28 October 2026
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, reported that civilians in El Obeid in Sudan are caught between drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces and mass arrests by the Sudanese Armed Forces, and that the war is spreading geographically and growing more technologically sophisticated. Expert Mona Rishmawi said thousands have been arrested and held in unofficial sites and in El Obeid Central Prison, which is reported to hold about 2,000 people against a capacity of roughly 450. Drone attacks have damaged homes, schools, displacement sites and electricity and water systems, and only about 30 per cent of the city's hospitals still work. Chair Mohamed Chande Othman said October saw the highest number of drone attacks on civilians since the conflict began and that the investigators found a transnational network supporting the Rapid Support Forces. The Mission called for the United Nations arms embargo, now limited to Darfur, to be extended to all of Sudan. The team is also examining a strike on an Abyei market on 19 October that killed at least 80 people.
El Obeid Central Prison occupancy:
About 2,000 against a capacity of roughly 450
Hospitals still working:
About 30 per cent
Why it matters for exams: The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan as a Human Rights Council body, and the UN arms embargo on Sudan being limited to Darfur with the Mission asking for it countrywide.
UPSC
In plain words
RSF Rapid Support Forces — A Sudanese paramilitary force fighting the national army since 2023.
28 October 2026
A study by UN Women and UNESCO found that 75 per cent of the women journalists surveyed had faced online violence, and that 42 per cent linked online attacks to physical abuse or assault, up from 20 per cent in 2020. UN Women data cited alongside it says nearly one in four women human rights defenders, activists and journalists have met artificial-intelligence-enabled abuse such as deepfakes and cloned voices. Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, speaking at a United Nations event during Women, Peace and Security Week, said every woman journalist driven out of a conflict zone costs a peace process its witness, and described receiving 90 hate messages an hour at the height of the attacks on her. Figures of the International Federation of Journalists cited at the event put the number of women journalists in Afghanistan at fewer than 700, down from about 2,800 before the Taliban takeover. Conflict coverage grew more than sixfold between 2013 and 2023, yet only 5 per cent of articles dealt with women's experience of war. UNESCO will launch a campaign called Threats Evolve, Impunity Endures before the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on 2 November.
Women journalists facing online violence:
75 per cent
Linking online attacks to physical abuse:
42 per cent, up from 20 per cent in 2020
Women journalists in Afghanistan:
Fewer than 700, from about 2,800
Why it matters for exams: The UN Women and UNESCO finding that 75 per cent of surveyed women journalists faced online violence, and 2 November as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — The UN agency at Paris that works on education, science, culture and press freedom.
28 October 2026
At a press briefing at United Nations Headquarters, the new Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Luke Lindberg, said ending conflict is the single most effective way to cut world hunger, because conflict drives two-thirds of the acute food insecurity now affecting 266 million people. He warned that El Nino could push 49 million more people into acute food insecurity and that supply chain chokepoints are making matters worse. His stated priorities are protecting staff, strengthening donor partnerships and steady operational improvement; he noted that more than 700 humanitarian workers have been killed in recent years. The agency is concentrating on Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, and his first trip in the post will be to Sudan with the aim of ending famine there. He said hunger levels in Gaza are unacceptable while funding shortfalls are forcing the agency to cut back there. The United States remains the agency's largest funder and the private sector is now its fifth largest donor.
People in acute food insecurity:
266 million
Share driven by conflict:
Two-thirds
Additional risk from El Nino:
49 million people
Why it matters for exams: The World Food Programme's figure of 266 million people in acute food insecurity, with conflict behind two-thirds of it, and the El Nino risk of 49 million more.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
WFP World Food Programme — The United Nations agency for food assistance, with headquarters in Rome.
29 October 2026
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk were cleared for a spacewalk from the International Space Station to install a new roll-out solar array on the port-side truss structure. The pair, flying with Expedition 75, were to unbolt the array from a temporary stowage platform, after which Menon would carry it to the worksite while riding Canadarm2, the station's robotic arm. Mission controllers were to deploy the array remotely once it was bolted down. The suits were to switch to battery power at 8 a.m. Eastern time, the moment a spacewalk formally begins, and the work outside was planned to last about six hours and 45 minutes. NASA+ was to begin live coverage at 6.30 a.m. Eastern time. Roll-out arrays are flexible panels that unfurl like a carpet instead of unfolding on rigid hinges, and are being added to raise the station's electrical power.
Expedition:
75
Planned duration:
About 6 hours 45 minutes
Robotic arm used:
Canadarm2
Why it matters for exams: Canadarm2 as the International Space Station's robotic arm, Expedition 75 as the crew increment, and roll-out solar arrays as the station's new power hardware.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
Canadarm2 Space Station Remote Manipulator System — The Canadian-built robotic arm on the International Space Station, used to move cargo and astronauts.
