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  • Resisting invaders to swords of goddesses: NCERT revises book on medieval history for Class 9

    Why in the News

    The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)‘s new Class 9 social science textbook recasts 1000 to 1700 AD as a period of “Resistance and Resilience”, with resistance in place of cooperation or a composite culture. Part 2 of the book mentions “both conflict and cooperation” but focuses on resistance, which reopens the debate on how schools should teach medieval India.

    What is the new Class 9 textbook?

    1. What it is: “Understanding Society: India and Beyond” is NCERT’s new social science textbook for Class 9, part of the Secondary Stage of schooling. Part 1 came out in June, covering history, political science, geography and economics.
    2. Stated aim: The foreword by the NCERT Director says the subject should build critical inquiry, intercultural understanding and confident participation in civic life.
    3. Books replaced: The new books replace four older textbooks, including “Democratic Politics-1” and “India and the Contemporary World”, which taught the French and Russian Revolutions, Socialism in Europe and the Rise of Nazism.
    4. The takeaway: The national textbook now tells medieval history as a story of defence against outsiders, so it shapes how Class 9 students understand the whole period.

    How does the book retell 1000 to 1700 AD?

    1. Central claim: The book says the subcontinent faced repeated invasions with religious discrimination and social distress. Resistance took both military and cultural forms, and society “preserved its traditions”.
    2. Who resisted: Rajputs, the Ahom, Vijayanagara, the Marathas, Sikhs and Jats are shown resisting the Turks, the Mughals and European forces.
    3. Mewar and the Ahom: One section covers Maharana Pratap’s resistance to Akbar. Another says the Ahom kingdom of Assam stayed independent for almost six centuries, with Lachit Borphukan defeating a Mughal fleet at Saraighat.
    4. Beyond the north: The Vijayanagara section says resistance to foreign invasion “was not confined to northern India”.
    5. Swarajya: The Maratha idea is explained as “an independent, self-governing territory free from external control”.

    How does the book treat religion and culture?

    1. Sikhs and Jats: The book cites the martyrdom of the Sikh Gurus and Mughal “discriminatory practices”. It links Jat resistance to economic hardship and Aurangzeb’s religious policies.
    2. Temples: The book records temples destroyed and mosques built on their sites. Eg. Todarmal and Man Singh rebuilt Kashi Vishwanath, Aurangzeb destroyed it, and Ahilyabai Holkar reconstructed it.
    3. Bhakti: The book credits Bhakti, personal devotion to God, with sustaining worship when temple building was restricted. Eg. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu led public sankirtan (group devotional singing) in Bengal against a Qazi’s (Islamic judge’s) curbs.
    4. Sufism: Sufism is described as a comparatively liberal strand of Islam that also helped Islam spread.
    5. Swords of goddesses: A box says kings have invoked Kali, Durga and Bhavani as protectors since the seventh century. Eg. Shivaji received his sword from Tulja Bhavani, and Annamaraja of Bastar his from Danteshvari.

    How does this depart from earlier history teaching?

    1. Old consensus: For over 50 years, Indian historiography stressed cooperation and composite culture, meaning the shared art, language and belief that grew from mixing traditions.
    2. Thin Sultanate coverage: The Delhi Sultanate gets one page, mostly on local kings who resisted it. The Mughal period is longer but also centres on resistance.
    3. Kachwaha alliance: The Kachwahas of Amber and their “cooperative relationships” with the Mughals get only a brief mention.

    Challenges

    1. Partial picture: Stressing only resistance hides the alliances and shared institutions that also shaped the period. Eg. Rajputs as Mughal mansabdars (ranked nobles).
    2. Belief read as history: Goddess-given swords are traditions, and students may not separate legend from evidence.
    3. Lost world history: Dropping the French and Russian Revolutions weakens understanding of democracy and ideology.
    4. Frequent revision: Repeated rewrites unsettle teachers and students. Eg. Mughal court chapter dropped from Class 12 in 2023.

    Way Forward

    1. Source-based chapters: NCERT should add primary sources and more than one interpretation for each theme.
    2. Expert review: Drafts should go to historians and public consultation before release.
    3. Clear labels: Textbooks should mark legend, tradition and evidence separately.
    4. Teacher training: State education departments should train teachers on the new chapters.

    Conclusion

    The new book moves school history away from synthesis towards a story of resistance, and that choice is now the version most students will learn. What to watch is whether later volumes restore cooperation and world history, and how teachers handle belief and evidence in class.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 15 marks] Should education be treated primarily as a welfare obligation of the state or as a strategic investment for building a globally competitive, knowledge-driven nation? Critically evaluate.”

  • We need to manage public spaces, not women

    Why in the News

    In Delhi’s Aastha Kunj Park, three men posing as police officers gang-raped a 17-year-old, and young couples in Bihar’s Jamui and Samastipur were assaulted or harassed. Each victim was doing something ordinary in public, which shows the state still manages women instead of making public spaces safe.

    What does it mean to manage women instead of public spaces?

    1. Conditional access: In “Why Loiter?”, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade argue that women gain access to public space only on proof of “respectability and purpose”.
    2. Paternalistic approach: This view manages risk by restricting women, not the space. It is like keeping people indoors instead of fixing a broken streetlight.
    3. Vocabulary of suspicion: Anti-Romeo squads in Uttar Pradesh, police overstepping their mandate and self-appointed moral guardians fixing curfews treat ordinary meetings between men and women as suspect.
    4. Cover for crime: Because a friendship or a walk home can easily be branded wrongdoing, offenders find it easy to pose as police, as in the Delhi park case.
    5. The takeaway: Policing women’s presence keeps them out of public life and hands abusers a ready disguise.

