Current Affairs — Developments in Finance & Economy 2025-2026

Why This Chapter Matters

Books-and-authors and important-days questions are pure recall, no reasoning required, and that makes them some of the fastest marks available on the IBPS and SBI Clerk paper — worth roughly 3 to 5 marks per attempt if you have the list ready. The catch is that this exact "easy" reputation makes candidates careless: they skim a list once, feel confident, and then confuse a date by one day or pair a book with the wrong author under exam pressure, losing marks they should never have lost.

The biggest recurring mistake is treating dates and book titles as flashcards to memorise in isolation, without any anchor to hold them in place. A date without a "why" slips out of memory within a week; a date tied to a real event sticks for months. This chapter pairs every important day with the event or reasoning behind it, and every book with a memorable detail about its author, so you are not memorising 60 unconnected facts — you are memorising 60 facts, each with a hook already built in.

1. Famous Indian Authors and Their Iconic Works

Start with authors whose books appear again and again across banking and SSC papers, because these represent the highest-frequency, highest-value names to know cold.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote Gitanjali, the Nobel Prize-winning poetry collection (1913), and also composed India's national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, as well as Bangladesh's national anthem, Amar Shonar Bangla — a rare double credit worth remembering, since exam-setters love the "wrote two countries' anthems" fact.

Munshi Premchand, widely regarded as one of the greatest Hindi and Urdu writers, wrote Godaan and Gaban, novels known for their unsentimental portrayal of rural and middle-class Indian life.

R.K. Narayan created the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi, the setting for many of his novels including Swami and Friends and The Guide, the latter later adapted into a well-known Hindi film.

Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her debut novel The God of Small Things, becoming the first Indian woman and one of the earliest Indian authors to win the prize for an original English-language novel.

Vikram Seth wrote A Suitable Boy, one of the longest novels ever published in English, set in post-independence India.

Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss, and is the daughter of author Anita Desai, who herself was shortlisted for the Booker three times without winning — a father-daughter, or in this case mother-daughter, literary detail examiners sometimes test.

Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian-American author, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies.

Chetan Bhagat, one of India's best-selling contemporary English-language authors, wrote Five Point Someone, which inspired the Bollywood film 3 Idiots.

Amish Tripathi is known for mythological fiction, particularly the Shiva Trilogy, beginning with The Immortals of Meluha.

Kalidasa, an ancient Sanskrit poet and playwright, wrote Abhijnanasakuntalam (the story of Shakuntala) and Meghaduta, considered classics of Sanskrit literature.

Exam trap: Do not confuse Kalidasa's Abhijnanasakuntalam with the Mahabharata or Ramayana — Kalidasa's work is a separate classical Sanskrit drama, not an epic, and questions sometimes test this genre distinction.

Chanakya (Kautilya), an ancient Indian strategist and royal advisor, wrote the Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft, economics, and military strategy, still referenced today in political science and management contexts.

APJ Abdul Kalam, India's former President and celebrated scientist, wrote the autobiography Wings of Fire, along with India 2020 and Ignited Minds, both widely read for their focus on youth empowerment and national development.

Jawaharlal Nehru wrote The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History, both written during periods of imprisonment under British colonial rule.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Memory hook: For political leader-authors, remember "Gandhi Truths, Nehru Discovers" — Gandhi's autobiography centres on "Truth" in its title, while Nehru's most famous book centres on "Discovery." The rhyme-like pairing keeps the two straight since students often swap these two titles.

Amartya Sen, alongside his Nobel Prize, is also known for his book The Argumentative Indian, exploring Indian identity, culture, and history through essays.

Ruskin Bond, a prolific author writing in English and based in the hill town of Landour, is known for works like The Blue Umbrella and A Flight of Pigeons, often set against a Himalayan backdrop.

Sudha Murty, author and philanthropist, has written extensively for both adults and children, including Wise and Otherwise and numerous popular children's books.

