1. NABARD signed an MoU with the India Meteorological Department to feed agro-meteorological data into the DiCRA platform. What does DiCRA stand for?
A. Digital Credit for Rural Agriculture
B. Data in Climate Resilient Agriculture
C. Directorate of Crop Risk Assessment
D. Digital Infrastructure for Crop Registry and Advisory
E. Development Initiative for Climate Responsive Agriculture
View Answer
Explanation: Under the MoU, IMD supplies short, medium and extended-range forecasts, crop-specific agro-advisories, ground-station observations and extreme-event alerts into a dedicated Weather Portal within DiCRA. Delivery is through web portals, mobile interfaces and APIs, the last of which lets banks, insurers and agri-tech firms pull weather data directly into their own credit and claims systems.
2. The DiCRA open-source platform is supported by NABARD along with which international organisation?
A. World Bank
B. Food and Agriculture Organization
C. United Nations Development Programme
D. Asian Development Bank
E. International Fund for Agricultural Development
View Answer
Explanation: DiCRA already served as the digital backbone for NABARD’s National Climate Stack Innovation Challenge, where SatSure, EXPERIQS and VARSAPRADAYA built village-level climate risk tools on top of it. Adding IMD data turns it from a static geospatial layer into a live weather intelligence service, which matters for crop insurance pricing and climate-resilient lending.
3. The 5th edition of the Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar campaign, which introduced a new National Ocean Olympiad, is run by which ministry?
A. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
B. Ministry of Jal Shakti
C. Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways
D. Ministry of Earth Sciences
E. Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying
View Answer
Explanation: SSSS v5.0 was launched by Dr Jitendra Singh as a week-long ocean conservation drive covering beach clean-ups, conservation pledges and youth programmes. The campaign began in 2022 as a far larger 75-day coastal clean-up across 75 beaches tied to Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, and has since settled into an annual week-long format.
4. IRDAI’s proposed Public Insurance Registry (PIR) is conceived as Digital Public Infrastructure under which legislation?
A. Insurance Act, 1938
B. IRDA Act, 1999
C. Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025
D. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023
E. Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act, 2015
View Answer
Explanation: The PIR consultation paper proposes a population-scale, interoperable and non-exclusionary information exchange layer rather than a central data warehouse. In this federated model data stays with the source institution and is shared only on authorised request, the same architectural idea the RBI used for its Account Aggregator framework.
5. Which existing entity is proposed to be transformed into a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary of IRDAI to implement the Public Insurance Registry?
A. General Insurance Council
B. Insurance Information Bureau
C. Insurance Institute of India
D. National Insurance Academy
E. Insurance Regulatory Data Centre
View Answer
Explanation: Participants in the PIR would include insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders, financial institutions, government departments and research institutions, with planned integration into vehicle, health, weather, disaster and court databases. IRDAI itself was established under the IRDA Act, 1999 and is headquartered at Hyderabad.
6. SEBI granted a Category-I merchant banking licence to Zerodha Corporate Advisors. What is the minimum net worth requirement for a Category-I merchant banker?
A. Rs 5 crore
B. Rs 10 crore
C. Rs 25 crore
D. Rs 50 crore
E. Rs 100 crore
View Answer
Explanation: SEBI raised the Category-I threshold sharply from the earlier Rs 5 crore, while Category-II merchant bankers need Rs 10 crore and cannot manage main-board public issues. Only Category-I bankers may run main-board IPOs and underwrite them, which is why the licence is the gateway for Zerodha’s move from broking into equity capital markets.
7. Under SEBI’s norms, the business of a Category-I merchant banker is capped at how many times its liquid net worth?
A. 5 times
B. 10 times
C. 15 times
D. 20 times
E. 25 times
View Answer
Explanation: The cap ties underwriting exposure to capital actually available to absorb losses, the same prudential logic behind capital adequacy in banking. Zerodha Corporate Advisors plans to begin with IPOs, follow-on public offers and issuer advisory, extending its low-cost, low-pressure brokerage philosophy into investment banking.
