Current Affairs — 9 August 2026

1. Har Ghar Tiranga Abhiyan Launched from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Core Context: The Har Ghar Tiranga Abhiyan is a nationwide campaign encouraging citizens to display the National Flag at their homes, and choosing a location tied to India's freedom struggle for its launch each year deepens the campaign's symbolic weight.

Latest Developments:

• The Vice President formally launched this year's edition of the Har Ghar Tiranga Abhiyan by hoisting the National Flag at Flag Point in Sri Vijaya Puram, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, describing the islands as a sacred land of sacrifice for their deep association with India's freedom movement.
• The chosen site carries strong historical resonance, as it is where Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose hoisted the Tricolour on 30 December 1943, proclaiming the islands free from British rule under the Azad Hind Government.
• The campaign, coinciding with the anniversary of the Quit India Movement, runs through mid-August under the nodal Ministry of Culture, urging citizens across the country to display the flag as an expression of patriotism and unity.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The Har Ghar Tiranga campaign was first launched in 2022 as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav commemorations.
• Display and use of the National Flag is governed by the Flag Code of India, 2002, along with the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.
• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands served as the seat of the Azad Hind Government under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose after Japanese forces handed over control of the islands in 1943, and they were renamed Shaheed and Swaraj Dweep in 2018.

2. Government e-Marketplace Completes a Decade of Public Procurement

Core Context: Public procurement in India has traditionally been slow and opaque, and the Government e-Marketplace was created to bring transparency, efficiency and wider participation, including for small businesses, into government buying.

Latest Developments:

• The Government e-Marketplace completed ten years of operation, crossing a cumulative Gross Merchandise Value of over 20 lakh crore rupees through more than 3.78 crore orders, making it one of the world's largest business-to-government digital procurement platforms.
• The platform took more than eight years to reach its first 10 lakh crore rupees in cumulative value but achieved the next 10 lakh crore in under two years, with annual transaction value rising from about 422 crore rupees in its first full year to over 5 lakh crore rupees in the most recent year.
• More than 25 lakh sellers are now connected to government buyers on the platform, with over 2.24 lakh women-led micro and small enterprises executing more than 50 lakh orders worth over 99,000 crore rupees, and more than 42,000 startups securing business worth over 65,000 crore rupees since the platform's launch.
• An independent study estimated monetised efficiency benefits of over 86,000 crore rupees and a net social saving exceeding 1.76 lakh crore rupees from the platform over a recent three-year period.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The Government e-Marketplace functions under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as a national public procurement portal for central and state government buyers.
• It exemplifies the broader Digital India and Ease of Doing Business agenda by widening market access for micro, small and medium enterprises and start-ups in government contracts.

3. The Quit India Movement — 84th Anniversary

Core Context: Every year on 8 and 9 August, India remembers the launch of the Quit India Movement, the last mass campaign of the freedom struggle, which forced the British establishment to recognise that governing India without popular consent was no longer sustainable.

Latest Developments:

• Parliament observed the 84th anniversary of the movement, which was formally launched through a resolution passed at the All India Congress Committee session in Bombay on 8 August 1942, followed by mass arrests of top leaders in the early hours of 9 August 1942 under British Operation Zero Hour.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The movement's clarion call, given by Mahatma Gandhi, was "Do or Die," urging immediate British withdrawal from India.
• Despite the arrest of senior leadership, the movement triggered a spontaneous, leaderless popular uprising across industrial and rural India, with parallel underground governments emerging in pockets such as Tamluk in Bengal and Satara in Maharashtra.
• Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai, where the movement was launched, has since been renamed August Kranti Maidan in its memory.

4. International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples — World Tribal Day

Core Context: India is home to hundreds of communities constitutionally recognised as Scheduled Tribes, and this UN-designated day provides an annual occasion to highlight their rights, culture and continuing development challenges.

Latest Developments:

• The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, observed globally on 9 August and marked in India as World Tribal Day or Adivasi Diwas, was commemorated with cultural programmes, tribal art and craft exhibitions and seminars, particularly across states with large tribal populations such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha and the North-Eastern states.
• The theme for this year's observance centred on honouring indigenous midwives and safeguarding maternal and community wellbeing among indigenous populations.

UPSC Prelims Pointers:

• The United Nations General Assembly designated 9 August as the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in 1994, marking the anniversary of the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva in 1982.
• In India, tribal welfare falls primarily under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, with constitutional safeguards for Scheduled Tribes provided under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution.
• Article 342 of the Constitution empowers the President to specify the tribes or tribal communities to be treated as Scheduled Tribes in relation to a state or union territory.