UPSC current affairs, 31 Aug-6 Sep, 2026

• India and Uzbekistan elevated their relationship from a Strategic Partnership to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tashkent.
• Both countries set a target of raising annual bilateral trade to US$5 billion by 2030, from the present level of over US$1 billion.
• Eleven agreements and outcomes covered defence cooperation, connectivity, critical minerals, digital payments, culture and environmental restoration.
• A long-term framework was concluded for supplying uranium to India. Defence cooperation will include direct links between industries and possibilities for co-development and co-production.
• National Payments Corporation of India International Payments Limited and Uzbekistan’s National Interbank Processing Centre agreed to connect Indian Unified Payments Interface applications with Uzbekistan’s UZQR merchant-payment network.
• India announced a US$1 million grant for afforestation in the Aral Sea region. A Letter of Intent was also signed for restoring the Buddhist archaeological sites of Fayaz Tepa and Kara Tepa.
• A Foreign Ministers’ Coordination Council and a ministerial-level joint commission will provide institutional support.
• Challenges include weak physical connectivity, high transport costs and the need to convert signed agreements into commercial projects.

Visit outcomes, UPI agreement

Aral Sea

The Aral Sea is an endorheic lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, fed historically by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Soviet-era irrigation diversions caused severe shrinkage, rising salinity, fishery collapse and the formation of the Aralkum Desert. Salt-and-chemical-laden dust now threatens health and agriculture. India announced a US$1 million grant for afforestation and ecological restoration in the surrounding region.

Fayaz Tepa and Kara Tepa

Fayaz Tepa and Kara Tepa are ancient Buddhist complexes near Termez in southern Uzbekistan, an important centre of Buddhism under the Kushan Empire. Fayaz Tepa contains an above-ground monastery, courtyard, stupa, sculptures and wall paintings. Kara Tepa combines rock-cut caves with surface structures and monks’ cells. Their restoration highlights India–Central Asia cultural links and Buddhism’s movement along the Silk Road. UNESCO Silk Roads sites

• India and Chile agreed to work towards concluding a balanced and mutually beneficial Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
• Formal negotiations began in May 2025, after the Terms of Reference were signed on 8 May 2025.
• India exported goods worth approximately US$1.2 billion to Chile during 2025–26, an increase of 5.8%. Imports were approximately US$5 billion, increasing by around 93%.
• Major sectors include pharmaceuticals, healthcare, agriculture, energy, copper and other minerals, machinery and engineering goods.
• A CEPA generally goes beyond tariff reductions in goods and may cover services, investment, intellectual property, standards, customs procedures and movement of professionals.
• Chile is part of the resource-rich Lithium Triangle, along with Argentina and Bolivia. Greater economic engagement can help diversify India’s mineral supply chains.
• Challenges include the large merchandise-trade imbalance, protection of sensitive domestic sectors, effective rules of origin and non-tariff barriers.

• All workers registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act were transferred to the new Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB-G RAM G, framework.
• Electronic Know Your Customer verification is continuing but is not a precondition for transferring a worker. The verification process ordinarily takes less than 30 seconds when authentication succeeds.
• Existing job cards and unfinished works were carried forward.
• The new law provides up to 125 days of guaranteed employment per rural household in a financial year, compared with 100 days under MGNREGA.
• Wages must ordinarily be paid weekly or within 15 days of closure of the muster roll. Eligible workers may receive unemployment allowance when work is not provided within the prescribed period.
• Type: Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• FY2026–27 Central allocation: ₹95,692.31 crore.
• Estimated total expenditure including State shares: More than ₹1.51 lakh crore.
• Funding ratio: 90:10 for the North-Eastern and Himalayan States and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir; 60:40 for other States and Union Territories with legislatures.
• Period: Effective from 1 July 2026. It is an ongoing statutory employment guarantee; no official closing year has been announced.
• Challenges include authentication failures, exclusion of migrant or poorly documented workers, States’ financing capacity, timely wage payments and ensuring that created assets are durable.

Worker transition, scheme funding

• Article 124(3) of the Constitution provides three alternative qualifications for appointment as a Supreme Court judge:

1. At least five years as a judge of a High Court;
2. At least ten years as an advocate of a High Court; or
3. Recognition as a distinguished jurist in the President’s opinion.

