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GS Paper: GS3-23.Security Challenges and their Management in Border Areas – Linkages of Organized Crime with Terrorism.

  • Amid ecological concerns, rail line set to connect Uri with Baramulla shelved

    Why in the News

    Indian Railways has shelved the proposed 40 km Baramulla-Uri new line, meant to extend rail connectivity towards the Line of Control (LoC), after concerns over its ecological impact. The decision puts the safety of a fragile, earthquake prone valley and its main town ahead of a strategic border link.

    What was the Uri line meant to do?

    1. What it is: The line would have extended the Udhampur-Baramulla rail line from Baramulla, the last point of the Valley’s railway, to the border region of Uri.
    2. Strategic purpose: It was viewed as a strategic link towards the LoC, giving faster movement of troops, equipment and military logistics to forward areas.
    3. Civilian and logistical value: The line would also have carried civilian passengers, and was expected to strengthen logistics in a sensitive border region.
    4. The takeaway: Without the line, supply to forward posts near Uri stays tied to roads that weather and terrain can close.

    Why was the line dropped?

    1. Cutting through the town: The alignment would have bisected Baramulla town and several village habitations, and run through orchards.
    2. Fragile terrain: It would have crossed fragile highland and mountains in seismic zone 5, the category of highest earthquake risk, along a corridor vulnerable to extreme weather.
    3. Local opposition: The Baramulla legislator argued the town cannot afford a project that cuts through its heart, and that development must protect its heritage, environment and land.
    4. Assembly resolution: The legislator moved a resolution in the ongoing Assembly session to keep the project on hold until a “comprehensive and independent geological, geotechnical and seismic assessment” is done.

    What else has been dropped in Kashmir’s rail plan?

    1. Formal return: The Railway Board has informed Northern Railway that the Uri line and a second project were returned by the Cabinet Secretariat and are no longer under consideration.
    2. Doubling shelved: The second project, doubling the existing 74 km Qazigund-Srinagar-Budgam stretch, has been shelved alongside the Uri line.
    3. Earlier pauses: Six months ago, the rail ministry put the proposed Anantnag-Pahalgam and Anantnag-Shopian links on hold after farmers’ protests.

    Challenges

    1. Security versus ecology: A strategic border link and a fragile, quake prone valley pull in opposite directions, and no framework exists to weigh them.
    2. Orchard land: Orchards anchor the Valley’s rural economy, so any new alignment through them meets farmer resistance.
    3. Road dependence: Forward areas stay reliant on a single highway exposed to landslides and snow. Eg. The Srinagar-Baramulla-Uri road.
    4. Single line capacity: Without doubling, the one track to Srinagar limits train frequency as traffic into the Valley grows.

    Way Forward

    1. Assessment before alignment: Commission the independent terrain study before any new route to Uri is drawn.
    2. Bypass the town: Railways should examine tunnelled or bypass alignments that skirt Baramulla town and its orchards.
    3. Consult before sanction: Hold public consultations with farmers and local bodies before a project is sanctioned, not after protests.
    4. Harden the road: The Border Roads Organisation should strengthen the Uri road against landslides and snow to sustain military logistics.

    Conclusion

    Kashmir’s rail expansion beyond its trunk line is now being checked by land and ecological objections rather than by engineering limits. Whether the Railways returns with a realigned, independently assessed route to Uri is the next development to watch.

    Back2Basics: Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL)

    1. What it is: A 272 km railway linking Udhampur to Baramulla through Srinagar, which joins the Kashmir Valley to the national rail network.
    2. National project: Declared a national project in 2002, it was completed when the full link opened in June 2025.
    3. Engineering landmarks: It carries the Chenab bridge, the world’s highest railway arch bridge, and the Anji Khad bridge, India’s first cable stayed rail bridge.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS3, 10 marks] Ladakh is strategically located between China and Pakistan. As a measure to win hearts and minds of locals, discuss the Border Area Development Programmes (BADP) by the Central Government and civic actions by the Army. Also discuss demand of promulgation of provision of the Sixth Schedule of constitution for Ladakh.”

  • Punjab’s drug scourge needs policy, not slogans

    Why in the News

    The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has flagged off the first of four “Nasha Mukt Punjab” yatras, a campaign that will cover nearly 4,000 km before culminating at Jalandhar on 30 September. The party has said it will contest all 117 seats in Punjab on its own, and the Union Home Minister is expected to address the closing rally. The campaign follows the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s “Yudh Nasheyan Viruddh” drive, launched in March 2025. That drive has produced arrests and seizure figures in abundance. It has not produced any visible slowdown in the flow of contraband. The tension is that a problem which has outlived a dozen crackdowns and three governments is being contested as an electoral idiom rather than a policy question, so the state keeps publishing enforcement output while the money, the supply routes and the treatment capacity behind the trade stay untouched.

    Why has the drug question returned to the centre of Punjab’s politics?

    1. A recurring electoral peg: The drug question returns to the centre of the state’s politics before successive elections, and it has returned again as the next Assembly election approaches.
    2. The BJP’s framing: The yatras run under the slogan “Bhajpa Da Naara, Nasha Mukauna Saara”, which states the objective of ending drug use without naming a measure that would deliver it.
    3. The Congress response: The party’s Punjab in charge led a protest at Chandigarh over the death of a labourer who had publicly questioned the state Finance Minister about the availability of drugs.
    4. The Akali Dal position: Leaders of the Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) made drugs the centrepiece of their campaign at the Rakhar Puniya rally and promised a white paper on the scourge.
    5. The common shape of all three: Each response is a yatra, a protest or a promised document, and none of them carries a stated measure on financing, supply routes or treatment capacity.

    Why has the border explanation stopped explaining the trade?

    1. Position on the supply route: Punjab sits at the edge of the Golden Crescent and shares a border of roughly 550 km with Pakistan, which is the reason most often cited for the scale of the problem.
    2. Drone delivery: Drones now ferry consignments across the line, which removes the physical crossing that a fenced and patrolled border is designed to intercept.
    3. Relay points in other States: Other States have become relay points in the chain, so a consignment no longer has to reach Punjab directly from the border at all.
    4. Diverted pharmaceutical drugs: Pharmaceutical drugs are cheaper, more accessible and harder to trace, and they have become an important part of the trade.
    5. The consequence for strategy: A trade that has outgrown the border cannot be contained by a response built around the border.

    Why have arrests and seizures not slowed supply?

    1. Output without outcome: The campaign launched in March 2025 has generated arrests and seizure figures in abundance with no corresponding fall in the contraband reaching users.
    2. Enforcement reaches the wrong end of the chain: Arrests fall on carriers and users at the retail end, while those who finance and supply the trade are not prosecuted.
    3. The money trail is unexamined: A serious response has to trace the money moving through the trade, and no campaign so far has produced that examination.
    4. Institutional failures are unnamed: The trade survives because of institutional failures that allow it to operate, and no crackdown has identified or acted on them.
    5. The cost the seizure count does not record: Families are destroyed and many young Punjabis leave the state in search of a future abroad, which is the outcome no enforcement statistic captures.

    What must a policy response do that a campaign cannot?

    1. Dismantle the networks: The state has to dismantle the networks controlling the trade rather than only intercept the consignments those networks move.
    2. Prosecute financiers and suppliers: Prosecution has to reach those who finance and supply the trade, because that is where the incentive to continue actually sits.
    3. Build treatment capacity: Accessible treatment and sustained rehabilitation are required for those caught in addiction, and both are capacity questions rather than campaign questions.
    4. Provide an alternative occupation: Young people need opportunities to rebuild their lives, since recovery without an occupation returns a person to the same market.
    5. The family cannot substitute for the state: Families matter in prevention and recovery, and that role does not allow the state to abdicate its own responsibility.

