Current affairs — 26 September 2026

On 25 September 2026, the fourth day of the autumn session, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah moved a resolution in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly calling upon the Government of India for the “immediate and urgent restoration of full Statehood” and resolving that it be forwarded to the Centre. BJP legislators, led by Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, tore copies and climbed onto tables, and Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather adjourned the House without a vote.

Officials told The Hindu on 25 September 2026 that the Union government has not yet decided how caste names recorded through the open-column method in Census 2027 will be sorted, tabulated and rationalised. The same week, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan completed a four-day review in Ladakh, the first State or UT where the Population Enumeration phase is being conducted.

On 25 September 2026, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued Gazette notifications extending the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) in specified areas of Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh for six months from 1 October 2026, unless withdrawn earlier. The notifications followed a review of the law-and-order situation and came a day after four Tangkhul Naga civilians were shot dead in Pilong village of Manipur’s Kamjong district, on the India–Myanmar border.

The Centre has agreed to include “a Union Minister or a group of Union-level Ministers” in the Naga peace talks, The Indian Express reported on 26 September 2026, meeting a long-standing demand of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), NSCN-IM, for political representation in the negotiations. In a statement on 24 September, the NSCN-IM welcomed the move as one that would “expedite the political process”.

The Ministry of Finance has completed its review of India’s Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and sent the revised text to the Cabinet Secretariat for approval, a senior government official said on 25 September 2026. Treaties with 4–5 countries, including Canada, have been “expedited” and will be finalised under the new framework once the Union Cabinet clears it.

On 25 September 2026, on the margins of the high-level week of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Liberia’s Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti launched the Group of Friends on Safety & Security of Shipping & Seafarers. Calling attacks on civilian shipping “from the Black Sea to the Red Sea to the Gulf” “indefensible” and “unacceptable”, Jaishankar said: “Put simply, these attacks must stop.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping ended a three-day state visit to the United States on 25 September 2026 with tea in the White House Red Room and a joint tour of the National Archives with President Donald Trump. In Washington, Xi said China hopes the US will ‘adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence’ so as to lay a ‘solid foundation’ for China–US strategic cooperation — putting Taiwan back at the centre of the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.

On 25 September 2026, senior officials of the Ministry of Power met the French state-owned utility Électricité de France (EDF) in New Delhi to discuss deploying European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in India. The meeting came as the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) moves to finalise the rules and regulations under the SHANTI Act, 2025, the law that has opened India’s tightly controlled civil nuclear sector to private players.

On 24 September 2026, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh formally launched, at the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in New Delhi, the commercial use of bio-based biodegradable plastic made of polylactic acid (PLA) under the BioE3 framework. The initiative is led by Balrampur Chini Mills Limited (BCML), which has received a ₹75 crore grant from BIRAC for a 100 TPA pilot-scale R&D facility for PLA and co-polymers at Kumbhi, Uttar Pradesh.

On 24 September 2026, on the sidelines of the 9th India International Water Week (IIWW) at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, India and the Netherlands signed two tripartite MoUs for technical cooperation on Gujarat’s Kalpasar Project. The signatories were the Central Water Commission (CWC) and the Kalpasar Department, Government of Gujarat, with the Dutch knowledge institutions Deltares and TU Delft, at a bilateral meeting chaired by Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil and Dutch Vice Minister Jaap Slootmaker.