The 39th interim report of the Justice B.P. Katakey Committee has flagged Meghalaya’s failure to adopt a comprehensive policy for closing and fencing abandoned rat-hole coal mines. The issue has shifted from merely stopping illegal extraction to managing the dangerous legacy of thousands of abandoned mine pits.
What is Rat-Hole Mining?
A manual coal mining method involving a vertical pit and narrow horizontal tunnels.
Tunnels may extend 150 to 300 metres underground.
Side cutting: Tunnels follow exposed coal seams along hill slopes.
Box cutting: A vertical pit is dug first, followed by horizontal tunnels.
Meghalaya’s thin coal seams made this method economically attractive.
Why is Meghalaya’s Mine Closure Issue Important?
The NGT banned rat-hole coal mining in April 2014.
The Supreme Court in 2019 upheld the prohibition and held that the MMDR Act, 1957 applies to Meghalaya.
Thousands of abandoned pits remain uncovered and unfenced, creating risks to people and livestock.
East Jaintia Hills alone is reported to have around 60,000 mines across 360 villages.
Sulphur-rich coal contributes to acid mine drainage, affecting rivers such as the Lukha and Myntdu.
What is Mine Closure?
Mine closure means planned decommissioning of a mine after extraction, including:
Sealing and fencing mine openings
Backfilling and slope stabilisation
Land restoration
Water treatment
Revegetation
Post-closure monitoring
Indian mining regulations provide for both progressive closure during the life of a mine and final closure after mining ends. Financial assurance is maintained through an escrow mechanism for eligible mines.
Why is Meghalaya Different?
Meghalaya comes under the Sixth Schedule. Land and mineral resources are substantially associated with private and community ownership, creating a distinct governance framework compared with conventional state-leased mining.
Constitutional provisions to remember
Article 244(2): Administration of tribal areas under the Sixth Schedule.
Entry 23, State List: Regulation of mines and mineral development, subject to Entry 54.
Entry 54, Union List: Union regulation of mines and mineral development when Parliament declares it in public interest.
Article 21: Right to life includes the right to a clean and healthy environment.
Article 48A: State duty to protect the environment.
Article 51A(g): Fundamental duty to protect the environment.
Important Laws and Institutions
MMDR Act, 1957: Parent legislation governing mineral concessions, leases and mining regulation.
Mineral Conservation and Development Rules, 2017: Provide for progressive and final mine closure plans and financial assurance.
Mines Act, 1952: Deals with health, safety and working conditions in mines. The Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) is the safety regulator.
National Green Tribunal Act, 2010: Created the National Green Tribunal (NGT), a specialised statutory environmental tribunal. Its 2014 order banned rat-hole mining in Meghalaya.
District Mineral Foundation: A non-profit trust in mining districts, funded through a levy on mining lessees, for the benefit of communities affected by mining.
“[2025, GS3, 15 marks] Mineral resources are fundamental to the country economy and these are exploited by mining. Why is mining considered an environmental hazard? Explain the remedial measures required to reduce the environmental hazard due to mining.”
The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) uprising began in Bombay on 18 February 1946 and spread to about 78 ships and 20 shore establishments, involving nearly 20,000 personnel. It demonstrated that British India’s armed forces could no longer be relied upon to suppress nationalist resistance.
Causes
Poor food, living conditions and service grievances
Racial discrimination by British officers
Post-war demobilisation and loss of status
Anger over the INA trials
Abuse of sailors by Commander Arthur Frederick King.
Demands
Action against Commander King
Better pay, food and service conditions
Withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia
Free trials for INA detainees.
Spread & Suppression
Involved 78 ships + 20 shore establishments
Spread to Mumbai and Karachi, with civilian support
Strikers seized Butcher Island and removed British flags
Police firing in Bombay on 22 February killed at least 400 people, with estimates ranging higher.
Significance
Air Force and Army units also showed mutinous conduct
British realised Indian forces might not obey orders to suppress Indians
Thus, the uprising hastened the transfer of power
Often described by naval historians as the “last war of independence.”
Key Facts
18-23 February 1946: Uprising
M.S. Khan: Naval Central Strike Committee president
Madan Singh: Vice-president
23 February: Strikers surrendered
2001: Memorial unveiled at Colaba, Mumbai
Butcher Island: Now Jawahar Dweep.
“[2014, GS1, 10 marks] In what ways did the naval mutiny prove to be the last nail in the coffin of British colonial aspirations in India?”
[2017] With reference to Indian freedom struggle, consider the following events : 1. Mutiny in Royal Indian Navy 2. Quit India Movement launched 3. Second Round Table Conference
What is the correct chronological sequence of the above events ?
A reply tabled in the Rajya Sabha by the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways stated that about 28.3 percent of Odisha’s 564 km coastline is undergoing erosion. The figure sits alongside a second one that complicates it, since 54.1 percent of the same coastline is gaining land, which means the state faces not a uniformly retreating coast but a redistribution of sand that destroys some villages while building others.
What is a geotextile tube embankment?
About: A geotextile tube is a large cylindrical container fabricated from high strength, porous synthetic fabric and filled with a sand slurry to form an artificial coastal structure.
Material: The fabric is a woven synthetic such as polypropylene, which retains the sand fill while allowing water to drain out through the pores.
Function: Rows of such tubes are laid to form a sea wall that absorbs the impact of incoming waves at the shoreline. The energy loss at the structure reduces the scouring of the beach behind it.
Deployment in Odisha: One such embankment is being developed at Pentha village in Kendrapara district, one of the worst affected stretches of the Odisha coast.
Why it is preferred: The tubes are filled with locally dredged sand rather than imported rock armour, which lowers cost and allows the structure to settle with the seabed.
What is shoreline change?
About:Shoreline change is the dynamic process in which the boundary between land and water shifts over time.
Drivers: The shift is produced by natural forces such as waves, tides and storms, and by human activity such as port construction and sand mining.
What is coastal accretion?
About:Accretion is the seaward growth of the shoreline when sediment carried by waves and currents is deposited faster than it is removed.
