Current Affairs Quiz: 1 October 2026

The correct answer is 'Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath', which translates as one day, one hour, together. This is the theme under which the Swachhata Hi Seva 2026 campaign is being run across the country, and the spirit of joint action it stands for was what the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare echoed when its officers and staff joined a shramdaan in New Delhi on 1 October 2026. The theme puts a simple demand before every citizen: set aside one hour on a single day and work alongside others on cleanliness.

Option A, 'Swachhata Se Samriddhi', is not the theme of this campaign. Option C, 'Mera Shahar, Meri Zimmedari', is a plausible-sounding civic slogan but does not belong to Swachhata Hi Seva 2026 either. Option D, 'Ek Bharat, Swachh Bharat', mixes up the name of the wider Swachh Bharat effort, whose objectives the Ministry reaffirmed on the occasion, with the campaign theme, and so it is wrong as well.

The correct answer is Narendra Bhooshan. He has taken over as Secretary of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the ministry that handles forests, wildlife, pollution control and climate policy for the country. He is an Indian Administrative Service officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre and reached this post after serving as Secretary of the Department of Land Resources in the Ministry of Rural Development. Option A, Keshav Chandra, is the Secretary in the Ministry of Mines and not in the environment ministry. Option C, Ashok K. K. Meena, heads the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Ministry of Jal Shakti. Option D, Kamal Kishore Soan, is Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Jal Jeevan Mission, again a water sector post rather than an environment one. So only option B names the new environment Secretary correctly.

The correct answer is Rs 5,000 crore. This is the dedicated provision set aside under Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 for closing drinking water gaps in the tribal villages covered by the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan and the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan. The figure was placed before states at the second follow-up review and convergence meeting of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, which works under the Ministry of Jal Shakti. The review built on commitments the states and union territories had made at an earlier departmental summit to reach full tap water saturation in every eligible village. Options A, C and D give other amounts, and none of them matches the provision announced for these two tribal missions, so each of those three choices is incorrect.

The correct answer is the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, known by its short form DARPG. It runs this government-wide drive, in which ministries and their attached, subordinate and autonomous bodies clean their premises, weed out old files and clear pending references. The campaign also has a monitoring portal maintained by the same department, where daily progress is uploaded. Option A, the Department of Personnel and Training, handles service matters of government employees and does not run this drive. Option C, the Department of Expenditure, deals with public finance under the Finance Ministry. Option D, the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, works on rural water and sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti; although cleanliness is its subject, this particular campaign is not its own. So only option B is correct.

The correct answer is Buldhana. Lonar Crater Lake is a unique natural formation in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra, and it attracts visitors because of its distinctive geological and environmental features. The lake is known for water that is both saline and alkaline, and for the striking crater landscape around it. It is one of the three sites at which the Union Minister of State for Ayush has asked the Defence Ministry to allow performances by the aerobatic display team of the Indian Air Force, the other two being the Ajanta and Ellora Caves. Options B, C and D name Nagpur, Satara and Nashik, which are all districts of Maharashtra but none of them is the district in which this crater lake lies. Hence option A is the correct choice.

The correct answer is Dr. Rajiv Bahl. He is Secretary of the Department of Health Research and also holds charge as Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research, and he led the voluntary cleanliness drive held near Gate No. 3 of Kartavya Bhavan-1 on Dr. Rajendra Prasad Marg in New Delhi. Speaking to the media there, he said cleanliness must become a sustained collective effort and asked officials and citizens alike to contribute.

Option A, Dr. Rakesh Gupta, is Additional Secretary and Director General of the National AIDS Control Organisation; he took part in the drive but did not lead it. Option B, Smt. Aradhana Patnaik, is Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Health Mission, and she spoke on Jan Bhagidari and individual responsibility, again as a participant. Option D, Dr. Loveneesh G. Krishna, is the Director General of Health Services and was also among the participants.

