UPSC Current Affairs 10 June 2026

• Appearance & Texture: It features an attractive, bright-red skin with a smooth texture.
• Taste Profile: It is globally renowned for its exceptional sweetness, distinct aroma, and rich, succulent pulp.
• Composition: The fruit typically consists of 60% juice, 19% seed, 13% skin, and 8% rag.
• Health Benefits: It is rich in water, vitamin C, and antioxidants, making it highly effective for summer hydration.

• Protection: The fruit received its official Geographical Indication (GI) Tag in 2015.
• Significance: The tag ensures regional exclusivity, prevents unauthorized duplication, and enhances market value for Northeast India's farmers.

• Introduction: Cultivation traces back to 1923 when prominent literary figure Padmanath Gohain Baruah established the first orchards.
• Location: The initial saplings were brought from Kolkata and Mumbai and planted near Paltan Pukhuri (now called Lichu Pukhuri) in Tezpur.

• Bombaiya / Bombay: A highly popular variety that fetched ₹40 to ₹50 per fruit during the latest season.
• Shahi: Known for early maturation and high juice content.
• Other Varieties: Farmers also cultivate the Bilati, Elaichi, Piyaji, Chinese, Rongiya, and Kath Bombaiwa varieties.

• Regions: Primarily grown in Porowa Village, Na-Paam, and areas surrounding Tezpur town in the Sonitpur district of Assam.
• Agnigarh FPC: The Agnigarh Farmer Producer Company unifies over 150 small and marginal farmers to manage production, packing, and global exports.

• Full Acronym: SAPLING stands for South Asian Policy Leadership for Improved Nutrition and Growth.
• Thematic Focus: The 2026 edition is themed “Unlocking Value: Advancing Food Processing for Employment Generation and Sustainable Growth in South Asia”.
• Core Objective: It focuses on connecting farms to firms and finance to minimize massive regional food waste and turn agricultural systems into engines of rural employment.
• Target Demographics: A heavy emphasis is placed on generating new livelihoods, particularly for youth and women.

• Co-Hosts: The dialogue is jointly organized by India's Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) and the World Bank Group.
• Strategic Alignment: The platform operates in direct alignment with the World Bank Group's AgriConnect initiative.
• Key Philanthropic Partners: Senior dignitaries from major international development organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are core participants in the policy implementation framework.

• The Waste Problem: Discussions highlighted that South Asia loses or wastes over 30% of its food annually, which is enough to feed nearly 300 million people.
• Value Addition Sectors: The report identifies immense untapped potential for value addition in perishable items like fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.
• Infrastructure Deficits: Key recommendations urge governments to rapidly scale up rural cold-chain infrastructure, lower post-harvest losses, and boost competitive global trading capabilities.

• Technology Exhibition: Alongside the dialogue, a specialized Innovation Fair is showcasing groundbreaking technological solutions.
• Key Focus Areas: Exhibits highlight advancements in cold chain logistics, digital traceability, sustainable packaging, and smart processing tech.

• Target Population: It aims at the capacity enhancement of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) entrepreneurs to build a robust "entrepreneurship culture".
• Procurement Goal: It empowers marginalized businesses to effectively compete for and achieve the mandated 4% procurement target from Central Ministries, Departments, and Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).
• Administrative Control: Originally launched by the Prime Minister in October 2016, it is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME).
• Implementation Agency: The scheme is actively executed on the ground by the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC).

• Special Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (SCLCS): Provides a 25% capital subsidy (capped at ₹25 lakh) for SC-ST owned MSEs to procure plant, machinery, and advanced equipment using institutional credit.
• Special Marketing Assistance Scheme (SMAS): Funds travel, space rental, and logistics to facilitate free participation in domestic and international exhibitions, trade fairs, and buyer-seller meets.
• Capacity Building & Skill Training: Offers completely sponsored technical and business management training courses accompanied by free operational toolkits upon successful completion.
• Onboarding Assistance: Provides direct logistical and documentation handholding for Udyam registration and registration on the GeM portal.