Why it matters: A coastline can record accretion in aggregate while individual stretches erode, because the same longshore current that starves one beach feeds another.
What is the National Centre for Coastal Research?
About: The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR) is the national institution that monitors long term shoreline change across the Indian coastline.
The Odisha study: It carried out a comprehensive assessment and mapping of shoreline change analysis along the Odisha coast from 1990 to 2022, and identified several stretches in the affected districts as vulnerable stretches.
How does erosion vary across Odisha’s six coastal districts?
The state level split: Of the 564 km coastline, 28.3 percent is eroding, 17.6 percent is stable with no significant shoreline change, and 54.1 percent is undergoing accretion.
Jagatsinghpur: The most erosion prone district, with 47.6 percent of its 55.8 km coastline facing erosion.
Ganjam: Erosion affects 45.7 percent of its 60.18 km shoreline.
Kendrapara: Erosion affects 45 percent of its 149.36 km shoreline, the longest coastline among the six districts.
Balasore: Erosion affects 23.8 percent of its 88 km coastline.
Puri: Erosion affects 10.2 percent of its 138 km coastline.
Bhadrak: Erosion affects 4.6 percent of its 72 km coastline, the lowest share among the six.
What drives shoreline change along the Odisha coast?
Natural marine forces: Waves, tides and storms continuously redistribute sediment along the coast.
Coastal structures: A 2021 study on shoreline change along the Odisha coast, published in the Journal of Earth System Science, records that sea walls, breakwaters and jetties modify both the shoreline and the beach morphology.
Ports and harbours: The effect is more significant where hard structures are raised for port and harbour development, which interrupts the longshore movement of sand.
Extreme events:Tsunamis and cyclonic storms produce drastic shoreline changes, and Odisha is the most cyclone prone state along the Indian coast.
Human extraction and construction:Sand mining and unplanned infrastructure development along the coast remove or block sediment supply.
Sea level rise: Global sea level rise driven by climate change adds a permanent upward baseline to every storm surge and tidal cycle.
What has coastal erosion already cost Odisha’s communities?
Villages lost in Kendrapara: Rising sea level and coastal erosion have already submerged 16 villages in Kendrapara district, displacing several hundred people.
Loss beyond land: The affected villagers lost not only their land but also their livelihoods, since fishing and cultivation both depend on proximity to the lost shoreline.
Podampeta in Ganjam: A village of nearly 500 households has been deserted as the sea swept inland.
Ramayapatna and other settlements: Several other coastal villages in Ganjam are witnessing the sea advance towards the landmass, rendering residents homeless.
What measures has Odisha taken to protect its coast?
Geotextile tube embankment: A geotextile tube sea wall is being developed at Pentha in Kendrapara to absorb wave impact on one of the most exposed stretches.
Sea wall cum service roads: These are being developed across parts of Balasore district and at Ramayapatna beach in Ganjam.
How the dual structure works: The outer tier acts as a defensive barrier against strong tidal waves and erosion. The inner tier operates as a service road for local transport and public access.
Planned relocation: The state has developed a resettlement colony, described as India’s first climate resettlement colony, to accommodate people displaced by coastal erosion.
Vulnerability mapping: The NCCR has identified specific vulnerable stretches within the six districts on the basis of long term shoreline analysis, which allows protection works to be prioritised.
“[2022, GS3, 15 marks] Explain the causes and effects of coastal erosion in India. What are the available coastal management techniques for combating the hazard?”
Madhya Pradesh plans to excavate and restore Vaishya Tekri in Ujjain, a major mound believed to contain a Mauryan-era stupa. ASI suggests it may have been larger than the Sanchi Stupa, but its association with Ashoka remains unproven.
What is Vaishya Tekri?
Located in Ujjain, an important Mauryan-era centre.
Excavated first in 1938-39 by the erstwhile Gwalior State.
Identified as a major stupa, not a natural mound.
1938 report estimated its base at about 350 ft diameter and height at 100+ ft.
Dating to the 3rd century BCE was suggested from brick dimensions and coins.
Key Archaeological Evidence
Core made of rammed blackish murum.
Exterior faced with brick masonry and mud mortar.
Finds included:
Punch-marked coin
Cast Avanti coin
A moat surrounded the stupa, with a western passage for worshippers.
An unusual bowl-shaped masonry base helped resist lateral thrust.
Ashoka Connection
Tradition associates Ujjain with Ashoka’s viceroyalty.
However, the 1938 excavation did not establish an Ashokan connection.
The report only stated that the stupa could possibly be one of the stupas attributed to Ashoka.
Brick size and coins establish a period, not the identity of the patron.
Prelims Quick Facts
Vaishya Tekri: Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
Period: Mauryan, 3rd century BCE
Monument: Buddhist stupa
First excavation: 1938-39
Estimated diameter: ~350 ft
Sanchi Stupa height: ~54 ft
Key coin: Punch-marked coin
Agency: Archaeological Survey of India
“[2026] Which of the following statements on the Amaravati Stupa and its relief sculpture is/are correct? 1. It was located in the lower Krishna valley. 2. In India, it was next only to the Sanchi Stupa in size. 3. The Amaravati school of sculpture made a lasting impact on the later South Indian sculpture, and its products were carried to Sri Lanka and South-east Asia. (a) 1 only (b) 1 and 3 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked all States and Union Territories to process extradition requests for fugitives abroad without delay, and to develop prison facilities in central jails that meet international standards. The instruction locates the failure inside India’s own investigating agencies rather than only in foreign courts. India has brought back 274 fugitives from 36 countries since 2021.
What is extradition?
About:Extradition is the formal surrender of a person by one state to another for trial or for serving a sentence in the requesting state.
Legal basis: It operates through the Extradition Act, 1962 read with a bilateral treaty or a notified arrangement with the country concerned.
Core conditions: The offence must be punishable in both countries, and the person tried only for the offence for which surrender was granted.
What decides the outcome: The foreign court applies its own domestic law and human rights obligations, not the requesting state’s assessment of the case.
