Celebrations for 100 years of the Ol Chiki script were held in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. Ol Chiki is used to write Santhali, a language listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and its creator, Pandit Raghunath Murmu, is regarded as the father of the script.
The Bihar government approved a revised plan to develop the Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary into a tiger reserve. If the National Tiger Conservation Authority agrees, it will be Bihar's second tiger reserve after Valmiki Tiger Reserve in West Champaran. State governments notify tiger reserves under Section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, on the NTCA's advice.
In early January 2026, India’s economic outlook reflected cautious optimism ahead of the Union Budget 2026-27. Key indicators such as GDP growth, inflation trends, and fiscal deficit projections played a crucial role in shaping expectations. India was projected to maintain a steady GDP growth rate of around 6.5–7%, driven by strong domestic consumption and infrastructure investments.
The University of Madras (Amendment) Bill, which the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed in April 2022, came back without the President's assent. It wanted the State government, rather than the Governor as ex officio Chancellor, to appoint the university's Vice-Chancellor, by changing 'Chancellor' to 'Government' in Section 11 of the Madras University Act, 1923.
A three-member committee chaired by Gagandeep Singh Bedi, with K.R. Shanmugam and Pratik Tayal as members, gave its final report on employee pensions to the Tamil Nadu government. It compared the Old Pension Scheme (for staff who joined before 1 April 2003), the Contributory Pension Scheme (10% employee share matched by the State) and the Centre's Unified Pension Scheme.
A rare Eastern Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliaca) was seen in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu during the winter migration season. This large eagle breeds in Central Asia and Eastern Europe and moves south in winter.
The Reserve Bank of India published its Trend and Progress of Banking in India report. It says bad loans of banks (gross NPAs) fell to a 13-year low of 2.7% in March 2024 and then to 2.5% by September 2024. Return on assets was 1.4% and return on equity 14.6% in 2023-24.
The RBI has started reviewing its Scale-Based Regulation (SBR) framework for non-banking financial companies. SBR, in place since 2022, places NBFCs in four tiers, the Base, Middle, Upper and Top layers, by their size and risk. NBFC credit is now close to 15% of India's GDP, and these firms are increasingly linked with banks.
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