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हिन्दी — Read in HindiLatest edition: September 2026. Covered from 1 June to 30 September 2026. Next edition, October 2026, publishes on 5 November 2026.
The monthly magazine
5 lead articles · 46 new articles · 7 updates
LeadPrelims and MainsLaunch vehicles, satellites and applications
Vikram-1, built by Skyroot Aerospace of Hyderabad, lifted off from Sriharikota on 18 July 2026 and placed its payloads in low Earth orbit. It is the first privately built Indian rocket to reach orbit.
LeadPrelims and MainsVaccines and immunisation
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation granted marketing authorisation to Qdenga in July 2026, the first dengue vaccine approved in India, for people aged 4 to 60.
LeadMainsMilitary platforms, drones and new weapons
Reports in July 2026 on the conflict between the United States and Iran showed that about nine in ten attack drones were shot down, yet each interceptor cost far more than the drone it destroyed. In the same month the Defence Acquisition Council cleared drone and counter drone systems for the Indian forces.
LeadPrelims and MainsSolar energy
A rule in force from 1 June 2026 requires solar projects under government schemes, net metering and open access to use cells made in India. India makes far fewer cells than modules, so by July many module factories stood idle for want of cells.
LeadPrelims and MainsCyber security and data protection
A ransomware group published about 19,000 files relating to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in July 2026. The files were taken from a contractor's data held with a third party provider, and not from the plant's own network.
1.1.1Vikram-1: a private Indian rocket reaches orbitLead
Vikram-1, built by Skyroot Aerospace of Hyderabad, lifted off from Sriharikota on 18 July 2026 and placed its payloads in low Earth orbit. It is the first privately built Indian rocket to reach orbit.
1.2.1India's re-entry rulesNewPrelims and Mains
India's first rules for the planned re entry of space objects were issued by IN-SPACe in 2026.
2.1.1BrahMos exportsNewPrelims and Mains
BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile made by a joint venture of DRDO and a Russian partner, so each export needs agreement on both sides; the Philippines was the first customer.
2.2.1Drones, autonomy and the cost of defenceLead
Reports in July 2026 on the conflict between the United States and Iran showed that about nine in ten attack drones were shot down, yet each interceptor cost far more than the drone it destroyed. In the same month the Defence Acquisition Council cleared drone and counter drone systems for the Indian forces.
2.2.2Micro gas turbine enginesBrief
23 Jul 2026India's first indigenous expendable turbojet of the 350 kg thrust class, designed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment and built by a private firm, was delivered. PIB, 23 Jul 2026: Successful development of first indigenous Expendable Turbo Jet Engine of 350 kg thrust class (opens in a new tab)
2.2.3Airborne Early Warning and Control Mk IIBrief
22 Jul 2026DRDO's Centre for Air Borne Systems signed contracts to convert six A321 airliners into bare airframes and to build the radar and mission systems with an Indian private firm as development and production partner. PIB, 22 Jul 2026: DRDO inks two major contracts with Industry partners as part of AEW&C MK-II programme (opens in a new tab)
3.1.2Chandipura virusNewPrelims and Mains
Chandipura virus is a rhabdovirus related to rabies, carried mainly by sandflies.
3.1.3Zoonoses action planNewPrelims and Mains
The National Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Zoonoses is built on the One Health approach and names ten priority zoonoses.
3.2.1India's first dengue vaccineLead
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation granted marketing authorisation to Qdenga in July 2026, the first dengue vaccine approved in India, for people aged 4 to 60.
3.3.1Cancer: notification and the global countNewPrelims and Mains
Making cancer a notifiable disease obliges doctors and hospitals to report every case to the State.
3.3.2National Family Health Survey 6Prelims and Mains
24 Jul 2026Institutional deliveries rose to 90.6 per cent and full immunisation of children aged 12 to 23 months to 87.1 per cent. Stunting among children under five fell to 29.3 per cent. Against this, 30.7 per cent of women and 27.3 per cent of men aged 15 to 49 are now overweight or obese. Mains: India now carries a double burden of undernutrition and metabolic disease. PIB, 24 Jul 2026: NFHS-6 Highlights Rising lifestyle diseases among Adults (opens in a new tab)
3.4.1Drones for tuberculosis samplesNewPrelims and Mains
i-DRONE is the Indian Council of Medical Research's programme for carrying medical samples and supplies by drone, tested for tuberculosis sputum samples in Telangana.
3.4.2Central licensing of cell and gene therapiesNewPrelims and Mains
Stem cell products, gene therapies and xenografts are licensed jointly by the central and State drug regulators under the Drugs Rules, 1945, as vaccines and recombinant medicines already are.
4.1.1Base editingNewPrelims and Mains
Base editing, developed in 2016, converts one DNA letter into another without cutting both strands, unlike CRISPR-Cas9.
4.2.1Genome edited crops: India's rule and the European lawNewPrelims and Mains
Genome editing makes edits classed as SDN-1, SDN-2 or SDN-3, and India exempts SDN-1 and SDN-2 edits, which leave no foreign DNA, from the rules for genetically modified organisms.
4.3.1India's bioeconomyNewPrelims and Mains
The bioeconomy is the part of the economy built on biological resources and biotechnology, from vaccines and biofuels to industrial enzymes.
5.1.1IndiaAI MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The IndiaAI Mission is the central programme for artificial intelligence capability.
5.2.1A proposed law on AINewPrelims and Mains
Artificial intelligence in India is governed through rules under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has been weighing a separate law covering synthetic content, agentic systems and sandboxes for high risk uses.
