💥Mains Ready By December. Smash Mains & Smash PYQ Admissions Open
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

GS Paper: GS2

  • Govt has deferred Census in Manipur amid calls for NRC to be carried out

    Govt has deferred Census in Manipur amid calls for NRC to be carried out

    Why in the News

    The Union government has decided to defer the 2027 Census in Manipur. The decision followed a meeting of the Union Home Minister with the Governor and the Chief Minister of Manipur, and the State government said it came out of discussions on the demand that the Census be held only after a National Register of Citizens (NRC), a register of persons verified as Indian citizens, is implemented in the State. Meitei and Naga organisations want citizenship settled before any population figure is recorded. Kuki-Zo organisations want the reverse order, arguing that the Census is the credible data source against which citizenship allegations should be tested. The count is contested because the same figures will eventually decide how Assembly seats are shared between the valley and the hills.

    Why is the Census being opposed?

    1. Citizenship and demographic change: Meitei civil society groups in the valley and Naga communities in the hill districts allege that migration from Myanmar and elsewhere has altered Manipur’s demographic composition. They want an exercise distinguishing Indian citizens from illegal immigrants before population figures are recorded.
    2. Displacement from the ethnic conflict: Thousands remain displaced more than three years after the violence that began in May 2023. Meitei groups say a count taken while people live away from their homes would record the consequences of displacement rather than the underlying population pattern.
    3. Political representation: Census figures will eventually govern delimitation, and Manipur has had no fresh delimitation implemented since the 1970s.

    How old is the NRC demand?

    1. It predates the current conflict: The demand existed before the May 2023 violence, and the influx from Myanmar and the conflict later gave it a sharper political and security dimension.
    2. A joint memorandum in 2022: In June 2022 the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), representing Meitei civil society, and the United Naga Council (UNC) jointly demanded an NRC and a State Population Commission.
    3. The Assembly endorsed it twice: The Manipur Assembly adopted a resolution seeking both on 5 August 2022, and reaffirmed it on 1 March 2024.
    4. The growth figures the resolution cited: The resolution recorded population growth of 153.3 percent between 1971 and 2001 and 250.9 percent between 2001 and 2011 in the hill districts, against 94.8 percent and 125.4 percent respectively in the valley. Those figures do not by themselves establish illegal immigration.
    5. An institution was created: The State government constituted the Manipur State Population Commission in February 2023.

    What did the Myanmar crisis add?

    1. Displacement across the border: Fighting in Myanmar’s Chin State and adjoining areas after the 2021 military coup drove thousands across the border into India.
    2. Ethnic links on both sides of the border: Many of those arriving belonged to Chin and related communities with ethnic and familial ties to the Kuki-Zomi population in Manipur.
    3. The State government’s framing: The Manipur government linked the influx to new settlements, poppy cultivation, encroachment and demographic change.
    4. The counter position: Kuki organisations disputed that framing, arguing that legitimate Indian citizens were being conflated with recent arrivals from Myanmar.
    5. A border policy change: The Centre scrapped the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar in February 2024, citing security and demographic concerns.

    What are the Meitei and Naga groups demanding now?

    1. A fixed sequence: The UNC stated on 18 August, “NRC first: No Census, No Delimitation Before Implementation of NRC in Manipur.”
    2. An old base year: It demanded an NRC with 1951 as the base year, followed by the Census and then delimitation.
    3. The demand cuts across party lines: The State Congress president, himself a former Chief Minister, supported the demand for an NRC before the Census on 19 and 20 August, placing the two main parties broadly on the same side.

    Why do the Kuki-Zo groups oppose it?

    1. A national exercise, not a State one: The Kuki-Zo Council called an NRC before the Census “premature and unjustified”, stating on 23 August that there is no provision for a community or a State government to unilaterally initiate a separate NRC in one State.
    2. Allegations should be tested against data: It argued that the demand rests on unsubstantiated allegations about the Kuki-Zo community, and that such claims should be tested against credible demographic data. The Census is the appropriate source of that data.
    3. It supports delimitation on verified data: The Council has backed delimitation once verified demographic figures exist.
    4. The documentary cut off is the underlying fear: Kuki, Zomi and Chin communities straddle the India-Myanmar border, so a register built on an old documentary cut off could raise doubts about people who have lived in Manipur for generations.

    Why does delimitation matter so much here?

    1. The present seat split: Manipur has 60 Assembly seats, 40 in the valley and 20 in the hills.
    2. The demographic map behind it: The State’s 16 districts divide broadly into hills, where Nagas and Kuki-Zomis predominate, and the valley, where Meiteis are in the majority.
    3. The map is more than fifty years old: The present political map goes back to the 1973 delimitation, which was based on the 1971 Census.
    4. Manipur was left out of the last exercise: A national delimitation based on the 2001 Census ran between 2002 and 2008, and Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland were excluded after the Centre deferred it in 2008, citing security concerns and challenges to the credibility of the 2001 Census data in the region.
    5. The disputed 2001 figures: In nine hill subdivisions the increase between 1991 and 2001 was over 40 percent, and in four it exceeded 100 percent.
    6. What the valley’s political class fears: A new Census followed by delimitation could move the 40:20 distribution to something closer to 35:25 or 30:30.

    Can an NRC be held only in Manipur, and what else is the Centre weighing?

    1. The usual national sequence is stalled: A nationwide NRC is supposed to follow an update of the National Population Register (NPR), a register of usual residents, and the government has not notified the NPR to be taken up with the 2027 Census.
    2. No legal bar on a State specific exercise: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 vests the power to compulsorily register citizens and maintain the National Register of Indian Citizens in the Centre. No statutory requirement makes simultaneous nationwide deployment necessary.
    3. The decision is political rather than legal: The Centre could in principle notify the exercise for a particular State or border region, and the recorded position is that this is a political call.
    4. An alternative route already exists: A High-Level Committee on Demographic Change, announced in May this year, is examining demographic change arising from illegal immigration and other abnormal causes, and will recommend policy, legislative and administrative measures. Its findings could form the basis of a policy specific to Manipur.

    Challenges to holding the Census in Manipur

    1. Displacement distorts where people are counted: An enumeration records a person where they are living on the reference date, so a district hosting relief camps absorbs the population of the district people fled. Eg. Displaced Kashmiri Pandit families have been counted in Jammu and Delhi rather than in their home districts across successive Censuses.
      The Fix: Record a home district field for persons enumerated in relief camps, so displacement is visible in the data instead of silently altering district totals.
    2. A register built on an old base year excludes documented residents: Citizenship registration turns on producing legacy documents, which the poorest and the most mobile are least able to hold. Eg. Assam’s updated register, worked against a 1971 cut off, left 19,06,657 persons out of the final list published in August 2019, and the appeals process has still not concluded.
      The Fix: Publish the documentary standard and a binding appeal timeline before enumeration begins, so exclusion is contestable within a fixed period.
    3. A deferred count leaves the State on stale data: Allocations for welfare programmes are pegged to Census population, so a State that is skipped keeps running on figures more than a decade old. Eg. Coverage under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is still fixed against the 2011 Census population.
      The Fix: Notify an alternative statutory data source, such as updated ration and electoral rolls, for allocations in the deferred State until enumeration is held.
    4. The credibility of the count is itself contested in the region: A count that any side believes is inflated cannot settle the question it is being deferred to answer. Eg. Nagaland recorded decadal growth of about 64 percent in the 2001 Census and a fall of about 0.6 percent in 2011, and the earlier count was widely described within the State as inflated.
      The Fix: Publish subdivision level growth anomalies alongside post enumeration survey results, so a disputed count is audited rather than defended.

    Conclusion

    Deferring the count postpones the dispute without resolving either question behind it. The two demands cannot be met on the same timetable, since one side wants citizenship settled before people are counted and the other wants the count to test the citizenship allegations. A deferral also leaves the State without the current population data that its own programmes and its own representation ultimately rest on. What to watch is whether the Centre fixes a date for enumeration in the State or lets the deferral run open ended.

    Back2Basics: National Register of Indian Citizens

    1. What it is: A register of persons verified as citizens of India, maintained by the Centre.
    2. Its statutory basis: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 empowers the Centre to compulsorily register every citizen and to issue national identity cards.
    3. How it is meant to be built: The rules contemplate verification of the particulars collected in the National Population Register to sort residents into citizens and doubtful cases.
    4. Where it has been done: The only State level exercise so far was in Assam, carried out under Supreme Court supervision, with the final list published in 2019.

