NABARD Grade A Current Affairs — 19 October 2026

The Union Cabinet approved the continuation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme beyond its current phase into the next plan period from 2026 onwards. The scheme provides ₹6,000 per year in three equal instalments of ₹2,000 directly into bank accounts of eligible farmer families across India. The continuation ensures uninterrupted income support to small and marginal farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer, reinforcing the government's agricultural welfare commitment.

PM-KISAN, launched in February 2019, is a Central Sector Scheme — meaning it is 100% centrally funded, unlike Centrally Sponsored Schemes where states share costs. This distinction is frequently tested. The scheme targets land-holding farmer families, with payment routed through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) directly to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, eliminating intermediaries.

The annual outlay of ₹6,000 is split into three instalments of ₹2,000 each, released every four months. This income transfer supplements farmers' earnings without being tied to crop output or input use — making it an income support mechanism, not a price support or subsidy.

For RBI/NABARD aspirants: PM-KISAN is significant for financial inclusion because it brings small and marginal farmers into the formal banking system and creates a verifiable income trail that banks can use for credit assessment. The scheme has been linked to KCC (Kisan Credit Card) saturation drives — beneficiaries are nudged toward KCC loans, connecting income support to institutional credit access.

For UPSC aspirants: PM-KISAN exemplifies the DBT architecture as a governance tool — targeting, verification through land records, and Aadhaar seeding. Exclusions include institutional landholders, income-tax payers, and constitutional post-holders — these exclusion criteria are directly testable.

The Cabinet's decision to continue the scheme post-2026 signals it has crossed from a temporary measure into a permanent entitlement framework for agrarian welfare.

The Nagoya Protocol, adopted in 2010 under the Convention on Biological Diversity and in force since 2014, governs Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources. It legally requires companies and researchers who commercially exploit biological resources — plants, microbes, traditional knowledge — to share profits with the source country and local communities. India ratified the Protocol and enacted the Biological Diversity Act 2002, administered by the National Biodiversity Authority, as its domestic compliance mechanism.

Before the Nagoya Protocol, biodiversity-rich developing nations faced systematic 'biopiracy' — foreign corporations extracted genetic resources and traditional knowledge, patented them, and returned nothing to the communities that preserved them for generations. The Protocol closed this gap by creating a legally binding Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Three pillars hold up the Protocol:
1. Access: Users must obtain Prior Informed Consent (PIC) from the provider country before accessing genetic resources.
2. Benefit Sharing: Users must negotiate Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) specifying how monetary benefits (royalties, licensing fees) and non-monetary benefits (technology transfer, capacity building) will be shared.
3. Compliance: An ABS Clearing-House mechanism tracks transactions; the Nagoya Protocol Information Sharing System (NPIS) is the global database.

India's Implementation: The Biological Diversity Act 2002 is the domestic law. The three-tier structure is: National Biodiversity Authority (NBA, Chennai) → State Biodiversity Boards → Biodiversity Management Committees at local body level. The NBA must approve access by foreign entities; State Boards regulate Indian commercial users; BMCs maintain People's Biodiversity Registers documenting local biological resources and traditional knowledge.

Who benefits: Local communities and gram sabhas receive a share of commercial benefits routed through the State Biodiversity Fund. This directly connects biodiversity conservation to rural livelihoods — an angle NABARD exams consistently test.