• No person has been appointed to the Supreme Court solely through the distinguished-jurist provision since the Constitution came into force.
• The expression can include leading legal academics and scholars; it is not restricted to practising advocates or serving judges.
• Such appointments could strengthen the Court’s expertise in constitutional theory, international law, technology law and other specialised fields.
• The principal difficulty is that the Constitution does not define a selection procedure or measurable criteria for determining who qualifies as a distinguished jurist.
• Transparent standards would be necessary to prevent political favouritism and preserve judicial independence.
• Supreme Court judges are formally appointed by the President and retire at the age of 65 years.

Constitution of India

• The Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026 establish Indian Standard Time (IST) as the common reference for legal, administrative, commercial and official purposes.
• The rules were notified on 27 August and will take effect 180 days after publication in the Gazette.
• IST is five hours and 30 minutes ahead of Coordinated Universal Time, written as UTC+5:30.
• The National Physical Laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research maintains IST through an ensemble of atomic clocks traceable to international time standards within a few nanoseconds.
• Five Regional Reference Standard Laboratories are located at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Faridabad and Guwahati.
• Authorised dissemination can use the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, commonly called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), and approved terrestrial networks.
• Accurate synchronisation is vital for power grids, stock exchanges, banking, digital payments, telecom networks, transport systems, court records and cybersecurity.
• Implementation challenges include synchronising legacy equipment, securing time-distribution networks and ensuring continuity during network or satellite disruptions.

Rules and national time infrastructure

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was established on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai.
• It developed from the “Shanghai Five”—China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan joined when the SCO was formed.
• It currently has 10 members: Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• India and Pakistan became full members in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024.
• Its main purposes are:
• Maintaining regional peace and stability.
• Combating terrorism, separatism and extremism.
• Strengthening mutual trust among members.
• Promoting trade, connectivity, energy cooperation and economic development.
• Expanding cooperation in science, technology, culture and education.
• The Council of Heads of State is its highest decision-making body.
• Its Secretariat is located in Beijing. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, which coordinates security cooperation, is based in Tashkent.
• Russian and Chinese are its established official languages. The 2026 Bishkek Declaration supported adding English to the SCO Charter as an official language.
• The SCO is a regional intergovernmental organisation, not a collective-defence alliance like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Official SCO background

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the SCO Summit.
• India emphasised dialogue, diplomacy, regional stability, freedom of navigation and the safety of commercial shipping and Indian seafarers.
• The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow maritime passage connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. It is one of the world’s most important oil and liquefied natural gas routes.
• Any conflict or mining of the strait could increase global energy prices, insurance costs and shipping time.
• India is especially vulnerable because it imports most of its crude-oil requirement and receives substantial energy supplies from West Asia.
• Larak Island, an Iranian island close to the strait, became strategically important after reported American attacks on Iranian military launchers there.
• India must balance relations with Iran, the United States, Israel and the Arab Gulf countries while protecting its energy and diaspora interests.

Indus River

• The Indus, also called Sindhu, is one of the principal rivers of South Asia and gives India its historical name.
• It originates in the Tibetan Plateau near the Kailash–Manasarovar region.
• It flows northwest through Ladakh, enters the Gilgit-Baltistan region and then flows southward through Pakistan before entering the Arabian Sea near Karachi.
• Its drainage basin extends across China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Important upper-course tributaries include the Zanskar, Shyok, Nubra, Gilgit and Kabul rivers.
• Its major eastern tributaries are the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. These rivers collectively drain much of the Punjab region.
• The Indus flows through deep gorges in the Himalayan and Karakoram regions before entering the plains.
• Its waters support one of the world’s largest irrigation networks and are essential for agriculture, drinking water and hydropower generation in Pakistan.
• The Indus forms a delta in Sindh, but reduced freshwater and sediment flow has contributed to seawater intrusion and degradation of deltaic wetlands.
• Major challenges include glacier retreat, unpredictable floods, water-intensive farming, pollution, groundwater depletion and political disputes over river projects.

Treaty arrangements

• The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty allocates the eastern rivers—Ravi, Beas and Sutlej—mainly to India.
• The western rivers—Indus, Jhelum and Chenab—are allocated mainly to Pakistan, while India retains limited rights for domestic use, irrigation and run-of-the-river hydropower.
• The Permanent Indus Commission provides routine cooperation. Technical differences may go to a Neutral Expert, while specified legal disputes may be referred to a Court of Arbitration.
• The present disagreement includes the design of the Ratle Hydroelectric Project on the Chenab and the validity of parallel dispute-settlement proceedings.

