{"id":131075,"date":"2026-10-29T15:05:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=131075"},"modified":"2026-10-29T15:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:41:12","slug":"first-class-order-of-zayed-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/first-class-order-of-zayed-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Pilot Smit Machchhar Receives UAE&#8217;s First Class Order of Zayed II for Saving 174 Passengers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>First Class Order of Zayed II Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indian Pilot Smit Machchhar recently received the UAE&#8217;s First Class Order of Zayed II for his bravery in protecting 174 passengers aboard a Flydubai flight during an alleged attack by his Omani co-pilot.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About First Class Order of Zayed II<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is one of the United Arab Emirates\u2019 <\/span><b>(UAE\u2019s) prestigious civilian decorations.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is<\/span><b> named after<\/b> <b>Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>country&#8217;s founding president, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">who ruled from 1971 until his death in 2004.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is generally <\/span><b>awarded to foreign diplomats, senior officials<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b>distinguished international figures<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> whose work has made a significant contribution to the country or its international relations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Indian Recipients:\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Indian Pilot Smit Machchhar <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">received the award in <\/span><b>2026 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for his bravery in protecting 174 passengers aboard a Flydubai flight during an alleged attack by his Omani co-pilot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, he is <\/span><b>not the first Indian <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to receive the prestigious honour.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Two former Indian ambassadors to the UAE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>Navdeep Singh Suri<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><b> Sunjay Sudhir<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, were previously awarded the same decoration for their contributions to strengthening bilateral relations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is<\/span><b> distinct from the Order of Zayed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the<\/span><b> UAE&#8217;s highest civilian honour<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which has been <\/span><b>presented to prominent world leaders,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> including Indian Prime Minister <\/span><b>Narendra Modi <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in <\/span><b>2019<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/feature\/who-are-the-2-indians-who-received-top-uae-honour-before-pilot-smit-machchhar-12248309\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>NDTV<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian pilot Smit Machchhar has been honoured with the UAE&#8217;s First Class Order of Zayed II for protecting 174 passengers during an alleged cockpit attack aboard a Flydubai flight. Conferred on October 27, 2026, the prestigious civilian decoration recognises distinguished contributions and bravery. Former Indian ambassadors Navdeep Singh Suri and Sunjay Sudhir have also received this honour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":131097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11217,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-131075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-first-class-order-of-zayed-ii","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131075"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131139,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131075\/revisions\/131139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}