Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India ended this week richer, in the plainest sense of the word. On Friday 28 August the Reserve Bank reported foreign exchange reserves of $729.33 billion for the week ended 21 August — a rise of $12.42 billion, and a record. The number is worth pausing on, because it is not the ordinary drift of a central bank’s balance sheet. Since June the Reserve Bank has run a special US dollar–rupee swap window aimed at overseas deposits and foreign-currency borrowing, and by 21 August banks had raised $72.85 billion through it, of which Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) deposits alone accounted for $65.4 billion. Gold in the reserves rose $2.80 billion to $114.22 billion; Special Drawing Rights stood at $18.85 billion and the reserve position in the International Monetary Fund at $4.93 billion. In rupees the pile is ₹69.81 lakh crore. A country that was told for thirty years to fear its external account has spent this decade quietly removing the fear.
The week’s other running story was Tokyo. Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyal spent 24 to 27 August in Japan at the head of the largest business delegation India has ever sent there — roughly two hundred firms — and the pitch he made was not the familiar one about cost. He asked Japanese capital to build data centres in India, set out a framework exempting certain high-technology manufacturing inputs from Bureau of Indian Standards certification, met Japanese financial institutions about long-term capital, and on 26 August sat down at an India–Japan Startup Roundtable. Japanese precision and Indian scale on one workbench is a proposition India has been making for a decade; what changed this week is that it was made to two hundred companies at once, in their own city.
Three anniversaries fell inside seven days, and together they say more about the last decade than any speech. The Unified Payments Interface turned ten on 25 August. The e-Shram portal for unorganised workers turned five on 26 August, with more than 31 crore registrations behind it. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana turned twelve on 28 August. None of the three was a glamorous idea when it launched; each was an argument that the plumbing matters more than the fixtures. The same argument surfaced on 29 August when the Vice-President released an indigenously built sovereign artificial-intelligence stack for Indian enterprises — built in India rather than merely used here. And on 26 August a working paper for the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister put the technical efficiency of public sector banks at 93.12% for 2025-26, which is the arithmetic of a decade of balance-sheet repair finally showing up as a ratio.
Defence had the busiest desk of the week. On 25 August the Defence Research and Development Organisation released a set of conventional missile technologies to Indian industry — the laboratory handing its drawings to the factory. On 27 August Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Safran Helicopter Engines and their joint venture SAFHAL signed the contract for the Aravalli engine, which takes India into the hardest room in aerospace. The same day the Defence Minister laid the foundation stone of a T-72 overhaul plant at Vehicle Factory Jabalpur, and India and the United Kingdom concluded an inter-governmental agreement on Integrated Full Electric Propulsion for four Landing Platform Docks. Late in the week the defence export gate widened from a list of forty-one countries to all destinations.
Elsewhere the Prime Minister chaired the 53rd PRAGATI review on 25 August, addressed the Khelo India Dialogue on National Sports Day on 27 August, and left on 29 August for Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. On 27 August it was announced that India will host the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam on 12 and 13 September. Markets, for their part, were unmoved by all of it: the Sensex closed Friday at 77,265.00 and the Nifty 50 at 24,175.65, both lower on the week for the third week running.
