RBI Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: 14–20 September 2026

The correct answer is 4.82 per cent. This is the provisional year on year rate for August 2026 compared with August 2025, worked out on the Consumer Price Index whose base year is 2024 equals 100. Options A and B are wrong because neither figure is the headline combined rate announced for August; candidates who half remember an earlier month or a sector rate tend to fall for them. Option D is wrong because 5.95 per cent is food inflation for August 2026, measured by the Consumer Food Price Index, which is a different series from the general index. The two numbers are put out on the same day and are very easy to mix up, so link the general rate of 4.82 per cent with all items taken together and the higher rate of 5.95 per cent with food alone. Also note that the rural rate of 5.23 per cent and the urban rate of 4.31 per cent sit on either side of the combined headline figure.

The correct answer is 55.6 per cent, which is the overall Labour Force Participation Rate reported for the month, up from the reading of the previous month. The distractors here are all real numbers from the same bulletin, which is exactly how a paper setter builds a question on a statistical release, so each one has to be placed correctly. Option A is the overall Worker Population Ratio, not the participation rate, and it is described in the bulletin as the highest level since March of the same year. Option C is the rural participation rate, which is always higher than the national figure because village participation is stronger. Option D is the urban participation rate, which stayed unchanged from the previous month. Learn the three headline numbers as a set and attach each to the right label.

The correct answer is 399.27 billion US dollars, the cumulative figure for merchandise and services exports taken together over the five months of the current financial year covered by the release. Option A is the same cumulative export figure for the corresponding months of the previous financial year, and it is the number against which the growth rate is worked out, so it belongs in the comparison rather than in the answer. Option C is the cumulative import figure for the current period, which is larger than exports and therefore leaves a trade deficit. Option D is merchandise exports alone, that is goods without services, and a candidate who forgets that the headline number combines both will fall for it. Fix the pair together: the export value and the growth rate that goes with it.

The correct answer is 2,000 rupees. Every person-to-merchant payment at or below that value stays free of the Merchant Discount Rate, and customers pay no charge for making such payments through the platform. This threshold matters because the release uses it to explain why roughly ninety six per cent of merchant transactions are untouched: they either fall below the threshold or are covered by the zero-charge arrangement for small merchants. Option A is wrong; no such limit is set in the framework. Option C and option D are wrong for the same reason, and they are the kind of round figures a candidate guesses when the exact threshold has not been memorised. Link the threshold to the rate that applies above it, which is a nominal percentage with a fixed per-transaction cap for large payments.

The correct answer is the ninth edition. Ashok Kumar Lahiri, Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog, released it in New Delhi along with the chief executive officer and other senior officials of the institution, and the edition covers the first quarter of FY27, that is April to June 2026. Options A, B and D are wrong because they name editions that either came earlier in the series or have not yet appeared, and edition numbers are among the most frequently tested details in questions on government reports. Candidates should also carry the headline numbers from this issue: India's total merchandise and services trade of $506.9 billion in the quarter, growth of 15.5 per cent over a year earlier, and global goods trade of $13.7 trillion in the first half of calendar 2026 with growth of 12.5 per cent.

The correct answer is rural 5.23 per cent and urban 4.31 per cent. In August 2026 villages saw prices rise faster than cities, and the release gives these two figures against a combined headline rate of 4.82 per cent. Option A simply reverses the two rates, and reversing rural and urban numbers is the commonest trap set in this kind of question, so the order must be read carefully. Option C is wrong because those are the rural and urban rates of food inflation for the same month, taken from the Consumer Food Price Index rather than from the general index; they are genuine figures but they answer a different question. Option D is wrong because those numbers do not belong to August at all. A useful way to hold all of this together is to note that in this release the rural number is larger than the urban number in both the general series and the food series.

The correct answer is the National Statistical Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The bulletin describes the survey as the primary source of data on activity participation and on employment and unemployment conditions of the population. Option A is wrong because the central bank publishes monetary and banking statistics, not this labour survey, though the bulletin does note that the latest services sector data comes from that source in trade releases. Option B is wrong because the policy think tank does not run household surveys of this kind. Option D is a strong distractor, since that body has historically compiled labour statistics, but the survey in question is not its product. Remember the pairing of survey and agency along with the monthly bulletin series, which reached its seventeenth issue with the August reading.

