Current Affairs Quiz - August 2026

Notes:
India won both the men’s and women’s team titles at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships 2026. The championship was held at Thyagraj Stadium, New Delhi from 27 July to 2 August 2026. India’s men’s team defeated Malaysia by 3-2 in the final to defend its title. India’s women’s team defeated Malaysia by 3-0 in the final. Both Indian teams remained unbeaten throughout the tournament.

Notes:
Indian judokas won historic gold medals at the Commonwealth Games 2026 in Glasgow. Asmita Dey won India’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal in Judo. She defeated Heidi Quach (Canada) in the women’s 48 kg final. Harsh Singh won the men’s 60 kg gold medal. He defeated Joshua Katz (Australia) in the final. Harsh sealed the win with a Waza-ari in the final minute. India won two consecutive gold medals in Judo at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Notes:
A massive Dhimsa dance performance at Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport, Bhogapuram (Andhra Pradesh) entered the Guinness World Records. 13,000 tribal girls from Classes VIII, IX, and X participated in the event. Dhimsa is a traditional tribal folk dance of the Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh. It symbolises nature, unity, and community life.

Notes:
Tejaswin Shankar won the bronze medal in the men’s decathlon at the Commonwealth Games 2026. He became the first Indian to win a medal in the men’s decathlon at a major international multi-sport event. He is also the first Indian athlete to win Commonwealth Games medals in two different athletics disciplines. Tejaswin had earlier won bronze in men’s high jump at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022. He is the Asian champion in the decathlon and heptathlon. He is India’s national record holder in the decathlon.

Notes:
Arunachal Pradesh government has launched the e-Bhavishya Pension Sanction and Tracking System. It is a paperless digital platform developed to streamline pension processing for government employees. The system has been developed for the Department of Audit & Pension. The platform digitises the entire pension sanction process. It aims to reduce paperwork, minimise delays and errors, and ensure timely retirement benefits. It also enables real-time tracking and monitoring of pension cases, improving transparency and efficiency.

Notes:
Scientists discovered a new species of blind, blood-red eel named Rakthamichthys anchi in Goalpara district, Assam. The species was found in dug-out groundwater wells and is phreatobitic, living exclusively in groundwater aquifers. The eel is blind and lacks body pigment; its blood-red colour is due to visible blood vessels beneath transparent skin. The word “anchi” means “blood” in the Garo language. Rakthamichthys is an endemic Indian genus of swamp eels. Rakthamichthys anchi is the second species of the genus discovered in Northeast India.

Notes:
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has developed India’s first fully annotated Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) reference genome of pigeonpea (Asha variety). Pigeonpea is popularly known as Arhar or Tur. It is India’s first fully annotated T2T genome of a pulse crop. The genome contains 752.65 million base pairs assembled into 92 contigs. It provides a complete map of 11 chromosomes, including 11 centromeres and 22 telomeres. Scientists identified 36,557 genes and 48,008 messenger RNAs (mRNAs). The genome will support the development of high-yielding, climate-resilient and nutritionally enriched pigeonpea varieties.

Notes:
The e-Pratyaropan digital platform was unveiled during the 16th Indian Organ Donation Day event in New Delhi by Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel. e-Pratyaropan is a national-level unified digital platform for organ donation and transplantation. It aims to digitize and streamline India’s organ transplant ecosystem. The platform serves as a single integrated interface for organ donation and transplantation services. It connects hospitals, transplant surgeons, organ donors, recipients on the waiting list, and regulatory authorities. The initiative is expected to improve transparency, coordination, efficiency and accessibility in organ transplantation across the country.

Notes:
The book “Bringing the Cheetah Back to India: How Diplomacy Made Conservation’s Big Mission Possible” has been released. The book is authored by Prashant Agrawal, an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer of the 1998 batch (Madhya Pradesh cadre). The book documents India’s Project Cheetah and the efforts behind the reintroduction of cheetahs. It highlights the diplomatic, logistical and ecological challenges involved in bringing African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. It emphasises the role of international cooperation and diplomacy in wildlife conservation.

Notes:
India, as the Chair of BRICS 2026, is hosting the 3rd BRICS Culture Working Group Meeting in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, from 5–6 August 2026. The meeting brings together representatives from BRICS member countries to strengthen cultural cooperation and prepare for the BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting. It aligns with India’s BRICS 2026 theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”