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GS Paper: GS2

  • Magsaysay honour for Myanmar activist, Singapore lawyer, Bangladeshi aid giver

    Magsaysay honour for Myanmar activist, Singapore lawyer, Bangladeshi aid giver

    Why in the News

    The 2026 Ramon Magsaysay Awards have been announced for a Singaporean lawyer and diplomat, a Myanmar democracy activist and a Bangladeshi development worker. The award is administered from Manila and is commonly described as Asia’s Nobel Prize. The exam value of the announcement sits in the award’s origin and administering body and in the identity of its laureates rather than in the announcement itself.

    About the Ramon Magsaysay Award

    1. Instituted in 1957: It was created in memory of Ramon Magsaysay, the third President of the Philippines, who died in an aircraft crash that year.
    2. Founding body: The trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund established the award with the agreement of the Philippine government.
    3. Administering body: The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, based in Manila, selects and confers the awards each year.
    4. Scope: It honours individuals and organisations of Asian origin for greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia.
    5. Presentation date: The awards are conferred around 31 August, the birth anniversary of Ramon Magsaysay.
    6. Categories were discontinued: The five original categories, including Government Service and Community Leadership, were set aside in 2009, and the Emergent Leadership category added in 2001 continued alongside awards given without a fixed category.

    Who are the 2026 laureates?

    1. Tommy Koh, Singapore: The 88 year old lawyer and diplomat was recognised for promoting international dialogue and the rule of law. He presided over the United Nations conference of more than 150 countries that adopted the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982, described by the awards body as a “constitution for the oceans” that defined territorial waters and coastal economic rights.
    2. Bo Kyi, Myanmar: The 61 year old activist spent seven years in prison and was recognised for a life spent in resistance to human rights violations by Myanmar’s military. He organised the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in March 2000 with fellow former political prisoners, which documents political imprisonment and supports detainees and their families.
    3. Runa Khan, Bangladesh: The 67 year old was recognised for her empathy for the poorest in her country, having first taught poor children in 1979. She established Friendship Bangladesh in 2002, which works on climate change adaptation, education, women’s empowerment, livelihoods and social justice for excluded groups.

    Which Indians have received the award?

    1. The first Indian recipient: Vinoba Bhave received the award in 1958 for Community Leadership.
    2. Early Indian laureates: Mother Teresa in 1962, Verghese Kurien in 1963, Jayaprakash Narayan in 1965, Satyajit Ray in 1967 and M.S. Subbulakshmi in 1974 are among them.
    3. Later Indian laureates: Kiran Bedi in 1994, Arvind Kejriwal in 2006, T.M. Krishna and Bezwada Wilson in 2016, Sonam Wangchuk in 2018 and Ravish Kumar in 2019 have received it.
    4. India’s standing: India has more recipients of the award than any country other than the Philippines itself.

    Conclusion

    The 2026 laureates have been announced and the awards are conferred at a ceremony in Manila. The next milestone is that ceremony, and the testable content of this item is the award’s origin, its administering foundation and the identity and work of its laureates.

    [2025] Who amongst the following are members of the Jury to select the recipient of ‘Gandhi Peace Prize’?

    I. The President of India

    II. The Prime Minister of India

    III. The Chief Justice of India

    IV. The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) II and IV only

    (b) I, II and III

    (c) II, III and IV

    (d) I and III only

  • Jharkhand, Bihar sign pact on Sone water sharing

    Jharkhand, Bihar sign pact on Sone water sharing

    Why in the News

    Bihar and Jharkhand have signed a memorandum of understanding on sharing the water of the Sone river, allocating 5.75 million acre feet to Bihar and 2 million acre feet to Jharkhand.

    What has been agreed on the Sone, and what was in dispute?

    1. The dispute was over one inherited allocation: The 1973 agreement allotted 7.75 million acre feet (MAF), one acre foot being the volume that covers an acre of land to a depth of a foot, or about 1,233 cubic metres, to then undivided Bihar.
    2. Bihar takes the larger share: The formal consensus allocates 5.75 MAF of the river’s water to Bihar.
    3. Jharkhand takes the remainder: The remaining 2 MAF is allocated to Jharkhand.
    4. The route chosen is agreement rather than adjudication: The States settled by memorandum instead of taking the claim to a tribunal constituted under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.

    What does the settlement change on the ground?

    1. A long-pending eastern India dispute closes: The agreement resolves a water dispute that had run unresolved between the two States since the bifurcation.
    2. Irrigation is the stated primary gain: It is expected to provide irrigation water to lakhs of farmers in rural Bihar and rural Jharkhand.
    3. Drinking water supply is the second use: It is also expected to supply drinking water to a large population across both States.
    4. It is the fourth such deal this year: This is the fourth water agreement concluded between States in the year, each intended to raise water availability for irrigation, rural development and drinking purposes.

    Challenges to the Sone water sharing agreement

    1. An executive memorandum carries no adjudicatory backing: A memorandum binds two governments politically and gives neither a forum to enforce it when a release is withheld. Eg. The Krishna and Cauvery allocations required tribunal awards under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 and were litigated for decades afterwards.
      The Fix: Convert the split into a scheduled allocation under a joint Sone board with a statutory review clause and a defined dispute reference.
    2. A fixed annual quantity assumes a fixed annual yield: An allocation stated in acre feet holds only in a normal year, and the Sone’s flow is monsoon dominated and highly variable. Eg. The Indrapuri barrage at Dehri has repeatedly failed to fill its canal command in deficit years.
      The Fix: Restate the split as a share of realised flow measured at agreed gauging points, with a separate lean season protocol.
    3. No joint measurement machinery is named: Neither State is committed to a common gauging point or a common data record, so each will compute its own entitlement from its own readings. Eg. The Cauvery dispute turned for years on the absence of agreed real-time flow data at the inter-State point.
      The Fix: Install telemetered gauges at the State boundary and publish daily flow and release data on a single public portal.
    4. Upstream storage decisions sit outside the deal: New reservoirs and diversions on tributaries above the boundary change what reaches the downstream State without breaching any allocation figure. Eg. Storage projects on Sone basin tributaries in Jharkhand alter the flow arriving at Bihar’s canal headworks.
      The Fix: Make any new storage above the boundary subject to prior consultation with a defined objection window for the downstream State.
    5. Delivery efficiency is untouched by the allocation: A larger paper share does not reach a farmer where the canal system loses much of the release before the tail end. Eg. Unlined and silted distributaries in the Sone canal command leave tail end villages dependent on groundwater in the same season the head reach is irrigated.
      The Fix: Tie the drawal of the agreed share to verified canal lining and command area development milestones reported annually.

    Conclusion

    Bihar-Jharkhand Sone water agreement is a positive step toward cooperative river management, improving irrigation and drinking water availability. With transparent monitoring, flexible sharing during droughts and joint planning, it can ensure long-term water security and regional development.

    Back2Basics: Sone River

    1. Source and course: It rises on the Amarkantak plateau in Madhya Pradesh, close to the source of the Narmada, and flows in the opposite direction to it.
    2. Status in the Ganga system: It is the largest of the southern tributaries of the Ganga, and it joins the main river upstream of Patna.
    3. States traversed: Its course runs through Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
    4. Principal structure: The Indrapuri barrage at Dehri feeds the Sone canal system, among the oldest large canal networks built in India.

