Current Affairs including General Knowledge MCQs for CLAT UG, Page 11

On 6 June 2025, the Monetary Policy Committee reduced the policy repo rate by 50 basis points, from 6.00 percent to 5.50 percent. The Standing Deposit Facility rate consequently became 5.25 percent, while the Marginal Standing Facility rate and Bank Rate became 5.75 percent. The Reserve Bank of India also announced a 100-basis-point reduction in the Cash Reserve Ratio, implemented in four equal tranches, ultimately taking it to 3.0 percent. Policy-rate changes influence borrowing, saving, liquidity, inflation, and growth through financial institutions. Their actual effect depends on transmission by banks, credit demand, inflation expectations, and wider economic conditions.

On 24 January 2025, the Ramsar Convention announced 31 newly accredited Wetland Cities. Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Udaipur in Rajasthan became India's first cities to receive the accreditation. The voluntary Wetland City Accreditation scheme recognises cities that demonstrate positive relationships with urban and peri-urban wetlands. It promotes conservation, wise use, public awareness, and sustainable benefits for local communities. Indore's wetland landscape includes Sirpur Wetland and nearby Yashwant Sagar. Udaipur is known for its interconnected urban lake system. Accreditation recognises commitments and practices, but continued value depends on water quality, habitat protection, catchment management, community participation, and regular review.

On 14 August 2025, S&P Global Ratings raised India's long-term sovereign credit rating from BBB- to BBB with a Stable Outlook. The short-term rating rose from A-3 to A-2. It was India's first sovereign upgrade by S&P in eighteen years. The previous upgrade in 2007 had moved India to investment grade at BBB-. The agency cited strong growth, fiscal consolidation, improved public spending quality, infrastructure investment, and resilient corporate, financial, and external balance sheets. A sovereign rating is an assessment of credit risk, not a guarantee of economic outcomes. Its effects on confidence and borrowing costs interact with global markets, fiscal performance, inflation, and investor expectations.

ISRO's Space Docking Experiment, SpaDeX, uses two small satellites named SDX01 and SDX02 to demonstrate rendezvous, docking, and related operations in orbit. The satellites first docked on 16 January 2025. They successfully undocked on 13 March 2025 in a 460 km circular orbit. ISRO completed a second docking on 20 April 2025. On 21 April, it demonstrated power transfer from one satellite to the other in both directions for about four minutes. Docking technology is important for missions involving spacecraft assembly, servicing, crew transfer, and future space stations. Each demonstration reduces technical uncertainty, but operational missions still require further testing and reliability.

In July 2025, UNESCO inscribed the Maratha Military Landscapes of India on the World Heritage List during the World Heritage Committee's 47th session in Paris. It became India's 44th World Heritage property. The serial property consists of twelve fortifications. Eleven are in Maharashtra and Gingee Fort is in Tamil Nadu. The forts occupy varied terrain, including hills, plateaus, forests, coasts, and islands. Their locations and designs formed an integrated defence system associated with Maratha military strategy, territorial control, and protection of trade. UNESCO inscribed the property under criteria (iv) and (vi). Inscription recognises Outstanding Universal Value, but conservation still depends on coordinated management, maintenance, community involvement, and control of damaging development.

The Government operationalised the indigenous Bharat Forecasting System, or BharatFS, in May 2025. It is a numerical weather prediction model operating at a horizontal resolution of 6 km. BharatFS uses a Triangular Cubic Octahedral dynamical grid. Its resolution is finer than the earlier global model operating at about 12 km. The Arka and Arunika high-performance computing systems support faster real-time forecasting. The model is intended to improve forecasts at block and cluster-of-panchayats levels and strengthen prediction of extreme weather. Higher resolution can represent local weather features more clearly, but accuracy also depends on observations, data quality, model physics, communication, and effective use of warnings.