What is an Interpol Red Notice?
About: A request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action.
Its legal weight: It is not an international arrest warrant, and each country decides what force to give it under its own law.
What is an Interpol Blue Notice?
About: A request to collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.
Why conversion matters: A Blue Notice does not support arrest, so it must be converted into a Red Notice before extradition action becomes possible.
What is a provisional arrest request?
About: An urgent request to a foreign state to arrest a located fugitive before the full extradition documentation is submitted.
The time limit: It holds the person only for a fixed period, after which the formal extradition request must arrive or the person is released.
What has the Home Ministry directed the States to do?
Timely processing: States and Union Territories must ensure timely processing of extradition requests for fugitives abroad.
Dossiers in advance: All States, Union Territories and law enforcement agencies must prepare extradition dossiers in advance in every case where an Interpol Red Notice has been issued.
Why in advance: The prepared dossier allows a provisional arrest or extradition request to be sent immediately once a fugitive is located or arrested abroad.
Prison upgrades: Central jails must develop prison facilities that meet international standards, and the status of such facilities has been sought from every State.
Case review: All pending extradition matters must be reviewed, and cases unsuitable for extradition identified or proposed for withdrawal.
Extradition cells: The review meeting discussed setting up extradition cells with sufficient staff and converting Interpol Blue Notices into Red Notices.
Why do extradition requests fail on India’s own side?
The observed pattern: Even after fugitives are traced or arrested abroad on the basis of Interpol notices, state police or investigating agencies delay sending provisional arrest or formal extradition requests to the ministry.
Who owns the document: Preparing a legally sound extradition request is primarily the responsibility of the investigating agency or state police concerned.
Consequence one, release: If the formal request does not arrive within the stipulated time, the fugitive may be released.
Consequence two, lapse: The period of provisional arrest lapses, ending the legal basis for custody.
Consequence three, flight: The person may flee that foreign jurisdiction, making tracing and arrest again extremely difficult.
Why the deadline binds: Foreign authorities are bound by their own domestic laws and treaty obligations and cannot extend custody to accommodate Indian delay.
Which agencies must coordinate for a single extradition?
The investigating agency or state police: Builds the case file and drafts the legally sound request.
The Central Bureau of Investigation: Routes the matter through Interpol, since it is India’s National Central Bureau.
The Ministry of Home Affairs: Processes and forwards the request as the nodal ministry.
The Ministry of External Affairs: Transmits the request through diplomatic channels.
The Indian mission concerned: Pursues the request with the host government and its courts.
The failure point: A chain of five actors means one slow link defeats the entire request, which is what the advisory targets.
Why do prison conditions decide extradition outcomes abroad?
The foreign test: Courts in requested states assess whether surrender would expose the person to treatment violating their own human rights obligations.
What is examined: Cell space, overcrowding, medical care, protection from violence and access to legal remedies in the specific jail proposed.
The Indian response so far: Assurances have been offered on a case by case basis, including video evidence of designated barracks.
Why the directive follows: Requiring central jails to meet international standards converts a case by case assurance into a standing capability.
The linked demand: The ministry has sought updated details on the status of internationally compliant prison facilities from every State.
Why has a withdrawal review been ordered?
Reluctance on certain cases: Some States and agencies have been reluctant to proceed with extradition in matrimonial disputes and other cases.
Their reasoning: Such cases, in their assessment, may not meet the legal threshold of an extraditable offence.
The reporting gap: Those decisions were not communicated to the ministry, leaving pending cases on the books without status.
The correction: Cases unsuitable for extradition must now be identified or formally proposed for withdrawal, so effort concentrates on viable requests.
Challenges to India’s Extradition Framework
Delay at the origin of the request: The window created by a foreign arrest closes before the paperwork arrives. e.g. an expired provisional arrest period releases the fugitive with no fresh basis for custody.
Prison conditions as a refusal ground: Foreign courts refuse surrender on human rights grounds relating to Indian jails. e.g. the United Kingdom High Court allowed an appeal against extradition in a tax and money laundering case in 2025 on prison conditions and treatment grounds.
Precedent of outright refusal: A refusal on custodial treatment grounds can end a case permanently. e.g. Denmark declined to extradite the principal accused in the Purulia arms drop case, citing risk of ill treatment.
Conditions attached to successful surrender: Assurances given to secure extradition bind Indian courts afterwards. e.g. the assurance given to Portugal limited the sentence in the case of a fugitive returned in 2005 to 25 years and excluded the death penalty.
Absence of a treaty with key jurisdictions: Fugitives shelter in states where India has no extradition treaty, only an arrangement or none at all. e.g. requests to jurisdictions without treaty coverage depend entirely on reciprocity and domestic discretion.
Capacity inside state police: Most state forces have no officer trained in drafting extradition documentation. e.g. the ministry has had to direct the creation of dedicated extradition cells with sufficient staff.
Threshold misjudgement: Requests are pursued in cases foreign courts will not accept as extraditable. e.g. matrimonial dispute cases that States themselves assess as below the legal threshold.
Notice type mismatch: A person is tracked on a notice that gives no power of arrest. e.g. Blue Notices pending conversion into Red Notices leave a located fugitive untouchable.
Conclusion
The advisory reframes extradition failure as a domestic sequencing problem, since the legal window opened by a foreign arrest is lost when the investigating agency’s dossier is not ready. India has brought back 274 fugitives from 36 countries since 2021, and the ministry now wants dossiers prepared the moment a Red Notice issues, dedicated extradition cells, and central jails built to international standards so that prison conditions stop functioning as a refusal ground. States must next report the status of compliant prison facilities and identify cases proposed for withdrawal from extradition proceedings.
Content generated by Claude will carry a machine readable marking, after Anthropic signed the transparency Code of Practice under Article 50(2) of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act. The change extends watermarking from images and video to text itself, where the mark travels with copied text and detection is not reliable. The obligation arises from one regional law but the rollout is global.
What is Anthropic’s new watermarking system?