    “[2013, GS2, 10 marks] Constitutional mechanisms to resolve the inter-state water disputes have failed to address and solve the problems. Is the failure due to structural or process inadequacy or both? Discuss.”

  • V-Dem’s democracy index rates India at its lowest since 1975

    V-Dem’s democracy index rates India at its lowest since 1975

    Why in the News?

    India is in the news after the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed serious concern over reported large-scale violations by law enforcement agencies and the exclusion of voters, particularly Muslims, during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The issue has gained further attention because the V-Dem Institute has also classified India among countries experiencing gradual autocratisation, reporting a decline in its electoral democracy score.

    About the V-Dem Institute

    1. Host and status: Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is an independent research institute based at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
    2. Method: It uses a multidimensional approach to conceptualising and measuring democracy, aggregating ratings supplied by country experts rather than issuing a single composite judgement.
    3. Five principles measured: The dataset is organised around the electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian principles of democracy.
    4. Flagship output: It publishes an annual Democracy Report, releasing the index in March and naming the countries it assesses as autocratising or democratising.

    About the Electoral Democracy Index

    1. What it measures: It scores how far the ideal of electoral democracy is achieved in a country, on a scale from 0 to 1.
    2. Its conceptual base: It builds on the polyarchy concept, which requires elected officials, free and fair elections, freedom of expression, alternative sources of information, freedom of association and inclusive suffrage.
    3. Regime classes: V-Dem sorts countries into closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy and liberal democracy.
    4. The comparator to know: The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index is a separate exercise, scoring 60 indicators from 0 to 10 across five categories and classifying India as a flawed democracy.

    India in the latest reading

    1. The score is a 50 year low: India’s electoral democracy index score was 0.38 in 2025, below the 0.39 recorded in 1975 under Emergency rule.
    2. The ranking: India stands 106th among 179 countries, against Denmark at the top with a score of 0.9 in 2025.
    3. The classification: V-Dem lists India among countries autocratising slowly, with a systematic dismantling of democratic institutions.
    4. The decline is not new: India’s performance on the index has fallen gradually since 2009.
    5. The parameters at 50 year lows: Judicial accountability and judicial corruption, autonomy of the Election Management Body (EMB), impartial administration by public officials, media freedom and academic freedom are all at their lowest in 50 years.
    6. A parallel United Nations finding: The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its first review of India since 2007, recorded grave concern over reports of large-scale violations by law enforcement officials and over the exclusion of large numbers of voters, Muslims in particular, under the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

    [2016] Which of the following is/are the indicator/ indicators used by IFPRI to compute the Global Hunger Index Report?

    1. Undernourishment

    2. Child stunting

    3. Child mortality

    Select the correct answer using the code given below.

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3

    (d) 1 and 3 only

  • UN panel presents legal case for broad slavery reparations

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has issued a fresh interpretation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965.

    What is a general recommendation, and what weight does it carry?

    1. It is a treaty body’s authoritative reading of the text: A general recommendation is an interpretation of a convention’s provisions issued by the expert committee that monitors it, addressed to every State party rather than to one government.
    2. It creates no new obligation: The instrument does not amend the convention. It states what the committee holds the existing text already requires.
    3. It is unenforceable but not without effect: The findings carry authoritative weight and can inform judicial review, serve courts as an interpretative tool, and be relied on in litigation.

    What does the interpretation require of States parties?

    1. The measures must be comprehensive: States parties are required to implement reparatory measures for people of African descent covering all aspects of remedies.
    2. Three classes of measure are named: Reparatory justice is stated to combine a wide range of measures conceived as monetary, non monetary and structural.
    3. Indirect involvement is included: The duty attaches to States that profited from or facilitated the trade, not only to those that transported and sold people.
    4. Redress is framed as an obligation: The Committee treats reparation as flowing from the convention itself rather than as a policy choice available to a government.

    What is the historical record the finding rests on?

    1. At least 12.5 million Africans were taken and sold: The Committee places that transport and sale between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
    2. It is characterised as the largest forced displacement in history: That characterisation is the basis on which the Committee treats the harm as continuing rather than closed.
    3. The United Nations has already classed slavery a crime against humanity: The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted at the World Conference against Racism in 2001, recorded slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity.
    4. A standing forum already exists: The General Assembly established the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in 2021 as an advisory body on the rights of that population.
    5. The observance period has been extended: The International Decade for People of African Descent ran from 2015 to 2024, and a second decade was proclaimed for 2025 to 2034.

    Challenges to reparations for the transatlantic slave trade

    1. No forum can compel a State to pay: The Committee reviews reports and issues findings, and it holds no power to order a remedy against a State party. Eg. An inter-State claim under the convention reaches the International Court of Justice only where both States accept that jurisdiction, and several former slave trading States have entered reservations to the clause.
      The Fix: Route the claim through a negotiated inter-governmental commission with a fixed mandate and a reporting cycle, so the obligation is settled by agreement rather than left to a forum neither side can reach.
    2. Successor States dispute liability for pre-independence conduct: A modern government argues it is not the legal person that carried on a trade abolished two centuries ago. Eg. The United Kingdom has expressed regret for the slave trade and has declined to accept legal liability for reparations.
      The Fix: Separate acknowledgement from transfer by fixing a development finance commitment tied to identified harms, which avoids the succession question without abandoning the remedy.
    3. Quantifying the harm has no accepted method: Monetary, non monetary and structural measures rest on different bases, and no agreed formula converts historical injury into a present figure. Eg. The Caribbean Community’s Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, adopted in 2013, sets out categories of remedy without attaching a sum to any of them.
      The Fix: Commission a standing statistical exercise on health, education and land outcomes for the affected population, so remedies are sized against measurable present day gaps.
    4. Domestic litigation fails on procedure before it reaches merit: Claims are dismissed on limitation, standing and sovereign immunity rather than decided on the underlying wrong. Eg. Reparations suits filed in United States courts against corporations linked to slavery were dismissed on standing and limitation grounds.
      The Fix: Enact a statutory limitation waiver for historic gross rights violations, which is what allowed residential school and forced sterilisation claims to be heard in other jurisdictions.
    5. A non binding finding can harden a State’s position: A government that rejects the interpretation gains a reason to disengage from the reporting process the Committee depends on. Eg. Treaty body reporting is already years in arrears across the system, with overdue State reports running into the hundreds.
      The Fix: Pair the interpretation with a technical assistance track, so a State that accepts the framing has a route to comply that does not begin with a payment.

    Conclusion

    The Committee has moved reparations from a political demand to a stated treaty obligation. What it cannot supply is the machinery that would make the obligation operate. The unresolved tension is that the same text a claimant will now cite in court is one a government can decline to act on without breaching anything enforceable. The point to watch is whether a national court anywhere treats the interpretation as a live legal standard rather than as commentary.

