1 . National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) 2025–26
Syllabus Mapping: GS-III: Infrastructure | Urbanisation | Inclusive Growth | Evidence-based Policy | GS-I: Urbanisation & Society
- The National Statistics Office (NSO), MoSPI conducted the first-ever all-India National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) during July 2025–June 2026, covering 14,274 villages, 10,377 urban blocks, 4,92,023 households and 20,34,371 persons.
- The survey defines a trip as travel covering more than 1 km; trips of 1 km or less are excluded from the travel estimates.
- Two-wheelers are the leading mode of workforce mobility, used by 6% of workers undertaking within-travel-day trips to fixed/non-fixed workplaces; the share is 37.1% in rural areas and 52.3% in urban areas.
- 6% of workers undertake within-travel-day trips of more than 1 km to work, with a significant gender gap: 61.9% of male workers compared with 41.9% of female workers.
- Student mobility is led by walking (37.0%), followed by buses (29.5%) and bicycles (15.8%), showing the continuing importance of low-cost and non-motorised transport for educational access.
- 6% of students reach educational institutions within 30 minutes, while 83.4% of workers reach fixed workplaces within 30 minutes, indicating relatively short average commute durations at the national level.
- Average monthly expenditure on commuting to a fixed workplace is ₹785 per worker, but the urban–rural gap is substantial: ₹1,044 in urban areas versus ₹612 in rural areas.
- For overnight household journeys, buses account for 8% and inter-city railways 17.7%, together accounting for 73.5% of such journeys; cars account for 15.1% and two-wheelers 8.8%.
- Social, communication and religious activities account for 70.2% of overnight travel, while culture, leisure, sports and tourism account for 7.4%, highlighting that household mobility extends substantially beyond employment and education.
- The survey is intended to provide an evidence base for transport-route optimisation, service frequency and scheduling, accessibility assessment, infrastructure investment and regional transport planning.
- A key feature of NHTS is its household-based approach, allowing travel behaviour to be examined together with household and individual characteristics rather than measuring only traffic volumes on roads.
- The survey distinguishes between within-travel-day trips and overnight trips; an overnight trip requires the person to remain away from residence for more than 24 hours and, additionally, trips below 50 km are excluded from the overnight-trip category even if the person stays away for more than 24 hours.
2. Project Cheetah — Indian-born Cheetah Breeds in Kuno
Syllabus Mapping: GS-III: Environment & Ecology | Species Reintroduction | Wildlife Conservation | Genetic Diversity
- An Indian-born female cheetah KJP21, aged 32 months, has given birth to five healthy cubs at Kuno National Park, taking India’s cheetah population to 60, including 41 Indian-born cheetahs.
- KJP21 is the third Indian-born female cheetah to reproduce, after Mukhi and KGP12, marking the emergence of a new generation born and raised in India.
- The cubs represent the beginning of the Botswana lineage in India, as their father is a Botswanan male cheetah, thereby adding another genetic lineage to the reintroduced population.
- The development is significant for Project Cheetah because successful reproduction of Indian-born individuals indicates progression from merely establishing a founder population towards natural population growth within India.
- Project Cheetah was launched in September 2022 with the objective of establishing a viable cheetah metapopulation in India, restoring the species to its former ecological range and promoting ecological restoration of grassland and open-forest ecosystems.
- India’s reintroduction programme involves bringing cheetahs from African countries, particularly Namibia and South Africa, because the Asiatic cheetah population surviving today is restricted to Iran and is not the source population used for India’s project.
- Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh is the principal site for Project Cheetah and was selected because of its relatively large prey base, suitable habitat and potential to support a cheetah population.
- Unlike tigers, cheetahs generally rely on high-speed pursuit of prey in relatively open terrain, making maintenance of open habitats and prey availability particularly important for their conservation.
- The Botswana lineage highlighted in the current development is important because maintaining genetic diversity within a small founder population can improve long-term population resilience and reduce risks associated with genetic bottlenecks.
3. State Support Mission (SSM) — NITI Aayog
Syllabus Mapping: GS-II: Cooperative Federalism | Institutional Capacity | Decentralised Planning | Evidence-Based Policymaking
- NITI Aayog, in collaboration with the Government of West Bengal and technical support from UNDP, organised a National Workshop on SDG Budgeting in Kolkata on 29 September 2026 under the State Support Mission (SSM).
