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Surface Coal and Lignite Gasification Scheme: Round 1 concludes with seven applications
Why in News
1. Round 1 closed: The Scheme for Promotion of Surface Coal and Lignite Gasification Projects received seven applications from public and private companies. Round 2 opened on 8 September 2026.
Core facts
1. Administering body: The Ministry of Coal runs the scheme.
2. Approval and outlay: The Union Cabinet approved the scheme on 13 May 2026. The financial outlay is ₹37,500 crore.
3. Objective: The scheme converts domestic coal and lignite into higher value products. These include syngas, methanol, ammonia, urea and hydrogen.
4. Import substitution: India imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), urea, ammonia and methanol worth ₹2.77 lakh crore in the financial year 2024 to 2025.
5. Capacity target: The scheme targets 100 million tonnes of coal gasification capacity by 2030. It contributes 75 million tonnes of that target.
6. Round 1 applicants: NTPC Limited applied for one synthetic natural gas project. Adani Enterprises Limited applied for three urea projects. Gallantt Ispat Limited, Shyam Sel and Power Limited and Talcher Fertilisers Limited applied for one project each.
7. Process: The Request for Proposal was issued on 7 July 2026. Further Round 2 windows open every two months.
Static Context
1. Coal gasification is a thermochemical process. It reacts coal with controlled oxygen and steam to produce syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
2. Syngas is a feedstock for fertilisers, chemicals and fuels. It reduces reliance on imported natural gas.
3. Earlier scheme: A ₹8,500 crore gasification incentive scheme was notified in January 2024. Eight projects are under implementation under it.
4. India’s coal has high ash content and low sulphur content. High ash lowers gasification efficiency and needs specific technology choices.
Prelims angle
1. Products from coal gasification: urea, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen and synthetic natural gas are testable factual hooks.
2. Composition of syngas: carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
3. Nodal ministry: Ministry of Coal. Cabinet approval year: 2026.
Mains angle
1. GS3, energy and infrastructure: A question can ask how coal gasification advances energy security and import substitution while raising environmental concerns from continued coal use.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2025] Consider the following substances:
I. Ethanol
II. Nitroglycerine
III. Urea
Coal gasification technology can be used in the production of how many of them?
(a) Only one
(b) Only two
(c) All three
(d) None
Final answer: (b)”
“[2026, GS3, 15 marks] Explain the key challenges for India’s energy security. What measures do you suggest for ensuring energy security along with economic growth and sustainability?”
September 10, 2026
The murder of a musician, and a familiar unease
Why in the News
A guitarist from Manipur who had spent close to twenty years working and teaching in Delhi died after being assaulted by a group of people in his building, with the immediate dispute recorded by the police as one over noise. The death follows the 2014 killing of an Arunachal Pradesh student in Lajpat Nagar, which drew national attention to violence against people from the Northeast and led the Delhi Police to set up the Special Police Unit for the North East Region (SPUNER), a dedicated unit with helplines and nodal officers for complaints from Northeastern residents. More than a decade after that unit was created, an investigation this year found that one in four Police Control Room (PCR) calls from Northeastern residents was linked to landlord harassment. The tension is that a remedy built around policing violent incidents has left untouched the everyday transactions, tenancy above all, in which the vulnerability actually shows up.
What does the record of the past decade show?
1. The 2014 case set the institutional response: An Arunachal Pradesh student was killed in Delhi in 2014 after an altercation with shopkeepers in Lajpat Nagar, and the Delhi Police subsequently created SPUNER, with other measures opening avenues to seek help.
2. The exposure has relocated rather than closed: An investigation this year found that one in four PCR calls received from Northeastern residents was linked to landlord harassment.
3. The pattern extends past Delhi: A 24 year old student from Tripura died in Dehradun last December after being attacked.
4. Motive itself is contested in the record: In that case the victim’s brother alleged that racial slurs preceded the assault, and the police said their preliminary investigation found no evidence of a racial motive and described the incident as a confrontation that escalated in the heat of the moment.
Why has the existing remedy not closed the gap?
1. A unit built for incidents does not reach a relationship: SPUNER responds to a complaint after an act. Tenancy harassment is continuous, deniable and rarely produces a single reportable offence. Eg. The concentration of PCR calls in landlord disputes is the measure of that gap.
2. Establishing motive is left to the investigating officer: Whether an assault was racially motivated is a finding recorded during investigation, and a finding of no racial motive closes the question without an independent test.
3. Availability is not the same as use: Avenues to seek help were created after 2014, and the sense of vulnerability has not disappeared from everyday life more than a decade later.
Does length of residence settle the question of belonging?
1. The record of residence was long: The musician moved to Delhi nearly two decades ago, spent around 17 years working and teaching in the capital, established a music school, mentored students from home and taught at the Delhi School of Music.
2. The life was locally rooted: By the time of his death he had built a profession, made friends, raised a family, and walked the same streets for years, while continuing to teach the music he had begun playing in Manipur.
3. The question the death leaves open: How many years a person has to live in a city before he is simply of that place, rather than someone from somewhere else, is a difficult irony for people from one part of India negotiating safety, recognition and belonging in its capital.
4. A single night displaces the preceding life: The account of such a death reduces easily to the noise outside the home, the argument, the blows in the stairwell and the journey to hospital, and drops the two decades that came before them.
Challenges to the Special Police Unit for the North East Region
1. Its jurisdiction is one city: The unit is a Delhi Police creation, so a resident of any other city has no equivalent point of contact. Eg. The Dehradun death last December fell outside any comparable unit’s remit.
  The Fix: Require every State police force with a significant Northeastern student and worker population to designate a nodal officer with the same published helpline and reporting duty.
2. It has no remit over housing: Landlord harassment is a civil tenancy matter until it becomes an offence, so the single largest reported grievance sits outside the unit’s powers. Eg. One in four PCR calls from Northeastern residents concerns exactly this.
  The Fix: Bring refusal to let or eviction on grounds of region or ethnicity within a rent authority’s jurisdiction, with a penalty attached to a proved refusal.
3. Racial motive is not an aggravating factor in law: Where a statute does not treat racial motivation as aggravating, an investigating officer recording no such motive changes neither the charge nor the sentence. Eg. The Dehradun case was closed on the record as an escalation rather than a racially motivated attack.
  The Fix: Insert racial or ethnic motivation as a statutory aggravating circumstance at sentencing, so the finding carries a consequence and is therefore investigated.
4. Reporting depends on the complainant’s confidence: A unit reached only by a call from the person affected undercounts precisely those most reluctant to approach the police. Eg. Students and short term migrant workers dependent on a landlord for accommodation carry a direct cost for complaining.
  The Fix: Route complaints through college and university grievance cells with a mandatory onward referral, so the first contact is not the police station.
Conclusion
The institutional answer built after that killing was designed for the kind of event that produced it, a violent incident with an identifiable offender and a police response. What the intervening decade has documented is a different and more ordinary exposure, concentrated in housing, where no criminal complaint is filed and no unit has jurisdiction. Until refusal and harassment on grounds of ethnicity carry a defined legal consequence, the record will keep registering the incidents and missing the condition. The measurable thing to watch is whether the PCR call category that is already being counted is ever converted into a reportable enforcement statistic.
