UPSC Current Affairs Quiz: 14 September 2026

The correct answer is CIDCO Exhibition Centre, Vashi, Navi Mumbai. The Department of Official Language, which functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs, held the sixth edition of the All India Official Language Conference there together with the Hindi Diwas programme, and the sittings were spread over 14 and 15 September 2026. Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah attended as the chief guest and gave away the Rajbhasha Kirti and Rajbhasha Gaurav Awards at the same venue. Option A is wrong because the conference was not held in the national capital this year, and no sitting took place at Vigyan Bhawan. Option C is wrong for the same reason, as the venue was in Maharashtra and not in New Delhi. Option D is wrong because Gujarat did not host the conference; the Home Minister only mentioned that he himself is a Gujarati speaker who has never found Hindi a barrier in national work. Candidates should link the sixth edition firmly with Navi Mumbai, because the venue is the detail most often asked in examinations.

The correct answer is 4.82 per cent. This is the provisional year on year rate for August 2026 compared with August 2025, worked out on the Consumer Price Index whose base year is 2024 equals 100. Options A and B are wrong because neither figure is the headline combined rate announced for August; candidates who half remember an earlier month or a sector rate tend to fall for them. Option D is wrong because 5.95 per cent is food inflation for August 2026, measured by the Consumer Food Price Index, which is a different series from the general index. The two numbers are put out on the same day and are very easy to mix up, so link the general rate of 4.82 per cent with all items taken together and the higher rate of 5.95 per cent with food alone. Also note that the rural rate of 5.23 per cent and the urban rate of 4.31 per cent sit on either side of the combined headline figure.

The correct answer is 9.92 per cent. That is the provisional year on year wholesale inflation rate announced for August 2026 on the base year 2022-23, and the index for all commodities stood at 110.8 in the same month. Option B is wrong because 9.78 per cent was the rate for July 2026, the month before; since the two figures are close and are printed side by side in the release, candidates who read carelessly often pick the earlier one. Option A is wrong because 8.37 per cent is the inflation rate of the Manufactured Products group alone, not the headline rate for all commodities. Option D is not a figure given in the release at all. A further detail worth carrying into the examination hall is that the final estimate for June 2026 was revised upward from 9.87 per cent to 9.97 per cent, which shows that provisional wholesale numbers are routinely corrected when the response rate improves.

The correct answer is the acceptance of electronic Certificates of Origin. The Protocol provides that a Certificate of Origin issued in electronic form will carry the same legal validity and value as one issued on paper, provided it is issued and signed electronically by duly authorised entities and officials under each side's own domestic law. It does this by amending Article 16 of Annex III of the Preferential Trade Agreement, the annex that holds the Rules of Origin, and it is expected to cut transaction costs and the time spent on issuing and verifying such certificates. Option B is wrong because the Protocol does not touch tariff rates at all; the concessions under the agreement remain at 450 tariff lines on the Indian side and 452 on the MERCOSUR side. Option C is wrong because no currency arrangement was announced. Option D is wrong because education was not part of this trade instrument, which is concerned with paperless trade and modern customs procedures.

The correct answer is the Pokhran Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer. The Vice Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, opened the first edition of Dronathon there, and the same range hosted the live demonstration of the indigenous traffic management system Vayu UTtaM on the opening day. Senior officers of the Ministry of Defence and Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, along with representatives of the Indian Army and the Border Security Force, attended the ceremony. Option B is wrong because no part of the event was held at an air force station near the capital. Option C is wrong because the Chandipur range in Odisha is associated with missile trials rather than this unmanned systems exercise. Option D is wrong for the same reason, as the Suryalanka range is used for air defence practice. Candidates should link Dronathon firmly with Pokhran in Rajasthan, because the venue is the most frequently asked detail in such questions.

The correct answer is Malaysia. Exercise Samudra Laksamana is conducted between the Indian Navy and the Royal Malaysian Navy, and its fourth edition was held at Lumut in Malaysia from 9 to 12 September 2026 with INS Mysore taking part as part of an operational deployment. The three distractors are all Southeast Asian maritime neighbours with which India holds its own naval engagements, which is exactly why they are placed here. Option A is wrong because India's bilateral naval activity with Indonesia is a separate arrangement and is not the one described in this release. Option C is wrong for the same reason, as is option D. The clue lies in the name itself: Laksamana is a Malay word for admiral, and pairing the name with Malaysia is the quickest way to remember the exercise. Note also that the release links this edition to the 12th India-Malaysia Sub Committee Meeting held on 1 July 2026.

The correct answer is the Great Indian Bustard. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the Soft Release Centre for the bird at the facility in Naliya, in the Kachchh district of Gujarat, and the centre carries infrastructure meant to support conservation, monitoring and the gradual adaptation of these birds to the natural environment. The three distractors are all species associated with Gujarat, which is why they are plausible. Option A is wrong because the Asiatic lion is linked with the Gir landscape and not with this facility. Option C is wrong because the Indian wild ass is associated with the Rann, and no such centre was announced for it here. Option D is wrong because sea turtles do not figure in this release at all, although the Minister did visit mangrove and seaweed sites at Jakhau on the same day. Candidates should tie the Great Indian Bustard to Kachchh in Gujarat as well as to the Thar landscape.

