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  • Cong: LS not prorogued, is Shah still pushing delimitation Bill?

    Why in the News

    The Congress general secretary in-charge of communications has questioned why the Lok Sabha has not been prorogued ten days after being adjourned sine die. He asked whether the Union Home Minister was still in search of a two-thirds majority to get the Constitutional Amendment Bill on delimitation passed in a special session. The reference is to a twin legislative package: a Constitutional Amendment Bill to advance women’s reservation to 2029, and a Delimitation Bill to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to up to 850 seats. A House that has been adjourned sine die but not prorogued remains technically in session, which leaves the Presiding Officer able to reconvene it without a fresh summons from the President. A former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha has stated that no clear rule fixes when Parliament should be prorogued after a House is adjourned sine die.

    What is prorogation?

    1. The act itself: Prorogation is the formal termination of a session of a House of Parliament by the President. It ends the session, unlike adjournment, which only suspends a sitting.
    2. Who exercises it: The President prorogues the House on the advice of the Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister advises the President on summoning and proroguing Parliament and on dissolving the Lok Sabha.
    3. How it differs from adjournment sine die: Adjournment sine die is the termination of a sitting for an indefinite period, and it is done by the Presiding Officer of the House. The House remains in session until prorogation is notified.
    4. What it does to pending business: Prorogation ends all pending notices, including questions and motions, other than Bills, which do not lapse on prorogation. Bills lapse only on dissolution of the Lok Sabha, subject to the exceptions the Constitution provides.

    Why does the ten day gap matter?

    1. The normal interval: The time gap between the adjournment of the Lok Sabha sine die and its prorogation is generally two to four days. There are many instances when adjournment and prorogation have taken place on the very same day.
    2. The interval in this case: Ten days have passed since the House was adjourned sine die. No information on its prorogation has been made available.
    3. The longer precedents cited: The gap for the Monsoon Session was 28 days in 2015 and 20 days in 2021. The Congress position is that no comparable legislative move was pending on either occasion.
    4. What an unprorogued House permits: A House still in session can be reconvened by the Presiding Officer without the President issuing a fresh summons. The procedural cost of resuming business is therefore lower than convening a special session from scratch.
    5. The political inference drawn: The Congress reading is that the delay preserves the option of resuming the same session once the numbers for a Constitutional Amendment are assembled. The Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

    What is the twin legislative package at issue?

    1. The Constitutional Amendment Bill: It seeks to advance the implementation of women’s reservation to 2029. The 106th Constitutional Amendment of 2023 provides 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, and ties implementation to the next Census and a fresh delimitation.
    2. The Delimitation Bill: It seeks to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to up to 850 seats. A delimitation exercise would be required to give effect to that expansion.
    3. What delimitation is: Delimitation is the act of fixing the limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies to reflect population changes. Article 82 mandates Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every Census.
    4. The freeze the package would end: The 42nd Amendment of 1976 froze seat allocation on the 1971 Census until 2000, and the 84th Amendment of 2001 extended that freeze until the first Census after 2026. The proposed expansion is the first readjustment of Lok Sabha strength since that freeze was imposed.
    5. Why the majority threshold governs the timing: A Constitutional Amendment Bill requires a special majority, which includes a majority of the total membership of each House and two-thirds of members present and voting. The Bill cannot be moved to a vote until that support exists.

    Is there a rule the delay breaches?

    1. No fixed interval is prescribed: No clear rule states when Parliament should be prorogued after a House is adjourned sine die, in the assessment of a former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha. Prorogation is described as a routine practice rather than a timed obligation.
    2. The constitutional source of the power: Article 85(2)(a) empowers the President to prorogue the Houses from time to time. Article 85(2)(b) separately empowers the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha.
    3. The only hard timing rule: Article 85(1) requires that six months shall not intervene between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next. That is the outer limit on the gap between sessions, not on the gap before prorogation.
    4. Where the discretion actually sits: The President acts on the advice of the Council of Ministers in exercising the power. The executive therefore controls both the summoning and the closing of a session.

    Challenges to prorogation as a procedural check

    1. The timing is entirely executive-controlled: No statute or rule of procedure obliges the government to advise prorogation within a stated period. Eg. The interval has ranged from the same day to 28 days for the Monsoon Session of 2015. Fix. Prescribe an outer limit in the Rules of Procedure requiring prorogation within a fixed number of days of adjournment sine die.
    2. Parliament cannot summon itself: Members have no mechanism to require a sitting where the executive does not advise one. Eg. The Article 85(1) six month rule is the only enforceable constraint, and it permits long stretches with no sitting. Fix. Adopt a statutory parliamentary calendar fixing the number of sitting days per year, as the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution recommended in 2002 at 110 days.
    3. The special session route bypasses the ordinary calendar: A session convened outside the three-session cycle compresses notice, scrutiny and committee referral. Eg. The Women’s Reservation Bill in 2023 was introduced and passed within a special session convened for the purpose. Fix. Require that any Bill taken up in a special session first stand referred to a Departmentally Related Standing Committee.
    4. Prorogation ends scrutiny instruments without ending the government’s agenda: Questions and motions lapse on prorogation and Bills survive it, so the balance of the reset favours the executive. Eg. A pending starred question falls away while the Bill it concerned remains on the books. Fix. Carry over admitted questions and motions to the succeeding session on the model used for Bills.
    5. The ordinance route substitutes for a sitting House: A prorogued House allows the executive to legislate by ordinance under Article 123. Eg. Ordinances have been repromulgated across successive gaps between sessions rather than replaced by legislation. Fix. Enforce the bar on repromulgation laid down in Krishna Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar (2017) by requiring a laid statement of reasons for every ordinance.

    Conclusion

    The Lok Sabha stands adjourned sine die and not yet prorogued ten days on, which keeps the session formally alive and the option of reconvening it open. No rule fixes the permissible interval, so the delay is unusual rather than irregular, and the objection raised is about intent rather than legality. The twin legislative package at issue, the Constitutional Amendment on women’s reservation and the Delimitation Bill that accompanies it, remains untabled for a vote. The next milestone is the notification of prorogation or the summoning of a session in which the Constitutional Amendment Bill is moved.

    “[2024] With reference to the Parliament of India, consider the following statements:

    1. Prorogation of a House by the President of India does not require the advice of the Council of Ministers.

    2. Prorogation of a House is generally done after the House is adjourned sine die, but there is no bar to the President of India proroguing the House which is in session.

    3. Dissolution of the Lok Sabha is done by the President of India who, save in exceptional circumstances, does so on the advice of the Council of Ministers.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 1 and 2

    (c) 2 and 3

    (d) 3 only

  • The rural-urban divide in female labour force participation

    Why in the News

    The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2025 records a significant increase in the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) since 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall rate for women aged 15 years and above rose from 30 per cent in 2019-20 to 40 per cent in 2025. The increase was far more pronounced in rural areas, where the rate rose from 33 per cent to 45.9 per cent, against a rise from 23.3 per cent to 27.7 per cent in urban areas. The tension the data raises is that the pace of improvement, measured as the Average Annual Percentage Point (AAPP) change, cannot be read on its own, since a State with a low pace may already sit at a high level of participation.

    What is the Female Labour Force Participation Rate?

    1. Definition: The Female Labour Force Participation Rate is the ratio of women in the labour force to women of working age, taken as 15 years and above.
    2. What counts as participation: The labour force includes women who are employed and women who are unemployed but seeking or available for work, so the rate moves when women enter or leave the search for work, not only when they find it.
    3. What it leaves out: Unpaid domestic work and unpaid caregiving inside a woman’s own household are not counted as labour force participation, so a large volume of work sits outside the measure by construction.

    How large is the rural-urban gap in the headline numbers?

    1. The national rate rose by ten percentage points: Female labour force participation for those aged 15 and above moved from 30 per cent in 2019-20 to 40 per cent in 2025.
    2. Rural India accounts for most of the gain: The rural rate rose from 33 per cent to 45.9 per cent, a gain of about 12.9 percentage points across the period.
    3. Urban India moved far less: The urban rate rose from 23.3 per cent to 27.7 per cent, a gain of about 4.4 percentage points, under half the pace of the rural gain in percentage point terms.
    4. The gap widened rather than closed: Rural participation began roughly 9.7 percentage points above urban participation and ended about 18.2 percentage points above it.
    5. The divergence is what needs explaining: This substantial rural-urban difference is what warrants a more granular, State level analysis rather than a single national figure.

    Which States improved fastest in rural areas?

    1. Seven States beat the national rural pace: West Bengal (3.68), Uttar Pradesh (3.64), Gujarat (3.38), Odisha (3.28), Bihar (3.23), Rajasthan (3.06) and Haryana (2.62) recorded Average Annual Percentage Point change above the all-India rural average, in percentage points per year between 2019-20 and 2025.
    2. The middle band sat below the average: Madhya Pradesh (2.42), Tamil Nadu (2.06), Keralam (1.96), Punjab (1.80), Jharkhand (1.71), Chhattisgarh (1.48) and Andhra Pradesh (1.36) recorded change below the national rural average.
    3. The slowest group still improved: Karnataka (1.20), Uttarakhand (1.18), Maharashtra (0.58), Telangana (0.48) and Goa (0.30) registered the smallest positive annual changes.
    4. All five southern States sat below the rural average: Tamil Nadu, Keralam, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana all recorded change below the all-India rural figure, alongside Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Goa and Himachal Pradesh.
    5. One State went backwards: Himachal Pradesh recorded a marginally negative change of -0.02 percentage points a year, which is notable because nearly 90 per cent of its population resides in rural areas.

    Which States improved fastest in urban areas?

    1. Two States cleared two percentage points a year: Rajasthan (2.30) and Gujarat (2.26) recorded particularly sturdy improvements in urban female participation.
    2. Seven more beat the urban average: Uttarakhand (1.88), Keralam (1.76), Chhattisgarh (1.22), Karnataka (1.20), Odisha (1.12), Bihar (1.10) and Andhra Pradesh (0.94) recorded change above the all-India urban average.
    3. The remainder fell below it: Tamil Nadu (0.76), Telangana (0.66), Jharkhand (0.64), Punjab (0.60), Uttar Pradesh (0.54), West Bengal (0.48) and Maharashtra (0.36) recorded change below the national urban average.
    4. Strong urban gains occurred despite a slower overall pace: Several States recorded relatively strong gains even though the overall pace of improvement in urban areas was considerably lower than in rural areas.
    5. The urban leaders are not the rural leaders: West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh led the rural table and sat near the bottom of the urban one, so a State’s rural performance does not predict its urban performance.

    Why is pace alone an incomplete measure?

    1. It measures speed, not level: The Average Annual Percentage Point change captures only the pace of change and does not consider the level of female labour force participation from which a State started.
    2. A low pace can sit on a high level: A State with a lower annual change may already have a relatively high participation rate, so a low figure is not automatically a poor outcome.
    3. The baseline has to be combined with the pace: Reading the 2019-20 rate for each State together with its annual change is what allows a State to be assessed properly.
    4. It is not a ranking device: The measure is used to indicate the pace of improvement and is not intended to rank States against one another.
    5. Himachal Pradesh shows why the pairing matters: Its marginally negative change is read against a rural population share of nearly 90 per cent, which places the figure in context rather than treating it as a simple last place.

    What does the rural baseline-pace map show?