Discrimination against Northeastern Indians in the cities
1. What the term covers: It refers to differential treatment of people from the eight Northeastern States in housing, employment, education and public spaces in metropolitan India, resting on appearance, language and food practices rather than on caste.
2. The population it affects: Large student and working populations from the region live in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune, most of them outside the State in which their community holds Scheduled Tribe status.
3. The legal position of that status: Scheduled Tribe status is notified State by State, so a person from a Northeastern Scheduled Tribe usually does not hold that status in the city they migrate to, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 therefore does not apply to them there.
4. The institutional response so far: It has been organised around policing and helplines rather than around anti discrimination law.
Laws and Rules Governing Racial and Ethnic Discrimination
1. Constitution of India, Article 15: It prohibits discrimination by the State on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and Article 19(1)(e) protects the right to reside and settle in any part of India.
2. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: It penalises promoting enmity between groups on grounds of race, language, place of birth or residence, and it does not recognise racist motivation as an aggravating circumstance in an offence against the person.
3. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989: It provides enhanced penalties and special courts for offences against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and its protection follows the State specific notification of that status.
4. The Bezbaruah Committee, 2014: Set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs after the Lajpat Nagar killing, it recommended a dedicated penal provision against racial discrimination and fast track courts for such cases, and the penal provision has not been enacted.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2026, GS1, 10.0 marks] Unity in diversity remains the defining feature of Indian society despite the challenges from communalism and regionalism. Comment.”
September 10, 2026
GRSE launches indigenous vessel for deep-sea research
Why in the News
Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) has launched Sagar Manthan, an indigenously built ocean research vessel for the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR). The Rs 840 crore vessel is being built for the Ministry of Earth Sciences and is expected to be ready for use by early 2028. India’s existing ocean research ships were built abroad, and its polar voyages have run on chartered vessels. The capability being added is therefore the domestic construction of the platform itself, not a new branch of ocean science.
What has actually been launched?
1. The vessel and the builder: Sagar Manthan is an ocean research vessel built at GRSE, the Kolkata based defence shipyard under the Ministry of Defence.
2. The cost and the date: The vessel costs Rs 840 crore and is expected to be ready for use by early 2028.
3. What a launch is: Launch is the stage at which the completed hull enters the water, and outfitting, sea trials and delivery to the user follow it.
Why does an indigenously built research vessel matter?
1. The existing fleet came from abroad: The oceanographic research vessel Sagar Kanya was built in Germany and delivered in 1983, and Sagar Nidhi was built in Italy and delivered in 2008.
2. Polar voyages run on hired ships: Indian Antarctic expeditions have been carried on chartered ice class vessels rather than on an Indian owned polar research ship.
3. The capability stays onshore: Building a scientific platform domestically keeps design, repair and refit capacity inside the country, which shortens the turnaround between expeditions.
Where does the vessel fit in India’s ocean programme?
1. The Deep Ocean Mission: Approved in 2021, the mission is developing the crewed submersible Matsya-6000 under the Samudrayaan project to carry three people to a depth of 6,000 metres.
2. India’s seabed exploration rights: India holds an exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority for polymetallic nodules in the Central Indian Ocean Basin, and a second contract for polymetallic sulphides on the Indian Ocean Ridge, both of which require sustained survey and sampling at sea.
Challenges to India’s deep-sea research capability
1. Programme timelines slip: Deep sea hardware moves from design to sea trials over years, and the science schedule is rebuilt each time a date moves. Eg. The crewed dive under the Samudrayaan project has slipped repeatedly from its original 2022 target.
  The Fix: Publish dated milestones for each mission element and release funding tranches against those milestones rather than against annual budget cycles.
2. Exploration rights do not convert into extraction: A seabed contract permits survey and testing, and commercial recovery waits on an international mining code that has not been adopted. Eg. Negotiations on the seabed mining code at the International Seabed Authority have run for over a decade without a final text.
  The Fix: Use the contract period to build a domestic metallurgical route for processing nodule metals, so capability exists before the code opens extraction.
3. The polar operating window is narrow: A hull without ice strengthening cannot work in polar waters for most of the year, so polar science is compressed into a short season. Eg. Resupply of India’s Antarctic research stations is confined to the austral summer.
  The Fix: Commission a dedicated ice class polar research vessel alongside this platform, rather than treating one research hull as cover for both tropical and polar work.
Conclusion
The hull is in the water and the science is still two years away, since launch is the start of outfitting rather than the end of construction. What the milestone settles is that India can build this class of ship for itself. What it does not settle is the shortage of sea time against a mandate that runs from the Arctic to the Antarctic and across the Indian Ocean seabed. The marker to watch is whether a dedicated ice class polar vessel is sanctioned to sit alongside it, or whether polar expeditions continue on chartered ships after this one is delivered.
Back2Basics
1. What NCPOR is: Set up in 1998 as the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, and renamed the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research in 2018.
2. Status and location: An autonomous institute of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, based at Vasco da Gama in Goa.
3. Mandate: The nodal agency for India’s polar and Southern Ocean research, which plans and executes the annual Antarctic and Arctic expeditions.
4. Stations it runs: Maitri and Bharati in Antarctica, and Himadri at Ny-Alesund in Svalbard in the Arctic.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2026] Which of the following statements with regard to India’s Deep Ocean Mission is/are correct? 1. It was launched by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India. 2. Matsya-6000 has been designed to carry 3 people for deep sea exploration. 3. Samudrayaan is a project under this mission. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 2 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 ANSWER: (b)”
September 10, 2026
IAEA’s board reports Iran to UN Security Council for ‘failure to cooperate in probe’
Why in the News
The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, has reported Iran to the UN Security Council. The referral cites Iran’s failure to cooperate with a long-running investigation into uranium traces that inspectors detected at undeclared sites. This is the first such referral in 20 years. The step had been under consideration since June 2025, when the Board found Iran officially in non-compliance with its non-proliferation obligations over the same lack of cooperation. Referral opens Iran to sanctions and asset freezes, and Iran’s allies on the Council hold vetoes that make such measures unlikely.
How did the Board vote?
1. The margin: Twenty-three of the 35 members of the Board of Governors voted for the resolution at the Agency’s headquarters in Vienna, in a closed-door session.
2. The opposition: China, Russia and Niger voted against. Eight members abstained and one did not vote because it was in arrears.
3. The movers: The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
What is the investigation actually about?
1. The finding: Inspectors detected uranium traces at sites that Iran had not declared to the Agency.
2. The Western reading: Western officials suspect the traces could evidence a secret nuclear weapons programme that ran until 2003.
3. Iran’s stated position: Iran says it is not pursuing nuclear weapons and that its programme is entirely peaceful.
What does a Security Council referral change?
1. The formal consequence: Referral opens Iran to possible sanctions and asset freezes decided by the Council.
2. The practical limit: Russia and China are allies of Iran and hold veto power on the Council, so punitive measures are unlikely to pass.
3. What it does accomplish: The referral moves a technical safeguards finding onto the agenda of the UN’s political enforcement body.
How has Iran responded?
1. Rejection of the resolution: Iran’s Ambassador to the UN in Vienna described the resolution as a “political tool”.
2. A charge against the Agency: The same response said the resolution ruined confidence in the IAEA’s “independence, impartiality and credibility”.
3. Access ruled out for the present: Iran indicated that compliance with any obligation to allow UN inspections of nuclear sites inside the country is impossible at the moment.
