UPSC Current Affairs 13 June 2026

• FMCG Heavyweight Alliance: Industry giants like HUL, ITC, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and Marico attended to join as founding partners.
• Next Stop, Jaipur: Following successful early traction in Hyderabad with 10,000+ retailers, Digi Dukaan is officially launching in Jaipur on June 19, 2026.
• Pan-India Roadmap: The government announced upcoming rollouts in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi-NCR over the next few months.

• Neutral B2B Layer: It acts as a unified digital layer where small shopkeepers can place orders to multiple brands using a single buyer app.
• Interoperable Ecosystem: Retailers can use ONDC-integrated applications like Qwipo or Bizom to complete orders smoothly.
• Lower Operating Costs: Unlike corporate e-commerce monopolies, it offers significantly lower commission rates for small traders.
• Distributor Friendly: Retailers do not have to abandon their trusted setups; they continue working with their existing local distributors digitally.

• Higher Profit Margins: Enables direct digital procurement and removes manual middle layers.
• Better Stock Delivery: Provides visibility into real-time distributor inventory to improve order fulfillment rates.
• Scheme Transparency: Offers direct access to trade discounts and promotional schemes launched by FMCG brands.
• Working Capital: Improves cash flow through structured tracking and digital financial histories.

• Broader Market Reach: Expands service networks to smaller, rural storefronts without hiring extra field agents.
• Operational Efficiency: Eliminates error-prone manual ordering systems via phone calls or WhatsApp.
• Predictable Logistics: Digitises order flows and collections to establish a highly structured delivery routine.

• Demand Visibility: Delivers precise demand signals straight from retail counters instead of relying on slow, estimated data.
• Lower Cost to Serve: Minimizes distribution overheads by leveraging the unified, public ONDC infrastructure.
• Targeted Schemes: Helps corporations deploy and accurately track custom schemes across thousands of stores instantly.

• Core Architecture: Varya is a 14-billion-parameter AI model built using model distillation to compress the capabilities of Alibaba’s open foundational video model, Wan 2.2, into a lightweight version.
• Extreme Speed Leap: Through advanced distillation, it cuts video generation complexity down from 50 steps to just 4 steps.
• Processing Performance: Operating on an NVIDIA H200 GPU, Varya generates a 5-second 720p clip in approximately 45 seconds, compared to a staggering 1,230 seconds required by its base model.
• Hyper-Affordable Pricing: It slashes creation costs down to roughly ₹0.48 to ₹0.50 per second of video. This makes it up to 10 to 20 times cheaper than international alternatives like Gemini Veo or OpenAI Sora.
• Input Architecture: The interface works on a simple sequence flow where users can input text prompts or upload static images to seamlessly generate and extend active video scenes.

• Cultural Nuances: Unlike global models trained broadly on Western internet data, Varya understands India's specific regional environments, architecture, and daily public spaces.
• Social Visuals: It is finely tuned to accurately depict Indian clothing styles, community dynamics, traditional foods, and local festive settings without artificial distortions.

• Education: Allows village teachers to instantly transform simple ideas into engaging visual lessons for local classrooms.
• MSMEs & E-Commerce: Enables small business owners to generate high-quality product advertisements and marketing tools without expensive camera crews.
• Public Information: Provides government agencies with a tool to rapidly roll out public service communications and visual stories to the masses.

• Transmission Mode: It spreads via airborne droplets from the nose and mouth during close, frequent, and prolonged contact with untreated individuals. It is not highly contagious and cannot be contracted through casual contact like shaking hands.
• Long Incubation Period: Symptoms develop very slowly. The incubation period ranges from 5 to 20 years, often making early detection difficult as the infection remains hidden.
• Core Symptoms: Characterised by pale or reddish skin patches with a distinct loss of sensation, numbness in hands and feet, muscle weakness, and enlarged peripheral nerves.
• 100% Curable: Leprosy is completely curable using Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT), a highly effective combination of three antibiotics: Dapsone, Rifampicin, and Clofazimine.
• Irreversible Damage: While MDT kills the bacteria and cures the active infection, it cannot reverse permanent physical deformities or nerve damage that occurred before starting treatment.

• Nikusth 2.0 Portal: A real-time digital surveillance database utilized under the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP) to track case configurations, treatments, and vulnerable tribal groups.
• Leprosy Case Detection Campaigns (LCDC): Intensive, door-to-door screening drives executed across high-prevalence districts to actively seek out hidden community cases.
• Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP): Administration of a single preventive dose of Rifampicin (PEP-SDR) to healthy contacts of newly diagnosed patients to block the chain of active transmission.
• Shattering Stigma: Active deployment of the Sparsh Leprosy Awareness Campaign to combat deep-seated social discrimination and encourage early voluntary medical reporting.

