Current Affairs 28 August 2026

BusinessMediumquizQuiz

SpiceJet Suspends All Boeing 737 MAX Passenger Operations Amid Lease and Cash Crunch

•SpiceJet suspended all Boeing 737 MAX passenger operations on 28 August 2026, attributing the decision to financial and lease constraints rather than any new safety issue with the aircraft type.
•The last commercial flight by a SpiceJet 737 MAX was operated by VT-MXD from Kozhikode to Delhi on 20 August 2026; the three recently active aircraft stopped flying within two days of each other.
•Earlier, on 9 July 2026, two Dublin-registered lessors filed Irrevocable Deregistration and Export Request Authorisations with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for four SpiceJet 737 MAX aircraft.

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InternationalMediumquizQuiz

India and Denmark Hold 4th Joint Working Group on MSMEs, Innovation and IP

•The 4th meeting of the India-Denmark Joint Working Group on MSME development, innovation and intellectual property was held in Copenhagen from 24 to 28 August 2026.
•The mechanism pairs India's Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises with the Danish Patent and Trademark Office, and the talks covered technology adoption, technology commercialisation and IP-led growth.
•The Indian delegation was led by Dr Rajneesh, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner in the Ministry of MSME; the Danish side was headed by Maria Skou, Deputy Director General and Chief Operating Officer of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office.

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EnvironmentMediumquizQuiz

UNCCD COP17 Closes in Ulaanbaatar With Rangelands and Grasslands at the Centre

•The 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification concluded in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on 28 August 2026 after a two-week session that opened on 17 August.
•The theme was 'Restoring Land. Restoring Hope.', and rangelands and pastoralists were the defining subject because 2026 is the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
•India released its first-ever Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems at the session on 17 August 2026, arguing that conservation policy must look beyond forests.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

India's IIP Grows 6.7% in July 2026 as Capital Goods Surge 16.1%, Mining Contracts

•The Index of Industrial Production rose 6.7% year-on-year in July 2026, according to data released by MoSPI on 28 August 2026.
•The index stood at 124.8 in July 2026 against 117.0 in July 2025; June 2026 growth was revised up to 8.8% from a provisional 7.3%.
•Manufacturing grew 7.3% and electricity and gas supply 8.7%, while mining and quarrying contracted 0.9%.

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Banking & FinanceMediumquizQuiz

IRDAI Sub-Committee Weighs Incentives to Pull Insurers, Hospitals onto Health Claims Exchange

•The IRDAI's Insurance Advisory Committee Sub-Committee on Health Insurance met for the third time on 28 August 2026, chaired by IRDAI Chairman Ajay Seth.
•It considered measures, including incentives linked to onboarding and faster settlement, to bring more insurers and hospitals onto the National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX).
•NHCX is built by the National Health Authority in consultation with IRDAI under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, and went live in June 2024.

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Schemes & CommitteesMediumquizQuiz

Centre Opens Second Call Under Rs 5,000 Crore PRIP Pharma-MedTech Scheme

•The Department of Pharmaceuticals announced a second call for applications under the Rs 5,000 crore PRIP scheme on 28 August 2026.
•The application window opens by mid-September 2026, across an early-stage track and a later-stage track.
•Early-stage projects at TRL 1-3 can receive up to Rs 5 crore; later-stage projects can receive up to Rs 100 crore, capped at 35% of approved cost.

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DefenceMediumquizQuiz

India and Kuwait Hold First Joint Defence Committee Meeting in New Delhi

•The inaugural meeting of the India-Kuwait Joint Defence Committee (JDC) was held in New Delhi on 28 August 2026.
•The two sides agreed to expand cooperation in training, military exercises, military medicine, staff talks, defence industry and R&D.
•The JDC operationalises the MoU on Defence Cooperation signed during the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Kuwait in December 2024, the first by an Indian PM in 43 years.

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Science & TechMediumquizQuiz

Vice President Launches Gnani Artha, an Indian Sovereign AI Stack With Evon 3.3

•Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan launched 'Gnani Artha', an indigenous sovereign artificial intelligence stack, in New Delhi on 28 August 2026.
•The stack has two parts: Evon 3.3, a 30-billion-parameter language model, and Plexus, an agentic platform for building and running AI agents.
•Evon 3.3 uses a mixture-of-experts design that activates only about 3.5 billion parameters for any given token, and was trained on about 2 trillion tokens.

