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GS Paper: GS2

  • US: Will impose toughest sanctions in history on Iran

    Why in the News

    The United States Treasury Secretary announced on 20 August 2026 that Washington will impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran, to be layered on an existing naval blockade, with the stated objective of collapsing the Iranian government. The United States President separately warned that any country whose financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face economic consequences. That warning converts a bilateral war into a compliance problem for every third country that trades with Iran.

    What are secondary sanctions?

    1. Definition: Secondary sanctions penalise persons and firms in third countries for dealing with a sanctioned state, even where that dealing is lawful in their own jurisdiction. They extend a national measure into an extraterritorial one.
    2. How they bite: The penalty is exclusion, since a firm that trades with the target loses access to the sanctioning state’s financial system, markets and correspondent banking.
    3. Why the currency matters: Their reach depends on the sanctioning state’s currency being used for settlement, which is why United States measures affect countries that have no dispute with Washington.

    What is a naval blockade?

    1. Definition: A naval blockade is the use of warships to prevent vessels entering or leaving a state’s ports or coastline. It operates through force, unlike sanctions, which operate through law and financial exclusion.

    What does the announced sanctions package actually threaten?

    1. Stated severity: The United States Treasury Secretary said Washington will impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran.
    2. Combination with the blockade: He described the approach as combining the existing blockade on Iran with the new sanctions, rather than replacing one with the other.
    3. Stated objective: He said the approach would work in Iran and that Washington was going to collapse the government there.
    4. Announced framing: The United States President promised economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale, although details were scant.
    5. Detail still pending: The Treasury Secretary said he would hold a press conference on Monday to set out the specifics.

    Why does the lifeline warning make this a problem for third countries?

    1. The categories named: The warning covers any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran.
    2. The threatened consequence: Such a country would itself face economic consequences, stated as tremendous in scale.
    3. The timing: The warning was issued on Wednesday, ahead of the sanctions announcement, which places third countries on notice before the measures are published.
    4. Breadth of the categories: Airports and government entities extend the threat beyond banking to transport and to state to state dealings.
    5. Absence of a threshold: No minimum value or category of transaction was specified, so the scope of what counts as a lifeline remains undefined.

    Why have the two ceasefires failed to hold?

    1. Origin of the war: The United States began the war alongside Israel nearly six months before the sanctions announcement.
    2. Two attempts: The United States and Iran twice announced ceasefire deals, in April and in June.
    3. Their stated purpose: Both aimed to restore the free flow of shipping through Hormuz as a path towards ending the conflict.
    4. Both collapsed: Both deals quickly crumbled, even as Israel largely withdrew from the fighting.
    5. Leadership transition in Tehran: A 40 day commemoration ceremony for the former Iranian Supreme Leader was held in Karbala on 20 August 2026, attended by Iran’s Parliament Speaker.

    What is Iran’s counter-position?

    1. Characterisation of the measures: Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the fresh United States economic and trade sanctions, saying they targeted ordinary Iranians.
    2. The legal charge: The ministry described the measures as economic terrorism and as crimes against humanity.
    3. Attribution of motive: The Iranian Foreign Minister called the announcement an attempt to divert American public opinion from domestic financial problems, including record debt and rising interest rates.
    4. The wider claim: He argued that American economic terrorism threatens the global economy and the national sovereignty of countries around the world.
    5. The retained lever: Tehran continues its own economic pressure campaign by keeping the Strait of Hormuz largely closed.

    Why has Oman become the pivot of the Hormuz question?

    1. A separate negotiation: Iran has been negotiating an agreement on managing the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, and has said several times in recent weeks that an agreement was close.
    2. The American response: The United States President responded to those negotiations on Monday by warning that he might bomb the Gulf state if it gets in the way.
    3. The anomaly in that threat: Oman is a longstanding United States security partner, which makes the threat a warning to an ally rather than to an adversary.
    4. Oman’s stated position: The Omani Foreign Minister said lasting security in the strait required a permanent peace in the region and rejected further escalation.
    5. Its diplomatic posture: He made the statement after meeting his Japanese counterpart, which places the strait’s management within a wider set of energy importing interests.

    What does the escalation mean for India?

    1. Energy route exposure: A large share of India’s crude, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports transits the Strait of Hormuz, so the strait’s closure raises India’s landed energy costs regardless of who supplies the cargo.
    2. Precedent of forced exit: India stopped importing Iranian crude in May 2019 after United States waivers under the sanctions regime lapsed, ending what had been one of its largest supply relationships.
    3. Connectivity investment at risk: India signed a ten year contract in May 2024 to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar port in Iran, an asset whose viability depends on the sanctions environment.
    4. Corridor implications: The International North South Transport Corridor to Russia and Central Asia runs through Iranian territory, so secondary sanctions affect a route India built to bypass Pakistan.
    5. Existing exposure to secondary measures: India has already navigated the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, 2017 over its purchase of the S-400 air defence system, which shows the compliance question is not new.

    Challenges to a sanctions-led approach

    1. Poor record at producing regime change: Comprehensive sanctions rarely dislodge governments and often consolidate them. Eg. Cuba has been under a United States embargo since 1962 without a change of political system.
    2. Humanitarian burden falls on civilians: Restrictions on banking and shipping obstruct food and medicine even when formally exempted. Eg. Iran’s foreign ministry stated that the measures targeted ordinary Iranians and amounted to crimes against humanity.
    3. Evasion through parallel networks: Targets build shadow fleets, front companies and barter arrangements that blunt enforcement. Eg. United States sanctions on Hezbollah have repeatedly targeted courier networks and exchange houses used as fronts for cash movement.
    4. Erosion of the sanctioning currency’s role: Extraterritorial reach pushes third countries to settle trade outside the dollar. Eg. India has implemented the Special Rupee Vostro Account framework for invoicing, payment and settlement of international trade in rupees.
    5. Alliance friction: Threats against partners weaken the coalition needed for enforcement. Eg. The United States President warned he might bomb Oman, a longstanding American security partner, over its Hormuz negotiations with Iran.
    6. Counter escalation by the target: A sanctioned state with a chokepoint can impose costs on the sanctioning coalition’s own economies. Eg. Iran keeps the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, which carries 20 percent of global oil and 20 percent of global LNG.
    7. Legal contestation of extraterritoriality: Third states dispute the authority of one country to regulate transactions between two others. Eg. The European Union’s Blocking Statute was updated in 1996 and again in 2018 to shield European firms from United States extraterritorial sanctions on Iran.

    Conclusion

    The United States has moved from military coercion to declared economic warfare against Iran, pairing an existing naval blockade with sanctions described as the toughest in history and aimed openly at collapsing the government in Tehran. The lifeline warning extends the measures to third countries, while Iran retains its own lever by keeping the Strait of Hormuz largely closed and negotiating its management with Oman. The next milestone is the United States Treasury Secretary’s announced press conference on Monday setting out the details, with the Iran Oman understanding on the strait the other outstanding variable.

    About Economic Statecraft

    1. About: Economic statecraft is the use of economic instruments, positive and negative, to change another state’s behaviour without resorting to force.
    2. Rationale: It exists because military action is costly and diplomatic protest is weak, so states seek an intermediate instrument that imposes real cost while remaining below the threshold of war.
    3. Positive inducements: Aid, trade preferences, market access and investment offered to secure a policy change.
    4. Comprehensive sanctions: Blanket restrictions on trade and finance with an entire economy, which impose broad cost but weak targeting.
    5. Targeted or smart sanctions: Asset freezes, travel bans and entity listings aimed at named individuals, firms and sectors, designed to spare the general population.
    6. Primary sanctions: Prohibitions binding on the sanctioning state’s own persons, firms and jurisdiction.
    7. Secondary sanctions: Penalties on third country persons for dealing with the target, which give a national measure global reach.
    8. Multilateral sanctions: Measures mandated by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII, binding on all member states.

    Key Concerns Regarding Economic Statecraft

    1. Sovereignty and extraterritoriality: Secondary sanctions require states to enforce another state’s foreign policy inside their own jurisdiction. Eg. The French bank BNP Paribas paid about $8.9 billion to United States authorities in 2014 for processing transactions involving Sudan, Iran and Cuba.
    2. Humanitarian spillover: Financial de-risking by banks blocks exempted humanitarian trade because compliance officers avoid any exposure to a sanctioned jurisdiction. Eg. The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement was created in 2020 because ordinary banking channels would not carry payments for food and medicine to Iran.
    3. Fragmentation of the payments system: Repeated use of currency dominance as leverage accelerates the construction of alternative settlement channels and reduces future leverage. Eg. Russia built the System for Transfer of Financial Messages in 2014 as a domestic substitute for international bank messaging channels.
    4. Weak exit mechanism: Sanctions are politically easy to impose and hard to lift, so they persist beyond the objective they were designed to achieve. Eg. The Jackson Vanik amendment of 1974 remained applicable to Russia until its repeal in 2012, long after the emigration restrictions it targeted had ended.
    5. Measurement problem: There is no agreed method to establish that a policy change was caused by sanctions rather than by other pressures, which makes evaluation contested. Eg. Iranian oil exports fell sharply after the reimposition of sanctions in 2018 while the nuclear programme expanded, leaving both outcomes attributed to the same measures.

    Laws and Instruments Governing Sanctions

    1. Charter of the United Nations, 1945: Article 41 empowers the Security Council to decide measures not involving the use of armed force, including complete or partial interruption of economic relations, which are binding on all member states.
    2. International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 1977: The principal United States statute allowing the President to declare a national emergency and regulate or block transactions with foreign persons.
    3. Iran Sanctions Act, 1996: Originally the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, it introduced penalties on foreign firms investing in Iran’s energy sector, establishing the secondary sanctions template.
    4. Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act, 2010: Widened the reach of energy sector sanctions and brought refined petroleum supply to Iran within their scope.
    5. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, 2017: Codified sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea and limited the President’s discretion to waive them.

    India’s Measures to Manage Sanctions and Energy Risk

    1. Special Rupee Vostro Account framework: A Reserve Bank of India mechanism for invoicing, payment and settlement of international trade in rupees, reducing dependence on third currency settlement.
    2. Chabahar port agreement: A ten year contract signed in May 2024 to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal, giving India a sea route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that bypasses Pakistan.
    3. International North South Transport Corridor: A multimodal ship, rail and road route linking India to Russia and Central Asia through Iran, shortening transit time against the Suez route.
    4. Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Underground crude caverns at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur operated by Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited to cushion supply interruptions.
    5. Supplier diversification: Term and spot procurement spread across Russian, West Asian, West African and American grades to reduce dependence on any single sanctioned or chokepoint dependent source.

    Key Facts about United States Iran Relations

    1. 1979 Islamic Revolution: Ended the monarchy and was followed by the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the severing of diplomatic relations.
    2. 1984 designation: The United States designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, which triggered a standing set of trade and aid restrictions.
    3. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 2015: Concluded in July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group, it limited Iran’s enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.
    4. 2018 withdrawal: The United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions under a maximum pressure strategy.
    5. India’s exit from Iranian crude: India ended imports of Iranian crude oil in May 2019 after United States waivers expired.
    6. Strait of Hormuz weight: The strait carries about 20 million barrels of oil a day, 20 percent of global oil and 20 percent of global LNG.

    Back2Basics: Strait of Hormuz

    1. Designation: A maritime chokepoint connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
    2. Littoral states: Iran lies on the northern shore and controls seven of the eight islands in the strait, while Oman controls the southern entrance through the Musandam exclave.
    3. External presence: The United States Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, acts as the external guarantor of transit through the strait.
    4. Energy weight: It carries the highest concentration of energy flow of any chokepoint in the world.
    5. Comparative chokepoints: The Strait of Malacca carries 23.7 percent of global seaborne trade and 80 percent of China’s energy imports, Bab el Mandeb carries 8.7 percent of global trade as the sole southern gateway to the Suez Canal, and the Suez Canal itself carries 12 percent of global maritime commerce with closure adding 9 to 17 sailing days.

    Challenges in the West Asian Security and Energy Order

    1. Chokepoint dependence with no land alternative: Pipeline bypasses cover only a fraction of the volume that moves by sea. Eg. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects 20 million barrels a day, which no existing pipeline network can absorb.
    2. Non state armed actors controlling shorelines: Sea lanes can be closed by groups that hold coastline without holding a state. Eg. The Houthis control the eastern Yemeni shore of Bab el Mandeb in practice.
    3. Proxy networks that survive sanctions on the principal: Financial pressure on a state does not disable the armed groups it funds. Eg. The United States redesignated Hezbollah for service to the Iranian government under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.
    4. Overlapping external guarantors: Multiple outside powers with competing objectives raise the risk of miscalculation. Eg. The United States threatened to strike Oman over its Hormuz talks while relying on Omani mediation with Iran.
    5. Absence of a regional security architecture: There is no equivalent of a regional organisation with dispute settlement authority for the Gulf. Eg. The management of the Strait of Hormuz is being negotiated bilaterally between Iran and Oman rather than through any regional body.
    6. Energy revenue concentration in importing economies: Importing states have limited fiscal room to absorb a price shock. Eg. Every $1 per barrel increase raises India’s oil import bill by up to $2 billion on an annualised basis.
    7. Recognition and legitimacy disputes: Contested political authority complicates any negotiated settlement. Eg. Iran’s own leadership transition was marked by a 40 day commemoration for the former Supreme Leader in August 2026.

    Way Forward

    1. Seek carve outs early rather than after listing: India should engage the United States Treasury on humanitarian, food and connectivity carve outs before the sanctions text is notified.
    2. Protect the Chabahar exemption: Press for the continuation of the project specific exemption that has allowed the Shahid Beheshti terminal to operate, given its Afghanistan and Central Asia connectivity function.
    3. Accelerate non dollar settlement channels: Expand the Special Rupee Vostro Account framework and rupee invoicing so that legitimate trade is not hostage to correspondent banking access.
    4. Diversify the maritime route, not only the supplier: Build term contracts with Atlantic basin and West African producers whose cargoes do not transit Hormuz.
    5. Support de-escalation through the Oman channel: Back a negotiated framework for managing the strait, since reopening it does more for importing economies than any adjustment to sanctions design.
    6. Insulate the corridor investments: Structure International North South Transport Corridor participation through non sanctioned entities and multilateral instruments to limit exposure.
    7. Build reserve depth ahead of escalation: Complete Phase II of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so that a sanctions driven supply interruption does not translate immediately into a price shock.

    “[2018, GS2, 15] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?”

  • Shah hails southern states: ‘Biggest contributor to nation’s development’

    Why in the News

    The 31st meeting of the Southern Zonal Council was held at Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu on 20 August 2026, chaired by the Union Home Minister, who described South India as the biggest contributor to the country’s development. Every demand the southern States tabled at the same meeting asked that this contribution not cost them seats, funds or control over shared resources. The praise and the agenda therefore pointed in opposite directions.

