Daily Current Affairs Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
- Article 324 provides for the appointment of the Election Commissioners subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament in that behalf.
- The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from office only in the manner and on the grounds of a judge of the Supreme Court.
- An Election Commissioner can be removed from office by the President only on the recommendation of the Chief Justice of India.
Statement 1 is correct — under Article 324(2), the President appoints the CEC and Election Commissioners "subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by Parliament"; no such law existed until the CEC and Other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. Statement 2 is correct too, since Article 324(5) protects the CEC, who can be removed only like a Supreme Court judge — on proved misbehaviour or incapacity, through a special-majority address of both Houses. Statement 3 is incorrect — an Election Commissioner can be removed only on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner, not the CJI. The trap is an authority swap: setters substitute the CJI because he figured in the Anoop Baranwal (2023) interim selection panel. Remember: CEC removal is like an SC judge, EC removal is on the CEC's recommendation, and the appointment law is left to Parliament.
- Director, Central Bureau of Investigation — Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Chief Justice of India or a judge nominated by the CJI
- Central Vigilance Commissioner — Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, Leader of the Opposition
- Chief Information Commissioner — Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Chief Justice of India
- Chief Election Commissioner (2023 Act) — Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM
Pair 1 is correct — Section 4A of the DSPE Act, 1946 (inserted by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013) provides for the PM, the LoP (or leader of the single largest Opposition party) and the CJI or a SC judge nominated by him. Pair 2 is correct — Section 4 of the CVC Act, 2003 names the PM, the Minister of Home Affairs and the LoP in the Lok Sabha. Pair 3 is incorrect — under Section 12(3) of the RTI Act, 2005, the panel is the PM, the LoP and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM; the CJI is not a member. Pair 4 is correct, as the 2023 Act replaced the CJI (who sat on the interim panel ordered in Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India) with a Union Cabinet Minister. The CJI sits only where the body has an investigative or anti-corruption edge (CBI Director, Lokpal), while the CIC and now CEC panels use a Cabinet Minister.
- Poland
- Belarus
- Lithuania
- Latvia
Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic exclave, is bordered by Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north and east, with the Baltic Sea to the west; it was the German city of Königsberg (East Prussia) until transferred to the USSR under the Potsdam Agreement (1945). Belarus does not touch Kaliningrad — the roughly 104-km Suwałki Gap on the Poland–Lithuania border separates the two, which is why that corridor is NATO's most sensitive chokepoint. Latvia lies north of Lithuania and has no border with the exclave. The trap is a proximity illusion, since Belarus is Russia's closest ally and lies close by, but the whole strategic story of the Suwałki Gap exists precisely because Belarus and Kaliningrad do not touch.
- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established by a treaty signed in Washington in 1949.
- Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, on collective defence, has been invoked only once, after the attacks of 11 September 2001.
- Sweden became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization only after Finland had joined the alliance.
- The Suwałki Gap is a land corridor that runs along the border between Poland and Lithuania.
Statement 1 is correct — NATO was created by the North Atlantic (Washington) Treaty of 4 April 1949, with headquarters in Brussels. Statement 2 is correct — Article 5 (an armed attack on one is an attack on all) has been invoked only once, after 9/11, whereas Article 4 (consultations) has been invoked several times. Statement 3 is correct — Finland joined in April 2023 and Sweden followed in March 2024, taking membership to 32 and turning the Baltic into a near-"NATO lake". Statement 4 is correct too, since the Suwałki Gap runs along the Poland–Lithuania border between Kaliningrad and Belarus and is NATO's only land link to the Baltic states. The trap is a sequence reversal: Sweden applied with Finland in 2022, but Turkey and Hungary delayed its ratification, so Finland went first. Don't avoid "All four" if each statement checks out.
- Statement-I: A shift in the Monetary Policy Committee's stance from 'neutral' to 'calibrated tightening' signals that a cut in the policy repo rate is unlikely in the near term.
- Statement-II: Under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, the Monetary Policy Committee is required to meet at least six times in a year.
Statement-I is correct — calibrated tightening means rate cuts are off the table, so the next move can only be a hike or a pause; the MPC adopted this stance while raising the repo rate by 25 bps to 5.5% (October 2026), and the RBI last used it in October 2018. Statement-II is incorrect — Section 45ZI of the RBI Act requires the MPC to meet at least four times a year, and the six bi-monthly meetings the RBI schedules in practice are an administrative calendar, which is exactly the confusion the statement exploits. When a statement says "required by law", test the legal floor, not the routine.