Challenges to the IAEA safeguards system
1. Verification depends on the cooperation of the state being verified: Inspectors reach only what the safeguards agreement and the host state permit. Eg. Iran stopped implementing the Additional Protocol, its expanded access arrangement, in February 2021 and removed Agency surveillance cameras from declared sites in June 2022.
  The Fix: Make continued Additional Protocol implementation a standing condition of any sanctions relief, so access is not the first item traded away.
2. The Additional Protocol is voluntary: Detection of undeclared activity rests on an instrument states join at their own choice. Eg. Additional Protocols are in force for over 130 states, and several with significant nuclear programmes have never brought one into effect.
  The Fix: Tie nuclear fuel and technology supply to an Additional Protocol in force, so the instrument becomes a condition of trade rather than a favour.
3. Enforcement stops at the Security Council: The Board can find non-compliance and refer, and only the Council can impose a consequence. Eg. Iran was referred to the Council in 2006 and the sanctions that followed did not end enrichment.
  The Fix: Build graduated Agency-level consequences, such as suspension of technical cooperation and of Board voting rights, that do not require a Council vote.
4. Referral turns a technical file into a political one: A state that reads a safeguards finding as coercion withdraws the access the finding was meant to secure. Eg. North Korea expelled inspectors in December 2002 and announced withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in January 2003 as its safeguards dispute escalated.
  The Fix: Keep a standing technical channel open alongside the political track, so the inspection relationship survives the escalation.
Conclusion
The Board has taken the file as far as its own authority extends. The Council can now take it up and is unlikely to act on it. That leaves an investigation with no route to completion and an inspection relationship that Iran now says it cannot honour. The marker to watch is whether the Agency retains any access inside Iran during the period the matter sits with the Council.
Back2Basics: International Atomic Energy Agency
1. Establishment: Set up in 1957 under its own Statute, following the “Atoms for Peace” address to the UN General Assembly in 1953.
2. Status and reporting: An autonomous organisation within the UN system, headquartered in Vienna, reporting annually to the General Assembly and to the Security Council where required.
3. Mandate: Promotes peaceful uses of nuclear technology and applies safeguards to verify that nuclear material is not diverted to weapons use.
4. Safeguards instruments: Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements are required of non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT. The Additional Protocol adds inspector access to undeclared locations.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2020] In India, why are some nuclear reactors kept ‘IAEA Safeguards’ while others are not? (a) Some use uranium and others use thorium (b) Some use imported uranium and others use domestic supplies (c) Some are operated by foreign enterprises and others are operated by domestic (d) Some are State-owned and others are privately-owned ANSWER: (b)”
September 10, 2026
MHA proposes new Chapter ‘K’ under Article 371 for Ladakh
Why in the News
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has proposed an elected body for the Union Territory of Ladakh through a new constitutional provision under Article 371, in a proposed Chapter K. The proposal answers a demand pressed since 2019, when Ladakh was made a Union Territory without a legislative assembly after the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir lost its special status under Article 370. Civil society representatives who attended the meeting with Ministry officials said they were shown a presentation naming Chapter K but were given no detailed draft proposal. The tension is that the Centre has named a constitutional route. The bodies representing Ladakh continue to demand Statehood and Sixth Schedule status, which the proposed route does not deliver.
What is Article 371?
1. Where it sits: Article 371 falls under Part XXI of the Constitution, which deals with temporary, transitional and special provisions.
2. How it is structured: It currently carries chapters running from A to J, each inserted to give a named State a specific safeguard.
3. Where it applies: It is currently applicable in 12 States, namely Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim and Karnataka.
What has the Ministry of Home Affairs actually proposed?
1. A directly elected body: The Ministry stated that the intended Union Territory level body would be elected by direct election.
2. The subjects it would legislate on: The body would have legislative powers with respect to land, culture and language, forest, environment, natural resources, and any other subject matter reserved for the Union Territory under Article 240, which empowers the President to make regulations for certain Union Territories.
3. The Centre’s characterisation of it: The Ladakh Chief Secretary, who attended the meeting, described the broad contours of a sui generis model of governance under Article 371 as having been discussed, with deepening democracy as the goal.
Why are the Ladakh bodies dissatisfied?
1. Nothing new was tabled: The Leh Apex Body (LAB) said the meeting was a reiteration of the earlier meeting held on 22 May.
2. A presentation is not a text: The representatives were given a presentation mentioning Chapter K but were yet to receive a detailed draft proposal from the Ministry.
3. The assurance sought was not given: A climate activist who was part of the delegation said the meeting was not a complete success, since no draft assuring protection under Article 371 was provided.
What else did the two bodies ask for?
1. A freeze on major administrative decisions: The LAB and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) asked that the Lieutenant-Governor of Ladakh take no major decisions on administration, bureaucracy or land until the proposed constitutional safeguards are in place.
2. A legislative deadline: They pressed for the legislation to be passed in the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament.
3. Compensation for the dead: They sought compensation for the families of the victims of the violence that broke out in Leh city on 24 September 2025, where four people were killed in police firing.
4. Withdrawal of cases against protesters: They sought the withdrawal of criminal cases against 80 people, on the lines of the protection given to participants in the “Gen Z protest” at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in July.
How did Ladakh reach this point?
1. The 2019 reorganisation: After Ladakh lost its special status under Article 370 as part of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, it was turned into a Union Territory without a legislative assembly in 2019.
2. The standing demands: The LAB and the KDA have since demanded Statehood and tribal status for Ladakh, the latter sought through inclusion in the Sixth Schedule, which provides for autonomous district councils with powers over land, forests and customary law.
3. The substantive grievance: Both bodies have sought a larger role for local residents in decisions relating to land and infrastructure projects.
4. The violence followed the demand: The Leh protest at which four people were killed had been called to demand constitutional safeguards.
Challenges to a Chapter K arrangement for Ladakh
1. The route requires a constitutional amendment the executive cannot enact alone: Each existing chapter of Article 371 was inserted by Parliament through an amendment, so a proposal remains a proposal until a Bill is passed. Eg. Article 371G for Mizoram was inserted by the Constitution (Fifty-third Amendment) Act, 1986.
  The Fix: Circulate a draft Bill text to the representative bodies before introduction, so the safeguard is negotiated on words rather than on assurances.
2. Legislative power without financial power leaves the body dependent: An elected body that legislates on land and environment but draws its budget from the Centre can be constrained through the purse rather than through law. Eg. The Union Territory of Puducherry has a legislative assembly and still depends on central transfers for most capital spending.
  The Fix: Attach a defined statutory transfer to the Union Territory body, so its listed subjects carry the money to administer them.
3. The reserved subjects are exactly the contested ones: Land, forest and natural resources are the subjects on which large central projects in Ladakh turn, so the overlap with Union Territory administration is immediate. Eg. Large renewable energy projects planned in Ladakh require substantial allocations of pasture land.
  The Fix: Specify in the chapter itself which land transactions require the elected body’s concurrence, rather than leaving the boundary to executive practice.
4. A Union Territory model does not carry Sixth Schedule protections: Autonomous district councils under the Sixth Schedule hold defined powers over customary law and land alienation that a Union Territory legislature does not automatically acquire. Eg. The Bodoland Territorial Council draws its authority from the Sixth Schedule rather than from a State legislature’s delegation.