• Elimination Status: India achieved "elimination as a public health problem" (defined as a prevalence rate below 1 case per 10,000 people) at the national level in 2005, with current national levels sustained at 0.57 per 10,000 population.
• The Transmitting Burden: Despite macro elimination, India still accounts for over 50% of all global leprosy cases, reporting upwards of 1,00,000 new cases annually due to localized hyper-endemic pockets.
• Declining Numbers: Proactive screening has successfully reduced the proportion of child cases from 9.04% to 4.68% over the past decade, confirming a steady decline in active community transmission.

• 8th-Century Construction: Archaeological studies track its origins back to the early 8th century CE, heavily echoing the artistic lineage of the late Gupta or post-Gupta era.
• Missing Chronology: There is no direct mention of the complex's actual construction or its master craftsmen in any surviving ancient scriptures or royal records.
• Rediscovery History: The site remained globally obscure until it was reported by British engineer Henry Shuttleworth in 1913 and later surveyed by Harold Hargreaves of the ASI in 1915.
• The 1905 Catastrophe: The structure suffered extensive, irreversible fracture damage during the 7.8 Richter scale Kangra earthquake of 1905, which brought down multiple pillars and upper relief sections.

• Monolithic Engineering: The entire 15-monument complex was completely chiseled out of a single native sandstone ridge, a rare instance of a free-standing rock-cut temple group in Northern India.
• Nagara Architecture: It represents one of the northernmost examples of the traditional North Indian Nagara style, characterized by curvilinear shikharas (towers).
• Mandala Grid Layout: The complex follows a highly symmetrical square grid where the large central main shrine is symmetrically flanked by smaller sub-shrines in a mandala pattern.
• Northeast Facing: Unlike typical ancient Hindu temples that face the rising sun in the east, Masroor faces northeast directly towards the snow-peaked Dhauladhar mountain range.
• Sacred Pool: A massive, perfectly square sacred water pool is situated right in front of the steps, engineered to provide a striking geometric reflection of the entire temple complex.
• Incomplete Project: Physical evidence—including two uncarved, unfinished structural entrances—strongly indicates the creators possessed a much larger blueprint that was abruptly abandoned.

• Multi-Tradition Reliefs: The temple facades feature elaborate, detailed stone carvings dedicated to various major Hindu traditions, including Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, and Saura (Sun deity).
• Thakurdwara Sanctum: Originally built as a Shiva-centric temple mountain, the primary sanctum now serves as the Thakurdwara, housing black stone idols of Lord Ram, Laxman, and Goddess Sita placed inside after the 1905 earthquake.
• Mahabharata Connection: Local folk legend claims the Pandavas built the complex during their forced exile, and an incomplete stone staircase on-site is mythologically believed to be their unfinished path to heaven.

• Historic Tri-Host Format: This is the first time in FIFA history that the tournament is being co-hosted by three different nations: the US, Canada, and Mexico.
• Massive Pool Expansion: The total number of participating teams has expanded from the traditional 32 up to a record-breaking 48 countries.
• 104 Total Matches: Due to the team expansion, the tournament will feature 104 fixtures over 39 days, making it the longest and largest World Cup ever played.
• New Knockout Phase: Teams are divided into 12 groups of four. The top two from each group alongside the eight best third-placed teams will advance to a brand-new Round of 32 stage.
• Tournament Debuts: The expanded format has allowed four nations—Curaçao, Cape Verde, Jordan, and Uzbekistan—to make their historic World Cup debuts.

• 16 Host Cities: Matches are being distributed across 16 world-class stadiums (11 in the US, 3 in Mexico, and 2 in Canada).
• Regional Clustering: To minimize gruelling travel across vast North American time zones, FIFA has split the group stage matches into West, Central, and East regions.
• Extreme Climate Adaptations: Teams are navigating vastly distinct microclimates, ranging from high-altitude matches in Mexico City to intense summer humidity in Miami, prompting mandatory cooling and hydration breaks.
• The Grand Finale: The final championship match is scheduled to take place on July 19 at the MetLife Stadium (New York New Jersey Stadium).

