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GS Paper: GS3

  • The Greyhounds last leap

    Why in the News

    The Greyhounds, the counter insurgency force raised in 1989 to fight Maoists in the forests of undivided Andhra Pradesh, is being repurposed after the Union Home Minister’s declaration in May that the country is free of Naxal activity. The force’s strength has fallen to 650 personnel from a peak of over 2,000. Telangana was earlier declared totally free of Maoist armed formations, after a surrender driven strategy that brought in 817 rebels between December 2023 and April this year. The tension is over mandate. A unit built for jungle warfare against an armed insurgency is now being pointed at marijuana cultivation in the same remote hills, an activity the State Security Adviser warns could evolve into a violent crime syndicate.

    What is the Greyhounds force and how is it manned?

    1. Origin and purpose: It was created in 1989 by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer K.S. Vyas, after conventional policing proved inadequate against the growing armed strength of the Maoists in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
    2. A deputation unit, not a recruited one: There is no separate recruitment for the force. Personnel volunteer from the Special Police, the Armed Reserve and the Civil Police, and are screened for physical fitness, mental resilience and determination.
    3. The service incentive: Personnel deputed to the force receive an additional 60 percent of their basic pay and dearness allowance for the duration of the posting.
    4. Unit structure and composition: In erstwhile Andhra Pradesh the force ran 41 units of 35 personnel each, with a Deputy Superintendent of Police, an inspector and three sub inspectors in every unit. No woman has ever headed the force or served in any of its operational units.

    How did the Greyhounds become a model for other forces?

    1. The training design: Narayan Singh Bhati, a former Deputy Inspector General of the Special Security Bureau, now the Sashastra Seema Bal, built the training programme and stayed on as a consultant for nearly four decades. He was awarded the Padma Shri and died in June 2023 at the age of 92.
    2. State forces modelled on it: Odisha raised its Special Operations Group, Maharashtra its C-60, West Bengal its Counter-Insurgency Force and Chhattisgarh its District Reserve Guard on the same design.
    3. The central force it shaped: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) drew on the Greyhounds model for its Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), its own jungle warfare unit.
    4. Embedded in police training: An attachment with the Greyhounds is mandatory for IPS officers under training at the National Police Academy. Officers allotted to the Telugu States serve a separate posting with the force.
    5. The intelligence backbone: The Special Intelligence Branch (SIB), raised alongside the force, tracked the movement and activities of the rebels and supplied the targeting that operations depended on.

    What does the operational record show?

    1. The tally in undivided Andhra Pradesh: The force neutralised 693 rebels and seized 1,250 firearms.
    2. The tally after bifurcation: Since the formation of Telangana on 2 June 2014, it has killed 92 Naxals and recovered 360 weapons.
    3. The targeting rule: A person in olive green uniform carrying a weapon was not by itself treated as a target, since a hunter or a village resident could fit that description. Identification required a self loading rifle, an AK series rifle or a .303 rifle in hand.
    4. Cross border operations: Teams crossed into neighbouring Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh to strike targets operating from across State borders.
    5. What operations turned on: An operation at Manala in Nizamabad in March 2005 located a concealed group only after an officer spotted a glint of metal on a hilltop, and ten rebels were killed there.

    What did the force lose?

    1. Personnel killed: The Greyhounds lost over 60 men over the years, including six after the formation of Telangana.
    2. The Balimela ambush: On 29 June 2008, Maoists ambushed a returning team on the Balimela reservoir in Odisha and sank its boat, killing 37 people including 32 commandos.
    3. The founder killed: K.S. Vyas was shot dead on 27 January 1993 while jogging at a stadium in Hyderabad, by five members of the CPI (ML) People’s War Group.
    4. Officers targeted as policy: Vyas was one of three IPS officers killed by the rebels in Andhra Pradesh, alongside G. Pardesi Naidu in November 1993 and C. Umesh Chandra in September 1999.

    Why did surrenders rather than encounters end the insurgency in Telangana?

    1. The surrender policy: A surrender policy announced by the Chief Minister of Telangana was the operative instrument, with the Special Intelligence Branch working the approaches to cadre.
    2. The numbers it produced: Between December 2023 and 30 April this year, 817 rebels surrendered, including four central committee members and 22 State committee members. A further 138 were arrested and 325 weapons were seized, including 56 AK-47 rifles.
    3. What it did to the organisation: The CPI (Maoist) was left headless, leaderless and rudderless once its leadership tier came out.
    4. Why the method mattered: Encounters and arrests can turn rebels into martyrs within sections of society. A surrender removes that status and demoralises the cadre left behind.
    5. The declaration that followed: The State was declared totally free of Maoist armed formations.

    What is the force’s mandate after the Naxal free declaration?

    1. The new target: Intelligence inputs are to be used to detect marijuana cultivation in the same remote hills that were insurgent strongholds.
    2. Why the pivot is being made now: Roads and development are reaching those areas. That opens them to cultivation as much as to administration.
    3. The precedent being cited: Marijuana cultivation is rampant along the Andhra Odisha Border, and the stated concern is that such cultivation evolves into a violent crime syndicate over time.
    4. How the two units divide the work: The Special Intelligence Branch identifies the activity, and the Greyhounds are then deployed to ensure cultivation does not take hold.

    Challenges to the Greyhounds after the Naxal free declaration

    1. A specialised skill decays without use: Jungle warfare proficiency is perishable and depends on continuous operations, so a force held in reserve loses the capability it was built for. Eg. The unit has no recruitment of its own, so its capability rests entirely on the officers deputed in at any given time.
      The Fix: Fix a minimum annual field exercise and cross deployment schedule with other jungle warfare units, so proficiency survives the absence of an active insurgency.
    2. Declaring an insurgency over invites premature withdrawal: A formal end date creates pressure to cut force levels and budgets before the conditions that produced the insurgency are addressed. Eg. Maoist activity in Andhra Pradesh revived after the collapse of the 2004 peace talks with the State government.
      The Fix: Tie any reduction in counter insurgency deployment to measured delivery of the development and land administration commitments in the affected districts.
    3. Narcotics enforcement is a different discipline: Detecting and prosecuting cultivation needs financial investigation, revenue records and forensic chain of custody, not assault capability. Eg. Cannabis moving out of the Andhra Odisha Border area travels through transport and financing networks that sit outside a strike force’s remit.
      The Fix: Pair every deployment against cultivation with a narcotics investigation team empowered to pursue the trafficking and financing chain.
    4. Surrender without rehabilitation produces returnees: A surrendered cadre with no livelihood and no protection has a route back to the organisation or into organised crime. Eg. Surrender and rehabilitation packages across Left Wing Extremism affected States differ widely in cash, housing and skilling terms.
      The Fix: Standardise a surrender and rehabilitation entitlement across the affected States, with a named district officer accountable for each case for a fixed period.
    5. A deputation model limits institutional memory: Personnel rotate back to their parent units, so operational learning leaves with them unless it is written down. Eg. The training programme rested for nearly four decades on a single external consultant rather than on a standing doctrine cell.
      The Fix: Establish a permanent doctrine and after action review cell inside the force, staffed independently of the operational rotation.

