Current affairs — 10 October 2026

Prelims pointers

• The decisions described were taken at the 57th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax Council.
• The reforms cover GST registration, return filing, refunds and litigation processes.
• A committee was tasked with finding an input-tax-credit solution that could be implemented by April 1.
• The Centre introduced faceless assessment for Central GST registered companies along the lines of the income-tax system.
• The Council decided to review GST rates once a year and implement changes only at the start of financial years.

Prelims pointers

• The RBI scheduled a Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction under the LAF for October 12, 2026.
• The notified amount for the auction is ₹2,00,000 crore.
• The Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction has a tenor of three days.
• The auction window is 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., with reversal scheduled for October 15, 2026.
• Operational guidelines from RBI Press Release 2019-2020/1947 dated February 13, 2020 remain applicable.

Prelims pointers

• The Madhya Pradesh law struck down by the High Court had raised OBC reservation from 14% to 27%.
• The Division Bench comprised Justices Anand Pathak and Vinay Saraf, and its order ran to 159 pages.
• The court cited Article 16(4) while assessing whether OBCs were adequately represented in public services and higher education.
• Under the 87:13 formula adopted in September 2022, recruitment continued for 87% of vacancies while 13% remained on hold.
• The court protected appointments made with 27% OBC reservation between March 2019 and September 2022.

Prelims pointers

• CGTCON 2026 was the 11th International Cell and Gene Therapy Conference and was held at CMC Vellore.
• The Centre for Stem Cell Research at CMC organised the conference, where former IISc director P. Balaram gave the inaugural address.
• Mammen Chandy established haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation as a curative treatment at CMC in 1986.
• CMC director Biju George said a fully matched sibling or family donor can be identified in only 25% of families.
• Conference topics included organoids, disease modelling, nucleic-acid delivery, manufacturing and regulation of advanced therapeutics.

Prelims pointers

• The Meghalaya High Court issued contempt notices to 26 bar-association office-bearers and members on October 8, 2026.
• The notices were issued under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act read with Article 215 of the Constitution.
• The boycott began on October 1 and sought the removal of Meghalaya Advocate General Amit Kumar.
• The Baghmara Bar Association did not join the boycott and cited Ex-Capt Harish Uppal v. Union of India.
• In Ex-Capt Harish Uppal, the Supreme Court held that lawyers have no right to strike, even a token strike, or call for one.

Prelims pointers

• Bamboo plantations were established on 255 of 307 hectares of identified poppy-affected forestland.
• The identified forestland lies in Chandel, Churachandpur and Senapati districts of Manipur.
• The Forest Department has surveyed forest areas for poppy plantations since 2018 and says surveys are continuing.
• About 78% of Manipur's geographical area is classified as forestland, while forest cover is about 74%.
• The department earned ₹115 crore from seized forest products between 2023-24 and 2025-26.

Prelims pointers

• Hurricane Isaias strengthened into a Category 3 major hurricane before its expected Gulf Coast landfall on October 9, 2026.
• The forecast landfall zone lay between Mobile Bay on the Alabama coast and Destin in the Florida Panhandle.
• The National Hurricane Center warned that storm surge could reach 6 to 9 feet, equivalent to 1.8 to 2.7 metres.
• As of early Friday afternoon, Isaias was about 90 miles south of Pensacola; it had sustained winds of 120 mph on Friday morning.
• Forecast rainfall from southern Alabama to southwestern Georgia was 4 to 8 inches, or more, through the weekend.

Prelims pointers

• The main earthquake was centred about 10 kilometres southwest of Pitaloza Arriba in Herrera province at a depth of 10 kilometres.
• The USGS revised its initial magnitude 8 estimate first to 7.6 and later to 7.7.
• University of Panama seismologists recorded more than 45 aftershocks after the main event.
• The tsunami warning covered Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, with possible 1-to-3-metre waves in parts of Panama.
• The article links Panama’s seismicity to the interaction of plates including the Cocos, Nazca and Caribbean plates.

Prelims pointers

• The regulatory package was announced through A.P. (DIR Series) Circular Nos. 25 and 26.
• Rebooking is barred for cancelled INR-linked foreign-exchange derivative contracts, but rollover on maturity remains permitted subject to existing rules.
• The threshold for relevant derivative positions without establishing underlying exposure was reduced from USD 100 million equivalent to USD 5 million.
• Authorised Dealers must retain an undertaking that the same underlying exposure has not been hedged with another Authorised Dealer.
• For specified INR derivative contracts above USD 2 million, the FERR is cash with RBI equal to 20% of the INR equivalent of each contract's notional amount.