    Back2Basics: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

    1. Parent instrument: Created by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965, which entered into force in 1969.
    2. Composition: Eighteen independent experts elected by States parties, serving in their personal capacity rather than as government representatives.
    3. Core function: It examines periodic reports from States parties on the measures taken to give effect to the convention.
    4. Additional procedures: It operates an early warning and urgent action procedure, and it can consider individual complaints against a State that has made a declaration under Article 14.

    [2017, GS2, 10 marks] What are the main functions of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)? Explain different functional commissions attached to it.”

  • India rejects Hague court’s Indus Waters Treaty ruling, says it has no jurisdiction

    Why in the News

    The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague has held that the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960 remains “fully in force”. The award directs India to observe its obligations under the treaty, including those on the design and operation of its hydro-electric projects on the Western Rivers. It also imposes interim measures barring India from concreting the Ratle Hydro-Electric Plant dam wall and power intake structure above certain levels until 90 days after the Neutral Expert’s final decision, expected in July 2027. The award answers India’s decision to hold the treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam terror attack, a decision the tribunal examined and found unsupported by any of the grounds advanced. The Ministry of External Affairs has rejected the award in full and described the tribunal as illegally constituted in breach of the treaty. The tension is that the award’s own expiry is keyed to the Neutral Expert, the one forum India does take part in, so two processes now govern the same dam on incompatible terms.

    What did the arbitral award decide?

    1. The treaty was held to remain in force: The Court of Arbitration found that the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960 continues to bind both parties in full.
    2. No ground for abeyance was accepted: It examined the reasons India advanced for placing the treaty in abeyance and held that none of them could justify suspension or termination.
    3. The award covers status and interim relief together: It was issued as the Status of the Indus Waters Treaty and Order on Interim Measures concerning the Ratle Hydro-Electric Plant.
    4. The construction limits were unanimous: The Court decided without dissent to bar concreting of the Ratle dam wall and power intake structure above specified levels.
    5. The relief was granted on Pakistan’s application: The tribunal was acting on Pakistan’s plea both on the status of the treaty and on measures concerning the Ratle project.

    On what grounds does India reject the tribunal?

    1. The tribunal’s establishment is itself called a treaty violation: The Ministry of External Affairs holds that the very establishment of the arbitral body is a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960.
    2. The World Bank is said to have acted beyond the treaty: The Ministry states that the court was constituted by the World Bank in patent breach of the terms of the treaty.
    3. Non-participation has been consistent: India has never recognised this body in law. It has never appeared before the tribunal and takes no cognisance of its pronouncements.
    4. Jurisdiction over a sovereign decision is denied: The Ministry holds that the court cannot pronounce on India’s sovereign decisions, and that its orders will have no effect on the projects India is undertaking.
    5. The abeyance decision stands: India has reiterated that its decision to hold the treaty in abeyance remains in force.

    Why does the treaty’s dispute ladder produce two forums at once?

    1. The Permanent Indus Commission is the first step: The treaty requires the commissioners of both countries to take up a question before any external forum is approached.
    2. A Neutral Expert settles a technical difference: Article IX sends a listed technical question to a Neutral Expert appointed by the World Bank, whose decision is final and binding on the points referred.
    3. A Court of Arbitration settles a legal dispute: A matter outside the Neutral Expert’s list goes to a seven member Court of Arbitration under Annexure G, with two arbitrators named by each country and three umpires.
    4. Both forums were seized of the same projects: The World Bank appointed a Neutral Expert and constituted a Court of Arbitration in 2022 over the Kishenganga and Ratle projects, on separate requests made by India and by Pakistan.
    5. The award defers to the forum India accepts: The tribunal tied the expiry of its own interim measures to the Neutral Expert’s ruling, so the body India rejects has made its order run on the timetable of the process India joined.

    Challenges to India’s abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty

    1. The treaty text carries no exit or suspension clause: Article XII permits termination only through a ratified treaty between both governments, so abeyance is a position asserted outside the instrument rather than a right within it. Eg. The treaty survived the conflicts of 1965, 1971 and 1999 without either side suspending it.
      The Fix: Convert the position into a formal proposal for modification under Article XII and open the negotiation that article provides for, so the claim rests on a treaty route rather than outside one.
    2. Storage capacity does not exist to give the position effect: India’s permitted storage on the Western Rivers is largely unbuilt, so withholding water is not physically available even where it is legally asserted. Eg. The Indus system carries roughly 135 million acre feet a year, and India’s live storage on the Western Rivers is a small fraction of that volume.
      The Fix: Complete the permitted storage and flushing works on the Chenab and the Jhelum first, so the legal position is matched by works that can act on it.
    3. Non-appearance leaves the record to one side: A tribunal proceeding in the absence of a party decides on the evidence only the other party filed. Eg. India did participate in the Kishenganga arbitration, and the 2013 award fixed a minimum environmental flow India was able to build to.
      The Fix: Enter a limited appearance contesting jurisdiction alone, which preserves the objection and still puts India’s technical record before the tribunal.
    4. India is a lower riparian on another transboundary system: A precedent for unilateral suspension by an upper riparian is one India is exposed to on the rivers that reach it from Tibet. Eg. The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet and India has no water sharing treaty with China, only memoranda on hydrological data sharing.
      The Fix: Pair the treaty position with a push for a binding flow and data guarantee on the Brahmaputra, so the standard India asserts is one it also demands.
    5. The first cost of restricting flows lands inside India: Holding back water without storage backs it up in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab rather than in Pakistan. Eg. Reservoir flushing at Salal and Baglihar in May 2025 altered flows on the Chenab for a matter of days before normal releases resumed.
      The Fix: Confine any restriction to the desilting and flushing operations the treaty already permits, which recover generation capacity without creating an upstream flood risk.

    Conclusion

    India and the tribunal are now operating on premises that cannot both hold. One holds that the treaty binds and that the abeyance changes nothing. The other holds that the tribunal has no legal existence and that its orders change nothing. The unresolved tension is that both positions point at the same dam, and neither side controls a mechanism that can make the other’s position irrelevant.

    Back2Basics: Permanent Court of Arbitration

    1. Establishment: Created by the Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, 1899, making it the oldest standing institution for international dispute settlement.
    2. Seat: It is headquartered at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands.
    3. What it is not: It is neither a court with sitting judges nor a United Nations body. It supplies a registry and a panel of arbitrators for tribunals the parties themselves constitute.
    4. India’s link to it: India is a party to the 1899 Convention, and the institution provides registry services for tribunals formed under the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2016, GS1, 12.5 marks] Present an account of the Indus Water Treaty and examine its ecological, economic and political implications in the context of changing bilateral relations.”

  • Amid ‘NRC first’ demand, Centre defers Census exercise in Manipur

    Why in the News

    The Centre has deferred the house listing phase of Census 2027 in Manipur, which was to begin on 1 September. The deferment answers a demand from Meitei and Naga civil society groups that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise be carried out in the State before any count is taken. The Manipur High Court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by the Kangleipak Students’ Association and the International Peace and Social Advancement, along with a connected writ petition. It recorded an undertaking from the Centre that the operation would be postponed, and ordered that it remain in abeyance until the next hearing on 12 October. The tension is that a Census is a statutory national exercise run on a single schedule, and it has been suspended in one State on the argument that counting people before verifying citizenship fixes the wrong population base for future delimitation and resource allocation.

