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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
8 lead articles · 58 new articles · 11 updates
LeadPrelims and MainsForests, grasslands and mountain ecosystems
The Centre issued a seventh draft notification on the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area on 27 July 2026, after the sixth lapsed. It proposes 56,825.7 sq km across six States, and the States still do not agree on where the line should fall.
LeadPrelims and MainsElephants and other land mammals
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 ordered a fresh national survey of elephant corridors and held that no State may block a traditional elephant route. Five days earlier, on World Elephant Day, the government set out the result of India's first DNA based count: 22,446 wild elephants.
LeadPrelims and MainsLand degradation, desertification and drylands
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification met in Mongolia in August 2026, with drought at the centre. India presented its second Bonn Challenge progress report and launched its first guide to grasslands and other open natural ecosystems.
LeadPrelims and MainsGrid, power sector and energy policy
India's non fossil capacity crossed 300 GW on 31 July 2026, and renewables supplied a record 20 per cent of generation in July. In the same weeks solar plants were being told to switch off output, because the grid could not carry it.
LeadPrelims and MainsHydrogen and bioenergy
The Cabinet on 6 August 2026 approved GOBARdhan as the National Circular Bioenergy Scheme, to run to 2035 to 2036. It brings the compressed biogas programmes of four ministries under one, and requires city gas distributors to blend compressed biogas into the gas they sell.
LeadPrelims and MainsCritical minerals and rare earths
August 2026 brought three developments on one problem: twenty bids came in under India's scheme for rare earth magnets, two pilot plants in Odisha were set to recover rare earths from industrial waste, and fresh data showed how tightly the refining of critical minerals is held by a few countries.
LeadPrelims and MainsNuclear power programme
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 issued notice on a challenge to the liability caps in the SHANTI Act, 2025. It asked whether a cap written into a statute can stop a constitutional court from awarding fair compensation to the victims of a nuclear accident.
LeadPrelims and MainsAI governance, safety and ethics
The European Union's AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026, two years after it came into force, and the European Union launched a team to enforce it. It is the first comprehensive law on artificial intelligence anywhere.
1.1.1The clouded leopardNewPrelims
The mainland clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, is a forest cat of the Himalaya and Northeast India and the State animal of Meghalaya.
1.2.1The elephant in India: numbers, corridors and conflictLead
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 ordered a fresh national survey of elephant corridors and held that no State may block a traditional elephant route. Five days earlier, on World Elephant Day, the government set out the result of India's first DNA based count: 22,446 wild elephants.
1.3.1Pollinators and beekeepingNewPrelims and Mains
Pollinators are infrastructure for farming: the Food and Agriculture Organisation credits bee pollination with almost a third of global crop output.
1.4.1National Management Plan of Invasive SpeciesNewPrelims and Mains
The National Management Plan of Invasive Species is the plan meant to give India its first single national plan for invasive species.
2.1.1Kaziranga National ParkNewPrelims and Mains
Kaziranga National Park in Assam, on the Brahmaputra floodplain, holds the largest population of the greater one horned rhinoceros.
2.1.2Voluntary relocation from tiger reserves: SatkosiaNewPrelims
Voluntary relocation is the moving of a village out of a tiger reserve's core area with the consent of its people, and Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Odisha is the test case.
2.1.3Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger ReserveNewPrelims
Nagarjunasagar Srisailam is India's largest tiger reserve, in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
2.1.4Manas National ParkNewPrelims and Mains
Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve lies in Assam on the Bhutan border.
2.2.1Mining buffers around wetland reservesNewPrelims and Mains
A mining buffer is a belt around a protected area inside which mining needs prior approval.
2.2.2India's Ramsar sitesNewPrelims and Mains
A Ramsar site listing commits a country to the wise use of a wetland: it is a promise about how the wetland will be used rather than a fence around it.
2.3.1Marine fish stock accountsNewPrelims and Mains
Marine fish stock accounts apply natural capital accounting, which records natural assets and their depletion, to India's marine fish stocks.
