Daily Current Affairs- 1st March 2026

Daily Current Affairs- 1st March 2026

Union  Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman launches National Monetisation Pipeline 2.0

In the News: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched the National Monetisation Pipeline 2.0 (NMP 2.0), developed by NITI Aayog, estimating an aggregate monetisation potential of ₹16.72 lakh crore over the five-year period from FY 2026 to FY 2030, aligned with India's Viksit Bharat vision.

Key Points:

• About NMP 2.0: NMP 2.0 is the second phase of the asset monetisation pipeline of Central ministries and public sector entities, developed by NITI Aayog in consultation with infrastructure line ministries. It is based on the mandate for 'Asset Monetisation Plan 2025–30' announced in Union Budget 2025–26. The total monetisation potential is estimated at ₹16.72 lakh crore, including private sector investment of ₹5.8 lakh crore, over FY 2026–2030 — more than 2.6 times higher than NMP 1.0's target.
• NMP 1.0 Performance: NMP 1.0 was launched in 2021 and covered the four-year period from FY 2021–22 to FY 2024–25 with a target of ₹6 lakh crore. Nearly 90% of this target was achieved. It helped attract institutional investors such as pension and sovereign wealth funds and led to the creation of Public InvITs, enabling citizens to directly participate in infrastructure development.
• Top Sectors by Monetisation Value: Highways, Multi-Modal Logistics Parks (MMLPs), and ropeways lead with ₹4.42 lakh crore (26%), followed by Power at ₹2.77 lakh crore (17%), Ports at ₹2.64 lakh crore (16%), Railways at ₹2.62 lakh crore (16%), and Coal at ₹2.16 lakh crore (13%). Other sectors include Mines, Urban Infrastructure, Civil Aviation, Petroleum & Natural Gas, Warehousing, Telecom, and Tourism.
• Monetisation Instruments: Assets will be monetised through a range of instruments including Public-Private Partnership (PPP) concessions, Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs), Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) models, securitisation of cash flows, divestment of portions of listed entities, and strategic commercial auctions.
• Governance and Oversight: An empowered Core Group of Secretaries on Asset Monetisation (CGAM), chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, will monitor the progress of the programme. The initiative involves multi-stakeholder consultations with infrastructure line ministries covering Roads, Railways, Power, Petroleum, Civil Aviation, Ports, Telecom, Tourism, Coal, Mining, and Urban Affairs.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Confirmed Dead After Major U.S.–Israel Strikes & Iran

In the News: Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, aged 86, was killed following major joint military strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran, marking a historic and destabilising moment in Middle Eastern geopolitics.

Key Points:

• Death Confirmed: Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following Israeli and US strikes. US President Donald Trump had earlier announced the death on his Truth Social platform, stating that Khamenei was killed in the joint strikes. Iranian state TV declared a 40-day mourning period and seven public holidays in his honour.
• Background on Khamenei: Khamenei, born in 1939, served as Iran's Supreme Leader since 1989, succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. He held final authority over all major state policies and led both Iran's clerical establishment and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the two main centres of power in the Islamic Republic.
• The Strikes: The joint US-Israeli military strikes began early on Saturday, February 28, 2026. Khamenei was killed at his office during the assault. The US justified the attacks as necessary to disable Iran's nuclear capabilities. US President Trump warned of continued "heavy and pinpoint bombing" throughout the following week and beyond. Iranian media also confirmed that Khamenei's daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were killed in the strikes.
• Interim Leadership: Following Khamenei's death, the Council of the Iranian President, the Head of the Judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council are to temporarily assume the duties of leadership in Iran, according to IRNA.
• Iran's Response: Iran responded to the strikes with its own counterassault and warned of further retribution. Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's National Security Council, stated that Israel and America would "regret their actions" and vowed an "unforgettable lesson" for the attackers. Iranian state television stated that Khamenei's "path and mission will be pursued with greater vigour and zeal."

Names Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as Temporary Supreme Leader

In the News: Hours after the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was confirmed, Iran appointed Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as the jurist member of a three-member interim Leadership Council to temporarily fulfill the duties of the Supreme Leader during the country's political and religious transition.

Key Points:

• Appointment of Arafi: Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, a 67-year-old senior Shia cleric and close associate of Khamenei, has been appointed as the jurist member of Iran's interim Leadership Council. He has additionally been tasked with temporarily fulfilling the Supreme Leader's role, as reported by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). He was previously considered one of the likely contenders to permanently succeed Khamenei.
• Three-Member Leadership Council: The interim Leadership Council consists of three members — President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and Ayatollah Arafi as the jurist representative. This council will function until the Assembly of Experts formally elects a new Supreme Leader, ensuring continuity in governance during the transition period.
• Profile of Alireza Arafi: Arafi currently serves as Deputy Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and heads Iran's influential seminary system in Qom. He continues to be a member of the Guardian Council, the body responsible for vetting election candidates and reviewing legislation. While religiously influential, he is not widely regarded as a dominant political powerbroker or known for strong ties to the security establishment.
• Powers of the Supreme Leader: The Supreme Leader is the highest authority in Iran's theocratic system, serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and overseeing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The position holds final authority over foreign policy, the judiciary, state broadcasting, and Iran's broader "Axis of Resistance" strategy across West Asia, combining sweeping religious, political, and military control.
• Process of Selecting a New Supreme Leader: Under Iranian law, the Assembly of Experts — a body of 88 Shia clerics elected every eight years by popular vote — is constitutionally mandated to elect the new Supreme Leader "as soon as possible." Candidates for the Assembly are vetted by the Guardian Council. The Assembly also holds the power to remove a Supreme Leader, though this has never occurred in Iran's history.

CHEOPS Discovers Rocky Exoplanetthat Defines Conventional Formation Theories

In the News: A study published in the journal Science revealed that ESA's CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) has discovered a four-planet system around the red dwarf star LHS 1903, whose outermost planet is unexpectedly rocky — challenging conventional planet formation theories.

Key Points:

• The Discovery: Using ESA's CHEOPS satellite, an international team led by Dr. Thomas Wilson of the University of Warwick discovered a four-planet system around LHS 1903, a cool red M-dwarf star located 116.3 light-years away in the constellation of Lynx. The system's unusual planetary arrangement — rocky, gaseous, gaseous, and then rocky again — has been described as an "inside-out system," defying the standard pattern observed across the universe.
• The Unusual Planetary Order: In our Solar System and most known planetary systems, inner planets are rocky and outer planets are gaseous. In LHS 1903, the first planet (LHS 1903b) is rocky, the second (LHS 1903c) and third (LHS 1903d) are gaseous, but the fourth and outermost planet (LHS 1903e) is surprisingly rocky. Rocky planets are not expected to form in the outer regions of a planetary system, where gas giants typically develop in cooler, gas-rich environments.
• Theories Ruled Out: Scientists explored and subsequently ruled out two alternative explanations — that the outer rocky planet had its atmosphere blown away by a giant asteroid or comet impact, and that the planets had swapped orbital positions at some point during their evolution. Both scenarios were eliminated through simulations and orbital calculations.
• Inside-Out Planet Formation: The most compelling explanation put forward is "inside-out planet formation" — a theory proposed about a decade ago but never before supported by such strong observational evidence. Under this model, the four planets formed one after another from the innermost to the outermost, rather than all simultaneously from a protoplanetary disc. By the time the outermost planet formed, the system had likely run out of gas, resulting in a small rocky world forming in a gas-depleted environment.
• About CHEOPS: CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) is an ESA mission developed in partnership with Switzerland and a consortium of 11 ESA member states. Its primary purpose is to characterise known exoplanets and study how planets form and evolve. The spacecraft is operated from the Mission Operations Centre in Madrid, Spain.

VoicERA Launched on BHASHINI National Infrastructure at India AIImpact Summit 2026

In the News: At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched VoicERA, an open-source, end-to-end Voice AI stack, on the BHASHINI National Language Infrastructure, marking a major milestone in India's Digital Public Infrastructure journey for multilingual voice technologies.

Key Points:

• About VoicERA: VoicERA is an open-source, modular, and interoperable Voice AI platform deployed on India's BHASHINI National Language Infrastructure. It was launched by the Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD) under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), led by Amitabh Nag, CEO of the Digital India BHASHINI Division, in collaboration with EkStep Foundation, Centre for Open Source Software (COSS), IIIT Bengaluru, and AI4Bharat.
• Key Features: VoicERA is cloud-deployable and on-premise ready, with an open architecture that avoids vendor lock-in and reduces duplication of effort. It enables secure and scalable deployment across government agencies, research institutions, and innovation ecosystems, allowing departments to quickly build and deploy voice-enabled digital services without rebuilding entire technology stacks from scratch.
• Expansion of BHASHINI: BHASHINI has previously served as India's population-scale language infrastructure focused on translation and language technologies. With VoicERA's integration, BHASHINI's capabilities now extend to real-time speech recognition, conversational AI, multilingual telephony, and voice-enabled citizen services at population scale across sectors such as agriculture advisories, education support, livelihood services, grievance redressal, and scheme discovery.
• Voice as Digital Public Infrastructure: Officials described VoicERA as a "digital public good for voice." The initiative positions voice as the most natural interface for citizens, particularly those who prefer regional languages over English-based digital interfaces. It aligns with India's broader DPI ecosystem alongside Aadhaar (identity), UPI (payments), and DigiLocker (document storage), with BHASHINI serving as the language and voice layer of this infrastructure.