Daily Current Affairs 18 August 2026

Union Minister Giriraj Singh has inaugurated ‘IIHT SUTRA 2026’, the first national conclave of the Indian Institutes of Handloom Technology (IIHTs), at the Dr. Ambedkar International Centre (DAIC) in New Delhi.

The conclave was organised by the Office of the Development Commissioner (Handlooms) under the Ministry of Textiles (MoT) under the theme “IIHTs: Weaving the Future of the Indian Handloom Sector - Educate. Innovate”. The Office of the Development Commissioner (Handlooms) also organised a special gathering titled ‘Srijan: Voices from the Loom’ to celebrate women in the handloom sector.

During the event, 3 strategic MoUs were signed with Grasim Industries Ltd, Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA), and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Sambalpur. The MoT released a publication titled “Handloom Change Makers”, highlighting the achievements of prominent IIHT alumni, and launched a film titled “Weaving India’s Handloom Future”.

India has launched its inaugural 'Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs) of India' at the 17th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, has launched the 'RSVC AMRIT' (Accelerated Medium for Rural Innovations and Technologies) platform.

The platform has been developed by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in collaboration with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (OPSA). It is designed to serve as a digital backbone to foster rural innovations and bridge the gap between advanced scientific innovations and grassroots rural needs.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has approved 31 new manufacturing proposals worth ₹7,877 crore under the fifth tranche of the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS).

This approval brings the cumulative total of approved applications to 106 projects across 15 states.

The total committed investments under ECMS have reached ₹69,548 crore (as of August 2026), exceeding the original target of ₹59,350 crore.

Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has released scholarship and fellowship funds for agriculture students through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), Pusa, New Delhi.

Under the initiative, Rs 21.35 crore was disbursed via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) directly to the bank accounts of over 6,000 students.

The Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX) has signed an MoU with the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) to launch the Commodity Markets Research Centre (CMRC) to promote academic excellence, policy research, and investor awareness in the commodities sector.

According to the Quarterly Bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for April-June 2026 released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the Unemployment Rate (UR) for persons aged 15 years and above rose to 5.4% in the April-June 2026 quarter.

The overall Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) for individuals aged 15 years and above decreased to 54.6% compared to 55.5% in the preceding quarter. The rural LFPR declined to 56.9% from 58.2% in the previous quarter, while the urban LFPR remained unchanged at 50.2%.

The Hungarian Parliament has elected Andras Baka, former head of the Supreme Court of Hungary, as the new President of the country.

Saudi Arabia, along with 13 other founding nations, has established the charter for the Multinational Maritime Defence Coalition (MMDC), a regionally anchored military alliance consisting of 14 member countries.

Led and hosted by Saudi Arabia, the coalition is designed to safeguard critical trade and energy corridors in the Middle East. It is to be noted that among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, the UAE and Oman are currently not part of the alliance.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed a contract worth ₹1,943 crore with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc (GA-ASI) for the lease of two MQ-9B Sea Guardian High-Altitude Long-Endurance (HALE) Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS).

The leased HALE RPAS will be deployed by the Indian Navy for an operational duration of 30 months.

Airtel Business, the enterprise arm of Bharti Airtel, has partnered with ITI Ltd to accelerate enterprise digital transformation and strengthen digital infrastructure in India.

The SPIRE Lab of the IISc Bengaluru, in collaboration with the AI and Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK) and Google, has launched an open-source speech AI model named SraVaani.

The model is capable of recognizing 65 Indian languages and dialects. It has been released under a permissive Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) licence on the Hugging Face platform.

Shabnam Sinha has been appointed as the Chairperson of Airtel Payments Bank (APB) for 3 years starting from October 1, 2026.

She succeeds Sunil Bharti Mittal (founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises) who will exit the board of APB on September 30, 2026.

Donald Nelson, a former basketball player and coach from USA who won 5 National Basketball Association (NBA) championships, passed away at the age of 86.

Zhu Rongji, former Premier of China who was known for spearheading major economic reforms and restructuring state-owned industries, passed away at the age of 97.