UPSC Current Affairs 13 May 2026

• Dates & Venue: The four-day conference is scheduled from May 11 to May 14, 2026, at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, India.
• Leadership: The meeting is being presided over by the designated KP Chair 2026, Shri Suchindra Misra.
• Participants: Attendees include senior officials from India's Department of Commerce, international KP member delegates, the World Diamond Council, and Civil Society Coalition members.

• The 3Cs: India's foundational focus for this year rests entirely on three pillars:
  • Credibility
  • Compliance
  • Consumer Confidence

• Certification Scheme: Reviewing the ongoing implementation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS).
• Compliance Checks: Strengthening peer reviews, monitoring frameworks, and statistical diamond trade data reporting.
• Production Integrity: Focusing heavily on artisanal and alluvial diamond production to safeguard the livelihoods of miners, particularly in developing regions.
• Traceability Solutions: Discussing collaborative methodologies to prevent the mixing or laundering of conflict-laden stones into legal supplies.

• Origin: It was initiated following United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/56 (2000) and formally established in 2003 to eradicate the trade of "conflict diamonds" (rough diamonds used by rebel groups to finance wars against legitimate governments).
• Structure: It operates as a unique tripartite international forum combining governments, the diamond industry, and civil society.
• Global Reach: It comprises 60 participants representing 86 countries (the European Union counts as a single bloc), covering approximately 99.8% of the global rough diamond trade.
• India's Status: India is a founding member and the ultimate hub for diamond processing, where 90% of the world's diamonds are cut and polished.

• Total Valuation: The maritime insurance pool features a total capability of USD 1.5 billion.
• Sovereign Guarantee: It is heavily backed by an Indian government sovereign guarantee of ₹12,980 crore (~USD 1.4 billion).
• Claim Settlement Mechanics: The pool itself directly services initial claims up to USD 100 million using its internal capacity. The sovereign guarantee acts as a contingent backstop of last resort for claims exceeding that amount.

• Risks Addressed: The pool offers 360-degree coverage across four crucial segments:
  • Hull and Machinery (vessel structural damage)
  • Cargo (protection for goods in transit)
  • War Risk (damage resulting from global conflicts)
  • Protection & Indemnity (P&I) (third-party liabilities like oil spills and crew injury)
• Eligible Vessels: Protection extends to all Indian-flagged vessels, Indian-controlled ships, and any international vessel transporting cargo moving to or from Indian ports.

• Inaugural Policy Beneficiaries: The initial policies were distributed directly to Hoger Offshore and Marine Pvt Ltd, Vedanta Sterlite Copper Ltd, and Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd.
• Primary Underwriter: Policies are actively being issued by pool-member domestic insurers, spearheaded by The New India Assurance Company Limited.
• Tenure: The initial operational framework is structured to run for 10 years, with provision for a subsequent 5-year extension.

• Self-Reliance (Atmanirbhar Bharat): Although 95% of India's trade value moves via sea routes, marine insurance has traditionally remained in foreign hands; this pool repatriates premium profits locally.
• Sanctions Resilience: It prevents foreign sanctions or overseas maritime bodies (like the International Group of P&I Clubs) from freezing India's essential trade traffic during global gridlocks.
• Cost Stabilization: By mitigating volatile "case-by-case" premium surges imposed by foreign entities, it assures affordable and continuous shipping costs for exporters.

• First-of-its-Kind Integration: It represents the first time 14 Science and Technology Ministries and Departments have officially converged on a single platform to display indigenous breakthrough innovations.
• Massive Startup Milestone: During the inauguration, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh announced that India's startup ecosystem has officially scaled past two lakh (200,000) active ventures, making it the third-largest globally.
• Technology Transfers: The event served as a major commercialization ground, with elite national institutes directly transferring newly developed commercial technologies to public and private startups.

• Date & Venue: The event took place on May 11, 2026, from 10 AM to 6 PM at the BRIC-National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi.
• Organizing Blueprint: Driven by a strict "Whole-of-Government" approach, spearheaded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) alongside 13 other central departments.
• Dignitaries Present: The session was inaugurated by Dr. Jitendra Singh, with strategic focus provided by India's Principal Scientific Adviser, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood. A special thematic message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also delivered during the forum.

