UPSC Current Affairs

Answer: The Infosys Prize 2025 in Mathematical Sciences (Bengaluru, announced Nov 2025) and the Vigyan Yuva–Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar under the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar 2025 (announced Oct 2025)

Sabyasachi Mukherjee of TIFR Mumbai was recognised twice in 2025 for his work in complex dynamics and connections between Mandelbrot sets and Kleinian groups. The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar 2025 was announced on 26 October 2025 by the Ministry of Science and Technology (PIB PRID:2182615). The Infosys Prize 2025 was announced on 12 November 2025. Both recognitions cover the same body of mathematical research, from two entirely different institutions.

Answer: Nikhil Agarwal (MIT) — for market design, including methodology for studying school choice, medical residency matching, and kidney exchange mechanisms

Nikhil Agarwal is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at MIT and a co-director of Blueprint Labs. He received the Infosys Prize 2025 in Economics for developing empirical methods to study and improve allocation mechanisms — practical systems like school admission lotteries, medical residency matching, and kidney exchange programmes that need to match people to places or resources without using prices.

Answer: Replacing fossil-fuel-based Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis with electrochemical routes using renewable electricity

The conventional Haber-Bosch process produces ammonia (used in fertilisers feeding ~50% of the world) by reacting nitrogen with hydrogen at high temperature and pressure, using natural gas as both fuel and hydrogen source. Manthiram at Caltech developed electrochemical pathways — including lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction and oxygen-atom transfer catalysis — that use renewable electricity instead, at room temperature and pressure, reducing the process's carbon footprint.

Answer: Prakrit languages — the family of ancient South Asian spoken languages in which significant Buddhist, Jain, and secular Indian literary heritage was composed

Andrew Ollett of the University of Chicago is the world's leading scholar of Prakrit languages — the ancient South Asian spoken languages distinct from Sanskrit, including Pali, Ardhamagadhi, and Maharashtri. His work covers Prakrit grammar, the cultural history of why authors chose Prakrit over Sanskrit, and the circulation of Prakrit texts across the subcontinent. He is the first Prakrit language scholar to win the Infosys Prize Humanities category.

Answer: Designing "absurdly fast" algorithms — near-linear time solutions for network flow and linear programming problems

Sushant Sachdeva of the University of Toronto received the Infosys Prize 2025 in Engineering and Computer Science for his advances in mathematical optimisation, particularly developing near-linear-time algorithms for flow networks and linear programs. His results have been described as producing "absurdly fast" algorithms because they approach what theorists consider the theoretical limit of speed for these problems.

Answer: Anjana Badrinarayanan — National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru

Anjana Badrinarayanan at NCBS Bengaluru received the Infosys Prize 2025 in Life Sciences for her work on DNA damage repair, particularly for discovering novel mitochondrial DNA damage response pathways. She is the only winner in the 2025 Infosys Prize cohort who is based in India.

Answer: R. Vairamuthu — Tamil poet and lyricist; third Tamil winner and first recognised primarily for Tamil poetry

R. Vairamuthu was named the recipient of the 60th Jnanpith Award for 2025, announced by Bharatiya Jnanpith in March 2026. He is the third Tamil writer to receive the award after Akilan (1975) and Jayakanthan (2002), and the first to be honoured primarily for poetry rather than prose. The selection committee was chaired by Pratibha Ray, who herself won the Jnanpith in 2011.

Answer: Cassandra Kulukundis

Cassandra Kulukundis won the inaugural Best Casting Oscar for One Battle After Another. The Academy had first announced this category in February 2024. It is the first new competitive Oscar category since Best Animated Feature was introduced in 2001.

Answer: Norway

Norway's Sentimental Value, directed by Joachim Trier, won the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards. The film also received acting and other nominations that night.

Answer: 16

Sinners received 16 nominations at the 98th Academy Awards, breaking the previous all-time record of 14, which had been held jointly by All About Eve (1951), Titanic (1998) and La La Land (2017). Despite 16 noms, Sinners won four awards.

Answer: Hamnet

Jessie Buckley won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Agnes, William Shakespeare's partner, in Hamnet. Her win made her the first Irish woman ever to take the Best Actress Oscar.

Answer: Sinners

Michael B. Jordan won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual performance as Smoke and Stack in Sinners, Ryan Coogler's supernatural thriller set in the Jim Crow-era South. It was his first Oscar nomination and first win.

Answer: One Battle After Another

One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, won the Best Picture Oscar at the 98th Academy Awards on 15 March 2026. The film won six awards in total that night — the most of any film at the ceremony.

Answer: Satyajit Ray

The copper plaque handed to every Sahitya Akademi winner was designed by Satyajit Ray — the celebrated Bengali filmmaker was also an accomplished graphic artist and designer.

Answer: 24

Sahitya Akademi awards are given in 24 languages — the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, plus English and Rajasthani, which the Akademi recognises separately.

Answer: Novel

Devabrat Das won for his Assamese novel Karhi Khelar Sadhu. His win represents the novel category among the four novels recognised in the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Awards.

Answer: Allahabad

Mamta Kalia's memoir Jeete Jee Allahabad centres on Allahabad (now Prayagraj), a city long associated with Hindi literary circles. The book won the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Award for Hindi.

Answer: Crimson Spring

Navtej Sarna's novel Crimson Spring won the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Award for English. Sarna, a former IFS officer who served as India's Ambassador to the US, had been writing fiction alongside his diplomatic career.

Answer: 16 March 2026

The awards were announced on 16 March 2026, months after the Akademi had to cancel its original December 2025 press conference when the Ministry of Culture asked for a review of the awards process.

Answer: Harmanpreet Kaur

Harmanpreet Kaur, who captained the Indian women's cricket team to a T20 World Cup title, was awarded the Padma Shri in 2026. She is among the sports awardees in the 2026 Padma Shri list.