• NSSH Offices (NSSHOs): Operates through 15 dedicated regional hub offices located across major cities including Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Guwahati, and Kolkata to provide localized lifecycle handholding.
• Ecosystem Partners: Collaborates directly with premier industry bodies such as the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), incubators, and CPSE mentors.

• The program aims to tap into India's 21 GW of small hydro potential by adding 1,500 MW of clean energy capacity with a central fund of ₹2,584.60 crore.

• Active Duration: The scheme spans five fiscal years, running from FY 2026–27 to FY 2030–31.
• Project Sizing: It specifically targets the development of decentralized plants with an individual power capacity between 1 MW and 25 MW.
• Regional Priority: Resources are heavily focused on hilly terrains, the North Eastern (NE) states, and strategic border districts facing power access constraints.

• NE States & Border Districts: Projects receive a subsidy of ₹3.6 crore per MW or 30% of the overall project cost (whichever is lower), with a funding ceiling of ₹30 crore per project.
• Other Indian States: Projects receive a subsidy of ₹2.4 crore per MW or 20% of the overall project cost (whichever is lower), capped at ₹20 crore per project.
• Project Pipeline Funding: The government has reserved an extra ₹30 crore to directly fund central and state bodies in preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for at least 200 future small hydro locations.

• Investment Multiplier: The initial ₹2,584.60 crore state funding is expected to crowd-in and catalyze roughly ₹15,000 crore in private sector investment.
• Job Creation: The construction phase alone is projected to create over 51 lakh person-days of employment, followed by long-term operational jobs in remote rural areas.
• Atmanirbhar Bharat Alignment: The scheme mandates the use of 100% indigenous plant machinery and equipment, boosting local manufacturing and home-grown supply chains.

• Eco-Friendly Design: Unlike massive river dams, these micro-projects focus on run-of-the-river or canal systems, avoiding widespread land acquisition, deforestation, or community displacement.
• Grid Stability: Small hydro provides continuous, round-the-clock (RTC) power that helps balance the power grid when intermittent sources like solar and wind drop off.
• Low Transmission Loss: Because generation is decentralized and situated close to remote load centers, it cuts down the need for massive transmission networks, reducing regional electricity waste.

• Parasitic Mechanism: Orobanche is an obligate root parasite that locks onto the roots of the mustard plant to sap its water and essential nutrients.
• Regional Damage: It remains a hidden, underground threat that dramatically suppresses crop yields across the arid agricultural belts of North India.

• Non-GM Status: The herbicide tolerance trait was engineered through conventional plant breeding and mutation breeding techniques rather than transgenic Genetically Modified (GM) engineering.
• Regulatory Clearance: Because it is non-GM, the seed avoids the rigid bans and regulatory conflicts often associated with transgenic herbicide-tolerant variants in India.
• The Biological Mechanism: The breeding alters a single DNA sequence to mutate the Acetolactate Synthase (ALS) enzyme. This mutation lets the mustard plant survive chemical sprays while the target weeds are killed.

• High Post-Emergence Control: It allows farmers to safely apply post-emergence imidazolinone (IMI) herbicides across the field without harming the mustard crop itself.
• Labour and Cost Savings: Chemical weed suppression reduces the intensive physical labour and high costs required for manual weeding during peak seasonal shifts.
• Enhanced Productivity: By neutralizing resource-draining parasites early, it optimizes overall output to support national oilseed self-reliance goals.

• Superweed Risk: Experts warn that continuous, year-after-year reliance on a single chemical group creates a "strong directional selection". This risk could push Orobanche to mutate into chemical-resistant "superweeds".
• Integrated Farming Mandate: To keep the technology viable, agricultural policies stress that the hybrids must be integrated into a diverse strategy including crop rotation, alternating herbicide modes of action, and targeted manual weeding.