The correct answer is 8 lakh words. The Home Minister told the conference that Hindi Shabd Sindhu has now grown to that size, and that it is expected to become the largest dictionary anywhere in the world by 2029. He added that more than 50,000 words drawn from local languages have been folded into it, which he said has made official Hindi more flexible and more inclusive, and that words coined by Veer Savarkar are also being included. Option A is wrong because that figure is far below the size the Minister announced. Option B is also wrong, although candidates sometimes confuse it with the five crore sentences held in the database of the artificial intelligence translation tool Kanthasth 2.0, which is a separate fact from the same speech. Option D is wrong because no such number was mentioned, and the dictionary is expected to keep growing towards the world record only over the next few years. Remember the pair of figures together: 8 lakh words now, and the world's largest dictionary by 2029.

The correct answer is rural 5.23 per cent and urban 4.31 per cent. In August 2026 villages saw prices rise faster than cities, and the release gives these two figures against a combined headline rate of 4.82 per cent. Option A simply reverses the two rates, and reversing rural and urban numbers is the commonest trap set in this kind of question, so the order must be read carefully. Option C is wrong because those are the rural and urban rates of food inflation for the same month, taken from the Consumer Food Price Index rather than from the general index; they are genuine figures but they answer a different question. Option D is wrong because those numbers do not belong to August at all. A useful way to hold all of this together is to note that in this release the rural number is larger than the urban number in both the general series and the food series.

The correct answer is Fuel and Power, which recorded inflation of 22.93 per cent in August 2026. The figure is far above every other group and had itself risen from 20.05 per cent in July 2026, which is why mineral oils containing petroleum products are listed first among the drivers of the month's wholesale inflation. Option A is wrong because Primary Articles recorded 7.76 per cent, and that group actually cooled from 8.52 per cent in the previous month. Option C is wrong because Manufactured Products recorded 8.37 per cent, a slight rise from 8.29 per cent in July. Option D is wrong because All Commodities is not a major group at all but the headline aggregate, and its rate was 9.92 per cent. The group indices are worth memorising alongside the rates: 118.1 for Primary Articles, 108.3 for Fuel and Power, and 108.8 for Manufactured Products.

The correct answer is 1 June 2009. Candidates must keep two dates apart here, because both appear in the same sentence of the release. Option A, 25 January 2004, is the date on which the Preferential Trade Agreement was signed, and a gap of more than five years separated signature from entry into force. Option C is wrong because 27 November 2025 was the date of the fourth meeting of the Joint Administrative Committee of the agreement, where both sides first supported the idea of allowing digital Certificates of Origin. Option D is wrong because 9 April 2026 was the date of the fifth meeting of the same Committee, at which the proposal for the Additional Protocol was adopted by mutual consent. Reading the four dates as a single sequence helps: signed in 2004, in force in 2009, idea supported in 2025, proposal adopted in 2026 and the Protocol signed in September 2026.

The correct answer is an indigenous Unmanned Traffic Management system. Vayu UTtaM is described as an indigenously developed multi mode system, and during its real time demonstration at the Pokhran range it detected and tracked both military and civil unmanned aircraft. Its purpose is to allow coordinated management of drone flights in increasingly crowded airspace and to help identify and deal with unauthorised or rogue drones in good time. The release also notes that its uses may go well beyond the military, into airspace safety, protection of critical infrastructure, civil aviation and public safety. Option A is wrong because Vayu UTtaM does not fly or carry weapons; it manages the traffic of systems that do. Option C is wrong because no missile was part of this event. Option D is wrong because it is not a satellite and has nothing to do with weather forecasting, though the confusion between an airborne platform and a management system is a common one.

The correct answer is INS Mysore. The ship was deployed as part of the Indian Navy's operational deployment and took part in the fourth edition of the exercise at Lumut in Malaysia. During the operational phase at sea it exercised with two ships of the Royal Malaysian Navy, KD Lekir and KD Gagah Samudera, and the ships carried out coordinated manoeuvres meant to improve interoperability and operational coordination. Option A is wrong because the aircraft carrier was not named in this release. Option C is wrong because that ship did not feature in this engagement, though ships of its class are regularly deployed for such exercises. Option D is wrong on the same ground. Candidates should pair the ship with the exercise and with the venue, since examiners often frame the question the other way round and ask which exercise INS Mysore was deployed for.

The correct answer is 33. The Minister flagged off that many new patrolling and rescue vehicles, and they are to be used across various divisions under the Kachchh Forest Circle for forest protection, forest development, wildlife protection, field patrolling, monitoring and quick response work. The other options are drawn from figures that appear elsewhere in the same release, which is what makes them tempting. Option A is wrong because 15 square kilometres is the area covered by the predator proof fencing raised in the bustard landscape. Option D is wrong because 47 is the number of native species planted at the Sayara Van Kavach, not a count of vehicles. Option B does not correspond to any figure in the release. When several numbers appear in one news item, the safest method is to attach each number to its own noun: 11 square kilometres of grassland restored, 30 kilometres of fencing, 15 square kilometres enclosed, 33 vehicles and 47 species.