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Schemes & CommitteesMediumquizQuiz

PARIVARTAN Scheme Crosses 1,300 Beneficiaries as 42 Lenders and 15 OEMs Join

•The Centre said on 28 August 2026 that more than 1,300 beneficiaries had registered on the PARIVARTAN portal, with the count taken as of 27 August 2026.
•42 banks and non-banking financial companies, covering 3,806 branches, have been onboarded to lend under the scheme, and 15 automobile manufacturers have signed MoUs to pass on the mandated discount.
•PARIVARTAN was approved by the Union Cabinet on 3 June 2026 with a total outlay of Rs 9,585 crore, including Rs 5,041 crore of central budgetary support.

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SportsLowquizQuiz

IIT Madras Launches Phiball, a Three-Team Basketball-Style Invasion Sport

•IIT Madras launched Phiball, a three-team competitive invasion sport, on its Chennai campus on 28 August 2026, on the eve of National Sports Day.
•Three teams play simultaneously on a circular court, each attacking two baskets while defending one, and rotating the basket they defend after every quarter.
•Each team registers seven players - four on court and three substitutes - and a match runs over three eight-minute quarters, with baskets worth one to three points.

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SportsMediumquizQuiz

Hockey India Announces Rs 50 Lakh Reward as Women Finish Fifth at World Cup

•Hockey India announced a cash award of Rs 50 lakh for the Indian women's hockey team on 28 August 2026 after its fifth-place finish at the FIH Hockey Women's World Cup 2026.
•The reward works out to Rs 2 lakh for each player in the squad and Rs 1 lakh for each member of the support staff.
•India sealed fifth place by beating world No. 5 Germany 3-1 in the classification match at Amstelveen, the Netherlands, on 27 August 2026.

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ObituariesMediumquizQuiz

Norway's King Harald V Dies at 89; Son Accedes as King Haakon VIII

•King Harald V of Norway died on 28 August 2026 at the age of 89, after a reign of 35 years.
•He was Europe's oldest reigning monarch at the time of his death.
•His son acceded immediately as King Haakon VIII; his granddaughter Ingrid Alexandra became heir to the throne.

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EconomyHighquizQuiz

India's Forex Reserves Hit Record $729.3 Billion in Week Ended 21 August

•India's foreign exchange reserves rose by $12.4 billion to an all-time high of $729.3 billion in the week ended 21 August 2026, according to RBI data released on 28 August.
•The reserves surpassed the previous peak of $728.5 billion recorded in the week ended 27 February 2026.
•Reserves had fallen to $666.9 billion in late June 2026 after the RBI sold dollars to steady the rupee, and have since recovered by about $62.4 billion in eight weeks.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

Delhi Tops States and UTs on Own Revenue Share at 93.2% in FY25

•Delhi recorded the highest own revenue as a share of total revenue receipts among states and UTs in the 2024-25 budget estimates, at 93.2 per cent.
•The ranking comes from Business Standard's India State Fiscal Health Tracker, built on the RBI's 2025 Handbook of Statistics on Indian States.
•Haryana (80.4%), Telangana (78.4%), Karnataka (77.3%) and Tamil Nadu (75.5%) followed Delhi in the ranking.

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NationalMediumquizQuiz

India's Malaria Cases and Deaths Fall Nearly 80% Between 2015 and 2025

•A Union Health Ministry review held on 28 August 2026 found that malaria cases and deaths in India fell by nearly 80 per cent between 2015 and 2025.
•The number of high-burden districts dropped from 155 in 2015 to 33 in 2025; these 33 districts still accounted for about 64 per cent of India's malaria cases and 54 per cent of its malaria deaths in 2025.
•The 33 districts are spread across nine states and Union Territories: Mizoram, Odisha, Tripura, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.

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Science & TechMediumquizQuiz

Gujarat Launches India's First State-Level Sports Genomics Programme

•Gujarat has launched what the state describes as India's first state-level Sports Genomics Programme, combining genomics with sports science, physiology and nutrition for athlete identification and training.
•It is being implemented by the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC), an autonomous body under the state Department of Science and Technology, and was announced by Science and Technology Minister Arjun Modhwadia.
•The programme will use whole-genome sequencing to study genetic variation linked to endurance, power, muscle composition, metabolism, response to exercise, recovery and injury susceptibility.

