UPSC Current Affairs 28 May 2026

• Full Form: Scheme for Modernization and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System.
• Nodal Ministry: Launched by the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
• Core Purpose: A data-driven, technology-led initiative designed to digitise, automate, and streamline India's Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
• Beneficiary Reach: Targets seamless and leakage-free food security delivery to over 81.35 crore citizens covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

• Four Core Functional Modules: Operates on a single integrated application covering:
  1. Food grains procurement.
  2. Supply chain management and allocation.
  3. Ration card management and Fair Price Shop (FPS) systems.
  4. Biometric-based grain distribution with mandatory e-KYC verification.
• Smart Ration Cards: Beneficiary transaction histories and fingerprint templates are securely encoded into smart cards.
• Advanced Tech Stack: Powered by scalable microservices architecture hosted on the government's MeghRaj 2.0 cloud, utilizing secure, unified databases.
• Command Control Centres: Establishes specialized state-level tracking cells and Project Implementation Teams to oversee real-time data flows.

• NIRMAL Module: An AI-driven, real-time beneficiary registry featuring live inter-ministerial integration to eliminate card duplication and ghost beneficiaries.
• ASHA Platform: A multilingual AI grievance and citizen engagement chatbot scalable to 3 lakh daily interactions via calls and WhatsApp.
• SAKSHAM Supply Chain: Features QR-code traceability, route optimization, and vehicle tracking systems.
• Anna Chakra & Digital Analyzers: Employs AI movement planners and Automatic Grain Analysers to quickly analyze grain quality and map transit routes.

• Elimination of Leakages: Completely eliminates manual interventions, biometric fraud, and the black-marketing of essential food grains.
• Flawless Portability: Bolsters the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) mechanism, allowing migrant workers to claim rations anywhere in India seamlessly.
• Logistics Optimization: The system's predictive analytics are designed to reduce food grain transport distances by 15% to 50%, cutting logistics costs and reducing transit carbon emissions by 35%.
• Enhanced Transparency: Shifts PDS records into the public domain, enabling citizens to track entitlements and file digital complaints easily.

• The primary objective of this assembly was to map out and finalize the National Health Intervention Codes (NHIC) alongside the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) specifically for Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani (ASU) medical protocols. This framework will form the bedrock for the upcoming WHO-ICHI ASU Alpha Draft workshop scheduled for July 2026.

• Core Function: NHIC functions as a standardized, uniform coding nomenclature used to classify, record, and track medical procedures, treatments, and clinical interventions nationwide.
• System Standardization: It maps and standardizes diverse healthcare terminologies across different hospitals, software platforms, and regions into a unified digital dialect.
• Global Alignment: It acts as the domestic counterpart designed to interface with the World Health Organization's global International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) data ecosystem.

• Data Uniformity: Eliminates fragmented, localized coding systems by providing exact, unalterable digital tracking markers for explicit healthcare services.
• ASU System Inclusion: Expands beyond modern allopathic medicine to construct custom, internationally validated classifications for traditional Indian medicine systems.
• Multidisciplinary Interventions: Categorizes medical tasks into clear sectors—clinical practices, functioning/rehabilitative care, and broader public health interventions.
• Interoperability Infrastructure: Designed to integrate with nationwide electronic health frameworks, such as India's Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) registry models.

• Global Validation: Elevates standard traditional protocols like Ayurveda and Siddha to globally recognized scientific medical records.
• Cross-Platform Communication: Enables different hospitals and public health networks to cleanly exchange patient data without losing clinical context or meanings.
• Elimination of Insurance Fraud: Clear, unified intervention codes prevent healthcare facilities from overcharging or manipulating claim definitions under insurance frameworks.
• AI & Clinical Research Support: Provides clean, highly granular datasets required to safely train artificial intelligence systems for automated diagnostic assistance and medical decision-making.

• Core Objective: A specialized, alternative dispute resolution forum designed to provide speedy, out-of-court settlement for complex or long-standing pension-related grievances.
• Nodal Department: Managed nationally by the Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW).
• Founding Year: Formally institutionalized as a structured grievance tool in 2017.
• Target Audience: Serves Central Government retirees, family pensioners, defence personnel, and super senior citizens.