  The Fix: State expressly whether the new chapter forecloses or preserves the Sixth Schedule claim, so the two demands are not treated as interchangeable.
Conclusion
The Centre has moved from resisting a constitutional route to naming one, and that is the substantive shift here. What the two sides are negotiating is no longer whether Ladakh gets an elected body, but how much of land, environment and resources that body actually controls. Those subjects are also where the Union Territory administration’s own powers sit, and the proposal has not yet said which prevails. The marker to watch is whether a draft text reaches the representative bodies before a Bill is introduced, since a presentation cannot be negotiated.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2013, GS2, 10.0 marks] Recent directives from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas are perceived by the `Nagas’ as a threat to override the exceptional status enjoyed by the State. Discuss in light of Article 371A of the Indian Constitution.”
September 10, 2026
India has to act on its ‘sugar’ problem
Why in the News
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the statutory food regulator, has proposed that packaged foods high in fat, salt or sugar carry a bold red warning on the front of the pack rather than in fine print on the back. The proposal follows prodding by the Supreme Court. It arrives against a childhood disease load that the World Obesity Atlas 2026 puts at 41 million overweight or obese Indians aged 5 to 19. The tension is that a warning label works on disclosure. The demand it targets is set by price, and India’s tax design currently charges a sugared drink and its zero sugar counterpart the same rate.
What is the proposed front-of-pack warning label?
1. What it marks: A bold red warning is placed on the front of a pack that is high in fat, salt or sugar, so the classification is visible at the point of choosing.
2. What it replaces: The same information currently sits in the back of pack nutrition declaration, which is read after purchase rather than before it.
3. What it is for: A person picking up instant noodles, a breakfast cereal or a health drink is told at a glance that the product is not as wholesome as its advertising claims.
How large is the childhood problem?
1. The headline count: 41 million Indian children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 are now overweight or obese.
2. The clinical trend: The number of children presenting with morbid obesity and diabetes has climbed sharply within a few years.
3. The driver is composition, not appetite: The rise is not only a matter of children eating more, it is a matter of what they are being sold.
How is the market shaping what children eat?
1. Products are sold as filling a dietary gap: Breakfast cereals, sweetened yoghurts and health drinks are marketed to parents as making up shortfalls in a child’s diet, emphasising energy and vitamins while saying little about sugar content.
2. The same product is formulated differently by market: In 2024 a leading multinational was found adding sugar to infant food sold in India and other lower income countries, with sugar left out of the same product in Europe.
3. Correction came from publicity, not regulation: A health drink popular in Indian homes turned out to be flavoured sugar syrup, and it took a social media storm rather than a regulator to force a 15 per cent cut in its added sugar.
4. Unhealthy calories are priced to pocket money: An energy drink popular among teenagers is priced at Rs 20 and packs close to 17 grams of sugar, caffeine and artificial colour into a single bottle, and its label saying it is not meant for children stops nobody from buying it.
5. Proximity to schools compounds it: Studies show that around schools and colleges the cheapest and most easily available snacks are also the least healthy.
Where does the label stop short?
1. School canteen norms are advisory: The FSSAI and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) have long recommended what schools should not sell, optional rules get treated as optional, and canteens stock whatever sells cheapest.
2. The rule ends at organised retail: Most of India’s sugar, salt and trans fat is eaten unbranded from street stalls, dhabas and sweet shops, none of which is required to declare anything.
3. The unregulated half of the plate is untouched: A red label on a biscuit packet does nothing about the jalebi sold loose beside it.
4. Enforcement, not knowledge, is the missing input: A red warning label works only if it is actually enforced, and none of the underlying evidence about these products was ever secret.
What does the United Kingdom’s levy show that India’s Goods and Services Tax slab does not?
1. The United Kingdom taxed in tiers by sugar content: The soft drinks industry levy set thresholds by sugar concentration, so a manufacturer could lower its tax bill by changing the product.
2. The response was reformulation, not repricing: Manufacturers reformulated their drinks to slip below the tax threshold rather than raise prices, and sugar consumption fell among both children and adults.
3. India taxes the category, not the sugar: Since September 2025 aerated and sweetened beverages, sugar free versions included, have been folded into one 40 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) slab.
4. The design removes the incentive it should create: A normal cola and its zero sugar counterpart pay the same tax, so a manufacturer has no reason to cut sugar.
Does the objection that a sugar tax hits the poor hardest hold?
1. The objection is not wrong: A consumption tax on a cheap product takes a larger share of a poorer household’s spending, and that is the standard case against it.
2. It is only half the argument: Unregulated cheap sugar already extracts a heavy price from the poor, who bear the brunt of the diabetes, hypertension and childhood obesity that sugar heavy diets drive, with the least means to treat it.
3. Inaction is itself a charge: Doing nothing is not neutral, it is a slower and costlier tax paid in ill health rather than in rupees at the till.
4. The design answers the objection: A tax calibrated to sugar content nudges reformulation, and part of the revenue set aside to make healthy food cheaper offsets the burden on the households least able to absorb it.
Challenges to the front-of-pack warning label
1. A binary threshold invites formulation just below the line: A single high in fat, salt or sugar cut off rewards a product that sits marginally under it as much as one that is genuinely reformulated. Eg. The United Kingdom’s tiered levy was designed precisely to reward movement between bands rather than a single pass or fail.
  The Fix: Publish the underlying nutrient values on the front of the pack alongside the warning, so the distance from the threshold is visible rather than collapsed into one mark.
2. Loose and cooked food carries no declaration duty: The disclosure obligation attaches to a package, so the food sold without one falls outside the rule entirely. Eg. Sweet shops, dhabas and street stalls supply a large share of India’s added sugar and declare nothing.
  The Fix: Extend a simplified menu board declaration to registered food service outlets above a turnover threshold, starting with chains that already standardise recipes.
3. Advisory school norms carry no consequence: A recommendation to schools on what not to sell creates no liability for a canteen that ignores it. Eg. FSSAI and CBSE guidance on school canteens has stood for years without changing what canteens stock.
  The Fix: Make the school canteen standards a condition of affiliation, so non compliance is enforced by the board that already inspects the school.
4. Marketing to children is not restricted alongside the label: A warning on the pack competes with advertising that positions the same product as a nutritional supplement for a growing child. Eg. Health drinks and sweetened cereals are advertised to parents on energy and vitamin content.
  The Fix: Set enforceable limits on the promotion of products carrying the warning mark to audiences under eighteen, rather than relying on industry self regulation.
Conclusion
A warning label changes what a buyer knows and leaves untouched what a buyer pays. The regulator is correcting a disclosure failure, and the tax code is holding the composition incentive flat; the two are pulling against each other inside the same policy. What has to change is the tax base: calibrating the levy to sugar content is what turns a consumer nudge into a producer obligation, and the label alone will not do it. The markers to watch are whether the labelling regulation is notified as mandatory rather than advisory, and whether the single beverage slab is broken into sugar linked tiers.
Non-Communicable Diseases in India
1. What they are: Non communicable diseases are long duration conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory illness, driven by diet, tobacco, alcohol and physical inactivity rather than by infection.
2. Their share of mortality: They account for about 66 per cent of total deaths in India, with cardiovascular diseases at 28 per cent and chronic respiratory diseases at 12 per cent.