The correct answer is Uttar Pradesh. Narendra Bhooshan is an Indian Administrative Service officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, and he belongs to the batch of the year 1992. His long list of state assignments confirms the cadre: he served as Additional Chief Secretary for Energy, Additional Energy Sources and Technical Education, as Principal Secretary in departments such as Public Works, Industries Development, Information Technology and Electronics, Science and Technology and Panchayati Raj, and as Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Noida Authority. He was also District Magistrate of Mathura and of Firozabad, both districts of Uttar Pradesh. Options A, B and D name Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar, and none of these states figures among his cadre postings, so each of them is wrong. Only option C matches the cadre of the officer.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. It has carried out a state-wise exercise named SurveySetu, in which the status of functional household tap connections is verified at the level of each household. States have been advised to present the findings of this exercise jointly, through their water supply departments, tribal welfare departments and the survey agency, before the District Water and Sanitation Mission, and to resolve any mismatch through field verification so that a final validated database exists at the district level. Option A, the Ministry of Jal Shakti, is the ministry whose Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation convened the review and funds the taps, but the survey is not its exercise. Option B, the Ministry of Rural Development, and option D, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, have no role in this survey, so both are wrong.

The correct answer is 2 October to 31 October. The campaign is built in two parts. The first is a preparatory phase, which ran from the sixteenth to the thirtieth of September 2026, and in which each participating ministry fixed the cleaning and disposal targets it would meet. The second is the implementation phase, which starts on the second of October, the day of Gandhi Jayanti, and runs to the end of that month. Option A gives the dates of the preparatory phase, not the implementation phase. Option B covers only the first half of October and stops before the campaign ends. Option D stretches the campaign into the next month, which is not correct. Therefore option C alone gives the right window for the implementation phase of the drive.

The correct answer is the Indian Air Force. The Surya Kiran Aerobatic Display Team is the air force’s formation display team, and it has a reputation for precision, skill and closely coordinated aerial manoeuvres. The letter seeking its performances in Maharashtra notes that its displays showcase the country’s aviation capabilities while drawing public interest and encouraging young people to explore opportunities in the air force. Option A, the Indian Army, and option B, the Indian Navy, both have their own display and adventure teams, but Surya Kiran is not one of them. Option D, the Indian Coast Guard, is a maritime force under the Ministry of Defence and operates no such aerobatic team. Candidates should remember Surya Kiran together with Sarang, the air force’s helicopter display team, as both are frequently asked.

The correct answer is the National AIDS Control Organisation, abbreviated NACO. Dr. Rakesh Gupta serves as Additional Secretary in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and as Director General of NACO, and in that capacity he was among the senior officers who joined the shramdaan in New Delhi.

Option A is wrong because the National Health Mission is headed, as Mission Director, by Smt. Aradhana Patnaik, who is also an Additional Secretary and who spoke at the event on the importance of people taking part. Option B is wrong because the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research is Dr. Rajiv Bahl, who is Secretary of the Department of Health Research as well and who led the drive. Option D is wrong because Dr. Loveneesh G. Krishna is the Director General of Health Services. All four officials attended, but only one of them heads NACO.

The correct answer is the Department of Land Resources. His appointment as Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change followed his tenure as Secretary of the Department of Land Resources, which works under the Ministry of Rural Development. Option B, the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, sits in the Ministry of Jal Shakti and is not a post he held. Option C, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, is the department that drives governance reform campaigns across ministries, and it has no link to his career record. Option D, the Department of Science and Technology, is a Union department, but his science and technology charge was in the Uttar Pradesh government as Principal Secretary, not at the Centre. Hence option A alone is correct.

The correct answer is Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan. DA-JGUA is one of the two tribal missions whose drinking water needs were reviewed by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation; the other is PM-JANMAN, the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan. The aim in both is saturation, that is, a working tap connection for every eligible household in every eligible tribal village, certified after joint validation. Option B replaces the village upliftment part of the name with a water and flight theme that does not exist. Option C invents an entirely different scheme name built around Deen Dayal and rural progress. Option D changes Utkarsh to Ujjwal and drops the correct form of the word Janjatiya. Since only option A reproduces the official expansion exactly, it is the answer.

