR auctions, and ran 32 VRRR operations between August and early September.
  • Special forex measures mobilised about $136.38 billion by 31 August, of which the FCNR(B) window alone brought in $127.23 billion.
  • Excess liquidity drags the weighted average call rate below the repo rate, weakening monetary transmission.
ECONOMY Current account deficit widens to $4.2 billion in Q1 FY27
  • The merchandise trade deficit widened sharply to $86.1 billion from $68.9 billion a year ago.
  • Net services receipts rose to $51.6 billion from $47.9 billion, led by computer services, other business services and transport.
  • Private transfer receipts — largely remittances — jumped to $42.9 billion from $33.2 billion.
  • Net FDI inflow improved to $6.1 billion against $5.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.
  • A CAD near 0.5% of GDP stays comfortably below the 2.5-3% band generally treated as the stress threshold for India.
POLITY Special NIA court convicts all ten accused in the 2013 Jhiram Ghati ambush
  • The ambush took place on 25 May 2013 in Jhiram Valley, Bastar district, Chhattisgarh, on a convoy returning from a political rally.
  • 29 people were killed, among them Nand Kumar Patel, Mahendra Karma, Vidya Charan Shukla and Uday Mudliyar.
  • The case moved from state police to the National Investigation Agency, which filed its charge sheet in September 2014; 101 witnesses were examined.
  • The NIA, created under the NIA Act, 2008, is India's central counter-terror agency and can investigate scheduled offences across states without prior state consent.
  • LWE violence has contracted to a small cluster of districts, with the government working to a target of ending Maoist violence by 31 March 2026.
IR India and China hold their first Corps Commander talks in the eastern sector
  • The Indian side was led by Lieutenant General Girish Kalia, commander of 3 Corps.
  • 3 Corps and 4 Corps (Tezpur) together hold responsibility for the LAC in the eastern sector.
  • The meeting follows the National Security Adviser's visit to China and understandings on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the LAC.
  • The core difficulty remains differing perceptions of the alignment of the LAC, which is not a delimited boundary.
IR UNGA votes 164-1 to 'correct the map'; India backs equal-area projections
  • The resolution was adopted on 5 September 2026 by 164 votes to 1, with the Equal Earth projection promoted as the alternative.
  • India's representative argued the text should endorse the equal-area principle rather than any single projection, leaving states free to choose.
  • India also stressed that its sovereign territory, including Jammu and Kashmir, must be depicted accurately on UN maps.
  • Mercator makes Greenland (2.16 million sq km) look as large as Africa (30.37 million sq km) — a roughly 14-fold error.
IR New Delhi readies for the 18th BRICS Summit on 12-13 September
  • Theme of India's chairship: 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'.
  • Priorities include climate action, clean energy, digital public infrastructure, innovation, supply-chain resilience and reformed multilateralism.
  • An inaugural iBRICS investor summit runs alongside, drawing more than 500 investors and finance leaders.
  • The grouping now spans Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa along with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and Indonesia, besides a set of partner countries.
SOCIETY Vibrant Villages Programme reframes the border hamlet as the 'first village'
  • India shares more than 15,000 km of land border with seven neighbours; the longest stretches are with Bangladesh (4,096.7 km), China (3,488 km) and Pakistan (3,323 km).
  • VVP-I, launched in April 2023, is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme covering northern border villages in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Ladakh.
  • VVP-II extends coverage to blocks along the other international borders and is a Central Sector Scheme funded fully by the Union; it was launched from Cachar, Assam.
  • Interventions cover all-weather road connectivity, electricity including renewables, telecom, housing, health, education, tourism circuits and cooperative livelihoods.
ENVIRONMENT Vulture conservation moves 'from crisis to recovery' on Vulture Awareness Day
  • India hosts nine vulture species; four are Critically Endangered — White-rumped, Indian (Long-billed), Slender-billed and Red-headed — and the Egyptian Vulture is Endangered.
  • Gyps vulture populations crashed by more than 97% from the 1990s, driven by the veterinary anti-inflammatory diclofenac in cattle carcasses; its veterinary use was banned in 2006.
  • Melghat and Pench tiger reserves have emerged as the most successful reintroduction sites — 29 birds released between December 2025 and January 2026 with a 78% survival rate.
  • A Vulture Safe Zone is a landscape of roughly 100 km radius around a colony kept free of vulture-toxic drugs — diclofenac, aceclofenac, ketoprofen, nimesulide; meloxicam is the safe substitute.
REPORT India's Vinaya Prakash Singh re-elected Secretary-General of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union
  • The APPU is a Restricted Union of the Universal Postal Union under Article 8 of the UPU Constitution, and the only such body in the Asia-Pacific.
  • It traces its origins to 1961 and took its present form on 1 July 1982; it is headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand, with 32 member countries.
  • The UPU, established in 1874 and headquartered in Berne, Switzerland, is the specialised agency of the United Nations for postal cooperation — the second-oldest international organisation.
  • India has held the APPU Secretary-General's office since 2022, the first time an Indian occupies the post.

7 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH ISRO refutes 'privatisation'; the IN-SPACe remark explained
  • The associations asked about Space Commission approval, sanctioned strength and recruitment over a 5-10 year horizon.
  • IN-SPACe clarified the direction is 'not a smaller ISRO but a larger ecosystem'.
  • Division of labour: industry scales mature vehicles and satellites; ISRO keeps advanced R&D, scientific and strategic missions.
  • Department of Space staff are outside the statutory definition of 'industry' and organise as service associations under CCS (Recognition of Service Associations) Rules, 1993.
ECONOMY Japan's JCR upgrades India to 'A-' after 35 years
  • JCR cites GDP growth projected above 6% for 2026-27.
  • Central fiscal deficit improved from 4.7% of GDP in FY25 to 4.4% in FY26.
  • Banking health: gross NPA ratio fell to 1.8% by March 2026.
  • A higher rating lowers external borrowing costs for the sovereign and for Indian corporates raising funds abroad.
ENVIRONMENT UNEP: breaching 1.5°C is now unavoidable
  • Every five years of sustained emissions at present levels could add about 0.1°C.
  • The report maps a narrow return pathway below 1.5°C after overshoot.
  • Return requires large-scale carbon dioxide removal, whose scalability remains unproven.
  • Some overshoot effects - ice-sheet loss, coral die-off - are effectively irreversible on human timescales.
SCI-TECH DRDO and UoH patent BAM-H24 rocket propellant
  • Key properties: high thermal stability and reduced ignition delay.
  • Boron-rich formulations offer high volumetric energy density, valuable where volume is constrained.
  • Useful for compact tactical missiles and boosters where storage life matters.
  • Developed by Dr Muddamarri Hanumantha Rao and Prof. Muralidharan Krishnamurthi.
DISASTER Bihar floods: Ganga crosses its record flood level
  • Gandhi Ghat, Patna: 50.57 m, above the August 2016 record of 50.52 m.
  • Pandarak: 43.92 m, above the 2021 record of 43.73 m.
  • Districts hit include Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai and Buxar.
  • Response: 110 community kitchens, 1,345 boats, 27 SDRF and 10 NDRF teams.
SECURITY Three-year roadmap for a drug-free India by 2029
  • Four pillars: intelligence-led enforcement, precursor and synthetic drug control, demand reduction, and institutional capacity.
  • Seizures rose from 26 lakh kg (Rs 40,000 cr) in 2004-14 to over 1.19 crore kg (Rs 1.89 lakh cr) in 2014-26.
  • De-addiction centres to triple to 1,751; 10,000 volunteers for community outreach.
  • 274 fugitives extradited from 36 countries (2019-July 2026); assets worth Rs 17,874 crore seized.
ECONOMY SEBI and ESMA renew cooperation on clearing houses
  • Signed by SEBI chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey and ESMA chair Verena Ross.
  • A central counterparty sits between buyer and seller in a trade, guaranteeing settlement if one side defaults.
  • EU recognition matters because European banks face higher capital charges when clearing through unrecognised CCPs.
  • The 2017 MoU had lapsed amid a supervisory access dispute between the two regulators.
POLITY Judicial accountability row reaches the CJI
  • The Rajasthan HC functioned without a regular Chief Justice for about 11 months.
  • The Collegium recommended a new Chief Justice on 31 August 2026.
  • K. Veeraswami (1991): prior permission of the CJI is needed to register an FIR against a higher judiciary judge.
  • The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill passed the Lok Sabha in 2012 but lapsed in 2014.
POLITY SIR: 1.85 lakh names deleted in Manipur and Sikkim
  • Manipur: 20,93,076 to 19,60,620 - a deletion of 1,32,456 names (about 6.3%).
  • Sikkim: about 4,71,081 to 4,18,467 - a deletion of 52,614 names (about 11.2%).
  • Deletion heads: shifted, deceased, absent and duplicate entries.
  • Manipur's final roll sex ratio: 1,056 women per 1,000 men.
GOVERNANCE 'FRA has no gram sabha consent clause', says Ministry
  • Environment Ministry circulars since 2009 make FRA compliance and a gram sabha NOC a precondition for Stage-II forest clearance.
  • A Standing Committee report (3 August) found forest clearance for NHPC projects averaged 106 months.
  • NHPC proposed a 'qualified super-majority' of 70-75% of affected gram sabhas for national-importance projects.
  • Teesta-IV hydro project remains stalled awaiting gram sabha consent.
SOCIETY ST classification criteria and the Lokur legacy
  • Lokur Committee (1965) criteria: primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact and backwardness - widely called obsolete.
  • Article 342: the President specifies STs; only Parliament by law can include or exclude a community.
  • Unlike Scheduled Castes, ST status carries no religion condition - the delisting campaign seeks to change this.
  • The convention also sought Adivasi languages in the Eighth Schedule, which now has 22 languages.
IR Hasina interview strains India-Bangladesh ties
  • She has been convicted in Bangladesh over the 2024 crackdown on student protesters.
  • India has no domestic refugee or asylum law and is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention.
  • The 2013 extradition treaty (amended 2016) exempts offences of a political character.
  • Pending files: Teesta water sharing and renewal of the Ganga Waters Treaty, 1996.
IR US-Iran war enters sixth month; Hormuz still unsafe
  • The strait is about 21 nautical miles at its narrowest; usable shipping lanes are only kilometres wide.
  • Bordered by Iran to the north and Oman's Musandam exclave and the UAE to the south.
  • It is the world's most critical oil chokepoint, carrying a large share of traded crude and LNG.
  • India has run Operation Sankalp escort deployments in the Gulf since 2019.
GOVERNANCE Chhattisgarh tops Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari 3.0
  • Five districts feature in India's top ten - Surajpur, Mahasamund, Balod, Balodabazar-Bhatapara and Kabirdham.
  • Koriya district's '5 Per Cent Model' asks farmers to set aside 5% of farmland for groundwater recharge.
  • The scheme sits under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain campaign of the Jal Shakti Ministry.
  • It works through panchayat and community participation rather than pure departmental construction.
GOVERNANCE Punjab's 'Pehchaan' portal for unidentified dead
  • Photographs and identification marks are uploaded within 48 hours of a body being found.
  • The portal integrates with CCTNS, the national police crime and criminal records network.
  • It lets families search across districts instead of visiting individual police stations or morgues.
  • MedLEaPR digitises post-mortem and medico-legal reports, linking hospitals with police.

8 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Western Dedicated Freight Corridor fully operational; ₹35,000 crore Gujarat package dedicated
  • Three sections totalling 326 route km commissioned at over ₹20,700 crore — Sanand (North)-Makarpura, New Umbergaon-New Saphale and New Saphale-JNPA.
  • The last link gives the corridor direct freight access to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA), Maharashtra.
  • Foundation stones laid for three rail projects covering 329 km worth over ₹9,700 crore, including the Vadodara-Ratlam third and fourth lines and Vishwamitri-Dabhoi doubling.
  • Three national highway projects worth ₹1,780 crore cleared, including six-laning of Kamrej-Chalthan on NH-48 with major bridges over the Tapi and Narmada.
  • State-sector works of ₹2,600 crore include Vadodara Ring Road Phase-II and a 110 MW floating solar plant at Kadana Dam.
DEFENCE Defence Acquisition Council clears ₹1.10 lakh crore of capital acquisitions
  • Total value approximately ₹1,10,000 crore, with about 98% of the value to be sourced from Indian industry.
  • Army: CBRN Reconnaissance Vehicles, High Mobility Vehicles, Self-Propelled Mechanical Mine Layers, Advanced Light Helicopters, Trawl Tanks and the Sarvatra Bridge System.
  • Navy: Arudhra radars and design and development of indigenous Marine Gas Turbines.
  • Air Force: fighter, transport and helicopter upgrades, a Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammer and the DEFSAC smart-card access system.
  • Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) is only the first administrative stage under the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020; tendering, trials and contract signature follow.
SCI-TECH EOS-05: India's first imaging satellite in geosynchronous orbit
  • Launched on 4 September 2026 by GSLV-F17, the 19th flight of the GSLV, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre-SHAR, Sriharikota.
  • Payload mass about 2,367 kg; injected into a sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit with perigee 170 km, apogee 28,934 km and inclination 19.28 degrees.
  • It is India's first imaging satellite operating from geosynchronous orbit, roughly 36,000 km above the equator.
  • Persistent staring capability supports disaster management, agriculture monitoring, maritime domain awareness and border surveillance.
  • Carries a hyperspectral earth-surface imager, allowing discrimination of crops, water bodies and surface materials by spectral signature.
ENVIRONMENT NITI Aayog launches PACT and ZET Marketplace for zero-emission freight
  • PACT aggregates freight demand from shippers and logistics providers and channels it into deployment along identified corridors.
  • The ZET Marketplace links e-truck manufacturers, logistics firms, charge point operators, financiers and technology providers.
  • Electric medium and heavy-duty truck deployments rose from 201 units in FY25 to 826 units in FY26 — roughly a four-fold increase.
  • About 3,000 e-MHD trucks are estimated to be operating nationwide at present.
  • Partner ministries are the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Ministry of Heavy Industries; the model is market coordination and financing linkage, not direct subsidy.
SCI-TECH Bodhan AI releases four open multilingual education models as Digital Public Goods
  • Four models released — automatic speech recognition covering 27 Indian languages, and OCR and text-to-speech covering 23 languages each.
  • A machine translation model covers 22 languages, aligned to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
  • Applications include a Student Tutor Bot for Classes 6-12 and a Teacher Assistant Bot.
  • Models are released as open weights and designated Digital Public Goods, allowing free reuse by states and edtech developers.
  • Positioned as the education layer of India's Digital Public Infrastructure, alongside identity and payments layers.
POLITY Centre notifies Chief Justices for eight High Courts
  • Appointments cover the Patna, Calcutta, Rajasthan, Bombay, Punjab & Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Courts.
  • Article 217 governs the appointment of High Court judges by the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the state and, for a puisne judge, the Chief Justice of that High Court.
  • Article 216 provides that a High Court shall consist of a Chief Justice and such other judges as the President may appoint.
  • The collegium for High Court Chief Justices comprises the CJI and the two senior-most Supreme Court judges.
  • The process operates under the Memorandum of Procedure, a document still not finalised between the executive and the judiciary.
IR India to host expanded 11-nation BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam
  • Scheduled for 12-13 September 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi; theme is 'Building for resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability'.
  • This is India's fourth BRICS chairmanship, supported by around 350 preparatory meetings across more than 25 Indian cities.
  • Membership stands at 11 countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
  • India's stated priorities include more balanced intra-BRICS trade, trade in services, resilient global value chains and improved access to finance for small businesses.
  • BRICS institutions include the New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA).
IR UN General Assembly declares 27 November as day against child, early and forced marriage
  • Resolution A/RES/80/309 was adopted without a vote during the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.
  • All 193 UN Member States supported it; more than 70 countries co-sponsored, including India.
  • The observance date is 27 November, with the first observance in 2026.
  • UNGA resolutions on such observances are recommendatory, not legally binding on member states.
  • In India the governing law is the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, which sets 18 years for women and 21 years for men.
ECONOMY India-US trade agreement said to be in final legal drafting stage
  • The agreement is described as 'in principle almost done', with only final legal scrubbing pending.
  • The United States has been among India's largest trading partners and a major destination for Indian services exports.
  • Sensitive Indian red lines have historically included agriculture, dairy and genetically modified products.
  • A Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) differs from a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement in coverage and depth of tariff elimination.
  • Trade agreements must be consistent with WTO Article XXIV on customs unions and free-trade areas.
REPORT State of India's Environment 2026 flags changing tiger behaviour and invasive spread
  • 43 people were killed near tiger reserves between January and June 2025, against 44 in the same period of 2024.
  • Tigers are present in 20 states; about 60 million people share nearly 40% of tiger-occupied landscape.
  • Lantana camara, an ornamental introduced in the 1800s, now covers about 50% of India's forest and scrubland area.
  • Lantana creates predator-friendly structure in prey-poor landscapes, making livestock an easier target for tigers.
  • Reserves at saturation capacity push dispersing tigers into buffer and human-use areas, raising conflict.
ENVIRONMENT Botanical Survey of India records new plant species in Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve
  • The species is named Osbeckia ulotricha, belonging to the family Melastomataceae.
  • It was recorded at elevations of 1,200 to 1,500 metres in the Kerala-Tamil Nadu stretch of the reserve.
  • The description was published in the international taxonomic journal Lilloa.
  • Agasthyamala was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2016 and lies in the southern Western Ghats.
  • The Western Ghats are one of the world's biodiversity hotspots and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

