Daily Current Affairs Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
- Shipping and navigation on inland waterways declared by Parliament by law to be National Waterways is a subject in the Union List of the Seventh Schedule.
- The Inland Waterways Authority of India is a statutory body constituted under an Act of Parliament passed in 1985.
- The National Waterways Act, 2016 declared 111 new National Waterways in addition to the five that already existed.
Statement 1 is correct — Entry 24 of the Union List covers shipping and navigation on inland waterways declared by Parliament by law to be national waterways, as regards mechanically propelled vessels, while other inland waterways fall under Entry 32 of the Concurrent List and Entry 13 of the State List. Statement 2 is correct — the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) was set up under the IWAI Act, 1985 and constituted on 27 October 1986; it works under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, with headquarters at Noida. Statement 3 is incorrect — the Act declared 106 new National Waterways, and together with the 5 existing ones the total became 111, spread over 20,187 km in 23 States and 4 UTs, of which only 32 are currently operational. The headline figure (111) is the total after the Act, not the number it added, so subtract the existing stock when a statement says ‘new … in addition to’.
- NW-1 — Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly river system
- NW-2 — Brahmaputra river
- NW-3 — East Coast Canal with the Brahmani river and the Mahanadi delta
- NW-4 — Kakinada–Puducherry canals with stretches of the Godavari and Krishna
Pair 1 is correct — NW-1 (1986) runs on the Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly from Haldia to Prayagraj, at 1,620 km the longest National Waterway. Pair 2 is correct — NW-2 (1988) is the Brahmaputra from Dhubri to Sadiya (891 km), where India's first riverine lighthouses are being built. Pair 3 is incorrect — NW-3 (1993) is the West Coast Canal in Kerala (Kottapuram–Kollam, with the Champakkara and Udyogamandal canals), while the East Coast Canal with the Brahmani and Mahanadi delta is NW-5 (2008). Pair 4 is correct — NW-4 (2008) links the Kakinada–Puducherry canals with stretches of the Godavari and Krishna. Anchor NW-3 to Kerala's backwaters on the west coast and NW-5 to Odisha's Brahmani–Mahanadi system on the east coast.
- Gypsum is a hydrated calcium sulphate, and Plaster of Paris is obtained from it by heating to remove part of its water of crystallisation.
- Melanterite is a hydrated iron sulphate that forms when iron sulphides such as pyrite or marcasite oxidise under wet, acidic conditions.
- The Neyveli mines in Tamil Nadu are India's principal source of anthracite, the highest-rank coal with the greatest carbon content.
- The hyper-aridity of the Atacama Desert is caused mainly by the warm Brazil Current flowing along the coast of Chile.
Statement 1 is correct — gypsum (CaSO₄·2H₂O) loses part of its water on heating to give Plaster of Paris (CaSO₄·½H₂O), and it preserves evidence of past aqueous environments and can trap biosignatures. Statement 2 is correct — melanterite (FeSO₄·7H₂O) forms by oxidative weathering of iron sulphides (FeS₂) in wet, acidic, oxidising conditions, the same chemistry behind acid mine drainage, and it was identified at Neyveli. Statement 3 is incorrect — Neyveli (Cuddalore district) is India's best-known lignite field, mined by NLC India Ltd, and lignite (‘brown coal’) is the lowest-rank coal while anthracite is the highest. Statement 4 is incorrect — the Atacama's aridity comes from the cold Humboldt (Peru) Current along the Pacific coast, the South Pacific subtropical high and the rain shadow of the Andes, whereas the Brazil Current is a warm current off eastern South America. Cold currents dry the west coasts of continents (Atacama, Namib).
The Leander-class frigate INS Nilgiri, built by Mazagon Dock, Mumbai and commissioned in 1972, was the first major warship built in India, and the name was revived for the lead Project-17A stealth frigate commissioned in 2025. Option (a) describes the Navy's framing of INS Samarthak, the first Multi-Purpose Vessel, built by L&T at Kattupalli and commissioned at Karwar on 16 October 2026. Option (b) is INS Vikrant, built by Cochin Shipyard (2022), and option (c) is INS Shalki (1992, Mazagon Dock). Match the year: 1972 points to the public-sector Mazagon Dock era, decades before private yards built naval ships.
- Education, including universities, was transferred from the State List to the Concurrent List by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976.
- Coordination and determination of standards in institutions for higher education or research is an entry in the Concurrent List.
- Incorporation, regulation and winding up of universities is a subject in the State List.
