SEBI Grade A Current Affairs — 30 September 2026

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, speaking at the Asia Society, declared that the global shift toward a multipolar world order has accelerated and is now undeniable, stating the pretence of a unipolar world has dropped. He noted the United States is increasingly acting in its own interest rather than as a global rule-setter. Jaishankar framed India's foreign policy as suited to this transition, engaging multiple power centres rather than aligning exclusively with any single bloc.

Jaishankar's remarks at the Asia Society crystallise a doctrine that has quietly underpinned Indian foreign policy for over a decade: strategic autonomy in a multipolar world. The concept of multipolarity — multiple roughly equal power centres replacing US-led unipolarity — is not new, but Jaishankar's framing marks a shift from diplomatic suggestion to open assertion.

For exam aspirants, the static hinterland here is India's Non-Alignment 2.0 thinking, the Panchsheel principles, and India's consistent rejection of bloc-politics since independence. Unlike the Cold War Non-Alignment Movement (founded 1961, Belgrade), today's strategic autonomy is not about staying out of conflicts but about retaining the freedom to engage selectively — with the Quad, the SCO, BRICS, and bilateral partners simultaneously.

The Asia Society, founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller III, is a New York-based policy forum that frequently hosts senior government officials. Jaishankar's choice of this platform — a US-headquartered institution — to openly declare US unipolarity over is itself a signal.

Key policy frameworks connected to this theme include India's Act East Policy, the Indo-Pacific construct, BRICS expansion (new members joined January 2024), and India's presidency of the G20 in 2023. Examiners test whether aspirants can link India's multilateral memberships to its broader foreign policy doctrine — not just name the organisations but explain why India joined them and what they signal about India's worldview.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes extended the income tax return filing deadline for Assessment Year 2026-27 for tax audit cases from October 31, 2026 to November 21, 2026. The extension applies to taxpayers whose accounts are required to be audited under the Income Tax Act. CBDT exercised its powers under Section 119 of the Income Tax Act to grant the relief, providing an additional 21 days to comply with the filing requirement.

Tax audit under Section 44AB of the Income Tax Act is mandatory for businesses and professionals whose turnover or gross receipts exceed prescribed thresholds. For businesses, the threshold is ₹1 crore (or ₹10 crore if cash transactions do not exceed 5% of total transactions). For professionals, the threshold is ₹50 lakh. These taxpayers must get their accounts audited by a Chartered Accountant before filing their ITR.

The standard due date for filing ITR for tax audit cases is October 31 of the assessment year, as opposed to July 31 for non-audit individual taxpayers. CBDT has the authority under Section 119 of the Income Tax Act to relax or extend deadlines when there is sufficient cause — such as technical glitches on the income tax portal, natural calamities, or administrative difficulties.

For SEBI aspirants, the intersection of taxation and capital markets matters because CBDT notifications directly affect capital market participants — listed companies, institutional investors, and intermediaries all fall under tax audit requirements. Understanding the hierarchy of tax authorities (CBDT → Income Tax Department) and the statutory basis for deadline extensions (Section 119) is the kind of institutional knowledge the SEBI examiner tests in the taxation sub-domain alongside concepts like LTCG, STT, and POEM.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has approved a new Special Notified Zone (SNZ) at the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) to facilitate rough diamond trading. This designation allows eligible buyers and sellers to trade rough diamonds under simplified customs procedures within a bonded zone framework. The move aims to position Surat as a global diamond trading hub, reducing India's dependence on Antwerp and Dubai as intermediary markets for rough diamond sourcing.

A Special Notified Zone (SNZ) is a customs-designated area where specific goods — typically high-value commodities — can be traded under deferred or simplified duty structures without immediate clearance into the domestic tariff area. The SNZ concept is governed under India's Customs Act and is operationally supervised by CBIC.

The Surat Diamond Bourse, inaugurated in December 2023 and touted as the world's largest office complex, was built precisely to consolidate India's diamond processing and trading ecosystem. However, without SNZ status, rough diamond imports still faced complex customs procedures that discouraged international traders from conducting primary rough diamond sales in India — they preferred Antwerp (Belgium) or Dubai.

By creating an SNZ within SDB, CBIC enables foreign rough diamond sellers (including mining companies from Russia, Botswana, Canada, and Australia) to display, auction, and sell rough stones to Indian buyers without the stones technically 'entering' Indian customs territory until a buyer decides to import. This is functionally similar to how bonded warehouses or Free Trade Warehousing Zones (FTWZs) operate — goods remain in a suspended customs state.

For India, this is strategically significant: India polishes over 90% of the world's diamonds by volume. Yet rough diamond price discovery and primary trading happened abroad, giving intermediaries a margin. The SNZ directly addresses this value-chain gap. From an exam perspective, this connects to topics like SEZs, FTWZs, Customs Act provisions, export promotion policy, and CBIC's regulatory authority over indirect taxation infrastructure.