| Parameter / Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Foreign exchange reserves | $729.33 bn (week ended 21 August 2026, a record — up $12.42 billion, reported by the Reserve Bank on 28 August. In rupees, ₹69.81 lakh crore) |
| Forex inflows via RBI swap window | $72.85 bn raised by banks under the RBI’s special USD–INR swap window to 21 August 2026 — of which FCNR(B) deposits $65.4 billion |
| Gold held in reserves | $114.22 bn (21 August 2026 — up $2.80 billion on the week, and 15.7% of the total reserve pile) |
| Net FPI into Indian equities | ₹27,186 cr in August 2026 to 27 August, on NSDL depository data — against ₹23,544 crore reported to 23 August |
| Sensex & Nifty 50 close | Sensex close 77,265.00 on Friday 28 August 2026 — down 275.83 points, or 0.36%, on the week. Nifty 50 at 24,175.65, down 76.35 points or 0.31% |
| Public sector banks’ technical efficiency | 93.12% in 2025-26, in a working paper for the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, 26 August 2026 |
| e-Shram portal registrations | 31 crore registrations for unorganised workers at its fifth anniversary, 26 August 2026 — one number for one worker |
| UPTET 2026 candidates qualified | 13.30 lakh candidates qualifying in the UPTET 2026 teacher eligibility test, result declared by UPESSC on 26 August 2026 |
01 Governance & the Union Cabinet
• 25 August — PMO. The Prime Minister chaired the 53rd PRAGATI meeting, reviewing six infrastructure projects spanning nine States, with one instruction running through all of them: build once, and build for the traffic of 2047 rather than of today.
• 25 August — Ministry of Home Affairs. The Union Home Minister addressed the valedictory session of the 9th National Security Strategies Conference, which had brought more than 850 police and security officers together over two days and set a timetable for full rollout of the three new criminal laws.
• 29 August — PMO and Ministry of External Affairs. The Prime Minister left for Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, opening a Central Asia leg that takes in Tashkent and Bishkek.
02 Economy, GDP & Public Finance
• 28 August — Reserve Bank of India. Foreign exchange reserves reached a record $729.33 billion for the week ended 21 August, up $12.42 billion, or ₹69.81 lakh crore in rupee terms.
• 28 August — Central Board of Direct Taxes. Seven crore income tax returns were filed for the assessment year, the great majority voluntarily and ahead of the deadline — a compliance number rather than an enforcement one.
• 26 August — Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. A working paper placed the technical efficiency of public sector banks at 93.12% for 2025-26, and put a recovery-rate cost on the decade of balance-sheet repair behind it.
03 Markets, Banking & Insurance
• 28 August — BSE and NSE. The Sensex closed at 77,265.00 and the Nifty 50 at 24,175.65, both higher on Friday but lower across the week for the third week in succession, with information technology the strongest sector on the closing day.
• 27 August — NSDL depository data. Net foreign portfolio investment in Indian equities reached ₹27,186 crore for August, extending a month of steady buying.
• 28 August — Department of Financial Services. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana completed twelve years; the account that began by counting the uncounted is now the rail on which direct benefit transfer runs.
• 28 August — SEBI. India’s largest-ever public issue cleared the regulator, opening the way to a listing that will reset the scale of the domestic primary market.
04 Industry, Manufacturing & MSME
• 24 August — Larsen & Toubro. The company signed an ultra-mega gas compression contract in West Asia valued above ₹15,000 crore — the Gulf’s most demanding gas engineering handed to an Indian contractor.
• 24 August — Government of Haryana. Godrej Industries Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the State for investment of about ₹20,000 crore.
• 25 August — Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys. The greenfield ferro chrome expansion at Kalinganagar, Odisha, began production.
• 25 August — Ministry of MSME. A ‘Parishrama Adalat’ at Hyderabad settled 65 delayed-payment cases worth ₹8.29 crore for micro and small enterprises — an average of about ₹12.75 lakh a case, which for a small firm is the difference between a payroll met and a payroll missed.
05 Trade, Exports & FTAs
• 24–27 August — Ministry of Commerce & Industry. The Commerce and Industry Minister led India’s largest-ever business delegation to Japan, roughly two hundred firms, pitching India as a global data-centre location and outlining a Bureau of Indian Standards exemption framework for high-technology manufacturing.
• 25 August — Directorate General of Foreign Trade. Wheat-flour exports were freed, with specified wheat and durum wheat moved from the prohibited list to free — atta, maida and suji cleared to sail.
• 27 August — Ministry of Commerce & Industry. The 7th Session of the India–Morocco Joint Commission concluded at Rabat, covering market access, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, energy, mining, customs and digital cooperation.
• 28 August — Ministry of Defence. The defence export authorisation gate was widened from a list of forty-one countries to all destinations, subject to end-use conditions.
