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  • DGFT opens an Application Programming Interface facility for the Certificate of Origin on the Trade Connect ePlatform

    Why in News

    The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), the trade regulator under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, introduced an Open Application Programming Interface (API) facility for the Certificate of Origin (CoO) on its Trade Connect ePlatform on 7 September 2026.

    What it does

    1. Open API for the Certificate of Origin: An Application Programming Interface (API) lets one software system request data from another automatically. The facility lets an exporter’s own software connect directly to the CoO portal. Certificate applications then flow through without manual entry on the government site.
    2. Certificate of Origin defined: A Certificate of Origin is a document that certifies the country in which goods were produced. It decides tariff treatment under trade agreements. A preferential CoO unlocks lower duty under a trade pact. A non preferential CoO only states origin without a duty concession.
    3. Trade Connect ePlatform: The Trade Connect ePlatform is a single window hub of trade information and services. It gives exporters tariff data, certification rules, buyer information and trade event listings. It integrates Indian Missions, Export Promotion Councils and Commodity Boards on one system.
    4. Target users: The facility is aimed at Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) exporters. Automated filing cuts the compliance time for repeat exporters.

    Static Context

    1. Paperless issuance: The CoO platform runs as a single point of issuance and validation for both preferential and non preferential certificates. It replaced physical certificate counters with a secure electronic process.
    2. eCoO 2.0: DGFT earlier upgraded the system to eCoO 2.0, which added back to back certificate issuance for re exported goods.
    3. Governing setup: DGFT functions under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It administers the Foreign Trade Policy and issues the Importer Exporter Code.

    [2025] What are the challenges before the Indian economy when the world is moving away from free trade and multilateralism to protectionism and bilateralism? How can these challenges be met? (GS3, 10 marks)

  • Fading alphabet to fresh paint: Dogri scripts a comeback on Jammu signboards

    Why in the News

    New public signboards in Jammu carry area names in Namey Dogra Akhar, the script of the Dogri language, alongside the usual Devanagari for Hindi and Roman for English. Dogri has long been written in Devanagari, with its own script falling into disuse. Civic authorities are putting the boards up at prominent locations and institutions as an attempt to revive that script. Dogri itself carries the full set of formal protections available to an Indian language, at the Union level and in the Union Territory. The tension is that the decision that secured the language, adopting Devanagari to popularise its literature, is the same decision that displaced its script.

    What is Namey Dogra Akhar?

    1. A modified Takri: Namey Dogra Akhar is a modified version of Takri, the original script in which Dogri was written. The name translates as new Dogri script.
    2. It was created to solve a transcription problem: Takri had no vowel signs, so official orders and documents could not be reliably transcribed in it.
    3. The vowels were borrowed from Devanagari: Writers were directed to take vowel signs from Devanagari, which produced the new script. It then entered administrative work alongside Persian, which was already in use.

    Where does Dogri stand as a language?

    1. Family and group: Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Indo-European family that also includes Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. It belongs to the Western Pahari group, a cluster of related languages found mainly in the western Himalayas.
    2. Speakers and spread: It was the primary language of nearly 2.6 million people at the 2011 Census. It is spoken mainly by the Dogras of Jammu and Kashmir’s Jammu division, with smaller groups in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
    3. Formal recognition: Dogri was recognised as one of the 22 scheduled languages under the Eighth Schedule in 2003. It was declared one of the official languages of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in 2020.

    How did the script lose its place in administration?

    1. The first Dogra ruler left it undeveloped: Maharaja Gulab Singh, the first Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, directed his energies at expanding the empire up to Tibet. He found little time to promote or develop Takri.
    2. His successor built the new script into government: Maharaja Ranbir Singh, who ascended the throne in 1856, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian and a reformer who had the civil and criminal laws compiled into the Ranbir Penal Code. The modified script emerged in administrative work during his rule.
    3. Urdu replaced Persian and squeezed the script out: Maharaja Pratap Singh, who succeeded in 1885, replaced Persian with Urdu as the official language to simplify administrative work, since Urdu was already widely used among the local population.
    4. Local use outlasted official use: The Dogri script continued to be used by many local people for several years after it lost its administrative standing.
    5. Three script demands were balanced against each other: Maharaja Hari Singh, who became ruler in 1926, faced British pressure for English in official work and a demand for Hindi in the Dogra heartland. He promoted Devanagari and Roman alongside the Perso-Arabic script used for Urdu.

    Why did reviving the language not revive the script?

    1. A literary body switched scripts to widen readership: The Dogri Sanstha, a literary organisation, adopted the Devanagari script in 1944 to popularise Dogri literature.
    2. The switch bought recognition at the script’s expense: It helped Dogri gain Sahitya Akademi recognition in 1969. It also contributed to the eventual decline of Namey Dogra Akhar.
    3. Academic institutionalisation ran entirely in Devanagari: The University of Jammu set up a Dogri Research Cell in 1971, later upgraded into a full department. The language became a formal subject in affiliated degree colleges in 1987, taught in Devanagari.
    4. The agitations were about the language, not the script: A Dogri Action Committee led by a Dogri poet held demonstrations in 1990 to get the language introduced in schools. An umbrella group, the Dogri Sangharsh Morcha, launched an agitation two years later for inclusion among the scheduled languages, and Dogri entered primary schooling as a third language in 2002.

    What is the current revival attempt?

