Madhya Pradesh plans to excavate and restore Vaishya Tekri in Ujjain, a major mound believed to contain a Mauryan-era stupa. ASI suggests it may have been larger than the Sanchi Stupa, but its association with Ashoka remains unproven.
What is Vaishya Tekri?
Located in Ujjain, an important Mauryan-era centre.
Excavated first in 1938-39 by the erstwhile Gwalior State.
Identified as a major stupa, not a natural mound.
1938 report estimated its base at about 350 ft diameter and height at 100+ ft.
Dating to the 3rd century BCE was suggested from brick dimensions and coins.
Key Archaeological Evidence
Core made of rammed blackish murum.
Exterior faced with brick masonry and mud mortar.
Finds included:
Punch-marked coin
Cast Avanti coin
A moat surrounded the stupa, with a western passage for worshippers.
An unusual bowl-shaped masonry base helped resist lateral thrust.
Ashoka Connection
Tradition associates Ujjain with Ashoka’s viceroyalty.
However, the 1938 excavation did not establish an Ashokan connection.
The report only stated that the stupa could possibly be one of the stupas attributed to Ashoka.
Brick size and coins establish a period, not the identity of the patron.
Prelims Quick Facts
Vaishya Tekri: Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
Period: Mauryan, 3rd century BCE
Monument: Buddhist stupa
First excavation: 1938-39
Estimated diameter: ~350 ft
Sanchi Stupa height: ~54 ft
Key coin: Punch-marked coin
Agency: Archaeological Survey of India
“[2026] Which of the following statements on the Amaravati Stupa and its relief sculpture is/are correct? 1. It was located in the lower Krishna valley. 2. In India, it was next only to the Sanchi Stupa in size. 3. The Amaravati school of sculpture made a lasting impact on the later South Indian sculpture, and its products were carried to Sri Lanka and South-east Asia. (a) 1 only (b) 1 and 3 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
India’s Time Use Survey (2025) shows the time women spend on housework rising from about age 10 to a peak of nearly 460 minutes a day, over 7.5 hours, around age 30, while the male curve never crosses 65 minutes at any age between six and 75. The gap is not created by marriage or motherhood, it is assembled in childhood, which places it outside the reach of policies aimed at adult women.
What is the Time Use Survey?
About: The Time Use Survey is a national household survey conducted by the National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, which records how members of a household allocate their 24 hours across activities on a reference day.
What it captures: It measures activities that no other survey counts, including unpaid domestic services, unpaid caregiving, learning, leisure, self care and volunteer work, alongside paid employment.
Why it exists: Employment surveys count only work inside the production boundary, so time spent cooking or caring for a child disappears from official statistics unless a time use survey records it.
What is unpaid domestic and caregiving work?
About: Unpaid domestic and caregiving work covers cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, collection of water and fuel, minor repairs, and the care of children, the sick and the elderly performed for one’s own household without payment.
Its statistical treatment: These services are produced by households for their own consumption and fall outside the production boundary of the System of National Accounts, so they contribute nothing to measured Gross Domestic Product despite being economically essential.
What is the Periodic Labour Force Survey?
About: The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is the National Statistics Office’s regular survey of employment and unemployment, which estimates the labour force participation rate, worker population ratio and unemployment rate.
Its relevance here: It records the reason given for staying outside the labour force, which is where unpaid domestic responsibility appears as a measured cause of women’s non participation.
What does the lifetime housework curve show?
The female curve: Time spent on housework begins to rise around age 10, continues through the late teens and twenties, and peaks at nearly 460 minutes a day, over 7.5 hours, around age 30.
The male curve: It never crosses 65 minutes at any age between six and 75, so there is no stage of the male life cycle at which domestic work becomes a substantial claim on time.
Timing of the peak: The peak falls in the prime working years, which is precisely when paid work, promotion and enterprise building compete for the same hours.
The continuity point: Adolescence is not separate from adulthood in this data, it is the stage at which the adult pattern begins to take shape.
How early does the gender gap in domestic work open?
Parity at age six: Indian boys and girls both spend about five minutes a day on domestic and care work at age six, and their trajectories remain close through early childhood.
The girls’ curve: Girls spend about 15 minutes a day at age 10, 75 minutes at 15, and around 130 minutes by 17.
The boys’ curve: Boys move from roughly five minutes at age six to only about 17 minutes by the end of childhood.
The widening ratio: The girl to boy ratio in unpaid work rises from 1.6 among children aged 6 to 9, to 4.5 among those aged 10 to 14, and to 7.5 among adolescents aged 15 to 17.
The divergence point: The curves separate sharply from around age 10, which is the same age at which the adult female housework curve begins its climb.
Why is leisure, not schooling, the real cost?
The trade off is usually framed wrongly: The cost of girls’ domestic work is normally argued as a trade off with schooling and education, and the data does not support that framing.
Girls are not losing study time: Girls spend slightly more time on learning than boys at most ages, so they remain in school while carrying the additional work.
Leisure absorbs the burden: Between ages six and 17, girls’ housework rises by roughly 124 minutes a day while their leisure time falls by around 115 minutes a day.
The boys’ pattern: For boys the decline in leisure is much smaller and the time spent on housework changes relatively little.
Why leisure is not residual: Sport, friendships, rest and exploration are how children build confidence, social networks, physical capability and a sense of agency, all of which shape later career trajectories.
The measurement blind spot: School enrolment and learning outcome data register no problem at all, because the loss is entirely in discretionary time.
Why does cooking sit at the centre of the divergence?
Participation gap in cooking: Among adolescents aged 15 to 17, 42.4 percent of girls report cooking, against only 2.9 percent of boys.
Time gap in cooking: Girls in this age group spend close to an hour cooking, while boys spend just two minutes.
Other gendered tasks:Cleaning and laundry also become increasingly gendered through adolescence, with wide gaps in both participation and time spent.
Where boys match or exceed girls: The only tasks are farm work and shopping, which are outward facing towards the field and the market rather than inward facing into the kitchen.
The full task set measured: Participation is recorded across childcare, cleaning, cooking, farm work, laundry, repairs, shopping and collection of water and fuel, and the inward facing tasks are the ones that carry the gap.
What the allocation trains: Girls are being trained for the household and boys for the world outside, which is how the pattern later appears as an efficient gendered allocation of household work.
How does childhood conditioning surface in the labour market?
The stated reason for non participation: In the 2025 PLFS, childcare and domestic responsibilities were the single most cited reason women gave for staying out of the labour force.
The urban and rural split: The reason was reported by 52.5 percent of urban women and 40 percent of rural women.
The male comparison:Less than 1 percent of men gave the same reason, so the constraint is not a household constraint but a gendered one.
The field observation behind the data: Among rural women in Haryana aspiring to become entrepreneurs, the biggest practical constraint on doing more paid work was time tied up in cooking and household chores, and their daughters rather than their sons were already sharing that burden.
Why do current policy interventions arrive too late?
Where policy currently intervenes: Most interventions address women’s unpaid work in adulthood, through childcare services, community kitchens, safe mobility infrastructure, flexible work and social protection.
What that misses: The unequal assignment of domestic work between boys and girls has already been completed before any of these instruments touch a woman’s life.
The correct objective: The aim is not to remove domestic work from children’s lives, but to remove its gender assignment.