    1. Low baseline with faster improvement: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana started with relatively low female participation but recorded change above the all-India average, indicating a relatively faster pace of improvement.
    2. Low baseline with slower improvement: Goa and Punjab started from relatively low baseline levels and recorded change below the national average, indicating slower improvement despite having considerable scope to grow.
    3. High baseline with faster improvement: Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan started with relatively higher baseline rural participation and still recorded above average change, showing that faster improvement is not confined to States starting from a low base.
    4. High baseline with slower improvement: Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and the five southern States had relatively higher baseline levels but recorded change below the national average.

    What does the urban baseline-pace map show?

    1. Low baseline with faster improvement: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Bihar started from relatively low baseline levels and recorded change above the all-India average.
    2. Low baseline with slower improvement: Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Haryana and Punjab also started from relatively low levels but recorded below average change, indicating slower improvement.
    3. High baseline with faster improvement: Keralam, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh already had relatively higher urban participation and continued to make relatively rapid gains.
    4. High baseline with slower improvement: Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Goa recorded slower improvement despite their relatively higher starting levels.

    Challenges to raising the Female Labour Force Participation Rate

    1. The rise is concentrated in low productivity work: Most of the increase sits in self-employment, home based work and unpaid family labour, which raises participation without raising earnings. Eg. Over 64 per cent of working women are self-employed and nearly 64 per cent of working women are in agriculture. Fix. Link Self Help Group producers to the Open Network for Digital Commerce so household enterprise output reaches priced markets rather than local thrift.
    2. Unpaid care work caps available hours: Domestic and caregiving responsibility absorbs the working day before paid work is considered, which pushes women toward part time and proximate options. Eg. Women spend 363 minutes daily on unpaid work against 123 minutes for men. Fix. Raise care economy investment toward 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, which is estimated to create around 11 million jobs held largely by women.
    3. Mobility constraints narrow the job set: Unsafe transport and inadequate childcare restrict how far a woman can travel for work, so employers outside walking distance are effectively unavailable. Eg. Preference for nearby work pushes rural women into home based employment even where factory jobs exist in the district. Fix. Fund working women’s hostels and last mile transport on the Tamil Nadu Thozhi hostel model in industrial districts.
    4. Formal sector entry stays narrow: Manufacturing and much of services remain male dominated, so women who enter the labour force do not enter the formal payroll. Eg. Women are 43 per cent of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics graduates but only 14 per cent of the corresponding workforce. Fix. Attach a minimum female workforce ratio as a qualifying condition for Production Linked Incentive disbursal.
    5. Hiring costs are loaded onto the employer: Statutory maternity cost sits entirely with the firm, which discourages some employers from hiring women of working age. Eg. The 26 week paid maternity leave entitlement, though progressive, can discourage some firms from hiring women. Fix. Move maternity benefit funding to a shared employer and social insurance pool rather than a single employer liability.
    6. Pay gaps blunt the incentive to stay: Women earn less than men for comparable work, which lowers the return on staying in the labour force after a break. Eg. India ranked 131st of 148 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report 2025. Fix. Enforce the equal remuneration provisions of the Code on Wages, 2019 through mandatory gender disaggregated pay reporting above a firm size threshold.

    Conclusion

    Female labour force participation has risen substantially since 2019-20, but the gain is rural rather than national, and the rural-urban gap has widened rather than narrowed. The State picture cannot be read off the pace of change alone: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana are improving fast from a low rural base, while the five southern States are improving slowly from a high one, and both readings are correct. The unresolved question is composition, since a rise driven by self-employment and unpaid family work raises the participation rate without raising women’s earnings. Whether the trend converts into better outcomes depends on the movement of women into paid, formal and urban employment, which is exactly where the data shows the least progress.

    Back2Basics: Periodic Labour Force Survey

    1. Conducting body: The Periodic Labour Force Survey is conducted by the National Statistical Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
    2. When it began: It was launched in 2017, replacing the earlier quinquennial employment and unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Office.
    3. What it reports: It gives quarterly estimates for urban areas and annual estimates covering both rural and urban areas, and has moved to monthly release of key indicators.
    4. How it measures: It reports labour force indicators on both the usual status, based on activity over the preceding year, and the current weekly status, based on activity in the preceding seven days.

    “[2025, GS2, 10 marks] Women’s social capital complements in advancing empowerment and gender equity. Explain.”

  • Small transporters hit by compliance burden

    Why in the News

    The road transport industry, which carries nearly 70 per cent of India’s domestic freight, has been described as facing one of the most difficult periods in its history. Operating costs for commercial vehicles have risen sharply over the last few years. Freight rates have stayed largely stagnant over the same period. Vehicle location tracking devices, originally conceived for passenger safety and emergency response, have since been mandated for goods vehicles as well. Faults in integrating those devices with the VAHAN portal have left commercial vehicles stranded for weeks and in some cases months. The contest is between technology driven governance, which promises transparency and enforcement quality, and its implementation cost, which falls hardest on the small operators who have no margin left to absorb it.

    What is a Vehicle Location Tracking Device (VLTD)?

    1. Function: A Vehicle Location Tracking Device (VLTD) is an onboard unit that continuously transmits a vehicle’s position to a State level control centre over a mobile network. It carries emergency buttons that raise an alert to that centre.
    2. Original purpose: The device was conceived for passenger safety and emergency response, so that a distress signal from a bus or a cab could be located and acted on.
    3. Registration linkage: A fitted device must be registered against the vehicle on the VAHAN portal, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways database that holds every vehicle’s registration record. A vehicle whose device does not map correctly to that record cannot complete its compliance formalities.

    Why has the road freight business turned financially unsustainable?

    1. Costs and earnings have moved apart: The gap between operational expenses and earnings has widened steadily. Freight rates have not tracked the rise in the cost of running a truck.
    2. Fuel dominates the cost sheet: Diesel alone accounts for nearly 60 per cent of a truck’s operating cost. Every rise in the pump price passes almost directly into the operator’s monthly outgo.
    3. Emission compliance added a new input: Operators have had to absorb the cost of AdBlue, the urea solution injected into the exhaust of Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) vehicles to cut nitrogen oxide emissions. This is a recurring consumable that did not exist in the earlier cost structure.
    4. Every other input has escalated: Tyre prices, insurance premiums, spare parts, engine oil, lubricants, maintenance expenses, finance costs and statutory compliance charges have all risen together. Toll charges continue to rise alongside them.
    5. Margins have gone below cost for some: Many transporters operate on wafer thin margins simply to retain business. Some are running below their actual cost of operations.

    What has the compliance and enforcement layer added?

    1. Documentation load has grown: The burden of documentation, permits, fitness requirements and other regulatory compliances has increased substantially. Each of these carries its own fee, its own renewal cycle and its own downtime.
    2. Electronic challans have drawn allegations of misuse: The electronic challan was introduced to minimise human intervention and improve road safety. A growing number of transporters allege misuse of the system, producing avoidable penalties and harassment.
    3. Tracking devices were extended without a stated case: The VLTD mandate was extended to goods vehicles in the absence of clear operational necessity. A device designed around passenger distress response was applied to freight movement, adding a financial burden with no matching benefit to the operator.
    4. Integration failure converts compliance into downtime: Technical problems in integrating VLTD units with the VAHAN portal have left many commercial vehicles off the road for weeks and in some cases months.
    5. Downtime compounds financially: Each day a truck stays off the road means lost income, continuing loan repayment pressure and severe financial distress for the operator. The loan instalment does not pause because the portal did not accept the device.

    Does technology driven governance deliver transparency or only new hardship?

    1. The intent is not in dispute: Technology driven governance is welcome where it promotes transparency and efficiency. Both the electronic challan and the tracking mandate were framed in exactly those terms.
    2. Implementation is where the cost lands: A mandate is issued centrally and instantly, while its back end integration is completed unevenly across States and vendors. The operator carries the difference as idle capital.
    3. Enforcement quality decides the outcome: Enforcement must remain transparent, accountable and fair, so that genuine operators are not penalised alongside violators. An automated penalty with no accessible appeal converts a safety tool into a revenue tool.
    4. The burden is uniform, the capacity to bear it is not: A compliance charge set as a flat per vehicle amount is trivial for a large fleet and material for a single truck owner. The same rule therefore produces very different pressure across the sector.
    5. Digital mandates need a working failure route: No route exists for an operator whose device is fitted and paid for but not accepted by the database. The vehicle is treated as non compliant even where the failure is on the system side.

    Why are small operators and self-driving truck owners hit hardest?

    1. They absorb every shock directly: Small transport operators and self-driving truck owners are affected the most by these developments. They have no fleet across which to spread a stranded vehicle or a disputed penalty.
    2. The sector is structurally fragmented: Most road freight capacity sits with small, unorganised firms and single truck owners rather than large corporate fleets. Fragmentation leaves no bargaining power against shippers on freight rates.
    3. Finance costs bite first: Vehicle loans are serviced monthly regardless of utilisation. An operator with one or two trucks moves into default faster than a fleet operator with the same days of downtime.
    4. Highway amenities have not followed toll payments: Despite paying substantial toll charges, drivers continue to face a shortage of secure truck parking zones, clean toilets, rest areas and other basic highway amenities.
    5. Tolls are a rising fixed charge: Toll charges require rationalisation, since they now form a large and rising share of the per trip cost on tolled corridors. A rate that is not linked to service delivered is a pure cost addition.

    Challenges to the road freight compliance regime

    1. Freight rates are not cost linked: No mechanism ties freight rates to the actual cost of operating a truck, so input inflation is absorbed rather than passed on. Eg. The rise in diesel, tyre and insurance costs over recent years has not produced a matching rise in contracted freight rates. Fix. Base freight rates on scientific cost calculations that reflect actual operating expenses and are revised on a stated cycle.
    2. Device mandates run ahead of system readiness: A device is made compulsory before the registration database can reliably record it, so compliant operators are penalised for a back end fault. Eg. VLTD to VAHAN integration failures have kept commercial vehicles off the road for weeks and months. Fix. Tie the commencement of any device mandate to a certified integration test, and grant an automatic provisional clearance where the portal fails to accept a fitted device.
    3. Automated enforcement lacks a low cost appeal route: An electronic penalty is issued instantly while contesting it requires time and travel that a single truck owner cannot spare. Eg. Transporters allege misuse of the electronic challan system producing avoidable penalties. Fix. Provide a time bound online adjudication route with photographic evidence disclosure at the point of the challan.
    4. Compliance costs are not scaled to fleet size: Fees, permits and fitness requirements are set per vehicle, so the smallest operator carries the highest cost per rupee of turnover. Eg. Statutory compliance charges have escalated alongside tyre, insurance and finance costs for operators running one or two trucks. Fix. Introduce a graded fee structure and a single consolidated annual compliance filing for operators below a stated fleet threshold.
    5. Toll collection is not linked to service: Toll rates rise on schedule while wayside amenities on the same corridors remain absent. Eg. Drivers on tolled highways face a shortage of secure parking zones, clean toilets and rest areas. Fix. Make a stated wayside amenity standard a condition of toll revision on each stretch, audited before the next revision is notified.
    6. Overloading and safety enforcement fall on the driver, not the shipper: Penalties for overloading attach to the vehicle and the driver, leaving the consignor who loaded it untouched. Eg. Overloaded highways suffer rapid wear and tear while enforcement action is recorded against the transporter. Fix. Extend statutory liability for overloading to the consignor and the loading point operator.

    Conclusion

    The compliance burden on road freight has grown faster than the sector’s ability to pay for it, and the cost has settled on small operators and self-driving truck owners rather than on large fleets. The immediate cause is not the principle of technology driven governance but its implementation, where a mandate takes effect before the system that records it works. A comprehensive review of the road transport ecosystem is the stated demand, resting on three things: freight rates built on scientific cost calculations, rationalised tolls, and a relook at the compliance load. None of the three has been taken up.

