Current Affairs One-liners — 28 January 2026

Wed, 28 Jan 2026

• The Environment Ministry notified the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, replacing the 2016 rules; they make four-stream segregation at source mandatory and come into force on 1 April 2026.
• Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and all others on board died on 28 January 2026 when a Learjet 45 (VT-SSK) of VSR Ventures crashed at Baramati on a Mumbai–Baramati flight.
• Addressing Wings India 2026 at Hyderabad, Telangana by video on 28 January 2026, PM Modi said India is now the world's third-largest domestic aviation market and the number of airports has risen from 70 in 2014 to more than 160.
• The Finance Ministry announced on 28 January 2026 that India and the European Union have concluded negotiations on the financial services chapter of the India-EU FTA, finalised in the last round held on 6 January 2026.
• The Budget Session of Parliament began on 28 January 2026 with President Droupadi Murmu addressing both Houses; it is the 7th Session of the 18th Lok Sabha.
• The Uttarakhand cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami approved the Uttarakhand Green Hydrogen Policy, 2026 on 28 January 2026 to promote green hydrogen production using the state's hydropower resources.
• NITI Aayog launched Sampoornata Abhiyan 2.0 on 28 January 2026, a campaign till 14 April 2026 to saturate 5 KPIs in 112 Aspirational Districts and 6 KPIs in 513 Aspirational Blocks.
• India's IIP rose 7.8% in December 2025 (quick estimate), its highest level in over two years, led by manufacturing (8.1%), mining (6.8%) and electricity (6.3%).
• MoS for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada on 28 January 2026 dedicated UIDAI's new Aadhaar App, which offers selective sharing of identity fields, face verification and up to five Aadhaar profiles on one device.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla paid tributes to 'Punjab Kesari' Lala Lajpat Rai on his birth anniversary on 28 January 2026.
• The Agriculture Ministry has constituted a high-level committee to review Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) in Tamil Nadu after Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's visit to Erode; it will report within two months, with ICAR-NRCB Tiruchirappalli as host institution.
• The Indian Navy's First Training Squadron (INS Tir, INS Sujata, INS Shardul and ICGS Sarathi) concluded its visit to Phuket Deep Sea Port, Thailand with a Passage Exercise with HTMS Huahin on 28 January 2026.
• A Bose Institute study found that dust storms from the arid regions of western India carry airborne pathogens to Eastern Himalayan hilltops, linked to respiratory and skin diseases; it was published in Science of the Total Environment.
• Union MoS Jayant Chaudhary announced on 28 January 2026 a collaboration between the Skill Development Ministry, Google Cloud and Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU), Meerut, making CCSU India's first AI-enabled state university pilot.
• PM Modi addressed the centenary celebrations of the Arya Vaidya Sala Charitable Hospital in Kerala by video message on 28 January 2026, recalling founder Vaidyaratnam P.S. Varier and the institution's 125-year journey in Ayurveda.