    Conclusion

    The Greyhounds reaches the end of its founding mission with the insurgency it was raised against declared finished and no equivalent adversary in view. The decision in front of the State is whether a force built for armed contact is the right instrument for narcotics enforcement, or whether it is being retained because it exists. The deployment has already been committed to the former strongholds as roads reach them. The thing to watch is whether that deployment is paired with investigative and prosecutorial capacity, since cultivation is broken by cases rather than by operations.

    Back2Basics: CPI (Maoist)

    1. Formation: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was formed in 2004 by the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India.
    2. Legal status: It is banned as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, along with its front organisations.
    3. Structure: It runs through a politburo and a central committee, with State committees below them, and its armed wing is the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army.
    4. Area of operation: Its strength lay in the forested districts of central and eastern India, the belt security agencies describe as the Red Corridor.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 10] The Government of India recently stated that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) will be eliminated by 2026. What do you understand by LWE and how are the people affected by it? What measures have been taken by the government to eliminate LWE?”

  • Punjab owes its young a chance to recover

    Why in the News

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

    What is the Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment programme?

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

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

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

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

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

    Why can interdiction alone not close the supply?

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

    What has gone wrong with treatment delivery?

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

    Challenges to Punjab’s drug de addiction response

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

    Conclusion

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

    Government Initiatives for drug demand reduction

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

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Ensure dignity, way back for Manipur’s displaced

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has expressed shock at reports of deaths, including unnatural deaths, in relief camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Manipur. The displacement follows ethnic violence that has remained intractable for over three years. The Manipur government told the State Assembly this month that the number of people in relief camps and temporary locations has fallen to 28,899, from nearly 60,000 at the peak of the violence. The tension is between camp management and settlement. The State can staff camps and supply medicines, and neither step restores the conditions for people to go home. The Meitei and Kuki conflict remains unsettled, and it has now acquired a Naga and Kuki dimension as well.

    Why is healthcare access the sharpest cost of prolonged displacement?

    1. Concentration in the capital: Manipur’s healthcare system is heavily concentrated in Imphal, so specialist treatment is a journey rather than a local service for most of the State.
    2. The two tertiary hospitals: The Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences are the State’s two tertiary government hospitals. Both are located in the capital.
    3. What segregation did to access: Once violence induced ethnic segregation set in, Kuki-Zo people from the hills could no longer travel to the Valley for treatment.
    4. The gap in the hills: Healthcare facilities in the hills lack specialists and essential equipment, so the referral chain has no second tier to fall back on.

    What does the geography of treatment now look like?

    1. Treatment outside the State: Some patients have had to seek healthcare outside Manipur. The closest destination is Aizawl, a journey of over 12 hours by road.
    2. Blockades as a health problem: Persistent blockades obstruct patients travelling to hospitals. They also obstruct the movement of medicines and of medical personnel.
    3. Nutrition in the camps: The food provided in many camps is nutritionally deficient. That compounds the burden on a health system already out of reach.
    4. A temporary refuge made permanent: What was meant to be temporary shelter has left thousands of people dependent on an inadequate and fragile healthcare system.

    What do the displacement figures show?

    1. The current count: The number of IDPs in relief camps and temporary locations stands at 28,899.
    2. The decline from the peak: The figure was nearly 60,000 at the peak of the violence, so more than half of those displaced have left the camps.
    3. What the fall does not measure: A falling count records movement out of camps. It records nothing about whether people returned to their own homes or their own areas.
    4. The duration: The displacement has run for over three years, so the population still in the camps is the population with nowhere else to go.

    Why can camp management not substitute for a political settlement?

    1. The unresolved conflict: Without a durable solution to the Meitei and Kuki conflict, the conditions for safe and sustainable rehabilitation remain out of reach.
    2. The widening fault line: The conflict has increasingly acquired a Naga and Kuki dimension, so a settlement between two communities no longer covers the dispute.
    3. What the State can do now: The State must ensure adequately staffed medical facilities at or near the camps, along with supplies of medicines and other essential services.
    4. What a settlement requires: Dialogue and confidence building measures are the route to a political settlement that ends the violence and allows displaced people to rebuild with security and dignity.

    Challenges to the rehabilitation of Manipur’s displaced

    1. Return depends on security guarantees the State cannot yet give: Displaced households will not return to mixed or frontier areas without an assurance against renewed attack, so camp exits outpace actual resettlement. Eg. Buffer zones along the Valley and hill boundary have been held by central forces since 2023 rather than dismantled.
      The Fix: Publish a village wise return plan naming the security arrangement, the timeline and the compensation attached to each village.
    2. Documentation loss blocks entitlements: People who fled without papers lose access to rations, pensions, school admission and land records, so displacement hardens into a durable loss of status. Eg. Camp residents have needed fresh identity documentation to reach welfare schemes tied to place of residence.
      The Fix: Run a single window re issue drive for identity, land and school records inside the camps, with the camp address accepted as proof of residence.
    3. India has no statutory framework for internal displacement: Relief rests on executive discretion and court direction rather than on an enforceable entitlement, so standards vary by State and by episode. Eg. The Supreme Court has had to intervene on camp conditions in place of a statutory authority enforcing them.
      The Fix: Enact a framework law defining minimum camp standards, return entitlements and a named authority accountable for each.
    4. Education loss compounds across cohorts: Children in camps lose school years that are never recovered, so the displacement transfers to the next generation. Eg. School buildings in the affected districts were used to house displaced families, removing both the premises and the schooling.
      The Fix: Attach a residential bridge school to each camp cluster, with enrolment tracked against the pre displacement register.
    5. A relief economy entrenches the camp: Sustained rations, cash relief and camp based work create a livelihood structure that competes with the decision to return. Eg. Bru families displaced from Mizoram in 1997 lived in relief camps in Tripura until the resettlement agreement of 2020.
      The Fix: Convert relief into a time bound resettlement package payable on return, rather than an open ended entitlement payable in the camp.