The school as the instrument: Schools can give every child, boy or girl, equal opportunity to learn practical life skills, from cooking and home management to stitching, carpentry and financial management.
The gap in India’s own success: India has invested heavily in keeping girls in school and improving their educational outcomes, and paid no comparable attention to what happens to their time outside school.
Challenges to removing the gender assignment of domestic work
Norms are transmitted inside the household, where policy has no instrument: No scheme reaches the daily decision about which child is called into the kitchen. e.g. mothers in rural Haryana who identified their own time poverty still passed the chores to daughters rather than sons.
The burden is invisible in every headline indicator: Enrolment, learning outcomes and even attendance stay unaffected while leisure collapses. e.g. girls in the survey spend slightly more time learning than boys even while doing seven times the domestic work at 15 to 17.
Infrastructure deficits convert directly into girls’ time: Where water, fuel and sanitation are distant, the collection task falls on girls. e.g. households without piped water where fetching water is a daily pre school chore.
School curricula reinforce the split rather than break it: Vocational and life skill options remain gender typed in practice. e.g. home science and tailoring offered to girls while carpentry, electrical work and workshop practice fill with boys.
Measurement is infrequent: Time use data arrives too rarely to evaluate whether an intervention shifted the allocation. e.g. India ran a pilot time use survey in 1998 to 1999 and its first full national round only two decades later.
Care substitutes are absent for adolescent siblings: Where creche and elder care services are missing, the eldest daughter becomes the default carer. e.g. adolescent girls withdrawn from leisure and play to mind younger siblings while parents do wage work.
Employment law does not reach unpaid household work: No labour statute assigns rights, hours or rest to domestic work performed inside one’s own home. e.g. maternity and creche entitlements under labour law apply to formal employment, covering a small minority of working women.
Conclusion
The gender gap in unpaid work is not a marriage effect or a motherhood effect, it is set in place between the ages of 10 and 17 and simply expands afterwards to 7.5 hours a day by age 30. The price girls pay is measured in leisure rather than schooling, which is why India’s success in keeping girls in school has concealed it. Policy instruments built for adult women arrive after the allocation is fixed. The intervention point is the childhood assignment of domestic tasks, and schools that teach cooking, home management, carpentry and financial management to every child are the instrument available now.
[2024, GS1, 10 marks] Distinguish between gender equality, gender equity and women’s empowerment. Why is it important to take gender concerns into account in programme design and implementation?
A common krait entered the girls’ dormitory of a private aided Ashram School at Japtalai in Dhanora taluka of Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, on the night of 9 and 10 August, bit six girls aged 8 to 14 and killed three. The deaths expose how a residential school built to carry tribal children out of poverty had neither the beds and nets to prevent the bite nor the road and ambulance to survive it.
What is an Ashram School?
About: An Ashram School is a residential school for Scheduled Tribe children, providing free education, boarding and lodging, run either directly by a State tribal development department or by a private body on government aid.
Purpose: They exist because tribal habitations are scattered across remote forest hamlets where a day school is not viable. e.g. most children on the rolls of the Japtalai school come from Etapalli, a village at least five hours away by road.
Funding route: Central support flows largely through grants in aid under Article 275(1) of the Constitution and through State tribal sub plan funds.
What is a common krait?
About: The common krait is a nocturnal, highly venomous snake of the Elapidae family and one of India’s Big Four venomous species, alongside the Indian spectacled cobra, Russell’s viper and the saw scaled viper.
Why the bite goes unnoticed: Its venom is neurotoxic, attacking the nervous system, and its bite feels like a mosquito bite with fang marks often impossible to locate. Treating clinicians place it at at least ten times more venomous than the king cobra.
What is anti snake venom and why does timing decide survival?
About: Anti snake venom (ASV) is an antibody preparation that neutralises circulating venom, and India uses a polyvalent formulation raised against the Big Four species.
The golden hour: The effective window for administering ASV is about half an hour after the bite. Beyond it neurotoxic paralysis of the respiratory muscles progresses even after the correct dose is given.
What happened at the Japtalai Ashram School?
The dormitory:Anu Koreti, aged 8, and 111 other girls from Classes 1 to 10 were sleeping on the floor of a hall measuring about 850 square feet when the krait entered.
The bite: The snake bit six girls aged between 8 and 14. Three died and three survived.
The alarm: The snake coiled around the leg of a fourth child, who woke screaming, and the children woke the cook. The cook struck the snake with a stick and called the peon, the only school employee on campus, who killed it.
The transport: The first two girls reached Dhanora Rural Hospital, 9 km away, at about 2.20 a.m. in a vegetable delivery van. Three more arrived at 2.40 a.m., and over 12 panicked girls were taken directly to Gadchiroli.
The deaths: Two girls were declared dead at about 4.10 a.m. after all protocol doses and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The 8 year old died on the way to Gadchiroli’s main hospital after referral for ventilator support.
The survivors: One girl was airlifted to Nagpur and is home recovering, one remains on ventilator support at Gadchiroli but out of danger, and one is recovering.
What do the hostel’s living conditions reveal about residential school standards?
Sleeping arrangements: Over 100 girls slept on mattresses on the floor with no beds. The only bed in the hall belonged to the cook, a contractual worker.
No mosquito nets until after the deaths: Nets were fitted only afterwards, and the cook states the demand had been raised repeatedly in the past with no response.
Snake habitat at the window: Piles of bricks and wooden logs stood next to open windows and were removed only after the incident. Moist, cool wood is the most conducive environment for a krait.
Supervision gap: The school’s woman supervisor had allegedly gone on leave without the principal’s approval, which is why the cook was sleeping with the girls that night. She is absconding after a first information report for negligence.
Scale against space: The campus is about half a football field, with a two storied classroom block and a separate building of halls, holding 233 enrolled children.
Why did the emergency response fail?
The unusable highway: The 9 km stretch on National Highway 930 was so potholed it was unmotorable, forcing a 35 km detour and consuming the ASV golden hour.
No ambulance: The first children were moved in a vegetable delivery van, since the school had no ambulance and no accessible emergency medical service.
Delayed information to parents: A peon reached one father at 9 a.m., hours after the death, and did not tell him his daughter had died. He learnt it from a policeman outside the post mortem room.
Referral without capacity assessment: The 8 year old was referred onward for ventilator support even though the rural hospital had a ventilator, and she died in transit.
Seasonal isolation as a standing condition: Residents state the same highway stretch stays shut for three months every monsoon and the State bus service is suspended annually on that stretch.
The official position: The district Collector’s position is that responding quickly and bringing children in during an emergency is the school’s responsibility.
Why is Gadchiroli particularly exposed to snakebite?
Forest cover: Gadchiroli is Maharashtra’s easternmost district with dense forest cover of over 75 percent and a scattered tribal population across remote hamlets.
Reptile diversity: The dry deciduous forests and river basins of Gadchiroli and neighbouring Chandrapur support over 21 species of snakes, including all four of the Big Four venomous species.
The mortality record:99 people have died of snakebite in Gadchiroli in the last five years.
Development profile: The district was earlier part of the Red Corridor and remains among the most underdeveloped and remote parts of the State, with the Chief Minister as its guardian minister.
What has the State done in response?
