Book on President Droupadi Murmu Released

10 January 2026National

A book chronicling the life and journey of President Droupadi Murmu was released on 10 January 2026.

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Sangeet Natak Akademi Confers the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar on 106 Young Artists

The Sangeet Natak Akademi conferred the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for 2024 and 2025 on 106 young artists at a ceremony in New Delhi addressed by Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Instituted in 2006, the award honours outstanding performers below the age of 40 across music, dance, theatre, puppetry and allied performing arts, and carries a citation, an *angavastram* and a cash prize of ₹25,000. It is the Akademi's youth-tier honour below the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, and extends a 2026 run of cultural recognitions that included the Ramanujan Prize and the Kalaimamani-winning composer Deva, whose death was reported the same week.

GK ByteThe Sangeet Natak Akademi was set up in 1952 as India's national academy for music, dance and drama and is headquartered in New Delhi | Its highest honour is the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna), limited to 40 living recipients at a time | Ustad Bismillah Khan, the shehnai maestro after whom the youth award is named, received the Bharat Ratna in 2001

📅 21 Oct 2026AwardsRead complete →

SBI Named Global Finance's World's Best Consumer Bank 2026 for the Second Consecutive Year

State Bank of India was named World's Best Consumer Bank 2026 by Global Finance magazine for the second year in a row, and also won Best Bank in India 2026. Chairman Challa Sreenivasulu Setty received the awards at the World's Best Bank Awards ceremony held alongside the IMF Annual Meetings 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand. The recognition cited SBI's revamped YONO platform, which has crossed 10 crore registered users. Other winners included Banco Santander of Spain as World's Best Bank, DBS Bank of Singapore as World's Best Corporate Bank, BBVA as Best Emerging Markets Bank and Ecobank of Togo as Best Frontier Markets Bank.

GK ByteSBI is headquartered at Mumbai; it traces its origin to the Bank of Calcutta (1806), became the Imperial Bank of India in 1921 and was constituted as SBI on 1 July 1955 | SBI, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are India's Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) | YONO, short for 'You Only Need One', was launched by SBI in 2017 as its integrated digital banking platform

📅 19 Oct 2026AwardsRead complete →

SEWA's Reema Nanavaty Receives the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award at Georgetown University

Reema Nanavaty, Director of India's Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), received the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) in Washington, D.C., for her work on women's economic empowerment, livelihoods, peace and security. A Padma Shri (2013) awardee for social work, she has led SEWA's expansion among informal-sector women workers. The award, instituted in 2014, was presented by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The other 2026 honourees were fashion designer Tory Burch, of the Tory Burch Foundation, and Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of Grameen Bank.

GK ByteSEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association, was founded in 1972 at Ahmedabad by Ela Bhatt as a trade union of informal-sector women workers | Ela Bhatt received the Padma Shri (1985), the Padma Bhushan (1986) and the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1977) | Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microcredit in Bangladesh

📅 19 Oct 2026AwardsRead complete →

Israel to Honour Indian Pilot Smit Machchhar With Its Highest Civilian Bravery Award

Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced that Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot flying for flydubai, will receive the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism - Israel's highest civilian bravery honour - for resisting a mid-flight cockpit attack by his co-pilot and saving 174 passengers and crew. The co-pilot, an Omani national, allegedly attacked him with a crash axe. Machchhar has over 9,750 flying hours on Boeing aircraft and spent over 11 years at SpiceJet as Senior Commander and Line Training Captain before joining flydubai in June 2022. Instituted after the 7 October 2023 attack, the award rarely goes to a foreign national.

GK ByteIsaac Herzog has been President of Israel since July 2021; the President is elected by the Knesset for a single seven-year term | Israel's currency is the Israeli new shekel and its seat of government is Jerusalem | flydubai is a Dubai government-owned low-cost carrier launched in 2009

📅 12 Oct 2026AwardsRead complete →

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