- The Monetary Policy Committee was given statutory backing through an amendment to the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, made by the Finance Act, 2016.
- Of the six members of the Monetary Policy Committee, four, including the Governor, are officials of the Reserve Bank of India.
Statement 1 is correct — the Finance Act, 2016 inserted Chapter IIIF (Sections 45Z–45ZO) into the RBI Act, creating the MPC and the Flexible Inflation Targeting framework. Statement 2 is incorrect — only three members are from the RBI: the Governor (chair, with a casting vote), the Deputy Governor in charge of monetary policy and one RBI officer nominated by the Central Board. The other three are external experts appointed by the Centre for four years. The MPC is deliberately 3 + 3, with the Governor's casting vote breaking ties; a "4 + 2" split would give the RBI a built-in majority, which the design avoids.
- Remittances sent home by Indians working abroad are recorded in the capital account of India's balance of payments.
- Under a managed float, the central bank intervenes in the foreign exchange market without committing to a fixed exchange rate.
- Other things remaining the same, a depreciation of the rupee makes Indian exports costlier for foreign buyers.
- Special Drawing Rights are a component of India's foreign exchange reserves.
Statement 1 is incorrect — private remittances are secondary income (transfers) in the current account, while the capital and financial account records FDI, FPI, external borrowings and NRI deposits. Statement 2 is correct — India has followed a managed float since exchange rates were unified in March 1993, with the RBI selling dollars to curb sharp depreciation and buying to curb sharp appreciation, without targeting a level. Statement 3 is incorrect — depreciation makes Indian goods cheaper for foreign buyers and imports costlier in rupee terms; when the rupee moves from ₹85 to ₹90 per dollar, a $1 import costs ₹90 instead of ₹85, while a ₹90 export falls from about $1.06 to $1 for the foreign buyer. Statement 4 is correct, as reserves comprise Foreign Currency Assets, Gold, SDRs and the Reserve Tranche Position with the IMF. Remember that remittances are unrequited transfers, hence current account.
- Development Councils for an industry, such as textiles, are constituted under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.
- Among all silk-producing countries, India currently ranks first in the production of raw silk.
Statement 1 is incorrect — Development Councils are provided for under Section 6 of the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951, whereas the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 deals with industrial disputes, strikes and lay-offs; the Development Council for Textile Industry (DCTI) held its first meeting on 6 October 2026. Statement 2 is incorrect — India is the world's second-largest silk producer after China, though it is the largest producer of jute and the only country producing all the major commercial silks: mulberry, tasar, eri and muga. The trap is a lookalike statute and rank inflation, so anchor IDRA 1951 with the licensing-era "development and regulation" idea, and recall the textbook pair: jute 1st, silk 2nd.
Option (b) is correct — life is homochiral: proteins use almost only L-amino acids, while DNA and RNA contain D-sugars, and the 2026 Chemistry Nobel (Henri B. Kagan, Kenso Soai) honoured work showing how such single-handedness can be amplified in the laboratory. Option (a) is incorrect, since enantiomers have the same atoms bonded in the same order and differ only in 3-D arrangement, being non-superimposable mirror images like left and right hands. Option (c) is incorrect, as a racemic mixture contains equal (50:50) amounts of both enantiomers. Option (d) is incorrect, because enzymes and receptors are chiral, so enantiomers can act very differently — the thalidomide tragedy of the late 1950s is the classic case. Chemical "sameness" (formula, connectivity) is not biological sameness.
- Statement-I: Pharmaceutical manufacturers increasingly aim to produce a single enantiomer of a chiral drug rather than a mixture of both forms.
- Statement-II: Enzymes and receptors in the human body are themselves chiral and can respond differently to the two mirror-image forms of a molecule.
Statement-I is correct — earlier, drugs were made as racemic mixtures and the desired form was separated in a costly, wasteful step, whereas asymmetric synthesis, advanced by Kagan's non-linear effects (1986) and Soai's asymmetric autocatalysis, yields the right form directly. Statement-II is correct — biological targets are chiral, so the "wrong" enantiomer may be inactive or harmful, and one form of thalidomide was linked to birth defects (phocomelia) in thousands of babies across 46 countries. Statement-II explains Statement-I: the industry seeks single enantiomers because the body's chiral machinery discriminates between them. Ask "why would firms bother?" — remove II and I loses its reason.