Prelims pointers

• RBI Circular No. 25 of October 10, 2026, amends the Master Direction on Risk Management and Inter-Bank Dealings dated July 5, 2016.
• Authorised Dealers cannot permit rebooking of INR foreign-exchange derivative contracts cancelled after issuance of the Directions, whether deliverable or non-deliverable.
• Rollover of a foreign-exchange derivative contract at maturity may continue subject to compliance with the Master Direction.
• The two stated thresholds for positions without establishing an underlying exposure were reduced from USD 100 million to USD 5 million equivalent.
• Authorised Dealers must retain compliance and underlying-exposure documents for at least two years.

Prelims pointers

• A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 26 is dated October 10, 2026 and applies immediately.
• FERR applies to specified INR derivative contracts above USD 2 million used to hedge current-account transactions where the user buys foreign currency against INR.
• The reserve equals 20% of the INR equivalent of the notional amount of each qualifying derivative contract.
• The reserve must be maintained daily as cash in India with the RBI until termination of the contract.
• Authorised Dealers must report FERR details daily through CIMS; attempts to evade the rule through multiple transactions are violations.

Prelims pointers

• The RBI announced the special window after assessing current market conditions.
• The window is intended to meet the entire daily dollar requirements of three public-sector oil marketing companies.
• The three beneficiaries are Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.
• Under the facility, the RBI will sell US dollars to the public-sector OMCs through designated bank or banks.
• The facility takes effect on October 12, 2026 and will remain in place until further notice.

Prelims pointers

• U.S., Ukrainian and European negotiators held six hours of talks in Miami on October 9, 2026.
• The talks sought a unified proposal that could be presented to Russia in the following weeks to pursue a breakthrough before winter.
• Participants included U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a Ukrainian delegation, and representatives from Europe and NATO.
• The proposed post-war package included security guarantees from the United States and Europe for Ukraine.
• Negotiators discussed Ukraine's post-war economic plan, a route to European Union membership, territory and a Europe-Russia security architecture.

Prelims pointers

• Israel's occupation of the West Bank began in 1967 after the Six-Day War; the Israeli government uses the biblical term Judea and Samaria for the region.
• Peace Now reports more than five lakh Israeli settlers in the West Bank, compared with fewer than 5,000 in 1967.
• More than 140 settlements completed Israel's official planning process, while nearly 430 outposts have been established since the 1990s.
• The E1 project includes tenders for 1,234 homes in a proposed corridor between occupied East Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim.
• UN OCHA recorded more than 1,600 settler attacks against Palestinians between January and August 2026.

Prelims pointers

• Taiwan earmarked a record NT$1.1 trillion, or $34.5 billion, for defence spending in 2027, equal to more than 3% of GDP.
• President Lai Ching-te said the purpose of increased defence investment was to deter war rather than provoke it.
• Taiwan was awaiting U.S. approval for $14 billion in weapons, including the Patriot air-defence system.
• The October 10, 2026 observance marked the 115th anniversary of the Qing dynasty's fall and the subsequent founding of the Republic of China.
• The current China-Taiwan division dates to 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan after losing to Mao Zedong's communist forces.

Prelims pointers

• Starlink, Jio Satcom and Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb were identified as the three entities that had secured satcom licences in India.
• Amazon’s Project Kuiper had expressed interest in India but still needed to follow the established licensing procedure.
• Licensed satcom entities must meet security conditions before starting operations, according to the Communications Minister.
• TRAI and the Department of Telecommunications were reported to be close to a final decision on the satcom-spectrum pricing regime.
• The government described India’s authorisation framework for telecom and satellite services as fair and non-discriminatory.

Prelims pointers

• PGCIL said the estimated northeastern SCADA/EMS upgrade cost had risen from ₹521 crore to about ₹688 crore as AI demand made supervisory hardware costlier.
• The National Power Committee noted that data centres have high constant loads but can show ramping linked to global time zones and server distribution.
• The All-India Discoms Association’s Director-General estimated incremental data-centre electricity demand at one to two gigawatts per year.
• The Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre warned that rapid switching to backup power could create a credible risk of abrupt load rejection.
• A June 12 faulty-bus incident in Maharashtra tripped two interconnecting transformers and shed about 32 MW of data-centre load.