Trigger: The policy was introduced after Anthropic signed the EU AI Act’s Article 50(2) Code of Practice on Transparency of AI Generated Content.
Two forms of marking:Watermarks are embedded in text content produced by Claude. Signed provenance metadata is attached to supported files in formats such as .svg, .png and .jpg.
Applied at the model level: The text watermark is invisible to users. Anthropic has confirmed that it will not affect Claude’s response.
Persistence: The watermark is part of the text, so it travels with the text when it is copied and pasted elsewhere, and may persist through some editing.
Coverage of surfaces: Output from the Claude Platform (API), Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork and Claude Tag is set to carry the embedded watermarks. The same applies when Claude models are accessed through AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry.
Detection still incomplete: Anthropic is still working on letting external parties detect the markings, and the rollout announcement did not reveal full technical details.
What is Article 50(2) of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act?
Substance: It requires providers of AI systems that generate synthetic text, audio, image or video to mark their outputs in a machine readable format and make them detectable as artificially generated.
Code of Practice route: Signing the associated Code of Practice is the voluntary compliance instrument through which providers demonstrate that they meet the transparency duty.
What is signed provenance metadata?
About: It is a cryptographically signed record attached to a file that states the file’s origin and the tool that produced it, so a later viewer can verify where it came from.
Weak point: The record is stripped when the file format is converted, which breaks the chain of verification.
Why does watermarking text change the stakes for ordinary users?
Everyday written work is now in scope:Professional emails, personal messages, school assignments and workplace deliverables that could once pass as human made may carry an AI watermark.
Marginal AI involvement still marks the file: The mark can attach even where Claude’s involvement was close to negligible.
Second hand exposure: A human made file that is proofread, translated, summarised or converted by someone else using Claude can still carry a mark in the final output.
Non users are exposed: A person who never uses the tool can end up holding marked text produced by a collaborator, which has put non users on edge alongside users.
Workflow effect: Millions of customers are reconsidering their use of AI tools and debating at what point human content becomes AI content.
Why does the mark not settle the question of authorship?
Both error types admitted: Detecting a Claude mark does not confirm that the work was created by AI. The absence of a mark does not confirm that the work was fully human made.
Short text:Short text lengths can throw off the result, since a watermark needs sufficient text to be carried.
Post processing edits:Content changes made after Claude processed the text can degrade the signal.
Format conversion:Metadata is stripped when a file format is converted, removing the provenance record for images and documents.
Unsupported surfaces: Use of a Claude offering that does not yet support AI marking leaves the output unmarked.
What new risks has the announcement itself created?
A removal market: Multiple dubious websites offering watermark “removal” or “clean up” services came online within days of the announcement.
A repeat of the detector cycle: The earlier rise of AI text detectors was followed by AI text humanisers built to deceive those same detectors.
Reputational damage already recorded: Detector outputs have been involved in cases leading to cancelled book deals and social media trolling for authors and bloggers.
Tool quality: AI text detection tools remain experimental, fallible and prone to errors, yet are treated as evidence.
Credential risk: Users now face the prospect that their own tool damages their professional credentials.
Why do watermarks work for images but not yet for text?
Images and video are the solved case: Watermarks give regulators, fact checkers and journalists a reliable way to verify the origin of an image or video and trace it to a specific provider.
Text is not: Accurately detecting AI generated text remains uncharted territory, so the same verification logic does not transfer.
Circulation outruns labelling: AI generated content is circulated thousands of times on social media unchecked, as content moderation rules have been loosened across the Meta family of apps and X.
Users do not look: The average internet user scrolling on a phone misses even visible AI watermarks, and an invisible mark is weaker still.
Regulator dependence: A tangible reduction in misinformation and deepfakes requires technology providers and regulators to act together, not a marking standard alone.
Challenges to AI content watermarking
Adversarial removal: Paraphrasing, translation and dedicated stripping tools defeat statistical text watermarks. e.g. the removal and clean up websites that appeared within days of the Anthropic announcement.
No interoperable standard across providers: A mark from one model tells nothing about content from another, so an unmarked file proves nothing. e.g. the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standard is adopted by some providers and open source models remain outside it.
False accusation of students and writers: Detector outputs are used as disciplinary evidence despite admitted error rates. e.g. OpenAI withdrew its own AI Text Classifier in July 2023 citing low accuracy.
Open weight models cannot be compelled: A provider level obligation does not reach models that run on a user’s own machine. e.g. freely downloadable open weight models can generate unmarked text offline.
Jurisdictional mismatch: A duty created by one region’s law governs the provider, not the harm suffered elsewhere. e.g. an Indian user injured by unmarked synthetic content depends on a European regulator’s enforcement.
Labelling does not stop the harm: A deepfake remains persuasive even when correctly labelled, because the first viewing shapes belief. e.g. the November 2023 deepfake video of an Indian film actor circulated widely before any advisory was issued.
Conclusion
A transparency duty designed for synthetic images and video has been extended to text, where detection is unreliable and the mark attaches to work that may be substantially human. The result is a signal that users cannot see, verify or contest, carrying real reputational consequences. Labelling will reduce misinformation only if detection tools become accurate and platforms act on the marks, neither of which is settled.
Artificial Intelligence Governance in India
About: AI governance covers the rules on how AI systems are built, trained, deployed and labelled, and who is liable when they cause harm.
No dedicated statute: India regulates AI through existing law and subordinate rules rather than a single AI Act, unlike the European Union’s risk tiered model.
Scale: India has one of the largest AI talent pools and developer bases globally and is among the largest markets for consumer AI applications.
Institutional anchor: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is the nodal ministry, working through the IndiaAI Mission and advisories to intermediaries.
Global positioning: India hosted the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February 2026, the successor to the AI Safety Summit series, and is a founding member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI).
Laws and Rules Governing AI Generated Content in India
Information Technology Act, 2000: The parent statute for electronic records, intermediary liability and cyber offences.
Section 79 grants intermediaries safe harbour subject to due diligence, which is the hook for content labelling duties.
Section 66D penalises cheating by personation using a computer resource, used against deepfake impersonation.
Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021: Impose due diligence, grievance redress and takedown timelines on intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries.
Amendment Rules on synthetically generated information, 2026: Require platforms to label synthetically generated information prominently and to obtain user declarations on whether uploaded content is synthetic.
Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023: Governs processing of personal data, including data used to train and prompt AI models, with consent and purpose limitation duties.
Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: Covers forgery, defamation and obscenity offences that synthetic media can constitute.
Copyright Act, 1957: Governs authorship and infringement questions raised by training data and machine generated output.
Back2Basics: European Union Artificial Intelligence Act
What it is: The world’s first comprehensive horizontal law on artificial intelligence, adopted by the European Union.
Entry into force:1 August 2024, with obligations applying in phases.
Approach: A risk based classification into unacceptable risk, high risk, limited risk and minimal risk, with duties scaled to the tier.
Prohibited practices: Social scoring by public authorities, untargeted scraping of facial images and manipulative techniques exploiting vulnerabilities.
Article 50: Sets transparency obligations for AI systems that interact with people or generate synthetic content, including machine readable marking of outputs.
Extraterritorial reach: It binds providers placing systems on the EU market irrespective of where they are established, which is why compliance measures are rolled out globally.
Government Initiatives
IndiaAI Mission: Approved in March 2024 with an outlay of about Rs 10,371.92 crore, built on seven pillars covering compute capacity, innovation centre, datasets platform, application development, future skills, startup financing and safe and trusted AI.
Safe and Trusted AI pillar: Funds work on deepfake detection, algorithmic bias audits and AI governance frameworks, and underpins the proposed AI Safety Institute.
National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, 2018: NITI Aayog’s framework identifying healthcare, agriculture, education, smart mobility and smart cities as focus sectors under the AI for All approach.
Bhashini: The National Language Translation Mission building open speech and translation datasets across Indian languages.
Responsible AI for Youth: A skilling programme for government school students to build AI literacy at scale.
Digital India Act consultations: Proposed successor to the Information Technology Act, 2000, intended to address emerging technologies including AI and deepfakes.
Key Facts about AI Content Provenance
C2PA: The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity is the main cross industry technical standard for attaching tamper evident provenance to media files.
SynthID: Google’s watermarking system for AI generated images, audio, video and text.
Deepfake: Synthetic media in which a person’s likeness or voice is replaced or generated, typically using generative adversarial networks or diffusion models.
Turing Test: The 1950 benchmark for machine indistinguishability from a human, now inverted by the problem of detecting machine authorship.
GPAI: The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence was launched in June 2020 with India as a founding member, and India held its chair in 2024.
Challenges in AI Governance in India
No binding statutory framework: India governs AI through advisories and subordinate rules that carry weaker enforceability than a statute. e.g. the March 2024 MeitY advisory on under tested AI models was revised within weeks after industry objections.
Compute dependence: Frontier model training depends on imported accelerators and foreign cloud capacity. e.g. the IndiaAI Mission empanelled over 18,000 graphics processing units in its first round in January 2025 to close this gap.
Data protection enforcement capacity: The Data Protection Board must supervise a very large volume of processors with limited staff. e.g. the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 rules were notified only in November 2025, years after enactment.
Copyright and training data disputes: Ownership of material used to train models is unresolved in Indian law. e.g. the news agency ANI’s suit against OpenAI in the Delhi High Court filed in November 2024.
Election integrity: Synthetic audio and video can be deployed at scale during compressed campaign periods. e.g. AI generated voice clips of political leaders circulated during the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign.
Algorithmic bias in public service delivery: Models trained on unrepresentative data misclassify beneficiaries. e.g. facial authentication failures for manual workers under Aadhaar based attendance systems.
Skill and audit gap: India lacks a trained cadre of independent AI auditors to test high risk deployments. e.g. no statutory conformity assessment body exists comparable to the notified bodies under the EU AI Act.
Way Forward
Enact a risk tiered statute: Replace advisory based governance with a law that classifies AI uses by risk and fixes provider and deployer liability.
Mandate interoperable provenance: Require adherence to a common content credential standard so a mark from one provider is readable by all platforms.
Build public detection capacity: Fund an independent testing facility to benchmark deepfake and text detectors and publish accuracy rates.
Protect against false accusation: Bar educational institutions and employers from acting on detector output alone, and require corroborating evidence.
Expand sovereign compute: Scale domestic graphics processing unit capacity and public datasets so Indian models are not fully dependent on foreign infrastructure.
Strengthen platform duties: Require prominent labelling at the point of display, not only in file metadata, and fix takedown timelines for unlabelled synthetic media.
Invest in digital literacy: Run sustained public campaigns so users check provenance labels rather than react to content at first sight.
“[2023, GS3, 10 marks] Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of AI in healthcare?”
The armed forces will provide lists of eligible Agniveers to CAPFs for recruitment under the 50% reservation for former Agniveers. The first batch of around 25,000 Army Agniveers is expected to exit by December.
What is Agnipath?
Agniveers are recruited for a fixed 4-year tenure, including training.
Up to 25% are retained in the regular armed forces based on merit and organisational requirements.
The remaining 75% exit with a Seva Nidhi package.
They do not receive pension or gratuity.
What are CAPFs?
Central Armed Police Forces operate under the Ministry of Home Affairs, unlike the Armed Forces under the Ministry of Defence.
They include: BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP, SSB, Assam Rifles, and NSG
CAPF Recruitment for Former Agniveers
50% of Constable (GD) vacancies reserved for former Agniveers.
Eligible personnel will be identified through lists furnished by the Armed Forces.
Written examination, Physical Standard Test and Physical Efficiency Test are waived for former Agniveers.
Remaining 50% vacancies are filled through open recruitment.
Unfilled reserved vacancies are carried forward to open recruitment.
Why is it Important?
The framework provides Agniveers a pathway to a longer career, as CAPF personnel can serve up to 60 years, compared with the shorter service period in the armed forces.
Key Concerns
Eligibility depends on service-prepared lists, rather than direct application.
