SBI Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: 21–27 September 2026

The correct answer is Implementation of five-day banking. The United Forum of Bank Unions and some other unions in public sector banks, supported by Regional Rural Banks, raised two principal demands: a five-day working week for banks and withdrawal of the Performance Linked Incentive scheme. The Finance Ministry says the strikes are now about the single demand of a five-day week, which is still being examined.

Withdrawal of the PLI scheme is the trap. It was one of the two original demands, but the Government met it by keeping the scheme in abeyance, so it is no longer pending. The Old Pension Scheme and the merger of Regional Rural Banks are not part of these strikes. A one-day strike was held on 11 September 2026; a three-day strike is set for 28 to 30 September and an indefinite one from 26 October 2026.

The correct answer is Hardeep Singh Puri. The meeting was co-chaired by Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and by the OPEC Secretary General. Since the dialogue is about oil markets, energy security and investment in the oil industry, the Indian co-chair is the minister who holds the petroleum portfolio, and that is the link to remember. Piyush Goyal is wrong because the commerce and industry portfolio is not the one that leads this dialogue. Nirmala Sitharaman is wrong because the finance ministry did not lead this engagement, even though energy prices affect the economy. Pralhad Joshi is wrong as the release names only the petroleum minister as the Indian co-chair. Questions on ministerial dialogues usually turn on matching the subject of the dialogue with the correct portfolio.

The correct answer is Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Chief Executive Officer of the India Semiconductor Mission. The backgrounder names him as the moderator of the session, which brought senior representatives of the leading industry associations together to discuss how deeper cooperation could speed up the country's semiconductor and electronics plans. The Chief Executive Officer of NITI Aayog is wrong, as that office is not connected with this session in the release. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India is wrong because the discussion concerned manufacturing and industry coordination rather than monetary policy, and no central bank official is mentioned. The Chairman of ISRO is wrong for the same reason; the space agency has no role in the panel described. Aspirants should remember the mission's name along with the office, because questions often ask which body the moderator headed rather than his name, and the India Semiconductor Mission is itself a frequently tested institution.

The correct answer is Rs 285 crore. The Technology Development Board, which functions under the Department of Science and Technology, approved that amount for Ubifly Technologies Private Limited of Chennai out of the Research Development and Innovation Fund, for its indigenous ePlane advanced air mobility solution. Option C is the figure most likely to mislead a candidate: it is the total approved cost of the project, not the Board's share, so the Board is meeting roughly half of the outlay while the rest comes from elsewhere. Option A and option D do not appear anywhere in the announcement and are simply plausible-looking amounts. The support is being extended through Optionally Convertible Debentures rather than as an outright grant, and its stated purpose is to carry the technology from Technology Readiness Level 6 to Level 9, which is the stage of an operationally demonstrated system.

The correct answer is Manila in the Philippines. The Indian delegation, led by Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Shri Nitin Kumar Yadav, travelled to Manila for both meetings, and it was there that economic ministers or their representatives from every ASEAN member met the East Asia Summit partners. Option A is wrong although Jakarta houses the ASEAN Secretariat, which briefed the meeting on the economic outlook; hosting the Secretariat is not the same as hosting this round of meetings. Option C is wrong because Kuala Lumpur, a frequent venue for regional gatherings, was not the host this time. Option D is wrong because Vietnam took part as an ASEAN member but did not host. Candidates should also recall that the delegation met Indian businesses in the Philippines and attended the ASEAN-India Business Forum during the same visit.

The correct answer is Rs 6,940 crore. The bulk drugs scheme, which covers key starting materials, drug intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients, was approved in 2020 with that outlay and it works on 41 critical products where imports dominated. Rs 3,420 crore is the outlay of a different scheme, the one for domestic manufacturing of medical devices, also approved in 2020, so option A confuses two schemes of the same year. Rs 15,000 crore belongs to the pharmaceuticals scheme approved in 2021, which supports complex generics, biopharmaceuticals and other high-value products, so option C is wrong. Rs 17,275 crore is not an outlay at all; it is the targeted investment under the pharmaceuticals scheme, a figure that actual investment has crossed. Keep outlay, target and actual investment separate while revising, because questions are set on exactly this distinction.