Prelims pointers

• The Kulsi is formed by the Dron, Shree and Dilma rivers and is a tributary of the Brahmaputra.
• The proposed 55-MW hydropower-cum-irrigation project includes a 62-metre-high dam in a natural habitat of the endangered Gangetic dolphin.
• The project site is on the Assam-Meghalaya border, about 80 km southwest of Guwahati.
• The Ministry of Jal Shakti says the project could irrigate about 26,000 hectares and mitigate floods in addition to generating power.
• The Brahmaputra Board estimated the project cost at ₹1,454.95 crore at June 2017 price levels in its detailed project report.

Prelims pointers

• The Water Resources department constituted a 13-member committee to assess the technical and financial feasibility of coastal desalination plants in Keralam.
• The committee is chaired by the Technical Member of Kerala Water Authority, with a KWA Chief Engineer serving as convenor.
• In 2021, KWA opened discussions with the National Institute of Ocean Technology under the Ministry of Earth Sciences on suitable desalination systems.
• An earlier proposal envisaged a 10-mld seawater desalination plant at Pallipuram panchayat in Vypeen.
• A detailed engineering report for the Pallipuram proposal was prepared, and its estimated cost was reported as ₹215 crore in February 2026.

Prelims pointers

• Visakhapatnam’s AQI exceeded the national standard of 100 on 259 of the 382 days with readings from September 2025 to September 2026.
• In December 2025, 25 of 30 daily readings were poor or very poor, the average daily AQI was 255, and the monthly peak was 347.
• All 10 stations had 12-month average PM10 levels of 84–135 micrograms per cubic metre, exceeding the annual standard of 60.
• Five of seven stations with complete PM2.5 readings exceeded the annual standard of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.
• APPCB operates eight manual stations, has established three continuous stations and proposed five IoT sensor-based stations for operation by November.

Prelims pointers

• India and the United States announced a framework for an interim trade agreement in February.
• India is seeking lower U.S. tariffs for its goods than those faced by competitors in the American market.
• Piyush Goyal met U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer during the G20 trade ministers’ meeting in Milwaukee.
• India is negotiating trade pacts with Israel, Chile, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Eurasian Economic Union.
• India and the U.K. implemented a trade agreement in July, with a JETCO meeting planned during the U.K. trade minister’s visit.

Prelims pointers

• The Indian Air Force hosted the second edition of Exercise Tarang Shakti from September 26 to October 12, 2026.
• Seven foreign air forces participated—Australia, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UAE and the United States—alongside 32 observer nations.
• The exercise combined combat, transport, surveillance and air-to-air refuelling capabilities for joint planning and interoperability.
• Indigenous participants included the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas and the Light Combat Helicopter Prachand.
• Tarang Shakti 2026 built on the exercise’s inaugural edition in 2024 and was held at Air Force Station Jodhpur.

Prelims pointers

• The fourth All S&T Clusters’ Meet was held on October 9–10, 2026 at Panjab University in Chandigarh and hosted by PI-RAHI.
• The S&T Clusters programme was conceived in 2020 following recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council.
• Representatives of eight S&T clusters reviewed regional initiatives and discussed technology translation, industry engagement, replication and scale-up.
• The meeting highlighted an EV charging station in Himachal Pradesh and an EVChargex battery-swapping station in Panchkula.
• PI-RAHI’s Digital Podiatric Clinic at Panjab University uses AI-powered foot screening for early detection and preventive care of diabetic foot conditions.

Prelims pointers

• India has more than 11,000 km of coastline and 205 lighthouses, all of which the PIB backgrounder says are solar-powered.
• Seventy-five lighthouses have been developed as tourism destinations, while another 25 are proposed for such development.
• Lighthouse tourism increased from about 4 lakh visitors in 2014 to 18.63 lakh visitors in 2024–25.
• Eighty-seven Automatic Identification System shore stations have been installed on coastal lighthouses; AIS is a ship-and-shore data-broadcast system under SOLAS.
• Four 20-metre lighthouses planned at Pandu, Bogibeel, Silghat and Biswanath Ghat would be India’s first lighthouse infrastructure on an inland waterway.