• The Union government deferred Census operations in Manipur after reviewing the continuing ethnic and administrative situation in the State.
• Several Meitei, Pangal and Naga organisations demanded an updated National Register of Citizens due to concerns about undocumented migration.
• A Census counts the population and records demographic and socio-economic information. It does not determine citizenship.
• The National Register of Citizens is a separate exercise intended to identify legally recognised citizens according to prescribed documents and a cut-off date.
• The Constitution places the Census under the Union List. It is conducted under the Census Act, 1948.
• Accurate figures are important for welfare planning, constituency delimitation, fiscal distribution and reservation-related policy.
• Major difficulties include displacement, distrust between communities, disputed residency claims and the danger that population enumeration may aggravate existing ethnic tensions.

• About 2.7 billion people worldwide lack waste-collection services; nearly two billion of them live in rural areas.
• India generates approximately 1.7 lakh tonnes of solid waste every day. Around 22% reaches landfills, while about 17% remains unaccounted for.
• In Assam’s Majuli district, waste is collected from nearly 160 villages in 19 of 20 gram panchayats. More than 82 tonnes has been transported for processing since 2024.
• Majuli’s island geography increases costs because non-recyclable waste must cross the Brahmaputra.
• In Arunachal Pradesh, waste collected from 26 villages around Tawang and Zemithang travels nearly 390 kilometres to recyclers in Tezpur.
• Useful materials are sorted and sold, while households and shops pay small monthly collection charges.
• Main challenges:
• Scattered settlements and high transport costs.
• Limited material-recovery facilities.
• Weak markets for low-value plastic, textiles and multilayer packaging.
• Dependence on sanitation workers and community participation.

• The Supreme Court used Article 142 to quash First Information Reports registered across India against participants in the July 20–25 protests over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test–Undergraduate paper leak.
• Article 142 empowers the Court to pass orders necessary to ensure “complete justice” in a pending matter.
• The relief did not extend automatically to serious offences. Authorities may register specific cases against 2,873 people with identified criminal antecedents, subject to normal legal safeguards.
• The Court directed the Union government to prepare a nationwide policy for compensating families of students who died by suicide following the leak. Compensation must be paid within three months.
• Article 142 is an extraordinary constitutional power. Its use depends on the facts of each case and does not replace ordinary criminal procedure or create an unrestricted precedent.

• Article 17 abolishes untouchability in every form and makes its enforcement a punishable offence. Unlike many fundamental rights, it applies against both the State and private individuals.
• The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, originally called the Untouchability Offences Act, implements Article 17. Section 7 penalises insults and discriminatory conduct arising from untouchability.
• In Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India (2024), the Supreme Court held that caste discrimination rooted in ideas of purity and pollution can amount to untouchability. It struck down discriminatory provisions in prison manuals.
• In another case involving temple purification, the Court found that a ritual conducted specifically because of a person’s caste violated Articles 14, 15 and 17.
• A purification ceremony is not automatically unconstitutional. Its purpose, circumstances and connection with caste-based exclusion must be established.

• At the end of 2025, 7,229 Central Bureau of Investigation cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act were pending before trial courts. More than 400 cases had remained pending for over 20 years.
• Higher courts had 14,083 pending appeals, revisions and writ petitions connected with CBI cases. These included:
• 3,161 cases pending for 10–15 years
• 1,347 cases pending for 15–20 years
• 739 cases pending for more than 20 years
• The CBI’s conviction rate increased from 69.14% in 2024 to 71.71% in 2025, but prolonged trials weaken deterrence and increase the risk of evidence and witness problems.
• The agency had 755 pending corruption investigations, including 274 regular cases older than one year.
• Against a sanctioned strength of around 7,300, the CBI had 1,088 vacancies, including 672 in executive posts.
• The Central Vigilance Commission became a statutory body through the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003. It supervises vigilance administration and the CBI’s anti-corruption work but does not itself conduct criminal trials.

• The Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2026 seeks to replace the Indian Statistical Institute Act, 1959 and modernise the institution’s governance.
• The Bill was referred to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, which was given three months to submit its report.
• The institute would continue as a body corporate and an Institution of National Importance.
• Its proposed governance structure includes:
• The President of India as Visitor
• A Board of Governors as the principal executive body
• An Academic Council responsible for academic policies and standards
• The changes are intended to help the institute respond to developments in statistics, artificial intelligence and data science.
• The principal concern is how to strengthen transparency and financial accountability without reducing academic freedom or giving the Union government excessive influence over appointments and internal decisions.

