Find the Weekly Current Affairs for the 2nd week of October 2026. Stay informed with the most important news and events from around the world. Our curated updates provide a comprehensive summary of the week’s key happenings, covering politics, economics, science, technology, sports, and international affairs.
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Highlights of October 2nd Week Current Affairs
- Heritage groups have urged authorities to reconsider the proposed open-cast coal mining project near the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ramappa Temple in Telangana.
- The Supreme Court’s seven-judge Constitution Bench examined the relationship between legislative privileges and the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression.
- Short-Lived Climate Pollutants such as methane, black carbon, tropospheric ozone and HFCs can have a strong warming effect despite remaining in the atmosphere for shorter periods than CO₂.
- Belgian-American physicist Francis Halzen was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and high-energy neutrino detection.
- The Union Cabinet approved a ₹10,000-crore SME Growth Fund to provide growth-stage equity capital to viable small and medium enterprises.
- The third Joint Indo-Argentine Army Mountaineering Expedition successfully climbed Mt Abi Gamin and Mt Kamet in Uttarakhand.
- October 5 marked the birth anniversary of Rani Durgavati, the Gond ruler remembered for her resistance against Mughal expansion.
- India won four gold medals and one silver medal at the 19th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics held in Hanoi, Vietnam.
- The Indian Navy’s first Fleet Support Ship, ‘Surya’, was inaugurated/launched at Hindustan Shipyard Limited in Visakhapatnam to strengthen the Navy’s logistical and operational capabilities.
- Subramania Siva, a Tamil nationalist, freedom fighter, public speaker and writer, was remembered for his contribution to India’s freedom struggle and nationalist mobilisation in Tamil Nadu.
- An international underwater expedition found the remains of a medieval Silk Road trading settlement at the submerged Toru-Aygyr complex in Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul, offering fresh insights into Central Asia’s commercial and cultural history.
- Delhi Police’s detention of LoP Rahul Gandhi and other leaders during protests against the SIR of electoral rolls spotlighted the legal distinction between arrest, police detention (Section 172 BNSS) and preventive detention, along with Article 22 safeguards.
- Key judicial safeguards on arrest, including D.K. Basu (1997), Arnesh Kumar (2014) and Pankaj Bansal (2023, written grounds of arrest under PMLA), were revisited, alongside the NSA’s 12-month maximum preventive detention.
- The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Henri B. Kagan (France) and Kensō Soai (Japan) for work on non-linear effects and asymmetric autocatalysis, which explain how a small chiral imbalance can be amplified and shed light on biological homochirality.
- Ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, India stressed that equity and CBDR-RC must be respected in both wording and implementation, a principle rooted in Rio 1992, the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, and retained in the Paris Agreement.
- The I&B Ministry notified 13 journalists as Press Council of India members, completing a step in reconstituting the Council’s 15th term; the PCI is a statutory, quasi-judicial body under the Press Council Act, 1978, with a Chairman and 28 members.
- India condemned a series of attacks in the Black Sea region, citing risks to maritime security and seafarers’ safety; the sea connects to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus, Sea of Marmara and Dardanelles.
- The Indian Air Force celebrated its 94th Air Force Day on 8 October 2026 under the theme “Indian Air Force – Infallible, Impervious and Precise,” marking its 1932 establishment.
- The Silk Road, a network of overland and maritime routes active from around the 2nd century BCE, linked China, India, Persia, Arabia and Europe; India’s links include the Uttarapatha, the Karakoram route and the Kushanas.
- UNESCO has inscribed two Silk Road corridors (Chang’an–Tianshan in 2014 and Zarafshan–Karakum in 2023), while Indian sites such as Arikamedu, Vikramshila and Harwan are on India’s World Heritage Tentative List.
- The Union Government opposed Balwant Singh Rajoana’s plea for commutation of his death sentence, whose mercy petition has been pending since 2012, bringing focus on Articles 72 and 161 and the Shatrughan Chauhan (2014) ruling that inordinate delay can violate Article 21.