Criminal action: Separate first information reports have been registered against five persons, including the former Member of Parliament who ran the school, under several bailable sections.
Licence cancellation: The State government has said the school’s licence will be cancelled.
Systemwide audit: A third party has been appointed to audit all 513 private aided residential tribal schools in Maharashtra.
Physical fixes: Mosquito nets have been fitted and the brick and log piles near the windows have been cleared.
Road repair on ministerial visit: Contractors were called overnight to patch the road with gravel once ministers announced visits, after years of complaints produced nothing.
Why does closing the school not solve the problem for these families?
All children are now home: All 233 enrolled children have returned to their villages, with the academic year interrupted.
No affordable alternative: Parents who work as farm labour say they cannot afford schools that require them to buy books and uniforms, so closure ends schooling rather than relocating it.
The parents’ demand: Parents are asking the government to provide facilities in the same school and let it function rather than shut it down.
Access was already fragile: One parent reports her daughter has lost three months of school every year for the last two years because the road is unusable in the monsoon.
What the school represented: For two generations of Gonds, a Scheduled Tribe, the school was the only route out of poverty, and the 8 year old who died wanted to become an Anganwadi Sevika.
What does the wider ashram school record show?
Scale of the system: Maharashtra runs 1,056 ashram schools for tribal children, of which 513 are private and aided.
The death toll: Opposition leaders cite reports that 584 students have died in these schools in the past two years, with the education system described as obsolete.
Accountability inversion: The project officer whose lapse is alleged to have led to the incident is the complainant in the case, which is the specific objection raised against the State’s response.
Supervision of quality: The demand is for action against senior government officials responsible for overseeing the quality of these schools, not only against school staff.
Challenges to the Ashram School system
Overcrowded residential infrastructure: Dormitory space is allotted by headcount rather than by norm, so basic safety fails. e.g. over 100 girls from Classes 1 to 10 sleeping on the floor of an 850 square feet hall at Japtalai.
Absent or unqualified wardens and supervisors: Residential care depends on a single staff member who may be absent without sanction. e.g. the woman supervisor at Japtalai who left on unapproved leave, leaving a contractual cook in charge overnight.
No emergency medical linkage: Schools in remote blocks have no ambulance, no tie up with a rural hospital and no protocol for night emergencies. e.g. children carried to Dhanora Rural Hospital in a vegetable delivery van.
Road connectivity failure in the monsoon: Physical access collapses for months every year, breaking both schooling and emergency evacuation. e.g. National Highway 930 between Dhanora and Japtalai, which is motorable in adjoining Chhattisgarh but not on the Maharashtra stretch.
Weak inspection and grant conditionality: Aid continues without verified compliance with hostel norms until a death forces an audit. e.g. the third party audit of Maharashtra’s 513 aided residential tribal schools ordered only after three girls died.
Political and private control of aided schools: Management by politically connected trusts blunts enforcement. e.g. the Japtalai school was run by a former Member of Parliament, and a first information report followed only after the deaths.
Nutrition and health monitoring gaps: Residential schools carry a documented record of student deaths from disease, suicide and accidents. e.g. the reported 584 student deaths across Maharashtra’s 1,056 ashram schools in two years.
Conclusion
The krait was the immediate cause of death, and every other cause was an administrative decision taken long before that night. A hall with no beds and no nets, a supervisor absent without sanction, a highway that turns 9 km into 35 km, and a vegetable van standing in for an ambulance together consumed the half hour in which anti snake venom works. The State’s response so far is a licence cancellation, five first information reports and a third party audit of 513 aided residential schools. The families most affected are asking for the school to be fixed rather than closed, since closure removes the only schooling their children have.
Tribal Education in India
About: Tribal education policy relies on residential schooling, since Scheduled Tribe habitations are dispersed across forest and hill terrain where a viable day school catchment does not exist.
Population base: Scheduled Tribes number about 10.45 crore, roughly 8.6 percent of India’s population as per Census 2011, spread across more than 700 notified communities.
The persistent gap: Scheduled Tribe literacy and school retention remain below the national average, with the steepest dropout at the transition from upper primary to secondary.
Institutional structure: Delivery runs through State run and aided Ashram Schools, centrally supported Eklavya Model Residential Schools, and hostels funded under Article 275(1) grants.
Administrative frame: Scheduled Areas are governed under the Fifth Schedule, with Tribes Advisory Councils and a Governor’s report to the President on their administration.
Constitutional Framework Governing Tribal Welfare
Article 15(4): Enables the State to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes and Scheduled Tribes.
Article 21A: Makes free and compulsory education for children aged 6 to 14 a fundamental right.
Article 46: Directs the State to promote the educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and protect them from social injustice and exploitation.
Article 244 and the Fifth Schedule: Provide for the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes outside the North East.
Sixth Schedule: Provides for autonomous district and regional councils in the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
Article 275(1): Provides grants in aid from the Union to States for tribal welfare schemes and administration of Scheduled Areas, which funds ashram schools and hostels.
Article 338A: Establishes the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate and monitor safeguards for Scheduled Tribes.
Article 342: Empowers the President to specify the tribes deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in each State and Union Territory.
Laws and Rules Governing Tribal Welfare and Child Safety
Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996: Extends Panchayati Raj to Fifth Schedule areas with adaptations.
Makes the Gram Sabha competent to safeguard community resources and mandates its consultation before land acquisition.
Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: Recognises individual and community forest rights of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes.
Recognises the right to community forest resources and to convert forest villages into revenue villages.
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009: Guarantees free and compulsory elementary education and prescribes school infrastructure and pupil teacher norms.
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015: Regulates institutions housing children and prescribes standards of care and mandatory reporting.
Residential facilities housing children in need of care require registration and inspection under the Act.
Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989: Penalises offences against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and provides for special courts.
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012: Applies to residential institutions and imposes mandatory reporting duties on staff.
Back2Basics: Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS)
Ministry: Ministry of Tribal Affairs, implemented through the National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS).
Launch: Introduced in 1997 to 1998 and restructured in 2018 to expand coverage.
Norm: An EMRS in every block with more than 50 percent Scheduled Tribe population and at least 20,000 tribal persons.
Design: Fully residential co educational schools from Class 6 to Class 12, with a sanctioned capacity of about 480 students each.
Objective: Provide quality education comparable to Navodaya Vidyalayas to Scheduled Tribe children in remote areas, covering boarding, lodging and academic costs.
Funding: Central capital and recurring grants, with construction and running costs met from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs budget and Article 275(1) grants.
Government Initiatives for Tribal Welfare and Snakebite Control
Eklavya Model Residential Schools: Central residential schools for Scheduled Tribe children in tribal majority blocks.
Pre Matric and Post Matric Scholarships for Scheduled Tribe students: Fee and maintenance support to reduce dropout at the secondary and higher education stages.
Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM JANMAN): Saturation approach for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups covering housing, roads, electricity, water and mobile connectivity.
Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan: Saturation of basic amenities and services across tribal majority villages.
National Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Snakebite Envenoming (NAPSE), 2024: Aims to halve snakebite deaths and disabilities by 2030 through ASV availability, training and surveillance.
Snakebite as a notifiable condition: States have been advised to make snakebite cases and deaths notifiable so that the true burden is captured.
Van Dhan Vikas Kendras: Value addition and marketing support for minor forest produce collected by tribal households.