2. Famous International Authors and Their Works

William Shakespeare, the English playwright, wrote classics including Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello — his four major tragedies are frequently grouped together in exam questions.

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both landmark works of world literature.

Charles Dickens, an English novelist known for depicting Victorian-era social conditions, wrote Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations.

George Orwell wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, both allegorical works warning against totalitarianism, still widely referenced in political commentary today.

Homer, the ancient Greek poet, is credited with the epics The Iliad and The Odyssey, foundational works of Western literature.

Jane Austen, an English novelist, wrote Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, both set among the English landed gentry.

J.K. Rowling, the British author, created the Harry Potter series, one of the best-selling book series in history.

Ernest Hemingway, an American novelist known for a spare, economical writing style, wrote The Old Man and the Sea, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, and contributed to Hemingway's overall 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian author, wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, a landmark of the magical realism literary style, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

Exam trap: Several exam questions test the difference between an author's Pulitzer Prize (a specific American award, sometimes for a single work) and a Nobel Prize in Literature (an international award for a body of work) — Hemingway won both, but for different reasons and in different years, a detail worth remembering precisely.

Malala Yousafzai, alongside her Nobel Peace Prize, wrote I Am Malala, an autobiography detailing her advocacy for girls' education in Pakistan.

Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian, wrote Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus, both widely read popular non-fiction works on human history and the future.

3. Notable Non-Fiction, Autobiography, and Policy-Linked Books

Beyond fiction, banking exams occasionally test non-fiction and autobiography titles connected to notable public figures, especially Indian politicians, businesspeople, and economists.

Raghuram Rajan, former RBI Governor, wrote I Do What I Do (a collection of his speeches and writings) and The Third Pillar, on the relationship between markets, states, and communities.

Bimal Jalan, another former RBI Governor, wrote extensively on Indian economic policy, including India's Economic Crisis.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote Man's Search for Meaning, a widely referenced book on finding purpose through suffering, often cited in general knowledge and motivational contexts alike.

Adam Smith, the Scottish economist regarded as the father of modern economics, wrote The Wealth of Nations (1776), foundational to classical economic theory — a detail sometimes tested when banking exams cross into economic-history general awareness.

Exam trap: Adam Smith is called the "Father of Economics," not to be confused with the "Father of the Green Revolution" (Norman Borlaug globally, M.S. Swaminathan in India) — similarly titled "father of" facts across different fields are a classic exam confusion trap.

4. Important National Observance Days

India marks a dense calendar of observance days, and banking exams test both the date and the reason behind it, so learn them as paired facts, not bare dates.

26 January — Republic Day, marking the day the Constitution of India came into force in 1950, three years after independence, celebrated with the main parade in New Delhi.

15 August — Independence Day, marking India's independence from British rule in 1947.

2 October — Gandhi Jayanti, marking Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary (1869), also observed globally as the International Day of Non-Violence by the United Nations.

14 November — Children's Day, marking Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary, chosen because of his well-known affection for children, who called him "Chacha Nehru."

5 September — Teachers' Day, marking the birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India's first Vice President and second President, himself a distinguished philosopher and teacher.

23 January — Parakram Diwas, marking the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

28 February — National Science Day, commemorating C.V. Raman's discovery of the Raman Effect, announced on this date in 1928.

11 May — National Technology Day, marking the anniversary of India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests conducted in 1998.

Memory hook: Pair each science-linked day with its trigger event using "Raman in February, Pokhran in May" — both are scientific milestone days, and the phrase keeps their months from getting swapped.

24 January — National Girl Child Day, promoting awareness about the rights and welfare of girls in India.

12 January — National Youth Day, marking the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.

15 January — Army Day, marking the day Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa became the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army in 1949.

4 December — Navy Day, commemorating the Indian Navy's Operation Trident during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

8 October — Air Force Day, marking the founding of the Indian Air Force in 1932.

National Voters' Day — 25 January, marking the foundation day of the Election Commission of India, established in 1950.