Prelims pointers

• PMDDKY was approved by the Union Cabinet on July 16, 2025, launched on October 11, 2025 and designed as a six-year initiative beginning in 2025-26.
• The scheme covers 100 Aspirational Agricultural Districts selected using low productivity, low cropping intensity and low agricultural-credit disbursement.
• PMDDKY converges 36 Central schemes across 11 Ministries and Departments, along with State schemes and private-sector participation.
• The District Samiti is headed by the Collector or District Magistrate, while the State Samiti is headed by the Chief Secretary.
• Monitoring uses 121 indicators across 36 schemes, comprising 74 output indicators and 47 outcome indicators.

Prelims pointers

• The BRICS Traditional and Indigenous Sports Demonstration Games 2026 are scheduled for October 12 at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad.
• The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is organising the event with the Government of Gujarat under India's BRICS Chairship.
• The Games are a non-competitive platform for demonstration, documentation and exchange of traditional sporting practices.
• India's listed traditional-sport demonstrations are Mallakhamb, Yogasana and Kalaripayattu.
• Bilateral meetings are planned on the sidelines to discuss sports cooperation and promotion of traditional and indigenous games within the BRICS framework.

Prelims pointers

• The Yuva Sanwad Mela was organised on October 9, 2026 by MY Bharat and the National Service Scheme under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
• The event concluded Month 1 of the 100-Week Sankalp Abhiyan, whose first-month theme was ‘My Health, My Pride’.
• Activities covered 200 designated institutions and their adopted villages across 15 NSS Regional Directorates, reporting total outreach of 1,06,855 people.
• The programme's three principal components were Youth Dialogue, awareness stalls and cultural performances.
• Month 2 will focus on physical fitness and sports under the theme ‘Fit Youth, Addiction-Free Youth’.

Prelims pointers

• The Kolkata conference on October 9, 2026 was the second regional review of implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
• The eight participating States were West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
• As of August 31, 2026, over 54 lakh claims had been received, about 25 lakh titles distributed and about 11 lakh claims remained pending nationally.
• The review priorities included rejected claims, data reconciliation, digitisation, record incorporation, Community Forest Resource Rights and PVTG Habitat Rights.
• The national FRA Portal and mobile app were demonstrated for digitisation and geospatial integration, while States were urged to integrate existing FRA records through APIs.

Prelims pointers

• Jitendra Singh addressed the 121st annual session of the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi.
• The National Quantum Mission has an eight-year target of 2,000 km of quantum-secure communication, according to the Minister's address.
• The Minister said India achieved 1,000 km of quantum-secure communication in three years.
• India's bioeconomy was reported to have grown from around $10 billion in 2014 to approximately $196 billion, with a $300 billion ambition for 2030.
• The Minister said industry involvement should begin at a research project's inception to connect laboratory work with prototypes and market-ready products.

Prelims pointers

• The 153rd IPU Assembly was held in Arusha, Tanzania, from 5 to 9 October 2026.
• Harivansh, Anurag Singh Thakur and Kamaljeet Sehrawat cast the three votes allocated to India in the IPU presidential election.
• A secret ballot elected Milton Dick, Speaker of Australia’s House of Representatives, as the next IPU President.
• The Assembly adopted the Arusha Communiqué and a resolution on parliamentary strategies for the rights and empowerment of persons with disabilities.
• An emergency resolution called for parliamentary action on climate-related disasters and resilience in the Himalayan and other vulnerable regions.

Prelims pointers

• The NBA disbursed Rs 2.02 crore among 27 State Biodiversity Boards and three Union Territory Biodiversity Councils.
• The seed-sector ABS contributions covered resources including rice, eggplant, cauliflower, cucumber, hot pepper, gourds, tomato and okra.
• When individual claimers could not be identified, beneficiary shares were apportioned using cultivation-area data published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
• The top ten recipient States accounted for Rs 1.43 crore, while cumulative NBA ABS disbursement reached Rs 202 crore.
• India's ABS framework supports the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, NBSAP 2024–2030, and Targets 13 and 19 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Prelims pointers

• Yuva Sangam Phase VII was organised by the Department of Higher Education under the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat initiative.
• The programme uses 20 paired States and higher-education institutions to foster mutual understanding and national integration.
• The Telangana delegation was led by the Central University of Karnataka and welcomed in Guwahati by IIT Guwahati on October 4, 2026.
• Delegates attended a yoga session and met Assam Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya on October 5, 2026.
• The programme exposes youth to other regions’ cultural heritage, traditions, educational landscape and developmental achievements.