    “[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 abova is/are correct ?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

  • CJP cases scrapped: Supreme Court’s much-debated powers under Article 142

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has used Article 142 of the Constitution to quash first information reports filed across several States against participants in the nationwide examination protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The order gives legal force to an assurance the Union government had already given to CJP members. A negotiated settlement between the Centre and a protest group therefore takes effect as a judicial decree. Article 142 allows the Court to pass any decree or order necessary for doing “complete justice” in a matter pending before it, and it neither defines that phrase nor states when the power may be used. The Court has itself held that this power may fill a gap in a statute but may not override a statutory scheme. What is contested is whether quashing thousands of pending cases in a single order, without examining any of them on its own facts, fills such a gap or replaces one.

    What is Article 142?

    1. The text of the power: Article 142 lets the Supreme Court pass such decree or order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
    2. What the provision leaves open: It does not define “complete justice” and it does not specify the circumstances in which the power may be used.
    3. Its statutory ancestor: The provision traces to Section 210 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and behind that to the colonial practice of deciding disputes on “justice, equity and good conscience” where the written law was silent.

    How did a power this wide enter the Constitution without debate?

    1. Adopted as Draft Article 118: The provision appeared in the Draft Constitution as Article 118 and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 27 May 1949 without a debate.
    2. Two amendments were dropped: Two amendments to it were moved and then withdrawn.
    3. The nearest the Assembly came to discussing it: During an earlier debate on a related Article granting the court special leave to hear appeals, the member Krishna Chandra Sharma compared the proposed powers to the Privy Council’s own power to step in wherever justice demanded, appeal or no appeal.
    4. The scope was left to the Court: The content of the Court’s widest power was worked out case by case over the following seven decades rather than settled at the drafting stage.

    How has the Court used this power?

    1. The Bhopal gas tragedy settlement: Article 142 was used to secure a payout of 470 million dollars from Union Carbide and to quash the criminal cases against the company.
    2. The Ayodhya title dispute: The power was used to settle the dispute on a “preponderance of probability” and to direct that five acres of land be given to the Muslim side.
    3. A convict’s release: The Court ordered the release of A G Perarivalan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
    4. Routine civil use: The provision is also used to grant divorce where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, and in public interest litigation.
    5. The measured scale of its use: An empirical study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad examined every case between 1950 and 2023 citing “Article 142” or “complete justice”, and found 1,579 references and 791 direct invocations, mostly in civil matters.

    Has the Court fenced its own power?

    1. Consistency with law and rights: In Prem Chand Garg versus State of Uttar Pradesh (1962) the Court held that orders under Article 142 must still be consistent with fundamental rights and with the law.
    2. Supplement, not supplant: In Supreme Court Bar Association versus Union of India (1998) the Court held that Article 142 can supplement a statute by filling a gap the law leaves open. The same ruling held that it cannot supplant a statute or override an existing statutory scheme.
    3. The limits are not self enforcing: The Court has often disregarded its own caution, and no institution outside the Court can hold it to these two rulings.
    4. Discretion multiplies across benches: The effect of an undefined discretion is magnified in a court of 38 judges sitting mostly in benches of two.

    How does the CJP order test that limit?

    1. The ordinary statutory route: A first information report is examined on its own facts before being quashed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, with the court asking whether an offence is made out or whether the case is plainly malicious.
    2. What the order did instead: Thousands of first information reports across several States were clubbed together and quashed without that scrutiny, as part of a negotiated settlement.
    3. The statutory scheme is displaced, not supplemented: The order substitutes the Court’s view of how the law ought to operate for the procedure the statute lays down for quashing.
    4. The Court also decides who is excluded: The same discretion under Article 142 determines which protesters are left out of the relief.
    5. The scholarly objection: Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia argues that criminal law provisions cannot be overridden through a blanket judicial decree.

    Why had Article 142 already drawn criticism?

    1. The Tamil Nadu Bills order: The Court used the same provision last year to deem long withheld Bills of the Tamil Nadu legislature as assented to.
    2. The response from the Vice President: The Vice President described that use of the power as a “nuclear missile” against democratic institutions.
    3. A former law officer’s warning: A former Attorney General of India wrote in 2017 that the provision had done “tremendous good” for deprived sections of society, and that it was time to build in checks and balances.
    4. A proposal to restrict who may invoke it: After the Sabarimala judgment the same former Attorney General described Article 142 as a “Kamdhenu from which unlimited powers flowed”, and proposed that only Constitution Benches of five judges be allowed to invoke it, so that its use does not turn on the reading of a single smaller Bench.

    Challenges to Article 142

    1. No stated standard for “complete justice”: The Constitution attaches no test to the power, so its width is settled afresh in each case by the Bench exercising it. Eg. In Delhi Development Authority versus Skipper Construction Company (1996) the power was used to reach the personal assets of persons who were not parties to the proceeding before the Court.
      The Fix: Require every order made under the provision to record on the face of the order the specific statutory gap it is filling and the limits of the relief granted.
    2. Bench strength does not scale with the consequence: No minimum Bench is prescribed, so an order altering an outcome for an entire class can issue from a small Bench. Eg. A three judge Bench in 2024 set aside the declared result of the Chandigarh mayoral election and declared the defeated candidate elected.
      The Fix: Maintain a published, reasoned compilation of orders made under the provision, so a body of standards accumulates instead of scattered discretion.
    3. The relief creates no right for the next litigant: An order for complete justice is granted on the facts of one case, so a similarly placed person cannot claim the same relief from a lower court. Eg. Divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown, allowed in Shilpa Sailesh versus Varun Sreenivasan (2023), is available only from the Supreme Court, since that ground does not exist in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
      The Fix: Where the power is repeatedly used to fill the same statutory gap, refer that gap to the Union government with a reasoned recommendation to amend the statute.
    4. Only the same court can correct such an order: An order issues from the highest court, so the sole remedy is a review or a curative petition before that court. Eg. The curative petition route created in Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra (2002) is itself a judge made remedy and succeeds in very few cases.
      The Fix: List every order that departs from a statutory scheme for a compliance hearing before the same Bench, so an order that misfires is corrected on the record.

    Conclusion

    The Court’s limits on its own widest power are self imposed, and nothing outside the Court enforces them. The unresolved question is whether a power designed to fill silences in the law may be used to set aside a procedure the law expressly provides, on terms agreed between a litigant and the government. What to watch is whether the Court itself frames a standard for when the power may be exercised, because no other institution can.

    Back2Basics: Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

    1. What it is: The statute governing criminal procedure in India, covering investigation, arrest, trial and the powers of criminal courts.
    2. What it replaced: It came into force on 1 July 2024 in place of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
    3. Its companion statutes: It was enacted alongside the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
    4. The quashing power it carries: Section 528 preserves the inherent powers of a High Court, which include quashing proceedings to prevent abuse of the process of a court.

    [2019, GS2, 10 marks] Do you think that constitution of India does not accept principle of strict separation of powers rather it is based on the principle of ‘checks and balance’? Explain.”

  • Courtroom dramas, clipped and shared

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has barred the use and circulation of audio and video clips of judicial proceedings on social media and other digital platforms without prior permission from court registrars.

    What does the interim order leave unsettled?

    1. The stated reason: A Bench led by the Chief Justice of India said “isolated excerpts” risked “trivialising” the administration of justice.
    2. The carve out: The Court later clarified that “recognised news outlets” may continue reporting on proceedings, but may not “utilise” audio or video clips.
    3. The undefined term: The Court did not define “recognised news outlets”, which leaves independent journalists unable to tell whether they are covered.
    4. Who has been added to the case: High Courts and social media intermediaries, including Meta, LinkedIn and X Corp, have been brought into the proceedings while the Court considers a broader protocol.

    How was live streaming established as a right?

    1. The barrier that prompted the petition: Interns were allowed inside Supreme Court courtrooms only on certain days to prevent overcrowding, and litigants travelling from remote parts of the country often could not enter the courtroom hearing their own case.
    2. The ruling: In September 2018 the petition in Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India culminated in a ruling recognising live streaming as part of the right to access justice under Article 21 of the Constitution.
    3. The reasoning: The public’s right to know how justice is administered is integral to a functioning democracy, on the principle that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
    4. The direction to High Courts: The Court urged High Courts to introduce live streaming gradually while framing rules to govern its use.
    5. The safeguards built in from the start: Matrimonial cases, sexual assault cases and proceedings involving children and juveniles were excluded from live streaming.

    How far has live streaming actually spread?

    1. The Supreme Court’s start: The Court began live streaming proceedings before its Constitution Benches in 2022. These Benches comprise five or more judges deciding substantial questions concerning the interpretation of the Constitution.
    2. The limit on coverage: The Court has 17 functioning courtrooms and largely streams only Constitution Bench hearings, which sit intermittently.
    3. The audience: The Court’s official YouTube channel has amassed over 2.67 lakh subscribers.
    4. A rare exception: A video of the suo motu hearing in the R.G. Kar rape and murder case, uploaded in September 2024, has been viewed nearly 48,000 times, and is one of the few instances of a rape case streamed on the channel.
    5. The High Courts: Live streaming was operational in 11 High Courts as of March 2026, per a statement to the Lok Sabha. Gujarat, Karnataka and Calcutta stream daily from a majority of their courtrooms.
    6. The first mover: The Gujarat High Court became the first to formally go live on YouTube in July 2021, and its channel now has nearly 1.97 lakh subscribers.