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SportsMediumquizQuiz

India Finish Eighth at FIH Men's Hockey World Cup After Belgium Shootout Loss

•India ended the 2026 FIH Men's Hockey World Cup in eighth place after losing the 7th/8th place classification match to co-hosts Belgium 4-3 in a shootout on 28 August 2026 at the Belfius Hockey Arena in Wavre.
•The match finished 3-3 in regulation time, with Abhishek Nain scoring in the sixth minute and captain Harmanpreet Singh scoring twice, including an equaliser in the closing seconds that forced the shootout.
•Belgian goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch denied Harmanpreet Singh and Sukhjeet Singh in the shootout, and Belgium took seventh place.

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InternationalHighquizQuiz

Trump Announces US Deal for Majority Control of Venezuela's Oil Reserves

•On 28 August 2026 US President Donald Trump announced that the United States had entered an agreement giving it majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves, calling it the biggest oil deal in world history.
•Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the arrangement would bring nearly $100 billion of private investment into Venezuela; Trump said it came at no cost to American taxpayers and would more than double United States oil reserves.
•The announcement named Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who took office in January 2026 after Nicolas Maduro was removed from power and taken to face criminal charges in a United States court.

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Science & TechMediumquizQuiz

Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse of 28 August 2026 Puts 96% of Moon in Earth's Umbra

•A deep partial lunar eclipse occurred on 28 August 2026, with greatest eclipse at 04:12 UTC (09:42 IST) and about 96% of the Moon's disc inside Earth's umbra.
•Its umbral magnitude was 0.932, meaning roughly 93% of the Moon's diameter was covered - deep enough to look almost total, but not a total eclipse.
•The eclipse was not visible from India: the Moon was below the horizon over the country through the umbral phases, which fell in Indian daytime.

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Agreements & MoUsMediumquizQuiz

India and Canada Hold Inaugural Economic and Financial Dialogue in Toronto

•India and Canada held their first-ever Finance Ministers' Economic and Financial Dialogue in Toronto on 28 August 2026.
•Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Canada's Minister of Finance and National Revenue François-Philippe Champagne co-chaired the dialogue.
•Both sides committed to concluding negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) by the end of 2026, and India offered to begin talks on a Bilateral Investment Treaty at the earliest.

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Science & TechMediumquizQuiz

Andhra Pradesh Emerges as India's Third International Subsea Cable Gateway

•Andhra Pradesh's coast, led by Visakhapatnam, is emerging as India's third international submarine cable landing hub after Mumbai and Chennai.
•The shift is driven by hyperscaler AI investment — Google's Visakhapatnam AI hub, backed by a commitment of about $15 billion, includes a new international subsea gateway.
•The I-2SEA cable system, being built by Lightstorm with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications, will run about 3,600 km from Singapore, landing at Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and in south Chennai.

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DefenceMediumquizQuiz

India Signs Letter of Offer and Acceptance for US Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles

•India signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance on 28 August 2026 to buy the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank guided missile system for the Indian Army through the United States' Foreign Military Sales route.
•The signature formally makes India a Javelin customer and opens discussions on co-production and wider defence-industrial cooperation.
•It follows a State Department clearance announced by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency on 19 November 2025, which covered Javelin missiles and launch units at an estimated $45.7 million.

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EnvironmentHighquizQuiz

Barrier Lake on Nepal-Tibet Border Overflows, Halting Flood Rescue Operations

•A landslide-dammed 'barrier lake' on the Nepal-Tibet border began overflowing on 28 August 2026, forcing rescue teams on both sides to pull back from the flood zone.
•The lake had formed two days earlier, when debris from an ice-and-rock collapse blocked a river channel near the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo, on the Lhende river system.
•China's Ministry of Water Resources put the impounded volume at 1.5-2 million cubic metres on 27 August; by 28 August it had swelled past 2.5 million cubic metres and the water level had risen about 0.6 metre.