• Mullaperiyar is a masonry gravity dam built in 1895 on the Periyar River in Kerala’s Idukki district. Its water is diverted eastward towards Tamil Nadu’s Vaigai basin for irrigation and drinking water.
• The dam is situated in Kerala but operated by Tamil Nadu under a historical lease arrangement.
• A Supreme Court-directed expert panel is examining its structural and operational safety. Kerala highlights the ageing structure, seismicity and downstream flood risk, while Tamil Nadu emphasises irrigation rights and continued reservoir operations.

• The Supreme Court clarified that the present Bar Council of India (BCI) chairperson is serving only in a temporary, pro-tem capacity until elections are completed.
• During this period, the BCI must notify and consult the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General before taking decisions with major policy implications. Both law officers are ex-officio members of the BCI.
• The Court directed High Courts to complete the co-option of two women members to the respective State Bar Councils within a fortnight.
• State Bar Councils must notify their new composition within one week and elect their office-bearers and BCI representative within three weeks.
• Questions were raised over the extension of the chairperson’s tenure from the ordinarily prescribed two years to five years, continued leadership for more than 12 years, expenditure on felicitation ceremonies and the transfer of assets to the BCI Pearl First Trust.
• The Trust was reportedly associated with a proposed university on 56 acres in Goa. These are allegations placed before the Court and have not been finally adjudicated.

About the BCI

• It is a statutory body established under the Advocates Act, 1961.
• It regulates professional conduct, recognises legal-education institutions, lays down standards for advocates and exercises disciplinary and supervisory functions.
• State Bar Councils enrol advocates and handle disciplinary proceedings at the State level.
• The controversy concerns the balance between the institutional independence of the legal profession, democratic elections and judicial oversight of a statutory regulator.

• The United Nations Environment Programme’s Limiting Overshoot report concludes that crossing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is now likely within the next few years.
• Even if every country implements its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and net-zero pledge, peak warming could reach approximately 1.8°C.
• Existing policies could produce approximately 2.6°C warming by 2100, with an estimated range of 1.9°C–3.6°C.
• Every additional five years of high emissions may add approximately 0.1°C to peak warming. Removing that additional warming would require the extraction of roughly 220 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Methane is responsible for approximately 0.5°C of present warming. Cutting methane from fossil-fuel production, agriculture and waste can therefore produce relatively rapid benefits.
• Overshooting 1.5°C increases the risk of coral-reef collapse, loss of more than one-fourth of glaciers by 2100, declining food production, faster sea-level rise and irreversible changes in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
• Carbon removal cannot replace emission reduction. Afforestation, soil-carbon restoration and technological carbon removal have limits involving land, water, cost, permanence and ecological damage.

About the UNFCCC

• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992, opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit and entered into force in 1994.
• It has 198 Parties: 197 States and the European Union.
• Its objective is to stabilise greenhouse-gas concentrations at a level that prevents dangerous human interference with the climate system.
• It follows equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities. All countries must act, but developed countries are expected to take the lead because of their historical emissions and greater capacity.
• The Conference of the Parties (COP) is its principal decision-making body.
• The Kyoto Protocol, 1997, created binding emission targets mainly for developed countries.
• The Paris Agreement, 2015, requires all countries to submit NDCs and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
• NDCs are submitted every five years. The Global Stocktake, also conducted every five years, assesses collective progress and informs the next round of commitments.
• The UNFCCC secretariat is located in Bonn, Germany. UNFCCC, NDC process

• The Allahabad High Court quashed the detention of a 25-year-old law student under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980 after finding serious inconsistencies in the police account.
• She had spent nearly five months in custody following workers’ protests held in Noida between April 10 and 18.
• Police alleged that she instigated stone-pelting and arson on April 13. Records examined by the Court indicated that she had been arrested before the alleged violence and before the required notice was prepared.
• The State could not produce the claimed video evidence of incitement. The Court ordered her release and directed the Noida administration to pay ₹5 lakh compensation.
• Preventive detention seeks to prevent an anticipated offence. It is different from punitive detention, which follows investigation and trial for an offence already committed.
• Article 22 allows preventive detention but requires safeguards such as communication of grounds, an opportunity to make a representation and review by an Advisory Board.
• Because the detainee may be held without an ordinary criminal trial, courts insist on strict compliance with every procedural requirement.
• A writ of habeas corpus allows a court to examine whether a person’s detention is lawful.