3. The scale and the age profile: An estimated 6.1 million Indians die of a non communicable disease each year, and roughly one in four Indians faces the risk of dying from one before the age of 70.
4. The economic cost: India is projected to lose 4.58 trillion dollars by 2030 to non communicable diseases and mental health disorders.
Laws and Rules Governing Non-Communicable Disease Prevention
1. Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006: It replaced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 and created a single regulator for food standards, labelling and safety across the food chain.
2. Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020: They set the mandatory nutrition declaration and per serve information that the front of pack proposal is built on top of.
3. Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003: It bans advertising, restricts sale to minors and mandates pictorial health warnings, and it is the domestic precedent for a graphic warning driving consumption behaviour.
Government Initiatives for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention
1. Eat Right India: An FSSAI campaign to promote safe, healthy and sustainable food, working through certification of workplaces, campuses and eateries.
2. National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases: It funds population level screening for hypertension, diabetes and common cancers through district and community health centres.
3. Fit India Movement and POSHAN Abhiyaan: The first targets physical inactivity through schools and workplaces, the second targets undernutrition and anaemia in children and mothers.
Challenges in Non-Communicable Disease Prevention
1. Surveillance is event based rather than predictive: Data for communicable disease, non communicable disease and animal health is collected in separate vertical silos, so a risk trend is visible only after it becomes a caseload. Eg. Childhood obesity data reaches policy through a periodic survey rather than a continuous registry.
  The Fix: Merge the vertical disease reporting streams into a single district level dashboard with a fixed reporting cycle.
2. Primary care cannot sustain lifelong treatment: A non communicable disease requires uninterrupted medication, and the network closest to the patient is the least reliably supplied. Eg. Only 60 per cent of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs reported a dependable supply of essential non communicable disease drugs.
  The Fix: Tie the facility’s drug budget to its registered patient load rather than to a flat allocation, so supply scales with the panel it serves.
3. Three disease burdens compete for the same budget: India simultaneously carries infectious disease, rising non communicable disease and emerging zoonotic threats, and health spending is allocated against outbreaks first. Eg. Prevention programmes are routinely reprioritised when an epidemic draws staff and funds.
  The Fix: Ring fence a fixed share of the health budget for prevention that cannot be reallocated to outbreak response within the year.
4. Fiscal tools are used on tobacco but not on diet: Higher taxation is accepted as a public health instrument for tobacco and is treated as a revenue question for sugar and salt. Eg. India’s beverage taxation was reorganised in September 2025 without any sugar content differential.
  The Fix: Earmark a defined share of any diet related levy for subsidising fruit, vegetables and pulses, so the instrument is visibly a health measure rather than a revenue measure.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2018] Consider the following statements: 1. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 replaced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. 2. The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) is under the charge of Director General of Health Services in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (a)”
September 10, 2026
India’s Lohum ships first lithium ore from Zimbabwe
Why in the News
Lohum, an Indian producer of critical minerals, has dispatched its first shipment of lithium ore from Zimbabwe. The shipment marks the start of its mining operations in the southern African country and makes it the first domestic company to produce lithium from overseas assets. India has no commercial lithium production of its own, and its battery supply chain runs on imported cells and refined lithium compounds. The tension is that ore is not a battery input until it is converted into a lithium chemical, and that conversion capacity sits almost entirely outside India.
What does the Zimbabwe holding contain?
1. The blocks: Lohum has secured rights to 10 lithium mining blocks in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South Province, covering about 1,100 hectares.
2. The resource estimate: The blocks carry estimated deposits of 30 million to 40 million tonnes of ore.
3. What that converts to: The assets are expected to support production of around 3,00,000 metric tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, the standard unit that restates any lithium bearing material as the weight of lithium carbonate it would yield.
4. The valuation: The holding carries an estimated value of about $7 billion at current prices.
Why does this matter for India’s mineral security?
1. The domestic find is not yet a mine: An inferred resource of 5.9 million tonnes of lithium ore at Salal-Haimana in Reasi district, Jammu and Kashmir, announced in 2023, has been put to auction and failed to draw a successful bidder across two rounds.
2. State led acquisition has moved slowly: Khanij Bidesh India Ltd, a joint venture of National Aluminium Company, Hindustan Copper and Mineral Exploration and Consultancy, signed an exploration and development agreement in January 2024 for five lithium brine blocks in Argentina’s Catamarca province, and that project is still at the exploration stage.
3. The demand is already committed: Lithium is the irreducible input for the lithium ion cells that India’s electric vehicle programme and its grid storage tenders depend on, and those cells are currently imported.
Where does Zimbabwe sit in global lithium supply?
1. Africa’s largest producer: Zimbabwe is the largest lithium producer in Africa and holds the continent’s largest hard rock lithium reserves, in spodumene and petalite bearing pegmatites.
2. Chinese firms own the major assets: The main producing mines are Chinese owned, including Bikita, Arcadia and Sabi Star, which is why an Indian entry into the country’s lithium sector is notable in itself.
3. The beneficiation push: Zimbabwe barred exports of unprocessed lithium ore in December 2022 to force value addition inside the country, and has signalled further restrictions on exporting lithium concentrate.
Challenges to overseas critical mineral acquisition
1. Host country rules change after the capital is committed: Resource nationalism converts an export project into a processing obligation once the mine is built, and the investor has no exit. Eg. Indonesia banned nickel ore exports in January 2020 and forced foreign investors to build smelters inside the country.
  The Fix: Negotiate a stabilisation clause and a fixed export window into the mining agreement before the first tranche of capital is drawn.
2. Price risk is severe in this mineral: Lithium prices fell by roughly 80% from their late 2022 peak, which stranded projects sanctioned at the top of the cycle. Eg. Several Australian spodumene operations curtailed output or went on care and maintenance through 2024.
  The Fix: Anchor project financing to a long term offtake contract carrying a floor price, rather than to spot lithium prices.
3. Refining is the real chokepoint: Ore has no use in a cell until it is converted to battery grade carbonate or hydroxide, and China holds the majority of global lithium chemical refining capacity. Eg. Cell manufacturing under India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell battery storage still depends on imported cathode active material.
  The Fix: Make an approved domestic conversion plant a condition attached to state support for any overseas mining acquisition.
4. The logistics run through a third country: Zimbabwe is landlocked, so every tonne of ore moves overland to a port in Mozambique or South Africa before it can be shipped. Eg. The Beira and Durban corridors carry the bulk of Zimbabwe’s mineral exports and are the constraint on volume.
  The Fix: Contract long term rail and port slots on the corridor rather than moving cargo on spot road haulage.
Conclusion
An Indian company now has ore coming out of the ground abroad, which is a step no domestic firm had taken before in lithium. What that changes is access to the raw material. What it does not change is the conversion and cell making capacity that turns ore into a battery, which still sits elsewhere. The marker to watch is whether this shipment is followed by a committed conversion facility, in Zimbabwe or in India, since a mining right without a refinery leaves the dependence exactly where it was.
Back2Basics
1. National Critical Mineral Mission: Launched in January 2025 and administered by the Ministry of Mines, to build self reliance across the critical mineral value chain.
2. Outlay: Rs 16,300 crore of government expenditure over seven years, alongside an expected Rs 18,000 crore of investment by public sector undertakings.