    Conclusion

    Displacement in Manipur has stopped being a housing problem and become a health one. The camps are the point at which an already concentrated health system fails the people furthest from it. The State’s immediate obligation is staffed medical facilities at or near the camps, with the medicines and personnel to run them. The unresolved question is political, since a return that is safe and durable now needs a settlement covering the Naga and Kuki dimension as well as the Meitei and Kuki one.

    Back2Basics: internally displaced people

    1. Who they are: Internally displaced people are persons forced to flee their homes by conflict, violence or disaster who have not crossed an international border.
    2. How they differ from refugees: A refugee crosses an international border and gains protection under international refugee law. An internally displaced person remains under the jurisdiction of their own State.
    3. The governing standard: The United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 1998 set out the rights of displaced people and the duties of the State, without binding treaty force.
    4. The position in India: India has no dedicated law on internal displacement, so relief and rehabilitation run through executive schemes and State level orders.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 15] What are the major challenges to internal security and peace process in the North-Eastern States? Map the various peace accords and agreements initiated by the government in the past decade.”

  • Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS)

    Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS)

    Why in the News?

    The Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) is being implemented to deepen India’s domestic electronics ecosystem, reduce import dependence and increase domestic value addition in the electronics supply chain.

    Key Highlights

    • ECMS notified: 8 April 2025
    • Initial outlay: ₹22,919 crore
    • Tenure: 6 years, with optional 1-year gestation period
    • Union Budget 2026-27: outlay increased to ₹40,000 crore
    • Capex incentive available for 5 years
    • As of August 2026:
      • 106 projects approved
      • Across 15 States
      • Covering 30 electronic domain products
      • Approved investment: ₹69,548 crore

    What Does ECMS Support?

    The scheme promotes domestic manufacturing of:

    • Electronic components
    • Sub-assemblies
    • Supply-chain products
    • Related capital goods

    Critical Import-Dependent Components

    • Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs)
    • Camera modules
    • Display modules
    • Connectors
    • Capacitors
    • Lithium-ion cells
    • Rare-earth magnets
    • Core objective: Move India beyond electronics assembly towards deeper domestic manufacturing and value addition.

    Progress Under ECMS

    • Production has started at 38 approved plants.
    • 16 projects are at advanced construction or machinery-installation stages.
    • Expected production: ₹5.34 lakh crore
    • Expected employment:
      • 74,628 direct jobs
      • 2.5 lakh indirect jobs

    SEMICON India 2026

    • Theme: “Silicon to Systems: Building the Ecosystem”
    • Venue: Yashobhoomi, New Delhi
    • Dates: 17-19 September 2026
    • Focus: strengthening India’s semiconductor ecosystem across the value chain.

    Other Government Initiatives

    National Policy on Electronics 2019 (NPE 2019)

    • Aims to make India a global hub for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM).

    Production Linked Incentive (PLI) for Large-Scale Electronics Manufacturing

    • Performance-linked incentives of 4%-6% on incremental sales for eligible segments.

    SPECS [Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors]

    • Provided 25% capital expenditure incentive for eligible components, semiconductor/display fabrication, ATMP units, sub-assemblies and capital goods.

    EMC 2.0

    Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters 2.0

    • Provides manufacturing infrastructure, common facilities and Plug-and-Play capacity.

    PLI for IT Hardware

    • Promotes domestic IT hardware manufacturing and investment.

    Semicon India Programme

    • Semicon 1.0: ₹76,000 crore
    • Semicon 2.0: ₹1,27,500 crore, approved in July 2026
    • Supports fabs, packaging, testing, design and related semiconductor capabilities.

    Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) Scheme

    • Financial assistance up to 50% of project cost
    • Ceiling of ₹50 crore per 100 acres for greenfield projects.

    Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP)

    • Uses a structured tariff approach to deepen domestic value addition in mobile phones and key sub-assemblies.

    Electronics Development Fund (EDF)

    • A Fund of Funds investing through venture funds to provide risk capital for innovation, product design and startups in ESDM and IT.

    India’s 2030 Target

    • India is targeting $500 billion domestic electronics manufacturing ecosystem and $150 billion electronics exports by 2030.
  • India’s First Soil Carbon Payments to Farmers

    India’s First Soil Carbon Payments to Farmers

    Why in the News?

    More than 2,500 farmers in Punjab and Haryana are set to receive over ₹2.9 crore through digital payments for adopting regenerative agriculture practices. The initiative marks a link between measured soil-carbon gains, carbon credits and additional farmer income.

    Key Highlights

    • 2,550 farmers from Punjab and Haryana received Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
    • Programme: ‘Aadi’, a Grow Indigo farmer carbon programme launched in 2019 with technical guidance from ICAR.
    • Practices adopted during 2019-2022:
      • Direct Seeded Rice (DSR)
      • Reduced/minimum tillage
      • Crop-residue management
    • Resulting greenhouse-gas reductions and soil-carbon increases were measured and independently verified.
    • Carbon credits were issued under Verra VM0042 methodology.
    • Programme covers:
      • 2 million+ acres
      • 1 lakh+ farmers
      • 7 states

    How Does Soil Carbon Payment Work?

    Sustainable farming practice → Measurement of GHG reduction/soil carbon → Independent verification → Carbon credits → Sale/issuance → Farmer payment

    • Farmers are paid according to their share of carbon credits generated from their fields.
    • First issuance covered around 30,000 acres and 50,000+ carbon credits.
    • Participating farmers received approximately ₹3,000-₹15,000.
    • Grow Indigo made payments from its own funds before the credits were fully sold.
    • Farmers could choose:
      • Assured upfront payment, or
      • 75% of net carbon revenue after credit sale.