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History & CultureLowquizQuiz

Raksha Bandhan 2026 Observed on 28 August, the Full Moon of Shravana

•Raksha Bandhan was observed across India on Friday, 28 August 2026, the full moon day (Purnima) of the Hindu month of Shravana.
•The Purnima tithi ran from about 9:08 am on 27 August to about 9:48 am on 28 August; because the tithi held at sunrise on 28 August, panchang calculations fixed the observance on that day.
•The auspicious window for tying the rakhi in Delhi was roughly 5:57 am to 9:48 am on 28 August, after the inauspicious Bhadra period of 27 August had ended.

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SportsMediumquizQuiz

Praggnanandhaa Becomes First Indian to Win the Grand Chess Tour

•Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa became the first Indian to win the Grand Chess Tour, defeating Fabiano Caruana 15-13 in the final.
•The 2026 Grand Chess Tour Finals were played at the Saint Louis Chess Club in the United States from 22 to 27 August 2026.
•He entered the last day six points down at 3-9, won both rapid games to lead 11-9, and held the lead through the blitz phase.

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Important DaysMediumquizQuiz

World Sanskrit Day 2026 Observed on Shravana Purnima, 28 August

•World Sanskrit Day, also called Sanskrit Diwas or Vishva Sanskrit Diwas, was observed on Friday, 28 August 2026.
•The day is fixed to Shravana Purnima, the full-moon day of the Shravana month, so it shifts each year in the Gregorian calendar.
•Official observance in India began in 1969, following notifications issued by the Union Ministry of Education to the Central and State governments.

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Banking & FinanceHighquizQuiz

PM Jan Dhan Yojana Completes 12 Years with 59.09 Crore Accounts

•The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana completed 12 years on 28 August 2026, having been launched on 28 August 2014 as the National Mission for Financial Inclusion.
•As on 19 August 2026 the scheme had 59.09 crore accounts holding deposits of Rs 3,16,514 crore, about Rs 3.17 lakh crore.
•Deposits have grown about 12.8 times over the twelve years while the number of accounts grew about 2.3 times.

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Polity & GovernanceLowquizQuiz

NHRC takes suo motu note of 60 newborn deaths in Malda and a two-year mid-day meal lapse in Ballia

•The National Human Rights Commission took suo motu cognizance of a media report that at least 60 newborns died during the first three weeks of August 2026 at Malda Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal, with ten deaths reported on a single day, and issued a notice to the West Bengal Chief Secretary seeking a detailed report within two weeks.
•In a separate case the same day, the Commission took suo motu cognizance of reports that students of Classes VI to VIII at a government school in Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh were not served mid-day meals for two years while false records showed meals being served to 200 students, and issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary, also returnable in two weeks.
•The Commission announced a two-day Open Hearing and Camp Sitting at Gandhinagar, Gujarat on 2 and 3 September 2026, at which the Chairperson will hear cases of alleged bonded labour and a Division Bench will take up compliance matters and other complaints, followed by meetings with civil society and State officials.

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Science & TechLowquizQuiz

Sanchar Saathi recovers over 75,000 lost and stolen handsets in a single month

•Sanchar Saathi, the Department of Telecommunications' citizen-centric portal, helped recover more than 75,000 lost or stolen mobile handsets across India in a single month for the first time since its inception, the Ministry of Communications announced on 28 August 2026.
•Monthly handset recoveries rose 201% between April 2025 and July 2026, credited to coordination between DoT's Digital Intelligence Unit and its field units, telecom service providers and State and UT police.
•Recent enhancements behind the jump: traceability reports now name the police station concerned and are sent by SMS, email and through the portal and app; details of SIMs inserted into a lost handset, including an alternate contact number, are shared with police; and citizens are advised by SMS to factory-reset a recovered handset as a malware precaution.

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DefenceLowquizQuiz

India and Kuwait hold inaugural Joint Defence Committee meeting in New Delhi

•The inaugural meeting of the India-Kuwait Joint Defence Committee (JDC) was held in New Delhi on 28 August 2026, with both sides agreeing to deepen cooperation in training, military exercises, military medicine, staff talks, the defence industry and research and development.
•The JDC operationalises the Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation signed during the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Kuwait in December 2024, the same visit on which the relationship was upgraded to a Strategic Partnership.
•The meeting was co-chaired by Joint Secretary Amitabh Prasad and Brigadier General Raed Alsakran, who led a five-member Kuwaiti delegation; the Indian side drew members from the three Services, the Department of Defence Production, DRDO, the Armed Forces Medical Services and the Ministry of External Affairs.