The correct answer is electronic goods, whose exports in the month climbed from 2.93 billion dollars a year earlier to 5.55 billion dollars, a jump the release lists first among the drivers of merchandise export growth. Option A is wrong; engineering goods did grow, but at a far smaller rate, rising from 9.87 billion dollars to 12.32 billion. Option B is wrong as well; petroleum products grew strongly in the month, yet their rate was lower than that of electronics. Option D is wrong because marine products appear only in the longer list of commodity groups with positive growth and are nowhere near the top. The lesson for an aspirant is to attach the highest growth rate of the month to electronics, and to remember that the release names the drivers in descending order of importance.

The correct answer is the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, the statute named in the release as the basis of the framework. The framework was brought in after detailed deliberations by the UPI Steering Committee on the rates, the operational arrangements and the safeguards for consumers. Option A is wrong because that statute governs the regulation of banks rather than payment systems. Option C is wrong because consumer protection law deals with unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, not the design of a payment charge. Option D is wrong because the information technology statute governs electronic records and cyber offences. An aspirant should also remember that the framework is described as consistent with the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Finance about the need for a viable revenue stream.

The correct answer is India's metals and ores trade. The edition treats this as a strategically important sector for manufacturing, infrastructure, the energy transition and advanced industries, and it examines both export competitiveness and rising import dependence. Metals exports stood at $34.8 billion in 2025, with iron and steel, articles of iron and steel and aluminium together accounting for about 78 per cent of the total. Imports of metals and ores rose from $32.2 billion in 2015 to $60.5 billion in 2025, driven by copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel. Options A, C and D name sectors that matter to India's trade but are not the declared theme of this issue. The report also flags reforms under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act of 1957 and the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.

The correct answer is silver jewellery, which stood first among the key items with high inflation in August 2026. Option B is wrong because ginger came second on that list, below silver jewellery. Option A is wrong because onion was placed third. Option D is wrong because garlic was fourth, and jewellery of gold, diamond and platinum was fifth, which means that two of the five fastest rising items were forms of jewellery. Candidates should also remember the other end of the table, since paper setters often ask about the items that grew cheaper instead: tomato recorded the steepest fall, followed by potato, then motor car and jeep, then lady's finger, and finally parwal and kundru. Learning the order in both tables is worth the effort, because questions are set either on the item that rose most or on the item that fell most, and the two lists are published together every month.

The correct answer is 4.1 per cent, and the bulletin adds the detail that makes it memorable: this is the lowest rural reading since January of the same year. Option B is the rural rate of the previous month, from which the figure declined, so it is the trap for anyone who remembers the direction of change but not the endpoint. Option C is the overall unemployment rate for the month, covering rural and urban areas together, which stayed broadly stable. Option D is the urban rate, which was slightly above the previous month and is always higher than the rural one in this series. A useful way to hold these numbers is to rank them: rural lowest, overall in the middle and urban highest, with the gap between village and town explaining much of the national average.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which issued these estimates for the month and for the cumulative period of the financial year. Option A is wrong because the finance ministry handles taxation, expenditure and the budget rather than the monthly trade release, although it does publish revenue collections. Option C is wrong because the statistics ministry brings out national income and labour force data, not the export and import bulletin. Option D is wrong because corporate affairs deals with company law and registration. One more caution is worth remembering with this release: the services figures for the latest month are an estimate, since the released data for that sector covers only the previous month, and the earlier months of the year have been revised using quarterly balance of payments data.

The correct answer is a flat charge of five rupees per transaction. The release explains the reasoning: a fixed amount gives cost certainty to critical public services and to businesses that work on narrow margins, which a percentage charge would not. Option B is the general rate for merchant payments above the threshold and applies outside these named sectors, so it is the most tempting wrong answer. Option C is the far lower rate set for payments relating to mutual funds, securities, stockbrokers and dealers, meant to keep retail investors in formal financial markets. Option D is wrong because these sectors are not exempt; they simply pay a flat amount instead of a percentage. Remember the named sectors as a list, since a question may ask which of them is covered.

The correct answer is fourth. India's exports of digitally delivered services rose from $277 billion in 2024 to $317 billion in 2025, a gain of about 15 per cent in a single year, and that growth lifted the country from the fifth position to the fourth among global exporters of such services. Only the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland now rank ahead of India. Option D is the classic trap, because fifth is exactly where India stood before this improvement, and a candidate reading quickly can easily retain the old rank. Options A and B are wrong because the three countries named above remain above India, so neither second nor third position has been reached. Pair the old rank with the new one when you revise, since questions are often framed around the change itself.