Daily Current Affairs MCQ: 18 October 2026

Answer: (b) Article 371J. Added by the 98th Amendment Act, 2012, it allows a development board and local reservation for the Kalyana-Karnataka (old Hyderabad-Karnataka) region. 371H is Arunachal Pradesh, 371I is Goa and 371D is Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Ladakh's proposed Article 371K would be the next chapter.

Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only. Article 371A (Nagaland) and Article 371G (Mizoram) contain this Assembly-resolution shield. Article 371F (Sikkim) protects Sikkim's old laws and reserved seats but has no such clause. Ladakh's draft talks of safeguards on the lines of all three.

Answer: (a) 1 and 2 only. Article 244(2) applies the Sixth Schedule to these four States, and paragraph 2 provides councils of up to 30 members with up to 4 nominated. Statement 3 is wrong: Ladakh is not in the Sixth Schedule; that is exactly what it is demanding.

Answer: (d) 6 hours. The Directions, issued under Section 70B(6) of the IT Act, 2000, also require ICT system logs to be kept for 180 days within India. Not following a CERT-In direction is punishable under Section 70B(7) with up to one year in jail, a fine of up to ₹1 lakh, or both.

Answer: (b) NCIIPC. Section 70A covers Critical Information Infrastructure such as power grids, banking and telecom; NCIIPC works under the National Technical Research Organisation. CERT-In (Section 70B) handles incident response for everyone, the Data Protection Board enforces the DPDP Act, 2023, and I4C (under the Home Ministry) fights cyber crime.

Answer: (c) Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Schedule I lists the Water Act, Water Cess Act, Forest (Conservation) Act, Air Act, Environment (Protection) Act, Public Liability Insurance Act and Biological Diversity Act. Wildlife and forest rights cases go to regular courts. The NGT was set up on 18 October 2010, exactly 16 years ago today.

Answer: (a) Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum (1996). Tamil Nadu tanneries had polluted farms and wells with chromium-laden waste; the Court applied both principles and ordered compensation. Subhash Kumar (1991) read the right to pollution-free water into Article 21; the Oleum case gave absolute liability; Godavarman is the forest case. Section 20 of the NGT Act now writes these principles into law.

Answer: (a) 4-2-1-3. GSOMIA (2002), LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018, signed at the first 2+2 dialogue) and BECA (2020). These four are called the foundational agreements. India was named a Major Defence Partner in 2016.

Answer: (b) 1 and 2 only. Entry 14 of List I covers treaties and Entry 41 foreign trade. Article 253 overrides the distribution of subjects for implementing treaties. Statement 3 is wrong: the Constitution has no rule requiring parliamentary ratification; the Union signs treaties under its executive power (Article 73), and Parliament legislates only when Indian law must change.

Answer: (c) Inland Vessels Act, 2021. It replaced the Inland Vessels Act, 1917 and brought one law for the whole country on registration, survey, crew and safety of inland vessels. The National Waterways Act, 2016 only declared 111 national waterways. Many small country boats like the one in Vaishali fall outside proper checks, which is why such tragedies repeat.