    “[2014, GS3, 12 marks] National Urban Transport Policy emphasises on ‘moving people’ instead of ‘moving vehicles. Discuss critically the success of the various strategies of the Government in this regard.”

  • Chipflation: Electronics see years of price hikes replicated in 6 mths

    Why in the News

    Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) shows prices of a range of consumer electronics goods in July 2026 up 3 to 5 per cent against January 2026. The global artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom has created an acute shortage of the memory chips used in the manufacture of everyday consumer electronics. Manufacturers have raised the rates they charge to the point where price increases that took years for products such as smartphones and televisions have occurred in just six months of 2026. The movement in 2025 was far more sedate over the identical January to July window. The shortage runs in the opposite direction to the decades-long decline in memory chip prices that made consumer electronics steadily cheaper.

    What is chipflation?

    1. The term and its origin: Analysts at the American investment bank Morgan Stanley coined the term in June 2026. It describes how AI’s appetite for memory chips is boosting the cost of everything from data centres to smartphones, with consequences that may reach far beyond the technology industry.
    2. The chip at the centre of it: DRAM, or Dynamic Random Access Memory, is the working memory used in refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, smartphones, laptops, televisions and earphones. It is being displaced in fabrication capacity by the more advanced chips data centres demand.
    3. How a chip shortage becomes a retail price: Manufacturers facing a supply shortage of an essential component raise the rates they charge. Those increases pass into the retail price indices that MoSPI compiles.

    How much have Indian consumer electronics prices actually moved?

    1. The headline movement: Prices of a variety of consumer electronics goods in July 2026 were up 3 to 5 per cent against January 2026. The comparable movement over January to July 2025 was far smaller.
    2. Mobile handsets: The CPI price index for mobile handsets rose 4 per cent from January 2026 to July 2026. Over the same months of 2025 it declined by 0.7 per cent.
    3. Air conditioners: Air conditioner prices rose 4.8 per cent between January and July 2026 against 1.1 per cent over the same period of 2025. Air conditioners normally do see higher prices in the summer months.
    4. Televisions and the four-and-a-half year comparison: The CPI index of televisions is up 3.5 per cent since January 2026. Counting back from December 2025, matching that magnitude of increase took 54 months.
    5. The same comparison across five more categories: The number of months needed to match the 2026 increase was 46 for air conditioners, 45 for refrigerators and 41 for mobile phones. It was 32 for washing machines and 31 for computers and laptops.
    6. The series break behind the comparison: Increases over 2026 are calculated on the new CPI series with 2024 as the base year, and the earlier period on the old series with 2012 as the base year. Only consumer electronic items present in both baskets have been compared.

    Why has an AI investment boom raised the price of a refrigerator?

    1. Capacity has been redirected: Key chipmakers including TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix are making the more in-demand advanced chips used in data centres. Those data centres are being built across the world at speed.
    2. What is being sacrificed: DRAM and other chips used in everyday electronics goods are what that redirection displaces. The result is a supply shortage of the chips essential to consumer electronics.
    3. Capacity cannot be added quickly: New memory capacity takes years to build, qualify and ramp up. Supply relief is a process rather than a switch, in the assessment of the Head of Morgan Stanley’s Europe and Asia Technology Team.
    4. A two-tier market has formed: Large AI and cloud buyers can sign long-term agreements, prepay and secure priority access to output. Traditional buyers, including personal computer makers, smartphone makers and industrial hardware companies, must compete for what remains.
    5. The scale of the projected shortfall: The shortfall in memory chips in 2027 is equivalent to what is needed to make 134 million phones. That estimate comes from the same Morgan Stanley technology team.

    Why is this a reversal rather than an ordinary price cycle?

    1. The historical direction of travel: DRAM prices fell 90 per cent every five years over the second half of the twentieth century and the first twenty or so years of the twenty-first. Falling component costs are what made each generation of consumer electronics cheaper than the last.
    2. What drove that decline: The fall was driven by Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors on a chip doubles at regular intervals, so cost per unit of computing capacity falls steadily. Manufacturing scale converted that into lower prices for finished goods.
    3. The size of the reversal: DRAM prices will have risen more than 400 per cent from the start of 2024 to the end of 2026, on the estimate of JPMorgan Global Research. That is a price path with no precedent in the preceding five decades.
    4. Why the reversal is structural rather than seasonal: The demand shifting capacity is investment in AI data centre buildout, not a cyclical swing in consumer demand. It persists for as long as that buildout continues.

    What has the price rise done to demand?

    1. Global shipments have fallen: Global smartphone exports were down 11 per cent in the April to June quarter of 2026. That is their second-lowest level since 2013, on Counterpoint Research data.
    2. Indian sales have turned: Smartphone sales in India fell for three weeks in a row after the online promotional events of July 2026. The fall followed rather than preceded the promotional window.
    3. Consumers have become promotion-dependent: Rising device prices are making consumers increasingly value-conscious and more dependent on promotional offers, in the assessment of a Senior Analyst at Counterpoint Research. That trend has become more visible over the past few months.
    4. The pass-through is not optional for buyers: Memory is a non-substitutable component in every one of the affected categories. A household deferring a purchase is the only demand-side response available.

    Challenges to containing chipflation in India

    1. Import dependence in memory: India assembles consumer electronics without domestic fabrication capacity in memory chips, so the input price is set entirely offshore. Eg. Domestic smartphone assemblers competing for residual DRAM supply have no alternative source. Fix. Sequence the Semicon India Programme toward a memory fabrication line rather than only packaging and testing units.
    2. The measurement gap in a series break: Comparing 2026 movements against earlier years requires bridging two CPI series with different base years and baskets. Eg. Only items present in both the 2012-base and 2024-base baskets could be compared for this exercise. Fix. Publish an official back-cast series on the 2024 base so long-run comparisons do not depend on ad hoc bridging.
    3. Imported inflation escapes domestic policy tools: Interest rate changes cannot address a price rise originating in a global component shortage. Eg. Core inflation excluding food and energy is the segment monetary policy influences, and this shock sits inside it. Fix. Use tariff and input duty rationalisation on electronic components as the responsive instrument in place of rate action.
    4. Concentration among a handful of suppliers: A small group of firms controls advanced memory output, which gives buyers no bargaining position. Eg. TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix set the allocation between data centre chips and consumer memory. Fix. Build long-term supply agreements through government-to-government channels, as the four-day commerce ministry delegation to Japan on semiconductors is designed to do.
    5. Downstream employment exposure: Falling handset volumes hit assembly and retail employment before they hit manufacturer margins. Eg. Three consecutive weeks of falling Indian smartphone sales followed the July promotional events. Fix. Link production-linked incentive disbursement to sustained volume rather than to value alone, so assemblers are not penalised for a component price shock.

    Conclusion

    An investment boom in one segment of the chip industry has reset the price of an input that every consumer electronics category depends on, and Indian retail price data has registered the effect within six months. Increases that historically took between 31 and 54 months have occurred since January 2026 across six product categories. Capacity for memory chips takes years to build and qualify, so the shortage does not resolve on a policy timetable. Demand has already turned in both global shipments and Indian sales, and the next test is whether volumes recover once the 2027 shortfall estimate is either met or confirmed.

    “[2021] With reference to the Indian economy, demand-pull inflation can be caused or increased by which of the following:

    1.Expansionary policies

    2.Fiscal stimulus

    3.Inflation-indexing of wages

    4.Higher purchasing power

    5.Rising interest rates

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1, 2, and 4 only

    (b) 3, 4, and 5 only

    (c) 1, 2, 3, and 5 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

  • Measuring manufacturing growth afresh: Three questions

    Why in the News

    The new Gross Domestic Product (GDP) series of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) shows the manufacturing Gross Value Added (GVA) deflator recording negative growth for nine consecutive quarters between 2023 and 2025. The same series places the level of real manufacturing GVA in 2025-26 at no less than 15 percentage points above the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for manufacturing. When the new series was announced, the Chief Economic Advisor and the Secretary, MoSPI stated that the estimates rested on a new methodology. That methodology was said to have solved the measurement problems that had bedevilled the old series, including in manufacturing. MoSPI has not yet released the detailed standard document explaining the new calculations. Three specific anomalies in the manufacturing numbers therefore cannot be tested against the stated method, and the plausibility of the series has to be assessed from the numbers themselves.

    What is the manufacturing Gross Value Added deflator?

    1. Gross Value Added, defined: GVA for a sector is the value of its output minus the value of its intermediate inputs. It measures what producers in that sector actually added, before taxes on products are added and subsidies subtracted.
    2. What the deflator does: The sector deflator is the price index that converts nominal GVA at current prices into real GVA at base year prices. Real GVA equals nominal GVA divided by that deflator.
    3. What its movement signals: A deflator growing negatively means the sector’s own price level is falling. Real growth then runs ahead of nominal growth by the size of that fall.

    Why does confidence in manufacturing data matter now?

    1. The China Squeeze: The Chinese manufacturing export machine has again moved across world markets and threatens lower-skill manufacturing in poorer countries. The pressure this creates on Indian producers is what the data is being asked to measure.
    2. Two decades of stated ambition: The Union government set major ambitions for the sector, beginning with the flagship Make in India programme in 2014. The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme followed several years later.
    3. The PLI’s dual purpose: The scheme was in part a response to the opportunities opened by the China-plus-one shift in global sourcing. It was also a response to the challenge of aggressive Chinese competition.
    4. Conflicting signals elsewhere: The wider economy is sending contradictory signals at present. Understanding manufacturing performance is the route to lifting some of that confusion.
    5. A recognised prior problem: Problems in manufacturing sector data under the previous series were widely recognised. MoSPI made strenuous efforts to address them in the new series.

    Why has the manufacturing deflator shown falling prices for nine straight quarters?

    1. The anomaly itself: The manufacturing GVA deflator records negative growth, meaning falling price levels, for nine consecutive quarters between 2023 and 2025. No comparable stretch of deflation appears anywhere else in the price data for that period.
    2. The core inflation test: The core Consumer Price Index (CPI), which excludes food and energy-related products, shows no sign of deflation across those quarters. Core CPI through December 2025 rests on the 2011-12 series and the March 2026 reading on the 2024 series.
    3. The wholesale price defence, and its limit: The wholesale price index (WPI) was negative for some of this period. It was not negative for nine consecutive quarters.
    4. Why WPI is the wrong benchmark anyway: The GVA deflator should not move in line with the WPI. The WPI is overly driven by input prices, and a value added deflator must reflect output prices net of inputs.

    Why is real GVA growth almost twice IIP growth?

    1. The size of the gap: In 2025-26 the level of real manufacturing GVA exceeded the IIP by no less than 15 percentage points. Both series are measured on the 2022-23 base.
    2. The growth gap it implies: Annual average real growth of manufacturing between 2022-23 and 2025-26 measured by GVA is about twice that measured by the IIP. The two figures are about 11 per cent against about 6 per cent.
    3. The informal sector explanation, and why it fails: Real GVA includes the informal sector and the IIP excludes it, so faster informal growth could in principle open a gap. For the most recent two years informal sector performance has been proxied by formal sector data, which makes the explanation mechanically impossible.
    4. The volumes versus value added explanation: The IIP measures output volumes rather than value added. A widely held perception holds that real GVA can grow faster than real output when input prices fall.
    5. Why that perception is wrong: Real GVA is calculated at constant prices, not at changing prices, so falling input prices cannot lift it. Real value added can grow faster than output volumes only where productivity improves, that is where firms become more efficient in using intermediate inputs.