2.3.2National report on deep-sea fishery resourcesNewPrelims and Mains
The national report on deep sea fishery resources is the Ministry of Earth Sciences' account of the fish in India's deep water, below the reach of light.
2.3.3Great Nicobar projectPrelims and Mainsnewly added
7 Aug 2026The Zoological Survey of India records a reef of 116 hectares with more than 100 species of reef building coral in Galathea Bay, while the 2023 coastal maps of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management show no coral there. A site with coral reef falls in the most protected coastal category, where a port cannot be built. The submission that the bay is a lower category was central to the National Green Tribunal dismissing objections in February 2026. Mains: a mapping decision, and not an environmental argument, settled what the project may legally do. Frontline, 7 Aug 2026: The coastal zone maps that cleared the Great Nicobar port show Galathea Bay as free of corals, while the Zoological Survey of India is planning to translocate the corals that are there. (opens in a new tab)
2.4.1Western Ghats: the seventh draft and the question of the lineLead
The Centre issued a seventh draft notification on the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area on 27 July 2026, after the sixth lapsed. It proposes 56,825.7 sq km across six States, and the States still do not agree on where the line should fall.
2.4.2Forest firesPrelims and Mains
7 Aug 2026The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change found no study linking climate change to rising Himalayan forest fires. Its 412th report asked for an Indian geostationary satellite instead of the passes now relied on. Only about 12.5 per cent of FSI alerts in Uttarakhand were real fires, which risks alert fatigue. Mains: India treats fire as a disaster to be put out rather than as an ecological process to be managed. PIB, 7 Aug 2026: Parliamentary committee report on Himalayan forest fires (opens in a new tab)
3.1.1Extreme event attributionPrelims and Mains
30 Aug 2026World Weather Attribution found a South Asian heatwave this year three times likelier and up to 1°C warmer because of climate change. The Hindu set out the limits of blaming any one event on it. The Hindu, 30 Aug 2026: The limits of blaming extreme weather on climate change (opens in a new tab)
4.1.1BRICS as a negotiating blocNewPrelims and Mains
BRICS is an eleven country group in which a Global South position on climate and on trade is now written jointly.
4.2.1Sovereign green bondsNewPrelims and Mains
A sovereign green bond is what a government sells when it borrows for a green purpose, such as a solar park, rather than for anything else.
4.3.1The forest carbon sinkNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
India's forest carbon sink is the additional store of carbon in forest and tree cover that its sink target counts from 2005, reported in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
5.1.1Reuse of treated wastewaterNewPrelims and Mains
Reuse of treated wastewater means sending sewage, once treated, to a farm or a factory instead of letting it into the river.
5.1.2The JojariNewPrelims and Mains
The Jojari is a river of Rajasthan that carries Jodhpur's industrial effluent, rather than sewage, to the Luni near Balotra, as the Bandi carries Pali's.
5.1.3Hexavalent chromium in the Kanpur regionNewPrelims and Mains
Hexavalent chromium, chromium (VI), is a toxic form of chromium, and around Kanpur it has reached groundwater from decades of waste dumped by factories making chromium sulphate for tanneries.
5.1.4Namami GangeNewPrelims and Mains
Namami Gange, launched in 2014 and run by the National Mission for Clean Ganga, is the programme to clean the Ganga: it pays for sewage treatment in the Ganga basin and for the surveys of the river's fauna.
5.2.1Dynamic Ground Water Resources AssessmentNewPrelims and Mains
The Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment is the Central Ground Water Board's yearly stocktaking of groundwater with the States, made unit by unit rather than for the country as a whole.
6.1.1Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026NewPrelims and Mains
The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 govern how municipal solid waste is separated, collected and processed, and replaced the 2016 rules from 1 April 2026.