- The workshop focused on SDG budget tagging—linking government expenditure with specific SDGs and targets so that financial commitments can be tracked against measurable development outcomes
- State Support Mission (SSM) is an ongoing Central Sector Scheme of NITI Aayog, launched in 2022, to strengthen structured and institutionalised engagement with States/UTs and support the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047.
- Its central focus is to help States/UTs establish State Institutions for Transformation (SITs) or transform existing Planning Departments/Boards/Commissions into multidisciplinary institutions for strategic and evidence-based policymaking.
- SSM is therefore not a conventional infrastructure or beneficiary-oriented scheme; it is primarily an institutional and technical-capacity support mechanism for State-level planning and governance.
- As of the latest NITI Aayog annual report, 32 SITs had been notified under SSM, indicating the institutionalisation of the Mission across participating States/UTs.
- Under SSM, NITI Aayog supports States in strengthening Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) systems and data-analytics capabilities, enabling evidence-based decisions, outcome assessment and mid-course corrections.
- The NITI–State Workshop Series functions as a platform under SSM for policy dialogue, cross-learning, sharing best practices and collaborative problem-solving; over 78 workshops had been conducted across sectors by July 2026.
4. National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
Syllabus Mapping: GS-III: Science & Technology | ICT | Artificial Intelligence | Indigenous Technology
- India’s supercomputing ecosystem has expanded under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), with 40 supercomputers having a combined capacity of 68 PF as of September 2026, including 13 systems above 1 PF.
- NSM was launched in April 2015 with an outlay of about ₹4,500 crore and is jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
- C-DAC, Pune and IISc, Bengaluru are the implementing institutions; the Mission follows a “Build” approach covering assembly, manufacturing, and design/manufacturing support.
- NSM plans to establish 50 supercomputers with cumulative capacity exceeding 123 PF across academic and research institutions, expanding access to HPC beyond specialised computing centres.
- India’s indigenous HPC ecosystem now covers servers, system software, high-speed interconnects and cooling technologies, reducing dependence on imported supercomputing infrastructure.
- The Rudra series of servers, indigenously designed by C-DAC, forms a major component of PARAM Rudra systems; around 6,000 Rudra servers had been deployed by September 2026, with another 1,500 under manufacturing.
- Indigenous 100 Gbps and 200 Gbps high-speed interconnect networks, cooling technology and an HPC software stack have been developed to strengthen the domestic supercomputing ecosystem.
- NSM-supported applications include genomics and drug discovery, weather and climate modelling, flood prediction, forest-fire spread modelling, seismic imaging, computational chemistry and materials science.
- National Knowledge Network (NKN) acts as the high-speed connectivity backbone linking supercomputing facilities across academic and research institutions, enabling access to computational resources and collaboration.
- PARAM Shavak, a “supercomputing-in-a-box”, has been developed for HPC and AI requirements of students and researchers in engineering colleges and universities.
- NSM is a joint initiative of DST and MeitY, combining the scientific-research mandate of DST with the electronics and information-technology capabilities of MeitY.
- The PARAM series represents India’s indigenous supercomputing journey: PARAM 8000, developed by C-DAC and unveiled in 1991, marked India’s entry into indigenous supercomputing at around 1 gigaflop.
5. Exercise MOUNTAIN GUARDIAN 2026
Syllabus Mapping: GS-II: India–UAE Relations | Defence Cooperation | GS-III: Defence Technology | Military Exercises
- Exercise MOUNTAIN GUARDIAN 2026, the India–UAE Joint Military Exercise, commenced at the Foreign Training Node, Chaubatia, Uttarakhand, and is being conducted from 5–18 October 2026.
- The exercise involves 92 personnel with equal representation from both countries; the Indian contingent comprises troops from a Bhairav Battalion, while the UAE contingent comprises troops from a Mountain Infantry Battalion.
- Its principal focus is mountain warfare, with emphasis on interoperability, tactical proficiency and exchange of operational practices in challenging mountainous terrain.
- Training includes joint planning, tactical drills, firing practices, surveillance grids, drone operations, rock climbing, obstacle training and integrated field exercises.
- Women officers and combatants from both armies are participating across specialist roles, reflecting greater participation of women in operational military activities.
- The exercise also incorporates technology-enabled operations and exchange of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) relevant to mountain operations.
- The exercise seeks to strengthen military-to-military cooperation, interoperability and mutual understanding between India and the UAE.