Criteria for inclusion in these lists are not clearly specified.
50% of CAPF Constable GD vacancies are reserved.
Former Agniveers enter at the entry grade without seniority/pay protection for military service.
Different States have adopted different reservation and age-relaxation policies.
Prelims Quick Facts
Agnipath tenure: 4 years
Retention: Up to 25%
Exit: Seva Nidhi, no pension/gratuity
CAPF quota: 50% of Constable GD vacancies
CAPFs: Under MHA
Armed Forces: Under Ministry of Defence
First Army Agniveer batch: About 25,000 expected to exit by December
“[2023] With reference to Home Guards, consider the following statements: 1. Home Guards are raised under the Home Guards Act and Rules of the Central Government. 2. The role of the Home Guards is to serve as an auxiliary force to the police in maintenance of internal security. 3. To prevent infiltration on the international border/coastal areas, the Border Wing Home Guards Battalions have been raised in some States. How many of the above statements are correct? (a) Only one (b) Only two (c) All three (d) None
India is the 2nd largest honey producer and 3rd largest exporter by value. However, around 76% of exports go to the U.S., while India’s honey has a relatively low unit value of about $1,858/tonne.
What is Apiculture?
Apiculture is the scientific rearing of honey bees in artificial hives for honey, hive products and pollination.
Apis mellifera: Italian bee
Apis cerana indica: Indian hive bee
Apis dorsata: Rock bee
Apis florea: Little bee
Products include honey, beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, pollen and bee venom.
Pollination: Bees contribute to 87 of 115 major food crops.
Domestic consumption: only ~37 g/person/year
What is NMR Testing?
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) testing analyses the molecular profile of honey to detect: Added sugar syrups, Botanical origin, and Geographical origin. It is increasingly important for accessing premium export markets.
Major Challenges
Adulteration: Sugar syrup contamination
Limited NMR testing infrastructure
Pesticide and antibiotic residue concerns
Heavy dependence on the U.S. market
Low-value bulk exports
Weak traceability and branding
Competition from China and premium brands such as New Zealand’s Manuka honey
Way Forward
Expand NMR-capable laboratories
Develop cluster-based processing and packaging
Promote GI-tagged honey
Strengthen Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)
Diversify into beeswax, propolis and royal jelly
Strengthen the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission
Promote domestic honey consumption
Protect bee health through scientific beekeeping and pesticide management
“[2018, GS3, 15 marks] Assess the role of National Horticulture Mission (NHM) in boosting the production, productivity and income of horticulture farms. How far has it succeeded in increasing the income of farmers?”
[2023] Which of the following organisms perform waggle dance for others of their kin to indicate the direction and the distance to a source of their food?
A draft United States letter warns the 35 signatories of its artificial intelligence (AI) Opportunity Statement that signing up to Beijing’s competing framework will exclude them from the American led Pax Silica coalition. The demand converts a supply chain initiative into a test of exclusive alignment. Kazakhstan, a potential source of critical minerals that has joined both coalitions, is the immediate trigger.
What is the Pax Silica initiative?
About:Pax Silica was launched by Washington last year to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals.
Purpose: It was built for the technology rivalry with Beijing, treating minerals and chips as the inputs that decide who builds the most capable AI.
Membership:About two dozen countries have joined, including close allies Japan, Australia and South Korea.
Legal character: The framework is not binding, so membership carries no treaty obligation.
The new condition: Members that also join Beijing’s rival body face exclusion from the coalition.
What is the AI Opportunity Statement?
About: A United States statement signed in June by 35 countries that wish to align AI cooperation with Washington.
Coverage: Its signatories include members of the Pax Silica framework and other countries outside it, and the draft warning letter is addressed to this full list.
What is the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization?
About: A rival body launched in July by the Chinese President as a challenge to United States influence over the AI sector.
Its offer: It promotes China’s open weight technology, positioning access to models rather than access to chips as the basis of membership.
What are open weight AI models?
About: Models whose trained parameters are published for download, allowing anyone to run and adapt them on their own hardware.
Why it matters strategically: Adoption does not require a continuing commercial relationship with the developer, so influence spreads without any agreement being signed.
What does the draft letter actually demand?
A binary choice: Dozens of countries are to be told they must pick sides in the AI race with China.
The penalty: Signing Beijing’s competing framework means exclusion from the United States led coalition.
The stated objective: Washington hopes to starve China of resources in the race to build the most sophisticated AI.
Why that matters: The most capable models are treated as usable for military or economic dominance, which is what makes inputs a security question.
The evidentiary basis: The warning rests on an internal draft and a United States official, not on a published policy.
Why do critical minerals sit at the centre of the AI race?
Minerals precede chips: Semiconductors, servers and power systems depend on rare earths, gallium, germanium and graphite before any model can be trained.
Refining, not mining, is the chokepoint: China dominates the midstream separation and refining stages even for ore mined elsewhere.
Export controls as leverage: Beijing has used licensing of gallium, germanium, graphite and rare earth magnets as a direct policy instrument.
Why Kazakhstan matters: It is a key potential source of critical minerals, which is why its dual membership set off alarm in Washington.
The self limiting problem: Excluding a supplier country does not create refining capacity anywhere else.
What do the individual signatories’ positions show about the cost of forcing a choice?
Kazakhstan, the hedger: It is the only country so far known to have joined both initiatives, using its mineral endowment to sell access to both blocs rather than choose.
Japan, the equipment supplier: A Pax Silica member whose firms control critical semiconductor manufacturing equipment, photoresists and wafer materials that no bloc can replace quickly.
South Korea, the memory chip producer: A Pax Silica member whose memory chip makers run large fabrication capacity inside China, so exclusivity carries a direct commercial cost.
Australia, the mining leg: A Pax Silica member with rare earth deposits and a dedicated critical minerals financing facility, but with separation capacity that has historically depended on offshore processing.
China, the rival architecture: Beijing counters chip and minerals leverage with the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization and freely downloadable models.