    1. It began outside government: Civil society members started displaying boards written in Namey Dogra Akhar at religious places and cremation grounds a few years ago. A former principal of the Government Medical College, Jammu led that effort.
    2. It then moved to the municipal body: The same effort approached the Jammu Municipal Corporation to install public signboards, which is how the boards reached prominent locations and institutions.
    3. Teaching is the announced next step: Classes in the Dogri script are to be started, on the stated position that a language cannot survive without its own script.

    Challenges to reviving the Dogri script

    1. Signage does not by itself create readers: A script on a board stays decorative until a population can decode it, and Dogri continues to be taught in Devanagari. Eg. Manipur returned Meitei Mayek to everyday use only after making the script compulsory in schools from 2006.
      The Fix: Introduce the script as a taught component of the existing Dogri syllabus in schools and colleges rather than as an optional cultural add on.
    2. Digital support is thin: A script without fonts, keyboard layouts and rendering support cannot be used in the places where writing now happens. Eg. The Dogra script received its own Unicode block in 2018, and usable fonts and input methods remain scarce.
      The Fix: Commission open licensed fonts and an input method, and require them in Union Territory government publishing so the script has a working digital base.
    3. The written corpus is not accessible: Older material in Takri and its modified successor survives largely in temple and private collections rather than in catalogued, digitised archives. Eg. The National Mission for Manuscripts, set up in 2003, catalogues such holdings, and regional collections in scripts with few readers move slowest through it.
      The Fix: Fund a script specific digitisation and transliteration project, so learners have material to read once they can read it.
    4. Official status has not required the script: Recognition for the language and official language status in the Union Territory brought protection to Dogri without obliging anything to be written in its own script. Eg. Government business in the Union Territory runs in Devanagari, Roman and Perso-Arabic.
      The Fix: Mandate the script on official signage, letterheads and certificates, so demand for literacy follows an actual use.

    Conclusion

    The boards make the script visible before they make it legible, and that gap is where comparable revivals have stalled. Recognition for Dogri arrived through a script that was not its own, which is why formal status has never carried the script along with the language. The marker to watch is whether the promised classes and a place in the school syllabus follow the signboards, since a script survives by being written rather than by being displayed.

    Back2Basics: Eighth Schedule of the Constitution

    1. What it lists: The Eighth Schedule names the languages the Union is obliged to develop and enrich. It currently carries 22 languages, against 14 at the Constitution’s commencement.
    2. Where it is used in the Constitution: Article 344(1) provides for an Official Language Commission whose members are drawn from these languages. Article 351 directs the Union to draw on them in developing Hindi.
    3. How a language is added: Inclusion requires a constitutional amendment. Dogri, Bodo, Maithili and Santhali were the most recent additions, made by the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act.

    [2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.

  • ISRO: EOS-05 to be placed in elliptical geosynchronous orbit

    ISRO: EOS-05 to be placed in elliptical geosynchronous orbit

    Why in the News

    EOS-05, India’s Earth observation satellite, is being placed in a slightly elliptical geosynchronous orbit. It is the first Indian Earth observation satellite to use a geosynchronous orbit. It was launched by GSLV-F17 and is undergoing successive orbit-raising manoeuvres.

    Geosynchronous Orbit

    • Satellite’s orbital period equals Earth’s rotational period.
    • It moves in synchrony with Earth’s rotation.
    • Geostationary orbit is a special type of geosynchronous orbit.
    • Geostationary orbit is:
      • Circular
      • Equatorial
      • At about 35,786 km altitude
    • Geosynchronous orbits can also be inclined or elliptical.

    EOS-05: Significance

    • Uses a slightly elliptical geosynchronous orbit for persistent observation.
    • Can provide continuous monitoring of a specific region.
    • Potential applications include:
      • Weather monitoring
      • Maritime surveillance
      • Strategic applications, including use by the Indian Navy.

    Limitations

    • Lower spatial resolution: Greater distance from Earth compared with LEO satellites.
    • Limited coverage: Persistent observation of one region comes at the cost of wider coverage.
    • Cloud and night limitations: Optical imaging is affected by clouds and darkness.
    • Radar complement: Satellites such as RISAT and NISAR can overcome some optical limitations.
    • Orbital congestion: Requires effective space situational awareness and collision avoidance.

    GSLV: Back to Basics

    • Full form: Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
    • Three-stage launch vehicle developed by ISRO.
    • Uses an indigenous cryogenic upper stage using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
    • Primarily designed for placing satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).
    • Lies between PSLV and LVM3 in the launch vehicle family.

    Prelims Pointers

    • Geosynchronous → Orbital period equal to Earth’s rotation.
    • Geostationary → Circular + equatorial + geosynchronous.
    • Geostationary altitude → ~35,786 km.
    • EOS-05 → Geosynchronous Earth observation mission.
    • GSLV → Geosynchronous transfer orbit.
    • PSLV → Polar/sun-synchronous missions.
    • LVM3 → Higher lift capability than GSLV.
    • IS4OM → Safe and sustainable space operations management.

    “[2018] With reference to India’s satellite launch vehicles, consider the following statements :

    1.PSLVs launch the satellites useful for Earth resources monitoring whereas GSLVs are designed mainly to launch communication satellites.

    2.Satellites launched by PSLV appear to remain permanently fixed in the same position in the sky, as viewed from a particular location on Earth.

