The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched its advanced Earth observation satellite EOS-05 aboard the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F17).The GSLV, on its 19th flight, placed the 2,367-kg EOS-05 into the intended Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO)
about 18 minutes after lifting off from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 2.55 a.m.
The EOS-05 is India’s first imaging satellite designed to monitor the Earth from geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km above the Earth. This was the 107th launch from the spaceport in Sriharikota and the 19th mission of the GSLV.
EOS-05 would become India’s first dedicated imaging satellite operating from the geosynchronous orbit, providing important strategic data for our country. The EOS-05, dubbed the “Eye in the Sky”, will provide real-time imagery, helping sectors like agriculture, environment and disaster management, among others.
India won nine medals at the 19th International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) held in Torino in Italy, where teams from more than 42 countries participated. Soumik Mandal, Aaron Maiti, Riddhi Ranjan, and Mohammed Ehtesham Rizvi — represented India. The students were selected through a nationwide entrance examination,
followed by an intensive three-week training camp organised at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSU Baroda). They also underwent an additional week-long pre-departure training programme at Anna University, Chennai.
In the International Team Field Investigation, Riddhi Ranjan and Soumik Mandal won gold medals,
Ehtesham Rizvi won a silver medal, and Aaron Maiti won a bronze medal. In the Earth Science Project, Aaron Maiti won a gold medal, Riddhi Ranjan and Soumik Mandal won silver medals, and Ehtesham Rizvi won a bronze medal. In the individual written and practical examination, Soumik Mandal won a gold medal.
A special achievement of the Indian team was the performance of Soumik Mandal, where he achieved the third-highest individual rank in the 19-year history of the Olympiad.
In keeping with Rule 15 and Rule 16 of National Financial Reporting Authority Rules 2018, which authorises National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) to form committees, study groups and task forces for effective performance of its functions under the Act, and undertake suitable measures for promotion of awareness and significance of auditing and
accounting standards and audit quality, NFRA has constituted an Advisory Committee on Audit Quality, Assurance and Technology, comprising eminent experts from various fields to provide inputs and suggestions on matters that have a significant bearing on audit quality.
The Committee comprises of eminent experts,
representing various stakeholder groups of NFRA- Professionals, CFOs, Audit Committees, Independent Directors, Technology Experts, Regulators and Industry.
This Advisory Committee is the third such Committee, the first being the Technical Advisory Committee, that was constituted in 2020 and whose term ended in December 2022.
In July 2024, NFRA had constituted an Advisory Group of eminent experts to advise on Auditor-Audit Committee resources, comprising the Auditor-Audit Committee Interaction (Staff) Series and outreach activities with Audit Committees and Independent Directors.
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal today said that the India–European Union (EU) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) opens huge opportunities for farmers, fishermen, MSMEs, small industries, innovators, startups, women entrepreneurs, manufacturers and service providers in India and Europe.
The India–EU FTA, which was in the making for 25 years before negotiations were concluded under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, brings together 2 billion people, representing a quarter of global GDP, a third of world trade and a market of USD 24 trillion.
The President of India Droupadi Murmu conferred the National Teachers’ Awards. These are among the 82 educators from across the country.
Haryana-based Anil Kaushik, known as the ‘Math Wizard’, built a state-of-the-art physical Maths lab containing over 40 original learning models, alongside a 12-section virtual mathematics lab with 30 ‘Harbans puzzles’.
He has co-authored textbooks on Vedic Mathematics and published 22 teaching modules on the national DIKSHA portal.
Divyendu Sen from Rajasthan, another recipient of the award, is a teacher in a government school who bridged rural classrooms with deep-space science by training local students to track and hunt asteroids.
He has pioneered low-cost solutions, including an AI-enabled Biology education model, a Virtual Biology Laboratory, and ‘Tree Talk’, a QR-based botanical learning system.
Rajasthan-based teacher Vartika Gulati is an awardee who teaches at the Government Girls Upper Primary School in Jaipur. She turns abstract concepts into everyday experiences-
teaching Algebra with groundnuts and geometry with kites. Her initiative, ‘Prashno Se Vigyan’ (Science through questions), replaces rote learning with student-led inquiry.
Odisha-based teacher Padaraj Nayak, based at the Government High School, Alipingal, is receiving the award for guiding students to build over 50 prototypes,
including a low-cost automatic plate-washing machine that earned a Government of India patent.