United States, the coalition builder: Washington combines export controls on advanced chips with Pax Silica membership, and now with the threat of exclusion.
Why does the exclusivity demand cut against the United States’ own supply goal?
Suppliers gain from hedging: A mineral rich state earns more by selling access to both coalitions than by picking one.
A framework with no enforcement:Pax Silica is not binding, so exclusion is the only available lever and it is a blunt one.
Open weight models cannot be fenced: Chinese models spread by download, so denying a country coalition membership does not deny it Chinese technology.
Refining dependence persists: The coalition can exclude a supplier and still find that separation and processing run through China.
Retaliation risk: Beijing can curtail exports of critical minerals essential to advanced technology production while Western supply chains are still being built.
Where does India stand in the AI and critical minerals contest?
Minerals Security Partnership: India joined the Minerals Security Partnership in June 2023, a United States convened grouping to catalyse investment in critical mineral supply chains.
National Critical Mineral Mission: Approved in January 2025 with an outlay of about 16,300 crore rupees, it targets exploration, recovery from tailings and overseas asset acquisition.
IndiaAI Mission: Approved in March 2024 with about 10,371 crore rupees, covering compute capacity, datasets, foundation model support and safe AI.
Summit diplomacy: India chaired the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence and hosted its summit in New Delhi in December 2023, and was named the next AI summit host after the Paris AI Action Summit of February 2025.
The strategic autonomy problem: India sits in United States aligned mineral platforms and in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation alongside China, so an exclusivity demand of the Pax Silica kind directly conflicts with its standing position.
Challenges to Pax Silica
No enforcement mechanism: A framework that is not binding cannot police dual membership. e.g. Kazakhstan has joined both Pax Silica and the Chinese body without penalty so far.
Substitution by the rival supplier: Excluded states can buy the same inputs and models from Beijing. e.g. China’s export licensing of rare earth magnets from April 2025 halted assembly lines at European car plants, demonstrating who controls the flow.
Cost falls on allies first: Export control regimes hit allied firms’ revenues before they hit the target. e.g. Dutch lithography equipment makers lost a large share of their China sales after successive export restrictions.
Midstream capacity cannot be built quickly: Mining new deposits does not solve separation and refining. e.g. Australian rare earth concentrate was long shipped to Malaysia for separation rather than processed at home.
Price volatility deters new investment: Mineral projects need long horizons that commodity cycles destroy. e.g. lithium prices fell sharply from their 2022 peak, stalling announced projects worldwide.
Open weight diffusion defeats membership rules: Model access spreads independently of any coalition. e.g. a Chinese open weight reasoning model released in January 2025 was downloaded and self hosted worldwide within weeks.
Third country resistance to bloc politics: Middle powers resist being made to choose. e.g. several Global South states hold membership of both Western and Chinese digital and minerals platforms simultaneously.
Conclusion
The AI contest has moved from controlling exports of chips to controlling membership of coalitions, and the United States is testing whether exclusivity can be enforced on countries that hold the minerals. The instrument is weak, since Pax Silica binds no one, open weight models spread by download, and refining capacity stays with China regardless of who is excluded. Kazakhstan’s dual membership is the first demonstration that suppliers will hedge. For India, an exclusivity demand of this type collides directly with a foreign policy built on membership of competing platforms.
“[2025] Consider the following statements: I. India has joined the Minerals Security Partnership as a member. II. India is a resource-rich country in all the 30 critical minerals that it has identified. III. The Parliament in 2023 has amended the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 empowering the Central Government to exclusively auction mining lease and composite license for certain critical minerals. Which of the statements given above are correct? (a) I and II only (b) II and III only (c) I and III only (d) I, II and III
In the third week of July, several south bank rivers of Upper Assam rose with extreme speed, swallowed paddy fields and grazing lands, and swept through villages and towns in districts that had not previously faced catastrophic floods. The event exposes a conflict between two explanations of the disaster, one that treats the flood as a hydrological event to be excluded by engineering, and one that treats it as the outcome of a landscape whose capacity to absorb rain has been dismantled over two centuries.
What is embankment based flood control?
About: An embankment is an earthen barrier raised along a river to confine its flow within the channel and shield the settled floodplain from inundation.
When it was adopted in Assam: A techno bureaucratic campaign in the mid 20th century set out to shield settled floodplains from floods that had until then been treated as predictable and nourishing for agriculture.
The design assumption: The approach treats the flood as an external event to be kept out, rather than as the process that builds the plain it inundates.
The sediment consequence: These barriers interrupted the flow of sediment onto the floodplain, confining silt to the channel instead of spreading it across the fields.
The coverage limit: By 1988, even after thousands of kilometres of embankments had been built, two thirds of the valley still lay open to flooding.
What are the south bank tributaries of Upper Assam?
About: The south bank tributaries are the rivers that rise in the hills south and east of the Brahmaputra valley and join the main river from its right bank, including the Buridihing, Disang, Dikhow, Jhanji and Dhansiri.
Why they matter here: They are fed by rainfall over the Naga Hills and eastern Arunachal Pradesh, so their flood peaks are set by rain falling outside Assam’s own boundaries.
What is riverbed aggradation?
About:Aggradation is the raising of a riverbed by deposition of sediment that the river can no longer carry downstream.
Why it worsens flooding: A raised bed reduces the channel’s carrying capacity, so the same discharge overtops the banks at a lower volume than before.
What is a flash flood?
About: A flash flood is a rapid rise in water level within hours of intense rainfall, typical of steep catchments where runoff reaches the channel before it can infiltrate the soil.
The determining factor: The severity depends on how quickly the catchment sheds water, which is a function of forest cover and soil condition rather than rainfall volume alone.
What made the July flood different from a routine Brahmaputra flood?
Damage before the main river peaked: Upper Assam felt the brunt of the disaster before the Brahmaputra swelled to its highest, which rules out the main channel as the primary cause.
Rain fell outside Assam: Relentless rain pounded the Naga Hills and Arunachal Pradesh, soaked the slopes and unleashed sudden torrents into the southern tributaries.
