Monthly current affairs for May 2026

Union Minister S Jaishankar has co-chaired the 9th Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) with the Foreign Minister of Suriname, Melvin Bouva. During the visit, he also met with the President of Suriname, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, and the National Assembly Chairman Ashwin Adhin.

During the trip, India handed over a passion fruit processing facility completed under Indian grant assistance and offered soft loans to Suriname for infrastructure and strategic sectors.

Additionally, During his visit to Trinidad & Tobago, Union Minister S Jaishankar held a bilateral meeting with the PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to discuss bilateral collaboration. A total of 8 MoUs were signed between India and T&T to strengthen cooperation across various sectors.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission of the ISRO has received the 2026 Goddard Astronautics Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

The award was presented at the Accelerating Space Commerce, Exploration, and New Discovery (ASCEND) 2026 Conference held in Washington DC, USA. Vinay Kwatra, the Ambassador of India to the USA, accepted the award on behalf of ISRO.

The Maharashtra government has signed MoUs with four key companies, namely NTPC Ltd (NTPC), Adani Power Ltd (APL), Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), and Lalitpur Power Generation Company Ltd (LPGCL), in Mumbai to attract investments worth ₹6.5 lakh crore for the development of nuclear energy projects.

These projects are projected to establish a total power generation capacity of 25,400 megawatts (MW).

Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha has been appointed as the Chairman of the reconstituted Committee on Petitions of the Upper House.

A total of 10 members have been nominated to the panel. The other members are Harsh Mahajan, Gulam Ali, Shambhu Sharan Patel, Mayankkumar Nayak, Masthan Rao Yadav Beedha, Jebi Mather Hisham, Subhasish Khuntia, Rwngwra Narzary, and Sandosh Kumar P.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), in collaboration with the Vertis Foundation, has launched “Project Saksham” to empower rural women through skill development and employment opportunities.

The initiative aims to provide industry-relevant skills, promote financial independence, and facilitate access to formal employment opportunities for rural women. Project Saksham operates through a network of 12 training centres established across India.

The RBI has appointed Gunveer Singh as the Executive Director with immediate effect, assigning him the charge of the Department of Payment and Settlement Systems (DPSS).

Shyam Srinivasan, the former MD and CEO of Federal Bank, has released his debut book titled “Better Never Stops”.

The book, published by Wyzr Content Pvt Ltd, is a leadership-focused memoir drawing from his experience of more than 30 years in the Indian banking and financial services sector.

Tonbo Imaging has secured a contract from the Indian Navy under the ADITI 3.0 innovation framework to integrate and commission a High Power Microwave (HPM) system for naval platforms.

The project aims to develop and integrate HPM-based directed-energy capabilities for maritime warfare to effectively counter electronic and unmanned threats.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom has passed the “Tobacco and Vapes Bill”, introducing a rolling, lifelong ban on tobacco purchases.

The ban targets any individual born on or after January 2009, effectively prohibiting them from ever legally purchasing tobacco products. The legislation is scheduled to officially take effect in January 2027.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the ₹20,667 crore Ahmedabad (Sarkhej)–Dholera Semi High-Speed Double-Line railway project in Gujarat.

Spanning a distance of 134 km, this is the first Indian Railways (IR) project to utilize indigenous semi high-speed technology. The technology is designed to support train speeds of up to 220 km/h.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry has released the detailed operational guidelines for the implementation of the BHAVYA Scheme. The Central Sector Scheme aims to develop investment-ready, world-class industrial parks across the country.

The scheme aims to develop 100 industrial parks over a 6-year period from FY27 to FY32, with a total financial outlay of ₹33,660 crore. In the first phase, up to 50 industrial parks will be selected through a challenge-based competitive selection process.

The guidelines permit the development of both greenfield and eligible brownfield industrial parks. The minimum land requirement is set at 100 acres for non-hilly states and 25 acres for hilly states, northeastern states, Union Territories (UTs), and smaller states, with provisions to consider larger parks up to 1,000 acres.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have successfully launched a joint spacecraft named “Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE)” onboard the Vega-C rocket from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana.

It is to be noted that the scientific observations are scheduled to begin 3 months post-launch, and the SMILE mission is projected to operate for a duration of 3 years to improve protection against solar and geomagnetic storms.

Kami Rita Sherpa, a Nepali mountaineer popularly known as the “Everest Man”, has broken his own world record by scaling Mount Everest for the 32nd time in the male category. In the female category, Lhakpa Sherpa, popularly known as the “Mountain Queen”, has also broken her own world record by completing her 11th successful ascent of the peak.

It is to be noted that Mt Everest stands at an elevation of 8,849 m (29,032 feet) on the Nepal–China border. The peak is referred to as “Sagarmatha” in Nepali and “Chomolungma” in Tibetan. It was first successfully scaled in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace (FWDA), a deep-tech defence company, has announced that its flagship AI-powered Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) named ‘Kaal Bhairava’ will be manufactured at its first international production facility in Portugal.

The initiative is a part of ‘Operation 777’ which aims to establish seven global headquarters across 77 countries. The project is being developed in collaboration with SKETCHPIXEL, a European company specializing in advanced fighter jet simulation systems (including those for F-16 aircraft).

Kavinder Gupta, the Governor of Himachal Pradesh, has officially released the “Dogri-Punjabi Dictionary” authored by the late Chandan Negi.

The book release ceremony was jointly organized by the Punjabi Lekhak Sabha and the Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages (JKAACL) at KL Saigal Hall in Jammu. The dictionary is designed to promote linguistic harmony and preserve the literary heritage of the Dogri and Punjabi languages.

Scientists at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Cuttack, Odisha, led by Kutubuddin Ali Molla, have developed and validated a platform named “Plant-OpenCRISPR1” (POC1).

This represents the first AI-designed genome-editing platform in the world for plants, developed utilizing rice as a model crop. The POC1 platform facilitates advanced gene knockout, base editing, and prime editing in rice crops using AI-designed enzymes, surpassing conventional Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technologies.

It is to be noted that the research findings have been accepted for publication in the international journal “New Phytologist”.

According to a report by ICRA Ltd (formerly Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India Limited), the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of India for FY27 is revised down by 30 basis points (bps) to 6.2%, compared to its previous estimate of 6.5%. The GDP growth for FY26 is projected at 7.5%.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has virtually inaugurated the first Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)-led semiconductor Assembly, Testing, Marking, and Packaging (ATMP) / Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility in India at Bhiwadi, Rajasthan.

The facility has been established by Sahasra Semiconductors Pvt Ltd under the Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS). Constructed with an investment of over ₹150 crore, the unit spans an area of 57,000 sq ft.

India has successfully conducted consecutive trials of the “Suryastra” Universal Rocket Launcher system from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur, Odisha. The system is developed by Pune-based NIBE Ltd (NIBE) in collaboration with Elbit Systems, Israel.

The demonstration was carried out as part of a ₹293 crore Indian Army (IA) procurement order under the Emergency Procurement window. The Tactical Variant of the system has a range of 150 km and achieved a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of 1.5 m, while the Strategic Variant has a range of 300 km and achieved a CEP of 2 m.

International Nurses Day:

Day – May 12

Theme 2026 – “Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives”

Commemorating – The birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale