Current affairs, 12 August 2026: new RBI and SEBI Executive Directors, the Vande Mataram law, and Kerala becomes Keralam

From today we are running a fuller digest: several items rather than a single lead, each one chosen because a paper can build a question around it, and each with its source and the concept an examiner would actually test. Today’s set is two regulator appointments, two pieces of Parliament business, an international science award and a space-cooperation headline — a spread that serves the banking awareness section and the general awareness a railways paper leans on.

Banking: the RBI and SEBI both name new Executive Directors

Two senior appointments at the two big financial regulators, the exact kind of who-holds-which-post fact that awareness sections reward.

• The Reserve Bank of India appointed Smt. Monisha Chakraborty as Executive Director with effect from 3 August 2026, to head the Foreign Exchange Department and the Financial Markets Regulation Department. A career central banker of over three decades, she was previously Chief General Manager in the Department of Supervision and has served as a Banking Ombudsman. RBI press release
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) named Prasanta Mahapatra as Executive Director, who took charge on 4 August 2026 to handle the Corporation Finance Investigation Department and the Recovery and Refund Department. Entrepreneur India
• Separately, Prabhakar Jha took charge on 10 August 2026 as RBI Regional Director for the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, succeeding Chandrashekhar Azad, who moves to the RBI Central Office in Mumbai. Kashmir Life

The concept being tested. The structure of the two regulators, which recurs every cycle.

• The RBI was established in 1935 under the RBI Act, 1934, and nationalised in 1949. Its executive hierarchy runs Governor → Deputy Governors → Executive Directors → Chief General Managers; the Governor as of 2026 is Sanjay Malhotra. Executive Directors head one or more departments and sit just below the Deputy Governors.
• The Banking Ombudsman function Chakraborty once held now sits inside the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS), 2021, a single “one nation, one ombudsman” grievance- redress window for customers of banks, NBFCs and payment operators.
• SEBI is the capital-market regulator, set up in 1988 and made a statutory body by the SEBI Act, 1992, with its headquarters in Mumbai. Where the RBI regulates banks and payments, SEBI regulates stock exchanges, listed companies, mutual funds and market intermediaries.

Polity: Vande Mataram gets the same legal protection as the National Anthem

President Droupadi Murmu gave assent on 12 August 2026 to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which had been passed by Parliament the previous month. The amendment brings the National Song, Vande Mataram, under the same protection the law already gives the National Anthem, so intentionally disrupting or preventing its singing becomes an offence. The Knowledge Library

The concept being tested. The national symbols and the statute behind them.

• The parent law is the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, which already protects the National Flag, the Constitution and the National Anthem from insult.
• National Anthem: Jana Gana Mana, by Rabindranath Tagore, adopted on 24 January 1950. National Song: Vande Mataram, by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, from the novel Anandamath. A common trap is to swap the two authors, so fix that pairing now.

Polity: the Lok Sabha clears the Kerala to “Keralam” renaming Bill

The Lok Sabha passed the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, which seeks to change the state’s name to “Keralam” in the First Schedule of the Constitution, and the Bill moved to the Rajya Sabha for passage on 12 August. The change follows a resolution the Kerala Legislative Assembly passed in 2024. The News Strike

The concept being tested. How a state is renamed, which is pure constitutional mechanics.

• Article 3 empowers Parliament to form new states and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing states. A state cannot rename itself; only Parliament can, by an ordinary law passed by simple majority.
• Two procedural conditions matter: the Bill can be introduced only on the President’s recommendation, and the President must first refer it to the affected state’s legislature for its views within a set period. Those views are not binding on Parliament.

Science: Deepak Dhar wins the Dirac Medal 2026

The Indian theoretical physicist Deepak Dhar was awarded the Dirac Medal 2026 by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, shared with Bernard Derrida, Marc Mézard and Haim Sompolinsky, for work in statistical physics. The Knowledge Library

The concept being tested. Indian scientists and the awards that carry their names into a paper.

• Deepak Dhar is a pioneer of statistical physics and the theory of self-organised criticality. In 2022 he became the first Indian to receive the Boltzmann Medal, so an award question can pair the two honours.
• The ICTP Dirac Medal, named after physicist Paul Dirac and awarded on his birthday each year, is one of the most prestigious prizes in theoretical physics; do not confuse it with the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal.

Science: NASA invites ISRO to join its Moon Base programme

NASA has invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to take part in its Moon Base programme, building on cooperation under the Artemis Accords and a fresh understanding on open scientific-data sharing. The Knowledge Library

The concept being tested. The India–US space relationship, an evergreen general-awareness thread.

• India signed the Artemis Accords, the US-led framework of principles for civil space exploration, in 2023. The Accords are political commitments, not a binding treaty.
• The recent flagship of ISRO–NASA cooperation is NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), an Earth-observation satellite; the Moon Base invitation extends that partnership towards lunar exploration, alongside India’s own Gaganyaan human-spaceflight and planned space-station goals.

What to write in your notebook

Six lines:

1. RBI named Monisha Chakraborty Executive Director (3 August 2026, Forex and Financial Markets Regulation); SEBI named Prasanta Mahapatra ED (charge 4 August); Prabhakar Jha is the new RBI Regional Director for J&K and Ladakh.
2. RBI: est. 1935 (RBI Act 1934), Governor Sanjay Malhotra; grievances run through the RB-IOS, 2021. SEBI: statutory under the SEBI Act, 1992, HQ Mumbai.
3. President Murmu signed the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, 2026, extending protection to Vande Mataram (National Song, by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay); the National Anthem is Jana Gana Mana by Tagore.
4. The Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026 renames Kerala “Keralam” in the First Schedule; renaming a state is done by Parliament under Article 3, on the President’s recommendation and after referring the Bill to the state legislature.
5. Deepak Dhar won the Dirac Medal 2026 (ICTP); he was the first Indian to win the Boltzmann Medal (2022).
6. NASA invited ISRO to its Moon Base programme under the Artemis Accords (India signed in 2023); the flagship joint mission so far is NISAR.