Banking Current Affairs

The Vigyan Ratna is the highest category of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, recognising a lifetime of achievement in science and technology. In 2025, it was awarded posthumously to Prof. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar — the astrophysicist, cosmologist, founder of IUCAA Pune, and science communicator who worked on the Steady State theory with Fred Hoyle. He died in 2025. This was only the second posthumous Vigyan Ratna in the award's history.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was established in 1968 by Sweden's central bank — 72 years after Nobel's death in 1896. The original five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace) date from 1901. This distinction is a common exam trap in "which is NOT original" questions.

María Corina Machado of Venezuela won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights and for unifying a divided political opposition around the demand for free elections and a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called her "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times."

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi won the 2025 Chemistry Nobel for developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — porous molecular structures with enormous internal surface areas. One gram of MOF can have a surface area larger than a football field, making them valuable for gas storage, separation, and removing environmental pollutants.

Mohanlal was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2023, presented at the 71st National Film Awards ceremony on 23 September 2025. At 65 years of age at the time of presentation, he is the youngest person to have received the award. He is the second recipient primarily associated with Malayalam cinema, after Adoor Gopalakrishnan (2004).

Educate Girls, an NGO focused on enrolling out-of-school girls in rural India, won the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award. This made it the first Indian organisation to receive the prize. India has had approximately 60+ individual winners since 1958, but this was the first time an organisation from India received the honour. The NGO was founded in 2007 by Safeena Husain.