DAILY GK 26-27 MAY 2026
1. 3RD
ADVANCE ESTIMATES OF PRODUCTION OF MAJOR AGRICULTURAL CROPS
·
Union
Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Ministry of
Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) released
the Third Advance Estimates of Production of Major Agricultural Crops for 2025–26.
·
As per the newly released data, India’s total foodgrain production is
estimated at 376.563 Million Tonnes (MT) in
2025-26 crop year, which is 5.3% higher than last
year’s production (357.732 MT).
·
The country’s overall rice production is
estimated at a record 154.024 MT and Overall wheat
production is projected to increase by 2.29% (2.712 MT) to a record of 120.657 MT (in 2025-26)
over last year’s 117.945 MT.
·
The data estimated the total oilseeds production at 43.059 MT for the current crop
season.
·
The
production of other varieties of
oilseeds are estimated at: 13.07 MT (Groundnut), 12.59 MT (Soyabean) and
13.76 MT (Rapeseed and Mustard).
·
Some of the major commercial crops production
projections: 500.063 MT (sugarcane);
29.024 million bales (cotton); and
9.176 million bales (each bale weighing
180 kg) (jute).
2. PM NARENDRA MODI’S VISIT
TO NORWAY
·
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was
on a two-day official visit to Norway at the invitation of Jonas Gahr Støre, PM
of Norway.
·
This
marked the 1st ever official visit by an
Indian PM to Norway in over 40 years
since former PM of India Indira Gandhi visited the Nordic country in 1983.
·
PM Narendra Modi participated in
the 3rd India-Nordic Summit held in
Oslo, the capital city of Norway and also attended the India-Norway Business and Research Summit.
·
PM was honoured with the Royal
Norwegian Order of Merit Grand Cross, one of the highest civilian awards of Norway, by King Harald V in
Oslo, Norway.
·
This marked 32nd global
honor conferred upon PM Modi and the 2nd (after being awarded
with Sweden’s highest civilian honour) during his ongoing 5-nation tour.
·
During PM Narendra Modi’s visit India and
Norway signed 12 agreements to
strengthen their green strategic partnership across sustainability,
healthcare, research, infrastructure, and innovation sectors.
3.
PM NARENDRA MODI’S VISIT TO ITALY
·
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was
on a two-day official visit to Italy at the invitation of GiorgiaMeloni, the
President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic.
·
During the meeting, leaders of both countries
reviewed the progress made in bilateral cooperation across all segments of
the Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025-2029.
·
PM Narendra Modi was honouredwith the Agricola Medal, the highest honour
of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), by its Director-General(DG) Qu Dongyu at the organisation’s headquarters in Rome.
·
India and Italy signed 10 Key Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs)
covering sectors such as: critical minerals, agriculture, maritime
transport, marine products, higher education, Ayurveda, climate research and
science cooperation.
4. INDIA,
ETHIOPIA SIGN BILATERAL ACCESSION PROTOCOL
·
India and Ethiopia signed
a bilateral accession protocol in Geneva, Switzerland, related to Ethiopia’s membership in the World Trade
Organization (WTO), marking an important step in
Ethiopia’s WTO accession process.
·
The protocol marks a major step in Ethiopia’s WTO accession process following its 7th
Working Party meeting in April 2026.
5. WHO’S
79TH WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY
·
The World Health Organization (WHO) organised
the six-day 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) in
Geneva, Switzerland under the theme “Reshaping
Global Health: A Shared Responsibility”.
·
During
the session, member states adopted over
20 decisions and 13 resolutions on issues including stroke, tuberculosis,
antimicrobial resistance (AMR), emergency care, haemophilia, precision
medicine, and radiation.
·
The WHA79 was chaired by Victor AtallahLajam, Minister of Health of the Dominican
Republic, who served as the President of WHA79.
·
WHA passed its first-ever
resolution on stroke, led by Egypt and co-sponsored by Chile,
Georgia, Palestine, Paraguay, and Tunisia, formally recognising stroke as a global
public health priority.
6.
INDIA TEST-FIRES AGNI-1 SHORT-RANGE BALLISTIC
MISSILE
·
India successfully
test-fired the Agni-1 Short-Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM) from
the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur,
Odisha, under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC).
