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January 2026
January 2026's current affairs recap — 155 topics across 11 subjects, curated by Vaidra's editorial team and tagged for UPSC Prelims and Mains.
Q1. How many times has a Delimitation Commission been constituted in India?
Q2. India's rank on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025, per the passage, is:
Q3. Which body took suo motu cognizance of the Indore contaminated water crisis?
Q4. The Task Force was constituted under which policy framework?
Q5. Census 2027 will be India's how-many-th Census overall, and how many-th since Independence?
Q6. What body will function as a Professional Standard Setting Body for architecture under the VBSA framework?
Q7. The SC directed that suicide data for which age group be centrally maintained under the Sample Registration System?
Q8. Lack of sanitary products in schools was held to affect which other constitutional right, besides Articles 21 and 14?
Q9. In which years were no Padma Awards conferred, per the historical record?
Q10. The Lokpal's jurisdiction over the Prime Minister excludes matters relating to:
Q11. Which country permits assisted suicide even by non-physicians?
Q12. Removal of a Vigilance Commissioner for misbehaviour or incapacity requires:
Q13. The 2025 disposal rate for Fast Track Special Courts was how many cases/month/court, versus regular courts?
Q14. Which countries did the Ministry facilitate inter-parliamentary exchanges with in 2025?
Q15. Under which two laws does the ED primarily operate, per the case's discussion?
Q16. What are the '3Fs' that the 73rd Amendment mandates devolving to Panchayats?
Q17. Good Governance Day, observed on 25 December, commemorates the birth anniversary of:
Q18. Which Supreme Court case clarified that medical practitioner services fall under the Consumer Protection Act?
Q19. The Chakma people are which numerically-ranked Scheduled Tribe in Mizoram?
Q20. What proposed body would ensure secure, standardised recruitment exams for SPSCs?
Q21. Which country became a republic in 2021, leaving the Commonwealth's monarchies?
Q1. The Responsible Nations Index shifts the global discourse from Power to:
Q2. India's FTA with which country was concluded in December 2025, completing its RCEP-minus-China FTA coverage?
Q3. The India-EU FTA opens EU market access for which traditional Indian sector for the first time?
Q4. The US justified its Venezuela operation partly by arguing that President Maduro was not the legitimate head of state after which event?
Q5. What is the 'Albedo Effect' associated with Greenland's ice sheet?
Q6. The US withdrawal is expected to leave what approximate budget shortfall for UNFCCC/IPCC?
Q7. The Board of Peace is seen as a shift toward which kind of institution, over universal multilateralism?
Q8. 'Value-Based Realism', as described in the Carney Doctrine, rests fundamentally on:
Q9. Which body publishes the Global Risk Report?
Q10. Pax Silica is led by which country?
Q11. Which 2022 agreement helped push India-UAE bilateral trade to nearly $100 billion by FY2024-25?
Q12. Which body do India and Germany plan to reform jointly, as part of global governance cooperation?
Q13. The BBNJ Agreement primarily governs which ocean zones?
Q14. India's objection to CPEC projects in the Shaksgam Valley is based on the claim that:
Q15. Somaliland is strategically important to Israel primarily as a potential:
Q16. What did the UN report find regarding sexual violence during Sri Lanka's civil war?
Q17. India's reluctance to criticise Israel's strikes on Iran caused friction within which two groupings?
Q1. In FY24, how many states were in revenue surplus versus revenue deficit, per the CAG report?
Q2. Nearly what share of states running UCT schemes are expected to face revenue deficits?
Q3. Which two spending categories are highlighted as central to the demographic-transition state-finance discussion?
Q4. Which of these is a Small State/NE/UT top performer in EPI 2024?
Q5. By how much did PPPAC-approved project cost rise between FY23 and FY26 (to Nov)?
Q6. What does the National Infrastructure Enablement Index assess?
Q7. What new feature was added to the CPI housing index for the first time?
Q8. How many jobs has the NIDHI programme created?
Q9. What structural factor is cited as a driver of duopoly in telecom?
Q10. Under NPA classification, a 'Doubtful' asset is one that has remained substandard for how long?
Q11. What is the PSL target for domestic and large foreign banks, per the revised 2025 directions?
Q12. The global minimum tax package aims primarily to curb which practice?
Q13. What is coking coal primarily used for in steel production?