New districts affected: Several districts once strangers to such catastrophic floods found themselves engulfed.
Extraction accelerated the runoff:Stone and boulder extraction from riverbeds and hillsides, common in both highlands and lowlands, was identified as a factor that hastened the rainfall’s journey downstream.
The regional setting: Assam is cushioned between the Eastern Himalaya to the north, the Patkai and Barail ranges to the east and the Bay of Bengal to the south, so the southwest monsoon links highlands, floodplains, billions of tonnes of sediment and the shifting channels of hundreds of rivers into a single interdependent system.
What has changed in the highland catchments that feed Upper Assam?
Shorter cultivation cycles: Growing populations in the highlands of Nagaland and eastern Arunachal Pradesh have made cultivation cycles shorter and more intense, cutting the fallow period that allowed soil to recover.
Small scale coal mining: Mining woven into local economies now competes with the highland agrarian economy and operates through complex networks of speculators.
Relentless logging: Continued removal of tree cover strips the canopy and root systems that slow rainfall reaching the ground.
Expanding infrastructure: New construction seals and compacts surfaces, adding to runoff.
The combined effect: This pressure on the uplands erodes the land’s ability to absorb rainfall, so a given storm now delivers more water, faster, to the tributaries below.
How did the south bank lose its historic resilience?
The earlier condition: The south bank districts of Upper Assam were once among the Brahmaputra valley’s most resilient regions, defined by thick forests, scattered settlements and a safe distance from the Brahmaputra’s main channel.
The colonial turn: The calm began to unravel in the mid 19th century, when these areas drew the attention of colonial tea planters.
The land use conversion: Land where rain once vanished quietly into the forest floor was transformed into plantations, sites of mineral extraction and farms.
The hydrological result: The converted land could no longer hold back the water, which shifted the flood response of the whole south bank.
What did the embankment campaign change?
The reversal of the flood’s meaning: Floods that had been seen as predictable and nourishing for agriculture were reclassified as a hazard to be excluded.
The sediment interruption: The barriers cut off the annual deposition of silt that had renewed floodplain fertility.
The incomplete shield: By 1988, thousands of kilometres of embankments still left two thirds of the valley exposed.
The failure mode in July: Embankments along the southern tributaries gave way before the main river crested, producing sudden breaches.
Why a breach is worse than a flood: The breach released a fall of water onto an unembanked plain, concentrating the discharge instead of spreading it.
How is the monsoon itself changing?
Greater unpredictability: India’s rainy season has become more unpredictable, marked by sudden downpours separated by long dry spells rather than simply more rain overall.
Corroboration for the Northeast: Studies focused on Northeast India echo these findings.
The explanatory shift: The gap between intense rainfall and a weakened landscape explains the flash floods more fully than the quantity of rain alone.
Why the distinction matters: A landscape that once absorbed a heavy monsoon now converts the same rainfall into a peak discharge, so historical rainfall thresholds no longer predict damage.
Do embankments protect the floodplain or deepen its exposure?
The protection is real but partial: Embankments shielded settled floodplains and made permanent cultivation and settlement possible on land that had flooded annually.
The cost is the sediment: The same barriers interrupted sediment flow, denying the plain the silt that renewed it and confining deposition to the channel bed.
Protection invites exposure: A shielded plain attracts denser settlement, which raises the population and assets at risk when a breach occurs.
Failure is concentrated, not gradual: An unembanked plain floods slowly and predictably, while an embanked one stays dry until the barrier gives way and then receives the full discharge at once.
The measure of the approach: After thousands of kilometres of construction, two thirds of the valley remained open to flooding, which shows the strategy could not be completed at the scale it assumed.
The deeper limitation: The state’s ecology has been treated as a puzzle for engineers, with each crisis examined in isolation, so the cumulative loss of catchment capacity is never entered into the calculation.
Challenges to flood management in Assam
Ageing embankments past their design life: Most of Assam’s embankment network was built decades ago and now fails at multiple points each season. e.g. the breach of the Bethukandi embankment on the Barak in June 2022, which submerged Silchar town for days.
Bank erosion and permanent land loss: The braided Brahmaputra shifts its channels and consumes cultivated land and villages every year. e.g. Majuli, the large river island in Assam, which has lost a substantial part of its area to erosion since the 1950s.
A catchment that lies outside the State’s jurisdiction: The rainfall that determines Assam’s flood peak falls in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and beyond the international border. e.g. the July flood peak on the south bank tributaries generated by rain over the Naga Hills.
Sudden releases from upstream hydropower projects: Reservoir operation upstream can add a flood wave to an already rising river. e.g. water released from the Ranganadi project in Arunachal Pradesh flooding parts of Lakhimpur district.
Loss of wetlands that once absorbed flood water: The valley’s beels have been filled for construction and encroached upon. e.g. shrinkage of Deepor Beel, the Ramsar site adjoining Guwahati, which has intensified urban flooding in the city.
Relief centred rather than mitigation centred spending: Public expenditure concentrates on camps, compensation and post flood repair rather than catchment restoration. e.g. annual embankment repair works sanctioned after each season’s breaches rather than a basin wide restoration programme.
Riverbed and hillside extraction: Removal of stone, boulders and sand strips the roughness that slows runoff and destabilises slopes. e.g. boulder extraction from riverbeds in the foothills feeding the south bank tributaries.
Conclusion
The July flooding in Upper Assam is the outcome of vulnerabilities built over two centuries, not a seasonal misfortune produced by a river’s behaviour. Plantation conversion from the mid 19th century, embankment construction from the mid 20th century and current highland extraction have each reduced the landscape’s capacity to absorb rain, while the monsoon has shifted towards sudden concentrated downpours. Assam’s environment is approaching a tipping point and is not yet beyond repair. What remains unresolved is the framing itself, since the connections between highland and lowland, water and land, and forests and floodplains cannot be rebuilt by engineering alone.
“[2017, GS1, 15 marks] In what way can floods be converted into a sustainable source of irrigation and all-weather inland navigation in India?”