Jharkhand-based Munmun Bhattacherjee, working at the Government Middle School in Barmasia, Dhanbad, Bihar, has spearheaded an institutional turnaround in a vulnerable coal mining community. Aligning with the NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat goals,
she introduced low-cost Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) tools; integrated Children with Special Needs (CwSN); prevented dropouts through home visits; and guided students toward State arts awards, NEET prep, and vocational independence.
Maharashtra-based Kavita Gitte, head teacher at the Sane Guruji Nivasi Vidyalaya in Beed,
is being felicitated for spending nearly three decades integrating children of migrant sugarcane workers into mainstream schooling via initiatives like ‘Balrakshak’ and ‘Shikshan Aaplya Dari’. As a national softball and baseball coach, she has also guided nearly 210 students to State and national achievements.
The ECLGS 5.0 provides targeted credit guarantee support to businesses affected by external disruptions. Implemented by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company, the scheme enables eligible lending institutions to extend additional working capital with reduced credit risk.
It supports MSMEs, eligible non-MSME businesses and scheduled passenger airlines through government-backed guarantees. Building on the earlier phases of ECLGS introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheme strengthens access to institutional credit while supporting business continuity.
Dr. Vinaya Prakash Singh, a 1988 batch officer of the Indian Postal Service, has been re-elected as Secretary-General of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union (APPU) for a second consecutive four-year term. He was declared elected unopposed by acclamation at the 14th APPU Congress held in Bangkok on September 4, 2026.
His re-election reflects the confidence and consensus of postal administrations across the Asia-Pacific region in his leadership and is a significant recognition of India’s contribution to international postal cooperation. His second term will commence in January 2027 and continue until December 2030.
The re-election comes at a time when the APPU continues to play an important role in strengthening postal cooperation across the Asia-Pacific region. Headquartered in Bangkok, the Union is an intergovernmental organisation comprising 32 member countries and functions as a Regional Union of the Universal Postal Union (UPU),
the United Nations specialised agency for the postal sector. Since assuming the position in January 2023 following his first election at the 13th APPU Congress in 2022, Dr. Singh has contributed to advancing cooperation among postal administrations and supporting the development and modernisation of postal services across the region.
IFFCO-TOKIO General Insurance Company announced the appointment of Tatsuya Fujimoto as its new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to this, he was Director (Operations) at the general insurance company and replaced Subrata Mondal as MD and CEO.
Before taking over as Director (Operations), he also served as Senior Executive Director-Chief Risk Officer at the company from November 2024 to June 2025.With 28 years of experience at Tokio Marine Group, Fujimoto has spent 18 years in Japan in marketing, Corporate Planning and serving as Executive Secretary to the Group CEO,
and 10 years abroad in various locations, including the US, Malaysia, and India.
IFFCO-TOKIO General Insurance Company Ltd is a 51:49 joint venture between Indian Farmers Fertilizer Co-operative (IFFCO) and Tokio Marine Group of Japan.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has imposed a Rs.1 crore penalty on ICICI Lombard General Insurance for lapses in outsourcing practices, vendor management and corporate governance during an inspection conducted in 2019.The penalty relates to payments made by the insurer under the head
'sales marketing and business support.' During FY19, ICICI Lombard had incurred Rs.709.57 crore under this head, of which the insurer said that about Rs.35-37 crore was paid to individual agents of other insurers.
Irdai said the insurer used agents of other insurers for event management activities, without adequate supporting documents,
and failed to classify the activities as outsourced or report them in outsourcing returns.
RNFI Services Ltd, a last-mile financial infrastructure company, has received in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator - physical (PA-P), a step that will help the company expand its financial infrastructure. The authorisation has been granted to RNFI Services Ltd, the listed entity,
enabling the company to operate in the physical, offline and in-store payments space, subject to conditions specified by RBI. The new capability adds to RNFI's existing portfolio of regulated financial services, it said, adding that the company currently has capabilities across global money movement through its RBI-authorised AD Category-II licence,
mutual fund distribution, insurance through its IRDAI-registered insurance broking business, and stored value through its RBI-authorised PPI business in the group. The PA-P authorisation further expands this licence stack into physical payments, allowing RNFI to build another regulated payments capability on its existing distribution, technology and
and field infrastructure.
Simran Singh- founder & Chief Strategy Officer, RNFI Services
S&P Global Ratings assigned 'BBB' long-term rating to Bank of India (BoI) on sufficient capitalisation, solid funding, and healthy liquidity. The US-based agency said the ratings reflect the likelihood of extraordinary support for the state-run bank from the government, if needed.
