Current Affairs 25 August 2026: Top Facts with MCQs
Current Affairs 25 August 2026: Top Facts with MCQs
Onion prices climbed 59% through August, a former ISRO chairman walked into the RBI boardroom, and Bihar quietly set up a committee that could rewrite how every BPSC and BSSC paper is conducted. That was the last 24 hours.
This page carries 20 exam-tagged facts from 24 and 25 August 2026, four quick-revision tables, a dedicated Bihar and Jharkhand block, and 15 objective questions at the end. Read the facts once, then attempt the questions without scrolling back. That is how retention actually works.
National
- 9th National Security Strategies Conference opened in New Delhi on 24 August 2026, inaugurated by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who pushed for zero tolerance on infiltration and AI-based threat analysis routed through the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC). Exam tag: SSC / Railway / BPSC / All exams
- Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia launched the revamped Dak Sewa and Dak MITRA apps for India Post on 24 August 2026 and inaugurated 14 renovated post office buildings across ten states, pitching doorstep postal service as the core idea. Exam tag: SSC / Railway / Banking
- The Supreme Court imposed an interim ban on construction and development within 100 metres of the edge of the Jojari river in Rajasthan, a heavily polluted stream near Jodhpur. Exam tag: All exams
International
- UNCCD COP17, the 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, is under way in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav addressed the Finance Day ministerial dialogue on 24 August and asked for diversified and predictable international finance for land restoration. He said India restored 21.76 million hectares of degraded land between 2011 and 2020, generating 1.22 billion person-days of work. Exam tag: BPSC / SSC / All exams
- The COP17 platform also saw the launch of the Rangelands Flagship Initiative worth about USD 1.2 billion, covering 45 projects across 23 countries. It is the largest single mobilisation for rangelands in the Convention's history. Exam tag: All exams
- NSA Ajit Doval arrived in Beijing for the 25th round of India-China Special Representatives talks on the boundary question with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Separately, EAM S. Jaishankar met Russian President Vladimir Putin during the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission engagement. Exam tag: SSC / BPSC / All exams
Economy and Banking
- The Central Government appointed S. Somanath (Somanath Sreedhara Panicker), former ISRO Chairman, as a part-time non-official Director on the RBI Central Board for four years with effect from 20 August 2026. Industrialist Anand Mahindra was reappointed on the same date, taking board strength to 13. Exam tag: Banking / SSC / All exams
- Three more names joined the same RBI Central Board category of part-time non-official Directors: former diplomat Syed Akbaruddin, former Special Secretary (Expenditure) Annie George Mathew, and Janmejaya Kumar Sinha. Remember the structure: the RBI Central Board is headed by the Governor, with Deputy Governors, government-nominated Directors and these part-time non-official Directors. Exam tag: Banking / SSC
- Retail onion prices rose about 59% during August, and the Centre began moving buffer stock through dedicated Kanda Express rakes out of Nashik to cool the market before the festive season. Context for your notes: RBI's August 2026 policy kept the repo rate at 5.25% with a neutral stance and raised the FY27 GDP growth projection to 6.7%. Exam tag: Banking / SSC / Railway
Appointments in the news (Person and Post)
Sports
- East Bengal FC beat Mohun Bagan Super Giant 4-1 to lift the Durand Cup 2026, a record-equalling 17th title, with Edmund Lalrindika scoring a hat-trick in the Kolkata derby final. Exam tag: All exams
- At India's first World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meet in Bhubaneswar, Rohit Yadav won the javelin with a personal best of 87.68 m and Murali Sreeshankar took the long jump title. Around 180 athletes competed. Exam tag: All exams
- The Sports Ministry cleared a 492-athlete Indian contingent across 35 sports for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 in Japan, with athletics getting the largest share at 73 spots. Exam tag: SSC / Railway / All exams
Sports results (Event and Winner)
Awards
- Dr Ashutosh Parida, Odia poet and former CSIR-IMMT scientist, was selected for the 47th Sarala Puraskar for his poetry collection Bishwas De Pruthwi. The Sarala Puraskar is Odisha's best known literary honour. Exam tag: All exams
- 48 school teachers will receive the National Teachers Awards 2026 from President Droupadi Murmu at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, on 5 September 2026, which is Teachers' Day. Exam tag: CTET / BTET / JTET / All exams
Science and Defence
- ISRO Chairman Dr V. Narayanan confirmed that India will build the Bharatiya Antariksha Station by 2035, with the first module already approved. Learn the sequence: Gaganyaan first, station modules next, crewed lunar mission targeted around 2040. Exam tag: SSC / Railway / All exams
- India's first indigenised AK-203 rifle, named Sher, was test-fired by Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited at its Korwa plant in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh. The AK-203 replaces the INSAS rifle in frontline infantry use. Exam tag: Defence / SSC / All exams
Bihar and Jharkhand Special
This block is where BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police, JSSC, JPSC and BTET/JTET candidates should slow down. State current affairs carry disproportionate weight in these papers.
