Current Affairs — 28 May 2026

📖 Explanation

A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan on 27 May 2026 dismissed the petitions of gaming companies. By treating the 2023 amendments as clarificatory rather than fresh imposition, the court allowed the 28 per cent GST on the full face value of bets to apply retrospectively, reviving tax demands of about Rs 2.5 lakh crore. The other options either reverse the actual decision or invoke unrelated provisions.

📖 Explanation

Article 124(1) of the Constitution provides that the Supreme Court shall consist of a Chief Justice of India and, until Parliament by law prescribes a larger number, of not more than such judges as Parliament may determine. The May 2026 ordinance under Article 123 raised the sanctioned strength from 34 to 38. Article 32 deals with the right to constitutional remedies, Article 226 with High Court writ jurisdiction, and Article 217 with appointment and conditions of High Court judges.

📖 Explanation

The Supreme Court on 27 May 2026 upheld the SIR but made it clear that deletion from the rolls does not itself amount to a declaration that the person is not a citizen of India. It directed the Election Commission to refer such cases within four weeks to the Competent Authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, so that the question of citizenship is adjudicated before the next general, assembly or local body elections, whichever is earlier.

📖 Explanation

The Quad — India, United States, Japan, Australia — agreed on initiatives covering maritime domain awareness, Indo-Pacific port infrastructure, critical minerals supply chains and energy security. The meeting was hosted by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar; US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended as part of his India visit. The Quad does not include nuclear weapons cooperation, a common currency or a unified visa regime.

📖 Explanation

The WMCC was established in 2012 as a diplomatic mechanism to manage day-to-day issues along the India–China boundary. It played an important role in defusing tensions during the military standoff that began in eastern Ladakh in April 2020. At the 35th meeting on 27 May 2026, the two sides expressed satisfaction with progress on peace and tranquillity in border areas and discussed delimitation and cross-border cooperation.

📖 Explanation

The MEA on 28 May 2026 announced that Myanmar President U Min Aung Hlaing would visit India from 30 May to 3 June 2026 with a high-level delegation. He will begin the visit in Bodh Gaya, hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on 1 June, and travel to Mumbai for business engagements on 2 June. Myanmar lies at the confluence of India’s Neighbourhood First, Act East and MAHASAGAR policies.

📖 Explanation

CBAM was first proposed in July 2021 and entered its definitive phase on 1 January 2026. In phase one it covers carbon-intensive products: steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. EU importers must now surrender CBAM certificates equal to embedded emissions. India has argued at the WTO that CBAM is a unilateral measure that violates the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

📖 Explanation

NEET-UG, the national entrance test for undergraduate medical admissions, is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) under the Ministry of Education. The 2026 re-examination has been scheduled for 21 June 2026 after the original test was cancelled following paper-leak allegations. A high-level review chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has explored using the Indian Air Force for secure paper transport in adverse weather.

📖 Explanation

The SRS 2024 report, released by the Office of the Registrar General of India, shows India’s IMR at 24 per 1,000 live births and crude birth rate at 18.3 per 1,000 population, both significant improvements over 2014 figures of 39 and 21 respectively. However, state-level gaps remain wide: Chhattisgarh’s IMR is 36, MP and UP each 35, while Kerala stands at 8. Rural IMR (27) is also higher than urban IMR (17).

📖 Explanation

The study used observations from the Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR) on board Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter, which has been operational since 2019. Doubly shadowed craters lie inside permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) and stay extremely cold, making them favourable for preserving water-ice. The team proposed a refined criterion — Circular Polarization Ratio greater than 1 with Degree of Polarization less than 0.13 — to distinguish subsurface ice from rough surface scattering.

📖 Explanation

The 28 May 2026 RBI press release showed the 91-day T-Bill cut-off yield at 5.5611 per cent, the 182-day at 5.7349 per cent and the 364-day at 6.0273 per cent. Government of India accepted the full notified amounts of Rs 12,000 crore for 91-day and Rs 6,000 crore each for 182- and 364-day bills. The yields broadly tracked the policy repo-rate corridor — the overnight call money weighted average rate the same week was about 5.35 per cent.

📖 Explanation

The IBC was enacted in 2016 with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) as regulator and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) as the adjudicating authority. Gross NPAs of Scheduled Commercial Banks peaked above 11.5 per cent in FY18 after the RBI’s Asset Quality Review, and have since fallen to roughly 2.0–2.3 per cent in FY26, with Net NPAs near 0.5 per cent. Major “dirty dozen” cases such as Bhushan Power & Steel and Essar Steel India were resolved under the IBC.