Banking 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 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 20 October 2026. On 21 September 2026, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and New Zealand's Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay announced that the agreement would come into force on that day, which is Dussehra–Vijayadashami. Goyal said the auspicious day had been chosen on purpose.

The other dates are all connected with the agreement, which is why they mislead. 27 April 2026 is the date the FTA was signed at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. 16 September 2026 is the date New Zealand's Parliament passed the legislation needed to implement it. 1 January 2027 has no link with the agreement at all. Keep the three dates in order: signed in April, approved by New Zealand's Parliament in September, in force from October.

The correct answer is Concept Paper on Critical Mineral Recycling Ecosystem. At the seminar in New Delhi, the Union Ministers launched this paper, which outlines a strategic framework for strengthening critical mineral recycling in India. It focuses on resource efficiency, recovery of minerals from secondary sources such as e-waste and End-of-Life products, and building a circular and self-reliant ecosystem.

The other options sound plausible but did not happen at this event. No trading exchange was launched. E-waste management rules are framed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, not by the Mines Ministry. Auctions of critical mineral blocks are a separate process run by the Ministry of Mines and were not part of this seminar. The seminar was inaugurated by G. Kishan Reddy and organised with the Materials Recycling Association of India.

The correct answer is 23 September. The Government marks Ayurveda Day every year on 23 September, which is close to the autumnal equinox, when day and night are almost equal; the date was chosen to reflect the idea of natural balance at the heart of Ayurveda. The 11th Ayurveda Day falls on 23 September 2026. Earlier the day was observed on Dhanteras, whose date moves every year.

The other dates are well-known health days, which is why they confuse. 21 June is the International Day of Yoga, 7 April is World Health Day, the founding day of the World Health Organization, and 1 July is National Doctors' Day in India. Exams often place these days side by side, so learn them together, with the Ministry of Ayush as the nodal ministry for both Yoga Day and Ayurveda Day.

The correct answer is 23 September 2018. AB PM-JAY was launched on that date to move India towards universal health coverage, and the PIB backgrounder of 22 September 2026 marks its eighth anniversary. It gives eligible families cashless hospital cover of up to ₹5 lakh a year for secondary and tertiary care through more than 38,000 empanelled hospitals.

The other dates are distractors around well-known days: 15 August is Independence Day, 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti and 1 April is the start of the financial year. Two later dates matter for this scheme and are worth keeping separate: March 2024, when about 37 lakh families of ASHAs and anganwadi workers were added, and 11 September 2024, when all senior citizens aged 70 and above were brought in through the Ayushman Vay Vandana card.

The correct answer is Yashobhoomi, New Delhi. The fifth edition of SEMICON India ran there for three days, from 17 to 19 September 2026, on the theme "Silicon to Systems: Building the Ecosystem", with more than 600 exhibiting companies, a Start-up Pavilion, a Workforce Development Pavilion, country and State pavilions and a hackathon.

Bharat Mandapam is the tempting wrong answer because it is Delhi's other big convention centre and hosted several 2026 events, including the India International Water Week that opened on 22 September. Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar hosts Vibrant Gujarat, and BIEC in Bengaluru hosts Aero India. Yashobhoomi, in Dwarka, is the India International Convention and Expo Centre in the capital's west. Keep the venue and theme together for this one.

The correct answer is Climate Resilient Water Management. The 9th India International Water Week, organised by the Ministry of Jal Shakti at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, from 22 to 26 September 2026, is centred on this theme. Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan inaugurated it on 22 September and said climate change, rapid urbanisation and population growth are making water management more complex, calling for river-basin management, groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation.

The distractors are plausible slogans. "Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari" is real but different: it is the Prime Minister's call for a mass movement on water conservation, which the Vice-President quoted in his speech. The other two are generic phrases in the style of international water-day themes. Themes change with every edition, so tie this one to the 9th edition and 2026.

The correct answer is Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. TRAI, the sector's regulator, released the Thirteenth Amendment on 22 September 2026 after a draft issued on 7 April 2026 drew 1,132 responses and an open house discussion on 15 June 2026. The amendment obliges operators to offer voice-and-SMS-only special tariff vouchers for validities of 30 days and less, so that users who do not need data are not forced to buy bundled packs.

The Department of Telecommunications is the government department that makes policy and issues licences, not tariff regulations. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) hears appeals against TRAI's decisions rather than issuing regulations. The Ministry of Electronics and IT deals with electronics, IT and semiconductors. For telecom tariffs, quality of service and consumer protection, the regulator is always TRAI.

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 National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment defines NAMASTE exactly this way, and describes its aim as ensuring the safety and dignity of sanitation workers by creating an enabling ecosystem that recognises their contribution to the operation and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure. Option B is wrong because the scheme is not framed as a mission for advanced sanitation technology, and the word mission does not appear in its name. Option C is wrong because it is not a municipal training agency and it is not confined to urban local bodies alone. Option D is wrong because NAMASTE is not an authority for sewerage treatment but a scheme centred on workers. Full forms of welfare schemes are frequently asked, so learn the expansion word for word.