9 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Indian crude basket tops $100 a barrel; external sector back under watch
  • Indian crude basket at $101.07/barrel (4 September 2026); Brent near $97/barrel, a six-week high.
  • The current account deficit could widen to 1.7% of GDP (about $71 billion) in H2 FY27 if crude stays above $90/barrel.
  • Q1 FY27 CAD stood at $4.2 billion (0.5% of GDP) on a merchandise trade deficit of $86.1 billion.
  • Domestic LPG under-recovery is about ₹200 per cylinder; the 19-kg commercial cylinder in Delhi costs ₹2,747.5.
  • August 2026 fuel consumption fell 2.8% year-on-year to 18.61 million tonnes, even as petrol and diesel sales rose.
ECONOMY Food inflation set to stay elevated; global food price index at a four-year high
  • CPI headline inflation was 4.45% in July 2026 — a 19-month high; food inflation 5.52%, up from just 2.13% in January 2026.
  • Year-on-year retail rises as on 7 September 2026: onion +93%, soybean oil +12%, groundnut oil +11.64%, rice +11.06%, tur dal +9.07%, sugar +4.92%.
  • FAO Food Price Index, August 2026 = 133.3 points, up 1.9% over July — sugar +11.9%, cereals +2.2%, vegetable oils +0.6%.
  • FAO cut its 2026 world cereal production forecast to 2.980 billion tonnes, a 2% annual fall — the steepest since 2018.
  • Southwest monsoon rainfall deficit is about 14% and kharif acreage 1.7% below last year; El Nino is expected to intensify over September-October.
ENVIRONMENT UK recognises India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme under its CBAM
  • Recognition covers Indian exports of steel, aluminium, fertilisers and cement; UK importers must furnish documentation and meet verification requirements to claim the relief.
  • The UK CBAM takes effect in 2027; the EU CBAM's definitive financial phase began in January 2026.
  • It builds on the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), signed 15 July 2026; merchandise trade is about $25.1 billion and services trade $35.4 billion (2024-25).
  • CCTS was notified in June 2023 under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022, administered by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE); the traded unit is the Carbon Credit Certificate, denominated in tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
  • Pressure point: India's steel sector accounts for about 12% of national greenhouse gas emissions with emissions intensity roughly 32% above the global average.
DEFENCE Defence Acquisition Council clears ₹1.10 lakh crore, 98% from Indian industry
  • Army: CBRN Reconnaissance Vehicles (Tracked) Mk-II, High Mobility Vehicles, Self-Propelled Mechanical Mine Layers, Advanced Light Helicopters, Trawl Tanks and the Sarvatra multi-span mobile bridge.
  • Sarvatra spans up to 75 metres in 15-metre steps and can be deployed in about 100 minutes.
  • Navy: Arudhra medium-power air surveillance radars, and design and development of indigenous Marine Gas Turbines for warship propulsion — currently an import-dependent segment.
  • Air Force: fighter, transport and helicopter fleet upgrades, Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammers and the DEFSAC secure access card system.
  • AoN is only the first stage of the procurement cycle under DAP 2020 — it is not a signed contract, and conversion typically takes years.
SCI-TECH India becomes the 26th country in the 6G 'Call to Action' on secure networks
  • The Call to Action was launched in July 2026 by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), US Department of Commerce; signatories include the UK, Germany and Japan.
  • India's accession was announced around a meeting between US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Minister of State for Commerce & Industry Jitin Prasada at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on the sidelines of the G20 Innovation Ministerial.
  • The US framing traces to a December 2025 Presidential Memorandum, 'Winning the 6G Race', designating 6G as foundational to national security.
  • 6G is expected to begin displacing 5G in the 2030s, using terahertz-band spectrum, sub-millisecond latency and AI-native air interfaces.
  • India's own track: the Bharat 6G Vision document was released on 22 March 2023, with the Bharat 6G Alliance and a goal of becoming a global 6G hub by 2030.
ENVIRONMENT NITI Aayog launches PACT and ZET Marketplace to electrify road freight
  • PACT aggregates fragmented freight demand along identified corridors and converts it into deployable e-truck projects; the ZET Marketplace matches OEMs, fleet operators, charge point operators, financiers and technology providers.
  • Heavy trucks are only 3-4% of India's vehicle fleet but generate over one-third of transport-sector CO2; about 70% of India's freight moves by road.
  • E-freight vehicle deployments rose from 201 units in FY25 to 826 in FY26 — more than fourfold; only about 800 heavy-duty electric trucks were sold in 2025.
  • Barriers flagged: fragmentation of logistics operators, high cost of financing and the absence of corridor-based charging plans; remedies proposed include blended finance and leasing models.
  • e-FAST India — the Electric Freight Accelerator for Sustainable Transport — was launched by NITI Aayog on 8 September 2022 as India's first national electric-freight platform. PACT and ZET are coordination platforms, not subsidy schemes.
ECONOMY $1 billion IFC facility routed through SIDBI for long-tenure MSME credit
  • $500 million has been extended from IFC's own account to SIDBI; the balance $500 million will be syndicated through SIDBI's lender consortium.
  • Tenure of up to 7 years with a moratorium, aimed at machinery purchase, modernisation, expansion and project finance rather than working capital.
  • The dollar facility has been swapped into rupees through the RBI's special swap window, insulating SIDBI and borrowers from currency risk.
  • Target sectors: auto components, engineering goods, electronics, textiles, food processing and logistics, with emphasis on micro enterprises and first-time borrowers.
  • SIDBI was established under the SIDBI Act, 1989 (operational 2 April 1990), is headquartered at Lucknow, and will both lend directly and refinance MSME loans through NBFCs.
IR New Delhi readies the 18th BRICS Summit; India's bloc trade is an import story
  • This is India's fourth BRICS chairship (after 2012, 2016 and 2021); India hosted over 350 meetings in 25+ cities through the chairship year.
  • BRICS now has 11 full members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia — together about 45% of world population and 30% of global nominal GDP.
  • In FY26 BRICS members supplied about 42% of India's merchandise imports but took only 22% of its exports: imports $321.8 billion against exports $95.7 billion, a deficit of $226.1 billion.
  • That is roughly 68% of India's entire merchandise trade deficit. Country-wise: China -$112.2 billion, Russia -$50.9 billion, UAE -$26.5 billion — together 84% of the BRICS deficit.
  • India ran a trade surplus with only three BRICS members — Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran. A curtain-raiser BRICS Chief Justices' Forum was held in New Delhi on 4-6 September 2026.
DEFENCE India-Japan air exercise Veer Guardian 2026 opens at Jodhpur today
  • The first edition was held in Japan at Hyakuri Air Base in January 2023; this is the first time the exercise is hosted in India.
  • The JASDF contingent has three F-2A fighter aircraft from the 8th Air Wing, Tsuiki Air Base, with about 110 personnel, ferried by two C-2 transport aircraft.
  • Focus areas: air combat manoeuvring, tactical proficiency, interoperability and operational coordination.
  • Wider track: agreement in principle on the UNICORN (Unified Complex Radio Antenna) stealth mast for warships, to be co-developed with Bharat Electronics Limited, and Japan's relaxation of defence export restrictions.
  • Other India-Japan exercises: Dharma Guardian (Army), JIMEX (Navy) and Malabar (with the US and Australia). A 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue is expected by end-2026.
POLITY Supreme Court bars appointment of teachers without prescribed qualifications
  • The case is Rajesh Chauhan and Another v. Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 1102/2026.
  • The direction covers both fresh appointments and the continuation of serving teachers who lack the mandated qualifications, in schools and higher education institutions alike.
  • The underlying petition challenges the constitutional validity of statutory 'provincialisation' schemes that allow teachers and institutional employees to enter substantive government service without open, competitive recruitment.
  • Minimum teacher qualifications are laid down by the academic authority — the NCTE — under Section 23 of the RTE Act, 2009.
  • The same bench separately backed the idea of a National Legal Education Commission, observing that legal education needs an expert body, in a petition seeking a four-year LL.B in line with NEP 2020.
ENVIRONMENT Supreme Court holds Aravalli panel to its 30 November delineation deadline
  • The committee was constituted by the Supreme Court on 25 May 2026; a compliance report was filed on 31 August 2026 and the next hearing is on 2 December 2026.
  • The exercise covers 64 districts across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana.
  • The definition must encompass geological features, watershed systems, forests, biodiversity, sacred groves, archaeological sites and traditional pasture lands (orans).
  • Mining-linked harms under review include silicosis, dust-washing operations, stone crushing and water-intensive activity in a water-scarce belt.
  • Citizens' groups warn that only about two months remain between report submission and the deadline — too little for scientific review and consultation across the affected districts.

10 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Brent crude tops $100 a barrel as West Asia tensions bite
  • Brent November futures at $101.55 a barrel; WTI at $96.44; the Indian basket touched $108.91 a barrel on 8 September 2026.
  • Estimated oil marketing company under-recovery: ₹5 a litre on petrol, ₹23 a litre on diesel and ₹200 a cylinder on LPG.
  • India's diesel exports ran at about 1,20,000 barrels a day in August 2026.
  • The rupee weakened 25 paise to 95.33 against the US dollar in early trade on 10 September, adding to the import bill.
  • The Indian basket is a trade-weighted average of Oman, Dubai (sour) and Brent (sweet) crude — the benchmark used for domestic pricing.
ECONOMY Equity mutual fund inflows jump 19% to a four-month high in August
  • Equity net inflow ₹29,328.62 crore in August 2026, up about 19% from ₹24,697 crore in July — the highest in four months.
  • Industry assets under management reached ₹87.07 lakh crore at end-August, up over 1% month on month; total industry net inflow was ₹41,353 crore.
  • Debt funds saw an outflow of ₹8,127 crore, against an inflow of about ₹1.88 lakh crore in July.
  • Category leaders: smallcap ₹7,973 crore, midcap ₹6,989 crore, flexicap ₹5,059 crore; large-cap saw an outflow of ₹1,147 crore.
  • Net SIP inflows crossed a record ₹2 lakh crore in FY26, the anchor of retail participation.
SCI-TECH ORV Sagar Manthan launched — India's first advanced indigenous ocean research vessel
  • Built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata at a cost of about ₹840 crore for the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
  • Designed service life of 30 years; commissioning expected in 2028.
  • Timeline: contract July 2024, first steel cut 29 November 2024, keel laid 8 April 2026.
  • Capabilities include dynamic positioning, multibeam bathymetry, multichannel seismic survey, sub-bottom profiling and ROV/AUV deployment.
  • Supports the Deep Ocean Mission, approved with an outlay of about ₹4,077 crore, which also covers the manned submersible Matsya-6000.
DEFENCE India and Sri Lanka sign three defence pacts on a landmark Colombo visit
  • The three MoUs cover upgradation of L70 anti-aircraft guns, NCC-to-NCC youth exchange, and National Defence College academic collaboration.
  • The L70 is a 40 mm air-defence gun licence-manufactured in India; India gifted 24 guns between 2000 and 2006, of which 18 have been serviced.
  • Upgrades will be carried out by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) under Government of India grant funding.
  • India has committed about ₹3,750 crore in reconstruction aid after Cyclone Ditwah; three Bailey bridges were inaugurated virtually.
  • The visit followed the Defence Acquisition Council clearing about ₹1.10 lakh crore in proposals on 7 September 2026, with roughly 98% sourced from Indian industry.
ENVIRONMENT Open waste burning in Indian cities runs about three times higher in winter
  • Burning incidents are about three times higher in winter than in summer across all city tiers.
  • Winter incidence ranges from 39.4 to 49.6 incidents per sq km per day; it reaches about 84 incidents per sq km per day in low-income areas of tier-2 cities.
  • Tier-2 cities burn about 20.9 tonnes a day in summer, rising to 41 tonnes a day in winter.
  • Per-capita waste burned each year: 6.9 kg in tier-3, 4 kg in tier-2 and 0.63 kg in tier-1 cities.
  • Annual per-capita PM2.5 from open waste burning: 0.09 kg (tier-3), 0.05 kg (tier-2), 0.008 kg (tier-1); plastics and paper form about one quarter of the burned material.
ENVIRONMENT UK recognises India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme under its CBAM
  • The UK CBAM begins in 2027 and covers steel, aluminium, fertilisers and cement.
  • India's CCTS operates through Carbon Credit Certificates issued to obligated entities against emission-intensity targets.
  • Implementation of the CCTS is financed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency through fees levied on obligated entities.
  • Relief is not automatic — exporters must furnish documentation and verification of the carbon price already paid in India.
  • The move follows the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, and is the first such recognition of India's carbon market by a CBAM jurisdiction.
POLITY Home Ministry proposes a new Article 371(K) for Ladakh
  • Article 371 currently runs from clause A to clause J and covers 12 States; a clause K for a Union Territory would be a first.
  • Proposed legislative competence covers land, culture, language, forest, environment and natural resources, to operate concurrently with regulations made under Article 240.
  • The model is drawn from Article 371A (Nagaland) and Article 371G (Mizoram), which protect customary law and land ownership.
  • The Ladakh administration described it as a sui generis model; LAB representatives objected that no draft text was shared at the meeting.
  • Background: the 24 September 2025 Leh violence in which four people died in police firing, with about 80 criminal cases still pending.
POLITY Supreme Court: removing the marital rape exception is for the legislature
  • The matter is before a bench of the Chief Justice of India and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
  • Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code exempted non-consensual intercourse by a husband where the wife was aged 15 or above.
  • Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita retains the exception but raises the threshold to 18 years.
  • The Justice J.S. Verma Committee (2013), set up after the December 2012 Delhi case, had recommended removal of the exception.
  • The petitioner wife was represented by Senior Advocate Indira Jaising; the Union was represented by the Solicitor General.
IR India readies the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam
  • BRICS now has 10 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE.
  • The four summit pillars are Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability; over 350 meetings were held during India's year-long chairship.
  • The bloc accounts for about 27% of world output, 24-25% of global merchandise exports and 22% of FDI inflows.
  • The New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, has approved over $40 billion in financing since inception.
  • Day one holds a closed session on Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism; day two opens to partner and outreach countries.
HEALTH India reports a 177% rise in MBBS seats to the WHO South-East Asia Regional Committee
  • Medical colleges rose from 387 to 858, an increase of 121.71%.
  • MBBS seats rose from 51,348 to 1,42,464, an increase of 177.45%.
  • Postgraduate seats rose from 31,185 to 86,287, an increase of 176.69%.
  • Targets announced: 10,000 additional PG seats by 2028-29, 157 new nursing colleges adding about 15,700 nursing graduates a year, and 1,00,000 allied healthcare professionals over five years.
  • Digital health enablers cited were eSanjeevani teleconsultation and ABHA-linked health records.

