CURRENT AFFAIRS

Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) launched ‘Sagar Manthan’ on September 9, 2026. The indigenous ocean research vessel is being built for the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), a Tata Group company, has reportedly emerged as the lowest bidder (L1) in the competition to develop the next-generation Zorawar light battle tank for the Indian Army.

The first International Space Summit opened at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, on 9 September 2026, bringing together delegations from around 120 countries and roughly 2,000 participants.

Australia and India expanded cooperation in the space sector on 8 September 2026 with five new industry partnerships announced at the 9th Bengaluru Space Expo in Bengaluru.

The Indian Army has established the AASHVAST facility in New Delhi to examine the electronic hardware, firmware and software used in military drones.

The Defence Ministry is taking up a proposal to modify the Su-30MKI so it can employ the RVV-BD, a Russian very-long-range air-to-air missile. 

Recently, OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra, its newest frontier artificial intelligence model. OpenAI describes Astra as its most capable model for complex end-to-end work, with major advances in computer use, software engineering, scientific research and cybersecurity.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval on 4 September 2026 to camizestrant, marketed under the brand name Etcamah by AstraZeneca.

The NITI Aayog report ‘Ease of Doing R&D in India’ highlights several structural challenges in India’s Research and Development (R&D) ecosystem. 

ISRO has scheduled the GSLV-F17/EOS-05 mission for September 4, 2026. The launch is scheduled for 2:55 AM IST from Sriharikota.