The Supreme Court directed Tamil Nadu to create a specified navigation channel through which vessels carrying purse-seine nets can cross the State’s territorial waters and enter India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

• Tamil Nadu prohibited purse-seine fishing in its territorial waters in 2000.
• Purse-seine nets surround an entire school of fish and are then closed from below. They permit large catches but can also capture juvenile fish and non-target species.
• Tamil Nadu’s Marine Fishing Regulation Rules, 2020 apply within territorial waters.
• The Sustainable Harnessing of Fisheries in the Exclusive Economic Zone Rules, 2025 regulate fishing in the EEZ and require eligible vessels to obtain an access pass.
• The Court held that the State rules and Union rules operate in different maritime areas and do not conflict.
• States can regulate fishing within territorial waters, while resources in India’s EEZ vest in the Union under Article 297 of the Constitution.

Maritime zones under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

An extended continental shelf concerns only the seabed and subsoil; the water above it may remain part of the high seas.

Pichavaram Mangrove Forest is located in Tamil Nadu’s Cuddalore district, near Chidambaram. It lies between the Vellar estuary in the north and the Coleroon or Kollidam estuary in the south. These estuaries form the Killai backwater and connect the mangroves with the Bay of Bengal.

• The wetland covers approximately 1,478.64 hectares.
• It became a Ramsar site in 2022 and is listed as Ramsar Site No. 2482.
• A study estimated its total economic value at ₹2,485.38 crore, or approximately ₹1.83 crore per hectare.
• Its combined vegetation and soil blue-carbon asset was valued at approximately ₹1,612.40 crore.
• Average soil organic-carbon stock was estimated at 251.14 tonnes of carbon per hectare.
• The assessment included information from 302 households across five mangrove-dependent villages.

Mangroves provide several ecosystem services:

• They absorb and store carbon in vegetation and waterlogged sediments.
• Their roots reduce coastal erosion and weaken the impact of waves, cyclones and storm surges.
• They serve as breeding and nursery areas for fish, prawns and other aquatic organisms.
• They support fishing, tourism and the livelihoods of surrounding communities.
• Their economic contribution is often underestimated because services such as carbon storage, flood protection and biodiversity do not have an ordinary market price.

Development pressure, pollution, alteration of freshwater flows, resource extraction and invasive species threaten the wetland. Ecosystem-service valuation can help include these environmental losses in coastal-development decisions. Tamil Nadu State Wetlands Authority

• The Union government plans to collect caste information in Census 2027. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will continue to be recorded using the constitutionally notified lists under Articles 341 and 342.
• For all other communities, the proposed method uses an open column: respondents state their caste and the enumerator records the answer instead of selecting it from a fixed list.
• The Census is a Union subject under Entry 69 of the Union List. It is conducted under the Census Act, 1948 and the Census Rules, 1990. Individual census responses are confidential and cannot ordinarily be used as evidence against a person. Census of India

Why were OBC lists not adopted directly?

• Central and State Other Backward Classes lists identify socially and educationally backward classes, not only conventional castes. Some entries represent occupational groups, workers, settlers or locally defined social categories.
• A community may also have different constitutional status in different States—for example, it may be classified as OBC in one State and as Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe in another.
• The Central and State lists together contain nearly 3,000 OBC communities, but they do not capture every locally used caste name, sub-caste, synonym or spelling variation.
• The Central List is connected with Article 342A, while the National Commission for Backward Classes is a constitutional body under Article 338B.

Why is an open column controversial?

• The Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011 reportedly produced more than 46 lakh raw caste descriptions. These were not necessarily 46 lakh separate castes; spelling differences, titles, surnames, sub-castes and local names greatly multiplied the entries.
• An open column respects self-identification but creates a difficult post-enumeration task: similar responses must be standardised without wrongly merging distinct communities.
• A closed list is easier to code and compare, but it may exclude communities or impose an official identity that the respondent does not use.

Why does accurate caste data matter?

• It can improve evidence-based decisions on reservation, welfare targeting, educational access and representation.
• It can reveal differences within broad categories such as OBC, SC and ST.
• It may help assess whether benefits are concentrated among relatively better-represented groups.