    Environmental Benefits

    For enrolled fields during 2019-2022, the programme estimates:

    • 45 billion litres of water saved
    • More than 2 lakh tonnes of crop residue kept out of fires
    • Around 1,000 tonnes of PM2.5 emissions avoided

  • Stem cell therapy for autism only in approved clinical trials: Centre

    Why in the News

    The Union Health Ministry has directed States and Union Territories to ensure that stem cell therapy is offered as standard clinical care only for disease conditions and indications the Ministry has approved, with its use for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) restricted to duly approved clinical trials. The advisory, issued on September 16, follows the Supreme Court’s judgment of January 30, 2026 in Yash Charitable Trust & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., and reiterates the existing regulatory framework rather than creating a new one. The problem it addresses is a gap between practice and evidence. Stem cell interventions have continued to be offered for autism as commercial clinical services even though an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) review found the available evidence does not support them.

    What does the advisory direct?

    1. Approved indications only: Stem cell therapy may be offered as standard clinical care only for disease conditions and indications approved by the Ministry.
    2. Autism confined to trials: For ASD, therapeutic use of any type of stem cell must remain confined to duly approved clinical trials.
    3. The governing guidelines: Such trials must accord with the National Guidelines for Stem Cell Research, 2017, issued by the ICMR and the Department of Biotechnology.
    4. The commercial bar: Interventions not approved for routine clinical use, including those offered for autism, must not be provided as routine, standard or commercial clinical services.

    What prompted the advisory?

    1. The judgment behind it: The advisory follows the Supreme Court’s January 30, 2026 judgment in Yash Charitable Trust & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.
    2. Who it was issued to: It was issued to States and Union Territories that have adopted the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, which is the statute through which clinical establishments are registered and regulated.
    3. The dissemination duty: States and Union Territories have been asked to pass the Court’s directions down to State and district regulatory authorities, and to government and private clinical establishments involved in stem cell research, treatment, promotion or administration.

    Why does the evidence not support stem cell therapy for autism?

    1. The ICMR finding: An ICMR review concluded that the available evidence does not support stem cell therapy over behavioural and supportive therapies for ASD.
    2. The review’s own recommendation: It recommended that such therapy be restricted to approved clinical trials rather than offered as care.
    3. The practice that continues: Stem cell interventions for autism have continued despite the absence of established evidence supporting them as a standard treatment, which is the conduct the advisory is directed at.

    Challenges to regulating unproven stem cell therapy

    1. Adoption of the governing Act is voluntary: The Clinical Establishments Act applies only in States that have adopted it, so an advisory routed through it does not reach every clinical establishment in the country. Eg. Several large States have their own clinical establishment legislation and have not adopted the central Act.
      The Fix: Route the same directions through each State’s own clinical establishment law, so coverage does not depend on adoption of the central statute.
    2. Guidelines carry no penalty of their own: The National Guidelines for Stem Cell Research, 2017 are guidance rather than statute, so breach is punished only through registration action against the establishment. Eg. Clinics offering unapproved stem cell interventions have continued operating while guidance was in force.
      The Fix: Attach defined penalties for offering unapproved cell based interventions to the rules under the clinical establishment framework.
    3. Advertising reaches patients before regulators do: Families encounter claims for stem cell treatment through direct marketing rather than through referral, so demand is created outside the clinical system. Eg. The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 lists conditions for which advertising cures is barred, and enforcement against online claims is thin.
      The Fix: Bring digital advertising of cell based therapies under a prior approval requirement tied to the approved indications list.
    4. Desperation drives cross border and unregulated demand: Where no curative treatment exists, families pursue interventions regardless of the evidence, including outside the country. Eg. Stem cell tourism to jurisdictions with weaker oversight is a documented pattern for neurological conditions.
      The Fix: Publish and maintain a public registry of approved indications and approved trial sites, so families can check a claim before paying for it.

    Conclusion

    The advisory settles the legal position rather than changing it: stem cell therapy for autism is a research question, not a clinical service, and the distinction is now to be enforced through the registration authorities in each State. The instrument’s reach depends on how many States have adopted the Clinical Establishments Act and on whether district regulators act on the directions passed to them. The next measurable step is registration action against establishments that continue to offer the intervention commercially.

    Back2Basics: Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010

    1. Purpose: It provides for the registration and regulation of clinical establishments, with a view to prescribing minimum standards of facilities and services.
    2. Coverage: It applies to all recognised systems of medicine and to both government and private establishments, excluding those run by the armed forces.
    3. How it extends to States: It applies directly in Union Territories and in States that adopt it by resolution, since public health is a State subject.
    4. Institutional structure: It establishes a National Council for Clinical Establishments and requires State Councils and District Registering Authorities to maintain a national register.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017, GS3, 10] Stem cell therapy is gaining popularity in India to treat a wide variety of medical conditions including Leukaemia, Thalassemia, damaged cornea and several burns. Describe briefly what stem cell therapy is and what advantages it has over other treatments?”

  • Private participation not at the cost of ISRO’s capabilities: Staff in fresh note

    Why in the News

    A group of employee associations of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has asserted in a fresh statement that private participation in the space sector must not weaken the agency’s own capabilities. The four page note, issued by a Joint Action Council (JAC) of the associations and circulated among ISRO staff, states that technologies and facilities developed by the agency must not be transferred to private parties at “throwaway prices”. It follows a September 4 letter to the ISRO Chairman, sent a day after the successful launch of the GSLV-F17 mission, which sought clarifications on the agency’s future role. The Chairman had responded that there was no move to privatise the agency. The disagreement is over the boundary, not the principle: the associations accept private participation while demanding that the full capability chain for the agency’s launch vehicles stay in house.

    What does the Joint Action Council note demand?

    1. A return on public investment: The note states that ISRO’s capabilities have been built on public money and cannot become a source of private profit without an adequate return to the nation.
    2. No transfer at throwaway prices: It states that public wealth cannot be transferred at throwaway prices or treated as a freebie for private entities.
    3. Conditions on the transfer process: It demands a level playing field, transparency and accountability in how technology developed with public money is passed on.

    What prompted the associations to write?

    1. The September 4 letter: The associations first flagged their concerns in a letter to the ISRO Chairman on September 4, a day after the successful GSLV-F17 launch.
    2. The reports behind the concern: The letter responded to reports that the agency was being readied to focus its energies only on a few strategic missions, while ceding the rest of the space sector to private companies.
    3. The Chairman’s response: The Chairman stated there was no move to privatise the agency, and that it would continue to build and strengthen capabilities as it partners with the private sector to expand the space economy.
    4. The follow up engagement: He later addressed ISRO employees in a video conference to allay the concerns raised.