    3.GSLV Mk III is a four-stage launch vehicle with the first and third stages using solid rocket motors, and the second and fourth stages using liquid rocket engines.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3

    (c) 1 and 2

    (d) 3 only

  • Antibiotic-resistant infections: Risks, costs

    Why in the News

    Infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria are more likely to kill hospitalised patients in India and cost more to treat than infections caused by drug susceptible strains. A surveillance study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) records higher mortality, longer hospital stays and higher antibiotic costs where the bacteria resist carbapenems, the broad spectrum antibiotics doctors hold in reserve for serious infections. The study links laboratory resistance results to what then happened to the patient, which Indian resistance surveillance had not previously done at this scale. Most of the severe infections it recorded began inside the hospital rather than in the community. The tension it sets up is between the search for the next antibiotic and the routine work of preventing infection in the first place.

    What is antimicrobial resistance?

    1. Bacteria survive the drugs meant to kill them: Resistant bacteria continue to grow and reproduce in the presence of antibiotics designed to stop them. Treatment narrows to whatever the organism still responds to.
    2. Resistance spreads sideways, not only down generations: Resistant bacteria pass resistance genes to their offspring. They also transfer those genes to unrelated bacteria through the exchange of DNA.
    3. Carbapenem resistance closes the reserve line: Carbapenems are held back for serious infections where other antibiotics have already failed. Resistance to them leaves few effective options behind.

    What did the ICMR surveillance study cover?

    1. Scale and period: The ICMR antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance network studied 159,336 hospitalised patients across 20 tertiary care hospitals between April 2022 and April 2025.
    2. Two of the four bacteria tracked: Escherichia coli causes urinary tract infections. Klebsiella pneumoniae triggers both urinary and lung infections.
    3. The other two: Acinetobacter baumannii causes ventilator associated pneumonia, bloodstream infections, wound and surgical site infections, urinary tract infections and sometimes meningitis. Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes bloodstream, eye and ear infections.
    4. Resistance was the majority finding: Almost 61.1 percent of the patients studied carried infections resistant to carbapenem antibiotics.

    How much does carbapenem resistance raise the risk of death?

    1. Escherichia coli: 24.4 percent of patients with carbapenem resistant infections died, against 17.3 percent of those with susceptible infections. That is a 41 percent higher relative risk of death.
    2. Klebsiella pneumoniae: Mortality was 31.2 percent in the resistant group against 23.5 percent in the susceptible group, a 33 percent higher relative risk.
    3. Acinetobacter baumannii: Mortality was 37.9 percent against 32.8 percent, a 16 percent higher relative risk.
    4. Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Mortality was 28.9 percent against 20.2 percent, a 43 percent higher relative risk.
    5. Bloodstream infections carry the heaviest toll: Among patients with carbapenem resistant bloodstream infections, mortality ran from 39.3 percent for E. coli to 50.8 percent for A. baumannii. It was 44.8 percent for K. pneumoniae and 46.4 percent for P. aeruginosa.

    What does resistance add to the cost of treatment?

    1. Escherichia coli: Antibiotic cost averaged about Rs 39,846 per patient for resistant infections against Rs 20,034 for susceptible ones.
    2. Klebsiella pneumoniae: The corresponding figures were about Rs 55,688 and Rs 47,918.
    3. Acinetobacter baumannii: Treatment cost about Rs 62,150 for resistant infections against Rs 41,372 for susceptible ones.
    4. Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Treatment cost about Rs 66,599 for resistant infections against Rs 48,392 for susceptible ones.
    5. The costing is deliberately conservative: Only antibiotics priced under the Jan Aushadhi scheme were counted. Intensive care, bed and room charges, diagnostic investigations, procedures, supportive care and consultation were all left out, so the real burden on patients and the health system is larger.

    Why does the study point to infection control rather than antibiotic overuse?

    1. The severe infections began in the hospital: More than 85 percent of bloodstream infections across the four bacteria were classified as healthcare associated.
    2. The named failure points are procedural: Healthcare associated transmission, invasive devices, recent surgery and gaps in infection prevention and timely diagnosis are what the study identifies. Reducing the problem to antibiotic overuse alone misplaces it.
    3. Antibiotics cannot substitute for prevention: The measures named are hand hygiene, device associated infection prevention, appropriate insertion and early removal of invasive devices, environmental cleaning, surgical infection prevention and surveillance of healthcare associated infections. Prevention stops the reserve antibiotics from being needed at all.
    4. Diagnostics decide whether prescribing is targeted: Timely diagnostics let a doctor identify the resistant organism and select a narrow, appropriate antibiotic. Without them, broad spectrum drugs are used by default.
    5. Surveillance has to reach the patient, not stop at the isolate: Integrated surveillance connecting laboratory results with mortality and treatment outcomes is what produced these findings. Prescribing data alone would not have shown them.

    What the study could not establish

    1. A tertiary hospital population is not a national average: These hospitals manage referred and often critically ill patients, so the level of resistance found there cannot be read as the level in the country.
    2. Key clinical variables were absent: The data carried no patient level information on how sick each patient was, how quickly appropriate treatment began, the source of the infection or the specific resistance mechanism involved.
    3. The findings describe practice, not drug superiority: The results reflect real world treatment patterns in India. They do not prove that one drug is universally better than another.

