Current affairs — 24 August 2026

Prelims pointers

• The TNSDA excavation found the hero stone at Malayadipatti near Karivalamvandanallur in Tenkasi district.
• The stone was recovered among bricks and stones used to fill a disused stepped brick well dating to the Sangam period.
• The hero stone measures one metre in length and 0.30 metre in width.
• Its four-line inscription uses a transitional Tamil-Brahmi-to-Vattezhuthu script and names Karukkan, Sulagan, Nannang and Kodiyan.
• Archaeologists interpret the fifth-century stone as commemorating Nannang Kodiyan, son of Karukkan Sulagan.

Prelims pointers

• India’s Index of Core Industries growth slowed to 5.4% in July from 6% in the previous month.
• The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell in July to its lowest level since August 2021 amid weak domestic demand.
• Coal grew 7.6% in July against a 12.3% contraction a year earlier, illustrating the low-base effect highlighted by the article.
• Domestic crude oil and natural gas contracted for at least 14 consecutive months covered by the new ICI series.
• July crude oil import volume rose 13.3%, LNG import volume rose 1.5%, and the crude oil import bill increased 41%.

Prelims pointers

• Assam is evaluating private-sector proposals to implement AssamSAT under the Design, Build, Launch, Operate, Train and Transfer model.
• The government invited Expressions of Interest earlier in 2026, and dedicated committees are evaluating proposals.
• IN-SPACe is identified as the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre under the Department of Space.
• AssamSAT is intended to support agriculture, disaster management, infrastructure, border security management and police operations.
• The State Budget for 2025-26 announced the satellite plan and envisaged student experimental satellites supported by IN-SPACe and ISRO.

Prelims pointers

• Sources said Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani met Mossad chief Roman Gofman in Jordan on August 23, 2026.
• Israel bombed the disused Abu Duhur base on August 18, saying it sought to prevent a Turkish troop deployment; Ankara denied visiting it.
• The officials reportedly discussed a special operations room in Jordan under U.S. supervision to prevent confrontations in Syria.
• After Paris talks in January, Israel and Syria’s new authorities agreed to a U.S.-supervised communication cell to reduce tensions.
• Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed the areas under its control.

Prelims pointers

• Piyush Goyal said India was negotiating with at least eight or nine additional groups or countries representing $15 trillion of GDP.
• He said India had signed nine free trade agreements in the preceding four years.
• According to Goyal, those nine agreements covered $60 trillion of combined GDP and 38 developed countries.
• He said earlier pacts involving Japan, Korea and ASEAN opened another $10 trillion of GDP, taking preferential access to $70 trillion.
• Goyal said India’s free trade agreements would eventually cover about 75% of global trade.

Prelims pointers

• Earthquake processes involve stress accumulating, transmitting, and releasing in deeply buried rocks and faults.
• Faults may rupture after centuries of stress accumulation, and small ruptures can sometimes trigger larger ruptures.
• Scientists forecast long-term earthquake probability from fault history and behaviour rather than predict exact time, place, and strength.
• Earthquake early-warning systems may give people up to tens of seconds before violent ground shaking begins at their location.
• AI can jointly assess seismic records, GPS measurements, satellite data, geological maps, and historical measurements for forecasting.

Prelims pointers

• The article reported that retail and wholesale sugar prices had risen by about 40% from the corresponding period of the previous year.
• Sugar cost more than ₹65 per kg in eight States, including Uttarakhand, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.
• Odisha recorded ₹67.4 per kg on August 23, 2026, compared with ₹46.89 on August 23, 2025.
• The government cited lower domestic production, festive demand, weather damage, tighter global supplies, speculation and hoarding.
• The Commerce Ministry allowed imports of 10 lakh tonnes of sugar until October 31, 2026.

Prelims pointers

• El Niño occurs when warming sea-surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific alter winds, pressure and rainfall worldwide.
• The British forecast expected the event to peak at more than 3 C above normal in the Pacific.
• El Niño conditions are defined in the article as water temperatures at least 0.5 C above the baseline.
• The phase of natural climate oscillation occurs every two to seven years, according to meteorologists cited in the report.
• The article says El Niño typically makes Southeast Asia drier while bringing wetter conditions to Peru and Ecuador.