Challenges

• Different spellings and regional names can fragment one community into several entries.
• Enumerators may influence answers or record them inconsistently.
• Caste identities do not always correspond neatly with the administrative category of “backward class.”
• Incorrect classification can affect politically and legally sensitive questions concerning reservation.
• Collection must be accompanied by transparent coding rules, independent scrutiny, privacy protection and publication of usable aggregated data.

• The Union government informed the Supreme Court that it had begun implementing an umbrella mission with an outlay of ₹24,000 crore over the next five years.
• It is intended to strengthen State police forces and Central Armed Police Forces through modern weapons, mobility, communication systems, forensic facilities, cybercrime capabilities and surveillance technology.
• Police and public order fall under Entries 1 and 2 of the State List. The Union therefore supplements rather than replaces the primary responsibility of States.

Scheme details

• Allocation: ₹24,000 crore for the new five-year umbrella mission. The exact annual and component-wise division has not yet been publicly specified in the report.
• Period: Five years; an exact closing financial year was not stated.
• Classification: The umbrella mission contains both centrally financed components and assistance to States. The State-police modernisation component is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• Funding ratio: For assistance to State police forces, the established pattern is 60:40 between the Centre and most States and 90:10 for the northeastern States, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Union Territories are supported by the Centre. Ministry of Home Affairs
• A separate official parliamentary reply recorded a ₹450.53-crore allocation for State police modernisation in 2026-27. Rajya Sabha reply

The Supreme Court proceedings also concern compliance with Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh (2021), which required CCTV cameras in police stations, including lock-ups and rooms used for interrogation. Modernisation must therefore improve accountability alongside operational capacity.

Challenges

• Slow preparation of State action plans and procurement delays.
• Non-functional equipment after installation.
• Lack of interoperability among State and central databases.
• Inadequate personnel training and forensic capacity.
• Privacy risks arising from large-scale surveillance.

• The Supreme Court asked the National Highways Authority of India to examine CCTV surveillance and monitoring rooms at toll plazas to detect illegally parked vehicles and highway encroachments.
• The case arose after two accidents in Phalodi, Rajasthan, and Rangareddy, Telangana, killed a combined 34 people in November 2025.
• The Court has treated highway safety as part of the right to life under Article 21. This places a positive obligation on the State to reduce avoidable deaths caused by illegal parking, dangerous road design and accident-prone blackspots.
• Cameras alone are insufficient. They need to be linked with patrol teams, emergency services, vehicle-identification systems and time-bound removal procedures.

Challenges

• Poor identification and rectification of blackspots.
• Fragmented responsibility among NHAI, contractors, police and State transport authorities.
• Weak enforcement against stationary heavy vehicles.
• Absence of clear response times after a violation is detected.
• Need to protect personal data collected by surveillance systems.

• Article 21A makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right for children between six and fourteen years. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 gives effect to this right.
• Existing judicial interpretation recognised five principal duty-bearers: the government, local authority, neighbourhood school, parents or guardians, and teachers.
• The Supreme Court added two institutional duty-bearers:
• Teacher Education Institutions, which train prospective teachers.
• National Council for Teacher Education, which regulates teacher education under the NCTE Act, 1993.
• The Court held that access to a school does not fulfil Article 21A if teaching quality is poor. Teacher education, recognition standards, faculty quality and institutional integrity therefore become part of the State’s responsibility to provide meaningful education.

Challenges

• Substandard teacher-training colleges.
• Weak inspection and accreditation.
• Shortage of properly trained teachers.
• Excessive focus on enrolment rather than learning outcomes.
• Differences in training capacity across States and rural areas.

• The agreement brings together a market of approximately two billion people, representing around one-fourth of global GDP, one-third of world trade and an estimated $24-trillion market.
• Tariffs on more than 95% of Indian and European goods exports are expected to be reduced or eliminated.
• India–European Union trade has nearly doubled over the past decade to about $140 billion.
• Potential Indian beneficiaries include textiles, pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, gems and jewellery, processed food, information technology services and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
• Belgium can serve as a logistics and technology partner through the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, semiconductor research, green hydrogen and advanced manufacturing. PIB

Important concepts

• A free trade agreement reduces tariffs and other trade barriers between members.
• Rules of origin determine whether a product genuinely originates in a member country and is eligible for lower tariffs.
• Non-tariff issues include product standards, sanitary rules, professional qualifications, data regulation and government procurement.