06 Infrastructure, Transport & Urban Development
• 27 August — Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority. JNPA was reported the world’s fastest-growing container port and now stands 21st globally — a ranking earned on throughput growth rather than on absolute size.
• 29 August — Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Four tunnels on the Char Dham route were fitted with lighting and ventilation, taking the all-weather road a stage closer to being genuinely all-weather.
• 29 August — Government of Jammu & Kashmir. Rural road work worth about ₹1,500 crore began in the Jammu hills, covering roughly 600 kilometres.
07 Energy, Renewables & Climate
• 26 August — Adani Energy Solutions. The company won the ₹4,700 crore transmission link that will evacuate power from the Satara pumped-storage project — the wire that lets the sunshine travel, and the part of the clean-energy chain most often forgotten.
• 29 August — Department of Atomic Energy. About ₹20,000 crore was committed to small modular reactors, moving India’s nuclear programme towards units that can be sited beside industry rather than only on the coast.
• 24 August — Ministry of Coal. The Talabira II and III opencast mines near Sambalpur recorded their highest-ever annual production at 19.14 million tonnes in 2025-26.
• 24 August — Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change. At UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, India pressed for international finance for land restoration and drought resilience that is adequate, predictable and sustained.
08 Agriculture, Rural Development & Cooperatives
• 27 August — Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution. Calibrated release of the onion buffer stock began, the first ‘Kanda Express’ rake leaving Nashik — the buffer moving before the price does, which is the whole purpose of holding one.
• 28 August — Department of Food & Public Distribution. Sugar was placed under a dealer stock limit, with releases moving to a fortnightly cycle from September.
• 24 August — Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The Vice-President launched India’s first non-GMO high-expansion popcorn maize hybrid seed at Musunuru in Eluru district, replacing a kernel India has been importing.
• 29 August — Ministry of New & Renewable Energy. Cattle dung was given a formal price under the bioenergy programme, turning a farm by-product into a farm receipt.
09 Health & Pharmaceuticals
• 28 August — Department of Pharmaceuticals. A second call worth ₹5,000 crore opened under the pharmaceutical and medical-device innovation programme, aimed at moving Indian firms from formulation towards discovery.
• 24 August — Central Bureau of Narcotics and PHARMEXCIL. The two signed a memorandum at Gwalior to smooth the paperwork behind legitimate pharmaceutical exports — the pharmacy of the world asking for a shorter queue at its own gate.
• 29 August — Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. A national elimination target with a fixed year was set for a communicable disease, moving the programme from control to elimination.
10 Education, Skilling & Youth
• 25 August — NITI Aayog. ‘Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat@2047’ was released — a blueprint for the hands that will build the next two decades, and an admission that the skilling system needs redesign rather than mere expansion.
• 26 August — Uttar Pradesh Education Services Selection Commission. The UPTET 2026 result was declared, with 13.30 lakh candidates qualifying. Before a child is taught, a teacher is tested.
• 27 August — Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad. The Union Home Minister addressed the 72nd convocation, where about nine hundred degrees were conferred on the campus Mahatma Gandhi founded.
• 28 August — Ministry of Education. About four thousand research fellowships were announced, each carrying a named scholar rather than a block grant.
11 Science, Space & Technology
• 25 August — CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories. Three indigenous micro and small gas turbine engines — the NJ-05, NJ-50 and NJ-100 — were unveiled. A small gas turbine decides whether an Indian drone is built around an imported core or an Indian one.
• 29 August — Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. The Vice-President released a sovereign artificial-intelligence stack for Indian enterprises, built in India rather than merely deployed here.
• 25 August — Centre for Development of Telematics. C-DOT marked its 43rd Foundation Day, with Made-in-India telecom equipment now pointed at export markets.
• 29 August — Department of Telecommunications. More than 75,000 lost handsets were traced and returned to their owners through the CEIR system in the reporting period.