Q14. Rice cultivation requires standing water for what share of its growing season?
Q15. What is the maximum outstanding guaranteed exposure per exporter per year under the collateral support scheme?
Q16. Which Indian export sectors are most exposed to higher costs from CBAM?
Q17. How did government pension liabilities under the Old Pension System (OPS) grow?
Q18. What is the total outlay of the Semicon India Programme, under which DLI operates?
Q19. Which two chilli-related products does China focus on, per its spice-market strategy?
Q20. What is the main benefit of CAT bonds for governments?
Q21. Since 2021, what structural shift has weakened the petrodollar system's foundation?
Q22. The Supreme Court held that the 'head and brain' of the relevant entities in the Tiger Global case lay in:
Q23. What was the Centre's gross and net borrowing scale in FY26, for comparison with states?
Q24. Since when has VDA activity been covered under the PMLA, 2002?
Q25. NITI Aayog's report recommends converging which two cluster-development schemes?
Q26. Which five states together produce over half of India's milk output?
Q27. What percentage of GDP do logistics costs represent in India (2023-24)?
Q28. SASCE loans to states are structured as:
Q29. Which sector led India's Real GVA growth in the First Advance Estimates?
Q30. Which two states are most affected by rice-driven aquifer over-exploitation?
Q31. India is 100% import-dependent for how many critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt and nickel?
Q32. How much did the Bank of India raise through infrastructure bonds, against how large a base issue?
Q33. Despite record exports, what happened to manufacturing's employment share?
Q34. An OMO sale of government securities has what effect on liquidity?
Q35. How much has India's installed power capacity grown since 2014?
Q36. What share of GDP does private consumption represent, per the report?
Q37. Which BRICS country's CBDC pilot, the Digital Ruble, is at a 'limited use' stage?
Q38. The India-New Zealand FTA is India's how-many-th trade deal since 2021, and which Five Eyes partner number?
Q39. Which international body raised its 2025 growth forecast for India to 6.6%?
Q40. What was India's Gross NPA ratio as of September 2025, per the Economic Survey?
Q41. Until which year does the Budget grant a tax holiday to foreign companies providing cloud services via Indian data centres?
Q1. The Shaksgam Valley is bounded by which two mountain ranges?
Q2. What share of India's defence budget allocation goes toward capital expenditure, per the cited figure?
Q3. Jam-proof navigation for missiles and submarines under the Military Quantum Mission relies on which technology?
Q4. The LR-AShM is described as India's first:
Q5. Which agency coordinates India's new SOP on cyber financial frauds?
Q6. Which vision expanded India's SAGAR framework to a broader global scale?
Q7. NATGRID's data access spans which categories of sensitivity?
Q8. What conviction rate did the NIA report in 2025 for counter-terror cases?
Q9. What is the monthly pay range for Agniveers, and what happens to 30% of it?
Q10. Under Section 15 of UAPA, the minimum punishment for a 'terrorist act' is:
Q11. Operation Crystal Fortress, mentioned in the MHA Year-End Review 2025, involved the seizure of:
Q12. The Akash-NG missile is designed to intercept which types of targets?
Q1. The SWM Rules, 2026 supersede which earlier rules?
Q2. The 2013 Chorabari GLOF caused flooding in which river, in Uttarakhand?
Q3. What does NPV (Net Present Value) in this context compensate for?
Q4. The Carbon Credit Trading Scheme operates on which model?
Q5. The Arctic Council, which coordinates regional cooperation, was established in which year?
Q6. The Chhari-Dhand Wetland Reserve lies on the edge of which grassland?
Q7. Besides being a National Park and Tiger Reserve, Kaziranga also holds which other designations?
Q8. Which dolphin species is known for its distinctive water-spitting behaviour?
Q9. In a typical winter, which region receives snowfall first from an eastward-moving Western Disturbance?
Q10. A common policy gap in grassland conservation is that grasslands are often misclassified as:
Q11. The white-bellied heron's conservation status under IUCN is:
Q12. Which two Indian cities were declared India's first Ramsar Wetland Cities?
Q13. What replaced binding emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol, weakening accountability under the Paris Agreement?
Q14. The Western Ghats ESA designation, based on the Kasturirangan approach, is divided into how many sensitivity zones?
Q15. Which policy positions Climate-Resilient Agriculture as a national priority area for scaling biotechnology-led solutions?