Challenges

• European environmental and carbon-related standards may raise compliance costs.
• Sensitive agricultural and dairy sectors require protection from sudden import competition.
• Indian firms must satisfy strict rules of origin and product-certification requirements.
• Smaller businesses may not benefit unless they receive assistance with standards, logistics and market information.

• Violence disrupted hearings on applications for inclusion and deletion of names from Arunachal Pradesh’s electoral rolls in Bordumsa, Changlang district.
• Officials could hear only 222 of 252 Form-6 applications for enrolment and 150 of 303 Form-7 objections.
• The Chakmas are predominantly Buddhist, while the Hajongs are predominantly Hindu. They migrated from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan during the 1960s following displacement caused by the Kaptai Dam and religious and ethnic insecurity.
• The Union government resettled several families in the region that later became Arunachal Pradesh. Opposition to their citizenship and voting rights subsequently emerged among some local groups.
• In 1996, the Supreme Court directed the State to protect their life and liberty and prevent forcible eviction. Citizenship eligibility, however, does not automatically establish inclusion in a particular electoral constituency; the Election Commission must verify age, residence and citizenship under electoral law. Supreme Court judgment

The Shri Guru Gorakhnath Community Reserve at Kajalheri in Haryana’s Fatehabad district supports an estimated 150–200 turtles. Untreated sewage entering its pond has caused fungal infections, skin lesions and blindness. Turtles leaving the polluted water are exposed to vehicles and dogs, while cattle trampling and nest predation reduce successful breeding.

The reserve was notified in 2019. Immediate measures should include interception of sewage, treatment and aeration of the pond, nesting-site protection, veterinary surveillance and regulation of cattle movement. IUCN status changes, CITES Appendices

• The Central Bureau of Investigation conducted searches at 89 locations across 20 States, registered three cases and made three arrests under Operation Chakra-VI.
• One victim at BITS Pilani was reportedly kept under continuous online surveillance for about three months and lost ₹7.67 crore. Another case involved approximately ₹19.24 crore.
• “Digital arrest” has no legal recognition. Criminals impersonate police officers, courts, the CBI or financial regulators and falsely claim that the victim is implicated in money laundering, drugs or parcel-related offences.
• They isolate victims on video calls, display forged documents and demand transfers to supposed “safe accounts”. These are usually mule accounts used to layer and rapidly move stolen money.
• Suspected cases should immediately be reported through helpline 1930 or the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.

• Cell Broadcast sends a warning simultaneously to every compatible phone connected to selected mobile towers. It is a one-to-many broadcast, unlike an SMS sent separately to individual numbers.
• The system can target a district, coastal belt or disaster-affected zone without collecting residents’ phone numbers.
• It operates across 2G to 5G networks and is more reliable during congestion because alerts are transmitted through a dedicated broadcast channel.
• The Centre for Development of Telematics developed around 300–350 interoperability adapters in six months so the platform could communicate with equipment supplied by different telecom vendors.
• State disaster-management authorities can use it for cyclones, floods, earthquakes, landslides and other location-specific emergencies. Alerts may appear as loud pop-ups in multiple languages. C-DOT Cell Broadcast Solution

• The Supreme Court suggested raising the retirement age of district judicial officers from 60 to 62 years. Only seven States had agreed: Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
• District courts were dealing with approximately 5.18 crore pending cases.
• A higher retirement age can retain experienced judges, reduce abrupt vacancies and provide more time for mentoring junior officers.
• It must be accompanied by periodic performance review so that extension does not protect consistently inefficient officers.
• It cannot replace timely recruitment, adequate courtrooms, support staff, technology and procedural reform.
• Under Articles 233–235, appointments and administrative control over the subordinate judiciary involve the Governor, State government, Public Service Commission and the relevant High Court.

• China is constructing the Yarlung Zangbo Lower Reaches Hydropower Project near the river’s Great Bend in Tibet, close to the Indian border.
• The estimated investment is 1.2 trillion yuan, approximately ₹14 lakh crore.
• The project is expected to contain five power stations of about 12 gigawatts each, giving it a projected capacity of 60 GW—considerably larger than the Three Gorges project.
• A reservoir and approximately 40-km tunnel may divert water around the Great Bend before returning it to the river.
• Yarlung Zangbo enters India through Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang and later becomes the Brahmaputra.
• India’s concerns include alteration of downstream flows, sediment transport, ecological damage, dam safety in a seismically active region and possible use of water storage during political disputes.
• India and China have an Expert-Level Mechanism for sharing hydrological information, but data exchange has sometimes been suspended or irregular.