    Where does unauthorised courtroom footage actually come from?

    1. Virtual hearing access: The Supreme Court and the High Courts allow lawyers and litigants to join hearings virtually through platforms such as Cisco Webex, with links often published in the daily cause lists.
    2. How the links spread: Links are shared indiscriminately beyond litigants and lawyers, so anyone logged in can record the proceeding.
    3. Why the exclusion list does not hold: A High Court can pause streaming for a sensitive case while the virtual hearing continues, so footage from sexual offence, matrimonial and child custody matters has reached social media.
    4. The rule that already covers this: The Supreme Court e-Committee’s Model Rules of 2021 prohibit unauthorised dissemination of courtroom footage and its use for commercial, promotional or advertising purposes.

    Why is a permission regime contested?

    1. The shift it marks: Requiring an ordinary citizen to seek a registrar’s permission to share a proceeding that is already being live streamed converts open access into a permission regime.
    2. The procedural gap: There is no stated method for seeking permission, no ground on which it is to be granted or refused, and no recourse where it is refused.
    3. Who the exemption favours: An exemption confined to “recognised news outlets” advantages established media organisations over citizen journalists and smaller newsrooms.
    4. The inconsistency: A written account of a courtroom exchange remains permitted while a video clip faithfully reproducing the same exchange does not.
    5. The alternative safeguard proposed: Expanding live streaming and archiving on authorised platforms would let a complete official record expose a manipulated clip, which a circulation ban does not.
    6. Where a line is accepted: Artificially generated or doctored video should be prohibited, and faithful reporting permitted whatever the medium.

    What does the case for reporting oral remarks rest on?

    1. What an oral remark is: Judges use oral observations to test arguments, and a prima facie view expressed at the outset can change as arguments unfold. Such remarks do not necessarily reflect the reasoning recorded in the final order.
    2. Why they are still reported: Oral observations offer insight into judicial thinking and hold a mirror to the institution, which is the ground on which they are treated as reportable despite carrying no binding value.
    3. The precedent: Chief Election Commissioner vs M.R. Vijayabhaskar (2021) protected the reporting of oral remarks. The Supreme Court there stressed the role of public scrutiny in ensuring institutional accountability.
    4. The cost feared on the Bench: The prospect of being quoted out of context could make judges more circumspect and less willing to engage freely with counsel, and the litigant bears the consequence.
    5. The risk predates the medium: Oral remarks were misquoted in print long before social media, which locates the problem in reporting quality rather than in the format.
    6. What that implies for reporting: Court proceedings are technical, so an accurate account depends on journalists trained to follow what is happening.

    What has clipping already exposed about judicial conduct?

    1. The Karnataka episode: In September 2024 videos of a Karnataka High Court judge circulated online. He was seen referring to a Muslim dominated locality in west Bengaluru as “Pakistan” in one video, and making a sexist remark to a woman lawyer in another.
    2. The response to it: A Supreme Court Bench took suo motu cognisance within days and cautioned judges against “casual observations” reflecting communal bias or misogyny. The judge apologised and the proceedings were closed.
    3. A more recent instance: A reported reference to “cockroaches” by the Chief Justice of India during a hearing on fake law degrees drew widespread criticism and gave rise to the Cockroach Janta Party, which went on to lead protests against examination paper leaks. The remark was later said to have been misquoted.
    4. What draws an audience: Matrimonial and custody cases attract the most attention, with controversial matters drawing over one lakh views.
    5. The effect on the Bar: Lawyers use a judge’s remark to build a social media following, and a client who can watch the hearing is less willing to accept an unnecessary adjournment.

    How have the Bar and legal media responded?

    1. The Bar Council circular: In July 2026 the Bar Council of India prohibited reels and promotional content from court premises.
    2. The enforcement machinery it created: State Bar Councils were directed to designate social media ethics nodal officers to handle complaints. Lawyers were directed to submit a signed undertaking on professional social media conduct at the time of enrolment.
    3. The change in legal media: A legal news portal has largely shifted to explanatory videos without courtroom footage since the interim order, having earlier limited its edits to trimming pauses and removing litigants’ personal details.
    4. The editorial line already being drawn: Heated exchanges between the Bench and the Bar were withheld where, viewed in isolation, they could misrepresent what actually happened in court.

    What should a permanent protocol take into account?

    1. How news is consumed: People aged 18 to 24 citing social media as their main source of news rose from 21 per cent in 2015 to 39 per cent in 2025, overtaking news websites and apps, per a March 2026 Reuters Institute report.
    2. The nature of that consumption: Young audiences are increasingly “social first”, with much of their news reaching them incidentally rather than through a deliberate search.
    3. What that means for a video bar: Permitting an oral exchange to be reported in print while restricting its circulation as video sits at odds with how that audience actually receives news.
    4. The process objection: An institutional reform of this kind should involve all High Courts and other stakeholders rather than proceed as a unilateral decision.

    Challenges to regulating the circulation of courtroom footage

    1. A registrar is not a speech regulator: Prior permission to publish places a restriction on speech in the hands of an administrative officer, while Article 19(2) permits restriction only on stated grounds and by a law that is clear. Eg. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for vagueness about what speech it punished.
      The Fix: Specify the classes of proceeding from which clips may not be circulated at all, so the restriction operates by defined category rather than by case by case permission.
    2. Enforcement begins only after publication: A clip that has circulated cannot be recalled, and removal depends on intermediaries acting on a notice. Eg. Blocking and takedown under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology Rules, 2021 operate after the content is already public.
      The Fix: Route the registry’s removal requests through the intermediary grievance officer channel with a fixed response time, and record each outcome on the case file.
    3. There is no authoritative record to check a disputed clip against: Most hearings are neither streamed nor archived, so a viewer cannot compare an excerpt with the full proceeding it came from. Eg. Transcripts of Supreme Court hearings were introduced only as a pilot for Constitution Bench matters in 2023.
      The Fix: Publish an official transcript and full recording for every streamed hearing, and treat that record as the reference against which a disputed clip is judged.
    4. Contempt is an uncertain remedy: Action against a distorted clip would rest on criminal contempt, which is discretionary and slow, and using it against reportage carries its own cost to free speech. Eg. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 makes fair and accurate reporting of proceedings a defence, so a distortion case turns entirely on interpretation.
      The Fix: Handle distortion through a fast correction and right of reply mechanism at the registry, and reserve contempt for deliberate fabrication.
    5. An exclusion list does not protect identity: A case outside the excluded categories can still identify a vulnerable party, since names, addresses and medical details are read out in open court. Eg. Bail and quashing matters routinely disclose a complainant’s identity in offences whose reporting is otherwise restricted by law.
      The Fix: Mask party identifiers in the streamed audio and in the published record, as judgments in sexual offence cases already do.

    Conclusion

    The order changes the default rather than the rules on any single case. The Court has not yet drawn the line between publishers who may use footage and those who may not, and the reach of the restriction turns entirely on where that line falls. The case returns to the Bench on 18 September, with the High Courts and the platforms now on record. The test of whatever protocol emerges is whether it separates a distorted clip from a faithful one, or merely separates one publisher from another.

    Back2Basics: The Supreme Court e-Committee

    1. What it is: A body of the Supreme Court that oversees the computerisation of the Indian judiciary.
    2. When it was set up: It was constituted in 2004 to advise on a national policy for information and communication technology in the courts.
    3. What it runs: It steers the eCourts Mission Mode Project, covering case information systems, electronic filing and virtual hearing infrastructure across district courts and High Courts.
    4. What it issues: It frames model rules on court technology for adoption by individual High Courts, which are free to modify them.

    [2014, GS2, 12 marks] What do you understand by the concept “freedom of speech and expression”? Does it cover hate speech also? Why do the films in India stand on a slightly different plane from other forms of expression? Discuss.

  • SC pushes for raising retirement age in district judiciary as backlog tops 5 cr

    SC pushes for raising retirement age in district judiciary as backlog tops 5 cr

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has directed States to raise the retirement age of judicial officers in the district judiciary from 60 to 62 years. A three judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India passed the order on 1 September, and the text was published on Friday. The Court recorded that 5.18 crore cases lie pending in district courts across the country. It described stopping the attrition of experienced judicial talent as the “crying need of the hour”, warning that access to justice would otherwise remain “a mere chimera” because of unfilled posts. Only seven States have agreed so far. The rest have resisted on the ground of financial burden, which the Court has held to be arithmetically misconceived.