    Challenges to Punjab’s anti drug policy

    1. Prosecution stops at the carrier: Enforcement records the quantity seized rather than the ownership of the consignment, so the chain above the carrier survives every recovery. Eg. The Special Task Force report on Punjab’s drug trade, submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a sealed cover in 2018, was never made public.
      The Fix: Require every commercial quantity case to carry a financial investigation report naming the funder before the chargesheet is filed.
    2. Diverted pharmaceutical supply is a licensing failure: Prescription opioids leave the legal chain at the chemist and the manufacturer, which is a regulatory lapse that no border deployment can reach. Eg. Tramadol was brought under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 by notification in 2018 after it displaced heroin in parts of the state.
      The Fix: Link every Schedule H1 opioid sale to a prescription number in a State drug database and audit the outlier chemists monthly.
    3. Treatment is counted in registrations, not in completions: Outpatient opioid assisted treatment centres report enrolment while relapse after discontinuation goes untracked, so the system cannot say what treatment achieved. Eg. Punjab runs Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment centres across its districts alongside government de addiction centres.
      The Fix: Publish a retention at six months figure for each centre, so capacity is measured by completed treatment rather than by registrations.
    4. Interdiction lags the delivery method: A small drone crosses in minutes and its payload is recovered only after it has landed, so the seizure confirms the delivery rather than preventing it. Eg. The Border Security Force has recovered drones and dropped consignments along the Punjab frontier in rising numbers each year since 2020.
      The Fix: Fund a counter drone detection grid along the Punjab frontier and tie each recovery to the ground receiver traced from it.

    Conclusion

    Punjab has heard the promise of a drug free state from three governments and is hearing it again from four parties. The state does not lack a diagnosis of the trade; it lacks a policy that outlasts the campaign that announced it. What remains unresolved is that enforcement produces a number a government can publish within weeks, while financial investigation, prosecution of financiers and treatment capacity produce results only across a full term. The 2027 Assembly election is where that record gets tested, and the test is for Punjab’s political class as a whole rather than for one party in office.

    Back2Basics: Golden Crescent

    1. What it is: The Golden Crescent is the illicit opium producing region of South West Asia, covering Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
    2. Why it reaches India: Afghanistan has historically been the largest single source of the region’s opium, and the output moves outward through Pakistani and Iranian routes.
    3. The other producing region: The Golden Triangle, covering Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, is the second major illicit opium region and feeds India’s eastern land routes.
    4. India’s position between them: India lies between the two regions, which is the basis for its classification as a transit country as well as a consuming one.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What counter-measures should be taken to prevent the same?”

  • Forces comb Pir Panjal to stop terrorist movement between Jammu, Kashmir

    Why in the News

    Security forces have adopted a sustained deployment across the Pir Panjal range, operating from Temporary Operational Bases (TOBs) instead of withdrawing after each operation. The change was visible in an operation in which a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist was killed at Ashdar Gali in the upper reaches, after a four month joint effort by the Army, its para forces, the Jammu and Kashmir Police and paramilitary forces. Terrorists had for four years used the high altitude transit routes through the dense forests to move between the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region. Pressure applied on one side of the range simply moved them to the other. The tension is that a terrain which gave observation and concealment to small armed groups is now being answered by keeping troops inside it through the season, at a cost in exposure and logistics that a raid never carried.

    What is a Temporary Operational Base?

    1. What it is: A Temporary Operational Base is a forward position from which a joint team stays deployed in the mountains for an extended period, rather than returning to a garrison once an operation ends.
    2. Duration: Deployments run from more than ten days to several months, decided by the security situation and intelligence inputs.
    3. Shelter: Where a natural shelter exists, such as a Gujjar dhok, a herder’s seasonal shack, or a cave, it is used as the base. Otherwise the team operates in the dense forest without shelter.
    4. Siting: The bases are scattered across the range on intelligence inputs and ground situation analysis, and the one above the Doodhpathri meadow at Ashdar Gali has been held for several months.

    Why is the Pir Panjal strategically decisive?

    1. What the range divides: The Pir Panjal separates the Jammu region from the Kashmir Valley.
    2. Southern approaches: To its south lie the Poonch and Rajouri districts, which run up to the Line of Control (LoC).
    3. The two corridors: The range connects Kashmir to Poonch and Rajouri on one side, and to the Chenab Valley districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban on the other.
    4. The northern stretch: Inside Kashmir the range extends to Gulmarg and Baramulla, connecting the Valley back to the Line of Control.
    5. Why that matters operationally: A single mountain system linking the infiltration frontier to both halves of the Union Territory makes the range a transit corridor rather than a destination.

    How is the deployment organised across the range?

    1. Three zones: The mountains are divided into the upper reaches, the middle range and the lower reaches.
    2. Upper reaches: The Army’s paratroopers hold the highest ground, trained and equipped for high altitude warfare, and are stationed at mountain tops from where drones monitor large stretches of terrain.
    3. Middle range: The middle range is manned either by the Rashtriya Rifles, the Army’s counter insurgency force, or by joint teams of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and paramilitary forces, depending on the requirement.
    4. Lower reaches: The lower ranges are usually held by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and paramilitary forces.
    5. Closing the weapons gap: Militants at height held stationary positions from which they could watch soldiers, and carried weapons such as the American M4 carbine, efficient in close combat. Special troops now carry comparable weapons and night vision devices for patrolling after dark.

    What new units has the Jammu and Kashmir Police raised?

    1. The trigger: The Pahalgam attack on tourists in April last year killed twenty five tourists and one local.
    2. A new elite tier: The Jammu and Kashmir Police raised a new elite unit within its Special Operations Group (SOG) to strengthen operations in challenging terrain.
    3. Snow Leopards: The Snow Leopards unit is trained for high altitude warfare in rough terrain during the winter.
    4. Markhor: The Markhor unit is trained for gunfights in dense forest.

    What does the earlier record in Poonch and Rajouri show?

    1. A former hotbed: The Poonch and Rajouri axis carried a large number of militants, mostly foreigners, moving openly through the forests.
    2. Operation Sarp Vinash: The Indian Army launched Operation Sarp Vinash in 2003, with the help of local residents, to flush militants out of the area.
    3. The clearance held for a decade: The region was declared militant free in 2012.
    4. The return: The forested mountains have become a major challenge again over the last few years, with a series of setbacks recorded in the last three.

    Challenges to the Pir Panjal deployment model

    1. Support networks reconstitute faster than they are mapped: Overground worker networks change composition and new hideouts appear, so intelligence on a valley goes stale between operations. Eg. Officials record newer terrorist hideouts in the same forest belts that earlier operations had cleared.
      The Fix: Tie the base siting cycle to a rolling review of the support network in each valley, rather than to the location of the last contact.
    2. Winter attrition falls on the force: Holding high ground through a Himalayan winter produces cold injury and altitude illness that no contact with an adversary causes. Eg. Non battle casualties have historically exceeded combat casualties on India’s high altitude deployments.
      The Fix: Rotate upper reach detachments on a fixed acclimatisation cycle and pre position winter stores before the passes close.
    3. The herding population uses the same routes: A standing armed presence in grazing areas cuts across the seasonal movement of the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities. Eg. The dhoks used as temporary bases are the herders’ own seasonal shelters.
      The Fix: Compensate the use of private dhoks and issue transit passes to registered herders, so ordinary seasonal movement is not read as suspicious.
    4. Infiltration sits upstream of the model: Sustained presence inside the range does not change the supply of armed entrants crossing into it. Eg. Foreign militants moving through these forests enter from launch pads across the Line of Control.
      The Fix: Pair the deployment with counter infiltration grid upgrades on the Line of Control, so the corridor is contested at entry and not only in transit.
    5. Aerial observation fails where it is most needed: Drone surveillance from mountain tops loses effect under forest canopy and in cloud, which is when movement is attempted. Eg. Dense deodar and pine cover in the Poonch forests blocks overhead observation for most of the day.
      The Fix: Combine aerial observation with ground sensors and human sources in the canopy belts, rather than relying on the aerial picture alone.

    Conclusion

    The range’s value to an armed group was never its height. It was the ability to leave one side the moment pressure arrived on the other, and a standing presence is what removes that option. The deployment answers movement. It does not answer entry, and the supply of armed entrants is decided at the frontier rather than in the forest. What to watch is whether the bases are held through the coming winter, since a presence that thins with the snow restores the very transit option it was raised to deny.