Ashram School scheme under Article 275(1) grants: Central assistance to States for construction and upgradation of tribal residential schools and hostels.
Key Facts about Tribal Welfare and Snakebite in India
World Tribal Day, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, is observed on 9 August.
Janjatiya Gaurav Divas is observed on 15 November, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda.
India accounts for roughly half of global snakebite deaths, with about 58,000 deaths a year estimated by large mortality studies.
The World Health Organization classifies snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease and targets halving deaths and disabilities by 2030.
The Big Four venomous snakes responsible for most Indian envenomations are the Indian spectacled cobra, common krait, Russell’s viper and saw scaled viper.
Gadchiroli has over 75 percent forest cover and is Maharashtra’s easternmost district.
Scheduled Tribes constitute about 8.6 percent of India’s population as per Census 2011.
Challenges in Tribal Residential Education
Distance between habitation and school: Enrolment forces children to live five hours or more from home, which raises both dropout and vulnerability. e.g. most children at the Japtalai school come from Etapalli, at least five hours away by road.
Infrastructure norms that exist on paper: Hostel space, bedding, sanitation and boundary walls are prescribed but unverified. e.g. no beds and no mosquito nets for 112 girls at Japtalai despite repeated staff requests.
Staffing and warden accountability: Residential care is left to contractual or unqualified staff at night. e.g. a contractual cook and a peon were the only adults handling a mass envenomation emergency.
Health and emergency infrastructure deficit in Scheduled Areas: Primary health centres lack ASV stocks, ventilators and trained staff, and referral chains are long. e.g. 99 snakebite deaths in Gadchiroli in five years in a district with over 75 percent forest cover.
Road and connectivity failure: Monsoon isolation cuts both schooling and evacuation for months. e.g. the kuccha forest road to Kehakawahi hamlet in Murumgaon, blocked by fallen trees and unusable in the monsoon.
Language and curriculum mismatch: Instruction in the State language alienates first generation tribal learners in early grades. e.g. Gond speaking children entering Class 1 in Marathi medium ashram schools.
Weak grievance and reporting culture: Parents learn of serious incidents late and through informal channels. e.g. a father informed at 9 a.m. by a peon who did not disclose that his daughter had died.
Way Forward
Make grant release conditional on a safety audit: Tie continued aid to each residential school to an annual verified certification of beds, nets, sanitation, boundary walls and fire and snake proofing.
Post a qualified resident warden and a nurse in every hostel: Replace overnight cover by contractual staff with trained residential staff and a mandatory night duty roster.
Stock anti snake venom and train staff at the nearest facility: Ensure every rural hospital and primary health centre in a high burden block holds polyvalent ASV and can begin treatment within the golden hour.
Attach a dedicated ambulance or emergency vehicle to remote residential schools: Provide a defined emergency transport arrangement rather than relying on whatever vehicle is available.
Prioritise all weather road connectivity in Scheduled Areas: Complete and maintain the Dhanora to Japtalai type stretches under road connectivity schemes so monsoon isolation ends.
Repair rather than close failing schools: Upgrade facilities in place where closure would end schooling for children with no affordable alternative.
Fix accountability upward: Ensure inquiries name the supervising project officers and departmental officials, and bar an official whose lapse is under examination from acting as complainant.
Notify and monitor snakebite: Make snakebite reporting mandatory across the district and publish block level data so preventive investment follows the burden.
PYQ:
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[2025, GS1, 15 marks] Does tribal development in India centre around two axes, those of displacement and of rehabilitation? Give your opinion.
The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India notified 40 questions on 14 August for Population Enumeration, the second phase of Census 2027. The expansion from the 29 questions of Census 2011 to 40, including identity document numbers and the place of COVID-19 vaccination, has shifted the debate from how India counts its people to how much personal information a census may record.
What is the Population Enumeration phase of the Census?
About: It is the second and principal phase of the census, in which every individual present in a household is recorded with their demographic, social and economic particulars.
What precedes it: The first phase, House Listing Operations, records buildings, households and household amenities rather than persons.
Reference date: Every entry relates to a fixed reference moment, so that a person is counted once and only once across the country.
Method of collection: Enumerators canvass each household with a schedule of notified questions, supplemented in this round by a web portal.
Who notifies the questions: The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India notifies the questionnaire after several rounds of consultation with all ministries.
What is House Listing Operations?
About: It is the first phase of the census, which lists every building and every household and records the amenities and assets each household holds.
When it was held: For Census 2027 it was conducted from April 2026, and self enumeration was offered before it in June.
What is the extended de facto method of enumeration?
About: Under this method every person present at a location during the enumeration period is counted at that location, whether or not it is their permanent home.
Why it is used: It prevents both the omission of the homeless and mobile and the double counting of persons who have moved between the two phases.
What is self enumeration?
About: It allows a household to fill in its own census schedule on an official web portal instead of waiting for an enumerator.
How it is secured: The option is georeferenced, so access is restricted to devices located within the notified area for which it has been opened.
What changes in the Census 2027 questionnaire?
Total questions: The Population Enumeration schedule carries 40 questions, against 29 questions in the Census 2011 schedule.
New additions:13 new questions appear that were not part of the 2011 questionnaire.
Family and identity fields: The new set records the spouse’s name, nationality, the particulars of the father and mother, and the permanent address.
Document fields: It records the passport, driving licence, mobile number, Aadhaar number and voter identity number, in each case only if available.
Access and asset fields: It records digital literacy and the number of bank accounts an individual holds.
Health field: It records the place of COVID-19 vaccination.
Caste enumeration: The Population Census will separately enumerate caste, alongside these new data fields.
What rationale and what safeguards accompany the new data fields?
How the questions were settled: The questions were decided after several rounds of discussion with all ministries, each seeking data for its own planning use.
Only government issued documents: The identity documents sought, meaning Aadhaar, voter identity card, driving licence and passport, are all issued by the government itself.
No account details: Enumerators will record only the number of bank accounts an individual holds, not the account details.
Availability condition: Respondents provide these particulars subject to availability, so absence of a document does not obstruct enumeration.
Statutory confidentiality: All data collected is confidential under the Census Act, 1948.
Practical advice to households: Respondents should write their details down on paper before an enumerator arrives, since 40 questions take longer to answer.
Fraud warning: Fraudsters may seek information in the name of the census, and enumerators carry QR code enabled identity cards whose credentials can be verified.
How will self enumeration operate in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh?
Coverage: The option opens for the entire Union Territory of Ladakh and for the snow bound areas of 16 districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sequence of operations: The web portal opens on 17 August, and door to door enumeration begins on 1 September.
Geographic restriction: The option is georeferenced and available only within the snow bound areas themselves.
Effect of that restriction: A resident of a snow bound area such as Gurez who is currently in the plains cannot access the portal.
Uptake in the first phase: More than 6.67 lakh households in Jammu and Kashmir and 7,009 households in Ladakh voluntarily completed self enumeration before House Listing Operations in June.
Counting rule applied: Under the extended de facto pattern, everyone present at a location will be counted there.
Why does Census 2027 carry particular significance for the two Union Territories?
First count after the constitutional change: It will provide the first comprehensive demographic picture of Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370.
First count of a new Union Territory: It will be the first Census of Ladakh as a Union Territory.