Prelims pointers

• Yard 3040, Shreyas, is a Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel launched at GRSE, Kolkata, on October 10, 2026.
• Mrs Reyman Kochhar launched Shreyas in the presence of Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff.
• Construction of the Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels is proceeding concurrently at GSL in Goa and GRSE in Kolkata.
• The vessels’ stated roles include maritime surveillance, search and rescue, offshore-asset protection, HADR and anti-piracy missions.
• The Sanskrit name Shreyas means “Best” or “Most Excellent”; the launch was linked to Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India.

Prelims pointers

• TEC under the Department of Telecommunications and ICAR jointly hosted the second GI-AI4FS meeting alongside India Mobile Congress 2026.
• GI-AI4FS is coordinated by ITU in close collaboration with FAO, IFAD and WFP.
• Around 70 delegates attended the meeting in person and 25 participants joined online.
• The release identifies sensors, weather stations, drones, satellite systems and AI analytics as tools for transforming agri-food systems.
• A two-day international hackathon on AI for Agri-Food Systems was held on October 8–9, 2026 at the ICAR campus in New Delhi.

Prelims pointers

• CAQM identified Amritsar and Tarn Taran as hotspot districts for paddy-stubble burning during the ongoing harvesting season.
• The CAQM team conducted field visits on October 9 and 10, 2026 and held a district review meeting in Amritsar on October 10.
• The review covered in-situ and ex-situ straw use, Crop Residue Management machinery, farmer support and IEC activities.
• Amritsar linked balers, farmers and aggregators with industries using paddy-straw bales in boilers and also established a control room, help desk and fire-reporting helpline.
• CAQM deployed Flying Squads in 18 Punjab districts for the period from October 1 to November 30, 2026.

Prelims pointers

• The Chennai programme comprises development projects worth over ₹13,000 crore across transport, ports, petroleum and education.
• The ₹4,900-crore Poonamallee–Vadapalani Metro stretch has a 3.7-km double-decker structure and signalling designed for driverless operations.
• Highway works worth about ₹3,700 crore include sections of NH-744 and NH-744A and the planned Thiruvarur Bypass on NH-83.
• The ₹1,620-crore Group II/III Lube Oil Base Stocks project at the Manali Refinery has a planned capacity of 270 TMTPA.
• The IIT Madras brain mission aims to map more than 100 human brains in three dimensions at cellular resolution across the human lifespan.

Prelims pointers

• IICA, under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, organised NCCSR 2026 in New Delhi for October 6–7, 2026.
• The conference theme was “Re-envisioning the Spirit of CSR for Viksit Bharat: From Compliance to Commitment.”
• The Comprehensive CSR Framework for Indian Coal Companies was released to guide structured, need-based and outcome-oriented interventions.
• The inaugural session released the India CSR Factbook 2024–25 as a consolidated reference on India’s evolving CSR landscape.
• The conference examined Board governance, the Social Stock Exchange, SDG-aligned sector approaches and the CSR Exchange Portal.

Prelims pointers

• Navi Pillay was born in Durban in 1941 and became the first woman to open a law practice in the province in 1967.
• In 1973, Pillay secured the right to legal representation for Robben Island inmates, including Nelson Mandela.
• Pillay served eight years on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including four years as its president.
• The Rwanda tribunal’s Akayesu ruling held that rape and sexual violence could constitute genocide.
• Pillay served as an ICC judge from 2003 to 2008 and as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

Prelims pointers

• The seven-member IAEA team conducted Pakistan’s first IPPAS mission from September 28 to October 9 over 12 days.
• The mission reviewed Pakistan’s nuclear-security laws and regulations and assessed physical-protection measures at a nuclear facility.
• Experts visited the KANUPP Decommissioning Project and observed decommissioning activities and spent-fuel storage.
• Pakistan’s first nuclear power plant was a CANDU reactor that began operating in 1971 and permanently shut down in 2021.
• Pakistan ratified the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material in 2016.