    Back2Basics: Overground Worker (OGW)

    1. What the term means: An overground worker is a person who supports an armed group without taking part in armed action.
    2. What the support covers: Shelter, food, movement of weapons and money, and reconnaissance of security force movement.
    3. Why the category matters: An infiltrated group cannot sustain itself between operations without a local support layer, so dismantling the network is treated as equivalent to an operational success.
    4. How it is handled: Police in Jammu and Kashmir maintain lists of suspected overground workers and periodically detain and prosecute them under criminal and preventive detention law.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Winning of ‘Hearts and Minds’ in terrorism-affected areas is an essential step in restoring the trust of the population. Discuss the measures adopted by the Government in this respect as part of the conflict resolution in Jammu and Kashmir.”

  • INS Kolkata was on routine patrol, Pak vessel conduct wrong: MEA

    Why in the News

    The Ministry of External Affairs has identified INS Kolkata as the Indian Navy warship involved in a collision with a Pakistani naval vessel in the North Arabian Sea, and has said that PNS Hunain conducted itself in an unacceptable and unprofessional manner at sea. India’s stated position is that the Pakistani ship’s overtaking manoeuvre grossly violated Article 10 of the Agreement between India and Pakistan on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements, 1991. That article bars naval units of the two countries from closing to less than three nautical miles of each other in international waters. Pakistan rejects the account, says its Navy was conducting its biennial exercise SEASPARK-26, and places the incident inside its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The tension is over where the collision happened and which rule governed it.

    What does the 1991 Agreement on Advance Notice require?

    1. What the agreement covers: It obliges each country to give the other advance notice of military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements above specified levels, so routine activity is not read as preparation for attack.
    2. The naval separation rule: Article 10 states that naval ships and submarines of the two countries are not to close to less than three nautical miles of each other while operating in international waters, in order to avoid an accident.
    3. When it was concluded: The agreement was signed in April 1991, as part of the set of confidence building measures built between the two countries after the military standoffs of the 1980s.
    4. What it is not: It is a risk reduction instrument rather than a dispute settlement one, and it carries no verification machinery and no penalty for breach.

    What happened at sea on 15 September?

    1. India’s account of the deployment: INS Kolkata was on a routine deployment in the western Arabian Sea when the collision occurred.
    2. The manoeuvre: The Pakistani vessel closed in on the Indian warship at high speed and attempted an overtaking manoeuvre, which resulted in contact between the two ships.
    3. Where it happened: The incident took place about 120 nautical miles from the Gulf of Oman.
    4. The ships involved: INS Kolkata is a frontline guided missile destroyer of the Indian Navy. PNS Hunain is an offshore patrol vessel, often listed as a Yarmook class corvette because of its combat suite.
    5. The damage: No major damage was caused to INS Kolkata and the ship remains at sea.

    What are the two sides’ competing claims?

    1. India’s legal case: India places the incident in international waters and cites a breach of Article 10 of the 1991 agreement and of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs).
    2. Pakistan’s account: Pakistan says its Navy was undertaking the biennial exercise SEASPARK-26, and that the Indian vessel carried out aggressive manoeuvres in dangerously close proximity to a Pakistani naval ship.
    3. Pakistan’s jurisdictional claim: Islamabad describes the incident as a highly provocative and unacceptable action by an Indian Navy vessel inside Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
    4. India’s response to that claim: India has rejected the allegations and insinuations in the Pakistani statement, and describes the response as prevarication.

    Does an Exclusive Economic Zone claim change the legal position?

    1. What an EEZ is: Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, a coastal State’s Exclusive Economic Zone extends up to 200 nautical miles from its baselines.
    2. What rights it confers: The rights in an EEZ are over resources, meaning fisheries, seabed minerals and energy, together with jurisdiction over artificial islands and marine scientific research.
    3. What it does not confer: An EEZ is not territorial sea and carries no sovereignty over the water column for navigation, so warships of other States retain freedom of navigation there.
    4. Why the location argument still matters politically: Placing the collision inside its own EEZ lets Pakistan frame an Indian deployment as an intrusion, even where the navigation itself is lawful.
    5. The rule that applies either way: COLREGs bind all vessels on the high seas and connected waters regardless of zone, and they place the duty to keep clear on the overtaking vessel.

    How did the two governments escalate this diplomatically?

    1. India’s protest: India summoned Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires and lodged a strong protest over the incident.
    2. Pakistan’s counter protest: Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Charge d’Affaires of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and lodged its own protest.
    3. India’s advisory: Pakistan has been advised of the need for all military units to observe due care and to respect the provisions of the relevant agreements, so that such incidents are not repeated.
    4. What the exchange settled: Neither side accepted the other’s account, so the episode closes with two contradictory official records and no joint inquiry.

    Challenges to India and Pakistan maritime risk management

    1. No incidents at sea agreement exists: The two countries have no bilateral instrument setting out communication procedures and manoeuvring rules for close naval encounters. Eg. The United States and the then Soviet Union concluded an Incidents at Sea Agreement in 1972 covering exactly these situations.
      The Fix: Negotiate a dedicated incidents at sea agreement with mandatory radio contact procedures and a joint fact finding mechanism for collisions.
    2. The 1991 agreement has no verification arm: Article 10 states a separation distance with no means of establishing after the event where two ships actually were. Eg. Each side in this incident places the collision in a different legal zone, and neither account can be tested.
      The Fix: Agree to exchange navigation track and automatic identification system data for any reported incident within a fixed period.
    3. Naval communication runs only through diplomatic channels: An encounter at sea reaches the two foreign ministries before it reaches the two navies, so escalation precedes de escalation. Eg. The standing hotline between the Directors General of Military Operations covers the land border rather than naval units at sea.
      The Fix: Establish a direct maritime operations hotline between the two navies’ operational headquarters with a standing duty officer.
    4. Notification obligations do not cover sea areas: Advance notice focuses on land based exercises and troop movements, so a naval exercise can run without a notified area other vessels are expected to keep clear of. Eg. The Pakistani exercise was under way in the same waters where the collision occurred.
      The Fix: Extend the advance notice regime to naval exercise areas and dates, with a notified exclusion zone for the duration of the exercise.
    5. The North Arabian Sea is a crowded operating area: Warships of many navies operate alongside heavy commercial traffic on the approaches to the Gulf, so the margin for a manoeuvring error is small. Eg. Indian Navy destroyers and frigates have been deployed on sustained missions in these waters for several months.
      The Fix: Coordinate published deconfliction lanes for warship transits in the northern Arabian Sea through the existing multinational maritime coordination arrangements.

    Conclusion

    Two navies operating in the same waters now hold two irreconcilable accounts of one collision, and have no mechanism to reconcile them. The instrument each side reaches for was written for a different problem, since a notification agreement cannot establish what happened once contact has already occurred. Both protests have been lodged and both rejected, and the Indian warship has returned to its deployment. The step that would change the pattern is a navy to navy communication and fact finding arrangement, because the next encounter will otherwise be handled exactly as this one was.

    Back2Basics: International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs)

    1. What they are: COLREGs are the international rules of the road at sea, adopted through the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1972 and in force since 1977.
    2. What they govern: They set the steering and sailing rules, including which vessel gives way in crossing, overtaking and head on situations, along with lights, shapes and sound signals.
    3. Who they bind: They apply to all vessels on the high seas and in connected waters navigable by seagoing vessels, warships included.
    4. The overtaking rule: A vessel overtaking another must keep out of its way, and that duty stays with the overtaking vessel until it is finally past and clear.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 15] Why is maritime security vital to protect India’s sea trade? Discuss maritime and coastal security challenges and the way forward.”

  • Punjab owes its young a chance to recover

    Why in the News

    More than 10 lakh people have registered at Punjab’s government de addiction clinics since the State opened them, and that figure counts only those who gave their names. What changed in Punjab is the chemistry of the supply rather than its presence, since opium and poppy husk were consumed within social boundaries for generations. Chitta, the local name for smoked or injected synthetic heroin, reaches the brain in seconds. The Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) programme can report how many crore tablets it dispensed last year and cannot report how many people recovered. The tension is between policing and treatment. Peddlers have been arrested under every government without a single trafficking network being broken, and the treatment system that would cut demand was built and then left unfunded.

