Current Affairs One-liners — July 2026

Thu, 02 Jul 2026

• Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae paid an official visit to India from 1 to 3 July 2026 for the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, her first official visit to India.
• Indian Navy stealth frigate INS Trikand responded to a piracy attempt on the bulk carrier MV Golden Arsenal about 300 nautical miles east-northeast of Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden on 1 July 2026, and its boarding team sanitised the ship on 2 July.
• The NHRC took suo motu cognizance on 2 July 2026 of a report that 12 bonded labourers were assaulted and forced to work without sufficient food and wages for nearly a year and a half at a paper plate factory in Mandi village, Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh.
• The Borjuli site in Sonitpur district of Assam, identified under an NRAA-funded wild rice conservation project, has been notified as a Biodiversity Heritage Site, the Ministry of Agriculture said on 2 July 2026.
• Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched the Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Yojana nationwide from Mukkavaripalli village in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh on 2 July 2026.
• ACME Group signed long-term offtake deals on 2 July 2026 with Japan's IHI Corporation for green ammonia and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical for green methanol, at Atal Akshay Urja Bhawan, New Delhi.
• ICMR-MINDS, a mental-health digital decision-support initiative of the Indian Council of Medical Research, won the Gold Award in the AI and new-age technology category of the National Awards for e-Governance at the 29th National Conference on e-Governance in Jaipur on 1-2 July 2026.
• The Centre amended the Drugs Rules, 1945 on 2 July 2026 to bring cell or stem cell derived products, gene therapeutic products and xenografts under the Centrally License Approving Authority (CLAA) framework.
• Union Jal Shakti Minister C.R. Paatil chaired the 19th meeting of the Empowered Task Force on River Ganga on 2 July 2026, which reviewed the Namami Gange Programme.
• Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will inaugurate a two-day orientation programme for newly elected members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in Kolkata on 3 July 2026, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said on 2 July.
• India's coal imports fell to 21.13 million tonnes in April 2026 from 24.27 MT a year earlier, a drop of about 12.95%, the Ministry of Coal said on 2 July 2026.
• Researchers at ARCI Hyderabad, an autonomous institute of DST, built a crack-free bi-metallic structure of stainless steel SS316L on Inconel IN718 using laser-based powder bed fusion, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on 2 July 2026.
• The Ministry of Women and Child Development on 2 July 2026 invited nominations for the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2026 through awards.gov.in, with 31 July 2026 as the last date.
• Indian Railways approved a 4.59 km rail flyover from Bondamunda 'A' Cabin to Bondamunda Link 'B' Cabin in South Eastern Railway at a cost of Rs 135 crore, the Ministry of Railways said on 2 July 2026.

Wed, 01 Jul 2026

• The Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 came into force across all rural areas of India on 1 July 2026, repealing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 from the same date.
• Three Indian ship recycling yards have completed compliance and can apply for inclusion under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said after talks with European Commissioner Jessika Roswall on 1 July 2026.
• NHAI launched barrier-less Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) tolling at the Manoharpura Toll Plaza on the Delhi-Jaipur section of NH-48 in Rajasthan, the Road Transport Ministry said on 1 July 2026.
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 1 July 2026 approved a 6-lane road tunnel for NH-148AE connecting the Dwarka Expressway (NH 248BB) with Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj in Delhi, a total project length of 8.1 km at Rs 6,969.67 crore on Hybrid Annuity Mode.
• ICAR and Seychelles' Agriculture Department signed an MoU and a five-year Work Plan (2026-2031) during the Prime Minister's visit to Seychelles, and INS Tarkash and INS Ikshak concluded their Port Victoria port call on 29 June 2026, according to releases of 1 July 2026.
• Lt Gen Sandeep Jain became Vice Chief of the Army Staff, Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit Vice Chief of the Air Staff and Air Marshal Tejinder Singh CISC on 1 July 2026, while Lt Gen Mohit Malhotra took over the Jaipur-based South Western Command.
• Researchers led by ARIES used machine learning on hand-drawn suncharts of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory to trace magnetically active solar plages from 1916 to 2007, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on 1 July 2026.
• India's first private Point-in-Space (PinS) instrument approach procedure for helicopter operations, developed by AAI and approved by DGCA, was approved for Undavalli Heliport, the Civil Aviation Ministry said on 1 July 2026.
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 1 July 2026 approved the 117.7 km Kanpur-Kabrai access-controlled greenfield highway in Uttar Pradesh at a capital cost of Rs 7,145.14 crore on BOT (Toll) mode.
• The Competition Commission of India on 1 July 2026 approved the acquisition of 100% shareholding of Royal Challengers Sports Pvt Ltd by a consortium including Big Banyan Holdings, Bolt IPL Holdings, Times Internet, Times Cricket, ICQ Opportunities and Asia Investment Topco II.
• The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized about 24 kg of foreign-origin gold worth about Rs 34 crore from seven carriers in Nadia district, West Bengal, dismantling a syndicate operating along the Indo-Bangladesh border, the Finance Ministry said on 1 July 2026.
• The Ministry of Steel granted Miniratna Category-I status to MECON Limited, a Schedule 'A' CPSE with a net worth of Rs 535.42 crore as on 31 March 2026, the ministry said on 1 July 2026.
• Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, with Union Minister Kiren Rijiju and Chief Minister Pema Khandu, conducted aerial and ground surveys of flood-hit areas of Arunachal Pradesh, including Keyi Panyor district, on 1 July 2026.