1st July 2026 Current Affairs MCQ

June 2026 GST collections rose 13.9% year-on-year to about ₹1,94,812 crore — a strong figure given the headwinds India's economy was facing at the time, including fuel price hikes and rupee depreciation. It's a useful number to anchor against GST's own history: monthly collections averaged just ₹90,000–95,000 crore when GST launched in July 2017, meaning this figure is more than double the early-years baseline. A big driver here is import-related IGST revenue — since India imports heavily in oil, gold, and electronics, high import volumes directly translate into strong GST inflows at the customs level, independent of domestic consumption trends.

Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy was a celebrated physician and the legendary Chief Minister of West Bengal, and July 1 happens to be both his birth and death anniversary — a rare coincidence that made the date a natural fit for this observance. He received the Bharat Ratna in 1961, India's highest civilian honour, for his contributions to medicine and public service. The Indian Medical Association observes the day nationwide through medical camps and awareness drives. The 2026 theme, "Behind the Mask: Who Heals the Healers?", is a pointed one — it turns attention toward the mental health toll on doctors themselves, especially after years of pandemic exhaustion and rising workplace violence in hospitals.

MGNREGA had run for 21 years since 2005 before being replaced by VB-G RAM G (Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin), which raises the guarantee from 100 to 125 days per household per year — a genuinely meaningful jump for families that depend heavily on this income. The funding structure changed too: instead of the Centre paying 100% of wages, the new Central-State ratio is 60:40, shifting real fiscal weight onto states like UP, Bihar, and Jharkhand where usage is highest. The new law also makes the NMMS facial-recognition attendance app mandatory nationwide, aimed squarely at eliminating "ghost workers" from the rolls — though it does raise access concerns for workers without smartphones.

General Seth was commissioned into the Rajputana Rifles — the oldest rifle regiment in the Indian Army, with a lineage stretching back to 1775. He succeeded General Upendra Dwivedi, who retired on reaching the standard superannuation age of 62. His signature announcement as COAS is the VIJAY vision, built on five pillars: jointness through Integrated Theatre Commands, indigenous defence production, technology integration (AI, drones, electronic warfare), soldier welfare, and operational readiness. It's worth linking this to the Integrated Battle Groups, which also became operational on the very same day — a structural reform that fits neatly under the "jointness" and "readiness" pillars of his own vision.

Under MGNREGA, the Centre paid 100% of wages and 75% of material costs — but VB-G RAM G shifts wage funding to a 60:40 Central-State split, meaning states now shoulder 40% of the burden. This is a real fiscal shift for poorer states like UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha, where MGNREGA utilisation has historically been highest — they now carry a bigger financial load even as the Centre frames this as encouraging greater "state ownership" of implementation. The change sits alongside two other notable shifts: a mandatory facial-recognition attendance system (NMMS), and a new 60-day agricultural blackout provision letting states pause the scheme during peak harvest season.

Ayushman Sarathi runs on WhatsApp — a deliberate choice, since over 500 million Indians already use the platform daily, including in rural areas on basic smartphones, so there's no new app to download. It helps beneficiaries of AB-PMJAY, which covers roughly 55 crore people for up to ₹5 lakh in annual hospitalisation costs, check eligibility, find empanelled hospitals, download e-cards, and resolve claim issues instantly. The scheme's real bottleneck was never its design — it was awareness and access, since many eligible families simply didn't know they were covered or struggled to reach a helpline. This fits India's broader Digital Public Infrastructure approach: reuse high-penetration platforms like WhatsApp, UPI, and Aadhaar instead of building yet another standalone app.

e-OCI holders retain their rights under Section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 — including full exemption from registering with local police or the FRRO, no matter how long they stay in India, plus economic parity with NRIs. The card converts the old physical OCI stamp-and-booklet into a secure digital credential with QR-based verification, solving a real pain point: the physical booklet had to be carried alongside a passport and needed re-issuance every time the passport was renewed. This directly benefits India's 50+ lakh OCI holders worldwide, launched alongside the FCRA 2.0 Portal, which separately makes foreign-funding compliance faster and more transparent for NGOs.

Havildar Lakshay and Havildar Ujjwal Kumar Singh delivered India's first-ever gold at the World Rowing Cup — a breakthrough for a sport that has been historically dominated by European nations and largely overshadowed in India by cricket, badminton, and athletics. Havildar is a rank equivalent to Sergeant, and this win continues a long tradition of India's armed forces producing elite athletes, particularly in disciplines demanding serious physical endurance. The event itself is organised by World Rowing (FISA). Around the same time, India also picked up bronze at the AVC Men's Volleyball Cup in Gandhinagar, together signalling a broadening of India's competitiveness beyond its traditional sporting strongholds.

The MoU focuses on desalination technology, water conservation, and sustainable water resource development — a pairing that makes real strategic sense. India faces some of the world's fastest groundwater depletion, particularly across the Indo-Gangetic Plain, while Saudi Arabia, despite being an arid desert nation, has built world-class desalination expertise out of sheer necessity, largely through SWCC (Saudi Water Conversion Corporation). Desalination — the process of removing salt from seawater to produce freshwater — is technology India has been eyeing for its coastal cities and islands. The NITI Aayog Composite Water Management Index has flagged water stress as one of India's most serious development challenges, making Saudi expertise a genuinely useful import.

The SDSN (Sustainable Development Solutions Network) publishes the annual SDG Index, and India climbed to its highest-ever rank — 94th globally in 2026. The improvement reflects real progress in areas like rural electrification (SDG 7) and digital connectivity (SDG 9), though challenges around child nutrition (SDG 2), press freedom, and environmental performance are still holding the overall score back. It's worth remembering the SDG framework itself — 17 goals adopted by UN member states — since exam questions often test the numbering and thematic grouping of these goals directly, not just country rankings.