Official releases, distilled into exam-ready intelligence.

The e-Shram portal, launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, completed five years in August 2026. Developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), it established India's first Aadhaar-authenticated National Database of Unorganised Workers (NDUW), issuing a unique 12-digit Universal Account Number (UAN) to registered workers. In October 2024, it evolved into a one-stop service delivery platform integrating 15 social security and welfare schemes—such as PM-SYM, PMSBY, PMJJBY, NSAP, ONORC, and PMAY-G—alongside employment, skilling, and pension services. With over 31.89 crore registrations, the platform supports portable benefit delivery, evidence-based policymaking, and includes features like multilingual functionality and registration provisions for gig, platform, and migrant workers.

The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry chaired the India-Japan Industry Roundtable on Semiconductors and Artificial Intelligence in Tokyo, emphasizing economic and technological cooperation between the two nations. The Minister noted that domestic semiconductor demand is projected to reach USD 150 billion by 2032 and outlined India's semiconductor strategy, including funding allocations under Semicon India 1.0 and 2.0. Additionally, he held a bilateral meeting with Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, where both agreed to accelerate the review of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and discussed progress toward private investment targets.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal held discussions in Tokyo with major Japanese financial and investment institutions—including MUFG, DBJ, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, and Nippon Life—to enhance long-term capital flows and investment partnerships. Highlighting India's 7.7 percent economic growth last year and its objective of becoming a USD 30 trillion economy by 2047, the Minister invited institutional capital into sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, green hydrogen, and digital infrastructure. Japanese entities expressed strong confidence in India's long-term prospects, shared their ongoing investments and expansion plans, and discussed facilitation measures relating to profit repatriation, regulatory predictability, and capital market access, alongside exploring GIFT City as an international capital gateway.

This PIB backgrounder reviews the decade-long evolution and transformation of India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Since its pilot launch in 2016, UPI has grown into a core pillar of India's Digital Public Infrastructure, powering multi-bank, round-the-clock real-time transactions with two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption. Key evolutionary milestones include BHIM, dynamic QR codes, UPI 2.0, UPI AutoPay, UPI 123PAY for feature phones, UPI Lite, credit line integration, and recent features like UPI Circle and Aadhaar-based face authentication. By FY 2025–26, annual transaction volumes surpassed 24,162 crore. Globally, UPI operates in 11 countries for acceptance and remittances, accounting for approximately 49% of global real-time payment transaction volume as noted in a June 2025 IMF report.

At the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP17) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change called for diversified, adequate, predictable, and sustained international finance for land restoration and drought resilience. During the Ministerial Dialogue, India highlighted its innovative financing architecture, including a blended green-finance framework, Sovereign Green Bonds, the Green Credit Programme, and a compensatory conservation regime. The Minister emphasized a Whole-of-Government and Whole-of-Society approach, stressing that land restoration is an investment in food, water, biodiversity, livelihoods, and long-term resilience rather than a mere cost.

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), launched by the National Payments Corporation of India under the regulatory oversight of the Reserve Bank of India, has completed 10 years of operations. Over the decade, UPI has experienced an exponential increase, expanding from 1.78 crore transactions in FY 2016-17 to over 24,162 crore transactions in FY 2025-26, and a rise in transaction value from ₹0.07 lakh crore to approximately ₹314 lakh crore. Recognized by the International Monetary Fund as the world's largest real-time payment system, UPI accounts for nearly 49% of the world's real-time payment transaction volume and is operational in 11 countries.

The Ministry of Finance announced that the Reserve Bank of India's special USD-INR forex swap facility for FCNR(B) deposits, Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings, and External Commercial Borrowings, launched on June 8, 2026, mobilized US $73 billion in foreign exchange inflows as of August 21, 2026. FCNR(B) deposits accounted for US $65.40 billion of this total. Mobilized in under eleven weeks, this exercise surpassed the RBI's 2013 FCNR(B) swap scheme, which raised about US $26 billion over three months. Consequently, the RBI advanced the closure of the FCNR(B) window from September 30 to August 31, 2026. The Ministry stated that the inflows fortified India's external buffers.