5.2.2Copyright in a machine generated workPrelims and Mains
24 Jul 2026In a case brought by a news agency against OpenAI, the Delhi High Court took the prima facie view that storing copyrighted work to train a language model falls within fair dealing. Its reason was that training supplies the work to no third party; it took the same view of outputs produced by retrieval augmented generation, and the ruling is interim. The Indian Express, 24 Jul 2026: Delhi High Court holds that training a large language model on copyrighted work is fair dealing (opens in a new tab)
5.2.3Export controls on frontier modelsBrief
3 Jul 2026A Chinese firm released a rival open weight model within a day of the restriction; controls work on scarce hardware, but published model weights cannot be withdrawn. The Hindu, 3 Jul 2026: Can caged frontier AI models outrun open ones? (opens in a new tab)
5.3.1Data centres: water, cooling and sitingNewPrelims and Mains
Data centres are cooled by carrying their heat away with water, which makes cooling the demand that meets a local limit first.
5.3.2Mobile Phone Manufacturing SchemeNewPrelims and Mains
The Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme succeeds the production linked incentive for large scale electronics, and pays a share of eligible sales.
5.3.3India's data centre capacityBrief
9 Jul 2026Gujarat notified India's first State data centre policy, for 2026 to 29, with support for captive desalination plants. The Hindu, 9 Jul 2026: 'Data centre capacity to jump to 12 GW as AI fuels demand' (opens in a new tab)
5.4.1Cyber security of critical infrastructure: the Kudankulam leakLead
A ransomware group published about 19,000 files relating to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in July 2026. The files were taken from a contractor's data held with a third party provider, and not from the plant's own network.
5.5.1Digital public infrastructure abroadNewMains
India offers its digital public infrastructure, such as DigiLocker and the payments and identity stack, to other countries through digital cooperation agreements.
6.1.1Bharat 6GNewPrelims and Mains
Bharat 6G is India's programme for the sixth generation of mobile technology, with a spectrum roadmap, a terahertz testbed and an alliance of research and industry bodies, working within the International Telecommunication Union's IMT-2030 framework.
7.1.1Solar manufacturing: modules without cellsLead
A rule in force from 1 June 2026 requires solar projects under government schemes, net metering and open access to use cells made in India. India makes far fewer cells than modules, so by July many module factories stood idle for want of cells.
7.2.1Wind energy in IndiaNewPrelims and Mains
Wind energy in India is the power drawn from India's installed wind capacity, in which India ranked fourth in the world at the end of 2025.
7.3.1Hydrogen fuel cell trainNewMains
India's first hydrogen train runs between Jind and Sonipat in Haryana on proton exchange membrane fuel cells.
7.3.2E20NewPrelims and Mains
E20 is petrol blended with 20 per cent anhydrous ethanol by volume, and since 1 April 2026 it is the only petrol sold in India, at a minimum Research Octane Number of 95.
7.4.1Mine closureNewPrelims and Mains
Scientific mine closure returns a worked out mine to farming, renewable energy or community use, paid for from a closure corpus held in escrow and governed by the Ministry of Coal's guidelines on progressive closure and monitoring after closure.
7.4.2Coal in the power mixNewPrelims and Mains
Coal and lignite supply about two thirds of India's electricity.
7.5.1Energy storage: batteries, targets and long durationNewPrelims and Mains
Energy storage does the firming a weather driven grid needs, holding the midday surplus until the evening peak.
7.5.2Delhi Electric Vehicles Policy, 2026NewPrelims and Mains
Delhi's electric vehicle policy sets dates after which only electric vehicles of a given class may be registered in the city, beginning with three wheelers and light goods vehicles and then two wheelers.
8.1.1The Nuclear Energy MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The Nuclear Energy Mission, announced in the 2025 to 2026 Budget with Rs 20,000 crore, sets the target of 100 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2047, more than ten times what runs today.
8.1.2The Prototype Fast Breeder ReactorNewPrelims and Mains
The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam is a 500 MWe sodium cooled fast reactor, about 90 per cent Indian built, run by BHAVINI.
8.1.3Uranium from AustraliaNewPrelims and Mains
Uranium from Australia is the supply India can buy under the civil nuclear cooperation agreement the two countries signed in 2015.
8.2.1United States and Saudi Arabia civil nuclear agreementNewPrelims and Mains
The United States and Saudi Arabia civil nuclear agreement is a 30 year agreement the two countries signed on 22 July.
9.1.1Critical mineral block auctionsNewPrelims and Mains
The Centre auctions blocks of critical minerals in tranches under the mining law amended in 2023, offering rare earths, lithium, graphite, vanadium, tungsten and potash among others.
9.1.2National Critical Mineral MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The National Critical Mineral Mission, approved in January 2025, is India's umbrella programme for critical mineral security.
10.1.1Traditional Knowledge Digital LibraryNewPrelims and Mains
The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library was set up in 2001 by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research with the Ministry of AYUSH.
10.2.1India's research spendingNewPrelims and Mains
India's research spending is its gross expenditure on research and development (GERD), paid by government and by private industry.
10.3.1India's Arctic policyNewMains
India's Arctic Policy of 2022 frames its work in the Arctic, where it runs the Himadri research station at Svalbard.
10.3.2Ocean observation and tsunami warningNewPrelims and Mains
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services runs India's ocean observing network of buoys, current profilers, tide gauges and Argo floats.
11.1.1National Quantum MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The National Quantum Mission, approved in 2023 and run by the Department of Science and Technology, funds India's work in quantum technology through four thematic hubs, each led by an institute.
11.1.2Quantum advantage claim from IndiaNewPrelims and Mains
Quantum advantage is a result a quantum computer reaches faster than any known classical method.