Current Affair MCQ for 2025-10-07

Notes: The rare European bird Ortolan Bunting was recently spotted at Baruipur, West Bengal, marking only its second sighting in Bengal. It is a small Palearctic migrant songbird that travels long distances during migration. It is found across Europe, extending east to Mongolia and north to the Arctic Circle. It lives in open cultivated or uncultivated areas with few trees and completely avoids forests. The oceanic climate does not suit it. Its conservation status is Least Concern under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Notes: Exercise KONKAN-25 began on 05 October 2025 off the western coast of India. It is a bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom (UK). The exercise has two phases, a harbour phase and a sea phase. The harbour phase includes professional exchanges, ship visits, sports events, and cultural activities. The sea phase involves complex drills in anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare, along with flying operations and seamanship tasks. India is represented by INS Vikrant, the indigenous aircraft carrier with its carrier battle group. The exercise reinforces the goal of secure, open, and free seas under the India-UK Vision 2035.

Notes: During the Kaushal Deekshant Samaroh at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, the Prime Minister launched the Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs (PM-SETU) scheme. PM-SETU is a centrally sponsored scheme with an investment of ₹60,000 crore. It aims to modernize 1,000 Government Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) across India. The scheme follows a hub-and-spoke model with 200 hub ITIs connected to 800 spoke ITIs. Each hub will have innovation centres, production units, incubation hubs, and placement services. The scheme introduces new industry-driven courses and upgrades existing ones.

Notes: Recently, INS Sahyadri, an indigenous stealth frigate of the Indian Navy, made a port call at Kemaman Port in Malaysia. It is the third ship of the Shivalik Class Guided Missile Stealth Frigates built by Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai. The ship was indigenously designed, constructed, and commissioned in 2012. INS Sahyadri is equipped with advanced weapons and sensors to detect and neutralize threats from air, surface, and subsurface. It has a displacement of 6,800 tons and a surface speed of 32 knots. The ship belongs to the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy based in Visakhapatnam.

Notes: The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) successfully conducted the 10th National Level Pollution Response Exercise (NATPOLREX-X) on 05-06 October 2025 off Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was held along with the 27th National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOSDCP) & Preparedness Meeting. The event saw participation from central ministries, coastal state governments, major ports, oil handling agencies, and maritime organizations. The exercise tested India’s preparedness for marine oil spills and inter-agency coordination under NOSDCP. ICG deployed ships and aircraft equipped for maritime pollution control.