- Bihar's General Administration Department notified a five-member examination reform committee on 23 August 2026. It will be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a serving or retired High Court judge, and must submit its report within three months. Its scope covers board, university, entrance, eligibility and recruitment examinations, with specific focus on paper leaks, impersonation, answer-sheet tampering, biometric verification, CCTV coverage and a transparent exam calendar. Exam tag: BPSC / BSSC / Bihar Police / BTET
- The Jharkhand High Court stayed the state government's order cancelling JPSC and JSSC recruitment examinations, giving relief to candidates who had already qualified. The cancellation had followed sustained protests in Ranchi over alleged irregularities. Exam tag: JSSC / JPSC / Jharkhand Police
- ICAR-NBAGR registered 16 new indigenous breeds, taking India's registered total to 262. Bihar's entry is the Seemanchali sheep. The batch spans nine species across 13 states and Jammu and Kashmir, and includes the Kombai dog of Tamil Nadu, the Kashmiri horse, the Sikkimese yak and the Nagal pig of Nagaland. Exam tag: BPSC / BSSC / JSSC / All exams
One more for your Bihar file. The state cabinet has cleared 19 exclusive special courts under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act with 171 non-gazetted posts, plus a Sports Science Centre at the Rajgir State Sports Academy. Rajgir is turning into Bihar's sports hub, and that is a ready-made one-liner for a BPSC interview.
Important Days
- 23 August was the third National Space Day, with the main event at Ahmedabad and the theme Towards Viksit Bharat: Innovating, Collaborating and Aspiring to Global Space Leadership. The day marks Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander touching down at Shiv Shakti Point in 2023. India now has more than 440 space start-ups, and Skyroot Aerospace was felicitated for the first-attempt orbital launch of Vikram-1. Exam tag: SSC / Railway / All exams
Days to remember this week (Day and Theme)
Index in the news (Index, India's Rank, Topper)
Being straight with you: this is the only index that surfaced in the last 24 hours with a checkable India rank, and the topper was not published in the summary we could access. Do not write a topper name in an answer sheet until you see the full report.
Today's 15 Objective Questions
Attempt these before you look at the answers. They sit slightly above the real paper standard on purpose.
Q1. Which conference did Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurate in New Delhi on 24 August 2026?
(A) 9th National Security Strategies Conference (B) 7th DGP-IGP Conference (C) 5th National Police Modernisation Summit (D) 11th Internal Security Conclave
Answer: (A) The ninth edition took up infiltration, proxy warfare and AI-based analysis through the Multi-Agency Centre.
Q2. UNCCD COP17 is being hosted by which city?
(A) Riyadh (B) Ulaanbaatar (C) Samarkand (D) Nairobi
Answer: (B) Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia; UNCCD deals with desertification and drought.
Q3. The Rangelands Flagship Initiative launched at COP17 is worth about how much?
(A) USD 300 million (B) USD 800 million (C) USD 1.2 billion (D) USD 2.5 billion
Answer: (C) It covers 45 projects across 23 countries, the largest rangelands package in the Convention's history.