Length of the gap: It updates population figures after a gap of more than a decade.
Range of data generated: It will generate data on population distribution, migration, age structure, housing, education, employment, fertility, disability and social composition.
Administrative use: That data feeds planning and resource allocation for two administrations without a recent baseline.
Why geography is the focus: Demographic realities vary sharply across urban centres, border districts, remote mountain villages and tribal areas, so the census aims to capture where people live, how they live and how those patterns are changing.
What makes enumeration in these two Union Territories difficult?
Dispersed settlement in Jammu and Kashmir: The population is spread across cities, villages, mountainous regions, border areas and tribal habitations.
Seasonal migration: Movement between summer and winter settlements complicates the fixing of a household’s location.
Altitude and terrain in Ladakh: The population lives across a vast high altitude region marked by dispersed settlements.
Connectivity and access: Difficult connectivity, seasonal accessibility and remote locations restrict when and how enumerators can reach households.
The accuracy requirement: The exercise must capture not only headcount but the way population distribution varies across these terrains.
How will nomadic and displaced populations be counted?
Inter departmental coordination: Special coordination with the departments dealing with forests, tribal affairs and local administration will identify migratory routes and seasonal settlements.
Nomadic communities: The routes and seasonal settlements of the Gujjar-Bakarwals and other nomadic groups will be mapped before enumeration.
The stated objective: Mobility must not translate into undercounting.
Displaced communities:Kashmiri Pandits will be recorded according to established Census concepts and reference dates.
What is captured for them: Their migration history and household characteristics will be recorded alongside the standard schedule.
Challenges to Census 2027
Undercounting of mobile populations: Pastoral and migrant groups move between the reference date and the enumeration window. e.g. Gujjar-Bakarwal families move to high altitude summer pastures in the Pir Panjal and Ladakh ranges precisely during the enumeration months.
Privacy exposure from identity fields: Recording Aadhaar, voter identity, passport and mobile numbers against a household creates a re identification risk if any downstream database is compromised. e.g. successive breaches of health and telecom databases in India have shown how linked identifiers enable profiling.
Impersonation and cyber fraud: The census provides cover for fraudsters seeking financial credentials. e.g. callers posing as enumerators have previously sought Aadhaar and bank details during welfare verification drives.
Enumerator capacity and quality: Enumeration is done by government employees deployed on top of their regular duties. e.g. schoolteachers form the bulk of enumerators, which interrupts academic schedules and limits training time.
Digital divide in self enumeration: The portal presumes a smartphone, connectivity and literacy in the interface language. e.g. snow bound districts of Jammu and Kashmir carry among the lowest mobile internet reliability in the country.
Delay in the decennial cycle distorts planning: Entitlements calculated on outdated population figures under count beneficiaries. e.g. National Food Security Act, 2013 coverage has continued to use Census 2011 population figures despite population growth since.
Caste enumeration classification: Recording caste requires a settled list of categories and spellings across states. e.g. the 1931 Census recorded over 4,000 caste entries, and Bihar’s 2023 state survey used a far shorter list of 214 categories.
Conclusion
Population Enumeration begins on 17 August in Ladakh and the snow bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and runs till 30 September, ahead of the rest of the country, which will be enumerated in February 2027. Self enumeration on the web portal opens the same day, and door to door enumeration in these areas begins on 1 September. The exercise will produce the first full demographic account of Jammu and Kashmir since the constitutional change of 2019 and the first Census of Ladakh as a Union Territory.
The Census in India
About: The census is the complete enumeration of every person in the country at a fixed reference moment, together with their demographic, social and economic characteristics.
Administering body: The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, set up in 1961, functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs and conducts the census, the Civil Registration System and the Sample Registration System.
Two phase structure: Every census is conducted in two phases, House Listing Operations followed by Population Enumeration.
Scale: It is the largest peacetime administrative exercise in the world, deploying around 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors to cover more than 1.4 billion people.
Historical continuity: India has conducted a census every ten years since 1881 without interruption until the 2021 round was postponed.
What is new in 2027: Census 2027 will be the first digital census, using a mobile application and a self enumeration portal, and the first to enumerate caste since 1931.
Why the numbers matter: Census figures determine delimitation of constituencies, the population criterion in the Finance Commission’s devolution formula, reservation of seats, and the coverage of welfare entitlements.
Constitutional Provisions Related to the Census
Entry 69, Union List, Seventh Schedule: Places census exclusively within the legislative competence of Parliament.
Article 246: Distributes legislative power between the Union and the States across the three Lists, which is what makes Entry 69 a Union subject.
Article 81: Fixes the composition of the Lok Sabha and requires seats to be allotted to States in proportion to population.
Article 82: Requires readjustment of the allocation of Lok Sabha seats and the division of States into constituencies after every census.
Article 170: Requires the same readjustment for State Legislative Assemblies after every census.
Article 55: Uses population figures in computing the value of votes in the presidential electoral college, with the 84th Amendment fixing the 1971 figures for this purpose.
Articles 330 and 332: Base the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies on their population share.
Articles 243D and 243T: Base reservation of seats in panchayats and municipalities on population proportions drawn from census data.
Laws and Rules Governing the Census
Census Act, 1948: Provides the legal authority to conduct a census, appoint census officers and require the public to answer questions.
Section 8: Places a legal obligation on every occupier and every person to answer census questions truthfully.
Section 15: Makes census records confidential, not open to inspection and inadmissible as evidence in any legal proceeding, so an individual’s return cannot be used against them.
Census Rules, 1990: Lay down the procedural framework for appointment of census staff, canvassing and record keeping.
Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969: Establishes the Civil Registration System administered by the same Registrar General, which supplies continuous vital statistics between censuses.
Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003: Provide for the National Population Register, a separate register of usual residents, distinct in law from the census.
Collection of Statistics Act, 2008: Governs other official statistical collections and their confidentiality obligations.
Back2Basics: Census Act, 1948
Enactment: Passed in 1948 and extending to the whole of India, it is the permanent statutory basis for every decennial census.
Trigger: The Central Government notifies its intention to take a census, and the dates, through a gazette notification.
Machinery: It provides for the appointment of a Census Commissioner, Directors of Census Operations, and census officers down to the enumerator level, with defined powers to ask questions.
Public obligation: Every person is legally bound to answer the questions put to them truthfully, and refusal or a false answer is punishable.
Confidentiality guarantee: Individual records are not open to public inspection and are inadmissible as evidence, so census data cannot be used for enforcement against any individual.
Penalties: The Act penalises both a census officer who discloses information and a respondent who gives a false answer.
Nature of the data: Only aggregated statistical tables are published, never individual returns.
Government Initiatives Related to Population Data
Census 2027 digital application and monitoring portal: Enumeration, supervision and data validation move to a mobile application backed by a central management and monitoring system, replacing paper schedules.
Self Enumeration portal: Allows households to complete their own census schedule online, with georeferencing to restrict access to the notified area.
National Population Register: A register of usual residents maintained under the Citizenship Act, 1955, first prepared alongside the 2011 House Listing phase and updated in 2015.
Civil Registration System: Continuous compulsory registration of births and deaths under the 1969 Act, providing vital statistics between census years.
Sample Registration System: A large scale sample survey run by the Registrar General that generates annual birth rate, death rate and infant mortality estimates.
