The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has relaxed the timelines for municipalities with listed municipal debt securities under its regulations to submit financial results to stock exchanges.
Under the revised framework issued , listed municipalities will now have to submit half-yearly unaudited financial results within 60 days of the first half-year, compared with the earlier 45-day deadline.
Annual audited financial results will have to be submitted within 90 days from the end of the financial year along with the audit report, against the earlier 60 days.
The regulator said timelines have been relaxed considering the practical challenges faced by municipalities during data collection, interdepartmental coordination and meeting disclosure requirements.
The changes form part of operational measures specified by Sebi through a circular amending the framework for issue of listing of municipal debt securities.
SEBI has also introduced a two-step escrow account mechanism for issuers that are pooled finance vehicles or special purpose vehicles set up under the Government’s Pooled Finance Development Fund Scheme. Besides, it has also specified face value requirements for privately placed municipal debt securities.
Nvidia has introduced a new 30-billion-parameter open AI model called Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for agentic workloads.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, along with Meta and other technology companies, recently formed a coalition supporting open-weight AI models that has urged policymakers to avoid broad restrictions on models whose weights can be downloaded and modified.
Nvidia Nemotron 3.5 Lightning Details :
Called Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, Nvidia's model is designed for the repetitive execution tasks performed by AI agents, such as making tool calls, validating results and delegating work to subagents.
Unlike a conventional 30-billion-parameter model, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning uses a mixture-of-experts architecture with only 3 billion parameters active for each token. Nvidia said this allows the model to handle the capacity of a larger model while reducing the amount of computation required for each request.
Nvidia said Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is intended to work alongside larger reasoning models. While models such as Nemotron 3 Ultra can handle planning and orchestration, Lightning is designed for high-volume execution once an agent has decided what needs to be done.
According to Nvidia, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning reached 86 per cent accuracy on PinchBench while completing 10,000 tasks 30 per cent faster than Qwen3.6 35B at a similar level of accuracy. The company said the model can deliver up to four times the output speed of similarly sized models.
Muse Glimmer, developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs, is a 30-billion-parameter dense model designed to run locally on consumer computers. The model is designed for “always-on local agent workflows” and can run on a Mac or PC equipped with a single consumer graphics processing unit (GPU).
The model is aimed at AI agents that can carry out tasks on behalf of users, including managing schedules, drafting messages and organising files. It can also be used for coding and other developer applications. Muse Glimmer can process both text and images and has been trained on data from more than 100 languages.
It compressed the model to under 20 GB using quantisation, allowing the model and its supporting components to operate within a 24 GB or 32 GB memory envelope.
IBM and startup Together AI have signed a $240 million multi-year agreement to build a large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) cluster on IBM Cloud using Nvidia systems.
The cluster will provide inference for open-source AI models, which have gained traction as businesses seek to rein in AI costs and weigh concerns about cybersecurity incidents involving models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta.
The cluster on IBM Cloud will use Nvidia’s HGX B300 systems, which link the chipmaker’s newer Blackwell processors, and its Spectrum-X Ethernet networking gear.
Vietnamese aerospace company VinSpace has signed a contract with SpaceX to send its first satellites into orbit aboard a SpaceX rideshare mission in 2027, as the Southeast Asian nation moves to develop its nascent space industry.
VinSpace will launch its satellites on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare mission run by Elon Musk's company, which carries satellites from multiple customers on a single rocket to share launch costs.
The satellites, which VinSpace said it will develop and operate, will test the company's technology in orbit and support future commercial applications.
VinSpace is part of Vietnam's Vingroup conglomerate and was established in November 2025. Founded by tycoon Pham Nhat Vuong, Vingroup is Vietnam's largest privately owned company.
Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has entered into an agreement to transfer its data centre and cloud services business to wholly owned subsidiary Vyoma.AI Ltd for Rs 1,400 crore.
In a separate transaction, L&T, Vyoma.AI and L&T Network Services Pvt Ltd (LTNSPL) have entered into a share purchase agreement for the transfer of L&T's entire equity holding in LTNSPL to Vyoma.AI for Rs 30 crore, subject to closing adjustments.
The consideration for the transaction will also be discharged through the issue of fully paid-up equity shares of Vyoma.AI.
Following completion of the transaction, LTNSPL will become a direct wholly owned subsidiary of Vyoma.AI and an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of L&T.
Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, and Rural Development, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan released scholarship and fellowship funds for agriculture students from across the country through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) at ICAR-IARI, Pusa.
Under this initiative, a total amount of Rs 21.35 crore was released directly through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to more than 6,000 students. With the introduction of this new initiative, agriculture students will now receive their scholarship amounts every month through DBT without facing unnecessary difficulties or delays.
On the occasion, Union Agriculture Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that a scholarship is not merely financial assistance, but also a means of making agricultural education stronger, more practical and better connected with opportunities.
He said that with the DBT system now in place, students would receive assistance on time and the problem of traditional delays would be eliminated.
Shri Chouhan also said that under the leadership and guidance of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the government is giving priority to food security, nutrition and farmers’ income security in the agriculture sector.
Appreciating the contribution of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) scientists, he said that their research, along with the hard work of farmers, has strengthened the country’s foodgrain reserves and contributed significantly to India’s agricultural progress.
Shri Chouhan also appealed to agriculture students at ICAR institutions across the country to undertake plantation activities on the occasion of ‘Hariyali Amavasya’.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) organised a National Conference on Affordable Housing Reforms - “Reimagining Affordable Housing: From Scheme to Sustainable Ecosystem” on 11th August 2026 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
The Conference was attended by Shri Rajiv Gauba, Member, NITI Aayog, as Chief Guest, and Shri Satendra Singh, Secretary, Department of Urban Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), as the Guest of Honour.
The report on affordable housing, prepared by NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs – “A Comprehensive Framework to Promote Affordable Housing” proposes a set of measures to address the constraints, with most of the implementation lying with State and municipal authorities.
The recommendations include expanding planned urban areas and reserving at least 10 per cent of residential land as affordable housing zones in master plans. The report also proposes raising the permissible Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for such projects to the range of 5 or 6,
promoting transit-oriented development, land pooling and transferable development rights, easing parking and density norms and creating land banks.
The context setting was done by Ms. Anna Roy, Programme Director, Managing Urbanisation, NITI Aayog, who highlighted that affordable housing is fundamental to building inclusive, productive and resilient cities and added that as India's urbanisation gathers pace.
The Conference also highlighted the significant progress made PMAY-U in expanding access to affordable housing and strengthening housing delivery systems across the country.
The Central Government has taken comprehensive measures to strengthen the care, rehabilitation and social reintegration of persons engaged in begging through the Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE) – Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Persons Engaged in the Act of Begging (SMILE-Beggary) Scheme.
Since inception of the SMILE-Beggary Scheme on 23 October 2023 and up to 31 July 2026, a total of ₹45.59 crore has been released under the Scheme. This includes ₹40.04 crore released to implementing authorities/cities, with the balance utilised towards administrative and other scheme-related expenditure.
The Scheme provides vocational training to eligible beneficiaries based on their aptitude, age, physical and mental condition, and local livelihood opportunities. Training includes trades and livelihood activities such as carpentry, tailoring, housekeeping, management of community toilets, sanitation services, hair cutting, security services, cooking,
gardening, driving/operation of e-rickshaws and other locally relevant trades.Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of adult beneficiaries rehabilitated at 1,557, followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,135), Uttar Pradesh (884), Maharashtra (817), Assam (472), Andhra Pradesh (466), Jammu & Kashmir (434) and Kerala (418).
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has developed Model Guidelines for Beggars’/Shelter Homes through a National Consultative Committee and extensive consultations with States and Union Territories. The Guidelines were circulated to all States/UTs on 13 April 2026 for necessary compliance and effective implementation.
The Model Guidelines establish a comprehensive framework for humane, dignified and rights-based rehabilitation of persons engaged in begging. To facilitate identification, profiling and rehabilitation, the Ministry has developed a dedicated mobile application, with login credentials shared with implementing cities.
The Model Guidelines mandate that every Beggar/Shelter Home undergo a third-party infrastructure and social audit at least once every two years. The District Social Welfare Officer or designated authority is responsible for monitoring compliance and ensuring timely rectification of deficiencies identified during the audit.
The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) has approved a ₹334.89-crore internal flyover at Visakhapatnam Port Authority to improve cargo evacuation, reduce traffic congestion and streamline movement within the port premises.The project, approved by Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal,
was appraised by the Delegated Investment Board (DIB) chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.On the occasion, Sarbananda Sonowal said, “This project will remove a critical bottleneck at Visakhapatnam Port, enabling faster cargo movement and improving overall operational efficiency.
The proposed 3.584-km elevated corridor, connecting Convent Junction with the Dock Area, will separate road and rail traffic within the port. The project is aimed at addressing delays at nine major railway level crossings, which currently see about 18 gate closures a day due to high train exchange volumes.
The investment is aligned with the Government's broader focus on integrated infrastructure planning under the PM GatiShakti framework. By improving last-mile connectivity within the port and facilitating faster cargo evacuation, the elevated corridor is expected to strengthen Visakhapatnam Port's role in India's maritime logistics and trade network.
The Fourth Session of the India-Namibia Joint Trade Committee (JTC) was held in New Delhi on 10 and 11 August 2026.
The Agreed Minutes of the Session were signed by the two Co-Chairs on 11 August 2026. The inaugural address was delivered by Shri Yashvir Singh, Additional Secretary, Department of Commerce.
The Indian delegation was led by Shri Amit Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the Namibian delegation by Ms. Ndiitah Nghipondoka-Robiati, Executive Director, Ministry of International Relations and Trade, Government of the Republic of Namibia.
The Department of Fisheries has been implementing a Central Sector Sub-scheme namely the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY) under the ongoing Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) for a period of four years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27 at an estimated outlay of Rs. 6000 crore.
As on 06-08-2026, about 35.92 lakh fishers, fish farmers and other stakeholders have registered on NFDP. A total of 3829 primary fisheries cooperatives has been approved for strengthening at a total cost of Rs. 72.75 crores.
The Central Government has disbursed a total of Rs. 19,216.46 crore during the last three financial years towards various scholarship schemes for Scheduled Caste (SC) students administered by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment.
He said the total amount disbursed under these scholarship schemes increased from Rs. 6,094.48 crore in 2023-24 to Rs. 6,200.59 crore in 2024-25 and further to Rs. 6,921.39 crore in 2025-26.
The scholarship schemes covered include the Post Matric Scholarship for SC Students, Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for SCs & Others, Top Class Education Scheme (TCS) and the National Overseas Scholarship (NOS) Scheme for SC and other eligible candidates, he further said.
Dr Kumar said under the Post Matric Scholarship for SC Students, Rs. 17,224.63 crore was disbursed during the last three financial years. The amount released increased from Rs. 5,475.42 crore in 2023-24 to Rs. 5,562.26 crore in 2024-25 and Rs. 6,186.95 crore in 2025-26.