    Why has the link between the two series broken down?

    1. The pre-2011 benchmark: Before the 2011-12 methodology changes, GVA and IIP moved closely together. The correlation between their growth rates over June 2005 to that break was 0.8.
    2. The post-2011 divergence: The two series diverged after the 2011-12 methodology changes. That divergence has been exacerbated in the new series rather than corrected by it.
    3. The recent segment: Since September 2022 the two series move very differently. The comparison excludes the Covid quarters from June 2020 to March 2022.
    4. The character of the difference: The real GVA series bounces around a great deal across quarters. The IIP series over the same stretch is fairly stable.

    What do the three questions together say about the new series?

    1. None is individually decisive: No one of the three issues is dispositive about the quality of the new series. Each is an unexplained pattern rather than a demonstrated error.
    2. The missing document is the binding constraint: The detailed standard document explaining the new calculations has not been released. Independent researchers therefore cannot check the anomalies against the method that produced them.
    3. The methodology claim raises the bar, it does not lower it: The new series was presented as the fix for exactly the manufacturing measurement problems of the old series. Anomalies concentrated in manufacturing are the hardest place for that claim to sit unexplained.
    4. What plausible explanations would buy: Explanations would engender confidence in the new GDP figures. They would also allow an assessment of the state of Indian manufacturing and of the impact of recent government actions to revive it.

    Challenges to the new GDP series’ manufacturing estimates

    1. Deflator choice drives the real number: Real GDP requires choosing a deflator, and the production side deflator is heavily influenced by the WPI. Eg. In FY23 a global commodity price surge pushed the WPI into double digits, and the high deflator suppressed measured real growth. Fix. Complete the WPI base revision so the deflator basket reflects the current price structure.
    2. No producer price index exists: India deflates goods sectors with a wholesale index built for trade flows rather than for producer output. Eg. Services sectors are deflated using CPI components because no dedicated producer price series covers them. Fix. Introduce a Producer Price Index on the model used across advanced statistical systems and retire WPI-based deflation.
    3. Transparency lags the release: The estimates reach the public well before the sources and methods behind them. Eg. The new series arrived with a stated methodology claim and without the standard explanatory document. Fix. Publish the sources and methods volume alongside the series so verification is concurrent with release.
    4. Informal output is still partly extrapolated: Informal sector performance for recent years is proxied from formal sector data, which cannot capture divergence between the two. Eg. The old series extrapolated large-company filings to the whole informal economy and stayed blind to the sharper hit small firms took after demonetisation. Fix. Shorten the lag on the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises so proxying is not required for two full years.
    5. Statistical independence has been questioned: Resignations from the National Statistical Commission and withheld survey results have raised concerns about the autonomy of official statistics. Eg. Two members of the Commission resigned in 2019 over the handling of employment data. Fix. Constitute an independent statistical commission with a statutory mandate, as recommended by the Rangarajan Commission in 2001.

    Conclusion

    The new GDP series was presented as the answer to the manufacturing measurement problems of the old one, and its manufacturing numbers now carry three patterns that the stated methodology does not obviously produce. A deflator falling for nine quarters, a 15 percentage point level gap against the IIP and a correlation that has weakened since 2005-2012 are each testable claims that cannot be tested without the sources and methods document. Releasing that document is the precondition for confidence in the figures. Whether and how Indian manufacturing has stood up to Chinese competition is a question only reliable data can answer.

    “[2021, GS3, 10 marks] Explain the difference between computing methodology of India’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP) before the year 2015 and after the year 2015.”

  • Investment question has a political answer

    Why in the News

    Private corporate investment in India remains considerably lower than the peak seen in the mid 2000s, even as large corporates hold substantial cash. Firms are deploying funds in financial assets rather than building physical assets such as factories, and are taking money out of the country rather than investing it here. The standard explanations offered for this are subdued domestic demand and global uncertainty. A political economy explanation is now advanced instead, locating the cause in how political power structures affect investment decisions. Centralisation of political power has been unmistakable after 2014, accompanied by fiscal centralisation and a reconfiguration of federal structures. The contested claim is that market concentration around a handful of “national champions” is not an accident of policy but is politically useful, which would make an investment revival costly to the current political settlement.

    What are “national champions”?

    1. Definition: A national champion is a large domestic business group that a government treats as the preferred vehicle for building strategic capacity, and that is favoured in policy design as a result.
    2. How the status is conferred: Preference operates through the terms of auctions, tariffs, incentive eligibility, clearances and access to public contracts rather than through an announced designation.
    3. The economic consequence: A handful of such groups now command far greater sway over the economy than before, which raises the entry barrier facing any firm attempting to compete with them.

    What does the investment slowdown actually look like?

    1. Cash-rich firms are not building: Large corporates hold funds but are not committing them to new capacity in India.
    2. Capital is leaving: Companies are taking money out of the country rather than investing it domestically.
    3. Investment is below its own peak: Private corporate investment remains considerably lower than the level reached in the mid 2000s.
    4. Financial assets over physical assets: Corporate India is more keen to deploy funds in financial assets than to use them for factories and plant.
    5. The standard explanations are incomplete: Subdued domestic demand and global uncertainty have been put forward, and neither accounts for why firms with the means to invest choose not to.

    Why does the concentration of political and market power deter private investment?

    1. Political and fiscal centralisation: Centralisation of political power after 2014 has been accompanied by greater fiscal centralisation and a reconfiguration of federal structures, including attempts to restrict the powers of states and, as a consequence, of regional parties. Eg. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026, amending the 1957 law under which the State owns the mineral and signs the lease while the Centre sets the rules and the royalty rate.
    2. Market concentration has moved in step: The rise of a handful of large companies, aided by policy, has given them far greater sway over the economy than ever before.
    3. One, patronage for smaller firms has dried up: The concentration of political power and the decline in the relative power of regional parties has ended the patronage and protection that were afforded to smaller and regional firms, who could rise up and become national players.
    4. Two, policy uncertainty and an uneven playing field: Higher barriers to entry and terms tilted towards larger corporates make it harder for new players to emerge, and firms will not invest if they fear the rules of the game can be arbitrarily changed or that they can be caught on the wrong side of policies. Policy credibility is what is at stake.
    5. Three, the fear of being muscled out: Investors fear that business success will be met by a hostile takeover by a national champion, so the question is not whether they are allowed to operate but whether they can stay in business and remain competitive over the next 10 to 20 years.

    Why would dispersing economic power be politically costly?

    1. Competition requires a rethink of the strategy: For the larger corporate sector to ramp up investment and for competition to emerge, the strategy of relying on a few national champions needs to be reconsidered.
    2. Dispersed economic power funds political opposition: A larger number of big private players would disperse rather than concentrate economic power, which would in turn increase the funding avenues available to Opposition parties.
    3. Economic competition feeds political competition: Weakening the concentration of economic power would possibly weaken the concentration of political power, so greater economic competition could lead to greater political competition.
    4. The two open questions: It is unsettled whether the current political structure creates the space for new players to safely invest and emerge as competitors to the national champions, or whether market concentration is itself politically useful.

    Why do the ingredients of an investment boom not produce one?

    1. The macroeconomic conditions are present: An undervalued exchange rate, depressed real wages and sustained public sector investment in infrastructure are all in place, alongside the demographic dividend.
    2. The same mix powered East Asia: This combination powered the rise of countries such as China and South Korea, where firms responded to it with large capacity additions.
    3. India’s firms are not responding: Firms are likely to remain hesitant and unsure about investing without a change in the approach, despite those conditions.
    4. Confidence, not capability, is binding: Investment decisions are taken only when investors think they have a fair chance of benefiting from them.
    5. The end state if nothing changes: The consequent absence of competition raises the possibility of an uncompetitive, high-cost economy.

    Challenges to the national champions strategy

    1. Concentration raises consumer and input costs: Dominant firms in a sector face little pressure to hold prices down, which raises costs for every downstream user. Eg. Telecom tariffs rose sharply after the sector consolidated into three private operators. Fix. Use the deal value threshold introduced by the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023 to review acquisitions that current turnover tests miss.
    2. Policy-created advantage is hard to withdraw: Once a group builds capacity on the strength of an incentive, removing the incentive becomes a shock the government is reluctant to deliver. Eg. Most approved incentive under the Production Linked Incentive scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing has flowed to a small group of mobile phone assemblers. Fix. Publish sunset dates and firm-level disbursement data with each incentive scheme so withdrawal is scheduled rather than negotiated.
    3. Concentrated bank exposure transmits firm risk to the system: Lending concentrated in a few large groups converts a single group’s distress into a banking problem. Eg. The corporate loan losses that produced the non-performing asset build-up of the 2010s were concentrated in a handful of infrastructure and metals groups. Fix. Enforce large exposure limits at group rather than borrower level and publish group-wise banking exposure.
    4. Bidding rules can favour incumbents: Net worth, prior experience and bank guarantee conditions in auctions and tenders can exclude new entrants before price is considered. Eg. Critical mineral block auctions have repeatedly failed for want of qualified bidders. Fix. Set qualification thresholds proportionate to block or contract size and allow consortium bidding for first-time entrants.
    5. Competition enforcement is slow relative to market speed: Investigations concluded years after conduct occurs cannot restore a market that has already tipped. Eg. Appeals against Competition Commission of India orders routinely run for several years before finality. Fix. Fund a dedicated appellate bench for competition matters with statutory disposal timelines.

    Conclusion

    The reluctance of cash-rich Indian firms to invest is being read as a political economy problem rather than a demand or global uncertainty problem. Concentrated political power, an uneven playing field and the fear of being displaced by a national champion together deny new entrants confidence in a 10 to 20 year horizon. Reversing that requires dispersing economic power, which carries political costs the current settlement has no incentive to accept. What remains unresolved is whether market concentration will be treated as a cost to growth or retained as a political asset.

    Industrial Policy and Private Investment in India

    1. What industrial policy does: It is the set of state interventions that shape which industries expand, through licensing, tariffs, incentives, public investment and ownership rules.
    2. The arc since Independence: The Industrial Policy Resolutions of 1948 and 1956 built a mixed economy with reserved public sector schedules, the licensing regime of the 1960s and 1970s restricted private entry, and the New Industrial Policy of 1991 abolished licensing for most sectors.
    3. India’s scale: Manufacturing contributes around 17 per cent of Gross Domestic Product against a 25 per cent target, and India accounts for about 2.8 per cent of global manufacturing output against China’s roughly 29 per cent.
    4. The current gap: Weak domestic private capital formation persists even as foreign investment rises, with cumulative Foreign Direct Investment crossing about $1.14 trillion between April 2000 and December 2025.

    Laws Governing Industry and Competition in India

    1. Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951: The parent law for central regulation of scheduled industries, and the statutory basis of the industrial licensing regime.
    2. Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969: Regulated large business houses through asset thresholds to prevent economic concentration, and was repealed after those thresholds were removed post-1991.
    3. Competition Act, 2002: Replaced the 1969 Act, prohibits anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance, and establishes the Competition Commission of India to regulate combinations.
    4. Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023: Introduces a deal value threshold for merger review, a settlement and commitment framework, and shorter approval timelines.

