UPSC Current Affairs 18 October 2026

• Awareness Generation: Educate domestic manufacturers, traders, and exporters about tariff concessions available under India's newly signed and active trade deals.
• Effective Utilisation: Move beyond signing deals to ensuring businesses practically transition preferential market access into real-world export orders.
• Capacity Building: Provide hands-on guidance regarding technical barriers, customs procedures, and legalities.
• Centre-State Coordination: Align state industrial infrastructure, export-focused task forces, and financial incentives with central trade policies to streamline supply chains.

• Rules of Origin: Helping businesses understand the strict criteria required to prove a product was manufactured in India to claim duty exemptions.
• Tariff Preferences: Highlighting lines where immediate zero-duty or reduced-duty access is available.
• Quality & Standards: Emphasising compliance with international benchmarks so that Indian products are not rejected due to technical or sanitary barriers.
• Global Value Chains: Assisting businesses in linking up with overseas buyers and integrating into global production networks.

• MSMEs and Artisans: Lower tariffs help small businesses gain price competitiveness against foreign rivals.
• Farmers and FPOs: Unlocking international markets for agricultural produce like millets, spices, and processed foods.
• Women and Youth Entrepreneurs: Leveraging e-commerce linkages, special training blocks, and dedicated trade channels.
• Priority Sectors: Core focus areas include Gems & Jewellery, Textiles & Apparel, Electronics & Semiconductors, Engineering goods, Chemicals, and Services (AI, Fintech, IT).

• Active Agreements: India has successfully implemented major pacts with the UAE, Australia, Mauritius, Oman, and the 4-country EFTA bloc (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland).
• Future Pipeline: Ongoing trade negotiations are being aggressively fast-tracked with the UK, Canada, EU, GCC, Israel, and Peru, alongside reviews of older pacts (ASEAN, Japan, Korea) to correct historical trade imbalances.
• Competitive Edge: The strategic intent of these new-age FTAs is to give Indian producers better trade rates than close competitors like Vietnam and Bangladesh in developed markets.

• The NBA recently constituted a multi-disciplinary Expert Committee on Invasive Alien Species (IAS), following National Green Tribunal directions, to prepare a national list of invasive species and recommend prevention, control and eradication measures.
• It has also been in news for disbursing ₹2.02 crore in Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) funds to State Biodiversity Boards and Union Territory Biodiversity Councils.

• Status: It is an autonomous, statutory body.
• Origin: Established on October 1, 2003, to implement India’s Biological Diversity Act, 2002. It was created to fulfill India's commitments under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ratified in 1992.
• Headquarters: Located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• Current Leadership: Chaired by Shri Virendra R Tiwari, IFS (Retd.).

• Regulatory Role:
  • Regulates access to India's biological resources and traditional knowledge for commercial utilization, bio-surveys, and research.
  • Foreign individuals, non-resident Indians (NRIs), and overseas corporations must obtain prior approval from the NBA before accessing local biological resources.
  • Mandates prior approval before applying for any Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) or patents globally if they are based on a biological resource of Indian origin.
• Advisory Role:
  • Advises the Central Government on national policies for biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilization, and fair benefit distribution.
  • Advises State Governments on declaring ecologically vital sites as Biodiversity Heritage Sites (BHS) and formulating management strategies for them.
• Facilitative Role:
  • Coordinates grassroots ecosystem preservation by supporting 28 State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs), 8 UT Biodiversity Councils, and facilitating over 2,76,000 local Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs).
  • Oversees the documentation of local resources and traditional practices through People's Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) compiled at the Panchayat and municipal levels.

• Definition: ABS is a global framework ensuring that when commercial enterprises or research bodies benefit from local genetic or biological materials, the profits and technical advancements are equitably shared with the indigenous and local communities who act as custodians of those resources.
• Fund Management: The NBA manages these finances through the National Biodiversity Fund, using the accumulated royalties and fees directly for community welfare, sustainable livelihood creation, and eco-restoration projects across the country.