    What is the house listing phase of the Census?

    1. It is the first of two field phases: House listing records buildings, households and their amenities before the population enumeration that follows.
    2. It fixes the frame for the count: The list of houses prepared at this stage is what enumerators use to reach every household in the second phase.
    3. It runs on a notified schedule: The Centre issued a notification on 7 January 2026 providing for the exercise, under which States issue notifications of their own.
    4. Administrative boundaries are frozen before it starts: Manipur froze all its boundaries from 1 January 2026 to 31 March 2027 to prepare for the operation.

    How was the deferment actually effected?

    1. A high level review preceded the decision: A meeting chaired by the Union Home Minister reviewed the situation in Manipur, attended by the Governor, the Chief Minister and the Union Home Secretary.
    2. The undertaking was given in open court: The Deputy Solicitor General told the High Court that on the instructions of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner a decision had been taken to postpone the house listing operations.
    3. The January notification is to be formally modified: The Centre was to issue a fresh notification modifying the one that had provided for the exercise, and the court recorded this as an undertaking.
    4. The State kept its own notification in abeyance: Manipur told the court it would not commence house listing and would hold its 22 March 2026 notification in abeyance pending the Centre’s formal notification.
    5. Two grounds were cited: The Centre cited the demands from Meitei and Naga groups and the tenuous security situation in the State.

    What is the demand, and how long has it been pressed?

    1. The State Assembly has resolved for a register twice: Resolutions dated 5 August 2022 and 1 March 2024 sought the introduction and enforcement of the NRC in Manipur.
    2. The State government wrote to the Centre twice: Communications in January 2023 and June 2024 referred to concerns over illegal immigration and demographic change.
    3. Civil society leaders and legislators lobbied in Delhi: Delegations from 14 civil society organisations and a group of BJP MLAs travelled to press the demand.
    4. The Chief Minister recorded the acceptance: His office stated that the Centre agreed to defer the exercise considering the feelings and aspirations of the people of Manipur.

    Why do the Valley groups object to counting first?

    1. A count before verification would include the undocumented: The groups argue that a Census held before an NRC would place undocumented or allegedly illegal immigrants inside the population figure.
    2. The consequences run to seats and money: They contend the resulting figure could affect future delimitation and the allocation of resources.
    3. Opposition has been concentrated in the Valley: The demand has come principally from the Meitei dominated Imphal Valley, with Naga groups also pressing it.
    4. The boundary freeze itself triggered protests: It produced massive strikes, torch rallies and closure of educational institutions across the valley districts.

    Challenges to conducting Census 2027 in Manipur

    1. The population to be counted is displaced: Ethnic violence since 2023 has moved large numbers into relief camps, so the household’s usual residence is not where the enumerator will find it. Eg. Kuki-Zo and Meitei residents were displaced across the hill and valley divide and have not returned to their original homes.
      The Fix: Record a displaced household against its pre-displacement address with a separate camp flag, so the count and the entitlement do not diverge.
    2. Enumerators cannot cross the ethnic divide: Field staff are locally recruited teachers and government employees, and staff from one community cannot safely work in areas held by another. Eg. Movement between the valley and the hill districts has required security escort since the violence began.
      The Fix: Recruit and deploy enumerators within each administrative unit, and open self-enumeration through the Census portal wherever field access fails.
    3. Deferring one State breaks national comparability: A Census counts a population against a common reference date, so a State enumerated later yields figures that cannot be set beside the rest. Eg. The exercise has already slipped from its due year of 2021 to 2027.
      The Fix: Fix a single revised reference date for the deferred State rather than letting the schedule drift with the litigation.
    4. The register being demanded has no settled cut off date: A citizenship register requires a date before which residence establishes citizenship, and none has been fixed for this State. Eg. Groups in Manipur have pressed for 1951 as the base year, a date that appears in no law applying to the State.
      The Fix: Legislate a cut off date and an appeals machinery before any register exercise is contemplated, so the demand has a determinate object.
    5. A deferment invites the same demand elsewhere: Conceding a precondition in one State supplies a template for others to seek their own. Eg. Demands for citizenship verification ahead of enumeration have been raised in other Northeastern States.
      The Fix: Publish the criteria on which a State level deferment is granted, so the next such decision is a rule rather than a negotiation.

    Conclusion

    The Census calendar has been reopened by a demand the Census cannot itself satisfy, since an enumeration counts residents and does not determine citizenship. Manipur’s house listing now depends on the progress of litigation rather than on a notified date. The unresolved position is that the State has asked for a register whose legal machinery has been built for only one State in the country, and the Centre has deferred the count without saying whether it will build that machinery here. The thing to watch is the next hearing before the Manipur High Court, where the Centre must produce the notification it has undertaken to issue.

    Back2Basics: National Register of Citizens

    1. What it is: A register of Indian citizens, first prepared from the 1951 Census, listing the persons enumerated as citizens in that count.
    2. Legal basis: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 provide for its preparation.
    3. Updated in Assam alone: The update ran under a separate schedule tied to the Assam Accord, 1985, using 24 March 1971 as the cut off date.
    4. Outcome of the Assam update: The final list published in August 2019 excluded about 19 lakh of roughly 3.3 crore applicants and has still not been notified by the Registrar General.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2009] Consider the following statements : 1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times. 2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled. Which of the statements given abova is/are correct ? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (d)”

  • The broken promise of right to work

    Why in the News

    Employment under India’s rural work guarantee fell 68 per cent in July and August against the average of the preceding five years. The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, enacted by the Union government in December 2025 to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA), came into implementation on 1 July. A three judge Supreme Court Bench led by the Chief Justice of India dismissed a petition on minimum wages in rural employment guarantee programmes on 21 August and sought a fresh one. The same Bench asked whether the right to work should be treated on par with Article 21, the fundamental right to life. The tension is that the right to work sits in the unenforceable Directive Principles, and the one statute that had converted it into a demand driven entitlement has been replaced by a law that caps funds and shifts cost onto the States.

    What is the VB-GRAM G Act?

    1. It replaced the 2005 employment guarantee law: The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-GRAM G) Act took over from MGNREGA with effect from 1 July.
    2. Funding is capped rather than demand driven: The Act places an arbitrary cap on funds instead of releasing money against work actually demanded.
    3. The wage is not tied to a minimum wage: The Act does not link its wage rate to any statutory minimum wage.
    4. Areas can be denotified: It carries provisions to denotify specified areas and exclude them from the scheme, which ends the universality MGNREGA carried.

    What has happened to rural employment since 1 July?

    1. Employment fell 68 per cent in July and August: The comparison is with the average for those two months over the preceding five years.
    2. The five year average was 3.44 crore households: They generated about 44 crore person days of work in July and August.
    3. This year the figures are 1.39 crore households and 14.94 crore person days: The data are as on 31 August 2026 for 2026-27.
    4. The decline predates the new law: Households employed in those months fell steadily from 4.79 crore in 2021-22 to 2.44 crore in 2025-26 under MGNREGA itself.
    5. Household earnings have halved: Estimated total earnings of households in July and August fell to about half of the same months last year.