• Chaired by Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh, this latest high-level session took up 985 long-pending pension grievances spanning 37 Ministries and Departments for direct, "on-the-spot" resolution using a hybrid interaction format.

• Whole-of-Government Approach: Brings all essential stakeholders—including the aggrieved pensioner, concerned department officials, bank representatives, and line accounting offices—to a single table.
• On-The-Spot Decisiveness: Resolves administrative, calculation, or systemic bottlenecks right at the meeting table, saving senior citizens time and litigation money.
• Hybrid Operations: Allows elderly or ailing pensioners from all over India to join the hearings digitally via video conferencing, bypassing the need for physical travel.
• CPENGRAMS Integration: Systematically reviews and pulls forward intricate cases that have remained unresolved for more than 45 days on the central CPENGRAMS grievance dashboard.

• High Success Rate: Since inception, over 27,812 cases have been admitted to these Adalats, with more than 19,948 resolved instantly on-the-spot (a success rate of over 71%).
• Inter-Ministerial Cleansing: Cases not settled inside the Adalats are moved to subsequent structured Inter-Ministerial review meetings for final resolution.
• Massive Recovery Disbursals: Recent sessions successfully unlocked and released long-delayed arrears, including single payments of up to ₹46 lakh in disability pensions and ₹15 lakh in delayed family pensions to elderly widows.

• Empowering the Vulnerable: Acts as a critical justice delivery mechanism focusing tightly on the most vulnerable brackets, such as family pensioners and octogenarians.
• Policy Identification: Helps the central administration spot systemic errors or policy language gaps that lead to repeated tracking delays, prompting necessary regulatory amendments.
• Reduces Judicial Burden: Prevents a massive influx of standard service and retirement administrative disputes from choking the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and High Courts.

• Core Objective: A dedicated, multi-pronged agricultural development program to create an end-to-end "farm-to-global-market" ecosystem.
• Anchor Ministries: Spearheaded by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER) in active partnership with the Union Ministry of Agriculture and the Government of Tripura.
• Project Timeline: Planned as a three-year intensive blueprint running through the end of fiscal cycle 2028.
• Economic Target: Aims to expand Tripura's localized pineapple economy six-fold, scaling it from a baseline of ₹35 crore to nearly ₹200 crore by 2028.

• Premium State Fruit: Formally recognized as the official state fruit of Tripura, the Queen variety holds a distinct Geographical Indication (GI) Tag obtained in 2014-15.
• Unique Properties: Renowned for its golden-yellow colour, highly pleasant aroma, sweet flavour, and a distinctively low-fibre internal texture.
• Organic by Default: Grown on the nutrient-rich hilly terrains (Tillas) of the state with minimal chemical inputs, making it naturally organic.
• Current Footprint: Cultivated across 12,097 hectares with an annual yield of 1.77 lakh metric tonnes, predominantly managed by small-scale tribal farmers.

• Hub and Spoke Infrastructure: Establishes high-capacity storage hubs near the Agartala airport tightly linked to peripheral cultivation districts via systematic collection hubs.
• Post-Harvest Cold Chains: Funds the building of modern cold storage chambers, localized sorting clusters, and high-efficiency refrigerated transport vans to preserve quality.
• Staggered Crop Management: Deploys off-season cultivation and staggered planting techniques across 2,000 hectares to ensure a steady year-round supply of the fruit.
• The Waste-to-Wealth Waste Facility: Establishes custom processing facilities designed to extract high-value industrial yarn from discarded pineapple leaves.

• Bridging Price Disparities: Directly addresses farm gate losses where smallholder farmers get only ₹6 to ₹10 per kg, unlocking realistic premium export valuations of ₹80 to ₹150 per kg.
• Elevated Global Footprint: Reinforces ongoing international supply channels that ship fresh produce directly to premium markets like Dubai, Oman, Germany, Russia, and Holland.
• Rural Livelihood Upliftment: Maximizes financial retention for local communities while generating vast rural processing, logistics, and packaging jobs.