    Challenges to containing antimicrobial resistance in India

    1. Antibiotics move without a prescription: Schedule H1 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 requires a prescription and a separate sales register for named antibiotics, and compliance at the retail counter is weak. Eg. The Red Line campaign marks such medicines with a red stripe on the pack precisely because the schedule alone was not restricting sales.
      The Fix: Link Schedule H1 sales to an electronic prescription record, so the register is generated by the transaction instead of written up after it.
    2. Non human antibiotic use applies constant selection pressure: Antibiotics used for growth promotion and disease prevention in poultry and aquaculture select for resistant bacteria outside any clinical setting. Eg. India banned colistin, a last resort human antibiotic, in food producing animals in 2019 after its use in poultry farming was documented.
      The Fix: Replace single drug bans with a positive list of permitted veterinary antibiotics, enforced through residue testing at the point of procurement.
    3. Manufacturing effluent breeds resistance in the environment: Antibiotic residues discharged from pharmaceutical plants expose environmental bacteria to sub lethal drug concentrations, which is the condition in which resistance develops. Eg. Water bodies receiving effluent from the pharmaceutical cluster at Patancheru near Hyderabad have recorded high antibiotic concentrations.
      The Fix: Notify enforceable antibiotic residue limits for pharmaceutical effluent and make compliance a condition of the plant’s consent to operate.
    4. Infection prevention has no staffing floor: Most Indian hospitals run no dedicated infection control team to conduct hand hygiene and device audits, so prevention has no one accountable for it. Eg. National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) accreditation requires an infection control programme, and it covers a small share of India’s hospitals.
      The Fix: Make a minimum infection prevention and control staffing norm a condition of hospital empanelment under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
    5. Diagnostic delay forces empirical prescribing: Culture and sensitivity testing capacity sits mainly in large hospitals, and results take days, so smaller facilities start broad spectrum therapy blind. Eg. Rapid molecular testing is routine for drug resistant tuberculosis under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, with no equivalent programme for bacterial bloodstream infections.
      The Fix: Fund rapid molecular resistance testing at district hospital level and tie its use to the hospital’s antibiotic prescribing audit.

    Conclusion

    India’s resistance response has been organised around what is prescribed, because prescribing is what the system can already count. This study relocates the problem to where the infection is acquired, which is a different task with a different owner inside the hospital. The unresolved part is that prevention carries no staffing norm, no dedicated budget line and no measurable output of its own, while prescribing has a surveillance network behind it. The marker to watch is whether prevention starts being counted the way prescribing already is.

    Back2Basics: Jan Aushadhi scheme

    1. What it is: The Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana supplies quality generic medicines at prices well below their branded equivalents.
    2. Who runs it: It is implemented by the Department of Pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, through the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Bureau of India.
    3. How it reaches patients: Medicines are sold through dedicated Janaushadhi Kendras rather than through ordinary retail pharmacies.

    [2019] Which of the following are the reasons for the occurrence of multi-drug resistance in microbial pathogens in India?

    1. Genetic predisposition of some people

    2. Taking incorrect doses of antibiotics to cure diseases

    3. Using antibiotics in livestock farming

    4. Multiple chronic diseases in some people

    Select the correct answer using the code given below.

    (a) 1 and 2

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1, 3 and 4

    (d) 2, 3 and 4

  • Ground control

    Why in the News

    Nine employee associations of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have written to the chairman seeking clarity on staff strength, recruitment and the outsourcing of core functions. The letter was sent on the day the agency recorded its largest success of the year, the launch of its first geosynchronous imaging satellite, EOS-05, on the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The grievance follows from the Indian Space Policy of April 2023, which signalled that ISRO would eventually stop building commercial satellites and launch vehicles and would concentrate on exploratory missions. ISRO has stated that it will not be privatised or reduced, and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), the body set up to enable private participation, has stated that the agency will not be diminished and that only industry’s role must grow. Neither institution has addressed the concern the letter actually raises, which is the loss of jobs. The underlying question is whether the sector’s direction still matches its founding principle, that space technology is an instrument of social development rather than a contest for prestige.

    What does the Indian Space Policy, 2023 set out?

    1. A division of roles: The policy separates the space sector into ISRO, IN-SPACe and NewSpace India Limited, and assigns each a distinct function instead of leaving all of them with ISRO.
    2. ISRO’s redefined remit: ISRO is to move out of routine operational and commercial production of satellites and launch vehicles, and towards research and development in advanced technologies and exploratory missions.
    3. IN-SPACe as the single window: IN-SPACe authorises and supervises the space activities of private entities, so a company deals with one authorising body rather than with the operator of the launch infrastructure.
    4. NewSpace India Limited as the commercial arm: The public sector company under the Department of Space is responsible for commercialising space technologies and platforms developed with public money.

    What are the employee associations asking for?

    1. Staff strength and recruitment: The associations want stated numbers on sanctioned strength and future recruitment, since a shrinking mandate implies a shrinking establishment.
    2. Outsourcing of core functions: The letter distinguishes contracting out manufacturing from contracting out functions the agency treats as core, and seeks clarity on where that line now falls.
    3. The institutional replies avoid the question: Both the agency and the authorisation body have answered on the agency’s continued existence, which was not what was asked.
    4. The timing is the point: The grievance surfaced on a day of technical success, which indicates that the concern is about the institution’s trajectory and not about its capability.

    Which vision of the space programme is the sector following?

    1. The founding principle: The programme was built on a refusal to be drawn into space races and on the use of space technology as a tool for social development, meaning communication, weather and resource mapping for domestic needs.
    2. The competing image: The alternative is space as an emblem of national power, membership of a small club of space faring countries, and a proliferation of startups as evidence of arrival.
    3. The 2035 test the sector is being set: If the sector is to be a source of export earnings and a nucleus of value added services that absorbs skilled labour and creates jobs, hard choices taken now may be justified.
    4. Where the line falls: Joining a bandwagon driven by billionaire ambition and notions of conquest is a different objective from either, and the case for restructuring collapses if that is what it delivers.