• Tata Consultancy Services subsidiary HyperVault plans to develop a large Artificial Intelligence data-centre campus in Hyderabad.
• The proposed investment is ₹70,000 crore, with a capacity of up to one gigawatt and expected direct employment for approximately 7,000 people.
• The Telangana government has set 2 June 2028 as the target for inauguration.
• AI data centres require high-performance computing systems, specialised chips, uninterrupted electricity, cooling systems and large-capacity communication networks.
• Their rapid expansion can substantially increase electricity and water consumption. Air cooling, recycled water, renewable energy and waste-heat recovery can reduce the environmental burden.
• Data localisation and domestic computing capacity can strengthen India’s digital sovereignty, but cybersecurity, electronic waste and concentration of infrastructure among a few companies remain concerns.

• A batch of the Abhayrab vaccine bearing number KE25012 failed a potency test and was classified as “not of standard quality” and “misbranded”.
• Suspected vials differed from genuine products in packaging, artwork, QR-code verification, cap colour and licence information.
• The manufacturer stated that its genuine batch contained 83,370 vials, was properly tested and had been released through authorised channels in November 2025.
• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation must determine who produced the suspect vials, whether any were administered and how they entered the supply chain.

Rabies

• Rabies is a viral zoonotic disease caused by a virus of the Lyssavirus group. It attacks the brain and central nervous system.
• It usually spreads through the saliva of an infected animal following a bite, scratch or contact with broken skin.
• Dogs are responsible for approximately 99% of human rabies cases. Once clinical symptoms appear, rabies is practically always fatal.
• Early symptoms include fever and pain or tingling around the wound. Later symptoms may include hydrophobia, difficulty swallowing, confusion, paralysis and coma.

How the vaccine works

1. Modern rabies vaccines contain an inactivated virus, which cannot cause rabies.
2. Viral antigens alert immune cells, particularly B lymphocytes.
3. These cells produce rabies-virus-neutralising antibodies directed mainly against the virus’s surface glycoprotein.
4. The antibodies neutralise the virus near the exposure site before it can enter peripheral nerves and travel to the brain.
5. Vaccine-induced antibodies normally take several days to develop. Therefore, severe exposures also require rabies immunoglobulin or monoclonal antibodies around the wound for immediate passive protection.
6. Thorough washing with soap and water for at least 15 minutes, prompt vaccination and immunoglobulin where indicated together constitute post-exposure prophylaxis.

The vaccine cannot reverse the disease after the virus has established symptomatic infection in the central nervous system. Any suspected exposure requires immediate medical assessment. WHO rabies guidance

• The Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026 make Indian Standard Time the common reference for legal, commercial, administrative and official purposes.
• Indian Standard Time is Coordinated Universal Time plus 5 hours and 30 minutes.
• It is generated by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–National Physical Laboratory using atomic clocks and satellite links.
• Five Legal Metrology laboratories are intended to disseminate accurate time across the country.
• The system will serve banking, stock markets, telecommunications, electricity grids, railways, airports, computer networks and digital government records.
• NavIC and authorised Indian timing sources will reduce dependence on foreign systems such as the United States-operated Global Positioning System.
• A White Rabbit Technology-based demonstration network commissioned in Bengaluru showed how extremely precise time could be distributed through communication networks.
• Organisations were given 180 days from notification to adapt their systems.

• International payments generally pass through correspondent banks because banks in two countries may not maintain accounts with each other.
• When a South African importer pays an Indian exporter, the amount may be converted from rand to dollars and subsequently from dollars to rupees. Each intermediary charges fees and foreign-exchange margins.
• The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, transmits secure payment instructions. It does not itself transfer or hold the money.
• SWIFT connects more than 11,000 institutions in over 200 countries and territories.
• A BRICS survey found foreign-exchange margins of around 2.5%, rising to 8.5% for some African payments and, in exceptional cases, 20%.
• Proposed alternatives include direct links between national payment systems and connections among wholesale central bank digital currencies.
• Project Nexus would create a common hub connecting national instant-payment systems. It is expected to become operational in 2027 but is not exclusively a BRICS initiative.
• India has framed the proposal mainly as a way to lower transaction costs and accelerate settlement, rather than as an explicit attempt to replace the United States dollar.