    What are the Zonal Councils?

    1. What they are: Zonal Councils are advisory bodies that bring the States and Union Territories of a region together with the Centre to discuss matters of common interest. There are five Zonal Councils, covering the Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern zones.
    2. Their legal basis: They were created by Sections 15 to 22 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, so they are statutory bodies and not constitutional ones.
    3. Who sits on them: The Union Home Minister is the chairman of each Zonal Council. The Chief Ministers of the member States are members, with the office of vice chairman rotating annually among them, and each State also nominates two other ministers.
    4. What they can do: They discuss and make recommendations on inter State disputes, economic and social planning, border and linguistic minority issues, and matters arising from State reorganisation. Their conclusions are recommendatory and carry no binding force.

    What did the Union Home Minister set out as the South’s contribution?

    1. The three pillars named: The development journey of South India was attributed to three pillars, namely a high literacy rate, trained manpower, and technical expertise in the utilisation of deep seas.
    2. The sectors credited: The region was said to have contributed across literature, research and development, space, information technology, artificial intelligence, industrial development and agriculture, with the automobile, pharmaceutical and infrastructure sectors also named.
    3. The instruction drawn from it: The rest of the country was asked to learn from South India on innovation and revenue generation.
    4. The timeframe set: The Independence Day message that what has not been achieved in the last seven decades must be accomplished in the next five to seven years was underlined, with every State asked to contribute.
    5. Water framed as the region’s constraint: Water was described as the soul of the region across four areas, namely agriculture, industry, healthy citizens and the environment.
    6. The proposal on rivers: Linking major rivers from the Brahmaputra to the Kaveri and the Godavari was put forward as a way to ensure the country faces no water shortage for the next 100 years.
    7. The nutrition point: Malnutrition and stunted growth were described as snowballing into a national problem, with the fight against malnutrition credited to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh before it was accepted across India.

    What did each southern State place before the Council?

    1. Kerala: The State sought State specific premiums for the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana in place of a uniform national premium, eligibility aligned with the National Food Security Act, 2013 database, and a revised central share reflecting actual expenditure incurred on centrally sponsored families. It also sought a more equitable and flexible funding approach for centrally sponsored schemes and asked that auctioning of mineral blocks along the Kerala coast be put on hold.
    2. Kerala on Mullaperiyar: The State reaffirmed its willingness to supply water to Tamil Nadu from a new dam it has proposed at Mullaperiyar in Idukki district in place of the existing structure, offering to bear the construction expense while leaving construction and location to Tamil Nadu.
    3. Karnataka: The State argued that success in population control must not be allowed to diminish southern political representation, urged the Centre to reconsider the recently passed Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, and pressed for fairness in funds, voice and respect.
    4. Karnataka on delimitation: The State urged the Council to adopt a resolution calling on the Centre to honour the 1971 Census as the basis for delimitation.
    5. Tamil Nadu: The State conveyed its concerns on delimitation and pressed that the existing freeze on the number of Lok Sabha seats should continue. It asserted its position on increasing the storage height of the Mullaperiyar Dam.
    6. Tamil Nadu on the terms of the relationship: The State stated that southern States seek not preferential treatment but fair and equitable treatment that respects fiscal autonomy and rewards performance alongside equity.
    7. Andhra Pradesh: The State projected that the southern economy could reach $10 trillion by 2047, sought greater cooperation among States in the region and urged the Centre to expedite resolution of bifurcation related issues.
    8. Telangana: The State stated that established adjudicatory mechanisms on Krishna waters must be respected and reiterated that it retains lower riparian rights over surplus waters. It stated that it sought no special privilege but only its fair entitlement through the legal mechanisms already established.
    9. Telangana on the method: The State stated that cooperative federalism should provide a framework for resolving inter State issues in a fair, time bound and legally sustainable manner.
    10. The demand two States made jointly: Tamil Nadu and Karnataka both urged that the existing number of Lok Sabha seats be frozen and that women’s reservation be accommodated within the current number of seats.
    11. What the Council recorded as agreed: On the division of assets and liabilities between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, both States agreed to resolve the matters in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs. On pending water issues, the southern States agreed to early resolution through meetings involving the ministries concerned, the Inter-State Council and the respective States.

    Why does delimitation dominate the southern agenda?

    1. The freeze is the source of the current seat distribution: The number of Lok Sabha seats allotted to each State has been held at the 1971 Census population, so States that reduced fertility fastest have not lost seats for doing so.
    2. The freeze has an expiry: The freeze runs until the first Census taken after 2026, after which readjustment on current population becomes constitutionally due.
    3. Performance and representation move in opposite directions: States that completed the demographic transition earliest have the slowest population growth, so a population based readjustment reduces their share of the House.
    4. The demand is for the freeze to be extended, not for a new formula: Tamil Nadu and Karnataka both asked that the existing number of seats continue rather than proposing an alternative allocation rule.
    5. Women’s reservation raises the stakes: Accommodating the reserved seats within the current total, as both States asked, keeps the reservation from becoming a reason to expand the House on a population basis.

    Why do water disputes keep returning to the Council table?

    1. The rivers are inter State and the users are not: The Krishna, the Kaveri and the Godavari cross State boundaries, so every allocation decision transfers water from one electorate to another.
    2. Adjudication and negotiation run in parallel: Telangana pressed that established adjudicatory mechanisms be respected on Krishna waters, which places a tribunal award and a Council discussion on the same question at the same time.
    3. A structure can outlive its settlement: The Mullaperiyar dispute turns on the storage height of an ageing structure, with Kerala proposing a replacement dam and Tamil Nadu asserting a claim over storage in the existing one.
    4. Ownership and operation are split: Kerala offered to bear the cost of a new dam while leaving construction and location to Tamil Nadu, which separates who pays from who controls.
    5. Interlinking is offered as the way past allocation: The proposal to link the Brahmaputra to the Kaveri and the Godavari reframes a distribution dispute as a supply problem, which shifts it out of the tribunal system and into a capital project.

    Can a body without binding power settle demands of this kind?

    1. The Council can only recommend: Nothing decided at a Zonal Council binds the Centre or any State, so agreement at the table is a statement of intent rather than a settlement.
    2. The demands are not within its gift: Delimitation is fixed by the Constitution and by Parliament, mineral taxation by a central Act, and river water allocation by tribunals under a separate statute.
    3. What it did settle was procedural: The two outcomes recorded, on Andhra Pradesh and Telangana assets and on pending water issues, were agreements to hold further consultations rather than agreements on substance.
    4. The forum multiplies rather than converges: Water issues were referred onward to the ministries concerned, the Inter-State Council and the States, which adds forums to a dispute rather than closing it.
    5. The tension the meeting exposed: The southern States were praised for performance and simultaneously asked the Centre to ensure that performance does not reduce their seats, their scheme funding or their control over coastal minerals.

    Challenges to the Zonal Council as a forum for resolving these demands

    1. Meetings are irregular and agenda driven: A Council that meets once in a year or longer cannot track an issue between sittings, so items are carried forward rather than closed. Eg. The Southern Zonal Council reached only its 31st meeting in 2026, seven decades after the Councils were created in 1956.
    2. Recommendations carry no enforcement: There is no mechanism to compel a member State or the Centre to act on a resolution the Council adopts. Eg. Karnataka’s request that the Council resolve to honour the 1971 Census for delimitation would bind neither Parliament nor the Centre even if adopted.
    3. The Council has no dispute settlement power over water: Inter State river water disputes are reserved to tribunals by statute, so the Council can discuss but not decide them. Eg. The Krishna waters question was placed before the Council even as Telangana insisted that established adjudicatory mechanisms be respected.
    4. Fiscal questions sit outside its mandate: Scheme design and the central share are decided by the Union ministries and the Finance Commission, not by a regional council. Eg. Kerala’s request for State specific Ayushman Bharat premiums has to be settled by the health ministry, not by the Council.
    5. Asymmetry of the chair: The Union Home Minister chairs the Council, so the Centre presides over a forum where the principal counterparty in most disputes is the Centre itself. Eg. Karnataka used the meeting to ask the Centre to reconsider a central Act on mineral taxation.
    6. Overlapping bodies dilute accountability: The Inter-State Council, the NITI Aayog Governing Council, the Goods and Services Tax Council and the Zonal Councils all handle Centre State coordination without a clear division of subjects. Eg. The pending water issues were referred simultaneously to the concerned ministries, the Inter-State Council and the States.

    Conclusion

    The Council closed with agreement on two procedural points, namely further consultation on the division of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana assets and further meetings on pending water issues, and the next step lies with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The substantive demands raised, on delimitation, on the freeze on Lok Sabha seats, on centrally sponsored scheme funding and on coastal mineral auctions, remain with Parliament and the Union ministries. The meeting confirmed that the southern States are asking to be held harmless for the very performance they were praised for. That question cannot be answered by a body whose conclusions are recommendatory.

    What is Cooperative Federalism?

    1. About: Cooperative federalism is a working arrangement in which the Union and the States act as collaborating levels of the same government rather than as rival sovereigns, coordinating through joint institutions on subjects that neither can handle alone.
    2. Rationale: It exists because the Indian Constitution distributes powers between two levels while leaving many problems, such as river water, internal migration, public health and taxation of a single national market, indivisible across those levels.
    3. The institutional forms it takes:
    4. Constitutional coordination bodies: The Inter-State Council and the Finance Commission are created by the Constitution itself rather than by statute.
    5. Statutory coordination bodies: The Zonal Councils under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 and the North Eastern Council under its own 1971 statute are created by Parliament.
    6. Executive coordination bodies: The NITI Aayog Governing Council and its Regional Councils operate through executive resolution rather than statute.
    7. Constitutionally mandated joint decision bodies: The Goods and Services Tax Council under Article 279A takes decisions binding in practice on both levels through a weighted vote.
    8. The doctrinal companion: Competitive federalism describes States competing on outcome indicators for investment and rank, and operates alongside cooperative federalism rather than replacing it.

    Key Concerns Regarding Cooperative Federalism

    1. The Governor’s office as a point of friction: Reservation of Bills for the President’s consideration and indefinite withholding of assent place an appointee of the Centre inside the State legislative process.
    2. Central agencies operating in State subjects: Police and public order are State List subjects, while central investigative agencies operate within States, and several States have withdrawn general consent for such operations.
    3. Unilateral legislation on Concurrent List subjects: Parliament can legislate on Concurrent List entries without State agreement, and central law prevails over State law under Article 254 in the event of repugnancy.
    4. Central control over the higher civil service: All India Service officers serve in the States but are governed by central cadre rules, so deputation and disciplinary control sit with the Centre.
    5. Coordination bodies meet at the Centre’s discretion: The Inter-State Council and the Zonal Councils have no fixed calendar in the Constitution or the statute, so their frequency depends on the Union executive.
    6. Reorganisation obligations remain open for years: Division of assets and liabilities after State bifurcation is left to be settled by consultation, which leaves successor States negotiating long after reorganisation.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Centre State Coordination

    1. Article 246 with the Seventh Schedule: Distributes legislative power across the Union List, the State List and the Concurrent List.
    2. Article 254: Provides that central law prevails over a repugnant State law on a Concurrent List subject, subject to Presidential assent for the State law.
    3. Article 262: Empowers Parliament to provide for adjudication of disputes over the waters of inter State rivers and to bar the jurisdiction of courts, including the Supreme Court, over such disputes.
    4. Article 263: Empowers the President to establish an Inter-State Council to inquire into and advise upon inter State disputes and to investigate and discuss subjects of common interest.
    5. Article 279A: Establishes the Goods and Services Tax Council as a joint forum of the Centre and the States with a weighted voting formula.
    6. Article 280: Establishes the Finance Commission to recommend the distribution of net tax proceeds between the Union and the States and the principles governing grants in aid.
    7. Article 281 and Article 282: Require Finance Commission recommendations to be laid before Parliament, and allow the Union and the States to make grants for any public purpose, which is the constitutional basis for centrally sponsored schemes.
    8. Article 81 and Article 82: Fix the composition of the Lok Sabha and require readjustment of seat allocation among States after each Census, on the terms Parliament determines.
    9. Article 293: Places conditions on State borrowing where a State is indebted to the Union.
    10. Article 131: Confers original jurisdiction on the Supreme Court in disputes between the Government of India and one or more States.

    Laws and Rules Governing Inter State Coordination

    1. States Reorganisation Act, 1956: Reorganised the States on a linguistic basis and created the five Zonal Councils.
    2. Sections 15 to 22 establish the Councils, fix their composition and define their advisory functions on inter State and Centre State matters.
    3. North Eastern Council Act, 1971: Created a sixth regional council for the north eastern States, later amended in 2002 to add Sikkim and to make the Council a regional planning body.
    4. Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956: Provides for the constitution of a tribunal where a State complains that its interests in an inter State river are affected.
    5. The 2002 amendment fixed a one year deadline for constituting a tribunal and a three year deadline for its award, with a further two year extension permitted.
    6. Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014: Governs the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, including the division of assets, liabilities and institutions still under negotiation.
    7. Inter-State Council Order, 1990: The Presidential order that constituted the Inter-State Council on a recommendation of the Sarkaria Commission on Centre State relations, and defined its duties.
    8. It makes the Prime Minister the chairman, with the Chief Ministers of all States, the Chief Ministers of Union Territories with legislatures, administrators of other Union Territories and six Union Cabinet Ministers nominated by the Prime Minister as members.
    9. A Standing Committee chaired by the Union Home Minister handles continuous consultation, and the Council Secretariat functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
    10. Its recommendations are not binding on the Centre or on any State.

    Challenges in Centre State Fiscal and Resource Relations

    1. The divisible pool is smaller than the tax collected: Cesses and surcharges are not shared with the States, so revenue can rise without the States’ share rising with it. Eg. Kerala pressed at the Council for a revised central share reflecting actual expenditure incurred on centrally sponsored families.
    2. Centrally sponsored schemes carry uniform design across unequal States: A single national parameter ignores differences in cost, disease burden and delivery capacity across States. Eg. Kerala asked for State specific premiums under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana in place of a uniform national premium.
    3. Resource decisions on State territory are taken centrally: Auction and regulation of major minerals sit with the Centre while the resource and its social costs sit in the State. Eg. Kerala asked that auctioning of mineral blocks along its coast be put on hold, and Karnataka asked the Centre to reconsider the 2026 mineral law amendment.
    4. River water adjudication is slow enough to become a political dispute: Tribunal timelines stretch across electoral cycles, so States negotiate politically while adjudication is pending. Eg. The Krishna waters allocation between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana remained live at the Council table.
    5. Bifurcation settlements remain unfinished for years: Division of assets, liabilities and institutions is left to consultation without a deadline. Eg. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana agreed at this meeting to resolve asset and liability division in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, twelve years after reorganisation.
    6. Fiscal performance is not rewarded in the transfer formula: Devolution weights population and income distance heavily, so States with better demographic and fiscal outcomes receive a smaller share. Eg. Tamil Nadu stated at the meeting that it seeks treatment that rewards performance alongside equity.
    7. Borrowing headroom is set by the Centre: State borrowing limits are fixed centrally under Article 293 and under the fiscal responsibility framework, which caps State led capital spending. Eg. Andhra Pradesh projected a $10 trillion southern economy by 2047, a target that depends on capital expenditure the States do not independently control.

