Daily Current Affairs 15 October 2026

The 15 October 2026 edition leads with the 21st meeting of the Maritime State Development Council (MSDC) in Mumbai, its first since it became a statutory consultative body under the Indian Ports Act, 2025, at which States and Union Territories were asked to notify their rules under Section 77 within three months and the One Nation One Port Process reforms were set to reach all ports by March 2027; the end of the Indian Navy’s first command of a Combined Maritime Forces task force, Combined Task Force 154, handed over at a ceremony in Manama, Bahrain; and the first cohort of 19 Second Level Fund Managers under the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, with a commitment of ₹7,131 crore, along with the addition of advanced chemicals, petrochemicals and material technologies as an eligible technology area and a ₹151 crore debt agreement between the Technology Development Board and ideaForge.

The roundup covers India’s trade with China in January to September 2026, as reported from Chinese customs data, with exports up about 40% and a deficit above $100 billion; a Law Ministry mission with 19 National Law Universities on pendency in the top 100 judicial districts; the NHRC’s 33rd Foundation Day conference on the right to water; the IGNCA conference marking the centenary of the Greater India Society; and a Supreme Court hearing on Delhi voters deleted in the SIR, with no order yet and the next hearing on 28 October. Also in the news: protection for journalist Abhishek Upadhyay, the railway bonus, Canada’s Foreign Minister in Delhi, the DRI’s Operation Deep Manifest and the BS-VII draft. Editorials from The Hindu and The Indian Express take up India’s China+1 lessons in its own States, green trade rules and CBAM as an export opportunity, the myth of “unskilled” labour, the lapse of DAY-NULM, the urban livelihoods mission behind women’s self-help groups, and how Punjab’s drug trade and targeted killings feed each other, with an explainer on how the Supreme Court has strengthened arrest safeguards under Article 22.