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  • Kottayam residents mobilise against Centre’s ESA proposal

    Why in the News

    The Centre’s seventh draft notification on Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in the Western Ghats, issued on 27 July, has entered the closing fortnight of its 60 day objection window, with two weeks left for filing objections and suggestions. Four villages in the high ranges of Kottayam district in Kerala, Koottikkal, Melukavu, Poonjar Thekkekkara and Teekoy, all in the Poonjar Assembly constituency, are on the proposed ESA map, and the proposal is estimated to affect around 70,000 people. Opposition has already moved past petitions, with the Koottikkal local body convening special grama sabhas in all 14 wards and passing a council resolution detailing its objections. The contest is between a conservation boundary drawn at the level of the Ghats as a whole and settler households whose plantations sit inside it.

    What is an Ecologically Sensitive Area?

    1. Ecologically Sensitive Area: An Ecologically Sensitive Area is a zone notified by the Union government in which specified activities are prohibited or regulated because of the area’s ecological value.
    2. Environment (Protection) Act, 1986: The notification is issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which lets the Centre restrict industries, operations and processes in an area on environmental grounds.
    3. What notification changes on the ground: Land inside the zone continues in private ownership, and it is the permissible use of that land that is narrowed.
    4. Why a draft matters procedurally: A draft notification opens a statutory window for objections and suggestions before the final notification is issued, and the boundary can move in that window.

    Which areas are proposed and who does the boundary affect?

    1. The four villages named: Koottikkal, Melukavu, Poonjar Thekkekkara and Teekoy have been included in the draft notification.
    2. Poonjar Assembly constituency: All four are in the Poonjar Assembly constituency in Kottayam district.
    3. The population estimate: The proposal is estimated to affect around 70,000 people, mostly settler families in the high ranges.
    4. Seventh draft notification in the series: This is the seventh draft notification on Western Ghats ESAs, so the boundary has been redrawn repeatedly without a final settlement.

    Why does the boundary matter to these villages?

    1. Agriculture is the economic base: Agriculture is the backbone of these high range villages, with rubber, cardamom, coffee, pepper, coconut and banana among the major crops.
    2. The fear is about permissible use: Residents hold that bringing their land under the ESA could impose restrictions on plantations.
    3. Development works in the villages: Residents also fear that essential development activities in the villages would be hampered.

    How has the objection been organised?

    1. The local body went beyond petitions: The Koottikkal local body convened special grama sabhas in all 14 wards and held an urgent council meeting.
    2. A formal resolution was passed: The council passed a resolution detailing its objections, and the resolution will be forwarded to the State and Union governments.
    3. The campaign is broad based: Residents, local bodies and various organisations including the Catholic church have stepped up the campaign against the move.
    4. The political channel is in use: The Government Chief Whip has stated that all possible steps would be taken to secure the exclusion of the villages, that the settlers’ concerns have been presented to the Chief Minister, and that interactions continue to mobilise observations of farmer collectives.

    Challenges to the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area notification

    1. The boundary has never been settled: Seven draft notifications over more than a decade mean no final legal position exists, so neither conservation nor land use planning can proceed on a fixed map. Eg. The present draft was issued on 27 July and is the seventh in the series.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory outer date for finalisation after the objection window closes, so a draft cannot be reissued indefinitely in place of a decision.
    2. The unit of demarcation is the village, not the forest: Drawing the zone on revenue village boundaries pulls in cultivated and settled land along with the ecologically sensitive tract. Eg. The four Kottayam villages carry rubber, cardamom and coffee plantations inside the proposed zone.
      The Fix: Demarcate on satellite verified land use at the survey plot level, so plantations and habitations are separated from natural forest before the boundary is drawn.
    3. Objections are filed individually against a technical map: A settler household is asked to contest a boundary drawn from remote sensing data without access to the underlying basis. Eg. The Koottikkal local body had to convene grama sabhas in all 14 wards to assemble its objections.
      The Fix: Publish the plot level basis for each village’s inclusion alongside the draft, so an objection can be argued on the record rather than as a general protest.
    4. Restriction is announced without a compensation route: A notification narrows permissible use of privately held land and carries no attached payment for the value foregone. Eg. Plantation crops in the high ranges are the single income source for settler households in the proposed zone.
      The Fix: Attach an ecosystem services payment schedule to the final notification, so land kept under restricted use earns a recurring transfer rather than only a prohibition.
    5. The zone is notified by the Centre and administered by the State: Enforcement, land records and local body consent all sit with the State, while the boundary is a Union decision. Eg. The Koottikkal resolution is being forwarded to both the State and the Union governments because neither alone can settle it.
      The Fix: Require a recorded State government response on each local body resolution before the final notification issues, so the objection is disposed of rather than absorbed.

    Conclusion

    The window closes in two weeks and the boundary in the draft is still the operative proposal. What the Kottayam mobilisation establishes is that the objection is now institutional rather than individual, since a local body resolution carries a claim that the Union government has to dispose of on the record. The status is that four villages remain on the map, the resolution is on its way to both governments, and the next milestone is the close of the objection window followed by the Centre’s decision on whether an eighth draft or a final notification issues.

    Back2Basics: Western Ghats

    1. Mountain chain along the western coast: A mountain chain running roughly parallel to India’s western coast, older than the Himalaya, spanning Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
    2. Biodiversity hotspot status: It is one of the world’s recognised biodiversity hotspots and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with high levels of endemic species.
    3. Monsoon interception and peninsular rivers: It intercepts the southwest monsoon and feeds the peninsular river systems that the southern States depend on.
    4. Overlap with settlement and plantations: Large parts of the range carry dense human settlement, plantations and mining, so ecological demarcation and existing land use overlap directly.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2022] Which one of the following has been constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 ? (a) Central Water Commission (b) Central Ground Water Board (c) Central Ground Water Authority (d) National Water Development Agency ANSWER: (c)”

  • Members call for cooperation over pathogen research, access

    Why in the News

    The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit calls for constructive engagement in negotiations for the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) Annex to the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic agreement. The Declaration attaches a condition to that call, reaffirming the sovereign rights of States over their biological resources and the sovereign right to legislate and implement laws, including national access and benefit sharing legislation. The pandemic agreement itself was adopted at last year’s World Health Assembly, and this one annex is what still holds it short of ratification. The unresolved question is whether a country that shares a dangerous pathogen sample must be guaranteed a share of whatever is developed from it.

    What is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Annex?

    1. Purpose of the Annex: The PABS Annex will set out a roadmap for the sharing of dangerous pathogens and of the medicines, diagnostics or vaccines developed from them.
    2. Status as an annex to the pandemic agreement: It is an annex to the WHO pandemic agreement rather than a standalone instrument, so it has no effect independent of that agreement.
    3. The remaining bar to ratification: Once agreement is reached on the PABS Annex, the pandemic agreement can be approved or ratified by member states.

    Why is one annex holding up an adopted agreement?

    1. The parent agreement was already negotiated: Amid the Covid-19 pandemic the WHO planned a legally binding pandemic agreement for better response to any future pandemic, and it was adopted during last year’s World Health Assembly.
    2. Adoption is not ratification: One annex continues to hold the agreement hostage, and member states cannot approve or ratify until it is settled.
    3. The single disputed question: Countries are yet to agree on whether the sharing of pathogen samples should be linked mandatorily with the sharing of the benefits developed.

    What position did the New Delhi Declaration take?

    1. Call for constructive engagement: The Declaration calls for constructive engagement in the PABS negotiations rather than endorsing either side of the mandatory linkage question.
    2. Sovereign rights over biological resources: It reaffirms the sovereign rights of States over their biological resources.
    3. The right to national access and benefit sharing law: It reaffirms the sovereign right of States to legislate and implement laws, including national access and benefit sharing legislation.
    4. Effect of the combined position: A call for engagement paired with an assertion of sovereign control keeps the option of conditioning sample sharing on domestic law open.

    Challenges to the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Annex

    1. Sharing and benefit are separated in time: A sample is needed within days of an outbreak while a vaccine takes many months, so a country is asked to give first and trust later. Eg. Indonesia withheld H5N1 avian influenza samples from the WHO network in 2007 after finding that vaccines developed from them were priced beyond its reach.
      The Fix: Write a pre agreed allocation percentage of real time production into the Annex itself, so entitlement is fixed before the sample is shared rather than negotiated after a product exists.
    2. Genetic sequence data escapes any physical sharing rule: A pathogen’s genome can be uploaded and used to design a product without the physical sample ever changing hands, which makes a sample based obligation easy to bypass. Eg. Covid-19 vaccine design began from a published genome sequence rather than from a transferred isolate.
      The Fix: Bring genetic sequence information expressly within the Annex’s definition of pathogen material, with database access conditioned on the same benefit sharing terms.
    3. Manufacturing capacity is concentrated in a few countries: A guaranteed share of output is worth little to a state that cannot produce, fill or distribute the product it is promised. Eg. Most African countries imported nearly all Covid-19 vaccines rather than producing any.
      The Fix: Pair the benefit share with a technology transfer obligation through the WHO mRNA technology transfer hub model, so capacity is built alongside the entitlement.
    4. A sovereignty first reading can slow outbreak response: Treating pathogens as national property lets a state delay sharing while it negotiates terms, and an outbreak does not wait for that negotiation. Eg. The Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing was drafted for genetic resources generally and its permit procedures were not designed for an epidemic timeline.
      The Fix: Create a standing fast track permit under the Annex, valid on notification of a public health emergency, so sharing proceeds while the commercial terms are settled separately.
    5. Compliance rests on no enforcement mechanism: A treaty annex binds only those who ratify it, and a manufacturer outside a ratifying state carries no obligation at all. Eg. The pandemic agreement takes effect only once member states ratify it, and ratification is voluntary.
      The Fix: Route access to the WHO coordinated laboratory network through a binding contract with each participating manufacturer, so the obligation attaches to the user of the sample rather than only to its government.