The correct answer is the Department of Financial Services. It was placed first under Rajbhasha Kirti for the year 2025-26 in the category meant for ministries and departments having fewer than 300 employees, and the citation praised its effective use and innovative handling of official Hindi. Additional Secretary Hari Har Mishra collected the award from the Union Home Minister. Option B is wrong, but only just: the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances was given the special Rajbhasha Utkrishtata Sammaan instead, because it had already stood first for two years in a row, in 2023-24 and in 2024-25, and the rules bar a department from taking the prize again in the following year. Option C is wrong because the Department of Official Language is the body that confers these awards rather than a contender for them. Option D is wrong because the postal department was not named among the winners in this release.

The correct answer is silver jewellery, which stood first among the key items with high inflation in August 2026. Option B is wrong because ginger came second on that list, below silver jewellery. Option A is wrong because onion was placed third. Option D is wrong because garlic was fourth, and jewellery of gold, diamond and platinum was fifth, which means that two of the five fastest rising items were forms of jewellery. Candidates should also remember the other end of the table, since paper setters often ask about the items that grew cheaper instead: tomato recorded the steepest fall, followed by potato, then motor car and jeep, then lady's finger, and finally parwal and kundru. Learning the order in both tables is worth the effort, because questions are set either on the item that rose most or on the item that fell most, and the two lists are published together every month.

The correct answer is a weight of 24.99 per cent with inflation of 7.05 per cent. The WPI Food Index is not a major group on its own; it is built by taking Food Articles out of the Primary Articles group and the manufacture of food products out of the Manufactured Products group, and putting them together. Option B is wrong on both counts: 22.93 per cent is the inflation of the Fuel and Power group rather than any weight, and 6.65 per cent was the Food Index rate in July 2026, the previous month. Option C gives the right weight but attaches the headline all commodities rate of 9.92 per cent to it, which belongs to the whole index and not to food alone. Option D invents a weight that does not appear in the release. Note the direction of movement as well, since food inflation in the wholesale series climbed from 6.65 per cent in July to 7.05 per cent in August.

The correct answer is Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal, who signed for the Government of India. Option A is wrong, and it is the trap in this question: Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, features in the same day's news, but his role was to announce jointly with Uruguay the launch of negotiations for expanding the Preferential Trade Agreement, not to sign the Protocol. Option C is wrong because Mario Lubetkin, the Foreign Minister of Uruguay, was present in the exercise of the Pro Tempore Presidency of MERCOSUR and witnessed the signing rather than signing himself. Option D is wrong in a different way: Alberto Guani, the Ambassador of Uruguay to India, did sign, but for the MERCOSUR side and not for India, along with Fleming Raul Duarte Ramos, the Ambassador of Paraguay. Representatives from the embassies of Argentina and Brazil were also present at the ceremony.

The correct answer is the Vice Chief of the Air Staff, who released the IAF UAS Roadmap. The officer holding that post is Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, and he both opened the event and put out the roadmap, which is meant to give Indian industry a clearer view of the capability priorities of the Air Force. The roadmap is also intended to help industry, academia and research organisations line up their work with what the force will need from unmanned airborne systems in the years ahead. Option A is wrong because the Chief of Defence Staff did not inaugurate the event, although senior officers of Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff were present. Option C is wrong because the Defence Minister was not named as releasing any document here. Option D is wrong because it was the Vice Chief and not the Chief of the Air Staff, and the document concerned unmanned systems rather than air power doctrine as a whole.

The correct answer is that the exercise had a harbour phase and an operational phase at sea. In the harbour phase the personnel of the two navies held professional exchanges and interactions, which let them share experience and build mutual understanding. The engagement then moved to sea, where INS Mysore exercised with the Royal Malaysian Navy ships KD Lekir and KD Gagah Samudera and the ships undertook coordinated manoeuvres. Option A is wrong precisely because the harbour phase came first and is described in some detail. Option C is wrong because Samudra Laksamana is a bilateral exercise between India and Malaysia, not a gathering of several navies. Option D is wrong because the venue was Lumut in Malaysia and not an Indian port. The two phase structure, harbour followed by sea, is common to many of India's bilateral naval exercises and is worth remembering as a pattern.

The correct answer is the Miyawaki method, which raises dense, multi layered forest in a small space. The Sayara Van Kavach has been developed over a site of 9.46 square kilometres and holds more than 10,000 saplings across 47 native species chosen to suit the saline, low water conditions of Kachchh. It is expected to lower local temperatures, help recharge groundwater, check soil erosion and give birds, insects and small wildlife a natural habitat, besides serving eco tourism, environmental education and local employment. Option B is wrong because the taungya method interplants crops with young trees and is a plantation practice of a different kind. Option C is wrong because coppicing regenerates trees from cut stumps rather than raising a new dense patch. Option D is wrong because the shelterwood system is a technique of regeneration under an existing canopy. The Minister praised the Van Kavach model as a green protective shield developed around human settlements.