31st August 2026

Explanation - As per article 217, the Chief Justice of the high court is appointed by the President in consultation with the Chief justice of India as well as the Governor of the state in question. A collegium system has evolved over the years in which a Collegium headed by the CJI (along with two senior most Supreme Court Judges) makes recommendation to the government for appointment of judges. The Collegium recommends the names to the law ministry which after scrutinising send the paper to the President. The President either approves the names or returns the names for reconsideration of the Supreme Court. If still the Supreme Court sends the same names, the President appoints the persons recommended.

Explanation - In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the appointments are made by the President of India. The names are recommended by the Collegium. The norms relating to the eligibility has been envisaged in the Article 124 of the Indian Constitution.

• To become a judge of the Supreme court, an individual should be an Indian citizen.
• In terms of age, a person should not exceed 65 years of age.
• The person should serve as a judge of one high court or more (continuously), for at least five years or the person should be an advocate in the High court for at least 10 years or a distinguished jurist.

The Collegium system of appointment and transfer of judges that has evolved through judgments of the Supreme Court itself, and not by an Act of Parliament or by a provision of the Constitution. The Supreme Court collegium is headed by the CJI and comprises four other senior most judges of the court. A Hight Court collegium is led by its Chief Justice and four other senior most judges of that court.

Explanation - As an end to end risk mitigation mechanism for farmers, the scheme extends coverage for the entire cropping cycle from pre-sowing to post-harvest including coverage for losses arising out of prevented sowing and mid-season adversities. Individual farm level losses arising out of localised calamities and post-harvest losses are also covered due to perils such as inundation, cloudburst and natural fire. There will be a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops. In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%. The premium rates to be paid by farmers are very low and balance premium will be paid by the Government to provide full insured amount to the farmers against crop loss on account of natural calamities. With the recent change in the scheme, the enrolment under the scheme has been made voluntary for all farmers.

Explanation - The Union Cabinet has approved a Bill to set up a Development Finance Institution - National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID). It aims to create an enabling ecosystem to draw patient capital to fund long-term infrastructure projects. NaBFID will be set up with a corpus of ₹20,000 crore and an initial grant of ₹5,000 crore from the government. Initially, it will be wholly owned by the Government but the Government stake will be lowered to a quarter. It will start with a “clean slate” and be governed by a “professional board”. Its chairman is likely to be an eminent professional and at least half of the board will comprise non-official directors. Its board (and not the government) will have powers to even remove whole-time directors.

Explanation - The National Test House (NTH), a 109-year-old government quality assurance laboratory that provides material testing facilities for the industry, consumers and government agencies in all domains of engineering. NTH has 6 laboratories that are serving the country on quality assurance for industrial and economic growth. It comes under the overall supervision of Ministry of Consumer Affairs. The Government Test House (Today known as National Test House) was created in the year 1912 at Alipore in South Calcutta, and has contributed immensely to scientific theory, discoveries and practical product development. The NTH serves consumers, Industries (Heavy,Small scale),Central & State Governments, Public Sector Undertakings, Manufacturing & Construction agencies across Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Non Destructive Test (NDT), Rubber-Paper- Plastic & textile (RPPT) domains of testing