    Conclusion

    The agreement is complete except for the one question that decides who benefits from it, which is why the annex and not the treaty is where the negotiation now sits. The grouping’s formal position does not resolve that question, since a call for constructive engagement alongside an assertion of sovereign control over biological resources is compatible with either outcome. What it does record is that a large bloc of developing countries will not accept an unconditional sharing obligation. The marker to watch is the next World Health Assembly, since the annex has to be settled there before any state can ratify the pandemic agreement.

    Back2Basics: World Health Assembly

    1. The WHO’s decision making body: The decision making body of the World Health Organization, attended by delegations from all WHO member states.
    2. Meeting schedule and venue: It meets annually, usually in May, at Geneva.
    3. Functions of the Assembly: It determines WHO policies, appoints the Director General, supervises financial policies and reviews and approves the programme budget.
    4. Relevance to the PABS Annex: It is the forum that adopted the pandemic agreement and the forum in which the PABS Annex has to be settled.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2020, GS2, 10 marks] Critically examine the role of WHO in providing global health security during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

  • Pakistan’s westward turn – strategic depth or overstretch

    Why in the News

    Pakistan and Kuwait signed a defence cooperation agreement on 27 August 2026, the latest step in a rapidly expanding Pakistani strategic footprint in West Asia. It follows the Makkah Agreement of 7 August, under which Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan agreed that an armed attack against one member would be regarded as an attack against all. Pakistan has also acted recently as an intermediary between Iran and the United States. What is new is not Pakistani involvement in West Asia, which is decades old, but its institutionalisation into standing commitments with a secretariat behind them. The contest is over what those commitments actually buy: strategic depth against India, or an overstretch that ties Pakistan into rivalries it cannot control.

    What is the Makkah Agreement?

    1. Signatories and the collective defence clause: Signed on 7 August among Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan, it stipulates that an armed attack against one member would be regarded as an attack against all.
    2. The permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia: At a meeting in Istanbul on 31 August, the three countries’ Foreign and Defence Ministers and military chiefs decided to establish a permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia.
    3. The Secretary General post: A Pakistani will serve as its first Secretary General for three years.
    4. Interoperability and defence industrial cooperation: The three agreed to strengthen military interoperability and to pursue defence industrial cooperation, including joint technology development and production.

    What are the historical roots of Pakistan’s West Asian orientation?

    1. A dual identity from the start: From its inception Pakistan attempted to combine its South Asian geopolitical identity with that of a major Muslim power.
    2. The Cold War architecture: Pakistan, Iran and Türkiye were linked through the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and subsequently through the Regional Cooperation for Development.
    3. The 1971 defeat as the turning point: Pakistan’s defeat and dismemberment in 1971 pushed it towards the Arab world, as it sought to compensate for its diminished position in South Asia by emphasising its Islamic identity.
    4. The Lahore Islamic summit of 1974: The Islamic summit held in Lahore in 1974 marked the reorientation, and Pakistan simultaneously developed extensive military relationships with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies.

    What contradictions does the new arrangement already face?

    1. Houthi attacks as the first test: Renewed Houthi missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia created the first serious test of the Makkah pact.
    2. The Houthis have improved their position at sea: Their capture of Mocha port and Perim island has added to their capability to choke off Saudi shipping through the Bab al-Mandab.
    3. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz: With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed by Iran, a frustrated Saudi Arabia may relaunch a full scale war against the Houthis.
    4. The collective defence clause dilemma: Such a war would create a major dilemma for Pakistan if Riyadh decided to invoke the collective defence provision of the Makkah agreement.
    5. Pakistan is holding five roles at once: It wants to be Saudi Arabia’s security partner, Türkiye’s strategic ally, Iran’s friend and interlocutor, Washington’s useful intermediary and a security provider to the Gulf monarchies, and these roles are compatible only when regional tensions are manageable.

    What does the westward turn give Pakistan against India?

    1. Defence in depth through a security network: A Pakistan embedded in a web of West Asian security relationships may acquire defence in depth.
    2. Saudi finance, Turkish technology and Gulf access: Saudi financial resources, Turkish defence technology and Pakistan’s expanding relationships with Gulf militaries can in theory increase Islamabad’s resilience in a confrontation with India.
    3. Türkiye’s position on Kashmir: Türkiye is Pakistan’s most vocal major supporter on Kashmir.
    4. Pakistan’s nuclear status as currency: Pakistan’s nuclear status enhances its strategic value to Arab states concerned about an unstable regional order created by a nuclear armed Israel’s policies.

    Why could the same turn weaken Pakistan against India?

    1. Pakistan’s India centric security establishment: Pakistan’s security establishment has historically concentrated overwhelmingly on India.
    2. The new commitments pull resources away: Diplomatic, military and intelligence resources now have to be devoted to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, Yemen and the Red Sea, leaving fewer to concentrate on India.
    3. Entanglement is the price of entry: The deeper Pakistan becomes embedded in West Asian security arrangements, the harder it becomes to remain aloof from the region’s conflicts.
    4. The Riyadh versus Tehran choice: If the Houthi Saudi confrontation escalates, Islamabad may have to choose between honouring the credibility of its collective defence commitments and maintaining its relationship with Tehran, the Houthis’ principal ally.

    How should India read it?

    1. Exposure that comes with the new role: Pakistan’s growing West Asian role should not be interpreted in purely negative terms, because the same relationships expose it to some of the world’s most combustible rivalries.
    2. The Gulf states have their own stake in India: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the other Gulf states hold major economic and strategic relationships with India that they are unlikely to sacrifice for Pakistan.
    3. India’s response, deeper Gulf engagement: New Delhi should continue deepening those relationships as the counter to Pakistan’s expanding footprint in West Asia.

    Challenges to the Makkah Agreement

    1. A collective defence clause invites the very conflict it deters: A guarantee that is credible draws its guarantor into wars it did not choose, and a guarantee that is not credible is worthless. Eg. The pact’s first test arrived within weeks, through Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.
      The Fix: Define the triggering threshold in writing, naming what constitutes an armed attack and what response is owed, so the guarantee is bounded rather than open ended.
    2. The three signatories do not share an adversary: Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan each face different threats, and a pact without a common opponent has no agreed contingency to plan against. Eg. Türkiye’s principal security concerns lie in the eastern Mediterranean and northern Syria, not in the Red Sea.
      The Fix: Restrict joint planning to the functional areas already agreed, meaning interoperability and defence industrial production, rather than to a shared war plan that does not exist.
    3. A permanent secretariat does not create a command: Standing staff can coordinate procurement and exercises, and none of that generates a force able to act on the clause. Eg. The secretariat’s first Secretary General holds a three year term with no operational forces assigned to the arrangement.
      The Fix: Establish a standing combined planning cell with earmarked national units, so the commitment has a force attached to it rather than an office.
    4. Pakistan’s fiscal position limits what it can actually provide: A security guarantor needs sustained defence spending, and Pakistan’s is constrained by repeated recourse to external financing. Eg. Pakistan has been a recurring borrower from the International Monetary Fund across successive programmes.
      The Fix: Convert the arrangement’s defence industrial pillar into Saudi and Turkish funded production inside Pakistan, so the commitment generates revenue rather than consuming it.
    5. The arrangement cuts across Pakistan’s Iran relationship: A pact aimed at protecting Saudi Arabia from an Iran aligned force is difficult to reconcile with an intermediary role between Tehran and Washington. Eg. Pakistan shares a long land border with Iran, across which both states have previously conducted strikes.
      The Fix: Keep the intermediary role at the level of the Foreign Ministry and separate from the pact’s military structures, so one function does not discredit the other.

    Conclusion

    The institutional step taken in August converts a long standing set of bilateral military relationships into a commitment Pakistan can be called on to honour, at a moment when the region is already at war. That is a different proposition from the financial and manpower arrangements it has run with the Gulf for fifty years, because those could be scaled back quietly and a collective defence clause cannot. For India the reading should be neither alarm nor relief, since the same arrangement that adds to Pakistan’s depth also adds to the claims on its attention. The marker to watch is whether Riyadh invokes the clause against the Houthis, because that is the point at which the commitment stops being a document.

    West Asia in India’s Foreign Policy

    1. Evolution of India’s West Asia policy: Guided after Independence by non alignment and a pro Arab position, it moved to full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, a Look West launch in 2005 centred on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and a Think West approach from 2014 extending to maritime security, counter terrorism and investment.
    2. The energy dependence: The region supplies nearly 60% of India’s crude and about 70% of its liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas needs.
    3. The economic weight: India GCC bilateral trade stood at $178 billion in FY 2024-25, making the GCC India’s largest trading partner bloc, and the region contributes about 38% of India’s global remittances.
    4. The human stake: A diaspora of about 10 million people works across the region, which makes West Asian stability a domestic political question in India.

    Back2Basics: Central Treaty Organization

    1. CENTO’s origin as the Baghdad Pact: A Cold War defence pact, originally the Baghdad Pact of 1955, renamed CENTO after Iraq withdrew in 1959.
    2. Membership: Its members were Iran, Türkiye, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, with the United States as an associate rather than a full member.
    3. Purpose, containment of Soviet expansion: It was built to contain Soviet expansion along its southern periphery, linking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
    4. Dissolution in 1979: It dissolved in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution, and Pakistan’s withdrawal followed.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 10 marks] With the waning of globalization, post-Cold War world is becoming a site of sovereign nationalism. Elucidate.”

  • India & China are at a Nash equilibrium. Will it hold – that’s the question

    Why in the News

    India and China issued an Eight Points of Outcomes and Consensus statement on the border on 25 August 2026, directing their negotiators to seek an early and substantial harvest on the boundary question. The Prime Minister and the Chinese President then met at the just concluded 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. Read together, the statement and the two national readouts indicate that the two sides have settled into a Nash equilibrium on the border. The assessment is that neither can improve its position by negotiation and neither can improve it by force, so the current line holds by default rather than by agreement. The tension is that a stable outcome nobody chose is also an outcome nobody is defending, and two specific contingencies could remove it.

    What is a Nash equilibrium?

    1. Nash equilibrium, defined: A Nash equilibrium is an outcome in a non cooperative game in which no player’s expected outcome can be improved by changing one’s own strategy.
    2. Application to the India China border: India and China at least tacitly recognise that in any foreseeable future neither can aspire to or achieve a better position in the border quarrel.
    3. Room left for friction along the LAC: The two sides may still spar diplomatically and militarily on occasion, as they have since 2013, and the intermittent exchange of words and of hardware over the high Himalaya can only move the Line of Actual Control (LAC) slightly.

