Current affairs — 20 October 2026

Prelims pointers

• The October 19, 2026 drone attack in Imtidad Nasser killed three children aged two, four and six.
• Sudan’s war began in April 2023 after tensions between the military and the Rapid Support Forces became open fighting in Khartoum.
• Conflict monitor ACLED estimated that Sudan’s conflict had killed at least 59,000 people.
• United Nations figures indicated that about 13 million people had been displaced from their homes in Sudan.
• The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that conflict and drought were worsening food insecurity in Darfur and Kordofan.

Prelims pointers

• Eighty per cent of global coral reefs experienced extreme heat stress during 2023-2025, intensified by the 2023 El Niño.
• Lakshadweep had 37% of coral cover bleached or dead, compared with 11.5% in the Andamans’ Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park.
• Direct contact transferred algal symbionts from healthy to bleached corals only when the corals shared the same genetic background.
• All directly contacted Pocillopora damicornis fragments recovered fully and regained symbionts within eight weeks.
• The heat-tolerant SS8 strain appeared in 13 of 18 unfused corals, suggesting that it could also spread through water.

Prelims pointers

• Aditya-L1 is India’s maiden solar mission, and its VELC payload supplied the data used to image solar-corona velocities.
• Coronal mass ejections are massive, energetic clouds of hot plasma that can travel toward Earth or in other directions from the Sun.
• Positive Doppler velocity indicates plasma moving away from the observer; negative velocity indicates movement toward the observer.
• Dr. V. Muthupriyal and the VELC payload-operations team at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics developed the data-processing software.
• VELC observes spectroscopically in visible wavelengths from the Lagrangian L1 position in the Sun-Earth system.

Prelims pointers

• Light carries energy in small packets called photons.
• Electrons absorb photons only when the photons supply the required transition energy.
• Ordinary window glass is usually made of silicon dioxide.
• Ultraviolet photons are absorbed by glass, making glass opaque to ultraviolet light.
• Powdered glass looks white because many fragment surfaces scatter light in different directions.

Prelims pointers

• The India-New Zealand FTA entered into force on October 20, 2026, after being signed on April 27 and ratified on September 21.
• New Zealand granted 100% duty-free access across all tariff lines, covering all of India’s current exports to New Zealand.
• India offered concessions on 70% of its tariff lines, covering about 95% of current bilateral trade value, while 29.97% remained excluded.
• India provided duty-based quotas for apples, kiwifruit, manuka honey and albumins, alongside minimum import price provisions and safeguards.
• The two new Temporary Employment Entry pathways allow up to 5,000 Indian visa holders in New Zealand at any one time.

Prelims pointers

• The reported plan permits extraction of 1.7 crore tonnes of sand from 17 Kerala rivers from December 2026.
• SPEK said no environmental impact assessment appeared to have been conducted for the proposal presented as flood mitigation.
• The activists said river sand helps groundwater seepage and water retention in paddy fields, wetlands, wells and other waterbodies.
• Channel mining lowers the riverbed and can damage photosynthesis, aquatic vegetation, fish, benthic organisms and fishing livelihoods.
• The proposed monitoring committee would include representatives of Revenue, Environment and Local Self-Government departments.

Prelims pointers

• Zelenskyy raised Starlink, Starshield and missile-delay issues in a conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
• Ukraine reported reduced speeds on Starshield, which it uses for battlefield communications and strikes on Russian-occupied territory.
• Starshield was developed by SpaceX but is controlled and managed by the United States government.
• Ukraine also uses the civilian Starlink system, but the report says it does not use Starlink for military purposes.
• Ukraine has called for advanced U.S. Patriot interceptors to defend itself against Russian attacks.

Prelims pointers

• The brown bullhead catfish studied is Ameiurus nebulosus, and Lake Memphremagog is a 51-km lake across Quebec and Vermont.
• About 30% of catfish collected across Lake Memphremagog since 2013 were found to have melanoma.
• Cancer-cell mitochondrial DNA showed almost an order of magnitude more changes than mtDNA from normal cells.
• Researchers found no virus or other microbial agent unique to tumour-bearing fish in the screened tissues.
• Previously documented transmissible cancers occur in dogs, Tasmanian devils and several bivalves such as clams, mussels and cockles.

Prelims pointers

• The heat-storm concept emerged from consultation with two dozen climate researchers and analysis of worldwide hourly temperatures since 1960.
• A heat cascade refers to heat storms occurring one after another, simultaneously, or in both patterns.
• The duration of heat cascades increased from around two months in the 1960s to nine months in the early 2000s.
• Heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people each year, according to the article.
• Vera, the largest recorded heat storm, lasted 367 days in 2023-2024 and covered nearly 85% of the globe.

Prelims pointers

• Marco Rubio met S. Jaishankar at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace during a two-day visit to India.
• Their discussions covered trade, energy, technology, defence, people-to-people ties and regional developments.
• Rubio said the two sides discussed energy security and defence cooperation and reaffirmed the strategic partnership.
• UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan joined Rubio and Jaishankar for a meeting.
• Rubio and Jaishankar were scheduled to attend celebrations of the 250th anniversary of American Independence.