3. Coverage: Exploration within India and in offshore areas, acquisition of mineral assets abroad, recycling of end of life products, stockpiling, and domestic processing capacity.
4. The list it works from: The 30 minerals identified as critical for India in 2023, which include lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and the rare earth elements.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2026] Which of the following statements about Rare Earth Elements (REEs) and Critical Minerals is/are correct? 1. Modern technological innovations including Artificial Intelligence, robotics and space exploration extensively utilise Rare Earth Elements (REEs). 2. China has the highest share in mining of REEs followed by India. 3. The Government of India launched the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) in 2025 to establish a robust framework for self-reliance in the critical mineral sector. 4. Rare Earth Elements are a set of 13 metallic elements. Select the answer using the code given below: (a) 1 and 3 only (b) 3 only (c) 1, 3 and 4 (d) 1, 2 and 4 ANSWER: (a)”
September 10, 2026
India, Sri Lanka sign three defence sector MoUs during Rajnath’s visit
Why in the News
India and Sri Lanka have signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on defence equipment and training. The agreements cover the upgradation of L70 guns for the Sri Lanka Air Force and cooperation between the National Cadet Corps and the National Defence Colleges of the two countries. They follow the seven MoUs signed during the Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka in 2025, one of which was an overarching defence sector agreement. This is the first visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Sri Lanka in nearly 40 years. Colombo used the meeting to repeat that its territory will not be used against India’s security interests, and to state that it enters agreements with countries around the world as a sovereign State.
What do the three agreements cover?
1. Air defence equipment: One MoU covers the upgradation of L70 guns for the Sri Lanka Air Force. The L70 is a 40 mm towed anti-aircraft gun of Bofors design, in service with air defence units across South Asia.
2. Cadet training: A second covers cooperation between the National Cadet Corps of the two countries, the youth military training organisations that run school and college level cadet programmes.
3. Professional military education: The third covers cooperation between the National Defence Colleges, which train senior officers and civil officials in national security strategy.
What else did the two sides take up?
1. The scope of the talks: The Defence Minister and the Sri Lankan President held extensive discussions on strengthening the defence, economic, maritime and regional partnerships between the two countries.
2. Narcotics: The Sri Lankan President briefed the visiting Defence Minister on an islandwide programme recently launched to combat drug trafficking.
3. Fisheries: The two leaders paid special attention to the fisheries issue in the Palk Strait.
How did Colombo frame its assurance to India?
1. The security assurance repeated: The Sri Lankan President recalled his interactions with the Prime Minister and reiterated that Sri Lanka would never allow its territory to be used for activities inimical to India’s security interests.
2. A sovereignty qualifier alongside it: His office stated that Sri Lanka takes its decisions considering both national and regional interests.
3. Room left for other partners: The same statement said Sri Lanka enters agreements with countries around the world as a sovereign State, remaining mindful of regional security.
Challenges to India-Sri Lanka defence cooperation
1. The fisheries dispute cuts against the security relationship: Bottom trawling by Indian vessels in Palk Bay waters produces arrests of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy every year. Eg. Sri Lankan authorities detained hundreds of Indian fishermen and dozens of boats in 2024.
  The Fix: Convert the Joint Working Group on Fisheries into a scheduled mechanism with a funded deep-sea transition plan for Tamil Nadu trawler owners.
2. Third-country naval access remains unsettled: Port calls by foreign research and survey vessels sit outside the bilateral defence understanding and are settled politically each time. Eg. The Chinese vessel Yuan Wang 5 docked at Hambantota in August 2022, and Sri Lanka later announced a one-year moratorium on foreign research vessels from January 2024.
  The Fix: Agree a standing notification and clearance protocol for survey and research vessels, so each visit follows a rule rather than a negotiation.
3. Colombo’s fiscal position limits what it can absorb: Defence modernisation competes with debt servicing. Eg. Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt in April 2022 and entered an International Monetary Fund programme in March 2023.
  The Fix: Structure transfers as grant-funded upgrades and training rather than as credit lines that add to the external debt stock.
4. Political turnover reopens settled agreements: An understanding reached with one government has been cancelled by the next. Eg. The 2019 agreement with India and Japan to develop the East Container Terminal at Colombo Port was cancelled by Sri Lanka in 2021.
  The Fix: Anchor cooperation in institution-to-institution channels such as the annual defence dialogue and the Colombo Security Conclave, so continuity does not rest on one leadership.
Conclusion
Defence cooperation with Colombo has moved from a framework agreement to named equipment and training projects. Colombo has given the assurance India wanted and has paired it with a stated right to sign agreements elsewhere. Those two positions have not yet had to be reconciled in a concrete case, and the next one will define the limit of the assurance. The fisheries question is the immediate test, since both sides flagged it at this meeting and neither resolved it.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2022, GS2, 10.0 marks] India is an age-old friend of Sri Lanka.’ Discuss India’s role in the recent crisis in Sri Lanka the light of the preceding statement.”
September 10, 2026
SIR violates promise made by Constituent Assembly
Why in the News
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being challenged as a constitutionally and legally flawed exercise that operates as an exclusion rather than a revision, on the ground that 13 crore citizens stand removed from the rolls. The argument rests on Article 326, on Article 14, and on the safeguards in Sections 16, 21 and 22 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which permit deletion only after inquiry and a hearing. The Supreme Court endorsed the exercise by its 27 May decision, and that endorsement is itself contested. The tension is between an electoral authority’s power to purify the roll and the citizen’s constitutional entitlement to remain on it until disqualified on a stated ground.
What is the Special Intensive Revision?
1. The exercise: SIR is a focused, time bound house to house enumeration in which Booth Level Officers physically visit households to verify every entry on the electoral roll.
2. How it differs from the annual exercise: The routine summary revision updates the roll on the basis of claims received. SIR verifies each existing entry through door to door checking.
3. What it is meant to remove: Its stated objectives are to confirm the residence of every registered voter, to remove deceased, duplicate and permanently shifted entries, and to register citizens who have newly turned 18.
What is the constitutional entitlement the exercise is measured against?
1. Adult suffrage is the constitutional foundation: Under Article 326, every person who is a citizen of India and not less than 21 years of age, now 18, is entitled to be registered as a voter.
2. The grounds of exclusion are closed: Article 326 permits disqualification only on grounds of non residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or illegal practice, under the Constitution or a law made by the legislature.
3. Voting is therefore not merely statutory: A right whose grounds of denial are fixed by the Constitution itself is not a right that an administrative process may extinguish.
4. Equality applies to the process, not only the outcome: Equality guaranteed to “any person” under Article 14 makes an arbitrary and discriminatory exercise open to challenge, since those removed were electors already on the roll as per law.
Which statutory safeguards are said to have been bypassed?
1. The roll must be prepared under the Act: Part III of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 governs preparation of the electoral roll, and the Election Commission of India (ECI) must prepare it in accordance with that Act.
2. Section 16 fixes the disqualifications: It bars registration where a person is not a citizen of India, is of unsound mind, or is disqualified for corrupt or other practices.
3. Section 21 keys revision to the Census: Revision of rolls proceeds on the existing Census, the last available being that of 2011.
4. Section 22 requires inquiry before deletion: The Electoral Registration Officer may correct an entry only if satisfied after such inquiry as he thinks fit, and only on finding the entry erroneous or defective.