    What have reforms since 2012 changed, and what did the Verma Committee ask for?

    1. Legal reforms: After the 2012 Delhi gang rape and the 2024 rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College, India added fast-track special courts and harsher sentences.
    2. Women at work: The female workforce has grown rapidly, with millions more women professionals, but public infrastructure has not kept pace.
    3. Verma diagnosis: The Justice J.S. Verma Committee traced the 2012 crime to deep-seated patriarchy and the state’s failure to keep women safe. The Supreme Court reiterated that failure this week.
    4. Verma recommendations: The Committee treated sexual violence as an expression of power, not desire. It recommended gender-sensitisation training for police, better public amenities for women and wider conversations on masculinity.

    What does South Africa show about legal and lived equality?

    1. Sandton killings: A women’s running club in Sandton, Johannesburg, lost a member on an evening jog. The bodies of 10 women have been found with signs of sexual assault.
    2. National disaster: South Africa’s femicide rate is over six times the global average. Last year it declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster.
    3. Progressive constitution: South Africa’s 1996 constitution protects women even from private discrimination. Three decades on, women still improvise safety, running in groups and tracking each other by phone.
    4. Arrests in India: Unlike in South Africa, the alleged perpetrators of the Indian cases have been arrested.
    5. Legal versus lived equality: Both societies mistake legal equality for lived equality, so rights on paper do not make streets safe.

    Why must infrastructure come before generational change?

    1. Slow social change: Dismantling male entitlement and raising boys who need no policing is generational work. Women’s mobility cannot wait for it.
    2. Faster fixes: Regular patrols change the odds inside a park. Streetlights and better connectivity change what a walk home risks.
    3. Infrastructure as choice: Safe infrastructure gives women alternatives and agency, and makes their presence in public unremarkable.
    4. Less room for harm: Together with sensitisation, these measures cut the chances for toxic masculinity to cause harm.

    Challenges

    1. Moral policing by the state: Squads that watch couples divert police time from protecting women.
    2. Dark public spaces: Unlit parks, lanes and bus stops remain common in Indian cities.
    3. Slow trials: Judge vacancies and backlogs in special courts blunt the deterrence of harsher laws.

    Way Forward

    1. Space audits: Municipal bodies should map unsafe parks, lanes and stops and publish repair timelines.
    2. Evening beat patrols: State police should patrol parks and transit hubs every evening.
    3. End moral policing: State governments should disband squads that target consenting adults.

    Conclusion

    India has strengthened laws against sexual violence but still manages women’s behaviour rather than the spaces they use. The test is whether city budgets treat safe public space as core infrastructure rather than a response to the next crime.

    Government Initiatives for Women’s Safety

    1. Mission Shakti, ‘Sambal’: Runs One Stop Centres, the Women Helpline and Nari Adalats for legal, medical and counselling support.
    2. Safe City Projects: In eight major cities, artificial intelligence (AI) enabled closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and panic buttons cover public spaces.
    3. Nirbhaya Fund: Funds Women Help Desks in police stations to make them survivor friendly.
    4. Zero FIR: Section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 lets a woman file a First Information Report (FIR) at any police station.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Indian academia’s drift from reason to ritual

    Why in the News

    At the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi convocation in August 2026, students were reportedly told how far to bow while receiving medals from the Prime Minister and asked to stand during Vedic chants. The episode has revived a debate on whether ritual and deference are eroding academic freedom in a secular, democratic republic.

    Why do convocation rituals clash with the purpose of a university?

    1. Purpose of a university: A university seeks truth through observation, experimentation and peer review. The scientific method rests on falsifiability, meaning every claim must be open to disproof.
    2. Knowledge by challenge: Science advances by challenging the past, not revering it. Eg. Galileo, Darwin and Einstein each overturned once-sacred truths.
    3. Message of obedience: Bowing to a political figure teaches students to obey authority, not question it. A prayer at a science convocation suggests the supernatural belongs in empirical inquiry.
    4. Courtly hierarchy: The bowing protocol revives a pre-modern feudal hierarchy in which graduates submit instead of thinking independently. The Constitution’s spirit favours democratic equality over submission.
    5. The takeaway: Universities must stay spaces of scepticism, dissent and fearless inquiry, or they lose the purpose that justifies them.

    Is ritual a cultural tribute or enforced deference?

    1. Defenders’ view: Supporters call these practices “cultural flourishes”, harmless tributes to India’s ancient past that teach respect.
    2. Guru-shishya objection: The guru-shishya (teacher and disciple) model demanded unquestioning obedience. Modern teaching rests on Socratic dialectic, meaning learning through open argument and respectful dissent.
    3. Mixed message: The Prime Minister used the same address to urge students to question conventional wisdom, contradicting the ritual of reverence.
    4. Culture as shield: Wrapping practices in ancient culture deflects scrutiny. Critics get branded “westernised”, “anti-national” or “Dimagi Naxal” (intellectual extremist).
    5. Tagorean ideal: Rabindranath Tagore‘s poem “Where the Mind is Without Fear”, written under British rule, calls for courageous thought and is a tradition worth defending.

    What does the ‘Free to Think 2026’ report find?