    Why has 45 years of negotiation produced only one agreement?

    1. Continuity of negotiation since 1981: India and China have been negotiating a border deal almost without interruption since 1981.
    2. The three negotiating mechanisms: The Secretary and Vice Minister level talks (1981-88), the Joint Working Group (1989-2005) and the Special Representative Mechanism (2003 to the present).
    3. The pace of engagement: Over more than 45 years the two sides have met once a year on average.
    4. The 2005 agreement as the single substantive outcome: The 2005 Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India China Boundary Question is the single substantive outcome of that entire period.

    What did the 2005 agreement actually fix?

    1. A package deal principle: A settlement would be reached as a package, meaning nothing is settled until everything on the border is settled.
    2. The political settlement standard: The final agreement would be a political settlement.
    3. Criteria the settlement must weigh: It would consider strategic concerns, history, national sentiment, practicality, geography and the interests of settled populations in the borderlands.

    What is the package deal principle?

    1. The rule itself: A package deal principle requires that every sector of a disputed boundary be settled in a single agreement, so no stretch of the border is treated as closed on its own.
    2. Why a package rule was adopted: It stops either side from banking a concession in an easy sector and then reopening a hard one, since a party that has already pocketed a gain has no reason to compromise on what is left. Eg. The 2005 agreement applies the principle across the western, middle and eastern sectors together.
    3. What an early harvest does inside it: An early harvest lets negotiators work one sector at a time, and the result stays provisional until the remaining sectors are agreed. Eg. The August 2026 eight point statement directs an early and substantial harvest without altering the ratification condition.
    4. What the principle rules out: A standalone sectoral treaty, a partial exchange of territory, and any agreed line that takes legal effect before the whole boundary is settled.

    What does the August 2026 eight point statement change?

    1. Early harvest and the package rule: The statement directs negotiators to seek an early and substantial harvest on the border, and this does not violate the package deal idea.
    2. Sector by sector sequencing: It suggests the two sides focus on success in one area instead of negotiating everything everywhere at once, and then move on to another section of the border.
    3. The ratification condition: Under the 2005 agreement, each sectional success would only be finally accepted and ratified when the entire border is settled.
    4. The BRICS summit readouts: Nothing in the two readouts from the leaders’ meeting alters either the 2005 agreement or the eight point early harvest statement.

    Why can neither side improve its position by negotiation or by force?

    1. India’s maximal objective: India seeks to recover Aksai Chin up to its original claim and to keep everything it holds in the other sectors.
    2. China’s maximal objective: China seeks Arunachal Pradesh all the way to the southern slopes, which is most of the State, and to keep everything else it holds.
    3. Limits of diplomatic bargaining: It is inconceivable that Indian or Chinese negotiators can achieve their maximal objectives, so diplomatic bargaining now or in the future cannot close the gap.
    4. Conquest as an unavailable option: India cannot conquer Aksai Chin up to its original claim line, and China cannot conquer Arunachal Pradesh up to the southern slopes.
    5. Terrain, climate and logistics: Terrain, climate, logistics and military defences make any dramatic and lasting military gain almost impossible.
    6. Basis of the current stability: Short of extremely bad strategy by commanders or internal political chaos that distracts from deterrence, the status quo on the border is stable.

    What could break the equilibrium?

    1. The succession to the Dalai Lama: Beijing will eventually appoint its preferred Dalai Lama and the Tibetans will almost certainly choose their own, leaving New Delhi caught in the middle.
    2. The 1962 precedent: India China tensions could consequently spiral, and China could lash out as it did in 1962, when instabilities in Tibet were a factor leading to war.
    3. An India Pakistan conflict that pulls China in: In 2025 New Delhi detected a Chinese helping hand to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, and in a future South Asian confrontation China might be more openly involved.
    4. A two front war for India: New Delhi or Beijing could then be drawn into a fight that threatens the status quo, and for India that means a two front war.
    5. Insulation offered by the present détente: The current détente promises trade, visas, supply chain resilience and river water cooperation, and the open question is whether those gains can insulate the relationship from a Tibet transition or a South Asian conflict.

    Challenges to a settlement of the India China boundary

    1. The line itself is undefined on the ground: The 3,488 km LAC has never been mutually delineated, so patrolling limits rather than a map decide where each side believes it may go. Eg. Friction points such as the Depsang Plains and Charding Ninglung Nala remain unresolved even after disengagement elsewhere.
      The Fix: Complete the exchange of maps sector by sector as a technical exercise separated from the sovereignty claim, so incidents arise from choice rather than from ambiguity.
    2. The two sides inherit different colonial alignments: In the western sector India relies on the Johnson Line of 1865 while China claims the Macartney MacDonald Line of 1899, so each reads the same ground from a different document. Eg. In the eastern sector the LAC follows the McMahon Line drawn at the Simla Convention of 1914, which China does not accept.
      The Fix: Anchor the negotiation on the 2005 agreement’s own criteria of settled populations and practicality, since neither colonial line can be conceded by the other side.
    3. Ground realities are being changed while talks continue: Incremental construction alters what a future settlement would have to ratify, which reduces the incentive to conclude one. Eg. Dual use border villages and road networks shift the position on the ground without a single formal claim being advanced.
      The Fix: Extend the confidence building agreements to cover permanent construction within an agreed depth of the LAC, with mutual verification.
    4. Economic dependence cuts against leverage: A widening trade imbalance gives the larger supplier a channel of pressure that has nothing to do with the border. Eg. India’s trade deficit with China reached an all time high of about $112.16 billion in March 2026, with the bulk of imports being industrial goods.
      The Fix: Convert the China plus one opening into domestic capacity in the specific intermediate goods where import dependence is highest, so the deficit narrows at the source.
    5. China Pakistan axis as an embedded third party: China’s relationship with Pakistan turns any India Pakistan conflict into a potential two front problem, which is the precise contingency the article identifies. Eg. Infrastructure built under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through territory India claims.
      The Fix: Build the capability and the deployment posture for a simultaneous two front contingency, so the possibility does not itself become a bargaining lever.

    Conclusion

    A stalemate that holds because neither side can improve on it is not the same thing as a settlement, and it carries no mechanism of its own to survive a shock. The whole of the negotiating record, from 1981 to the eight point statement, has produced one agreement on principles and no agreed line. What should now be examined is whether the gains from the present détente can be built into insulation against the two contingencies named, the succession in Tibet and a South Asian conflict that draws China in. The marker to watch is whether the early harvest approach produces a settled sector, since that is the first test of whether sequencing can do what package bargaining could not.

    India China Relations in Brief

    1. The diplomatic starting point: On 1 April 1950 India became the first country outside the socialist bloc to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.
    2. The founding framework: The Panchsheel Agreement of 29 April 1954 set out five principles, mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non aggression, mutual non interference, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
    3. The rupture and the reopening: The 1962 border conflict was a serious setback, and the Prime Minister’s visit in 1988 began a phase of improvement in bilateral relations.
    4. The Peace and Tranquility Agreement of 1993: The Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control was signed in 1993.

    Back2Basics: Operation Sindoor

    1. Scope of the strikes: Indian armed forces strikes launched on 6 and 7 May 2025 against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied territory.
    2. Trigger, the Pahalgam attack: It followed the terror attack at Pahalgam on 22 April 2025.
    3. Targets struck: Leadership and headquarters of the Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Mohammed networks were targeted, along with Pakistani military assets.
    4. Policy declared after the operation: India declared that any future act of cross border terrorism emanating from Pakistan would be treated as an act of war, and that nuclear blackmail would no longer be a restraining factor.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 15 marks] “China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has transformed South Asia from a regional space into a theatre of great power competition.” Analyse the strategic implications of the BRI for India’s security and regional influence in South Asia.”

  • Defence to space, trade to tech: India, Philippines to deepen ties

    Why in the News

    A year after New Delhi and Manila elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership, the Prime Minister and the President of the Philippines agreed to deepen cooperation across defence and security, trade and investment, space, railway infrastructure, fintech and education. The Philippines also decided to join the India led Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. The Philippines President attended the Summit as the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which places the meeting inside India’s Act East policy and its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN. Both sides are driven by shared concerns over China’s territorial assertiveness in the Indo Pacific and the South China Sea, and the engagement is therefore being built on defence supply and maritime law at the same time as on trade and technology.

    What does the partnership now cover?

    1. The declared breadth of cooperation: The two sides agreed to deepen collaboration across defence and security, trade and investment, space, railway infrastructure, fintech, education, tourism, science and technology, innovation and people to people ties.
    2. The 2025-29 defence roadmap: India and the Philippines adopted a 2025-29 roadmap to expand military training, staff talks and maritime security cooperation in the Indo Pacific.
    3. Philippine accession to the CDRI: The Philippines has decided to join the CDRI, which brings a highly disaster exposed archipelago into a coalition India created.
    4. The ASEAN chairship as the regional frame: The visit’s significance rests on the Philippines holding the ASEAN chair while India runs a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the grouping.

    What anchors the defence relationship?

    1. The BrahMos supply deal of 2022: The 2022 deal to supply BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippine Navy marked the major milestone in security ties.
    2. Tri service staff talks: Both countries hold regular staff talks for their Army, Navy and Air Force to improve joint security cooperation.
    3. The roadmap’s named focus areas: The roadmap’s focus is military training, staff talks and maritime security, which are the areas a supply relationship has to be converted into.

    Where does the economic relationship stand?

    1. Bilateral trade volume: Bilateral trade has grown past $3 billion.
    2. Drivers of the trade growth: The growth has been driven by Indian pharmaceutical exports, information technology services and agricultural cooperation.
    3. Space, railways and fintech as new areas: Space, railway infrastructure and fintech have been named as expansion areas, which are sectors with no existing trade base to build on.

    Why does the South China Sea frame the engagement?