• The Setting: It is an oval-shaped marine fortress situated on a rock outcrop in the Arabian Sea, right off the coast of Murud village in Maharashtra.
• Distance: It is located approximately 165 km south of Mumbai.
• Reaching the Fort: The fort is completely surrounded by water and can only be accessed via a 15-to-20-minute sailboat or ferry ride from the nearby Rajapuri jetty.

• Origins: It started in the 15th century as a small wooden defensive structure (Medhekot) built by local Koli fishermen to protect themselves from pirates.
• The Siddi Dynasty: It was later captured and rebuilt into a massive stone citadel by the Siddis (Abyssinian mariners and warriors of African origin) under Malik Ambar. It served as the capital of the sovereign Siddi naval power.
• The "Unconquerable" Title: Earning the moniker “Unconquerable Janjira,” the fort remained undefeated for nearly 400 years. Powerful empires—including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sambhaji Maharaj, the Peshwas, the British, the French, and the Portuguese—all launched failed sieges against it. It transferred to the Indian government only after Independence in 1947.

• Concealed Entrance: The grand main gate facing the Rajapuri shore is architecturally engineered to be completely invisible until a boat is within 40 feet of it, heavily confusing invading naval forces.
• Escape Route: It features a small poster/postern door on the opposite side facing the open sea, intended for emergency escapes or supply lines.
• Massive Bastions: The perimeter is guarded by 19 to 26 massive, intact rounded artillery towers and granite walls that scale up to 40 feet high.
• The Artillery: In its heyday, it housed over 570 roaring cannons. A few iconic large cannons remain on the ramparts today, most notably the Kalaal Bangdi—a 22-ton structure that ranks as one of India's largest cannons.

• Freshwater Anomalies: Despite being located in the middle of a saltwater sea, the fort features a deep natural well and two large freshwater lakes that provide sweet, cold drinking water that has never run dry.
• Self-Contained Township: The fort once functioned as a bustling city. The interior still holds the ruins of royal palaces (the Nawab's Palace), administrative quarters, a medieval mosque, granaries, and officer quarters.
• Symbolic Art: The outer wall near the main gate features a famous sculpture of a tiger-like beast clutching elephants in its claws, symbolizing the fort's dominance over its adversaries.

• Rhysida quadrispinosa
  • Naming: Named quadrispinosa to highlight its unique four spines.
  • Key Features: It possesses 18 antennal segments (articles), distinct body segment margins starting from its back plates (tergites 7–11), and a precise arrangement of four ventrolateral spines on the upper leg segment (prefemur) of its final pair of legs.
• Rhysida coorgensis
  • Naming: Named after its discovery location in Coorg (Kodagu), Karnataka.
  • Key Features: It is distinguished by specific starting locations of fine parallel lines (paramedian sutures) on its back plates and a unique pattern of spines on its coxopleural area. While it closely resembles the African species R. ikhalama, it displays distinct internal structural differences.
• Rhysida neyyarensis
  • Naming: Named after the Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala, where it was discovered.
  • Key Features: It stands out due to a highly specific pattern of leg spurs, featuring two tarsal spurs on legs 1 through 19, alongside its own unique spine arrangement on its ultimate legs.

• Biodiversity Hotspot Validation: The discovery heavily emphasizes the rich ecological health of the Western Ghats, a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot teeming with unique and vulnerable ecosystems.
• Evolutionary Insights: Uncovering these predatory creatures enhances scientific understanding of macroarthropod evolution, regional endemism (species unique to a specific geographic location), and soil ecology.
• Conservation Urgency: Highlighting these new species draws critical attention to the urgent need to protect and conserve South India’s rapidly vanishing natural habitats.

• Classification: Centipedes are not insects. They are predatory arthropods belonging to the myriapod group under the class Chilopoda.
• Leg Counts: While the name implies "100 legs," centipedes always have an odd number of leg-bearing segments, typically ranging anywhere from 15 to over 141 pairs of legs (but never exactly 100).
• Predatory Nature: They are active nocturnal predators. Their first pair of legs has uniquely evolved into venomous claws called forcipules (or toxicognaths), which act like hypodermic needles to inject venom and immobilize prey.
• Habitat: They rely heavily on moisture to survive and are commonly found in damp, sheltered places such as leaf litter, soil, under rocks, beneath tree bark, and inside decaying logs.