    Way Forward

    1. Fix a statutory meeting calendar for the Councils: Require the Zonal Councils and the Inter-State Council to meet at a defined minimum frequency, with published agendas and action taken reports on earlier resolutions.
    2. Create an action taken mechanism: Record each Council recommendation against a named ministry with a response deadline, so a recommendation produces a documented decision rather than a carry forward.
    3. Settle the delimitation question before the freeze lapses: Resolve the basis for readjustment through a parliamentary process now, rather than allowing the constitutional deadline to force it.
    4. Cap cesses and surcharges as a share of gross tax revenue: Limit the proportion of central tax revenue kept outside the divisible pool so that devolution tracks actual collections.
    5. Allow State specific parameters within national schemes: Permit variation in premium, unit cost and beneficiary definition within centrally sponsored schemes where a State demonstrates a different cost structure.
    6. Enforce the statutory timelines for water tribunals: Apply the one year constitution and three year award deadlines strictly, and use a single permanent tribunal with benches to prevent each dispute restarting from the beginning.
    7. Close reorganisation settlements with a deadline: Fix an outer date for completing the division of assets, liabilities and institutions under reorganisation statutes, with an arbitral mechanism where consultation fails.

    “[2025] With reference to India, consider the following:

    I. The Inter-State Council

    II. The National Security Council

    III. Zonal Councils

    How many of the above were established as per the provisions of the Constitution of India?

    (a) Only one

    (b) Only two

    (c) All the three

    (d) None

  • Why are South Asians missing from global health databases

    Why in the News

    Genome wide association studies between 2005 and 2025 drew more than 86 per cent of their participants from European ancestry populations, while South Asians accounted for less than 1 per cent. That skew is now being carried into the reference atlases used to train artificial intelligence models in medicine, which converts a historical sampling gap into a bias that reproduces itself at clinical scale across South Asia and the wider low and middle income world.

    What is an integrated biobank?

    1. Definition: An integrated biobank is a large repository that stores biological samples from consenting participants alongside linked data about them, and makes both available to researchers.
    2. What it integrates: It combines participants’ genomic information with electronic health records, environmental exposures and lifestyle data, so that genetic variation can be read against real health outcomes.

    What is a genome wide association study?

    1. Definition: A genome wide association study (GWAS) scans the genomes of many individuals to find genetic variants that occur more often in people with a particular disease than in people without it.
    2. What it produces: It yields a list of variants statistically associated with a trait or disease, which is the raw material for downstream risk prediction tools.

    What is a polygenic risk score?

    1. Definition: A polygenic risk score combines the effects of many genetic variants associated with a disease to estimate a person’s overall genetic risk for it.
    2. Why ancestry matters to it: The score’s weights are derived from the population it was built in, so applying it to a population with a different variant frequency structure changes its accuracy.

    What is a single cell atlas?

    1. Definition: A single cell atlas is a reference map that catalogues the gene activity of individual cells across tissues and organs, rather than of a tissue sample as a whole.

    What is a low and middle income country?

    1. Definition: Low and middle income countries are the economies classified by the World Bank below the high income threshold on gross national income per capita, a grouping used in global health to identify where disease burden and research funding diverge.
    2. Why the category is used here: The under representation problem is stated at the level of this group, with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as instances inside it rather than as separate cases.

    What are potential years of life lost?

    1. Definition: Potential years of life lost is a measure of premature mortality that counts the years a person would have lived had they reached a reference life expectancy.
    2. What it captures that a death count does not: It weights a death at a young age more heavily than a death in old age, which is why it shifts burden sharply towards countries with high early mortality.

    What is G6PD deficiency?

    1. Definition: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is an inherited enzyme disorder that can cause a form of anaemia when red blood cells break down under oxidative stress from certain drugs, infections or foods.

    What is metabolic syndrome?

    1. Definition: Metabolic syndrome is a clustering of obesity, raised blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol and high blood pressure that together raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

    How large is the ancestry gap in global genomic databases?

    1. The genome wide association study record: The GWAS Catalogue is maintained by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). It records that more than 86 per cent of participants in these studies between 2005 and 2025 were of European ancestry.
    2. The South Asian share: South Asians accounted for less than 1 per cent of participants over that same twenty year period.
    3. The gap at the country income level: Over 90 per cent of the world’s potential years of life lost occurred in low and middle income countries. About 10 per cent of global health research funding addressed the health needs of those countries.
    4. The share of humanity excluded: More than 20 per cent of the world is being neglected in multi modal data integration, and the exclusion denies those populations the opportunity to attain the maximal possible health.
    5. The pattern repeats in newer tools: A study published in Cell Genomics reviewed more than 13,500 samples across three major single cell resources and found a striking and pervasive European over representation alongside under representation of Asian and Latino individuals.
    6. The three resources reviewed: The study covered the Human Cell Atlas, the Human Tumour Atlas Network and the PsychAD Consortium.
    7. South Asians absent from the biobanks too: South Asians remain largely absent from integrated biobanks such as the U.K. Biobank, which are the repositories that transformed biomedical research.

    Why does a European skewed dataset produce worse clinical tools for South Asians?

    1. The burden runs the other way: South Asians face higher rates of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma than people of European ancestry, so the tools built on European heavy data are least accurate for the population that needs them most.
    2. The diabetes case: More than one in ten adults globally now live with diabetes, the risk is higher for people of South Asian ancestry and it appears earlier than in many other populations.
    3. India’s projected burden: The number of people with diabetes in India alone is projected to reach 125 million by 2045.
    4. Risk scores lose accuracy across ancestry: A 2023 study found that polygenic risk scores for multiple sclerosis were less accurate when applied to South Asian populations.
    5. Functional predictions are untested: Most predictions about how variants affect gene expression or cell function are inferred from European datasets, and it is not known which of those predictions hold in South Asians.
    6. The consequence for drug discovery: This limits the ability to understand disease mechanisms and to identify drug targets relevant to South Asian populations.
    7. Thresholds themselves need recalibration: Diagnostic thresholds, risk scores and prediction models developed predominantly from European populations require validation and, where necessary, recalibration using South Asian data.

    Why can South Asia not be treated as a single genetic block?

    1. One of the most diverse populations on earth: South Asia constitutes one of the most diverse human populations in the world, shaped by thousands of years of migration, cultural diversity, endogamy and consanguineous marriages.
    2. Lumping erases the differences: Much existing research groups South Asians, Southeast Asians, West Asians and other Asian populations together, obscuring important differences between them.
    3. Variation within the region: G6PD deficiency varies considerably across South Asia, with some ethnic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan carrying the trait at much higher rates than others.
    4. Variation within a single population: A study from Sri Lanka found that cardiometabolic risk did not fit into a single metabolic syndrome profile, and within the same population men and women showed distinct patterns of obesity, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure.
    5. The scale of Indian variation: The GenomeIndia Project has already identified more than 40 million genetic variants unique to the Indian population.
    6. Who must be sampled: India cannot realistically be treated as one genetic block, and inclusion must extend to distinct endogamous and tribal groups rather than a few urban cohorts, since many of the harmful variants found there are not seen anywhere else.

    Why is the data missing in the first place?

    1. Infrastructure followed the money: Research funding, institutions, registries, biobanks and large population cohorts have historically been built and sustained where the money already was.
    2. What that left behind: Low and middle income countries were left with inadequate laboratory infrastructure, inadequate biobanking facilities and too few trained personnel to run comparable studies at scale.
    3. The imbalance is not only financial: It shapes whose problems are studied, whose questions are prioritised and whose evidence informs health policy and practice.
    4. Ancestry classification practice: Where non European participants are recruited, they are frequently pooled into broad continental categories, which means the data collected does not resolve the differences it was collected to capture.

    Why is genomic research hard for South Asian countries to prioritise?

    1. Competing immediate needs: For most South Asian countries genomic research is difficult to prioritise against more immediate and pressing public health demands.
    2. Infectious disease: Communicable disease control absorbs public health budgets and personnel that a genomics programme would otherwise draw on.
    3. Maternal and child health: Maternal and child health programmes command prior claim because their outcomes are measurable within a single planning cycle.
    4. Non communicable diseases: Treatment and screening for non communicable diseases compete for the same budget line that genomic infrastructure would need.
    5. The mismatch in horizons: Genomic infrastructure returns value over a decade or more, while the health systems being asked to fund it are assessed on annual outcome indicators.
    6. Why deferring is costly: Every year the region defers, the reference atlases and the models trained on them are built further without it, which raises the cost of correction later.

    What genomic cohorts already exist in South Asia and why do they not add up?

    1. GenomeIndia: India’s national population reference cohort.
    2. Phenome India: An Indian longitudinal cohort linking health, lifestyle and clinical measurements across participants.
    3. Longevity India: An Indian cohort focused on ageing and the biological determinants of long life.
    4. Sri Lankan Twin Registry Biobank: A Sri Lankan registry and biobank built around twin pairs, which permits separation of genetic and environmental effects.
    5. Pakistan Genome Resource: A Pakistani national genomic resource built on population sampling.
    6. Why they do not combine: These independent cohorts and biobanks are mostly focused on individual diseases or specific populations, and often use different systems for collecting and storing data, which makes it difficult to bring them together for large genetic studies.
    7. The Indian case specifically: India has several sizeable cohorts, but no harmonised system yet exists that lets researchers within and across borders work across them easily.

    What does the U.K. Biobank model demonstrate that South Asian cohorts currently cannot?

    1. United Kingdom, the integrated design: The U.K. Biobank links each participant’s genomic information to electronic health records, environmental exposure data and lifestyle data in a single resource, which is the feature that allows genotype to be read against outcome.
    2. What that integration produced: Repositories of this design accelerated drug development, informed clinical guidelines and shaped public health policy across multiple countries, not only in the country that built them.
    3. The contrast with South Asia: South Asian cohorts are disease specific or population specific and are stored on divergent systems, so no equivalent linkage across genomics, clinical records and exposure exists in the region.
    4. The limit of this comparison: The U.K. Biobank is the single substantive institutional model in the evidence here, so it establishes what an integrated design makes possible, not a ranked set of alternative national models to choose between.

    What does the regional proposal recommend?

    1. The authorship: A perspective in the Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia, written by scientists across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, sets out the regional response.
    2. The core warning: The region risks being excluded from the genomic revolution unless it builds the infrastructure itself, rather than waiting for inclusion in datasets built elsewhere.
    3. Regional collaboration between existing assets: The proposal is to build greater collaboration between existing biobanks and cohorts, rather than to construct a new central repository from scratch.
    4. Interoperability: The aim is a system in which existing datasets can speak to each other, which is the specific technical gap that keeps Indian cohorts from being analysed together.
    5. Inclusion of overlooked populations: Populations that have historically been overlooked, including distinct endogamous and tribal groups, are to be brought into the sampling frame.
    6. Retained control over data use: South Asian researchers and institutions are to retain a meaningful role in how their data are used.
    7. Benefit sharing: The researchers generating the data are to share in the scientific benefits, which addresses the extraction pattern rather than only the data gap.

    Why does the gap compound rather than stay constant?

    1. The atlases became reference maps: Single cell atlases are now the reference maps for biology and medicine, so an error in the map propagates into everything read against it.
    2. They are now training data: Those same atlases are increasingly used to train the artificial intelligence models that will shape future research and care.
    3. Scale changes the nature of the problem: If the underlying data continues to be skewed, the artificial intelligence models and clinical tools built on top of it will reproduce and repeat those biases at a much larger scale.
    4. From a research gap to a clinical one: A skewed research dataset produced inaccurate studies, a skewed training dataset produces inaccurate bedside tools deployed on populations that were never in the data.
    5. The window is closing but not shut: It is late for the region to build its own infrastructure, and it is still not too late.

    Challenges to building a South Asian genomic data infrastructure

    1. Non interoperable data standards: Existing cohorts use different collection, phenotyping and storage systems, so pooling requires retrospective harmonisation that the original consent may not permit. Eg. India’s several sizeable cohorts have no harmonised system that lets researchers work across them.
    2. Consent and benefit sharing for community level data: Genomic data from an endogamous or tribal group carries group level implications that individual consent does not cover. Eg. The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 governs access and benefit sharing for biological resources, and its application to human genomic data drawn from identified communities is unsettled.
    3. Sustained financing beyond donor cycles: Climate and health workforce experience across the region shows that capacity built on project funding disappears when the project ends. Eg. Genomic surveillance capacity expanded rapidly during the pandemic and contracted once the emergency funding lapsed.
    4. Cross border data transfer rules: Regional pooling requires moving identifiable health data across national jurisdictions with differing data protection regimes. Eg. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 permits the Central Government to restrict transfer of personal data to notified countries.
    5. Shortage of trained personnel: Bioinformatics, genetic counselling and biobank management skills are scarce relative to the sequencing capacity being installed. Eg. Genetic counsellors in India number in the low hundreds against a population carrying a large inherited disease burden.
    6. Risk of genetic discrimination: Widening genomic data collection without a statutory bar exposes participants to insurance and employment consequences. Eg. The Delhi High Court in United India Insurance vs Jai Parkash Tayal, 2018 held the exclusion of genetic disorders from health insurance cover unconstitutional, in the absence of any general anti discrimination statute.
    7. Sampling reaching only urban cohorts: Recruitment gravitates to tertiary hospitals and metropolitan volunteers, reproducing inside India the same skew the region objects to globally. Eg. Inclusion of distinct endogamous and tribal groups has been identified as the specific gap in Indian sampling, not the overall sample size.

    Conclusion

    The under representation of South Asians in global genomic databases is no longer only an equity problem in research, it is becoming an engineering problem in clinical artificial intelligence. With more than 86 per cent of genome wide association study participants of European ancestry and South Asians below 1 per cent, the reference atlases now being used as training data carry that skew forward at scale. The response has shifted from asking for inclusion in datasets built elsewhere to building interoperable regional infrastructure that keeps control and benefit with the researchers generating the data. What remains unresolved is financing, since the region must fund a decade long investment against infectious disease, maternal and child health and non communicable disease needs that compete for the same budget.

    “[2026] Which of the following statements with regard to Genome India Project is/are correct?

    1. It is a part of the Human Genome Project.

    2. The project is funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.

    3. Its primary aim is to build a catalogue of genetic diversity of the Indian population.

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 2 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • Iran war pushes India’s oil & gas import bill up 43%

    Why in the News

    India’s net oil and gas imports rose 43.4 percent in value in April to July of the current financial year, to $57.8 billion from $40.3 billion a year earlier. Import volumes barely moved, so the increase is almost entirely a price effect created by supply tightness and stifled energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. With 88.3 percent of crude requirement met by imports, India has prioritised supply security over price, and the cost of that choice lands on the trade balance.