11 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Centre Notifies Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Amendment Rules, 2026
  • Notified 10 September 2026; effective 1 January 2027; amends the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 framed under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
  • Any discount claim must disclose the lowest price at which the item was offered in the preceding 30 days (prior price disclosure).
  • Sponsored or paid listings must be clearly and prominently labelled; manipulation of search results that reduces relevance to the consumer's query is barred.
  • Platforms must comply with the 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines, conduct an annual self-audit and display a compliance certificate; bundled charges for unrelated services are prohibited.
  • Explicit consent is mandatory before using consumer personal data; integration with the National Consumer Helpline is compulsory.
ECONOMY PM Matsya Sampada Yojana Completes Six Years; Fish Output at 197.75 Lakh Tonnes
  • Launched in September 2020 with a total outlay of ₹20,750 crore; the 2026-27 allocation is ₹2,500 crore.
  • Fish production rose from 141.64 lakh tonnes (2019-20) to 197.75 lakh tonnes (2024-25).
  • Seafood exports climbed from ₹46,663 crore to ₹73,890 crore over the same period.
  • About 58 lakh people supported with employment; 2,195 Fish Farmer Producer Organisations (FFPOs) formed.
  • The National Fisheries Digital Platform crossed 37 lakh registrations as on 8 September 2026.
DEFENCE DAC Clears ₹1.10 Lakh Crore Acquisitions; 98% to Come From Indian Industry
  • Total AoN value about ₹1.10 lakh crore; roughly 98% of the procurement is to be sourced from Indian industry.
  • Army: CBRN reconnaissance vehicles, High Mobility Vehicles, Self-Propelled Mechanical Mine Layers, Advanced Light Helicopter (Dhruv), Trawl Tanks and Sarvatra Bridge Systems.
  • Navy: Arudhra radars and marine gas turbines for warship propulsion.
  • Air Force: fighter and transport aircraft enhancements, Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammers and DEFSAC secure access cards.
  • AoN is in-principle administrative approval — the first formal step, preceding the Request for Proposal and contract negotiation stages.
SCI-TECH CosmoCube: A Suitcase-Sized Lunar Radio Telescope to Listen to the Cosmic Dark Ages
  • Target: the 21-cm (1420 MHz) hydrogen line emitted more than 13.5 billion years ago, before the first stars lit up.
  • The Moon's far side is the quietest radio location in near-Earth space because the lunar body blocks terrestrial transmissions.
  • The spacecraft would get roughly 40 minutes of shielding in each 2-hour orbit.
  • Proposed mission life of about two years, yielding an estimated 1,000 hours of usable data; launch is projected to be about five years away.
  • Payload is CubeSat-class — low cost, low mass, standardised — making deep-space radio cosmology affordable.
SCI-TECH Mercury Has Shrunk About 23 km — 30% More Than Earlier Estimates
  • Diameter contraction of about 23 km (≈14 miles) over roughly 4.5 billion years.
  • Cause: cooling and contraction of Mercury's disproportionately large iron core, which occupies about 85% of the planet's radius.
  • Evidence comes from lobate scarps — cliff-like thrust faults created as the crust crumpled over the shrinking interior.
  • Earlier data came from Mariner 10 (1970s) and MESSENGER (2010s); the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission is to enter Mercury orbit in November 2026.
  • Mercury is the smallest planet, closest to the Sun, has only a thin exosphere and a weak global magnetic field.
ENVIRONMENT Aravalli Green Wall in Focus as Land Degradation Debate Sharpens
  • Launched on 21 March 2023 (International Day of Forests) by the Union Environment Ministry.
  • Envisages a green belt 1,400 km long and 5 km wide, running broadly from Porbandar to Panipat.
  • Covers four states/UT — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.
  • First-phase target includes rejuvenation of 75 water bodies, at five per district in the Aravalli landscape.
  • Modelled on Africa's Great Green Wall — about 8,000 km across 11 Sahel countries, aiming to restore 100 million hectares.
ENVIRONMENT Dwarf Lilyturf Recorded in India for the First Time, From Arunachal Pradesh
  • Species: Ophiopogon japonicus, family Asparagaceae; common names dwarf lilyturf, mondo grass.
  • Recorded at about 2,185 metres elevation in West Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Native range so far known: China, Japan, Korea and Nepal — India is a new distribution record.
  • Its tuberous roots, called Maidong, are used in traditional East Asian medicine for anti-inflammatory properties.
  • The find reinforces the Eastern Himalaya as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots and an under-surveyed floristic region.
IR New Delhi Hosts the 18th BRICS Summit on 12-13 September; India Chairs for the Fourth Time
  • 18th BRICS Summit, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, 12-13 September 2026; theme 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'.
  • India assumed the rotating chairship on 1 January 2026 — its fourth time, after 2012, 2016 and 2021; over 350 meetings were held through the year.
  • Eleven full members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Indonesia; plus ten partner countries added in 2025.
  • The bloc accounts for about 49.5% of world population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of global trade.
  • Four pillars: Resilience (health, food and energy security, disaster management), Innovation (startups, MSMEs, digital public infrastructure, AI), Cooperation (reformed multilateralism) and Sustainability (clean energy, climate adaptation).
POLITY MHA Proposes a New 'Chapter K' Under Article 371 for Ladakh
  • Proposal tabled at the 9 September 2026 round of Centre-Ladakh talks; envisages a directly elected legislative body.
  • Proposed subjects for the body: land, culture, language, forests, environment and natural resources — matters otherwise handled for UTs under Article 240.
  • Ladakh has been a Union Territory without a legislature since 31 October 2019, following the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir.
  • Present governance runs through two hill councils — LAHDC Leh and LAHDC Kargil — whose powers are limited.
  • The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes had earlier recommended extending the Sixth Schedule to Ladakh.
POLITY Tribal Affairs Ministry: 'No Provision' in Forest Rights Act for Gram Sabha Consent at Stage-II
  • Memorandum dated 31 August 2026 holds that Gram Sabha consent is not statutorily required at Stage-II forest clearance.
  • About 3,05,945 hectares of forest land were approved for non-forest use between 2008-09 and 2022-23.
  • A 2009 circular of the environment ministry had made Gram Sabha consent and FRA settlement a precondition for diversion.
  • Section 4(5) of the FRA bars eviction of forest dwellers until the process of recognition and verification of rights is complete.
  • The Supreme Court's Niyamgiri judgment (2013) upheld the authority of Gram Sabhas to decide on the religious and cultural rights of forest dwellers — the basis of the free, prior and informed consent principle.
POLITY Six Gujarat-Based Unrecognised Parties Reported ₹1,700 Crore in Donations in 2023-24
  • Six Gujarat-based RUPPs reported roughly ₹1,700 crore in donations for 2023-24.
  • RUPPs are registered with the Election Commission under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, but have not met the vote/seat thresholds for recognition.
  • They enjoy income-tax exemption under Section 13A of the Income Tax Act, subject to filing contribution reports.
  • Section 29C of the RPA requires parties to report contributions above ₹20,000.
  • Recognition as a national or state party is governed by the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
HEALTH 9th Rashtriya Poshan Maah Under Way as Protein Myths Draw Expert Pushback
  • 9th Rashtriya Poshan Maah, 1-30 September 2026, run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development under Mission Poshan 2.0.
  • National Nutrition Week was observed from 1 to 7 September.
  • Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), launched on 1 January 2017, marks a decade of operation.
  • ICMR-NIN recommends about 0.83 g of protein per kg of body weight per day — roughly 50 g for a 60-kg adult.
  • Experts note that a mixed plant-based diet supplies all nine essential amino acids, and that supplements are unnecessary for healthy adults.

12 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH ISRO hot-tests CE20 cryogenic engine at uprated 220 kN thrust
  • Test conducted at the ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri (Tamil Nadu); engine qualified for the new C32 cryogenic upper stage.
  • CE20 is India's first indigenously designed cryogenic engine using the gas-generator cycle; propellants are liquid hydrogen (LH2) + liquid oxygen (LOX).
  • Thrust raised in stages: 19 tonne (186 kN) to 20 tonne (196 kN) to 22 tonne (220 kN).
  • Uprating lifts LVM3 payload to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) beyond the current ~4 tonne class.
  • Feeds directly into the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme and future commercial heavy launches.
REPORT Record forex, weak citations: India's research volume-impact paradox
  • India produced about 1.6 million internationally indexed research papers (2020-2025), ranking 3rd in the world by volume.
  • Aggregate h-index of 925 places India 19th globally, against the United States' 3,213.
  • University patent filings jumped from 11,150 (2020-21) to 45,776 (2024-25), but the grant rate is only about 3%.
  • Commercial working rate of granted patents collapsed from 12.1% (2022-23) to 1.6% (2024-25).
  • India is 3rd in retractions (rate doubled to 3.5 per 1,000 papers); NIRF gives about 30% weightage to volume.
ECONOMY Centre tightens e-commerce rules: prior price, dark-pattern audits
  • Notified on 10 September 2026; comes into force from 1 January 2027.
  • Platforms must show a 'prior price' - defined as the lowest price offered in the preceding 30 days - alongside any discount claim.
  • Sponsored listings must be clearly labelled and separated from organic results; search rankings cannot be manipulated to reduce relevance.
  • Mandatory annual self-audit for compliance with the Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023, plus a published compliance certificate.
  • National Consumer Helpline logged about 5,11,196 e-commerce complaints in 2025 - roughly 29% of all complaints.
DEFENCE Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2026 underway across desert and Himalayan theatres
  • Dates: 9 to 28 September 2026; venues Bikaner (Rajasthan) and Auli (Uttarakhand).
  • 22nd edition; the 2025 edition was held in Alaska, United States - the exercise alternates between the two countries.
  • Aligned to a United Nations Chapter VII peace-enforcement mandate, focusing on integrated battle groups and joint sub-conventional operations.
  • Drills cover desert mechanised warfare, high-altitude acclimatised operations, drone and counter-drone action and combat medical care.
  • Other India-US exercises: Vajra Prahar, Tiger Triumph, Cope India and Malabar.
ENVIRONMENT State of India's Environment 2026: extreme weather on 99% of days
  • Extreme weather on 99% of days in 2025, causing 4,419 deaths and damaging 17.41 million hectares of crop area.
  • At least 43 people were killed in tiger attacks near reserves between January and June 2025, linked to habitat saturation and prey decline.
  • Only about 15% of India's population (around 200 million) lives near a functioning air-quality monitoring station; over 1.2 billion live in effectively unmonitored zones.
  • Report flags encroached floodplains and inadequate urban drainage as multipliers of flood risk under intensifying rainfall.
  • Recommends a shift from post-disaster relief to climate-resilient planning and nature-based solutions such as wetland restoration.
ECONOMY Odisha signs Rs 2.10 lakh crore project MoUs across 14 projects
  • Partners: the Adani Group and Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company (IHC); total indicative outlay Rs 2,10,500 crore.
  • Largest components: an AI Data Centre Hub (Rs 50,000 crore) and a Coal-to-Chemicals Complex (Rs 40,000 crore).
  • Portfolio spans ports, renewable energy, metals and digital infrastructure.
  • Signals a shift of hyperscale data-centre capacity to eastern India, drawn by power availability and coastal cable landing access.
  • MoUs are indicative commitments, not committed capital expenditure - conversion to ground investment is the real test.
IR 18th BRICS Summit opens in New Delhi under India's chairship
  • Theme: 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'; chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
  • BRICS now has 11 full members - BRICS plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia - plus partner countries.
  • Members account for about 49.5% of world population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of global trade.
  • The New Delhi Declaration is the principal outcome document; day two opens to partner countries on inclusive global growth.
  • India assumed the chair on 1 January 2026, succeeding Brazil; new cooperation platforms launched in agriculture, health and MSMEs/startups.
POLITY DILRMP 3.0 launched: Bhu-Aadhaar for every land parcel by 2031
  • Implemented by the Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development; outlay about Rs 565.50 crore for 2026-2031.
  • Bhu-Aadhaar is a 14-digit Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) to be assigned to every parcel.
  • Components: cadastral map georeferencing, scaling of NAKSHA (urban survey), paperless registration, Urban Property Cards and integrated revenue courts.
  • 100% centrally funded, with performance-linked fund releases through the Public Financial Management System (PFMS).
  • Expected benefits: faster collateral-backed agricultural credit, fraud prevention and fewer land-title disputes.
POLITY Unrecognised political parties: Rs 1,700 crore, no de-registration power
  • Six Gujarat-based RUPPs reportedly received about Rs 1,700 crore in FY 2023-24 while fielding only 15 candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
  • Over 2,800 RUPPs are registered; only around 750 contested in 2024 - roughly 70% are electorally inactive.
  • Only about 26-27% of RUPPs file their annual audit reports on time.
  • Registration is under Section 29A, Representation of the People Act, 1951; Section 80GGC, Income Tax Act allows 100% deduction on donations to parties.
  • In Indian National Congress vs Institute of Social Welfare (2002), the Supreme Court held the ECI has no statutory power to de-register a party except in narrow cases.

