India will participate in 23d edition of Khaan Quest 2026 exercise to be held at at Five Hills Training Area, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

About Khaan Quest 

• Origin: started as a bilateral event between USA and Mongolian Defence Forces in 2003.
  • From the year 2006 onwards, the exercise graduated to a Multilateral Peacekeeping Exercise.
• Host: Co-sponsored by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and hosted by the Mongolian Armed Forces.
• Aim: to enhance interoperability and cooperation among participating militaries in peace support operations under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.

Recently this joint report by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) was released for june to november 2026.

• It is released twice a year through the Global Network Against Food Crises.

Key Highlights 

• Global food insecurity: 266 million people are already facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
• Falling support: funding for food assistance has fallen by ~60% since 2022.
• Most affected: Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and Palestine as the world’s most critical hunger hotspots out of the total 13 hotspots identified.

2026 marks 75 years of passage of The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, amending the constitution for the first time.  

About the First Amendment

• Freedom of Speech (Article 19): Expanded Article 19(2) to allow the State to impose "reasonable restrictions" on free speech on new grounds, specifically "public order" and "friendly relations with foreign states."
• Affirmative Action & Equality (Article 15): Enabled the insertion of Article 15(4), allowing the State to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes.
• The Ninth Schedule: Created a unique constitutional mechanism (the Ninth Schedule) to protect land reform laws from being challenged or struck down by courts on the grounds of violating fundamental rights.

ICAR–Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research (ICAR-IIOR) has developed and demonstrated an innovative biopolymer-based Smart Seed Coating Technology.

About Smart Seed Coating Technology

• The technology utilizes biodegradable biopolymeric materials  to form a multifunctional protective coating around the seeds.
  • This coating acts as a carrier platform that delivers beneficial microorganisms, nutrients, micronutrients, crop protection agents, and plant growth-promoting compounds directly to the seed-soil interface.
• Significance: 
  • Promotes rapid germination and enhanced root development.
  • Improved tolerance to both biotic (pests and diseases) and abiotic (temperature extremes and droughts) stresses.

Micro-sovereign funding offers an innovative approach to traditional instruments (treasury bills and bonds, syndicated loans etc.) for debt management. 

• Traditional instruments face issues such as concentrated investor bases, high borrowing costs with no competitive pressure etc.
• IMF projects that global debt will reach 100% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2029, a level not seen since the Second World War.

About Micro Sovereign Funding

• It refers to the use of blockchain-based tokenized bonds that allow governments to sell public debt directly to retail investors, small savers, and the diaspora. 
• By lowering minimum investment thresholds to as little as $30, it breaks the traditional institutional-only barrier to provide cost-effective capital.

Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a successful flight-test of LRLACM.

About LRLACM

• LRLACM is an indigenously developed missile, as the successor to the Nirbhay programme.
• Nodal Laboratory - Aeronautical Development Establishment, Bengaluru.
• Features: 
  • Terrain-hugging flight, using hills and valleys to avoid radar detection
  • Reported range of 1,000 km. 

Researchers discovered a new mechanism in Red Blood cells (RBCs) by which malaria parasites evade the effects of artemisinin, the world’s most widely used antimalarial drug. 

• Research showed that young RBCs (reticulocytes), which are not mature create a protective biochemical environment helping malaria parasites withstand drug-induced stress.
  • Malaria is a life-threatening disease spread to humans by Anopheles mosquitoes and caused by a parasite. 

About Red Blood Cells 

• Primary Function: To transport oxygen from the lungs to tissues and carbon-dioxide back to the lungs.
• Abundance: They are most common type of blood cell.
• Pigment: They contain haemoglobin, an iron-rich protein that binds to oxygen and gives blood red color.

World Economic Forum (WEF) released Energy Transition Index (ETI) 2026 which tracks energy transition progress across 120 countries.

Key Highlights of ETI 2026

• Global energy transition readiness has declined for the first time in more than a decade amid a surge in geopolitical risks.
• Top Performers: Sweden, Finland and Denmark retained their top three positions.
• India: India advanced two places to rank 70^th, driven by investment in energy security and affordability.

Turkey’s Presidency of 2026 UNFCCC COP31 and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have unveiled the Turquoise Nexus Initiative.

About the initiative 

• Aim: To support developing countries in integrating food-water-climate approaches into their nationally determined contributions (NCDs) and implementation efforts under the Paris Agreement on climate change.
• Implementation: It comes under FAO’s Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership a multi-stakeholder initiative launched at COP27 in Egypt.
  • FAST Partnership embodies collective action to catalyze and accelerate the quantity and quality of climate finance contributions towards the sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems.

Telegram founder claimed that access to the app was being compromised through BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) hijacking.

• The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the internet’s routing system. It tells networks across the world how to reach specific IP addresses.

About BGP hijacking

• It is sometimes referred to as prefix hijacking, route hijacking or IP hijacking
• It is a technique in which internet traffic is misdirected by falsely advertising the route to a website or online service.