Nivedita Dubey has assumed charge as Member (Human Resources) of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on 30 January, becoming the first woman to be on the AAI Board in this role.
This is a significant milestone in the history of the organisation and Indian civil aviation sector.
Prior to this appointment, she was serving as Regional Executive Director (Eastern Region), Kolkata, AAI, managing 12 airports of the country.
As Member (Human Resources), Ms Dubey will be responsible for formulating, coordinating, and implementing AAI’s personnel and industrial relations policies, along with overseeing commercial management functions.
The 13th edition of the joint military Exercise KHANJAR between India and Kyrgyzstan begins at Misamari in Sonitpur district of Assam. The 14-day-long military exercise aims to enhance interoperability between the Special Forces of both nations, with a focus on joint operations in urban warfare and counter-terrorism scenarios under the United Nations mandate.
This KHANJAR exercise will further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation and deepen the enduring military partnership between India and Kyrgyzstan. According to military sources, India’s elite Parachute Regiment and Kyrgyzstan’s Scorpion Brigade will practice advanced skills such as sniping, room intervention, building clearance,
mountain craft and specialised counter-terrorism drills.
India and Kyrgyzstan organising joint military exercises annually since 2011, with venues alternating between the countries to reflect deepening defence ties.
The 12th edition was conducted in March 2025 in Kyrgyzstan, and included intensive exercises in sniping, complex building intervention, mountain craft and specialised counter‑terrorism drills, alongside high‑altitude operations and cultural exchanges that reinforced camaraderie between the contingents.
To strengthen digital security and data protection, Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL), a company promoted by NHAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), a Government of India Institution of National Importance headquartered in Gandhinagar, Gujarat,
to foster collaboration in the fields of research, training and consultancy, particularly in cyber forensics, digital evidence integrity and advanced technological applications relevant to the National Highway management.
The MoU aims to facilitate mutually beneficial academic and research-oriented cooperation between the two government bodies to enhance knowledge creation, technological resilience and institutional capacity building.
National Statistics Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has proposed to conduct a Survey on Migration during July 2026-June 2027.
Migration surveys have been conducted by MoSPI in regular intervals;
the most recent data on migration were collected through the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020–21 and the Multiple Indicator Survey (2020–21).
Indian mountaineer Kabak Yano has successfully summited Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest peak in South America, as part of her ambitious 7-Summit Mountaineering Expedition. Kabak Yano hails from Arunachal Pradesh. Mount Aconcagua is towered at 22,831 feet above sea level and it is the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere.
This remarkable achievement marks yet another milestone in Yano’s extraordinary journey of endurance, courage, and determination. Arunachal Pradesh Governor Lieutenant General K.T. Parnaik (Retd.) congratulated 27-year-old Kabak Yano on her latest outstanding mountaineering accomplishment.
Governor Parnaik had formally flagged off Yano’s 7-Summit Mountaineering Expedition from Lok Bhavan at Itanagar on 28th of July last year, in the presence of the State Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, Kento Jini, extending his best wishes for her challenging global mission.
Indian-origin climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan has been awarded the 2026 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Often described as the “Nobel of Geosciences,” the prize recognises Ramanathan's decades of research on super-pollutants and atmospheric brown clouds, which have reshaped understanding of global warming.
Ramanathan, 82, made a landmark discovery in 1975 while working at NASA: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), widely used in aerosols and refrigeration, trap heat in the atmosphere up to 10,000 times more effectively than carbon dioxide.
His Indian roots informed his work in the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), which identified atmospheric brown clouds over South Asia.
The Crafoord Prize carries a cash award of 8 million Swedish kronor (approximately $900,000) and a gold medal. The award will be presented during Crafoord Days in Stockholm and Lund in May 2026.
Ramanathan's work underpins key international treaties, including the Montreal Protocol, which has prevented millions of tons of harmful emissions from entering the atmosphere.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has launched Pilloo AI, a voice-based billing and accounting agent that enables businesses to create invoices, record transactions, generate reports, and manage accounts simply by speaking in their native language.
Available in five Indian languages, the app enables users to record daily transactions such as sales and payments, access clear business reports including balance sheets, receivables, and payables, and automate purchase and bank transaction entries by uploading bills and bank statements for instant data extraction.
The United States and India have reached a trade agreement under which American reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods will be reduced from 25% to 18%, while India will eliminate all tariffs and non-tariff barriers on US products, US President Donald Trump announced on February 2, 2026.
Under the agreement, Washington will lower its reciprocal tariff on Indian goods to 18% and remove the additional 25% penalty that was imposed over India’s purchase of Russian oil. Trump, who called Modi “one of my greatest friends,” said India also agreed to cut its tariffs on US goods to zero and remove non-tariff barriers.
However, the tariff reduction is in return for several commitments from India — the biggest one being a promise to stop buying oil from Russia and a tariff reduction to zero.
India currently imports around 1.5 million barrels of Russian oil every single day, according to Kpler, a global trade data firm.
Russian oil now makes up more than one-third of all the oil India imports.