The correct answer is Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi, which houses the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and where the board met in hybrid mode, with some members present and others joining online. The board functions under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade of that ministry, so its meeting place follows naturally. Udyog Bhawan houses other ministries and was not the venue, which makes option A wrong. Vigyan Bhawan is the government's large conference venue used for conferences and summits rather than for a board meeting of this kind, so option C is wrong. Krishi Bhawan is associated with agriculture and allied departments and has no connection with this board, so option D is wrong too. The meeting was chaired by Sunil J. Singhi and opened by the DPIIT Director, Yuvraj Ravindra Patil.

The correct answer is Rs 7,86,000 crore. The Finance Ministry, after consulting the Reserve Bank of India, settled on this gross market borrowing figure for the closing half of FY 2026-27, and the whole sum is to be raised through 23 weekly auctions of dated securities. Within it, Rs 15,000 crore has been kept aside for Sovereign Green Bonds. Option A is wrong because Rs 6,86,000 crore is simply a lower figure than the one announced and matches nothing in the plan. Option C is wrong for the same reason in the other direction; no part of the borrowing calendar carries a figure of Rs 8,86,000 crore. Option D is wrong as well, since the plan does not stretch anywhere near Rs 9,86,000 crore for the half-year. Candidates should note that the full-year borrowing through dated securities is a separate and much bigger number, Rs 15,99,506 crore, which should not be confused with the half-yearly amount asked about here.

The correct answer is second largest shareholder. India is the second largest shareholder of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Union Finance Minister attends the annual meeting of its Board of Governors as India's Governor to the bank in that capacity. Option A is wrong because India is not the biggest shareholder of the institution, even though its stake is large enough to give it a leading voice. Options C and D, third and fifth largest, understate India's standing and would place other members ahead of it. This rank is the fact most often lifted into examination papers whenever the AIIB appears, so it should be revised along with the nature of the bank, which is a multilateral development bank for sustainable infrastructure in Asia.

The correct answer is 2015. In its appeal of 21 September 2026, the Ministry of Finance recalled that the Government, in the interest of bank employees, declared the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month as holidays for public sector banks in 2015. The remaining Saturdays are working days and, the Ministry said, an important opportunity for many citizens to use banking services.

The other years are distractors. This fact matters because the unions' pending demand, five-day banking, would turn every Saturday into a holiday. The Government's argument is that customers already lose two Saturdays a month, and that the planned strike from 28 to 30 September, next to a weekend and the half-yearly closing on 30 September, would mean an effective five-day shutdown of banking at a sensitive time of the financial year.

The correct answer is Vienna. The release records that both sides agreed to hold the Eighth High-Level Meeting of the OPEC-India Energy Dialogue in Vienna, Austria, on a mutually convenient date. Vienna is also where the OPEC Secretariat is based, which makes the choice easy to recall. New Delhi is wrong because it hosted the seventh meeting and also the launch of the dialogue, not the next edition. Riyadh is wrong because although Saudi Arabia is a major OPEC member, the capital named for the next round is not Riyadh. Abu Dhabi is wrong for the same reason. Aspirants should keep two venues separate in memory here: New Delhi for the meeting just concluded, and Vienna for the one to come.

The correct answer is more than 600. The backgrounder records that the event brought together this many exhibitors, of whom close to three hundred were international companies, and treats that mix as a sign of the global interest now being shown in the country's semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The first option is wrong because it falls short of the stated count and appears nowhere in the release. The third option is wrong for the opposite reason; it overstates the number, and no such figure is given. The fourth option is wrong as well, since a four-figure count is not claimed anywhere in the document. The useful pairing for an examination is the total against the international share, because a question may supply one and ask for the other, and the second figure is also the one that shows how much of the participation came from outside India.

The correct answer is a three-seater zero-emission advanced air mobility aircraft. The release describes the e200X as configured for one pilot and two passengers, with a targeted range of 110 km and an ideal speed of 160 kmph, and with a landing gear built for both conventional and vertical landing so that it can operate out of relatively small spaces. Option A is wrong because the aircraft is electrically powered and seats three, not two, and it is not described as a trainer. Option C is wrong because the configuration explicitly includes a pilot on board along with two passengers, so it is not an unmanned platform. Option D is wrong on every count, as the e200X is a small electric machine and not a turboprop airliner. Its indigenous elements include vertical rotors, forward propellers, proprietary flight-control algorithms, power-distribution controllers and battery packs with integrated cooling.