    What are net oil and gas imports?

    1. How the figure is built: Net oil and gas imports are arrived at by deducting petroleum product exports from oil, natural gas and petroleum product imports.
    2. Why the deduction matters: India is a net exporter of petroleum products because of its refining capacity, so gross import figures overstate the true external drain.
    3. What it still includes: India also imports some petroleum products, notably liquefied petroleum gas, so the netting does not remove product imports entirely.
    4. Why it is the tracked number: It measures the actual foreign exchange outgo on energy, which is what feeds into the trade balance and the current account.

    What is the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell?

    1. What it is: The Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) is the data and analysis body under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It compiles India’s official import, consumption, production and pricing statistics for petroleum and natural gas.

    What is liquefied natural gas?

    1. What it is: Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas, primarily methane, cooled to minus 162 degrees C so that it becomes liquid and can be shipped in cryogenic carriers. It must be regasified at a terminal in the importing country before use.
    2. How it is priced: Spot LNG in Asia is priced against the Japan Korea Marker, with Henry Hub and the Title Transfer Facility serving the American and European markets.

    What is liquefied petroleum gas?

    1. What it is: Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is propane and butane, produced as a byproduct of oil refining or natural gas processing, and used for domestic cooking, industrial heating and autogas.
    2. How it is priced: It is priced against the Saudi Aramco Contract Price, which is loosely linked to Brent crude.

    Why did the import bill rise 43 percent when volumes barely moved?

    1. Volumes were nearly flat: Oil and LNG imports were only marginally higher in volume terms across April to July.
    2. Crude price did the work: The average landed price of imported crude was about $106 per barrel in April to July, sharply higher than about $68 per barrel in the corresponding period of last year.
    3. Value rose without volume: The crude oil import bill surged by over 56 percent year on year to $63.4 billion even as volumes rose only slightly, to 81.9 million tonnes or about 600 million barrels, from 81.5 million tonnes.
    4. The stated priority: India has been prioritising supply security over price considerations, so it imported at extremely high rates rather than curtail volumes.
    5. Product trade moved the same way: Petroleum product export volumes fell while export value rose, and product import volumes fell faster than product import value, both reflecting high international prices.

    How did each component of the energy trade basket move?

    1. Crude oil imports, volume: 81.9 million tonnes against 81.5 million tonnes a year earlier, a rise of 0.5 percent.
    2. Crude oil imports, value: $63.4 billion against $40.5 billion, a rise of 56.5 percent.
    3. Petroleum product imports, volume: 9.0 million tonnes against 16.4 million tonnes, a fall of 45.1 percent.
    4. Petroleum product imports, value: $5.6 billion against $7.6 billion, a fall of 26.3 percent.
    5. LNG imports, volume: 11,867 million standard cubic metres against 11,269 million standard cubic metres, a rise of 5.3 percent.
    6. LNG imports, value: $5.6 billion against $4.5 billion, a rise of 24.4 percent.
    7. Petroleum product exports, volume: 16.5 million tonnes against 20.1 million tonnes, a fall of 17.9 percent.
    8. Petroleum product exports, value: $16.7 billion against $12.4 billion, a rise of 34.7 percent.
    9. Net oil and gas imports: $57.8 billion against $40.3 billion, a rise of 43.4 percent.

    How exposed is India’s energy basket to the Strait of Hormuz?

    1. Crude dependence: India depends on imports to meet over 88 percent of its crude oil requirement, and its dependence on imported oil for the four months ended July was 88.3 percent, almost flat year on year.
    2. Gas dependence: About half of India’s natural gas consumption is met by imports, brought in as LNG.
    3. Share routed through the strait: Around 40 percent of India’s crude oil imports, 60 percent of its LNG imports and 90 percent of its LPG imports came from West Asia through the strait.
    4. Where the disruption showed: Petroleum product imports declined 45.1 percent in volume to 9.0 million tonnes because supply of major products India imports, such as LPG, was hit by the West Asia conflict.
    5. Why exports fell: India’s petroleum product export volumes fell almost 18 percent year on year to 16.5 million tonnes as domestic fuel supplies were prioritised amid the global supply crunch.

    Why does an oil price shock transmit into the wider economy?

    1. The volume multiplier: India annually imports 1.8 to 2 billion barrels of oil, so every $1 per barrel increase raises the oil import bill by up to $2 billion on an annualised basis.
    2. Share of total imports: Energy imports are a major component of India’s overall imports, so any meaningful increase moves the aggregate import number.
    3. Trade balance and current account: A higher energy bill widens the merchandise trade deficit and feeds directly into the current account deficit.
    4. Inflation channel: Higher landed crude costs pass into transport and freight costs and into the prices of petroleum linked goods.
    5. Exchange rate channel: A larger dollar outgo on energy adds to demand for foreign exchange and weighs on the rupee’s exchange rate.

    Challenges to managing India’s oil and gas import bill

    1. Demand is price inelastic in the short run: Refiners cannot cut crude intake without cutting fuel supply, so a price shock passes straight into the bill. Eg. Crude import volumes rose 0.5 percent even as the crude bill rose 56.5 percent in April to July.
    2. Concentration of LPG sourcing: A single region supplies almost the entire LPG import basket, leaving no substitute route in a disruption. Eg. The West Asian share of India’s LPG imports moves entirely through the Strait of Hormuz, with no second corridor available if the strait closes.
    3. Fixed rupee excise blocks pass through of relief: Central excise duty is levied as a fixed amount per litre rather than as a percentage, so falling crude prices accrue to revenue rather than to consumers. Eg. When Brent fell from $80 to $60 per barrel in early 2025, Delhi petrol fell by only about Rs 2 to 3 per litre.
    4. Strategic reserve cover below international norms: The buffer available to ride out a supply interruption is short of the accepted benchmark. Eg. India’s total crude cover of 74 days sits below the International Energy Agency norm of 90 days of net import cover.
    5. No strategic reserve for gas at all: The gas basket has an operational buffer but no strategic cushion. Eg. India’s LNG storage tanks at regasification terminals give roughly 10 days of operational buffer, with no strategic LNG reserve in existence.
    6. Spot LNG volatility deters utilisation: When spot prices spike, importers switch to coal or fuel oil, stranding regasification capacity. Eg. India’s roughly 42.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG regasification capacity runs at 60 to 65 percent utilisation because switching becomes rational above $15 per MMBtu.
    7. Refinery configuration ties India to sour crude sources: Indian refineries have invested in desulphurisation capacity built around Middle Eastern grades, which limits how fast the basket can be re-sourced. Eg. Most Middle Eastern crude India buys is priced against Dubai and Oman, and Saudi, Iraqi and UAE grades track that benchmark.

    Conclusion

    India’s net oil and gas import bill rose to $57.8 billion in April to July from $40.3 billion a year earlier, a 43.4 percent increase driven almost wholly by price rather than volume. At 88.3 percent crude import dependence and with the West Asian shares of crude, LNG and LPG all routed through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint disruption converts directly into a macroeconomic shock. The figures are provisional data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, and the next reading will show whether the price effect persists once Hormuz flows normalise.

    About India’s Crude Oil Procurement and Pricing

    1. Who buys: State owned refiners account for 73 percent of India’s procurement through Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, with private refiners Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy accounting for 27 percent.
    2. How buying works: Each refiner independently forecasts demand two to three months ahead and negotiates bilaterally with suppliers such as Rosneft, Saudi Aramco and Iraq’s State Organisation for Marketing of Oil.
    3. How it is priced: All contracts are priced as Brent plus or minus a negotiated discount, and Middle Eastern grades track the Dubai and Oman benchmark.
    4. Where crude lands: Crude is received by tanker at Paradip, Mumbai, Kochi and Vadinar.
    5. Quality determines price: Sulphur content and American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity, the measure of a crude’s density, together determine refining cost and product yield, with sweet crude defined as sulphur content below 0.5 percent and sour crude requiring additional processing.

    Regulatory Framework Governing India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Sector

    1. Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas: The apex policy body, which sets the framework for exploration, refining, marketing, pricing and strategic reserves, awards production sharing contracts, and exercises ownership over the public sector oil companies.
    2. Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board: Regulates refining, processing, storage, transportation, distribution, marketing and sale of petroleum products and natural gas, authorises City Gas Distribution networks, and determines pipeline tariffs on a common carrier basis.
    3. Directorate General of Hydrocarbons: The technical regulator for upstream exploration and production, which manages block allocations, monitors production sharing contracts, verifies reserves, approves field development plans and maintains the National Data Repository.
    4. Oil Industry Development Board: Funded by a statutory cess on domestic crude production, it finances oil industry development and wholly owns Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited, which operates the underground reserve caverns.
    5. Deregulated retail pricing: Petrol was deregulated in 2010 and diesel in 2014, so the Ministry does not directly set retail pump prices.

    Government Initiatives in the Petroleum and Gas Sector

    1. Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Phase I comprises 5.33 million tonnes of crude across three underground rock caverns at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur, with a Phase II commercial cum strategic expansion under public private partnership models.
    2. Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy, 2016: Replaced the earlier New Exploration Licensing Policy with a uniform licence covering all hydrocarbons, open acreage licensing and revenue sharing in place of production sharing.
    3. Administered Price Mechanism for domestic gas: The Ministry sets the administered price for domestic natural gas indexed monthly at 10 percent of the Indian Crude Basket price, following the Kirit Parikh Committee recommendations, subject to a floor and ceiling for legacy fields.
    4. Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG: LPG is subsidised through direct transfer, with Rs 300 per cylinder for Ujjwala beneficiaries.
    5. City Gas Distribution expansion: India’s city gas distribution network now covers 98 cities, supplying compressed natural gas for vehicles and piped natural gas for households from a mix of domestic gas and regasified LNG.

    Key Facts about Global Oil Benchmarks and India’s Reserves

    1. Brent crude: North Sea origin, 38 API and 0.37 percent sulphur, traded on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, accounting for 75 to 80 percent of global oil trade and serving as the reference against which all other grades are a premium or discount.
    2. West Texas Intermediate: Cushing, Oklahoma origin, 39.6 API and 0.24 percent sulphur, traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, accounting for 15 to 20 percent of global trade and typically Brent minus $0 to $5 per barrel.
    3. Dubai and Oman: Persian Gulf origin, 31 to 33 API and 1.0 to 2.0 percent sulphur, traded on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, accounting for 5 to 10 percent of global trade and typically Brent minus $5 to $15 per barrel.
    4. Why OPEC does not set the price: OPEC controls 40 percent of production but Brent sets 75 to 80 percent of global prices, since markets price oil hundreds of thousands of times a day while OPEC announces targets once and has no enforcement mechanism against quota cheating.
    5. Reserve position: India’s total crude cover is 74 days, made up of 9.5 days from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and 64.5 days of oil marketing company commercial stocks, against the International Energy Agency norm of 90 days.
    6. LPG and LNG cover: LPG cavern capacity of about 140,000 tonnes gives roughly 22 days of cover against consumption of about 3 million tonnes a month, while LNG has about 10 days of operational buffer and no strategic reserve.
    7. Volatility of spot gas: The Japan Korea Marker swung from $3 per MMBtu in mid 2020 to $70 per MMBtu in August 2022.
    8. Committee recommendation on storage: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum in December 2023 recommended equipping refineries with two to three days of smaller strategic storage at five to six additional locations, which could add 15 to 20 days of capacity.

    Back2Basics: Strait of Hormuz

    1. Location: A narrow sea passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and onward to the Arabian Sea.
    2. Control: Iran controls the northern shore and seven of the eight islands in the strait, Oman controls the southern entrance, and the United States Fifth Fleet acts as the external guarantor of transit.
    3. Oil traffic: About 20 million barrels a day pass through it, amounting to 20 percent of global oil movement.
    4. Gas traffic: It carries 20 percent of global LNG trade, which makes closure hit gas hardest given Qatar’s dominance in LNG supply.
    5. Strategic character: It carries the highest concentration of energy flow of any maritime chokepoint in the world.

    Challenges in India’s Energy Security

    1. Stagnant domestic crude production: Falling domestic output pushes import dependence upward regardless of demand. Eg. Cess collections of the Oil Industry Development Board have declined in real terms because domestic crude production has stagnated.
    2. Regulatory conflict of interest: The same ministry sets the pricing environment and owns the companies whose losses that environment creates. Eg. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas simultaneously regulates the sector and holds ownership rights over Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.
    3. Gaps in the regulatory perimeter: No single regulator covers the full chain from wellhead to pump. Eg. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has no jurisdiction over upstream exploration, wellhead gas pricing or LPG retail pricing.
    4. Upstream reservoir disputes slow output: Technical disputes between operators delay field development and carry royalty implications. Eg. The gas migration dispute between ONGC and Reliance Industries in the Krishna Godavari basin required adjudication by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons.
    5. Chokepoint concentration across all three fuels: Crude, LPG and LNG share the same maritime chokepoint, so diversification of supplier does not diversify route. Eg. LPG moves with crude tankers or on dedicated carriers through the same Strait of Hormuz.
    6. Tax structure blunts price signals: Taxes form roughly 60 percent of the retail pump price, weakening the link between global prices and consumer behaviour. Eg. Delhi petrol at Rs 96 to 97 per litre carried Rs 13 of central excise and Rs 15 to 18 of State value added tax before the crisis.
    7. Storage build out lags the exposure: Reserve expansion depends on capital and cavern geology, both of which take years. Eg. Phase II of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is being pursued through public private partnership because budgetary funding alone has not delivered the capacity.

    Way Forward

    1. Complete Phase II of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Bring the commercial cum strategic caverns on stream to move total cover towards the 90 day International Energy Agency norm.
    2. Adopt the refinery level storage recommendation: Implement the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s December 2023 proposal on refinery level storage, which remains a recommendation rather than sanctioned capacity.
    3. Create a strategic gas reserve: Extend the reserve architecture to LNG, which today has only an operational buffer at regasification terminals.
    4. Shift excise from a fixed levy to an ad valorem levy: This would let consumers receive part of the benefit when crude prices fall, restoring the price signal.
    5. Diversify sourcing away from a single chokepoint: Expand term contracts with Atlantic basin, West African and North American suppliers so that a Hormuz disruption does not strike crude, LNG and LPG supply simultaneously.
    6. Raise domestic production through open acreage: Accelerate block awards under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy to arrest the decline in domestic output.
    7. Separate ownership from regulation: Move ownership of the public sector oil companies out of the administering ministry so that pricing policy is not set by their shareholder.

    “[2025, GS2, 15] “Energy security constitutes the dominant kingpin of India’s foreign policy, and is linked with India’s overarching influence in Middle Eastern countries.” How would you integrate energy security with India’s foreign policy trajectories in the coming years?”