    Where does the note accept private participation?

    1. Not opposed in principle: The note states plainly that the associations are not opposed to private participation in the space sector.
    2. Who has a role: It names Indian industry, Public Sector Units and startups as having an important role in expanding India’s space ecosystem.
    3. The launch rate argument: It accepts a legitimate need to increase the number of mission launches, and that this cannot be achieved without private players.
    4. The stated limit: Accepting private players does not mean that mature technologies developed by ISRO are all transferred to outside entities.

    Which capabilities does the note want ring fenced?

    1. Two launch vehicles named: The note names the LVM3, ISRO’s heaviest operational launch vehicle, and the under development Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV).
    2. The complete chain: It states that ISRO must retain the complete chain of capability, from research and development to realisation, integration, testing and launch.
    3. Why the chain matters: Retaining every stage rather than only design keeps the ability to build and fly a vehicle inside the agency, which is what the associations treat as core function rather than transferable technology.

    Challenges to private participation in India’s space sector

    1. Valuing publicly funded technology: There is no settled method for pricing a technology whose development cost was borne entirely by the exchequer, which is the precise objection the note raises. Eg. Technology transfer agreements for launch vehicle systems have been signed without a published valuation basis.
      The Fix: Publish a standard valuation and royalty framework for transferred space technology, so each agreement is measured against a stated method.
    2. A single customer market: Demand for Indian launch and satellite services is dominated by government programmes, so private entrants depend on public orders rather than on a commercial market. Eg. Indian small satellite launch startups have relied substantially on government and institutional payloads for early missions.
      The Fix: Commit multi year anchor procurement volumes in advance, so private capacity is built against a visible order book.
    3. Regulatory clearance timelines: Authorisation for launches, spectrum and frequency coordination and ground station approvals involve multiple agencies, which lengthens project cycles for private firms. Eg. Satellite communications operators have waited through extended spectrum allocation decisions before beginning commercial service in India.
      The Fix: Fix statutory outer limits for each authorisation stage under the single window mechanism, with deemed clearance on expiry.
    4. Loss of institutional skill: Transferring production of mature systems moves the engineers who build them out of the agency, which erodes the capability the agency is asked to retain. Eg. The note’s own demand covers realisation, integration and testing, not only design.
      The Fix: Tie every technology transfer to a retained in house production line for the same system, so the skill is duplicated rather than handed over.
    5. Liability for damage: India is liable under international space law for damage caused by objects launched from its territory, including those of private operators. Eg. The Liability Convention of 1972 places responsibility on the launching State rather than on the private entity.
      The Fix: Make insurance cover and indemnity terms a condition of authorisation, scaled to the mission’s risk class.

    Conclusion

    The dispute has narrowed from whether the agency is being privatised to where the boundary of its core function lies. The employee associations have accepted private participation and the launch rate argument behind it, and have drawn the line at the complete capability chain for the LVM3 and the NGLV. The Chairman’s assurance answers the question of intent but not the question of pricing, which is what the note actually asks. What to watch is whether a stated valuation basis accompanies the next transfer of an ISRO developed system.

    Back2Basics: Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV)

    1. What it is: A heavy lift launch vehicle under development by ISRO, intended to succeed the current generation of operational vehicles.
    2. Approval: Its development was approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2024, with an outlay of about Rs 8,240 crore.
    3. Capability: It is designed to place roughly 30 tonnes into low Earth orbit, around three times the LVM3’s capacity, with a partially reusable first stage.
    4. Purpose: It is intended to support the Bharatiya Antariksh Station and India’s stated goal of a crewed lunar landing by 2040.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026] Consider the following statements about involvement of private entities in India’s space programme: 1. IN-SPACe is an autonomous agency formed to facilitate participation of private entities. 2. Agnikul Cosmos launched the world’s first flight using 3D-printed rocket engine. 3. Skyroot Aerospace has developed liquid fuel for GSLV. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 2 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 Answer: C”

  • For AI governance, hard laws and strong guardrails

    Why in the News

    A 154 page threat intelligence report published by Anthropic has documented nine months of artificial intelligence (AI) misuse, covering December 2025 to August 2026 across seven harm categories, from state sponsored operations to lone actors. Two days later the company’s chief executive published a blog post calling on the industry to slow the development of frontier AI, and the heads of two rival AI firms agreed within hours. The report’s significance is structural rather than evidentiary. AI is described as having moved from a tool that generates harmful content to an orchestration layer connected to other software and running multiple stages of an operation at once. The tension is that a voluntary slowdown is being proposed by the same firms whose competitive position it would protect, in a field where one major jurisdiction sits outside any such agreement.

    What is AI ‘uplift’?

    1. The term: Uplift is the capability boost AI gives to an attacker, measured in the speed, scale and depth of the harm produced.
    2. The mechanism: AI sits as an orchestration layer across other software, running several stages of an operation simultaneously rather than performing a single task.
    3. What it changes: Sophisticated attacks become possible with fewer people and less expertise than were previously required.

    What did the threat intelligence report document?

    1. A near fully automated disinformation operation: A flagged operation in Bangladesh was almost entirely automated. AI generated the content, other software turned it into videos, and scheduling algorithms published them at optimised times.
    2. The scale one person achieved: That single operation ran one person, 29 accounts and 1,500 fabricated stories.
    3. A distillation campaign: An Alibaba campaign used 151 million AI exchanges to copy a competitor’s capabilities.
    4. Surveillance uses: The report records AI being used as an instrument of control by those who possess it, rather than as a means of communication.
    5. The biological weapons admission: The company states that for its most capable current models it can no longer assure that a sophisticated actor could not receive meaningful assistance in biological weapons research.
    6. An incomplete picture: What was caught is a subset of what was attempted, so the documented cases set a floor rather than a total.

    Why is the voluntary slowdown the wrong frame?