    What has the Court directed, and to whom?

    1. The seven States that agreed: Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have agreed to enhance the retirement age of their judicial officers.
    2. The deadline for them: These State governments have been directed to amend their service rules within two months.
    3. The condition attached: The High Court concerned will enhance superannuation to 62 years for an officer on attaining 60, subject to an assessment of that officer’s suitability.
    4. The States and Union Territories yet to agree: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Keralam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry have responded with a direct refusal or have taken no position at all.
    5. The deadline for them: They have been directed to take a decision on enhancement to 62 years within two weeks.

    Why does the Court treat attrition rather than recruitment as the binding constraint?

    1. Recruitment has not filled the cadre: Most recruitment drives undertaken in the various States have not produced optimum recruitment or filled the sanctioned cadre strength.
    2. The gap is universal: A yawning gap between sanctioned strength and working strength persists across the board.
    3. Recruitment is slow by design: Selecting independent and competent judicial officers is an arduous task, so a post is not refilled at the speed at which it falls vacant.
    4. What that leaves as the available lever: Retaining an officer already in service is the only step that adds working strength without waiting for a recruitment cycle.

    Why does the Court reject the financial burden objection?

    1. What the States fear: States cite the cost of paying the maximum salary in the pay scale for a further two or five years, and a higher outlay on retiral benefits.
    2. The parity fear: States also apprehend that employees in other State services would demand the same extension for themselves.
    3. Why the Court calls that misconceived: Judicial officers render a specialised service, so an extension confined to them does not found a claim by other cadres.
    4. The 1992 precedent quoted: The alleged burden on the State exchequer is negligible against the enormous advantage the administration of justice and society at large derive from a higher retirement age.
    5. The double spend: A State that retains retirement at 60 pays post retiral dues to the officer who has left and salary to the officer newly appointed, in the same period.
    6. What continuation does to that cost: Allowing an experienced officer to serve to 62 postpones the post retiral outlay rather than adding to it.

    What safeguard have the High Courts proposed?

    1. Why most High Courts agreed: Most State High Courts consented to the enhancement because they are face to face with the crisis in the dispensation of justice.
    2. The rider: Some High Courts, including Madras, have recommended a thorough assessment of judicial work as a condition precedent to continuation in service.
    3. What the rider is for: Only competent officers of proven integrity would be permitted to continue in the cadre.
    4. The Court’s view of it: The suggestion preserves experienced officers while removing what the Court called the “clog of deadwood” that blocks the entrance of young blood into the system.

    Challenges to raising the retirement age in the district judiciary

    1. The sanctioned strength is itself inadequate: Extending tenure fills posts within an existing cadre, and the cadre was fixed against a judge to population ratio far below what has been recommended for India. Eg. The Law Commission’s 120th report of 1987 recommended 50 judges per million population, against a sanctioned figure that has stayed close to 21.
      The Fix: Revise sanctioned cadre strength against a stated case load norm, and attach a dedicated State budget line to the additional posts.
    2. A suitability assessment can become an informal removal power: Continuation to 62 will turn on a High Court’s assessment, which inserts a discretionary stage into a service that otherwise holds tenure until superannuation. Eg. Compulsory retirement of judicial officers on the administrative side has repeatedly been challenged before the Supreme Court.
      The Fix: Publish the assessment criteria in advance and require a written reasoned order with an internal review, so a refusal to extend can be tested.
    3. Court infrastructure does not expand with tenure: A retained officer needs a courtroom, support staff and record space, and district court infrastructure is funded through a centrally sponsored scheme that depends on State matching contributions. Eg. The Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for the Judiciary has run since 1993-94 with persistent shortfalls in court halls and residential units.
      The Fix: Link the release of infrastructure funds to the number of judicial officers actually working in a district rather than to sanctioned posts.
    4. The promotion chain below is frozen: Officers waiting for elevation to the District Judge cadre and for High Court appointment from the service quota face a two year delay in every vacancy. Eg. Appointments to High Courts from the district judiciary already move slowly through the collegium process.
      The Fix: Expand the number of posts in the higher judicial service in step with the extension, so the vacancy chain continues to move.
    5. Pendency has drivers that bench strength does not reach: Adjournments, failure of service of summons and the volume of government litigation extend case life independently of how many judges sit. Eg. Government departments and their agencies remain the largest single class of litigant before Indian courts.
      The Fix: Enforce the three adjournment limit already written into Order XVII of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and screen government appeals before they are filed.

    Conclusion

    The Court has converted a suggestion into a directed timeline, and the decision now sits with State governments rather than with the judiciary. Its reasoning treats the age of superannuation as the one lever that can be pulled without waiting for a recruitment cycle to conclude. The case is listed again on 1 October, by which time the States that have not responded are required to have taken a position.

    Back2Basics: The District Judiciary under the Constitution

    1. Article 233: The Governor appoints district judges in consultation with the High Court exercising jurisdiction in that State.
    2. Article 234: Persons other than district judges are appointed to the State judicial service by the Governor, under rules made after consulting the State Public Service Commission and the High Court.
    3. Article 235: Control over district courts and subordinate courts, including posting, promotion and leave of judicial officers, vests in the High Court.
    4. Why a State government must act: Conditions of service, including the age of superannuation, are fixed by rules the State government frames, so a High Court’s consent by itself does not change a retirement age.

    [2017, GS2, 10 marks] Critically examine the Supreme Court’s judgement on ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014’ with reference to appointment of judges of higher judiciary in India.

  • Rajnath releases new framework for defence diplomacy

    Rajnath releases new framework for defence diplomacy

    Why in the News

    The Defence Minister has released Raksha, a strategic framework setting out India’s road map for defence diplomacy and global defence partnerships over the next ten years.

    Pillars of the Raksha framework

    1. Bilateral and multilateral defence partnerships: Deepening defence relationships with individual states and within groupings is the first stated pillar.
    2. Joint military exercises: The framework provides for expanding the scale and range of joint exercises with partner forces.
    3. Capacity building with friendly countries: Training and capability assistance to partner militaries is treated as a distinct instrument rather than a by-product of exercises.
    4. Indigenous defence exports and maritime security: Promoting exports of indigenously developed systems under Make in India, and strengthening maritime security, complete the set of pillars.

    How does the framework use defence exports as a diplomatic instrument?

    1. The industrial objective is tied to the diplomatic one: Export promotion is placed inside a diplomacy document, so a sale is treated as a partnership rather than as a transaction.
    2. The positioning sought: The framework seeks to establish India as a reliable global defence manufacturing partner.
    3. The route named: International cooperation is to be expanded around indigenously developed defence technologies, rather than around licensed or assembled platforms.

    What does the net security provider role commit India to?

    1. A first responder duty: The framework places India as a net security provider and first responder in the Indian Ocean Region, which requires capacity to act before a partner state formally requests help.
    2. A stated regional commitment: The road map records a commitment to ensuring peace, stability and security across the region.
    3. Maritime security as the operating theatre: The Indian Ocean Region framing makes the maritime domain the principal arena in which the other pillars are exercised.
    4. A decade long planning horizon: A ten year design replaces case by case engagement, which changes what can be promised to a partner and over what period.

    Challenges to India’s defence diplomacy

    1. Exports remain concentrated in low value items: Much of India’s defence export value is components and subsystems supplied to foreign manufacturers rather than complete platforms. Eg. Aerostructures, forgings and subsystems account for a substantial share of the export figure India reports each year.
      The Fix: Set platform level export targets by category in the framework’s review, reported separately from the aggregate value.
    2. Capacity building commitments outrun training capacity: Offering training slots to partner militaries requires physical capacity at Indian institutions, which is finite and allotted well in advance. Eg. Foreign officer vacancies at Indian staff and war colleges are limited and booked years ahead.
      The Fix: Fund dedicated foreign trainee capacity at named institutions inside the framework, rather than from existing service training budgets.
    3. First responder assets are committed elsewhere: The same ships and aircraft carry out relief, escort and patrol tasking in overlapping waters. Eg. Naval units deployed for anti piracy escort in the western Indian Ocean are the units nearest to most regional relief tasks.
      The Fix: Ring fence a standing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief task group with pre positioned stores in the region.
    4. Export promotion collides with partner sensitivities: A sale to one regional state can strain relations with its rival, which turns a commercial decision into a political one. Eg. India’s supply of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines drew objections from China.
      The Fix: Publish a case by case political clearance process for defence exports, so industry can price the risk of refusal before bidding.
    5. A framework document carries no reporting duty: A ten year horizon with no interim review point cannot be tested against performance at any stage before it ends. Eg. The document states pillars without naming an annual reporting mechanism against them.
      The Fix: Fix a mandatory annual report against each pillar, carrying indicators for exercises held, officers trained and export value.