• Common Names: Widely known as the grey foam-nest tree frog or the southern foam-nest tree frog.
• Family: It belongs to the Rhacophoridae family of tree frogs.
• Size Dimorphism: Adult females are notably larger, measuring 60–90 mm in snout-vent length, while smaller males measure 43–75 mm.

• Native Regions: Heavily distributed throughout southern and eastern Africa, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, and Botswana.
• Ecosystem Adaptability: Thrives in dry savannas, subtropical dry forests, moist shrublands, pasturelands, and even modified urban gardens or rural areas.

• Waterproof Skin: Features dry, bumpy, and relatively impermeable skin that allows it to survive extreme dry spells hidden under tree detritus.
• Thermo-Coloration: Its skin changes coloration dynamically based on climate; it turns a stark bright white when hot to reflect harsh sunlight, and dark brown when cold to absorb heat.
• Drought Estivation: During droughts, it uses a specialized mucus sealant to stick itself to surfaces, sealing in body moisture until seasonal rains arrive.
• Unique Foot Structure: Like other Chiromantis species, it possesses sticky toe discs and an atypical hand architecture where the outer two fingers face nearly a right angle to the inner two, giving it excellent climbing capabilities.

• Construction Process: During the rainy season, a female secretes a unique fluid on branches overhanging a temporary pool. Together with her mate(s), they churn the liquid into a protective foam block.
• Simultaneous Polyandry: The species is famous for intense polyandrous mating, where a single female is assisted by up to a dozen fertilizing males simultaneously to whip the nest and fertilize the eggs.
• Larval Drop Mechanism: The eggs develop in a moist inner core surrounded by an eggless foam protective barrier. After 4–5 days, the embryos hatch into larvae, dissolve the bottom layer of foam, and drop straight down into the pool below to complete their development.

• IUCN Category: Classified as Least Concern (LC).
• Threat Level: It has a massive, highly stable population distribution and possesses high resilience against human-altered landscapes, though localized numbers face capture for the exotic pet trade.

• Not a Single Disease: Dementia is an umbrella clinical term used to describe a broad range of progressive neurological conditions that compromise a person's cognitive capabilities.
• Impaired Functions: It primarily degrades memory, logical reasoning, calculation capacity, language acquisition, emotional control, and basic daily problem-solving skills.
• Abnormal Aging: Contrary to public misconceptions, dementia is not a normal part of regular biological ageing.

• Alzheimer’s Disease: The most common form of dementia, contributing to 60% to 70% of all diagnosed cases globally. It is characterized by abnormal protein clumps (amyloid and tau) building up in brain tissue.
• Vascular Dementia: Triggered by localized brain damage caused by strokes, damaged blood vessels, or interrupted cerebral blood supply.
• Lewy Body Dementia: Occurs due to abnormal spherical protein deposits developing inside nerve cells, leading to physical tremors and visual hallucinations.
• Frontotemporal Dementia: Results from the progressive degeneration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, causing early and severe changes in personality and social behaviour.

• The Burden: Currently, over 55 million people worldwide live with dementia, with a new case surfacing somewhere on Earth every 3 seconds.
• The 2050 Explosion: Due to rapidly ageing global populations, cases are projected to skyrocket to 139 million by the year 2050.
• Low & Middle-Income Focus: Roughly 60% of all sufferers reside in developing countries; this metric is anticipated to reach 71% within the next two decades.

• Early Life: Lower access to quality education.
• Midlife: Unmanaged hearing loss, high LDL cholesterol, traumatic brain injuries, hypertension, obesity, alcohol abuse, and smoking.
• Late Life: Social isolation, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, exposure to high air pollution, and untreated visual impairment.

• Trillion-Dollar Crisis: The annual global economic footprint of managing dementia has cleared US$ 1.3 trillion and is moving toward $2.8 trillion by 2030.
• The Gender Gap: Women are disproportionately affected; they face significantly higher direct mortality rates and provide over 70% of all unpaid, informal care hours worldwide.

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