UPSC Current Affairs Quiz, 31 July 2026

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. Under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS), notified under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act 2022, entities in specified sectors that reduce their greenhouse gas emission intensity below prescribed targets can generate carbon credit certificates, which are tradeable on power exchanges. Statement 2 is correct. The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) imposes a carbon-cost levy on imports of carbon-intensive goods — including steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen, and electricity — from countries whose domestic carbon pricing is less stringent than the EU's. Indian exporters in steel and aluminium are directly exposed to this cost, making CBAM a significant trade-environment interface issue for India. Statement 3 is incorrect. The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework is NOT a carbon pricing instrument. EPR is a waste-management and circular-economy policy under which producers, importers, and brand owners are legally responsible for the end-of-life collection and recycling (or safe disposal) of their products — typically plastics, e-waste, and tyres. It does not place a cost on greenhouse gas emissions and does not function as a domestic equivalent of CBAM. Conflating EPR with carbon pricing is a common conceptual error: EPR addresses waste externalities, while carbon pricing instruments such as CCTS address emission externalities.

Explanation

Both statements are correct. The NHM, since its inception, has relied heavily on contractual employment — specialists, MBBS doctors, nurses, pharmacists and various paramedical staff are hired on fixed-term or renewable contracts rather than being absorbed as permanent government employees. This keeps personnel costs more flexible for states but leaves workers without the service security of regular government employment. Ayushman Arogya Mandir is indeed the official rebranding and expansion of the Sub-Health Centre and Primary Health Centre network under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, aimed at transforming these facilities into Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) that offer an expanded range of services — including screening for non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health care, and essential medicines — at the community level, going beyond the earlier curative-only model.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The NHRC is empowered under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 to take suo motu cognizance of media reports that prima facie reveal violations of human rights, and may issue notices to state governments requiring a factual or explanatory report. This is one of its core investigative powers. Statement 2 is incorrect. Section 36(2) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 bars the Commission from inquiring into any matter after the expiry of one year from the date on which the act constituting the violation of human rights is alleged to have been committed. The NHRC's jurisdiction is therefore time-limited rather than open-ended — a limitation that has been criticised as excluding older and continuing violations from its reach. Section 36(1) imposes a separate bar, preventing the Commission from inquiring into a matter already pending before a State Human Rights Commission or another statutory commission. Statement 3 is correct. The right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution encompasses the right to health and protection from preventable deaths due to government neglect. The NHRC's mandate covers violations of human rights — which the PHRA defines with reference to rights guaranteed by the Constitution and international covenants — and the Commission regularly examines failures of state health machinery that lead to avoidable fatalities, making this a core part of its operational scope.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. In Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra (1965), the Supreme Court adopted the English Hicklin test — asking whether isolated passages of a work could corrupt the most vulnerable reader — and on that basis upheld the ban on D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover along with the constitutionality of the obscenity provision in the IPC. Statement 2 is correct. In Aveek Sarkar v. State of West Bengal (2014), the Supreme Court formally discarded the Hicklin test and replaced it with a 'community standards' test, under which material is obscene only if it tends to arouse sexual feelings, judged by an average person applying contemporary community standards. Statement 3 is incorrect. The Supreme Court has explicitly held that vulgarity, profanity, and obscenity are NOT legally synonymous. A mere swear word, expletive, or vulgar utterance — however distasteful — does not automatically constitute obscenity in criminal law. For speech to qualify as obscene, it must be shown to be lascivious, i.e., capable of exciting sexual feelings or lust. This distinction between profanity/vulgarity and legal obscenity is a settled constitutional principle under Article 19(2), which permits restrictions on speech on grounds of obscenity but does not permit restriction on crude speech that falls below that threshold.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct: the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 is a legislative reform that amended several Acts — including those related to environmental protection — to decriminalise certain offences by replacing imprisonment with monetary/civil penalties. This is precisely the design of the Act: shifting from criminal to civil liability for specified regulatory violations. Statement 2 is conceptually false: the shift from imprisonment to monetary penalties does NOT strengthen the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle in environmental law is premised on preventing irreversible harm before it occurs; pricing harm and collecting a fine after damage is done is antithetical to this principle. Stronger deterrence through criminal liability (imprisonment) is generally considered more consistent with the precautionary principle, since potential incarceration cannot be 'budgeted for' as a routine cost. Statement 3 is correct: when enforcement reduces to a monetary penalty, a financially powerful project proponent can treat it as a predictable business cost, effectively eroding the deterrent effect of regulation — a recognised critique of the decriminalisation approach.