UPSC Current Affairs 25 September 2026

• Warm-Blooded Physiology: Unlike most fish, tuna are endothermic (warm-blooded). They possess a specialized network of blood vessels called the rete mirabile, which helps them retain metabolic heat and keep their core muscles significantly warmer than the surrounding seawater.
• The "Ferraris of the Ocean": Built entirely for speed, their sleek, torpedo-shaped bodies feature retractable dorsal and pectoral fins that minimize drag. Species like the yellowfin tuna can achieve explosive swimming bursts of up to 75 km/h (47 mph).
• Size Variance: The family encompasses 15 distinct species. They range from the tiny 4-pound bullet tuna to the massive Atlantic bluefin tuna, which can grow up to 10 feet in length and weigh over 1,500 pounds.

• Apex Predators: Occupying the top tier of the marine food web, adult tuna are carnivores that hunt in schools.
• Prey: They feed heavily on smaller schooling baitfish (like sardines, herring, and mackerel), squid, and crustaceans.
• Carbon Carbon Regulation: Because of their immense biomass and size, healthy global tuna populations function similarly to marine megafauna (like whales), playing a vital role in helping the oceans absorb carbon and mitigate climate change.
• Open Ocean Dwellers: Tuna prefer the pelagic (open ocean) zones of tropical and temperate seas worldwide, rarely venturing into shallow coastal waters.
• Global Travelers: They are highly migratory. A Pacific bluefin tuna can navigate an entire trans-Pacific journey of 8,000 kilometers in less than two months.

• Major Global Commodity: Tuna accounts for roughly 8% of all globally traded fish and makes up about 20% of the total economic value of all marine capture fisheries.
• The Canning Industry Evolution: Canned tuna originally surged during the mid-20th century, notably during World War II, when the US military relied on it as a crucial, shelf-stable, protein-dense military resource for troops overseas. Today, Skipjack tuna remains the most dominant species driving the global canned seafood industry.

• The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) issued an advisory on 24 September 2026 cautioning the public against investing in non-compliant Nidhi companies that promise unusually high returns.
• The advisory reiterated that every company seeking to function as a Nidhi must file Form NDH-4 for declaration or updation of its Nidhi status. Only 395 companies had been declared as Nidhis by the Central Government as of the advisory.

• Core Definition: Form NDH-4 is the official "Application for declaration/updation of status as Nidhi Company" under Section 406 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• Mandatory Gateway: No public company can legally operate, accept deposits from the public, or give loans to its members as a Nidhi company until its NDH-4 application is officially approved by the Central Government.
• The Approval Window: As per current rules, the Central Government examines the submitted form and must convey its decision within 45 days. If no update is given within 45 days, it is treated as a deemed approval.

• Filing Timeline: A public company wishing to function as a Nidhi must file the NDH-4 form within 120 days of its incorporation.
• Pre-requisites for Filing: Before hitting submit on Form NDH-4, the entity must meet these strict criteria:
  • Have a minimum of 200 members.
  • Possess Net Owned Funds (NOF) of ₹20 Lakhs or more.
  • All promoters and directors must clear the "fit and proper person" criteria laid out by the rules.
• Business Restriction: A newly incorporated Nidhi company cannot file its Form 20A (Commencement of Business) or legally begin its financial operations until the NDH-4 application is approved.

• Ban on Deposits/Loans: If a company's NDH-4 application is rejected or not filed, it is completely restricted from raising deposits or offering any loans.
• Filing Restrictions: Non-compliant companies face automated technical blocks on the MCA portal, preventing them from filing major mandatory returns like Form SH-7 (Alteration of share capital) or Form PAS-3 (Return of Allotment).

• Launch Date: Officially launched on 25th September 2014 (Antyodaya Diwas).
• Nodal Ministry: Implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India.
• Core Objective: It functions as a placement-linked skill training initiative under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM). It aims to diversify rural incomes and fulfill the career aspirations of rural youth.
• Financial Benefits for Students: The training is completely free of cost. Trainees receive free books, uniforms, and study material. Residential courses cover lodging and food, while non-residential programs offer a daily travel allowance and a meal.
• Placement Guarantee: Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) must guarantee placement for at least 75% of trained candidates.