    Why does the Constituent Assembly debate matter to the present dispute?

    1. The disagreement was about placement, not value: Most members agreed that a right to work was vital, and the argument was whether it belonged among the fundamental rights or in the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), which are precepts for framing law rather than enforceable rights.
    2. K.T. Shah argued for a fundamental right: He held that the State needed a constitutional and positive legal mandate to guarantee socio-economic security to its citizens.
    3. B.R. Ambedkar held it was not yet enforceable: He treated the right to work as an essential goal whose immediate universal enforcement was not fiscally or institutionally viable in a newly independent India hollowed out of its resources.
    4. The placement was aspiration, not abandonment: Locating the right among the Directive Principles reflected a deliberate constitutionalism of aspiration rather than a rejection of the welfare ideal.

    Which constitutional provisions carry the right to work?

    1. Article 41 states the obligation: The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work.
    2. Article 39 covers livelihood and equal pay: It directs the State towards an adequate means of livelihood and equal pay for equal work for both men and women.
    3. Articles 42 and 43 cover conditions and wages: They require just and humane conditions of work, and a living wage with a decent standard of life for all workers.

    How did the aspiration become a statutory right?

    1. Olga Tellis established the link to life: In Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) the Supreme Court ruled that the right to livelihood was a necessary condition for the fundamental right to life.
    2. Activists and rural workers drove the legislation: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed in 2005 following their collective effort.
    3. It made a pan-India right to work real for the first time: The State carried a statutory obligation to provide employment at minimum wages.
    4. The scope was always narrow: The guarantee covered 100 days of work per rural household, and the programme was chronically underfunded.

    What is wrong with the Bench’s own remark on minimum wages?

    1. The remark links a wage floor to fewer workers: The Bench observed that if financial resources remained the same, a minimum wage threshold could reduce the number of workers who could be given employment.
    2. It cuts against Sanjit Roy: In Sanjit Roy vs State of Rajasthan (1983) the Supreme Court held that payment below minimum wages violates Article 23 of the Constitution and is akin to forced labour.
    3. It assumes a fixed budget: The reasoning rests on the resources for a welfare programme remaining unchanged and constrained.
    4. Higher wages raise demand, not only cost: Higher rural wages increase purchasing power and effective demand for goods and services, producing a multiplier effect on productivity.

    How did the wage fall behind in the first place?

    1. Wages were delinked from the wage law in 2009: MGNREGA wages ceased to be tied to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.
    2. They barely kept pace with inflation: The daily wage in July and August rose from Rs 210 in 2021-22 to Rs 282.5 this year while person days collapsed.
    3. They stayed below agricultural minimum wages: The MGNREGA rate remained lower than the minimum agricultural wage in most States.
    4. Women are increasingly unpaid family workers: Rural wages have been stagnant for a decade, and women are recorded in growing numbers as working without pay within the household.

    Why does the new Act face a constitutional objection?

    1. Non-retrogression bars rolling a realised right back: Once the State has reached a level of progressive legislation and enforceability of a right, it cannot adopt measures that deliberately undo it.
    2. The Supreme Court affirmed the doctrine in Navtej Singh Johar vs Union of India: It operates as a check on State power, ensuring that rights once realised are not diluted later.
    3. The replacement appears to breach it: Substituting a demand driven statutory entitlement with a fund limited mission dilutes a right that had already been realised in law.
    4. The fiscal shift compounds the problem: States already face curtailed borrowing limits under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) framework, and the new Act adds to what they must fund.

    Challenges to the rural employment guarantee

    1. A capped budget converts a guarantee into a scheme: Work can be refused once the allocation is exhausted, so the entitlement lapses at the point demand peaks. Eg. MGNREGA allocations were routinely spent before the fourth quarter, leaving States carrying negative opening balances into the next year.
      The Fix: Treat the allocation as a first charge revised at the supplementary budget stage against verified work demand.
    2. Wage payment delay destroys the incentive to seek work: A worker who waits months for payment stops applying, and the falling application count is then read as falling need. Eg. Delayed wage payments under MGNREGA drew repeated censure from the Supreme Court and from parliamentary committees.
      The Fix: Release the statutory delay compensation automatically from the central account rather than on an individual worker’s complaint.
    3. Work demand is registered by the body that must then supply it: A gram panchayat under budget pressure has an incentive not to record demand, so the shortfall never appears in the data. Eg. Dated receipts against work applications are prescribed by law and are rarely issued in practice.
      The Fix: Allow demand to be registered through an independent time stamped channel outside the implementing agency.
    4. Social audit units depend on the governments they audit: Their staff and budgets come from the State administration, which limits what they are able to report. Eg. Social audit units in several States operate well below their sanctioned staff strength.
      The Fix: Fund social audit units through a ring fenced central allocation and place their findings before the State legislature.
    5. Asset creation is measured by expenditure rather than durability: A work is closed on payment rather than on verified usefulness, so the durable asset the programme exists to create goes unchecked. Eg. Comptroller and Auditor General audits of MGNREGA have repeatedly reported incomplete and unusable works.
      The Fix: Make geo-tagged completion and a one year durability check the condition for closing a work in the management information system.

    Conclusion

    An unenforceable directive principle survives only through the statute that implements it. India now has a rural work law that no longer carries the features which made the earlier one a right, and the collapse in employment is the first measurable consequence of that. What must change is that the wage be linked to a living wage standard, that payment be made on time, and that social audits be run by panchayati raj institutions holding real powers. These are the minimum conditions under which a work guarantee functions as a guarantee at all.

    Back2Basics: Minimum Wages Act, 1948

    1. Purpose: It empowers the appropriate government to fix and revise minimum rates of wages payable in scheduled employments.
    2. Dual authority: Both the Centre and the States act as appropriate governments, each notifying rates for the employments within its own sphere.
    3. Components of the wage: A minimum wage may combine a basic rate with a cost of living allowance, so it moves as prices move.
    4. Current status: It has been subsumed into the Code on Wages, 2019, which extends a statutory floor wage across all employments rather than scheduled ones alone.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2011] Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”? (a) Adult members of only the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households (b) Adult members of below poverty line (BPL) households (c) Adult members of households of all backward communities (d) Adult members of any household ANSWER: (d)”

  • SIR draft rolls see over 13 cr deletions so far, Delhi leads with 33% left out

    Why in the News

    Over 13 crore names have been deleted from draft electoral rolls across 30 States and Union Territories under the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Delhi’s draft roll records a cut of 32.8 per cent and Maharashtra’s a cut of 21.1 per cent. The revision began with Bihar in June 2025 and has since moved through phases, the third of which covers 16 States and three Union Territories. The tension is that a deletion at the draft stage reverses the burden of proof, since a person already on the roll must now apply afresh to be restored within a one month window. Almost a third of Delhi’s electors were removed under a single composite head covering absence, shifting and unstated reasons.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision?