• The NOVA Classification: Globally, foods are classified using the NOVA framework, which separates items into four clear categories based on the extent of industrial alteration; Group 4 houses ultra-processed foods.
• Common Examples: Includes carbonated soft drinks, packaged sweet or savory snacks, instant noodles, reconstituted meats (nuggets/sausages), mass-produced sliced breads, and pre-packaged frozen meals.
• Additives Portfolio: Characterized by chemical-sounding ingredients not found in domestic kitchens, such as hydrogenated oils, modified starches, high-fructose corn syrup, carrageenan, and polysorbates.
• Hyper-Palatability Mechanics: Engineered to reach a precise sensory "bliss point" of sugar, salt, and fat that intentionally overrides human satiety hormones to stimulate addiction networks in the brain similarly to nicotine.

• Cardiovascular Death: Regular high consumption of UPFs triggers chronic vascular inflammation, spiking risks of high blood pressure, stroke, and cardiovascular mortality.
• Insulin Resistance: Their sky-high glycemic index triggers continuous blood sugar spikes and crashes, rapidly accelerating the onset of type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
• Obesity Epidemic: Soft structural processing eliminates chewing time, allowing individuals to consume calories twice as quickly as raw whole foods, defeating biological fullness signals.

• Microbiome Destruction: Refined ingredients combined with a severe lack of natural fiber deprive crucial gut microbes, causing structural thinning of the intestinal gut barrier.
• Inflammatory Conditions: The breakdown of the intestinal lining lets chemical residues pass into the bloodstream, triggering Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and chronic body-wide inflammation.
• Depression Link: Newer clinical trials prove high UPF counts actively exacerbate clinical depressive symptoms, while shifting back to nutrient-dense, real food serves as an active antidepressant therapy.

• Front-of-Pack Warning Labels: Nations are actively replacing deceptive "Health Star Ratings" with bold, black octagonal warnings to clearly inform consumers if a product exceeds safe thresholds for sodium, sugar, or saturated fats.
• School Cafeteria Bans: State legislatures like California have enacted sweeping laws to explicitly define and fully ban unhealthy UPFs from billions of school lunches to safeguard childhood development.
• Taxation Strategies: An increasing number of countries are levying heavy "soda taxes" and custom surcharges on ultra-processed goods to successfully discourage consumer purchasing behaviour.

• Transit Marketplaces: It leverages the immense, daily population footfall at Indian railway stations to provide a high-visibility marketing channel directly to rural producers.
• Marginalized Upliftment: The primary policy focus targets those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, including indigenous tribes, small-scale potters, and village self-help groups (SHGs).
• Rotational Allotment Scheme: To prevent commercial monopolies, stalls and kiosks are allocated on a highly flexible, rotational basis for periods ranging from 15 to 90 days.
• Nominal Participation Fees: Artisans are granted micro-retail spaces inside major railway junctions upon paying a nominal, heavily subsidized registration fee.
• Uniform Architectural Design: Every single modular OSOP outlet is crafted based on specialized blueprints created by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, ensuring a distinct, uniform branding aesthetic.

• Handicrafts & Artefacts: Traditional wood carvings, clay pottery, bamboo structures, and indigenous tribal art forms.
• Textiles & Handlooms: Regionally famous fabrics, such as Chikankari embroidery, Zari-Zardozi garments, and Paithani or Chinnalapatti handloom sarees.
• Indigenous Food & Agriculture: Processed or semi-processed items like local millets, organic spices, regional tea, coffee blends, and traditional sweets (Kandi Pedha or Lonavala Chikki).
• Traditional Toys & Leatherware: Iconic local toys (wooden toys from Kankavali) and handcrafted footwear like traditional Kolhapuri Chappals.

Region / Railway Zone	Sample Stations Involved	Highlighted Local Specialties
Northern & Central	Prayagraj, Kanpur, Indore, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT)	Leather goods, Chikankari work, crystal-based statues, and local savory foods
Western	Satara, Kolhapur, Lonavala, Borivali	Handmade Kolhapuri Chappals, Warli art, Kandi Pedha, and fruit-based confections
Southern	Southern transit hubs and Hubballi lines	Cashew products, specialized spices, and Chinnalapatti handloom sarees
Northeast	Assam and neighbouring connectivity lines	Varieties of Assamese Pitha, traditional Rajbongshi dresses, Jhapi, and jute products
Northwest/ Mountain	Jaipur, Gandhinagar, Jammu & Kashmir lines	Intricate carpentry, Kashmiri Girda flatbread, Kashmiri Kahwa, and premium dry fruits

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