Current Affairs — 28 June 2026

📖 Explanation

Iran is the critical transit hub in the INSTC, which links India to Russia and Europe through a combination of road, rail and sea routes. The Chabahar port, located on Iran's southern coast, is a key node in this corridor and provides India a direct maritime route to Afghanistan and Central Asia without passing through Pakistan. This connectivity dimension makes Iran strategically important to India well beyond just energy trade.

📖 Explanation

About one-fifth (roughly 20 percent) of the world's oil and LNG transits the Strait of Hormuz in normal times. The strait is a narrow passage between Iran and Oman, and its strategic importance arises from the fact that it is the only sea route out of the Persian Gulf. India imports a substantial share of its crude oil and LNG from West Asian producers through this route, so any disruption directly affects India's energy bill, domestic fuel prices and pressure on the rupee.

📖 Explanation

The framework agreement specifically named Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group operating in southern Lebanon, as the non-state armed group whose verified disarmament and dismantling of infrastructure were set as a precondition for the staged withdrawal of Israeli forces. Hezbollah rejected the agreement entirely, calling it a surrender of Lebanese sovereignty, and a Hezbollah lawmaker warned it could push Lebanon toward internal conflict. The group's refusal to disarm remained the core obstacle to implementation.

📖 Explanation

Two Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft conducted Operation Amistad, flying over 14,000 kilometres from Delhi to Caracas in a deployment of approximately 23 hours. The C-17 is the IAF's largest and longest-range airlifter, capable of transporting heavy payloads over intercontinental distances, which made it the aircraft of choice for delivering around 66 tonnes of relief cargo to Venezuela.

📖 Explanation

The BIS is based in Basel, Switzerland, and is widely referred to as the 'central bank of central banks' because it serves as a forum and coordination platform for the world's national central banks. It conducts research, fosters international monetary cooperation and supports financial stability — it does not lend directly to governments or manage any country's reserves itself.

📖 Explanation

SEBI's Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations use the term 'Unpublished Price Sensitive Information' (UPSI) to describe information that is not yet public and, if published, would likely affect the price of a security. The equivalent concept in the United States is called 'Material Non-Public Information' (MNPI). The proposed Securities Markets Code debate centres on ensuring this dual condition — significant and unpublished — is explicitly required together, not separately.

📖 Explanation

In capital markets, the primary market is where a company issues brand-new shares directly to investors for the first time — through mechanisms like an IPO — to raise fresh capital. Once listed, those shares move to the secondary market, where investors buy and sell them among themselves without the company receiving any proceeds. The health of the primary market depends heavily on conditions in the secondary market, since buoyant secondary prices attract investors to new listings.

📖 Explanation

Under the agreement, the United Kingdom will make 99% of its tariff lines duty-free for Indian goods, giving Indian exporters in sectors such as textiles, leather, jewellery, IT and financial services significantly improved access to the UK market. India, in turn, will remove or reduce tariffs on around 90% of its tariff lines for UK products, while retaining safeguards for sensitive domestic sectors like dairy and edible oils.

📖 Explanation

El Niño refers to a periodic warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean's surface waters. This warming distorts global atmospheric circulation — particularly the Walker Circulation — shifting wind and rainfall patterns far beyond the Pacific. The resulting disruption often suppresses the Indian Ocean moisture flows that feed the southwest monsoon, making Indian summers drier.

📖 Explanation

The cloudburst on 24 June 2026 pushed debris into the Ranganadi dam in Arunachal Pradesh's Keyi Panyor district, forcing all three turbines of the 405 MW Ranganadi hydroelectric project to shut down. Officials stated that restarting even a single turbine could take 15 to 20 days. The project is part of the North-East's hydropower capacity, a small but significant share of India's total hydropower base.

📖 Explanation

'Excess deaths' is a statistical concept used by health agencies worldwide to estimate the true impact of an extraordinary event — such as a heatwave, pandemic or natural disaster. It is calculated by comparing actual deaths during the event period to the baseline number of deaths normally expected for that same period and location. This method captures both direct deaths (e.g., heat stroke) and indirect deaths (e.g., cardiovascular or respiratory failure triggered by heat stress), giving a more complete picture than counting only confirmed heat-related fatalities.

📖 Explanation

A fundamental principle in astrobiology is that the presence of organic (carbon-based) compounds is a necessary but not sufficient condition for life. Organic molecules can be produced by purely geological and chemical processes — such as hydrothermal reactions, meteorite delivery or ultraviolet chemistry — without any involvement of living organisms. Confirming ancient life would require far more evidence, most likely from returning the Mars samples to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis.

📖 Explanation

The Akal Takht was founded by the sixth Sikh Guru, Guru Hargobind, between 1606 and 1609. It stands in Amritsar opposite the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib). The institution embodies the principle of miri-piri — the unity of temporal (worldly) and spiritual authority — symbolised by two swords. Its head, the Jathedar, can issue edicts called hukamnamas and summon any Sikh to appear before it.

📖 Explanation

The 91st Constitutional Amendment (2003) removed the 'split' exception that had previously allowed one-third of a party's legislators to break away and avoid disqualification. After this amendment, the only protected route is a genuine merger, requiring at least two-thirds of the party's legislators to agree. The Tenth Schedule itself was added earlier by the 52nd Constitutional Amendment in 1985.

📖 Explanation

The Tungabhadra is formed by the meeting of the Tunga and the Bhadra rivers, both of which rise in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. It is a major tributary of the Krishna river and flows through Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Tungabhadra dam, built in Koppal district of Karnataka, is the principal storage structure on the river and supplies irrigation water across the three states.

📖 Explanation

The PM Family Care Tracker and Health Passport pilot was launched on 28 June 2026 for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat. It integrates data from birth and death registration, health, nutrition, education and social welfare departments into a single digital platform, using a common identity framework to give officials a complete view of each family's welfare status.

📖 Explanation

India's notification requires medicines listed under Schedule H2 of the Drugs Rules, 1945 to carry a unique bar code or QR code. The system has been widened from a fixed list of popular brands to entire therapeutic groups, shifting the regulatory lens from sales volume to the risk a drug carries. Schedule H covers prescription-only drugs more broadly, while Schedule X covers narcotic and psychotropic substances, making H2 the specific schedule for this track-and-trace mandate.

📖 Explanation

The semiconductor design start-up that created the Vision SoC was incubated at IIT Madras. Its chip was developed with support from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, which provides backing to companies that design semiconductors within India. The deployment of the chip in CCTV cameras is described as one of the largest commercial integrations of Indian-designed silicon so far.

📖 Explanation

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) found that close to 57 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 in India are anaemic. In Uttar Pradesh the burden is similarly heavy, with more than half of women of reproductive age affected. Anaemia is particularly dangerous during pregnancy because severe iron deficiency sharply raises the risk of postpartum haemorrhage, which is among the leading causes of maternal deaths in India.