    1. It is a house to house re-verification of the roll: Booth level officers distribute and collect enumeration forms from every existing elector rather than processing only new claims.
    2. Non-return of the form leads to deletion: An elector whose enumeration form is not received is left out of the draft roll.
    3. It is run in phases across States: The exercise started in Bihar and has been extended in successive rounds to the rest of the country.
    4. The draft roll is not the final roll: Claims and objections follow publication, and the final roll issues after they are disposed of.

    What do the deletion numbers actually show?

    1. The all-India draft deletion crosses 13 crore: The figure covers 30 States and Union Territories where draft rolls have been published.
    2. The third phase alone accounts for 6.15 crore: Draft rolls have been published in 17 of the units in that phase.
    3. Delhi records the largest proportionate cut: Its electors fell from 1.45 crore before the revision to 97.53 lakh, a drop of 47.56 lakh.
    4. Maharashtra lost about 2.07 crore electors: Its roll fell from 9.78 crore to 7.71 crore.
    5. Three other units cross 20 per cent: Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu at 29.6 per cent, Telangana at 21.7 per cent, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 20.6 per cent.
    6. Two units are yet to begin: Enumeration is scheduled to start in Nagaland and Tripura over the next two months.

    What reasons are recorded for the deletions?

    1. Delhi’s largest head is absent, shifted or others: It covers 43.32 lakh electors, or 29.86 per cent of the pre-revision roll.
    2. Deceased electors are a small share: They number 2.82 lakh in Delhi, or 1.95 per cent, against 3.56 per cent in Maharashtra.
    3. Duplicate enrolment is smaller still: 1.41 lakh Delhi electors, or 0.98 per cent, were found enrolled at multiple places, against 1.81 per cent in Maharashtra.
    4. Maharashtra’s composite head is 15.78 per cent: Electors permanently shifted, absent or classed as others make up that share of its deletions.
    5. The composite head is doing most of the work: In both States the single largest reason groups movement, absence and unstated causes into one number.

    Why does the official explanation for Delhi not settle the question?

    1. Migration is the stated reason: The stated reason for the highest deletion share is the floating population of the National Capital, where people arrive for work and return to their home States.
    2. The same head also covers electors simply not traced: Booth level officers recorded electors whose enumeration forms were not returned, who were not found in existence, or who did not submit by the cut off date.
    3. Refusal to register sits in the same bucket: An elector unwilling to register for any reason is recorded under the identical head as one who has moved away.
    4. Four different situations produce one figure: Migration, an untraced record, non-submission and refusal cannot be separated from the published number.

    How is a deleted elector supposed to get back on the roll?

    1. The route is Form 6 with a declaration: An aggrieved person files it with the prescribed declaration form and supporting documents.
    2. The Delhi window runs one month: Claims may be filed between 31 August and 30 September.
    3. Disposal runs to late October: Claims and objections are examined and disposed of till 29 October, and the final roll is due on 4 November.
    4. The exclusion lists are published for inspection: Booth wise lists of absent, shifted, dead and duplicate electors are displayed at registration offices and polling stations, and carried on the Chief Electoral Officer’s website.
    5. Multiple enrolment is resolved by retention at one place: An elector found on more than one roll is kept on a single one rather than removed from all.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision

    1. The burden of proof shifts onto the elector: A person deleted at the draft stage must file a fresh claim to be restored, so an existing entitlement becomes a new application. Eg. The Bihar revision in 2025 removed about 65 lakh names at the draft stage and left restoration to individual claims.
      The Fix: Require the booth level officer to record and serve an individual written reason on the elector before a name is dropped from the draft roll.
    2. Migrant workers are structurally the most exposed: An elector away from the registered address during enumeration is marked absent whether the move is seasonal or permanent. Eg. Construction and seasonal agricultural workers are typically away from their home constituency for several months of the year.
      The Fix: Extend the enumeration window in constituencies with high recorded out-migration and accept the form by post from any location.
    3. Booth level officers carry an unmanageable load: One officer covers over a thousand electors in a short window while continuing with a full time job elsewhere. Eg. Booth level officers are usually school teachers or anganwadi workers performing the duty alongside their regular work.
      The Fix: Appoint dedicated temporary enumerators for the revision and pay them against verified forms rather than against booths covered.
    4. Documentary requirements exclude the poorest first: Restoration depends on supporting documents that a person without stable residence or records cannot produce. Eg. A large share of the population holds no birth certificate, which document lists for such exercises treat as primary proof of eligibility.
      The Fix: Accept the existing elector photo identity card with a self declaration at the claims stage, and verify after inclusion rather than before it.
    5. The published data cannot be audited: Merging distinct causes into one head means the accuracy of the exercise cannot be tested from what is released. Eg. No State wise account is published of how many deleted electors are subsequently restored through claims.
      The Fix: Publish cause wise and outcome wise figures for every revision, including restorations, alongside the final roll.

    Conclusion

    This is the largest single reduction of India’s electoral roll on record, and a draft roll cannot show whether it was accurate. Whether ineligible entries or eligible electors were removed depends on how many of those left out come back through the claims process. The unresolved position is that the exercise treats absence during a short enumeration window as evidence of ineligibility, in a country where seasonal movement of labour is ordinary. The marker to watch is the gap between draft and final rolls in the two largest affected units, since that difference is the only available measure of how much of the deletion was error.

    Back2Basics: Electoral roll revision under the Representation of the People Act, 1950

    1. Governing provision: Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides for the preparation and revision of electoral rolls by the Electoral Registration Officer.
    2. Two forms of revision: A summary revision updates an existing roll through claims and objections, and an intensive revision re-prepares it through house to house enumeration.
    3. Qualifying dates: A person must be 18 years of age on 1 January of the year of revision, with three additional qualifying dates of 1 April, 1 July and 1 October introduced in 2021.
    4. The statutory forms: Form 6 seeks inclusion of a name, Form 7 objects to an inclusion or seeks a deletion, and Form 8 corrects details in an existing entry.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017] For election to the Lok Sabha, a nomination paper can be filed by (a) Anyone residing in India. (b) A resident of the constituency from which the election is to be contested. (c) Any citizen of India whose name appears in the electoral roll of a constituency. (d) GI any citizen of India. ANSWER: (c)”

  • Step up regulation

    Step up regulation

    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.”
    Linkage: The fact that non-government institutions account for 85–86% of AYUSH colleges is a stark example of the “marketisation” of healthcare education. The incentive of private players to “maximise student intake without matching increases in faculty and laboratory infrastructure” illustrates the precise “adverse impacts” of market-led growth that the state must step in to regulate.

    Mentor Comment

    Non-government institutions accounted for 86 per cent of Ayurveda colleges and 85 per cent of homoeopathy colleges in 2024, according to government data. Permitted seats rose by 43 per cent and total admission capacity by 25 per cent between 2021 and 2024. The Centre’s AYURGYAN allocation for AYUSH education, training, research, innovation and capacity building increased nearly sixfold over the same period, AYUSH being the group of systems covering Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy. Through that expansion the sector’s regulators have been denying permissions and grading colleges poorly. The tension is that private led growth carries an incentive to maximise student intake without matching increases in faculty and laboratory infrastructure, and the regulatory answer to it arrives one inspection at a time.

    How fast has AYUSH education expanded, and who is running it?