    Government Initiatives for Industry and Investment

    1. Make in India (2014): Aims to raise manufacturing’s share of Gross Domestic Product towards 25 per cent, largely through ease of doing business measures.
    2. Production Linked Incentive scheme (2020): Covers 14 sunrise and strategic sectors with outcome-linked financial incentives paid on incremental output.
    3. National Manufacturing Mission: Announced in the 2025-26 Budget, targeting a 25 per cent Gross Domestic Product share and 143 million jobs by 2035, with a focus on solar photovoltaics, electric vehicle batteries, green hydrogen and wind.
    4. National Single Window System: Consolidates central and state clearances into a single application interface for investors.
    5. Invest India: The dedicated investment facilitation agency created after the Foreign Investment Promotion Board was abolished in 2017.

    Challenges in Industrial Policy and Private Investment

    1. Logistics and infrastructure costs: Power, transport and cluster gaps raise the operating cost of a new plant and lengthen its payback period. Eg. Logistics costs remain close to 8 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. Fix. Front-load the National Infrastructure Pipeline in states with the weakest evacuation and port connectivity.
    2. Land acquisition risk: Title complexity and local resistance delay projects long enough to destroy their business case. Eg. The POSCO steel project in Odisha was shelved after prolonged land disputes. Fix. Build titled and pre-cleared land banks with plug-and-play utilities before inviting investment.
    3. Tariff and trade shocks: External trade measures can remove an export market after capacity has been built for it. Eg. The 50 per cent United States tariff imposed in August 2025 hit roughly 55 per cent of India’s United States-bound exports. Fix. Diversify market access through trade agreements and deepen participation in global value chains.
    4. Workforce readiness for Industry 4.0: Adopting automation and artificial intelligence systems requires reskilling at a scale current training capacity cannot deliver. Eg. Only about 4.7 per cent of India’s workforce has formal skill training, against roughly 96 per cent in South Korea. Fix. Fund employer-led reskilling through the re-skilling fund created under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.
    5. Import dependence in strategic inputs: Heavy reliance on imported electronics, semiconductors and pharmaceutical inputs exposes downstream manufacturers to supply shocks. Eg. Electronics assembly in India depends on imported display and chip components. Fix. Extend performance-linked incentives to component and materials manufacture rather than final assembly alone.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 15 marks] Discuss the rationale of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. What are its achievements? In what way can the functioning and outcomes of the scheme be improved?”

  • What young want, and why creating good jobs is no longer optional

    Why in the News

    Almost 70 per cent of urban job seekers surveyed in Delhi said they were looking for a job that would place them on their ideal career path from the start, instead of settling for any job. The survey covered over 3,000 randomly sampled men and women, 24 years of age on average, living in middle-class residential areas of the capital, and was conducted in the summer of 2023. Their stated career goal was predominantly salaried or formal-sector employment. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for the same year records an urban labour market that cannot supply that goal, with less than 50 per cent of the urban workforce in salaried jobs. A follow-up experiment then exposed a random subset of the same job seekers to real-world job openings and salaries, and re-surveyed them a year later. Correcting their information lowered their expectations and left their aspirations untouched, so the contest is over who adjusts, the young or the labour market.

    What is the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)?

    1. Purpose: The PLFS is the official household survey that estimates how many people are working, seeking work or outside the labour force, and in what kind of work they are engaged.
    2. Nodal body: The National Sample Survey Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation conducts it and is the principal source of employment estimates in India.
    3. Activity status measures: Usual Status classifies a person by activity over the preceding 365 days, while Current Weekly Status treats a person as unemployed if they did not work even one hour in the reference week.

    What do young urban job seekers actually want from work?

    1. A career path, not a job: Almost 70 per cent said they wanted an opening that put them on their ideal career path from the start rather than any available job, and more men said this than women.
    2. Formal salaried work is the goal: The stated career goal was predominantly salaried or formal-sector employment rather than casual or own-account work.
    3. Women lean harder towards salaried jobs: More women job seekers aspired to salaried positions than men did.
    4. Only 14 per cent of women prefer self-employment: Just 14 per cent of the women interviewed said they would rather work for themselves.
    5. A third of men want to run enterprises: More than a third of the men wanted to start their own businesses.
    6. Public sector preference is a myth: A comparable share of these men and women were looking for private-sector salaried jobs, which cuts against the dominant narrative of a strong preference for government jobs.

    How far does the urban labour market fall short of those preferences?

    1. Salaried work is a minority outcome: Less than 50 per cent of India’s urban workforce holds a salaried job.
    2. It is scarcer still for the young: Merely one in every three employed 24-year-olds holds a salaried job, a lower share than for the workforce as a whole.
    3. Government jobs are a tenth of the market: No more than 10 per cent of the urban workforce is in the public sector or government jobs.
    4. The formal private sector is barely larger: Only about 15 per cent of the urban workforce is in the formal private sector.
    5. Self-employment is the largest single category: Of those working, 40 per cent are self-employed.
    6. Most self-employment is subsistence, not enterprise: An overwhelming majority of these businesses hire no worker at all and report an annual turnover of less than Rs 10 lakh, so the aspiration to build a firm meets a market of one-person shops.

    Why do salary expectations diverge from what these jobs actually pay?

    1. The occupations tested: Respondents were asked what they expected to earn as an accounts keeper, a primary school teacher, a data entry operator, a hospital attendant and an electrician, and each expectation was measured against actual PLFS earnings for the same occupation.
    2. Expectations run up to 40 per cent above reality: Job seekers expect up to 40 per cent higher salary than the earnings the PLFS records for the same work.
    3. Men are the more over-optimistic: Male job seekers expect almost Rs 8,000 more per month than the actual average earnings for these jobs.
    4. The gap widens for salaried work: For salaried jobs specifically, male job seekers expect Rs 8,500 more per month than actual earnings.
    5. The aggregate divergence exceeds 30 per cent: Taken together, salary expectations sit more than 30 per cent above reality, and the skew is sharper still among job seekers below 25 years of age, especially young men.
    6. Information and inexperience explain the gap: A lack of information or outright misinformation about openings and pay, combined with inexperience of the job market, are the two obvious sources of the misalignment.

    What did correcting job seekers’ information change, and what did it leave untouched?

    1. The design: A random subset of the 3,000 job seekers was informed about real-world job opportunities and salaries, and both the informed and the non-informed groups were re-surveyed twelve months later.
    2. Expectations fell: Accurate information significantly dampened labour-market expectations of landing the ideal job, relative to those who were not informed.
    3. Men disengaged first: Men in particular became less likely to report that they were on their ideal career path.
    4. Search effort fell with belief: That disillusionment was accompanied by a decline in men’s job-search intensity.
    5. The two exits from a failed search: As preferred job offers fail to materialise, job seekers adjust expectations downwards and either remain in the same jobs or leave the labour market and enrol at educational institutions.
    6. Aspirations did not move: The answer on whether aspirations changed is a clear no, since these men and women continued to aim for formal-sector jobs or dynamic entrepreneurship a year later, because aspirations are long-term goals and not easily malleable.
    7. High education costs make the expectation rational: Good-quality education is increasingly bought from private institutions at rising cost, so a high expected salary is not only aspirational but necessary to recover that outlay.

    Challenges to the Periodic Labour Force Survey

    1. Informal work is under-captured: Household surveys do not fully record home-based, gig and platform work in a workforce that is about 90 per cent informal. Eg. Delivery and ride-hailing riders working across two aggregators are frequently recorded as ordinary self-employed workers. Fix. Align the activity definitions with International Labour Organization and System of National Accounts practice so multi-job holders, freelancers and platform workers are counted separately.
    2. No skill mapping against job requirements: The survey does not match worker skills to the requirements of available jobs, so structural unemployment cannot be measured from it. Eg. The India Skills Report finding that only about half of graduates are employable has no counterpart in official survey data. Fix. Add a skills and job-requirement module so mismatch is measured rather than inferred.
    3. Rural data has been low frequency: Rural estimates were historically produced only once a year, so rural distress is visible with a long lag. Eg. A monsoon failure that pushes workers back into farm labour shows up only in the following annual round. Fix. Extend high-frequency quarterly or monthly rounds to rural areas rather than confining them to towns.
    4. Urban bias in the high-frequency rounds: The quarterly bulletins have been confined to urban areas, which under-measures the larger rural workforce. Eg. Quarterly urban unemployment rates are debated publicly while comparable rural numbers are unavailable. Fix. Publish a single integrated quarterly series covering both sectors on the same reference period.
    5. New job categories are missing: Gig, digital, start-up and green jobs are not adequately represented in the occupational classification the survey uses. Eg. Solar installation and battery recycling roles have no distinct occupational code. Fix. Integrate Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, National Career Service and PLFS records so emerging job creation is tracked from administrative data as well.

    Conclusion

    Young urban job seekers want formal salaried careers and dynamic enterprise, and correcting their information about the market lowers what they expect to earn without changing what they want. That asymmetry places the burden of adjustment on the economy rather than on the young, and realising these aspirations requires a structural transformation that creates jobs with regular pay and benefits. The four Labour Codes are a step in that direction, and creating good jobs and genuine career paths, rather than jobs alone, is no longer optional. Failure carries a specific cost, which is the squandered potential of an entire generation.

    Employment and Unemployment in India

    1. What is measured: An unemployed person is of working age, that is 15 years and above, without work, currently available for work and actively seeking it in a reference period.
    2. Structure of the workforce: The Labour Force Participation Rate stood at 59.3 per cent in 2025, about 90 per cent of the workforce is informal, and nearly 58 per cent of salaried workers still lack a written contract.
    3. The absorption problem: Services drive most output growth but employ under 30 per cent of the workforce, while manufacturing contributes only about 16 to 18 per cent of Gross Domestic Product against roughly 26 per cent in China.
    4. Types of unemployment tested: Frictional, structural, cyclical, seasonal, disguised, voluntary and chronic unemployment are distinguished, with disguised unemployment concentrated in agriculture where marginal productivity approaches zero.

    Laws and Rules Governing Employment in India

    1. Code on Wages, 2019: Consolidates four wage laws, sets a statutory floor wage, and extends minimum wage cover beyond the roughly 30 per cent of workers it earlier reached.
    2. Industrial Relations Code, 2020: Merges three laws, raises the closure and retrenchment approval threshold from 100 to 300 workers, and gives fixed-term workers parity and gratuity after one year.
    3. Code on Social Security, 2020: Merges nine laws, defines gig and platform workers for the first time, and requires aggregators to contribute 1 to 2 per cent of turnover to a welfare pool.
    4. Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020: Consolidates 13 laws into one licence, one registration and one return, and caps hours at 8 to 12 daily and 48 weekly.
    5. Commencement of the four Codes: All four came into force on 21 November 2025, replacing a fragmented body of central labour legislation.
    6. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005: Guarantees 100 days of wage employment per rural household in a financial year.

    Government Initiatives for Employment Generation

    1. PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana: An employment-linked incentive approved in July 2025 with a Rs 99,446 crore outlay, targeting 3.5 crore jobs over two years.
    2. e-Shram Portal: A national database issuing Universal Account Numbers to unorganised workers and integrating access to more than 14 central schemes.
    3. PM Internship Scheme: Launched in 2024 to offer 1 crore internships in top companies over five years.

