Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pak sign Mecca agreement of Collective Security

As the 60-day MoU between Iran and the U.S. expires and Iran declares victory against the U.S. and Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, a new trilateral mutual-defense pact on August 7, 2026. Unlike NATO's rigid operational structures, this pact does not specify fixed, automated offensive obligations, reported Al Jazeera.

The Wire wrote that the three countries are doing what is much more suited to the emerging multipolar international order: an expandable middle-power security compact. The outlet added that NATO emerged from a bipolar world with an external superpower underwriting the system.

Experts call it a pact of “collective security” at a time when the region has lost the security umbrella provided by the  U.S. The Wire noted that  Middle powers increasingly want security relationships without surrendering strategic autonomy. Ozgur Unluhisarcikli of the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ South and Wider Europe office, told Al Jazeera that this defence deal reflects a growing desire for greater regional strategic autonomy at a time when confidence in the existing security order has eroded.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan explicitly stated that the agreement is not directed against Iran or any third country. There has been no official reaction from Iran. 

CAG Report Says Green India Mission to Plant Forests Fell Short by 98%

India fell short of its target to increase forest cover by 98% between 2015 to 2025 under Green India Mission, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG)  report said. The report flagged that low priority landscapes were selected for afforestation over those more vulnerable to climate change, TOI and the New Indian Express reported. 

The report highlighted that Green India Mission increased forest cover across just 0.03409 million hectares against a target of 1.4 million hectares over the past decade, falling short by 97.57%.

The afforestation programme has fallen short of its forest cover targets over the past decade due to poor planning, weak coordination and chronic underfunding, the federal auditor said in its report.

The auditor found that the programme achieved just 0.11384 million hectares of forest quality improvement against a target of 1.4 million hectares, a shortfall of 91.87%.

An increase in forest cover was recorded on only 0.03409 million hectares against the same 1.4 million hectare target, a shortfall of 97.57%.

“A bottom up approach to selecting project areas was not followed, and landscapes with low to moderate climate vulnerability were sometimes chosen over more vulnerable ones,” the report said.

Audit evaluations revealed inflated data and overstated achievements due to non validated KML files, while GIS analysis showed that 70 per cent of sampled sites had no noticeable changes attributable to the Green India Mission

Big Banks Provide $31 billion in Loans to Palm Oil Firms Linked to Deforestation 

Over 100 major banks arranged about $31 billion in sustainability-linked loans for palm oil firms accused of deforestation, corruption and rights abuses in Indonesia.  Firms including Wilmar, Musim Mas and others were given funding and ESG branding despite ongoing environmental and social controversies, DTE reported covering Global Witness study. 

Among the banks identified are Barclays, HSBC, Credit Agricole, Rabobank, Bank of China, Standard Chartered, and others. In several cases, the financing included the refinancing of revolving credit facilities, allowing companies to maintain access to substantial funding despite ongoing environmental and governance concerns, the report said. 

The report highlights Wilmar International, one of the world’s largest palm oil producers, as a key example. Despite adopting a “no deforestation” policy in 2015, Global Witness estimates that Wilmar’s concessions were linked to the loss of around 4,200 hectares of primary forest between 2016 and 2024. 

India Plans At Least Five Indigenous Small Modular Reactors By 2033

India plans to have at least five indigenous small modular reactors (SMRs) by 2033 as part of its target to expand nuclear power capacity to 100 GWe by 2047, the government told Parliament, Business Standard reported.

The SMRs are expected to repurpose retiring fossil-fuel power plants, supplying captive power to energy-intensive industries and providing electricity in remote, off-grid locations, the outlet said.

The Nuclear Energy Mission (NEM) 2025-26 has a two-pronged strategy: deploying large reactors, including indigenous 700-MWe pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), at greenfield sites, while developing SMRs for brownfield locations and other specialised applications, the newspaper said.

UN Desertification Summit to Allocate $12bn to Deal With Drought  
The UN’s bi-annual talks on desertification will begin in Mongolia where countries will gather for Cop17 and allocate more than $12bn (£8.9bn) to vulnerable countries to help them deal with drought and land degradation, the Guardian reported. 

Yasmine Fouad, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification(UNCCD), whose 17th “conference of the parties” begins in Ulaanbaatar on 17 August, said the negotiations would “send a positive signal of multilateralism”.

The key aim is to put pledges of billions of dollars made two years ago into action through projects in the developing world.

According to Fouad, that situation was changing rapidly as nations began to recognise the risk. “At the heart of our discussion is the topic of food security,” she said. “The more you work on restoring land, the more you have productive soil to ensure food security. That kind of narrative should be part of our finance [initiatives].”

States See New Mining Bill As Threat To Revenue and Resources 

The government passed the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, reigniting “a long-running tussle between the Centre and states over the taxation of mineral resources and the revenues they generate,” reported the Indian Express. 

The amendments will restrict states from imposing  levies on mineral rights and mineral-bearing land, even as several mineral-rich states have begun exploring such taxes following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2024 ruling upholding their power to tax mineral rights the newspaper said.

The move has drawn sharp opposition from states. The Jharkhand government has branded the bill “black law" saying the amendments could significantly result in loss of revenue while Kerala has raised concerns over their implications for India’s federal structure. Odisha’s former CM Naveen Patnaik said the bill is a threat to the state’s right over its resources. 

The Centre, however, maintained that unchecked state-level levies could raise the cost of key minerals, feeding into inflation and infrastructure costs.