    What is the Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment programme?

    1. What it does: It delivers opioid substitution treatment on an outpatient basis, so a dependent person receives a prescribed medicine at a clinic and returns home rather than occupying a bed.
    2. Why substitution is used: A long acting oral opioid occupies the same brain receptor as heroin without the rapid rise that drives craving. That allows a person to function while the dependence is managed.
    3. How it is delivered: The programme runs through government OOAT clinics across Punjab, with dispensing recorded centrally.
    4. What it does not do by itself: Substitution manages dependence. It does not supply the counselling, follow up and employment that decide whether a person stays recovered.

    Why has the chemistry of the supply changed the nature of the problem?

    1. The same receptor, a different speed: Opium and heroin act on the same brain receptor. The difference between them is the speed at which each reaches it.
    2. Why the rate of rise matters: Opium eaten is absorbed over hours, so the body can adjust to it. Heroin smoked or injected arrives in seconds, and it is that rate of rise that builds craving.
    3. What sustained use does: When a stronger drug floods those receptors every day, the brain stops producing its own opioids. Within months the user is chasing an ordinary baseline rather than a high.
    4. Why willpower is the wrong frame: Withdrawal is the loss of the ability to feel ordinary comfort. It is not a matter of discomfort or resolve.
    5. What this changed in Punjab: Poppy husk was sold at the village shop and opium was taken at weddings, funerals and harvests, within recognised limits. The shift to fast acting synthetic opioids removed those limits with no change in the population’s morals.

    What does the registration figure show, and what does it miss?

    1. The undercount: The register counts only those who gave their names, so the dependent population is larger than the recorded number.
    2. What a registration is not: A registration records an entry into treatment. It records nothing about completion, relapse or recovery.
    3. The household scale: Each registration stands for a family waiting on an outcome, which makes this a demand side problem of a size no enforcement drive can absorb.
    4. Why the number is the starting point: A dependent population of this size sets the staffing, dispensing and follow up load the system has to be built for.

    Why can interdiction alone not close the supply?

    1. The arithmetic of potency: Synthetic opioids are potent enough that a year’s worth can cross the border in a drone the size of a tiffin box, so seizure volumes cannot keep pace with supply.
    2. Arrests without networks: Every government of every colour has arrested peddlers. Not one has dismantled a trafficking network.
    3. Where enforcement would have to move: Effective control needs technology on the fence, detection grids, counter drone systems and forensics that trace a consignment backwards to its source.
    4. The political element: Prosecution has to reach the people who protect the trade, rather than stopping at the boys who consume it.

    What has gone wrong with treatment delivery?

    1. Built and then starved: The OOAT programme was created with a working frame and then left without the money to run it.
    2. Counting the wrong thing: The State can report the tablets dispensed. It cannot report the people recovered.
    3. Diversion priced into the system: A tablet costing thirty rupees at the clinic sells for three hundred rupees outside it. That price gap is a direct measure of how little supervision is being paid for.
    4. The empty posts: Punjab has a very small number of psychiatrists, and counsellors and hospital beds are similarly short, so the clinical side of the programme is understaffed.
    5. The budget comparison: The entire de addiction budget is a rounding error against the State’s power subsidy bill.
    6. Follow up and work: Relapse occurs around 18 months after the last dose, so follow up has to run long past discharge. A recovered person with nothing to do on a weekday afternoon is not recovered.

    Challenges to Punjab’s drug de addiction response

    1. Treatment capacity is concentrated in dispensing: Clinics can hand out medicine at scale without the psychiatric and counselling staff that make substitution therapy work. Eg. The National Mental Health Survey, 2015 to 2016 recorded a treatment gap above 80 percent for alcohol use disorders in India, driven by the shortage of trained personnel.
      The Fix: Fund and fill sanctioned psychiatrist and counsellor posts at OOAT clinics before dispensing capacity is expanded further.
    2. Diversion of substitution medicine: Unsupervised take home dosing allows prescribed opioids to reach the illicit market, so the treatment supply becomes a source of supply. Eg. Buprenorphine formulations dispensed under opioid substitution programmes have been recovered from illicit markets in several States.
      The Fix: Require directly observed dosing at the clinic through the initial phase, and link take home doses to verified follow up attendance.
    3. Border technology lags the smuggling method: Fencing and patrolling were designed against people and vehicles, not against small payload aerial delivery. Eg. The Border Security Force recovers drones along the Punjab frontier with Pakistan every year, and annual recoveries have risen rather than fallen.
      The Fix: Deploy a continuous counter drone detection and jamming grid along the Punjab border sector, in place of sighting and pursuit.
    4. Prosecution stops at the consumer end: Cases cluster at small quantity possession, so the financing layer above the peddler is rarely reached. Eg. Case loads under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 are dominated by small quantity matters rather than by commercial quantity trafficking.
      The Fix: Route every commercial quantity seizure to a parallel financial investigation, so the trafficking case and the asset case are run together.
    5. Recovery has no employment endpoint: A person completing treatment returns to the same absence of work that preceded the dependence, so relapse is structurally invited. Eg. Punjab’s high rate of youth emigration reflects the shortage of local work that treatment programmes discharge people back into.
      The Fix: Attach a guaranteed skilling and placement slot to discharge from an OOAT clinic, tracked through the period in which relapse occurs.

    Conclusion

    Punjab has organised its response around arrest and abstinence, and neither instrument matches what the problem actually is. Dependence on fast acting opioids is a treatable clinical condition sitting on a criminal supply chain, and the clinical side has been funded as an afterthought. A state that can count tablets and cannot count recoveries has not yet settled what it is trying to achieve. The thing to watch is whether the next State Budget moves the de addiction allocation to a level comparable with the State’s other standing commitments, and whether recovery, rather than dispensing, becomes the reported statistic.

    Government Initiatives for drug demand reduction

    1. Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: Launched in 2020 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, it runs awareness, community outreach and treatment linkage in the districts identified as most affected.
    2. National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction: The central scheme funds State run de addiction and rehabilitation centres, counselling services, community peer networks and awareness programmes.
    3. MANAS helpline: The Narcotics Control Bureau operates a national toll free helpline for reporting drug trafficking and for seeking counselling and rehabilitation support.
    4. National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre: Based at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, it conducts national surveys of substance use and trains treatment personnel for State programmes.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS3, 15] India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What counter-measures should be taken to prevent the same?”

  • Centre bans Pak-based Shahzad Bhatti terror network under UAPA

    Why in the News

    The Ministry of Home Affairs has declared the Pakistan-based Shahzad Bhatti Network (SBN) a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. A gazette notification invoked Section 35 of the Act to add the network to the First Schedule, which lists banned terrorist organisations. The notification records that the network draws gullible youth and local criminals into smuggling arms, explosives and narcotics from across the border, and that it uses digital communication platforms to circulate provocative messages. The designation follows a nationwide crackdown on an alleged SBN linked network last month, in which security agencies detained 253 people across 14 States. The question it raises is what a domestic ban adds against a syndicate whose leadership, funding and handlers all sit outside Indian jurisdiction.

    How does a Section 35 designation under the UAPA work?

    1. The power: Section 35 empowers the Central Government to add an organisation to the First Schedule by notification in the Official Gazette, where it believes the organisation is involved in terrorism. The listing is what makes the organisation a terrorist organisation in law.
    2. The threshold: An organisation is treated as involved in terrorism where it commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for them, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in it. The present notification records that the network has participated in various acts of terrorism in India.
    3. The consequences: Membership, support, fundraising and arranging meetings for a listed organisation become distinct punishable offences under the Act. The listing therefore reaches the domestic support structure rather than the organisation’s leadership abroad.
    4. The remedy: A listed organisation may apply to the Central Government for removal from the Schedule, and a refusal goes to a Review Committee headed by a sitting or retired High Court judge. That committee is the only statutory check on the designation.

    What is the network accused of doing?

