1. Cooperative societies operating within a single State fall under which entry of the Seventh Schedule?
A. Entry 32 of the State List
B. Entry 43 of the Union List
C. Entry 45 of the Concurrent List
D. Entry 24 of the State List
E. Entry 52 of the Union List
View Answer
Explanation: Cooperation is constitutionally a State subject, with the Union competent only over multi-state cooperative societies under Entry 43 of the Union List. This division is exactly why the Samyukt Kisan Morcha described the NCDC (Amendment) Act, 2026 as an onslaught on the federal rights of States. Debates over central legislation on cooperatives almost always turn on where a society’s operations stop at a State border.
2. The NCDC (Amendment) Act, 2026 amends the parent National Co-operative Development Corporation Act of which year?
A. 1956
B. 1962
C. 1969
D. 1976
E. 1984
View Answer
Explanation: Parliament passed the amendment on 12 August 2026 and the President assented on 14 August 2026. The core shift is from supporting programmes only through cooperative societies to a broader mandate of cooperative development, letting NCDC lend to and take share capital in other entities engaged in building the sector. It may also now collect and share credit information with the Central Government, RBI, banks and notified financial institutions.
3. What is the outlay approved for the Pradhan Mantri Surya Sarovar Yojana?
A. Rs 2,480 crore
B. Rs 3,750 crore
C. Rs 5,070 crore
D. Rs 7,200 crore
E. Rs 9,340 crore
View Answer
Explanation: The Union Cabinet approved PM-SSY on 31 July 2026 under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, with the spending spread from FY 2026-27 to FY 2030-31. The scheme targets 5,000 MW of floating solar photovoltaic capacity integrated with 10,000 MWh of battery energy storage. Pairing storage with generation matters because solar output peaks at midday while demand peaks in the evening.
4. How much battery energy storage is to be integrated with the floating solar capacity planned under PM-SSY?
A. 2,500 MWh
B. 5,000 MWh
C. 7,500 MWh
D. 10,000 MWh
E. 15,000 MWh
View Answer
Explanation: Floating solar mounts panels on buoyant platforms anchored to the bed or banks of reservoirs, dams, lakes and industrial ponds, with power brought ashore through underwater cables. Its chief attraction is that it is land-neutral, sidestepping the acquisition disputes that dog large ground-mounted parks. Siting on reservoirs also allows reuse of the transmission lines and substations already built for hydropower.
5. Water cooling can improve the output of floating solar panels by roughly what margin?
A. 1 to 3 per cent
B. 5 to 15 per cent
C. 18 to 25 per cent
D. 28 to 35 per cent
E. 40 to 50 per cent
View Answer
Explanation: Photovoltaic cells lose efficiency as their operating temperature rises, so the cooler microclimate over water lifts generation relative to a land-based array of the same rating. The panels return the favour by shading the surface, which cuts evaporation losses from the reservoir and limits algal growth by reducing sunlight penetration. For a water-stressed country these co-benefits can matter as much as the electricity.
6. India’s first Soil Texture Map was developed by NBSS&LUP, which is headquartered where?
A. Bhopal
B. Nagpur
C. Hyderabad
D. Karnal
E. Bengaluru
View Answer
Explanation: The National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning was established in 1976 under ICAR and announced the map during its 50th Foundation Day, with Dr N.G. Patil as Director. Released in July 2026, the map supplies hectare-level soil information by combining field survey data, remote sensing and satellite imagery with artificial intelligence. AI fills the gaps where no direct soil sampling exists, which is what makes hectare-level national coverage feasible at all.
7. Soil texture refers to the proportion of which constituents in soil?
A. Sand, silt and clay
B. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
C. Organic carbon, moisture and air
D. Gravel, humus and clay
E. Loam, peat and chalk
View Answer
Explanation: Texture is a physical property determined by particle size distribution, and it governs water-holding capacity, drainage, aeration and ultimately crop suitability. It is distinct from soil fertility, which depends on nutrient status and organic matter and can be altered by management. Texture is effectively permanent for a given field, which is why mapping it once yields a durable planning layer for crop choice and irrigation design.
8. In regenerative agriculture, which on-farm bio-input is a botanical extract prepared from ten leaves for pest management?