    Challenges in Employment Generation in India

    1. Lopsided structural change: India moved from agriculture to services without a job-rich manufacturing phase, so the sector that absorbs low-skilled labour elsewhere never scaled here. Eg. Manufacturing’s share of output has been stuck near 17 per cent against a 25 per cent policy target. Fix. Direct incentives to textiles, leather, food processing and electronics assembly, which absorb low and semi-skilled workers at scale.
    2. Capital-intensive investment bias: Investment flows to information technology and infrastructure rather than to labour-intensive activity, so output growth outruns job growth. Eg. Under the Production Linked Incentive scheme, most disbursed incentive has gone to large scale electronics assembly and pharmaceuticals, both capital intensive lines. Fix. Weight incentive schemes by jobs created per rupee of assistance rather than by output alone.
    3. Firms stay small to avoid compliance: Threshold-linked obligations reward staying under the size limit, which caps productivity and formal hiring. Eg. Micro, small and medium enterprises face more than 1,450 annual compliances costing Rs 13 to 17 lakh. Fix. Extend the Jan Vishwas approach of decriminalising minor compliance offences, which already covered 183 provisions across 42 central Acts.
    4. Skill deficit at both ends: Only about 4.7 per cent of the workforce has formal skill training, against roughly 96 per cent in South Korea, so employers and applicants describe different jobs. Eg. The Annual Status of Education Report 2023 found a quarter of rural youth aged 14 to 18 unable to read a Class 2 text. Fix. Tie curricula to Industry 4.0 and green job roles through mandatory industry-academia apprenticeship linkages.
    5. Women are kept out of paid work: Caregiving, domestic duties and mobility barriers hold female participation far below male participation. Eg. Urban female Labour Force Participation Rate stood at 25.8 per cent against 75.6 per cent for men in 2024. Fix. Enforce creche provision and workplace safety obligations already carried in the Codes.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS3, 15 marks] Most of the unemployment in India is structural in nature. Examine the methodology adopted to compute unemployment in the country and suggest improvements.”

  • A dry spell along the Cauvery river

    A dry spell along the Cauvery river

    Why in the News

    Karnataka appealed to the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) on 11 August to cut its daily release to Tamil Nadu from 12,000 cusecs to 10,000 cusecs. It warned of a severe drinking water shortage if more water were released for crops in the Cauvery basin. Tamil Nadu had already chosen not to open the Mettur dam for irrigation on the customary date of 12 June, given a poor south-west monsoon forecast attributed to a super El Nino. Large tracts of the Cauvery delta consequently remain barren in a season that normally carries two crops. The dispute is no longer only between an upper and a lower riparian State, because Karnataka is simultaneously rationing its own canal irrigation and committing reservoir water to Bengaluru’s drinking supply.

    What is the Cauvery water-sharing arrangement?

    1. The dispute predates the States: The sharing of the Cauvery is a vexed issue going back more than 130 years, to agreements between the Mysore Kingdom and the Madras Presidency that were drawn without regard to any future State boundary.
    2. The award fixes an annual quota and a monsoon share: The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal and the Supreme Court provided for Karnataka to release 123.14 thousand million cubic feet of the 177.25 thousand million cubic feet annual quota during the south-west monsoon. That share is mostly meant to support paddy cultivation in the Samba season.
    3. A central authority administers the sharing: The CWMA was set up in June 2018 by the Union government to handle water-sharing from the Cauvery among Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
    4. A technical committee advises it: The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) assesses storage and crop requirement and recommends releases to the CWMA, and both bodies sit under the Supreme Court’s continuing supervision.

    What is a cusec?

    1. A cusec measures flow, not volume: A cusec is one cubic foot per second, so a release order of 12,000 cusecs fixes the rate at which water must cross the inter-State point rather than a total quantity.

    What is a TMC?

    1. A TMC measures volume: A thousand million cubic feet (TMC) is a stock of water, roughly 28.3 million cubic metres. Reservoir capacity and annual quotas are stated in TMC rather than in the cusecs used for daily obligations.

    Why does the delta’s cropping calendar depend on a single dam opening date?

    1. One release date sets the whole season: Water released from the Mettur dam, built in Salem district across the Cauvery, on 12 June for irrigation ordinarily reaches Tiruvarur about 300 km downstream by 23 or 24 June. This year nothing reached it.
    2. Two seasons run off that release: Paddy is ordinarily cultivated across 5.3 lakh acres in the delta during the short-term Kuruvai season, followed by 12.9 lakh acres during the longer Samba-Thaladi season.
    3. Samba is the season that matters: Samba transplantation begins in late July or early August and the harvest ends in mid-January, and the crop is both a food security crop and the mainstay of the delta’s rural economy.
    4. Kuruvai is the higher-yield gamble: The shorter-duration Kuruvai crop can offer higher yields and is largely dependent on groundwater drawn through energised pumpsets rather than on canal water.
    5. The acreage has already collapsed: Tamil Nadu government data put the area under paddy cultivation this year at 4.5 lakh acres, against the 5.3 lakh acres the Kuruvai season alone normally covers.

    How is Karnataka rationing its own irrigation?

    1. Farmers sowed against official advice: Farmers across Karnataka’s Cauvery basin defied advice against sowing water-intensive crops such as paddy and sugarcane this season, amid a predicted deficient monsoon and inadequate inflows into the basin’s reservoirs.
    2. A brief August revival encouraged them: The Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) reservoir has a full level of 124.8 feet. It rose from 93 to 94 feet to over 100 feet within days in the first week of August before stagnating at 109 feet.
    3. The canal system runs off that reservoir: The Visvesvaraya canal system draws water from the KRS reservoir, located across the Cauvery near Mysuru, and serves the Mandya belt.
    4. Releases were cut to four rotational cycles: The Cauvery Irrigation Advisory Committee, a regional body chaired by the Karnataka Water Resources Minister, met in Bengaluru on 19 August and decided to release canal water in only four rotational cycles during the crop season instead of continuously.
    5. The stated purpose is storage, not irrigation: The decision was taken to conserve reservoir storage and ensure water availability for other needs, including drinking water.
    6. Rotation does not sustain a standing crop: A pattern of about 15 days of release followed by 15 days without will not provide enough water for paddy and sugarcane, and leaves farmers able to grow only dry crops.

    What are farmers at the canal’s tail end facing?

    1. The tail end gets water last or not at all: A farmer in Kuntanahalli village of Maddur taluk in Mandya district has raised a paddy nursery on a two-acre plot lying at the tail end of the Visvesvaraya canal system.
    2. The window is measured in days: Without water in the next 7 to 10 days he loses both the sowing season and the Rs 8,000 already spent on raising the nursery.
    3. Switching crops is not a safe alternative: Semi-dry crops such as ragi, pulses and oilseeds are the fallback, and heavy rain arriving late can damage a ragi crop just as its absence damages paddy.
    4. Position on the canal decides outcomes: Paddy transplantation is nearly complete in Karekura and Hosahalli, close to the KRS reservoir, and even there farmers who normally take two crops a year doubt the second.
    5. Losing a crop means becoming a labourer: Most agricultural labourers in the region earn Rs 400 to Rs 500 for a day’s work from 7 a.m. to noon, which is the fallback income for a farmer whose second crop fails.
    6. Sugarcane is exposed for longer: A standing sugarcane crop in Pandavapura taluk needs another nine months before harvest, and without timely rain may not even be fit for use as cattle fodder.
    7. Debt is the binding constraint: Farmers have taken interest-free short-term loans from primary agricultural cooperative credit societies and high-interest loans from microfinance companies, and are seeking a waiver and restraint on aggressive recovery agents.

    Does Bengaluru’s drinking water come at the cost of the Cauvery’s irrigators?

    1. A new drinking water stage is already sanctioned: The Cauvery Stage VI drinking water project is a Rs 6,939 crore initiative approved by the Karnataka government this February.
    2. It adds a fixed annual claim on the river: The project requires an additional 6 thousand million cubic feet of Cauvery water every year, which is a permanent first charge rather than a seasonal allocation.
    3. The service area extends beyond the city: It will supply 500 million litres per day to roughly 30 lakh residents in Bengaluru and the adjoining towns of Bidadi, Hoskote, Anekal, Devanahalli and Nelamangala.
    4. The diversion is from the same reservoir: Farmers in Maddur taluk are bracing for confrontation with the State government over the proposed diversion of KRS water. Their canal draws from the same reservoir.
    5. The competing claim is now internal: The canal rationing decision was justified by the need to protect drinking water, so the same argument that limits releases to Tamil Nadu also limits releases to Karnataka’s own irrigators.

    Why has farmer protest stayed muted this year?

    1. Mobilisation has fallen flat: Protests over poor rainfall and releases to Tamil Nadu have remained muted compared with previous years, and a Karnataka bandh called by a Kannada activist on 13 August drew a lukewarm response outside parts of Maddur taluk.
    2. Farm bodies cannot bring out their own members: The organising secretary of the Mandya District Raithara Hitharakashana Samithi, a farmers’ welfare committee, records that farmers who are the main stakeholders are not responding to calls for struggle.
    3. Ruling party leaders are discouraging the streets: Cultivators say ruling party leaders are warning them against joining what they call an “Opposition trap”, and against the police stations and court appearances that follow a protest.
    4. The Chief Minister has publicly discouraged it: The Karnataka Chief Minister has chastised activists for staging Cauvery protests “for the sake of publicity”, and warned against wading into the river after the Water Resources Department issued a flood alert over releases from the near-brimming Kabini reservoir.
    5. The State’s own position is two-sided: The Chief Minister has acknowledged that Karnataka’s dams are not yet full and vowed to protect farmers’ interests. The same statement emphasised compliance with directions on releasing water to Tamil Nadu.
    6. Farmers question the State’s legal effort: The president of the State Sugarcane Farmers’ Association questions whether the government and its legal team have made a strong enough case before the CWRC, the CWMA and the Supreme Court about the water crisis inside Karnataka.

    What positions have the two States taken?

    1. Tamil Nadu blames storage and shortfall in releases: Low storage at the Mettur dam and Karnataka’s failure to release a sufficient share of the water it received in June and July are the two grounds Tamil Nadu cites for the barren delta.
    2. The reservoir is far below the release threshold: The Mettur dam level is now about 85 feet against a full capacity of 120 feet, and farmer bodies argue that no water should be released until the level reaches at least 100 feet.
    3. The opening date is still unannounced: The Tamil Nadu government has not announced when the Mettur dam will be opened, and it continues its legal battle with Karnataka to secure the State’s share.
    4. It is contesting the reduction in court: Tamil Nadu has strongly opposed Karnataka’s push to reduce releases and is pressing the Supreme Court to ensure strict adherence to the mandated 12,000 cusecs daily flow.
    5. The position is framed as a rights claim: The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has said the legitimate rights of lower riparian States and the livelihoods dependent on assured river flows must be fully protected.

    What does the delta contribute and what is it losing?

    1. The delta is the State’s rice bowl: Located along the eastern coast and spanning Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Mayiladuthurai and Nagapattinam, it is characterised by fertile alluvial soil and a tropical climate carried by the Cauvery’s flow.
    2. It supplies most of the State’s procured paddy: During the 2025-26 procurement year, from 1 September 2025 to 31 July 2026, the region contributed 39.5 lakh tonnes of paddy out of a Statewide procurement of 57.5 lakh tonnes.
    3. The failure is visible across districts: A drive of over 200 km from Tiruchi through Thanjavur, Thiruvaiyaru, Tiruvarur and Mannargudi shows largely barren paddy fields where the previous year showed continuous green.
    4. The official acreage may overstate the crop: Some agriculturists dispute the reported figure, citing stunted growth and crops showing signs of withering, which make an area-sown count unreliable as a measure of what will be harvested.
    5. The loss spreads beyond the fields: Economic activity in the region is crippled by the erosion of livelihood opportunities, and shops and other businesses in Mannargudi now down their shutters by 7 p.m.
    6. The poorest bear it first: Much of the zone remains economically backward with a majority dependent on agriculture, and Scheduled Castes, who live there in large numbers, constitute the dominant segment of landless agricultural labourers.