    1. Cross border smuggling: The network is accused of moving arms, explosives and narcotics across the border using local conduits. The notification treats the smuggling as the resource base for the terrorist activity rather than as a separate crime.
    2. Recruitment of petty criminals: The stated method is to offer allurements to gullible youth and local criminals, motivate them for anti-national activity and mobilise resources through them. Recruitment runs through the criminal economy rather than through an ideological cadre.
    3. Online radicalisation and propaganda: The network published hateful digital content and used communication platforms to circulate provocative messages. The stated targets are India’s democratic structure and communal harmony.
    4. Espionage and reconnaissance: The network is suspected of paying local conduits to conduct reconnaissance and install CCTV cameras for surveillance of police, defence and religious sites. It is also linked to grenade, improvised explosive device and petrol bomb attacks and to targeted killings.
    5. Attribution to a named handler: Shahzad Bhatti is accused of using social media to recruit young people, and is suspected of a link to the grenade attack at the residence of a YouTuber in Jalandhar in March last year.
    6. State backing: The network is described as a Pakistan-based syndicate backed by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. That characterisation is what moves it from an organised crime case to a national security one.

    What did the crackdown recover?

    1. Scale of the operation: Security agencies detained 253 people across 14 States days before Independence Day. The geographic spread indicates a recruitment base well beyond the border States.
    2. Ordnance recovered: Recoveries included improvised explosive devices, grenades bearing Pakistan Ordnance Factory markings, pistols and live cartridges. State factory markings on recovered grenades are the material link between the network and an official supply chain.
    3. Surveillance equipment: CCTV cameras allegedly installed for espionage were among the recoveries. The presence of surveillance hardware alongside weapons indicates a network doing target development, not only delivery.

    Why does the crime and terror linkage change the security problem?

    1. Self financing structure: Narcotics trafficking funds weapons movement, so the network does not depend on transfers through the formal financial system. Financial intelligence tools built for tracing bank flows have little purchase on a cash and contraband economy.
    2. Deniable local execution: Using petty criminals rather than trained cadre gives the handlers distance from the act and makes attribution harder after an arrest. The person caught rarely knows the chain above him.
    3. Shared border infrastructure: The same tunnels, drone routes and courier networks serve both narcotics and weapons consignments. Eg. Drone borne consignments recovered along the Punjab border have carried both heroin and small arms in the same drop.
    4. Broader footprint than a conventional outfit: A syndicate built on crime scales through existing criminal markets in the interior rather than through ideological recruitment. That explains a detention footprint across 14 States for a single network.

    Challenges to the UAPA designation route

    1. No reach over handlers abroad: A domestic listing criminalises support inside India and does nothing to a leadership operating under state protection across the border. Eg. Individuals designated globally under the United Nations Security Council’s 1267 sanctions regime have continued to operate from Pakistan for years.
      The Fix: Pair every domestic listing with a dossier submitted for designation under the 1267 Committee and under partner countries’ national sanctions lists.
    2. Designation is not conviction: Proscription restricts an organisation and still requires the ordinary burden of proof in each prosecution that follows. Eg. Cases registered under the Act routinely run for years before trial concludes, and conviction rates recorded in them are low.
      The Fix: Resource the National Investigation Agency’s prosecution capacity and set internal timelines for filing charge sheets, so a listing converts into completed trials.
    3. Renaming and reconstitution: A proscribed network can resume operations under a fresh name, which requires a fresh notification each time. Eg. Front organisations of banned outfits have repeatedly reappeared under new banners after a ban.
      The Fix: Notify successor and front entities in the same instrument that lists the parent organisation, so a name change does not restart the process.
    4. Civil liberties objections to the statute: Section 43D(5) bars bail where the accusation is prima facie true, so pre-trial custody can extend for years. Eg. In Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb (2021) the Supreme Court held that prolonged incarceration with no prospect of an early trial permits bail despite that bar.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory outer limit for filing the charge sheet in listed organisation cases, after which the bail bar lapses.
    5. Weak seizure of assets: A ban restricts an organisation’s property in law, and the proceeds of narcotics trafficking sit in cash and in benami holdings that are hard to attach. Eg. Terror funding investigations frequently record hawala transfers with no identifiable account holder at either end.
      The Fix: Route listed organisation cases through the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 machinery in parallel, so attachment proceedings run alongside the terror prosecution.

    Conclusion

    The Shahzad Bhatti Network now sits in the First Schedule, and the immediate effect is to make support for it inside India a separate offence. The designation lands on the domestic layer of the network, which is the layer the August detentions had already reached. Whether the ban changes anything depends on what follows it: charge sheets against those detained, attachment of the assets the smuggling generated, and a listing request carried into international forums. The point to watch is the first prosecution filed against a person charged as a member, since that is where the notification is tested rather than announced.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Indian government has recently strengthened the anti-terrorism laws by amending the unlawful activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967 and the NIA Act. Analyze the changes in the context of prevailing security environment while discussing the scope and reasons for opposing the UAPA by human rights organizations.”

  • Ahead of election, Punjab talks drugs again; its children are still paying the price

    Ahead of election, Punjab talks drugs again; its children are still paying the price

    Why in the News

    Punjab’s narcotics trade has changed its form without shrinking. A transit route for opium derivatives has hardened into an entrenched narcotics economy, and it now runs on cheaper pharmaceutical drugs, on drone deliveries across the international border and on supply reaching inmates inside prisons. The state police campaign Yudh Nasheyan Virudh, launched in March 2025, has produced large arrest and seizure numbers, and the Punjab Governor has said the trade cannot survive even 10 days without the support of the police and the administration. With Assembly elections approaching, every party has again made drug eradication a campaign promise, which is what the previous three campaigns were as well. The contest is between the scale of enforcement recorded on paper and the availability of the drug on the street.

    How has the nature of Punjab’s narcotics trade changed?

    1. From transit route to economy: The origin of the crisis is traced to Punjab’s geography and its proximity to the Golden Crescent, the major opium producing region spanning Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. What began largely as a transit route evolved into a far more entrenched narcotics economy.
    2. Pharmaceutical substitution: Cheaper pharmaceutical drugs now flood local markets alongside narcotics.
    3. Misuse of prescription medicine: Chemists speak openly about the misuse of medicines meant for pain relief and neurological disorders. A pharmaceutical company based in Dehradun discontinued a pill, known locally as the “ghodeyanwala capsule”, after widespread allegations of its abuse.
    4. The vocabulary of the crisis: Words such as “chitta” (heroin), “goliyan” (pills) and “sooiyan” (injectables) have become part of everyday language in the state.
    5. A shift in public reaction: When the film Udta Punjab was released in 2016, many in the state objected that it tarnished Punjab’s image. That outrage has given way to grim acceptance.

    What do the enforcement numbers under the current campaign show?

    1. Case volume: Between 1 March 2025 and 2 September 2026 the police registered 59,293 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act).
    2. Arrests and seizures: 696 major traffickers were arrested, 3,757 kg of heroin and 62 lakh tablets were seized, and Rs 22 crore in drug money was recovered.
    3. Property action: Punjab also began attaching and demolishing properties allegedly built from drug proceeds, a method taken from Uttar Pradesh.
    4. Availability unchanged: Voices on the ground insist the supply has not dried up, and that chitta remains as easily available as salt.

    What does complicity inside the enforcement machinery do to the campaign?

    1. The Governor’s assessment: The Punjab Governor, who has walked with Mothers Against Drugs, said the trade cannot survive even 10 days without the support of the police and the administration.
    2. An admission in court: In an affidavit before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the police admitted that drugs are available inside prisons.
    3. What the prison figures show: Inmates registered for opioid treatment rose from 2,540 at the time of entry to 15,768.
    4. The court’s observation: The Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed that addiction had multiplied four to five times after incarceration.

    How have the supply routes outrun the counter measures?

    1. Drone deliveries: Drones now ferry drugs and weapons across Punjab’s nearly 500 km international border.
    2. Daylight runs: Counter drone systems are deployed, and this summer drones still made deliveries in daylight.
    3. A riverine route: During the 2023 floods the police cracked a case in which a trafficker from Jalandhar sent three swimmers across the Sutlej to retrieve 50 kg of heroin.
    4. What the run paid: The swimmers were reportedly paid between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh for every kilogram ferried, and consignments grew larger during last year’s floods.