• Scientific Name: Borassus flabellifer.
• Common Names: It is globally and locally referred to as the Sugar Palm, Toddy Palm, Fan Palm, or Karpaga Vruksham (the tree of a thousand uses/celestial tree) in Tamil culture.
• Official Status: It is proudly recognized as the State Tree of Tamil Nadu.
• Native & Range: While native to tropical Africa, it is thoroughly naturalized throughout India, dominating states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal.

• Soil Adaptability: Extremely resilient; it thrives across multiple terrain types, including arid or nutrient-poor wastelands, sandy soils, red soils, black soils, and river alluvium.
• Rainfall & Altitude: Well-suited for semi-arid regions experiencing low annual rainfall of less than 750 mm. It can grow comfortably up to an altitude of 800 metres above sea level.
• Lifespan & Propagation: Capable of living for 100 years or more. It is entirely propagated through seeds, as no viable vegetative cloning methods exist.

• Natural Lightning Conductor: Because of its immense height (up to 100 feet) and high mineral/sap content, it acts as a natural lightning arrester. States like Odisha and West Bengal have run major plantation drives to use them to ground lightning strikes and reduce monsoon casualties.
• Drought & Erosion Resilience: It has a highly extensive, deep taproot system that binds the soil tightly to prevent soil erosion and helps effectively recharge local groundwater tables.
• Mitigating Elephant Conflicts: During lean forest seasons, its ripening fruits provide natural fodder for wild animals like elephants, successfully reducing human-elephant boundary conflicts.

• Palmyra Jaggery Powder: Extracted directly from the sweet blossom nectar (or Padaneer). It serves as a dense, mineral-rich alternative to refined white sugar, holding high amounts of raw vitamins.
• Toddy (Sap Beverage): The raw sweet sap tapped from the inflorescence naturally ferments within hours of sunrise, turning into a popular indigenous beverage.
• Edible Kernel (Nungu): It bears a soft, gelatinous fruit jelly widely eaten during the Indian summer for cooling hydration.
• Handicrafts & Timber: Its robust wood serves as an excellent construction material, while its wide fan-shaped leaves are universally woven into traditional mats, baskets, fans, and roof thatchings.

• The Discoverers: The species was identified by researchers Arumugam S., Sukdeb Bera, and Karthigeyan Kaliyamurthy from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).
• Nomenclature: It is named tamilnaduensis to honor the rich ecological heritage and endemic flora of the state of Tamil Nadu.
• Taxonomic Family: It belongs to the Apocynaceae family (specifically the subfamily Asclepiadoideae).

• Location: Discovered within the Nellai Wildlife Sanctuary in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, situated in the biodiversity-rich Western Ghats.
• Environment: Thrives at an elevation of roughly 380 metres on stream-adjacent hill slopes surrounded by dense evergreen forests.

• Growth Form: It is a perennial herb featuring a twining or trailing growth pattern with drooping (pendant) stems.
• Floral Traits: Features single, solitary flowers growing directly from the leaf axils. The flowers have a distinct dark brownish-purple corolla tinged with white.
• Specialized Structures: Possesses a glabrous (hairless) central corona and a pollinial corpusculum characterized by lateral wings.
• Seed Size: It produces unusually large seeds, measuring up to 14 mm in length.
• Taxonomic Affinities: It shares clear morphological structural similarities with Ceropegia annamacharyae (in its flower structure) and Ceropegia swarupa (in its narrow leaves and body structure).

• IUCN Classification: Provisionally assessed as Data Deficient (DD).
• Current Observations: While more than 50 flowering individuals were recorded thriving safely inside the protected sanctuary, scientists require further field exploration to fully understand its geographical distribution, range, and exact population size.

• The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures poverty beyond income by identifying simultaneous deprivations in health, education, and standard of living.
• It is in the news because UNDP and OPHI released the Global MPI 2026 on 12 October 2026, reporting that multidimensional poverty rose globally for the first time since the index began in 2010.