A. Beejamrut
B. Jeevamrut
C. GhanJeevamrut
D. Neemastra
E. Dashparni
View Answer
Explanation: Beejamrut is used for seed treatment, Jeevamrut is a liquid microbial culture and GhanJeevamrut its solid form, while Neemastra is neem-based pest control. What separates regenerative agriculture from conventional sustainability is ambition: sustainability seeks to hold conditions steady, while regeneration sets out to rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity over time. Its other pillars are soil armour through mulching, multi-tier diversification with livestock and agroforestry, and precision water management.
9. By 19 August 2026, what share of the FY27 fertiliser subsidy budget had already been spent?
A. 41.20 per cent
B. 49.65 per cent
C. 58.04 per cent
D. 63.80 per cent
E. 71.35 per cent
View Answer
Explanation: Spending stood at Rs 99,128.70 crore less than five months into the financial year, driven by a rise in global urea prices linked to the West Asia conflict. India imports a large share of its urea and potash requirement, so international price shocks pass straight into the subsidy bill rather than to farmers, whose urea price is administratively fixed. An early exhaustion of the budget typically forces a supplementary demand for grants later in the year.
10. Under the tightened quality norms, E20 petrol must keep chloride contamination below what level?
A. 1 ppm
B. 3 ppm
C. 5 ppm
D. 10 ppm
E. 15 ppm
View Answer
Explanation: E20 is a blend of 20 per cent ethanol with 80 per cent petrol, and the government is moving to make oil marketing companies accountable for maintaining fuel-quality standards. Chloride matters because ethanol is hygroscopic and chloride ions accelerate corrosion of fuel-system metals and elastomer components. Tight contamination limits are therefore central to public acceptance of higher ethanol blending in existing vehicle fleets.
11. According to the ILO-NCAER policy brief, India’s platform workers grew from 7.7 million in 2020 to what figure in 2024-25?
A. 9.4 million
B. 10.5 million
C. 12 million
D. 15.8 million
E. 18.2 million
View Answer
Explanation: The brief projects the platform workforce could reach 23.5 million by 2029-30, making it one of the fastest expanding segments of Indian employment. Women remain badly underrepresented, forming less than 1 per cent of two-wheeler delivery drivers in urban India. Fifty-two per cent of women, against 40 per cent of men, report lacking the capital needed to enter platform work at all.
12. The same brief notes that women held what share of outstanding individual bank credit as of March 2023?
A. 14.6 per cent
B. 18.2 per cent
C. 22.9 per cent
D. 27.4 per cent
E. 31.5 per cent
View Answer
Explanation: The account-ownership gap has effectively closed, with women at 89 per cent against men at 88 per cent in 2024, compared with 43 and 62 per cent in 2014. But ownership is not usage: only 25.2 per cent of women can conduct online banking transactions against 47.1 per cent of men, and the figure falls to 17.1 per cent for rural women. Access to an account is therefore a first step, not financial inclusion in itself.
13. SEBI’s new Information Technology Resilience Index will assess market infrastructure institutions across how many parameters?
A. Five
B. Seven
C. Nine
D. Eleven
E. Thirteen
View Answer
Explanation: The parameters span availability, security, integrity, governance, reliability and monitoring, business continuity, modularity and flexibility, scalability and other relevant factors. Market infrastructure institutions are the stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations on which the entire securities market depends, so an outage at one is systemic rather than local. MIIs must also build an Early Warning System to detect deterioration in these parameters before it becomes visible disruption.
14. The three newly appointed part-time directors on the RBI Central Board were appointed under which provision of the RBI Act, 1934?
A. Section 7(1)
B. Section 8(1)(b)
C. Section 8(1)(c)
D. Section 17(4)
E. Section 42(1)
View Answer
Explanation: Annie George Mathew, Janmejaya Kumar Sinha and Syed Akbaruddin were appointed for a four-year term beginning 24 August 2026, under a Governor led by Sanjay Malhotra. Section 8 sets out the composition of the Central Board, and clause (c) covers directors nominated by the Central Government from varied fields of expertise. These part-time directors supply outside perspective on policy without holding executive responsibility inside the central bank.
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