    What is the human cost the enforcement figures do not capture?

    1. A death in Sangrur: A labourer from Sangrur consumed Celphos tablets after allegedly being threatened by the local sarpanch and others for questioning a sitting minister about rampant drug abuse in the area.
    2. Compensation still pending: His widow and his sons say they are yet to receive the compensation and the job they were promised.
    3. Earnings consumed by the drug: One of his sons said he spent every paisa he earned as a daily wage labourer on chitta.
    4. Children as collateral damage: In Badshahpur village in Kapurthala three children were left alone at home after their father came out on bail in a case under the NDPS Act, their mother went to prison and their elder sister was detained over a video of her allegedly selling drugs.

    Why have successive campaigns and political promises left the trade intact?

    1. The 2014 campaign: The Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP government launched the state’s first anti drug campaign during its tenure in 2014.
    2. The 2017 pledge: The Congress leader who became Chief Minister in 2017 swore on a holy book to eradicate drugs within four weeks.
    3. The 2022 promise: The Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2022 with the Chief Minister promising decisive results within a year.
    4. Drugs as a campaign asset: In 2017 the Aam Aadmi Party, then in Opposition, gained traction by making drug abuse one of its biggest campaign issues.
    5. The current round: The Shiromani Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) made drugs the centrepiece of its speeches at the Rakhar Puniya rally, and the BJP’s Nasha Mukt Yatras begin in mid September and end in a rally to be addressed by the Union Home Minister.
    6. Treatment through faith: A jailed Member of Parliament built much of his early popularity on promises of rehabilitation centres in gurdwaras, and families have arrived at the gurdwara in his native village of Jallupur Khera with drug dependent relatives.

    Challenges to Punjab’s anti narcotics effort

    1. Arrests that do not become convictions: Cases collapse at trial over procedural lapses in search, seizure and sampling, so enforcement volume does not produce deterrence. Eg. Section 50 of the NDPS Act requires a search to be offered before a gazetted officer or a magistrate, and failures there have repeatedly voided recoveries.
      The Fix: Route every commercial quantity case through dedicated NDPS special courts with trained prosecutors and time bound forensic reporting.
    2. Users charged in place of suppliers: Most registered cases are small quantity cases against consumers, which fills prisons without reaching the supply chain. Eg. Section 64A of the NDPS Act offers immunity from prosecution to an addict who volunteers for treatment, and it is rarely invoked.
      The Fix: Divert small quantity cases into treatment under Section 64A and judge the campaign on trafficker convictions rather than on FIR counts.
    3. Treatment capacity expanding faster than supervision: Opioid substitution treatment scales up without dispensing controls, so the substitute itself leaks into the market. Eg. Buprenorphine tablets dispensed at treatment centres are resold outside them.
      The Fix: Move outpatient opioid substitution to daily supervised dosing with a digital dispensing record at every centre.
    4. A state campaign against an interstate supply chain: Diverted pharmaceutical stock and precursor chemicals enter from manufacturing states that a state police campaign cannot reach. Eg. Tramadol and similar opioid formulations move in from units outside Punjab.
      The Fix: Place licensed pharmaceutical distributors in the border districts on a common online sales trail audited against prescription records.

    Conclusion

    Punjab’s drug problem is not one of not knowing what to do. Successive campaigns have named the same targets, produced the same pledges and left the trade to change its form rather than its size. What has never been tested is action against the part of the machinery the Governor named, and that is the one variable the state fully controls. The measure to watch after the election is not the weight seized but the number of major traffickers convicted and the number of enforcement personnel prosecuted.

    Drug trafficking in India

    1. Narco terrorism: The use of drug trafficking by terrorist organisations or insurgent groups to fund, sustain and expand their operations, so proceeds from the narcotics trade finance violence and subversion against the state.
    2. Financing of terror groups: Narcotics profits are a major source of funding for terrorist groups. Eg. Lashkar e Taiba, Babbar Khalsa International and Hizbul Mujahideen have used drug revenues to sustain operations.
    3. The eastern corridor: Porous borders with Myanmar carry both drug trafficking and insurgent financing. Eg. The Moreh corridor in Manipur.
    4. Maritime exposure: A long coastline with limited marine policing enables sea based narcotics trafficking into Indian ports.

    Government Initiatives for drug trafficking control

    1. Narcotics Control Bureau: The central agency that coordinates drug law enforcement across state and central agencies and handles trafficking cases with an interstate or international reach.
    2. Four tier NCORD mechanism: The Narco Coordination Centre integrates effort from the national level down to the district level, bringing enforcement and intelligence agencies onto a single platform.
    3. Seizure Information Management System: A portal developed under the NDPS Act to coordinate seizure data across all drug law enforcement agencies.
    4. Anti Narcotics Task Forces: Dedicated State and Union Territory units led by senior police officers, set up to implement anti drug strategies and strengthen local enforcement.
    5. National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction: Run by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to reduce addiction among users rather than to police supply.
    6. Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: A demand reduction campaign of the same Ministry, focused on the most affected districts and combining awareness, community outreach and linkage to treatment facilities.

    Back2Basics: Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985

    1. India’s principal anti drug legislation, criminalising the production, manufacture, possession, sale, transport and trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
    2. Penalties are graded by the quantity involved, with the harshest reserved for commercial quantity offences.
    3. Bail in a commercial quantity case is barred unless the court records satisfaction that the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to offend again.
    4. An addict charged with a small quantity offence may seek immunity from prosecution by volunteering for treatment.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS3, 15 marks] India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What counter-measures should be taken to prevent the same?”

  • Looking up at the drones

    Why in the News

    Data pooled from over 1,200 drones intercepted in Punjab since 2024 has mapped the cross border smuggling network that flies them. The mapping names the launch pads inside Pakistan’s Punjab, the Indian villages where payloads are dropped, the hours of peak activity and the altitudes flown. It follows an interception count that has held steady rather than fallen, with 294 Pakistani drones downed by the Border Security Force (BSF) and allied agencies in Punjab in 2024, 287 in 2025 and roughly the same number again by August 2026. Punjab had answered the threat in August 2025 with the Rs 51.4 crore ‘Baaz Akh’ (Hawk Eye) Anti-Drone System (ADS), the first state level anti-drone grid in the country. The same dataset shows why that answer is not holding, since drones now carry satellite links and a return to home fail-safe that turns them back before they can be brought down. The network along Punjab’s 550-km International Border is therefore better understood than at any point since 2019 and no easier to stop.

    What is the ‘Baaz Akh’ Anti-Drone System?

    1. What it is: A state funded anti-drone grid deployed by the Punjab government as a second line of defence behind the BSF’s own portable interception equipment.
    2. The four functions it performs: It detects a drone’s movement and signal, tracks it on a digital map, jams its control link, and forces an emergency landing for ground recovery.
    3. What it jams: It disrupts either radio frequency control signals or satellite navigation frequencies, and can identify the ground control station operating the drone.
    4. Its reach: The system works over a range of 8 to 10 km and issues automated alerts to security agencies.

    What does the intercepted drone data reveal about the network’s geography?

    1. Eight launch pads, two of them primary: Sustained sorties come from at least eight launch pads in Pakistan’s Punjab, with the villages of Jahman and Masteki as the main two.
    2. Both primary pads face Tarn Taran: Jahman sits directly across from the Khalra sector in Tarn Taran district. Masteki lies in the Sehjra enclave, a pocket of Pakistani territory surrounded by India on three sides, roughly opposite Khem Karan town.
    3. The remaining pads: They lie near Kasur, opposite Khem Karan; Qila Jiwan Singh, opposite Rajatal in the Attari sector; Wagah, opposite Attari; and Narowal, across from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district.
    4. The landing areas: Payloads are dropped at Bhindi Saidan, Attari, Rajatal, Dall, Daleri, Maari Meghaan, Wan and villages around Khem Karan including Kals and Mastgarh.
    5. Where the drones are recovered: The highest number of interceptions on the Indian side occur 3.5 km to 10 km from the International Border.

