Current affairs — 17 June 2026

Prelims pointers

• The article says the U.S. and Iran adopted a Memorandum of Understanding on June 14.
• The MoU provided for cessation of hostilities and a 60-day period of negotiation.
• The article identifies U.S. sanctions as one of the outstanding issues in the negotiation agenda.
• It mentions release of over $100 billion of frozen Iranian assets as a difficult issue.
• The article links wider escalation risks to the Houthis choking the Bab el-Mandeb strait again.

Prelims pointers

• Maharashtra approved the High Energy Medical Cyclotron Project in Nagpur with a provision of ₹300 crore.
• The project will be implemented through Mahacare, the Maharashtra Cancer Care, Research and Education Foundation.
• The goal is local availability of radioisotopes required for PET-CT and nuclear medicine services.
• Thirty hectares of land at Bhansoli (Kinhi) in Hingna taluka have been approved for the project.
• A Special Purpose Vehicle under the Companies Act 2013 was approved for implementation of the project.

Prelims pointers

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the G7 Summit in Evian on June 16, 2026.
• The Starmer government finalised and signed a Free Trade Agreement with India in July 2025, after years of negotiations.
• Modi and Starmer agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should be opened without tolls and with full freedom of navigation.
• Modi also met UAE ruler and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the sidelines of the G7 Summit.
• The article says the UAE had agreed to participate in building India’s strategic reserves of oil, LNG and LPG.

Prelims pointers

• WHO has classified Nipah as a priority pathogen because of its lethality and potential to cause outbreaks or even a pandemic.
• Kerala had one active Nipah case: a 43-year-old man from Ramanattukara in Kozhikode on ventilator support.
• Kerala’s 2018 Nipah outbreak caused 17 deaths and affected 23 people, of whom 18 were laboratory-confirmed cases.
• The editorial says Nipah hosts are fruit bats and links transmission to contaminated fruits or bat-contaminated water sources.
• On January 26, 2026, two laboratory-confirmed Nipah cases were reported from West Bengal, both among health-care workers.

Prelims pointers

• The editorial says Israel and the U.S. launched war on Iran on February 28.
• It says the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding was reached on June 15 after more than 100 days of fighting.
• The MoU aimed to end fighting and lift blockades in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
• The article says core issues such as Iran's nuclear programme and western sanctions would be discussed next.
• Iranian officials were cited as saying frozen assets and reparations could be part of a broader regional ceasefire arrangement.

Prelims pointers

• India’s nationwide monsoon deficit stood at 35% on June 16, over a week after the monsoon’s normal arrival date near Mumbai.
• IMD data showed central India had a 63% rainfall deficit, while east and northeast India had a 43% deficit.
• The monsoon set in over Kerala on June 4, three days behind its normal date, before losing momentum along the west coast.
• NOAA issued an El Niño advisory on June 11 and placed the odds of a very strong event by winter at 63%.
• The Centre placed 150 to 200 districts under priority monitoring and ordered weekly El Niño reviews for kharif preparedness.

Prelims pointers

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare notified the Drugs Rules amendment on June 16, 2026.
• The Drugs Rules, 1945 lay out regulations pertaining to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
• At least 24 children in Madhya Pradesh died last September after consuming adulterated cough syrup, according to the article.
• Cough syrups exported from India have been linked to more than 140 child deaths in Africa and Central Asia since 2022.
• The final notification removed 'syrups' from the exemption list, while cough lozenges, pills and tablets remain over the counter.

Prelims pointers

• The Supreme Court issued notice on June 16, 2026, to the Centre and States on the Aadhaar plea.
• The Bench comprised Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice V. Mohana.
• The petition was filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and tagged with similar pending petitions.
• Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 was cited for the proposition that Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship or domicile.
• A UIDAI notification issued in August 2023 was cited as saying Aadhaar is proof of identity, not citizenship, residence or date of birth.

Prelims pointers

• The meeting took place on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Evian, France, according to the PIB release.
• PIB described this as the third meeting in 2026 between Prime Minister Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
• The leaders reviewed cooperation in technology, trade, investment, energy and defence under the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
• The two sides called for free, safe and unimpeded navigation, trade and commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Prime Minister Modi invited President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to attend the BRICS Summit to be hosted by India later this year.

Prelims pointers

• The Modi-Starmer meeting took place on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Evian, France.
• Vision 2035 pillars mentioned include trade, defence, climate action, green energy, technology, innovation, education and people-to-people ties.
• The leaders looked forward to early entry into force of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.
• The University of Liverpool campus in Bengaluru and University of York and Bristol campuses in Mumbai were noted as education-partnership progress.
• PIB cited progress under the Technology Security Initiative, including the India-U.K. Critical Minerals Global Supply Chain Observatory.

