Current affairs — 12 October 2026

In an “extraordinary, exceptional” special sitting on Sunday, 11 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana found a prima facie case of contempt and issued notices to Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar and DMRC chairperson D. Thara. The petition, by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, alleges violation of the Court’s 9 October direction that there be no complete prohibition on movement of Metro and trains on the day of the protest demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The Bench sought counter-affidavits and compliance reports by 13 October, ordered that there be no detention “save and except by procedure established by law” beyond the area where Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) operates (the four-km prohibitory zone of central Delhi that includes Jantar Mantar), asked the police to review barricades, keep Internet connectivity undisturbed and remove a prohibitory-order board outside the Court, all “subject to law and order”. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Court that entry and exit were restricted at 45 of 303 Delhi Metro stations on 10 October and that the Internet had been restored.

On Saturday 10 October 2026 the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued A.P. (DIR Series) Circulars No. 25 and No. 26 to Authorised Dealers, along with a separate press release opening a special dollar window for the three public sector oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) — from Monday 12 October. The centrepiece is a Foreign Exchange Risk Reserve (FERR): banks must park 20% of the rupee value of eligible forex derivative contracts above US$2 million in cash with the RBI. The package follows the 7 October rate action, when the Monetary Policy Committee raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50% yet the rupee still fell; it closed at ₹96.73 per dollar on 9 October, near its record low of ₹96.96 (May 2026), and is down almost 7% in 2026.

The Congress-led UDF government in Keralam moved a resolution in the State Legislative Assembly on Monday, 12 October 2026, the first day of the second session of the 16th Assembly. Moved by Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan, it urges the Union government to remove Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, to restore the voting rights of eligible voters deleted in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) after rectifying anomalies, and to reconstitute the committee that selects Election Commissioners to include the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. The Indian Express reported from the Assembly bulletin that this would make it the first State Assembly to bring such a resolution seeking a CEC’s removal. The House has 140 members (UDF 102, LDF 35, BJP 3), and news-agency reports on 12 October said it was adopted, with the BJP opposed. It comes amid nationwide protests demanding Kumar’s resignation.

The Kerala High Court (Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V.M.) disposed of WP(PIL) 15/2026, C.R. Neelakandan v Union of India, a petition on the handling of passenger data at airports through Digi Yatra, after the Union’s counsel stated that the Data Protection Board of India “has been constituted but has not been made functional”. The Bench recorded its expectation that the Board will be made functional within eight weeks; The Hindu reports this as a direction to the Centre. It also observed that the privacy of citizens was being compromised, noted that the Digi Yatra Foundation accepts Aadhaar and driving licence as identity proof, and expressed the expectation that authorities may also accept Voter ID. The order was reported on 10 October 2026 and carried in the 12 October 2026 editions.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, speaking at a rally on 11 October 2026 to mark two years in office, said that the Government of India “has acknowledged before the Supreme Court that Katchatheevu Island belongs to Sri Lanka”. He was referring to the Supreme Court hearing of 6 October 2026 on a batch of petitions, led by A.K. Selvaraj v Union of India (W.P.(C) 561/2008), challenging the “unconstitutional ceding” of the island under the 1974 agreement and the 1976 arrangement. Before the Bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva, Attorney General R. Venkataramani reportedly said that India enjoys “excellent relations” with Sri Lanka and does not intend to reopen the two agreements. The Court gave no ruling on their validity, orally urged that Indian fishermen be sensitised not to cross into Sri Lankan waters, and listed the matter for February 2027.

On Sunday 11 October 2026, Pakistan declared an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) over a “deteriorating law and order situation”, ending the provincial government led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). On the federal cabinet’s recommendation, President Asif Ali Zardari issued a proclamation under Articles 232(1) and 234(1) of the Constitution, citing rising terrorist attacks and a breakdown of constitutional machinery, and relying on a report by the provincial Governor. Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, provincial ministers, advisers, special assistants and the advocate general were ordered to vacate office immediately. KP was the only province governed by PTI. The move came during a protest march led by Afridi, which began at Lakki Marwat on 4 October to press for Khan’s release and medical access, after two rounds of talks with the federal government failed; the Centre had said it would not allow the march into Islamabad.

On Friday 9 October 2026, after a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump announced that Russia would supply over 300,000 tonnes of diesel to the US and global markets immediately, 500,000 tonnes in November, 1 million tonnes soon after and a further 3 million tonnes “within a short period”. The same day the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License No. 135, authorising transactions in Russian-origin diesel until 7 April 2027. The move sits awkwardly with the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, signed on 18 September 2026, which empowers the President to impose tariffs of up to 100% on top buyers of Russian energy, including India. Russian crude made up nearly half of India’s oil imports in August, and The Indian Express argues that the diesel deal hands New Delhi a new argument in its consultations with Washington.