The correct answer is USD 128.38 billion. The release states that bilateral trade between India and the ASEAN bloc reached this level in 2025-26, and that the bloc made up 10.55 per cent of total Indian trade with the world. The other three figures are close enough to look believable but none of them appears in the announcement, and choosing them would misstate the size of a partnership that India describes as one of its most important. Option A understates the trade, option B is also below the stated figure and option D overstates it. The number matters because it was cited in the same breath as the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement, which India wants to make balanced, effective and trade facilitative so that these flows can grow further in the years ahead.

The correct answer is 57. Production of 57 unique medical devices has begun under the scheme, and the list runs from magnetic resonance imaging machines, computed tomography scanners, cath labs and linear accelerators to C-arms, mammography machines, ultrasound systems, anaesthesia machines and heart valves, most of which were earlier brought in from outside. The other three options are all numbers from the bulk drugs scheme and are placed here precisely to test whether the two schemes have been mixed up: 48 projects were approved under that scheme, 39 of them have been commissioned, and those commissioned projects make 28 ingredients. Keeping a small table of scheme, year, outlay and the headline count is the safest way to hold these figures apart in the examination hall.

The correct answer is 40,000. The chairman of the board cited the Jan Vishwas Act as a reform that has rationalised that many compliances, and placed it alongside the ease of doing business measures and the creation of state level traders' welfare boards as the main steps taken for the trading community. The other three options are figures of a similar shape, offered to test whether the number has been memorised exactly rather than approximately, and none of them was mentioned. A related figure worth holding on to from the same meeting is that DigiDukaan, an initiative of the open network for digital commerce, has more than nineteen thousand retailers live in Hyderabad and Jaipur, while the board also asked for a single loan portal that would decide applications within a month.

The correct answer is 23. The gross borrowing of Rs 7,86,000 crore planned for the second half of FY 2026-27 will be completed through 23 weekly auctions of dated securities, with the paper spread over eight maturity buckets ranging from three years to fifty years. Option A, 13, is wrong here, although the number does appear elsewhere in the same announcement: 13 is the count of auction weeks planned for Treasury Bills in the third quarter of the financial year, which is a different instrument and a different calendar altogether. Option B is wrong because no stage of the borrowing plan uses that count of auctions. Option D is wrong as well; the calendar does not run to that many dated-security auctions in the half-year. A careful reader should separate the two counts, remembering that 23 belongs to the dated-security auctions while 13 belongs to the Treasury Bill weeks.

The correct answer is Doha. The eleventh annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is scheduled in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and the Union Finance Minister travels there on an official visit for it. Option A, Riyadh, is the capital of Saudi Arabia, and although a Saudi counterpart is among those she is to meet, the venue is not in that country. Option B, Abu Dhabi, is in the United Arab Emirates and is not the host city. Option D, Kuwait City, is likewise a different Gulf capital. Aspirants should link the edition of the meeting, the eleventh, with the host city Doha, since a question may keep one and change the other.

The correct answer is 56%. The Staff Welfare Fund is money that public sector banks set aside for the welfare of working and retired staff, covering health expenses, canteen subsidies, sports and cultural activities and educational help. The Finance Ministry listed its 56% increase in August 2024 among the measures taken for bank employees.

The other percentages are distractors. The same list includes other points worth knowing: PSBs recruited about 4,82,800 employees from FY 2014-15 to FY 2025-26, with recruitment doubling in the last three years; as of 1 July 2026, 95.84% of officer posts and 92% of subordinate/award staff posts were filled; and negotiations on the next Bipartite Settlement began early, aiming to finish before the November 2027 deadline. Bipartite settlements are wage agreements between bank managements and unions.

The correct answer is 2015. At the seventh meeting the OPEC Secretary General said that the OPEC-India Energy Dialogue is eleven years strong, having been launched in New Delhi in 2015. That single sentence gives both the launch year and the launch city, so it is worth remembering as a pair. Option A is wrong because the dialogue did not exist that early. Option C is wrong because by that year the dialogue had already been running for some time. Option D is wrong for the same reason. A useful cross-check in the examination hall is the arithmetic: a dialogue described as eleven years strong in the current year must have begun in the year given in option B, so the wording of the statement itself confirms the answer.

