Daily Current Affairs — 9 September 2026: DAC's ₹1.10 Lakh Crore Defence Push, UNESCO Heritage List & Satwik-Chirag's China Masters Win

The National Steering Committee of PM-SETU, the Centre's scheme to modernise Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), approved Strategic Investment Plans worth over ₹735 crore for ITI clusters in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana at its fifth meeting.

NITI Aayog hosted the 5th e-FAST (Electric Freight Accelerator for Sustainable Transport) India Summit in New Delhi, launching the PACT platform to aggregate clean-freight demand and a Zero-Emission Truck (ZET) Marketplace connecting e-truck makers with logistics operators, financiers and charging-infrastructure providers.

Coastal Local Area Bank Limited, headquartered in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, became India's first Local Area Bank to be included in the Second Schedule of the RBI Act, 1934, giving it scheduled-bank status and access to RBI liquidity and money-market facilities while it retains its LAB classification.

The International Finance Corporation will extend a USD 1 billion long-term credit facility to India's Finance Ministry to fund MSMEs, with USD 500 million already routed through SIDBI and the rest via a bank syndicate, the dollars swapped into rupees through the RBI's special swap window, for loans of up to seven years to manufacturing and services MSMEs.

The Asian Development Bank and the Madhya Pradesh government signed India's first Transaction Advisory Services mandate (7 September, Bhopal) to mobilise up to USD 1 billion in private investment for renewable-energy public-private partnerships, starting with a pilot solar-plus-battery-storage project at Shajapur.

India added four new sites to UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List — the Rangpur-Sivasagar historic ensemble (Assam), the colonial penal settlement across Chatham, Viper and NSCB Islands and the Cellular Jail (Andamans), Nicobarese cultural continuity across seven Nicobar islands, and the painted haveli towns of Shekhawati (Rajasthan) — taking India's tentative-list total to 73 (53 cultural, 3 mixed, 17 natural).

The Supreme Court of India hosted the first BRICS Chief Justices' Forum in New Delhi from 4-6 September 2026, where Chief Justice of India Surya Kant held bilateral meetings with counterparts from ten countries on judicial cooperation, mediation and arbitration.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh undertook a three-day official visit to Sri Lanka (8-10 September 2026) to strengthen bilateral defence and maritime-security cooperation.

The Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by Rajnath Singh, granted Acceptance of Necessity for capital procurement worth about ₹1.10 lakh crore — around 98% from indigenous sources — covering CBRN reconnaissance vehicles, Advanced Light Helicopters, Trawl Tanks and the Sarvatra Bridge System for the Army, Arudhra radars and Marine Gas Turbines for the Navy, and Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammers for the Air Force.

Adani Defence & Aerospace signed a five-year agreement with Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited to supply 7.62×39mm ammunition, manufactured at its Kanpur facility, for the indigenous AK-203 assault rifle programme being built at IRRPL's Korwa (Amethi) plant.

The Indian Air Force and Japan's Air Self-Defence Force began the second edition of the joint exercise Veer Guardian (9-22 September 2026) at Jodhpur Air Force Station.

Bengaluru-based Astrogate Labs unveiled India's first indigenous Optical Inter-Satellite Link terminal and demonstrated a 10 Gbps space-to-ground laser-communication terminal at the 9th Bengaluru Space Expo (7-9 September), having already supplied a satellite-to-ground lasercomm terminal to ISRO.

Australia and India signed five industry partnerships on satellite infrastructure and related space technologies at the 9th Bengaluru Space Expo.

India joined the US-led 'Call to Action for 6G Leadership and Security' as its 26th member nation, with Commerce Ministry MoS Jitin Prasada meeting US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina — a step feeding into India's own Bharat 6G Mission, which targets global IP-hub status by 2030.

The IMD forecast fresh spells of heavy-to-very-heavy rain and thunderstorms across Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal from 8-14 September, driven by an active monsoon trough and a fresh low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty became the first Indian pair to win the China Masters since the tournament began, beating China's He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu 11-21, 21-13, 21-17 in Shenzhen — their second title of 2026 and 10th BWF World Tour title overall.

The Indian Olympic Association gave India's Asian Games 2026 contingent a formal send-off in New Delhi on 8 September, ahead of the Aichi-Nagoya Games (19 September-4 October).

Spain's Marcos Llorente, a member of Spain's victorious 2026 FIFA World Cup squad, announced his retirement from international football at 31, after 27 caps since his 2020 debut.

National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman Kishor Makwana will be conferred the 'Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Jan Seva Award 2026' on 9 September at the 16th Sansad Ratna Awards in New Delhi.

Dr Vinaya Prakash Singh, a 1988-batch Indian Postal Service officer, was re-elected unopposed as Secretary-General of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union for a second four-year term (January 2027-December 2030) at the 14th APPU Congress in Bangkok.

Bhagwat Prasad Makwana was appointed Chairperson of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis until 31 March 2028, with Kaishab Bihari named Vice-Chairperson alongside three new members.

The 72nd National Film Awards will be held on 22 September 2026 at the Statue of Unity in Gujarat's Ekta Nagar — the first time outside Delhi in the award's 70-plus-year history — with President Droupadi Murmu felicitating 92 winners.

The 9th Rashtriya Poshan Maah (National Nutrition Month) was launched on 9 September 2026 at the Rudraksh International Cooperation and Convention Centre in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan laid the foundation stone for a ₹110 crore infrastructure upgrade at Gauhati University, Assam, and released two books — 'Bhupen Hazarika: Hundred Years of a Wandering Songs' and the fifth edition of the Assamese lexicon 'Chandrakanta Abhidhan'.

St Joseph's University in Bengaluru inaugurated its new B-Block campus at Kalena Agrahara on Bannerghatta Road on 8 September 2026.