On Sunday 11 October 2026, US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that “effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed”, without giving any terms. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine supports the ceasefire, is “awaiting details from the American side”, and had discussed the announcement with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. Moscow made no comment, and Zelenskyy later said Russia struck a power plant in Kyiv with a shahed drone, followed by strikes on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region. The same day, The Indian Express reported that India has for the first time put forward a “comprehensive” and “broad” proposal to end the war, centred on the Black Sea, as disclosed by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha after President Vladimir Putin said Narendra Modi has “very good ideas”.

Late on Saturday 10 October 2026 the Ministry of Steel put the draft National Steel Policy (NSP) Vision 2047 on its website for public consultation, inviting suggestions by 30 October 2026. The draft targets crude steel capacity of 604 million tonnes (Mt) by 2047, up from about 220 Mt now, and cuts the sector’s average emission intensity from 2.54 to 1.54 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of crude steel, in line with the 2070 net-zero goal. It projects iron ore demand of 772 Mt and coking coal demand of 236 Mt by 2047 and proposes foreign assets and joint ventures to secure both.

In the just-concluded session of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, Peoples Conference president and Handwara MLA Sajad Gani Lone raised the regional imbalance in issuing Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) certificates, and Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather directed the government to examine the alleged imbalance and initiate corrective measures if needed. According to The Indian Express (Explained, 11 October 2026), J&K issued 26,514 EWS certificates in two years, of which 24,058 (91%) went to Jammu division and only 2,486 to Kashmir division. Lone contrasted this with the roughly 2,20,000 Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) ration cards, about 144,000 of them in Kashmir and about 75,000 in Jammu, and asked that AAY norms be adopted as the EWS eligibility test.

On the evening of Saturday, 10 October 2026, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said the Office was concerned by reports of mass detentions in India of demonstrators, protest leaders, civil society members, lawyers and journalists before and during the large-scale protests in Delhi against the Chief Election Commissioner. He said restrictions on peaceful protest “must meet strict tests of necessity and proportionality”, that all those arbitrarily detained must be released “immediately and unconditionally”, and urged meaningful dialogue. India’s Permanent Mission in Geneva called the concerns “misplaced” and an “unwarranted interference in the internal affairs” of India. On Sunday, 11 October, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal called them “unwarranted” and an “unacceptable interference”, said India is the world’s largest democracy where the right to peaceful assembly is subject to public order and safety, and accused the Office of “extreme selectivity”, citing law-enforcement action in Pakistan and France.

Mizoram has decided to enumerate refugees living in the State during Census 2027, with their details recorded on a list separate from Indian citizens, officials said after a State-level meeting in Aizawl on Saturday 10 October 2026, chaired by Chief Secretary Khilli Ram Meena, to review preparations for the second phase of the Census. Home Minister K. Sapdanga had told the 40-member Assembly that 38,213 refugees were registered as of 20 August; local organisations put the figure at over 60,000. Meena said the aim is for Mizoram to become the first State to complete Census 2027.

On Monday, 12 October 2026, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to US economists Robert E. Hall (Stanford University) and Michael Woodford (Columbia University) “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”. The prize carries 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million) and was the last of the year’s announcements. John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said the laureates’ work gave “a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks”, leaving economies better equipped to deal with shocks such as energy crises and sudden shifts in household spending.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India marks its 33rd Foundation Day on Monday, 12 October 2026 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, with Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as chief guest and Chairperson Justice V. Ramasubramanian (retd) presiding over the Commission. A National Conference on the right to water, themed Water as the Elixir of Life: Advancing Human Dignity through the Right to Water, follows the ceremony. In its 9 October 2026 curtain-raiser the Commission put its record since 12 October 1993 at 24,33,716 cases, including 3,100 suo motu cases, with monetary relief of over ₹274 crore recommended in 9,085 cases; for 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026 it reported 54,673 complaints and 119 suo motu cases registered and 53,733 cases disposed of.

A study in Science Advances (vol. 12, article eaeg3488), reported by The Hindu on 12 October 2026 as published on 3 September 2026, shows that sex-reversed male agile frogs (Rana dalmatina) in Hungary, genetically female (XX) but physically normal, fertile males, make up about 20% of adult males in wild populations yet sire only about 4% of egg clutches. The lead author is Veronika Bókony of the HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research. Their offspring were more likely to undergo sex reversal themselves (61% against 17% for offspring of ordinary males) and carried higher ranavirus loads after a simulated heatwave; population models project that heat-driven sex reversal could drive some small populations extinct within 60–70 years.