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways organized a Regional Manthan Conference on Road Safety for western states and union territories in Mumbai, chaired by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety. The conference deliberated on initiatives including the Zero Fatality District (ZFD) initiative, the PM Rahat Scheme for cashless treatment of road accident victims up to Rs. 1.5 lakh during the golden hour, the Rah-Veer scheme for rewarding and protecting Good Samaritans, the Sadak Suraksha Mitra (SSM) youth engagement programme, and Data-Driven Hyperlocal Interventions (DDHI). States agreed to conduct root cause analyses and prepare district road safety plans to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2030.

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Bhupender Yadav addressed a side event at the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP 17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. He stated that India restored 21.76 million hectares of land between 2011 and 2020, which generated about 1.22 billion person-days of employment. India is a major pledger to the Bonn Challenge with an enhanced commitment to restore 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030. The Second Progress Report covers restoration across forests, agriculture, soil, and water conservation. Furthermore, India is undertaking the next reporting cycle for 2021–2025 with the ICFRE Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Land Management and IUCN, supported by initiatives such as the Green India Mission, Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, and Nagar Van Yojana.

India's agriculture sector recorded a decadal growth rate of 4.45 percent during FY16-FY25. However, intensive cultivation, heavy chemical use, and erratic rainfall have degraded soil health, making regenerative agriculture an imperative for long-term productivity and climate resilience. Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil vitality, enhancing biodiversity, and ensuring ecosystem resilience through practices such as natural farming, micro-irrigation, integrated farming systems, agroforestry, and scientific soil management. The government supports this transition through key initiatives including the National Mission on Natural Farming, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, Per Drop More Crop, Rainfed Area Development Programme, the Agroforestry component under PM-RKVY, and the Soil Health Card Scheme.

The National Animal Disease Control Programme (NADCP), launched in September 2019, is a major Indian livestock health initiative designed to control and eradicate Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis through nationwide vaccination, sero-surveillance, and digital integration. Subsumed under the revised Livestock Health and Disease Control Programme (LHDCP) for the financial year 2026–27 with a budget outlay of ₹2,010 crore, the programme features biannual mass FMD vaccination and one-time Brucellosis vaccination for bovine calves. Interventions are supported by the Bharat Pashudhan Portal for animal registration, 4,019 operational Mobile Veterinary Units for doorstep service delivery, ICAR research institutions, and the National One Health Mission. Measurable outcomes include a cumulative administration of 147.16 crore FMD vaccine doses, a decline in reported FMD outbreaks from 132 in 2019 to 40 by 2025, and Brucellosis outbreaks falling from 22 in 2019 to 15 in 2025.

Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah chaired a security review meeting regarding the Siliguri Corridor, attended by senior central and state officials, the Army, BSF, SSB, RPF, and the Chief Minister and DGP of West Bengal. The Multi Agency Centre's Standing Focus Group on Siliguri Corridor presented progress and recommendations. Discussions covered critical infrastructural projects, PIO activities, demographic changes, illegal immigration, and border affairs. The Home Minister stressed a quadrangular approach to border security, directed agencies to increase their footprints and secure vital installations, ordered the corridor kept free of encroachments, and suggested opening more Sainik schools, increasing senior NCC cadets, and strengthening civil defense and home guards in North Bengal.

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh announced the unanimous adoption of the 'Chennai Declaration' and 'Chennai Consensus' during the closing session of the 14th BRICS Science Ministerial Meet chaired by India. The declaration reaffirms BRICS commitment to build an effective, resilient, and future-ready framework in science, technology, and innovation (STI), placing a people-centred, humanity-first approach at the heart of cooperation. The agenda emphasizes the Global South, young innovators, collaborative research, shared research infrastructure including the BRICS Global Research Advanced Infrastructure Network (BRICS GRAIN), the BRICS Science and Research Repository, and the BRICS Youth Startup Platform across various emerging fields such as Artificial Intelligence, quantum technologies, and biotechnology.