    1. The report: Scholars at Risk (SAR), an international network that monitors education communities, published “Free to Think 2026”, covering the year to June 2026.
    2. Severely restricted: It rates academic freedom in India “severely restricted”. India’s Academic Freedom Index, where a higher score means more freedom, fell to 0.14 in 2025.
    3. Earlier score: The index stood at 0.38 in 2022, so the latest score is less than half of it.
    4. Causes cited: The report blames government interference in university governance, suppression of dissent and a pervasive climate of fear.
    5. Self-censorship: Academics and students self-censor for fear of being branded traitors, and most researchers avoid questioning government overreach.

    How has regulation narrowed university autonomy?

    1. UGC as lever: The report says the central government has expanded control over higher education through the University Grants Commission (UGC), which funds universities and sets their standards.
    2. Vice-Chancellor norms: The UGC relaxed academic qualification criteria for Vice-Chancellors, the executive heads of universities.
    3. Contract faculty: It removed the 10 per cent cap on contract faculty set by the 2018 regulations. This speeds up casualisation, meaning insecure contract jobs replace permanent posts.
    4. Interference and repression: Influence over administration, curricula and management undermines institutional autonomy. The report also cites police violence against student protests.

    Challenges

    1. Politicised research: Research agendas risk being steered by political piety rather than public need.
    2. Ideological funding: Grants risk flowing by ideological alignment, rewarding sycophants over scientific merit.
    3. Insecure faculty: Contract teachers without job security are less able to dissent or pursue long-term research.
    4. Chancellor disputes: Vice-Chancellor appointments have become contests between State governments and Governors. Eg. Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

    Way Forward

    1. Secular ceremony code: Institute governing boards should adopt convocation protocols free of religious ritual and bowing.
    2. Merit-based selection: Search committees should apply published criteria when selecting Vice-Chancellors.
    3. Contract faculty ceiling: The UGC should restore a cap on contract faculty and fill sanctioned permanent posts.
    4. Academic freedom statutes: Universities should protect faculty and student speech from disciplinary action in their statutes.

    Conclusion

    Rituals of deference at a scientific institution signal a wider loss of university autonomy in India. Whether regulators restore faculty security and merit-based leadership will show if campuses can remain places of dissent.

    Higher Education in India

    1. Scale: With over 4.6 crore students, India runs the world’s second-largest higher education system.
    2. Other regulators: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) regulates technical education, and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) regulates teacher training.
    3. Faculty shortage: Chronic vacancies in permanent faculty at State and central universities hamper teaching and research.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 15 marks] Should education be treated primarily as a welfare obligation of the state or as a strategic investment for building a globally competitive, knowledge-driven nation? Critically evaluate.”

  • To save tigers, follow crime beyond the reserve

    Why in the News

    An assessment by TRAFFIC, a global non-profit that monitors trade in wild animals and plants, documents 2,551 seizures involving at least 3,808 tigers over 25 years to June 2025. Conservation has moved from isolated reserves to connected landscapes, but wildlife crime management has not made the same transition.

    Why is the tiger reserve no longer the frontline of protection?

    1. Two landscapes: A tiger’s ecological landscape runs from the protected area (PA) through buffers and corridors to human settlements. Traffickers work in an overlapping crime landscape, from poacher to collector, transit, market and consumer.
    2. Tigers on the move: Tigers cross buffers, corridors, plantations, farms, riverine strips and town edges, which leads to human-tiger conflict.
    3. Source, not boundary: The reserve remains the biological source, like a nursery. A tiger safe inside it becomes vulnerable in poorly monitored corridors.
    4. Information for criminals: Tigers moving repeatedly through poorly watched areas show poachers where to find them, so PA boundaries cannot remain the only line of protection.
    5. The takeaway: Tigers now live and die across a landscape that the reserve system was never designed to guard.

    How has tiger trafficking changed?

    1. Old geography of crime: Crime once meant poachers breaching a reserve and traders waiting outside, so protection meant patrolling, intelligence and intrusion detection. These remain indispensable.
    2. New products: Trafficking has moved from skin and bone to whole animals, dead and alive, and a wider range of derivatives.
    3. Linked networks: Tiger traffickers often share networks with the trade in leopard, bear and pangolin parts.
    4. New channels: Criminals use digital platforms, transport systems, financial channels and intermediaries far beyond traditional wildlife traders.

    What is a Tiger Crime Opportunity Surface, and who should act on it?

    1. Layered map: A “Tiger Crime Opportunity Surface” overlays young tigers’ dispersal routes, farm crossings, conflict villages, past offences and transport nodes. It shows where vulnerability and criminal opportunity meet.
    2. Act before mortality: The aim is to act before a tiger dies rather than investigate afterwards.
    3. Graded response: The same camera trap alert would trigger different action by zone: routine monitoring inside a PA, community preparedness in a conflict area, or extra patrols and intelligence gathering.
    4. Protection by zone: Inside the reserve, protection stays intensive and tiger specific. Beyond it, forest guards cannot carry the load alone.
    5. Inclusive enforcement: Protection should be intelligence-led, involving territorial forest staff, local communities, police, enforcement agencies and cyber or financial crime experts.

    Why do arrests not end tiger trafficking?

    1. Seizures without disruption: Isolated seizures and arrests rarely dismantle the systems that produce the crime.
    2. Missing kingpins: Cases usually target low and mid-level actors. Organisers and financiers are rarely booked.
    3. Follow the money: Cases must continue beyond arrest into financial investigation and network disruption.

