4.5/5
Current Affairs 20th February 2026
Important Straits of the World
-
Palk Strait
-
Strait of Gibraltar
-
Bering Strait
-
Strait of Malacca
-
Strait of Hormuz
-
Strait of Dover
-
Sunda Strait
1. Subodh Gupta Conferred 'CEO of the Year'at Business Leader of 2026
-
Strategic Healthcare Innovation: The award recognizes Gupta’s leadership in pivoting the company toward advanced cancer diagnostics and genetic testing, significantly strengthening India's oncology and genomics ecosystem.
-
NationalExpansion: Under his tenure, the company has expanded its footprint across India through a structured franchise model (Lord’s Path), aimed at making high-quality, standardized pathology services accessible to the masses.
-
Operational Excellence: An independent jury selected him for combining business growth with strong corporate governance and a commitment to CSR, including the association of cricket legend Rahul Dravid as a brand ambassador to build trust in preventive healthcare.
2. India Sets Guinness World Record with 2.5 lakh AI Pledges in 24 Hours
-
Record-Breaking Scale: India achieved the Guinness World Records title for the "Most pledges received for an AI responsibility campaign in 24 hours," recording exactly 250,946 valid pledges between February 16 and 17, 2026.
-
Youth-Driven Movement: The initiative focused heavily on the younger generation, with over 2.5 lakh students and faculty members from colleges across the nation participating. The campaign was led by the IndiaAI Mission in collaboration with Intel India.
-
Focus on Ethical AI: Beyond the numbers, the pledge required participants to engage with scenario-based modules covering data privacy, transparency, accountability, and the fight against misinformation, reinforcing India’s commitment to a "human-centric" AI ecosystem.
3. Japan reappoints Sanae Takaichi as PM
-
Landslide Mandate and Supermajority: Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured a massive two-thirds "supermajority" (316 out of 465 seats) in the Lower House. This commanding position allows her administration to pass key legislation and override potential rejections from the Upper House, where the ruling coalition is less dominant.
-
Hard-Right Policy Shift: As Japan's first female Prime Minister, Takaichi has pledged to use her new mandate for a significant right-wing shift. Her priorities include revising Japan’s pacifist Constitution, establishing a National Intelligence Agency, and increasing military spending to 2% of GDP to counter regional security threats.
-
"Sanaenomics" and Economic Relief: To combat inflation and sluggish wages, she has proposed a two-year suspension of the consumption tax on food. Her economic strategy, often called "Sanaenomics," focuses on aggressive government spending and "crisis management investment" in sectors like AI, semiconductors, and nuclear fusion.
Footnotes: Japan's Prime Minister: Sanae Takaichi, Capital: Tokyo
4. Delhi Announces Bhu-Aadhaar: Unique ID for Land Parcel
-
14-Digit Digital Identity: Every land parcel in Delhi will be assigned a Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN), a 14-digit alphanumeric code. Often called "Aadhaar for land," this ID will store comprehensive details including ownership, land size, and precise longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates.
-
Advanced Geospatial Mapping: The project utilizes approximately 2 terabytes of high-quality geospatial data and drone-based imaging provided by the Survey of India. This geo-referencing ensures that boundaries are digitally fixed, significantly reducing the risk of property fraud, multiple registrations, and boundary disputes.
-
Phased Rollout and Integration: Following a successful pilot in Tilangpur Kotla (West Delhi), the system is being expanded citywide in a phased manner. It integrates with the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) and will cover all areas, including 48 villages already mapped under the SVAMITVA scheme, to create a unified digital land database.
Footnotes: Delhi's CM: Rekha Gupta, Governor: Vinai Kumar Saxena
5. UP Govt launches District-Level Manuscript Digitisation initiative
-
Implementation of 'Gyan Bharatam Mission': This initiative is a key part of the national Gyan Bharatam Mission (announced in the Union Budget 2025-26). It aims to identify, survey, and digitize rare manuscripts and historic texts that are more than 75 years old, ensuring they are preserved for future generations.