Statement 1 is correct — the 42nd Amendment, 1976 moved education to Entry 25 of the Concurrent List, subject to Entries 63–66 of the Union List. Statement 2 is incorrect — coordination and determination of standards in higher education, research and technical institutions is Entry 66 of the Union List, the basis for UGC norms and national standards. Statement 3 is correct — Entry 32 of the State List covers the incorporation, regulation and winding up of universities, which is why most universities are created by State Acts and why recruitment and VC-appointment rules raise federal questions. Remember the three-way split: standards = Union (66, List I); education = Concurrent (25, List III, since 1976); universities as bodies = State (32, List II).
- Statement-I: The large-scale indentured emigration of Indian labour to British plantation colonies began in the 1830s.
- Statement-II: The abolition of slavery in the British Empire left plantation colonies such as Mauritius and British Guiana short of labour.
Statement-I is correct — indentured emigration began with Mauritius in 1834 and spread to British Guiana (1838), Trinidad, Natal, Fiji and Dutch Suriname; over a million Indians went, usually on five-year contracts, and were called girmitiyas, from ‘girmit’ (agreement). Statement-II is correct and explains Statement-I — the Slavery Abolition Act, 1833 (in force 1834) freed enslaved Africans, and planters then turned to indentured Indian labour to replace them, which is why indenture began when it did. Apply the ‘because’ test: indenture began in the 1830s because the abolition of slavery left colonies short of labour. Recruitment stopped in 1917 and the system was formally ended by 1920, after campaigns by Gokhale, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Gandhi and C.F. Andrews.
- Mode 1 — Cross-border supply of a service from one country into another
- Mode 2 — Temporary movement of natural persons abroad to supply a service
- Mode 3 — Commercial presence of a foreign service supplier in the host country
- Mode 4 — Consumers travelling abroad to use a service, such as medical tourism
Pair 1 is correct — Mode 1 is cross-border supply, for example IT services delivered online from India. Pair 2 is incorrect — Mode 2 is consumption abroad, where the consumer moves (tourism, students, medical tourism). Pair 3 is correct — Mode 3 is commercial presence, a branch or subsidiary in the host country. Pair 4 is incorrect — Mode 4 is the temporary movement of natural persons to supply a service, the mode behind H-1B-type work and a long-standing Indian negotiating priority at the WTO. The descriptions of Modes 2 and 4 are interchanged, so ask who moves: in Mode 1 only the service, in Mode 2 the consumer, in Mode 3 the firm, and in Mode 4 the person.
- PM POSHAN is the successor scheme to the Mid-Day Meal Scheme and provides hot cooked meals to children in government and government-aided schools.
- According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21), more than one-third of children under five years of age in India are stunted.
- Stunting refers to low weight for a child's height and is the standard indicator of acute undernutrition.
Statement 1 is correct — PM POSHAN (2021) replaced the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, and whether eggs are served is decided by States. Statement 2 is correct — NFHS-5 found 35.5% of under-fives stunted, 19.3% wasted and 32.1% underweight. Statement 3 is incorrect — stunting is low height-for-age and reflects chronic undernutrition, whereas low weight-for-height is wasting, the indicator of acute undernutrition, and low weight-for-age is underweight. Link the word to the time scale: stunting is ‘stunted growth’ over years (chronic), while wasting is ‘wasting away’ quickly (acute).
- Statement-I: When the market price of an existing government bond falls, its yield rises.
- Statement-II: Persistently low inflation reduces the need for a central bank to raise its policy interest rate.
Statement-I is correct — a bond pays a fixed coupon on its face value, so a buyer who pays a lower price earns a higher effective return, the yield; price and yield move inversely. Statement-II is correct — with little inflation there is no case for monetary tightening, which is why China, with consumer inflation of 0% in 2025, has seen yields fall while they rose about 125 basis points in the US since February 2026. But Statement-II does not explain Statement-I, because the inverse price–yield relation is bond arithmetic that holds whatever the inflation rate. The ‘because’ test fails: a bond's yield does not rise when its price falls because low inflation reduces the need for rate hikes; the true reason is the fixed coupon. Both statements come from the same news story, which is the pull into (a).
- The Central Consumer Protection Authority has been established under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
- The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 specify thirteen dark patterns.
- ‘Drip pricing’ is the practice of adding products or services to a user's cart without consent, usually through pre-ticked boxes.
- The Merchant Discount Rate is the fee paid by a consumer to his or her bank for making a digital payment.