Prelims pointers

• NISE estimated that India's reservoirs can host about 102.18 GW of floating solar capacity.
• The report is titled 'Solar PV Potential of India (Floating Solar)' and was described as a comprehensive national assessment.
• Floating solar plants were cited as costing about 25% more upfront than ground-mounted plants, based on a 2021 U.S. benchmark.
• NISE's national filtering yielded 1,946 sq km of feasible area with a cap of 20% of any reservoir's surface.
• Omkareshwar floating solar park on the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh is cited at 278 MW, with plans to scale to 600 MW.

Prelims pointers

• Global malaria incidence fell between 2000 and 2015 but has risen by 8.5% since 2015.
• India's estimated malaria cases fell from 6.4 million in 2017 to nearly two million in 2023.
• Malaria-related deaths in India declined by about 68% between 2017 and 2023, according to the article.
• India's malaria case mix is described as approximately 57% Plasmodium falciparum and 43% Plasmodium vivax.
• Partial artemisinin resistance has been linked to mutations in the parasite's kelch13, or K13, gene.

Prelims pointers

• NOAA confirmed that an El Nino has formed in the equatorial Pacific.
• NOAA placed the odds at about 63% that the event would strengthen into a very strong event by northern winter.
• India's June rainfall until June 16 was described as roughly 35% below normal.
• El Nino is defined in the article as warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific that tends to weaken the South Asian monsoon.
• IMD forecaster D.S. Pai said departures above 2 degrees Celsius are classed as very strong El Nino events.

Prelims pointers

• After Japan's 2011 earthquake, ground across Japan shifted east by up to 6 mm about 15 minutes after the main shock.
• ScS waves travel down from an earthquake source, bounce off Earth's core and return to the surface.
• Camera-trap research compared animal activity during Ukraine's 2022 Russian occupation with 2021 peacetime data in Chornobyl.
• Ancient DNA near Lake Baikal showed plague outbreaks among hunter-gatherers dating back 5,500 years.
• The ancient plague strains lacked genes needed for flea-bite spread, suggesting direct person-to-person transmission.

Prelims pointers

• Ursula von der Leyen said India and the European Union will sign their free trade agreement by the end of the year.
• The statement followed talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit on June 17, 2026.
• European Council President Antonio Costa joined the meeting along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
• Von der Leyen said the two sides would accelerate work on an investment agreement in addition to the FTA.
• She also referred to stepping up security and defence cooperation and advancing the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor.

Prelims pointers

• Officials said CBG blending with CNG and domestic PNG has already nearly doubled to about 2% at present.
• India's combined domestic PNG and transport CNG consumption is about 34-35 million metric standard cubic metres per day.
• CBG sales were approximately 0.66 MMSCMD in April and about 0.63 MMSCMD in May, according to officials cited.
• The National Biofuel Coordination Committee-linked targets include 1% blending in FY 2025-26 and 3% in FY 2026-27.
• The Gobardhan portal listed 210 commissioned CBG plants, 324 under construction and 1,261 yet to start construction.

Prelims pointers

• India and the United Kingdom announced July 15, 2026 as the implementation date for CETA.
• The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between India and the U.K. was signed in July 2025.
• A new U.K. regulation cut the quota for duty-free steel imports by 60% and doubled above-quota tariffs to 50%.
• The U.K. steel tariff and quota rules were announced in May and were scheduled to take effect from July 1, 2026.
• Under CETA, the U.K. will remove tariffs on 99% of its product lines, according to the article.

Prelims pointers

• In May, the RBI approved a record surplus transfer of Rs 2.87 lakh crore to the Union government for FY26.
• The article says the FY26 transfer exceeded the previous record RBI surplus transfer of Rs 2.11 lakh crore.
• It states that RBI surplus transfers rose from Rs 87,416 crore for FY23 to Rs 2.11 lakh crore for FY24.
• The RBI balance sheet is described as having grown 20.6% in one year to Rs 91.97 lakh crore by March 2026.
• The surplus transfer is treated as Union non-tax revenue and is not automatically shared with States through the divisible pool.

Prelims pointers

• RBI temporarily withdrew the interest-rate ceiling on fresh FCNR(B) deposits of three-to-five-year tenors.
• The relaxation also applies to NRE deposits of three years and above, including deposits renewed on maturity.
• The temporary relaxation is valid until September 30, 2026, according to the amendment directions issued on June 17, 2026.
• Interest rates on NRE/NRO deposits cannot be higher than comparable domestic rupee term deposit rates offered by the same bank.
• Transfers from NRO accounts to NRE accounts are excluded from qualifying for the temporary interest-rate exemption.

Prelims pointers

• In May, India’s crude oil imports rose nearly 7.5% from April, while LNG imports increased about 16%.
• From April to May, the crude import bill rose 14.7% and the LNG import bill rose more than 22%.
• Compared with May of the previous year, crude imports rose 1.41% to 21.6 million metric tonnes.
• India paid $18.7 billion for crude imports in May, about 81.6% higher than the $10.3 billion paid in the comparable period last year.
• In April, India imported 20.1 MMT of crude for $16.3 billion and spent $0.9 billion on 1,954 MMSCMD of LNG.