National Youth Day, Teachers' Day, and Children's Day are a favourite exam cluster since all three are tied to a specific person's birth anniversary — Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Nehru respectively.

5. Important International Observance Days

8 March — International Women's Day, a globally observed day recognising women's achievements and advocating for gender equality.

7 April — World Health Day, marking the founding anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948.

22 April — Earth Day, promoting environmental awareness and protection worldwide, first observed in 1970.

1 May — International Labour Day (also called May Day), commemorating the labour movement and workers' rights, marking the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.

5 June — World Environment Day, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), marking the anniversary of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm.

12 August — International Youth Day, promoting youth issues worldwide, recognised by the United Nations.

21 June — International Day of Yoga, proposed by India at the United Nations and first celebrated in 2015, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposal during his 2014 UN General Assembly address.

16 October — World Food Day, marking the founding anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945.

24 October — United Nations Day, marking the founding of the United Nations in 1945, when the UN Charter came into force.

10 December — Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948.

Exam trap: World Health Day (7 April) and World Food Day (16 October) both mark the founding anniversaries of their respective UN agencies (WHO and FAO), a pattern many international observance days follow — always check if a day marks an organisation's founding versus a general awareness theme, since both types appear on the calendar.

1 December — World AIDS Day, promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS and supporting people living with the condition.

14 June — World Blood Donor Day, chosen to mark the birth anniversary of Karl Landsteiner, the scientist who discovered human blood groups.

23 September — International Day of Sign Languages, recognising the importance of sign language for the human rights of deaf people.

International Literacy Day — 8 September, marking global efforts to raise literacy rates.

Memory hook: Group the four UN-founding-linked days together with "Health in April, Food in October, UN itself in October too, Rights in December" — WHO (7 April), FAO (16 October), UN Day (24 October), Human Rights Day (10 December). Since two land in October, remember World Food Day comes before UN Day by about a week.

6. First-in-India Facts

First-in-India facts are compact, memorable, and appear regularly in general awareness sections, so build a quick mental register of the most tested ones.

First President of India — Dr. Rajendra Prasad.

First Prime Minister of India — Jawaharlal Nehru.

First woman Prime Minister of India — Indira Gandhi.

First woman President of India — Pratibha Patil.

First Indian in space — Rakesh Sharma, aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission in 1984.

First Indian woman in space — Kalpana Chawla, who flew aboard NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia.

First Indian Nobel laureate — Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913).

First Indian film — Raja Harishchandra (1913), directed by Dadasaheb Phalke.

First talkie (sound) film of India — Alam Ara (1931).

First Indian bank — Bank of Hindustan (1770) is often cited as India's earliest bank, though for practical modern banking history, the State Bank of India's lineage traces to the Bank of Calcutta (1806), later the Imperial Bank of India, and finally SBI in 1955.

First stock exchange of India — Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), established in 1875, Asia's oldest stock exchange.

First IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) — IIT Kharagpur, established in 1951.

First national park of India — Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand, established in 1936.

First Indian to climb Mount Everest — Tenzing Norgay, alongside Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, in 1953, as part of the same historic climb.

First woman to climb Mount Everest (Indian) — Bachendri Pal, in 1984.

First satellite launched by India — Aryabhata, launched in 1975 with Soviet assistance.

First Indian city to get the metro rail — Kolkata, whose metro began operations in 1984, predating the Delhi Metro by nearly two decades.

Exam trap: Delhi Metro is often mistakenly cited as India's first metro system because it is the most extensive; Kolkata Metro, which began service in 1984, actually holds that first-in-India title.

First woman Chief Justice-designate / first woman judge of the Supreme Court of India — Justice M. Fathima Beevi, appointed in 1989.

First Indian recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize — Mother Teresa (1979), though note she was an Indian citizen by naturalisation at the time of the award, an occasional point of confusion in exam framing.

First Indian woman to win an Olympic medal — P.T. Usha narrowly missed a medal in 1984, so the actual honour belongs to Karnam Malleswari, who won bronze in weightlifting at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, India's first female Olympic medallist.