    What do the timing and flight patterns show?

    1. A fixed nightly window: Maximum activity falls between 10 pm and 4 am, at an average of 12 to 15 drones an hour.
    2. The drops cluster on two days: The highest number of consignment drops take place on Thursdays and Saturdays.
    3. Sortie length separates stock from modified platforms: The average sortie runs 45 minutes, and modified drones average 24 minutes. Eg. One DJI Matrice drone recorded 42.67 minutes and a DJI Matrice 4 Pro recorded 15 minutes before it was downed.
    4. Altitude separates them too: Commercial DJI platforms fly at about 500 feet, and a modified eight rotor platform, the octocopter, was tracked at 2,500 feet.
    5. The drop point is chosen for pickup, not for accuracy: Consignments are dropped on agricultural fields for couriers to collect. Navigational error and incorrect GPS data put some payloads onto farmhouses and homes instead.

    How has the technology changed since the incursions began?

    1. The 2019 baseline: Pakistani drones were first noticed in Punjab around 2019, operating on rudimentary radio frequency direction control.
    2. The 2026 platform: Drones now operating in Punjab carry satellite communication and anti-jamming capability, and some downed in Punjab were navigating on Starlink satellite links.
    3. The airframes are commercial and Chinese made: The platforms in use for drug smuggling include the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, which can fly multiple sorties, and the DJI Matrice 300 RTK, which carries a large payload.
    4. The payload has not narrowed: The consignments carry narcotics, weapons and explosives, launched from pads deep inside Pakistan’s Punjab and dropped across the border under cover of darkness.

    Why does the fence no longer decide what crosses the border?

    1. It was built for a different mode of entry: The 462-km fence along the International Border went up mainly in the late 1980s and early 1990s to stop infiltration and smuggling during the militancy years.
    2. What it consists of: It is a multi-layered barrier of 8 to 12 feet, topped with rows of concertina and razor wire and, in places, high voltage ‘cobra’ wires, with a patrol track, observation towers and border outposts along it. Most of the feasible land border had been fenced and floodlit by 1993.
    3. It does not stand on the border: Older ground rules placed it some 150 yards inside Indian territory. In many stretches it was built two to three km in, leaving large tracts of farmland between the fence and the Zero Line.
    4. The gaps are physical as well as aerial: The line carries riverine and flood related gaps, and the incursions it was built to stop now arrive over it rather than through it.

    Why does detection not translate into seizure?

    1. The return to home fail-safe defeats the jam: Drones detect the interference from jamming, locking or control signal disruption and fly back to their launch point in Pakistan before they can be neutralised or recovered on the Indian side.
    2. Jamming weakens with distance: Some attempts fail simply because the drone is too far from the jamming unit when it is engaged.
    3. Autonomous platforms are not vulnerable to the method: Current systems fail against resilient drone networks built with features that reduce dependence on radio frequency control, which is what jamming targets.
    4. Coverage is thin: Security officers put the requirement at at least 100 jamming units for effective wider coverage, against the units now deployed on vehicles and in fixed positions.
    5. Recovery depends on people, not the grid: Interception is a layered system requiring coordination between the BSF, police quick reaction teams and ground recovery parties, so detection without a rapid ground response yields no seizure.
    6. Three threats the grid does not yet address: Small and low signature drones go undetected, drones operating together in swarms on artificial intelligence and decentralised communication are anticipated, and remote terrain with harsh weather leaves some drop zones inaccessible.

    What role do the border villages play in interception?

    1. They are the first reporting layer: Punjab set up village defence committees to help tackle cross border smuggling and drones, and their members coordinate with the BSF and local authorities on stray drones and recovered weapons.
    2. The reporting chain is unreliable: A committee member in Gilpan, where a drone dropped a kg of contraband in his kitchen garden 700 metres from the fence, got no response from the local police station or the Deputy Superintendent of Police, and the local police moved only after the Senior Superintendent of Police in Tarn Taran was called.
    3. Recovery is a race the couriers usually win: In the same village a second drone dropped a payload at the village edge that evening. The BSF received the location and moved to cordon the area, and the men had already collected the consignment and fled by the time it arrived.
    4. Farmers fear prosecution more than the drop: A farmer whose field received a consignment in Mahawa, Amritsar, approached the committee fearing arrest, and the police eventually filed a case against unidentified persons.
    5. Some settlements sit inside the flight path: Mahawa lies a kilometre from the Zero Line with nearly 150 of its 2,800 acres between the Zero Line and the fence, and drones travel up to six kilometres inside the border directly over houses and fields.
    6. Activism against the trade carries a cost: The sarpanch of Attari village, a settlement of around 25,000 known for its campaigning against drugs and smuggling, was injured in an alleged attack by narcotics smugglers.

    Challenges to countering cross border drone smuggling

    1. The cost asymmetry runs the wrong way: A commercial quadcopter costs a fraction of the detection and jamming equipment needed to stop it, so the defender pays more per sortie than the smuggler. Eg. The DJI platforms recovered in Punjab are off the shelf civilian models sold for survey and photography work.
      The Fix: Shift procurement toward cheap distributed sensors feeding one command picture, rather than a small number of high cost integrated units.
    2. Jamming cannot be used freely in civil airspace: Broad spectrum jamming and navigation spoofing interfere with civil aviation and telecom signals, which limits where and how long a grid can be switched on. Eg. Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport sits within a few tens of kilometres of the border stretches under surveillance.
      The Fix: Authorise narrow band directional jamming tied to a designated counter drone corridor, cleared in advance with the civil aviation regulator.
    3. Attribution stops at the launch pad: A recovered drone establishes the route and the airframe, and it does not establish who financed or ordered the consignment. Eg. Cases from border villages routinely close against unidentified persons because the courier is the only link recoverable on the ground.
      The Fix: Treat each recovered drone as a forensic exhibit, with serial, flight log and payload traced through a single dedicated investigation unit rather than by the local police station.
    4. Responsibility is split across agencies: Border guarding, state policing and airspace regulation sit with different authorities, so no single body owns the counter drone task end to end. Eg. Punjab’s grid is a state asset operating alongside the BSF’s own portable interception equipment on the same stretch of border.
      The Fix: Place the state grid, the border force’s equipment and police response under one joint operations centre per border district.
    5. Interdiction does not touch demand: Stopping a consignment in the air does nothing to the narcotics market that pays for the next one. Eg. Village committee members link the drone drops directly to drug use among young people in the border belt.
      The Fix: Pair the counter drone grid with treatment and de-addiction capacity in the border districts, so the seized supply is not simply replaced.
    6. Legal cover for the technology is thin: Bringing down an aircraft, jamming a signal and seizing a payload each rest on different statutory powers, and none was written with armed drones in mind. Eg. Civil drone operations in India are governed by the Drone Rules, 2021, which regulate lawful operators rather than hostile cross border flights.
      The Fix: Enact a standing counter unmanned aircraft framework naming the authorities empowered to detect, jam, down and seize, and the evidentiary status of what is recovered.

    Conclusion

    The border belt’s smuggling geography is no longer a matter of inference, since the launch pads, the drop villages, the flying hours and the altitudes are now on record. That record shifts the problem from intelligence to coverage, because a mapped network still needs equipment dense enough to engage it before it turns back. The measure to watch is whether the jamming grid reaches the density its own operators have asked for, and whether the annual interception count starts falling rather than holding flat. A count that stays level while the grid expands would show the platforms are outrunning the countermeasure rather than being contained by it.

    Back2Basics: Border Security Force

    1. What it is: India’s primary border guarding force, raised on 1 December 1965 after the India-Pakistan war exposed the limits of relying on state armed police on the border.
    2. Who it reports to: It is a Central Armed Police Force under the Ministry of Home Affairs, and it guards the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders in peacetime.
    3. Where its powers come from: The Border Security Force Act, 1968 gives its personnel powers of search, seizure and arrest within a notified belt running inland from the border.
    4. How far that belt extends: The Union government extended that jurisdiction to 50 km from the border in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam in 2021, up from 15 km in Punjab.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS3, 10 marks] The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by our adversaries across the borders to ferry arms / ammunitions, drugs, etc., is a serious threat to internal security. Comment on the measures being taken to tackle this threat.”

