Current Affairs Quiz 19 September 2026

Statement 1 is correct — PMBJP, begun as the Jan Aushadhi Campaign in 2008 and relaunched in 2015-16, is implemented by PMBI under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. Statement 2 is correct, since the DPCO, 2013 derives its authority from the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, which is why price control of medicines is enforceable as an essential-commodity measure. Statement 3 is incorrect — the NPPA caps the prices only of scheduled formulations, medicines in the National List of Essential Medicines, using a market-based ceiling formula, while for non-scheduled medicines it only limits the annual increase rather than fixing the price. A real regulator is given wider powers than it has here, made plausible because price control of medicines is well known — the NPPA controls scheduled drugs under the NLEM, and everything else is capped only on the rate of increase, not on the price itself.

All four statements are correct. The mission launched on 2 October 2014 runs as two parallel missions under two ministries, a distinction frequently missed. ODF Plus has three rungs — Aspiring, Rising and Model — with Model requiring visual cleanliness and display of messaging in addition to functioning waste management. GOBARdhan, launched in 2018, stands for Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan, and as of September 2026 the dashboards report 5.69 lakh ODF Plus villages, of which 5.25 lakh are Model. This is an "all-true" design across four statements, which feels uncomfortable precisely because the counting format invites candidates to look for a flaw — rural sanitation is Jal Shakti's remit, urban is Housing and Urban Affairs', and the ODF Plus ladder runs Aspiring → Rising → Model.

Statement 1 is correct — PM Vishwakarma, launched on 17 September 2023, is a Central Sector Scheme fully funded by the Union Government with an outlay of ₹13,000 crore for FY2023-24 to 2027-28, implemented by the MSME Ministry jointly with the Ministries of Skill Development and Finance. Statement 2 is incorrect, since the scheme covers eighteen trades, not twenty-four, including carpenter, blacksmith, goldsmith, potter, cobbler, mason, barber, washerman, tailor and fishing-net maker. Statement 3 is correct — the two tranches are repayable in 18 and 30 months respectively at 5% concessional interest, the subvention being borne by the Government. This is a numerical inflation trap on a figure that is widely quoted but rarely memorised precisely, so it helps to fix the four defining numbers: eighteen trades, two loan tranches of ₹1 lakh and ₹2 lakh, a ₹500 daily stipend, and a ₹15,000 toolkit e-voucher.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct — water supply, irrigation and canals fall under Entry 17 of the State List, subject to Entry 56 of the Union List on the regulation of inter-State rivers, and Article 262 empowers Parliament to provide for adjudication of related disputes. Statement 3 is incorrect, since under national project status the Centre bears about 90% of the cost, with the remaining 10% shared among the participating States in line with the 1994 upper Yamuna agreement. A genuine funding category is pushed here from "about 90%" to "the entire cost," which sounds natural because the term "national project" suggests full central funding, but national project status actually means roughly a 90:10 Centre-State split, never 100%.

Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Statement 2 is incorrect — the Fed has a dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment, but only price stability carries a numerical target, of 2% inflation, while employment has none, and this asymmetry is what allows the same decision to be read as hawkish or dovish. A dual mandate is assumed here to imply two numerical targets — but the Fed targets 2% inflation numerically and maximum employment only qualitatively, with a central bank having an explicit numerical unemployment target being unusual.

Statements 2 and 3 are correct. Statement 1 is incorrect, since the defining feature of an HEV is precisely that it cannot be plugged in — its battery is charged only by the internal combustion engine and regenerative braking, which is exactly what separates it from a PHEV, which carries a larger battery and adds the option of external charging. This is a definitional inversion trap where the one attribute that distinguishes two adjacent categories is assigned to the wrong one — the plug is the whole distinction: if it can be plugged in, it is a PHEV, not an HEV.

All three statements are correct. Under Part XI of UNCLOS, 1982, the Area cannot be appropriated by any State and its resources are administered for the benefit of humanity as a whole. India's three ISA exploration contracts cover approximately 95,000 sq km, with an estimated 366 million tonnes of polymetallic nodules containing nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese. This is an "all-true" design combining a legal concept, an institutional location, and a set of place names — worth anchoring as: the Area is common heritage of mankind, the ISA sits at Kingston, and India's contracts lie in the Central Indian Ocean Basin and on the Central Indian and Carlsberg Ridges.

Statement 1 is incorrect — an ESZ is a regulated transition zone, not a prohibition zone, since notifications classify activities as prohibited, regulated or permitted, with the purpose being to govern the character, scale and design of activity rather than to ban it outright. Statements 2 and 3 are correct, tracing to the National Wildlife Action Plan and the Environment Ministry's 2011 guidelines, with the Zonal Management Plan meant to specify extraction limits, setbacks, design standards and mitigation requirements — though in practice this plan is rarely written. This is the same "ban versus regulate" design error that commonly appears with CITES: buffer zones regulate, while only core protected areas restrict, and an ESZ that banned everything would need no management plan at all.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct — India has been a party to the PCT since 1998, and patents in force is the measure that reflects what proprietors consider worth maintaining, making it a better proxy for commercial value than filings. Statement 3 is incorrect — gallium nitride is a wide-bandgap semiconductor, able to tolerate higher voltages, frequencies and temperatures than silicon, which is why it is used in radar, satellite communication, electronic warfare and high-efficiency power conversion, not low-power consumer electronics. A material-science term is reversed here in a way that sounds technical enough to be accepted without checking — wide bandgap means high power and high frequency, and GaN and silicon carbide are the two names worth remembering in that class.

Statement 1 is incorrect — Current Weekly Status uses a reference period of the preceding seven days, not 365 days; it is the usual status approach that looks back over a full year, and because CWS captures short-term and seasonal joblessness, unemployment measured on CWS is generally higher than on usual status. Statements 2 and 3 are correct, and the denominator distinction in statement 3 is the single most common error in reading employment data, since unemployment can fall merely because discouraged workers leave the labour force — which is why the unemployment rate must always be read alongside the labour force participation rate. This is a swapped reference period trap between the two standard activity-status concepts: weekly means seven days, usual means a year, and the unemployment rate always divides by the labour force, never by the population.