Current Affairs — 08 June 2026

📖 Explanation

The Reserve Bank of India data showed India posted a current account surplus of 0.7% of GDP in Q4 FY26. This reversed the deficit of about $13.2 billion recorded in the previous quarter (Q3 FY26). The 1.4% figure refers to the surplus in the same quarter a year earlier (Q4 FY25), making it a common trap option. The 0.6% figure is the full-year current account deficit for FY26, not the quarterly surplus.

📖 Explanation

India's Q4 FY26 current account surplus was driven by net services earnings of about $60.4 billion — mainly software and business services exports — and remittances from overseas Indians that rose to about $43.5 billion. There had been concern that the West Asia conflict could disrupt remittance flows, but they remained resilient. Merchandise trade and FDI are recorded in separate accounts and did not drive the current account surplus in this period.

📖 Explanation

The central government set a fiscal deficit target of 4.4% of GDP for FY26 and met it, continuing the post-pandemic fiscal consolidation path. The challenge was a sharp rise in the fertiliser subsidy bill to about Rs 2.1 lakh crore — the highest in recent years — which added roughly Rs 37,700 crore (0.1% of GDP) in unexpected spending. The target was protected through ministry-level spending cuts and slower growth in capital expenditure, which fell short of even the revised estimate.

📖 Explanation

The RBI deployed the FCNR(B) swap scheme in 2013 during the 'taper tantrum', when expectations of US Federal Reserve policy tightening triggered sharp capital outflows from emerging markets and put the rupee under severe pressure. The scheme attracted about $26 billion and helped stabilise the currency. Under the arrangement the RBI subsidises banks' funding costs and absorbs a portion of the exchange-rate risk, incentivising banks to offer attractive deposit rates to NRIs, PIOs and OCIs.

📖 Explanation

Gold's share in India's foreign exchange reserves rose from under 6% in 2015 to nearly 17% by 2026, reflecting a deliberate build-up by the Reserve Bank of India as global uncertainty pushed central banks toward hard assets. The total reserves stood at about $682 billion by end-May 2026. Gold prices climbing from roughly $1,100 per ounce in late 2009 to nearly $4,900 in 2025 also raised the valuation of existing holdings, contributing to the higher share.

📖 Explanation

Iran retaliated directly against Israel following Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Iran maintained that any lasting peace deal must also cover Lebanon, signalling its willingness to act beyond statements. The exchange of strikes occurred over 7–8 June 2026, breaking an earlier ceasefire. Iran subsequently announced a halt to its operations, conditional on Israel also stopping.

📖 Explanation

India expressed deep concern over the renewed fighting and called on all parties to immediately de-escalate and pursue a diplomatic solution. India's official statement did not name any country directly, reflecting its careful, non-aligned messaging and long-standing strategic balancing in West Asia. The conflict directly affects India through crude oil prices, Gulf diaspora safety, and remittance flows.

📖 Explanation

The court ruled that while immigration law allows the President to restrict entry, it does not permit the executive branch to impose what is effectively a large new tax. The case was brought by 20 state attorneys general who challenged the fee announced in September. This ruling is a significant example of the separation of powers — courts checking executive action — and matters for Indian professionals, who are among the largest H-1B recipients.

📖 Explanation

Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago in the central Indian Ocean, hosts a major military base jointly operated by the United States and the United Kingdom. Britain separated the archipelago from Mauritius before granting independence and forcibly displaced up to 2,000 indigenous Chagossians to construct the base. Britain had agreed to cede sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius but put the deal on hold in April 2026.

📖 Explanation

Dhaka sought the reversal of several restrictive steps: restoring transhipment facilities for Bangladeshi goods, fully resuming visa services including business and medical visas, and easing market-access restrictions. Despite Indian diplomatic outreach, including attendance at the swearing-in ceremony of the new government, none of these measures had been rolled back over 100 days into the Tarique Rahman government, sustaining the trust deficit. These ties are central to India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy.

📖 Explanation

Under the UAE Consensus finalised at COP28 in Dubai, countries agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy-efficiency improvement by 2030, accelerate the phase-down of unabated coal power, and transition away from fossil fuels to reach net zero by 2050. The Bonn mid-year climate talks, which opened on 8 June 2026, are focused on putting this agreement into practice ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Turkey.

📖 Explanation

The Great Nicobar project, estimated at around Rs 91,000 crore, comprises four main elements: a transshipment port at Galathea Bay, an international airport, a power plant, and a township. The island lies at the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago and is covered in tropical rainforest. The project has attracted scrutiny because a Finance Ministry body reportedly found the port lacked clear strategic objectives, and an appraisal committee refused viability gap funding — unusual for a project described as nationally vital.

📖 Explanation

The SIPRI Yearbook 2026, released on 8 June 2026, estimated India's nuclear stockpile at around 190 warheads. The report noted that India is modernising its forces with growing emphasis on longer-range delivery systems capable of reaching targets in China, alongside its existing focus on Pakistan. SIPRI — the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — is an independent body that tracks global arms and security. The yearbook also flagged the May 2025 India–Pakistan confrontation (Operation Sindoor) as an unusually severe crisis that saw cyber operations integrated into the conflict.

📖 Explanation

The 13.14-km Zojila Tunnel is being built at an altitude of about 11,578 feet to give Ladakh year-round road connectivity. The current Srinagar–Ladakh highway crosses the Zojila Pass, which is blocked by heavy snowfall for approximately six months every winter, hampering both civilian movement and the supply of military forces near the borders with Pakistan and China. The tunnel is part of the Border Roads Organisation's broader programme to strengthen infrastructure in strategically sensitive frontier areas, a priority that intensified after the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 LAC standoff.

📖 Explanation

A solar flare or CME hurls enormous clouds of charged particles from the Sun into space. When these particles reach Earth, the planet's magnetosphere deflects most of them, but some are guided along magnetic field lines toward the polar regions. There they collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the upper atmosphere, exciting those molecules and causing them to release energy as visible light — the aurora. A particularly intense, Earth-directed CME can push this auroral oval to much lower latitudes than normal, which is why the event on 8 June 2026 made auroras visible from high-altitude regions of India such as Ladakh and the upper Himalayas.

📖 Explanation

Space-weather events driven by strong CMEs can have serious technological consequences. Charged particle bombardment can disrupt or permanently damage satellites in orbit, degrade GPS accuracy, interrupt high-frequency radio communications (particularly at high latitudes), and induce geomagnetic currents in long conductors such as power-grid transmission lines — potentially causing large-scale blackouts. These impacts make solar-storm forecasting an important area of national security and infrastructure planning. For competitive exams, remember the key terms: sunspots, solar cycle, solar flare, CME, magnetosphere and space weather.