    Conclusion

    Defence diplomacy has been run through individual visits, exercises and agreements decided one at a time. A published decade long framework changes the planning horizon and states the objective, and it does not by itself create an institution to execute it. The marker to watch is whether the framework acquires a named owner and an annual review reporting against each pillar, or remains a statement of direction.

    Back2Basics: Net security provider

    1. What the term means: A state that supplies security to others in its region, rather than only securing itself, through presence, capability and assistance extended to partner states.
    2. How India uses it: The formulation entered Indian strategic vocabulary around 2009 and is applied to the Indian Ocean Region, where India’s navy is the largest resident force.
    3. What it involves in practice: Anti piracy patrols, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, evacuation of nationals, hydrographic survey support and maritime domain awareness shared with partner states.
    4. The policy vehicles: The Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) vision, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, and coastal radar chains built for partner countries.

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

  • India and Belgium ramp up bilateral defence cooperation

    India and Belgium ramp up bilateral defence cooperation

    Why in the News

    India and Belgium have signed three government level defence agreements, ramping up a defence relationship that had carried no framework instrument.

    What was signed at the government level?

    1. A Letter of Intent on Defence Cooperation: Signed by the two defence ministries, it covers training, officer exchanges, research and development, seminars, joint exercises and maritime security.
    2. An industry to industry Memorandum of Understanding (MoU): It links the Belgian Security and Defence Industry association with the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers.
    3. A law enforcement MoU: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Belgium Federal Police agreed to cooperate on transnational organised crime, cybercrime and related matters.

    Which capability areas does the defence cooperation target?

    1. Maritime and undersea systems: Mine countermeasures, autonomous maritime systems, underwater robotics and sensors are named focus areas.
    2. Critical infrastructure protection: The list extends to protection of ports, pipelines and subsea data cables.
    3. Conventional and emerging systems: Ammunition, radar, electro optical sensors, command and control, and counter drone systems are covered.
    4. The engagement machinery: The two Defence Ministers agreed to expand contact through a defence cooperation dialogue, high level visits, training and capacity building, and acknowledged the need for greater maritime security collaboration in the Indo-Pacific.

    What was announced alongside the signed instruments?

    1. A resident defence presence in Brussels: India announced the appointment of a Defence Attache at its Embassy in Brussels.
    2. A trade and investment channel: A fast trade mechanism was established to handle trade and investment, alongside a commitment to double bilateral trade over the next five years.
    3. A Consular Dialogue: A standing consular channel was established between New Delhi and Brussels.
    4. Private sector agreements: At least ten private defence agreements were sealed during the visit, including production of Belgian military items such as rockets in India.

    Where does the economic relationship currently stand?

    1. Merchandise trade: Bilateral trade stood at $13.01 billion in 2025-26.
    2. Investment: Belgian foreign direct investment into India was about $4.2 billion between April 2000 and December 2025.
    3. The Belgian trade position: The Belgian side described the global situation as turbulent and called for free trade and an end to the unilateral imposition of tariffs.

    What did the two sides agree on regional and global security?

    1. The Pakistan assurance: India raised concerns over Belgian defence technology or expertise reaching Pakistan, and received an assurance that there is no question of such cooperation.
    2. Terrorism: The Belgian side supported India’s campaign against cross border terrorism and condemned the Pahalgam terror attack.
    3. Maritime routes: The joint statement called for the safety and security of maritime routes and for safe and unimpeded maritime shipping, in the context of the conflicts in West Asia and Ukraine.
    4. Conflict resolution: Both sides supported efforts aimed at an early end to the conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia, and backed a just peace in Ukraine consistent with the United Nations Charter.
    5. A shared historical marker: The two leaders paid tribute to the more than 9,000 Indian soldiers who died at Flanders Fields during the First World War.

    Challenges to India Belgium defence cooperation

    1. A Letter of Intent creates no obligation: It records agreed areas of work and binds neither side to a contract, a value or a timeline. Eg. India’s defence industrial roadmaps with European partners have taken years to convert into signed production contracts.
      The Fix: Attach a dated work plan with a named nodal agency on each side, reviewed at every defence cooperation dialogue.
    2. Export clearance does not sit with the federal government alone: Belgian arms export licences are issued at regional government level and operate under the European Union common position on arms exports. Eg. Flanders and Wallonia license equipment produced in their own regions separately.
      The Fix: Negotiate a programme level licence assurance at the time of contract, instead of clearance obtained shipment by shipment.
    3. Joint production usually stops at final assembly: Technology transfer in Indian defence tie ups has historically covered assembly rather than the propellant, seeker or sensor core. Eg. Several ammunition and rocket partnerships have delivered kits assembled in India from imported subsystems.
      The Fix: Write a phased indigenous content schedule into each private agreement, measured at component level rather than by value.
    4. A political assurance is not a contractual clause: An undertaking on third country transfers given in a bilateral meeting is not enforceable in any signed instrument. Eg. The assurance on Pakistan was conveyed through officials rather than recorded as a treaty obligation.
      The Fix: Convert the undertaking into an end use and non transfer clause in every follow on agreement signed under the Letter of Intent.
    5. The trade base is narrow: The exchange is dominated by a single commodity group, so a doubling target rests on a thin sectoral spread. Eg. Antwerp’s diamond trade accounts for the bulk of India Belgium merchandise flows.
      The Fix: Set named non gem sectoral milestones under the fast trade mechanism, so the target is measured outside the diamond trade.

    Conclusion

    A relationship built largely on trade has acquired a defence framework in the space of a single visit. What has been signed is intent, an industry linkage and a police cooperation channel, and the substance now depends on what follows them. Two things are worth watching: whether the private production agreements reach contract, and whether the trade target is pursued in sectors outside the commodity group that currently dominates the exchange.

    Back2Basics: Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers

    1. What it is: The apex industry body representing Indian defence manufacturers, which acts as the single interface between the domestic defence industry and the Ministry of Defence.
    2. Origin: It was set up in 2017, promoted by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
    3. Membership: It spans defence public sector undertakings, large private manufacturers and micro, small and medium enterprises in the defence supply chain.
    4. What it does: It signs cooperation agreements with counterpart industry associations abroad, and represents industry positions on procurement policy and indigenisation.

    [2023, GS2, 15 marks] ‘The expansion and strengthening of NATO and a stronger US-Europe strategic partnership works well in India.’ What is your opinion about this statement? Give reasons and examples to support your answer.

  • US settlement with Meta is a start. India must protect itself

    US settlement with Meta is a start. India must protect itself

    Why in the News

    Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to resolve child harm claims brought by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general across the United States, its territories and the District of Columbia.

    What does the settlement require Meta to do?

    1. The scale and the date: The agreement was reached on 26 August and ranks among the largest consumer protection settlements in internet history.
    2. Default time limits and night restrictions: Users under 18 get default limits on time spent and restrictions on night time use.
    3. Limits on notifications during school hours: The company must curb notifications sent to minors while school is in session.
    4. Age assurance: The settlement requires enhanced measures to establish whether a user is a minor before the account is treated as an adult account.
    5. Independent compliance oversight: Compliance with the safeguards is monitored by an independent party rather than reported by the company itself.

    Why does the penalty carry little punitive weight?

    1. The sum is small against the revenue base: The company generated $201 billion in revenue in 2025, and the settlement is payable over 10 years.
    2. The market read it as a cost, not a shock: The stock rose 5 per cent after the settlement was announced.
    3. The reforms are the substance, not the money: The mandated safety changes go to how Facebook and Instagram are allowed to operate for minors, and they are overdue rather than novel.

    Why has India’s own debate produced no comparable outcome?

    1. The cycle is episodic and self closing: A tragedy occurs, outrage follows, a platform issues a statement, a parliamentary question may be asked, and silence returns.
    2. The harm is not less serious here: The absence of Indian legal action reflects the absence of a process capable of compelling answers, not a smaller problem.
    3. Regulatory attention has been lighter than in the West: Global platforms have operated in India with weaker oversight and lower public awareness than they face in other large markets.

    What did the American case produce that India lacks?

    1. Court compelled discovery: The litigation forced the company to produce internal research, design documents and executive communications about child safety, under oath, in public and subject to cross examination.
    2. The questions India cannot currently ask: What internal research shows about the mental health impact on Indian teenage girls, how the recommendation engine behaves in Hindi, Tamil and Bengali for a fourteen year old at 11 pm, and how many Indian children under 13 are active on platforms that legally prohibit their membership.
    3. The unmeasured scale of abuse material: The scale of child sexual abuse material affecting Indian users and the manner of its reporting are not on any public record. Eg. In the United States alone, 7.5 million such materials were under internal review.
    4. Whether the same design was applied here: If the addictive design features at issue in the American cases were applied to Indian users, those users have been exposed to the same harm with none of the protection.