    Challenges

    1. Thin territorial staff: Territorial forest divisions, where dispersing tigers roam, have fewer trained wildlife staff than reserves.
    2. Online trade: Wildlife products are sold through social media and messaging apps, beyond a forest guard’s reach.
    3. Weak financial probes: Wildlife cases rarely involve money-laundering investigators, so financiers escape.
    4. Community distrust: Villages losing crops and cattle to tigers may withhold information from forest staff.

    Way Forward

    1. Landscape crime maps: The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) should require every tiger landscape to build and update an opportunity surface.
    2. Joint task forces: States should form forest, police and cyber units for corridors and transport hubs.
    3. Financial tracing: The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) should work with financial intelligence agencies to trace traffickers’ money.
    4. Prompt compensation: States should pay quickly for tiger damage to keep communities on the side of protection.

    Conclusion

    Tiger conservation now plans for connected landscapes, but crime control is still organised around reserve boundaries and low-level arrests. The test is whether forest, police and financial agencies begin to share one intelligence system across each tiger landscape.

    Government Initiatives for Tiger Conservation

    1. Project Tiger (1973): Manages tiger reserves on a core-buffer model to reduce habitat pressure and human-tiger contact.
    2. Tigers Outside Tiger Reserves (TOTR): Uses artificial intelligence, GPS and camera surveillance to manage conflict involving about 30 per cent of tigers that live outside reserves.
    3. Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006: Created the NTCA and the WCCB, and requires tiger conservation plans to protect corridors linking reserves.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024] Consider the following statements: Statement-I: The Indian Flying Fox is placed under the “vermin” category in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Statement-II: The Indian Flying Fox feeds on the blood of other animals. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both statement I and Statement II are correct and statement II explains statement I (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I (c) Staement- I is correct , but Statement II is incorrect* (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct”

  • What does it take to obtain justice for cybercrime?

    Why in the News

    For many cybercrime victims, getting the police to act takes a bribe or a personal contact rather than procedure, and these informal channels are used most by women, poor and rural victims. The Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2026, by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (Lokniti-CSDS) and Common Cause, finds that both channels also work best for them, so recovering lost money depends on influence.

    What does the survey measure, and how many victims go to the police?

    1. What it is: The SPIR 2026 surveyed 8,306 citizens across 16 States on their experience of policing. It asks what makes police act on a cybercrime complaint.
    2. Why it matters: As digital payments and online services enter daily life, cybercrime has become a serious security threat to citizens.
    3. Burden beyond delay: Besides procedural delays and repeated station visits, how police personnel treat a victim decides whether the case moves.
    4. Who complains: Nearly half of victims (49 per cent) complained to the police, and 39 per cent never complained.
    5. The takeaway: Filing a complaint is only the first hurdle, and what follows often turns on money or connections.

    How does bribery decide whose case moves?

    1. Paying to be heard: More than a quarter (27 per cent) of complainants paid the police at some point to get their case handled.
    2. Unequal burden: Payment rates differ sharply, most of all by class:
      • women 35 per cent, against 22 per cent of men;
      • rural victims 36 per cent, against 24 per cent of urban victims;
      • poor victims 51 per cent, against 12 per cent of affluent victims.
    3. Bribes linked to recovery: Of those who paid, 41 per cent recovered the full amount lost, against 12 per cent of those who did not pay.

    How do personal networks stand in for procedure?

    1. Network of influence: More than a third (37 per cent) of victims asked a personal contact, such as a senior police officer, official or local politician, to press the police.
    2. Who uses contacts: Reliance on contacts is higher among the disadvantaged:
      • women 41 per cent, against 35 per cent of men;
      • rural victims 44 per cent, against 35 per cent of urban victims;
      • poor victims 55 per cent, against 30 per cent of the rich.
    3. Contacts and recovery: Of victims who used a contact, 32 per cent recovered their full loss, against 13 per cent of those who did not, roughly tripling the odds.

    Why do the most vulnerable depend most on informal channels?

    1. Fewer formal options: Women, poor and rural victims use these channels not because they have more money or contacts, but because they have fewer other ways to make the system work.
    2. Parallel unofficial system: Bribery and personal influence work as unofficial channels to secure police action, so formal procedure alone fails a large share of victims.
    3. Enforceable procedure: Victims cannot enforce First Information Report (FIR) registration or joint bank and police action on cyber fraud, so a bribe or a call stays their only reliable route.

    Challenges

    1. Discretionary FIRs: Police often delay cyber fraud FIRs. Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh (2013) made registration mandatory for cognisable offences, crimes police can act on without a court order.
    2. Slow fund freezes: Stolen money passes within hours through mule accounts, bank accounts used to route stolen funds, faster than police and banks can coordinate a freeze.
    3. Corruption rewarded: When bribes raise recovery rates, victims gain a reason to pay, which entrenches police corruption.

    Way Forward

    1. Time-bound FIRs: State police should register cyber fraud FIRs within a fixed time, with supervisory review of every refusal.
    2. Binding freeze timelines: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should set mandatory timelines for banks to freeze and return defrauded funds on police request.
    3. Single reporting channel: Victims should be routed through the 1930 helpline and the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which send complaints directly to banks.

    Conclusion

    Recovering cyber fraud losses in India now rests on informal leverage, and the weakest victims pay the most for it. The test is whether State police and banks accept time-bound duties that victims can enforce without paying or calling anyone.