-
District-Level Governance: To ensure thorough coverage, the Chief Development Officer (CDO) of each district has been appointed as the nodal officer. They are tasked with documenting manuscripts held not only in government institutions but also in private collections, temples, monasteries, and libraries.
-
Digital Accessibility & Ownership: While the government will perform high-quality scanning and host the digital copies on the Gyan Bharatam portal for global research access, the original ownership remains with the individual collectors or institutions. This ensures that private heritage is protected while the knowledge within is democratized.
Footnotes: UP's Governor: Anandiben Patel, CM: Yogi Adityanath, Capital: Lucknow
6. Google Unveils $15B America–India Connect Subsea Cable Project
-
Strategic $15 Billion Investment: Google is committing $15 billion over five years (2026–2030) to strengthen India’s AI infrastructure. This includes building a "gigawatt-scale" full-stack AI data center hub and an international subsea gateway in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), marking its largest investment in India to date.
-
Expansion of Global Connectivity: The project will establish three new subsea cable paths connecting India directly to Singapore, South Africa, and Australia. These routes will link the American east and west coasts to India via the Southern Hemisphere, creating a high-capacity, redundant data corridor that bypasses traditional bottlenecks.
-
Addressing the "AI Divide": By diversifying landing points beyond Mumbai and Chennai to include Vizag, the initiative aims to increase the resilience of India's digital backbone. The goal is to ensure reliable, high-speed internet access that prevents a "digital divide" from becoming an "AI divide," while also training 20 million public servants in AI tools through the Karmayogi Bharat mission.
Footnotes: Google's CEO: Sundar Pichai, HQ: California, Estd: 1998
7. Kerala to launch India's first graphene policy to become global tech hub
-
Strategic Infrastructure Development: The policy centers on the establishment of a Grefine Park in Palakkad and a Digital Innovation Centre (backed by a ₹200 crore investment). These facilities will work alongside the existing ₹87-crore Graphene Innovation Centre in Kalamassery to create a complete ecosystem from lab research to mass manufacturing.
-
Major Industrial Incentives: To attract global and domestic investors, Kerala is offering a 50% subsidy on lease payments for manufacturing units established in government-managed industrial parks. Additionally, the state will provide capital expenditure support of up to 45%, along with exemptions from stamp duty and power duty for graphene-based startups and industries.
-
Global Academic-Industry Linkages: The policy emphasizes bridging the "lab-to-market" gap by fostering direct collaborations with world-renowned institutions, including Oxford and Manchester Universities (where graphene was first isolated).
Footnotes: Kerala's CM: Pinarayi Vijayan, Governor: Rajendra Arlekar, Capital: Thiruvananthapuram
8. L&T, Nvidia set up gigawatt-scale AI data centre infrastructure in India
-
Sovereign "AI Factory" Model: Unlike traditional data centers, this "AI Factory" is specifically engineered for high-density GPU clusters. It is designed as a sovereign infrastructure, ensuring that critical Indian data, AI models, and workloads are built, trained, and stored within national boundaries while remaining interoperable with global systems.
-
Gigawatt-Scale Roadmap: The initiative targets a massive gigawatt-scale (GW) capacity over the long term. Initial phases involve scaling the NVIDIA GPU cluster at L&T’s Chennai campus to 30 MW and developing a new 40 MW AI-ready facility in Mumbai, providing the massive compute power needed for large-scale AI training and inference.
-
Full-Stack Integration for Industry: The partnership combines L&T’s infrastructure expertise with NVIDIA’s complete technology stack (GPUs, CPUs, and AI Enterprise software). This will enable L&T group companies to deploy "Agentic AI" and "Lights-Out Factories"—fully automated industrial operations—across sectors like energy, healthcare, and financial services.
Footnotes: Nvidia's President & CEO: Jensen Huang, HQ: California, Estd: 1993
WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?
World Day of Social Justice: 20thFebruary
-
Theme 2026:Renewed Commitment to Social Development and Social Justice
1 like |
0 comment