15 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Centre bars all charges on UPI and RuPay debit card payments up to ₹2,000
  • Issued under Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, which empowers the Centre to bar charges on prescribed electronic payment modes.
  • The bar covers UPI payments up to ₹2,000 and all RuPay debit card transactions; person-to-person UPI stays free at every value.
  • Zero MDR has applied to UPI and RuPay since 1 January 2020; banks and fintechs have carried the cost of running the rails since.
  • UPI handled 24.51 billion transactions worth ₹29.82 trillion in August 2026.
  • NPCI must still fix the rate and the merchant categories; industry expects 25–30 basis points, and only for larger merchants.
SCI-TECH Telecom department's Financial Fraud Risk Indicator heads off ₹5,043 crore of suspected cyber fraud
  • FRI was launched by the Department of Telecommunications on 22 May 2025; it labels a mobile number Medium, High or Very High risk in a fraction of a second when a payment starts.
  • It runs on the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), live since 2024, linking over 1,600 stakeholders — telecom operators, banks and law-enforcement agencies.
  • Suspected fraud prevented rose from ₹660 crore in the first six months to ₹5,043.73 crore cumulatively by August 2026 — a roughly 7.6-fold jump.
  • More than 1,500 banks and financial institutions have been trained across 25-plus sessions.
  • Inputs come from citizen reports on the Sanchar Saathi portal and the national cybercrime reporting system; the RBI has asked banks to integrate the tool.
SCI-TECH Semicon 2.0 becomes formal policy as India's chip design base widens before SEMICON India 2026
  • Semicon 2.0 carries an outlay of ₹1.27 lakh crore, succeeding the first phase of the India Semiconductor Mission.
  • 281 Indian semiconductor companies have raised about $1.4 billion in equity, of which $228 million came in 2026 so far.
  • Under the ChipIN Centre, Karnataka leads with 73 tape-outs and 81 supported organisations, ahead of Tamil Nadu (33) and Telangana (28).
  • Bengaluru alone accounts for over 40% of all semiconductor funding raised in India.
  • SEMICON India 2026 runs 17–19 September in New Delhi and is to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister.
ENVIRONMENT World Circular Economy Forum opens in Gandhinagar — first edition hosted in South Asia
  • Dates 15–18 September 2026, venue Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat; theme "Circular Economy: Transition for People and Prosperity".
  • The forum was created in 2017 by Sitra, Finland's innovation fund; the 2026 edition marks its tenth anniversary and its first South Asian hosting.
  • Expected participation of over 2,000 stakeholders from 65+ countries with 125+ exhibitors.
  • Four tracks: finance and investment; technology and innovation (AI, IoT, digital product passports); policy and EPR harmonisation; market solutions.
  • India co-chairs the board of the UN 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP), which meets during the forum.
ENVIRONMENT Gujarat action plan for the Great Indian Bustard; soft-release centre opens in Kachchh
  • The Gujarat Action Plan targets a minimum viable population of 30 or more birds over 200–500 sq km.
  • Lala–Rawa in Kachchh (about 200 sq km) is the priority landscape; around 11 sq km of degraded grassland has been restored with predator-proof fencing.
  • A GIB Soft Release Centre has been set up to acclimatise captive-bred birds brought from Rajasthan before release into the wild.
  • The Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) is Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
  • Overhead power lines remain the single biggest mortality risk; the species now survives mainly in Rajasthan's Thar landscape and in Kachchh.
ENVIRONMENT Project Cheetah crosses 52 animals as habitat under the programme widens to 3,428 sq km
  • The population has risen from 29 founder cheetahs to 52 individuals; 49 cubs have been born in India cumulatively.
  • Cub survival at Kuno National Park is about 68%.
  • Protected habitat under the project now covers 3,428 sq km.
  • Banni Grasslands (Gujarat) and Nauradehi (Madhya Pradesh) are identified as future release sites, alongside Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary.
  • Project Cheetah, begun in September 2022, is the world's first intercontinental translocation of a large carnivore.
POLITY Supreme Court: a genuine marriage promise later broken is not an offence under Section 69 BNS
  • Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran; the judgment was delivered on 7 September 2026 and reported this week.
  • Section 69 BNS penalises sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means or a promise to marry made without any intention of fulfilling it — a distinct offence carved out from rape.
  • The Court held the deception must exist at the inception of the promise; a later failure to marry is not by itself an offence.
  • The man had withdrawn from the marriage citing his mother's objection; the Court read the relationship as consensual.
  • The Court relied on Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana (2013), which distinguished a false promise from a breach of promise.
IR 18th BRICS Summit adopts the New Delhi Declaration; India hands the chair to China
  • Theme: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability"; the grouping marked its 20th anniversary.
  • 11 members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — plus 10 partner countries.
  • Finance: the BRICS Payment Task Force was tasked with low-cost local-currency settlement, and the "Jaipur Consensus" invoice-discounting mechanism for exporting MSMEs was endorsed. No common BRICS currency was agreed.
  • New initiatives: BRICS AGRIN farmer platform, a Global Forum on Farmers' Rights, a Digital Public Infrastructure Repository and the BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyle (2026–2029).
  • The declaration pressed for UN Security Council reform, criticised unilateral tariffs and carbon border measures (CBAM), and condemned terrorism, naming the April 2025 Jammu & Kashmir attack.
IR India and Mercosur launch talks to widen their preferential trade pact, sign e-certificate protocol
  • The India–Mercosur PTA was signed in 2004 and came into force in 2009, covering 450 tariff lines on India's side and 452 on Mercosur's.
  • Two-way trade stood at $21.8 billion in 2025-26.
  • The First Additional Protocol makes electronic Certificates of Origin legally equivalent to paper certificates, cutting transaction cost and verification lag.
  • Mercosur's five full members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
  • The protocol enters into force once both sides complete internal procedures and notify each other.
DEFENCE India and Vietnam agree to co-produce defence hardware at the 19th Joint Commission Meeting
  • The two sides identified co-production of Indian defence equipment and mutually beneficial supply chains as the next step in defence cooperation.
  • Ties were elevated to an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in May 2026, with a trade target of $25 billion a year by 2030.
  • Cooperation was widened to air connectivity, nuclear energy, space, port infrastructure, heritage conservation and people-to-people exchange.
  • Both sides discussed West Asia and the South China Sea, reaffirming a maritime order based on international law.
  • The next defence policy dialogue is to be held during Aero India 2027.

16 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH PM Modi meets global chip CEOs as SEMICON India 2026 opens tomorrow at Yashobhoomi
  • Theme: “Transform Tomorrow: Silicon to Systems — Building the Ecosystem”. Organised jointly by the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), MeitY and industry body SEMI at Yashobhoomi (India International Convention & Expo Centre).
  • Scale: 500+ exhibitors, 243 international companies, 150+ speakers, delegates from 40+ countries and 15,000 sq m of exhibition space, with 6 country pavilions (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, Netherlands) and 10 state pavilions.
  • Semicon 1.0 scorecard: 12 approved projects worth ₹1.64 lakh crore (≈ US$20 billion) across Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh — of which 3 units are already in commercial production.
  • Semicon 2.0 was approved by the Union Cabinet on 15 July 2026 with an outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore, and the programme duration was stretched to 12 years. Its six pillars are chip design, machines and materials, fab setup, ATMP/OSAT, R&D and talent.
  • ISM CEO Amitesh Kumar Sinha said India's own semiconductor requirement will climb from about US$100 billion to US$200 billion, as the global market doubles from roughly US$1 trillion to US$2 trillion.
ECONOMY Wholesale inflation at 9.92% pulls far ahead of 4.82% retail; RBI drains ₹1 lakh crore
  • WPI inflation: 9.92% in August 2026, up from 9.78% in July (all-commodities index 110.8 vs 110.0). Fuel & power 22.93%, manufactured products 8.37% — a series high, primary articles 7.76%, and WPI food 7.05%, a 20-month high.
  • CPI inflation: 4.82% in August, up from 4.45% in July — a third straight month above the 4% target. Food 5.95%, core 4.16%, rural 5.23%, urban 4.31%. Telangana was highest at 6.27%, Mizoram lowest at 2.35%.
  • The RBI announced ₹1,00,000 crore of open market operation (OMO) bond sales — its first net bond sale in two years — in three tranches: ₹50,000 crore on 17 September, ₹25,000 crore on 21 September and ₹25,000 crore on 28 September 2026.
  • On 15 September the five-year yield jumped 22 basis points to 6.80% — its sharpest rise since May 2022 — and the 10-year rose 6 bps to 7.07%. SBI Research now projects two 25-bps repo hikes, in October and December 2026, with CPI peaking near 6.70%. The Indian crude basket is up from $82.04 in July to $109.76 in September; the next MPC meets 5–7 October 2026.
ECONOMY August trade deficit narrows to a five-month low as merchandise exports jump 26%
  • Merchandise exports: US$43.81 billion, up 26.12% year-on-year from $34.74 billion. Merchandise imports: US$70.67 billion. Merchandise deficit: US$26.86 billion, down from $31.98 billion in July 2026.
  • Services exports: US$38.87 billion (up 24.61%) against services imports of US$21.42 billion — a services surplus of about US$17.45 billion.
  • Overall goods-plus-services deficit: US$9.41 billion, narrower than $11.62 billion in August 2025.
  • April–August FY27: exports US$215.91 billion, imports US$363 billion. The United States remains the largest destination at US$42.79 billion (+6.17%), while exports to China rose 38.71% to US$9.61 billion; imports from China were US$65.49 billion.
SCI-TECH Chandrayaan-1 data points to “Australe Basin” — possibly the Moon's oldest impact basin
  • The study was led by the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, with Neha Panwar as lead author, and published in The Planetary Science Journal on 15 September 2026.
  • It used the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), the NASA imaging spectrometer flown aboard Chandrayaan-1 (2008) — the same instrument that confirmed water molecules on the lunar surface.
  • The Australe Basin may predate the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) Basin, which at over 4 billion years is currently the Moon's oldest confirmed impact structure.
  • Because its rims are heavily eroded, the basin was invisible to ordinary imaging; it was identified instead through distinct mineralogical and gravity signatures.
  • Its volcanic rocks show unusual mineralogy — lower calcium-bearing minerals but higher magnesium content than typical lunar basalts. Scientists estimate about 300 impact basins exist on the Moon, of which only 74 have been detected — making this a candidate target for the Chandrayaan-4 sample-return mission.
DEFENCE Yudh Abhyas 2026 opens at two sites for the first time — Auli and Mahajan
  • Venues: the Auli Foreign Training Node, Uttarakhand (high-altitude) and the Mahajan Field Firing Range, Rajasthan (desert). The exercise runs to 28 September 2026.
  • Participation: about 1,200 personnel, roughly 600 from each country. India is represented by the 14 Infantry Division; the US by the 1st (Mobile) Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division (“Arctic Angels”).
  • Systems in play include HIMARS, Stinger air-defence missiles and the M-LIDS counter-drone system — reported as deployed in India for the first time.
  • Training focus: Integrated Battle Group operations, mountain and cold-weather warfare, counter-UAS, drones and autonomous systems, and space and cyber multi-domain integration.
  • Yudh Abhyas has been held annually since 2004 under US Army Pacific sponsorship, alternating between India and the United States.
POLITY Supreme Court dismisses 271 Union appeals on armed-forces disability pension
  • Case: Union of India & Ors. v. Col. N.C. Isaac (Retd.), citation 2026 INSC 993, decided by a bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe. All 271 matters were dismissed with no order as to costs.
  • The dispute turns on “NANA” — “Neither Attributable to Nor Aggravated by” military service — the Ministry of Defence classification used to deny disability pension by holding a disability unconnected to service.
  • The Raksha Mantri's Committee of Experts recommended in 2015 that pending NANA appeals be withdrawn, and the MoD formally accepted this in 2018 — but the Court held the recommendation “has not been faithfully implemented”.
  • Core holding: the Entitlement Rules, 2008 substantially preserve the protective framework of the 1982 Rules, so the burden of proof stays with the Department — with a narrow exception for claims raised more than 15 years after discharge.
  • The bench stressed that “transparency, clarity and certainty are of enormous importance” in service jurisprudence affecting large classes of litigants.
IR EAM Jaishankar begins two-day Bhutan visit; second senior Indian visit in a week
  • He was received by Bhutan's Foreign Minister Lyonpo D.N. Dhungyel. The programme includes bilateral talks, a royal audience with King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and a call on Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.
  • Carry-over agenda from August 2026 talks: trans-border river management, flood forecasting, hydrological data sharing and progress on the jointly implemented Punatsangchhu-I Hydroelectric Project.
  • The visit followed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's three-day Bhutan visit from 14 September 2026, during which he met the King and attended Bhutan's National Voters' Day.
  • Recent India-funded deliverables include three community development projects in Panbang, Zhemgang, with road works costing roughly Nu 31 million.
  • Hydropower remains the spine of the relationship: Bhutan exports surplus power to India, and the revenue is a dominant share of Bhutanese government income.
IR India at G20 Energy Abundance Ministerial in Houston; non-fossil capacity crosses half the mix
  • The ministerial was built on three pillars: Energy Security and Affordable Baseload; Permitting and Regulatory Efficiency; and Critical Minerals and Resilient Supply Chains.
  • India told the meeting it has 552 GW of installed electricity capacity, with the non-fossil share now exceeding 50% — achieved ahead of its 2030 commitment.
  • India–US: the minister met US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and reaffirmed the US–India Energy Security Partnership, covering clean energy, power infrastructure for AI, high-performance computing and data centres, and India's nuclear expansion roadmap.
  • India–Canada: he met Corey Hogan, Parliamentary Secretary to Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, on energy efficiency and offshore exploration under the Samudra Manthan scheme. India pressed for “practical, inclusive and technology-neutral” solutions.
SOCIETY PM Vishwakarma completes three years; 30 lakh artisans registered, meeting its full target
  • 30 lakh (3 million) beneficiaries registered — meeting the scheme's registration target in three years.
  • Over 6.19 lakh loans sanctioned, worth approximately ₹5,316 crore, under collateral-free credit at a 5% concessional interest rate.
  • Over ₹42 crore disbursed as digital transaction incentives to 8.11 lakh beneficiaries.
  • Over 24.37 lakh artisans given basic skill training and over 18.16 lakh issued toolkit e-vouchers; more than 12,000 were trained in AI tools for branding and product design.
  • Over 30,000 beneficiaries onboarded onto GeM and ONDC and private marketplaces, with 82 trade fairs and 37 state-level exhibitions organised.
ENVIRONMENT World Ozone Day 2026: “Global action for a cooler planet” marks 10 years of the Kigali Amendment
  • The Kigali Amendment, adopted in 2016, governs the global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — which are not ozone-depleting but are potent greenhouse gases.
  • Full implementation of the Kigali Amendment alone could avoid up to 0.5°C of global warming by the end of the century.
  • The Montreal Protocol (1987) is the first UN treaty to achieve universal ratification — 198 parties — and sits under the framework Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985).
  • India ratified the Kigali Amendment in 2021 and will begin its HFC phase-down from a 2032 baseline, reaching an 85% cut by 2047.
  • The Antarctic ozone hole is projected to recover to 1980 levels by about 2066, with the Arctic by 2045 and the rest of the world by 2040.
REPORT Unemployment eases to a six-month low of 5.0% in August; female participation rises
  • All-India unemployment rate: 5.0% (Current Weekly Status, 15 years and above), down from 5.1% in July.
  • Rural unemployment fell to 4.1% from 4.5% — the lowest since January 2026 — while urban rose marginally to 6.8% from 6.7%.
  • Male unemployment 4.9% (from 5.0%) and female 5.1% (from 5.4%); rural female joblessness fell to 3.9% from 4.3%.
  • Labour Force Participation Rate (15+): 55.6% (from 55.4%) and Worker Population Ratio: 52.8% — the highest since March 2026. Female LFPR rose to 34.8%, with rural female LFPR at 39.4%. The survey covered 3,70,160 persons.