First Indian company to cross a trillion rupees in market capitalisation and similar business-linked "firsts" occasionally appear in banking-focused papers, so keep an eye on current-affairs updates around India's largest companies alongside this static list, since examiners sometimes blend a static fact with a recent milestone in the same question.

Keep building this first-in-India list as you revise other chapters — every chapter in this book (banking history, sports, science) throws up its own "firsts," and consolidating them into one running list before the exam pays off heavily, since these compact one-line facts are exactly what fills the last few marks of any general awareness paper. Treat the books-authors-days trio the same way: revise them together the night before your exam, since they share the same recall style, unlike, say, a numerical or reasoning topic that needs practice rather than memory. Ten focused minutes on this chapter's tables the morning of the exam usually locks in more marks per minute than any other single section of the syllabus.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh.
• Munshi Premchand wrote Godaan and Gaban, landmark Hindi-Urdu novels.
• R.K. Narayan created the fictional town of Malgudi.
• Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997 for The God of Small Things.
• Vikram Seth wrote A Suitable Boy.
• Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss.
• Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies.
• Kalidasa wrote Abhijnanasakuntalam, a classical Sanskrit drama.
• Chanakya (Kautilya) wrote the Arthashastra.
• APJ Abdul Kalam wrote the autobiography Wings of Fire.
• Jawaharlal Nehru wrote The Discovery of India.
• Mahatma Gandhi wrote The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
• George Orwell wrote 1984 and Animal Farm.
• Ernest Hemingway won both the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954).
• Gabriel García Márquez wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude and won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations (1776), foundational to classical economics.
• 26 January is Republic Day, marking the Constitution coming into force in 1950.
• 5 September is Teachers' Day, marking Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's birth anniversary.
• 14 November is Children's Day, marking Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary.
• 28 February is National Science Day, marking the discovery of the Raman Effect.
• 11 May is National Technology Day, marking the 1998 Pokhran-II tests.
• 12 January is National Youth Day, marking Swami Vivekananda's birth anniversary.
• 8 March is International Women's Day.
• 21 June is International Day of Yoga, first observed in 2015 after India's UN proposal.
• 7 April is World Health Day, marking the WHO's founding anniversary (1948).
• 16 October is World Food Day, marking the FAO's founding anniversary (1945).
• 24 October is United Nations Day, marking the UN Charter coming into force in 1945.
• 10 December is Human Rights Day, marking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
• Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian in space (1984), aboard Soyuz T-11.
• Kolkata Metro (1984) was India's first metro rail system, not Delhi Metro.
• BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange), established 1875, is Asia's oldest stock exchange.
• IIT Kharagpur (1951) was India's first Indian Institute of Technology.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Indian Authors and Their Signature Works

Author	Notable Work	Distinction
Rabindranath Tagore	Gitanjali	Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913
Arundhati Roy	The God of Small Things	Booker Prize, 1997
Kiran Desai	The Inheritance of Loss	Booker Prize, 2006
Jhumpa Lahiri	Interpreter of Maladies	Pulitzer Prize, 2000
APJ Abdul Kalam	Wings of Fire	Autobiography of a scientist-President

Table 2: National Observance Days and Their Link

Date	Occasion	Linked To
26 January	Republic Day	Constitution enforced, 1950
5 September	Teachers' Day	Dr. S. Radhakrishnan's birth anniversary
14 November	Children's Day	Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary
28 February	National Science Day	Discovery of the Raman Effect
11 May	National Technology Day	Pokhran-II nuclear tests, 1998

Table 3: International Days and UN Agency Links

Date	Occasion	Agency/Event
7 April	World Health Day	WHO founding anniversary, 1948
16 October	World Food Day	FAO founding anniversary, 1945
24 October	United Nations Day	UN Charter enforced, 1945
10 December	Human Rights Day	Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
5 June	World Environment Day	UNEP-coordinated, marks 1972 Stockholm conference