    What does the comparison with NASA show?

    1. The budget gap: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) operates on $24.4 billion against the Department of Space’s Rs 13,705 crore, roughly 16 times larger.
    2. NASA also contracted: NASA’s budget fell from 0.7% of American gross domestic product in 1966 to 0.1% now, so its own shift to contracting out followed a sustained loss of fiscal share.
    3. Its establishment shrank with it: NASA’s civil service headcount fell from about 36,000 at the peak of the Apollo programme to about 14,000 today, which is the trajectory ISRO’s employees are reading against.
    4. The unaddressed comparator: China’s space programme has not been seriously reckoned with in India’s planning, and it is the one operating at a scale and cadence that directly bears on India’s position.

    Is the new private base the same as the old one?

    1. ISRO never made everything itself: Unlike NASA in its early years, which designed and made every component, ISRO has always had a manufacturing relationship with private industry, including Walchandnagar Industries and Larsen and Toubro.
    2. The entrants are of a different type: The current activity is not established companies building on decades of manufacturing experience but new entrants funded by foreign capital that may not stay.
    3. The business model has shifted: Most new entrants are interested in satellite data as a service rather than in building hardware, which is a different industrial base from the one that supplied the agency.
    4. The transferable capability is therefore narrower: A vendor base built on data services cannot absorb the manufacturing functions ISRO is being asked to shed.

    Challenges to ISRO’s restructuring

    1. In house capability is easy to lose and slow to rebuild: Skills that live in the hands of a small number of engineers disappear once the work is contracted out and the staff are not replaced. Eg. Cryogenic engine development took India close to two decades to master after external supply was cut off.
      The Fix: Ring fence a defined set of critical technologies as retained in house capability, with recruitment sanctioned against them irrespective of outsourcing elsewhere.
    2. The private demand base is thin: A domestic space economy built on data services has few anchor customers other than government departments, so private capacity depends on public orders it is meant to replace. Eg. Earth observation demand in India is dominated by central and State government users.
      The Fix: Commit an anchor procurement volume for satellite data and launch services over a fixed multi year period, so private capacity is built against contracted demand.
    3. Foreign capital in the entrant base is mobile: Startups funded by capital that can exit quickly cannot be relied on to hold strategic capability through a downturn. Eg. Global space venture funding has moved sharply between years, tightening after periods of expansion.
      The Fix: Condition the transfer of any strategic technology on domestic ownership thresholds and on a minimum period of operation in India.
    4. Transferring a launch vehicle is harder than transferring a design: Handing production of a vehicle to industry moves drawings but not the accumulated process knowledge that makes a launch repeatable. Eg. The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle technology transfer to industry involved an extended period of hand holding rather than a clean handover.
      The Fix: Structure every technology transfer with a defined number of jointly executed missions before the agency withdraws.
    5. The regulatory body is also the promoter: IN-SPACe both promotes private participation and authorises it, so the function that grants approvals is the function measured on how many approvals it grants. Eg. Authorisation and promotion sit within one body rather than in separate agencies.
      The Fix: Separate the authorisation function into a statutory regulator with its own appointment process, leaving promotion with the existing body.

    Conclusion

    The agency’s technical record is not what is in question, and a successful launch is precisely why the staffing letter is difficult to dismiss. What is unresolved is that two institutions have given assurances about the agency’s survival while declining to state what happens to the people inside it, and an assurance that avoids the question asked is not an answer. The concrete thing to watch is whether the Department of Space publishes a transparent policy stating sanctioned staff strength, the recruitment pipeline and the specific functions that will remain in house.

    Back2Basics: Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle

    1. What it is: A three stage Indian launch vehicle designed mainly to place communication and other heavier satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
    2. Its stages: It uses a solid first stage with liquid strap on boosters, a liquid second stage, and an indigenous cryogenic upper stage.
    3. Why the cryogenic stage matters: Cryogenic propulsion burns liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen at very low temperatures, giving the high efficiency needed for the final push to a high orbit, and India developed it after external supply was withheld.
    4. Its record: The vehicle has a higher failure rate than India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which is why each successful GSLV flight is treated as a significant outcome.

    [2026] Consider the following statements about involvement of private entities in India’s space programme:

    1. IN-SPACe is an autonomous agency formed to facilitate participation of private entities.

    2. Agnikul Cosmos launched the world’s first flight using 3D-printed rocket engine.

    3. Skyroot Aerospace has developed liquid fuel for GSLV.

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 2 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • SC refuses extension for Aravalli panel to submit final report

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has refused a six month extension sought by the high powered committee it appointed to define the Aravalli hills and range, and has directed the panel to submit its final report by 30 November. The committee was constituted to evolve a uniform definition of the ecologically fragile Aravalli hills and range and to recommend measures to regulate future mining. A three judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India observed that the panel appeared to be waiting for the Chief Justice’s retirement, which falls on 9 February 2027, and made clear that no further extension would be granted. The Bench also directed the panel to work continuously, to file interim reports on urgent issues, and to hear all stakeholders including tribal communities in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The tension is that a definition still unsettled after repeated extensions is the same definition that determines where mining may lawfully continue in the meantime.

    What is the high powered committee tasked with?

    1. Composition: It is a five member panel constituted by the Supreme Court and headed by the Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), the Union government’s forestry research body.
    2. First task, the definition: It must evolve a single uniform definition of what counts as the Aravalli hills and the Aravalli range, applicable across the States the range runs through.
    3. Second task, mining regulation: It must recommend the measures by which future mining in the defined area is to be regulated.

