Current Affairs — 14 July 2026

1. India and Australia Finalise Uranium Export Arrangements

Core Context: Nuclear energy is fast becoming a central pillar of India's clean energy strategy, and uranium is the fuel that makes this pillar stand. India and Australia had signed a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement back in 2014, which came into force in 2015, opening the legal door for Australia, home to some of the world's largest uranium reserves, to supply this fuel to India. However, actually operationalising this door required years of technical and administrative negotiation. Meanwhile, India's own domestic nuclear framework has been going through a quiet revolution: the SHANTI Act of 2025 dismantled the older Atomic Energy Act of 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010, opening the sector to private players for the first time and setting an ambitious target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, up from roughly 8.8 GW today.

Latest Developments:

• During Prime Minister Modi's visit to Australia for the 3rd India-Australia Annual Leaders' Summit hosted by PM Anthony Albanese in Melbourne, both sides announced that the administrative arrangements needed to enable actual uranium export have been finalised.
• The supply will be exclusively for peaceful purposes and will operate under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
• Australia described itself as aiming to become a "reliable, trusted supplier" of uranium to India, while India framed the deal as giving fresh impetus to its clean energy goals.
• The announcement came bundled with wider discussions on defence cooperation and the India-Australia Indo-Pacific partnership, showing how energy diplomacy and strategic partnership are increasingly intertwined.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The Australia-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement was signed in 2014 and entered into force in 2015.
• Australia holds one of the largest shares of the world's known uranium reserves.
• The SHANTI Act, 2025 (Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy) repealed the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010.
• India's nuclear capacity target is 100 GW by 2047, opened up to Independent Power Producers and private entities for the first time.
• IAEA safeguards ensure that nuclear material supplied for civilian use is not diverted for weapons purposes.

2. India at the Inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance

Core Context: As artificial intelligence reshapes economies and societies, the United Nations has moved to create its first truly universal platform for discussing how AI should be governed globally. This Global Dialogue on AI Governance traces its origin to the Global Digital Compact, adopted as part of the Pact of the Future at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024, and was formally established through a UN General Assembly resolution. Its first session, held in Geneva on 6-7 July 2026, brought together member states, industry players, academics, and civil society groups to shape the emerging global rulebook for AI.

Latest Developments:

• India's delegation to this inaugural session was led by Union Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh.
• Discussions were organised around four broad clusters: the social and economic implications of AI, bridging the global AI divide between developed and developing nations, promoting safe and trustworthy AI, and safeguarding human rights in the age of AI.
• India's position centred on preserving human oversight over AI systems, ensuring equitable access to AI benefits, and building a rules-based AI order that does not sideline developing nations.
• India referenced its own National Strategy for AI and National AI Governance Guidelines, built around the philosophy of "AI for All", to argue that innovation and inclusion can go hand in hand.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The Global Digital Compact was adopted under the Pact of the Future at the UN Summit of the Future, September 2024.
• The Global Dialogue on AI Governance is a multi-stakeholder UN forum, distinct from bodies like the UN Security Council or ECOSOC.
• India's National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence was first released by NITI Aayog under the "AI for All" vision.
• The IndiaAI Mission is India's flagship domestic programme for AI compute, data, and skilling infrastructure.
• This global governance discussion can be contrasted with domestic, sector-specific AI regulation, such as the Supreme Court's own draft rules for AI use in courts.

3. Supreme Court's Draft Regulations for Use of AI in Courts, 2026

Core Context: Courts across India have been experimenting with AI tools for translation, transcription, and legal research, but this rapid adoption has raised a pressing question: where should the line be drawn between AI as an assistant and AI as a decision-maker? To answer this, the Supreme Court's AI Committee released the draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026, for public consultation. The draft is designed to apply uniformly across the Supreme Court, High Courts, subordinate courts, tribunals, and other statutory adjudicatory bodies, reflecting an attempt to build a single, coherent framework for judicial AI use rather than leaving it to piecemeal, court-by-court practice.

Latest Developments:

• The draft rests on five guiding principles: primacy of human decision-making, transparency, accountability, data protection, and judicial independence.
• It categorically prohibits AI from deciding cases, recommending bail, determining sentences, assessing witness credibility, or predicting a litigant's future conduct; AI-generated outputs must remain strictly advisory.
• Lawyers and litigants using AI tools to prepare pleadings, submissions, or evidence must mandatorily disclose this fact at the time of filing.
• The framework proposes a permanent apex AI body at the Supreme Court level, backed by AI Committees and dedicated secretariats in courts nationwide, along with regular audits, incident registers, and training for judges and lawyers.
• Permitted, everyday uses of AI include legal research, citation verification, drafting assistance, translation, transcription, scheduling, and case management.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The draft regulations were released by the Supreme Court's own AI Committee, not by Parliament or the executive, showing judicial self-regulation in action.
• Judicial independence is part of the Basic Structure Doctrine of the Indian Constitution, and any AI framework for courts must be tested against this principle.
• The e-Courts Mission Mode Project has been the broader digitisation push within which such AI initiatives are situated.
• SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Courts' Efficiency) is an earlier AI-based research tool already in use in the Supreme Court.
• The core distinction drawn in the draft, between AI as a decision-support tool versus AI as a decision-maker, is a recurring theme in AI governance debates worldwide.

4. Compressed Biogas Sector: SATAT Shortfall and the GOBARdhan Push

Core Context: Compressed Biogas, or CBG, is often presented as a triple-win fuel: it cuts India's oil import bill, reduces vehicular pollution, and gives farmers and municipalities a way to convert waste into revenue. The Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation, or SATAT, scheme was launched in 2018 with a bold target of setting up 5,000 CBG plants across the country by 2023. This effort works alongside the GOBARdhan scheme, short for Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan, which is India's flagship "waste to wealth" programme aimed at building circular economy infrastructure around biogas.