Prelims pointers

• Thunderquakes form when some energy from thunder reaches the ground and is converted into seismic waves through soil and rock.
• Distributed acoustic sensing turned an ordinary fibre-optic telecom cable into a line of thousands of vibration sensors.
• The experiment used more than four kilometres of cable and produced over 2,100 closely spaced sensors.
• During two years of observations, the researchers recorded and identified 458 clear, high-quality thunderquakes.
• Air-coupled Rayleigh waves allowed the team to study the subsurface down to roughly 300 feet, or around 100 metres.

Prelims pointers

• Natural-history studies can provide real-world data as external controls when rare-disease trials cannot form conventional control groups.
• The proposed Patient Data Collective would hold patients’ data on their behalf and return most revenue, if any, to them.
• Potential data sources include hospitals, advocacy groups, clinicians, Centres of Excellence and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission.
• The ICMR registry contains data on around 4,000 patients from experts at 19 specialised hospitals over five years.
• Updated New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules embrace computational modelling and non-animal testing models, according to the article.

Prelims pointers

• The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• India-GCC comprehensive trade negotiations resumed in February 2026 and paused temporarily in June during the West Asia crisis.
• India-GCC bilateral trade reached $178.56 billion in 2024-25, equal to 15.42% of India’s global trade.
• India exported about $56.87 billion to the GCC and imported goods worth $121.68 billion in 2024-25.
• Cumulative GCC investment in India exceeded $31.14 billion by September 2025, while nearly 10 million Indians lived in the region.

Prelims pointers

• Iran’s rial fell to a record market low of 2.02 million per U.S. dollar on August 24, 2026.
• Iran’s official Central Bank rate was around 1.5 million rial per dollar, but most Iranians used the market rate.
• The article says rice prices had risen about 60% and beef prices more than 150% since the war began.
• The International Monetary Fund forecast that Iran’s GDP would contract by more than 5%.
• Before the conflict, about one-fifth of the world’s traded oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Prelims pointers

• A Russian Foreign Ministry official said the most productive Arctic cooperation dialogue was taking shape with China and India.
• Vladimir Putin said India and China were interested in cooperation with Russia and use of the Northern Sea Route.
• The article defines the Arctic region as lying above 66 degrees north latitude.
• The Arctic is described as a sea surrounded by land, whereas Antarctica is a landmass surrounded by sea.
• An Indian parliamentary panel recommended in July that the government consider appointing a polar ambassador.

Prelims pointers

• RELOS stands for Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement and is the India-Russia logistics support pact.
• The agreement was signed in Moscow on February 18, 2025, and was operationalised in January 2026.
• RELOS supports exercises, training, humanitarian relief, port and repair services, medical support, food and technical resources.
• The 3,000-troop figure is a broad upper limit for mutually agreed engagements, not authorisation for permanent stationing.
• The agreement is valid for five years and gives India access to Russian military facilities in the Arctic.

Prelims pointers

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security proposed a fee of $103,265 for new H-1B visas.
• The proposal started a 30-day public-comment period after being posted in the Federal Register on August 24, 2026.
• The H-1B programme offers 65,000 visas annually plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees.
• The article says H-1B approvals generally cover three to six years and previously carried about $2,000 to $5,000 in fees.
• A federal judge had ruled the earlier fee illegal, while appeals and separate litigation were continuing.

Prelims pointers

• Andhra Pradesh decided to make Farmer ID mandatory for farmers selling produce at government procurement centres.
• The Agriculture Director said Farmer ID was already mandatory for crop insurance and would soon be required for PM-KISAN.
• AP Markfed was directed to procure pulses only from land parcels linked to a valid Farmer ID.
• The Civil Supplies Corporation, which procures paddy, was also directed to buy only from linked land parcels.
• The State had registered 51.83 lakh farmers against a target of 64.71 lakh Farmer IDs.

Prelims pointers

• Rajnath Singh is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka on September 9 and 10, 2026, for bilateral defence talks.
• Maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region is expected to figure prominently during the visit.
• The India-Sri Lanka Defence Cooperation MoU was signed in Colombo on April 5, 2025.
• The article describes the pact as the first umbrella defence MoU between India and Sri Lanka and says it is valid for five years.
• The MoU covers joint exercises, capacity building, disaster-relief cooperation, naval port calls and possible defence-industry cooperation.