    1. Shared assessment of Chinese assertiveness: Both sides are driven by shared concerns over China’s aggressive territorial assertiveness in the Indo Pacific and the South China Sea.
    2. India’s stated legal position: India has consistently supported a rules based maritime order in the South China Sea, based on international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the treaty that defines maritime zones and the rights of states within them.
    3. Value of the legal position to Manila: A legal position held by a large external power supports a claimant state that cannot match China’s naval weight on its own.

    Challenges to the India Philippines strategic partnership

    1. A defence supply relationship is narrow and slow to widen: One missile contract does not by itself create a standing industrial relationship, and follow on orders depend on the buyer’s budget cycle rather than on political intent. Eg. The BrahMos supply arrangement dates from 2022 and remains the single flagship item in the defence relationship.
      The Fix: Move from outright sale to a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in the Philippines, so the relationship generates recurring work rather than a single delivery.
    2. Trade is small relative to both economies: A bilateral figure near $3 billion is a fraction of what either country trades with China, which limits the economic leverage either can bring. Eg. Indian pharmaceutical exports and information technology services carry most of the existing trade, and neither is a large employer in the Philippines.
      The Fix: Open negotiations on a preferential trade arrangement within the ASEAN framework, so tariff lines rather than announcements decide the growth rate.
    3. ASEAN itself does not hold a common line on the South China Sea: The grouping works by consensus, so a member with close economic ties to Beijing can block a collective position. Eg. The Code of Conduct negotiations between ASEAN and China have run since 2002 without a binding text.
      The Fix: Build the maritime agenda through bilateral and minilateral arrangements with individual claimant states, rather than waiting on a grouping wide position.
    4. Escalation risk sits in the same waters as the cooperation: Maritime security cooperation with a claimant state can be read by China as taking sides in a live dispute, which raises the cost of the relationship. Eg. Chinese and Philippine vessels have repeatedly come into contact around contested shoals in the South China Sea.
      The Fix: Frame cooperation as capacity building for coast guard and humanitarian response, so the activity is defensible in law and difficult to characterise as an alignment.
    5. Disaster exposure is a standing constraint on both economies: An archipelago that absorbs several typhoons a year loses infrastructure faster than it can add it, which limits the returns on any investment commitment. Eg. The Philippines is among the most disaster exposed countries in the world, which is why its accession to the CDRI matters.
      The Fix: Tie Indian infrastructure financing in the Philippines to resilience standards set through the CDRI, so the assets built survive the hazard they are built into.

    Conclusion

    The partnership is a year old and has moved from a single defence sale to a dated roadmap, a disaster resilience coalition and a list of new sectors. What it does not yet have is volume, since a trade relationship of about $3 billion and one missile contract cannot carry the strategic weight both sides describe. The measurable markers over the next year are whether the 2025-29 roadmap produces a second defence contract and whether India converts the Philippines’ ASEAN chairship into movement on the India ASEAN trade agreement review.

    Back2Basics: Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure

    1. Coalition membership and purpose: An international partnership of national governments, United Nations agencies, multilateral development banks, the private sector and academic institutions, working to make infrastructure systems resilient to disaster and climate risk.
    2. Launch at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit: It was launched by India at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September 2019.
    3. Secretariat location: Its secretariat is in New Delhi.
    4. The Infrastructure for Resilient Island States programme: Its flagship programme is the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative, which supports small island developing states in building infrastructure that can withstand extreme events.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2020, GS2, 15 marks] What is the significance of Indo-US defence deals over Indo-Russian defence deals? Discuss with reference to stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”

  • At BRICS, India must bank on the NDB

    Why in the News

    The 18th BRICS Summit, chaired by India at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on 12 September, closed without a meaningful agreement on mobilising the New Development Bank (NDB), the grouping’s one tangible financial instrument and one that has under delivered for a decade. The grouping’s economic weight has grown without its institutional weight following. When BRICS came together in 2011 its five members contributed 20% of global GDP but held just 11% of the voting share at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The expanded grouping now accounts for nearly 40% of global GDP and 55% of the world’s population, and the voting share has barely expanded. The contest is over what India should do with that gap. Russia and China press a de dollarisation agenda that India cannot join without damaging its ties with Washington.

    What is the New Development Bank?

    1. The New Development Bank: The NDB was established by the BRICS countries in 2015 to “mobilise resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging markets and developing countries”.
    2. Headquarters in Shanghai: It is headquartered in Shanghai.
    3. Equal voting among the five founders: The bank’s rules mandate equal voting shares among the five founders, so no founder can outvote another whatever it contributes.
    4. The floor on founder control: The bank has opened its doors to new members, and the founders’ collective voting share cannot fall below 55%.

    Why can India not join the de dollarisation push?

    1. The grouping has no single geopolitical identity: Russia, China and Iran would like BRICS to be anti West, while India, Brazil and South Africa insist it is better understood as non West.
    2. India United States ties: Lending itself to the Beijing and Moscow de dollarisation campaign would add to strain in India United States ties at a moment when those ties are already strained.
    3. Medium term sustainability of the position: De dollarisation is an unsustainable proposition to advocate in the medium term.
    4. Maximising the grouping without strengthening Beijing: India’s approach has to maximise the grouping’s potential without strengthening Beijing’s overall strategic position.

    What is de dollarisation?

    1. What the term claims: De dollarisation is the effort to cut the dollar’s role as the currency in which trade is invoiced, cross border payments are settled and reserves are held, and to move that role to another currency or to a basket of them.
    2. What displacing the dollar would require: A substitute has to be fully convertible, deep enough to absorb reserve holdings, and served by a clearing system that sits outside dollar correspondent banking, and no member currency of the grouping meets all three conditions.
    3. Why sanctioned economies press it hardest: A settlement route outside dollar clearing removes the leverage sanctions exercise through correspondent banks, which is what makes the campaign valuable to Moscow and Beijing. Eg. The NDB itself has extended no new credit to Russia since March 2022 in order to protect its own credit rating and dollar funding costs.
    4. Contrast with local currency lending: Local currency lending denominates a loan in the borrower’s own currency to cut exchange rate risk, and it leaves the dollar’s invoicing role intact, so a member that will not join a displacement campaign can still use it.

    How far behind its counterpart is the NDB, and where does its money go?

    1. A decade of approvals: The NDB has approved only 139 projects worth about $43 billion since 2015, distributed mostly among its core members.
    2. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank comparison: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), established around the same time, has gathered 111 approved members and committed about $69 billion across 350 projects.
    3. The credit rating gap: The AIIB is backed by a AAA credit rating that the NDB cannot easily attain.
    4. Money approved is not money moved: Only about $20 billion of approved loans had been disbursed, according to the bank’s own count.
    5. The balance sheet is not growing: Stagnant asset growth continues to restrict the bank’s lending capacity.
    6. The active portfolio: The active portfolio stands at $35.6 billion across 115 projects, since 24 projects and about $7.4 billion have been fully repaid or cancelled.
    7. China and India as the two largest borrowers: China holds $9.41 billion at 26% and India $8.86 billion at 25%, together 51% of the active portfolio.
    8. The remaining founders: Brazil holds $6.69 billion at 19%, South Africa $6.41 billion at 18% and Russia $3.78 billion at 11%, with Bangladesh the only non founder at $445 million.
    9. Transport infrastructure and COVID-19 assistance: Transport infrastructure takes $13.5 billion at 38%, followed by COVID-19 emergency assistance at $9.00 billion and 25%.
    10. The clean energy, water and digital shares: Clean energy and energy efficiency accounts for $3.69 billion at 10%, water and sanitation $3.22 billion at 9.1%, social infrastructure $1.28 billion at 3.6% and digital infrastructure $300 million at 0.8%.

    Why can the founders not simply put in more capital?

    1. Paid up capital as the route: Breaking the asset bottleneck would require the five founders to increase their paid up capital.
    2. Russia’s constrained contribution: Severe domestic and geopolitical constraints mean not all founders can match higher commitments, most notably Russia, which is heavily sanctioned.
    3. Sanctions reach the bank itself: Sanctions have strained the bank’s credit standing and its dollar funding costs.
    4. Suspension of new credit to Russia: The NDB has extended no new credit to Russia since March 2022 to protect its AA/AA+ credit rating, even as Moscow and Beijing champion de dollarisation through the bank.
    5. Equal voting as a veto on capital expansion: Any capital expansion is effectively held hostage by the financially weakest founder, because of the bank’s equal voting rule.

    What has the NDB delivered for India?

    1. The scale of commitments: The bank has secured commitments of nearly $10 billion across 32 projects for India.
    2. Metro rail and the RRTS corridor: These include metro rail systems and the Delhi Ghaziabad Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor.
    3. The case for a wider borrower base: Expanding the bank’s operations to be on par with other multilateral lenders requires extending the same bargain to many more emerging markets and developing countries.

    Why is local currency lending the more practical goal, and what does the rupee bond show?

    1. The bank’s declared preference: The NDB has a marked preference for local currency lending, which appeals to emerging economies while volatility in foreign exchange markets is sustained by wars that are both military and economic.
    2. Local currency lending against dollar replacement: Local currency lending reduces reliance on the dollar without replacing it as the currency for trade invoicing.
    3. The 30% local currency target: The bank’s 2022-26 General Strategy commits 30% of its lending and borrowing to member countries’ local currencies, and the bulk of both still remains in dollars.
    4. Renminbi skew in the local currency book: What local currency lending exists is skewed heavily in favour of the Renminbi.
    5. The ¥7 billion Panda bond: The NDB priced a ¥7 billion three year Panda bond, meaning a Renminbi denominated bond issued in China by a foreign issuer, in the China Interbank bond market, and issuance of such bonds in 2026 has risen approximately 91% year on year.
    6. A rupee bond deferred since 2016: The rupee bond was first discussed in 2016, then slated for October 2023 and then for end March 2026, and has still not been issued.
    7. The Rs 25,000 crore rupee bond programme: The bank floated a rupee bond programme to mobilise around Rs 25,000 crore over five years, and the NDB President described the debut issuance in May as being at its “final stage”.
    8. The 2026 New Delhi Declaration: The 2026 New Delhi Declaration did not feature a meaningful agreement on mobilising the NDB.
    9. India’s focus on simpler local currency fixes: India’s focus in BRICS next year should be on simpler fixes to local currency challenges rather than on a currency project.