    Key numbers

    1. Complaints abandoned: 9 per cent of victims went to the police but did not pursue the case.
    2. No recovery: 35 per cent of bribe payers recovered nothing, against 68 per cent of those who did not pay.
    3. Contacts by class: 31 per cent of middle-class victims used a personal contact.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2022, GS3, 10 marks] What are the different elements of cyber security? Keeping in view the challenges in cyber security, examine the extent to which India has successfully developed a comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy.”

  • Ghosts of 1945 are being recruited in US-China contest over Asia

    Why in the News

    At their Washington meeting, the US President and the Chinese President affirmed that the United States and China were victorious allies in World War II. The claim shows the memory of 1945 being used to reshape Asia’s great-power order, a debate India’s strategic community has largely ignored.

    How are the great powers using the memory of 1945?

    1. History as politics: The past is reinterpreted to serve present politics, so references to the war are “rarely innocent”.
    2. Washington’s use: The US President invokes wartime cooperation with Russia and China. Critics see this as cover for his direct outreach to their leaders, which unsettles US allies.
    3. Moscow’s use: Victory supports Russia’s claim to a leading role in European security and a return to the “Yalta System”, the US-Soviet order of post-war Europe.
    4. Beijing’s use: Posing as a victor of 1945 helps China undermine the “San Francisco System” of US alliances that defined the post-war Asian order.
    5. The takeaway: Wartime memory is now a tool for claiming a say in today’s order.

    Why does the claim unsettle Taiwan and Japan?

    1. Which China: Washington’s wartime ally was the Republic of China (RoC) under Chiang Kai-shek, which now endures in Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) emerged only in 1949.
    2. Taipei’s charge: Taiwan accuses Beijing of “narrative diplomacy”, using history to erase its separate identity.
    3. Tokyo’s unease: Imperial Japan, the common enemy, is now Washington’s principal Asian ally, and its Prime Minister sought reassurance.
    4. Militarism charge: Japan is raising defence spending in response to China’s military edge. Casting Japan as the defeated aggressor lets Beijing brand this as militarism.
    5. Enemy state clauses: China opposes Japan’s call to remove the UN Charter’s obsolete “enemy state” clauses against Japan, Germany and Italy. The UN had earlier agreed to drop them.

    What does China gain by recasting the war?

    1. Targeting the alliance: The San Francisco System, built on the 1951 peace settlement with Japan, centres US strategy on Japan. Beijing wants to weaken it and nudge the US towards a “China-First” Asia policy.
    2. Victim narrative: Under Mao the war was awkward, because Chiang’s Nationalist armies did most of the conventional fighting. From the 1980s it anchored a victim story of China’s “century of humiliation”.
    3. Victor narrative: Today commemorations, parades and textbooks stress China’s place among the powers that defeated Japan and founded the United Nations.
    4. Claim to authority: Historian Rana Mitter shows this memory supports China’s claim to the apex of the global hierarchy, since victory claims a right to shape the order.

    Why is India missing from the debate over 1945?

    1. Wartime mobilisation: 2.3 million Indians served under arms, from North Africa and Italy to Burma, and 14 million worked in war production.
    2. Denied recognition: At a Russia-India-China (RIC) foreign ministers’ meeting, India’s External Affairs Minister called India’s neglect in the post-war order an uncorrected “historical injustice”.
    3. Divided movement: The Congress opposed the war and launched Quit India. The Communists backed the war after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Subhas Chandra Bose sought Axis help.
    4. Elite neglect: Indian elites ignore how the war shaped Partition and India’s post-war marginalisation, so strategic debate leans on abstract concepts instead of this history.

    Challenges

    1. Narrative as leverage: China’s victor story gives it grounds to question Japan’s defence build-up and US alliances in Asia.
    2. Alliance uncertainty: US outreach to Beijing leaves Indo-Pacific partners, including India, unsure of Washington’s priorities.
    3. India’s missing claim: Without an agreed account of its war role, India cannot use 1945 to back its case for a larger global role.

    Way Forward

    1. Official war histories: The Ministry of Defence should publish accessible histories of Indian campaigns abroad.
    2. Commemorative diplomacy: India should mark Burma campaign anniversaries jointly with Southeast Asian partners.
    3. Link to UN reform: India should cite its wartime contribution in its case for a permanent UN Security Council seat.

    Conclusion

    The contest over who won the Second World War is a contest over who shapes Asia’s order now. India’s wartime sacrifice will count only when an agreed account of it backs India’s claim to a larger global role.

    About the post-1945 world order

    1. Yalta Conference (February 1945): Allied leaders planned Germany’s final defeat and the shape of the post-war order.
    2. Founding of the UN: India was an original signatory of the UN Charter in 1945, before independence.
    3. Hub-and-spoke alliances: The US signed separate treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia and New Zealand, not one NATO-style Asian bloc.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Form 7 objections in Karnataka SIR mostly against Muslim voters

    Why in the News

    In Karnataka’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the objection process meant for checking individual entries has become a route to bulk deletions, largely against Muslim voters. The statutory Form 10 report shows Form 7 applications seeking more than 4,000 deletions, most filed by a handful of electors a day before the claims and objections deadline, raising fears of targeted disenfranchisement.

    What is a Form 7 objection, and what changed at the deadline?

    1. What it is: Form 7 lets an elector object to a name on the roll or seek its deletion. It works like a neighbourhood check on the voter list.
    2. Public record: Form 10 consolidates every Form 7 filed, so anyone can see who objected to whom.
    3. Normal pattern: Earlier in the revision, deletions sought on the ground of shifting ran at about two or three per polling station, mostly electors removing their own names.
    4. What changed: From 22 September, bulk filings appeared against other people’s names, all citing “Absent/Permanently Shifted”.
    5. The takeaway: A tool built for self-correction was used by a few individuals to challenge thousands of voters, largely from one community.