The long-term rating on BoI is one notch above its assessment of the stand-alone credit profile (SACP) for the bank, S&P said while assigning its 'BBB' long-term and 'A-2' short-term issuer credit ratings to the bank. BBB' rating denotes adequate capacity of the institution to meet its financial commitments.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the Rs.73,000 crore Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) to the nation , closing a two-decade chapter in India’s infrastructure history — one that spanned 2,800 kilometres (km) and three prime ministers. With the Western and Eastern DFCs now complete, India has finished the second-biggest infrastructure plan —
first proposed by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee — after the Golden Quadrilateral.
The Western DFC connects Dadri in UP with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority, one of India’s major maritime gateways for export-import cargo. It is expected to cut by about 60 percent the time a freight train takes to cover the route on the mixed-use Indian Railways tracks.
The Ministry of Cooperation has restored the 'Sahara Refund Portal' under the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS), resuming the verification and processing of around 2 million pending claims from genuine depositors of Sahara Group cooperative societies.
According to an official statement, so far, Rs 9,267 crore has been refunded to around 4.2 million depositors, with the money transferred directly into their Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts. The refund process had been disrupted after the societies faced operational and administrative hurdles, including issues related to IT infrastructure, licences,
hardware maintenance and manpower. The functioning of the Sahara cooperative societies was affected in November 2025 after their premises were sealed due to certain matters disconnected from the Sahara societies.The Ministry said that it intervened to resolve these impediments and restore the systems required for claim verification and processing.
The four societies covered are Sahara Credit Cooperative Society, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society.
The refund mechanism remains digital, paperless and verification-based, with claims processed through Aadhaar e-KYC and matching of depositor, membership and
bank-account details with society records. Deposit certificates and other prescribed documents are also scrutinised under the approved standard operating procedure, the statement said. The portal was originally launched in July 2023 following a Supreme Court order to facilitate refunds to eligible Sahara depositors.
PB Pay, the Payment Aggregator platform of PB Fintech Limited, has commenced operations and is now live for merchant onboarding and transaction processing. Licensed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February 2026, the platform aims to simplify payment acceptance by bringing multiple payment modes, transaction routing, analytics and
payment management capabilities under a single integration and dashboard.
PB Pay leverages more than a decade of payments experience within the PB Fintech group, particularly from its insurance business. The platform addresses the growing complexity of India’s digital payments ecosystem, where customers increasingly use UPI, cards, net banking, wallets,
EMI and recurring payment methods. Merchants often need to manage multiple providers, integrations and dashboards, resulting in higher operational complexity and challenges around failed transactions, disputes and payouts.
International Literacy Day is observed every year on 8 September to highlight the importance of literacy as a fundamental human right and a foundation for lifelong learning, dignity, and sustainable development.
Established by: UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Proclaimed: 1966
First observed: 8 September 1967
2026 Theme: "Promoting literacy in the digital age: Building resilient and inclusive societies."
It promotes universal access to quality literacy and lifelong learning and supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education.
The International Day to Protect Education from Attack is observed every year on 9 September to raise awareness about attacks on students, teachers, schools, and universities during armed conflicts and to promote the protection of education under international law.
The International Day to Protect Education from Attack was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) through Resolution A/RES/74/275 in 2020, first observed on 9 September 2020, and is led by UNESCO and Education Cannot Wait (ECW).
Launched in 2015 in Oslo, Norway.
India bagged five medals including two gold, two silver and one bronze on the penultimate day of the Stage three of World Archery Para Series in Ahmedabad with the men’s teams winning the top honours. Reigning world champion Toman Kumar and Shyam Sundar Swami clinched the gold medal in the Men’s compound team event
with a dominant win over Iraq’s Abbas Kadhim and Anwer Aldawod, 152-139.
Men’s duo of double Paralympic medallist Harvinder Singh and Vijay Sundi overcame Slovakia’s David Ivan and Denis Ivan 6-2 to bag the yellow metal in recurve team title.
The women’s recurve team of Bhawna and Pooja settled for silver after going down 0-6 to Chinese pair in the final. Swati and Adil Mohamed Nazir Ansari finished runners-up in the Mixed Team W1 (recurve/compound) event, taking Silver. Swati then claimed bronze in the individual W1 category, defeating Russia’s Elena Krutova, 6-2.