Q16. Which existing hydropower plants are already part of the Chenab River cascade, alongside Dulhasti Stage-II?
Q17. GRAP Stage III ('Severe', AQI 401-450) allows for which specific measure?
Q18. What annual investment does UNEP estimate is needed to meet global NbS goals by 2025?
Q19. Which Indian Coast Guard initiative enforces fishing bans to protect olive ridley turtles?
Q20. Climate models had predicted the Southern Ocean's carbon-sink capacity would weaken due to:
Q21. Which energy source contributed the second-largest share of India's new renewable capacity by December 2025, after solar?
Q1. A scramjet engine improves on a ramjet by enabling combustion at:
Q2. PSLV set a world record in 2017 by launching how many satellites in a single mission?
Q3. What is cited as a likely root cause of PSLV's repeated third-stage failures?
Q4. LVM3 can carry how much payload to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, versus Low Earth Orbit?
Q5. What is the main economic constraint on reusable rockets, per the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation?
Q6. Which committee brings together NASA, ESA and ISRO to develop technical space-debris standards?
Q7. India's first private EO satellite constellation project is structured under which model?
Q8. Which body is developing a global regulatory framework for deep-sea mining?
Q9. India's new Gujarat BSL-4 lab is the country's:
Q10. Freshwater sponges studied in the Sundarban delta show potential as tools for:
Q11. Which global peer is cited as a comparable marine biotech leader for seaweed farming?
Q12. Antimicrobial nanoparticle coatings (silver, copper, zinc oxide) on medical devices primarily aim to prevent:
Q13. DHRUV64 is which chip in India's DIR-V lineage of fabricated processors?
Q14. The de-licensing of the 6 GHz band is expected to remove regulatory uncertainty for products such as:
Q15. What is a 'Lighthouse' factory, as cited in the IR 4.0 context?
Q16. Which challenge most affects Kharif crop and flood assessment during the monsoon, per remote sensing limitations?
Q17. Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) are valued for providing:
Q1. The Somnath Temple is revered as which of the following?
Q2. Swami Vivekananda represented Hinduism at which 1893 international event?
Q3. Ahilyabai Holkar is especially revered in Varanasi by which community?
Q4. Dong village, known for its Sunrise Festival, lies on the bank of which river?
Q5. The Apabhramsa school of miniature painting, known for fish-shaped eyes and pointed noses, developed in which region?
Q6. Srimanta Sankardeva's Bhakti practice centred on which twin pillars?
Q7. Which of the Five Takhts of Sikhism marks the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh?
Q8. Subhash Chandra Bose was elected Congress president in which years?
Q1. Under the Atal Pension Yojana, what happens if a subscriber exits voluntarily before age 60?
Q2. Which of the following is a precondition for a state/UT's street vendors to be covered under PM SVANidhi?
Q3. The Prime Minister's Internship Scheme (PMIS) offers internships primarily in:
Q4. The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee For Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 raises the statutory employment guarantee under the rural employment scheme to how many days?
09Social Issues18 topics
Flashcards — flip to test recall
Quick quiz
Q1. As per the Economic Survey 2025-26, roughly what share of gig workers earn below ₹15,000/month?
Q2. The Orange (creative) economy, as highlighted in youth-nation-building discussions, contributes about how much to India's exports?
Q3. China's total births in 2025, as reported, fell to approximately:
Q4. Which UNESCO initiative provides a global resource for addressing AI ethics challenges?
Q5. The Nipah virus belongs to which genus and family?
Q6. India's higher education GER rose from 27.1 in 2019-20 to approximately what in 2022-23?
Q7. The Namo Drone Didi scheme is associated with which broader rural initiative?
Q8. According to the Lancet UHC report, which frontline health workers are underutilised due to HR policies emphasising degrees over competencies?
Q9. Why did the Supreme Court issue an interim stay on the UGC (Promotion of Equity) Regulations, 2026?
Q10. According to UN DESA estimates, what share of India's population is projected to live in cities by 2050?
Q11. The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling relevant to BVMB (Society for Enlightenment and Voluntary Action case) specifically banned:
Q12. Approximately what share of the world's child brides does India account for?
Q13. Which 2024 Karnataka High Court ruling upheld a transgender right?
Q14. How many acid attacks were reported in India in 2023, per the cited NCRB data?