    How concentrated were the bulk filings?

    1. Babaleshwar: Just 10 people filed 1,363 of the Form 7s received there on a single day, largely against Muslim voters outside their own polling stations.
    2. Single-filer volumes: One Babaleshwar elector filed 493 applications across 30 polling stations, far beyond his own booth.
    3. Bhalki (Bidar district): At least 30 people sought to delete more than 1,700 names on the deadline day.
    4. Single-booth targeting: In Basavakalyan and Belthangady, single electors filed 32 and 21 objections, all against Muslim voters in one polling station each.
    5. Across party lines: Congress Ministers represent Babaleshwar and Bhalki, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds the other two seats.

    Why are the forms themselves under question?

    1. Pre-printed forms: In some Bhalki forms, the targeted voters’ details were already printed, with only the objector’s details handwritten.
    2. Disowned objector: Several forms named an elector at Booth 129 as objector. The person contacted gave a different name, yet the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) details on the forms matched that elector.
    3. Repeat pattern: Another objector’s forms, over 170 of them, showed the same pre-printed pattern.
    4. Data mismatch: The disowned objector is missing from the downloadable Form 10 data. Officials said many offline forms were still to be digitised.

    How are officials and parties responding?

    1. Scrutiny promised: Officials in Bidar and Vijayapura said objections would be scrutinised so that no eligible voter is deleted. Bulk filers were warned that groundless claims, if proved, could invite punishment.
    2. Congress demand: The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president asked the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for “suo motu action” against “large-scale fraudulent” misuse of Form 7.
    3. Civil society demand: The SIR Virodhi Okkuta sought an inquiry and criminal cases over forms found fraudulent.

    Challenges

    1. Cheap to object: Filing a Form 7 costs the objector little, but defending a name costs the voter time and documents.
    2. Deadline-eve surges: Last-day bulk filings leave Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) little time to verify each case.
    3. Community targeting: Objections aimed at one community strain Article 325, which bars exclusion from the roll on grounds of religion.

    Way Forward

    1. Mandatory field check: EROs should order a Booth Level Officer (BLO) visit for every “shifted” objection before issuing notice.
    2. Bulk flagging: The Election Commission of India (ECI) should auto-flag filers objecting beyond their own polling station.
    3. Action on false filers: The CEO should file complaints under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 where forms prove fraudulent.
    4. Real-time digitisation: Offline Form 7s should be uploaded within a day.

    Conclusion

    The SIR’s claims process can be turned against one community when filing is cheap and verification comes later. The test now is whether ERO scrutiny keeps every eligible voter on the final roll, and whether false filers face action.

    Key numbers

    1. Babaleshwar, one day: 1,373 Form 7s received.
    2. Second Babaleshwar filer: 413 applications across 33 polling stations in one day.
    3. Bhalki repeat filer: 54 applications on 22 September, 120 on 23 September.

    Back2Basics: Section 31, Representation of the People Act, 1950

    1. What it penalises: A written false statement or declaration, known or believed to be false, made in connection with preparing or revising an electoral roll.
    2. Punishment: Imprisonment up to one year, or a fine, or both.
    3. Link to Form 7: The claim and objection forms carry a declaration that a false statement is punishable under this Section.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • BLAs bypassed 10-form daily limit using EC portal, data show

    Why in the News

    The Election Commission of India (ECI)‘s daily cap on objections by booth-level agents (BLAs) exists only on paper, because its ECINET portal has no mechanism to enforce it. Data from Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls show BLAs filing more objections a day than the ECI allows, weakening the safeguard against bulk deletions.

    What is the 10-form cap, and how does the online route escape it?

    1. What a Form 7 does: Form 7 lets an elector object to a name on the roll or seek its deletion. It works like a complaint, checked before a name is struck off.
    2. Why the cap exists: BLAs, a recognised party’s booth agents, may file in bulk. After the draft roll (the provisional list open to objections) appears, a BLA “shall not submit more than” 10 forms a day.
    3. What went wrong: Online, a BLA logs in like any citizen through Aadhaar authentication. The portal has no field to declare BLA status, so the limit never applies.
    4. How it surfaced: Form 10 reports, a public list of objections, stay on ECINET for seven days and exposed the pattern.
    5. The takeaway: A limit written into guidelines but not into software lets a few people seek mass deletions unchecked.

    Who filed the objections, and on what grounds?

    1. Repeat filers: Several individuals breached the daily cap. Chitresh Chandoliya, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) BLA and a sitting MP’s son, filed 35 objections in two days.
    2. Mostly self-deletions: About four in five Form 7s filed in Delhi that week were electors removing their own names.
    3. One ground for all: Every Form 7 the BLA filed in Karol Bagh cited “absent/permanently shifted”. One voter he objected to still lives at his listed address.
    4. Shared house numbers: In Patel Nagar’s Part 38, a booth’s section of the roll, one objector challenged 13 names in a day. Houses share numbers, and two brothers marked as shifted still live there.
    5. Loose offline checks: An Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), who maintains a constituency’s roll, said offline objectors can enter another person’s name as objector.

    Why do disposal and disclosure raise concerns?