Q4. How much degraded land did India restore between 2011 and 2020, as stated by Bhupender Yadav at COP17?
(A) 9.8 million hectares (B) 15.4 million hectares (C) 21.76 million hectares (D) 30.2 million hectares
Answer: (C) The restoration generated about 1.22 billion person-days of employment.
Q5. Who was appointed a part-time non-official Director on the RBI Central Board with effect from 20 August 2026?
(A) K. Sivan (B) S. Somanath (C) V. Narayanan (D) A. S. Kiran Kumar
Answer: (B) The former ISRO Chairman got a four-year term; V. Narayanan is the current ISRO Chairman.
Q6. Which industrialist was reappointed to the RBI Central Board in August 2026?
(A) Anand Mahindra (B) N. Chandrasekaran (C) Sanjiv Bajaj (D) Venu Srinivasan
Answer: (A) His reappointment took the Central Board strength to 13.
Q7. The Centre's Kanda Express rakes are used to move which commodity?
(A) Potato (B) Tomato (C) Onion (D) Pulses
Answer: (C) Buffer stock moves out of Nashik after onion prices rose about 59% in August.
Q8. By what margin did East Bengal FC beat Mohun Bagan Super Giant in the Durand Cup 2026 final?
(A) 2-1 (B) 3-0 (C) 4-1 (D) 1-0
Answer: (C) Edmund Lalrindika scored a hat-trick; it was East Bengal's record-equalling 17th title.
Q9. Rohit Yadav's winning javelin throw at the Bhubaneswar Continental Tour Silver meet measured:
(A) 85.24 m (B) 86.10 m (C) 87.68 m (D) 88.90 m
Answer: (C) It was his personal best at India's first Continental Tour Silver level meet.
Q10. How many athletes did the Sports Ministry clear for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026?
(A) 405 (B) 462 (C) 492 (D) 520
Answer: (C) The contingent spans 35 sports, with athletics taking 73 places.
Q11. Ashutosh Parida won the 47th Sarala Puraskar for a poetry collection in which language?
(A) Assamese (B) Odia (C) Bengali (D) Maithili
Answer: (B) The collection is Bishwas De Pruthwi; Sarala Puraskar is Odisha's leading literary award.
Q12. What is the theme of the 3rd National Space Day, observed on 23 August 2026?
(A) Touching Lives while Touching the Moon (B) Towards Viksit Bharat: Innovating, Collaborating and Aspiring to Global Space Leadership (C) Chandrayaan Se Gaganyaan (D) Space for All
Answer: (B) The main event was held at Ahmedabad; option (A) was the 2024 theme.
Q13. India's first indigenised AK-203 rifle, named Sher, was test-fired at:
(A) Korwa, Amethi (B) Ishapore, West Bengal (C) Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh (D) Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu
Answer: (A) The maker is Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited, a joint venture at Korwa.
Q14. Bihar's newly notified examination reform committee must submit its report within:
(A) One month (B) Two months (C) Three months (D) Six months
Answer: (C) The General Administration Department notified the five-member panel on 23 August 2026.
Q15. Seemanchali, among the 16 new breeds registered by ICAR-NBAGR, is which species and from which state?
(A) Goat, Jharkhand (B) Sheep, Bihar (C) Cattle, Karnataka (D) Buffalo, Goa
Answer: (B) The batch pushed India's registered indigenous breed count to 262.
Before You Close This Tab
If you can only carry three things into tomorrow's revision, make them these: the RBI Central Board additions, the COP17 venue with the 21.76 million hectare figure, and Bihar's three-month exam reform deadline. Those three have the highest chance of showing up as a one-mark question in the next three months.
A caution worth stating plainly. Appointment dates in this digest come from news reports of the government notification, not from a scanned gazette. If you are quoting a date in a BPSC Mains answer, open the RBI press release page and confirm it yourself. Free practice sets and topic-wise accuracy tracking for these exams are available on ExamAtlas.
Aaj ka full CA quiz: ExamAtlas.com