    What legal tools does India already hold?

    1. The statutory base already exists: The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Constitution together cover the conduct alleged.
    2. A regulator level inquiry: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the statutory body for child rights, can open a formal inquiry compelling platforms to produce India specific safety research, algorithm documentation, data on underage users and internal harm research.
    3. Direct recourse for families: Affected families can approach consumer forums and High Courts directly, without waiting for a regulator to act first.
    4. Coordinated State litigation: State governments can file consumer protection and child safety suits in Indian courts, and a single State moving first can trigger a wider set of filings.
    5. The policy standard is already stated: The Safe, Trusted and Accountable framework developed in 2021 was built so that platforms operating at scale bear legal responsibility for the consequences of their design choices.

    Why is new legislation still needed?

    1. Existing law compels disclosure only case by case: Each of the routes above produces documents inside one proceeding, so nothing survives the case that produced it.
    2. A statutory right to algorithmic disclosure: Parliament can create an obligation on platforms to reveal their content moderation policies, recommendation engine parameters and child safety research for Indian users.
    3. A standing recipient rather than a court: The disclosure would run to a designated Indian authority, which turns a litigated exception into a continuing duty.

    Challenges to compelling platform disclosure in India

    1. No child rights regulator holds standing discovery power: A statutory commission can summon information, and it cannot compel sworn production of internal research open to cross examination. Eg. Platform responses to Indian regulators are routinely filed as written submissions rather than as evidence tested in a hearing.
      The Fix: Give the child rights commission discovery powers with a stated penalty for non production, on the model available to a commission of inquiry.
    2. Consumer forums cannot read algorithmic evidence: A district or State consumer commission has no technical assessor able to interpret recommendation engine documentation. Eg. Consumer adjudication in India is built around defective goods and deficient services, not around product design telemetry.
      The Fix: Attach a standing panel of technical assessors to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission for platform cases.
    3. The evidence sits outside Indian process: Internal research and design documents are held on servers abroad and reached through mutual legal assistance. Eg. Mutual legal assistance requests to the United States for platform records routinely take more than a year to return.
      The Fix: Write a production obligation for India specific safety research into intermediary due diligence, so the duty attaches to operating in India rather than to where a server sits.
    4. Safe harbour blunts liability for design: Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 shields intermediaries for third party content, and design and ranking choices are argued into that shelter. Eg. Platforms have defended recommendation ranking as an automated function rather than as an editorial act.
      The Fix: Separate design and ranking decisions from hosting in the due diligence rules, so safe harbour covers content and not product architecture.

    Conclusion

    Platform accountability in India has been argued at the level of statements and outrage, never at the level of evidence. The material that would establish whether Indian children were exposed to the same design choices sits with the platforms, and no Indian process currently compels its production. Legislation would convert that into a standing duty, and litigation would produce it once. The marker to watch is whether any Indian regulator or State government files an action carrying discovery powers, rather than another request for information.

    Online child safety in India

    1. What the domain covers: It governs how platforms design products for users below 18, across age of access, consent, exposure to content and collection of data.
    2. The regulatory age is higher than the platform age: Indian data protection law treats anyone below 18 as a child, while platforms set their own account creation floor at 13.
    3. States have moved before the Centre: Karnataka announced plans to bar social media for those under 16, and Andhra Pradesh announced restrictions for those under 13.
    4. The evidence base cited officially: Research highlighted in the Economic Survey 2025-26 records that adolescents lack the neurological brakes needed to resist addictive features such as infinite scroll.

    Laws and Rules Governing Online Child Safety

    1. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023: It treats any individual below 18 as a child, requires verifiable parental consent before processing a child’s data, and prohibits behavioural tracking and targeted advertising directed at children.
    2. The Data Protection Board of India adjudicates breaches and imposes penalties under the Act, with appeals lying to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.
    3. Information Technology Act, 2000: Section 67B criminalises publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit acts, and extends to browsing and downloading such material.
    4. Indian Penal Code and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions on obscenity: They cover sale and circulation of obscene material to a person under 20, and operate alongside the specialised child protection statutes.

    Key Facts about Online Child Safety

    1. Australia set a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts through the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, enforced from December 2025.
    2. Indonesia became the first Southeast Asian country to enforce a ban for under 16s, in March 2026.
    3. Gaming disorder is classified as a health condition in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Revision (ICD-11).
    4. Kerala runs Digital De-Addiction centres, known as D-DAD centres, for children showing signs of compulsive device use.

    Challenges in Online Child Safety

    1. Age verification is easily circumvented: A minimum age holds only where the platform can establish age, and self declared dates of birth cannot be checked. Eg. Children open accounts on platforms barring under 13s using a false year of birth or an adult family member’s account.
      The Fix: Move to privacy preserving age estimation processed on the device, rather than to identity document uploads.
    2. Verification itself creates a new privacy risk: Establishing age through selfies, identity documents or bank details assembles a fresh database of minors’ sensitive data. Eg. Document based age checks require a child to hand a platform the exact identifiers the law is trying to keep from it.
      The Fix: Require age signals to be discarded once the check is complete, with a bar on retaining the underlying document.
    3. A ban pushes use underground: Restriction moves minors to less regulated services and to tools that hide their location. Eg. Teenagers migrate to smaller platforms or route access through virtual private networks.
      The Fix: Replace a binary ban with a graduated model, strict restriction under 13, supervised access from 13 to 15, and full access at 16.
    4. Restriction removes support networks for some children: Online communities are the only peer support available to some minors, and a blanket bar cuts that too. Eg. LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and disabled children frequently depend on such communities.
      The Fix: Exempt verified support, counselling and helpline services from minor account restrictions.

    [2025, GS2, 15 marks] The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has to address the challenges faced by children in the digital era. Examine the existing policies and suggest measures the Commission can initiate to tackle the issue.”

  • Police camera ‘caught’ murder, rape accused at Jantar Mantar protest

    Police camera ‘caught’ murder, rape accused at Jantar Mantar protest

    Why in the News

    The Delhi Police has told the Supreme Court that its Facial Recognition System (FRS) spotted 2,873 people with criminal antecedents at the main protest site at Jantar Mantar between 20 and 26 July. The submission follows a Supreme Court order quashing every First Information Report (FIR) arising from the exam leak student protests.

    What is the Delhi Police’s Facial Recognition System?

    1. What the software does: It places boxes around faces detected in a camera feed and compares them against images held in police databases.
    2. The threshold for a positive match: A match is treated as positive at an accuracy rate of 80 per cent, a figure the force disclosed in a 2022 reply under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.
    3. What it searches against: Of the 2,873 flags, 2,402 were attributed to Crime Kundli, the force’s own biometric database, and 471 to criminal records.
    4. What the output is not: A match is not by itself proof of identity, and performance varies with the algorithm, camera angle, lighting, image quality, masks and the database being searched.

    What does the offence-wise breakdown in the affidavit show?

    1. The residual category is the largest by far: 1,884 of the 2,873, close to two thirds, sit under other Indian Penal Code, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and special law entries rather than under any named serious offence.
    2. The legal status of those flagged is unstated: The affidavit does not specify whether the people identified were accused, convicts, or merely named in criminal cases.
    3. The database is claimed to hold only serious offenders: The affidavit states that the face and other material of only those accused facing serious offences are in the police record, and not those facing petty offences such as traffic violations.
    4. The geographic concentration: The North district recorded the highest count at 285, followed by Outer at 257, North West at 256, North East at 174, East at 173 and South West at 166. Railways, Crime Branch, IGI Airport, Metro and the Special Cell were among the other units listed.

    What did the record check of 205 flagged individuals find?

    1. The sample examined: The 205 comprised 101 murder accused, 61 rape accused, 6 accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and 37 of the 62 listed under attempt to murder.
    2. The finding: At least 25 of them were lodged in the Tihar, Mandoli or Rohini prison complexes at the time the system flagged them, according to police, jail and court records.
    3. The composition of the 25: 17 were accused in murder cases, 4 in rape cases of which 3 were under the POCSO Act, and 4 in attempt to murder cases.
    4. The dates of the flags: Three of the 25 were identified on 24 July, 21 on 25 July and one on 26 July, the final day of the protest.

    Why does the police assurance not settle the question?

