Current affairs — 16 September 2026

Prelims pointers

• Five baby orangutans were rescued from a forest in Odisha’s Balasore district on September 8 and quarantined at Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar.
• Orangutans are generally found in the wild in Borneo and Sumatra; their discovery in Odisha triggered a probe into possible trafficking.
• A six-member health team examined all five infants on September 15, 2026, after one orangutan developed fever following the rescue.
• Zoo authorities recorded body temperatures of 98–99 degrees Fahrenheit and reported that all five were stable, feeding normally and showing improved activity.
• The Odisha Police Special Task Force and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau began a joint investigation into alleged international wildlife smuggling.

Prelims pointers

• Five States—Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan—and Delhi signed the Kishau Project agreement on September 15, 2026.
• The 422 MW Kishau multipurpose project, estimated to cost ₹15,624 crore, is planned on the Tons River along the Uttarakhand-Himachal Pradesh border.
• The project design includes a 232.6-metre-high concrete gravity dam with water-storage capacity of 1,562 million cubic metres.
• The Union government will bear about 90% of the financial burden; the participating States and Delhi will bear the remaining 10% under the 1994 agreement.
• The project is expected to irrigate 97,000 hectares and generate 1,476 million units of clean hydropower; Delhi was described as its biggest beneficiary.

Prelims pointers

• The RBI scheduled a Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility for September 16, 2026.
• The notified amount for the auction is ₹2,50,000 crore and its tenor is one day.
• The auction window is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on September 16, 2026.
• The one-day auction is due to reverse on Thursday, September 17, 2026.
• Operational guidelines in RBI Press Release 2019-2020/1947 dated February 13, 2020, will remain unchanged.

Prelims pointers

• IIT Palakkad researchers developed fluorescent chemosensors that can quickly measure heparin levels in blood.
• Heparin is an anticoagulant used in cardiac surgery, dialysis and blood transfusions; underdosing risks clotting and overdosing risks excessive bleeding.
• The new method uses fluorescence instead of the clotting-time measurements employed by existing monitoring methods.
• The sensor’s bright yellow-green signal weakens in the presence of heparin, enabling measurement with simple equipment.
• The single-step sensor molecules selectively detected heparin in human serum, but further development and testing are needed before clinical use.

Prelims pointers

• The new GDP series has 2022-23 as its base year; a February 27, 2026 press release had set out methodological improvements, updated data sources and activity-wise revisions.
• Nominal GDP was revised downward by about 2.7% for 2022-23, 3.5% for 2023-24 and 3.8% for 2024-25 across the three overlapping years.
• Agriculture and allied activities were revised upward by about 3.8%–5.9%, while the grouped services including financial and real-estate activities rose roughly 7.8%–9.0%.
• Trade and transport and storage were revised down around 23%–26%; trade GVA fell 36%, road transport 16.9%, while hotels and restaurants GVA rose 5.7%.
• The new series uses ASUSE and PLFS data to measure the unincorporated sector more directly, unlike the 2011-12 series’ use of proxy indicators to move benchmark estimates forward.

Prelims pointers

• Tariff subsidy and grants to the Tamil Nadu power discom totalled ₹2.55 lakh crore over the 14 years since 2013-14.
• Average annual State assistance to the discom was around ₹18,130 crore, according to the figures discussed in the report.
• Since 2021-22, the Tamil Nadu government has been mandated to absorb the power distributor’s financial losses fully.
• About ₹9,893 crore, or 53% of the current year’s roughly ₹18,860 crore subsidy, was set aside for domestic consumers.
• Recovering regulatory assets requires grants of ₹11,800 crore yearly from 2026-27 through 2030-31, totalling ₹59,000 crore, unless recovered through approved higher consumption charges.

Prelims pointers

• Meta will report child-safety matters directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, or I4C.
• The report described Meta as the first major technology intermediary to commit to a direct reporting pipeline to Indian law enforcement.
• Before the announced change, Meta reported child-safety cases to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• In July 2026, the government issued Meta a notice about Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material in paid Instagram advertisements.
• NCPCR took suo motu cognisance of alleged CSEAM advertisements, sought an explanation and summoned Meta India officials for its inquiry.

Prelims pointers

• MT El Gaia was reportedly operating with its Automatic Identification System switched off in the Strait of Hormuz.
• The tanker carried 25 crew members: 14 Indian nationals and 11 Pakistani nationals.
• Two crew members remained missing, while the Omani Coast Guard brought the other 23 crew members ashore.
• The 20-year-old tanker has a cargo-carrying capacity of 48,000 tonnes and is managed by Dubai-based companies.
• Iran’s IRGC Navy cited naval mines, while the United States said the tanker was hit by a missile and then a drone.

Prelims pointers

• CBO estimated that the Iran war cost the U.S. Department of Defense more than $38 billion through August 1.
• Continuing military costs could reach $3 billion a month or more, depending on the intensity of the conflict.
• The estimate excluded costs for personnel killed or injured and longer-term veterans’ healthcare and disability compensation.
• CBO projected inflation about 0.5 percentage points above its earlier estimate through the first quarter of 2027.
• CBO linked much of the inflation effect to reduced energy shipments through Hormuz and disruption of Red Sea shipping.