  • India, Japan sign maritime security pact to deepen defence cooperation

    Why in the News

    India and Japan signed a Memorandum of Arrangement on Maritime Security Cooperation on 20 August 2026, after bilateral talks between the two Defence Ministers in New Delhi. The arrangement converts a relationship built on periodic exercises into a standing operational framework covering maritime domain awareness, logistics access and ship repair. It also opens naval shipbuilding and design to joint development, moving the partnership from equipment transfer towards co-production.

    What is the Memorandum of Arrangement on Maritime Security Cooperation?

    1. Nature of the instrument: A Memorandum of Arrangement is a signed framework document recording the agreed areas of cooperation between two defence establishments. It creates a standing basis for activity without the binding force of a treaty.
    2. Parties it links: The arrangement connects the Indian Navy with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

    What is Maritime Domain Awareness?

    1. Definition: Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is the effective understanding of everything in the maritime space that affects security, safety, economy or the environment. It rests on tracking, identifying and sharing information on vessel movements.
    2. Why it is built with partners: No single navy can watch an entire ocean, so MDA depends on pooling radar, satellite and automatic identification system feeds across countries.

    What are Sea Lines of Communication?

    1. Definition: Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) are the primary maritime routes along which trade, energy and naval forces move between ports. Disruption of a SLOC affects supply rather than territory.
    2. Why they are defended jointly: A SLOC crosses several jurisdictions and the high seas, so its protection depends on coordinated patrolling and port access rather than any one state’s territorial control.

    What is the UNICORN antenna system?

    1. What it is: UNICORN is a Japanese shipborne integrated communications antenna system that houses multiple antennas inside a single composite mast. It lowers a warship’s radar cross section by removing external antenna clutter.

    What is ATLA?

    1. Full form and role: The Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) is Japan’s defence procurement and technology development body under its Ministry of Defense. It is the counterpart to India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for joint technology work.

    What is the Japan India Special Strategic and Global Partnership?

    1. The label: It is the highest tier of India’s bilateral relationships, adopted in 2014, under which defence, economic and technology cooperation between the two countries is organised.

    What does the arrangement operationally commit the two navies to?

    1. Information sharing: The two sides agreed to deepen operational cooperation through information sharing, naval exercises, ship repair and logistics support.
    2. Maritime domain awareness and rescue: The framework covers maritime domain awareness, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief between the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Indian Navy.
    3. Protection of sea lanes: The Ministers agreed to strengthen coordination for the protection of Sea Lines of Communications through reciprocal naval visits, joint exercises, and personnel and subject matter expert exchanges.
    4. Logistics and port access: Logistical support was extended to include access to ports and maintenance and repair facilities.
    5. Mine countermeasures: The two countries will move towards greater cooperation in mine countermeasures.

    How does the partnership move beyond equipment transfer into co-development?

    1. Naval shipbuilding and design: The two sides will explore joint development in naval shipbuilding and design, leveraging Japan’s technological expertise and India’s production capabilities.
    2. Make in India framework: They will discuss greater use of India’s shipbuilding capabilities under the Make in India framework.
    3. Reciprocal ship repair: Both countries will work towards reciprocal provision of ship repair facilities.
    4. First equipment marker: The shipborne UNICORN integrated communications antenna system was identified as the symbol of the growing defence equipment partnership, with a commitment to its early realisation.
    5. Research and industry channels: DRDO and ATLA will deepen cooperation in advanced defence technologies, and a Defence Industry Forum will be convened.

    What does the expansion of joint exercises signal about interoperability?

    1. Existing exercise set: The Ministers welcomed the expansion of bilateral military exercises, including Dharma Guardian and the Japan India Maritime Exercise (JIMEX), the two navies’ bilateral maritime exercise.
    2. Veer Guardian 26: The planned Veer Guardian 26 air exercise will see Japanese fighter aircraft participate in an exercise in India for the first time.
    3. Greater complexity: The two sides agreed to enhance the complexity of bilateral exercises rather than repeat existing formats.
    4. Unmanned systems and short notice drills: They agreed to integrate unmanned systems and to explore short notice joint exercises, which test readiness rather than choreography.
    5. Special forces and theatre commands: The two countries will promote exchanges between their Special Operations Forces and pursue cooperation with India’s integrated theatre commands after their establishment.

    What institutional machinery will carry the cooperation forward?

    1. A standing Working Group: The two sides agreed to establish a Working Group headed at the Director General and Joint Secretary level.
    2. Domains it coordinates: The Working Group spans operational, intelligence, equipment, technology and industrial domains.
    3. Industry channel: A Defence Industry Forum will be convened alongside the research level cooperation.
    4. Ministerial channel: The two sides agreed to accelerate discussions for the fourth India Japan 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue, to be held in Tokyo this year.
    5. Political framing: Both reaffirmed their commitment to deepen defence cooperation under the Japan India Special Strategic and Global Partnership and to work towards a free and open Indo Pacific amid heightened global tensions.

    Challenges to the India Japan maritime security arrangement

    1. Japan’s own legal constraints on transfers: Article 9 of Japan’s 1947 Constitution and the Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology limit what Tokyo can sell or co-develop abroad. Eg. The US 2 amphibious aircraft deal, negotiated with India for over a decade, lapsed without an order.
    2. Cost and schedule risk in Japanese technology tie ups: High specification Japanese systems carry costs that Indian procurement budgets absorb poorly. Eg. The Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project, built on Japanese technology and a Japanese loan, slipped from its 2022 target to 2027 or later.
    3. Thin use of the existing logistics pact: Reciprocal access agreements deliver value only when used outside exercise windows. Eg. The Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement signed in September 2020 has been used largely around scheduled exercises rather than for continuous deployments.
    4. Naval balance shifting faster than the partnership: The regional force ratio is moving against both partners while the arrangement is still being institutionalised. Eg. The People’s Liberation Army Navy crossed 340 battle force ships by 2021, overtaking the United States fleet in numbers.
    5. Indian yard capacity limits co-production: Joint naval shipbuilding assumes yard capacity India has not yet built. Eg. India’s share of global shipbuilding is under 1 percent, in a sector dominated by China, South Korea and Japan.
    6. Incomplete theatre command reform: Cooperation with India’s integrated theatre commands is conditional on those commands existing. Eg. The Inter Services Organisation (Command, Control and Discipline) Act, 2023 created the legal basis for joint commands, but no theatre command had been stood up when the arrangement was signed.
    7. Chokepoint risks a bilateral pact cannot fix: Sea lane disruption often originates from non state actors outside either navy’s operating area. Eg. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea forced shipping to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks to voyages.

    Conclusion

    India and Japan have moved from periodic exercises to a signed operational framework covering maritime domain awareness, logistics access and ship repair, with naval shipbuilding and design opened to joint development. The arrangement’s institutional carrier is a Working Group at Director General and Joint Secretary level spanning operational, intelligence, equipment, technology and industrial domains. The next milestone is the fourth India Japan 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue, to be held in Tokyo this year, with the Veer Guardian 26 air exercise bringing Japanese fighter aircraft to India for the first time.

    “[2019, GS2, 10] ‘The time has come for India and Japan to build a strong contemporary relationship, one involving global and strategic partnership that will have a great significance for Asia and the world as a whole.’ Comment.”

  • English indigenous or foreign language? Supreme Court for examining constitution

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court on 20 August 2026 said the constitutionality of treating English as a non indigenous language under the three language policy will have to be examined, given the extent of its roots in Indian society. That classification decides which languages compete for a student’s single foreign language slot, so a descriptive label is operating as a rationing rule.

    What is the Three-Language Formula?

    1. What it requires: The three language formula requires a school student to learn three languages, of which at least two must be native Indian languages, described in the policy as Bhartiya Bhashas.
    2. Source and timing: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is introducing it under the National Education Policy, 2020 from the academic year 2026-27.
    3. Sequence prescribed: The policy begins a child with the mother tongue, moves to another indigenous language, and leaves the third open to being either indigenous or foreign.

    What is the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE)?

    1. National Council for Teacher Education: The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is the statutory body that lays down norms for teacher education programmes and recognises the institutions running them. Its rules decide whether a school’s language teacher holds the Bachelor of Education qualification that recognition requires.

    Why is the classification of English as non-indigenous a constitutional question?

    1. The label under scrutiny: The bench said it will have to see whether English can be classified as a non indigenous language or an indigenous one, given the historical perspective of English and the extent of its roots into Indian society.
    2. Objection to the word native: A judge on the bench recorded a serious reservation about the expression native, holding that it carries a very colonial import and that indigenous is the correct term.
    3. Source of the expression: The Additional Solicitor General told the Court that non native is an expression coming from the new education policy, and the bench replied that the framers of the policy ought to have been conscious of the words they chose.
    4. The Board’s position: English is an official language under the Constitution and that status cannot be taken away, it is not treated like a foreign language, and it cannot be treated like a native language either.
    5. The presiding judge’s view: The Chief Justice of India said English could hardly be considered a foreign language.
    6. Why the label is reviewable: A classification that determines which language a student may take up is State action affecting a class of students, which brings it within constitutional review rather than leaving it to policy discretion alone.

    How does the classification restrict the study of other foreign languages?

    1. Two slots pre committed: Mandating at least two native Indian languages leaves a student only one slot for a foreign language.
    2. English absorbs that slot: Nearly all students choose English for the single slot, so French, Japanese and Spanish are effectively pushed out of the main curriculum.
    3. Enrolled students displaced: A large number of students already studying French and Japanese have to switch to a native language.
    4. Employment argument: Counsel for the petitioners argued that a second foreign language increases employment opportunities, and that the students affected come from middle and lower income homes.
    5. Textbook design problem: Textbooks placed online under the scheme begin with compound sentences rather than with the first letter, which makes learning an unfamiliar script from them impractical.

    Why is the Class 6 batch at the centre of the dispute?

    1. Cohort singled out: Classes 7 to 9 were exempted under Board guidelines, and the present Class 6 batch was slated to face full implementation.
    2. Terminal assessment: That batch faces a mandatory third language paper in the Class 10 Board examination by 2031.
    3. Reprieve proposed: The bench asked why the Class 6 students could not be given a reprieve from writing the third language paper in the Class 10 examination.
    4. Infrastructure not in place: The Court tied the reprieve to the fact that school infrastructure is still not adequately in place across the various education Boards.
    5. Start earlier instead: The bench held that the scheme should begin in a lower class, which would give students, families and school administrations elbow space to adapt.

    What capacity gaps does the Court identify in implementation?

    1. Choice on paper only: The option is 23 languages in theory, and in practice the range a school can actually offer is far narrower.
    2. Board asymmetry: Only around 4 per cent of schools are under the Central Board of Secondary Education and 96 per cent are under State Boards, so a Board level rule reaches a small share of the school system.
    3. Teacher education compliance: There are asymmetries in compliance with National Council for Teacher Education rules across schools and Boards.
    4. Qualified teacher shortage: There are inadequate numbers of Bachelor of Education qualified teachers for the languages the scheme would add.
    5. Sanskrit as the illustration: The bench asked how many Sanskrit teachers hold a Bachelor of Education qualification, noting that deep subject learning does not substitute for the prescribed teaching qualification.
    6. Compliance regime required: Schools will need an administrative compliance regime for the additional language, which they can absorb only if the change is phased in.

    What has the Court asked the Board to return with?

    1. One time reprieve: Whether a one time reprieve can be given to the current batch of Class 6 students from the third language Board examination.
    2. Human resources: How human resources are to be built to meet the demands of the three language scheme.
    3. Starting class: Whether the scheme should ideally be started in earlier classes rather than at Class 6.
    4. Response undertaken: The Additional Solicitor General said she would place these questions before the experts and appraise the Court.

    Does a mother tongue first policy expand or narrow a student’s choices?

    1. Cognitive case accepted: Early instruction in the mother tongue improves comprehension and retention, which the bench acknowledged as a good policy foundation.
    2. The count is not the constraint: The dispute is not over learning three languages but over the rule that two of them must be indigenous, which fixes the composition rather than the number.
    3. Choice shrinks at the top: Fixing two slots turns the third into the only site of choice, so every additional foreign language competes against English instead of sitting alongside it.
    4. Distributional effect: Students from middle and lower income homes depend on institutional provision for a second foreign language, and better resourced students can purchase it outside the school.
    5. Supply decides the outcome: A student in a school with two language teachers has a choice of two, whatever the 23 language menu states, so teacher supply and not the rule is the binding constraint.

    Challenges to implementing the Three-Language Formula

    1. Teacher cadre does not exist: A third language cannot be staffed from an establishment that was never recruited for it. Eg. Tamil Nadu has not maintained a Hindi teaching cadre in its government schools, so the posts a third language would require have no incumbents to draw on.
    2. State resistance on federal grounds: School education sits on the Concurrent List and States have rejected the formula as imposition. Eg. Tamil Nadu has followed a two language policy since 1968 and has declined central school scheme agreements that carry the three language requirement.
    3. Persistent non implementation: The formula has been official policy for six decades without uniform adoption. Eg. It was recommended by the Kothari Commission and adopted in the National Policy on Education, 1968, and no decade since has seen it implemented across all States.
    4. Migration breaks continuity: A child who moves between States loses the second indigenous language on transfer. Eg. A student learning Marathi in Maharashtra who relocates to West Bengal has to restart a new regional language at the same class level.
    5. Assessment weight against learning time: A Board paper in a language begun at Class 6 carries the same weight as papers in subjects taught from Class 1. Eg. The current Class 6 batch faces a third language paper in the 2031 Class 10 examination after five years of instruction.
    6. Material for less taught languages: Beginner grade teaching material is thin for classical and less taught languages. Eg. Textbooks placed online under the scheme open with compound sentences, which suits a scholarly reader rather than a Class 6 beginner.
    7. Private school offer disrupted: Schools that market a second foreign language lose that offer when the slot is taken. Eg. Private schools offering French, German and Japanese from Class 6 draw fee paying enrolment on that basis.

    Conclusion

    The dispute has moved from how many languages a school child must learn to who decides that English is not one of India’s own. The Court has said the constitutionality of classifying English as non indigenous will have to be examined, and has asked the Board to return on a one time reprieve for the Class 6 batch, on building teacher capacity, and on shifting the scheme to earlier classes. The Board has undertaken to place these questions before its experts, so the policy stands notified for 2026-27 with its core classification still under judicial scrutiny.

    “[2020, GS2, 15] National Education Policy 2020 is in conformity with the Sustainable Development Goal-4 (2030). It intends to restructure and reorient education system in India. Critically examine the statement.”

  • Centre set to expand mechanised sanitation scheme to rural India

    Why in the News

    The Social Justice Ministry has moved a proposal to extend the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme from towns and cities to rural parts of the country. The scheme profiles sewer and septic tank workers as the route to its benefits, and coverage is being widened ahead of a delivery channel that approves capital subsidy for a small fraction of those profiled.