    Why is groundwater not a fallback for the delta?

    1. The water table is falling even between two rivers: In Peramur, about 10 km from Thiruvaiyaru and located between the Cauvery and its branch the Coleroon, the water level is going down.
    2. Extraction technology has migrated to the delta: Submersible pumpsets, once more common in the dry districts of Coimbatore and Dharmapuri, have become commonplace in the delta.
    3. Over-extraction has damaged the resource permanently: Excess withdrawal has led to salinity ingress in many areas, which removes land from cultivation rather than merely reducing a season’s yield.
    4. The Kuruvai fallback is therefore closing: The shorter crop that depends on pumped groundwater is becoming harder to raise in the very years when canal water fails, so the two sources fail together rather than covering for each other.

    What do farmers want, and what will they get?

    1. Compensation demands have begun: Several farmers’ groups have started demanding compensation for crop losses across the delta.
    2. The announced waiver is considered inadequate: Farmers are unhappy with the crop loan waiver scheme announced by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and are seeking a full, unconditional waiver of up to Rs 1 lakh for every farmer who has taken a crop loan.
    3. Relief is conditional on a disaster classification: Any compensation will be subject to the Union and State governments’ norms for natural disasters and to a survey by the departments concerned.
    4. Officials are still counting on the monsoon: With about a month left in the season, officials continue to hope for a revival that would allow at least a partial Samba crop.

    Challenges to Cauvery water sharing

    1. The award has no distress-year formula: The allocation assumes a normal monsoon and offers no proportionate sharing rule for a deficit year, so every shortfall becomes a fresh contest. Eg. Karnataka’s request to cut releases from 12,000 to 10,000 cusecs has to be argued case by case rather than settled by a rule. Fix. Notify a pro-rata distress sharing schedule tied to measured basin inflow, so releases fall automatically and equally in a deficit year.
    2. Drinking water and irrigation are not ranked: The award prioritises drinking water in principle without capping how much a growing city may draw, so urban demand expands against a fixed river. Eg. Delhi’s drinking water share of the Yamuna has been litigated against upstream States in the Supreme Court for over two decades. Fix. Fix an audited ceiling on urban drawal from the basin, conditional on the city reusing a notified share of its treated wastewater.
    3. The Article 262 bar is routinely circumvented: Article 262 lets Parliament exclude the courts from water disputes, and States nonetheless reach the Supreme Court through special leave petitions under Article 136. Eg. The Cauvery allocation has been litigated in the Supreme Court repeatedly after the Tribunal’s award. Fix. Amend the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 to make a tribunal award final on quantum, leaving only implementation questions justiciable.
    4. Tribunals take decades to decide: Article 262 sets no time limit, so an award arrives after the cropping economy it was meant to govern has already changed. Eg. The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal took 17 years to deliver its decision. Fix. Enact the pending Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill and apply its timelines to disputes already before a tribunal.
    5. Flow data is contested rather than shared: Each State measures inflow and utilisation on its own gauges, so the basic facts of a deficit year are disputed before the sharing question is reached. Eg. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu differ on how much of the June and July inflow was actually released downstream. Fix. Operate a single telemetered gauge network under the CWMA with readings published in real time and binding on both States.
    6. The dispute pays politically: Regional parties gain from an unresolved conflict, so neither an implementation habit nor a negotiated settlement is rewarded at the ballot. Eg. A bandh call and a protest ban were both issued in the same fortnight in Karnataka this month. Fix. Route inter-State negotiation through the Inter-State Council under Article 263, where a recorded agreement carries a political cost to abandon.

    Conclusion

    A deficient monsoon has converted the Cauvery allocation from a sharing arrangement into a distress-year contest that the award was never designed to settle. Karnataka is rationing its own canal command to four rotational cycles and committing an additional annual volume to Bengaluru’s drinking supply. Tamil Nadu’s delta has lost a season because the Mettur dam was never opened. The immediate decisions rest with the Cauvery Water Management Authority on the daily release rate and with the Tamil Nadu government on the dam opening date. Neither will be settled this season without a rule for sharing a shortfall, which is exactly what the existing award does not contain.

    “[2024, GS3, 15 marks] What are the major challenges faced by Indian irrigation system in recent times? State the measures taken by the government for efficient irrigation management.”

  • [22nd May 2026] The Hindu OpED: Noise annoys: India must enforce noise pollution regulations uniformly and consistently

    [22nd May 2026] The Hindu OpED: Noise annoys: India must enforce noise pollution regulations uniformly and consistently

    Question (2020, GS2): “Judicial Legislation is antithetical to the doctrine of separation of powers as envisaged in the Indian Constitution. In this context justify the filing of large number of public interest petitions praying for issuing guidelines to executive authorities.
    Linkage: This question directly addresses the core tension of the Patna High Court case: whether courts issuing executive-style guidelines (like noise limits and enforcement mechanisms) violates the separation of powers, or if it is justified by the sheer volume of public interest petitions stemming from executive inaction.

    Mentor comment

    The Patna High Court issued Statewide directives on the emission of high-decibel noise through an order dated 14 August 2026. The order closes an escalation that began in Surendra Prasad vs State of Bihar. A February 2025 hearing before a single judge in that case acknowledged DJ trolleys and loudspeakers to be a major source of noise in Patna. The same hearing criticised the Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) for failing to curb the problem. India already has comprehensive noise law, so the directives are not filling a gap in the rules. What is contested is whether a constitutional court that has taken on the functions of a regulator is a remedy or an admission that routine enforcement has collapsed.

    What are the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000?

    1. Subordinate legislation under an environmental statute: The Rules were made under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and noise is separately treated as an air pollutant under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 when present in harmful concentrations.
    2. Limits are set zone by zone and by time of day: The Rules fix permissible ambient limits across residential, commercial, industrial and silence zones, with a lower limit at night than by day. Residential areas must stay below 55 decibels by day and 45 decibels at night.
    3. Silence zones carry a stricter regime: Areas within 100 metres of hospitals, educational institutions and courts are silence zones, with tighter limits and restrictions on loudspeaker use.
    4. Loudspeakers are barred at night: Loudspeakers and public address systems may not be used between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., with a limited festival relaxation that a State government may notify.

    What is a decibel?

    1. A logarithmic unit, not a linear one: The decibel scale compresses a very wide range of sound intensities, so a rise of 10 decibels is a tenfold increase in sound energy and is perceived as roughly a doubling of loudness.
    2. Standards are set as averages, not peaks: Ambient noise limits are expressed as day and night equivalent levels for a zone, which is why a single loud event can breach the limit for an entire area.

    How did a single city’s complaint become a Statewide order?

    1. The Board was told to produce the enforcement record: After criticising the BSPCB, the Court directed it to obtain reports from the police on permissions granted to operators of these noise sources and on the action taken against them.
    2. The record showed enforcement stopping at the town boundary: In October the police reported seizing equipment and levying fines over three months in Patna, Barh and Fatuha, and taking no action at all in Masaurhi.
    3. A nil return was treated as evidence of non-enforcement: The judge called the picture “unbelievable” for suggesting there were no noise violations in Masaurhi at all.
    4. The Court moved from records to persons: Police officers were summoned in the course of the hearings, and boilerplate affidavits filed in response were upbraided from the bench.
    5. The escalation ended in Statewide relief: The 14 August order extended what began as a Patna grievance into directives binding across Bihar.

    What did the Patna High Court direct?

    1. Enforcement must become routine, not complaint-driven: Authorities were directed to pursue enforcement on their own initiative rather than waiting for a member of the public to file a complaint against a specific source.
    2. Operators must register themselves: DJs, sound-system operators and event halls were directed to register with the subdivisional authorities, which converts an invisible population of operators into a listed one.
    3. The cut-off was moved forward by five minutes: Loudspeakers were directed to stop playing at 9.55 p.m., five minutes before the law’s 10 p.m. limit.
    4. The five minutes are a compliance device, not a concession: The margin gives operators time to wind up, and it removes the defence that carrying on past 10 p.m. is only a matter of a few minutes.

    Why does enforcement fail even where the law is comprehensive?

    1. The failure is in application, not in drafting: Comprehensive rules have existed since 2000, and the Court’s intervention illustrates how dismal enforcement has become despite them.
    2. Complaint-based enforcement puts the cost on the victim: It is absurd to expect the public to complain about every DJ or horn before the police can respond, and a complainant in a small town faces the operator socially afterwards.
    3. Governments have an incentive to tolerate the violation: Loud events belong to constituents, and antagonising them carries a political cost that enforcement carries no matching reward for.
    4. Responsibility is split between two agencies: The pollution control board owns the standards and the police own the power to seize and prosecute, so neither is accountable for the outcome when the other does nothing.
    5. Episodic action has hardened into the norm: Drives launched around a festival and abandoned afterwards teach operators that the rule applies for a fortnight in the year.

    Does uniform noise enforcement collide with the right to practise culture?

    1. The sources are ordinary social occasions: Loud noise is produced by festivals, weddings, political campaigns and religious events, not mainly by industry, so every enforcement action touches a social gathering.
    2. Enforcement therefore reads as interference: Rules create friction with people who believe they have a right to practise their culture as they deem fit, which is what makes the state reluctant to act.
    3. The competing right is also constitutional: Courts have repeatedly held that people have a right under Article 21 to be protected from unlawful noise, so the question is between two claimed rights and not between culture and convenience.
    4. The claim has already been decided: A Supreme Court ruling of 2005 held that noise pollution violates Article 21 and that the use of loudspeakers, even for religious purposes, is not a fundamental right.

    Is a High Court acting as a regulator a solution or a symptom?

    1. The Court is doing the executive’s work: With episodic enforcement having become endemic, the Patna High Court becoming a quasi-regulator is creditable as a stopgap measure.
    2. A stopgap is not a regulatory system: A court supervises through hearings and contempt, which is an expensive and slow substitute for routine administrative enforcement by a subdivisional officer.
    3. Court-driven compliance decays when the case ends: Enforcement sustained by a listed matter tends to lapse once the bench changes or the petition is disposed of.
    4. The right test is behavioural, not judicial: The success of the order should be measured by whether the State develops a consistent habit of enforcement, not by the number of directions issued.

    Challenges to enforcing the Noise Pollution Rules, 2000

    1. Penalties are too small to deter: Fines under the general environmental penalty provisions are trivial against the earnings of a single wedding or campaign engagement, so paying is cheaper than complying. Eg. Equipment seizures rather than fines were what the Bihar police reported as their main action. Fix. Move to graded penalties linked to the event’s scale and to cancellation of the operator’s registration on a second breach.
    2. Traffic noise sits outside the permission system: The largest single urban source is road transport, and horns and modified silencers are not covered by any event permission or registration regime. Eg. Metros such as Delhi and Mumbai routinely breach the 55 decibel residential daytime limit. Fix. Enforce horn and silencer standards through automated noise cameras at signalised junctions, linked to the vehicle registration database.
    3. Silence zones are breached where enforcement matters most: Hospitals, schools and courts sit on arterial roads where the 100 metre silence zone cannot be maintained without traffic management. Eg. Silence zone signage exists around most large hospitals without any accompanying restriction on the road. Fix. Require every notified silence zone to carry a traffic calming plan approved along with the zone notification.
    4. Festival relaxations become the operating rule: States may permit loudspeaker use beyond the night limit on a small number of days a year, and the exemption expands informally into the surrounding weeks. Eg. Enforcement drives are routinely suspended for the length of a festival season rather than for the notified days. Fix. Publish the notified relaxation dates in advance and require a written order for any extension, subject to review.
    5. The register has no custodian system: The subdivisional offices directed to hold the operator register have no software, no dedicated staff and no publication duty attached to it. Eg. The nil action return from Masaurhi shows what an unmonitored subdivision produces. Fix. Host the operator register online at State level with each permission and each violation recorded against the operator’s entry.
    6. Data does not exist to prove a breach: Prosecution needs a calibrated measurement at the time and place of the offence, and most police stations have no sound level meter. Eg. Real-time ambient noise monitoring covers only a handful of Indian cities. Fix. Equip every police station in a notified urban area with a calibrated meter and make the reading an admissible enforcement record.