8. The RBI approved Carol Kripanayana Furtado as interim MD and CEO of which bank?
A. AU Small Finance Bank
B. Equitas Small Finance Bank
C. Ujjivan Small Finance Bank
D. ESAF Small Finance Bank
E. Suryoday Small Finance Bank
View Answer
Explanation: Her appointment runs for three months or until a permanent successor is named, following the resignation of Sanjeev Nautiyal on 31 August 2026. Interim CEO appointments at banks require prior RBI approval under the Banking Regulation Act, which is why such moves appear in current affairs at all. Furtado earlier headed Ujjivan Financial Services.
9. At the 26th SCO Council of Heads of State summit in Bishkek, the SCO presidency for 2026-2027 was handed over to which country?
A. India
B. Russia
C. Uzbekistan
D. Pakistan
E. Iran
View Answer
Explanation: The summit was chaired by President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan on the theme “25 Years of the SCO: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity”. The Bishkek Declaration condemned cross-border terrorism and terror financing, opposed unilateral strikes on Iran, and backed national-currency trade and discussions on an SCO Development Bank.
10. The SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is headquartered at:
A. Beijing
B. Bishkek
C. Tashkent
D. Astana
E. Moscow
View Answer
Explanation: The SCO Secretariat sits at Beijing while RATS operates from Tashkent, a split candidates often confuse. The grouping grew out of the Shanghai Five and was founded in 2001 at Shanghai; India and Pakistan joined in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024, taking membership to ten. The Bishkek Declaration restated that the SCO is not a military-political alliance.
11. MeitY notified the operational framework for the Semicon 2.0 programme. What is its total outlay?
A. Rs 76,000 crore
B. Rs 1,00,000 crore
C. Rs 1,27,500 crore
D. Rs 1,50,000 crore
E. Rs 2,00,000 crore
View Answer
Explanation: That is Rs 1.27 lakh crore, a substantial step up from the first semiconductor mission outlay. The programme covers the entire value chain, from fabless chip design and silicon and compound wafer fabrication to advanced packaging (ATMP/OSAT), equipment, materials, specialty chemicals, R&D and talent development, with the aim of building Indian-owned intellectual property rather than only assembly capacity.
12. Semicon 2.0 is structured across how many pillars and categories respectively?
A. 4 pillars and 8 categories
B. 5 pillars and 12 categories
C. 6 pillars and 10 categories
D. 7 pillars and 14 categories
E. 8 pillars and 16 categories
View Answer
Explanation: The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) under MeitY is the nodal agency, with C-DAC as design and technical partner. Structuring incentives by category rather than as a single subsidy lets the government target weak links such as materials and specialty chemicals, where India currently imports almost everything, instead of concentrating support on fabrication alone.
13. ISRO’s EOS-05 earth observation satellite, formerly known as GISAT-1A, will be launched aboard which vehicle?
A. PSLV-C60
B. GSLV-F17
C. LVM3-M5
D. SSLV-D4
E. GSLV Mk III-M2
View Answer
Explanation: EOS-05 is built on the I-2K platform and will operate in geosynchronous orbit at about 35,786 km, launching from the Second Launch Pad at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota. The high orbit matches Earth’s rotation, removing the multi-day revisit gaps of Low Earth Orbit satellites and enabling near-continuous monitoring for disaster response, agriculture and border surveillance. It replaces the lost GISAT-1.
14. India and Germany signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on wetland conservation during the 4th Indo-German Environment Forum. When was the IGEF established?
A. 2004
B. 2006
C. 2008
D. 2012
E. 2015
View Answer
Explanation: IGEF is the highest-level bilateral environmental policy forum between the two countries. The new declaration extends cooperation beyond wetlands to biodiversity, forests, mountains and climate resilience, along with circular economy, sustainable finance and green skills. Wetland cooperation is significant for India given its large and growing list of Ramsar sites.
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