The correct answer is twelve approved and five operational. The backgrounder states that the government has cleared this many semiconductor projects under the Semicon India programme, and that five commercial semiconductor units were already running by September of that year. The first option is wrong on both counts, understating the approvals as well as the units in production. The third option is wrong because it inflates the approvals and the operating units alike, and no such tally appears in the release. The fourth option is wrong for the same reason and is the furthest from the stated position. The point worth carrying forward is the gap between approvals and operations: a project being approved does not mean a plant is producing, which is why the release reports the two numbers separately. Candidates should also link this with the Production Linked Incentive schemes and the India Semiconductor Mission, the two instruments named as driving this build-up.

The correct answer is Optionally Convertible Debentures, usually shortened to OCD. The Technology Development Board is routing its support to Ubifly Technologies through this instrument, which is a form of debt that the holder has the option of converting into equity shares of the company after an agreed period. Option A is wrong because the release does not describe the money as a grant; the choice of a convertible instrument is precisely what distinguishes this kind of deep-tech support from a subsidy. Option B is wrong because sovereign green bonds are raised by the government in the market for environment-related spending and have nothing to do with this approval. Option D is wrong because viability gap funding is a support mechanism used mainly in infrastructure projects. The Research Development and Innovation Fund, from which this support comes, is a Rs 1 lakh crore pool aimed at private-sector-led technology development.

The correct answer is the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement, usually shortened to AITIGA. Its ongoing review was the main subject at the consultation, with the stated aim of raising trade flows and correcting the asymmetries that have grown within the pact. India said it wants the outcome to be mutually beneficial and to leave the agreement balanced, more effective, user friendly and easier for firms to work with. Option B is wrong because India is not part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and that pact was not the subject here. Option C is wrong because the agreement with Singapore is a separate bilateral arrangement rather than a bloc wide one. Option D is wrong because the partnership agreement with Japan, though an East Asia Summit partner is involved, has no bearing on this ASEAN review.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. The Department of Pharmaceuticals sits in that ministry and runs all three schemes, the one for bulk drugs, the one for pharmaceuticals and the one for medical devices. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare deals with hospitals, public health programmes and the regulation of drugs through its own bodies, but it does not run these incentive schemes, so option A is wrong. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry handles trade policy and industrial promotion in general and is not the implementing ministry here, which rules out option C. The Ministry of Science and Technology funds research through its departments and has no role in disbursing these incentives, so option D is also wrong. The schemes are aligned with the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat goals of cutting import dependence.

The correct answer is 1 January 2027. Members of the board were told about forthcoming reforms, and among them was this bill, which is proposed to take effect from the first day of that year and is aimed at making life easier for consumers and for those who deal with them. Option A places the date at the start of a financial year, which is a natural guess but not the date mentioned here. Option C falls in the current year and option D pushes the date a full year further, so neither matches. In the same briefing the board was informed about the next generation of goods and services tax reforms and about integration with the open network for digital commerce, and it separately discussed the trade agreement being negotiated with the United Kingdom with a view to promoting exports.

The correct answer is Rs 50,000 crore. Ways and Means Advances is the facility through which the Reserve Bank of India lets the Centre bridge short-lived mismatches between money received and money paid out, and for the second half of FY 2026-27 the ceiling on this facility has been set at Rs 50,000 crore. Options A, B and C are all wrong because none of them is the ceiling named in the announcement; they are plausible-looking round figures placed around the real one. Aspirants should also keep the other numbers of the plan clearly apart from this one: the gross half-yearly borrowing is Rs 7,86,000 crore, the green bond portion is Rs 15,000 crore, the weekly Treasury Bill issuance in the third quarter is Rs 23,000 crore, and the greenshoe option lets the government retain up to Rs 2,000 crore extra on each security put up for auction.

The correct answer is the Union Finance Minister. At the annual meeting of the AIIB Board of Governors the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs attends as India's Governor to the bank, and on this occasion she also leads a delegation of Ministry of Finance officials. Option A is wrong because the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India heads the central bank and is not the person who occupies India's seat on this board. Option C is wrong because the Commerce and Industry portfolio handles trade and industrial policy rather than representation at this bank. Option D is wrong because NITI Aayog is a policy think tank of the government and has no such representative role. Candidates should also note the bilateral meetings planned with the AIIB President and with counterparts from Jordan, Switzerland, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Nepal.