12 Defence & Internal Security
• 25 August — DRDO. A set of conventional missile technologies was released to Indian industry — the laboratory handing its hardest-won drawings to the factory floor, which is where a defence programme either scales or stalls.
• 27 August — HAL, Safran Helicopter Engines and SAFHAL. The Aravalli engine contract was signed, taking Indian industry into helicopter hot-section design.
• 27 August — Ministry of Defence. The Defence Minister laid the foundation stone of the T-72 overhaul plant at Vehicle Factory Jabalpur, bringing the Ajeya’s mid-life refit onto Indian soil.
• 27 August — India and the United Kingdom. An inter-governmental agreement was concluded on Integrated Full Electric Propulsion for four Landing Platform Docks — a warship that is, at heart, a power station that can sail.
13 Law, Justice & Parliament
• 25 August — Ministry of Home Affairs. A timetable was set at the National Security Strategies Conference for full implementation of the three new criminal laws across States and Union Territories.
• 28 August — Ministry of Law & Justice. A council was constituted for the quieter kind of justice — mediation and alternative dispute resolution — aimed at the commercial disputes that clog the docket.
• 29 August — National Human Rights Commission. The Commission held a camp sitting at Gandhinagar, taking the hearing to the complainant rather than the other way round.
• Parliament was not in session during the week under review.
14 Social Welfare, Women & Child, Tribal Affairs
• 26 August — Ministry of Labour & Employment. The e-Shram portal completed five years with more than 31 crore registrations — thirty-one crore names, and a number each, which is the first condition of any portable benefit.
• 26 August — Government of Delhi. Four thousand women received approval letters under the Delhi Lakshmi Yojana, with transfers to begin from the first of the month.
• 28 August — Ministry of Rural Development. Self-help group women in the North East received a first tranche of ₹10,000 each, framed as the opening of a longer credit road rather than as a grant.
15 The States & the North East
• 25 August — Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, Shillong. Stunting among children under five was reported down from 46% to about 36% in three years — a fall of ten percentage points, or about 21.7% of the earlier level — with maternal mortality down 55%.
• 25 August — Government of Uttar Pradesh.
The Chief Minister distributed 481 appointment letters at Lucknow and set a six-month target of one lakh more.
• 25 August — Government of Delhi.
The Food Safety Department intensified festive-season enforcement — the check that comes before the festival rather than after it.
16 Culture, Heritage & Tourism
• 26 August — Indian Institute of Creative Technologies and Netflix. Scholarships were announced for one hundred students across six creative programmes — a hundred places for the people who will tell India’s stories.
• 25 August — BRICS Academic Forum, Lucknow. The 18th Academic Forum closed under India’s BRICS chairship, scholars from the member nations arguing the agenda before the ministers sign it.
• 29 August — Bengaluru. A public centenary was observed in the city, keeping a civic memory that would otherwise have passed unmarked.
17 Sport
• 27 August — National Sports Day. The Prime Minister addressed the Khelo India Dialogue, taking the country’s sporting conversation down to district level and proposing two sports colleges in every district.
• 26 August — Grand Chess Tour. R Praggnanandhaa reached the final of the tour’s concluding leg — sixty-four squares, and a young Indian who keeps finding the sixty-fifth.
• 29 August — Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. The ‘one hour on the playing field’ call was carried nationally as the practical form of National Sports Day.
18 India & the World
• 27 August — Ministry of External Affairs. India announced it will host the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12 and 13 September — the bloc at twenty, hosted from the chair.
• 25 August — National Security Council Secretariat, Beijing. The National Security Adviser co-chaired the 25th round of the Special Representatives’ Talks.
• 29 August — Ministry of Defence, New Delhi. India and Kuwait held the first meeting of their Joint Defence Cooperation Committee at DPSU Bhawan.
• 27 August — Ministry of External Affairs, Ha Noi. The Minister of State for External Affairs called on Vietnam’s Prime Minister, drafting the next decade of a partnership that now runs from coast guards to electronics.