5. A hearing precedes removal: Section 22 gives the person the right to be heard before deletion, and deletion is available where a person is dead or has ceased to be a resident of the constituency.
What is the claimed scale of exclusion, and who carries its cost?
1. The headline number: 13 crore citizens are stated to have been excluded from the rolls.
2. Two States account for a large share: 48 lakh electors were removed in Delhi and 2 crore in Maharashtra.
3. The burden has shifted to the citizen: Booth Level Officers deleted names and the ECI put up lists, leaving the excluded person to establish the claim rather than the authority to establish the ground.
4. Citizenship is not a plausible explanation: The ECI cannot maintain that 13 crore people are foreigners when they were not identified as non citizens over more than a decade.
5. Exclusion travels beyond the ballot: Loss of entitlements such as passports, ration cards, free rations and other benefits follows from the uncertainty over status.
6. Two elections have already been held: Elections to the Bihar and West Bengal assemblies took place in the interim, and the effect of the exclusions on those outcomes can be ascertained only by experts.
What did the Constituent Assembly settle about the franchise?
1. The question was debated directly: The Constituent Assembly took up the integrity of elections on 15 and 16 June 1949.
2. Fairness was treated as beyond argument: R K Sidhwa said he did not think there were two opinions that elections should be fair, pure, honest and impartial.
3. Corruption was not assumed to be a candidate’s monopoly: K M Munshi said the sovereign people must be able to elect their representatives in a manner above suspicion, and that corrupt practices may be committed by the government.
4. Exclusion by official discretion was ruled out: B R Ambedkar said franchise is a most fundamental thing in a democracy, and no person entitled to be brought onto the rolls should be excluded merely by the prejudice of a local government or the whim of an officer.
Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision
1. Documentary proof falls hardest on those least likely to hold it: Requiring legacy documents or a birth certificate excludes citizens whose lives were never recorded in formal registers. Eg. Landless labourers and migrant workers frequently hold no document tying them to a single constituency.
  The Fix: Accept a wider range of residency proofs, including utility bills and community certificates, so absence of a specific document is not treated as absence of entitlement.
2. Grievance redressal runs slower than the deletion it answers: Claims and objections are filed against a deadline the roll itself is racing, so an unresolved claim becomes a deletion by default. Eg. Only a fraction of about 60 lakh claims in West Bengal were resolved before the roll was frozen for polling.
  The Fix: Establish year round appellate tribunals for electoral rolls, so a claim is not extinguished by an election calendar.
3. Field verification carries unreviewable discretion: A Booth Level Officer’s judgement that a household has shifted is recorded without a stated ground and is rarely revisited. Eg. Entries are marked “shifted” on a single visit at which no member of the household was present.
  The Fix: Require geo tagged verification with a recorded reason for each adverse marking, so an official decision is traceable to a place and a date.
4. Fear of a citizenship test suppresses cooperation: Households that read the exercise as a screening of nationality withhold documents, which itself produces the deletion they feared. Eg. Residents in border districts have declined to submit papers on the view that the exercise is a stealth register of citizens.
  The Fix: State in the enumeration form itself that the exercise determines registration alone and creates no finding on citizenship.
Conclusion
The exercise and the Constitution are answering two different questions. The ECI is asking who can prove entitlement, and Article 326 asks who can be disqualified on a stated ground; those are not the same test. Until that is resolved, an administrative default operates as a disqualification the Constitution does not list. The marker to watch is whether the deletion process is required to record a ground and a hearing for each name, since that is where a revision separates from an exclusion.
What is the current status of the right to vote in India?
1. The age threshold: Universal adult suffrage applies at 18, lowered from 21 by the Constitution (Sixty-first Amendment) Act, 1988.
2. The right is exercised through registration: Section 19 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 conditions registration on being 18 or above and ordinarily resident in the constituency.
3. Its legal character is settled: The right to vote is a constitutional and statutory right rather than a fundamental right, so it is enforced through the electoral law rather than under Article 32.
4. Two categories sit outside the ordinary rule: Section 20A provides for overseas electors to be registered, and proxy voting is confined to classified service voters such as members of the armed and paramilitary forces.
Constitutional Provisions Related to Elections and Electoral Rolls
1. Article 324: Vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament, the State legislatures and the offices of President and Vice-President in the ECI.
2. Article 325: Mandates one general electoral roll for every constituency, and bars exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
3. Article 327: Empowers Parliament to make laws on all matters relating to elections, which is the source of the Representation of the People Acts.
4. Article 328: Empowers a State legislature to make election laws where Parliament has not provided for the matter.
5. Article 329: Bars courts from interfering in electoral matters such as delimitation, except through an election petition.
Major debates surrounding electoral roll revision
1. The character of the right: Whether the right to vote should be read as a facet of Article 21 and Article 19(1)(a) rather than as a purely statutory entitlement remains contested in litigation.
2. Whether the ECI may test citizenship: Article 324 confers plenary superintendence, and the question is whether that extends to determining nationality, which is otherwise decided under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and by tribunals.
3. Where the burden of proof sits: One position treats an existing entry as presumptively valid until disproved, and the other treats every entry as unverified until re-established.
4. The judicial review bar: Article 329(b) limits challenges once the election process has begun, which pushes disputes over the roll into the narrow window before notification.
5. Timing relative to polls: An intensive revision immediately preceding an election compresses the claims and objections period, and whether such an exercise should be barred within a fixed period before polling is unsettled.
Laws and Rules Governing Electoral Rolls
1. Representation of the People Act, 1951: Governs the actual conduct of elections, the qualifications and disqualifications of candidates, corrupt practices and election petitions.
2. Sections 80 and 81: An election may be questioned only by an election petition filed in the High Court within 45 days.
3. Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: Lays down the procedural framework for house to house enumeration and verification, and is the subordinate legislation an intensive revision is conducted under.
4. Section 31, Representation of the People Act, 1950: Penalises false declarations made in connection with electoral rolls.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2017] Right to vote and to be elected in India is a (a) Fundamental Right (b) Natural Right (c) Constitutional Right (d) Legal Right ANSWER: (c)”
September 10, 2026
At BRICS, India’s task is to keep the Ukraine peace process moving
Why in the News
The Prime Minister has again urged the Russian President to end the war in Ukraine, at their meeting in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. Two envoys of the U.S. President travelled to Moscow and Kyiv over the same weekend carrying fresh peace proposals, and the guns briefly fell silent during that visit. The U.S. President has followed with a call to the Russian President asking for a swift end to the war so that U.S.-Russia ties can be restored. After more than four and a half years, the war is edging towards the negotiation of an endgame. India chairs BRICS this year, the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa now expanded to eleven members, and hosts its summit in New Delhi this weekend. The settlement itself will be written elsewhere.
Where does the American peace track stand?
1. The 2025 process paused rather than ended: The Alaska process of 2025 produced the Anchorage summit, successive plans and counter-plans, and negotiating rounds at Geneva and Abu Dhabi.
2. Six months of lost momentum: The American initiative stalled as Washington’s attention was taken up by Iran. The U.S. was drawn into the West Asian theatre as a belligerent.
3. The file has been reopened: The U.S. President’s follow-up call to the Russian President confirms the return to Ukraine. A plan or at least a ceasefire may now emerge from a trilateral seating the U.S., Russian and Ukrainian Presidents in one room.
