Daily Current Affairs Quiz: October 18, 2025

Notes:
The Taftan Volcano in Iran is showing signs of reawakening after 700,000 years. It is a 12,927-foot or 3,940-metre-high semi-active stratovolcano. It lies in southeastern Iran, about 56 kilometres from the Pakistan border. It is the only active volcano in the Makran continental volcanic arc. The volcano formed due to the subduction of the Arabian Ocean crust beneath the Eurasian continent. It has two summits named Narkuh and Matherkuh. Taftan has an active hydrothermal system with sulfur-emitting vents called fumaroles. It has not erupted in recorded human history.

Notes:
Recently, India and Brazil agreed to significantly expand their existing trade agreement with the MERCOSUR bloc. MERCOSUR stands for the Southern Common Market (Spanish initials). It is a South American regional economic organization and the fourth largest integrated market after the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). MERCOSUR was created in 1991 by signing the Treaty of Asunción. Its objective is the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people, becoming a customs union in January 1995.

Notes:
Recently, India has been elected as Co-Chair of the Regional Committee of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Asia and the Pacific (UN-GGIM-AP) for a three-year term till 2028. UN-GGIM-AP is one of the five regional committees of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). It is the main inter-governmental body for decisions on production, availability, and use of geospatial information within national, regional, and global policies.

Notes:
Recently, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) launched the Scheme for Innovation and Technology Association with Aadhaar (SITAA). SITAA aims to strengthen India’s digital identity ecosystem and tackle security threats like deepfakes, spoofing, and presentation attacks. It brings together startups, academic institutions, and industry players to co-develop secure, scalable, and globally benchmarked solutions for Aadhaar authentication. The pilot phase has three challenges: Face Liveness Detection, Presentation Attack Detection (PAD), and Contactless Fingerprint Authentication. Solutions must prevent spoofing, be privacy-compliant, scalable, and compatible with Aadhaar systems.

Notes:
Recently, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the first State of Finance for Forests 2025 report. The report provides a global overview of public and private forest finance in 2023. It finds a forest finance gap of US$ 216 billion annually between current flows and investment needed to meet global forest goals by 2030. Annual investment must triple to US$ 300 billion by 2030 and increase sixfold by 2050 from US$ 84 billion in 2023. Governments were the main source, providing 91% of forest funding in 2023. Expanding nature-based solutions by 1 billion hectares by 2030 and 1.8 billion by 2050 is essential for climate and biodiversity goals.