• The Pathogen: Babesia is a genus of microscopic, intraerythrocytic protozoan parasites that specifically invade and destroy red blood cells (RBCs).
• The Disease: It causes a rare, malaria-like illness known as Babesiosis in both animals and humans.
• Zoonotic Importance: While primarily a veterinary disease affecting mammals like cattle, dogs, and wild felids, it is recognized globally as an emerging zoonotic infection in humans.

• Primary Vector: Transmitted through the bite of infected hard-bodied ticks, predominantly Ixodes ticks (commonly known as deer ticks or blacklegged ticks).
• Blood-to-Blood Contact: Can spread via contaminated blood transfusions or organ transplantations from asymptomatic donors.
• Maternal Transmission: Though rare, the parasite can pass vertically from an infected pregnant mother to her unborn fetus.
• No Casual Spread: The infection is completely non-contagious from person to person through casual contact.

• Animal Presentation: Infected animals (like the Gir lions) suffer from profound lethargy, muscle weakness, nasal discharge, respiratory distress, and high fever.
• Human Symptoms: Induces flu-like symptoms including persistent fatigue, chills, body aches, headaches, and fluctuating fevers.
• Hemolytic Anemia: Because the parasite replicates inside and ruptures red blood cells, it leads to severe hemolytic anemia (RBCs being destroyed faster than the body can reproduce them).
• High-Risk Vulnerability: Can escalate to life-threatening organ failure or low blood pressure in elderly individuals, infants, or immunocompromised patients (especially those without a spleen).

• Detection Methods: Diagnosed using manual light microscopy on blood smears to spot the protozoa inside red blood cells, or via highly precise Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and antibody testing.
• Antimicrobial Regimen: Requires a specialized combination therapy featuring an antiparasitic drug (atovaquone) paired with a fast-acting antibiotic (azithromycin).
• Alternative Approaches: Global clinical trials are currently exploring alternative drugs (like tafenoquine) to lower mortality rates in hospitalized, severe cases.

• The Project: A multipurpose balancing reservoir and drinking water project conceptualized by the Government of Karnataka.
• Financial Outlay: Planned with an estimated budget of ₹9,000 crore.
• Exact Location: Located near Kanakapura in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka, roughly 90 km from Bengaluru and 4 km ahead of the Tamil Nadu interstate border.
• Geographical Confluence: Proposed at Mekedatu (meaning “goat’s leap”), a deep gorge situated at the direct confluence of the Cauvery River and its tributary, the Arkavathi River.

• Drinking Water Supply: Designed to store and supply 4.75 TMC (Thousand Million Cubic feet) of clean drinking water to meet the growing summer shortages in the Bengaluru Metropolitan region.
• Power Generation: Includes the construction of an underground powerhouse to generate 400 MW of renewable hydroelectric power.
• Dam Specifications: Features a 99-metre-high and 735-metre-long concrete gravity dam capable of impounding 67.16 TMC of water.
• Legal Backing (Karnataka's Claim): Karnataka maintains that the project utilizes the specific water quota already allocated to it by the Supreme Court’s definitive 2018 Cauvery water judgment.

• Riparian Concerns: Tamil Nadu, being the lower riparian state, argues that Mekedatu represents the last free-flowing point from which Cauvery water streams unrestricted into its territory.
• Fear of Water Deficit: The state fears that a massive upstream balancing reservoir will allow Karnataka to control and alter natural river flow patterns, jeopardizing water releases during critical dry seasons.
• Agricultural Impact: Reduced or delayed water flows would severely hit irrigation and crop security in Tamil Nadu's highly fertile delta regions.
• Legal Violations: Tamil Nadu contends that creating new storage facilities violates the final awards of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) and Supreme Court mandates, which state no upper riparian state can build structural changes without downstream consent.

• Submergence Scale: The reservoir is projected to submerge approximately 5,173 hectares of land.
• Forest Degradation: Out of the total submerged area, nearly 4,800 to 4,996 hectares consist of crucial forest and wildlife land within the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary.
• Pending Clearances: Due to the severe impact on wildlife habitats, the project still awaits final statutory clearances from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

• Statutory Body: Formally established by the Central Government under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act of 1956.
• Nodal Ministry: Functions directly as an apex executive organization under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
• Headquarters: Headquartered in Mumbai, supported by six strategic zonal offices located across Delhi, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Guwahati.
• Core Tripartite Objective: Focuses on three core goals:
  1. Social Objective: Generating sustainable employment in rural areas.
  2. Economic Objective: Manufacturing competitive, highly marketable, and saleable products.
  3. Wider Objective: Creating localized self-reliance and community spirit among economically weaker sections.