    Components of NAMASTE

    1. Profiling and identification: Sanitation workers are enumerated at camps run by urban local bodies, and that profile is the entry point to every other component of the scheme.
    2. Occupational safety: Profiled workers are given safety training and personal protective equipment for the work they already perform.
    3. Capital subsidy for self employment: A profiled worker or a Private Sanitation Service Organisation may apply for a capital subsidy to buy mechanised equipment and set up a sanitation enterprise.
    4. Emergency Response Sanitation Units: Urban local bodies are supported to set up standing units equipped with suction and jetting machines, so that a sewer or septic tank is cleaned by machine instead of by human entry.

    What is manual scavenging?

    1. Manual scavenging: Manual scavenging is the manual handling, carrying or disposing of human excreta from an insanitary latrine, an open drain, a pit or a railway track. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 prohibits both the practice and the employment of any person for it.

    Who is a sewer and septic tank worker (SSW)?

    1. Sewer and septic tank worker: A sewer and septic tank worker (SSW) is a person engaged in cleaning sewer lines, manholes and septic tanks, whether employed directly or engaged through a contractor. The category is distinct from manual scavenging in law, since the work is lawful when performed with mechanised equipment and prescribed safety gear.

    What is a Private Sanitation Service Organisation (PSSO)?

    1. Private Sanitation Service Organisation: A Private Sanitation Service Organisation (PSSO) is a private entity providing mechanised sanitation services that can propose projects for capital subsidy under the scheme. It is one of two proposal routes, the other being an application by an individual worker.

    What is the Safai Udyami Yojana?

    1. Safai Udyami Yojana: The Safai Udyami Yojana is the self employment component under which sewer and septic tank workers receive capital subsidy to set up their own sanitation enterprise. It is one of the two self employment routes in which the National Commission for Scheduled Castes has flagged rejections.

    What does the proposed expansion change?

    1. Geographic extension: The proposal takes the scheme’s scope from towns and cities to rural parts of the country for the first time.
    2. New worker categories: Coverage will be widened to include drain cleaners, and workers in sewage treatment plants and faecal sludge treatment plants.
    3. Outlay and horizon: The Ministry has proposed around ₹498.73 crore for the expanded scheme, to be spent from this fiscal year to 2030-31.
    4. Second widening of scope: The scheme initially covered only sewer and septic tank workers and was first expanded to include waste pickers, so the rural extension is the second enlargement.
    5. Original aim retained: The scheme was started in 2023-24 with the aim of eradicating sewer and septic tank deaths, and the expansion does not alter that objective.

    Why has the scheme’s delivery record become the central concern?

    1. Profiling against approval: 90,915 sewer and septic tank workers have been profiled across the country, and only 810 have been approved for capital subsidies.
    2. Approval against disbursal: Of the 810 approved, 147 had actually received their funds as on 31 March 2026.
    3. Subsidy covers only part of the cost: The capital subsidy meets up to 50 per cent of total project cost, so an approved worker still has to raise the balance before the enterprise can start.
    4. Manual scavengers identified: Only 2,652 projects have been approved against the 58,000 manual scavengers identified under the scheme.
    5. Both routes inside the count: The 2,652 approvals include projects proposed by Private Sanitation Service Organisations as well as by individuals, so the figure is not a count of individual entrepreneurs alone.
    6. Waste picker coverage: 1.3 lakh waste pickers have been profiled alongside the sewer and septic tank workers, per the Ministry’s annual report for 2025-26.

    What has the National Commission for Scheduled Castes flagged?

    1. Repeated correspondence: The Commission has written repeatedly to the Social Justice Ministry since last year on the continued rejection of applications under the self employment and capital subsidy components.
    2. Rejections identified as the cause: It has held that one reason for the low number of approved projects is the high rate of rejections.
    3. Rejections across every part: It has noted rejections under each part of the capital subsidy component, and asked that these be examined.
    4. The August 2025 letter: That letter flagged rejections in the self employment components, both in the Safai Udyami Yojana and in the component for Private Sanitation Service Organisations.
    5. Source of the mandate: The Commission acts under Article 338, which empowers it to investigate and monitor safeguards for the Scheduled Castes and to inquire into specific complaints.

    Why do sewer and septic tank deaths persist under a statutory prohibition?

    1. Deaths on record: 498 people died across the country while engaged in the hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks from 2019 to June 2026, per the Social Justice Ministry’s reply to Parliament in August 2026.
    2. Enforcement rests with the employer: The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 bars hazardous cleaning without protective gear, and the duty to enforce falls on local authorities who are frequently the employers themselves.
    3. Contracting layer: Sewer cleaning is routinely outsourced, which separates the municipal principal from the worker who enters the tank.
    4. Rehabilitation lag: A worker whose capital subsidy application is rejected returns to the same work, so profiling without disbursal leaves the occupational risk untouched.
    5. Rural gap unmeasured: Rural areas have been outside the scheme until this proposal, so deaths in village septic tanks have had no dedicated scheme response.

    Challenges to NAMASTE

    1. Rejection concentrated in the subsidy pipeline: The bottleneck sits between profiling and approval rather than between approval and identification. Eg. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has recorded rejections under every part of the capital subsidy component and has asked the Ministry to explain them.
    2. Balance financing after subsidy: The worker must raise the uncovered share of project cost as a loan against negligible collateral. Eg. National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation term loans routed through State channelising agencies have carried low utilisation and weak recovery.
    3. Urban local body capacity: Emergency Response Sanitation Units need trained crews and maintained machines, which small municipalities cannot sustain. Eg. The Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge launched in 2020 enrolled 246 cities to become sewer death free, and participation was concentrated in large municipal corporations rather than small towns.
    4. Contractor liability gap: Outsourcing lets the principal employer distance itself from a death inside a manhole. Eg. In Delhi Jal Board v National Campaign for Dignity and Rights of Sewerage and Allied Workers (2011), the Supreme Court held that the principal employer cannot escape liability by engaging contractors for sewer cleaning.
    5. No rural delivery cadre: Rural sanitation is administered by gram panchayats, which have no wing equivalent to an urban local body’s sanitation department. Eg. Faecal sludge emptying in villages is done by informal private operators outside any municipal register, which leaves no employer to profile a worker against.
    6. Monitoring by profiling count: Progress is reported as workers profiled rather than as workers rehabilitated, so the headline number rises without entitlement delivery following it. Eg. The Ministry’s annual report for 2025-26 leads with profiling totals for sewer and septic tank workers and waste pickers, and not with the count of workers placed in an alternative livelihood.

    Conclusion

    The Social Justice Ministry has proposed extending the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme to rural India, to drain cleaners and to treatment plant workers. The proposal is at the stage of a Ministry submission and has not yet been notified, and the next milestone is approval of the expanded scheme and its outlay. The delivery record it inherits is a profiling count far ahead of the number of capital subsidy cases funded, alongside 498 sewer and septic tank deaths between 2019 and June 2026.

    “[2016] ‘Rashtriya Garima Abhiyaan’ is a national campaign to

    (a) rehabilitate the homeless and destitute persons and provide them with suitable sources of livelihood

    (b) release the sex workers from their practice and provide them with alternative sources of livelihood

    (c) eradicate the practice of manual scavenging and rehabilitate the manual scavengers

    (d) release the bonded labourers from their bondage and rehabilitate them

  • Climate resilience starts with the health workforce

    Why in the News

    Floods in Kerala and Assam have exposed the challenge of protecting lives during climate-related disasters, with attention going to rescue, relief camps and rebuilding. Analysis of climate-health governance across South and Southeast Asia shows that the workforce which prevents a disaster from becoming a prolonged public-health crisis is trained through fragmented, donor-supported projects rather than through the health system's own institutions.

    What is a climate-resilient health system?

    1. About: A climate-resilient health system is one able to anticipate, respond to, cope with and recover from climate-related shocks without interrupting routine health services.
    2. What it rests on: Its resilience ultimately depends on the workforce that delivers adaptation, since surveillance, emergency response and community outreach are performed by people rather than by plans.
    3. What changes under climate stress: Many of the foundational competencies required for climate adaptation already exist within health systems, and what changes is the context in which they must operate.
    4. The design principle: Climate change requires reorienting existing competencies through a climate lens and introducing new competencies where needed, rather than replacing what already exists.

    What is a heat action plan?

    1. About: A heat action plan is a city or region specific preparedness protocol that sets temperature thresholds, colour-coded warnings, and assigned responsibilities for health facilities, municipal bodies and emergency services during a heatwave.
    2. Why it is health-led: It converts a meteorological forecast into concrete health system action, covering hospital surge beds, oral rehydration supply, cooling spaces and outreach to outdoor workers and the elderly.

    What does the health workforce actually do during a climate disaster?

    1. Hospital preparedness: Hospitals prepare for medical emergencies, which is the visible clinical face of the response.
    2. Disease surveillance: Surveillance teams monitor disease outbreaks, since displacement and standing water raise the risk of communicable disease after a flood.
    3. Water quality testing: Laboratories test water quality, which determines whether relief camps and returning households face contamination risk.
    4. Community outreach: Community health workers reach vulnerable households, carrying care to those who cannot reach a facility.
    5. Cross-department coordination: Public health officials coordinate responses across departments, since the response involves disaster management, water supply, municipal services and health together.
    6. The net effect: It is the health workforce that prevents a natural disaster from becoming a prolonged public-health crisis, which is the least visible part of the response.

    What have states already put in place?

    1. Surveillance: States have begun to strengthen surveillance systems, which is the first line of detection for post-disaster outbreaks.
    2. Heat action plans: States have developed region-specific and city-specific heat action plans.
    3. Emergency preparedness: States have improved emergency preparedness arrangements within the health system.
    4. Programme integration: States have begun integrating climate considerations into several public-health programmes rather than treating climate as a separate vertical.
    5. The illustrative case: Kerala's response to the floods illustrates how health departments are increasingly incorporating public-health measures into disaster response.

    What does the South and Southeast Asia evidence show?

    1. The regional scope: The analysis covers climate-health governance across South and Southeast Asia, so the finding is regional rather than confined to one country.
    2. The central finding: Workforce development across the region remains fragmented, with no common architecture linking training to the health system's own institutions.
    3. The funding pattern: Climate-health training is largely confined to donor-supported or project-supported initiatives.
    4. What that implies: Capability rises and falls with the funding cycle of individual projects rather than accumulating within the system.
    5. Why the region matters for India: India's own state-level heat action plans and surveillance strengthening sit inside this regional pattern, so the fragmentation finding applies directly to Indian districts.

    Why does workforce capacity remain a surge response rather than a standing capability?

    1. The three questions the record raises: Whether these capacities can be sustained across all states, districts and levels of the health system; how surge capacities can be developed given the severe shortage of health workers across India; and whether capacities are being embedded across the workforce or continue to depend on individual relief-specific programmes and emergency mobilisation.
    2. The competency position: The competencies needed are largely present already, so the deficit is not one of knowledge.
    3. The institutional position: Those competencies sit in isolated training programmes rather than in the systems that produce, supervise and evaluate health workers.
    4. The consequence: Capacity is activated only during emergencies rather than translated into routine practice.
    5. The shortage constraint: The severe shortage of health workers across India limits how much surge capacity can be raised from an already stretched base.

    What would institutionalising climate-health competencies require?

    1. Beyond isolated training: Building climate-resilient health systems requires moving beyond isolated training programmes towards institutionalising climate-health competencies.
    2. The five integration points: These competencies should be integrated into pre-service education, professional development, supportive supervision, planning, and performance management.
    3. Pre-service education first: Placing climate-health content in pre-service education means every entrant carries the competency, rather than only those a project reaches.
    4. Supervision and performance: Embedding competencies in supportive supervision and performance management is what converts a completed training into observed practice.
    5. The three enablers: The integration must be supported by sustained governance, financing and institutional mechanisms.

    Challenges to Building a Climate-Resilient Health Workforce

    1. Absolute workforce shortage: Surge capacity cannot be drawn from a base that is already below norm, since redeploying staff for a flood response leaves routine services uncovered. Eg. Rural health facilities across India carry large shortfalls of specialists against Indian Public Health Standards, and community health centres report specialist vacancies in the range of two-thirds of sanctioned posts.
    2. Donor-cycle training: Competencies built through project funding disappear when the project closes, so the same district is trained repeatedly. Eg. Climate-health training across South and Southeast Asia remains largely confined to donor-supported or project-supported initiatives.
    3. Absence from pre-service curricula: Medical, nursing and allied health curricula do not carry climate-health competencies, so every entrant needs retrofitting. Eg. Heat illness protocols and post-flood outbreak management reach practitioners through workshops rather than through undergraduate training.
    4. Frontline worker load: Community health workers already carry multiple programme responsibilities, so a climate role is added without relief elsewhere. Eg. Accredited Social Health Activists deliver maternal health, immunisation, non-communicable disease screening and survey duties on an incentive-based payment structure.
    5. Data and early warning gaps: Health surveillance and meteorological forecasting run on separate systems, so an alert does not automatically reach a health facility. Eg. Heat action plans depend on India Meteorological Department warnings reaching district health officers in time for hospital preparation.
    6. Financing for adaptation: Adaptation finance for health competes with mitigation and infrastructure, so recurring workforce costs go unfunded. Eg. Global adaptation finance fell from 28 billion dollars to 26 billion dollars between 2022 and 2023, against a commitment to double it to 40 billion dollars by 2025.
    7. Attrition and contractual staffing: Much of the trained emergency workforce is on contract, so trained staff leave and the competency leaves with them. Eg. National Health Mission staff are engaged on contract across most States, with recurring demands for regularisation.

    Conclusion

    The health workforce is what prevents a climate disaster from becoming a prolonged public-health crisis, and its competencies are already largely present within health systems. The deficit is institutional, since climate-health training across South and Southeast Asia sits in donor-funded and project-funded initiatives rather than in pre-service education, professional development, supportive supervision, planning and performance management. Embedding those five points, supported by sustained governance, financing and institutional mechanisms, is what converts emergency mobilisation into routine practice. Until that happens, every flood and heatwave will draw on a surge capacity that has to be assembled afresh.

    Climate Change and Health in India

    1. The exposure: India faces heatwaves, floods, cyclones, droughts and air pollution simultaneously, so climate acts on health through multiple pathways rather than one.
    2. Heat: Rising heat exposure raises heat stroke, cardiovascular and renal illness, and reduces outdoor labour productivity, with outdoor workers, the elderly and pregnant women most exposed.
    3. Vector-borne disease: Warming and altered rainfall shift the range and season of malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Japanese encephalitis, moving transmission into districts and altitudes previously unaffected.
    4. Water-borne disease: Floods and cyclones contaminate drinking water and trigger diarrhoeal disease, cholera and leptospirosis outbreaks in the weeks after the event.
    5. Air quality: Ambient and household air pollution contribute to a very large share of India's non-communicable disease burden, with respiratory and cardiac mortality concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plain during winter.
    6. Nutrition: Crop yield loss and price shocks from extreme weather transmit into dietary quality, which shows up as child undernutrition rather than as a disaster statistic.
    7. The institutional response: The National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health, launched in 2019 under the National Health Mission, is the nodal programme, with State and district climate-health cells and nodal officers.
    8. The global frame: The Global Goal on Adaptation under the Paris Agreement now carries the 59 Belem Adaptation Indicators, the first global indicators for adaptation, spanning water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure and livelihoods.

