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The National Urban Conclave 2026 concluded in Bhubaneswar on 25 October after a two-day programme organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs with the Government of Odisha. The conclave’s theme was “Urban Rising – Rethinking Urban Systems, Solutions and Delivery”, and more than 1,200 participants from governments, urban local bodies, industry and academia attended.

India’s Yuki Bhambri and American Ryan Seggerman won the men’s doubles title at the ATP 250 Almaty Open in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 25 October 2026. They defeated top seeds Lucas Miedler and Neil Oberleitner of Austria in the final.

Shabari Naturals, a Maharashtra government initiative, received the G-Mark – Global Design Award on 25 October 2026 for packaging inspired by traditional tribal art. The Japan Institute of Design Promotion is scheduled to formally present the award in Tokyo on 4 November 2026. Leena Bansod, Managing Director of the Nashik-headquartered Shabari Tribal Finance and Development Corporation (STFDC), will accept it on behalf of the Maharashtra government.

K. Damodharan, popularly known as Chef Damu, died in Chennai on 25 October 2026 at the age of 72. He received the Padma Shri in 2025 for his contribution to culinary arts and was a judge on the Tamil television programme Cooku with Comali.

Yasuo Fukuda, Japan’s prime minister from September 2007 to September 2008, died at the age of 90 on October 22, 2026. His cause of death was heart failure. Born on July 16, 1936, in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, he graduated from Waseda University. He was the eldest son of former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda and the first son of a former Japanese prime minister to serve as Japan’s prime minister.

Astronomers detected fine, thread-like magnetic structures in the chromosphere above a quiet region of the Sun using the Sunrise-III solar observatory. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on 24 October 2026 by an international research team led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).

Indian photographer and fine artist Sitaram Raul won the ‘Behaviour: Invertebrates’ category at the 2026 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. His photograph, titled Shifting Sand, depicts an Indian Buthacus scorpion burrowing into sand near the village of Sam in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert as sunrise approached. The competition is organised by London’s Natural History Museum and received more than 65,000 entries from around the world in 2026.

UK Launches Be Ready Emergency Preparedness Campaign

The UK government launched the “Be Ready” emergency preparedness initiative on 22 October 2026 through the Cabinet Office. The initiative is the first phase of a three-year public awareness campaign advising households on preparation for temporary disruptions to essential services.

Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited (SMFCL) is India’s first dedicated maritime non-banking financial company (NBFC). It aims to make cumulative disbursements of ₹60,205 crore by the end of the 2030–31 financial year. Its target depends on equity support and compliance with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms, including applicable debt-to-equity requirements.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence signed a Letter of Intent with Finnish technology firms Nokia and ICEYE on 22 October 2026 to explore the development of a sovereign satellite communications system. The announcement came during Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s visit to Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The proposed system is intended to reduce Ukraine’s reliance on foreign-controlled satellite networks, including Starlink.