UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS

India's Ministry of Defence has floated a tender for 500 scramjet propulsion systems to support the country's hypersonic missile development programme.

The National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kundli (NIFTEM-K) hosted “Hack the Fork” on October 24–25, 2026.

ISRO’s third next-generation navigation satellite, NVS-03, is scheduled for launch on October 30, 2026. It could help restore NavIC’s ability to independently determine a user’s position.

Indian theoretical physicist Ashoke Sen has been awarded the prestigious Oskar Klein Medal 2026, becoming the first Indian physicist to receive this international honour. The award recognises his pioneering contributions to string theory, black hole entropy and string field theory.

Researchers reported the synthesis of diamondiyne, a new three-dimensional carbon allotrope, in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

BrahMos Aerospace has announced that it expects to develop the first prototype of its next-generation BrahMos-NG (Next Generation) missile by 2027-28.

Switzerland, Sweden and the United States have secured the top three positions in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2026 released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted a flight trial of an indigenously developed High-Altitude Platform (HAPS). During the trial, the experimental platform reached an altitude of 21 km above mean sea level and remained at around 20 km for more than 30 minutes.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for the “discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.” 

The 10th India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026 begins on 7 October 2026 in New Delhi and will continue until 10 October 2026. The event is being jointly organised by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) at Yashobhoomi, India International Convention & Expo Centre, Dwarka.