    1. The stated warning: The slowdown call rested on the claim that AI has been advancing far faster since the middle of the year, and that swarms of rogue AI agents could take over the internet within six to 12 months.
    2. Three obstacles to a unilateral slowdown: Competitive pressure, capital and geopolitics make a one sided pause difficult to sustain, with China operating outside any such agreement.
    3. The incentive problem: A market leader calling for a slowdown is also calling for an arrangement that protects its own lead, a point made publicly by a venture capitalist during the exchange.
    4. The reframing: The operative question is not how to slow development but how to accelerate governance, since voluntary disclosure is not a governance system.

    Why is the Bangladesh case directly relevant to India?

    1. Transferable techniques: Automated account creation, AI generated content at scale and optimisation for rural low literacy audiences apply to any democracy with a large and linguistically diverse electorate.
    2. The Indian exposure: India has 950 million eligible voters and continuous State elections, so the target surface is permanent rather than episodic.
    3. Detection asymmetry: AI generated disinformation in multiple Indian languages is easy to produce and difficult to detect, which places the burden on platforms rather than on individual users.
    4. Distillation and surveillance: The Alibaba style distillation campaign will be run against Indian AI models, and the surveillance cases bear directly on the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    What guardrails are proposed for India?

    1. Mandatory misuse reporting: Every AI platform above a defined scale threshold would be required to report detected misuse to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and to a designated AI Safety Authority.
    2. Watermarking in political contexts: Mandatory watermarking of AI generated content in political and public interest contexts is proposed as the direct answer to the Bangladesh style operation.
    3. Covering agentic AI: Platform accountability rules must explicitly cover agentic AI, meaning systems that act in the world rather than only generate text.
    4. Criminalising distillation and API abuse: New legislation would explicitly prohibit and criminalise systematic distillation and fraudulent mass API access.
    5. A statutory regulator: A statutory body is proposed with powers to compel disclosure, audit systems and impose restrictions, on the position that governance risks can only be addressed by law.

    What do the American and European positions show about India’s opening?

    1. The United States: The American position is described as constrained by a deregulatory administration, so federal statutory guardrails are not the near term route there.
    2. The European Union: The European position is described as one where regulatory ambition has at times outrun technical understanding, which limits it as a model to copy.
    3. India’s claimed advantage: India is presented as the world’s largest democracy with a record of building technology policy at scale, naming Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhaar and the Information Technology Rules of 2021, and with a direct stake in AI serving 1.4 billion citizens.

    Challenges to AI governance through hard law

    1. Compute and models sit outside national jurisdiction: A statutory duty binds the platform’s Indian operations while the model weights, training compute and developer sit abroad. Eg. The most capable frontier models in use in India are trained and hosted by firms headquartered in the United States and China.
      The Fix: Anchor obligations to the point of service to Indian users, so scale in India rather than location of training triggers the duty.
    2. Watermarks are removable: Provenance marking on AI generated media can be stripped by re encoding, cropping or screen capture before redistribution. Eg. Synthetic political audio clips circulate on messaging platforms as re recorded files carrying no original metadata.
      The Fix: Pair content watermarking with cryptographic provenance at capture and upload, so an absent signature is itself a detectable signal.
    3. Open weight models escape platform duties: Rules written for large platforms do not reach a model downloaded and run privately on local hardware. Eg. Open weight large language models are distributed freely and fine tuned offline without any platform intermediary.
      The Fix: Place release stage obligations on the entity publishing model weights, including safety evaluation and disclosure before public release.
    4. Regulatory capacity lags the technology: A statutory authority needs evaluation infrastructure and staff able to audit frontier systems, which is scarce and expensive. Eg. Existing Indian technology regulators depend heavily on deputation and contractual staffing for specialised roles.
      The Fix: Fund a standing model evaluation facility attached to the authority, so audits rest on in house testing rather than on developer self reporting.
    5. Overbroad drafting reaches lawful speech: A duty to detect and disrupt coordinated content operations can be applied to ordinary political campaigning and satire. Eg. Content takedown obligations under existing intermediary rules have been contested in court for their effect on lawful expression.
      The Fix: Define the triggering conduct by automation and inauthenticity of accounts rather than by the content’s subject matter.

    Conclusion

    The governance question has shifted from what a model outputs to what a system does across other software, and no Indian statute currently addresses that second thing. A statutory authority with audit and disclosure powers is the route proposed, and it would need enforcement reach over entities whose models are built outside India. The live tension is between a detection duty broad enough to catch automated influence operations and one narrow enough to leave political speech alone. The near term marker is whether a scale threshold and an AI specific reporting duty appear in Indian law rather than in advisories.

    Government Initiatives on AI Governance in India

    1. IndiaAI Mission: Approved in 2024 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, it funds shared computing capacity, datasets, application development and a safety pillar for trusted AI.
    2. National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence: Released by NITI Aayog in 2018 under the framing of AI for All, it identified healthcare, agriculture, education, smart cities and mobility as priority sectors.
    3. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023: It governs the processing of digital personal data, which is the input layer for model training and for profiling.
    4. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021: These create due diligence and grievance obligations for intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries operating at scale.
    5. Indian Computer Emergency Response Team: Designated under the Information Technology Act, 2000 as the national agency for cyber incident response, collection and reporting.

    Back2Basics: Distillation of AI models

    1. What it is: Distillation trains a smaller model to reproduce the behaviour of a larger one by learning from the larger model’s outputs.
    2. Legitimate use: It is a standard technique for producing cheaper and faster models for deployment on limited hardware.
    3. The misuse form: Systematic querying of a competitor’s model at very large volume can be used to copy its capabilities without access to its weights or training data.
    4. Why it is hard to police: The queries are individually ordinary, so the abuse is visible only in the aggregate pattern of account and API use.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS3, 10] Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of AI in healthcare?”

  • Orangutans in Odisha: The laws governing animal trade and repatriation

    Why in the News

    The Odisha Forest department has rescued five baby orangutans, a critically endangered animal, from a forest in Balasore district. Orangutans are native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the animals found in Odisha are suspected to be from Sumatra. All three orangutan species are listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricts their movement to non commercial purposes. The tension is that a suspected commercial trafficking case creates an obligation to secure the animals’ welfare but no obligation to return them. The case also marks a shift that wildlife crime control experts have repeatedly flagged, that India is no longer only a transit route but is itself fuelling demand for exotic pets.

    What is CITES?