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Science & TechLowquizQuiz

DoT and C-DOT sign five-year pact for an end-to-end optical network testbed in New Delhi

•The Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, signed a five-year agreement on 27 August 2026 with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) to establish an End-to-End Optical Network Test Bed at the C-DOT campus in New Delhi, funded and supported by DoT.
•The publicly funded testbed is meant to bridge the gap between lab-stage innovation and market readiness, giving Indian startups and industry a real-world environment to test, validate and commercialise indigenous optical communication solutions, and to serve as a shared national resource for skill development and capacity building.
•The project runs in two phases: a Set-up Phase in Years 1 and 2 covering optical core, optical access and quantum security elements plus third-party test and measurement tools, and an Operations and Maintenance Phase in Years 3 to 5 covering maintenance, technical support to ecosystem users and educational outreach.

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EconomyLowquizQuiz

India's telephone subscriber base reaches 1,354.28 million at the end of July 2026

•India's total telephone subscriber base stood at 1,354.28 million at the end of July 2026 — 1,306.27 million wireless and 48.01 million wireline — after a net addition of 6.20 million in the month, a monthly growth rate of 0.46%.
•Broadband subscribers numbered 1,094.48 million including Machine-to-Machine (M2M) cellular mobile connections and 1,005.72 million excluding them; overall tele-density with M2M connections was 94.68%, made up of 154.12% urban and 61.05% rural tele-density.
•In July 2026, 15.98 million subscribers submitted Mobile Number Portability requests, and active wireless subscribers on the date of peak Visitor Location Register stood at 1,204.01 million.

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Schemes & CommitteesMediumquizQuiz

Social Justice Ministry tightens monitoring of SC welfare schemes via DBT and social audits

•The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment set out the monitoring architecture behind its Scheduled Caste welfare schemes, listing the initiatives that received allocations across the financial years 2021-22 to 2025-26 — the Post-Matric Scholarship for SC Students, the National Fellowship for SC Students, the National Overseas Scholarship, Top Class Education, Free Coaching, the Pre-Matric Scholarship, PM-AJAY, SHRESHTA, the Venture Capital Fund for SCs and skill-development programmes.
•Release of funds to States and Union Territories is conditional: complete proposals, submitted Utilisation Certificates, onboarding onto SNA-SPARSH wherever applicable, adherence to scheme guidelines and compliance with prescribed financial norms.
•Accountability rests on regular internal reviews by the Ministry, third-party evaluations and social audits, with scholarship money disbursed largely through Direct Benefit Transfer into students' bank accounts.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

Ex-mill sugar prices fall 20%; fortnightly quota to replace monthly allocation from September

•Ex-mill sugar prices have declined by around 20% and retail prices have begun to fall, after government action against what it identified as hoarding and speculation rather than any real shortage.
•A nationwide physical verification of stocks at sugar mills found several mills holding more sugar than they had declared in monthly returns, and some mills short-selling — releasing less than the quantity allocated under their monthly quota.
•From September the monthly sugar release quota will be replaced by a fortnightly allocation system, under which mills must sell at least 40% of the allocation in the first week and the remainder in the following week.

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Banking & FinanceMediumquizQuiz

Jan Dhan Yojana completes 12 years with over 59 crore accounts, 56% held by women

•The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana completed 12 years on 28 August 2026, marked by the Prime Minister and by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Annpurna Devi.
•More than 59 crore Jan-Dhan accounts have been opened, of which 56% belong to women and 78% are in villages and small towns.
•Deposits in these accounts have crossed ₹3.1 lakh crore.

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EnvironmentMediumquizQuiz

PARIVARTAN scheme onboards 42 lenders and 15 auto OEMs across Delhi-NCR

•The Union Cabinet approved the PARIVARTAN Scheme on 3 June 2026 to replace over 2 lakh trucks and buses meeting Bharat Stage IV or earlier emission norms, registered in Delhi and the NCR districts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, with BS-VI or stricter vehicles or electric vehicles.
•The scheme carries a total outlay of ₹9,585 crore, including ₹5,041 crore of central budgetary support; it is funded through the National Capital Region Planning Board under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and implemented by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
•Buyers get a package of incentives — 5% interest savings on vehicle loans for five years, a 100% road tax waiver for ten years with full registration fee waiver, and at least an 8% discount on ex-showroom price from participating manufacturers.