  • Vibrant Villages Programme

    Why in News

    PIB published a Backgrounder on the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) on 6 September 2026, setting out the scheme’s design and its border development record.

    What it is

    1. Core idea: The Vibrant Villages Programme is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for the comprehensive development of villages along India’s land borders. It reframes the border village as the first village of India rather than the last.
    2. Implementing ministry: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) runs the programme.
    3. Phase I coverage: The first phase covered villages in 46 border blocks across 19 districts in four States and one Union Territory along the northern border with China.
    4. Phase II scale: The second phase, Vibrant Villages Programme II (VVP II), carries an outlay of ₹6,839 crore. It covers 1,954 villages across 334 blocks in 17 States and Union Territories. It extends the model to international land borders beyond the northern frontier.

    Context

    1. Rationale: Border villages face out migration, weak roads and thin connectivity. The scheme saturates them with roads, telecom, housing, drinking water and livelihood support. Reverse migration and local perception management carry a direct security value.
    2. Delivery mode: Development happens through District administrations and Gram Panchayats. Convergence with existing central and state schemes funds the works.
    3. Distinct from BADP: The older Border Area Development Programme (BADP) funds infrastructure in border blocks generally. VVP targets identified border villages for saturation and reverse migration.

    [2026] Which of the following statements with respect to the Revamped Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA) is/are correct?
    1.The period of its implementation is 1st April, 2021 to 31st March, 2026.
    2.The key objective of the Revamped RGSA is to develop the governance capabilities of the Panchayati Raj Institutions to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.
    3.The share of the Central funding for the Revamed RGSA is 100% for all states and Union Territories.
    Select the answer using the code given below:

    [A] 1 and 2

    [B] 2 only

    [C] 1 and 3

    [D] 2 and 3

  • Global watchdog says rise of ‘digital hawala’ is aiding money laundering, terror financing

    Why in the News

    The latest report of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body that sets the global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, identifies the fusion of virtual assets with the traditional hawala system as one of the most significant developments in underground banking. The report is titled “Investigating Professional Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and the Use of Hawala and Other Similar Service Providers”. Nearly 70 per cent of surveyed jurisdictions have reported the integration of new technologies into such networks. The uses run from routine money laundering to the financing of terrorist organisations. The difficulty this creates is that a system built on trust between operators has acquired the speed and reach of digital finance without acquiring any of its supervision.

    What is “digital hawala”?

    1. The underlying system: Hawala is a centuries-old value transfer arrangement in which an operator in one country pays out to a recipient on the instruction of an operator in another, and the two settle their standing balance later between themselves.
    2. What makes it digital: “Digital hawala” covers the spectrum of technologies that facilitate the coordination, execution, settlement or concealment of these transactions.
    3. What has changed: Virtual assets now supply a settlement layer to a network that previously balanced its books through cash and trade alone.

    What are the six configurations the report identifies?

    1. Digital coordination with traditional settlement: Operators use encrypted messaging applications, shared ledgers and online platforms to communicate instructions, recruit clients and couriers, and maintain records, and settlement between them still moves through cash or trade.
    2. Digital customer interface: The client faces a mobile wallet or a fintech application, and settlement between operators again happens via cash or trade.
    3. Virtual asset-based settlement: Stablecoins are used to settle balances between operators directly, replacing the cash leg of the arrangement.
    4. Integration with formal digital infrastructure: Funds are moved through payment service providers, fintech platforms and virtual International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs), which are account identifiers issued without a physical branch relationship behind them.
    5. Artificial intelligence based tools: These automate transaction structuring, route value dynamically through mule accounts, and convert between currency and cryptocurrency at high speed.
    6. “Hawala” apps: These are bundled digital ecosystems combining messaging, cloud storage, social media, Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), lending applications and gaming platforms in one product.

    Why do these configurations make detection harder?

    1. Speed and opacity rise together: The configurations make transactions faster, more opaque and more complex than the courier and ledger version they build on.
    2. The network gets larger and more durable: Digitisation expands both the reach of a network and its resilience, so removing one operator no longer breaks the chain.
    3. Digitisation is a catalyst and not a replacement: Traditional settlement mechanisms persist alongside the new layers rather than disappearing under them.
    4. Cash remains the pressure point: Cash stays critical at the collection and exit points, which is where an investigation still has a physical trail to find.

    What does the Turkiye case show about terror financing?

    1. The network’s purpose: Turkiye uncovered a “digital hawala” network financing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
    2. The seizures: Raids in 2023 on a self-described ISIL “administrative officer” produced about $57,250 in cash, followed by a further $554,000.
    3. The evidence trail: Investigators recovered “hawala” notebooks alongside digital transfer receipts, so the paper ledger and the digital layer were running in parallel.
    4. The cover used: A jeweller and two mobile phone shops operated as fronts, and the transfers themselves were disguised as charity donations.

    Challenges to countering digital hawala

    1. Token settlement clears outside supervised payment rails: Balances settled in stablecoins move on public blockchains that no single national payments regulator oversees. Eg. FATF’s periodic reviews have found most assessed jurisdictions only partly compliant with its Travel Rule for virtual asset transfers.
      The Fix: Enforce originator and beneficiary information requirements on every registered Virtual Asset Service Provider, which in India are reporting entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
    2. Mule accounts scatter the trail across thousands of holders: Automated routing splits a single transfer across accounts opened in other people’s names, so no account shows an abnormal balance. Eg. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre has identified mule accounts as the standard cash-out layer in online fraud networks.
      The Fix: Require banks to share mule account indicators in near real time through a common registry rather than case by case after a complaint.
    3. Cooperation moves slower than the transaction: Formal evidence requests between countries take months while a chain of transfers completes in minutes. Eg. FATF’s 2024 mutual evaluation of India recorded delays in concluding money laundering prosecutions despite a broadly compliant legal framework.
      The Fix: Use the Egmont Group channel between financial intelligence units for immediate operational exchange, reserving formal treaty requests for trial-admissible evidence.
    4. The fronts are ordinary licensed businesses: Jewellers, phone dealers and travel agents handle high cash turnover legitimately, so the anomaly is invisible in the trading pattern itself. Eg. Dealers in precious metals and stones are treated as designated non-financial businesses under the FATF standards precisely because of this exposure.
      The Fix: Extend beneficial ownership disclosure and threshold reporting to these trades, and audit compliance rather than relying on registration alone.
    5. The regulated perimeter lags the product: Bundled applications combining messaging, lending and gaming fit no single licensing category, so no regulator holds clear jurisdiction over them. Eg. Application stores continue to host unregistered lending and wallet products that operate across borders.
      The Fix: Adopt an activity-based test that applies value transfer obligations to any product that moves value, whatever licence category it claims.

    Conclusion

    Underground banking has not been displaced by digital finance, it has absorbed it. Enforcement is left holding a mandate built for couriers and ledgers against a network that settles in tokens and routes itself automatically. Two things decide whether that gap closes. The first is whether virtual asset supervision reaches operators who never register, and the second is whether financial intelligence units can exchange information at the speed a transfer actually moves. The next marker is India’s follow-up reporting under the FATF mutual evaluation process, where the treatment of virtual asset service providers is the specific item under assessment.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: FATF is the inter-governmental standard setter on money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, established in 1989 at the G7 summit in Paris.
    2. How it works: Its Secretariat is housed at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, and its standards are the 40 Recommendations that member states are assessed against.
    3. Its enforcement tool: It maintains two public lists, jurisdictions under increased monitoring and high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action, which affect a listed country’s access to international finance.
    4. India’s position: India has been a full member since 2010, and is also a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS3, 15 marks] Discuss counterfeit currency and money laundering as major sources of terror funding in India. State the actions being taken at International level to check these menaces. Highlight the role of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and methods of compliance by its member states in preventing terror funding.”