• Skyrocketing Production & Sales: While general village industry sales touched ₹1,79,236 crore, exclusive Khadi textile sales expanded to ₹7,869 crore—marking a massive 628% increase over the last twelve years. Overall production values reached ₹1,25,296 crore.
• Massive Job Creation: Cumulative employment in the Khadi and village sector crossed 2.04 crore active livelihoods, adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs over the past decade.
• Artisan Wage Hikes: Remuneration paid directly to rural artisans saw a 275% jump, rising from a baseline of ₹4 per hank in 2013–14 to the current standard of ₹15 per hank.
• PMEGP Implementation Success: Under KVIC's flagship Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), 66,494 new industrial units were financed with a margin money subsidy disbursement of ₹2,457 crore, directly creating over 7.31 lakh livelihoods.
• Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Out of 79,682 rural candidates who received formal training through KVIC's skill programs this past year, women accounted for nearly 59% (47,382 trainees).

• Raw Material Banks: Builds and regulates strategic central reserves of raw manufacturing materials and tools for seamless distribution to village producers.
• Quality & Genuineness Assurance: Serves as the primary certifying authority to protect the standard definitions of Khadi and eliminate look-alike counterfeits from the open market.
• Market Integration: Manages its own dedicated e-commerce hub, Khadi India, alongside regular national and international trade exhibitions to give traditional weavers access to modern consumer spaces.
• Research and Development: Sponsors and coordinates technical research focusing on modernizing manual looms and improving waste extraction methods without eliminating manual artisan jobs.

• Annual Observance: Marked globally every year on May 28.
• Origin: Founded in 2014 by DKMS, an international non-profit bone marrow donor registry based in Germany, to commemorate its creation and coordinate global anti-cancer movements.
• Official Symbol: The red ampersand (&) is the globally recognized symbol for the day, visually communicating that patients and donors are united in the fight against the disease.
• Core Mandate: To raise awareness, address standard treatment disparities, encourage genetic typing registration, and fund clinical hematology research.

• The Pathology: An umbrella medical term for malignant growths originating in the bone marrow, lymphatic system, or peripheral blood cells, which disrupt normal cell production and crush your body's immune system.
• Main Classifications: The disease primarily presents in three forms:
  1. Leukemia: Rapid, abnormal production of white blood cells in the bone marrow.
  2. Lymphoma: Cancers that target the lymphatic system and cause swollen lymph nodes.
  3. Multiple Myeloma: Cancers targeting plasma cells, disrupting healthy antibody generation.
• Global Impact: A new patient is diagnosed with blood cancer somewhere in the world every 27 to 35 seconds.

• The Survival Path: For a vast majority of aggressive blood cancer patients, a blood stem cell or bone marrow transplant provides their only definitive chance of survival.
• The Genetic Hurdle: Finding a matching donor requires an exact match of Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA). Only 30% of patients find a match inside their family, leaving 70% completely reliant on anonymous international registries.
• The Representation Gap: India ranks 3rd highest globally in reported blood cancer cases, yet suffers from a severe shortage of registered bone marrow donors, which drastically lowers the odds of finding matching HLA profiles for patients of South Asian descent.

• Early Indicators: Early stages often mimic common, less severe illnesses, making them difficult to detect. Key signs include persistent fatigue, recurring fevers, unexplained weight loss, night sweats, bone pain, and painless swelling in the neck or underarms.
• System Failure: Advanced stages cause severe hemolytic anemia (rapid destruction of oxygen-carrying red blood cells) and frequent, dangerous bleeding or bruising due to low blood platelets.
• Diagnostic Tools: Verified using comprehensive blood panel counts, manual peripheral blood smears, or highly detailed bone marrow aspiration and biopsy tracking.

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