Current Affairs Quiz 20 August 2026

Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct, while Statement 3 is wrong. Project Elephant was launched in 1992 by the MoEFCC, India has 33 Elephant Reserves spread across 14 States covering roughly 80,777 sq km, and India holds the world's largest wild Asian elephant population, estimated between 29,000 and 32,000. The elephant is actually a Schedule I species under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, not Schedule II, and Schedule I provides the highest degree of protection with prohibitions on hunting regardless of circumstances. It helps to remember that both the tiger and elephant sit in Schedule I, while species like the nilgai fall under Schedule III.

Assertion A is true — the Supreme Court unequivocally ruled that States cannot cite crop damage or farmer hardship to obstruct inter-State elephant migration routes, and it ordered a fresh national survey. Reason R is false, since elephant corridors are not notified under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which instead deals with tribal and forest-dweller rights over forest land; corridors are actually managed under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and MoEFCC guidelines under Project Elephant, and gram sabhas hold no exclusive jurisdiction over wildlife migration corridors. It is worth keeping the FRA, which governs land and resource rights for tribals, separate from the WPA 1972, which governs wildlife protection and corridors.

Statements 1, 2 and 3 are correct, while Statement 4 is wrong. UAPA was enacted in 1967 and significantly amended in 2008, 2012 and 2019, with the 2019 amendment being landmark in permitting the designation of individuals, not just organisations, as terrorists, and the NIA can provisionally attach a designated terrorist's property, subject to court confirmation within 30 days, which makes Statement 3 broadly correct as pre-court provisional action. UAPA cases are actually tried by Special Courts constituted under UAPA itself, Section 22, rather than under the National Security Act, 1980, which is a preventive detention law and not a court-creation statute. It is useful to remember that UAPA Section 22 creates Special Courts while the NSA allows preventive detention up to 12 months — two distinct provisions.

Both statements are correct. India, then part of the British Dominion, was among the original 14 signatories of the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, which gives Indians visa-free access and commercial rights in Svalbard, and India established its Himadri research station at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard in 2007, making it one of only two developing countries with a permanent Arctic scientific presence, followed by Observer status at the Arctic Council in 2013 and the release of India's Arctic Policy in 2022. A worthwhile sequence to remember is 2007 for Himadri, 2013 for Arctic Council observer status, and 2022 for the Arctic Policy, along with the fact that India's treaty status traces back to its status as a British Dominion rather than as an independent republic.

Option A precisely defines Zero-Based Budgeting: every expenditure item must justify its existence and amount afresh in each budget cycle from a "zero base," unlike incremental budgeting where the previous year's allocation continues automatically with increments added. ZBB was conceptualised by Peter Pyhrr, used by Jimmy Carter as Governor of Georgia, and introduced federally in the US in 1977, with India adopting it on paper at the Union level in 1986-87 and in Tamil Nadu in 1988. Options B, C, and D are fabricated distractors that mix legitimate governance terms like the CAG, Finance Commission, and pilot phases with incorrect definitions, so it is worth anchoring on the core idea that ZBB means justifying from zero rather than from last year's baseline.

Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct, while Statement 3 is wrong. Section 2 of the 1937 Act applies Shariat to Muslims in matters including marriage, succession, inheritance, and charities, in Sarla Mudgal (1995) the Supreme Court declared such second marriages after conversion void, and Article 44 places the Uniform Civil Code under Directive Principles in Part IV of the Constitution. In Shayara Bano (2017), the Supreme Court actually struck down instant triple talaq by a 3:2 majority on a five-judge bench, not unanimously and not on a seven-judge bench, with the majority holding it manifestly arbitrary under Article 14. It is worth fixing this detail precisely: Shayara Bano was a five-judge bench with a 3:2 split, not a unanimous larger bench.

Statements 1, 2 and 3 are correct, while Statement 4 is wrong. The Amazon spans nine countries with roughly 60% lying within Brazil, a 2026 study in Global Change Biology identified 15-25 pioneer species as dominant regenerators of early Amazon forest, and pioneer canopies reduce sub-canopy temperatures by up to 6°C compared to open deforested ground, enabling shade-dependent species to establish. Under President Lula, Brazil's actual target is zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, not 2035, a deliberate date-mutation trap worth watching for. A useful trio to memorise together: Brazil's zero-deforestation target is 2030, India's net-zero target is 2070, and the global Paris net-zero benchmark is 2050.

Both A and R are independently true, but R does not explain A. Exercise MAITREE-XV correctly involves 85 personnel on each side, with a counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism focus trained under a Chapter VII framework, and Chapter VII of the UN Charter, dealing with threats to peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression, does authorise the UNSC to mandate collective action including force. However, R merely explains what Chapter VII is rather than why the exercise trains under it — the actual causal link is that such training builds interoperability for potential UN-mandated peacekeeping or enforcement operations, an intermediate step that R does not supply. In assertion-reason questions it is worth asking whether R mechanistically causes A or simply happens to be true alongside it.

Statements 1, 3 and 4 are correct, while Statement 2 is wrong. Section 393(5) of the BNSS retains the colonial-era hanging provision, Gian Kaur (1996) established the right to die with dignity under Article 21 through a five-judge bench, and the long-drop method is designed to fracture the C2-C3 vertebrae and cause instant unconsciousness. In Deena v Union of India (1983), hanging was actually upheld by a three-judge bench, not a five-judge constitutional bench — the five-judge bench belongs to Gian Kaur (1996), and the two bench compositions are commonly swapped in such traps. A useful pairing to remember: Deena (1983) is a three-judge bench, Gian Kaur (1996) is a five-judge constitutional bench, and the BNSS itself replaced the CrPC from July 2024.

The Suryashakti Kisan Yojana was implemented in Gujarat, where roughly 100 agricultural feeders were transitioned to solar energy and farmers were offered a feed-in tariff of about ₹7 per unit for surplus electricity exported to the grid. Evidence showed that solar farmers under SKY had significantly slower growth in energy consumption and irrigation application compared to non-solar farmers, earned an average of about ₹21,900 annually from energy exports, and each grid-connected solar farmer offset around 12.3 tonnes of CO₂ annually. It helps to keep the State-scheme pairings straight: SKY is Gujarat's feed-in tariff solar agriculture model, "Pani Bachao Paisa Kamao" belongs to Punjab, and "Mera Pani Meri Virasat" belongs to Haryana.

All four statements are correct. Nils Christie theorised the 'ideal victim' in 1986 in his essay "From Crime Policy to Victim Policy," the Jaipur Sessions Court in the Bhanwari Devi case reasoned on caste hierarchy grounds while acquitting the accused, the Vishakha Guidelines of 1997 were later codified into the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, and in the Mathura case the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of accused policemen, citing the absence of alarm, resistance, and injuries — a ruling for which former CJI B.R. Gavai apologised in 2025. When every statement in a set checks out as factually correct, it is worth not automatically eliminating the "all correct" option out of suspicion.

Both statements are correct. The SWM Rules were originally notified in 2000 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and comprehensively revised in 2016, with a further update as the SWM Rules, 2026, and the Supreme Court, on a bench led by Justice S.V.N. Bhatti, declared in August 2026 that passive waste generation is "constitutionally unethical," grounding the duty in Article 21, the right to a clean environment, and Article 51A(g), the fundamental duty to protect and improve the natural environment. A useful distinction: Article 48A is the State's Directive Principle duty on environment, Article 51A(g) is the citizen's Fundamental Duty, and Article 21 is the judicially expanded right to a clean environment — the Court here correctly anchored civic responsibility in 51A(g) rather than 48A.