The correct answer is Swachhata Mein Sahbhag, Swachh Bharat, Viksit Bharat. Both the Department of Food and Public Distribution and the Ministry of Textiles named this as the theme of the current campaign, and described it as an appeal to treat cleanliness as a collective effort and a festival of community involvement. Option B is wrong because that phrase is not the theme announced for this edition. Option C is wrong because although it sounds close to the language used in such campaigns, it is not the theme named in these releases. Option D is wrong because it is a general slogan and not the theme declared for this year. Themes of national campaigns change every year, so aspirants should always link the theme to the year and to the campaign name together.

The correct answer is Anant Nag. President Droupadi Murmu presented the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024 to the veteran Kannada actor at the 72nd National Film Awards at Ekta Nagar, Kevadia, in Gujarat. Accepting it, Anant Nag spoke of a childhood in an ashram, a move to Mumbai where the stage gave him his first role, and a run of nearly 50 plays before he turned to cinema. He later worked with the director Shyam Benegal, chose Kannada films and made Bengaluru his karmabhoomi, and he had received the Padma Bhushan from the same President a year earlier. Mammootty is wrong because he shared the Best Actor award for Bramayugam. Sanjay Mishra is wrong because he was named Best Supporting Actor for Bhakshak. Randeep Hooda is wrong because he was praised for his first film as a director, Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, and not for a lifetime honour.

The correct answer is Rs 5 lakh. In his anniversary message the Prime Minister said that more than sixty crore beneficiaries now have access to an annual health cover of this amount, and that the reach of the cover is what makes the initiative the largest healthcare scheme in the world. Rs 1 lakh is wrong; no such figure appears in the message, and a cover that small would not carry a family through a serious hospital admission, which is the burden the scheme was designed to lift. Rs 3 lakh is wrong for the same reason and is offered only as a plausible-looking lower figure. Rs 10 lakh is wrong because the cover named is half that amount, though aspirants sometimes confuse it with other insurance products. The safest way to hold this is to remember the pair together: the cover amount on one side and the beneficiary count on the other, because examiners frequently ask for one and supply the other.

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 fifteen digits. The International Mobile Equipment Identity is described as a unique number of that length which identifies a mobile device on a telecom network, and the first eight of those digits make up the Type Allocation Code that identifies the model or type of the handset. Ten digits is wrong; that is the length of a mobile telephone number in India and the two are often confused, but a telephone number belongs to the connection while this number belongs to the device. Twelve digits is wrong as well and matches no identifier described in the backgrounder. Eighteen digits is wrong because it overstates the length, and no identifier of that size is named. Candidates should also remember the way to read one off a handset, which is by dialling the short code given in the release, and that a dual-SIM phone normally carries two such numbers, one for each slot.

The correct answer is the 55th International Film Festival of India in Goa, where the platform was unveiled in November as the public broadcaster's public-service streaming service. The first WAVES Summit in Mumbai is wrong, and is the most tempting distractor because the summit carries the same name: it was held later, in May of the following year, and the streaming platform already existed by then. The India International Trade Fair is wrong, as the backgrounder connects the launch to a film festival and not to a trade exhibition. The Kolkata International Film Festival is wrong as well; although it is also a film festival, the release names the national festival held in Goa and gives its edition number. The safe way to carry this is as a set: the broadcaster, the festival with its edition number, the venue state and the launch date, since a question may supply any one of them and ask for another.

The correct answer is Rejuvenating Watersheds for Agricultural Resilience through Innovative Development, the expansion given in the release for the programme under which the technical committee met at the NASC Complex in New Delhi. The second option is wrong; it is built from plausible words but does not match the expansion, and in particular it drops the idea of resilience, which is central to the programme's purpose. The third option is wrong for the same reason and adds terms about ecology and drylands that do not appear in the name. The fourth option is wrong because the programme is not an employment scheme, and confusing it with rural employment programmes is a common error. Candidates should also link the programme with the body running it, the National Rainfed Area Authority, which functions under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, since acronym questions are often paired with the parent ministry.

The correct answer is Jay Meena. He won the bronze medal in the men's individual event in soft tennis and thereby became the first Indian ever to win an Asian Games medal in that sport. The Prime Minister described the result as a historic achievement for Indian soft tennis, said it marks a memorable new chapter for the game in India, and expressed the hope that it would inspire more youngsters to take up the sport. Option B, Mirabai Chanu, is wrong because she is a weightlifter and was congratulated the same day for a silver medal in the women's 49 kg event, not for anything in soft tennis. Option C, Raiza Dhillon, and option D, Maheshwari Chauhan, are wrong because both are shooters who were part of the women's skeet team that won a bronze medal, along with Parinaaz Dhaliwal.

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 the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Mera Yuva Bharat, or MY Bharat, is the national youth engagement platform of the Department of Youth Affairs within that ministry, and it has now gone past 3 crore registered youth in under three years. Option A, the Ministry of Education, runs school and higher education programmes and is not the owner of this platform, though students are among its users. Option C, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, handles skilling missions and is a natural-looking but wrong choice here. Option D, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, deals with a different set of schemes altogether. The platform offers Experiential Learning Programmes, volunteering, quizzes, youth dialogues and community engagement, and an AI-enabled CV Builder has been added to help young users prepare professional profiles.

