Current Affairs Quiz: 18 October 2026

The Ministry of Defence has said that the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation takes place in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on 19 and 20 October 2026, and that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh travels there to speak for India.

It is a science and technology organisation under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and it held the conclave on AI for Health and Assistive Technologies jointly with the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship of IIT (BHU) on the institute's campus at Varanasi.

Kufri Jamunia, the purple-fleshed biofortified potato developed by the ICAR-Central Potato Research Institute, was officially released in that year, and it carries higher ascorbic acid, anthocyanin and carotenoid levels than the institute's two earlier coloured varieties.

That is the gross weight of crystal methamphetamine the agency recovered from a coastal village in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu, in what is described as one of the biggest narcotics seizures in the state's coastal region in recent years.

The district in Uttarakhand has been notified as a Cold Water Fisheries Cluster under the scheme, and the Secretary of the Department of Fisheries reviewed its progress on the spot at Munsyari.

Rajnath Singh, who holds the defence portfolio, visits Dushanbe in Tajikistan to speak for India at the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on 19 and 20 October 2026.

Shri S. Krishnan spoke in that capacity, holding that artificial intelligence can make health care easier to reach, strengthen clinical decision-making and improve the delivery of services, particularly for communities with little access to health facilities.

The flesh of Kufri Jamunia holds that much Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, in every 100 grams, which is nearly double what a conventional yellow-skinned potato offers.

The intelligence that set off the operation said the narcotics had been brought to a coastal location in Nagapattinam for storage and onward smuggling, and the handover was to take place at sea rather than at any port.

That is the outlay of the state's own trout scheme, under which Uttarakhand plans 1,500 raceways, 100 mini hatcheries and 600 cold-storage facilities by 2028-29.

The fields set out for the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government are the strengthening of multilateral cooperation among the member countries in trade, the economy, investment, connectivity, innovation and cultural as well as humanitarian exchange; the delegations are also to review how ongoing cooperation programmes are…

Shri Arvind Kumar, Director General of STPI, said at the conclave that the organisation has had a pivotal part in the growth of the country's industry in information technology and IT-enabled services since that year, and that the same success can now be repeated in artificial intelligence through innovation and…

That is the yield the variety returns when the recommended package of practices is followed, and nearly 90% of what is produced in trials proved marketable.

Crystal methamphetamine is a banned synthetic drug, and both the seizure of the consignment and the arrest of the four accused were made under the provisions of that statute; all four were remanded to judicial custody.

The state's fisheries department sent its first consignment of trout abroad to the neighbouring country, an achievement the Secretary described as opening new avenues of international trade for hill farmers.