PIB Current Affairs 16 August 2026

Schemes & CommitteesLowquizQuiz

PIB profiles PM-AJAY and SJY livelihood aid and the National Fellowship for SC Students

•The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment issued two beneficiary accounts on 16 August 2026 illustrating its Scheduled Caste welfare architecture: a livelihood case combining Bihar's Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY) with central assistance under Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana (PM-AJAY), and a research-fellowship case under the National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste Students (NFSC).
•In the livelihood case, Ruby Devi of Karanpura panchayat in Hajipur, Vaishali district, Bihar received ₹10,000 as SIF support, grocery-shop assets worth ₹20,000 and ₹27,000, ₹1,000 a month for seven months as LGF support, ₹17,000 under PM-AJAY and ₹10,000 under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, along with a three-day CBED training and three refresher trainings at three-month intervals.
•Her reported monthly income rose from ₹2,000-₹3,000 as a daily-wage labourer to ₹15,000-₹20,000 from a general store, with assets valued at about ₹1,45,640; in the second case, Ms Priyanga G of Puducherry, whose NFSC assistance began in November 2022, used the fellowship to buy research material costing ₹10,000-₹15,000 and to attend two international conferences abroad and more than ten held within India.

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Science & TechLowquizQuiz

RSSDI launches rural diabetes outreach digital portal and VISHWAS awareness video library

•The Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India (RSSDI) inaugurated its Diabetes Rural Outreach Digital Portal and launched VISHWAS, a Diabetes Awareness Video Library, at a programme held on Independence Day 2026, with Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, addressing the event.
•The RSSDI Rural Outreach Programme works through village adoption by RSSDI members and has reached around 30 villages across several States so far; the new portal standardises beneficiary registration, treatment documentation, longitudinal follow-up, programme monitoring and the generation of anonymised real-world data for public health planning.
•The Minister argued that rural India is no longer insulated from the diabetes epidemic and that prevention must become a shared national priority, adding that digital health platforms must work in the colloquial languages people actually speak if they are to reach the grassroots.

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Polity & GovernanceLowquizQuiz

DoPPW to confer 9th National Anubhav Awards; Pension Mitra handbook and DLC Campaign 5 guidelines released

•The Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW), under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will hold the 9th National Anubhav Awards Ceremony and the 60th Pre-Retirement Counselling (PRC) Workshop on 17 August 2026 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, under the auspices of Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for the Ministry.
•Fifteen awardees have been selected under the National Anubhav Awards Scheme, 2026 for contributions to projects including the Passport Seva Kendra, the repeal of obsolete rules and framing of new ones, technological adaptation in administration and accounting, and energy conservation.
•The event will also see the release of the Handbook on Pension Mitra and the Guidelines for the nation-wide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) Campaign 5, alongside a Bank Exhibition in which 17 Pension Disbursing Banks will display products and services for retiring employees.

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Science & TechLowquizQuiz

NIELIT launches CYBER KUSHTI 2026, a hackathon scoring security judgment over detection

•The National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, launched CYBER KUSHTI 2026 on 15 August 2026 - a national cyber security and Artificial Intelligence hackathon that scores the ability to judge security findings rather than the speed of detecting them.
•It is run with the Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC Foundation) under the National Security Database, with CERT-In as Knowledge Partner, and is the official parallel technical track of the 3rd National Conference on Cyber Security, Digital Forensics and Intelligence (NCCDFI 2026).
•Every team receives an identical, deliberately imperfect Security Assessment Package containing false, duplicated and genuine findings, with some real vulnerabilities omitted; teams are scored for correctly rejecting false findings as well as for identifying genuine ones.

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DefenceLowquizQuiz

Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth visits Nepal, to receive honorary General rank

•General Dhiraj Seth, Chief of the Army Staff, departed on an official visit to Nepal from 17 to 19 August 2026 to strengthen military-to-military ties between the two armies.
•At an Investiture Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan in Kathmandu he is to be conferred the Honorary Rank of General of the Nepali Army by the President of Nepal, Shri Ram Chandra Paudel, under a reciprocal tradition that dates to 1950.
•The programme includes a wreath-laying at the Army Pavilion, Tundikhel, a Guard of Honour at Nepali Army Headquarters, a briefing by the Nepali Army's Director General Military Operations, an address to student officers of the Army Command and Staff Course at Shivapuri, and an Ex-Servicemen Rally at Pokhara where Veer Naris and gallantry awardees are to be felicitated.

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Schemes & CommitteesMediumquizQuiz

Alwar Saras Dairy plant foundation laid as Rajasthan gets Rs 6,453 crore cooperative push

•The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation inaugurated and laid foundation stones for 954 works costing Rs 6,453 crore across 17 districts of Rajasthan at Alwar on 16 August 2026, including Bhoomi Pujan for a milk processing plant of 3 lakh litres per day capacity that is to be raised to 5 lakh litres.
•Four Saras Dairy plants costing Rs 274 crore in total became operational at Bhilwara, Jaipur, Pali and Rajsamand, and four district cooperative banks were launched at Phalodi, Balotra, Didwana-Kuchaman and Pratapgarh offering crop loans at zero percent interest.
•Rs 152 crore was transferred through DBT under the Chief Minister's Crop Insurance scheme and over Rs 667 crore to 67 lakh farmers under the Mukhyamantri Kisan Samman Nidhi at Rs 1,000 per farmer.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

Mines Ministry Opens 8th Tranche of Critical Mineral Block Auctions with Patna Roadshow

•The Ministry of Mines is holding a roadshow on the 8th tranche of auction of critical and strategic mineral blocks, along with a workshop on the National Mineral Exploration and Development Trust (NMEDT), on 17 August 2026 in Patna, Bihar.
•The 8th tranche comprises 20 mineral blocks — 3 mining leases and 17 composite licences — covering graphite, rare earth elements, rare metals, vanadium, gallium, titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, potash, phosphorite and glauconite.
•The programme includes a presentation on the NMEDT scheme for partial reimbursement of exploration expenses to composite licence holders, and a workshop on mineral exploration planning, execution and reporting using the National Geoscience Data Repository.

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EconomyMediumquizQuiz

DRI Busts Rs 2,500-Crore SAFTA Origin Fraud in Areca Nut Imports

•The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has dismantled a network that imported South-East Asian areca nuts into India while declaring them as Bangladeshi origin, to claim duty-free treatment under the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA).
•The investigation has so far revealed customs duty evasion of more than Rs 2,500 crore; nine persons have been arrested, about Rs 75 lakh in cash and a live consignment of around 160 MT of areca nuts were seized.
•Areca nut imports normally attract a Basic Customs Duty of 100%, while imports meeting SAFTA's rules-of-origin criteria enter duty-free — the gap that made the fraud profitable.

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Current Affairs Pulse

PIB Current Affairs — 16 August 2026

PIB profiles PM-AJAY and SJY livelihood aid and the National Fellowship for SC Students

RSSDI launches rural diabetes outreach digital portal and VISHWAS awareness video library

DoPPW to confer 9th National Anubhav Awards; Pension Mitra handbook and DLC Campaign 5 guidelines released

NIELIT launches CYBER KUSHTI 2026, a hackathon scoring security judgment over detection

Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth visits Nepal, to receive honorary General rank

Alwar Saras Dairy plant foundation laid as Rajasthan gets Rs 6,453 crore cooperative push

Mines Ministry Opens 8th Tranche of Critical Mineral Block Auctions with Patna Roadshow

DRI Busts Rs 2,500-Crore SAFTA Origin Fraud in Areca Nut Imports