Latest Developments:

• As of 3 June 2026, only 132 of the targeted 5,000 CBG plants have actually been completed, a stark shortfall that has drawn attention to structural bottlenecks in the sector.
• The gap has been attributed to challenges in financing, difficulty in securing steady feedstock supply, and delays in getting new plants connected to the gas grid.
• To push demand, the National Biofuels Coordination Committee has approved a mandatory CBG blending obligation, requiring gas distributors to blend CBG into their supply starting at 1 percent from FY26 and rising gradually to 5 percent by FY29.
• On the supply side, the GOBARdhan scheme offers grants of up to Rs 50 lakh per district for community biogas plants, along with Rs 564 crore earmarked for biomass collection machinery and Rs 994 crore allocated for pipelines linking biogas plants to the national gas grid.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• SATAT stands for Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation and is administered under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• CBG is produced by purifying biogas from sources such as agricultural residue, cattle dung, municipal solid waste, and sewage treatment plant waste, and has a methane content comparable to CNG.
• GOBARdhan stands for Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan and promotes a circular economy model for organic waste.
• The National Biofuel Policy, 2018 (amended 2022) sets the broader blending targets for ethanol and biofuels of which CBG blending obligations are a part.
• Scaling up CBG production supports India's Net Zero by 2070 commitment and reduces dependence on imported crude oil and natural gas.

5. Third NAMASTE Day Observed Across India

Core Context: Manual and hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks has historically claimed lives and denied dignity to those engaged in this work. To address this, the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem, or NAMASTE, scheme was launched in 2023 as a joint initiative of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Its core aim is to eliminate hazardous manual cleaning through mechanisation, ensure zero fatalities among sanitation workers, and provide them with alternative, dignified livelihood options.

Latest Developments:

• The 3rd NAMASTE Day was observed on 14 July 2026, with the main national event held at Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata, alongside the Divya Kala Mela.
• Union Minister Virendra Kumar honoured sanitation workers at the Kolkata event, while parallel programmes were organised by Urban Local Bodies across the country.
• Activities on the day included occupational safety training, health check-up camps, facilitation of government entitlements, demonstrations of mechanised sanitation equipment, and distribution of safety gear.
• The day recognised sewer and septic tank workers, waste pickers, and former manual scavengers for their contribution to public health and environmental sanitation.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• NAMASTE builds upon the legal foundation of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
• NAMASTE is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• The scheme's components include worker profiling, distribution of PPE kits, mechanised cleaning devices, and support for sanitation-related enterprises.
• NAMASTE complements the Swachh Bharat Mission and aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation) and Goal 8 (decent work).

6. Central Vista Renamed 'Kartavya Bhawan Complex'

Core Context: The Central Vista redevelopment project has, over the past few years, transformed the administrative heart of New Delhi, bringing in a new Parliament building, new central secretariat office blocks, and a redesigned ceremonial boulevard. This physical transformation has been accompanied by a symbolic one, renaming key landmarks to reflect an ethos centred on duty, or "kartavya", rather than colonial-era nomenclature.

Latest Developments:

• Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced on 12 July 2026, at a Central Public Works Department Foundation Day event, that the entire Central Vista redevelopment area will now be called the "Kartavya Bhawan Complex".
• The term "Central Vista" is to be discontinued in all official documents and references, with the new nomenclature applying to the Kartavya Bhawans, Kartavya Marg, and any future government buildings built in the zone.
• The new complex housing the Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Secretariat, and the office of the National Security Advisor has been named "Seva Teerth".
• This follows an earlier renaming of the Udyog Bhawan metro station to Seva Teerth Bhawan.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The Central Vista Redevelopment Project is executed by the Central Public Works Department under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Rajpath was renamed Kartavya Path in September 2022, ahead of this latest renaming exercise.
• The new Parliament building was inaugurated in May 2023 as part of the same redevelopment project.
• The renaming reflects the "Panch Pran" (five pledges) announced by the Prime Minister on the 75th Independence Day in 2022, one of which is a sense of duty, or "kartavya bhaav".

7. MeitY Launches NIDAR 2.0 Drone Innovation Challenge

Core Context: India has been building an indigenous drone ecosystem through a combination of the Drone Rules, 2021 and a Production Linked Incentive scheme for drones and drone components. The first National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research, or NIDAR, held in 2025-26, was designed to nurture a new generation of student innovators in this space, and its success has now led to a more ambitious second edition.

Latest Developments:

• NIDAR 2.0 (2026-27) was launched on 13 July 2026 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology together with the Drone Federation of India, at Electronics Niketan, New Delhi.
• The focus this time shifts from conventional airframes to autonomous systems, indigenous avionics, and core drone components built around India's indigenous VEGA processor, based on the open-source RISC-V architecture.
• The challenge offers a prize pool exceeding Rs 65 lakh across two tracks: a Drone Innovation track for autonomous swarm drones for disaster response and GPS-denied drones for confined indoor spaces, and a Component Innovation track for indigenous flight controllers and autopilots.
• The first edition of NIDAR had attracted 3,448 students from 22 states and 4 Union Territories, with 24 winning teams sharing prizes worth Rs 40 lakh.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The VEGA processor is an indigenous chip based on the RISC-V open-source instruction set architecture, reducing India's dependence on foreign chip designs.
• RISC-V is an open, royalty-free instruction set architecture increasingly used for building sovereign semiconductor capability.
• The Drone Rules, 2021 replaced the earlier Unmanned Aircraft System Rules, easing compliance for drone operators and manufacturers.
• This initiative supports the Atmanirbhar Bharat and Semiconductor Mission goals of building indigenous hardware capability.