Current affairs — 9 June 2026

Prelims pointers

• The editorial says the Great Nicobar development project is now estimated at ₹91,000 crore.
• The Public Investment Board found in August 2024 that the Galathea Bay transshipment port lacked strategic objectives.
• The PPPAC refused ₹12,230 crore in Viability Gap Funding and asked the Ports Ministry to find funds in its own budget.
• The project includes a port, international airport, power plant and township on Great Nicobar Island.
• The editorial identifies risks to primary forest, leatherback turtle nesting beaches and the endemic Nicobar megapode.

Prelims pointers

• The Centre reduced subsidised refills under PMUY from nine to four LPG cylinders a year.
• The article links the reduction to global LPG supply pressure amid the West Asia conflict.
• Domestic LPG cylinder prices were raised by ₹29 on Sunday, making the cumulative increase ₹89 across two revisions.
• PMUY provides a targeted subsidy of ₹300 per cylinder to beneficiaries under the Central scheme.
• The PMUY scheme has provided around 10.55 crore LPG connections as of May 26 this year.

Prelims pointers

• Shigellosis, or bacillary dysentery, is a highly contagious bacterial diarrhoeal disease caused by Shigella.
• Kerala reported 85 confirmed and more than 70 probable shigellosis cases till June 7 in the year covered by the article.
• Two child deaths had been reported, one in April and one on June 6, both from Kozhikode.
• Symptoms usually appear within one to two days and include fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea and blood in stools.
• The advisory recommended hand washing with soap for 20 seconds before food handling or eating and after toilet use.

Prelims pointers

• Fitch lowered India's FY27 GDP growth projection to 6.4% from its earlier estimate of 6.7%.
• The article says India recorded 7.4% GDP growth in FY26.
• Fitch attributed the slowdown partly to the U.S.-Iran war and higher fuel prices hurting real incomes.
• Fitch raised its 2026 Brent crude assumption to $87 per barrel from $70 per barrel estimated in March.
• Fitch expects India's inflation to reach 5.3% by the end of the calendar year.

Prelims pointers

• Heart failure is described as a chronic condition requiring lifelong management, unlike a sudden heart attack.
• Furosex is a wearable infusion system that delivers the diuretic furosemide for selected heart-failure patients.
• Modern heart-failure therapy includes beta blockers, ACE inhibitors or ARBs or ARNIs, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists and SGLT2 inhibitors.
• Vericiguat is described as a soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator used after worsening heart failure.
• Wearable devices can track heart rate, rhythm abnormalities, oxygen saturation and sometimes blood pressure and weight trends.

Prelims pointers

• The multinational team was led by Charles Swanton of the Francis Crick Institute, London.
• The study identified a 14-protein signature in blood plasma as a predictor of lung cancer years in advance.
• The machine-learning model was trained using plasma proteomics profiles of about 48,000 U.K. Biobank volunteers.
• Testing used about 12,000 excluded patients, including 75 lung cancer cases with a median diagnosis time of 5.1 years.
• A retrospective CANTOS analysis found a 50% lower lung-cancer risk in 2,300 signature-positive participants receiving canakinumab.

Prelims pointers

• The study was conducted by Caltech researchers and published in Nature Microbiology.
• Drought stress can concentrate natural antibiotics in soil, favouring survival of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
• The team analysed soil DNA datasets from the U.S., China and Europe across cropland, wetland, grassland and forest sites.
• Hospital data from 116 countries showed that drier regions reported more infections due to antibiotic resistance.
• A 2024 India report cited 91 districts at very high drought risk and 188 districts at high drought risk.

Prelims pointers

• The Joint Committee is examining the Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
• The committee is headed by Lok Sabha member Sudheer Gupta.
• Stakeholders have been invited to submit views and suggestions on specific clauses until June 22.
• The Bill seeks to amend the Companies Act, 2013 and the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008.
• The proposed amendments are expected to rationalise penalties and reduce criminal treatment of minor lapses.