28 October 2026
NASA has reported that the Space Launch System core stage for the Artemis III mission has been integrated alongside its twin solid rocket boosters inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Technicians lifted the 212-foot core stage and set it between the boosters on the mobile launcher, giving what NASA calls a short stack. NASA's article dates the integration 28 October, while its photo captions show the core stage lifted from the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building on 22 October and integrated alongside the booster motor segments on 25 October. Once testing and checkouts are finished, the stack will roll out to Launch Pad 39B for a tanking test, in which only the core stage will be loaded with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Artemis III will carry NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano in the Orion spacecraft, and will test rendezvous and docking between Orion and commercial spacecraft from Blue Origin and SpaceX, ahead of future missions to land astronauts on the Moon. The Space Launch System is NASA's heavy-lift rocket for the Artemis programme.
Core stage length:
212 feet
Assembly location:
High Bay 3, Vehicle Assembly Building
Pad for the tanking test:
Launch Pad 39B
Why it matters for exams: Artemis III as the Space Launch System flight that will test Orion's rendezvous and docking with commercial spacecraft, assembled in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center and bound for Launch Pad 39B.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
SLS Space Launch System — NASA's heavy-lift rocket built to send crew to the Moon under the Artemis programme.
28 October 2026
NASA's Science Mission Directorate has selected nineteen proposals that will let volunteers take part in research. Twelve come through the Citizen Science Seed Funding Program, which helps scientists build such projects: four in astrophysics, six in heliophysics and two in planetary science. The astrophysics set includes the Rogue Worlds Project, which searches SPHEREx data for free-floating planets and brown dwarfs, and Planet Hunters Roman, which looks for exoplanets found by microlensing. Heliophysics projects range from a low-cost magnetometer array in Alaska to sonified plasma wave signals. One planetary project maps lunar iron hotspots using Moon Mineralogy Mapper data. The remaining seven teams come under the Science Activation Program; they include Sungrazer 2.0, in which volunteers hunt comets in SOHO and STEREO images, Telescopes for All, which opens 22 robotic telescopes to the public, and ARK, which scans Antarctic satellite imagery for changes affecting penguins, seals and whales.
Proposals selected:
19
Under the seed funding programme:
12
Robotic telescopes opened by Telescopes for All:
22
Why it matters for exams: NASA's selection of nineteen citizen science proposals, split between the Citizen Science Seed Funding Program and the Science Activation Program.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Microlensing Gravitational microlensing — A method of finding planets by the brief brightening of a background star as a nearer mass passes in front.
28 October 2026
The Lancet Countdown report, produced with the World Health Organization and led by University College London, estimates a record 710,000 heat-related deaths worldwide in 2023, and for the first time attributes more than 70 per cent of them to human-caused climate change. Heat exposure cost about 573 billion potential work hours in 2025, valued at 1.07 trillion dollars. Extreme drought has widened sharply: 51.8 per cent of land had at least one month of drought in 2025. Conditions suitable for dengue transmission rose 24 per cent for Aedes albopictus and 7 per cent for Aedes aegypti between the early 1980s and the decade to 2025. On the other side, clean energy jobs grew 2.3 per cent in 2024, clean energy investment reached a record 2.1 trillion dollars, and about one in four countries now has a plan to adapt health services to climate change, against 14 WHO member states in 2015. National climate-health laws have risen roughly fiftyfold since 2000, but wealthy nations hold 55 per cent of them.
Heat-related deaths in 2023:
710,000
Work hours lost in 2025:
About 573 billion, valued at $1.07 trillion
Land with at least a month of drought in 2025:
51.8 per cent
Why it matters for exams: The Lancet Countdown estimate of 710,000 heat-related deaths in 2023 with over 70 per cent attributed to human-caused climate change, and University College London as the report's lead institution.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Lancet Countdown Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change — An annual assessment, published in The Lancet, that tracks how climate change affects health.
Background
The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted by a Conference of Plenipotentiaries at Basel in Switzerland on 22 March 1989 and entered into force in 1992. It covers hazardous wastes, which it defines by their origin and by their composition and characteristics, and it separately names four other wastes: household waste, incinerator ash, certain plastic wastes and certain electronic and electrical wastes. The convention's subject is therefore not waste in general but waste that crosses a national frontier, and the control it applies is on that movement and on the disposal that follows it.
Adopted at:
Basel, Switzerland
Other wastes named:
four
Why it matters for exams: Matching each environmental convention to the city it is named after, and to the exact subject it controls, is the commonest form of the question; Basel is hazardous waste movement, not chemicals or ozone.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
Transboundary movement Transboundary movement — The carriage of waste from one country into another.
Background
The World Heritage Convention's formal name is the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. It was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. The page calls its most significant feature the fact that it links together in a single document the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The convention established the World Heritage Fund to help States Parties identify, preserve and promote World Heritage sites, financed by compulsory and voluntary contributions, and about US$4 million is made available annually to assist States Parties. The World Heritage Committee develops the selection criteria for inscribing properties on the World Heritage List.
Adopted by:
the General Conference of UNESCO
Annual assistance from the Fund:
about US$4 million
Why it matters for exams: That one convention covers both cultural and natural heritage, that UNESCO's General Conference adopted it, and that a World Heritage Fund exists, are the facts tested rather than any list of sites.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
States Parties States Parties — The countries that have ratified a convention and are bound by it.