Why in News

• The PM Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (PMDDKY) completes its first year on 11 October 2026.
• The average score of its 100 districts rose from 18.85 in April to 46.89 in August 2026.

About PMDDKY

• It was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26. The Cabinet approved it on 16 July 2025 for six years, and the Prime Minister launched it on 11 October 2025.
• The nodal ministry is the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and NITI Aayog runs the monitoring dashboard.
• It covers 100 Aspirational Agricultural Districts, chosen for low productivity, low cropping intensity and low agricultural credit. Every State has at least one district.
• It is not a standalone Centrally Sponsored Scheme. It works through the convergence of 36 schemes of 11 Ministries, with an annual outlay of ₹24,000 crore.
• It is modelled on the Aspirational Districts Programme (2018), and districts are ranked monthly on 121 indicators.
• It has six objectives: higher productivity, crop diversification, post-harvest storage, irrigation, credit access, and better governance.

About Monitoring

• Progress is tracked on 121 indicators, of which 74 are output indicators and 47 are outcome indicators.
• Districts are ranked monthly on a NITI Aayog dashboard.

Mains Angle

• The scheme applies the competitive-ranking model of the Aspirational Districts Programme to agriculture.
• FPO-led successes in Gadchiroli, Tumakuru and Jaisalmer show the value of local processing and market links.
• Lasting gains will depend on improving outcomes, not just ranking outputs.

Why in News

• The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has disbursed ₹2.02 crore in Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) contributions from seed companies to 27 States and 3 UTs.

More on the News

• Where individual benefit claimers could not be identified, funds were shared by each State’s cultivation area of the crops concerned. Madhya Pradesh received the most.
• India will take part in CBD COP 17 in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 October 2026.

About Biological Diversity Act, 2002

• The Act, amended in 2023, regulates access to biological resources and associated traditional knowledge.
• It sets up a three-tier structure: the NBA (headquartered in Chennai), the State Biodiversity Boards, and the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs).
• BMCs maintain People’s Biodiversity Registers, which record local biological resources and knowledge.

About Access and Benefit-Sharing

• ABS requires users of biological resources to share benefits with conservers and knowledge-holders. It is rooted in the Nagoya Protocol (2010) under the CBD.
• It supports Target 13 (benefit-sharing) and Target 19 (resource mobilisation) of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
• India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan covers 2024–2030.

Mains Angle

• ABS turns the commercial use of biodiversity into funds for conservation.
• Allocation by cultivation area is a practical solution when knowledge-holders cannot be traced.
• The amounts are still small, so wider coverage of commercial users is needed.

Defence Exercises

• The second edition of Exercise Tarang Shakti, hosted by the Indian Air Force, was held at Jodhpur from 26 September to 12 October 2026.
• Seven countries took part (Australia, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UAE and the USA), and 32 nations attended as observers.
• Indigenous platforms such as the LCA Tejas and LCH Prachand took part. The first edition was held in 2024.

Awards and Days

• South African jurist Navi Pillay, born in Durban in 1941 to a family of Indian indentured labourers, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.
• She defended opponents of apartheid and later served on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, whose Akayesu case held that rape can constitute genocide.
• She has also been an ICC judge, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008–14), and an ad hoc judge in the ICJ case The Gambia v. Myanmar.

Places

• India has 205 lighthouses, and lighthouse tourism rose from about 4 lakh visitors in 2014 to 18.63 lakh in 2024–25.
• 75 lighthouses are tourism destinations, all lighthouses are solar-powered, and 87 AIS shore stations work under SOLAS.
• A 77-metre Lighthouse Museum, planned as the world’s tallest, is coming up at the National Maritime Heritage Complex, Lothal.
• Four lighthouses on the Brahmaputra (Pandu, Bogibeel, Silghat, Biswanath Ghat) will be India’s first on an inland waterway.