Daily Current Affairs Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
- The formula was incorporated into the Constitution as Articles 343 to 351 in Part XVII.
- The original Eighth Schedule, as it stood in 1950, recognised 22 languages, a number that has remained unchanged since then.
- English was permitted for all official purposes of the Union for a period of 15 years from the commencement of the Constitution.
Statement 1 is correct — the Munshi-Ayyangar formula was incorporated as Articles 343–351 in Part XVII of the Constitution. Statement 2 is false, since the Eighth Schedule originally recognised only 14 languages in 1950 and has since been expanded to 22 through later constitutional amendments. Statement 3 is correct — English was permitted for all official purposes for a 15-year transition period. A figure that has clearly changed over time, from 14 to 22, is being wrongly presented as constant since inception here, so whenever a schedule or list is mentioned with a specific count, it's worth checking whether that count is the original figure or the current one, since these frequently differ after amendments.
The UPI and Services Steering Committee is headed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and has 22 members, including banks, third-party application providers, the Payments Council of India, and the Indian Banks' Association. For any payments-related regulatory body in the news, it's worth pinning down whether the RBI, as regulator, or the NPCI, as system operator, is the deciding authority, since the two are frequently confused.
- Of the roughly 300 impact basins estimated to exist on the Moon, only 74 had been confirmed prior to this study.
- The Australe Basin's basalts were found to be higher in calcium and lower in magnesium than typical lunar basalts.
- The study identifying the basin was published in The Planetary Science Journal.
Statement 1 is correct — only 74 of an estimated ~300 lunar impact basins had been confirmed before this study. Statement 2 is false and reverses the actual finding, since the Australe Basin's basalts are relatively lower in calcium and higher in magnesium than most lunar basalts, which is precisely what makes them distinctive. Statement 3 is correct, as the study was published in The Planetary Science Journal. Two genuine descriptive terms, calcium and magnesium, have been swapped in their relationship here, so whenever a statement compares two measured quantities as "higher" and "lower," it's worth checking whether the direction has been flipped from the source finding.
Scientists call the abrupt, premature vanishing of entanglement, occurring even before normal decoherence takes place, "entanglement sudden death." A team at the Raman Research Institute has shown that a precisely timed single-shot operation can help avoid this outcome. Newly coined scientific terms appearing in current-affairs coverage are frequent single-best-answer Prelims material, so it's worth learning the exact phrase rather than just the underlying concept.
- The State of the World's Birds report is published by BirdLife International once every two years.
- The 2025 extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew is the first confirmed global bird extinction from mainland Eurasia or Africa in recent centuries.
- The Nairobi Flyways Declaration is a legally binding international treaty ratified by its signatory governments.
Statement 1 is false, since the report is published every four years, not every two. Statement 2 is correct — the Slender-billed Curlew's 2025 extinction is described as the first confirmed global bird extinction from mainland Eurasia or Africa in recent centuries. Statement 3 is false, as the Nairobi Flyways Declaration is a political commitment signed by governments, scientists, NGOs and financial institutions, making it a declaration rather than a ratified treaty. "Declaration" in a diplomatic or conservation context almost always signals a non-binding political commitment, distinct from a ratified convention or treaty, so legal force shouldn't be assumed from the name alone.
- Assertion (A): The Gujarat Action Plan for Great Indian Bustard conservation prioritises restoring large, contiguous landscapes rather than protecting only isolated pockets of habitat.
- Reason (R): The Great Indian Bustard's Kachchh population is small and isolated, making landscape-level habitat security necessary to establish a minimum viable population.
Both statements are true, and R correctly explains A. The Gujarat Action Plan, released by the Union Environment Minister at Bhuj, targets a minimum viable population of over 30 birds across 200–500 sq. km of contiguous habitat precisely because Kachchh supports a small, isolated GIB population vulnerable to inbreeding and localised threats, making landscape-level restoration, rather than isolated protection, the stated rationale. In Assertion-Reason questions on conservation policy, it's worth checking whether the "Reason" is the actual stated justification in the source material rather than merely a true but unconnected fact.
WCEF 2026 was jointly organised by the Central Pollution Control Board of India, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, the Government of Finland, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and the Government of Gujarat, with Sitra having co-founded the WCEF series in 2017. When India co-hosts an international forum, it's worth noting the specific foreign institutional partner named in the release, since general-knowledge guesses about the co-organiser's country are a common source of error.
- Bolivia completed its accession to become a full member of MERCOSUR in 2024.
- Venezuela's membership in MERCOSUR has been suspended since 2016.
- The First Additional Protocol signed with India expands the number of tariff lines covered under the India-MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement.
Statement 1 is correct — Bolivia, previously an associate member, completed full accession to MERCOSUR in 2024. Statement 2 is correct, as Venezuela has been suspended from MERCOSUR since 2016. Statement 3 is false — the First Additional Protocol amends Article 16 of Annex III (Rules of Origin) to recognise electronic Certificates of Origin, and does not alter the PTA's tariff-line coverage, which remains at 450 lines from India and 452 from MERCOSUR. A broader effect, expanded tariff coverage, has been attributed here to a protocol that in fact addresses only a narrow procedural matter, e-certification, so when a protocol or amendment is reported, it's worth verifying exactly which Article or Annex it touches before assuming it changes the agreement's substantive scope.
The pairing at (d) is incorrect. 2013 marks the start of Al Qaeda in Iraq's (AQI) transformation into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its declared "caliphate," while the caliphate was defeated by a US-led coalition only by March 2019, not 2013. The other three pairings are correct. When a timeline has both an "emergence" date and a "defeat" date for the same entity, such as ISIS emerging around 2013 and being defeated in 2019, the two dates are frequently swapped, so it's worth always separating the start of a phenomenon from its conclusion.
- The Supreme Court, in its ruling on the SIR exercise, held that the Election Commission has final authority to determine citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
- Under the Aadhaar Act, 2016, Aadhaar cannot by itself be treated as proof of citizenship or domicile.
- Aadhaar's biometric enrolment process does not capture fingerprint and iris data for children below the age of five.
Statement 1 is false — the Supreme Court held that final citizenship determination rests with the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Citizenship Act, 1955, not the Election Commission. Statement 2 is correct, as Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act bars treating Aadhaar as proof of citizenship or domicile. Statement 3 is correct, since biometrics are not captured for children below five years of age. Two genuinely correct statutory facts have been paired here with one misattributed institutional power, so whenever a Supreme Court ruling assigns a specific power to one body, it's worth checking carefully which of several plausible bodies, here the Election Commission versus the Ministry of Home Affairs, was actually named.