1. Biopharma & Health Technologies: Advanced medical therapeutics and home-grown vaccine developments.
2. Bioindustrial & Green Chemicals: Biopolymers and scalable fermentation solutions driving a circular bioeconomy.
3. Space & Geospatial Technologies: Indigenous aerospace mechanisms engineered via collaborative research with ISRO.
4. Climate & Agri-Food Tech: Resilient food preservation and sustainable farming interventions.
5. Deep-Tech Materials & Advanced Engineering: Specialized engineering materials to support domestic production under the Make in India mission.
6. Electronics, Semiconductors & Energy: Homegrown hardware blocks, next-generation circuit matrices, and localized energy units.
7. Deep Sea & Atmospheric Technologies: Submersible components and robotic systems designed alongside the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

• NIFTEM-Kundli Inventions: The premier food processing institute transferred high-nutrition protein granola bar tech and commercial hybrid solar drying systems directly to small enterprises.
• Rapid Safety Kits: Fast-acting testing kits capable of immediate detection of forbidden chemical adulterants in water, paneer, and tea leaves were officially commercialized.
• Indigenous Frameworks: Showcased the implementation of localized Technology Readiness Level (TRL) frameworks, optimizing how raw scientific laboratory research is evaluated before industry adoption.

• Status: It is an autonomous institution running completely under the administrative governance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
• Headquarters: Located in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
• Leadership Structure: The Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare serve as the official Chairperson, while the Secretary-cum-Scientific Director handles daily operations.

• Setting Standards: It dictates the legally enforceable benchmarks determining the absolute identity, purity, strength, and quality of all medicines manufactured, imported, or distributed within India.
• Official Publications: It generates and routinely updates two legally binding documents:
  • Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP): The foundational ledger containing official drug monographs.
  • National Formulary of India (NFI): Formulations intended to promote the rational, safe clinical usage of generic medicines.
• Reference Testing: It manufactures and issues the official IP Reference Substances (IPRS), which act as master fingerprint chemical controls used by analytical labs to verify drug authenticity.

• International Footprint: The official standards published by the IPC are now formally recognized and legally accepted across 19 countries, bolstering India's global title as the "Pharmacy of the World".
• PDG Membership: The IPC is a permanent member of the elite Pharmacopoeial Discussion Group (PDG), working directly alongside the United States, European Union, and Japanese pharmacopoeia bodies to achieve uniform global regulatory compliance.

• The Bounty: Each of the 15 selected healthcare workers received an official Certificate of Merit, a ceremonial medal, and a financial cash prize of ₹1,000,000 (one lakh rupees).
• Eligible Professional Roles: The honours are structurally distributed across four specific nursing layers:
  • Registered Nurses
  • Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs)
  • Midwives
  • Lady Health Visitors (LHVs)
• Institutional Scope: Candidates are pooled universally across Central Government facilities, State Governments, Union Territories, and voluntary charitable organizations.

• Aysha Beebi K (Lakshadweep): Honoured for successfully administering an emergency midnight childbirth delivery on a completely isolated, remote island, saving both the mother and newborn.
• Kulwinder Parhi (Ladakh): Awarded for close to 30 years of uninterrupted healthcare service in freezing high-altitude terrain, treating both military troops and local populations under sub-zero weather conditions.
• Major General Lissamma PV: The Additional Director General of the Military Nursing Service (ADGMNS) was recognized for close to 40 years of exemplary military nursing leadership and field service.
• Dr. Sharwan Kumar Dhaka (Delhi): Honoured for orchestrating widespread public health outreach and administering localized vaccine drives across heavily underserved urban communities.
• Kamlesh Parmar (Gujarat): A male nurse at SSG Government Medical College Hospital, Vadodara, awarded for voluntary humanitarian support and mass casualty relief work during regional earthquakes and floods.

• Founding Year: The accolade was originally instituted in 1973 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
• Core Objective: It remains the absolute highest national honour available to a nursing professional in India, aimed at recognizing meritorious service, compassion, and systemic strengthening of the country's public health grid.

• The Date: Sirhind Fateh Divas marks the historic triumph of the Khalsa army over the Mughal forces on May 12–14, 1710.
• The Mastermind: The defensive campaign was directly commanded by Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Ji, a saint-soldier commissioned by Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
• The Location: The decisive conflict exploded at Chappar Chiri (near Mohali, Punjab), pushing forward to capture the heavily fortified provincial Mughal capital of Sirhind.