The correct answer is the President of India, Droupadi Murmu. She attended the 75th annual convocation ceremony of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda at Vadodara in Gujarat and addressed the graduating students, telling them that education will be meaningful only if the country and society benefit from it. Option A, the Prime Minister, is wrong because the release comes from the President's Secretariat and names the President alone as the dignitary at the ceremony. Option C, the Vice-President, is a common distractor in convocation questions because Vice-Presidents also attend such events, but that is not the case here. Option D, the Union Education Minister, is likewise not named in this release. In her address the President pressed the case for a multidisciplinary approach, saying no important problem today can be solved within a single stream of study.

The correct answer is six months. Under the earlier design of the scheme a placement counted only when the trained candidate held continuous employment for at least three months, so option A states the old rule and not the present one. The upgraded guidelines that the Government notified in May 2025 doubled that floor, so that training is judged by work that lasts rather than by a short spell of employment, and the revised rules recognise continuous as well as non-continuous employment, including wage work, self-employment and gig work. Option C names a period the guidelines do not use at any stage. Option D is the period for which a placed candidate is tracked after joining, and also the point at which upskilling and reskilling opportunities open up, but tracking is not the same thing as the placement test itself, so it does not answer the question.

The correct answer is Prasar Bharati, India's public service broadcaster. PBSHABD is its free news feed, and the very name carries the parent body in it, since it expands to Prasar Bharati - Shared Audio-Visuals for Broadcast and Dissemination. The service grew out of the broadcaster's own internal wire, the Prasar Bharati News Service, and it draws on the same correspondents and desks that feed bulletins on Akashvani and Doordarshan. Option A names a news agency that is not connected with this platform. Option C is the government's own publicity arm, which issues press releases rather than running this multimedia feed. Option D is a training and research institution in mass communication and has no role in running the service. The ministry in charge of the launch was Information and Broadcasting.

The correct answer is the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, usually written as DARPG. It runs the special campaign across the Government, lays down the parameters against which each office identifies its pending matters, issues the guidelines that offices follow, and takes the reporting of achievements on the campaign portal. Option B names the department that is implementing the drive in this particular case, which is the trap in the question: DEPwD is a participating department, not the one that launched the campaign. Option C handles service and personnel matters for the Government and is not the nodal department for this drive. Option D deals with public finance and expenditure control, and has no role in running the cleanliness and pendency campaign. Remember DARPG as the nodal department, and remember that each participating department nominates its own Nodal Officer.

The correct answer is the women's Sanda 60kg event, in which she took the silver medal. Sanda is the full-contact fighting format of wushu and its bouts are decided in weight categories, which is why the weight appears in the name of the event itself. The Prime Minister's message picked out not only the medal but the pattern behind it, namely that she has won at three Asian Games in a row, and he described her consistency, courage and determination as commendable. Options B and C move her to other combat sports and, in the case of judo, to a different weight class as well, so neither matches the event named in the message. Option D belongs to the other medal of the same day, the men's double sculls in rowing, which was won by a different pair of athletes altogether.

The correct answer is nil. Among the oils covered by this decision, crude sunflower oil is the only one whose Basic Customs Duty was taken all the way down to zero, from the earlier level of 10%. Option A names the new rate of the other two oils in the announcement, crude soybean oil and crude palm oil, each of which came down from 10% to 5%, so it is the right figure attached to the wrong oil. Option D is the rate that applied before the change and not the rate that applies now, and a candidate who reads the question in a hurry can easily settle on the old number. Option C is a rate that does not figure in this decision at all. The safest way to hold the answer is to remember the pattern: one oil to zero, two oils to five, all three starting from ten.

The correct answer is the 81st session, written in the release as UNGA81 and held in New York. Both engagements India took part in were side events of that session: the ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of Universal Health Coverage and Global Health, and the launch of the OneSCD partnership on sickle cell disease. The session number is worth fixing in memory because the General Assembly meets in a fresh numbered session every year, and an examiner will often pair the number with the event rather than with the year. Options A and B name earlier sessions and option D a later one, and a candidate who remembers only that the meeting took place in New York, which is where the Assembly always convenes, will have nothing to choose between them. Note also that a side event sits alongside the Assembly rather than being an Assembly debate itself.

The correct answer is Rs 63.84 crore, the financial support agreed under the Research Development and Innovation Fund and routed through optionally convertible debentures rather than paid out as a simple grant. Keep it apart from the other money figure in the same announcement, the total approved cost of the project, which is far larger; a question will often place the two side by side to see whether a candidate has confused the support with the whole outlay. Options A and C are the same digits rearranged, a trap that works precisely because the figure carries two decimal places and is easy to garble under time pressure. Option D is a round-looking amount that appears nowhere in the announcement. The safest habit is to read such a figure once as a whole number of crore and once as its decimal part.