17 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH SEMICON India 2026 opens; Semiconductor Mission 2.0 scales up to ₹1,27,500 crore
  • ISM 2.0 outlay ₹1,27,500 crore (about USD 13.5 billion), against ₹76,000 crore under Semicon 1.0 announced in 2021.
  • 12 semiconductor projects approved across six States; 3 are already in commercial production.
  • Six pillars: chip design, equipment & materials, fabrication, advanced packaging, R&D and talent.
  • Targets include 200+ chip-design companies, 1 lakh technicians and 85,000 semiconductor engineers in a decade; focus on mature nodes of 28 nm and above.
  • 24 startups supported under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme; 7 chips fabricated at the 12 nm node.
ECONOMY UPI merchant discount rate returns: 0.4% only on large P2M payments
  • 0.4% MDR on person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions above ₹2,000, capped at ₹300 per transaction.
  • Notified essential services — railways, telecom, insurance and fuel — attract a flat ₹5 per transaction; capital-market transactions 0.02%, capped at ₹300.
  • Fully exempt: all P2P transfers, all P2M up to ₹2,000, and small merchants under the P2PM framework receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month via UPI QR.
  • The merchant, not the consumer, bears the MDR; 5% of collections goes to a small-merchant support fund.
  • The government separately denied reports of any GST on UPI transactions.
DEFENCE India summons Pakistan envoy after PNS Hunain collides with Indian warship
  • PNS Hunain is a 98-metre offshore patrol vessel of the Pakistan Navy.
  • The incident occurred on 16 September 2026 in international waters, roughly 220 km (about 120 nautical miles) east of the Oman coast.
  • No major damage to the Indian warship and no injuries were reported.
  • India invoked Article 10 of the 1991 India-Pakistan Agreement on Prevention of Airspace Violations and Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troop Movements, under which naval vessels shall not approach within three nautical miles of each other in international waters.
  • India also cited the COLREGs — the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.
SCI-TECH Pangwala tribal gut study finds a deep antimicrobial-resistance reservoir
  • 28 volunteers were profiled using whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing, covering bacteria, fungi and viruses.
  • Dominant species: Prevotella copri, alongside Bifidobacterium and Succinivibrionaceae.
  • Stability despite diet change is explained by functional redundancy — different microbes performing the same job.
  • Highest resistance was to vancomycin, alone and with teicoplanin; the dominant mechanism was antibiotic target alteration (about 76%).
  • The phage Ceduovirus was far more abundant in native residents (16%) than migrants (0.04%).
ENVIRONMENT World Ozone Day 2026: India launches a Net Zero Portal and an NAPCC Dashboard
  • The Net Zero Portal is a national registry where Indian entities voluntarily disclose greenhouse-gas emissions and declare net-zero targets.
  • The NAPCC Dashboard digitally tracks the missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
  • The Montreal Protocol was signed on 16 September 1987 and has 198 parties — universal ratification; about 99% of ozone-depleting substances have been phased out.
  • The Kigali Amendment (2016) phases down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are potent greenhouse gases but not ozone-depleting; full implementation could avoid up to 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100.
  • India ratified the Kigali Amendment in September 2021; its HFC phase-down begins in 2032, with cuts of 10% by 2032, 20% by 2037, 30% by 2042 and 85% by 2047.
ECONOMY WPI inflation at 9.92% in August 2026 as fuel prices stay elevated
  • Sub-indices for August 2026: Fuel and Power 22.93%, Manufactured Products 8.37%, Primary Articles 7.76%, WPI Food Index 7.05%.
  • The spike is led by mineral oils at 38.48% and crude petroleum and natural gas at 34.41%, with Brent crude near USD 100 a barrel.
  • CPI for August 2026 was 4.82%, with food inflation (CFPI) at 5.95%; rural 5.23% and urban 4.31%.
  • The new WPI series (base 2022-23) was released in June 2026, raising the item basket from 697 to 957 and shifting weights to Gross Value of Output; crude petroleum moved from Primary Articles into Fuel and Power.
  • WPI is released by the Office of the Economic Adviser, DPIIT; CPI by the National Statistics Office, MoSPI (base year 2024).
POLITY Supreme Court seeks Manipur affidavit on 25 unnatural deaths in relief camps
  • The affidavit must cover post-mortem reports and causes of death, and explain why post-mortems were conducted in only 20 of the cases.
  • The Court questioned the "meagre" compensation of ₹20,000 to ₹30,000 per family when ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh was contemplated in comparable cases.
  • The Manipur State Legal Services Authority must ensure an FIR is registered in every unnatural death.
  • Investigation status placed before the Court: about 3,020 cases across 8 districts through 42 SITs; 302 chargesheets, 1,583 closure reports and 1,135 still under investigation.
  • In the CBI's 31 cases, only 6 of 978 cited witnesses have been examined; the Court discussed two additional NIA courts in Assam.
POLITY Supreme Court tells RBI its loan-recovery norms exist only on paper
  • Recovery agents seized the borrower's truck at about 1 a.m. on 9 April 2023 in Ayodhya, breaking the steering lock; it was sold for ₹4.50 lakh on 31 August 2023 without proper notice.
  • Relief: refund of ₹4,50,000 with 6% interest, compensation of ₹10,00,000 for mental agony and loss of livelihood, ₹50,000 costs, and closure of both loan accounts.
  • The Court invoked Article 21 (right to livelihood) and Article 14 (arbitrariness), and relied on Section 35-A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
  • It distilled guiding principles: no undue harassment, no force or stealth, prior notice before repossession, due diligence on recovery agents, designated recovery locations and a credit-counsellor mechanism.
  • The RBI may bar an institution from engaging recovery agents; the Registry was directed to forward the judgment to the RBI.
SOCIETY EPFO wage ceiling rises to ₹25,000 a month with effect from today
  • More than 51 lakh additional employees in the ₹15,001 to ₹25,000 wage band enter the statutory social-security net.
  • Fiscal cost: ₹11,339 crore a year against the existing ₹10,250 crore, and about ₹56,696 crore over five years.
  • The ceiling was last revised in September 2014, when it rose from ₹6,500 to ₹15,000.
  • EPFO scale today: about 7.98 crore contributing members across 7.68 lakh establishments, and roughly 82 lakh EPS pensioners.
  • Statutory basis: the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, with consequential changes to the EPF Scheme 1952, EPS 1995 and EDLI Scheme 1976.
IR New Zealand Parliament ratifies the India-New Zealand FTA by 93 votes to 29
  • Negotiations were launched in March 2025 and concluded in about nine months — billed as India's fastest-concluded FTA.
  • New Zealand grants duty-free access on 100% of its tariff lines; India opens 70.03% of its tariff lines, covering about 95% of bilateral trade.
  • India's schedule: 30% of lines see immediate elimination, 35.60% phased over 3 to 10 years, 4.37% reduced but not eliminated, 0.06% under tariff rate quotas, and 29.97% excluded.
  • Dairy is fully excluded by India, along with other sensitive agriculture and sugar — the headline defensive win.
  • Bilateral merchandise trade rose from USD 873 million in 2023-24 to USD 1.3 billion in 2024-25.

18 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 launched at SEMICON India 2026
  • Outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore (about $13.5 billion) spread over 12 years, against ₹76,000 crore over five years in Phase 1.
  • Built on six pillars: chip design, machines and materials, fabs, advanced packaging, research, and talent development.
  • Targets 200-plus chip design start-ups and training of one lakh clean-room and factory-floor workers.
  • Three units are already in commercial production in assembly, testing, marking and packaging; a 3D packaging unit is coming up in Odisha.
ECONOMY UPI merchant discount rate returns for payments above ₹2,000 from 15 October
  • Standard rate 0.4%, capped at ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 and above.
  • Essential and thin-margin sectors pay a flat ₹5 per transaction above ₹2,000; capital-market payments attract 0.02%, capped at ₹300.
  • All person-to-person transfers and merchant payments up to ₹2,000 remain free; about 97.5% of UPI transactions by volume are unaffected.
  • Revenue split: payer's bank 40%, merchant's bank 30%, UPI app or TPAP 20%, payment service provider bank 10%.
  • A separate 5% pool will fund UPI adoption among small merchants; zero charges up to ₹2,000 are notified under Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
ECONOMY Wholesale price inflation hardens to 9.92% in August 2026
  • Headline WPI inflation at 9.92% in August 2026, up from 9.78% in July; the all-commodities index rose to 110.8 from 110.0.
  • Fuel and power was the main driver at 22.93%, up from 20.05%, with mineral oils at 38.48% and crude petroleum at 34.41%.
  • Manufactured products inflation edged up to 8.37%; primary articles eased to 7.76% from 8.52%.
  • The food index rose to 7.05% from 6.65%.
  • Retail CPI inflation was 4.82% in August with food inflation at 5.95%; the unemployment rate stood at 5.0%.
DEFENCE Defence Acquisition Council clears ₹1.10 lakh crore of proposals, 98% from Indian industry
  • Total Acceptance of Necessity value of about ₹1.10 lakh crore, with around 98% to be sourced from Indian industry.
  • Army: CBRN reconnaissance vehicles, high mobility vehicles, self-propelled mechanical mine layers, advanced light helicopters, trawl tanks and the Sarvatra bridge system.
  • Navy: Arudhra radars and the design, development and procurement of marine gas turbines.
  • Air Force: ground-based multi-purpose jammers and the DEFSAC secure access card system.
  • Yudh Abhyas 2026, the 22nd India-United States army exercise, runs to 28 September at Auli in Uttarakhand and the Mahajan field firing range in Rajasthan.
DEFENCE India rejects the new Pakistan-China Boundary Joint Commission
  • India holds the 1963 Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement to be illegal and invalid.
  • Under that agreement Pakistan ceded roughly 5,800 sq km of the Shaksgam valley to China.
  • The Shaksgam valley lies north of the Karakoram range, between Xinjiang and Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan.
  • Its location is strategically close to the Siachen-Karakoram zone and complements the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
SOCIETY EPFO wage ceiling raised from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month
  • Ceiling raised from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month; approved by the Cabinet in September 2026.
  • This is the first revision since September 2014, when the limit moved from ₹6,500 to ₹15,000.
  • About 51 lakh additional employees are expected to come under mandatory coverage.
  • The estimated additional annual outlay for the government is about ₹11,339 crore.
POLITY Supreme Court fast-tracks the challenge to Delhi's Special Intensive Revision
  • More than 47 lakh names were removed from the draft roll and about 33 lakh more electors have received notices.
  • The disputed logical discrepancies category, not defined by the poll authority, covers 19.33 lakh electors.
  • The mapping category, involving generational voting verification, covers 13.79 lakh electors.
  • Electors facing notices add up to 33,12,919, or about 33.96% of the 97.5 lakh enumerated electors.
IR United States bill proposes up to 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian energy
  • The bill targets Russia's energy sector, listed individuals and the shadow fleet of tankers.
  • Exemptions are offered to countries that sharply cut purchases or whose imports are under 15% of Russia's total exports.
  • Russia's share of India's crude imports touched an all-time high of over 51% in July 2026.
  • India imported about 110.4 lakh tonnes of Russian crude in July, roughly 26% higher than in June.
  • India already faces cumulative United States tariffs of 50%; the bill also preserves a discretionary presidential waiver.
IR India and MERCOSUR sign first Additional Protocol for electronic certificates of origin
  • The protocol gives electronic certificates of origin the same legal validity as paper certificates, enabling paperless trade.
  • MERCOSUR is a South American customs union whose founding members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
  • The wider negotiation to expand the India-MERCOSUR preferential trade agreement is targeted for completion within a year, covering tariffs and digital cooperation.
  • At the 9th ASEAN-India agriculture ministers' meeting, co-chaired with the Philippines, India noted bilateral trade of $128 billion in FY 2025-26.
REPORT India stays at rank 131 of 145 on the Global Gender Gap Index 2026
  • India is ranked 131 out of 145 countries with a parity score of 64.5%, below the global average of 69.2%.
  • Sub-index scores: educational attainment 96.6%, health and survival 95.6%, economic participation 41.2%, political empowerment 24.5%.
  • India's best sub-index rank is 67th, in political empowerment.
  • Iceland tops the index with about 93% of its gap closed, followed by Finland, Norway, Namibia and the United Kingdom.
  • Parity in professional and technical roles in India nearly doubled from 26.6% in 2006 to 49.9% in 2026, but female labour force participation is 44.1%.
ENVIRONMENT Mangrove GIS portal released as MISHTI nears its restoration target
  • MISHTI stands for Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes, announced in the 2023-24 Budget.
  • 27,652 hectares have been restored against a target of 29,250 hectares for the 2023-27 period.
  • 12,450 hectares of that restoration is in the ecologically difficult Kori Creek stretch.
  • The new Mangrove GIS (MGIS) portal, a Mangroves Atlas of Gujarat and a coffee-table book on Kachchh mangroves were released.
  • Guneri in Kachchh, home to rare inland mangroves, was declared Gujarat's first Biodiversity Heritage Site in January 2025.

19 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
SCI-TECH Semicon 2.0: India Semiconductor Mission enters Phase-II
  • Semicon 2.0 carries an outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore (about USD 13.5 billion), against ₹76,000 crore in Phase-I — a 67.8% increase.
  • Cabinet approval came in July 2026; the programme was unveiled on 17 September 2026.
  • Built on six pillars: design, equipment and materials, fabs, advanced packaging, applied R&D, and talent.
  • Targets: 200 semiconductor design start-ups, training of 1 lakh technicians and roughly 1 lakh new jobs.
  • Five units approved under Phase-I are already in commercial production.
ECONOMY US Fed raises rates 25 bps — first hike in three years
  • The federal funds target range was raised by 25 basis points to 3.75–4.00% on 16 September 2026.
  • It is the first increase in three years, decided by a unanimous vote.
  • Fed Chair Kevin Warsh committed to a timelier return to the 2% inflation target.
  • Projections point to growth easing from about 2.3% to 2.1%, unemployment near 4.1%, and inflation falling to 2.0% by 2029.
  • US inflation was last below the 2% target in February 2021.
SCI-TECH Deep-sea mining: India's nodule ambition meets an ecological gap
  • Polymetallic nodules lie at depths of 3,000–6,000 metres on the abyssal seabed.
  • India holds three exploration contracts with the International Seabed Authority, covering about 95,000 sq km.
  • Estimated resource: about 366 million tonnes of polymetallic nodules.
  • The indigenous submersible MATSYA-6000 has been tested to about 5,270 metres against a design depth of 6,000 metres.
  • The ISA's exploitation code — the rulebook for commercial mining — remains unadopted.
ENVIRONMENT India's first soil carbon payments reach smallholder farmers
  • ₹2.9 crore was distributed to 2,550 smallholder farmers in Punjab and Haryana on 17 September 2026.
  • Average payment worked out to about ₹11,478 per farmer.
  • About 50,000 carbon credits were verified for practices adopted between 2019 and 2022.
  • Credited practices: Direct Seeded Rice (DSR), reduced tillage and crop-residue management.
  • Co-benefits reported: roughly 45 billion litres of water saved and over 2 lakh tonnes of residue retained on fields.
DEFENCE HAL completes Tejas trainer deliveries, hands Dhruv NG to civil operator
  • Deliveries of the Tejas twin-seater trainer variant to the Indian Air Force have been completed.
  • Four Dhruv Next Generation (NG) helicopters were inducted into Pawan Hans Ltd. for civil operations.
  • The Dhruv NG is a 5.5-tonne class light helicopter that is civil-certified.
  • Tejas is India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), developed with DRDO's ADA.
ECONOMY Retail inflation climbs to 4.82% in August 2026
  • Headline CPI inflation was 4.82% in August 2026, up from 4.45% in July.
  • Food inflation rose to 5.95% from 5.52% — 6.13% rural and 5.64% urban.
  • The reading sits above the 4% medium-term target but within the 2–6% tolerance band.
  • Sharp gainers: ginger (+73.82%), onion (+48.27%) and garlic (+43.60%); tomato (-31.09%) and potato (-13.14%) fell.
  • Inflation has risen steadily from 3.93% in May through 4.38% in June and 4.45% in July.
POLITY Six states sign the Kishau Multipurpose Project agreement
  • The agreement was signed on 15 September 2026, ending a 17-year deadlock.
  • Signatories: Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.
  • Site: the Tons river, the largest tributary of the Yamuna, on the Uttarakhand–Himachal Pradesh border.
  • A concrete gravity dam of 232.6 metres — among India's tallest — with storage of 1,562 million cubic metres (MCM).
  • Benefits: irrigation for 97,000 hectares, 1,476 million units of hydropower and a 25% environmental flow for the Yamuna.
POLITY ECI freezes Trinamool Congress name and symbol before bypolls
  • The interim order was issued on 17 September 2026 under Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
  • Neither group may use the name All India Trinamool Congress or the reserved 'Flowers & Grass' symbol.
  • Rival groups are led by Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy.
  • The freeze precedes bypolls in Rejinagar and Nandigram scheduled for 6 October 2026.
  • Under Para 15 the primary test is majority support among elected legislators (MPs and MLAs), with verified affidavits used when membership records are contested.
HEALTH Jan Aushadhi basket expands well beyond medicines
  • Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) now runs over 20,000 Jan Aushadhi Kendras nationwide.
  • The basket covers 2,110 medicines plus 315 surgicals, consumables and devices.
  • Sales between 2021 and 2026 touched ₹7,873.85 crore, with estimated citizen savings of about ₹37,200 crore.
  • Two sub-baskets: Janaushadhi Bachpan (infant and child care) and Jan Aushadhi Swabhiman (elderly care).
  • Implementing agency: the Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI).
REPORT Global report puts forests at the centre of food security
  • The report was released on 15 September 2026 by the UN food and agriculture body.
  • Over 5 billion people depend on forests for livelihoods; more than 50,000 wild species are used for food or medicine.
  • In parts of Africa up to 80% of daily protein comes from wild meat; in the Amazon about 44% of food consumed is forest-sourced.
  • Global forest loss averaged 10.9 million hectares per decade to 2025.
  • India's instruments: Forest Rights Act, 2006, MSP for Minor Forest Produce, Van Dhan Vikas Kendras and the National Agroforestry Policy, 2014.
ENVIRONMENT India-born cheetah delivers four cubs; Kuno population rises to 56
  • The India-born female KGP-12 delivered four cubs on 17 September 2026.
  • The total cheetah population rose from 52 to 56 — 49 at Kuno National Park and 3 at Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary.
  • Project Cheetah was launched on 17 September 2022 with 8 cheetahs from Namibia, followed by 12 from South Africa in February 2023.
  • The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952; this is the world's first intercontinental translocation of a large carnivore.
  • Kuno National Park lies in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, in the Chambal region.
IR New Zealand clears legislation to give effect to the India FTA
  • New Zealand's Parliament passed the enabling legislation for the India–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement.
  • The agreement provides duty-free access for 100% of Indian exports to New Zealand.
  • Entry into force follows completion of domestic ratification procedures on both sides.
  • It sits alongside India's wider trade push — textile exports alone were ₹29,776 crore in August 2026, up 16.1% year-on-year.
  • India also ranked No. 1 among 41 global markets on business climate in an international survey released this week.