• Root Catalyst: In 1704, the oppressive Mughal Governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan, brutally executed the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji—Baba Zorawar Singh (9) and Baba Fateh Singh (7)—by bricking them alive when they refused religious conversion.
• Justice Served: The Battle of Chappar Chiri fundamentally aimed to uproot Wazir Khan's cruel regime. The Sikh forces completely routed the Mughal army, and Wazir Khan was slain on the battlefield.

• First Sovereign Sikh State: This triumph officially established the foundational blocks of the first independent Sikh rule/empire in northern India.
• Abolition of Zamindari: Upon seizing power, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur dismantled the predatory Mughal Zamindari system, immediately transferring ownership of land directly to the local farmers cultivating it.
• Sovereign Mint: He introduced official governance stamps and minted independent coins in the names of Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

• The Grand Fateh March: Every year, thousands of devotees assemble for massive religious processions, standard weapon martial arts displays (Gatka), and scriptural recitations.
• Sacred Venues: Core ceremonies center around Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib (the historic site of the Sahibzadas' martyrdom) and the Jyoti Swarup Sahib complex in Punjab.

• Chemical Blueprint: The exact formula of the neutral sandwich complex is written as [Os(n5-B5H10)2]
• The Architecture: It consists of a single Osmium (Os) transition-metal atom pinned neatly between two parallel, pentagonal rings made purely of boron and hydrogen.
• Mirroring Ferrocene: It structurally replicates the physical motif of standard ferrocene  ((C5H5) Fe(C5H5)) but entirely replaces iron with osmium, and carbon with electron-deficient boron.

• The Masterminds: Led by Prof. Eluvathingal D. Jemmis (National Science Chair-ANRF at IISc) and Prof. Sundargopal Ghosh (Department of Chemistry, IIT-M).
• Predictive Modeling: The team initially deployed supercomputer orbital modeling to find which specific heavy metal could theoretically balance and anchor the highly unstable, negative charge of a pure boron ring.
• The Synthesis Route: In the lab, researchers reacted a polymeric osmium-bromine precursor compound with an excess of borane-dimethyl sulfide reagent.
• The Isolation: The mixture was cooked at 100 °C for eight continuous hours, precipitating the final product as a perfectly stable, colorless solid compound.

• Stronger Bonds: Atomic analysis via X-ray diffraction revealed that this boron sandwich is structurally stronger than its carbon-based counterpart.
• Bridging Mechanics: Unlike the perfectly flat carbon rings in ferrocene, the boron rings utilize specialized bridging hydrogen atoms nestled between individual boron nodes.
• Orbital Reorientation: These strategic hydrogen bridges actively redirect the ring’s electron orbitals straight toward the central osmium atom, latching onto the metal with superior force.

• High-Temperature Catalysis: Because the osmium-boron bond is robustly stable, it will allow the development of chemical catalysts that can survive extreme high-temperature manufacturing environments.
• Pharmaceuticals and Materials: This opens up completely unmapped industrial routes for the cleaner, more efficient syntheses of drugs, polymers, and advanced electronic smart materials.

• Polyendocrine: Highlights that the condition involves multiple interacting hormonal imbalances (including insulin, androgens, and neuroendocrine hormones) rather than an isolated ovarian defect.
• Metabolic: Explicitly recognizes the heavy metabolic underlying features like insulin resistance, blood sugar issues, and weight abnormalities.
• Ovarian: Retains the direct link to reproductive dysfunction, such as irregular ovulation and fertility struggles.
• Syndrome: Denotes a multi-system cluster of varying symptoms that occur together.

• Epidemiology: PMOS remains one of the world's most common disorders, affecting 1 in 8 women (over 170 million globally) during their reproductive years.
• Diagnostic Gaps: Due to the confusing old name, up to 70% of individuals with the condition went undiagnosed or experienced fragmented care. Experts hope the new name forces clinicians to take it seriously as a chronic, lifelong systemic health issue.