• Target Age Group: Rural poor youth between the ages of 15 and 35 years.
• Age Relaxation: The upper age limit is relaxed up to 45 years for women, Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST), Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), transgender individuals, and other vulnerable groups (like manual scavengers and victims of trafficking).
• Mandatory Inclusion Targets:
  • 50% allocation for SC/ST communities.
  • 33% allocation for Women candidates.
  • 15% allocation for Minorities.
  • 5% allocation for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs).

• Focus Sectors: Prioritises high-growth and emerging industries such as Electric Vehicle (EV) maintenance, renewable energy, logistics, healthcare, care economy, retail, and hospitality.
• Sustained Financial Support: Placed candidates receive a monthly post-placement allowance of ₹1,270 for six months (totalling ₹7,620) to smooth their transition.
• Retention Incentive: A lump-sum retention support of ₹5,000 is paid to candidates who complete a full year (365 days) of continuous employment.
• Upskilling Pathways: Extends upskilling and reskilling options after 12 months of placement to help candidates climb the career ladder.
• Migration Support Centres: Provides counselling, safe accommodation assistance, and localized transit support for youth relocating to cities for work.

• Total Trained: More than 18.47 lakh candidates have been successfully trained across 36 economic sectors and 800+ job roles.
• Total Placed: Over 12.43 lakh candidates have secured successful wage employment.
• Women Empowerment: Out of the totals, over 9.71 lakh women were trained, leading to more than 6.34 lakh successful job placements.
• Operational Network: The network spans 31 States and UTs, comprising 749 projects, 760 active training centres, and 455 partner agencies.

• Type of Weapon: It is an air-to-ground, precision-guided, unpowered glide bomb.
• Design & Development: It has been indigenously designed and developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), specifically led by its Research Centre Imarat (RCI).
• Guidance Mechanism: The SAT variant integrates satellite navigation (using GPS / NavIC networks) with an onboard Inertial Navigation System (INS). It eliminates the need for an active seeker, making it difficult for the enemy to jam or intercept.
• Standoff Range: It features a long standoff range of up to 100 kilometres. This allows IAF pilots to release the weapon from a safe distance without entering the envelope of hostile air defence networks.
• Weight & Payload: It belongs to the 120–125 kg weight class and features a high-explosive warhead with deep penetration capabilities.
• Accuracy: The satellite-aided navigation ensures extreme all-weather precision, featuring a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of within 7 metres.

• Primary Function: It is built explicitly to neutralise and ground enemy air force operations by destroying critical ground infrastructure.
• Target Elements: It targets reinforced runways, taxiways, aircraft hangars, radar installations, fuel dump nodes, and heavily reinforced bunkers.
• Cost Efficiency: Being an unpowered glide bomb, it is significantly cheaper than conventional propelled missiles, making it highly viable for large-scale pre-emptive saturation strikes.

• Domestic Share: The weapon system boasts an indigenous content of 60%.
• Sub-system Indigenisation: Key sub-assemblies such as the Initial Measurement Unit, Long Impact Delay Fuse, and Twin Store Carrier are entirely manufactured locally.
• Launch Platforms: The weapon has already been flight-tested and validated across multiple IAF platforms, including the SEPECAT Jaguar, Sukhoi Su-30MKI, and the Hawk-i aircraft. Future integration plans include the entire fighter fleet, such as the Dassault Rafale.

• What it is: The OIC is an intergovernmental organisation that considers itself the "collective voice of the Muslim world".
• Membership: It consists of 57 member states spanning four continents, altogether encompassing a collective population of roughly 1.8 billion people. While most are Muslim-majority nations, some members (particularly in West Africa) are secular nations with large Muslim populations.
• Official Languages: The primary operational languages are Arabic, English, and French.
• Headquarters: Located permanently in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Establishment: The organization was founded on 25 September 1969 during a historic summit of Muslim leaders in Rabat, Morocco.