    1. The private sector runs the great majority of colleges: Non-government institutions accounted for 86 per cent of Ayurveda and 85 per cent of homoeopathy colleges in 2024.
    2. Seats grew faster than institutions: Permitted seats rose by 43 per cent and total admission capacity by 25 per cent between 2021 and 2024.
    3. Public funding rose alongside private capacity: The AYURGYAN allocation increased nearly sixfold over the same period.
    4. The private sector is leading the build out: The expansion of AYUSH medical education infrastructure is being driven by non-government institutions rather than by State run colleges.

    Why do the quality questions differ from those in allopathic education?

    1. The allopathic concern is narrower: Debate there has been confined to whether institutions adequately prepare students for evidence-based practice.
    2. AYUSH raises two questions at once: The first is the quality of training delivered, and the second is what students are being trained to practise.
    3. The evidence base is itself in question: Tougher quality control does not settle the separate question of the evidence backing AYUSH medicinal systems.

    Do the quality problems predate the current expansion?

    1. A 2005 audit found widespread deficiencies: The Comptroller and Auditor General found insufficient hospital beds, outpatient services or staff to be widespread among homoeopathy colleges.
    2. Bed occupancy ranged from 1 per cent to 71 per cent: The same audit recorded that spread across the colleges it examined.
    3. Faculty shortfalls exceeded half the requirement: A 2020 article in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine reported that many institutions fell short by more than 50 per cent of the teaching staff required by the standards then in force.

    What are the regulators finding now?

    1. The Ayurveda regulator has denied 17 permissions: As of 21 August the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) had listed 17 Ayurveda colleges, all private, whose permissions it had denied.
    2. Several denials were for obstructing the process itself: The stated reason in several cases was non-compliance with the inspection process.
    3. The homoeopathy regulator graded 41 per cent of colleges lowest: The National Commission for Homoeopathy placed that share at the bottom grade, including nearly half of all private institutions.
    4. The recorded failures are specific and repeated: They include inadequate or disputed faculty strength, failures in inspection requirements and student intake numbers, and allegations of fictitious faculty.

    What incentive does private led expansion create?

    1. Intake is the revenue lever: Expansion led by private institutions is accompanied by an incentive to maximise student intake while holding faculty size and laboratory infrastructure at existing levels.
    2. A court has recorded the practice: The Karnataka High Court in Hillside Ayurveda Medical College (2023) acknowledged that educational institutions are often guilty of admitting excess students for financial gains.
    3. The regulatory response is retrospective: Permission withheld after an inspection corrects a college that has already been built and has already admitted students.
    4. Causation is not yet established: It is premature to infer that the rapid expansion has amplified these problems, and the persistent non-compliance is established on its own.

    Challenges to regulating AYUSH medical education

    1. Faculty can be produced on paper: A college can satisfy a faculty norm on inspection day by listing teachers who do not actually teach there. Eg. Aadhaar linked biometric attendance was introduced in allopathic medical colleges precisely because faculty were being shown only for inspections.
      The Fix: Extend biometric and payroll linked faculty verification to every AYUSH college and publish the verified roll monthly.
    2. Approval and assessment sit with the same body: A regulator that grants permission to a college also rates it, so a poor rating is a verdict on its own earlier approval. Eg. Allopathic regulation separated the two, creating a distinct Medical Assessment and Rating Board under the National Medical Commission.
      The Fix: Split permission and rating into separate boards with published criteria, on the model already used in allopathic regulation.
    3. Seats are cheaper to add than laboratories: Where fees are capped, a college raises revenue by raising intake rather than by improving what it teaches with. Eg. Private professional education in India has produced capitation fee litigation running from T.M.A. Pai Foundation (2002) onward.
      The Fix: Link seat sanction to an audited per student cost of teaching and clinical infrastructure rather than to floor space and declared faculty strength.
    4. Clinical exposure is measured by beds, not patients: An attached hospital can meet a bed norm without meeting an occupancy norm, so a student can qualify with very little clinical contact. Eg. Minimum standard requirements for AYUSH colleges specify bed numbers, which a college can satisfy with wards that stay largely empty.
      The Fix: Make verified average bed occupancy and outpatient footfall a condition of annual permission renewal.
    5. Efficacy sits outside the regulator’s remit: A regulator can enforce faculty and infrastructure norms without settling whether the therapy being taught works. Eg. Research on Ayurvedic medicine is largely funded and evaluated by the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences, a body under the same ministry that promotes the system.
      The Fix: Route efficacy trials for AYUSH therapies through independently assessed, pre-registered protocols outside the promoting ministry.

    Conclusion

    AYUSH education can expand meaningfully only when capacity growth is matched by quality assurance. Stronger faculty verification, independent assessment, outcome based accreditation and evidence based research can ensure that expansion delivers credible, high quality healthcare education.

    Back2Basics: National Commission for Indian System of Medicine

    1. Governing Act: Established under the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act, 2020 as the statutory regulator for Indian systems of medicine.
    2. Predecessor: It replaced the Central Council of Indian Medicine, which had regulated the sector since 1970.
    3. Jurisdiction: It covers education and practice in Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Sowa-Rigpa.
    4. Structure: It works through autonomous boards handling education standards, assessment and rating of institutions, and ethics and registration of practitioners.

  • Political demography, the future of democracy

    Why in the News

    Census 2027 operations are under way in India, and delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies is to follow the first Census after 2026. Political and religious leaders across parties and across countries are separately urging their own communities to have more children.

    Who is making the pronatalist call, and what are they asking for?

    1. A technology entrepreneur frames it as civilisational: Elon Musk describes falling birth rates as a major threat to civilisation, particularly western civilisation.
    2. The Andhra Pradesh appeal is addressed to Telugu families: The president of the Telugu Desam Party, who is also Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, has urged Telugu families to have more children.
    3. The Tamil appeal was made rhetorically: The president of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu invoked the idea of having “16 children” for Tamils.
    4. The Sangh call names a number: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief has explicitly called for Indian, and specifically Hindu, families to have three children.
    5. A religious institution makes the same ask: The Catholic Church asks its members to have bigger families.
    6. Tamil Nadu has converted rhetoric into an entitlement: The State government has extended one year maternity leave to women government employees who have a third child.
    7. A demographic remark drew censure from within: A Trinamool Congress Minister in West Bengal remarked in 2024 that Muslims could soon become a majority in the State, and the party distanced itself from the comment and condemned it.

    Why is political demography a thin field of study?

    1. The field treats population change as a political variable: Political demography studies how births, deaths, ageing and migration affect government policies, political power and international security.
    2. Two opposite pressures suppress the scholarship: Conspiracy theorists seeking political capital and demographic sceptics who read any discussion as nativism both crowd out serious work.
    3. It is marginal within both parent disciplines: The subject sits at the edge of political science and of demography rather than at the centre of either.
    4. Federal structure raises the stakes: In countries such as the United States and India, federalism interacts with demography and the economy at the same time.

    What does India’s fertility data actually show?

