9 May 2026 Current Affairs MCQ — 10 Questions & Explanations

General Bipin Rawat was India's first Chief of Defence Staff, appointed when the post was officially created on 24 December 2019 by the Cabinet Committee on Security. He served from January 2020 until his tragic death in a helicopter crash in December 2021. The CDS post was created to promote jointness and integration among the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the CDS also heads the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), established on 30 December 2019. General Anil Chauhan served as the 2nd CDS, with Lt Gen NS Raja Subramani becoming the 3rd from May 30, 2026.

Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan commanded INS Vikramaditya — India's primary aircraft carrier, formerly Russia's Admiral Gorshkov, acquired by India in 2013. It is a Kiev-class carrier modified to STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) configuration and serves as the flagship of the Indian Navy's Western Fleet. Commanding an aircraft carrier is one of the most prestigious operational assignments in any navy, and this experience is a key part of Vice Admiral Swaminathan's appointment as the next CNS. He takes charge on May 31, 2026, succeeding Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi.

Pochishe Boishakh literally translates to the 25th day of Boishakh — the first month of the Bengali calendar — which is the traditional date of Rabindranath Tagore's birth. While the Gregorian calendar date of his birth is May 7, 1861, the Bengali solar calendar follows solar cycles and doesn't align perfectly with the English calendar every year, which is why the date shifts. In 2026, this celebration fell on May 9 and marked Tagore's 165th birth anniversary, observed widely across West Bengal, Tripura, and Bangladesh.

Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali — a collection of devotional poems that he himself translated into English as "Song Offerings." This made him the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in any category. Gitanjali's lyrical spiritual depth captivated the Nobel Committee and introduced Indian literary tradition to a global audience. Tagore also wrote India's national anthem Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's national anthem Amar Shonar Bangla, founding Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1921.

The Kessler Syndrome is a theoretical scenario proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler, where a collision between two space objects generates a cloud of debris that then collides with other objects — triggering a chain reaction that produces ever more debris. If this cascade reaches a tipping point, certain orbital bands — particularly Low Earth Orbit (LEO) — could become permanently unusable for satellites. With over 35,000 tracked objects currently in Earth orbit, the ISO/IEC SC14 plenary's focus on space debris mitigation and sustainability standards is directly aimed at preventing this scenario.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) under MoS&PI updated the base year for GSVA from 2011-12 to 2022-23 to ensure a standardised and comparable framework across all Indian states. A base year update is necessary to incorporate new and emerging sectors — like the gig economy and digital services — that weren't captured under the older framework, and to align with the UN's System of National Accounts (SNA) 2008 framework. GSVA is the state-level equivalent of Gross Value Added at the national level, measuring economic output across agriculture, industry, and services.

India's first 2G ethanol plant was established by HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited) in Bathinda, Punjab — specifically chosen to address Punjab's stubble burning crisis by converting paddy straw into green fuel. Unlike conventional 1G ethanol made from water-intensive sugarcane, 2G ethanol uses agricultural waste such as rice straw, wheat straw, and sugarcane bagasse as feedstock. This approach tackles two problems simultaneously — reducing fossil fuel dependence and cutting the air pollution caused by crop residue burning in North India.

The James Webb Space Telescope is positioned at Lagrange Point 2 (L2) — approximately 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction away from the Sun. L2 is a gravitationally stable point where the telescope can maintain a fixed position relative to the Earth and Sun, allowing its sunshield to block light from both simultaneously and keep its infrared instruments at extremely cold temperatures. Launched on December 25, 2021, JWST is operated jointly by NASA, ESA, and CSA and has a primary mirror of 6.5 metres, far larger than Hubble's 2.4 metres.

Europe Day commemorates the Schuman Declaration of May 9, 1950, in which French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed the first concrete steps toward European economic integration — specifically the pooling of French and German coal and steel production under a common authority. This is considered the founding moment of what eventually became the European Union. The EU itself was formally established by the Maastricht Treaty, signed on February 7, 1992, and entered into force on November 1, 1993. Today, the EU has 27 member states following Brexit on January 31, 2020.

Lt General NS Raja Subramani was commissioned into the 8th Battalion of the Garhwal Rifles in December 1985 after graduating from the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla and the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. The Garhwal Rifles is a prestigious infantry regiment of the Indian Army with a distinguished history, drawing soldiers from the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. Before his appointment as CDS, Raja Subramani served as Military Adviser to the National Security Council Secretariat, Vice Chief of the Army Staff, and GOC-in-C of the Central Command — giving him a rare combination of operational and strategic experience at the highest levels.