    Challenges to the New Development Bank

    1. Most of its capital cannot be lent: The bank’s authorised capital is largely callable rather than paid in, so its usable balance sheet is a fraction of the headline figure. Eg. Of an initial subscribed capital of $50 billion, only $10 billion was paid in, phased over seven years.
      The Fix: Fix a dated schedule for the remaining paid in tranches, so the lending capacity is set by a calendar rather than by each founder’s fiscal position in a given year.
    2. Absence of a concessional window: The bank lends on near market terms, which prices out the low income borrowers a development bank exists to reach. Eg. The World Bank runs the International Development Association as a separate concessional arm, and the NDB has no equivalent.
      The Fix: Create a concessional facility inside the bank, funded by grant contributions from its larger members, so the poorest borrowers have a window they can actually use.
    3. Membership growth has been slow and shallow: A narrow membership keeps both the capital base and the political constituency small, which is what limits a multilateral lender’s reach. Eg. Only Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Algeria have been admitted beyond the five founders.
      The Fix: Publish an accession timetable with stated capital subscription terms, so a prospective member can plan its entry instead of waiting on a founders’ decision.
    4. Borrowers outside the founding five have no voice: New members join without altering founder control, so a borrowing country cannot shape the terms on which it borrows. Eg. The AIIB scales voting power to capital subscription, so a new member’s stake translates into influence.
      The Fix: Reserve a fixed bloc of Board seats for non founder borrowing members, so the terms of lending are set with the borrowers in the room.

    Conclusion

    The grouping’s problem is not that it lacks instruments but that its most usable one has been left idle. A bank whose disbursement runs at under half its approvals, and whose capital expansion is blocked by its own voting rule, is not a challenge to anyone’s financial order. India chairs the grouping and holds a quarter of the bank’s active book, which is the position from which a governance change can be pressed. The marker to watch is the debut rupee issuance, since a programme deferred three times will only be believable once the paper is priced.

    About BRICS

    1. Origins of the grouping: The acronym BRIC was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist to identify high growth emerging economies, the first meeting of Foreign Ministers took place on the United Nations General Assembly margins in 2006, and the first formal Leaders’ Summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2009.
    2. Expansion and the Partner Country category: South Africa joined in 2011, expansion was decided at the 2023 Johannesburg Summit with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joining in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025, and a Partner Country category was introduced in 2024 for states such as Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria.
    3. Stated objectives: Its stated objectives are reform of the UNSC, IMF and World Bank for equitable representation, a multipolar order, financial autonomy from the dollar and SWIFT, sustainable development and synchronised stances on counter terrorism and cybersecurity.
    4. The Contingent Reserve Arrangement and BRICS Pay: Beyond the NDB, the grouping runs the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, a $100 billion short term liquidity backstop, BRICS Pay as a cross border payments pilot, a remote sensing satellite constellation and the Partnership on New Industrial Revolution.

    Back2Basics: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

    1. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: A multilateral development bank that finances infrastructure and other productive sectors across Asia and beyond.
    2. Proposed 2013, operational January 2016: It was proposed in 2013 and began operations in January 2016, with its headquarters in Beijing.
    3. India’s shareholding: India is a founding member and its second largest shareholder after China.
    4. AIIB as the benchmark for the NDB: It was established at the same time as the NDB and is the standard against which the NDB’s approvals, membership and credit rating are measured.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2014, GS2, 12 marks] India has recently signed to become founding a New Development Bank (NDB) and also the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) .How will the role of the two Banks be different? Discuss the significance of these two Banks for India.”

  • ‘Distorted power relations in the world make Security Council non-operational’

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Secretary General has stated that distorted power relations have rendered the Security Council completely non operational, and that global superpowers have not recognised that there are limits to their power. The same assessment was extended to the Bretton Woods institutions, on the ground that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do not correspond to the reality of emerging economies that remain underrepresented in them. The prescription put on record is not reform but an overhaul, meaning a readjustment of the power systems and governance mechanisms of the world to the reality of today rather than that of 1945. The tension is that the officeholder making the diagnosis also holds that the organisation is not broken, since its humanitarian machinery continues to function, so the failure is located precisely in the one organ with coercive authority.

    What is the Secretary General’s diagnosis of the Security Council?

    1. Eighty one years without a world war: The United Nations has guaranteed that there has been no third World War in 81 years, and the absence of two superpowers fighting each other is attributed largely to its work.
    2. The geopolitical divide inside the organisation: A strong geopolitical divide now runs through the organisation, and superpowers that have not accepted the limits of their power enter adventures that produce damaging results.
    3. Legitimacy and effectiveness as separate failures: A Council that no longer corresponds to the world of today creates a problem of legitimacy and a separate problem of effectiveness.
    4. Distorted power relations: The question is power, and power relations in the world being distorted is what makes the Council, the central entity for the preservation of peace and security, completely non operational.

    Why is the prescription an overhaul rather than reform?

    1. Operational reform is already under way: A significant amount of reform is being carried out in the operational aspects of the organisation, which is not what is at issue.
    2. Bretton Woods representation of emerging economies: The Bretton Woods system does not correspond to the reality of the emerging economies, which remain underrepresented in the World Bank, the IMF and several other institutions.
    3. Governance mechanisms still set to 1945: Power systems and governance mechanisms need to be readjusted to the reality of today’s world instead of the reality of 1945.
    4. Overhaul against reform: What is being recommended is described as more than a simple reform, and as an overhaul, meaning a change to the distribution of authority rather than to procedures inside it.

    What does the organisation still do?

    1. Institutional survival after the funding cuts: No United Nations institution has collapsed, even with fewer resources and after the funding cuts that were made.
    2. Humanitarian delivery continues: Its agencies go on working and supporting people in the most dangerous places in the world.
    3. Self reform of working methods and structures: The organisation is described as able to inclusively reform its own ways of work and its own structures, which is precisely what it cannot do to the Council.

    Where does the enforcement gap lie?

    1. Absence of a punishment mechanism: No instrument exists in the international community to guarantee that violations of international law are effectively punished.
    2. Divided major powers and state calculation: With the major powers divided, individual states calculate that they can act without consequence.
    3. No power to stop the exclusion of officials: Asked what happens when a state excludes United Nations officials and tens of thousands die, including large numbers of children, the stated position is that the organisation does not have the power to stop it.
    4. Israel’s exit and the persona non grata declaration: Israel has exited many United Nations institutions and declared the Secretary General persona non grata, which means no visa would be issued to him, and he did not request one.
    5. Genocide as a determination for the courts: Genocide is a legal definition belonging to the courts and in principle to the International Criminal Court (ICC), so the organisation describes events in Gaza as a dramatic violation of all principles under international law without offering that legal definition itself.

    What is being attempted on freedom of navigation?

    1. Capture of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait: Houthi and other groups have captured the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and oil prices are expected to rise sharply as a result.
    2. Freedom of navigation: Freedom of navigation is fundamental and must be respected.
    3. The Black Sea Grain Initiative precedent: The organisation has proposed mechanisms under which a blockade makes exceptions at least for the transport of food and fertilizers, as was done through the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the Russia Ukraine conflict.
    4. The Strait of Hormuz fertilizer offer: A similar offer has been made for the Strait of Hormuz to allow fertilizers through, and Iran has not accepted it.

    Where does India figure in this assessment?

    1. Ukraine and the Gulf in the India discussion: Both the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Gulf were discussed with the Indian Prime Minister, on a common perspective that peace and absolute freedom of navigation are needed.
    2. The assessment of India’s mediation: India’s mediation efforts and its contacts with Moscow and Kyiv, aimed at creating conditions for trust to be re established, were described as valuable, with the position taken that no country is better placed to act as a bridge builder.
    3. No mediation between India and Pakistan: The organisation is not directly involved in any mediation process between India and Pakistan, since mediation requires the agreement of both parties and that agreement does not exist.

    What was said about the United Nations map controversy?

    1. The disclaimer on United Nations maps: There is no such thing as a United Nations map with borders, and it is not for the organisation to define borders.
    2. The “Correct the Map” resolution: The “Correct the Map” resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 3 September is not a map. It records that there are distortions in the representation of landmasses, traces those distortions to power relations of the past, and seeks to replace the Mercator projection with maps following the “equal area” principle.
    3. The status of the disputed document: The map published by UN Geospatial on 1 July and later discussed at the General Assembly remains on the organisation’s website, and is described as not an official map but the contribution of a non governmental organisation, indicative rather than definitional.
    4. The Line of Control and Aksai Chin depiction: That map showed the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as a dotted line with an explanatory note, while depicting Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin without the Indian and Chinese claim lines that earlier maps carried, and with no note explaining the omission.
    5. India’s recorded position: India voted for the resolution in support of the principle of equal area representation, has taken note of the anomaly in the map, and is taking it up with the organisation.

    Challenges to reform of the United Nations Security Council

    1. The permanent members hold a veto over their own dilution: Any change to the Council’s composition requires an amendment to the Charter ratified by all five permanent members, so the beneficiaries of the current structure control the exit from it. Eg. Charter amendment under Articles 108 and 109 requires ratification by all permanent members.
      The Fix: Pursue working method reform inside the existing Charter first, such as a binding commitment to withhold the veto in mass atrocity situations, since that route does not require ratification.
    2. The claimants cannot agree among themselves: Aspirants for permanent seats are blocked as much by regional rivals as by the incumbents. Eg. The Uniting for Consensus group opposes new permanent seats in the same round in which the G4 countries press for them.
      The Fix: Negotiate on an intermediate model of longer term renewable seats without veto, which separates the question of representation from the question of privilege.
    3. Text based negotiation has never begun: The Intergovernmental Negotiations process has run for over a decade without producing a single negotiating text to amend. Eg. The process continues to operate on convened position papers rather than on a draft resolution.
      The Fix: Fix a deadline by which the General Assembly President must table a consolidated single negotiating text, so positions are recorded against clauses rather than restated annually.
    4. Regional representation gaps are structural, not incidental: Africa and Latin America have no permanent seat, which is the specific defect the 1945 composition has carried forward. Eg. The Ezulwini Consensus records Africa’s claim to two permanent seats with veto and five non permanent seats, and has been outstanding since 2005.
      The Fix: Settle the African allocation first as a distinct package, since it is the one claim with an agreed continental position behind it.
    5. A reformed Council changes nothing without an enforcement instrument: Enlarging the membership does not create any means of penalising a state that ignores a Council decision. Eg. There is no instrument in the international community to guarantee that violations of international law are punished.
      The Fix: Strengthen the General Assembly’s residual authority through the Uniting for Peace route and link non compliance to automatic referral to the International Criminal Court.
    6. Financial leverage sits with the states least interested in change: Assessed contributions are concentrated among a few members, so budget pressure can be applied against reform. Eg. Cuts to the organisation’s resources have already forced its agencies to operate on reduced funding.
      The Fix: Broaden the assessed contribution base and build a reserve fund from voluntary contributions by emerging economies, so operational continuity is not hostage to a single contributor.

