UPSC Current Affairs Quiz, 12 November 2026

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. India is NOT a member of ASEAN — it has been an ASEAN Dialogue Partner since 1996. Only the ten (now eleven) ASEAN member states hold membership rights under the ASEAN Charter. India engages with ASEAN through the dialogue partnership framework and can request a review of AITIGA through the joint committee mechanism under the agreement itself, not through any ASEAN membership right. Statement 2 is correct. The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a broader regional forum that includes the ten ASEAN states plus invited partner countries such as India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Russia. India participates in the EAS as one of these partner nations, not as an ASEAN member. This distinction is substantively important: India's formal role in the EAS is as an external participating country, not as part of the ASEAN core. Statement 3 is incorrect. AITIGA is a single multilateral trade agreement between India and all ten ASEAN members collectively, not a set of separate bilateral agreements. This is precisely why reviewing it is complex — reaching a consensus among ten (now eleven) countries requires reconciling diverse national interests, as MEA has acknowledged. A network of individual bilateral agreements would not carry this inherent complexity.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. PLI schemes are designed around incremental production and sales targets — incentives are disbursed as a percentage of incremental sales from domestically manufactured products, explicitly aimed at making Indian producers cost-competitive and reducing import dependence in targeted sectors. This is the foundational design principle of the PLI framework across all 14 sectors. Statement 2 is incorrect. A critical limitation identified in assessments of PLI schemes is that higher investment does NOT necessarily translate proportionately into employment generation. Capital-intensive and highly automated industries can attract substantial investment while generating relatively few jobs. This is not a design assumption but rather a known structural gap — the PLI framework is primarily an investment and production incentive, and employment generation is a secondary outcome that depends heavily on the nature of the sector. Statement 3 is correct. Deepening domestic value addition — moving Indian manufacturing from mere assembly of imported components towards producing higher value-added goods domestically — is an explicit structural objective of the PLI schemes. The concern that industries remain dependent on imported high-value components (remaining 'screwdriver' or assembly operations) is a standing policy challenge the PLI framework is designed to address over time.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct: FSSAI, exercising powers under the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSS Act), 2006, has prescribed a maximum Total Polar Compounds (TPC) limit for cooking oil (25% TPC). Oil exceeding this threshold is unfit for human consumption and must be removed from the food chain — this is the scientific and regulatory basis of the RUCO initiative. Statement 2 is correct: The RUCO framework mandates that FBOs registered with FSSAI participate in used cooking oil collection programmes, and that authorised collectors direct UCO exclusively to legitimate industrial uses (such as biodiesel, soap manufacture, or aviation fuel), expressly prohibiting its diversion back into the food supply. Statement 3 is false: FSSAI is a statutory body — created by an Act of Parliament (the FSS Act, 2006) — not a constitutional body. Constitutional bodies are those established directly by provisions of the Constitution of India (such as the Election Commission under Article 324, or the CAG under Article 148). Part XIV of the Constitution deals with services under the Union and States, not food safety regulators. FSSAI derives its existence and powers entirely from the FSS Act, 2006, making it a statutory body whose standards and directions are legally binding by virtue of that statute, not the Constitution.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. VOCs emitted from paints, furniture, and similar household materials are a well-established category of indoor air pollutants. They participate in secondary particulate formation and directly raise indoor pollutant loads — a standard concept in indoor air quality science. Statement 2 is incorrect. The recognised reason children are especially vulnerable to air pollution is that they breathe a greater volume of air relative to their body size compared to adults — meaning they inhale proportionally more pollutants per unit of body mass. This is a core principle in environmental health toxicology. The statement's claim — that anatomical narrowness of airways is the primary vulnerability factor rather than the breathing-rate-to-body-size ratio — inverts the standard scientific explanation. Statement 3 is correct. Scientific evidence has consistently linked PM2.5 exposure to impaired cognitive development in children, including lower scores on reading, mathematics, and IQ assessments. This extends the recognised health burden of particulate matter well beyond the traditional respiratory and cardiovascular domains, making cognitive harm a substantively established effect in environmental health literature.

Explanation

All three pairs are correctly matched under Indian constitutional law. First, Article 213 empowers the Governor to promulgate an Ordinance only when the State Legislature is not in session and the Governor is satisfied that circumstances exist requiring immediate action — both conditions must co-exist. Second, the Governor's Ordinance-making power under Article 213 is not unlimited; an Ordinance can only legislate on subjects within the State Legislature's competence — List II (State List) and concurrent subjects under List III of the Seventh Schedule. The Governor cannot promulgate an Ordinance on a Union List subject. Third, the Supreme Court in D.C. Wadhwa v. State of Bihar (1987) laid down the doctrine that systematic repromulgation of Ordinances — to bypass the Legislature and keep an Ordinance alive indefinitely — is a fraud on the Constitution and is judicially reviewable. The Maharashtra episode (amending the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act via a Governor's Ordinance while the Legislature was not in session) illustrates all three dimensions: the Governor acted during a recess, exercised power over a subject within State legislative competence (cooperative societies), and the act is subject to judicial scrutiny.