    1. Regulation rather than prohibition: International trade in wildlife, their body parts and trophies is not prohibited, and the treaty instead regulates it strictly. Its aim is that cross border trade in wildlife and plants is legal, sustainable and traceable without harming survival in the wild.
    2. How it operates: It is essentially a licensing system that places checks and controls on the import, export and re export of live animals and plants, wildlife body parts and trophies.
    3. The three appendices: Controls run through an exhaustive CITES species list divided into three appendices, and the appendix a species sits in determines the level of protection it is accorded.
    4. Coverage: The treaty protects around 6,700 animal species, comprising 339 mammals, 159 birds, 113 reptiles, 24 amphibians, 26 fish and 69 invertebrates.

    What does Appendix I listing mean for the orangutans?

    1. The Appendix I threshold: Appendix I lists species that face the threat of extinction.
    2. What trade remains permitted: Such species can be traded only with valid permits, provided the specimens are captive bred and the purpose is conservation.
    3. Contested allowances: Trade permitted for some charismatic species includes elephant ivory, rhino horn, elephant and lion trophy hunting, and crocodile skin.
    4. The three orangutan species: The Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans are all Appendix I listed, so their movement is confined to research, transfers between recognised zoos and breeding projects.
    5. The alleged breach: The Odisha animals appear to have been traded for commercial purposes, which would place the consignment in violation of the treaty.

    How does Indian law connect to the treaty?

    1. Treaty membership: CITES came into force in 1975 and India became a party to it in 1976.
    2. The harmonising amendment: The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 was amended in 2022 to harmonise it with the treaty. The amendment added a Schedule covering CITES listed species.
    3. What the amended Act requires: It calls for consultation with the country of export for the animal’s return. Where return is not possible it provides for the animal’s welfare at a recognised zoo or rescue centre.

    Does India have to send the orangutans back?

    1. No obligation to return: The treaty does not make it obligatory to return confiscated animals to the wild.
    2. Survival comes first: The first task facing enforcement agencies is the survival of the trafficked animals.
    3. Who decides: The management authority implementing the treaty’s provisions, here the Environment Ministry, is recommended to consult the scientific authorities and, where possible, the state of export or origin before taking a call on repatriation.
    4. Who pays: Where repatriation is feasible it has to be carried out at the expense of the state of origin. Where it is not feasible the animal goes to a rescue centre or such other place as the management authority deems appropriate.
    5. Indonesia’s approach: Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has reached out to Indian authorities and is preparing technical requirements for repatriation if investigations confirm the animals came from there.
    6. Informed receipt: The confiscating authority must ensure that recipient states are aware of the impacts of a repatriation before it happens.

    Why is repatriation difficult in practice?

    1. Establishing origin: A repatriation requires the country of origin to be established, the protocols to be followed and the legal tangles to be resolved first.
    2. Animal health through the process: Maintaining the health of confiscated animals across that period is the hardest part of it.
    3. Consignments change hands: Wildlife consignments pass through multiple holders and geographies, which makes a return to the wild rarely feasible.
    4. Captive bred specimens: Many species in this trade are captive bred and carry no known geographic origin at all.
    5. Origin is not the same as habitat: The place of origin is frequently not the range or the habitat where the species is found in the wild.
    6. Airport seizures work differently: Most seizures at airports are returned immediately to the place of origin, under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) guidelines of July 2025.

    What does India’s exotic pet trade now look like?

    1. From transit route to demand market: The appeal of unique and unusual pets is driving rising trade in exotic wildlife within India rather than only through it.
    2. Two routes: Seizures indicate overland movement through the North East’s borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, and movement by air through the international airports at Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
    3. Trade beyond the treaty list: Indians are acquiring many CITES listed species, and there is also a large trade in species that carry no CITES listing at all.
    4. What the amnesty revealed: A voluntary disclosure scheme in 2021 drew 43,693 applications for amnesty from 30 States and Union Territories, on data obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Lemurs, kangaroos and rhinoceros iguanas were among the species declared.
    5. How a typical seizure looks: Consignments intercepted at airports, sea ports and land border posts usually carry multiple animals in bulk, with small mammals, reptiles and amphibians stuffed into gunny sacks, small cages or plastic boxes.
    6. Why Odisha is atypical: A rescue of five animals from a forested area does not fit that pattern. Eg. Authorities in Mizoram’s Champhai district near the Myanmar border seized 468 animals from six or seven different species in May 2022.

    Challenges to enforcing CITES in India

    1. Exotic species sat outside Indian law until 2022: Foreign species held in India had no schedule under domestic wildlife law, so possession itself could not be penalised. Eg. The 2021 scheme offered voluntary amnesty to holders rather than prosecution.
      The Fix: Require registration and microchipping of every CITES listed exotic animal in private possession, with periodic physical verification.
    2. Porous land borders: The North East’s forested international borders are hard to police against small consignments moved on foot. Eg. Cross border movement along the India Myanmar border has long been governed by a special regime for border residents.
      The Fix: Station Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officers alongside customs at the main land border posts rather than only at international airports.
    3. Welfare during custody: Recognised rescue and holding facilities are scarce, so confiscated animals die before any decision on their future is taken. Eg. Trafficked reptiles and small mammals arrive dehydrated and injured after transport in sacks and boxes.
      The Fix: Designate and fund a national network of rescue centres with species specific quarantine capacity.
    4. Demand generated online: Listings on social media normalise exotic pet ownership and create buyers faster than enforcement can identify sellers. Eg. Data drawn from social media and seizures shows Indian buyers acquiring many treaty listed species.
      The Fix: Place exotic wildlife listings under a takedown obligation for online intermediaries, with mandatory reporting to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.
    5. The treaty list does not cover the whole trade: CITES controls reach only species in its appendices, so a large part of the exotic pet trade is lawful to import. Eg. Many small reptiles and amphibians sold as pets carry no listing under the treaty.
      The Fix: Extend the domestic Schedule to species assessed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) even where CITES does not list them.

    Conclusion

    The case sits at the point where a rescue turns into a legal question with no default answer. The treaty and the amended Act both supply a procedure and neither supplies an outcome, so the decision rests on what can be established about origin and on what the animals can survive. The unresolved part is the demand side, because enforcement acts on consignments while the market pulling them in keeps growing. The immediate marker is whether the consultation between the Environment Ministry and Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry ends in a repatriation or in placement at a domestic rescue centre.