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NationalMediumquizQuiz

Malaria cases and deaths fall nearly 80% since 2015; high-burden districts down to 33

•The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare held a high-level review of India's progress towards eliminating malaria by 2030, chaired by Aradhana Patnaik, Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Health Mission.
•Malaria cases and deaths fell by nearly 80% between 2015 and 2025, and the number of high-burden districts dropped from 155 to 33; 160 districts reported zero indigenous cases during 2022-2025.
•The 33 remaining high-burden districts lie across nine States and Union Territories and accounted for 64% of India's malaria cases and 54% of its malaria deaths in 2025.

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Polity & GovernanceMediumquizQuiz

Nilekani-led High-Powered Task Force invites public suggestions on examination reforms

•The Government of India has constituted a High-Powered Task Force (HPTF) chaired by Nandan Nilekani to recommend comprehensive reforms in the conduct, security, design and governance of public examinations, including those conducted by the National Testing Agency.
•The Task Force has opened a public consultation, inviting suggestions from students and candidates, parents, teachers and academic institutions, examination-conducting and test-indenting bodies, subject and technology experts, industry, civil society and other stakeholders.
•Ten suggestive areas are listed, among them examination security, assessment methodology, governance and accountability, prevention and redressal of malpractice, secure Computer-Based Testing, examination infrastructure, inclusion across social, economic, regional and linguistic groups, and student well-being.

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Schemes & CommitteesMediumquizQuiz

Second call opens under the ₹5,000 crore PRIP scheme for pharma and MedTech R&D

•The Department of Pharmaceuticals has opened the second call for applications under the Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma & MedTech (PRIP) Scheme, which carries a financial outlay of ₹5,000 crore.
•Applications are invited on two tracks — an early-stage track for startups and MSMEs moving technologies from Technology Readiness Level 1-3 to no higher than TRL 5, with up to ₹5 crore per project, and a later-stage track for projects at TRL 4-6, with up to ₹100 crore per project.
•Later-stage assistance is capped at 35% of the approved total project cost, with the applicant co-funding the remainder; early-stage applicants file a Concept Note first and a detailed application only if shortlisted.

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DefenceHighquizQuiz

Defence Ministry Eases Export SOP and Widens OGEL to Cover Almost All Countries

•The Department of Defence Production announced on 28 August 2026 a package of reforms simplifying the Defence Export Standard Operating Procedure and the Open General Export Licence framework.
•Three separate OGEL SOPs, covering major platforms, parts and components, and intra-company technology transfer, have been merged into a single framework.
•OGEL validity rises from two years to three, and its coverage expands from 41 countries to all countries except sensitive or negative ones and those under UN Security Council sanctions or arms embargoes.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

Index of Industrial Production grows 6.7% in July 2026, led by capital goods

•India's Index of Industrial Production grew 6.7% year-on-year in July 2026, down from the 7.3% Quick Estimate recorded for June 2026.
•Manufacturing grew 7.3% and Electricity & Gas Supply 8.7%, while Mining & Quarrying contracted 0.9%; Water Supply, Sewerage & Waste Management grew 7.4%.
•The general index stood at 124.8 against 117.0 in July 2025, on the revised base of 2022-23=100.

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Science & TechHighquizQuiz

India's nuclear programme: 24 reactors, 8.78 GW and a 100 GW target for 2047

•Two PIB Backgrounders issued on 28 August 2026 set out India's nuclear energy programme in full — the safety and regulatory architecture in one, the indigenous technology roadmap in the other.
•India operates 24 nuclear power reactors across seven sites with an installed capacity of 8.78 GW; nine reactors totalling 7.5 GW are under construction, preparations continue for 10 more units, and 10 indigenous PHWRs have been approved in fleet mode.
•The Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat targets 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047; the Union Budget 2025-26 allocated ₹20,000 crore for indigenous Small Modular Reactors, with at least five to be operational by 2033.

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