Practice MCQs

Q1. Rabindranath Tagore is credited with writing the national anthem of India and which other country? (a) Nepal (b) Sri Lanka (c) Bangladesh (d) Myanmar

Q2. R.K. Narayan's novels are famously set in a fictional town called: (a) Malgudi (b) Kanthapura (c) Anandpur (d) Ratnagiri

Q3. Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997 for which novel? (a) A Suitable Boy (b) The God of Small Things (c) The Inheritance of Loss (d) Midnight's Children

Q4. Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for which work? (a) The Namesake (b) Interpreter of Maladies (c) The Lowland (d) Unaccustomed Earth

Q5. Which ancient Indian text on statecraft and economics was written by Chanakya (Kautilya)? (a) Arthashastra (b) Manusmriti (c) Rajatarangini (d) Panchatantra

Q6. APJ Abdul Kalam's well-known autobiography is titled: (a) India 2020 (b) Ignited Minds (c) Wings of Fire (d) My Journey

Q7. George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm are best described as works warning against: (a) Climate change (b) Totalitarianism (c) Colonialism (d) Industrialisation

Q8. Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in which year? (a) 1953 (b) 1954 (c) 1961 (d) 1965

Q9. Adam Smith, regarded as the father of modern economics, wrote which foundational work? (a) Das Kapital (b) The Wealth of Nations (c) Principles of Economics (d) The General Theory

Q10. National Science Day, observed on 28 February, commemorates the discovery of: (a) Penicillin (b) The Raman Effect (c) Radioactivity (d) The structure of DNA

Q11. Teachers' Day in India is celebrated on 5 September to mark the birth anniversary of: (a) Dr. Rajendra Prasad (b) Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (c) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (d) Dr. Zakir Hussain

Q12. International Day of Yoga, observed on 21 June, was first celebrated in which year? (a) 2012 (b) 2014 (c) 2015 (d) 2016

Q13. World Health Day, observed on 7 April, marks the founding anniversary of which organisation? (a) UNICEF (b) UNESCO (c) World Health Organization (d) Red Cross

Q14. Which was India's first metro rail system, beginning operations in 1984? (a) Delhi Metro (b) Kolkata Metro (c) Chennai Metro (d) Bengaluru Metro

Q15. Who was the first Indian to travel to space, in 1984, aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission? (a) Kalpana Chawla (b) Sunita Williams (c) Rakesh Sharma (d) Vikram Sarabhai

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(c) Bangladesh	Tagore wrote both India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.
2	(a) Malgudi	R.K. Narayan set most of his fiction, including Swami and Friends, in the imagined town of Malgudi.
3	(b) The God of Small Things	This debut novel won Roy the Booker Prize in 1997, an original English-language work.
4	(b) Interpreter of Maladies	This short story collection won Lahiri the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000.
5	(a) Arthashastra	Chanakya's Arthashastra covers statecraft, economics, and military strategy in ancient India.
6	(c) Wings of Fire	Wings of Fire is Kalam's autobiography; India 2020 and Ignited Minds are separate books he authored.
7	(b) Totalitarianism	Both novels are allegorical warnings against totalitarian control over society and thought.
8	(b) 1954	Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, a year after his Pulitzer for The Old Man and the Sea.
9	(b) The Wealth of Nations	Published in 1776, this work is considered the foundation of classical economic theory.
10	(b) The Raman Effect	National Science Day marks the day C.V. Raman announced his discovery of light scattering in 1928.
11	(b) Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Teachers' Day honours his birth anniversary; he was a philosopher-teacher who became India's President.
12	(c) 2015	The UN adopted India's proposal, and the first International Day of Yoga was observed on 21 June 2015.
13	(c) World Health Organization	World Health Day marks the WHO's founding anniversary, dated 7 April 1948.
14	(b) Kolkata Metro	Kolkata Metro began service in 1984, well before Delhi Metro, making it India's first metro system.
15	(c) Rakesh Sharma	Sharma became the first Indian in space aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission in 1984.