    Government Initiatives

    1. National Action Plan on Climate Change: The 2008 framework of national missions, whose State Action Plans on Climate Change carry the health adaptation components at State level.
    2. National Action Plan for Heat Related Illnesses: Issued by the health ministry, it prescribes surveillance of heat-related illness and death, hospital preparedness, and health advisories during the heat season.
    3. National Disaster Management Authority heat guidelines: Guidelines for preparation of heat action plans, first issued in 2016 and revised subsequently, which States and cities use to build local plans.
    4. Ayushman Arogya Mandirs: Health and wellness centres delivering comprehensive primary health care, which are the delivery point for climate-sensitive surveillance and outreach at the community level.
    5. Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme and Integrated Health Information Platform: The national outbreak detection system, which is the mechanism through which post-flood and post-cyclone outbreaks are identified.
    6. Mission LiFE: A behavioural initiative on sustainable consumption, positioned as the demand-side counterpart to institutional climate action.

    Key Facts about Climate and Health Governance

    1. World Health Day: Observed on 7 April, marking the founding of the World Health Organization in 1948.
    2. National Doctors' Day: Observed on 1 July in India.
    3. Declaration on Climate and Health: COP28 at Dubai in 2023 was the first Conference of the Parties to formally address the health impacts of climate change, with a Declaration on Climate and Health endorsed by more than 140 nations, calling for climate-resilient health systems, extreme heat protocols and health co-benefits of mitigation. India did not sign it.
    4. Health Day at COP: COP28 also hosted the first dedicated Health Day on the official Conference of the Parties agenda, convened by the Presidency and the World Health Organization.
    5. Belem Adaptation Indicators: The 59 Belem Adaptation Indicators adopted at COP30 are the first global indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation, and health is one of the domains they cover.
    6. Baku Adaptation Road Map: A two-year structured agenda running from 2026 to 2028 under the global goal on adaptation work programme, guiding progress on the Belem indicators and adaptation finance tracking.
    7. Adaptation finance goal: COP30 signalled a tripling of adaptation funding to 120 billion dollars a year by 2035 within the wider 1.3 trillion dollar pact, as a political signal rather than a binding commitment.

    Challenges in Climate and Health Governance

    1. Split institutional mandates: Climate policy sits with the environment ministry, disaster response with disaster management authorities and delivery with health departments, so no single authority owns climate-health outcomes. Eg. Heat action plans are issued under disaster management guidelines, and heat illness surveillance runs through the health ministry.
    2. Plans without financing: State and city plans are prepared without a dedicated budget line, so implementation depends on reallocating funds from other heads. Eg. Reviews of Indian heat action plans have found most lack identified funding sources and legal backing.
    3. Weak local vulnerability data: Plans use uniform thresholds rather than locally derived ones, so warnings misfire in humid or high-altitude districts. Eg. Heat thresholds calibrated for dry inland cities do not capture the combined temperature and humidity stress in coastal districts.
    4. Under-recording of climate-attributable deaths: Heat and flood-related mortality is recorded under proximate clinical causes, which understates the burden used to justify funding. Eg. Heat stroke deaths are frequently certified as cardiac or renal failure without the heat exposure being recorded.
    5. Primary care infrastructure gaps: Facilities lack cooling, uninterrupted power and water security, which are prerequisites for functioning during a heatwave or a flood. Eg. Many primary health centres operate without assured power backup for cold chain and emergency care.
    6. Fragmented surveillance integration: Meteorological, water quality and disease surveillance systems do not exchange data automatically, so early warning does not translate into facility-level preparation. Eg. Outbreak detection after floods relies on manual reporting through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
    7. International finance shortfall: Adaptation finance for the health sector remains a small fraction of climate finance, which pushes workforce costs back onto domestic budgets. Eg. Adaptation finance globally fell from 28 billion dollars to 26 billion dollars between 2022 and 2023.

    Way Forward

    1. Put climate-health in pre-service curricula: Introduce climate-health competencies into medical, nursing, allied health and public health curricula, so every new entrant carries them without retrofitting.
    2. Embed competencies in supervision and appraisal: Add climate-health tasks to supportive supervision checklists and to the annual performance appraisal of district health officers and facility staff.
    3. Fund workforce costs from domestic budgets: Provide a recurring National Health Mission budget line for climate-health cells, district nodal officers and refresher training, so capability does not lapse with donor projects.
    4. Localise heat and flood thresholds: Derive district-specific temperature, humidity and rainfall thresholds from local mortality and morbidity data, rather than applying uniform national cut-offs.
    5. Integrate the data systems: Link India Meteorological Department warnings, water quality testing and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, so an alert automatically triggers facility-level preparation.
    6. Improve cause-of-death recording: Add climate exposure fields to death certification for heat, flood and cyclone events, so the burden is measured and can be budgeted against.
    7. Climate-proof health facilities: Provide assured power backup, cooling, water security and structural resilience at primary health centres and community health centres in high-exposure districts.
    8. Regularise the emergency workforce: Convert contract emergency and surveillance staff into regular cadres, so trained capacity remains in the system rather than leaving with the contract.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024, GS2, 15] 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.”

  • UGC equity rules being reconsidered: Centre to SC

    Why in the News

    The Centre told the Supreme Court on 20 August 2026 that it is reconsidering the University Grants Commission regulations framed to prevent caste discrimination in higher education institutions. The regulations name the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes as the protected groups, and that naming is what general category petitioners have challenged as exclusion.

    What are the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026?

    1. What they do: The University Grants Commission (UGC) (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 impose a compliance framework on higher education institutions to prevent and redress discrimination against students and faculty.
    2. Notification and stay: They were notified on 13 January 2026 and stayed by the Supreme Court on 29 January 2026, which revived the 2012 framework until further orders.
    3. Two definitions inside them: Regulation 3(1)(c) defines caste based discrimination as discrimination on the basis of caste or tribe against members of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. Clause 3(e) defines discrimination more broadly, covering unfair or differential treatment on the ground of caste against any stakeholder.
    4. Present position: The Centre has told the Court that the regulations are being reconsidered, so they stand stayed and unenforced.

    What is a "separate yet equal" classification?

    1. Separate yet equal: A "separate yet equal" classification permits separate facilities for different groups on the argument that the facilities provided are of equal quality. Constitutional courts treat the act of separation as the injury, since equality of facilities does not cure the stigma of being set apart.

    How far are students currently protected against caste discrimination on campus?

    1. Governing regulations restored: The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012 are back in force, requiring institutions to constitute an Equal Opportunity Cell and to publish an anti discrimination policy.
    2. Criminal protection: The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 covers caste based insult, intimidation and social boycott, including inside educational institutions, and is tried by Special Courts. Its 2015 Amendment added new offences and mandated Exclusive Special Courts and time bound trial.
    3. Separate ragging machinery: The UGC (Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2009 mandate an Anti Ragging Committee and an Anti Ragging Squad in every institution, alongside an anti ragging affidavit from every student and parent.
    4. Reservation in admission: The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 reserves 15 per cent of seats for the Scheduled Castes, 7.5 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes and 27 per cent for the Other Backward Classes, alongside 10 per cent for the Economically Weaker Sections.
    5. Reservation in teaching posts: The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019 restored the institution rather than the department as the unit for computing reservation in faculty recruitment.
    6. No standalone statute: India has no dedicated anti discrimination Act for education, so protection is assembled from regulations, criminal law and reservation statutes.

    Constitutional Provisions Related to Equality and Non-Discrimination

    1. Preamble: Declares equality of status and of opportunity, and fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual.
    2. Article 14: Guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws to every person.
    3. Article 15(1): Prohibits the State from discriminating against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
    4. Article 15(4): Enables special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes and for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    5. Article 15(5): Enables reservation in admission to educational institutions, including private unaided institutions, other than minority institutions.
    6. Article 15(6): Enables reservation of up to 10 per cent of seats for the Economically Weaker Sections.
    7. Article 16(4): Enables reservation in public employment for any backward class not adequately represented in State services.
    8. Article 17: Abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form.
    9. Article 21: Guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, read to include the right to live with dignity.
    10. Article 29(2): Bars denial of admission to a State maintained or State aided educational institution on grounds of religion, race, caste or language.
    11. Article 46: Directs the State to promote the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, particularly the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    12. Article 338 and Article 338A: Establish the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate and monitor constitutional safeguards.

    Why were the 2026 Regulations framed?

    1. Origin in litigation: The regulations stem from a 2019 petition filed in the Supreme Court by the mothers of Payal Tadvi and Rohith Vemula.
    2. The two deaths: Payal Tadvi and Rohith Vemula died by suicide over alleged caste based discrimination in 2019 and 2016 respectively.
    3. Relief sought: The petition asked for enforcement of robust anti discrimination mechanisms across higher education institutions.
    4. Gap in the earlier framework: The 2012 regulations relied on Equal Opportunity Cells without naming caste based discrimination as a distinct wrong.
    5. Regulatory answer: The 2026 regulations responded by carving out caste based discrimination as a separate defined category rather than leaving it inside general discrimination.

    Why did the Supreme Court stay the regulations rather than let them operate?

    1. Sweeping consequences: The bench said the issue raised important questions that, if left unexamined, could have very sweeping consequences and could divide society.
    2. Prima facie ambiguity: The order recorded that on a prima facie consideration some provisions of the impugned regulations suffer from certain ambiguities, and that the possibility of their misuse cannot be ruled out.
    3. Status quo preserved: The Court directed that the 2012 Regulations will continue in force till further orders, so institutions were not left without an equity framework.
    4. Notices issued: Notices were issued to the Centre and to the University Grants Commission, so the challenge proceeds on merits rather than by administrative withdrawal.
    5. Narrow target of challenge: The petitions, filed by Mritunjay Tiwari, Vineet Jindal and Rahul Dewan, primarily challenge Regulation 3(1)(c) and not the regulations as a whole.

    Why has an anti-discrimination rule drawn objections from protected and general categories alike?

    1. General category objection: Naming the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in Regulation 3(1)(c) is read as excluding general category students and faculty from specific protection against caste based discrimination.
    2. The broader clause cuts against the narrower: Clause 3(e) already covers unfair or differential treatment on the ground of caste against any stakeholder, so the narrower clause adds a group specific label without adding a group specific remedy.
    3. Dalit and Other Backward Class objection: Sections of Dalit and Other Backward Class opinion oppose the stay and any rollback, since deleting the named categories would dissolve the recognition the regulation created.
    4. Division within the protected groups: Some Dalit opinion opposes bringing the Other Backward Classes under the same protective umbrella, treating caste discrimination against the Scheduled Castes as a distinct harm.
    5. Absent machinery: The regulations create a named category of caste based discrimination without prescribing a distinct complaint, inquiry or penalty procedure for it.

    What questions has the Supreme Court framed for examination?

    1. Nexus of Regulation 3(1)(c): Whether Clause 3(1)(c) bears a reasonable and rational nexus to subserve the object and purpose of the 2026 Regulations, particularly since no distinct or special procedural mechanism has been prescribed to address caste based discrimination as against the exhaustive and inclusive definition of discrimination in Clause 3(e).
    2. Effect on sub classification: Whether introducing the term caste based discrimination has any bearing on the existing constitutional and statutory sub classification of the Most Backward Castes within the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, and whether the new rules provide adequate and effective safeguards to such Extremely Backward Castes against discrimination and structural disadvantage.
    3. Segregation and the equality guarantees: Whether including the expression segregation in the context of allocation of hostels, classrooms, mentorship groups or similar academic or residential arrangements, albeit on transparent and non discriminatory criteria, would amount to a separate yet equal classification infringing the guarantees of equality and fraternity under Articles 14 and 15 and the Preamble.
    4. Omission of ragging: Whether omitting the term ragging as a specific form of discrimination is a regressive and exclusionary legislative omission, and whether that omission creates an asymmetry in access to justice for victims of discrimination and so falls foul of Articles 14 and 21.

    Why has the issue become an electoral question in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar?

    1. Upper caste protest: The rules triggered protests among sections of the upper castes, who argued that the explicit reference to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes amounted to exclusion of general category students.
    2. Dalit disquiet over rollback: There is concern within the ruling party that the stay and any rollback may cause disquiet among Dalit communities.
    3. Election calendar: Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are due next year, which places the dispute inside an active campaign in the largest State.
    4. Bypoll reading: One reason attributed within the ruling party for its defeat in the recent Bankipur Assembly bypoll in Bihar was upper caste dissatisfaction over the University Grants Commission issue.
    5. Cost in both directions: Retaining the clause loses general category support and withdrawing it loses Dalit and Other Backward Class support, which is why reconsideration rather than defence is the chosen route.

    Major debates surrounding caste discrimination in higher education

    1. Group specific against universal protection: Whether an anti discrimination rule should name the historically excluded groups, or state a caste neutral prohibition that any student can invoke, is the live legal fault line.
    2. Sub classification within the Scheduled Castes: The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in State of Punjab v Davinder Singh permitted States to sub classify the Scheduled Castes for reservation, and the debate now extends to whether protection against discrimination can be similarly graded.
    3. Creamy layer for the Scheduled Castes: Judicial opinion is divided on extending the creamy layer exclusion, applied to the Other Backward Classes since Indra Sawhney (1992), to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    4. Merit against representation: The framing of open competition as merit and reservation as compensation is contested by the argument that access to coaching, language and schooling already prices the entry test.
    5. Institutional autonomy against central regulation: Whether a central regulator can prescribe internal grievance machinery binding on State and private universities is disputed by State governments.
    6. Empirical gap: Caste wise data on discrimination complaints and on student suicides in higher education institutions is not published in consolidated form, so the scale the dispute turns on is itself contested.