The Ken–Betwa Link Project (KBLP) is the first priority project under the National Perspective Plan for Interlinking of Rivers to enter the implementation stage. Designed to address water scarcity in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the project involves transferring water from the Ken basin to the Betwa basin through the 96.7-metre-high Daudhan Dam, a 216.465-km link canal, and other associated works such as the Lower Orr Project, Kotha Barrage, and Bina Complex Multipurpose Project. Scheduled for completion in 2030 with a total cost of ₹44,605 crore, KBLP aims to provide irrigation to 10.62 lakh hectares, supply drinking water to about 62 lakh people, and generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power.

The Ministry of Rural Development has launched the 'National Campaign on Entrepreneurship - II' under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana–National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) for a three-month period from 21 August to 21 November 2026. Aligned with World Entrepreneurs Day, the campaign aims to accelerate rural women entrepreneurship across farm and non-farm sectors, support marketing of Self-Help Group (SHG) products, and contribute to the vision of creating 6 crore Lakhpati Didis. Additionally, the first edition of the monthly Rural Enterprise Tech Bulletin, 'Sankalp Shakti', was released. The initiative focuses on enterprise handholding, formalisation, e-commerce integration, producer institution strengthening, and recognising community resource persons as 'Udyam Sakhis'.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi interacted with CEOs and founders of 20 space startups in diverse fields such as rockets, reusable semi-cryogenic launch vehicles, satellites, AI-powered hyperlocal weather intelligence, and space debris removal. During the interaction, industry leaders highlighted indigenous technological advancements and expressed gratitude for the government's decision to open the space sector to private participation, noting that it has created new opportunities. The Prime Minister encouraged broader application of space technology in sectors like agriculture and environmental management to improve public life, suggested collaboration with Atal Tinkering Labs to nurture young talent, and stated that India's space sector can attract global talent, companies, and investment.

Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) is the Government’s flagship price-support framework launched in September 2018 to ensure remunerative prices for farmers, reduce distress sales, and maintain consumer price stability. The framework comprises four key components: Price Support Scheme (PSS), Price Stabilization Fund (PSF), Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS), and Market Intervention Scheme (MIS). For 2026–27, the budget allocation for PM-AASHA stands at ₹7,200 crore. Procurement is undertaken through central nodal agencies like NAFED and NCCF alongside state governments. Recent initiatives involve digital reforms such as Aadhaar-enabled authentication and e-NAM, alongside infrastructure support through the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to improve transparency, efficiency, and farm-to-market connectivity.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has notified the Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS) with a budgetary outlay of Rs 62,500 crore to enhance global competitiveness, deepen domestic value addition, and support indigenous mobile brands. The 5-year scheme, running from FY 2026-27 to FY 2030-31, features two target segments: TS1 for incentivizing mobile manufacturing and TS2 for supporting Indian mobile phone brands with incentives and non-fiscal support. It offers differentiated incentives, additional support for domestic component sourcing and Indian design and R&D, and anticipates cumulative production of around Rs 39 lakh crore and the generation of approximately 60,000 direct jobs.

The PIB backgrounder details the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026, through a series of frequently asked questions. It addresses revenue collection by state governments from mines, sharing of mining revenue between the Centre and States, and historical reforms since 2015 such as competitive e-auctions, growth in mineral production, the National Critical Mineral Mission, recycling incentives, and exploration ecosystems. The backgrounder clarifies that the 2026 Amendment Act aims to establish a stable and rational tax structure to attract investment, boost critical mineral production, reduce import dependency, prevent cascading tax effects on manufacturing, and provide long-term fiscal certainty without reducing state revenues or altering regulations concerning minor minerals.

Makhana (Euryale ferox), an aquatic crop, has transformed from a traditional food in Bihar into a globally consumed health superfood. India is the world's largest producer of makhana, with Bihar accounting for nearly three-fourths of national production and 80–85% of global supply. To modernize and strengthen the makhana value chain, the government launched the National Makhana Board and approved a Central Sector Scheme for Makhana development with an outlay of ₹476.03 crore for 2025–26 to 2030–31. The sector exhibits strong domestic consumption and export potential, backed by specialized institutions such as the National Research Centre for Makhana (NRCM) and a Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Mithila Makhana.