    Back2Basics: Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972

    1. Purpose: It provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants, and for the regulation of hunting and of trade in wildlife and its derivatives.
    2. Protected areas: It is the statutory basis for national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves.
    3. Institutions: It provides for the National Board for Wild Life and the State Boards for Wild Life, and it is the Act under which the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau functions.
    4. Schedules after 2022: The 2022 amendment reduced the schedules of protected species to four, the fourth of which covers specimens listed in the appendices of CITES.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015] With reference to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which of the following statements is/are correct? (1) IUCN is an organ of the United Nations and CITES is an international agreement between governments. (2) IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. (3) CITES is legally binding on the States that have joined it, but this Convention does not take the place of national laws. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 Answer: (b)”

  • New fault lines

    Why in the News

    Violence between the Naga and Kuki-Zo communities has spread across Manipur’s hill districts since February, opening a second ethnic fault line in the State. It follows three years in which the conflagration of May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities had slowly begun to abate. Nearly a year of President’s Rule gave way in February 2026 to a Bharatiya Janata Party led government, and two Kuki-Zo legislators have since returned to the Assembly for the first time since the community’s boycott began. The tension is that political space is reopening between the valley and the hills at the same moment as a new conflict is closing it inside the hills.

    What has moved towards normalcy since 2023?

    1. A new State government: President’s Rule ended in February 2026 with the formation of a Bharatiya Janata Party led government under a new Chief Minister. Attempts to engineer a thaw between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities gathered pace after it.
    2. Everyday violence abating: Routine violence between the two communities has reduced over the three years since the May 2023 conflagration.
    3. Return to the Assembly: Two Kuki-Zo MLAs attended the Assembly session this month, the first attendance since legislators from the community began boycotting it after the attacks in Imphal at the start of the ethnic conflict.
    4. Defiance of the boycott directive: The two legislators acted against a directive of the Kuki Inpi Manipur, the Kuki-Zo civil society organisation, to continue the boycott until there was a concession on the demand for a separate administration.
    5. What the attendance signals: Their presence represents an acknowledgement that the political space should reopen even while the underlying differences persist.

    What does the new Naga and Kuki-Zo conflict look like?

    1. Spread from localised disputes: Violence that began as local disputes has spread across the hill districts since February.
    2. The toll to July: At least 15 Kuki-Zo people, 11 Nagas, three security personnel and a truck driver were killed till July. More have died in the two months since.
    3. Villages burnt: Houses in both Naga and Kuki-Zo villages have been burnt down, and the newly displaced have moved into camps.
    4. Armed groups as the driver: Armed groups claiming to act on behalf of their respective communities have revived the conflict rather than the communities having drifted into it.

    Why do the hill districts keep returning to the same dispute?

    1. A 1990s precedent: The present violence echoes the Naga and Kuki violence of the 1990s, which was fought over the same questions.
    2. Control of the hills: The dispute resurrects the argument over which community controls the hill areas.
    3. Customary law: It also resurrects the question of whose customary laws prevail in those areas, which no settlement between the valley and the hills addresses.

    What are civilians bearing?

    1. Displacement that has not ended: Many of those displaced in 2023 remain in relief camps three years later.
    2. Deaths inside the camps: A reply under the Right to Information Act, 2005 puts the number who have died in these camps at over 700, many for want of access to basic health care and adequate nutrition.
    3. Blockades on essentials: Blockades imposed by partisans of each community against the other have held up essentials and medicines. The smaller Kuki-Zo community is the worse affected by them.
    4. Health system in the hills: Health centres in the hills have been left dysfunctional, so the blockades fall on a system with no reserve capacity.

    Challenges to restoring peace in Manipur

    1. Armed groups outside any political process: Groups claiming a community mandate operate without being party to a settlement, so no agreement binds them. Eg. The Suspension of Operations arrangement with Kuki militant groups has been in dispute since 2023.
      The Fix: Make continued security force restraint conditional on verified cantonment and weapons accounting for every group claiming a community mandate.
    2. Blockades used as routine leverage: Economic blockades on the highways are a standing bargaining tool, and they fall hardest on the hill districts. Eg. National Highway 2 and National Highway 37 are the only supply lifelines into the State.
      The Fix: Treat every blockade as a criminal offence with named organisers, and run dedicated escort convoys on the two national highways.
    3. Relief camps becoming permanent: A camp population that persists for years accumulates health and nutrition failures that no relief budget corrects. Eg. Residents displaced in 2023 are entering a fourth year without returning home.
      The Fix: Publish a dated resettlement plan with security guarantees for each village of return, instead of open ended camp maintenance.
    4. Land and customary rights left unsettled: Hill administration and customary village authority run alongside each other with no forum to resolve a conflict between them. Eg. The Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971 governs the district councils while village chiefs exercise customary authority over land.
      The Fix: Convene a statutory settlement process on boundaries and customary rights through the Hill Areas Committee of the Legislative Assembly.
    5. Electoral timing narrows the window: Assembly elections are due next year and the government’s tenure ends soon, so a contested campaign will overlap the containment effort. Eg. Displaced residents will vote while still living in relief camps.
      The Fix: Secure an all party agreement on ground rules for communal rhetoric before campaigning opens.

    Conclusion

    Manipur’s peace effort is now being asked to hold two fronts at once. The divide between the valley and the hills is easing at the level of political participation, while a conflict inside the hills is hardening beneath it, and the arrangements built for the first do not reach the second. What the State can supply is even handedness: criminal law applied identically across communities, and protection of civilians that does not vary by ethnicity. Whether that standard survives an election campaign is the thing to watch.

    Back2Basics: The hill and valley administration of Manipur

    1. Article 371C: It carries a special provision for Manipur, empowering the President to constitute a Hill Areas Committee of the Legislative Assembly drawn from members representing the hill constituencies.
    2. What the Committee does: It considers legislation and administration affecting the hill areas, and the Governor reports annually to the President on the administration of those areas.
    3. District Councils: Six autonomous district councils function in the hill districts under the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971, outside the Sixth Schedule framework used in some other North Eastern States.
    4. The demographic split: The Imphal valley holds the bulk of the State’s population and is largely Meitei, while the surrounding hill districts are home to the Naga and Kuki-Zo communities.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 15] What are the major challenges to internal security and peace process in the North-Eastern States? Map the various peace accords and agreements initiated by the government in the past decade.”