IBPS Current Affairs Quiz: 18 October 2026

The Ministry of Defence has said that the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation takes place in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on 19 and 20 October 2026, and that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh travels there to speak for India.

It is a science and technology organisation under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and it held the conclave on AI for Health and Assistive Technologies jointly with the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship of IIT (BHU) on the institute's campus at Varanasi.

That is the gross weight of crystal methamphetamine the agency recovered from a coastal village in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu, in what is described as one of the biggest narcotics seizures in the state's coastal region in recent years.

The Namo Bharat regional rapid rail corridor runs from Delhi to Meerut through Ghaziabad and measures 82 km end to end.

The Asian Para Games 2026 opened there, and the Indian contingent of para-athletes is competing at that venue.

Rajnath Singh, who holds the defence portfolio, visits Dushanbe in Tajikistan to speak for India at the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on 19 and 20 October 2026.

Shri S. Krishnan spoke in that capacity, holding that artificial intelligence can make health care easier to reach, strengthen clinical decision-making and improve the delivery of services, particularly for communities with little access to health facilities.

The intelligence that set off the operation said the narcotics had been brought to a coastal location in Nagapattinam for storage and onward smuggling, and the handover was to take place at sea rather than at any port.

On that day the Prime Minister dedicated the full Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor to the nation, and Meerut Metro was handed over at the same time.

The Asian Para Games of this edition got under way on that day in Aichi-Nagoya, and the Indian contingent of para-athletes began its campaign there.

The fields set out for the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government are the strengthening of multilateral cooperation among the member countries in trade, the economy, investment, connectivity, innovation and cultural as well as humanitarian exchange; the delegations are also to review how ongoing cooperation programmes are…

Shri Arvind Kumar, Director General of STPI, said at the conclave that the organisation has had a pivotal part in the growth of the country's industry in information technology and IT-enabled services since that year, and that the same success can now be repeated in artificial intelligence through innovation and…

Crystal methamphetamine is a banned synthetic drug, and both the seizure of the consignment and the arrest of the four accused were made under the provisions of that statute; all four were remanded to judicial custody.

It built and runs the Namo Bharat service and it organised Namo Bharat Diwas in New Delhi, where its Managing Director Shalabh Goel welcomed the Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Power, Manohar Lal.

The Asian Para Games are the continental competition for para-athletes, and the 2026 edition opened in Aichi-Nagoya with an Indian contingent of such sportspersons taking part.

NCRTC is developing a captive solar power plant of this size, and it also runs a programme called Solar on Track, so that the corridor costs less to operate and places a lighter burden on the environment.