Current Affairs Quiz 05 September 2026

Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Ice avalanches from hanging glaciers can impact glacial lakes downstream, generating displacement waves that breach the moraine or ice dam, the defining GLOF trigger mechanism, and the Alaknanda joins the Bhagirathi at Devprayag to form the main stem of the Ganga, a standard Prelims geography fact. Statement 2 is incorrect since the Chamoli 2021 event is better described as an ice-rock avalanche rather than a pure dam-breach GLOF, though it had GLOF-like characteristics, and more importantly the Nepal flash flood of August 2026, along with other significant Himalayan events since 2021, means Chamoli is no longer the most recent such event. It is worth remembering the Alaknanda-Bhagirathi confluence at Devprayag as the start of the Ganga, part of the Panch Prayag sequence of five confluences.

EOS-05 replaces EOS-03, also known as GISAT-1, which was lost when GSLV-F10 failed in August 2021 due to a malfunction in the cryogenic upper stage. EOS-01 was actually successfully launched in 2020, ruling out option (c), EOS-N1 was lost in the PSLV-C62 failure of January 2026 but was a different mission, an earth observation satellite in LEO rather than a GEO imaging satellite, and Resourcesat-3 is fictitious in this context. EOS-N1 is a plausible distractor since it is the most recently mentioned ISRO failure in the same news cycle, but the specific GEO imaging predecessor being replaced by EOS-05 is EOS-03/GISAT-1, not the LEO missions.

The three new indices with base year 2022-23 released in June 2026 and incorporated in NAS 2026 are the Producer Price Index, the Index of Industrial Production, and the Banking Services Price Index, a banking-sector specific volume index. The CPI is used for retail inflation measurement rather than as a GDP deflator, WPI is what PPI actually replaces in the new methodology, and "MSI" and "SGI" are fictitious. CPI is the most familiar price index to students and is a plausible-sounding substitute for BkSPI, but BkSPI is the genuinely novel index worth remembering precisely because standard price deflators don't capture the transactional activity of financial services well.

The study was led by Ashim Sattar of the School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences at IIT Bhubaneswar, and Nandu Krishnan of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at IISc Bengaluru, along with two other colleagues. The other institutions listed, Wadia Institute, NCPOR, GSI, and CWC, are all legitimate Himalayan research bodies but were not the authors of this specific study, making them effective distractors precisely because all four are real institutions with Himalayan research mandates. It helps to memorise the city alongside each institution: Wadia equals Dehradun, IIT Bhubaneswar equals Odisha, and the Divecha Centre equals IISc Bengaluru.

The GSLV's third stage is cryogenic, using the CE-7.5 engine which burns liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidiser. Option (b) reverses the actual propellant order, since the GSLV's first stage is solid and its second stage is liquid, using the Vikas engine, option (c) is wrong since GSLV uses the CE-7.5 cryogenic engine while GSLV-Mk III/LVM3 uses the more powerful CE-20, two different engines, and option (d) is incorrect since India developed its own cryogenic engine after Russia was pressured by the US to deny technology transfer in the early 1990s, with France having no involvement in India's cryogenic programme. It is worth fixing the stage order firmly: Solid (1) leads to Liquid (2) leads to Cryogenic (3), with GSLV using CE-7.5 and LVM3 using CE-20.

Kirtimukh is a fierce, disembodied face, often depicted as a demonic face consuming itself, in Indian temple iconography, traditionally placed above doorframes, or torana, as an apotropaic, or evil-averting, guardian of the sacred threshold. It is not a geometric floor pattern, a ceiling motif, or an inscription panel, and options like the jagati base pattern or ceiling relief describe real architectural elements but different features entirely. The key marker for Kirtimukh worth remembering is its face motif placed above the doorway with a protective or guardian function, marking the threshold between the profane and the sacred, since "Kirtimukha" means "face of glory" in Sanskrit.

Statements 1 and 3 are correct. The negotiations began in 2007 as the Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement, stalled in 2013, were relaunched in 2022, and concluded in 2026, and negotiations were concluded and announced at the India-EU Summit at Hyderabad House, New Delhi on 27 January 2026. India did not secure an exemption from CBAM, since the EU confirmed no more favourable treatment for India under the mechanism; a €500 million EU support package for India's decarbonisation was included, but the CBAM levy itself still applies. It is worth remembering firmly that CBAM means no exemption for India, and the €500 million is decarbonisation support rather than a CBAM carve-out, a critical distinction that a careless reading of "CBAM technical dialogue and €500m support" could easily blur into a mistaken exemption.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. The Supreme Court's September 2026 order mentions 5.18 crore pending cases in district and subordinate courts, and the All India Judges Association case, first decided in 1992 with subsequent rounds, is the foundational case establishing the Supreme Court's supervisory jurisdiction over service conditions of district judges under Article 235. States that have agreed are actually directed to amend service rules within two months, not one month, while states that have not yet decided are given two weeks to decide, making timeline-swapping the trap in Statement 3. It is worth fixing this distinction firmly: deciding takes two weeks, while amending rules after deciding takes two months, and the two deadlines should never be conflated.

Statements 1 and 3 are correct. The study mapped 219 hanging glaciers covering 71.7 ± 3.5 sq km with an estimated ice volume of 2.39 ± 0.42 km³, and simulations projected avalanche flows exceeding 50 metres in height in the Badrinath-Mana sector. It is actually the Vishnuganga sub-basin, which includes the Badrinath-Mana sector, that has the highest concentration of hanging glaciers, not the Mandakini sub-basin, which is instead associated with Kedarnath. Both are major sub-basins of the Alaknanda, and UPSC regularly tests which river or tributary leads to which pilgrimage site, so it is worth remembering firmly that Badrinath sits on the Alaknanda/Vishnuganga while Kedarnath sits on the Mandakini, a classic Char Dham geography fact.

Seven States agreed positively to the retirement age enhancement: Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, and option (d) lists five of these seven, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, all correctly drawn from the agreeing list. Options (a), (b), and (c) instead draw from States that were given two weeks to decide and had not yet agreed at the time, meaning a candidate who recalls "seven states" but not their specific names could easily confuse the two separate lists. It helps to remember that the seven agreeing states are concentrated in central, western, and southern India plus Sikkim, while the hesitant states are predominantly from northern and north-eastern India.