Why did the last bargain collapse?
1. The reported “3+2” formula: Circulating accounts described the Russian President reducing Moscow’s demands to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, with Zaporizhzhia and Kherson beyond that.
2. The Donbas is the sticking point: Russia holds Crimea and insists on the whole of the Donbas, including ground it has not taken.
3. The trade that was offered: Russia offered to let Kyiv keep the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia it could not capture, against an easing of sanctions.
4. Kyiv refused: The U.S. Secretary of State has admitted that Ukraine would not agree. Washington can keep the parties in the room. It cannot make Kyiv cede the Donbas, nor make Moscow accept less than it believes it has won.
What has India actually done, and on what reasoning?
1. A shuttle inside the American track: The External Affairs Minister travelled from Moscow to Kyiv days before the American envoys set out, urging dialogue and diplomacy and carrying a message between the two capitals.
2. No branded Indian plan: China, Switzerland and Turkey each proposed peace frameworks of their own and each effort stalled. India worked inside the existing U.S. peace track instead, offering to help only if both belligerents asked and keeping the Americans informed.
3. The energy position: India holds that cutting oil imports will not stop the war, that its citizens’ energy security is not negotiable, and that sanctions for their own sake are no substitute for diplomacy.
4. The growth argument: Conflict anywhere threatens the growth trajectory on which India expects to reach developed economy status within two decades.
Why does the Global South claim a stake in ending this war?
1. Energy and food costs travelled outward: The war raised energy prices and struck the security of food and fertiliser supplies well beyond the theatre.
2. Balance sheet damage in uninvolved states: It fed inflation and sovereign debt stress in countries with no part in the fighting.
3. Institutional erosion: It frayed the multilateral institutions that smaller states depend on for dispute settlement and finance.
4. Peace as a global public good: Nations with no soldiers near the Dnieper have paid a heavy price, and that gives them standing to press for a settlement.
What can a BRICS chair actually deliver?
1. India will not be in the room: The settlement will be authored in Washington, Moscow and Kyiv, and sealed in a trilateral of the three Presidents.
2. Representation rather than mediation: India’s nudge is an act of representation for a constituency that is watching, is affected, and wants the guns silenced. It is not a claim to a mediator’s role.
3. The summit seats belligerents and no mediator: The New Delhi summit will seat Russia from the European war and Iran from the West Asian one, and neither the United States nor any other mediator.
4. The deliverable is a text: India’s task is to steer a summit declaration that reflects the reality of these conflicts, does not echo the case of any single party, and carries a collective call for peace.
Challenges to the Ukraine peace process
1. A ceasefire needs monitoring that nobody has agreed to provide: A line of contact running over a thousand kilometres cannot be policed by a declaration. Eg. The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 were monitored by an unarmed Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission that logged violations without being able to stop them.
  The Fix: Settle the verification mechanism, its mandate and its funding in the same document that fixes the ceasefire line.
2. Security guarantees for Kyiv have no agreed form: A guarantee that is political rather than legal collapses at the moment it is needed. Eg. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 gave Ukraine assurances in exchange for surrendering Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and those assurances carried no enforcement obligation.
  The Fix: Write any guarantee as a treaty with named guarantors and a stated trigger for action.
3. Sanctions relief and territory move on different clocks: Sanctions can be reimposed and ceded territory cannot be recovered, so the sequencing decides who carries the risk. Eg. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, relief was staged against verified nuclear steps, and the U.S. exit in 2018 showed how fast staged relief reverses.
  The Fix: Tie each stage of relief to a verified and reversible step, with a dispute mechanism agreed before the first stage begins.
4. Europe funds the outcome without negotiating it: The party carrying reconstruction and refugee costs has no seat in the trilateral that would settle them. Eg. European Union states have hosted over four million Ukrainians under temporary protection since 2022.
  The Fix: Seat the parties that will fund reconstruction and enforce sanctions in the negotiation that creates those obligations.
Conclusion
Wars end at a table, and the immediate question is whether one is kept standing. The chair of a plurilateral grouping cannot summon belligerents, and India has not claimed that it can. What a chair can do is put the cost borne by uninvolved states on the record of a summit that both a European and a West Asian belligerent will attend. Watch whether the New Delhi text speaks for the affected rather than for a party.
About BRICS
1. What it is: BRICS is a plurilateral grouping of major emerging economies that coordinates positions on global governance. It began as an investment category and became a geopolitical bloc.
2. Origin and evolution: The acronym “BRIC” was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist. Foreign Ministers first met on the margins of the UN General Assembly in 2006, and the first Leaders’ Summit was held at Yekaterinburg in 2009.
3. Membership: South Africa joined in 2011. Expansion was agreed at the Johannesburg summit of 2023, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joining in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025, taking full membership to eleven. Saudi Arabia participates with its formal status left nuanced, and a “Partner Country” category was introduced in 2024 for states such as Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria.
4. Weight: The grouping holds over 45 percent of the world’s population, about 37 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms, ahead of the G7’s share, and roughly 42 percent of global oil production and exports.
Institutional Initiatives of BRICS
1. New Development Bank: Headquartered in Shanghai, it lends for infrastructure and sustainable development in member and partner states, and has approved over $35 billion in loans.
2. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A $100 billion facility that provides short-term liquidity support to a member under balance of payments pressure.
3. BRICS Pay: A cross-border payment system in pilot stage, intended to settle trade outside the SWIFT messaging network.
4. Partnership on New Industrial Revolution: A cooperation track on artificial intelligence, digitalisation and green technology. A BRICS Space Council was added in 2025 to coordinate deep-space and lunar research.
5. BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre: Set up during the pandemic to support technology transfer and vaccine access across members.
Challenges in BRICS
1. Internal rivalries block strategic cohesion: Two of the largest members carry an unresolved bilateral dispute into every common position. Eg. The India-China boundary dispute has kept security cooperation within the grouping nominal.
  The Fix: Prioritise health, space and education cooperation, where a common position is available without settling the political disputes first.
2. Members run incompatible political systems: Joint declarations cannot carry a common position on human rights or democratic norms. Eg. India and Brazil sit as electoral democracies alongside Russia, China and Iran.
  The Fix: Confine declarations to areas where a shared position genuinely exists, and record differences rather than negotiating the text down to nothing.
3. Slow de-dollarisation: The shift to local currency trade is far behind the rhetoric around it. Eg. The U.S. dollar still settles over 80 percent of global trade.
  The Fix: Deepen bilateral local currency settlement in trade flows that are already balanced, such as rupee-rouble and rupee-dirham arrangements, before attempting a common unit.
4. Expansion risks a talk shop: A wider membership lowers the common denominator of any agreed text. Eg. The Non-Aligned Movement widened steadily and lost the ability to produce decisions.
  The Fix: Formalise admission criteria for Partner Countries, so entry follows economic synergy rather than geopolitical alignment.
5. No charter and no permanent secretariat: The grouping runs on an annual rotating chair and its summit declarations, with nothing tracking implementation between them. Eg. The European Union operates through standing institutions and binding instruments, and BRICS has neither.
  The Fix: Create a small standing secretariat to carry implementation of declarations across chairs.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2026, GS2, 10.0 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”
September 10, 2026

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