7.1.1Land restoration and drought: UNCCD COP17Lead
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification met in Mongolia in August 2026, with drought at the centre. India presented its second Bonn Challenge progress report and launched its first guide to grasslands and other open natural ecosystems.
7.2.1The Green India MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The Green India Mission is the national mission written to improve the forest that already stands as much as to add new cover.
7.2.2Other Effective Area-based Conservation MeasuresNewPrelims and Mains
An Other Effective Area based Conservation Measure (OECM) is land outside the formal protected area network that still conserves biodiversity in situ over the long term.
8.1.1Ecotourism in forestsNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
Ecotourism facilities inside forests are governed by the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, under which an ecotourism facility inside a forest counted as a non forest use and needed diversion approval.
8.1.2The Agasthyamalai evictionsNewPrelims and Mains
The Agasthyamalai landscape of Tamil Nadu covers the Kalakad Mundanthurai and Srivilliputhur Megamalai tiger reserves and the Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary, and lies within the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve.
8.2.1River linkingNewPrelims and Mains
River linking is the transfer of water from a basin in surplus to one in deficit, an inter basin transfer.
9.1.1Brahmaputra BoardNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
The Brahmaputra Board is a body set up under the Brahmaputra Board Act, 1980 to prepare master plans for flood control, erosion and drainage, and it remains advisory.
10.1.1Everest and full-flow staged combustionNewPrelims and Mains
Everest is an 800 kN rocket engine built by a Bengaluru startup on the full flow staged combustion cycle, the demanding end of engine design.
10.2.1Re-entry heat shieldingNewPrelims and Mains
A heat shield is the thermal protection system that keeps a returning crew module from burning up, because the whole energy of orbit has to be shed as heat in a few minutes.
10.3.1Space weather forecasting from Aditya-L1NewPrelims and Mains
Space weather forecasting is the attempt to read the Sun's atmosphere for a sign of a solar flare hours before it erupts.
10.3.2The lunar south poleNewPrelims and Mains
The lunar south pole is the part of the Moon where long sunlight and water ice almost sit together, which is why every serious lunar plan, China's as much as America's, now points at the same few hundred kilometres.
10.4.1The Sun: corona, flares and stormsBrief
13 Aug 2026A total solar eclipse crossed Greenland, western Iceland, northern Spain, north eastern Portugal and northern Russia, Europe's first in 27 years; it was not seen from India. The Hindu, 13 Aug 2026: Total solar eclipse over northern Spain (opens in a new tab)
10.5.1IN-SPACeNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), set up in 2020 under the Department of Space, is the single window through which a private company gets permission for any space activity.
10.5.2Space debris: tracking, dodging and the Debris Free Space MissionNewPrelims and Mains
Space debris is dead satellites, spent rocket stages and fragments left in orbit at orbital speed, so that even a small piece can destroy a working spacecraft.
10.5.3The Artemis AccordsNewPrelims and Mains
The Artemis Accords are a set of principles, drafted by the United States in 2020, that a country signs to take part in NASA's Artemis programme to return to the Moon.
10.5.4India's first commercial Earth observation constellationNewPrelims and Mains
India's first fully commercial Earth observation constellation is a set of twelve satellites to be built, owned and operated by a private consortium by 2029 under IN-SPACe authorisation.
10.5.5Indian Space Policy 2023Brief
16 Aug 2026A study put the cost of a kilogram to low Earth orbit on Indian rockets at $13,302 in 2025, the highest among major nations, against a world average of $3,868. The cause is rarity rather than inefficiency: India flew five launches that year, mostly on small rockets. The Hindu, 16 Aug 2026: Despite its reputation, India's per-unit space launch cost highest: study (opens in a new tab)
11.1.1Agni-4NewPrelims
Agni-4 is an indigenously developed missile of the intermediate range class, with a range of about 4,000 km.
11.2.1MQ-9B Sea GuardianNewPrelims and Mains
The MQ 9B Sea Guardian is a high altitude long endurance remotely piloted aircraft, flown by a crew on the ground.