National Family Health Survey: Conducted under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it supplies fertility, nutrition and health indicators that complement census counts.
Census data portals: Census tables are published for public use through the official census portal and the National Data and Analytics Platform.
Key Facts about the Census
The first census in India was conducted in 1872 under Lord Mayo, and was non synchronous across provinces.
The first synchronous and complete census was held in 1881 under Lord Ripon, and the decennial series has run from that year.
Census 2011 was the 15th census since 1872 and the 7th after Independence, recording a population of 121.09 crore, a density of 382 persons per square kilometre, a sex ratio of 943 and a literacy rate of 74.04 percent.
Census 2027 will be the 16th census, the first digital census, and the first to enumerate caste since 1931.
The reference date for Census 2027 is 1 March 2027 for most of the country, and 1 October 2026 for snow bound and non synchronous areas.
The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India was set up in 1961 and works under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Census figures govern delimitation, which stands frozen under the 84th and 87th Constitutional Amendments until the first census taken after 2026.
Challenges in Census Taking in India
Disruption of the decennial cycle: A postponed census leaves every population dependent policy working on stale figures. e.g. the 2021 round was deferred and India will have gone sixteen years between full counts.
Undercount of the homeless and of migrants: Persons without a fixed dwelling are systematically missed. e.g. Census 2011 recorded about 17.7 lakh homeless persons, a figure civil society organisations widely regard as an undercount.
Classification difficulties in caste enumeration: Caste names vary by spelling, region and sub group, which makes tabulation contested. e.g. the 1931 Census produced over 4,000 caste entries that could not be aggregated cleanly.
Urban definition problems: Statistical and administrative definitions of urban areas diverge. e.g. census towns satisfy the census definition of urban but continue to be governed by rural panchayats without urban service standards.
Enumerator burden and data quality: Enumerators are serving government staff performing census duty in addition to their jobs. e.g. schoolteachers form the bulk of the enumerator pool, which limits training depth and interrupts teaching.
Data security in a digital census: Digitised individual level records create risks that paper schedules did not. e.g. a mobile application that stores identity numbers requires encryption and access control standards that do not exist in the Census Act, 1948.
Political sensitivity of population figures: Census numbers directly determine seats and money, which makes them contested. e.g. southern States have objected to the use of current population for delimitation on the ground that it penalises successful fertility decline.
Way Forward
Legislate a data protection layer over census data: Extend explicit statutory protection to digitally stored individual records, since the Census Act, 1948 predates digital collection.
Publish a clear separation between the Census and the National Population Register: State in the notification itself that census returns cannot be transferred to any citizenship or enforcement register.
Expand assisted self enumeration: Provide common service centre and panchayat level assistance so that self enumeration does not exclude those without smartphones.
Build a special enumeration protocol for mobile groups: Fix pastoral and nomadic enumeration to the migration calendar rather than the general schedule.
Restore and legally fix the decennial cycle: Commit to a statutory timetable so that welfare, devolution and delimitation are never based on a sixteen year old count again.
Standardise the caste enumeration schema in advance: Publish a national list of caste categories and their state variants before enumeration begins to make tabulation usable.
Release disaggregated data quickly: Publish primary census abstracts and district level tables within a fixed period after enumeration so that planning use is not delayed further.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2009] Consider the following statements: 1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times. 2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 Answer: (d)”
Kashmir’s ₹700 crore cricket bat industry supports around 50,000 livelihoods, but faces a shortage of quality willow. English willow prices have risen from ₹300 to ₹4,250 per foot since 2021.
Key Facts
Raw material: Mainly Salix alba (English willow).
Industry: 195 registered manufacturers and around 150 cleft dealers.
Production: Around 30 lakh bats annually.
Trees: Nearly 1.2 lakh mature trees are felled annually.
Maturity: Willow requires about 12 to 15 years to reach harvest maturity.
Smuggling: Over 25 lakh clefts are reportedly smuggled out annually.
GI Tag: Kashmir willow bats received a GI tag in 2025.
Why is the industry facing a crisis?
Scarcity of quality willow
Wetland and spring degradation
Smuggling of clefts
Long 12 to 15 year plantation cycle
Inconsistent timber quality
What does the GI Tag do?
Protects the Kashmir willow name from misuse.
Enhances product reputation and market value.
Provides legal protection to registered producers.
Does not increase willow supply or shorten the growth cycle.
Government Response
Plantation of 2.2 lakh willow trees across 200 hectares.
Introduction of improved willow clones.
Identification of new plantation sites.
Greater farmer participation and scientific plantation management.
Prelims Pointers
GI Act: Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.
First Indian GI: Darjeeling Tea, 2004.
GI validity: 10 years, renewable indefinitely.
GI ownership: Collective, not individually transferable.
Kashmir willow species:Salix alba.
[2018] India enacted The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 in order to comply with the obligations to (a) ILO (b) IMF (c) UNCTAD (d) WTO
Both Houses passed a Bill to rename Kerala as “Keralam”, its name in Malayalam. The change follows two resolutions of the Kerala Assembly and routes through the constitutional process for altering a state’s name.
How is a state renamed under the Constitution?
Parliament’s power: Under Article 3, Parliament can alter the name of a state by law.
Presidential referral: Such a Bill needs the President’s recommendation and the views of the affected state legislature.
Simple majority: The change is passed by ordinary legislative majority, not a constitutional amendment.
Why “Keralam”?
Linguistic identity: “Keralam” is the state’s name in Malayalam, and the change aligns official usage with local usage.
Assembly resolutions: The Kerala Assembly twice sought the change unanimously.
Why does the process matter?
Union primacy: Only Parliament, not the state, can effect the legal renaming.
Federal courtesy: The state legislature’s view is sought, but its resolution is not binding.
Back2Basics: Article 3 of the Constitution
Scope: Formation of new states and alteration of areas, boundaries, or names of existing states.
Initiation: Only on the President’s recommendation, after seeking the state legislature’s views.
Nature: Treated as an ordinary law, reflecting the “indestructible states” feature of Indian federalism.
“[2022, GS1, 15] The political and administrative reorganization of states and territories has been a continuous ongoing process since the mid-nineteenth century. Discuss with examples.”
[2025] Consider the following pairs : State:Description 1. Arunachal Pradesh: The capital is named after a fort, and the state has two National Parks 2. Nagaland: The State came into Existence on the basis of a Constitutional Amendment Act. 3. Tripura: Initially a Part ‘C’ State, it became a centrally administered territory with the reorganization of State in 1956 and later attained the status of a full-fledged State How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
The Tribal Council of Great and Little Nicobar has raised concerns that the Great Nicobar Island (GNI) Project could lead to assimilation and disturbance of the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
What is the GNI Project?
Large infrastructure and township project in Great Nicobar.
Estimated cost: around ₹91,000 crore.
Includes a proposed power plant at Galathea, near Shompen settlements.
Who are the Shompen?
Hunter-gatherer indigenous community.
Fewer than 300 members.
Recognised as a PVTG.
Their isolation makes contact, displacement and forced assimilation particularly sensitive.
What are PVTGs?
PVTG = Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group: Identified based on characteristics such as:
Pre-agricultural technology
Low literacy
Stagnant or declining population
Economic backwardness
India recognises 75 PVTGs.