20 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY Coal India Bets Rs 50,000 Crore on Gasification, Critical Minerals and Renewables
  • Flagship: Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Ltd, a CIL-BHEL JV at Lakhanpur, Odisha, of about Rs 25,000 crore.
  • It will make about 6.60 lakh tonnes of ammonium nitrate a year; tenders run with GAIL and BPCL.
  • Five domestic blocks with graphite and rare metals acquired; lithium options explored in Chile, Argentina, Australia.
  • Renewable target of 9.5 GW by 2030, pairing solar with battery energy storage systems (BESS).
ECONOMY Wholesale Inflation Stays Elevated at 9.92% on Fuel and Food
  • Fuel and power inflation surged to 22.93% from 20.05% in July - the single largest driver.
  • Manufactured products rose to 8.37% from 8.29%; the food index to 7.05% from 6.65%.
  • Primary articles inflation eased to 7.76% from 8.52%.
  • Top contributors: mineral oils, food articles, food products, basic metals and chemicals.
ECONOMY Software Services Exports Rise 8.2% to USD 221.4 Billion in 2025-26
  • The United States took 54.1% of the basket; Europe 31.8%, with the United Kingdom the largest European market.
  • 91.7% of exports were delivered off-site, underlining India's remote-delivery advantage.
  • Computer services made up over two-thirds of the total; BPO led the ITES segment.
  • Local business of foreign subsidiaries of Indian firms grew from USD 13.9 billion to USD 17.9 billion.
SCI-TECH Deep-Sea Mining: India's Seabed Ambition Meets an Ecological Wall
  • India holds three exploration contracts with the International Seabed Authority over about 95,000 sq km.
  • The blocks lie in the Central Indian Ocean Basin, the Central Indian Ridge and the Carlsberg Ridge.
  • Identified resource: about 366 million tonnes of polymetallic nodules rich in nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese.
  • Capability includes the MATSYA-6000 submersible and a mining system tested at about 5,270 metres.
ENVIRONMENT Green Tribunal's Global Conference Puts Climate Equity and Nuclear Power Centre Stage
  • Developed countries were said to emit roughly six times more carbon per capita than India.
  • Solar capacity was cited as rising from about 2 GW to 160 GW in twelve years; wind roughly tripled.
  • Annual EV sales rose from about 3,000 to nearly 25 lakh; about 1.5 crore water-harvesting structures were built.
  • Avoided emissions were put at about 20 crore tonnes; dense forest cover up about 22%.
POLITY Joint Parliamentary Committee Begins Scrutiny of the FCRA (Amendment) Bill, 2026
  • A new Designated Authority will take custody of and dispose of assets built from foreign contributions on loss of registration.
  • Assets go into provisional custody and vest permanently in government if registration is not restored in time.
  • Maximum imprisonment for offences is proposed to fall from five years to one year.
  • Registration would cease automatically on non-renewal; places of worship must keep their religious character.
IR India-Nepal Sub-Committee on Trade, Transit and Unauthorised Trade Concludes
  • Bilateral trade was about USD 9.38 billion in 2025-26; India is over 60% of Nepal's external trade.
  • India takes more than 80% of Nepal's goods exports and is its largest foreign investor.
  • India has extended about USD 750 million in Lines of Credit since 2006; the armies hold SURYA KIRAN.
  • Energy ties rest on the Power Exchange Agreement, 1971 and the Joint Vision Statement on Power, 2022.
SOCIETY Swachhata Hi Seva 2026 Runs on Five Pillars Till 17 October
  • Five pillars: Cleanliness Target Units, Swachh Paathshala, Safai Mitra Suraksha evam Samman Shivir, Jan Bhagidari, Swachhata se Samriddhi.
  • A nationwide one-hour shramdaan - Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath - falls on 1 October 2026.
  • 2 October is Swachh Bharat Diwas, marked by gram sabhas and plantation drives.
  • It is run by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
REPORT India Opens Asian Games Account with Women's 10m Air Rifle Team Silver
  • Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar and Vidarsa Vinod totalled 1,898 points; China took gold.
  • Suchika Tariyal assured India's first Asian Games medal in MMA, winning her 60 kg quarterfinal 2-0.
  • The Games run 19 September to 4 October 2026 across Aichi-Nagoya, with events in Tokyo, Gifu, Shizuoka; 43 sports.
  • India has fielded about 502 athletes in 35 sports, backed by TOPS and the Target Asian Games Group.

21 September 2026

Full notes with diagrams →
ECONOMY FPIs pull ₹20,974 crore from equities in September; 2026 outflow crosses ₹2.45 lakh crore
  • Sept outflow ₹20,974 cr; July inflow ₹20,200 cr, Aug inflow ₹29,630 cr.
  • 2026 YTD equity outflow ₹2.45 lakh cr – already above full-year 2025 (₹1.66 lakh cr).
  • Debt also hit: FAR ₹10,296 cr, VRR ₹1,817 cr, general route ₹1,068 cr withdrawn.
  • Drivers: higher US rates/bond yields, Brent above $100/bbl (Hormuz tension), rupee at record lows.
SCI-TECH Rare-earth magnets: India's gap lies in the midstream, not in reserves
  • Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) magnets power EV motors, wind turbines, drones, electronics.
  • India has reserves in coastal monazite sands (Kerala, TN, Odisha, AP) – the weak link is separation, metallisation, alloying.
  • China dominates the midstream processing stage where global concentration is highest.
  • Proposal: an Integrated Techno-Economic Mapping (ITEM) framework linking engineering and economic data across the chain.
ECONOMY Tata Trusts call Chandrasekaran's reappointment 'void' – a corporate governance test
  • Trusts own about 66% of Tata Sons; Article 104B lets them nominate one-third of directors while holding ≥40%.
  • Article 121: key decisions need affirmative vote of a majority of Trust nominees.
  • Nominees split 1-1: Noel Tata against, Venu Srinivasan for; Trusts say a chairman's casting vote cannot fill this gap.
  • Linked row over a Tata Sons listing, which RBI's upper-layer NBFC rules for large CICs make mandatory.
ENVIRONMENT Five baby orangutans found in Odisha expose urban wildlife-trafficking networks
  • Probe by Odisha Forest Dept and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) into illegal import.
  • All 3 orangutan species are Critically Endangered (IUCN) and in CITES Appendix I.
  • Black-market price up to ₹20 lakh per animal; 2 baby orangutans were seized on the Assam-Mizoram border in 2022.
  • Studies show urban demand hubs, not only source forests, reshape trafficking routes; India's key route is the India-Myanmar border.
IR US Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act signed – up to 100% tariffs threaten India's oil diplomacy
  • Allows duties of up to 100% on goods from the top-5 buyers of Russian crude or gas; to be applied within 30 days.
  • Russia supplied ~2.1 mbpd to India in Aug 2026 (down from 2.6 mbpd in June-July) – still >40% of imports.
  • US takes about 20% of India's goods exports; MSME exporters most exposed.
  • India's stance: will keep importing from commercially viable sources.
POLITY SC: a court deposit is not payment – asks Law Commission to frame a uniform deposit law
  • Interest liability ceases only on payment per Order XXI Rule 1, CPC.
  • Found wide inconsistency across courts in deposit %, banks, instruments and interest accounting.
  • Recommended a statutory framework; copy sent to Law Commission, RBI Governor, Finance & Law Secretaries.
  • Model cited: US Court Registry Investment System – a pooled, unified investment platform.
POLITY SIR Phase-3: about 17% names dropped from draft rolls in 12 States and 2 UTs
  • Phase-3 covers 12 States + 2 UTs; earlier two phases removed about 13% of names.
  • Highest combined rates flagged in Delhi (53.73%), Chandigarh (52.58%), Telangana (48.90%), Jharkhand (39.57%).
  • Reasons cited by ECI: deaths, shifted, duplicate, untraceable electors.
  • Excluded persons can file Form 6 / claims before the ERO during the claims-and-objections window.
IR Nepal's Finance Minister in Delhi seeks help for post-flood reconstruction
  • Floods killed 1,388 people; property loss ~$4.75 bn across three districts.
  • Reconstruction estimated at $4.7-5 bn over 3-5 years.
  • After the 2015 earthquake, India gave a $250 mn grant + $750 mn LoC.
  • Pending: revision of the 2009 Trade Treaty, overflight/air-entry routes for Pokhara & Bhairahawa airports.
HEALTH Tamil Nadu launches a salt-reduction strategy to curb hypertension
  • Average Indian intake: 8.9 g/day (men), 7.1 g/day (women) vs WHO cap of 5 g.
  • TN adult hypertension: 33.9% (men), 28.5% (women).
  • Excess sodium → water retention → higher blood volume → raised arterial pressure (the 'silent killer').
  • Four levers: measurement, reformulation, awareness, screening with doorstep drug delivery.
SOCIETY Community cadres: 30 lakh+ village workers powering last-mile delivery
  • 9 lakh+ Community Resource Persons; 92 lakh SHGs under DAY-NRLM cover 10 crore+ households.
  • 10.40 lakh ASHAs; Krishi Sakhi 1.91 lakh, Pashu Sakhi 1.70 lakh, BC Sakhi 1.48 lakh.
  • ₹13.41 lakh crore bank credit to SHGs since 2013-14; 4.32 lakh enterprises under SVEP.
  • Concern: paid by honoraria/incentives; 45th Indian Labour Conference (2013) call for minimum wages largely unmet.
SOCIETY 72nd National Film Awards at Ekta Nagar; Anant Nag gets Dadasaheb Phalke Award
  • Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2024: Anant Nag – 300+ films in six languages; debut in Ankur (Hindi); known for Malgudi Days.
  • Best Feature Film: Article 370; Best Actor shared by Mammootty and Kartik Aaryan.
  • Ravi Raj Murmu's Angen – first Santhali film honoured (Best Debut, Non-Feature).
  • Prize money: Swarna Kamal ₹3 lakh, Rajat Kamal ₹2 lakh; presented by the President.