    1. Deletions decided faster: In one week, EROs decided 519 objections but only 92 Form 6 claims to add names. Inclusion claims were more numerous, so the pace favoured deletions.
    2. Due process burden: Each objection needs a notice, a hearing and a speaking order (a written, reasoned decision), so fast disposal raises doubt that each step was followed.
    3. Missing disclosure: Guidelines require inclusion, objection and modification forms to be uploaded daily on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO)‘s website. Nearly a month in, they remain unpublished.
    4. Extended timeline: The claims and objections deadline moves to 30 October, and the final roll is due on 4 December.

    Challenges

    1. Software lags rules: ECINET authenticates citizens but cannot identify party agents, so guideline limits fail online.
    2. Unverified objectors: Offline forms let one person object in another’s name, weakening accountability for false objections.
    3. Burden on voters: Genuine electors must answer notices to keep their names, hurting migrant workers most.
    4. Rushed hearings: Rapid disposal risks deletions without a real hearing. Eg. Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995).

    Way Forward

    1. Portal-level cap: The ECI should tag BLA logins on ECINET and block objections beyond the daily limit.
    2. Objector verification: EROs should match each objector’s voter ID before admitting a Form 7.
    3. Daily publication: The Delhi CEO should upload application data daily, as guidelines require.
    4. Field check first: Booth Level Officers (BLOs) should physically verify every “shifted” objection before the hearing.

    Conclusion

    A safeguard enforced only at the counter is bypassed online, turning objections into a tool for bulk deletions. Whether the ECI fixes its portal and publishes application data before the extended deadline will decide the final roll’s fairness.

    Key numbers

    1. Applications since the draft roll (Delhi): 1.54 lakh for inclusion, 3,435 for deletion.
    2. Form 7s filed in Delhi, week analysed: 1,095.
    3. Filers above the daily cap: four individuals.
    4. Other bulk filers: 12 objections in Delhi Cantonment and 15 in Tri Nagar, each in one day.

    Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

    1. What it is: A time-bound house-to-house enumeration in which BLOs verify every voter entry, unlike the routine annual summary revision.
    2. Legal basis: Article 324 gives the ECI control of electoral rolls. Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 allows a special revision for recorded reasons.
    3. Aim: Remove dead, duplicate and shifted voters, and enrol newly eligible citizens.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • Towards a gender-just Uniform Civil Code

    Why in the News

    The Union Home Minister has said a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) will be implemented in all 21 States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) before the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The UCC is justified as serving equality and gender justice, but the Uttarakhand code “confuses uniformity with equality” and “conflates regulation with protection”.

    Where does the UCC push stand?

    1. What it is: A UCC replaces religion-based personal laws on marriage, divorce, maintenance and inheritance with one civil law for all citizens. It is like one rulebook replacing community rulebooks.
    2. Origin of the push: The UCC became an important BJP goal after the Shah Bano judgment (1985), but no draft existed to debate.
    3. Enacted and pending: Uttarakhand’s UCC applies from January 2025. Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh await Presidential assent, needed where a State law on a Concurrent List subject clashes with Union law.
    4. Drafting and dissent: Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh have drafting committees. Justice R.C. Chavan quit Maharashtra’s committee, headed by Justice Ranjana Desai, over its consultative process.
    5. The takeaway: States are drafting codes on the Uttarakhand model, so its flaws will spread unless corrected.

    Why does the Uttarakhand code confuse uniformity with equality?

    1. Live-in registration: Compulsory registration of live-in relationships, with notice to police and parents, is “surveillance masquerading as protection”.
    2. Criminal penalties in civil law: Ending a marriage outside court carries three years’ punishment and a fine. Unregistered marriages, divorces or live-in relationships risk fines or jail, hurting the poor and marginalised most.
    3. Court-only divorce: Sending every divorce to a civil court will clog family courts already holding lakhs of pending cases. Customary divorces are quicker and cheaper for weaker sections.
    4. Silence on HUF: The code ignores tax benefits available only to Hindus through the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), a joint family taxed as a separate unit.
    5. Copy of the Hindu Code Bill: It reads like a “copy-paste” of the Hindu Code Bill, ignoring progressive reforms in personal laws and family codes worldwide.

    What should a gender-just UCC guarantee women?

    1. Support for deserted women: Desertion leaves women and children highly vulnerable. A UCC should provide automatic maintenance orders and bar disposal of assets.
    2. Gender-specific maintenance: Only women can claim maintenance under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and other personal laws, unlike the gender-neutral Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. A UCC should keep this, given unequal power in marriage.
    3. Non-willable share: The Hindu Code Bill let Hindu men will away all property, causing the silent disinheritance of women. Like Muslim law’s protected share, a UCC should reserve wives and children a minimum share.
    4. Marital property: Women should get an equitable share of assets built during marriage, recognising unpaid care and domestic work.
    5. Second wives: Courts grant maintenance to women deceived into a void second marriage, and a UCC should codify this.

    Challenges

    1. Patchwork of State codes: Each State enacting its own code produces different rules, which defeats uniformity itself.
    2. Minority apprehension: Communities fear a code modelled on Hindu law imposes majority practice. Eg. Meghalaya and Mizoram district councils opposing it.
    3. Religious freedom claims: Reform faces challenges under Article 25 (freedom of religion).
    4. Thin consultation: Hurried drafting loses legitimacy with affected groups.

    Way Forward

    1. Optional registration: Make registration optional and confidential, with tangible benefits such as maintenance, legitimacy of children and inheritance rights.
    2. Administrative divorce: Create an administrative mechanism for mutual-consent divorces, reserving courts for contested or complex cases.
    3. Inclusive consultation: Consult groups working for women, Adivasis, queer and transgender people and persons with disabilities.
    4. Civil, not criminal, compliance: Replace penalties with awareness drives and user-friendly procedures.