    Why does a definition decide what can be mined?

    1. Protection follows the boundary: Restrictions on mining and construction attach to land identified as Aravalli, so the extent of the definition is the extent of the protection.
    2. State practice has diverged: The range runs across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat, and in the absence of one national test each State has applied its own criteria to identify protected hills.
    3. The dispute is about elevation and landform: The competing tests turn on how much a landform must rise above the surrounding ground before it qualifies as an Aravalli hill, and a stricter threshold removes large stretches from protection.
    4. The interim period is the live cost: Mining approvals continue to be processed while the definition is pending, so delay is not neutral between the parties.

    What has the Court directed the panel to do?

    1. A hard deadline: The final report is due by 30 November, with the matter listed for hearing on 2 December, by which time the report is expected to have been filed.
    2. Interim reporting: The panel must submit interim reports on specific issues that require immediate consideration rather than holding everything back until the full exercise is complete.
    3. Stakeholder hearings: The panel must hear all stakeholders before finalising its recommendations, including tribal communities in Rajasthan and Gujarat whose land and livelihood the definition affects.
    4. No further extension: The Bench recorded that the six month request would not be entertained and that no further extension would follow.

    Challenges to regulating mining in the Aravallis

    1. Illegal mining outruns enforcement: Leases are policed by State mining departments with small field staff, so extraction continues outside sanctioned boundaries and at night. Eg. The Supreme Court has repeatedly had to intervene in Aravalli mining in Haryana, including through orders restraining mining in the range’s Haryana stretch.
      The Fix: Mandate satellite based volumetric monitoring of every lease, with quarterly comparison of extracted volume against the approved mining plan.
    2. Definitional ambiguity is exploited at the margin: Where a landform’s status is arguable, the developer’s classification prevails until challenged, which converts a mapping question into a licensing loophole. Eg. Construction has advanced on Aravalli land in Faridabad on the basis that the plots were not classified as forest.
      The Fix: Publish the finalised boundary as a single geo referenced map notified in the gazette, so classification is not decided plot by plot.
    3. Land use change destroys the hill even without mining: Real estate and quarry backfilling flatten the same ridges that mining regulation is meant to protect, and neither is governed by mining law. Eg. Farmhouse and residential development has expanded steadily on the Aravalli fringes around the National Capital Region.
      The Fix: Attach the mining definition to the State land use plans as well, so the same boundary governs building permissions.
    4. The ecological function is not priced into any clearance: The range checks the eastward spread of the Thar desert and recharges groundwater, services that no mining lease valuation accounts for. Eg. Groundwater levels in the districts flanking the range have fallen faster than the State averages.
      The Fix: Require a hydrological and dust dispersion impact assessment specific to the range before a lease is granted, not a generic mining environmental clearance.
    5. Restoration obligations are rarely enforced after closure: Reclamation of a mined pit is a lease condition that lapses once the operator exits, leaving abandoned pits and unstable slopes. Eg. Disused quarries across the range have filled with water and remain unrehabilitated.
      The Fix: Hold a restoration bond sized to the assessed reclamation cost, released only after independent certification that the site has been restored.

    Conclusion

    The Court has converted an open ended technical exercise into a dated one, which is the only lever available to it while the substantive question remains with the committee. The unresolved position is that protection of the range currently depends on a definition that does not yet exist, so every month of delay is a month in which the weakest interpretation operates by default. The concrete things to watch are the interim reports the panel now owes, and the hearing on 2 December at which the recommendations on regulating mining will first be tested.

    Back2Basics: The Aravalli Range

    1. What it is: One of the world’s oldest fold mountain ranges, formed in the Proterozoic era and heavily eroded, so it survives as broken ridges rather than a continuous chain.
    2. Extent: It runs roughly 690 km from Delhi in the northeast through Haryana and Rajasthan to Gujarat in the southwest.
    3. Highest point: Guru Shikhar on the Mount Abu massif in Rajasthan, at about 1,722 metres, is the highest peak of the range.
    4. Ecological role: It acts as a barrier to the eastward advance of the Thar desert and as a groundwater recharge zone for the plains on either side.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 15 marks] Mineral resources are fundamental to the country economy and these are exploited by mining. Why is mining considered an environmental hazard? Explain the remedial measures required to reduce the environmental hazard due to mining.”

  • Lucknow air cleanest, Indore’s second best among cities with million-plus people

    Why in the News

    Lucknow has been ranked first among million plus population cities in Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2026, the annual air quality ranking run under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Indore was placed second and Jabalpur third in the same category of 47 cities. The rankings were declared in Delhi and the awards were distributed by the chairperson of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). Municipal wards that improved their air quality were honoured for the first time this year. The tension sits in the scoring itself: improvement in particulate matter (PM) 10 concentrations carries a weight of only 2.5%, so a city can top the ranking while its air remains above the national standard.

    What is Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan?

    1. What it ranks: It is an annual assessment of cities under the National Clean Air Programme, scoring the actions a municipal body has taken to improve air quality rather than the air quality it has achieved.
    2. How cities are grouped: Cities and towns are placed in three population based categories, those with a million plus population, those between 3 lakh and 10 lakh, and those below 3 lakh, so a small town is not ranked against a metropolis.
    3. What is scored: The parameters cover waste management, road dust control, dust from construction and demolition waste, reduction in vehicular pollution and reduction in industrial pollution. Reduction in PM 10 concentrations carries a weight of 2.5%.
    4. What the winners receive: The top three in each category receive cash prizes and mementos, ranging from Rs 1.50 crore for the first place in the million plus category down to Rs 12.5 lakh for the third place in the smallest category.