• Protect Muslim Interests: To secure, protect, and advocate for the socio-economic and political interests of Muslims worldwide.
• Combat Islamophobia: Actively fight against the defamation of Islam and promote international peace, harmony, and inter-religious dialogue.
• United Stand: Ensure that member states present a unified front at major international bodies like the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council.
• Solidarity in Conflicts: Express solidarity with conflict-ridden regions or territories with significant Muslim concerns, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Rohingya in Myanmar.

• Non-Member Status: India is not a member and does not hold observer status in the OIC, despite home to the world's second-largest absolute Muslim population.
• Reason for Exclusion: India’s inclusion has historically been consistently blocked by Pakistan, which leverages the OIC platform to internationalise bilateral disputes.
• Friction Points: Friction regularly manifests when the OIC Contact Group on Kashmir issues statements critiquing India’s internal boundaries or security policies, drawing routine and firm diplomatic rejections from India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

• Definition: It is a statutory legal provision that acts as a pre-arrest bail. It allows a person who apprehends or expects arrest to secure a court direction ensuring their immediate release if an arrest happens.
• Operational Mechanism: Unlike a regular bail, which is granted to release a person out of police custody after an arrest, an anticipatory bail becomes effective at the exact moment of the arrest. The individual is technically never taken into prison custody.
• No Fixed Expiry: As clarified by the Supreme Court’s landmark Sushila Aggarwal verdict, anticipatory bail ordinarily does not end automatically when a police chargesheet is filed.
• Duration: It generally continues to protect the accused right through to the conclusion of the trial, unless specialized circumstances prompt the court to modify or cancel it.

• Primary Provision: Anticipatory bail is governed by Section 482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. This replaced the corresponding Section 438 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973.
• Origin: It was not part of India's original criminal code. It was integrated into the 1973 CrPC following the 41st Law Commission of India Report (1969) to protect citizens from being humiliated via politically motivated or malicious arrests.

• Competent Authorities: A person cannot apply for anticipatory bail at a magistrate's court. It can only be sought by approaching either the Court of Sessions or the High Court.
• Nature of Offence: This relief is exclusively applicable to non-bailable offences. For bailable offences, bail is a matter of right, meaning police must grant it automatically at the station.

• Gravity & Nature: The exact type and severity of the alleged crime.
• Criminal Antecedents: The applicant's background. The Supreme Court has specified that having multiple active FIRs is heavily weighed against the accused and can be the sole reason to deny relief.
• Flight Risk: The likelihood of the accused absconding from justice.
• Interrogation Needs: Whether the police require "custodial interrogation" to unearth hidden evidence or conspiracies.

• SC/ST Act: Direct statutory bar on pre-arrest bail if a prima facie offence of atrocity is evident.
• NDPS Act (Narcotics): Under Section 37, a near-absolute bar applies, making anticipatory bail near impossible to secure.
• Economic Offences & Terrorism: Crimes involving massive public fraud, financial conspiracies, or state security are treated as a "class apart," where custodial questioning is preferred over pre-arrest relief.

• The Core Mission: The squadron’s official directive is to "disrupt, degrade, and deny hostile actions" targeting British interests in space or on Earth.

• Primary Weapons & Technology: It will heavily leverage Electronic Warfare (EW). Instead of using physical missiles to blow up satellites (which creates dangerous space debris), the UK has been utilizing ground-based systems to jam and block the signals of adversary satellites.
• Assets Under Protection: The squadron will protect critical satellites responsible for missile-warning systems, maritime shipping navigation, weather forecasting, and mobile/troop communications.
• Protecting the Economy: The unit secures services that underpin everyday British life. The Ministry of Defence highlighted that a major disruption to GPS infrastructure would cost the UK economy an estimated £1.4 billion ($1.86 billion) every single day.
• The Broader Framework: No. III joins two existing precursor units launched in 2023—No. I Space Operations Squadron and No. II Space Warning Squadron—which function to "watch and warn". Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth also noted that Numbers 4, 5, and 6 squadrons are being planned for the future.
• Joint Personnel: Rather than just air force pilots, the squadron brings together specialized operator personnel pooled from across all branches of the British Armed Forces.