Prelims rapid-fire — 96 facts

EOS-05 launch vehicle — GSLV-F17, the 19th flight of the GSLV, from the Second Launch Pad, Sriharikota.
FCRA JPC head — Dr Sanjay Jaiswal; 31 members — 21 Lok Sabha + 10 Rajya Sabha.
August 2026 gross GST — ₹1,99,853 crore, up 14.8%; refunds up 67.9%.
RAKSHA pillars — Strategic Partnerships, Capacity Building, Indigenous Exports, Maritime Security — a 10-year roadmap.
Teachers' Day awards — 69 educators honoured — 48 school + 21 higher education/polytechnic.
Khagantak-243 — Indigenous 300-kg class glide bomb, range 140+ km, by BEL and JSR Dynamics.
68th Ramon Magsaysay Awards — Tommy Koh (Singapore), Runa Khan (Bangladesh), Bo Kyi (Myanmar).
Gollala Gudi Temple — Declared a Monument of National Importance by the ASI — Telangana's 10th protected site.
First non-medical woman two-star officer — Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma of the Indian Air Force.
Kalyani Strategic Systems + Thales — Pact for 70mm rocket systems in India; first unit expected early 2027; counter-drone role.
Odisha disaster-risk pacts — OSDMA with UNDP and CivicDataLab — HRVA across 30 districts, 'Zero Casualty' goal.
India-US trade deal condition — India will sign the BTA only on a preferential tariff edge over rivals; 9 FTAs already cover ~$60 trillion of GDP.
The IAF's Sarang helicopter display team, flying the indigenous Dhruv ALH, is in Egypt for the El Alamein International Airshow (8-10 September 2026).
GSLV-F17 was the 19th GSLV flight and the 107th launch from Sriharikota.
Meloxicam is the vulture-safe alternative to diclofenac, whose veterinary use India banned in 2006.
Sentencing in the Jhiram Ghati case is fixed for 16 September 2026 by the special NIA court at Jagdalpur, Bastar.
The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement is a $100 billion currency-swap net; the New Development Bank sits in Shanghai.
Equal Earth, Gall-Peters and Mollweide are equal-area projections; Mercator is conformal and used for navigation.
Forex reserves stand at a record $740.80 billion; the weekly rise was $11.47 billion.
JCR is a Japanese rating agency; it moved India from BBB+ to A- with a stable outlook.
Patent No. 599900 covers BAM-H24, a boron-rich solid rocket propellant.
Gandhi Ghat and Pandarak are the Ganga gauge sites in Patna district that crossed record levels.
Section 21(3) of the RP Act, 1950 is the legal basis for a Special Intensive Revision.
The Lokur Committee of 1965 laid down the five criteria still used to identify Scheduled Tribes.
Arudhra is an indigenous medium power radar cleared for the Indian Navy by the Defence Acquisition Council.
JNPA in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra is India's largest container-handling port and the western terminus of the WDFC.
Osbeckia ulotricha, the newly described plant, belongs to the family Melastomataceae.
Article 217 deals with the appointment and conditions of office of a High Court judge.
The New Development Bank, a BRICS institution, is headquartered at Shanghai, China.
Kadana Dam, site of a new 110 MW floating solar plant, is on the Mahi river in Gujarat.
UNESCO tentative list: four Indian sites added — Rangpur-Sivasagar (Assam), Colonial Penal Settlement (Andaman), Nicobarese Cultural Continuity and the Painted Haveli Towns of Shekhawati (Rajasthan) — taking India's tentative list to 73.
Banking: Coastal Local Area Bank, Vijayawada enters the Second Schedule of the RBI Act, 1934 — the first Local Area Bank to gain scheduled status and the only scheduled bank headquartered in Andhra Pradesh.
Species: Osbeckia ulotricha, family Melastomataceae, described by the Botanical Survey of India from the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve in the Western Ghats at 1,200-1,500 m.
Defence industry: a five-year pact signed for indigenous 7.62x39 mm ammunition for AK-203 rifles — ammunition at Kanpur, rifles at Korwa, Amethi; original December 2021 contract was for 6,01,427 rifles.
Literacy: International Literacy Day (8 September) marked its 60th anniversary with the theme 'Literacy for people, the planet and prosperity'; the ULLAS Mela 2026 was held in New Delhi. India's literacy rate rose from 74% (2011) to 80.9% (2023-24).
Finance: the Asian Development Bank signed its first Transaction Advisory Services mandate in India with Madhya Pradesh on 7 September 2026, targeting $1 billion of renewable-energy PPPs anchored by a solar-plus-battery project at Shajapur.
Exercise Veer Guardian-2026, the second India-Japan bilateral air exercise, runs at Jodhpur from 9 to 22 September 2026 with Tejas, Su-30 MKI and Rafale against JASDF F-2A jets; the 22nd Exercise Yudh Abhyas with the United States began on 9 September in a two-theatre format.
ISRO and the European Space Agency signed a Technical Implementing Plan in Paris on 9 September 2026 for ESA ground-tracking support to Gaganyaan — a three-member, three-day mission to a 400 km orbit — and agreed to widen lunar and Venus cooperation; the Venus Orbiter Mission has an outlay of ₹1,236 crore, 19 payloads and a March 2028 launch target.
Census 2027 has been advanced in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa: self-enumeration 16-30 November 2026, house-to-house enumeration 1 December 2026 to 4 January 2027, and a reference date of 00:00 hours on 5 January 2027. The questionnaire notified on 14 August 2026 has 40 questions.
A new rock-dwelling lichen species, Buellia maharajensis, was described from Mathikettan Shola National Park, Idukki, Kerala at an altitude of 1,351 metres.
The 9th ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry in New Delhi adopted a Medium-Term Plan of Action for 2026-2030; ASEAN-India goods trade stood at $128 billion in FY 2025-26.
PM-SETU cleared ₹735.70 crore for three ITI clusters at Bhiwadi (Rajasthan), Medchal (Telangana) and Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), taking the cumulative sanction to ₹2,171 crore across 9 clusters.
Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi — venue of the 18th BRICS Summit, 12-13 September 2026.
New Development Bank — BRICS bank set up in 2014, headquartered in Shanghai.
21-cm line — hyperfine spin-flip transition of neutral hydrogen that CosmoCube will hunt from the Moon's far side.
Aravalli Green Wall — 1,400 km × 5 km belt from Porbandar to Panipat, launched 21 March 2023.
Ophiopogon japonicus — family Asparagaceae; first Indian record at 2,185 m in West Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh.
AoN (Acceptance of Necessity) — first formal approval stage under the Defence Acquisition Procedure, 2020.
Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 2026 takes effect 1 October 2026 (assent 13 August 2026) - digital, cloud-hosted and virtual banking records become admissible evidence, replacing the 1891 framework.
BharatNet: Digital Bharat Nidhi signs a Rs 1,684 crore pact with Jharkhand covering 4,395 Gram Panchayats and 26,777 villages; DBN replaced the USOF under the Telecommunications Act, 2023.
Schizopygopsis waddellii - a Tibetan snowtrout (family Cyprinidae) recorded in India for the first time from Pangkang Teng Tso Lake, Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh (about 12,800 ft).
Acharya Vinoba Bhave (11 Sept 1895 - 15 Nov 1982) - 'National Teacher of India', first individual Satyagrahi (1940), led the Bhoodan movement; wrote Geetai.
79th WHO South-East Asia Regional Committee (Dili, Timor-Leste) adopted the Dili Declaration on Human Resources for Health; India recognised for sustaining maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination.
PMMSY: fish production up from 141.64 to 197.75 lakh tonnes; fisheries exports up from Rs 46,663 crore to Rs 73,890 crore; Rs 2,500 crore allocated in Budget 2026-27.
Section 10A, Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 — the provision used to bar charges on UPI and RuPay debit card payments.
$56.846 billion — inflows drawn by the RBI's special swap window; FCNR(B) alone brought in $52.3 billion.
Semicon 2.0 — India's second-phase chip programme, outlay ₹1.27 lakh crore; SEMICON India 2026 runs 17–19 September in New Delhi.
Lala–Rawa, Kachchh — the priority Great Indian Bustard landscape; the bird is Critically Endangered and in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
Sitra, Finland's innovation fund, created the World Circular Economy Forum in 2017; the 2026 edition at Gandhinagar is its tenth.
15 September — International Day of Democracy, and in India Engineer's Day, marking Sir M. Visvesvaraya's birth anniversary.
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) — NASA imaging spectrometer flown on Chandrayaan-1 (2008); confirmed lunar water and has now revealed the Australe Basin.
NANA — “Neither Attributable to Nor Aggravated by” service; the Ministry of Defence classification at the heart of the 16 September disability-pension ruling.
Kigali Amendment (2016) — amends the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs, which are greenhouse gases, not ozone-depleting substances. India ratified it in 2021.
Current Weekly Status (CWS) — PLFS activity measure using a 7-day reference period; the basis of the 5.0% August unemployment rate.
Punatsangchhu-I — India-assisted hydroelectric project in Bhutan, on the agenda of the External Affairs Minister's 16–17 September visit.
1991 India–Pakistan Agreement on Advance Notice of Military Exercises — invoked by India on 16 September after an unsafe Pakistan Navy manoeuvre in the North Arabian Sea; it requires three nautical miles of separation between the two navies' vessels.
Gucchi (Morchella esculenta), the Himalayan morel served at the BRICS 2026 gala dinner, sells for ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 a kg and grows wild in Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
India exported about 500 tonnes of hilsa (Tenualosa ilisha) to Bangladesh over two months — the first time the trade has run in this direction. Hilsa is anadromous and Bangladesh's national fish.
PLFS bulletin, August 2026: unemployment rate 5.0%, LFPR 55.6%, worker-population ratio 52.8%; released by the NSO under MoSPI.
Merchandise trade, August 2026: exports USD 43.81 billion, imports USD 70.67 billion, deficit USD 26.86 billion; the overall goods-and-services deficit narrowed to USD 9.41 billion.
Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2026, the 22nd India-US army exercise, runs 15-28 September 2026 at Auli, Uttarakhand and Mahajan Field Firing Range, Rajasthan — the first time on two terrains at once, with about 600 personnel a side.
PRL Ahmedabad used Chandrayaan-1's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) to identify the Australe Basin, a lost lunar impact basin ringed by orthopyroxene and inferred to be older than 4 billion years.
18 September is observed as International Equal Pay Day, established by UN General Assembly resolution in 2019, and also as World Bamboo Day.
Gegeneophis chandgadi, a new caecilian amphibian, was described from Kolhapur district in Maharashtra, taking India's amphibian count to 458 species.
The Asian Games 2026 open at Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from 19 September to 4 October, with India sending 508 athletes across 37 sports.
West Bengal has cleared a new DRDO missile testing range at Junput, Purba Medinipur, about 70 km from Chandipur.
Dhiraj Bommadevara became the first Indian male recurve archer to win an individual Archery World Cup Final title, beating Japan's Junya Nakanishi 6-5.
The Colombo Security Conclave table-top exercise concluded at Visakhapatnam; its members are India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius, Bangladesh and Seychelles.
OneTag — launched by NHAI with NPCI on the Rajmargyatra app, it allows FASTag bank portability without replacing the physical tag; a six-month cooling-off applies between port requests.
Global Business Climate Survey 2026 — India ranked No. 1 among 41 global markets; 73% of surveyed Swedish firms rated India's operating climate good or very good.
Census Town — criteria unchanged since 1981: population 5,000+, 75% of male workers in non-agricultural activity and density of 400 persons per sq km.
Himalayan Monal — state bird of Uttarakhand; a new study found birds in noisy tourism zones calling at higher frequencies, an example of acoustic masking.
Marathi film 'Gondhal' — selected as India's official entry for the Oscars 2027 Best International Feature category.
CORE Programme — a tri-services and civil-bureaucracy training initiative at the Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi, covering multi-domain conflict, AI, non-kinetic warfare and cyber deterrence.
Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Ltd is a joint venture of Coal India and BHEL at Lakhanpur, Odisha.
WPI base year is 2011-12; fuel and power carries a weight of 13.15%.
India is the third country in the world, after Australia and New Zealand, to establish a dedicated green tribunal.
The International Seabed Authority is headquartered at Kingston, Jamaica, under UNCLOS Part XI.
Polymetallic nodules are rich in nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese.
The 9th India International Water Week theme is Climate Resilient Water Management; partner countries are the Netherlands and Germany.
Dadasaheb Phalke Award instituted: 1969; first recipient Devika Rani
CITES Appendix I: Species threatened with extinction – commercial trade banned
FPI vs FDI threshold: 10% of equity of a listed company
Rare-earth elements: 17 = 15 lanthanides + Sc + Y
Article 326: Elections on basis of adult suffrage (18 yrs)
WHO daily salt limit: Less than 5 g (about 1 teaspoon)

Data points of the period

₹1,99,853 crore
Gross GST Collection — August 2026
Up 14.8% year-on-year from ₹1,74,116 crore — a record for the month. Net collections after refunds stood at ₹1,68,057 crore (+8.3%) because refunds surged 67.9% to ₹31,795 crore. Imports (+29.0%) far outpaced domestic revenue (+9.3%). Component-wise: CGST ₹38,413 cr, SGST ₹46,316 cr, IGST ₹1,15,124 cr. For April–August 2026, gross collections reached ₹10,42,757 crore (+11.0%). Exam angle: GST is a destination-based, multi-stage, value-added tax; the GST Council (Article 279A) is the recommendatory federal body — Centre holds one-third of the weighted votes, all States together two-thirds, and decisions need a three-fourths majority of members present and voting.
7.8%
India's real GDP growth, Q1 FY27 (April-June 2026)
Against the central bank's 7% projection. Manufacturing grew 9.2% (from 8.3%) and services 10% (from 8%), while mining contracted 2.4% and agriculture eased to 3.6%. Real gross fixed capital formation rose 11.9%, lifting the investment rate to 34.3% of GDP from 31.4%. Nominal GDP grew 10.3%. Inflation is projected at 5.9% for October-December 2026.
$740.80 billion
India's forex reserves, an all-time high
₹1,99,853 crore (+14.8% year-on-year)
Gross GST collection, August 2026
Domestic revenue rose 9.3% to about ₹1.37 lakh crore while import IGST surged 29% to ₹62,604 crore. Refunds jumped 67.9% to ₹31,795 crore, so net collection grew a slower 8.3% to about ₹1.68 lakh crore. April-August gross stood at ₹10.43 lakh crore, up 11%.
$101.07 per barrel
Indian crude oil basket, 4 September 2026
Above $100 for the first time since May 2026. If crude holds above $90/barrel, the current account deficit could widen to 1.7% of GDP (about $71 billion) in H2 FY27, against 0.5% of GDP in Q1 FY27.
Over $200 billion
Merchandise exports, April-August 2026
Up more than 15% from $183 billion in April-August 2025. The April-July figure alone was $174 billion, a 17% rise year on year. India's stated target is $1 trillion in total exports for FY 2026, supported by trade agreements now covering 38 developed economies — roughly two-thirds of global trade.
$740.80 billion (week ended 28 August 2026)
India's Foreign Exchange Reserves — All-Time High
Reserves rose $11.47 billion in a single week. Components: Foreign Currency Assets $600.67 billion, gold $116.41 billion, SDRs $18.81 billion and IMF reserve position $4.914 billion. For context, retail inflation (CPI) stood at 4.45% in July 2026 with food inflation at 5.52%, inside the RBI's 2-6% tolerance band around the 4% target. Reserves cover roughly 11 months of imports.
USD 785.7 billion
India's Foreign Exchange Reserves - record high
Reserves rose by a record USD 44.9 billion in the week ended 4 September 2026 to an all-time high of USD 785.7 billion, lifting India to the 4th largest reserve holder globally after China, Japan and Switzerland. Foreign Currency Assets stood at USD 648.2 billion (up USD 47.5 billion) while gold reserves slipped to USD 113.8 billion. A large part of the surge came through deposit and borrowing-linked inflows, which carry future repayment obligations - so headline reserves overstate the unencumbered buffer.
WPI 9.92% | CPI 4.82%
India's inflation split — August 2026
Wholesale inflation edged up from 9.78% in July on a fuel-led cost shock — Fuel & Power at 22.93%, Primary Articles at 7.76%, Manufactured Products at 8.37%. Retail inflation at 4.82% stayed inside the RBI's 2–6% band, with food (CFPI) at 5.95%, rural at 5.23% and urban at 4.31%. Both series were released on 14 September 2026. The 5.1 percentage-point wedge means producers are absorbing costs that have not yet reached the shopper — a margin squeeze today, a possible retail pass-through tomorrow.
9.92%
Wholesale price inflation, August 2026
Up from 9.78% in July and now more than double the 4.82% retail (CPI) print — a divergence driven almost entirely by fuel and power inflation of 22.93%, with WPI food at a 20-month high of 7.05%.
9.92%
Wholesale Price Index inflation, August 2026
Up from 9.78% in July 2026 on the new 2022-23 base year. Fuel and Power ran at 22.93% and mineral oils at 38.48%, while retail CPI inflation for the same month was only 4.82% — the widest wholesale-retail wedge in years, and a reminder that WPI carries no services and a heavy fuel weight.
₹2,25,000 crore
RBI absorbs ₹2.25 lakh crore in a single VRRR auction
A 3-day variable rate reverse repo (VRRR) auction is being conducted on 18 September 2026, maturing on 21 September 2026, to drain surplus liquidity from the banking system and stop the overnight call rate from sliding well below the policy repo rate. A VRRR absorbs liquidity, while a VRR injects it. Earlier in September the central bank had mopped up as much as ₹6.02 lakh crore in a single round as the system surplus touched record highs. This is liquidity management, not a change in the policy stance.
4.82%
Retail inflation (CPI), August 2026
Up from 4.45% in July 2026. Food inflation at 5.95% (rural 6.13%, urban 5.64%). Above the 4% medium-term target but inside the 2–6% tolerance band.
USD 221.4 billion
Software services exports, 2025-26
Up 8.2% year-on-year. The United States accounted for 54.1% and Europe 31.8% of the basket, while 91.7% of delivery was off-site. Counting foreign affiliates of Indian companies, the total reaches USD 239.3 billion, a 9.5% rise.
4.82%
CPI (retail) inflation, August 2026
Up from 4.45% in July; food inflation 5.95% (rural 6.13%, urban 5.64%). Above RBI's 4% target but inside the 2-6% band; repo rate at 5.25% means the real policy rate is near zero.

31 practice MCQs — UPSC Prelims pattern

Q1. With reference to EOS-05, recently launched by ISRO, consider the following statements: 1. It was placed in orbit by the PSLV from the First Launch Pad at Sriharikota. 2. It is India's first imaging satellite to operate from a geosynchronous orbit. 3. It carries both multispectral and hyperspectral imaging payloads. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statement 1 is incorrect — EOS-05 was launched by GSLV-F17 from the Second Launch Pad. Statements 2 and 3 are correct: it is described as India's first imaging satellite from a geosynchronous orbit and carries a multispectral VNIR imager plus hyperspectral VNIR and SWIR sensors.

Q2. Consider the following statements regarding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC): 1. It consists of members drawn from both Houses of Parliament. 2. It is a permanent (standing) committee of Parliament. 3. Its recommendations on a Bill are binding on the Government. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 1 and 2 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: A
Only statement 1 is correct. A JPC is an ad hoc committee, constituted for a specific purpose and dissolved once it reports — so statement 2 is wrong. Committee recommendations are advisory/recommendatory, not binding on the Government — so statement 3 is wrong. The FCRA (Amendment) Bill JPC has 21 Lok Sabha and 10 Rajya Sabha members.

Q3. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), frequently in the news, is best described as:

  1. A production-based index compiled from factory output returns
  2. A survey-based diffusion index where a reading above 50 indicates expansion
  3. A price index used by the RBI for inflation targeting
  4. A composite index of stock-market capitalisation of listed manufacturers
Show answer
Answer: B
PMI is a survey-based diffusion index derived from responses of purchasing managers; a reading above 50 signals expansion over the previous month and below 50 a contraction. It is a leading indicator, unlike the production-based IIP. India's services PMI was 54.1 in August 2026 with the composite at 54.3.

Q4. With reference to the recently launched EOS-05 mission, consider the following statements: 1. It was placed in orbit by the GSLV, which uses an indigenous cryogenic upper stage. 2. It is India's first imaging satellite intended for a geostationary orbit. 3. A geostationary orbit lies at an altitude of about 800 km above the equator. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: a
Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong — a geostationary orbit lies at roughly 35,786 km above the equator; 800 km is typical of a Sun-synchronous polar orbit.

Q5. Consider the following pairs of map projections and their properties: 1. Mercator — conformal, preserves angles 2. Equal Earth — equal-area, preserves relative size 3. Mollweide — equal-area How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None
Show answer
Answer: c
All three pairs are correctly matched. Mercator preserves angles and is useful for navigation but inflates high-latitude landmasses; Equal Earth and Mollweide are equal-area projections that preserve relative size while distorting shape.

Q6. Prelims MCQ 1. With reference to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, consider the following statements:1. It is conducted under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.2. An intensive revision involves fresh house-to-house enumeration.3. Appeals against an Electoral Registration Officer's decision lie to the District Magistrate.Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statements 2 and 3 are correct. Statement 1 is wrong - electoral roll preparation is governed by the RP Act, 1950; the RP Act, 1951 deals with the conduct of elections and disqualifications.