    Conclusion

    The assessment on record separates two things that are usually argued together: the organisation’s capacity to deliver, which is defended, and the Council’s capacity to decide, which is written off. That separation narrows the reform question from the institution as a whole to the single organ where authority and legitimacy have come apart. An outgoing officeholder’s recommendation carries no procedural weight, and the change he describes requires the assent of the states it would constrain. The thing to watch is the selection of the next Secretary General, since the terms on which that appointment is settled will show whether the membership treats the Council’s composition as a live question or a closed one.

    Back2Basics: Black Sea Grain Initiative

    1. The Black Sea Grain Initiative: An arrangement permitting the export of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian Black Sea ports during the Russia Ukraine conflict, negotiated in July 2022.
    2. United Nations and Turkey as brokers: It was agreed through the United Nations and Turkey, with Russia and Ukraine signing parallel agreements rather than a single joint text.
    3. The Istanbul joint coordination centre: A joint coordination centre in Istanbul inspected vessels in both directions along an agreed maritime corridor, so cargo could move without either party treating the ships as combatants.
    4. Precedent for a humanitarian exception to a blockade: It is the working precedent for carving a humanitarian exception out of a blockade, and it is the model behind the offer made for the Strait of Hormuz.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] Discuss the impediments India is facing in its pursuit of a permanent seat in UN Security Council.”

  • PM Modi flags weaponisation of technology and critical minerals

    Why in the News

    Closing the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the Prime Minister warned that the weaponisation of technology and of access to critical minerals can hinder the grouping’s shared progress, and set against it a commitment to inclusivity in the adoption of technology. The summit ran under the theme “Resilience, cooperation and sustainability” and issued the New Delhi Declaration, and India used its chair position to launch a set of standing mechanisms covering disease surveillance, disaster data, logistics, startup finance, small enterprise linkage and clean energy. The stated framing was that as BRICS enters its third decade the world expects concrete results from it rather than “merely ideas and commitments”. The tension inside the summit is that the members diagnosing the same problem, an order that disadvantages them, arrived with different remedies, from India’s delivery mechanisms to Russia’s sanctions workarounds and China’s call to rally the Global South.

    What did India’s chair position argue?

    1. Weaponisation of technology and critical minerals: Technology and access to critical minerals can both be used as instruments of pressure, and that use obstructs the development of the grouping’s members.
    2. Inclusivity in technology adoption: Inclusivity in the adoption of technology was placed as the answer, meaning access on terms that do not depend on the supplier’s political posture.
    3. Rising number of global conflicts: The rising number of global conflicts has an increasingly negative and far reaching effect on the lives of ordinary people.
    4. Resilience as the organising idea: Pandemics, climate disasters and supply chain disruptions have all shown that no crisis stays confined to one region, so the work was framed around identifying challenges in time, being prepared and acting promptly.
    5. The delivery test for the third decade: Entering its third decade, BRICS is expected to produce concrete results rather than ideas and commitments.

    What new BRICS mechanisms were announced?

    1. BRICS Integrated Early Warning System: Agreed for the prevention of and response to infectious diseases.
    2. Early Warning Data Integration Guidelines: Prepared for disaster management across member states.
    3. BRICS Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework: Intended to make member supply chains more reliable and resilient.
    4. BRICS Incubator Network and BRICS Startup Innovation Fund: The network connects startups and incubators across member states, and the fund has been proposed to back innovative and scalable solutions.
    5. BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture: Connects artificial intelligence, geospatial technology and Digital Public Infrastructure, meaning shared open digital platforms for identity, payments and data exchange, to the working needs of farmers.
    6. BRICS CONNECT: Aimed at skills, employability, women in the workforce, social security and capacity building.
    7. BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal: Set up to link small enterprises to knowledge, finance and new markets.
    8. BRICS Urban Mobility Hub: Established to share urban transport practices between member cities.
    9. BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence: Established for smart grids and energy storage under the sustainability pillar of India’s strategy for the grouping.
    10. Agriculture and climate centres: Centres of Excellence for Agro Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture were set up, alongside agreed principles for community based climate adaptation that treat indigenous knowledge as a foundation for climate action.

    What did the other members put on the table?

    1. China called for rallying the Global South: The Chinese President urged BRICS to rally the Global South so that an increasingly volatile international order is “free from double standards”, and stated that the logic of might makes right does not hold.
    2. The norms China named: Global South countries were asked to defend sovereign equality, non interference in internal affairs and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and to insist that international law applies to all.
    3. China’s five technology initiatives: An artificial intelligence open source community, an open ecosystem for artificial intelligence, a special economic zone partnership, a digital ecosystem cloud platform, and science and technology talent development.
    4. Russia proposed two instruments against sanctions: The Russian President proposed a BRICS insurance mechanism and a collaborative BRICS grain market, and noted the grouping has independent routes for moving capital, labour and technologies.
    5. The Western insurance bar on Russian crude: The G7, the European Union and the United Kingdom barred Western companies from insuring any ship carrying Russian crude unless the oil was bought at or below a specified price cap, which directly restricted Russian crude exports.
    6. The New Development Bank was cited as the working asset: The multilateral development bank established by BRICS is handling projects worth $140 billion.
    7. Iran pressed for national currency trade: The Iranian President argued that excessive dependence on existing financial and trade systems leaves emerging economies exposed to political shocks, backed expanded trade in national currencies and a strengthened New Development Bank, and said unilateral sanctions directly affect global food security.

    What did the New Delhi Declaration record?

    1. Historical racial injustice: The declaration took note of the racial injustice Africans have suffered historically.
    2. A new inequality instrument: It noted the Brazilian and South African plan to start an “international panel on inequality”.
    3. The historical frame invoked: It referred to decolonisation and to Asian African solidarity as displayed at the Bandung conference of 1955.
    4. The Gaza proceedings: It named the South Africa initiated legal process at the International Court of Justice against Israel over its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, recording that those proceedings reaffirmed Israel’s legal obligation to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

    Challenges to BRICS as a delivery platform

    1. Announced mechanisms have no compliance machinery behind them: A framework, a portal or a network created by summit declaration binds no member and carries no penalty for non participation. Eg. Eleven separate initiatives were announced in one closing session, none attached to a dated implementation milestone.
      The Fix: Attach each mechanism to a named lead member, a secretariat line and an annual reporting obligation to the next summit, so progress is recorded rather than assumed.
    2. The membership no longer shares an economic interest: An expanded grouping now contains net oil exporters and net importers, and sanctioned and unsanctioned economies, so a single position on trade or energy is difficult to reach. Eg. Russia’s proposals at this summit were sanctions workarounds, while other members trade freely with the economies imposing them.
      The Fix: Move substantive work to plurilateral coalitions of the willing inside BRICS, so a mechanism is not held to the pace of its least interested member.
    3. Two members carry an unresolved bilateral dispute: India and China sit inside the same grouping while an unsettled boundary question and a wide trade imbalance run between them. Eg. India’s trade deficit with China reached a record $112.6 billion in 2025-26.
      The Fix: Keep the grouping’s agenda to functional cooperation where the two members’ interests already align, such as disease surveillance and logistics, rather than to security coordination.
    4. The de dollarisation agenda outruns the settlement infrastructure: Trade in national currencies requires convertibility, a clearing arrangement and an accepted reserve asset, and the grouping has none of the three at scale. Eg. Iran’s call for expanded national currency trade rests on the New Development Bank, which is capitalised in a fraction of the size of the trade flows involved.
      The Fix: Build a bilateral local currency settlement network with published reference rates before pursuing a common instrument, so the mechanism follows the trade rather than preceding it.
    5. A larger grouping dilutes decision making: Expansion has raised the grouping’s representational claim while lowering the odds of consensus on anything contested. Eg. The grouping now runs to eleven members with a widening set of partner countries attending its summits.
      The Fix: Adopt a variable geometry rule under which an initiative proceeds with a stated minimum number of members rather than requiring unanimity.
    6. Critical mineral security cannot be built by declaration: Processing capacity, not deposits, is the choke point, and it is concentrated outside most of the membership. Eg. The summit warned against the weaponisation of access to critical minerals without announcing any joint processing or stockpiling arrangement.
      The Fix: Create a joint BRICS strategic reserve and a shared processing investment vehicle for named minerals, so the warning is backed by capacity.

    Conclusion

    India’s chair year has ended with a set of standing mechanisms rather than a communique alone, which is the specific test the chair set for the grouping at the opening of its third decade. Those mechanisms are administrative rather than binding, and each one now needs a host institution, a budget line and a reporting schedule before it can be judged. The markers to watch are whether the proposed Startup Innovation Fund is capitalised and whether the Integrated Early Warning System is stood up with named national focal points before the next summit, since those two are the initiatives that require money and institutional commitment rather than agreement alone.