• Physical Manifestations: Irregular or completely absent periods, severe acne, weight gain, and hirsutism (excessive facial or body hair caused by elevated androgen male hormones).
• Infertility: It stands as the leading global cause of female ovulatory infertility.
• Metabolic Risks: Induces insulin resistance, carrying a significantly high progression rate toward Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and hypertension.
• Cardiovascular Disease: Women diagnosed with PMOS exhibit a two-fold higher risk of suffering strokes and coronary heart diseases.
• Oncology & Mental Health: Triggers a three-fold increase in endometrial cancer risks due to un-ovulated, unopposed estrogen. It is heavily linked to clinical depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.

• Transition Period: The medical world is introducing the name gradually via a co-designed global transition framework.
• Final Deadline: Full implementation into international clinical practices, hospital records, and the World Health Organization's official International Classification of Diseases (ICD coding) is targeted for completion by 2028.

• Establishment: Set up in November 2017 as an independent, premier, autonomous, and self-sustained testing organization.
• Legal Status: Registered formally as a society under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860.
• Mandate: Engineered specifically to conduct highly professional and error-free entrance examinations for admission and fellowships across premier higher educational institutions.
• Key Examinations Managed: Responsibilities include executing high-stakes national assessments such as JEE Main, NEET-UG, CUET, UGC-NET, and CMAT.

• The Breach Mechanics: Unlike past technical discrepancies at singular centers, investigators discovered that the 2026 leak occurred at the core question bank level. Material reached coaching hubs like Sikar, Rajasthan up to a month before the exam and leaked on messaging applications like WhatsApp and Telegram.
• Raids and Detentions: Massive multi-state operations led by Rajasthan's Special Operations Group have resulted in the detention of over 45 individuals, including printing press workers and middlemen who allegedly sold the papers for sums up to ₹7.3 lakh per student.

• No Fresh Applications: Students who appeared for the initial May 3 cycle do not need to register again or submit additional forms; all data carries over automatically.
• Fee Structure: No additional examination fee will be levied. Fees already paid will ultimately be refunded, and the re-conduct will rely purely on NTA’s internal financial reserves.
• Revised Timeline: Fresh dates for the national RE-NEET 2026 are projected to be scheduled within a 40-to-60-day window (tentatively between late June and mid-July 2026).

• Oversight Petitions: Public interest litigation has been moved before the Supreme Court seeking the immediate constitution of a High-Powered Monitoring Committee chaired by a retired Supreme Court judge.
• Structural Shift: Medical associations are actively pleading for a complete shift away from the traditional pen-and-paper OMR format, urging the court to mandate a digital, locked Computer Based Test (CBT) model to permanently eradicate physical transit chain-of-custody risks.

• Definition: A lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that fundamentally disrupts how the brain plans, sequences, and executes smooth physical movements.
• The Brain Wiring Difference: It is caused by an immaturity in motor neuron development and delayed communication pathways rather than visible traumatic brain damage.
• Intelligence Paradox: DCD does not affect general intelligence or cognitive capability; individuals often display above-average creativity and unique lateral problem-solving skills.
• Prevalence: It is highly common, affecting 5% to 10% of the global population, making it more prevalent than autism.

• Fine Motor Delays: Severe difficulties with basic handwriting (poor pencil grip), buttoning shirts, tying shoelaces, using scissors, and opening packaging.
• Gross Motor Hurdles: Unstable balance, frequent tripping or bumping into solid walls, and significant trouble learning how to ride a bicycle or catch a moving ball.
• Executive Dysfunctions: Notable issues with structural organization, memory retrieval, keeping track of time, and following multi-step sequential commands.
• Secondary Psychological Toll: Because peers complete these daily tasks with ease, individuals with DCD frequently suffer from chronic low self-esteem, isolation, anxiety, and depression.

• Premature Birth: High correlation with babies born prematurely or presenting low birth weight.
• Genetics: A strong family history of motor coordination problems or hereditary neurodiversity traits.
• Maternal Factors: In-utero prenatal exposure to substances like alcohol or drugs.

• Occupational Therapy (OT): The primary tool used to break complex tasks (like cooking or writing) down into easily manageable physical steps.
• Task-Oriented Approaches: Practicing exact actions repeatedly in their natural environment rather than doing abstract balance exercises.
• Co-occurring Tracking: Medical teams routinely screen DCD patients for overlapping conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, and autism spectrum disorders.

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