·
Agni-1
is a single-stage, solid-fuelled, road-mobile SRBM with Transporter Erector
Launcher (TEL) and rail-launch
capability, designed for rapid deployment with a strike range of 700–900 kilometer (km), extendable up to 1,200 km
in some configurations.
·
The missile can carry up to 1,000 kilogram (kg) of conventionalor nuclear warheads.
·
The
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed Agni-1
under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), and the missile
was inducted into the Indian Armed Forces in 2004.
7. INDIAN
ARMY LAUNCHES ‘Q-FORCE’ APPLICATION
·
The Indian Army (IA) launched ‘Q-FORCE’,
an integrated digital application(app) designed to streamline logistics and sustainment
management through seamless integration of multiple logistics and inventory
platforms across varied operational terrains in India.
·
The platform
enables real-time logistics monitoring, efficient supply-chain management,
faster resource allocation, and improved operational readiness within the IA.
·
The IA also launched ‘Kautilya’, an
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered
command intelligence platform that uses AI dashboards and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based
interfaces for structured data generation, analytics, and decision-making.
AWARDS
8. AIAA
GODDARD ASTRONAUTICS AWARD
·
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s
Chandrayaan-3 mission received the 2026 Goddard
Astronautics Award from the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) at the (Accelerating Space
Commerce, Exploration, and New Discovery) ASCEND 2026 Conference in
Washington D.C., USA.
·
The
award was presented for achieving the world’s first soft landing
near the Moon’s south pole on 23 August 2023, with India’s Ambassador
to the USA, Vinay Kwatra accepting the award on
behalf of ISRO.
·
The successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3
near the Moon’s south pole made India
the fourth country after the Soviet space programme (Russia), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (USA), and China National Space
Administration (CNSA) (China), to
successfully land on the Moon.
9. FELLOW
OF ROYAL SOCIETY
·
Professor Manindra
Agrawal, Director of the Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Kanpur, UP, and Dr Soumya
Swaminathan, former Chief
Scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), were elected as Fellows
of the Royal Society (FRS), one of the
world’s oldest and most prestigious scientific academies.
·
He
received the honour for his pioneering contributions to theoretical computer science,
especially the AKS(Agrawal–Kayal–Saxena) primality test,
a breakthrough algorithm that transformed the way mathematicians understand and
identify prime numbers.
·
Professor Manindra
Agrawal was
conferred with the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest
civilian award, in the field of Science and Engineering in 2013.
·
DrSoumyaSwaminathanbecame
the 2nd Indian woman, after
Janaki Ammal in 1945, to be elected as a
FRS.
10. SOUTH
AFRICA’S HIGHEST CIVILIAN HONOUR
·
South African President Cyril
Ramaphosa conferred the country’s highest civilian honour,
the Order of Mapungubwe, on Indian-origin Professor Salim
Abdool Karim (Gold)
and Professor Keertan Dheda (Silver) for their exceptional contributions to medical science, epidemiology, and health
policy during a National Orders
ceremony in Pretoria, South Africa.
·
Professor Salim Abdool Karim
Honoured for his key contributions to medical science and
public health, especially his research on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and Tuberculosis (TB).
·
Professor KeertanDheda Honoured
for his pioneering research in pulmonology, which has
improved the clinical and public health management of tuberculosis
(TB) and drug-resistant respiratory infections.
11.
UN MILITARY GENDER ADVOCATE OF THE YEAR AWARD
2025
·
Major Abhilasha Barak, Indian
Army was announced as the recipient of 2025 United Nations (UN)
Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award, as confirmed by the Permanent Mission of India to the United
Nations.
·
Barak
is recognised for her community outreach for women and adolescent girls
and for conducting gender sensitization training for UN peacekeepers in
Lebanon, becoming the third recipient of
the award from India.
·
She is the first woman combat
helicopter pilot of Indian Army after joining the Army Aviation Corps
in 2022.
12.
NATIONAL AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING APY
PERFORMANCE
·
Karnataka
Grameena Bank (KGB), an Indian Regional Rural Bank (RRB), received the National
Award from the Pension Fund
Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) for its
outstanding performance in enrolment under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY).
·
KGB
enrolled 2,49,185 APY accounts against the PFRDA target of 1,75,500 accounts,
achieving 142% of the target, the highest among all banks in Karnataka.