Prelims pointers

• The 25th SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting was held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
• India supported an action plan for multilateral trade and economic cooperation covering 2026-2030.
• The Universal Centre in Tashkent and Anti-Drug Centre in Dushanbe were welcomed as permanent SCO bodies.
• The International North-South Transport Corridor and Chabahar Port were cited as links between Central Asia and wider markets.
• Heads of delegation adopted a joint communiqué, the SCO budget for 2027 and the 2026-2030 economic cooperation action plan.

Prelims pointers

• Melanterite was identified at Neyveli in Tamil Nadu, while gypsum was identified in the Atacama Desert and Tiruchirappalli Badlands.
• Gypsum and melanterite are hydrous sulphates that preserve evidence of water-rock interactions.
• Gypsum indicates past aqueous environments, while melanterite indicates short-lived wet, acidic and oxidising conditions.
• A DST-FIST-supported laser Raman spectrometer detected the minerals' distinctive spectral fingerprints.
• The findings were published in two papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Prelims pointers

• The Union Cabinet approved the LAHDC amendments on October 14, 2026, and the President promulgated them on October 16.
• The amended regulation enables creation of LAHDCs in all eight Ladakh districts, including newly created Sankoo.
• The number of constituencies in each council changes from the earlier 26 to a minimum of seven and maximum of 24.
• Four members may be nominated from women and unrepresented communities to broaden participation in local governance.
• Before Ladakh became a Union Territory in 2019, it had two hill councils: one in Kargil and one in Leh.

Prelims pointers

• The Centre's 32-page Ladakh draft is titled “Constitutional and Statutory Framework.”
• Under the proposal, every regulation of the Union Territory-level elected body would require the Lieutenant Governor's assent to take effect.
• The MHA proposed a new constitutional provision under Article 371 in a proposed Chapter K for Ladakh's elected body.
• The draft considers women's reservation of either one-third or up to 50% of seats in the proposed body.
• The draft raises the option of using population and area in proportions such as 50:50, 60:40 or 40:60 for delimitation.

Prelims pointers

• Marco Rubio described India as a refining superpower and discussed possible Indian purchases of oil from the United States.
• Rubio planned to discuss greater Venezuelan oil supplies to the Reliance Energy refinery in Jamnagar.
• S. Jaishankar held a trilateral meeting in Mumbai with Marco Rubio and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed.
• The article says I2U2 was formed with Israel in 2021 and the India-Middle East Economic Corridor was announced in 2023.
• Russian oil accounted for about 45% to 50% of India’s intake; Russia, the U.S. and Venezuela supplied two-thirds of the previous month’s oil imports.

Prelims pointers

• The IRGC said naval mines set ablaze and halted two oil tankers at a crossing point in the southern Strait of Hormuz.
• Iranian forces repeatedly targeted ships using a southern route through Hormuz close to the Omani coast.
• In peacetime, the Strait of Hormuz carried around one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies.
• Iran sought to require its authorisation for passage, while the United States imposed a counterblockade on Iranian ports.
• The Revolutionary Guards also claimed that they had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone.

Prelims pointers

• ECINet is the Election Commission of India’s comprehensive digital platform and unified portal for officials.
• The portal was launched in January 2026, while the audit author said he could locate the reported feature from September 28.
• The State Nodal Officer module includes create, manage, update and disable functions.
• A code message says viewing enumeration-form details is not enabled for a selected State, indicating State-by-State control.
• ECINet brings user management, ERONET, an RTI module and the Enumeration Form Tracker for SIR under one login.

Prelims pointers

• Abyei authorities said the Amiet market strike killed 53 people, wounded at least 27 and involved 22 munitions.
• Abyei is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, which separated from its northern neighbour in 2011.
• Sudan's war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023.
• The United Nations reported more than 1,100 deaths from drone attacks across Sudan in the first half of the year.
• The peace-coordination Quintet comprises the UN, Arab League, African Union, IGAD and European Union.

Prelims pointers

• India is targeting 100 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047.
• India’s stated Net Zero emissions target in the release is 2070.
• Dr. Homi Bhabha is described as the architect of India’s nuclear programme.
• Nuclear energy is presented as a continuous and reliable source of clean electricity that can complement other power sources.
• The release links future electricity demand from AI and data centres with the need for dependable energy supplies.

Prelims pointers

• FSSAI’s August 7, 2026 draft sets high levels for solid food above 4.2 g fat, 3 g sugar or 0.625 g salt per 100 g.
• For liquid food, the draft high thresholds are 1.5 g fat, 2 g sugar and 0.175 g salt per 100 ml.
• Keralam said final statutory rules are needed before States can list HFSS foods and restrict their sale near schools.
• The Eat Right School programme had been implemented in 169 schools, while SNF@School had reached 2,500 schools.
• Eat Right Campus covers canteens in colleges, universities, hospitals and government institutions; 456 institutions were certified.

Prelims pointers

• Only 1,238 of Delhi’s 4.5 lakh Form 6 inclusion applications were disposed of over 42 days during the electoral-roll revision.
• The Delhi draft roll was published on August 31, while the final roll was scheduled for publication on December 4.
• Officials were directed to reverify 47.5 lakh names removed under the Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate categories.
• No Form 6 application was disposed of in 15 of Delhi’s 70 constituencies in the cited reporting period.
• More than 5,800 Form 7 applications were disposed of, about five times the disposal count for Form 6.