Key Concerns
Assimilation: Proposal to shift the Shompen towards a modern lifestyle.
Displacement: Concern over possible settlement and relocation.
Consent: Questions regarding consultation over wildlife reserves and project decisions.
Health risks: Contact with isolated communities can expose them to diseases and other risks.
Assurance gap: Earlier assurance stated that the project would not disturb or displace the Shompen.
Laws Protecting Tribal Rights
Forest Rights Act, 2006: Recognises individual and community forest rights.
PESA, 1996: Provides self-governance and consent provisions in Scheduled Areas.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956: Restricts entry into tribal reserves.
Government Initiatives
PM-JANMAN: Development of PVTG households and habitations.
Development of PVTGs Scheme: Habitat-specific support for 75 PVTGs.
“[2009] In which one of the following places is the Shompen tribe found?
The southwest monsoon’s revival in July, despite a strengthening El Nino, has sharply narrowed the gap in area sown under kharif crops this season. The relief exposes a deeper tension between a recovering kharif and the mounting risks to the rabi season and to food inflation from El Nino’s lagged effect and a surge in global vegetable oil prices.
Why did a sowing gap open and how did July reverse it?
Weak start: Rainfall in June was 38 percent below the long period average, making it the sixth driest June in India since 1901, with not a single low pressure system forming.
Early shortfall: By 6 July farmers had planted only 350.85 lakh hectares, which was 20.8 percent below the 442.80 lakh hectares sown in the same period of 2025.
July turnaround: In July the country recorded four low pressure systems against a normal of three. These moved slowly, producing about 24 affected days against a normal of 14, lifting all India July rainfall to 2.4 percent above the average.
Recovery: By 7 August the 967.92 lakh hectares covered was only 1.8 percent lower than last year, with the pulses gap down to 1.8 percent, cotton to 0.4 percent, and oilseeds exceeding last year’s level.
What is El Nino and why does its effect lag?
Definition: El Nino is the abnormal warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean off Peru and Ecuador that suppresses monsoon rainfall over India.
Lagged impact: El Nino’s effect on rainfall and temperatures comes with a lag of one to two months and can play out over five to six months or more.
Current phase: It intensified from a weak to moderate phase in June into a moderate to strong event in July, and global agencies expect it to turn very strong during October to December.
Why is the worst not yet over?
Late kharif needs rain:Crops need rainfall during August and early September for flowering and grain formation that determine yields. Meteorological Department has predicted a fresh low pressure system around 12 August.
Delayed hit: Because El Nino’s rainfall suppressing effect lags, its worst impact is still to come.
Rabi at risk: A strengthening El Nino raises temperatures, and a short warm winter harms wheat, mustard and potato yields, so the real threat is to the rabi season.
What does the FAO Food Price Index show?
Index high: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food price index touched 131.1 points in July, up 1 percent from July 2025 and the highest since the 131.4 of January 2023, a three and a half year high. This means food prices are now at their highest level in about 3½ years.
Vegetable oils drive it: The vegetable oils index reached 195.7 points, up 17.3 percent year on year and the highest since June 2022.
Mixed components: The cereals index was 113.8 points, up 6.9 percent, while dairy fell 24.8 percent, sugar fell 8 percent, and meat rose just 0.8 percent.
Causes: The rise is attributed to El Nino, heatwave hit crop yields in Europe, and supply disruptions from conflicts in West Asia and Ukraine.
Why are vegetable oils the real concern for India?
Import exposure: The combined value of India’s imports of oilseeds, pulses and cotton was close to 25 billion dollars in 2025-26, which El Nino could push to a new high.
Biofuel diversion: Firming vegetable oil prices stem mainly from diversion of palm, rapeseed and soyabean oil toward biofuel as petroleum prices harden.
Fuel substitution: These oils are used to make fatty acid methyl esters, a substitute for petroleum diesel, linking food and fuel markets.
Buffer available: The government held 92.6 million tonnes of rice and wheat on 1 July against a required minimum of 41.1 million tonnes, plus over 4 million tonnes of pulses, which can be offloaded to contain inflation.
Conclusion
The July monsoon revival has rescued the kharif season, cutting the sowing gap to under 2 percent even as El Nino strengthened. The central worry has shifted to the rabi season and to food inflation, since El Nino’s temperature and rainfall effects lag and global vegetable oil prices are at multi year highs. Ample public grain stocks give the government room to manage food inflation, but the rabi outlook and edible oil import bill remain the open risks.
Back2Basics:
Foundational Context: Climate Change and Food Security
About: Food security means reliable physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food, which climate variability directly threatens.
Tropical vulnerability: Tropical countries face greater exposure because agriculture is rain dependent and heat sensitive.
India context: A large share of India’s cropped area is rainfed, tying output to monsoon performance.
Transmission channels: Erratic rainfall, heat stress, pest incidence and global price shocks each transmit climate risk to food systems.
FAO Food Price Index
Convening body: Published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
What it measures: A weighted average of world prices of a basket of food commodities against a base period value taken as 100 for 2014 to 2016.
Components: Tracks separate indices for cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat and sugar.
Frequency: Released monthly.
Recent reading: Touched 131.1 points in July, a three and a half year high.
Government Initiatives for Agriculture and Edible Oils
National Mission on Edible Oils Oil Palm: Mission to raise domestic oil palm and edible oil production and cut import dependence.
PM-AASHA: Umbrella scheme assuring remunerative prices to farmers, especially for oilseeds and pulses.
Price Stabilisation Fund: Buffer stock mechanism to moderate volatility in pulses and other commodities.
Minimum Support Price: Price assurance to encourage sowing of pulses and oilseeds.
Key Facts about the Monsoon and Kharif Season
Sixth driest June: June 2026 was the sixth driest June since 1901.
July rainfall: All India July rainfall was 2.4 percent above the long period average.
Import bill: Oilseeds, pulses and cotton imports neared 25 billion dollars in 2025-26.
Grain stocks: 92.6 million tonnes of rice and wheat held on 1 July against a 41.1 million tonne minimum.
Challenges in Indian Agriculture
Rainfall dependence: A large rainfed area leaves output exposed to monsoon swings.
Import reliance: High dependence on imported edible oils and pulses exposes India to global prices.
Climate volatility: El Nino and heatwaves disrupt both kharif and rabi seasons.
Price transmission: Global food and fuel price shocks feed domestic inflation.
Storage and logistics: Post harvest losses and uneven buffer management persist.
Yield gaps: Low productivity in pulses and oilseeds constrains self sufficiency.
Way Forward
Raise oilseed output: Expand area and yields under the edible oils mission to cut imports.
Diversify cropping: Promote pulses and climate resilient varieties in rainfed regions.
Strengthen buffers: Use public grain and pulse stocks proactively to contain inflation.
Improve forecasting: Sharpen monsoon and El Nino forecasting for sowing decisions.
Invest in irrigation: Extend micro irrigation to reduce rainfall dependence.
PYQ Relevance
[UPSC 2023] Discuss the consequences of climate change on the food security in tropical countries.
Linkage: The PYQ directly addresses the impact of climate change and climatic variability on food security in tropical countries. El Niño, erratic monsoons, heat stress and global food prices show how climate risks affect India’s kharif, rabi and food inflation.
