Banking: A Committee Is Coming, and 125 Bankers Are Writing Its Brief
The Department of Financial Services’ two-day PSB Confluence, which ends today in New Delhi, drew about 125 chairmen, managing directors and executive directors. The Finance Minister said its outcomes will be placed before a high-powered committee on public sector bank reform — making this conference an input document, not a talking shop.
Prices: The Wholesale Index Actually Fell — a First
Wholesale inflation eased to 9.78 per cent in July from 9.87 in June. The detail everyone skipped: the all-commodities index itself slipped from 110.2 to 110.0, the first month-on-month fall since the 2022-23 base series began. Fuel and power inflation dropped sharply, from 27.41 per cent to 20.05.
Monsoon: Six Per Cent Short, and Very Unevenly So
India had 557.7 mm of rain to 17 August against a long period average of 596.2 mm, about six per cent short. The national figure hides the map: the northwest is above normal while Kerala is 45 per cent short, Jharkhand 37 and Bihar 30. Averages do not sow crops.
Weather: A Depression, and an Extremely Heavy Day for Jharkhand
A depression over the northwest Bay of Bengal and the adjoining West Bengal–north Odisha coasts is driving heavy to very heavy rain over Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The IMD flags isolated extremely heavy falls over Jharkhand today — the state also sitting on a 37 per cent seasonal deficit.
Uttar Pradesh
Ration Dealers Get ₹35 More a Quintal
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath raised the commission for Uttar Pradesh’s fair price shop dealers from ₹90 to ₹125 a quintal, benefiting more than 78,000 shops. It is a 38.9 per cent rise, and it came bundled with an e-PoS-based dealer feedback system under single-stage doorstep delivery.
Diplomacy: Delhi Opens the Civil Track Before the Summit
The BRICS Civil Forum 2026 opened in Delhi, addressed by the Ministry of External Affairs Secretary handling economic relations, who said its inputs will feed the leaders’ summit. Separately, the Environment Ministry hosted the BRICS environment working group’s senior officials. India chairs BRICS this year for the fourth time.
Governance
Fifteen Retired Officials, and What They Fixed
Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh conferred the National Anubhav Awards 2026 on 15 awardees at Vigyan Bhawan — the ninth edition. The awards recognise write-ups by retiring and retired government staff; this year’s citations named passport service centres, rule simplification and accounting automation. Institutional memory, written down before it walks out.
Semiconductors : Three of Twelve Are Shipping
Three of the twelve commercial facilities approved under the India Semiconductor Mission are now operational, against total sanctioned investment of about ₹1,65,685 crore across six states. The Tata–PSMC 300 mm line at Dholera is targeting first silicon by December 2026; packaging, not fabrication, is what is running today.
Automobiles: Thirty-Two Thousand Electric Cars in a Month
Electric passenger vehicle retails crossed 30,000 for a second straight month in July, at 32,609 units, up 83 per cent year on year. Tata Motors sold 13,578 — its best month, and enough to push its share of the electric market back above 40 per cent after a long gap below it.
Education
A Convocation, and a Line About Marks
Addressing the 11th convocation of the Central University of Tamil Nadu at Thiruvarur, C.P. Radhakrishnan argued that education cannot be measured by examinations or numbers alone, but by the capacity to think independently, work together and keep learning. A useful sentence in a season dominated by cut-offs.
Uttarakhand: Children From the Last Villages, at the First House
President Droupadi Murmu received a group of students from border villages of the Kumaon region, visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan on a National Integration Tour. The villages concerned sit in the belt now designated for the Vibrant Villages Programme — settlements that policy once called “last”, and now calls “first”.
Goa: Seedlings, and an Israeli Greenhouse in Ponda
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant joined a vegetable and flower seedling distribution under Swayampurna Goa, run by the agriculture directorate with the Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence at Kodar, Ponda. The centre’s role is the story: protected-cultivation technique transferred to smallholders in a state with very little farmland to spare.
