Current affairs relevant to GS3.
A PIB backgrounder says the National Supercomputing Mission, launched in April 2015, had deployed 40 supercomputers with a combined 68 petaflops by September 2026, including 13 above 1 petaflop. The target is 50 systems above 123 petaflops. India now makes its own Rudra servers, interconnects, cooling and system software.
4 Oct 2026
On 4 October 2026 two captive-bred male Great Indian Bustards were released into the wild at Sam in Desert National Park, Jaisalmer. The breeding centres at Sam and Ramdevra hold 97 birds, 57 of them bred in captivity. The release marks a shift in the decade-old recovery programme from breeding birds to putting them back in the wild.
4 Oct 2026
QNu Labs, with BISAG-N and IIT Gandhinagar, demonstrated India's first free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) link over 5.56 km on the night of 27-28 September 2026. The quantum bit error rate stayed below 5 per cent and secure keys were made at 230-260 bps, then used with BISAG-N's Vedic Kavach post-quantum cryptography platform.
3 Oct 2026
On 1 October 2026 NABKISAN Finance, a NABARD subsidiary, listed India's first social bond dedicated only to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) on the NSE. The issue was oversubscribed 1.8 times and raised ₹180 crore. The five-year bond pays 8.10 per cent, matures in September 2031 and is rated CRISIL AAA and CARE AAA.
3 Oct 2026
PM-SETU, launched on 4 October 2025 to upgrade 1,000 Government ITIs through a hub-and-spoke model, has identified 850 ITIs and approved 14 ITI clusters worth ₹3446 crore in its first year. The scheme has a ₹60,000 crore outlay shared by the Centre, States and industry, and also upgrades five NSTIs.
3 Oct 2026
On 2 October 2026 the Ministry of Mines reported that two limestone blocks in Anantnag, Koot-Kapran and Wantrag, had been auctioned, a first for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. The J&K Government entrusted the auction to the Union Ministry of Mines, which used a transparent competitive process under the Central mineral auction system.
2 Oct 2026
On 2 October 2026 the Mumbai Port Authority declared its Jawahar Dweep Marine Oil Terminal plastic-free, making it India's first plastic-free oil terminal. The Union Ports Minister marked it at the port's Swachhata Abhiyan on Gandhi Jayanti, honoured sanitation workers and dedicated the port's Oil Spill Response facilities to the nation.
2 Oct 2026
On 2 October 2026 tigress T138, translocated from Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar, was released in Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal. It begins a phased Tiger Reintroduction Programme to rebuild a self-sustaining tiger population in Buxa, after years of prey build-up, grassland restoration and community work under a project supported by NTCA and WII.
2 Oct 2026
On 1 October 2026 the Petroleum Minister launched GOBARdhan, a Central Sector Scheme for compressed biogas (CBG) approved by the Cabinet on 6 August 2026 with ₹23,731 crore. It runs from 2026-27 to 2035-36 and aims to raise domestic CBG output nearly 10-fold to about 5 MMSCMD through assured offtake, a fixed price, capital aid and pipeline support.
1 Oct 2026
The Centre has capped sugar dealers' stocks at 1,000 quintals and a holding period of 15 days from 15 October to 30 November 2026, to stop hoarding in the festive season. Kolkata's metro area and Assam get a 2,000-quintal limit. Retail sugar prices are down 15 per cent from the August peak and ex-mill prices about 28 per cent.
1 Oct 2026