    1. Verification is the only safeguard on record: The stated position is that action follows only after field verification establishes that the person was in fact present at the site, and no verification standard, timeline or reporting duty accompanies that assurance.
    2. Verification is still pending at scale: The force has stated that further verification of the identified individuals is pending, which leaves 2,873 names on a list that a court has already permitted the government to act on.
    3. The accuracy threshold is an internal setting, not a legal standard: An 80 per cent match is a configuration choice inside the software, and no statute, rule or judicial direction fixes what confidence level may be relied on before a person is named.
    4. The error is not random noise: People held in custody were placed at a protest site by the system, which points to database and matching failure rather than to a borderline image.

    Challenges to facial recognition in policing

    1. No statutory basis governs deployment: India has no law authorising or limiting police use of facial recognition, so procurement, matching thresholds and retention are set administratively. Eg. The Delhi Police’s 80 per cent threshold became public only through a Right to Information reply, not through a published rule.
      The Fix: Require prior legislative authorisation and a published operating standard for any biometric identification system before it is deployed in a public space.
    2. Accuracy falls sharply for some groups: Error rates in facial recognition are higher for darker skin tones, women and younger faces, so the burden of a false match is not evenly spread. Eg. The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology’s evaluation of commercial algorithms recorded higher false positive rates across demographic groups.
      The Fix: Mandate a published demographic error audit of the deployed algorithm before each operational use, with results filed with the sanctioning authority.
    3. The system was built for one purpose and used for another: A database assembled to trace missing persons or match crime scene images becomes a crowd screening tool without any fresh authorisation. Eg. The Delhi Police’s facial recognition capability was originally acquired for tracing missing children.
      The Fix: Attach a statutory purpose limitation to each biometric database, so any new use requires a separate written sanction that is placed on record.
    4. Surveillance at a protest changes who turns up: Recording and matching faces at an assembly deters lawful participation independently of any action that follows. Eg. Cameras mounted on police vans at the Jantar Mantar site were visible to those attending.
      The Fix: Bar identification of participants at a lawful assembly except on a written order naming a specific cognisable offence under investigation.
    5. There is no route to contest a match: A person flagged by the system is not told, so the error surfaces only if a journalist or a court checks the records. Eg. The 25 custodial mismatches came to light through a newspaper’s record check, not through any internal review.
      The Fix: Require written notice to every individual against whom a biometric match is acted on, with a stated procedure to seek correction of the underlying record.

    Conclusion

    A facial match is being treated as a sufficient basis to proceed against a named list, while the force’s own position is that a match establishes nothing on its own. Both cannot hold at once. Nothing on record fixes what field verification must consist of, who performs it, or who checks that it happened. The point to watch is whether the Court requires the verification outcome for each flagged individual to be filed before any action follows.

    [2024] Under which of the following Articles of the Constitution of India, has the Supreme Court of India placed the Right to Privacy?

    (a) Article 15

    (b) Article 16

    (c) Article 19

    (d) Article 21

  • [4th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: For newborns, the answer is hospital plus home

    [4th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: For newborns, the answer is hospital plus home

    Question (2024, GS2): “In a crucial domain like the public healthcare system, the Indian State should play a vital role to contain the adverse impact of marketisation of the system. Suggest some measures through which the State can enhance the reach of public healthcare at the grassroots level.
    Linkage: The proposed solution to move a portion of newborn care back to the home is a direct attempt to “enhance the reach of public healthcare at the grassroots level”. This question prompts candidates to suggest structural measures to decentralise care, relieving the burden on overloaded urban hospitals.

    Mentor Comment

    Three newborns died in an accidental fire at the government women’s hospital in Amravati, Maharashtra. That episode is placed alongside a list of clustered newborn deaths in government institutions since 2017, running from BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur and a government hospital in Ahmedabad through JK Lon Hospital in Kota, and on to district and medical college hospitals in Shahdol, Bhandara, Bhopal, Ambikapur, Nanded, Jhansi and Budaun. The argument drawn from that list is that these are a recurring pattern produced by the system, not a series of isolated accidents. The tension is that the policy success which moved birth out of the home is what has overloaded the units that receive the sick newborn, and the proposed answer is to move part of newborn care back to the home.

    What is home based newborn care?

    1. Trained community health workers deliver care where the baby is: They identify and manage neonatal infections at home, support breastfeeding and warmth, and manage low birth weight and preterm babies.
    2. It is already a package inside the public system: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare adopted it in 2011, and roughly 8,00,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) have been trained on modules built from the Gadchiroli experience.
    3. It does not replace intensive care: A baby with severe prematurity, respiratory distress, shock, severe sepsis or serious birth asphyxia needs immediate facility based treatment.

    Why are newborn deaths clustering in government units?

    1. Overcrowding is the first reason: Institutional deliveries rose from 39 percent in 2005-06 to 90 percent in 2023-24 under the National Family Health Survey-6, and the absolute number of institutional deliveries rose from 109 lakh to 194 lakh. Admissions to public Special Newborn Care Units (SNCUs), the secondary level units that treat sick newborns, rose 28 percent in two years, from 11.3 lakh in 2021-22 to 14.45 lakh in 2023-24.
    2. The case mix has become sicker: Government hospitals now receive premature, low birth weight and sick newborns referred from peripheral facilities, alongside the normal deliveries they always handled.
    3. Infrastructure failure is the third reason: The Gorakhpur deaths of August 2017 were attributed by a district level inquiry to oxygen deprivation following an interruption in supply. Fires at Bhandara in January 2021, Bhopal in November 2021 and Jhansi in November 2024 show the electrical and fire risk in units running warmers, incubators and ventilators.
    4. Infection and staffing form the fourth: Inadequate nurse-to-baby ratios, equipment shortages and weak infection prevention practice let hospital acquired infection spread quickly through a crowded unit.

    What is the evidence that care at home works?

    1. A field trial cut neonatal mortality by 62.2 percent: The Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH) ran the trial in rural Gadchiroli using trained community health workers, and published the result in The Lancet in 1999.
    2. Most small babies were managed without a bed: Between 1996 and 2003, 97 percent of low birth weight and preterm babies in Gadchiroli, including those above 1,800 g and beyond 34 weeks of gestation, were managed at home with a very low case fatality rate, published in the Journal of Perinatology in 2005.
    3. The delivery channel already exists nationally: India does not have to invent a system, so the binding constraint is training, supervision and support of the workers already deployed.

    What is the three part strategy proposed?

    1. Decongest the neonatal units: Strengthen home based care by ASHAs so that appropriate, stable newborns receive care at home rather than occupying a scarce SNCU bed.
    2. Staff and equip the units properly: Adequate numbers of doctors and nurses, appropriate nurse-to-baby ratios, functioning equipment, reliable oxygen and electricity with backup systems, and rigorous infection prevention.
    3. Make the units intrinsically safe: Fire detection and suppression systems, electrical and oxygen system safety measures, emergency evacuation drills and independent safety audits, all made mandatory rather than advisory.

    Challenges to home based newborn care

    1. The worker carrying the package is not an employee: An ASHA is an honorary volunteer paid through task linked incentives, so an expanded clinical role rests on availability that is not contractually owed. Eg. The fixed monthly incentive for routine tasks is Rs 2,000, with the remainder paid activity by activity.
      The Fix: Create a semi-formal cadre under the National Health Mission with a fixed salary component, insurance and pension attached to the newborn care role.
    2. Skill retention needs supervision that is not staffed: A worker trained once and never observed loses the clinical judgement the package depends on. Eg. The Auxiliary Nurse Midwives who supervise ASHAs also carry immunisation, antenatal and reporting duties at the same sub-centre.
      The Fix: Fund a dedicated supervisory post per cluster of workers with a fixed monthly schedule of observed home visits.
    3. Home care fails when referral fails: A baby that deteriorates at home needs transport and a bed within hours, and neither is guaranteed. Eg. A newborn deteriorating at night depends on a district ambulance network reached through the 102 service.
      The Fix: Link every worker to a live bed availability record for her referral unit and a guaranteed transport response window.
    4. The model was proven rural and remains rural: Urban newborns in slum and peri-urban households sit largely outside the package. Eg. Urban worker deployment norms are pitched at one worker per 1,000 to 2,500 slum population, and non-slum urban households fall outside that count.
      The Fix: Extend the package through urban primary health centres with a stated urban deployment norm and a defined household list.

    Conclusion

    Institutional delivery moved birth out of the home and saved both mothers and babies. It did not create the capacity to look after every newborn who arrives with the mother. The next phase has to divide the work, sending the sick newborn to a unit that is staffed and safe and keeping the stable newborn with a trained worker at home. The measure to watch is whether SNCU admissions fall and neonatal mortality keeps falling, since that combination is what separates decongestion from denial of care.