It is important to note that no official document has been released on the counters of the deal and the details of what it may include is only trickling down from the US government. India has not shared the exact details.
The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) is a Central Sector Scheme to mobilize medium and long-term debt financing for the development of post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets. The scheme focuses on strengthening agri-logistics, reducing post-harvest losses, promoting modern storage,
processing and value-addition facilities and improving farm-gate level infrastructure for efficient supply chains. Under the scheme, banks and financial institutions provide loans with 3% per annum interest subvention by Government of India.
Credit guarantee coverage for loans up to ₹2 crore is also supported under Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) and NABSanrakshan. Since inception of the scheme in July 2020 till 26.01.2026,₹ 80,224.15 crore loan amount has been sanctioned for 1,50,431 projects under AIF, mobilizing the investment of ₹ 1,27,508 crore.
The Components B and C of Pradhan Mantri – KisanUrja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) for solarisation of grid-connected agriculture pumps and standalone solar pumping systems were included as eligible assets for availing AIF benefits in convergent mode in September 2020.
The loan component can be converged where groups of farmers organized as Self Help Groups (SHGs), Joint Liability Groups (JLGs), Water User Associations, Cooperatives, or similar entities create such facilities eligible under AIF.Since Septemberuntil 26.01.2026, ₹ 29.20 crore loan amount has been sanctioned for 921 projects for Components B and C.
Every year, Government fixes Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for 22 mandated agricultural crops for the country as a whole, based on the recommendations of Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP), after considering the views of State Governments and Central Ministries/Departments concerned.
The 22 mandated crops include 14 Kharif crops viz. paddy, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, tur (arhar), moong, urad, groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, nigerseed, cotton and 6 Rabi crops viz. wheat, barley, gram, masur (lentil), rapeseed & mustard, safflower and two commercial crops viz. jute and copra.
The Union Budget for 2018-19 had announced the pre-determined principle to keep MSPs at levels of at least one and half times of the cost of production. Accordingly, Government had increased MSPs for all mandated Kharif, Rabi and other Commercial crops with a minimum return of 50 percent over all India weighted average cost of production from year 2018-19 onwards.
The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), introduced in the country from 2016-17 is providing comprehensive risk insurance against crop damage due to non-preventable natural risks from pre-sowing to post-harvest for the crops/areas notified by the concerned State Government.
The Government of India has strengthened regulatory oversight across the edible oil value chain through the Vegetable Oil Products, Production and Availability (Regulation) Amendment Order, 2025 (VOPPA Order, 2025).
The amended Order mandates compulsory registration of all manufacturers, processors, blenders and re-packers of edible oils on the National Single Window System (NSWS) and the VOPPA portal, along with mandatory monthly submission of detailed production, stock and availability returns.
Under the amended VOPPA Order, 2025, all registered entities are required to file monthly returns covering production, stocks, imports, dispatches, sales and consumption of various edible oil products, including crude and refined vegetable oils, solvent-extracted oils, blended oils, vanaspati, margarine and other notified products.
The concerned entities have been informed that, under Section 6A of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, action including inspection and confiscation may be initiated in cases of contravention. Further, as per Section 6B, a reasonable opportunity to show cause must be provided before any confiscation order is passed.
Accordingly, the units have been given seven days to submit written explanations as to why action should not be initiated against them. The Department has also clarified that similar Show Cause Notices will be issued to all units that are either not registered under the VOPPA framework or have failed to file mandatory returns, to ensure uniform compliance across the sector.
The fourth edition of the Joint Defence Cooperation Committee (JDCC) meeting between India and Tanzania was held in Zanzibar from 02-03 February 2026. Both countries reviewed ongoing defence cooperation and discussed a broad range of areas for further collaboration, including military training, service-to-service cooperation,
maritime security and defence industry collaboration.
The two sides also explored new avenues such as counter-terrorism, peacekeeping training, and capacity building in niche areas including Electronic Warfare (EW), Cyber, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a view to further strengthening bilateral defence ties.
The Indian delegation was led by Joint Secretary (Defence Cooperation) Shri Amitabh Prasad and comprised senior officials from the Department of Defence and the Indian Defence Forces. The Tanzanian delegation was led by Mr. Ibrahim Mhona, Chief of Operations and Training, TPDF. The High Commissioner of India to Tanzania, Shri Bishwadip Dey, also attended the meeting.
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Bhutan, Shri Lyonpo Gem Tshering, met with the Union Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs, Shri Manohar Lal and the Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy, Shri Shripad Naik, in New Delhi. The meeting focused on strengthening the longstanding cooperation between the two nations in the power sector.
Indo-Bhutan hydropower cooperation began in 1961, followed by an agreement on hydroelectric power cooperation in 2006.
During discussions, both sides deliberated on commercial optimization of power output from the Punatsangchhu-II Hydroelectric Project (1020 MW). Emphasis was also placed on early commissioning of the Punatsangchhu-I Hydroelectric Project (1200 MW).
Paradip Port Authority (PPA) has been awarded the First Prize at the Swachhata Pakhwada Awards 2025, instituted by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW), in recognition of its outstanding performance in cleanliness, sustainability, and community participation.