Prelims pointers

• Dak MITRA serves as a unified operational platform for more than 1.4 lakh Branch Post Offices.
• The application supports paperless, real-time postal and financial transactions on Android handheld devices.
• Dak Sewa offers 24x7 access to services such as tracking, booking, complaints and location tools.
• Dak Sewa supports 23 Indian languages through BHASHINI.
• The postal design proof of concept covers 40 post offices across 17 States, of which 27 had been completed.

Prelims pointers

• GENESIS EIR Cohort 3 was launched at Rathinam Global University in Coimbatore on 4 August 2026.
• Selected innovators may receive financial assistance of up to ₹10 lakh through participating GENESIS incubators.
• Eligible innovations must be at Technology Readiness Level 1–4 in specified electronics, IT or DeepTech areas.
• Applicant startups must be based in Tier-II or Tier-III cities and, if incorporated, be less than two years old.
• The application window for Cohort 3 runs from 4 August to 3 September 2026.

Prelims pointers

• India enhanced its Bonn Challenge pledge to restore 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.
• The Second Progress Report on the Bonn Challenge covers restoration undertaken during 2011–2020.
• India reported that 21.76 million hectares were brought under restoration during 2011–2020.
• The restoration recorded for 2011–2020 generated approximately 1.22 billion person-days of employment.
• The 2021–2025 reporting cycle will track area restored, financial flows and employment generated.

Prelims pointers

• India presented its land-restoration finance architecture at the UNCCD CoP17 ministerial dialogue in Ulaanbaatar.
• The blended green-finance framework supports adaptation, sustainable land use, forestry, agriculture and biodiversity conservation.
• Green Credits for degraded forest-land restoration are issued after five years and at least 40 per cent canopy density.
• A Green Credit may be used once for compensatory afforestation, statutory plantation or CSR obligations.
• India said committed domestic resources cannot substitute for additional, adequate and predictable international finance.

Prelims pointers

• CBN and PHARMEXCIL signed the MoU at the Central Bureau of Narcotics headquarters in Gwalior.
• CBN functions under the Department of Revenue in the Union Ministry of Finance.
• CBN administers facilitation, regulatory and enforcement provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985.
• The proposed industry code of conduct will be voluntary, non-binding and subject to existing law.
• The six-month action plan prioritises pan-India outreach, stakeholder sensitisation and regulatory cooperation.

Prelims pointers

• RBI launched the special USD-INR swap facility on June 8, 2026.
• The facility covered FCNR(B) deposits, Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings and External Commercial Borrowings.
• Total foreign-exchange inflows reached US$73 billion by August 21, 2026, in under eleven weeks.
• FCNR(B) deposits accounted for US$65.40 billion of the reported mobilisation.
• The FCNR(B) window's closure was advanced from September 30 to August 31, 2026.

Prelims pointers

• Total kharif area sown was 1,056.70 lakh hectares, down 16.07 lakh hectares from the corresponding previous-year figure.
• Rice covered 405.10 lakh hectares, which was 13.19 lakh hectares less than the corresponding 2025–26 coverage.
• Total pulses rose by 1.49 lakh hectares to 113.63 lakh hectares, while urad alone increased by 2.65 lakh hectares.
• Shree Anna and coarse cereals fell by 3.45 lakh hectares, including a 3.79 lakh hectare reduction in maize.
• Jute and mesta increased by 0.10 lakh hectares, whereas oilseeds, sugarcane and cotton each recorded declines.

Prelims pointers

• The third India-Cambodia JWGTI meeting took place in Phnom Penh on 24 August 2026.
• Bilateral trade grew by over 36% from $299 million to $406.78 million in 2025–26.
• Cambodia was India’s eighth-largest ASEAN trading partner and represented 0.31% of India’s trade with the bloc.
• UPI acceptance at KHQR-enabled merchants in Phnom Penh had been launched on 2 June 2026.
• The two sides discussed early signature of a customs-cooperation memorandum and completion of their bilateral investment treaty.

Prelims pointers

• NPCI launched UPI on August 25, 2016 under the regulatory oversight of the Reserve Bank of India.
• Annual UPI volume rose from 1.78 crore transactions in FY2016-17 to over 24,162 crore in FY2025-26.
• Annual transaction value increased from ₹0.07 lakh crore to about ₹314 lakh crore over the same period.
• UPI accounted for 84 per cent of India's digital payments in FY2025-26, according to the release.
• As of July 2026, 741 banks were live on UPI, compared with 21 banks at launch.