    Which cities topped the ranking, and which trailed it?

    1. Million plus population category: Lucknow first with Rs 1.50 crore, Indore second with Rs 1 crore, and Jabalpur third with Rs 50 lakh.
    2. Cities of 3 lakh to 10 lakh: Rourkela first with Rs 75 lakh, Firozabad and Guntur sharing second place with Rs 50 lakh, and Amravati third with Rs 25 lakh.
    3. Cities below 3 lakh: Kalinga Nagar first with Rs 37.5 lakh, Angul second with Rs 25 lakh, and Talcher third with Rs 12.5 lakh.
    4. The bottom of the largest category: Chennai, Jamshedpur, Kota, Kolkata and Madurai were placed in the bottom five of the 47 million plus cities.
    5. The two largest cities: Delhi ranked 30th and Mumbai 37th in the same category.

    What did the top ranked cities actually do?

    1. Lucknow’s interventions: The city deployed electric vehicles in its waste collection fleet, used mechanised sweepers to manage road dust, and cleared legacy waste dumps.
    2. Jabalpur’s interventions: The city ran a waste to energy plant, achieved full collection of waste with scientific disposal, mechanised street sweeping and promoted electric vehicles.
    3. The common thread is municipal solid waste and dust: Both winning profiles are built on services a municipal body directly controls, and neither turns on industrial or vehicular emission sources.
    4. Indore’s standing: Indore, ranked India’s cleanest city for seven years until 2025, converted that solid waste management capacity into second place on air quality.

    Challenges to the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan ranking

    1. Effort is scored, outcomes are not: With actual PM 10 reduction weighted at 2.5%, the survey ranks the interventions a city reports rather than the air its residents breathe. Eg. Lucknow topped the category while its annual PM 10 concentration stood at 137 micrograms per cubic metre against the national standard of 60.
      The Fix: Raise the weight on measured concentration decline and make the award conditional on continuous ambient monitoring data rather than on activity reports.
    2. The measured pollutant is the coarser one: The survey and the programme centre on PM 10, while PM 2.5 is the fraction that penetrates deep into the lungs and drives the health burden. Eg. Road dust suppression lowers PM 10 sharply without touching combustion sources that generate PM 2.5.
      The Fix: Score PM 2.5 concentration decline as a separate parameter with its own weight, so combustion sources cannot be scored around.
    3. A city boundary is not an airshed: Pollution crosses municipal limits, so a city’s ranking reflects sources it does not control alongside those it does. Eg. Delhi’s winter concentrations rise with stubble burning in neighbouring States and with emissions from thermal plants outside the city.
      The Fix: Move the assessment unit to the airshed, ranking a cluster of local bodies jointly and funding them against a common source apportionment study.
    4. Self reported action invites inflation: Cities score themselves on activities such as sweeping frequency and dust suppression that no independent agency verifies. Eg. Mechanised sweeper deployment is recorded as procurement rather than as operating hours on the road.
      The Fix: Require third party verification of a random sample of claimed interventions before the cash award is released.
    5. Baselines flatter the already polluted: A city that started from a very high concentration records a large percentage decline while remaining far above the standard. Eg. Lucknow’s PM 10 fell 45.2% from 250 micrograms per cubic metre in 2017-18, and is still more than twice the standard.
      The Fix: Score cities against the absolute standard as well as against their own baseline, so meeting the norm rather than improving on a bad start is what wins.

    Conclusion

    A ranking that scores what a municipal body did, and barely scores what happened to the air, will reward administrative activity long before it rewards clean air. The gap is visible in this year’s own result, where the winning city remains far outside the national standard. What to watch is whether the weight given to measured concentration is raised in the next survey, and whether the ward level awards introduced this year are backed by ward level monitoring data.

    Back2Basics: National Clean Air Programme

    1. What it is: A national framework launched in January 2019 by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to cut particulate pollution in cities that fail the national ambient air quality standards.
    2. Which cities it covers: It covers non attainment cities, meaning cities that did not meet the standards over a five year period, along with million plus cities, taking in 131 urban areas.
    3. The target: The original goal of a 20% to 30% reduction in particulate concentrations by 2024 against a 2017 baseline was revised to a 40% reduction by 2025-26.
    4. How it is funded: Million plus cities receive air quality grants routed through the Fifteenth Finance Commission, while the remaining cities are funded through the programme’s own allocation.

    “[2022, GS3, 10 marks] Discuss in detail the photochemical smog emphasizing its formation, effects and mitigation. Explain the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol.”

  • India’s carbon credit scheme receives U.K. official recognition

    Why in the News

    The United Kingdom has recognised India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) as a qualifying overseas carbon pricing scheme for the purpose of carbon price relief. The recognition was conveyed by His Majesty’s Treasury to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the Ministry of Power. The scheme has been placed on the United Kingdom’s published indicative list of overseas carbon pricing schemes assessed as meeting the qualifying criteria under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Calculation of CBAM Rate and Determination of Carbon Price Relief) Regulations 2026. A carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) charges an imported good the gap between the carbon price paid where it was made and the price the importing country’s own producers pay. The recognition therefore lets a carbon price already paid in India be set off, lowering the effective CBAM liability on Indian goods. The relief is calculated on the price a tonne of carbon actually fetches in India, so a domestic market still in its early compliance cycles decides how much of the British levy an exporter escapes.