    Back2Basics: New Development Bank

    1. New Development Bank: A multilateral development bank established by the BRICS countries to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects in member states and other emerging economies.
    2. Headquarters in Shanghai: Its headquarters is in Shanghai, and it operates regional offices in member countries.
    3. Equal shareholding among founders: Founding members hold equal shareholding, which distinguishes it from the weighted voting used by the Bretton Woods institutions.
    4. A project book of $140 billion: It is handling projects worth about $140 billion.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025] Consider the following statements with regard to BRICS: I. The 16th BRICS Summit was held under the Chairship of Russia in Kazan. II. Indonesia has become a full member of BRICS. III. The theme of the 16th BRICS Summit was Strengthening Multiculturalism for Just Global Development and Security. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) I and II (b) II and III (c) I and III (d) I only ANSWER: (a)”

  • The rebuilding of the city must begin, after Satya Niketan

    Why in the News

    A building collapse at Satya Niketan in Delhi killed seven of the 50 Delhi University students living in a makeshift arrangement inside an unauthorised structure, with many others hospitalised in serious condition. The collapse followed monsoon water reaching the basement and foundations of a structure almost half a century old, in which alterations were being carried out at basement level at the time. Given the building’s age, its condition, its unauthorised status and its position in a dense neighbourhood, the event was not preventable at the moment it happened. The tension is that almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in structures of this kind, and the city will hold nearly 40 million people by 2030, so the response has to be a documentation and licensing regime rather than an inquiry into one building.

    What is a Lal Dora area?

    1. Lal Dora, the village habitation core: A Lal Dora area is the settled habitation core of a village that was recorded separately from its agricultural land, and which municipal planning and building regulation historically did not reach.
    2. Shadow pockets outside municipal planning: These are shadow pockets that evade municipal planning, and they exist in virtually all large Indian cities rather than in Delhi alone.
    3. High density construction in urbanised villages: Urbanised villages of this kind now carry high density four and five storey buildings put up outside the building bye laws that apply elsewhere in the city.

    Why is the city’s building stock undocumented?

    1. The scale of the unregulated stock: Almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in unauthorised structures, mostly slums, low rise makeshift tenements, or high density four and five storey buildings in urbanised villages.
    2. Existing street maps of illegal colonies: Street maps of most illegal colonies already exist, so the gap is not location but the building itself.
    3. The missing building by building record: There is no building by building documentation of the type and size of each structure, no assessment of its physical condition, and no enumeration of who lives inside it.
    4. Infra red structural imaging: Advanced infra red and other imaging techniques allow a reasonably accurate assessment of a building’s structural condition without dismantling it.

    Why does the age of the stock make documentation urgent?

    1. Buildings are no longer built to last: The lifespan of structures built in this century is barely 30 to 40 years, against the generational life expected of older construction.
    2. Non compliant buildings last less: Structures such as those at Satya Niketan follow none of the required safety codes, which shortens that span further.
    3. A finite lifespan and the inspection cycle: A building stock with a known expiry has to be checked on a cycle, and partially or wholly demolished and replaced when it fails, rather than inspected only after a collapse.

    Why does the use of a building matter as much as its construction?

    1. A structure is designed for one function: Every building is engineered for a specific use, and inappropriate use with heavy loads on floors weakens and damages the structure.
    2. Residential to commercial conversion: In unauthorised colonies, blocks of flats designed for domestic use are converted into stores and restaurants, which raises the number of occupants and alters the weight carried by the floors.
    3. Makeshift student hostels: Makeshift hostels compress living space to raise the return to the property owner, which is the arrangement the Satya Niketan students were housed under.
    4. Occupancy permit tied to a designated function: No occupancy permit should be issued unless the building authority has approved a designated function for the building and allocated a minimum floor space per person.

    What does the layout of a colony do to the water?

    1. Nobody owns the shared ground: Builders take no responsibility for the ground they share with neighbouring buildings, so no one assesses the plot as part of a layout.
    2. Permeable ground and drain capacity: Whether there is adequate natural ground around a structure to absorb rainwater, and whether there are enough wide mouth drains to move water away quickly.
    3. The mechanism of failure: Too much building in too small a ground area traps excess water, directs it into basements and foundations, and destabilises the structure from below.
    4. Climate change and drainage capacity: Climate change is altering weather patterns, producing flash floods and sudden very large volumes of rain, so drainage capacity has become a structural safety question rather than a convenience one.

    Why does enforcement fail even where rules exist?

    1. The bye laws are not the binding constraint: A battery of building bye laws carries no value if it cannot be enforced, and the enforcement machinery is the part that has not been built.
    2. Inspection is purchasable: Structural evaluation of buildings achieves nothing where inspectors and site engineers can be bribed to record a passing assessment.
    3. The Bengaluru apartment collapse: A newly completed apartment building in Bengaluru collapsed after the builder added two floors beyond the three approved, weakening the structural capacity of the columns. The collapse killed 12 people.
    4. Authority is split across agencies: Control of roads, buildings, transport and other infrastructure sits with different political parties and municipal agencies, which raises the question of whether all of it should be brought under one legal entity such as the mayor.

    Challenges to regulating unauthorised construction in Delhi

    1. Regularisation has become the expected endpoint: Repeated amnesty for unauthorised colonies teaches builders and residents that non compliance is a delay rather than a risk, so the next structure is also built outside the code. Eg. Delhi has run successive rounds of recognition and regularisation of unauthorised colonies over decades.
      The Fix: Tie any future regularisation to a passed structural assessment and a registered occupancy function, so recognition follows safety rather than substituting for it.
    2. Enforcement is fragmented across agencies with no single accountable office: Land, building approval, drainage and services sit with separate bodies, so no one authority can be held responsible for a collapse. Eg. The proposal on the table is to bring roads, buildings, transport and infrastructure under one legal entity such as the mayor.
      The Fix: Vest building safety, drainage and occupancy licensing in one municipal office with statutory liability for a structural failure in its jurisdiction.
    3. The inspector’s incentive runs against the resident’s safety: A single site engineer signs off on a structure whose owner gains directly from an extra floor, and detection is unlikely. Eg. A Bengaluru apartment approved for three storeys was completed with five and collapsed, killing 12 people.
      The Fix: Move structural certification to empanelled third party engineers who are randomly assigned to sites and carry personal liability for their certificate.
    4. A hostel or a paying guest establishment sits outside the licensing net entirely: Converting a residential flat to shared student accommodation multiplies occupancy without triggering any approval. Eg. Fifty students were living in a makeshift arrangement inside one unauthorised Satya Niketan building.
      The Fix: Require a separate occupancy licence keyed to persons per unit for any shared residential use, renewable annually against a fire and structural check.
    5. Drainage capacity is planned at city scale while the failure happens at plot scale: Storm water design covers arterial drains, and the ground condition immediately around a building is nobody’s design responsibility. Eg. Water reaching a basement and foundation is what destabilised an almost fifty year old structure.
      The Fix: Make a layout level permeable ground and drainage assessment a condition of building approval, so the plot’s water behaviour is fixed before construction rather than after flooding.
    6. Demolition is politically impossible at the scale the stock requires: Sixty per cent of the population cannot be displaced, so unsafe structures stay occupied while the enforcement file remains open. Eg. Delhi will approach 40 million people by 2030, with continued in migration from nearby towns.
      The Fix: Pair every condemnation order with an in situ rental rehousing entitlement, so removing an unsafe structure does not require removing the household from the city.

    Conclusion

    The city’s governing problem is not that its bye laws are wrong but that most of its building stock sits outside any record that a bye law could be applied to. Documentation, a licensed function with a stated occupancy, a plot level drainage assessment and a single accountable authority are four separate instruments, and none of them requires a new law before it can begin. Delhi is heading towards nearly 40 million residents and the stock it will house them in has a working life measured in decades, not generations. The thing to watch is whether any municipal agency begins building by building documentation of a single Lal Dora pocket, since every other measure depends on that record existing first.

    Urban Local Bodies in India

    1. Urban local bodies: Urban local bodies (ULBs) are the elected municipal governments of Indian cities and towns, governed by Part IX-A of the Constitution as introduced by the 74th Amendment Act, 1992.
    2. Municipal planning and service functions: They prepare master plans, regulate land use, provide basic services and guide urban growth, with reserved seats for women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes built into their composition.
    3. Own revenue and property tax collection: Own revenue of Indian ULBs is under 1 per cent of GDP, against 6 per cent to 7 per cent in Brazil and South Africa, and property tax collection efficiency stays at 35 per cent to 40 per cent.
    4. The planning deficit: About 65 per cent of Indian cities operate without an updated master plan, per NITI Aayog.

    Government Initiatives for Urban Local Bodies

    1. AMRUT 2.0: Targets 100 per cent water tap coverage in all 4,800 and more ULBs and 100 per cent sewerage coverage in 500 major cities, with mandatory rejuvenation of at least one water body in every city.
    2. Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0: Works to a Garbage Free City star rating, requires material recovery facilities in cities above five lakh population, and targets remediation of all 2,400 and more legacy dumpsites by 2027.
    3. Urban Challenge Fund: Rs 1,00,000 crore of central assistance aimed at catalysing Rs 4 lakh crore of investment, with the Centre funding 25 per cent of a project only where the ULB raises 50 per cent from the market.
    4. Urban Infrastructure Development Fund: Managed by the National Housing Bank, it lends to Tier 2 and Tier 3 ULBs at low interest for water supply, sanitation and storm water drainage.
    5. City Economic Regions: A Budget 2026-27 framework linking a core city with its satellite towns and industrial hubs into one labour market, with Rs 5,000 crore per region for 14 identified regions.
    6. Smart Cities Mission legacy: The mission concluded on 31 March 2025, and its Integrated Command and Control Centres now operate in all 100 cities as traffic and emergency monitoring hubs.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS2, 10 marks] “The states in India seem reluctant to empower urban local bodies both functionally as well as financially.” Comment.”

  • The evidence gap in dole politics

    Why in the News

    Unconditional cash transfers to women have spread from two States in 2022-23 to 12 States in 2025-26, at an estimated annual cost of Rs 1.68 lakh crore, about 0.5 per cent of GDP, per PRS Legislative Research. Governments attach purposes such as dignity and empowerment to these payments but publish no model linking the payment to an outcome, and a study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) prepared for the 16th Finance Commission found that India has no systematic dataset of government expenditure on cash transfer schemes at all. The comparison drawn is the Speenhamland system of 1795, under which English parishes topped up agricultural wages from public funds and folded wage support, poor relief and public finance into a single instrument. The tension is that the fewer the conditions attached to a transfer, the heavier the obligation to prove what it does, and Indian cash transfer politics has grown in exactly the opposite direction.