Prelims pointers

• The reforms amend Rules 44 and 63 of the Medical Devices Rules, 2017.
• Outsourced sterilisation at a validly licensed facility no longer requires a separate loan licence.
• A six-month transition period applies to implementation of the new labelling requirement.
• Rule 63 now includes the European Union among recognised stringent regulatory jurisdictions.
• The existing recognised jurisdictions listed are the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Japan.

Prelims pointers

• The Zero Fatality District model identifies 100 critical districts across 15 States for focused intervention.
• PM Rahat provides cashless road-accident treatment up to ₹1.5 lakh for as many as seven days.
• PM Rahat covers road-accident victims irrespective of their insurance status.
• Rah-Veer provides an eligible Good Samaritan ₹25,000 per incident and a Certificate of Appreciation.
• People aged 18–45 account for 66.1 per cent of road fatalities, according to the conference material.

Prelims pointers

• The Service Producer Price Indices use 2022–23 as their base year.
• The air-passenger service index increased from 106.9 in Q4 2025–26 to 126.4 in Q1 2026–27.
• Year-on-year inflation for the air-passenger service index was 31.94% in Q1 2026–27.
• The pension-fund-management service index rose from 103.8 to 113.3 between the two reported quarters.
• Overall weights were not assigned to the seven services because they do not cover the entire service sector.

Prelims pointers

• The hybrid was launched at Musunuru in Eluru district of Andhra Pradesh on 24 August 2026.
• The release describes it as India’s first non-GMO, high-expansion popcorn maize hybrid seed.
• Gourmet Popcornica developed the indigenous hybrid and works with farmers in its maize enterprise.
• More than 17,500 farmers across eight States, cultivating nearly 40,000 acres, are part of the enterprise network.
• The Vice-President said the indigenous hybrid could reduce dependence on imported technology and conserve foreign exchange.

Prelims pointers

• PMFME Conclave 2026 was held on August 24–25 at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
• The conclave brought together more than 500 stakeholders from the micro food processing ecosystem.
• The PMFME Bazaar featured exhibitors from 25 States and Union Territories.
• The programme launched a coffee-table book presenting 30 success stories of PMFME beneficiaries.
• Three MoUs were signed with APEDA, ONDC and NABKISAN to strengthen market and institutional linkages.

Prelims pointers

• The third National Space Day event was held in Ahmedabad on August 23, 2026.
• Its theme was “Towards Viksit Bharat: Innovating, Collaborating and Aspiring to Global Space Leadership”.
• National Space Day marks Chandrayaan-3's Vikram soft landing near the lunar south polar region on August 23, 2023.
• The source says the 2020 space-sector reforms were followed by growth to more than 440 space start-ups.
• Skyroot Aerospace was felicitated after the first-attempt launch of its first orbital flight, Vikram-1.

Prelims pointers

• Ssangyong is a biennial South Korea-U.S. marine exercise designed to rehearse amphibious landings and combined operations.
• The drill typically involves warships, aircraft and ground forces from South Korea and the United States.
• The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise was separately reduced from 11 days to five by President Donald Trump.
• Seoul estimated that North Korea possessed around 80 to 120 nuclear weapons, compared with Trump’s figure of 57.
• The second Trump-Kim summit took place in Hanoi in 2019 and ended without an agreement on North Korean denuclearisation.

Prelims pointers

• Mannar Island contains Talaimannar, Sri Lanka’s closest point to India, formerly linked by ferry to Rameswaram across the Palk Strait.
• The Thambapavani wind farm has 30 Vestas turbines, 104 MW planned capacity and financing from an Asian Development Bank loan.
• Adani Green withdrew from a proposed $500-million, 500 MW Mannar-Pooneryn wind project in February 2025 amid a power-tariff dispute.
• Sri Lanka aims to meet 70% of its total energy requirement from renewable sources.
• India is funding an $11-million hybrid renewable project on Delft, Analathivu and Nainathivu islands through a grant.

Prelims pointers

• RBI compiles the House Price Index quarterly using transaction-level data from registration authorities.
• The Q1 FY2026-27 HPI uses 2022-23 as base year and covers eighteen major cities.
• The All-India HPI stood at 117.5 after rising 1.1 per cent from the preceding quarter.
• Annual HPI growth was 3.6 per cent in Q1 FY2026-27, equal to the rate a year earlier.
• Chandigarh, Lucknow and Thiruvananthapuram were cited as primary drivers of the quarterly increase.