    Conclusion

    The UCC is moving from slogan to statute State by State, but the first enacted model regulates relationships more than it secures women’s economic rights. Whether pending State bills are revised toward maintenance and marital property rights before assent will show if uniformity serves gender justice.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2021] Under the Indian Constitution, concentration of wealth violates (a) the Right to Equality (b) the Directive Principles of State Policy (c) the Right to Freedom (d) the Concept of Welfare Answer: (b)”

  • Problem is weak drug regulation, CCTV is no cure

    Why in the News

    Buying prescription drugs could move from an ordinary pharmacy counter to one under closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance across the country by early 2027. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has begun the process, and the camera promises an audit trail against misuse but records sensitive health choices without fixing weak enforcement of existing rules.

    What is the CCTV proposal meant to achieve?

    1. What it is: Every pharmacy sale of a prescription drug would be filmed. It works like an aircraft’s black box, keeping a record that can be checked later.
    2. What the camera shows: Footage can establish whether a prescription was presented, whether a medicine was handed over and when the sale took place.
    3. Help for inspectors: Drug inspectors could use it to probe pharmacies that repeatedly sell prescription medicines without a prescription.
    4. Audit trail for risky drugs: For Schedule H1 and Schedule X medicines (tightly controlled drugs such as newer antibiotics and narcotics), a stronger record could prevent diversion to illegal use.
    5. The takeaway: A simple technology is meant to make enforcement transparent and accountable, but it records every buyer to catch a few sellers.

    What are Schedules H, H1 and X?

    1. Schedule H: Lists drugs that may be sold only against a registered medical practitioner’s prescription.
    2. Schedule H1: Places tighter controls on the sale of certain antibiotics.
    3. Schedule X: Covers narcotic and psychotropic drugs, with stricter record keeping on every sale.

    Why is a camera a weak regulatory tool?

    1. Cannot verify prescriptions: A camera shows a piece of paper crossing the counter. It cannot tell whether the prescription is genuine.
    2. Blanket coverage: Buyers of an antibiotic, an antihypertensive (blood pressure drug) or an anti-diabetic medicine are not high-risk merely because a prescription is required.
    3. Mismatch with the aim: Filming every prescription sale overshoots the high-risk target, documenting transactions without solving the regulatory problem.

    What privacy risks does it create?

    1. Sensitive purchases on record: A camera can capture someone buying an antidepressant, an HIV medicine, a fertility drug, an abortion pill, cancer treatment or psychiatric drugs.
    2. Health profile from footage: A face, a pharmacy, a time and a medicine together reveal a person’s private life. Linked to other databases or facial recognition, three months of footage maps health behaviour.
    3. Unanswered access questions: It is unclear whether inspectors, police or other departments can obtain footage or reuse it. Citizens cannot learn whether their footage was accessed.

    What must the government prove first?

    1. Constitutional test: The Supreme Court’s privacy rulings require any restriction of a fundamental right to meet legality, necessity and proportionality.
    2. Least intrusive means: The government must show that blanket surveillance is necessary and that a less intrusive method would not work equally well.
    3. Existing regime: India already has prescription rules, registers, licensing conditions, inspections and controls on Schedules H, H1 and X. The first question is whether regulators use them against violators.
    4. Data is not regulation: Collecting more footage does not improve enforcement. It also leaves unanswered who oversees the people holding the footage.

    Challenges

    1. Thin inspection capacity: State drug regulators lack enough inspectors, so existing rules go unenforced. Eg. antibiotics sold over the counter.
    2. No access or retention limits: The proposal states no rules on who may view footage or how long it is kept.
    3. Cost for small chemists: Rural and small pharmacies must bear camera and storage costs.
    4. Function creep: Footage gathered for drug control can be reused for policing or profiling.

    Way Forward

    1. Targeted monitoring: The Health Ministry should limit recording to Schedule H1 and X sales instead of every prescription.
    2. Fill inspector posts: States should recruit drug inspectors and act against repeat violators.
    3. Access rules first: The Ministry should notify who may access footage, for what purpose and for how long, before rollout.
    4. Verifiable prescriptions: Digital prescriptions can confirm genuineness.

    Conclusion

    The proposal treats a gap in enforcement as a gap in data. Whether the Health Ministry sets out access limits and a proportionality case before rollout will decide if the plan survives privacy scrutiny.

    Drug Regulation in India

    1. Parent law: The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 governs the import, manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs. The Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 set drug classification, storage and labelling.
    2. Central regulator: The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), headed by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), approves new drugs and regulates clinical trials.
    3. State regulators: State Drug Regulatory Authorities license manufacture and sale, inspect premises and act against spurious drugs.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026] X’ was addressing a seminar on the meaning of the term ‘law’ as provided under Article 13, Part III of the Constitution of India. ‘X’ explained that the meaning of the term ‘law’ in the Constitution of India was very comprehensive. It included ordinances, orders and even rules and regulations. ‘Y’ pointed out that the term ‘law’ in Article 13 also included custom or usage having in the territory of India the force of law, to which ‘X’ was not convinced. Based on the above, select the correct conclusion from the options given below: (a) X is correct in the interpretation of law, including the view on non-inclusion of custom (b) The view of Y that ‘law’ included custom is not correct (c) The views of both X and Y are correct (d) The view of only Y is correct Answer: D”

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