    Challenges to enforcing the UGC Equity Regulations

    1. Grievance machinery controlled by the respondent: Equal Opportunity Cells are constituted by the same administration that a complaint is frequently directed against. Eg. In the Rohith Vemula case, the suspension from the hostel that preceded his death in January 2016 came from the University of Hyderabad's own disciplinary machinery.
    2. Retaliation risk suppresses reporting: A complaint against senior faculty or residents is made inside a hierarchy that controls the complainant's evaluation. Eg. Payal Tadvi's complaint at BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai in 2019 named senior residents in her own department.
    3. Regulatory reach ends at grant conditionality: University Grants Commission regulations bind institutions that seek its recognition and grants, and enforcement over State universities is weak. Eg. The 2012 regulations required every institution to publish an anti discrimination policy, and publication was never made a condition for release of grants.
    4. A stayed regulation does not operate: A judicial stay leaves the earlier and weaker framework in charge for the entire period of litigation. Eg. The 2026 regulations have been suspended since 29 January 2026, so the 2012 framework they were written to replace still governs every campus.
    5. Faculty representation shortfall: A grievance system staffed almost entirely by unreserved category faculty carries limited confidence among complainants. Eg. Central universities have reported persistent backlogs of unfilled reserved category professor and associate professor posts in successive parliamentary replies.
    6. Definitional contest displaces the remedy: Litigation on who is covered has consumed the entire period in which the compliance machinery was to be built. Eg. Seven months after notification the regulations have produced no Equal Opportunity Cell restructuring, no complaint procedure and no penalty.

    Conclusion

    A regulation written to give caste discrimination a name has become unworkable because targeted protection and formally neutral protection are being demanded of the same clause. The Centre has told the Supreme Court that the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 are being reconsidered, so the measure stands stayed and the 2012 framework continues in force until further orders. What remains unresolved is the defect the Court itself identified, that the regulations create a distinct category of caste based discrimination without prescribing any distinct procedure to act on it.

    What is Substantive Equality?

    1. About: Substantive equality treats equality as an outcome the law must produce, so it permits differential treatment where identical treatment would preserve entrenched disadvantage.
    2. Rationale: Formal equality applies the same rule to unequally placed persons, which reproduces the existing distribution of advantage; substantive equality asks what the rule does to those on whom the disadvantage already falls.
    3. Redressing disadvantage: The first dimension asks whether a measure removes the material and social disadvantage a group carries, rather than whether it treats everyone alike.
    4. Countering stigma, prejudice and violence: The second dimension asks whether a measure reduces the humiliation, stereotype and hostility attached to group membership.
    5. Enhancing voice and participation: The third dimension asks whether the affected group has a say in the institutions that decide for it, since exclusion from decision making sustains the disadvantage.
    6. Accommodating difference through structural change: The fourth dimension asks whether the institution itself is altered to fit the group, rather than requiring the group to conform to an existing design.

    Key Concerns Regarding Substantive Equality

    1. Ceiling on affirmative action: The 50 per cent limit set in Indra Sawhney (1992) restricts how far redistribution can go, and the 10 per cent Economically Weaker Sections quota upheld in Janhit Abhiyan (2022) breached it for a non caste category.
    2. Benefit capture within the beneficiary group: Reservation gains concentrate among the better placed sections of a reserved category, which is the argument behind creamy layer and sub classification demands.
    3. Absence of enumeration: Caste wise socio economic data has not been published since 1931 in a full Census, so the extent of disadvantage the doctrine seeks to redress is inferred rather than measured.
    4. Reach limited to the public sector: Reservation binds the State and State aided institutions, and the bulk of new employment and higher education capacity has grown in the private sector.
    5. Conflict with efficiency claims: Article 335 requires that claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes be considered consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, which is repeatedly invoked against extending measures.
    6. Enforcement gap in horizontal relations: Constitutional equality guarantees bind the State, and discrimination between private individuals on a campus or in housing has no general statutory remedy.

    Laws and Rules Governing Anti-Discrimination in Higher Education

    1. University Grants Commission Act, 1956: Establishes the Commission and empowers it to coordinate and determine standards in universities.
    2. Section 26 gives the Commission power to make regulations, which is the source of both the 2012 and the 2026 equity regulations.
    3. Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955: Penalises the enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability, including in educational institutions.
    4. Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: Section 16 requires educational institutions to provide inclusive education and reasonable accommodation.

    Government Initiatives for Equity in Higher Education

    1. Post Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Caste students: Meets tuition and maintenance costs of Scheduled Caste students pursuing post matriculation courses, targeted at students below a stated family income ceiling.
    2. National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students: Funds Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy research by students of these categories in recognised universities.
    3. PM Young Achievers Scholarship Award Scheme for Vibrant India (PM YASASVI): Supports school and higher secondary education of Other Backward Class, Economically Backward Class and De notified Tribe students, feeding the higher education pipeline.
    4. National Overseas Scholarship: Funds postgraduate and doctoral study abroad for Scheduled Caste, De notified Tribe, landless agricultural labourer and traditional artisan category students.
    5. Dr Ambedkar Centres of Excellence: Provide free civil services examination coaching to Scheduled Caste students in selected universities.
    6. Remedial Coaching and Equal Opportunity Cells: University Grants Commission supported cells run bridge and remedial courses for students from reserved categories in colleges and universities.

    Challenges in Ensuring Equity in Higher Education

    1. Enrolment gap by category: Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education remains below the national average for the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes. Eg. The All India Survey on Higher Education for 2021-22 recorded an overall Gross Enrolment Ratio of 28.4 per cent, against 25.9 per cent for the Scheduled Castes and 21.2 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes.
    2. Language of instruction: Professional and postgraduate programmes are taught almost entirely in English, which disadvantages students from State board schooling in regional languages. Eg. Engineering and medical curricula translated into Indian languages under the National Education Policy, 2020 cover a small share of programmes and enrolment.
    3. Financial barriers and delayed disbursal: Scholarship money arrives after fees fall due, forcing students into private borrowing. Eg. Post Matric Scholarship disbursal depends on release of the State share, and delays in that release have stalled payments across academic years.
    4. Residential segregation on campus: Hostel allotment and mess arrangements reproduce caste separation informally even where no rule prescribes it. Eg. The Supreme Court has framed the allocation of hostels, classrooms and mentorship groups as a separate yet equal question in the present case.
    5. Mental health and support systems: Counselling capacity in most institutions is not staffed to the size of the student body, and first generation learners carry the heaviest adjustment burden. Eg. Successive parliamentary replies have recorded student suicides in central institutions, with a disproportionate share from reserved categories.
    6. Growth outside the reservation perimeter: Capacity expansion has been largest in private unaided institutions, where implementation of Article 15(5) reservation is uneven. Eg. The provision was upheld for private unaided institutions in Ashoka Kumar Thakur (2008) and again in Pramati Educational Trust (2014), and compliance is not centrally monitored.

    Back2Basics: University Grants Commission (UGC)

    1. Formation: Set up in 1953 and given statutory status by the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, which came into force on 3 November 1956.
    2. Parent ministry: Functions under the Ministry of Education, with its headquarters in New Delhi and six regional offices.
    3. Constitutional basis: Draws from Article 246 read with Entry 66 of the Union List, which covers coordination and determination of standards in institutions for higher education.
    4. Composition: Consists of a Chairman, a Vice Chairman and ten members appointed by the Central Government.
    5. Mandate: Coordinates and determines standards in universities, disburses grants, frames regulations and advises the Union and State governments on higher education.
    6. Recognition function: Recognises institutions under Sections 2(f) and 12(B) of the Act, which determines their eligibility for central grants.
    7. Proposed replacement: A Higher Education Commission of India has been proposed to subsume its regulatory functions, with grant disbursal moved to a separate body.

    Way Forward

    1. Prescribe a distinct procedure: Attach a dedicated complaint, inquiry and penalty procedure to caste based discrimination, since the absence of one is the core defect the Court has framed.
    2. Independent grievance forum: Place the inquiry authority outside the institution's own administration, with an external member drawn from a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe commission panel.
    3. Keep the broad clause as the residual protection: Retain the wide definition in Clause 3(e) as the universal guarantee, so no category of student is left without a remedy. The group specific recognition created by Regulation 3(1)(c) is retained alongside it.
    4. Make compliance a grant condition: Tie release of central grants and continuation of Section 12(B) status to the constitution and reporting of a functioning equity mechanism.
    5. Publish disaggregated data: Require every institution to report complaints, outcomes, dropouts and student deaths by category in an annual public return.
    6. Fill reserved faculty posts in mission mode: Run a time bound special recruitment drive for the backlog of reserved category teaching posts, since representation among decision makers is what makes a grievance forum credible.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS2, 10] Whether National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) can enforce the implementation of constitutional reservation for the Scheduled Castes in the religious minority institutions? Examine.”

  • Union Cabinet clears HC bench for Ladakh

    Why in the News

    The Union Cabinet has decided to establish a bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in Ladakh, aimed at improving access to justice in the Union Territory. The decision answers a long-standing demand on judicial access at a point when the agitation in Ladakh is pressing a different set of demands on statehood, Sixth Schedule protection and an empowered legislature.

    What is a High Court bench?

    1. About: A High Court bench is a permanent sitting of a High Court at a place other than its principal seat, where judges hear cases arising from a defined territory.
    2. Purpose: A bench reduces the distance and cost of approaching the higher judiciary for litigants living far from the principal seat, without creating a separate High Court.
    3. How it is established: The place of the principal seat and of any other place of sitting is fixed by the President by notification, and the establishment of a bench ordinarily follows a proposal from the State or Union Territory government with the concurrence of the High Court’s Chief Justice and the Union Law Ministry.
    4. The court concerned: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court, renamed the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, is the common High Court for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

    What is the Leh Apex Body?

    1. About: The Leh Apex Body is the umbrella platform of political, religious and social organisations from Leh district, formed to press Ladakh’s demands for constitutional safeguards.
    2. Role: It leads the Ladakh agitation jointly with the Kargil Democratic Alliance and negotiates with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

    What is the Kargil Democratic Alliance?

    1. About: The Kargil Democratic Alliance is the corresponding umbrella platform of political, religious and social organisations from Kargil district.
    2. Role: It negotiates alongside the Leh Apex Body, so the two districts present a single set of demands to the Centre.

    What does the decision do?

    1. The decision: The Union Cabinet decided to establish a bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in Ladakh, announced by the Union Home Minister on 20 August 2026.
    2. Stated effect: The bench will enhance access to justice for citizens living in remote areas of Ladakh by reducing the time required to avail the legal services they are entitled to.
    3. Framing by the Centre: The announcement reaffirmed the Centre’s commitment to ensuring constitutional safeguards and the all-round development of the region.
    4. Response from the Union Territory: The Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh welcomed it as a historic decision and said it would ensure speedy justice and reaffirm commitment to the region’s development.
    5. The demand it answers: Officials said the bench is expected to address a long-standing demand for easier and faster access to the higher judiciary for people in Ladakh.

    Does a High Court bench answer what the Ladakh agitation is asking for?

    1. What the agitation seeks: Local stakeholders are seeking stronger safeguards in four areas: land, employment, culture and political representation.
    2. The non-negotiable demands: The Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance submitted a memorandum listing three non-negotiable demands: financial powers for the proposed elected Ladakh Legislative Assembly, a separate Public Service Commission for jobs in the Union Territory, and unconditional withdrawal of all cases against those affected by the violence of 24 September last year.
    3. The gap: A judicial bench addresses the distance to the higher judiciary and does not touch legislative powers, recruitment autonomy or constitutional protection of land and culture.
    4. Why the timing matters: The announcement comes against the backdrop of continuing discussions over the political, administrative and constitutional future of Ladakh.
    5. What the Centre is offering instead: The Centre is exploring a Union Territory level legislative body under certain provisions of Article 371, rather than the Sixth Schedule extension the agitation has demanded.

    What happened in Leh on 24 September last year and what has followed?

    1. The incident: Four persons were killed and at least 50 injured in Leh when a protest demanding statehood and extension of Sixth Schedule protections turned violent and police opened fire on protesters.
    2. Cases registered: About 87 people were booked following the violence, of whom about nine were chargesheeted.
    3. Withdrawal of cases: The Ladakh administration announced that cases against 25 people will be withdrawn, with closure reports to be filed in court in due course.
    4. Further review: The Chief Secretary said the Director General of Police has been directed to review the cases of the remaining persons still under investigation, to identify others who did not have an active role.
    5. Official characterisation: The Chief Secretary termed the incident a blot on the pages of India’s history.
    6. Detention of the activist: Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who was on a hunger strike for nearly 35 days in support of Ladakh’s demands, called off his fast, and was booked under the National Security Act, 1980 and lodged in Jodhpur jail for six months.

    What is the Article 371 route being explored?

    1. The proposal: A Union Territory level legislative body is being envisaged for Ladakh under certain provisions of Article 371.
    2. Work in progress: The Ministry of Home Affairs is working with the Law Ministry to prepare a framework for the arrangement.
    3. Questions the framework must settle: The framework has to decide how the body will be elected, what powers it will hold and the shape of the executive.
    4. Next step: The discussions will be taken further in a formal structured meeting of the sub-committee, expected in the first week of September.
    5. The stated horizon: The Chief Secretary said these things will not happen overnight and that a new model will be established for Ladakh.

    Challenges to Ladakh’s Demand for Constitutional Safeguards

    1. Sixth Schedule applicability: The Sixth Schedule as it stands applies to tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, so extending it to a Union Territory requires a constitutional amendment. Eg. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended Sixth Schedule inclusion for Ladakh in 2019, and the recommendation has not been acted upon.
    2. Union Territory without a legislature: Ladakh was constituted as a Union Territory without a legislature on 31 October 2019, so all law-making for it rests with Parliament and the administrator. Eg. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 gave a legislature to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and none to Ladakh.
    3. Employment and recruitment: Without a separate Public Service Commission, recruitment for Ladakh runs through arrangements that local stakeholders say do not reserve posts for residents. Eg. The demand for a dedicated Ladakh Public Service Commission is one of the three non-negotiable demands submitted to the Chief Secretary.
    4. Land and demographic protection: Absence of domicile-linked land restrictions is the core anxiety behind the safeguards demand. Eg. Leh and Kargil bodies have sought protection of land and culture alongside political representation in every round of talks.
    5. Trust deficit after the firing: Criminal proceedings against protesters continue during the talks, which constrains negotiation. Eg. Of about 87 people booked after the 24 September violence, cases against 25 are being withdrawn and the rest remain under review.
    6. Ecological limits on development: Ladakh is a cold desert with acute water stress, so development promises collide with carrying capacity. Eg. Leh town’s groundwater and spring-fed supply has come under strain from tourism growth and construction.
    7. Continuity of dialogue: Negotiations depend on periodic meetings without a statutory framework or timeline. Eg. The next round of talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs team is scheduled for the following month, with a sub-committee meeting expected in the first week of September.

    Conclusion

    The Union Cabinet has cleared a bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court for Ladakh, and the Lieutenant Governor has welcomed it as answering a long-standing demand on judicial access. The demands driving the agitation, statehood, Sixth Schedule protection, financial powers for an elected assembly and a separate Public Service Commission, remain unresolved. The Centre is preparing a framework for a Union Territory level legislative body under provisions of Article 371, with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Law Ministry deciding its election method, powers and executive structure. The next milestone is a formal structured sub-committee meeting expected in the first week of September, ahead of the next round of talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs team.

    “[2025, GS2, 10] Discuss the nature of Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019. Briefly describe the powers and functions of the Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”