- A field study reported that over 25% of India’s cotton-growing area may be under unauthorised GM hybrids carrying genes like cp4-epsps (glyphosate tolerance) and Vip3A, raising biosafety, herbicide-resistance and enforcement concerns, since Bt cotton is India’s only approved GM crop.
- MNRE marked World Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day on 8 October, highlighting the National Green Hydrogen Mission’s target of at least 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2030.
- The RBI’s MPC reportedly raised the repo rate by 25 bps to 5.5% and shifted its stance from neutral to “calibrated tightening,” citing broadening retail inflation, monsoon risks and geopolitical tensions.
- The 57th GST Council recommended omitting Section 69 (arrest powers) of the CGST Act and raising the prosecution threshold from ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore.
- The same GST Council meeting proposed cutting the general penalty under Section 125 from ₹25,000 to ₹10,000, exempting disputes below ₹10,000 from show-cause notices, and provisionally sanctioning 90% of eligible refunds for zero-rated supplies and inverted-duty cases.
- The Department of Posts is observing National Postal Week (9–15 October), beginning with World Post Day, which marks the 1874 founding of the Universal Postal Union, under the theme “One Postal Network, Infinite Possibilities.”
- PM Modi inaugurated the 10th India Mobile Congress at Yashobhoomi, New Delhi, themed “Scale Without Boundaries,” organised by COAI and the Department of Telecommunications.
- HAL’s Koraput Division delivered its 2,000th aero-engine and plans a second Shakti engine production line (adding 100 engines annually by 2028–29), alongside expanding AL-31FP production for the Su-30MKI with 63% indigenous content.
- The GST reforms also include automated approval of registration amendments, extension of inverted-duty refunds to input services, and a GST exemption for seat-sharing helicopter services to the North-East, Sikkim and Bagdogra.
- The National SC-ST Hub scheme links SC/ST entrepreneurs to public procurement, with 4% of annual central procurement earmarked for SC/ST-owned MSEs and a 25% capital subsidy (up to ₹25 lakh) under the SCLCSS.
- India’s bamboo sector is expanding beyond handicrafts into construction materials and food processing, aided by the 2017 Indian Forest Act amendment removing non-forest bamboo from the definition of “tree”; bamboo-bearing area is about 1.55 lakh sq km.
- UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2026 projects official development assistance to fall 6.9% to about $152 billion (its lowest since 2014), just 0.23% of donors’ GNI against the 0.7% target.
- The Central Armed Police Forces (General Administration) Act, 2026 has drawn criticism from CAPF cadre officers over IPS deputation quotas (50% of IG posts, at least 67% of ADG posts, 100% of SDG/DG posts); the Supreme Court is to hear related matters on 15 October.
- Canadian poet Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the second Canadian woman laureate after Alice Munro and the 19th woman overall.
- South African jurist Navi Pillay, of Indian Tamil origin, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on international law and accountability, including the landmark Akayesu case at the Rwanda tribunal.
- WWF’s Living Planet Report 2026 recorded steep declines in monitored wildlife populations (freshwater 85%, terrestrial 69%, marine 59%), though the index measures relative abundance, not total animals lost; India’s Ganges river dolphin survey estimated 6,324 animals.
- Assam’s Nameri Tiger Reserve earned Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards (CA|TS) Approved status, with India holding 27 of the 36 approved sites worldwide.
- The JOSH (Joint Squad for Health) initiative under TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan was launched, pairing MY Bharat volunteers and NCC cadets in teams across 55 districts in 11 States/UTs, as 67,933 Panchayats were recognised as TB Mukt in 2026.
- India’s External Affairs Minister held talks in Abidjan with Côte d’Ivoire on defence, counter-terrorism and trade, while India and Mali marked World Cotton Day (7 October) at the UN under the theme “Cotton for Sustainability.”
- France’s IMEC Special Envoy urged alternative routes amid Strait of Hormuz shipping risks; the corridor, announced at the 2023 New Delhi G20, has an eastern maritime leg and a northern Gulf–Haifa rail-and-sea leg, but the original MoU is not a binding financing or construction agreement.