- Keibul Lamjao National Park — Sangai (brow-antlered deer)
- Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary — Snow leopard
- Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary — Pygmy hog
- Eravikulam National Park — Hangul
Pair 1 is correct — Keibul Lamjao, on Loktak Lake in Manipur, is the world's only floating national park (on phumdis) and the last natural home of the Sangai, Manipur's State animal. Pair 2 is incorrect — Pobitora (Assam) is known for one of the highest densities of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, while snow leopards live in the high Himalaya, e.g. around Kibber (Spiti). Pair 3 is correct — Bornadi WLS (Assam, on the Bhutan border) was set up to protect the pygmy hog and hispid hare, and was also a key habitat for GPS-collared elephants in a recent study. Pair 4 is incorrect — Eravikulam (Kerala) is the stronghold of the Nilgiri tahr, while the Hangul (Kashmir stag) is found in Dachigam National Park. Setters pair a park with a species from the same State or editorial, so anchor each park to its one signature species.
- The cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952.
- The first batch of cheetahs released in Kuno National Park in September 2022 was translocated from Kenya.
- The Asiatic cheetah now survives in the wild only in Iran.
Statement 1 is correct — the cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952, the only large carnivore lost since Independence. Statement 2 is incorrect — the first eight cheetahs came from Namibia (17 September 2022), and 12 followed from South Africa in 2023; Project Cheetah is led by the NTCA with WII. Statement 3 is correct — the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is Critically Endangered and survives only in Iran, and India's animals are the African subspecies. Kenya is the cheetah country of popular imagination, but India's founder cats came from southern Africa; remember, Namibia was Number one. Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve has also become Madhya Pradesh's third cheetah site, after Kuno and Gandhi Sagar.
- Under the IUCN Red List, only species in the Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable categories are classed as 'threatened'.
- Species placed in the Data Deficient category are counted among the threatened species on the IUCN Red List.
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland.
- In 2024, the IUCN moved the Iberian lynx from the Endangered category to Near Threatened.
Statement 1 is correct — "threatened" means CR, EN and VU only, and of 7,516 Indian animal species assessed, 1,012 are threatened. Statement 2 is incorrect — Data Deficient species lack enough information for assessment and are not counted as threatened; their risk is simply unknown. Statement 3 is correct — the IUCN (founded 1948) is headquartered at Gland, Switzerland, and has published the Red List since 1964. Statement 4 is incorrect — in 2024 the Iberian lynx was downlisted from Endangered to Vulnerable, not Near Threatened, with mature individuals rising from 62 (2001) to 648 (2022). Red List moves are usually one category at a time, and "Data Deficient" is a classic trap that sounds worrying but isn't threatened.
- The veterinary use of diclofenac, which caused a collapse in vulture populations, was banned in India in 2006.
- The white-rumped, long-billed and slender-billed vultures are all listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
- The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre at Pinjore is located in Himachal Pradesh.
Statement 1 is correct — residues of diclofenac in livestock carcasses caused kidney failure in vultures, driving a crash of over 95% from the 1990s; veterinary use was banned in 2006, with aceclofenac and ketoprofen following in 2023. Statement 2 is correct — all three resident Gyps species (white-rumped, long-billed or Indian, and slender-billed) are Critically Endangered. Statement 3 is incorrect — Pinjore is in Panchkula district, Haryana, and the centre is run by the Haryana Forest Department and BNHS. Pinjore sits in the Shivalik foothills right on the Himachal border, so it "feels" Himachali; link it to Panchkula–Chandigarh instead. Madhya Pradesh's census recorded 12,981 vultures in 2025, up from 8,397 in 2019.
- The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution.
- The International Health Regulations become binding on a WHO member State only after that State ratifies them.
- The WHO Pandemic Agreement is to enter into force after it has been ratified by sixty countries.
Statement 1 is correct — Article 19 lets the World Health Assembly adopt conventions by a two-thirds vote; the FCTC (2003) was its first use, and the Pandemic Agreement (WHA78, May 2025) is the second. Statement 2 is incorrect — the IHR are adopted under Article 21 (regulations) and bind all members automatically, unless a State rejects them or enters reservations within the notified period; ratification is needed only for Article 19 conventions. Statement 3 is correct — the Agreement enters into force after 60 ratifications, and it opens for signature only once the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) annex is adopted. Conventions (Art. 19) are opt-in, while regulations (Art. 21) are opt-out, and the IHR's quick, near-universal reach comes precisely from that opt-out design. India backed the PPPR Political Declaration at the UN High-Level Meeting in September 2026.
