Current Affairs Quiz 03 November 2026

Statement 1 is correct — under Article 169, Parliament creates or abolishes a Council by ordinary law once the Assembly passes a special-majority resolution, and Article 169(3) says such a law is not an amendment under Article 368. Statement 2 is correct — under Article 171(3)(b), about one-twelfth of members are elected by graduates of at least three years’ standing residing in the State. Statement 3 is incorrect — there is no joint sitting in a State legislature; under Article 197 the Council can only delay an ordinary Bill (up to three months, then one month), after which the Assembly’s version prevails, as joint sittings exist only for Parliament (Article 108).

Statement 1 is correct — Section 17 of the 2005 Act requires the Gram Sabha to monitor works and conduct regular social audits of all projects in the Gram Panchayat, a cornerstone of the accountability model that the new VB-G RAM G grievance rules are being compared with. Statement 2 is incorrect — CPGRAMS is run by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, not the Ministry of Rural Development.

Statement-I is correct — in PUDR v. Union of India (1982), the Asiad workers’ case, the Court held that labour extracted under economic compulsion and paid below the minimum wage is forced labour under Article 23. Statement-II is correct — Article 23 is among the few Fundamental Rights enforceable against private individuals as well as the State. However, Statement-I concerns what counts as forced labour (economic compulsion) while Statement-II concerns against whom the right applies, so Statement-II does not explain Statement-I.

The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 consolidated four laws into one framework for the entry, stay, movement and exit of foreigners: the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000. The Citizenship Act, 1955 governs how citizenship is acquired and lost, not the regulation of foreigners, and remains in force. So three of the listed Acts were repealed.

Statement 1 is correct — a seven-judge Bench laid down the triple test (systematic activity, employer–employee co-operation, and production or distribution of goods and services) and held profit motive irrelevant; Section 2(p) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 keeps the core test but adds exclusions, which AITUC has challenged. Statement 2 is correct — it is Entry 22 of List III, and welfare of labour is Entry 24 of the same List, so both Parliament and State legislatures can make labour laws.

The Twelfth Schedule, added by the 74th Amendment (1992), lists 18 functional items for municipalities, including urban planning, regulation of land use, fire services and urban forestry and environmental protection — the functions the Indian Express op-ed links to climate-resilient planning in smaller cities. Police is a State List subject (Entry 2, List II) and does not appear in the Twelfth Schedule.

Committed expenditure means the near-fixed claims on a budget — salaries, pensions and interest — which in Tamil Nadu absorbed almost two-thirds of revenue receipts in 2024-25, against 49% in Maharashtra. Option (b) describes ongoing capital commitments and (c) a scheme-sharing obligation. Option (d), “charged” expenditure under Article 202(3), is a different idea — spending not subject to the Assembly’s vote, such as the Governor’s emoluments.

Statement 1 is correct — net zero by 2070 was one of the five “Panchamrit” commitments announced at COP26 (2021). Statement 2 is correct — the 2022 updated NDC set a 45% cut in emissions intensity (from 2005) and 50% non-fossil installed capacity, both by 2030. Statement 3 is incorrect — the first NDC (2015) targeted 40%, raised to 50% only in 2022; India crossed 50% in 2025 and now has 308 GW of non-fossil capacity, 55.1% of the total.

All three statements are correct. Interior heat comes from the radioactive decay of U, Th and K plus primordial heat left from the planet’s formation. In a binary (Organic Rankine) cycle, hot geothermal water heats a low-boiling-point fluid in a closed loop, which suits the low-to-medium enthalpy resources common in India. Geothermal is a weather-independent baseload source, and India commissioned its first two geothermal wells at Puga Valley, Ladakh (ONGC Energy Centre, July 2026) under the National Policy on Geothermal Energy (2025).

Pair 1 is correct — the Subansiri, the largest tributary of the Brahmaputra, rises in Tibet and joins from the north (right bank), and the 2,000 MW Subansiri Lower Project is on this river. Pair 2 is correct — the Lohit and the Dibang join the Siang near Sadiya from the left, forming the Brahmaputra. Pair 3 is incorrect — the Manas flows down from Bhutan and joins from the right (north) bank. Pair 4 is correct — the Kopili rises in the Meghalaya–Assam hills and joins from the left (south) bank.

Statement-I is correct — 2026 is a very strong El Niño year, and more than 1.9 million hectares burned in Indonesia between January and September, 38% more than by September 2019, with 61.91% of the mainland in a dry season according to BMKG. Statement-II is correct — the warm water and convection that normally sit over the western Pacific–Indonesia shift east during El Niño, so Indonesia loses its usual rain-producing rising air. That eastward shift is the very reason for Indonesia’s drought and fires, so Statement-II explains Statement-I.

Panna (2020) and Great Nicobar (2013) are in the World Network. Seshachalam (Andhra Pradesh) is notified nationally but is not in the World Network, and Manas (Assam) is a national Biosphere Reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage Site but not part of the WNBR. India has 18 notified Biosphere Reserves, of which 13 are in the WNBR under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme (1971).

Statement 1 is incorrect — the Noise Rules, 2000 define a silence zone as an area of not less than 100 metres; the 300-metre figure is the Supreme Court’s own “no-cracker zone” in its 2026 Deepavali order. Statement 2 is correct — CSIR-NEERI developed the green-cracker formulations SWAS, STAR and SAFAL, with roughly 30% lower particulate emissions, the basis of the Court’s orders since Arjun Gopal v. Union of India (2018).

Pairs 1, 2 and 4 are correct — Atal Bhujal Yojana (2020) promotes community-led, demand-side groundwater management in water-stressed areas, Mission Amrit Sarovar (2022) targets 75 water bodies per district, and Per Drop More Crop (micro-irrigation) is a component of PMKSY. Pair 3 is incorrect — JSA: Catch the Rain was launched on 22 March 2021, World Water Day, with the theme “Catch the Rain, Where It Falls, When It Falls”, while World Environment Day is 5 June; its 2026 version, JSJB: CTR, began on 1 June 2026.

Statement 1 is incorrect — the Eddington limit, where outward radiation pressure balances inward gravity, rises in proportion to mass, at about 1.3 × 10³⁸ erg/s per solar mass. Statement 2 is incorrect — ULXs are off-nuclear point sources, while bright sources at galactic centres are powered by supermassive black holes (AGN); NGC 4490 ULX-8, studied by IIA and RRI over 24 years, lies away from its galaxy’s centre. A ULX is “ultraluminous” precisely because it beats the limit for a stellar-mass object, which only makes sense if the limit depends on mass.