    What was the Speenhamland system?

    1. The 1795 Speenhamland resolution: English magistrates meeting at Speenhamland in Berkshire in May 1795 resolved to top up agricultural wages from parish funds, with the payout linked to bread prices and to family size.
    2. Rising bread prices and political unrest: Food prices were rising and the French Revolution had unsettled the English establishment, so relief was framed as social stabilisation rather than as poverty policy.
    3. Polanyi’s reading against the critics’ reading: The economic historian Karl Polanyi treated it as an early assertion of a human “right to live” against the harshness of the market. Critics held that folding wage support, poor relief and public finance into one instrument blurred price signals and weakened incentives.
    4. The merged purposes problem: Once the three purposes were merged, it became unclear whether the system was protecting poor families, the wage structure, employers, or social peace, which is the test any relief instrument still has to meet.

    How large has India’s cash transfer commitment become?

    1. The spread across States: Unconditional transfers to women alone moved from two States to 12 States in three years, per PRS Legislative Research.
    2. West Bengal: The State has moved from Lakshmir Bhandar to Annapurna Yojana, budgeting Rs 36,000 crore for a Rs 3,000 monthly transfer to about 1.3 crore women.
    3. Tamil Nadu: The State allocated Rs 14,412 crore for the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thogai in its 2026-27 interim budget.
    4. Assam: The State set aside Rs 5,000 crore for Orunodoi.
    5. The wider family of instruments: Cash transfers sit alongside free electricity, free bus travel, subsidised food and utility subsidies, so the monthly payment is one line inside a larger recurring claim on State finances.

    What does the transfer actually do for the recipient?

    1. Transfer as a share of a woman’s monthly income: Transfers to women amount to 11 per cent to 24 per cent of the monthly income of women daily wage workers, and 11 per cent to 87 per cent of that of self employed women, per the Economic Survey 2025-26.
    2. Cash is genuinely useful in an informal economy: In a poor economy with irregular earnings, a predictable monthly payment does work that no in kind benefit can.
    3. Services a transfer cannot substitute for: The same woman who values Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 a month also needs a functioning health centre, childcare, a good government school and access to better work, and a transfer softens the strain created by weak institutions without addressing them.
    4. Relief hardening into a permanent commitment: A transfer that begins as relief turns into a permanent fiscal commitment unless there is a clear account of who receives it, what it changes and what it displaces.

    Where exactly is the evidence gap?

    1. No published model connects payment to outcome: Governments state social purposes for these transfers but do not publish the model that links the payment to the result claimed for it.
    2. The design questions are unanswered: Who is being targeted, and what baseline data justifies the scheme, are not established before rollout.
    3. The outcome questions are unmeasured: No anticipated effect is stated for consumption, debt, nutrition, schooling, health spending, labour supply or women’s bargaining power.
    4. Expenditure data on cash transfer schemes: The ADB study for the 16th Finance Commission found that India lacks a systematic dataset of government expenditure on cash transfer schemes.
    5. Moral language in place of evidence: With those answers missing, cash transfer politics is defended through the moral language of welfare rather than through evidence.

    What do other democracies attach to their transfers?

    1. Unemployment insurance: Payment is tied to a contribution record, so entitlement is earned through prior participation in the formal labour market rather than asserted by category.
    2. Food support: Eligibility rules govern who qualifies, and the benefit is reassessed periodically rather than treated as permanent.
    3. Healthcare subsidies: Support is conditioned on stated eligibility criteria that can be tested against a household’s circumstances.
    4. Job search obligations: Several systems attach a continuing behavioural requirement to receipt, which creates a record of what the benefit is meant to be bridging.
    5. Limits of the comparison: These systems are not immune to welfare politics, and India need not copy them mechanically, since transfers to women in poor households may be better left unconditional. The conditions in those systems generate evidence as a by product, and where India drops the conditions it has to generate that evidence directly.

    What would a welfare impact statement require?

    1. Pre rollout welfare impact statement: A large recurring transfer should carry a published statement setting out the objective, the eligibility rule, the expected coverage, the five year fiscal cost, the alternatives considered, the likely leakage and exclusion errors, and the measurable outcomes.
    2. Post rollout household survey: Household surveys should record not only whether the transfer was received but how it affected consumption, debt, health spending, schooling, mobility, work incentives, control over household expenditure and subjective well being.
    3. Open microdata: Anonymised microdata from those surveys should be released so that independent researchers can test the claims made for the scheme.
    4. Evidence as a check on the political claim: Evidence will not remove politics from welfare, and it is not intended to, but it makes the political claim about a scheme checkable rather than merely asserted.

    Challenges to India’s unconditional cash transfer regime

    1. A recurring transfer is politically irreversible: Once a monthly payment reaches a large identifiable group, no government can withdraw or shrink it, so the fiscal commitment compounds regardless of performance. Eg. West Bengal replaced Lakshmir Bhandar with a larger transfer under Annapurna Yojana rather than reviewing it.
      The Fix: Legislate a sunset clause and a mandatory reauthorisation vote on every large transfer, so continuation requires a positive decision rather than inertia.
    2. Transfers compete with the capital spending that builds public goods: State budgets are constrained, and a revenue commitment of this size crowds out the schools, health centres and childcare the same recipients need. Eg. Transfers to women alone now cost about 0.5 per cent of GDP a year across 12 States.
      The Fix: Require every transfer proposal to state the capital expenditure it displaces in the same budget document, so the trade off is visible at the point of approval.
    3. Category based targeting is not the same as need based targeting: A transfer keyed to gender or to a possession based exclusion reaches many households that do not need it and misses poor households outside the category. Eg. The National Food Security Act, 2013 still allocates State quotas on the 2011 Census, which has left later entrants to poverty outside the ration net.
      The Fix: Build eligibility on a periodically updated deprivation register rather than on a one time category list, and publish the exclusion error rate with each disbursal cycle.
    4. Digital delivery excludes at the last step: A transfer credited to an account still fails where the account is dormant, the seeding is wrong or the recipient cannot reach a banking point. Eg. Rejected and failed Direct Benefit Transfer credits arising from incorrect account seeding are a recurring finding in scheme audits.
      The Fix: Publish a failed credit register by block with a fixed resolution deadline, so a failure is a tracked case rather than a statistic.
    5. No independent evaluator exists for State transfers: State schemes are designed, disbursed and assessed by the same department, so there is no institution positioned to contradict the claim made for a scheme. Eg. The ADB study for the 16th Finance Commission had to record the absence of even an expenditure dataset before any evaluation could begin.
      The Fix: Route evaluation of large State transfers through an independent statutory evaluation office reporting to the State legislature, on the model applied to performance audit.
    6. Wage subsidies distort the labour market they operate in: A public top up to household income changes reservation wages and employer incentives, which is the specific mechanism the Speenhamland critics identified. Eg. The transfer equals up to 87 per cent of the monthly income of a self employed woman.
      The Fix: Track labour force participation and wage rates for recipient households in the post rollout survey, so the labour market effect is measured rather than argued about.

    Conclusion

    The instrument at issue is not indefensible, and cash in a poor informal economy does real work no in kind benefit does. What is missing is the apparatus that would let anyone, including the government paying for it, say whether a given transfer changed anything. The obligation runs in proportion to the freedom taken: a transfer with no conditions attached carries the heaviest evidentiary duty, not the lightest. The concrete marker is whether the 16th Finance Commission’s award period opens with a standard expenditure reporting format for State cash transfer schemes, since the dataset the ADB found missing has to exist before any evaluation can be built on it.

    Welfare Cash Transfers in India

    1. Welfare cash transfer: A welfare cash transfer pays money directly into a beneficiary’s bank account in place of a subsidised good or a price subsidy, so the State’s support reaches the household as purchasing power rather than as a commodity.
    2. The JAM trinity: Transfers move through the JAM trinity, meaning the Jan Dhan bank account, the Aadhaar identity number and the mobile phone, which together allow a payment to be authenticated and credited without an intermediary.
    3. Scale of the delivery system: More than 55 crore Jan Dhan accounts now exist, which is what makes near universal direct crediting technically possible.
    4. Claimed Direct Benefit Transfer savings: Aadhaar linked Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) is credited with cumulative savings of about Rs 3.48 lakh crore from removing duplicate and ghost beneficiaries across fertiliser, cooking gas and food subsidies.

    Government Initiatives for Welfare Transfers

    1. Direct Benefit Transfer, 2013: The umbrella architecture that routes scheme payments straight to beneficiary accounts, now covering several hundred central and State schemes.
    2. PM Jan Dhan Yojana, 2014: The financial inclusion mission that created the zero balance accounts into which transfers are credited.
    3. PM Kisan Samman Nidhi: An income support transfer paying landholding farmer families a fixed annual sum in three instalments.
    4. PM Ujjwala Yojana: A connection plus subsidy scheme for cooking gas, which distributed over 10 crore connections and moved the subsidy itself to the beneficiary’s account.
    5. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005: A rights based wage programme guaranteeing 100 days of work, with wages paid electronically into the worker’s own account.
    6. National Food Security Act, 2013: The statutory entitlement to subsidised grain, which also permits a State to substitute a cash transfer for the grain entitlement.

    Back2Basics: 16th Finance Commission

    1. Constitutional basis under Article 280: A constitutional body appointed under Article 280 to recommend how Union tax revenue is shared with the States and among them.
    2. Award period from 2026-27: Its recommendations cover the five years beginning 2026-27.
    3. Grants in aid and local body funds: It recommends the principles governing grants in aid to States from the Consolidated Fund of India, and the measures needed to augment State funds for panchayats and municipalities.
    4. Commissioned studies as the evidence base: Commissioned studies form part of the evidence base on which the transfer and grant architecture for the award period is fixed.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2022, GS2, 10 marks] Reforming the government delivery system through the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme is a progressive step, but it has its limitations too. Comment.”