Current Affairs One-liners — 01 May 2026

Fri, 01 May 2026

• Home Minister Amit Shah on 1 May 2026, Buddha Purnima, inaugurated the 'Sacred Exposition of the Holy Relics of the Tathagata' in Leh, bringing relics linked to the Piprahwa Stupa to Ladakh after 75 years; the exposition runs until 14 May and will also travel to Zanskar.
• House-to-house Houselisting and Housing Census operations under Phase 1 of Census 2027 began on 1 May 2026 in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, while the online self-enumeration facility, used by nearly 82 lakh households so far, opened in five more States/UT.
• Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on 1 May 2026 launched India's first Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) barrier-less tolling system at Chorayasi Toll Plaza on the Surat–Bharuch section of NH-48 in Gujarat, using ANPR cameras and FASTag; about 41,500 vehicles crossed it on the first day.
• The Bureau of Indian Standards published six new Indian Standards for priority assistive products — elbow crutches, walking sticks, multi-legged walking sticks, portable ramps, tactile guide maps and Braille on signage — under ICMR's National List of Essential Assistive Products, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said on 1 May 2026.
• Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi launched PMGSY-IV in Odisha at Rayagada on 1 May 2026, with 827 new roads covering 1,701.84 km at a cost of ₹1,698.04 crore sanctioned in the first phase.
• Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on 1 May 2026 laid the foundation stone of a ₹25-crore, 10,000-litres-per-day dairy plant in Kargil and witnessed an MoU between Ladakh Milk Federation and Mother Dairy to take Ladakh's dairy products to national markets.
• Anugraha Narayana Das, a 1991-batch Indian Defence Accounts Service officer, took charge as Controller General of Defence Accounts on 1 May 2026, the same day his predecessor Vishvajit Sahay assumed charge as Secretary (Defence Finance) in the Ministry of Defence.
• The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on 1 May 2026 appointed filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker as Festival Director of the 57th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), to be held in Goa.
• Maharashtra and Gujarat marked their statehood days on 1 May 2026, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeting the people of both states; the two states were formed on 1 May 1960 under the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960.
• President Droupadi Murmu, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, visited the headquarters of the Army Training Command (ARTRAC) in Shimla on 1 May 2026 and was briefed on its drone training, 'Red Teaming' and digitisation initiatives.
• The Narcotics Control Bureau, under Operation WHITE STRIKE, busted a transnational cocaine syndicate and seized about 349 kg of high-grade cocaine worth nearly ₹1,745 crore from the Mumbai region, the Home Ministry said on 1 May 2026.
• The North Eastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation, a CPSE under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, on 1 May 2026 launched 'Padma Doree', a textile initiative blending Northeast India's Eri (Ahimsa) silk with Madhya Pradesh's Chanderi weaving.
• The open-field observatory of the Coastal Atmospheric Research Testbed (C-ART), set up by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, under Mission Mausam, was inaugurated on 1 May 2026 by Earth Sciences Secretary M. Ravichandran.
• Bharat Khera, a 1995-batch IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, assumed charge as Secretary of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, the Ministry said on 1 May 2026.