• Definition: Launched in 2010 by OPHI and the UNDP, the MPI is an international resource that measures acute poverty by looking beyond income or monetary indicators alone.
• Core Principle: It recognizes that poverty is complex and measures the simultaneous deprivations individuals face in their daily lives, such as a lack of clean water, poor housing, or malnutrition.
• Methodology: It utilizes the Alkire-Foster counting method. A person is classified as "multidimensionally poor" if they are deprived in one-third (33.3%) or more of the weighted indicators.

Dimension	Indicators
Health (1/3 weight)	• Nutrition (any person under 70 is undernourished) • Child Mortality (any child death in the household within the past 5 years)
Education (1/3 weight)	• Years of Schooling (no household member has completed 6 years of school) • School Attendance (any child up to class 8 is not enrolled)
Standard of Living (1/3 weight)	• Cooking Fuel • Sanitation • Drinking Water • Electricity • Housing • Assets

• H (Incidence of Poverty): The headcount ratio, or the proportion of the population that is multidimensionally poor.
• A (Intensity of Poverty): The average percentage of deprivations that poor people experience simultaneously (answering "how poor are the poor?").

• The Domestic Counterpart: In India, NITI Aayog publishes the National MPI, aligning the global model with country-specific priorities by adding two indicators—Maternal Health and Bank Accounts—to make a total of 12 indicators.
• Massive Historic Decline: Between 2013-14 and 2022-23, data shows that 24.82 crore (248 million) Indians escaped multidimensional poverty. India's poverty headcount dropped from 29.17% to 11.28% in that decade.
• Fastest Progressing States: The sharpest reductions in multidimensional poverty within India have occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
• State-Level Extremes: Kerala has made unique milestones, tracking the lowest poverty rate in the country and declaring itself extreme poverty-free, whereas Bihar historically carried the highest headcount ratio.
• Driven by Policy: This drop has been spearheaded by flagship government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (cooking fuel), Swachh Bharat Mission (sanitation), and Poshan Abhiyan (nutrition).

• Gigantic Size: The vertical, pale, finger-like fruiting bodies stand between 20 to 50 centimetres tall—roughly the height of a traffic cone.
• Exceptional Weight: While most specimens weigh between 250 and 600 grams, the largest recorded specimen weighed a massive 2.2 kilograms (4.9 pounds).
• Record Spore Structure: It possesses the largest known stromata (upright spore-producing structures) within the phylum Ascomycota, a massive fungal group containing over 64,000 species.
• Spore Dispersal Advantage: Scientists hypothesise that its extreme height evolved specifically to help it throw and disperse reproductive spores across dense, thick forest floors.

• New Lineage: The discovery is so unique that it establishes a brand new species (Dianjunus rex), a new genus (Dianjunus), and an entirely new family (Dianjunaceae) under the order Xylariales.
• The Post-Dinosaur Fungal Boom: Genetic molecular clock analysis traces its origin back 65 million years ago. This places its emergence right after the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.
• Ecological Opportunity: When the asteroid hit and wiped out massive forests, a planetary explosion of dead wood and plant matter occurred. D. rex's ancestors likely evolved rapidly to take advantage of this massive, post-cataclysmic food source.

• Geographic Location: Specimens were successfully harvested between August 2024 and July 2025 across various tropical rainforests and temperate coniferous zones in Yunnan Province, southwestern China.
• The Oak Tree Connection: It primarily grows directly out of the woody roots and stumps of the Chinese cork oak tree (Quercus variabilis).
• A Secret Lifestyle: Scientists believe the fungus lives a quiet, harmless "double life" endophytically (inside healthy living trees) before seamlessly shifting to saprotrophic feeding (decomposing the wood) once the host tree dies, fuelling its massive growth.

• Dianjunus: Combines Dian (referencing the ancient Dian Kingdom that flourished in Yunnan during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE) with jun, the Chinese word for fungus.
• rex: Latin for "king" (similar to Tyrannosaurus rex), chosen to honor its regal, imposing size and dominant stature within its fungal phylum.

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