    Newborn and Child Health in India

    1. The mortality position: The Neonatal Mortality Rate stands at about 17 per 1,000 live births, the Infant Mortality Rate at about 25 and the Under-5 Mortality Rate at about 28 per 1,000 live births.
    2. Maternal mortality has fallen alongside it: The Maternal Mortality Ratio is about 80 per lakh live births.
    3. Immunisation coverage is high: Full immunisation coverage reached 93.5 percent under Mission Indradhanush 5.0.
    4. The disease mix has shifted: The share of communicable, maternal and neonatal conditions in India’s total disease burden fell to 33 percent, from 61 percent in 1990.

    Government Initiatives for Newborn and Child Health

    1. Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram: Provides free and cashless treatment to sick infants up to one year of age in government institutions, covering drugs, diagnostics and transport.
    2. Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram: Screens children for the four Ds, meaning defects at birth, deficiencies, diseases and developmental delays, with tertiary care for those identified.
    3. Mission Indradhanush 6.0: Targets 95 percent full immunisation coverage and tracks every pregnant woman and child through the U-WIN portal.
    4. Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0: Delivers supplementary nutrition aimed at reducing stunting and wasting among children under six.

    Key Facts about Newborn and Child Health

    1. National Newborn Week is observed from 15 to 21 November each year.
    2. The India Newborn Action Plan, 2014 set the goal of a single digit neonatal mortality rate by 2030.

    Challenges in Newborn and Child Health

    1. Specialist posts at the referral tier stay unfilled: A district newborn unit needs a paediatrician on its roster, and the sanctioned post is often vacant. Eg. Rural Community Health Centres carry a shortfall of about 80 percent against sanctioned specialist posts.
      The Fix: Build district paediatric cadres with a rural service obligation tied to postgraduate admission.
    2. Nursing supply is the binding constraint on every unit level standard: A nurse-to-baby ratio cannot be enforced where the nurses do not exist. Eg. India needs an additional 6.5 lakh nurses by 2030 to meet basic World Health Organization staffing norms.
      The Fix: Fund nursing school expansion in the districts with the highest birth volumes rather than in State capitals.
    3. Public health spending sits below its own policy target: Unit upgrades compete with every other demand inside a constrained health budget. Eg. Public health expenditure stands at about 1.9 percent of gross domestic product against the National Health Policy, 2017 target of 2.5 percent.
      The Fix: Ring-fence a newborn care line within National Health Mission allocations so unit safety upgrades are not crowded out.

    Back2Basics

    1. Janani Suraksha Yojana was launched in 2005 under the National Rural Health Mission, now the National Health Mission.
    2. It is a conditional cash transfer paid to promote institutional delivery among poor pregnant women.
      • Its benefits are differentiated between low performing and high performing States, and between rural and urban beneficiaries.
    3. The ASHA is its link worker, escorting the woman to the facility for a performance linked incentive.

  • More than 40 crore Indians are caught in a healthcare gap: panel

    Why in the News

    More than 40 crore Indians, over a quarter of the population, are covered neither by government health insurance nor by private cover, a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare has found. Its report, Affordability and Accessibility of Healthcare Facilities in Public and Private Sector, was presented to Parliament last month and carries 368 recommendations. The group it identifies sits above the eligibility line for fully subsidised cover and below the income at which private care is affordable. The committee’s conclusion is that insurance alone cannot close that gap, and that the fix lies in public capacity and in regulation of private prices.

    What is the ‘missing middle’ in health coverage?

    1. It is a group defined by exclusion from both systems: These households are too well off to rely on government subsidies and not financially secure enough to absorb the rising cost of private care.
    2. Its size is over a quarter of the population: More than 40 crore people fall into it, sitting between the poorest, who hold government protection, and the affluent, who can buy private care.
    3. The risk it faces is attrition, not catastrophe: The threat is the slow erosion of household income through medicines, consultations, tests and repeated treatment, rather than a single large hospital bill.

    Where do Indians actually seek care, and at what price?

    1. The private sector delivers most of the care: Over 60 percent of inpatient care and 70 percent of outpatient care is provided by private facilities, so households without financial protection meet private prices directly.
    2. Medicines are the single largest drain: They account for nearly 30 percent of current health expenditure.
    3. Chronic illness converts a cost into a recurring one: For a person with diabetes, hypertension or cardiovascular disease, medicines, consultations and diagnostic tests become a lifelong expense, and the non-communicable disease burden is climbing steadily.
    4. Childbirth shows the gap in one comparison: Average out-of-pocket spending is Rs 37,630 in private facilities against Rs 2,299 in public ones, more than sixteen times higher.

    What does the financing record show?

    1. Public spending sits below the policy’s own target: Government health expenditure is 1.43 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) against the 2.5 percent target set by the National Health Policy, 2017.
    2. Health’s share of the budget is shrinking: It fell from 6.12 percent of total government expenditure in 2021-22 to 4.89 percent in 2022-23, below the 5.02 percent recorded in 2019-20.
    3. The shortfall lands on households: Public capacity that is not built is care that is bought privately, which is what converts a spending decision into an out-of-pocket bill.

    Why does insurance alone not close the gap?

    1. Government cover is targeted at the poorest: Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) protects vulnerable households against hospitalisation costs, and the missing middle falls outside fully subsidised coverage.
    2. Private cover carries its own filters: A household that buys a policy still faces premiums, exclusions, waiting periods and co-payments.
    3. Both instruments insure the wrong event: Hospitalisation cover does not reach outpatient consultations, diagnostics and medicines, which is where this group’s expenditure actually accumulates.

    What has the committee recommended?

    1. A single regulatory floor for private providers: Nationwide implementation of the Clinical Establishments Act, so registration and minimum standards apply uniformly rather than State by State.
    2. Mandatory quality standards: Facilities would be held to a defined standard of services as a condition of operation rather than as a voluntary accreditation.
    3. Price transparency in private facilities: Rates for procedures, consultations and diagnostics would be published and displayed.
    4. Curbs on retail pharmacy practice: The report flags excessive trade margins and the non-prescription sale of antibiotics, and recommends stronger audits and enforcement.
    5. Stronger public healthcare infrastructure: The committee argued for building public capacity directly rather than relying on insurance to purchase care from private providers.

    Challenges to closing the missing middle

    1. A contributory product for this group has failed to launch before: The design has been proposed repeatedly and never converted into a national scheme with take-up. Eg. A NITI Aayog report in 2021 proposed extending PM-JAY to the missing middle on a contributory basis, and no national product followed it.
      The Fix: Collect the premium through an existing payment channel the household already uses, so enrolment does not depend on a separate voluntary transaction.
    2. The Clinical Establishments Act is not in force everywhere: Health is a State subject, so the central Act applies only where a State has adopted it. Eg. Large States including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra regulate through their own statutes instead.
      The Fix: Tie a share of National Health Mission funds to adoption of a common minimum standard, whichever statute a State chooses to enforce it under.
    3. Transparency without a ceiling changes little: A published rate does not restrain a price where the patient is in no position to shop. Eg. Ceiling prices set by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority cover scheduled medicines, and non-scheduled formulations sit outside that control.
      The Fix: Extend price capping to the high volume diagnostics and consumables that make up the bulk of a private bill.
    4. Cheap medicine supply is a fraction of the retail network: A generic price ceiling reaches a household only where a generic outlet exists. Eg. Jan Aushadhi Kendras number about 15,000 against roughly nine lakh retail pharmacies.
      The Fix: Mandate prescription by generic name and stock the full essential drug list at every public facility, so the public system itself becomes the cheap outlet.
    5. Human resources, not finance, cap public capacity: Money released for a facility does not produce the specialist who has to staff it. Eg. Rural Community Health Centres run with a shortfall of roughly 80 percent against sanctioned specialist posts.
      The Fix: Create a public health management cadre so clinical posts are not consumed by administrative duty.

    Conclusion

    The committee’s finding is not that coverage is absent. It is that coverage is built around hospitalisation. The expense that erodes household income is recurring and outpatient. Closing that requires a financing instrument that pays for consultations, diagnostics and medicines, and no such instrument operates at scale today. Whether the committee’s recommendations produce one, or produce another set of standards for private providers to display, is what the government’s action taken reply will show.

    Back2Basics

    1. The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 provides for the registration and regulation of all clinical establishments, public and private, across recognised systems of medicine.
    2. Health is a State subject, so the Act operates in the Union Territories and in States that adopt it by resolution, and several States regulate under their own laws instead.
    3. It prescribes minimum standards of facilities and services as a condition of registration.
    4. It requires establishments to display their rates and to maintain and report records to the National Council for Clinical Establishments.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024, GS2, 15 marks] In a crucial domain like the public healthcare system, the Indian State should play a vital role to contain the adverse impact of marketisation of the system. Suggest some measures through which the State can enhance the reach of public healthcare at the grassroots level.”