January 2026

In short: India's culture, sports and awards this month — distilled for SI/Constable Prelims.

Current Affairs — India › Society, Culture, Sports & Awards · 12 min read · Free to read · English & Telugu

Bilingual study notes for the Andhra Pradesh Police SI & Constable exams (SLPRB AP) by AP Police Hub, a product of Anvil Academy.

The UGC's new equity regulations tackle campus caste discrimination, Arunachal Pradesh's easternmost village welcomed 2026's first sunrise with a new festival, the President approved the Jeevan Raksha Padak and Indira Gandhi Peace Prize (to Mozambique's Graça Machel), and a DFPD-WFP-IIT Delhi food-logistics tool became a Franz Edelman Award finalist — set against Magh Mela, Shikshapatri's 200th anniversary and a compact tour of ten of India's landmark temples.

An illustration of Rani Velu Nachiyar flanked by the Marudhu brothers, swords in hand — Rani Velu Nachiyar with the Marudhu brothers — the first queen to fight British rule, decades before 1857, remembered by the PM on her birth anniversary this January · Shakthi Thevar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

January 2026 — At a Glance

January 2026's society-and-culture news ranged from new campus anti-discrimination rules to sunrise festivals, a Sufi shrine vandalised, and India's oldest fairs and temples — plus a President's-list of national awards.

Headlines of the month

UGC notified the (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 — now covering OBCs too — with a three-tier Equal Opportunity Centre/Equity Committee/Equity Squad structure.
Dong village (Arunachal Pradesh), India's easternmost habitation, welcomed 2026's first sunrise with a new 'Sunrise Festival' ('Alo Prabhat: Dance of the Dawn').
President approved the Jeevan Raksha Padak Series of Awards-2025 for 30 people, and Mozambique's Graça Machel was chosen for the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2025.
DFPD's Anna Chakra (with WFP + IIT Delhi) became a 2026 Franz Edelman Award finalist — the 'Nobel Prize of Operations Research' — for optimising India's food-grain logistics.
A Sufi shrine of poet Bulleh Shah was vandalised in Mussoorie; Turkman Gate (Delhi) drew attention after a demolition drive; Magh Mela began at Prayagraj's Triveni Sangam.

1. Culture, Heritage & Festivals

Alo Prabhat: a new Sunrise Festival at India's easternmost village

What — Dong village (Anjaw district, Arunachal Pradesh) — the first human habitation in India to receive the sun's first rays — welcomed 2026 with 'Alo Prabhat: Dance of the Dawn', drawing on Meyor and Mishmi community traditions, part of the State Tourism Department's inaugural Sunrise Festival.

Magh Mela at Prayagraj; Shikshapatri's 200th anniversary

Magh Mela — An annual gathering at the Triveni Sangam (Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati confluence, Prayagraj) during the Hindu month of Magh, rooted in the Puranas; devotees (Kalpvasis) camp near the Sangam for about a month.
Shikshapatri Dwishatabdi Mahotsav — PM addressed events marking 200 years of Bhagwan Swaminarayan's Shikshapatri (authored 1826) — a concise 212-verse Sanskrit code of moral, social and spiritual discipline for the Swaminarayan tradition.

Bulleh Shah's shrine vandalised; the history behind Delhi's Turkman Gate

Bulleh Shah — A shrine to the Punjabi Sufi poet (b. 1680, Kasur) was vandalised in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand; Bulleh Shah, of the tolerant Qadri Sufi order, preached universal love (ishq) above caste, creed and religion.
Turkman Gate — The 17th-century gate (built under Shah Jahan at Shahjahanabad) made news after a demolition drive triggered violence; unlike other city gates, it is named after 13th-century Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Turkman Bayabani, whose dargah predates the Mughal city.

Rani Velu Nachiyar remembered

What — PM paid tributes on the birth anniversary of Rani Velu Nachiyar (b. 1730, Ramnathpuram) — the first queen to fight British rule, decades before 1857; with Hyder Ali and Gopala Nayaker, she raised India's first army of trained women soldiers and reportedly used history's first human bomb.

Ten landmark temples of India — a quick-facts table

Important temples of India covered this month
Temple	Location / Period	Deity / Style
Pandrethan Shiva Temple	Srinagar, J&K; 8th-10th c. CE (Utpala dynasty)	Shiva; Kashmiri Nagara — built over a natural spring
Katarmal Sun Temple	Almora, Uttarakhand; 9th c. CE (Katyuri dynasty)	Surya; Nagara — one of few surviving Sun temples
Kamakhya Temple	Guwahati, Assam; rebuilt 16th c. (Koch dynasty)	Shakti; no idol, yoni-shaped stone, Tantric centre
Lakshman Temple	Khajuraho, MP; 954 CE (Chandela dynasty)	Vaikuntha Vishnu; Nagara — earliest surviving Khajuraho temple
Somnath Temple	Prabhas Patan, Gujarat; rebuilt 1951	Shiva (Jyotirlinga); Chalukyan — 1st of 12 Jyotirlingas
Rajarani Temple	Bhubaneswar, Odisha; 11th c. CE (Somavamsi period)	No presiding deity; Kalinga Nagara — red-gold sandstone
Venkateswara Temple	Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh; Pallava-Chola-Vijayanagara era	Vishnu (Venkateswara); Dravidian — richest, most-visited temple
Lad Khan Temple	Aihole, Karnataka; 5th-6th c. CE (Early Chalukyas)	Shiva; proto-Dravidian — resembles wooden architecture
Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple	Srirangam, Tamil Nadu; early Chola, expanded later	Vishnu (Ranganatha); Dravidian — largest functioning temple complex
Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple	Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; present structure 18th c.	Vishnu (Anantha Sayana); Dravidian-Kerala — famed subterranean vaults

UGC's new Regulations on Caste Discrimination in higher education

What — The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 replace the 2012 framework, expanding discrimination's definition (intersecting grounds like religion, race, gender, disability) and — unlike the earlier draft — now including OBCs, while dropping a proposed penalty for 'false complaints'.
Institutional structure — A three-tier mechanism — Equal Opportunity Centre (EOC), a 10-member Equity Committee (must meet within 24 hours of a complaint), and campus Equity Squads with a 24-hour helpline — backed by a national monitoring committee that can debar non-compliant institutions from UGC schemes.

3. Awards & Personalities in the News

Jeevan Raksha Padak; Indira Gandhi Peace Prize

Jeevan Raksha Padak — President approved the Jeevan Raksha Padak Series of Awards-2025 for 30 people for meritorious life-saving acts — awarded in three tiers (Sarvottam, Uttam, Jeevan Raksha Padak), open to all and conferrable posthumously.
Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2025 — Mozambican rights activist Graça Machel was selected for the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, 2025 (instituted 1986 by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust) for her work in education, health, nutrition and humanitarian action.

Franz Edelman Award: India's Anna Chakra among six finalists

What — DFPD's 'Anna Chakra' — an operations-research tool built with the UN World Food Programme and IIT Delhi to optimise Public Distribution System logistics — is a 2026 Franz Edelman Award finalist (presented by INFORMS, widely called the 'Nobel Prize of Operations Research').
Impact — Deployment nationally has generated an estimated ₹250-crore annual savings, a 35% emissions cut, and efficiency gains benefiting 81+ crore PDS beneficiaries.