Recent 6 months news in Awards

State Bank of India (SBI) has won the “World’s Best Consumer Bank 2026” award for the second consecutive year, alongside the “Best Bank in India 2026” award from Global Finance magazine.

Banco Santander (Spain) won the “World’s Best Bank” award, and DBS Bank (Singapore) received the “World’s Best Corporate Bank” award. BBVA (Spain) was named the “World’s Best Emerging Markets Bank”, while Ecobank (Togo) won the “World’s Best Frontier Markets Bank” award.

Indian Captain Smit Machchhar, a pilot of flydubai, will receive the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, the highest civilian bravery award of Israel. He is recognised for preventing a potential catastrophe aboard an aircraft.

Mahesh Kakde, a professor at the IISc Bengaluru, has been named the winner of the 2026 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries for his work in algebraic number theory.

With this, he has become the 5th Indian to receive the honour. The award carries a cash prize of $10,000.

Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African jurist and human rights pioneer of Indian origin, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

It is to be noted that she became the first woman to open a law practice in Natal province of South Africa in 1967.

American economists Robert E Hall (Stanford University) and Michael Woodford (Columbia University) have been jointly awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The pair was honoured “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”. The laureates will share a cash prize of 12 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million).

Anne Carson, a Canadian poet and essayist, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2026 by the Swedish Academy.

She has been recognised for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature. With this, she becomes the 19th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The award carries a total prize amount of 12 million Swedish kronor (SEK).

Henri Boris Kagan, a chemist from France, and Kenso Soai, a chemist from Japan, have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The award is given recognising their discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis, which advanced the selective production of molecular mirror images (enantiomers). The two laureates will share the prize money of Swedish kronor (SEK) 12 million equally.

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

They are recognized for their discovery of light-gated ion channels and the development of optogenetics, a biological technique that uses light-sensitive proteins to control specific neurons. The three laureates will share the prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor (SEK) equally.

It is to be noted that Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel identified channelrhodopsin in green alga, while Karl Deisseroth integrated the gene into rat neurons in 2005, proving that blue light could trigger neural signals. The methodology was officially named optogenetics in 2006.

Francis Louis Halzen, an 82-year-old Belgian-American particle physicist, has been conferred the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The award, carrying a prize value of 12 million Swedish kronor (SEK), recognizes his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (IceCube) and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. It is to be noted that the discovery is based on a concept proposed in 1988, which involved the utilization of Antarctic ice as a massive neutrino detector.

India has secured the 10th position at the 48th edition of the WorldSkills Competition held in Shanghai, China. The Indian team won 6 Silver Medals and 20 Medals for Excellence.

China, the host nation, topped the overall medal table. It is to be noted that the 49th edition of the competition, titled ‘WorldSkills Aichi 2028’, is scheduled to be held in Aichi, Japan.

The Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA), the National Academy of Art under the Ministry of Culture, has announced 20 awards at the 65th National Exhibition of Art (NEA) held at Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi. Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat felicitated the awardees during the ceremony.

Key awardees recognized for their artistic contributions include Chandra Shekhar Sain (Sculpture), Gopal Chandra Naskar (Painting), Pankaj Kumar Sharma (Drawing), and Pritam Madhukar Deuskar (Printmaking).

Singapore Airlines has been named the “World’s Best Airline” at the World Airline Awards 2026 announced by the international air transport rating organisation, Skytrax.

Qatar Airways is ranked second, followed by Cathay Pacific Airways (Hong Kong), ANA All Nippon Airways (Japan), and Turkish Airlines. Among Indian carriers, Air India is ranked 57th globally, while IndiGo is positioned at 61st.

Indian scientists Roxy Mathew Koll and Neelima Satyam have been named among the 43 awardees of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2026.

The awards recognise excellence and leadership in research, education, and innovation in advanced earth and space sciences.

Z T Lalrithangi, popularly known as Pi Mari-i, from Mizoram has been selected by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for the “FAO 100 Women Heroes in Agrifood Systems and Rural Development” recognition.

According to the “M3M Hurun India Rich List 2026” released by Hurun India in collaboration with M3M India, Gautam Adani and family have topped the list with a net worth of ₹9.23 lakh crore.

They are followed by the families of Mukesh Ambani, LN Mittal, Cyrus S Poonawalla, and Roshni Nadar Malhotra. In the entertainment and sports segment, Shah Rukh Khan and family lead with a valuation of ₹10,000 crore. Mumbai has the highest number of individuals on the list with 465 entries, followed by New Delhi and Bengaluru.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, an Indian-origin computer scientist, has been named the recipient of the Arthur M Bueche Award 2026 by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is the first Indian-American and the first individual from Arizona(USA), to receive the honour.

The award is given recognising his leadership in advancing science and technology policy. It is to be noted that he was previously conferred with the Padma Shri in 2025.

Theja Rio, a filmmaker from Nagaland, has won the “Platform Prize” for his debut feature film “Angh” at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The award carries a trophy and a cash prize of CAD 20,000.

It is to be noted that the win grants the film a direct qualifying pathway for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards (2027).

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the eighth edition of the “businessline Changemaker Awards” in New Delhi. Purnima Devi Barman, known as the “Stork Sister”, was named the “Changemaker of the Year” for her work in the conservation of Greater Adjutant Stork and women empowerment.

The “Iconic Changemaker” award was given to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for modernising border infrastructure and Dr. MR Rajagopal for community-based palliative care.

Other winners include ARMAAN for “Digital Transformation” (healthcare via mobile technology), Gourmet Popcornica for “Financial Transformation” (agro-processing), and “Project Sambandh” for “Social Transformation” (aiding bereaved military families).

Eknath Shinde, the Deputy CM of Maharashtra, has been conferred with three international awards during his visit to London.

The honours include the ‘Commonwealth Public Leadership Recognition’, the ‘Statesmanship Award for Transformative Leadership’, and the ‘Global Pride of Maharashtra Award’.

Joheirry Mola of the Dominican Republic has been crowned Miss World 2026 at the 73rd edition of the pageant held in Nha Trang, Vietnam. She was crowned by Opal Chuangsri, Miss World 2025 from Thailand.

Nikita Porwal from Madhya Pradesh represented India at the international competition. It is to be noted that the Miss World Organisation (MWO) has scheduled the next edition of the pageant to be hosted in Tanzania in 2027.