Q7. Prelims MCQ 2. Consider the following pairs of constitutional provisions and their subject:1. Article 342 - specification of Scheduled Tribes2. Article 338A - National Commission for Scheduled Tribes3. Article 366(25) - definition of Scheduled TribesHow many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None
Show answer
Answer: C
All three are correctly matched. Note that only Parliament by law can include or exclude a community from the ST list, even though the President issues the initial notification under Article 342.

Q8. With reference to the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC), consider the following statements: 1. It is implemented by a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Ministry of Railways. 2. Its western terminus provides direct freight connectivity to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority. 3. Dedicated Freight Corridors permit double-stack container train operation. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: D
All three are correct. DFCCIL is the SPV under the Ministry of Railways; the last commissioned section links the corridor to JNPA; and DFCs are engineered for double-stack container movement with higher axle loads.

Q9. Consider the following statements about a geosynchronous orbit: 1. Its orbital period is approximately equal to the earth's rotation period. 2. Every geosynchronous orbit is necessarily geostationary. 3. It lies at an altitude of roughly 36,000 km above the earth's surface. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Statement 2 is wrong: a geostationary orbit is the special case of a geosynchronous orbit with zero inclination over the equator, so an inclined geosynchronous orbit is not geostationary.

Q10. With reference to the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) of India, consider the following statements: 1. It was notified under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022. 2. It is administered by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency. 3. It replaced the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, whose traded instrument was the Energy Saving Certificate. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: D
All three are correct. The CCTS was notified in June 2023 under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022 and is administered by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, with the National Steering Committee co-chaired by the Ministry of Power and the MoEFCC. It succeeds the PAT scheme, under which Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts) were traded. The CCTS unit is the Carbon Credit Certificate, denominated in tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Q11. Consider the following statements about the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC): 1. It is chaired by the Chief of Defence Staff. 2. It was constituted in 2001 following the recommendations of a Group of Ministers set up after the Kargil conflict. 3. Acceptance of Necessity accorded by it amounts to the signing of a procurement contract. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 2 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1 and 3 only
Show answer
Answer: B
Only statement 2 is correct. The DAC is chaired by the Defence Minister, not the Chief of Defence Staff, so statement 1 is wrong. It was constituted in 2001 on the recommendation of the Group of Ministers report that followed the Kargil Review Committee, so statement 2 is correct. Acceptance of Necessity is only the first, in-principle stage of the acquisition cycle under DAP 2020 and is not a signed contract, so statement 3 is wrong.

Q12. With reference to Article 371 of the Constitution of India, consider the following statements: 1. It contains special provisions running from clause A to clause J. 2. Article 371A relates to Nagaland and protects customary law and land ownership. 3. Article 240 empowers the President to make regulations for certain Union Territories. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: D
All three are correct. Article 371 currently carries clauses A to J covering 12 States. Article 371A gives Nagaland protection for Naga customary law, procedure and land ownership. Article 240 empowers the President to make regulations for specified Union Territories, including Ladakh. The proposed Article 371(K) would be the first such clause for a Union Territory.

Q13. A Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), as recently in the news, is best described as:

  1. A domestic cap-and-trade market for power plants within a single country
  2. A charge on imported goods reflecting the carbon emitted in producing them
  3. A concessional climate finance window operated by multilateral development banks
  4. A treaty obligation under the Paris Agreement to submit carbon budgets
Show answer
Answer: B
A CBAM levies a charge on imports based on the greenhouse gases embedded in their production, so that domestic producers already paying a carbon price are not undercut by imports from jurisdictions without one. Its stated aim is to prevent carbon leakage. The UK CBAM starts in 2027 and covers steel, aluminium, fertilisers and cement; it has now recognised India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, so carbon costs already paid in India can be set off.

Q14. With reference to BRICS, consider the following statements: 1. India is chairing BRICS in 2026 for the fourth time. 2. The New Development Bank is headquartered in Shanghai. 3. Indonesia is a partner country of BRICS and not a full member. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: A
India assumed the chairship on 1 January 2026 — its fourth, after 2012, 2016 and 2021, so statement 1 is correct. The New Development Bank, established in 2014, is headquartered in Shanghai, so statement 2 is correct. Indonesia is a full member of the expanded eleven-member grouping, not a partner country, so statement 3 is incorrect.

Q15. Consider the following statements: 1. The Sixth Schedule provides for Autonomous District Councils in tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. 2. Ladakh is at present covered under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. 3. Article 240 empowers the President to make regulations for certain Union Territories. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Ladakh is not covered by the Sixth Schedule; it is a Union Territory without a legislature, and the demand for Sixth Schedule status is precisely what the proposed Chapter K under Article 371 seeks to address, so statement 2 is incorrect.

Q16. With reference to the CE20 engine recently in the news, consider the following statements: 1. It is an indigenously developed cryogenic engine operating on the staged-combustion cycle. 2. It uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as propellants. 3. It powers the upper stage of the LVM3 launch vehicle. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
CE20 uses the gas-generator cycle, not staged combustion - so statement 1 is incorrect. It burns LH2 + LOX and powers the cryogenic upper stage (C25/C32) of LVM3, so statements 2 and 3 are correct.

Q17. Consider the following statements regarding Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs) in India: 1. They are registered with the Election Commission under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. 2. The Election Commission has express statutory power to de-register a party that fails to contest elections for ten years. 3. Donations made to registered political parties can qualify for deduction under Section 80GGC of the Income Tax Act. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Registration is under Section 29A, RPA 1951 (1 correct) and Section 80GGC allows deduction on donations (3 correct). Following Indian National Congress vs Institute of Social Welfare (2002), the ECI has no general power of de-registration - so statement 2 is incorrect.

Q18. With reference to the September 2026 notification on charges for digital payments, consider the following statements: 1. It bars any charge on UPI transactions up to ₹2,000 and on RuPay debit card transactions. 2. It has been issued under Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. 3. It permits banks to levy a charge on person-to-person UPI transfers above ₹2,000. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: A
Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong — person-to-person UPI transfers stay free at every value; only a narrow set of merchant transactions above ₹2,000 could attract an MDR in future, and NPCI has still to fix the rate and the eligible merchant categories.

Q19. Consider the following pairs of trade arrangements and their defining feature: 1. Preferential Trade Agreement — tariff concessions on a limited list of goods 2. Customs Union — a common external tariff against non-members 3. Common Market — free movement of goods, services, capital and labour How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None
Show answer
Answer: C
All three pairs are correctly matched. India and Mercosur signed a PTA in 2004, in force from 2009, covering about 450 tariff lines on each side. Mercosur itself is a customs union, which is why it negotiates trade agreements as a bloc rather than country by country.

Q20. With reference to the Kigali Amendment, consider the following statements: 1. It was adopted in 2016 and amends the Montreal Protocol. 2. It provides for the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons, which are ozone-depleting substances. 3. India has ratified it and will begin its phase-down from a 2032 baseline. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Statement 2 is wrong on a point examiners love: HFCs do NOT deplete ozone — they were adopted precisely because they are ozone-safe. They are, however, extremely potent greenhouse gases, which makes Kigali a climate instrument grafted onto an ozone treaty.

Q21. With reference to India's price data for August 2026, consider the following statements: 1. Headline retail (CPI) inflation remained below the Reserve Bank's 4% target. 2. Wholesale (WPI) inflation was higher than retail inflation. 3. Fuel and power was the fastest-rising major group within the WPI. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: C
Statements 2 and 3 are correct. CPI was 4.82% — above, not below, the 4% target, and the third consecutive month above it, so statement 1 fails. WPI at 9.92% was more than double CPI, and within WPI fuel and power rose 22.93%, far ahead of manufactured products (8.37%).

Q22. With reference to the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in India, consider the following statements: 1. It is released by the National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. 2. It does not cover services. 3. The Reserve Bank of India's flexible inflation-targeting mandate is anchored to the WPI. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statement 1 is incorrect: the WPI comes from the Office of the Economic Adviser, DPIIT, while the CPI comes from the NSO under MoSPI. Statement 2 is correct: the WPI covers only goods. Statement 3 is incorrect: flexible inflation targeting is anchored to CPI at 4% with a 2-6% band.

Q23. With reference to the Kigali Amendment, consider the following statements: 1. It was adopted under the Montreal Protocol and targets hydrofluorocarbons. 2. Hydrofluorocarbons are potent ozone-depleting substances. 3. India ratified the Amendment in 2021 and will begin its phase-down in 2032. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 1 and 3 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
Statements 1 and 3 are correct: the Kigali Amendment of 2016 phases down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol; India ratified it in September 2021 and starts its cuts in 2032, reaching 85% by 2047. Statement 2 is incorrect: HFCs do not deplete ozone at all — they are targeted as potent greenhouse gases.

Q24. With reference to the Variable Rate Reverse Repo (VRRR) auction, consider the following statements: 1. It is used by the central bank to absorb surplus liquidity from the banking system. 2. The rate in a VRRR auction is fixed in advance and is always equal to the policy repo rate. 3. It changes the monetary policy stance whenever it is conducted. Which of the statements given above is or are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 1 and 2 only
  3. 2 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: A
A VRRR absorbs liquidity, so 1 is correct. The rate is discovered by auction, not fixed, so 2 is wrong. It is a liquidity operation and does not alter the policy stance, so 3 is wrong.

Q25. The Shaksgam valley, sometimes seen in the news, is best described as:

  1. A valley in eastern Arunachal Pradesh drained by the Lohit river
  2. A tract north of the Karakoram range that Pakistan purported to cede to China in 1963
  3. A cold desert plateau in Himachal Pradesh adjoining the Spiti valley
  4. A wetland complex in the Sundarbans delta shared with Bangladesh
Show answer
Answer: B
The Shaksgam valley, about 5,800 sq km, lies north of the Karakoram range between Xinjiang and Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan. India treats the 1963 agreement as illegal and invalid.

Q26. With reference to polymetallic nodules found on the deep seabed, consider the following statements: 1. They occur mainly at depths of 3,000 to 6,000 metres. 2. They are a source of manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. 3. The International Seabed Authority has already adopted a code governing their commercial exploitation. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: A
Statements 1 and 2 are correct — nodules lie at 3,000–6,000 metres and contain manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. Statement 3 is incorrect: the ISA's exploitation code remains unadopted, which is precisely why commercial deep-sea mining is contested.

Q27. The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 is best described as:

  1. A constitutional provision inserted by the Fifty-second Amendment
  2. A subordinate legislation issued by the Election Commission under Article 324
  3. A statute enacted by Parliament under Article 327
  4. A judicial direction issued by the Supreme Court under Article 142
Show answer
Answer: B
The Symbols Order is subordinate legislation made by the Election Commission in exercise of its powers under Article 324, read with the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Conduct of Elections Rules. Its validity was upheld in Sadiq Ali v. Election Commission of India (1972). Paragraph 15 governs disputes between rival factions.

Q28. With reference to the National Green Tribunal, consider the following statements: 1. It is a constitutional body established under Article 323B. 2. India was the third country in the world to set up a specialised environmental court. 3. Appeals against its orders lie to the Supreme Court. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
The NGT is a statutory body created by the NGT Act, 2010, not a constitutional body, so statement 1 is incorrect. India was the third country after Australia and New Zealand to set up a dedicated environmental court, and appeals from NGT orders lie to the Supreme Court within 90 days - statements 2 and 3 are correct.

Q29. Consider the following statements about the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in India: 1. It is released by the National Statistical Office. 2. It excludes services from its coverage. 3. Manufactured products carry the largest weight in the index. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: B
WPI is released by the Office of the Economic Adviser in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, not the NSO - so statement 1 is incorrect. WPI covers only goods and excludes services, and manufactured products carry the largest weight at 64.23% - statements 2 and 3 are correct.

Q30. With reference to foreign investment in India, consider the following statements: 1. An investment of less than 10% of the post-issue paid-up equity of a listed Indian company is treated as Foreign Portfolio Investment. 2. The Voluntary Retention Route (VRR) is meant for FPI investment in equity shares only. 3. Under the Fully Accessible Route (FAR), non-residents can invest in specified government securities without investment limits. Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer
Answer: C
Statement 1 is correct – below 10% is FPI. Statement 2 is wrong – VRR is for debt investment. Statement 3 is correct – FAR (2020) removes limits on specified G-Secs.

Q31. Consider the following pairs: 1. Orangutan – Native to Borneo and Sumatra 2. CITES Appendix I – Trade permitted without any permits 3. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau – Statutory body under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None
Show answer
Answer: B
Pair 1 is correct. Pair 2 is wrong – Appendix I bans commercial trade and needs both export and import permits for exceptional trade. Pair 3 is correct – WCCB was set up in 2007 under the WPA, 1972.

Mains practice questions

  1. India's space programme is increasingly being framed as a service to governance rather than a symbol of prestige. In light of recent Earth-observation missions, examine how space-based assets can strengthen India's disaster management and agricultural resilience. (250 words, 15 marks)
  2. "Border villages are not the last settlements of the country but its first." Examine how the Vibrant Villages Programme seeks to translate this idea into policy, and assess the challenges in its implementation. (250 words, 15 marks)
  3. "The absence of a working removal mechanism has made India's judiciary accountable largely to itself." In light of recent developments, examine the adequacy of existing judicial accountability mechanisms and suggest reforms. (250 words, 15 marks)
  4. Completing the Dedicated Freight Corridors is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reducing India's logistics cost. Critically examine, with reference to modal-share targets and last-mile connectivity. (250 words, 15 marks)
  5. Carbon border adjustment mechanisms are being justified as climate instruments but function as trade barriers for developing economies. In this light, examine how India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme can be used as a shield rather than an added cost for Indian exporters. (250 words, 15 marks)
  6. Special constitutional provisions for regions with distinct cultural and ecological identities are often defended as a strength of Indian federalism and criticised as a source of fragmentation. In the light of the proposal to insert a new Article 371(K) for Ladakh, critically examine this debate. (250 words, 15 marks)
  7. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 was enacted to undo a 'historical injustice', yet the question of Gram Sabha consent in the diversion of forest land remains unsettled. Critically examine. (250 words, 15 marks)
  8. India today ranks among the top three nations in research publication volume, yet remains far down the global ladder on citation impact and patent commercialisation. Examine the structural causes of this volume-impact paradox and suggest reforms in evaluation, funding and technology transfer to close the gap. (250 words, 15 marks)
  9. Zero Merchant Discount Rate made India's digital payments universal but left the rails without a revenue model. Examine the case for and against reintroducing a calibrated MDR on large-value merchant transactions, and suggest safeguards for small merchants. (250 words)
  10. A sustained divergence between wholesale and retail inflation complicates the conduct of monetary policy. In the light of India's August 2026 price data, examine the causes of this divergence and discuss whether interest rate action is the appropriate instrument to address it. (250 words, 15 marks)
  11. "India's semiconductor push has moved from incentive announcements to an ecosystem problem." In the light of India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, examine the constraints that stand between approved fabrication projects and a resilient domestic chip supply chain. (250 words, 15 marks)
  12. India's record dependence on discounted Russian crude has strengthened its energy budget but exposed its exports to secondary sanctions. Critically examine how India can reconcile affordable energy with market access, and suggest an institutional mechanism for managing sanctions risk. (250 words, 15 marks)
  13. India's semiconductor mission has moved from attracting fabrication capacity to building a full value chain. Examine the structural constraints that will determine whether this second phase succeeds, and suggest measures to address them. (250 words, 15 marks)
  14. India's energy transition requires simultaneously decarbonising the power sector and securing supplies of critical minerals. Examine the challenges in this twin objective, with reference to recent diversification efforts by public sector undertakings and India's deep-ocean programme. (250 words, 15 marks)
  15. Unilateral secondary sanctions by major powers are testing India's 'strategic autonomy' in energy security. Critically examine India's options in the light of the US Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, 2026. (15 marks, 250 words)

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