- All 100 PM Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana districts raised their average performance score from 18.85 (April 2026) to 46.89 (August 2026), under a six-year scheme that converges 36 Central schemes across 11 ministries and ranks districts monthly on 121 indicators.
- Mobile internet was suspended for 24 hours in parts of central Delhi before a Jantar Mantar protest, spotlighting the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024, which cap suspensions at 15 days and require reasoned, published orders and Review Committee scrutiny.
- The Anuradha Bhasin (2020) ruling underpins these rules, holding that indefinite internet shutdowns are impermissible and that orders must be published, necessary, proportionate and periodically reviewed.
- Experts raised fresh concerns over the UAPA, 1967, including the stringent bail bar under Section 43D(5) and prolonged pre-trial detention, though K.A. Najeeb (2021) affirmed that constitutional courts can still grant bail where delay violates fundamental rights.
- At least 130 civil society groups urged the UN carbon-market body to suspend credits issued to a Myanmar cookstove project, the first under the Article 6.4 Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, citing integrity, verification and human-rights concerns.
- India rejected OHCHR remarks on the detention of protesters in Delhi, with the OHCHR (established 1993, headquartered in Geneva) distinct from the Human Rights Council and the ICCPR’s Human Rights Committee.
- Scientists from Europe and China reported progress toward the first working nuclear clock using thorium-229 in calcium fluoride crystals, exploiting a ~8.4 eV nuclear transition driven by a ~148 nm vacuum-ultraviolet laser.
- An IARC analysis highlighted that over 90% of adults worldwide carry the Epstein–Barr virus, the first virus linked to cancer, discovered in 1964 from Burkitt lymphoma cells.
- The Navy launched INS Shreyas, the third of four Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels built by GRSE in Kolkata, while World Mental Health Day (10 October) carried the 2026 theme “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change.”
- As the RTI Act completes 21 years, an analysis flagged weak Section 4 proactive disclosure (26 Union departments had no information online), a pending-appeal backlog of over 3.85 lakh across 28 commissions, and Section 20 penalties going unimposed in about 98% of eligible cases.
- A CAQM expert committee reportedly recommended phasing out BS-IV vehicles in Delhi-NCR by 2030, BS-VI two-wheelers by 2035 and BS-VI four-wheelers by 2040; these are recommendations, not binding deadlines.
- WIPO’s Global Innovation Index 2026 kept Switzerland first for the 16th straight year, while India ranked 38th among 139 economies and 1st in both the lower-middle-income group and Central and Southern Asia.
- The NSO’s first National Household Travel Survey found two-wheelers carry 42.6% of workers’ commutes, with only 5% of urban workers using mass transit and women’s participation in daily work trips at 41.9% against 61.9% for men.
- WHO prequalified the Serum Institute’s CERVAVAC, India’s first indigenous quadrivalent HPV vaccine, though India’s national HPV programme (launched 28 February 2026) uses Gardasil-4 for around 1.2 crore 14-year-old girls.
- The second meeting of the UN Global Initiative on AI for Agri-Food Systems, coordinated by the ITU, was held alongside India Mobile Congress 2026, highlighting AI uses like pest surveillance and precision farming.
- The Central Asian Conservation Network launched the Central Asian Flyway Digital Hub, with bird collision reporting and ringing/resighting portals, to support migratory bird conservation across 30 range states.
- The PM paid tribute to Jayaprakash Narayan (Sampoorna Kranti, 1974 Bihar Movement) and Nanaji Deshmukh (110th birth anniversary, founder of Deendayal Research Institute), both Bharat Ratna recipients.
- INS Mangrol, the third of eight Mahe-class anti-submarine shallow water craft built by Cochin Shipyard with over 80% indigenous content, was commissioned at Mumbai’s Naval Dockyard.
- India hosted the non-competitive BRICS Traditional and Indigenous Sports Demonstration Games 2026 in Ahmedabad with ten countries, while Garba of Gujarat (UNESCO-listed since December 2023) and Exercise INDRA featured in the one-liners.
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