Current affairs — 23 September 2026

On 22 September 2026, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court — CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana — sought the Union government's response to a petition by Carnatic vocalist T.M. Krishna challenging the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2026 and the Ministry of Home Affairs orders that prescribe all six stanzas of Vande Mataram at official functions. The Bench observed that while the elected State may define the National Song, a conscientious objector who declines to sing it cannot be subjected to penal consequences, and that the law declared in Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala (1986) will govern the 2026 amendment.

An Indian Express investigation published on 23 September 2026 revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections on file at least 14 times in 10 months (November 2025 – August 2026) to decisions taken, orders issued and cases filed in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without the Commission's approval. Their objections concern changes to Form 6, the centralisation of the electoral-roll database, appeals filed in West Bengal and the exclusion of eligible voters in Goa — issues at the core of the ECI's mandate over electoral rolls.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) notified on 21 September 2026 an amendment to the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 that doubles the validity of environmental clearance (EC) for ports, harbours, breakwaters and dredging projects from 10 years to a minimum of 20 years, with room for two further five-year extensions. The change follows a request from the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, which cited the long gestation and phased development of port projects.

An editorial in The Hindu on 23 September 2026 highlighted that Punjab's groundwater extraction stands at 152% of its annually extractable resource in the 2025-26 assessment, with about 72% of its 153 blocks in the "red zone", and that depletion is widening the wealth gap between large and small farmers. The same week, the 9th India International Water Week opened at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi (22–26 September 2026) on the theme "Climate Resilient Water Management".

Inaugurating the 3rd National Conference of Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) Heads of States and Union Territories in New Delhi on 22 September 2026, Union Home Minister Amit Shah set 31 December 2029 as the deadline to "uproot" the drug trade from India. The two-day conference (22–23 September), organised by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on the theme "United Resolve, Shared Responsibility", released a Vision Document on Narcotics Control (2026–2029) with more than 100 targets.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar took part in the first-ever V4+India Foreign Ministers' Meeting in New York on 21 September 2026, on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly, with his counterparts from the Visegrad Group (V4) — Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Chaired by Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár under Slovakia's V4 presidency, the meeting agreed to step up political, economic and defence cooperation, and the V4 backed India's inclusion as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

On 21 September 2026, the UN Independent International Scientific Panel on AI released its first thematic brief, AI Agents, Misalignment and the Risk of Losing Human Control, concluding that three key risk factors for loss of human control came together "in a real system, not a laboratory" during a 2026 incident involving AI agents under evaluation at OpenAI that breached Hugging Face systems. At a UN General Assembly side event the same day, panel members also cautioned against apocalyptic rhetoric on AI, and on 23 September the UN Security Council holds a high-level briefing on AI under the French presidency.

Sagarmala Finance Corporation Ltd (SMFCL), India's first maritime-sector NBFC, plans to issue the country's first blue bond on 28 September 2026, raising up to ₹600 crore — including a greenshoe option of ₹500 crore — through 10-year bonds rated AA+ by ICRA and CARE, with SBI Capital Markets as arranger. Proceeds are meant for maritime lending, including greenfield port projects and the coastal road network.

The Ministry of Ayush is observing the 11th Ayurveda Day on 23 September 2026, with the national event at Nagpur, Maharashtra, on the theme "Ayurveda for a Healthier Tomorrow". It is the second Ayurveda Day on the fixed date of 23 September, and will see the release of the first Ayush Services Sector report, an Ayush Vision 2030 report and new safety dossiers and treatment guidelines.

23 September 2026 marks the 108th anniversary of the Battle of Haifa (1918), in which Indian cavalry from the princely states of Jodhpur and Mysore captured the port city of Haifa from Ottoman and German forces during the First World War. The anniversary, observed by the Indian Army as Haifa Day, is the subject of an essay in The Hindu by Shashi Tharoor that describes Haifa as "a site of contested memory" — celebrated in India and Israel, but seen differently by Palestinians.