11.2.2Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft engineNewPrelims and Mains
The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft is India's planned fifth generation stealth fighter.
11.2.3Micro gas turbine enginesBrief
25 Aug 2026Three indigenous micro gas turbine engines were unveiled, NJ 05, NJ 50 and NJ 100, of 5, 50 and 100 kg thrust, for tactical drones, drone interceptors and compact missiles. PIB, 25 Aug 2026: CSIR-NAL unveils indigenous micro gas turbine engines (opens in a new tab)
11.3.1Positive Indigenisation ListNewPrelims and Mains
A Positive Indigenisation List is a written assurance to private firms that an order is waiting for the defence parts it names.
12.1.1LeptospirosisNewPrelims and Mains
Leptospirosis is a bacterial zoonosis caused by Leptospira from the urine of rodents and other animals.
12.2.1Indian Pharmacopoeia CommissionBrief
4 Aug 2026The WHO South East Asia Regulatory Network (SEARN) named the IPC its Regional Centre of Excellence in Pharmacovigilance. The IPC is also the network's Technical Centre in Quality of Medicines. PIB, 4 Aug 2026: Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission named WHO-SEARN Centre of Excellence (opens in a new tab)
13.1.1Stem cell therapy: what is proven and who regulates itNewPrelims and Mains
Stem cell therapy treats disease with stem cells, and every proven use replaces a tissue with the same tissue.
13.1.2EpigeneticsNewPrelims and Mains
Epigenetics is heritable change in how active a gene is, without any change to the DNA sequence itself.
13.2.1Pigeonpea telomere-to-telomere genomeNewPrelims
The pigeonpea telomere-to-telomere genome is a gapless reading, from one chromosome end to the other, of the genome of pigeonpea, the pulse sold as arhar or tur.
14.1.1The Cyber-Physical Systems missionNewPrelims and Mains
The National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) funds India's work where software drives machinery, and is also where much of its artificial intelligence research sits.
14.1.2BHASHININewPrelims and Mains
Bhasha Interface for India (BHASHINI) is the platform built to solve, once for everybody, the problem of India's languages, the first problem any Indian artificial intelligence service has to solve.
14.1.3IndiaAI MissionBrief
31 Aug 2026A foundation model is trained once on broad data and adapted afterwards to many tasks. BharatGen, led by IIT Bombay, released Param-2, a model of 17 billion parameters covering all 22 scheduled languages. PIB, 31 Aug 2026: Cyber-Physical Systems mission: translation parks and BharatGen (opens in a new tab)
14.2.1The European Union's AI Act comes into applicationLead
The European Union's AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026, two years after it came into force, and the European Union launched a team to enforce it. It is the first comprehensive law on artificial intelligence anywhere.
14.3.1Safe harbour and the Meta takedownNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
Safe harbour is the protection that Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 gives a platform from liability for what its users post.
15.1.1Cable landing stationsNewPrelims
A cable landing station is where a subsea fibre cable comes ashore and joins the domestic network.
15.2.1Satellite internet: the ground segment, the licence and the spectrumNewPrelims and Mains
Satellite internet carries a user's traffic from a dish to a passing low Earth orbit satellite, which relays it to a satellite earth station gateway that hands it to the ordinary internet.
16.1.1PM-KUSUMNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM), launched in 2019, supports decentralised solar plants, standalone solar pumps and the solarisation of grid connected agricultural pumps.
16.1.2Pradhan Mantri Surya Sarovar YojanaPrelims and Mains
1 Aug 2026The Cabinet approved the ₹5,070 crore scheme. The Hindu, 1 Aug 2026: Cabinet approves scheme to promote floating solar plants (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 31 Jul 2026: Cabinet approves 'Pradhan Mantri Surya Sarovar Yojana (PM-SSY)' for Development of Floating Solar Photovoltaic Projects (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 2 Aug 2026 · The Indian Express, 24 Aug 2026: Floating solar: can it be India's next renewable energy success story? (opens in a new tab)
16.2.1GOBARdhan becomes the National Circular Bioenergy SchemeLead
The Cabinet on 6 August 2026 approved GOBARdhan as the National Circular Bioenergy Scheme, to run to 2035 to 2036. It brings the compressed biogas programmes of four ministries under one, and requires city gas distributors to blend compressed biogas into the gas they sell.
16.2.2E20Prelims and Mains
18 Aug 2026Maize is now the largest source of blending ethanol, ahead of Food Corporation rice and sugarcane juice. Government estimates put E20 above petrol in cost while crude is below about $70 a barrel. The Chief Economic Adviser would hold at E20 until the food against fuel trade off has been costed. The Hindu, 18 Aug 2026: The E20 fuel debate (opens in a new tab)
16.3.1Pumped storageNewPrelims and Mains
A pumped storage project pumps water uphill when power is cheap and releases it through turbines when demand peaks, so it stores energy rather than generating it.
16.4.1The grid is the limit: 300 GW and curtailmentLead
India's non fossil capacity crossed 300 GW on 31 July 2026, and renewables supplied a record 20 per cent of generation in July. In the same weeks solar plants were being told to switch off output, because the grid could not carry it.
16.4.2Renewable projects near the international borderNewPrelims and Mains
Solar, wind and hybrid renewable energy projects near India's frontiers are restricted by their distance from the international border, the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control.
17.1.1Nuclear power: the liability cap before the Supreme CourtLead
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 issued notice on a challenge to the liability caps in the SHANTI Act, 2025. It asked whether a cap written into a statute can stop a constitutional court from awarding fair compensation to the victims of a nuclear accident.
18.1.1Critical minerals: the refinery problemLead
August 2026 brought three developments on one problem: twenty bids came in under India's scheme for rare earth magnets, two pilot plants in Odisha were set to recover rare earths from industrial waste, and fresh data showed how tightly the refining of critical minerals is held by a few countries.
18.2.1Lab grown diamondsNewPrelims
A lab grown diamond is a diamond grown in a reactor, the same substance as a mined stone and not an imitation of it.
19.1.1Geographical IndicationsNewPrelims and Mains
A Geographical Indication (GI) is a tag registered to a region rather than to a firm, so a producers' body or a market committee holds it rather than any one grower.
19.2.1Research, Development and Innovation FundNewPrelims and Mains
The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund is a ₹1 lakh crore fund that lends to private deep tech firms, where ANRF pays for academic research.
19.2.2Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2026NewPrelims and Mains
The Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2026 would repeal the Act of 1959 under which the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is run as a society, and remake ISI as a statutory body corporate.
19.2.3India's research spendingPrelims and Mains
6 Aug 2026Industry now employs more core researchers than the public sector, and part of the rise may be better measurement under new disclosure norms rather than new money. Close to 80 per cent of ANRF money goes to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Public research money is spread across agencies that cannot see what the others fund. NITI Aayog proposes a Unified Project Management System to plan, fund and monitor public research in one place. Without a persistent identifier and standard metadata on every grant, money still cannot be traced to results. The Hindu, 6 Aug 2026: Quantum shift: on private industry and national research spending (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Why India's research ecosystem needs a map of where the money really goes (opens in a new tab)
19.3.1Deep Ocean MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The Deep Ocean Mission, begun in 2021 under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, develops the technology for exploring and using the deep sea through six verticals, shown in the figure.
20.1.1India at FAIRNewPrelims
The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international particle accelerator being built in Germany, and India has been a founding member since 2010.
20.2.1DNA replicationNewPrelims and Mains
DNA replication is the copying of a cell's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) before the cell divides, and that copying is mechanical work.
20.3.1C-DOT quantum security productsNewPrelims and Mains
C-DOT's quantum security products protect communications against a quantum computer able to break today's encryption.