A new study in the journal The Cryosphere reports that glaciers in the Zanskar region of Ladakh are moving more slowly than they did 30 years ago, as sustained warming thins them and reduces their driving force. The slowdown carries long term implications for the Indus basin, where glacier melt sustains river flows during dry summer months.
Why are the Zanskar glaciers slowing down?
Thinning mechanism: When a glacier loses more ice than it gains over many years it becomes thinner, and thinner ice exerts less driving force, causing it to flow more slowly.
Warming link: The study connects mass loss, thinning and reduced flow, showing that thinning is not only a consequence of warming but also weakens the glacier’s ability to move.
Downstream effect: Slower flow means the lower parts of a glacier receive less replenishment from higher elevations, making continued shrinkage more likely.
Local variation: Glacier geometry, debris cover and conditions at the snout influence how quickly each glacier responds.
What is peak water?
Definition:Peak water is the point at which increased melting from a shrinking glacier temporarily raises river runoff before the water supply begins to decline.
Why it matters: More melting may boost flows in the near term, but once glaciers lose a substantial fraction of their stored ice, their meltwater contribution to rivers is expected to drop.
What did the study find?
Study design: The researchers examined how glacier flow changed from 1992 to 2023 across 12 glaciers in the Zanskar Himalaya using satellite derived surface velocities.
Velocity decline: Glaciers slowed by 2.4 metres per year per decade on average.
Faster thinning: The pace of surface thinning increased from around 0.22 metres per year between 2000 and 2005 to around 0.57 metres per year between 2015 and 2020.
Sample caveat: The 12 glaciers studied are representative, but the Zanskar basin hosts around 1,755 glaciers, so caution is needed before extending the findings to all of Ladakh.
What are the implications for the Indus basin?
Summer flows: Glacier melt contributes significantly to Indus river flows during the dry summer months, so long term storage decline threatens that supply.
Multiple dependencies: River flows also depend on snowfall, rainfall, groundwater and water management, so slowing glaciers alone will not immediately cause shortages.
Sectors at risk: Continued thinning and slowdown signal declining long term water storage, with implications for water security, agriculture, hydropower and downstream ecosystems in coming decades.
Why do the study’s own limitations qualify its conclusions?
Sub surface blind spot: Satellite surface velocity observations cannot directly reveal processes beneath the glacier, such as subglacial hydrology or basal sliding, which strongly influence motion.
Data gaps: Long term field measurements of ice thickness, mass balance and bed conditions remain limited in the region, making full attribution of observed changes difficult.
Exceptions to the trend: Some glaciers can temporarily accelerate due to increased meltwater at the bed, glacier surges, or interactions with proglacial lakes.
What does the global comparison show?
European Alps and Alaska: Similar glacier slowdowns have been reported, driven by the same thinning and reduced driving stress mechanism.
Canadian Arctic and Andes: These regions show comparable slowdowns linked to warming.
Tibetan plateau: Parts of the plateau display the same dominant mechanism of thinning leading to slower flow.
Shared lesson: Glacier slowdown is becoming widespread globally, though local glacier characteristics still shape individual behaviour.
Conclusion
The study establishes that Zanskar glaciers are not only losing mass but slowing down, with thinning reducing their capacity to move and replenish lower reaches. This points to a long term decline in stored water that will eventually reduce Indus basin flows after a phase of peak water. The findings underscore the need for sustained ground based monitoring to validate satellite data and to prepare downstream communities for shifting water availability.
Back2Basics:
Foundational Context: The Cryosphere and Himalayan Glaciers
About: The cryosphere comprises the frozen parts of the Earth, including glaciers, snow cover, permafrost and ice, that store and release freshwater.
Third Pole: The Hindu Kush Himalaya holds the largest ice mass outside the polar regions and is often called the Third Pole.
Function: Himalayan glaciers act as natural reservoirs, releasing meltwater in warmer months to sustain rivers, agriculture and ecosystems in otherwise arid areas.
Climate indicator: High altitude glaciers respond distinctly to warming, making them valuable natural indicators of environmental change.
The Zanskar Region and Indus Basin
Location: The Zanskar region lies in Ladakh and hosts some of the largest and most extensive glaciers in the Himalaya.
Climatic setting: Its glaciers receive most of their snowfall from mid latitude westerly disturbances during winter and sit at high altitude.
Indus basin: The Indus rises in the Tibetan plateau and flows through Ladakh, with glacier melt feeding its dry season flows.
Significance: The basin supports water security, agriculture and hydropower across northern India and beyond.
Key Facts about Himalayan Glacier Monitoring
Study journal: The findings appear in the journal The Cryosphere.
Zanskar glacier count: The basin hosts around 1,755 glaciers, of which 12 were studied.
Observation record: The study covers more than 30 years, from 1992 to 2023.
Peak water: A key concept describing the temporary runoff increase before long term decline.
Challenges in Glacier Conservation and Monitoring
Data scarcity: Long term field measurements of ice thickness and mass balance are limited in high altitude terrain.
Warming pace: Rising temperatures accelerate thinning and mass loss.
Black carbon: Soot deposition on ice lowers reflectivity and speeds melting.
Glacial lake hazards: Meltwater expansion raises the risk of glacial lake outburst floods.
Downstream dependence: Millions rely on glacier fed rivers, amplifying the impact of any decline.
Way Forward
Expand ground monitoring: Add measurements of ice thickness, mass balance and meltwater discharge to validate satellite data.
High altitude weather stations: Install continuous observation stations to capture varied mountain climate conditions.
Basin water planning: Prepare Indus basin water management for the eventual decline after peak water.
Reduce black carbon: Cut regional emissions that hasten glacier melt.
Regional cooperation: Share transboundary glacier and river data across the basin.
PYQ Relevance
[UPSC 2020] How will the melting of Himalayan glaciers have a far-reaching impact on the water resources of India?
Linkage: The PYQ directly relates to the impact of Himalayan glacier melt on India’s water resources. Zanskar glacier slowdown and thinning highlight the emerging risks to Indus basin flows, water security and long-term freshwater availability.
The southwest monsoon has revived, cutting the seasonal deficit to 11.5%, but warns that a possible El Nino threatens the rabi crop and keeps urea supply in focus.
What is El Nino?
Definition: El Nino is the abnormal warming of the central and eastern Pacific that weakens the Indian monsoon and disrupts rainfall.
Crop link: A weak or erratic monsoon reduces soil moisture and reservoir storage needed for the winter rabi crop.
Why does the rabi outlook matter?
Food and prices: Wheat and other rabi crops shape food inflation and buffer stocks.
Input dependence: Adequate urea and irrigation are needed to protect rabi output if rainfall falters.
Recovery is partial: A narrowed deficit does not remove the risk that late-season El Nino conditions bring.
Conclusion
A recovering monsoon eases the kharif outlook but leaves rabi exposed to El Nino. The next milestone is confirmation of El Nino conditions before the rabi season.
PYQ Relevance
[UPSC 2015]How far do you agree that the behavior of the Indian monsoon has been changing due to humanizing landscapes? Discuss.
Linkage: The PYQ explores changing monsoon behaviour and its impact on Indian agriculture. El Niño-induced rainfall variability shows how climatic and human factors can alter monsoon patterns and crop outcomes.
