UPSC Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: 12–18 October 2026

The Ministry of Jal Shakti review records that compliance among grossly polluting industries in the Ganga basin climbed from 39% in 2017 to 86% in 2025, a steady gain produced by annual inspection, independent technical assessment and sector charters.

The Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav, announced on 15 October 2026 that the national tally of Ramsar sites had reached 103 once Sukhna Wetland in Chandigarh and Sauj Jheel in Uttar Pradesh were taken into the list.

This is the statutory body that reviewed enforcement action, inspection findings and compliance across the National Capital Region at the 141st meeting of its Enforcement Task Force.

The court set up the High Powered Enquiry Committee to enquire into all aspects of the incidents of violence at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and at places outside Delhi during July 2026, and the Committee has now opened a portal so that affected persons, including affected police personnel, can send…

The Ministry of Coal placed the stock at domestic coal-based power plants at 18.205 MT on 10 October 2026, which is why the ministry could say that the level has not fallen below 18 MT at any time since 29 September 2026, when the reading was 18.932 MT.

The Technology Development Board, which works under the Department of Science and Technology, signed its agreement with this Bengaluru company in Karnataka and committed Rs 86 crore from the Research Development and Innovation Fund towards the VIGOR programme, whose full cost is Rs 172 crore.

The programmes were spread over that many places in thirty-four States on a single day, and more than three and a half lakh young people and other citizens joined them.

The correct answer is the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, abbreviated as IGNFA, which is conducting the nineteenth Phase-III course from the twelfth of October to the sixth of November in 2026 for sixty-eight officers drawn from eighteen cadres.

Athletes of the three Services returned from the Asian Games in Japan with 27 medals, broken up as 6 gold, 11 silver and 10 bronze, which is the best the defence forces have ever managed at the event.

The MoU signed alongside the launch of Bharat Rice gives the Army a formal framework to use identified FCI warehouses, labour resources and material-handling equipment when operations require them, and it holds for five years with the option of extension by mutual consent.

The idea was to put data held by different ministries, states and union territories onto one Geographic Information System platform so that road, rail, port, airport, waterway and utility networks could be planned together instead of in isolation.

PM-SETU, which stands for Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs, is a flagship scheme with that total outlay, and it seeks to change vocational education through deep industry participation and institutional reform.

The seminar was held on 9 October 2026 at the Air Force Auditorium, Subroto Park, New Delhi, while this multinational flying exercise was under way, so the participating teams moved from flying sorties to a conceptual discussion on doctrine.

Together they form the regulatory framework for clinical establishments, and the Rules require that the rate charged for each type of service and each facility be displayed at a conspicuous place, in the local language as well as in English.

The correct answer is Gaya in Bihar, which secured first position among the best-performing districts when the scheme completed its first year.

The correct answer is 5.54 per cent, the provisional year-on-year rate for September 2026 measured against September 2025 at the all-India combined level.

The correct answer is Shared Stories, Shared Futures, the theme under which the three-day festival opened at the National School of Drama in New Delhi and runs from 12 to 14 October 2026.

The correct answer is Ahmedabad in Gujarat, where the games were staged at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in the Naranpura area on 12 October 2026.

The Union Health Minister performed the Bhumi Pujan and laid the foundation stone there, and a former Chief Minister of the state as well as the Member of Parliament from Mandi spoke at the ceremony.

The Empowered Group of Secretaries approved the cohort at its meeting on 8 October 2026, and the nineteen are made up of two kinds of institution: 14 Alternative Investment Funds and 5 Focused Research Organisations.

INS Tarkash, a frontline guided missile stealth frigate of the Indian Navy, has been sent on an overseas deployment to South Africa to join the ninth edition of the India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime Exercise.

The National Human Rights Commission was set up on 12 October of that year, and the Commission therefore observes 12 October as its foundation day; this year it marked the 33rd such occasion at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, where it also held a national conference on the right to…

The report for the quarter ending June 2026 records this as the total of wireless and wireline connections, a rise of 1.31 per cent over the previous quarter and of 10.65 per cent over the same quarter a year earlier.

Addressing the business plenary of the 16th India-UK Joint Economic and Trade Committee, the Minister asked businesses in both countries to aim at doubling bilateral trade by the end of this decade, noting that about 1,500 days were left to work with.

The Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change inaugurated the premises, and the Director General of the Alliance welcomed the guests with an account of its activities and programmes.

The inaugural function of the assembly was held there, and the institute's Director delivered the opening keynote on modelling the monsoon and on narrowing the gap between how far the monsoon can be predicted in principle and the skill of actual forecasts.

The ship was designed in India and constructed by that yard, and it carries more than 80 per cent indigenous content, which the Navy cites as evidence of India's own strength in warship design, construction and systems integration.

The Council met in New Delhi with Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State with Independent Charge for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, on the Indian side and Jonathan Reynolds, the British Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Trade, on the other.

A team of seventeen climbers of the Indian Coast Guard reached the summit of Mount Mukut at that height on 7 October 2026, working through extreme weather on the way up.

The Ministry of Rural Development is holding the fair at Punnami Ghat in that city, working with the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty of Andhra Pradesh, and this is the first time the National SARAS Mela has been staged outside Delhi and the National Capital Region.