UPSC Current Affairs Quiz, 9 October 2026

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The Election Commission of India is a constitutional body established under Article 324, which vests in it the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, to the Legislature of every State, and of elections to the offices of President and Vice President of India. Statement 2 is incorrect because the State Election Commission and the Election Commission of India do not share concurrent or overlapping jurisdiction over municipal and panchayat elections. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (Articles 243K and 243ZA respectively) created a separate and independent State Election Commission exclusively for conducting elections to Panchayats and Municipalities. The ECI has no role in these local body elections, and the State Election Commission has no role in elections to Parliament, State Legislatures, or the Presidency. Their jurisdictions are constitutionally distinct, not concurrent. This distinction is directly relevant to the present controversy: the Kozhikode Corporation Council — a municipal body — passed a resolution concerning the Chief Election Commissioner of the ECI, an authority that conducts elections entirely outside the local body's own electoral governance.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DRSCs) are constitutionally recognised instruments of legislative oversight. They routinely examine the functioning of ministries, departments, and bodies under their purview — including autonomous agencies — and submit reports with observations and recommendations to Parliament. The 382nd Report on NTA is a direct example of this oversight in action. Statement 2 is incorrect. The NTA is not a statutory body created by an Act of Parliament. It was established in 2017 as a registered society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, under the aegis of the Ministry of Education. Its mandate under the National Education Policy 2020 framework is executive in nature, not legislative. The Parliamentary Standing Committee itself has recommended that an appropriate parliamentary framework be introduced to formalise NTA's accountability to Parliament — precisely because such a framework does not currently exist in statute. Statement 3 is correct. The authority of Parliamentary Committees to scrutinise the executive and bodies under its control flows from the fundamental constitutional principle of collective ministerial responsibility to the House of the People (Article 75(3)), which makes the executive answerable to the legislature. Standing Committees operationalise this accountability on a continuous basis between sessions of Parliament.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The GST Council is established under Article 279A of the Constitution of India (inserted by the 101st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2016), making it a constitutional body — not merely a statutory one. Its mandate includes making recommendations on GST rates, exemptions, threshold limits, model GST laws, and principles governing the place of supply. Statement 2 is also correct. A structural tension in the ITC framework is the 'broken-chain' problem: a downstream buyer is entitled to ITC on tax charged to them by a seller, but if the seller fails to deposit that tax with the government, the buyer's ITC claim becomes disputed. This is a well-known compliance challenge — the GST Council's recent deliberations on enabling ITC for buyers even when the seller has not paid the tax directly reflect this static-knowledge issue about ITC mechanics.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. Under the expenditure method of measuring GDP/GSDP, the economy's output is measured by summing all expenditures on final goods and services. The standard components are: Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE — household spending), Government Final Consumption Expenditure (GFCE — government current spending on goods and services), Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF — investment in fixed assets), changes in inventories, acquisitions of valuables, and net exports (exports minus imports). These are the building blocks of the expenditure-side identity: GDP = C + G + I + (X – M). Statement 2 is incorrect. The expenditure approach does not replace the production (value-added) or income approach — it is a complementary method. National accounts frameworks use all three approaches (production, income, and expenditure) in an integrated manner; each provides a different analytical lens on the same underlying economic activity, and together they strengthen the overall national accounts architecture. Compiling GSDP from the expenditure side supplements — it does not substitute — estimates made from the production or income sides.

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. In Babulal Parate v. State of Maharashtra (1961), the Supreme Court did NOT strike down Section 144 CrPC (the predecessor to BNSS Section 163) as unconstitutional. Instead, it upheld the constitutional validity of the provision, while stressing that the power can be invoked only in genuine emergencies to prevent specific threats to public order and is not 'unlimited or untrammelled'. The falsity in Statement 1 lies in inverting the Court's holding — the Court validated the section but conditioned its exercise, it did not invalidate it. Statement 2 is correct. In Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court set aside a National Green Tribunal order that had banned all protests along Jantar Mantar Road. The Court held that a blanket prohibition went further than necessary and directed authorities to frame a regulated permission mechanism — the solution was not to ban demonstrations altogether but to manage them through a structured framework. Statement 3 is correct. The statutory design of Section 144 CrPC (now BNSS Section 163) limits each order to a maximum duration of two months, after which it must lapse. The Delhi High Court in the Bhanwar Singh case specifically held that Section 144 'cannot be repeatedly extended' and must lapse within this statutory period. Empirical research on Delhi's orders found that almost every order was mechanically re-issued the moment the two-month limit expired — a practice courts have flagged as contrary to the provision's character as an exceptional, time-limited emergency power.