    1. The total fertility rate has fallen to 2.0: India is below replacement level at 2.0 children per woman according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5.
    2. Every major religious community has seen decline: Fertility fell across all of them, and the gap between communities is narrowing.
    3. Muslim fertility nearly halved in three decades: Pew Research using NFHS data found it fell from 4.4 children per woman in 1992 to 2.4 in 2019-21.
    4. The pace of decline is uneven: Regions and communities moved through the transition at different speeds even as the endpoint converged.

    Why is ageing, not fertility, the variable that separates States?

    1. Kerala is the oldest State: Its median age is estimated at 37 years in 2026 and projected to reach 47 years by 2051.
    2. Uttar Pradesh is among the youngest: Its median age is approximately 26.9 years.
    3. The national figure sits between the two: India’s projected median age is about 29.2 years in 2026.
    4. The gap will not close within a decade: Uttar Pradesh is projected to reach a median age of only 31.7 years even by 2036.
    5. Early success brings early ageing: Southern States achieved fertility decline earlier and face the possibility of ageing faster than States with younger populations.

    What does the international record show about reversing fertility decline?

    1. No country has reversed a sustained decline: Japan, South Korea, China and Italy introduced financial incentives, childcare support and parental leave, and none restored fertility to the levels seen in earlier decades.
    2. South Korea shows the limit of policy generosity: It continues to record extraordinarily low fertility despite extensive family policies.
    3. Italy repeats the result in Europe: Births have continued to decline there despite financial incentives and family support measures.
    4. Money is not the binding constraint: Fertility is tied to housing, employment, education, gender relations, the cost of raising children and people’s expectations about the future.

    How does the movement of people complicate representation?

    1. Internal migration is on a very large scale: The 2011 Census recorded about 45 crore internal migrants in India.
    2. Emigration is steady at the top end: Around two lakh Indians have given up Indian citizenship on average each year in recent years.
    3. The poor move for opportunity: Movement runs from places with fewer opportunities to places with greater opportunities, and the rich move for their own reasons.
    4. Vote value is not applied blindly: The principle of one person, one vote, one value operates in consonance with group rights of representation, so social federalism and political federalism are both part of India’s democratic design.

    What do demographic differences do to planning and politics?

    1. Larger groups will claim greater power: Groups whose numbers rise will press for a bigger share of political authority.
    2. Shrinking groups will feel insecure: A group losing share experiences that change as a threat to its standing.
    3. Care of the old becomes a fiscal claim: As the number of older and retired people grows relative to the working age population, their care requires a higher commitment of national resources.
    4. Movement of people and resources creates friction between States: Both flow from regions where there is more to regions where there is less.
    5. The disputes surface as fiscal and electoral questions: Regional demographic differences generate disputes over taxation, fiscal transfers, development and political representation.

    Why is the problem not that groups exist?

    1. Recognition of group identity is integral to democracy: Democratic practice already accommodates group identity rather than treating it as alien to itself.
    2. The political question is not who has more people: It is who has invested in development, who has fewer young people entering the workforce, who needs resources, and how representation should respond to those differences.
    3. The risk is permanence, not difference: Demographic difference becomes a democratic problem only when institutions convert it into permanent political antagonism.

    Challenges to pronatalism as a response to fertility decline

    1. Incentives do not reach the decision they target: Cash transfers and leave entitlements address the cost of a birth rather than the conditions that make raising a child feasible. Eg. Hungary exempted mothers of four children from personal income tax for life, and its fertility rate has stayed below replacement level.
      The Fix: Move spending from birth linked bonuses to childcare places, housing supply and secure employment, which are what the decision actually turns on.
    2. Pronatalist rhetoric attaches fertility to group identity: A call addressed to one’s own community converts a household decision into a demographic contest between communities. Eg. Replacement theory has moved from fringe forums into mainstream electoral campaigning in Europe and the United States.
      The Fix: Publish community wise fertility trends from official surveys at fixed intervals, so contested claims are settled against data rather than assertion.
    3. A higher birth rate cannot fix an ageing ratio in time: A child born today enters the workforce two decades later, and the care burden of an ageing population is immediate. Eg. Japan’s working age population began shrinking in the 1990s, and three decades of family policy have not altered its dependency trajectory.
      The Fix: Build long term care financing and raise participation by women and older workers, which change the ratio within the same decade.
    4. The cost of pronatalism falls on women: Higher birth targets translate into unpaid care time that reduces women’s participation in paid work. Eg. Domestic duties are recorded as the main reason women in India remain outside the labour force.
      The Fix: Tie any natalist entitlement to matched investment in creches, safe transport and paid paternity leave, so the time cost is shared.
    5. Population based seat allocation penalises the State that succeeded: A State that reduced fertility earlier ends with a smaller share of seats under any strictly population based formula. Eg. Tamil Nadu’s share of Lok Sabha seats would fall relative to its 1971 based share if seats were reallocated purely on current population.
      The Fix: Weight seat allocation with development and demographic performance indicators alongside population, rather than on population alone.

    Conclusion

    Demographic change in India is real, uneven and slow to reverse, and no political appeal has altered that pattern anywhere it has been tried. The democratic problem it creates is not that groups exist. It is how seats and money are divided between them at the moment the next redistribution falls due. What must change is that the formula be agreed before the population count is in hand, since every State’s position hardens the day its own number becomes public.

    Current Status of Delimitation in India

    1. Seat allocation is frozen on the 1971 Census: The 42nd Amendment, 1976 froze the allocation of Lok Sabha seats among States on 1971 population figures until 2000.
    2. The freeze was extended to the first Census after 2026: The 84th Amendment, 2001 carried it forward, which is why the next Census is the trigger for the exercise.
    3. Four Delimitation Commissions have been constituted: They were set up in 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002.
    4. The 2002 exercise changed boundaries, not State shares: Constituency boundaries within States were readjusted while each State’s total number of seats stayed at its 1971 based level.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Delimitation

    1. Article 81: Fixes the composition of the Lok Sabha and the principle that seats are allotted to States in proportion to population.
    2. Article 82: Requires Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every Census for readjustment of Lok Sabha seats.
    3. Article 170: Provides for readjustment of seats in State Legislative Assemblies after every Census.
    4. Article 327: Empowers Parliament to make provisions on all matters relating to elections, including delimitation.
    5. Article 329: Bars courts from interfering in electoral matters, including a delimitation order, except through an election petition.

    Major debates surrounding delimitation

    1. The value of a vote is unequal across States: A member from a populous State represents several times the electorate of a member from a small one, and correcting that is the case for revision.
    2. Federal balance sits against numerical parity: A revision keyed to current population moves weight towards States with slower fertility decline, which raises the question of what weight the Council of States should carry to offset it.
    3. The size of the House is contested: A substantially larger Lok Sabha raises questions about the quality of deliberation and the recurring cost of the institution.
    4. The women’s quota is linked to the exercise: The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 makes the 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies operative only after the next Census and delimitation.
    5. Boundary drawing is itself disputed: Redrawing constituencies invites gerrymandering allegations, and in the Northeast it runs into ethnic tension over tribal and non-tribal representation.

    [2024] How many Delimitation Commissions have been constituted by the Government of India till December 2023?

    (a) One

    (b) Two

    (c) Three

    (d) Four