The correct answer is 595. During the preparatory phase of the campaign, the Ministry of Culture, together with its attached, subordinate and autonomous organisations spread across the country, identified that many sites for cleaning. The same exercise marked 31,515 physical files and 323 electronic files for review, and listed pending references and grievances for disposal, including parliamentary assurances and references from members of Parliament and from the Prime Minister’s Office. Options A, B and D give numbers close to the right one but none of them is the figure the ministry announced for sites, so each is wrong. Candidates should note the site figure along with the file figures, since questions on such campaigns usually ask for one of the three.

The correct answer is the Union Minister of State for Ayush. Prataprao Jadhav, who holds independent charge of the Ministry of Ayush and is also Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has written to the Defence Minister asking that the aerobatic display team of the Indian Air Force be permitted to perform at Lonar, Ajanta and Ellora. His letter frames the request as a way to promote tourism in Maharashtra. Option A is wrong because the Tourism Minister did not make this request, even though tourism is the stated purpose. Option C, the Culture Minister, looks after heritage sites of this kind but is not the author of the letter. Option D, the Civil Aviation Minister, handles commercial aviation rather than air force displays, so that option is also incorrect.

The correct answer is Kartavya Bhavan-1 on Dr. Rajendra Prasad Marg in New Delhi, and more precisely the area near its Gate No. 3, where the voluntary cleanliness drive was carried out. The Ministry chose a working government precinct rather than a ceremonial venue, which fits the point it was making: that clean surroundings are the everyday responsibility of the people who use a place.

Option A, Nirman Bhavan, is a familiar seat of central ministries in the capital and therefore a tempting answer, but it was not the site of this drive. Option C, Vigyan Bhavan, is a conference venue in New Delhi and was not involved. Option D, Bharat Mandapam, hosts large national and international events in the capital and had no part in this shramdaan. Only Kartavya Bhavan-1 matches.

The correct answer is Duke University, which is in the United States. Narendra Bhooshan is a graduate in Electronics, and he went on to earn a Master’s degree in International Development Policy from Duke University. His professional training has also included programmes on public finance, on infrastructure and on preparedness for a changing climate, subjects that fit the work of the environment ministry he now heads as Secretary. Options A and D name the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, both in the United Kingdom, and neither awarded him this degree. Option B names Harvard University, which is in the United States like Duke but is not the university named in his academic record. Therefore option C is the only correct choice here.

The correct answer is the District Water and Sanitation Mission, chaired by the District Magistrate. The Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation stressed that villages under the two tribal missions should be reviewed regularly through meetings of this body, which is headed by the Deputy Commissioner or District Magistrate of the district. It is meant to serve as the key platform for coordination between departments, for validating survey findings and for identifying the real coverage gaps that need work. Option B names the District Planning Committee, which handles district plans rather than tap water validation. Option C names the district rural development agency, which implements rural schemes but was not given this role. Option D describes a district water regulatory board under a Divisional Commissioner, a body that does not exist in this arrangement. Hence option A is correct.

The correct answer is the Archaeological Survey of India. The shramdaan and plantation drive named Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath is to be held at Purana Qila in Delhi in coordination with that body, which looks after protected monuments. The other options all appear in the ministry’s campaign activities but in different roles. Option A, the National Archives of India, hosted an earlier shramdaan drive on its own lawns and also a training session on records management, besides an inspection of its record room to mark old files for weeding out. Option C, the National School of Drama, partnered the ministry for a street play on cleanliness, heritage and culture staged at the common lawn of Kartavya Bhavan. Option D is not named among the campaign activities at all. Hence option B is the answer.

The correct answer is that both the Ajanta and the Ellora Caves are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Both are recognised across the world for their outstanding cultural and historical significance, and the minister’s letter drew attention to this standing while proposing them as venues. Option A is incomplete, since it leaves out Ellora, which carries the same recognition. Option C is wrong because Lonar Crater Lake is described as a unique natural formation known for its saline and alkaline water and its crater landscape, not as a World Heritage site. Option D denies recognition that the two cave complexes clearly hold. Candidates should pair the two cave sites together as World Heritage properties of Maharashtra, and keep Lonar separate as a geological attraction in Buldhana district.