• Definition: Launched on June 8, 2026, the facility allows commercial banks to swap designated foreign-currency inflows with the RBI for Indian rupees at a fixed, concessional premium rate (1.5% per annum).
• Exchange-Rate Protection: By swapping with the central bank at a fixed rate, commercial banks are entirely protected from exchange-rate volatility and high market hedging costs.
• Eligible Windows: The facility was structured to accept foreign capital from three distinct routes:
  • FCNR(B) Deposits: Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) deposits.
  • ECBs: External Commercial Borrowings (qualifying public sector entities).
  • OFCBs: Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings by commercial banks.
• Tenor Limits: The swap facility applies to foreign funds mobilized for a minimum tenure of three years and a maximum of five years.

• FCNR(B) Deposits: $132.98 billion (comprising over 92% of the total amount).
• Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings (OFCBs): $5.32 billion.
• External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs): $5.29 billion.

• FCNR(B) Window Closed: Originally slated to run until September 30, the window for FCNR(B) deposits was advanced and closed on August 31, 2026, owing to an overwhelming, unexpected rush of inflows.
• ECB and OFCB Extensions: The swap windows for corporate external borrowings (ECBs) and bank-level overseas borrowings (OFCBs) remain active and available until December 31, 2026.

• Rupee Insulation: The influx of billions of dollars dramatically reinforced India's foreign exchange reserves, giving the rupee a structural backstop to recover partially from record lows.
• Relief for Commercial Lenders: The facility provided Indian banks with a stable, medium-term source of foreign currency funding, easing operational stress at a time when lenders were grappling with highly elevated credit-to-deposit ratios.
• Outperforming the Past: The 2026 facility has completely eclipsed India's landmark 2013 FCNR(B) swap intervention, which had gathered roughly $26 billion during a previous currency taper tantrum.

• Massive Scale: Researchers analyzed the gene activity (gene expression) within the nuclei of more than 6.3 million brain cells.
• Diverse Cohort: The study utilized postmortem brain tissue from 1,494 deceased donors ranging in age from infancy to 108 years old, representing diverse genetic ancestries.
• Cell Types Mapped: The atlas captures molecular data across various critical cell types, including neurons, resident immune cells (microglia), blood-vessel-associated cells, and supporting glial cells (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes).
• Funding & Leadership: The project was conducted by the PsychAD consortium with backing from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

• The "Three Acts" of Lifespan: The atlas revealed that gene activity in the prefrontal cortex shifts across three distinct lifespan phases:
  1. Act 1 (Infancy to Adulthood): Marked by turbulent molecular changes related to the growth of new neurons and glial cells.
  2. Act 2 (Early to Middle Adulthood): A phase of relative molecular stability across cell types.
  3. Act 3 (Late Life, around age 60+): Renewed activity shifts, heavily dominated by immune and support cells.
• Maturation Milestone: The data indicates that the structural and cellular maturation of the human prefrontal cortex is largely completed around the age of 24.
• Shared Molecular Pathways in Diseases: The map revealed striking molecular similarities among different neurological conditions. Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, and Parkinson’s disease were found to share overlapping gene expression profiles tied to blood-vessel biology and neuronal communication.
• Circadian Rhythm Breakdown: By looking at donors who passed away at different times of day, scientists mapped the brain's internal body clock. While young and middle-aged adults showed tightly synchronized daily clock gene patterns in neurons, these rhythms became significantly weakened and desynchronized in older adults, explaining how aging disrupts local molecular timekeeping.
• Cognitive Resilience Clues: The map identified specific energy-related cellular variations in individuals who maintained strong cognitive function late in life despite having the physical brain pathology of Alzheimer's disease—offering a roadmap to potential protective therapies.

• Understanding the Prefrontal Cortex: As the brain’s "command centre," the prefrontal cortex dictates higher executive functions like planning, decision-making, emotional regulation, and behavioural adaptation. Understanding its baseline genetics helps pinpoint what goes wrong during illness.
• Personalised Medicine: The data allowed researchers to build individual molecular profiles, helping explain why patients with the exact same diagnosis experience different biological variations and symptom progressions.
• Open-Source Data: To accelerate global neuroscience research, all data, methods, and molecular profiles have been made completely public, serving as a foundation to discover highly targeted, personalized drugs for psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions.

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