SBI Current Affairs Quiz: 13 October 2026

The correct answer is New Delhi. The Bloomberg New Economy Forum, which gathers business leaders, policymakers and delegates from many countries for discussions on the economy, technology, energy and global affairs, was held in India for the first time, and the Prime Minister addressed the gathering in the national capital. He welcomed the delegates to India and congratulated Mr Bloomberg and his team for choosing the country as the venue, saying they had picked the right place at the right time. Mumbai, the financial capital, hosts many business summits but was not the venue of this edition. Bengaluru is the country's technology hub and also did not host it. Gandhinagar is associated with other investment events in Gujarat and is not the site of this forum. For the examination, remember the pairing of the forum, its first Indian edition and New Delhi as the city.

The correct answer is 28 December. The amnesty was made available for a period of six months counted from the date on which the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 2026 was notified, and that notification was issued on 29 June 2026. Six months from that date brings the window to a close on 28 December 2026, which is why EPFO has intensified its drive with under three months to go. Option A, 30 September, has already passed and is not connected with this scheme. Option C, 31 January, would stretch the window beyond the six months allowed in the notification. Option D, 31 March, is the close of the financial year and is a tempting but wrong choice, because the amnesty is tied to the notification date and not to the fiscal calendar. Aspirants should also remember the circular of 11 July 2026 that laid down how an establishment applies.

The correct answer is more than 1,800. As the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan completed five years, the government stated that the platform integrates more than 1,800 data layers covering 58 Central Ministries and Departments and all 36 States and Union Territories, along with more than 65 software modules and tools and over 100 mobile and web applications. Options A, B and D give figures that do not match the record. The number 1,463 is worth noting as the layer count reached in 2023-24, when social sector integration was taken up and all 36 States and Union Territories came on board, so the growth to about 1,800 layers belongs to the later years. The platform was developed indigenously by BISAG-N under Atmanirbhar Bharat, and it exists to bring a whole of government approach to infrastructure planning by placing geospatial data from many departments on a single map.

The correct answer is November 2021. Under the Paris Agreement, India committed in 2015 to meeting 40 per cent of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, and the Prime Minister told the forum that the country touched that level in November 2021 itself, nine years ahead of the deadline, becoming the first G20 nation to do so. Option B is wrong because the commitment had not been met by that year, and the achievement is counted nine years early against a 2030 target, which fixes the year as 2021. Option C comes after the milestone had already been reached and so cannot be the answer. Option D, August 2015, is the period when the pledge itself was being made rather than fulfilled. Link the three numbers together: the pledge of 2015, the target year of 2030 and the actual achievement in November 2021.

The correct answer is the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. Section 17 of this Act is the provision under which a formal exemption order is granted to a Provident Fund Trust; the comparable provision in the newer law is section 143 of the Code on Social Security, 2020. Option A, the Income Tax Act, 1961, is relevant to the scheme but for a different reason: the trusts in question are recognised under that Act, and it is precisely the absence of an exemption order under the labour law that the amnesty addresses. Option C, the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, deals with gratuity and has no role in provident fund exemptions. Option D, the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, governs health insurance for workers and is unrelated. Candidates should pair section 17 with 1952 and section 143 with the Code on Social Security, 2020.

The correct answer is the Network Planning Group. The NPG evaluates infrastructure projects against PM GatiShakti principles and has appraised over 400 projects worth about 20.23 lakh crore rupees, with the count standing at 421 projects in 2026. Its framework looks at integrated planning and development of multimodal infrastructure, last mile connectivity to economic and social nodes, intermodal connectivity, better logistics efficiency and the synchronised implementation of projects, and the group has institutionalised the whole of government approach. Options B, C and D name bodies that do not carry out this appraisal under the master plan. A useful set of figures to remember alongside this is the year wise progress of appraisals, with 71 projects evaluated in 2022-23 when eight key infrastructure ministries were onboarded, 121 in 2024-25 when the District Master Plan was launched, and 352 by February 2026.

The correct answer is 7.8 per cent. Speaking at the forum, the Prime Minister said India's growth rate in the April-June quarter of this year stood at that level, and he described the growth as resting on a strong base. The supporting figures he gave were a current account deficit that has dropped to about half a per cent of GDP, or 0.61 per cent last year, against more than 4 per cent twelve to thirteen years ago, foreign exchange reserves above 700 billion dollars and a banking system in its strongest position in many decades. Options A and B understate the quarter's performance, while option D of 8.4 per cent overstates it, and none of the three was the figure cited. Aspirants should also remember the reform list placed beside these numbers: GST replacing a complex web of taxes, the insolvency law, 29 labour laws merged into four codes and hundreds of minor business offences decriminalised.

The correct answer is recognition by the Income Tax Department. That recognition is not waived at all; it is the very qualification a trust must already possess to be eligible, since the scheme is aimed at trusts recognised under the Income Tax Act, 1961 that nevertheless lack a formal exemption order. Options A, B and C name the three statutory requirements of the Code on Social Security, 2020 that the scheme does set aside, namely the minimum number of employees, the size of the corpus and the three-year compliance rule. A further benefit worth noting is the complete operational flexibility a trust enjoys after regularisation, as it may then comply either as an exempt or as an unexempt establishment. The stated purpose of availing the amnesty is to allow income tax benefits available to recognised trusts to continue without interruption.

The correct answer is the Integrated Transport and Logistics Authority, abbreviated as ITLA. The government has decided to set it up so that the full potential of PM GatiShakti can be used for integrated long term transport planning, and the Union Cabinet has approved it. The authority is to strengthen research, planning, appraisal, monitoring and impact assessment within transport and logistics, and it is expected to improve multimodal infrastructure connectivity, raise infrastructure efficiency, reduce logistics costs and lift India's competitiveness in global logistics. Options A, C and D are invented names and no such bodies were announced with the completion of five years of the master plan. Candidates should also note that the master plan is tied to the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047, for which it provides the framework of coordinated planning, multimodal connectivity and better logistics efficiency.

The correct answer is the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya National Academy of Social Security, usually shortened to PDUNASS. Training was delivered along two tracks, through online modules and physically at this academy, for departmental officers and employers alike, while the Exemption Division at the head office ran dedicated hybrid programmes for field officials posted across the country. Option A, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie, trains civil servants and is not the venue here. Option C, the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, handles indirect tax training and is unrelated to provident fund exemptions. Option D, the National Institute of Financial Management, works on public financial management. Alongside this training, EPFO held seminars with the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange to reach eligible establishments.

The correct answer is the Unified Geospatial Interface, or UGI. The PM GatiShakti Public platform was launched through this interface in September 2025 and extends selected data analytics capabilities to private entities and to the general public, which marked the accessibility phase of the master plan. Alongside it, the Knowledge Management System, the Decentralized Data Uploading and Management System and the PMGS-NMP Dashboard have strengthened knowledge sharing, data governance, decentralised data management and the monitoring of infrastructure. Options A, C and D are plausible sounding but incorrect names. Remember also that the master plan reached beyond conventional infrastructure into social sector and area based planning, extending to districts for local socio economic development covering roads, schools, healthcare facilities, water pipelines and other essential services, which is why the District Master Plan of 2024-25 is an important milestone.