    Conclusion

    India’s noise problem is a failure of routine enforcement rather than a gap in law, and the Patna High Court has had to supply the enforcement architecture the executive did not, through mandatory registration, self-initiated policing and a wind-up margin before the statutory cut-off. Court supervision is a legitimate stopgap and it is not a regulatory system. The order will have worked only if the State keeps registering operators and acting on violations after the case is no longer listed. Consistency, not the number of directions, is the measure.

    Noise Pollution in India

    1. About: Noise pollution is excessive, unwanted or harmful sound that disrupts the environment and harms human health, arising from traffic, industry, construction, loud music and public events beyond permissible levels.
    2. Health burden: Chronic exposure raises hypertension, heart disease and stroke risk, and workplace noise alone causes around 500,000 hearing loss cases globally each year.
    3. Wider effects: Noise impairs children’s learning and drives stress, anxiety and depression, and it disrupts animal communication and breeding. Eg. Marine traffic noise disorients whales and dolphins that depend on echolocation.
    4. Policy standing: The United Nations Environment Programme declared noise an emerging environmental threat in 2022, and the European Environment Agency now ranks it among the top three environmental health risks behind only air pollution and temperature.

    Laws and Rules Governing Noise Pollution

    1. Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981: Includes noise within the definition of an air pollutant where it is present in concentrations harmful to humans, animals, plants, property or the environment, and industrial noise is regulated by State Pollution Control Boards under it.
    2. Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986: Prescribe source-specific noise standards for motor vehicles, air conditioners, refrigerators, diesel generators and construction equipment.
    3. Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and rules made under it: Prohibit multi-toned and shrill horns and the removal or alteration of a silencer, and provide the basis for vehicle noise limits at the point of type approval.
    4. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: Retains public nuisance as an offence. Police most often invoke that provision against a loudspeaker operator in the absence of a measured reading.

    Key Facts about Noise Standards

    1. World Health Organization (WHO) Environmental Noise Guidelines, 2018: Recommend 45 decibels by day and 40 decibels at night for road traffic noise, values stricter than India’s residential limits.
    2. European burden estimate: Transport noise causes an estimated 66,000 premature deaths a year in Europe, along with 50,000 new cardiovascular cases and 22,000 type-2 diabetes cases.
    3. Scale of exposure: Over 20 per cent of Europeans, more than 110 million people, face harmful transport noise, with 4.6 million reporting severe sleep disturbance.
    4. Firecracker limit in India: The Central Pollution Control Board caps firecracker noise at 125 decibels measured at 4 metres from the point of bursting.

    Back2Basics: State Pollution Control Boards

    1. Statutory basis: Constituted by State governments under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and given further functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
    2. Composition: A chairman with knowledge of environmental protection, officials nominated by the State government, representatives of local authorities, and representatives of companies and corporations.
    3. Core power: Grant, refuse or withdraw consent to establish and consent to operate for any industry discharging effluent or emitting pollutants, which is the licence an industry cannot run without.
    4. Relationship with the Centre: The Central Pollution Control Board lays down standards, coordinates the boards and resolves disputes between them, and may direct a State board on any matter.
  • The birth story no one prepared me for

    The birth story no one prepared me for

    Why in the News

    Preterm births in India are rising, and Delhi alone has recorded a 21 per cent increase over the past five years. A study by the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi with international universities analysed National Family Health Survey data for 2015 to 2020. It established that prolonged exposure to heat significantly raises the chances of preterm birth and low birth weight. Motherhood in India continues to be narrated through the language of labour pain, sacrifice and endurance. That language describes a full-term vaginal delivery and nothing else. Causation is moving towards environmental exposure no individual can control. Responsibility is still located in the mother’s body.

    What is preterm birth?

    1. A birth before 37 completed weeks: Preterm birth is delivery before 37 completed weeks of gestation, counted from the first day of the last menstrual period.
    2. Three severity bands: The World Health Organization classifies births before 28 weeks as extremely preterm, 28 to 32 weeks as very preterm, and 32 to 37 weeks as moderate to late preterm.
    3. Low birth weight is a separate marker: A newborn weighing under 2,500 g is classified as low birth weight, with or without prematurity. The risk compounds when both are present.
    4. India carries the largest absolute burden: India records the highest number of preterm births of any country, at roughly three million a year, which is close to a fifth of the global total.

    What is kangaroo mother care?

    1. Skin-to-skin contact as clinical treatment: Kangaroo mother care places the low birth weight infant upright against the parent’s bare chest for prolonged periods, combined with exclusive breastfeeding, to stabilise temperature, heart rate and breathing.
    2. It is recommended from birth: The World Health Organization advises immediate and continuous kangaroo mother care for infants born under 2,000 g rather than delaying it until the infant is clinically stable.

    What does care inside a neonatal intensive care unit actually involve?

    1. Time is measured by instruments, not routines: Days inside a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are structured around oxygen saturation levels, heart-rate monitors and machine alarms rather than feeding schedules or sleepless nights.
    2. The first contact is mediated by equipment: Early memories of motherhood are of incubators and wires rather than of cradling a child, with infants weighing a few hundred grams held for kangaroo mother care.
    3. The mother is a patient at the same time: A caesarean delivery leaves the mother recovering from major abdominal surgery. The infant is treated several corridors away, so hours of sitting are managed through incision pain.
    4. Stays run into weeks, not days: A NICU admission after a very preterm delivery commonly runs six weeks or longer, which is a period of hospital residence rather than a hospital visit.
    5. Solidarity forms sideways, not from clinicians: Support comes from nurses, guards, hospital staff and other mothers in the same unit, who mark small milestones together and register each other’s setbacks.

    Why do preterm births keep rising in India?

    1. Maternal nutrition: The nutritional health of mothers is a direct contributor, with anaemia and low pre-pregnancy weight raising the risk of early delivery.
    2. The changing pattern of pregnancies: Later first pregnancies, higher rates of assisted conception and more multiple births all shift the distribution towards earlier deliveries.
    3. Environmental factors: A significant part of the rise is attributable to environmental exposure rather than to maternal or clinical factors.

    What does the parallel rise in caesarean sections indicate?

    1. Caesarean rates have moved well past the clinical reference range: The National Family Health Survey records 21.5 per cent of deliveries as caesarean nationally, against the 10 to 15 per cent range the World Health Organization treats as the point beyond which population level benefits stop.
    2. The private sector drives the gap: Caesarean deliveries account for 47.4 per cent of births in private facilities against 14.3 per cent in public facilities. The gap points to provider incentives rather than to clinical need.
    3. An emergency caesarean is a different event from an elective one: A preterm emergency caesarean is a rescue procedure for foetal or maternal distress, and it arrives without the preparation an elective procedure allows.
    4. Timing carries its own risk: Caesarean delivery before 39 completed weeks raises neonatal respiratory morbidity, so a rising caesarean rate and a rising preterm rate reinforce each other.

    Who is held responsible when a birth goes wrong?

    1. The dominant script has no place for a preterm birth: An initiation into motherhood that begins at the doors of a neonatal unit has no available story, so the experience goes unnarrated rather than merely unrecognised.
    2. Scrutiny falls on the mother’s conduct: Society places the burden of a healthy pregnancy almost entirely on women, and a premature birth intensifies that scrutiny into questions about whether she travelled or rested enough. The mother’s body becomes the site of investigation.
    3. The evidence points the other way: Environmental exposure and clinical practice are population level determinants, and neither is amenable to individual maternal conduct.
    4. The psychological cost has no recognised name: Conversation around postpartum depression has grown, and the emotional realities of neonatal intensive care motherhood remain largely invisible.
    5. Even the support offered polices the mother: Nurses urge mothers to stay positive because infants sense their emotions. That instruction converts grief into a further maternal responsibility.

    Challenges in maternal and newborn care in India

    1. Neonatal intensive care capacity is thin outside metros: District level special newborn care units handle stabilisation but not ventilation or surgery, so very preterm infants must be transferred to a medical college or a private hospital. Eg. Referral transport for sick newborns remains the weakest link in the newborn care chain in most States. Fix. Attach a functioning level three unit to every district hospital with a dedicated newborn transport ambulance on a fixed response standard.
    2. Neonatal intensive care is catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure: A six-week private NICU stay runs into several lakh rupees and sits outside most insurance cover for a newborn without an existing policy. Eg. Ayushman Bharat covers the mother’s delivery package but not an extended neonatal admission in every State’s package list. Fix. Add a defined neonatal intensive care package with a per-day rate to the national health insurance benefit list, effective from the date of birth.
    3. Perinatal mental health has no service line: Public maternity facilities have no counsellor attached to the neonatal unit, so the psychological consequences of a preterm birth go unscreened and untreated. Eg. Screening for postpartum depression is not part of the standard postnatal visit schedule. Fix. Post a trained counsellor at every special newborn care unit and add a validated screening question to the routine postnatal check.
    4. Caesarean rates are unaudited in the private sector: No facility level audit compels a hospital to justify its caesarean rate, so the rate rises without a clinical explanation. Eg. Facility caesarean rates above 50 per cent are recorded in several States without triggering review. Fix. Publish facility-wise caesarean rates using the Robson classification and make registration renewal conditional on a rate review.
    5. Heat action plans do not name pregnant women: City heat plans list outdoor workers and the elderly as vulnerable groups and generally omit pregnant women, so no advisory or workplace protection reaches them. Eg. Most State heat action plans carry no antenatal advisory component. Fix. Add pregnant women as a notified vulnerable category, with heat advisories issued through antenatal care contacts and Anganwadi workers.
    6. Kangaroo mother care coverage stays low: The intervention is cheap and evidence-backed, and it requires a mother to remain beside the infant for hours. Most public units are not physically designed for that. Eg. Many newborn units have no space for a mother to stay overnight. Fix. Make mother-side accommodation a licensing condition for any unit designated to handle low birth weight newborns.

    Conclusion

    Preterm birth in India is being pushed upward by heat exposure and other environmental determinants that no individual pregnancy can be managed against, and the clinical system is simultaneously delivering more babies surgically and earlier. The response has stayed at the level of the individual mother, whose conduct is scrutinised and whose psychological care is not provided at all. Recognising heat as a maternal health exposure, auditing caesarean practice and funding neonatal intensive care are the three interventions the evidence already supports. Until they are in place, the burden of a structural change will keep being carried privately.

    “[2025] Consider the following statements:

    Statement I: At the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), India refrained from signing the ‘Declaration on Climate and Health’.

    Statement II: The COP 28 Declaration on Climate and Health is a binding declaration; and if signed, it becomes mandatory to decarbonize health sector.

    Statement III: If India’s health sector is decarbonized, the resilience of its healthcare system may be compromised.

    Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?

    (a) Both Statement II and Statement III are correct and both of them explain Statement I

    (b) Both Statement II and Statement III are correct but only one of the them explains Statement I

    (c) Only one of the Statements II and III is correct and that explains Statement I

    (d) Neither Statement II nor Statement III is correct