Statement 1 is correct — the CCPA was set up in 2020 under Section 10 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which replaced the 1986 Act. Statement 2 is correct — the CCPA's 2023 Guidelines list 13 dark patterns, including false urgency, basket sneaking, subscription trap, bait and switch and drip pricing. Statement 3 is incorrect — that describes basket sneaking (for which the CCPA fined a quick-commerce firm ₹7 lakh in August 2026), whereas drip pricing means not revealing price elements upfront and disclosing them late or surreptitiously, such as a convenience fee shown only at payment. Statement 4 is incorrect — the MDR is paid by the merchant to its bank for accepting digital payments, and it has been zero on UPI and RuPay debit cards since 1 January 2020.
- A hypersonic glide vehicle is carried to high altitude by a rocket booster and then glides towards its target, with the ability to manoeuvre in flight.
- A scramjet engine carries its own liquid oxidiser, which allows it to start from rest and operate efficiently at subsonic speeds.
Statement 1 is correct — a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) is boosted by a rocket, then glides at above Mach 5 and can manoeuvre unpredictably, unlike a ballistic missile's predictable arc; examples include China's DF-ZF and the vehicle South Korea has just tested. Statement 2 is incorrect — a scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is air-breathing, using atmospheric oxygen and carrying no oxidiser, and it has no compressor and works only at very high speeds, so it must first be accelerated by a booster. India tested a scramjet in the HSTDV flight (2020, about Mach 6). Carrying an oxidiser is the defining feature of a rocket, and ‘from rest’ and ‘subsonic’ are giveaways.
- The ‘30×30’ target to conserve 30% of the world's land and sea areas by 2030 is part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- The Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing countries to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030, was made at COP26 of the UNFCCC.
- India has pledged to bring 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land under restoration by 2030 as part of the Bonn Challenge.
Statement 1 is correct — the Kunming-Montreal GBF was adopted at CBD COP15 (December 2022) with 23 targets, and Target 3 is 30×30; protected areas now cover only 17.33% of land and inland waters. Statement 2 is correct — the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration was made at UNFCCC COP26 (2021) by over 140 countries, and the Forest Declaration Assessment 2026 finds the world 10.7 million ha behind its 2030 pathway. Statement 3 is correct — under the Bonn Challenge (launched 2011; global aim 350 million ha by 2030), India raised its pledge to 26 million ha in 2019. Long statements packed with names and numbers invite the guess that one must be wrong, so check each anchor (GBF ↔ CBD, Glasgow ↔ UNFCCC, Bonn ↔ restoration) and accept ‘all correct’ when every anchor holds.
A system is named when it intensifies into a Cyclonic Storm, with maximum sustained winds of 62–88 km/h (34–47 knots). Names come from the list of 169 contributed by the 13 member countries of the WMO/ESCAP Panel and are assigned by IMD as the RSMC New Delhi. The other options are the lower limits of a Depression (a), a Deep Depression (b) and a Severe Cyclonic Storm (d), and Phailin (2013) and Hudhud (2014) were Very Severe Cyclonic Storms (118–166 km/h). Each option is a real IMD threshold, so fix the ladder once — 31, 50, 62, 89, 118, 167, 222 km/h — and remember that naming begins at the third step.
- Statement-I: Under directions issued by CERT-In in 2022, service providers and body corporates must report specified cyber-security incidents to it within six hours of noticing them.
- Statement-II: CERT-In functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs as a component of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.
Statement-I is correct — CERT-In's Directions of April 2022, issued under Section 70B(6) of the IT Act, 2000, require reporting within 6 hours and retention of ICT logs for 180 days within India. Statement-II is incorrect — CERT-In is the national incident-response agency under Section 70B and functions under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) is a separate body under the Ministry of Home Affairs and NCIIPC (Section 70A) protects critical information infrastructure. Split the roles: incident response = CERT-In (MeitY, Sec 70B); critical infrastructure = NCIIPC (Sec 70A); cyber crime and policing = I4C (MHA).
- Bhutan's First Five Year Plan, launched in 1961, was financed largely by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
- The 2007 revision of the India–Bhutan Treaty of Friendship introduced a clause requiring Bhutan to be guided by India's advice in its external relations.
Statement 1 is incorrect — India financed Bhutan's First Five Year Plan (1961) and has supported every plan since, with ₹5,000 crore for the 12th Plan and ₹10,000 crore for the 13th Plan (2024–29), from which ₹290 crore was released this week; the Asian Development Bank was set up only in 1966, so it could not have funded a 1961 plan. Statement 2 is incorrect — the ‘guided by advice’ clause was in Article 2 of the original 1949 Treaty, and the 2007 revision removed it, replacing it with cooperation on issues of national interest. An institution named in a statement must exist at the date given, and the 2007 treaty dropped the clause rather than inserting it.