    What is the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme?

    1. Statutory basis: The scheme rests on the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, as amended by the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022. It is administered by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency under the Ministry of Power.
    2. Compliance mechanism: Obligated entities in notified industrial sectors receive greenhouse gas emission intensity targets, stated as emissions per unit of output. An entity that beats its target earns carbon credit certificates, and one that misses it must buy them.
    3. Offset mechanism: An entity outside the compliance list can register an emission reduction project voluntarily. It earns certificates once the reduction is verified.
    4. Trading venue: Certificates are traded on the power exchanges. That trade is what produces a domestic price for a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.

    How does the recognition change the cost of exporting to the United Kingdom?

    1. Carbon price relief: The British levy is charged on the embedded emissions of an imported good at a British carbon rate. A carbon price already paid in the country of production is deducted from that rate where the paying scheme qualifies.
    2. The indicative list is the administrative gate: Placement on the list is what makes the deduction available to goods produced under the scheme. The list is indicative, so it fixes eligibility rather than the final rate an exporter pays.
    3. Exposed sectors: The United Kingdom’s mechanism applies from 1 January 2027 to imports of aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen, iron and steel. Indian steel and aluminium shipments are the largest exposures within that set.
    4. The obligation on the exporter survives: Recognition attaches to the scheme, not to any single firm. Each consignment must still be accompanied by emissions data for the goods concerned.

    Challenges to the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme

    1. A weak price yields a weak set off: The deduction is worth only what a carbon credit certificate sells for in India, so a low clearing price transfers most of the levy to the British exchequer anyway. Eg. Energy saving certificates under the Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme, the country’s earlier market based instrument, cleared at prices too low to change investment behaviour.
      The Fix: Set a floor price for compliance certificates, so the market cannot clear below the level at which abatement becomes worth financing.
    2. Target setting is based on intensity, not absolute emissions: An obligated entity meets its target by cutting emissions per tonne of output while expanding total output, so national emissions can rise inside a compliant market. Eg. Cement plants raise clinker substitution to cut intensity while adding fresh capacity.
      The Fix: Convert the compliance mechanism to a declining absolute cap once the first two cycles have established a reliable emissions baseline.
    3. Narrow coverage of the emitting base: The compliance mechanism reaches only large notified industrial sectors, leaving out transport, buildings and the bulk of smaller industrial units. Eg. Foundries and re-rolling mills in industrial clusters sit outside the obligated list despite being coal fired.
      The Fix: Extend the offset mechanism with sector specific methodologies for small units, so a cluster level project can be registered rather than a single plant.
    4. Measurement and verification capacity is thin: Credits are only as sound as the emissions data behind them, and accredited carbon verifiers in India are few relative to the number of obligated entities. Eg. Voluntary carbon markets globally have been discredited by projects whose claimed reductions could not be reproduced on audit.
      The Fix: Accredit and licence verification agencies ahead of the compliance deadline, with random re-audit of a fixed share of issued certificates.
    5. Overlap with earlier instruments confuses the signal: Renewable energy certificates and energy saving certificates already price parts of the same abatement, so a firm can face several partially overlapping obligations. Eg. A cement plant may hold energy saving certificates for efficiency gains that also lower its greenhouse gas emission intensity.
      The Fix: Publish a single conversion and transition schedule that folds legacy certificates into the carbon credit market on a stated date.

    Conclusion

    Recognition removes a trade barrier only to the extent that the domestic carbon market becomes real. The set off is a pass through of a price India charges itself, so the instrument that protects exporters is the same one that has to discipline them. What to watch is the clearing price at the first compliance cycle auctions and whether the European Union grants an equivalent recognition, since the European market absorbs a far larger share of Indian steel and aluminium than the British one.

    Back2Basics: Bureau of Energy Efficiency

    1. Statutory body: The Bureau was set up in 2002 under the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, and functions under the Ministry of Power.
    2. Mandate: It is charged with reducing the energy intensity of the Indian economy, meaning energy consumed per unit of gross domestic product.
    3. Standards and labelling: It runs the star rating programme for appliances and the Energy Conservation Building Code for commercial buildings.
    4. Market instruments: It designed and administers the Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme and now the carbon credit market, making it the nodal agency for India’s carbon pricing architecture.

    “[2023] Consider the following statements :

    Statement-I: Carbon markets are likely to be one of the most widespread tools in the fight against climate change.

    Statement-II : Carbon markets transfer resources from the private sector to the State.

    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 is the correct explanation for Statement-I

    (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct and Statement-II is not the correct explanation for Statement-I

    (c) Statement-I is correct but Statement-II is incorrect

    (d) Statement-I is incorrect but Statement-II is correct

  • Global watchdog says rise of ‘digital hawala’ is aiding money laundering, terror financing

    Why in the News

    The latest report of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body that sets the global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, identifies the fusion of virtual assets with the traditional hawala system as one of the most significant developments in underground banking. The report is titled “Investigating Professional Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and the Use of Hawala and Other Similar Service Providers”. Nearly 70 per cent of surveyed jurisdictions have reported the integration of new technologies into such networks. The uses run from routine money laundering to the financing of terrorist organisations. The difficulty this creates is that a system built on trust between operators has acquired the speed and reach of digital finance without acquiring any of its supervision.

    What is “digital hawala”?

    1. The underlying system: Hawala is a centuries-old value transfer arrangement in which an operator in one country pays out to a recipient on the instruction of an operator in another, and the two settle their standing balance later between themselves.
    2. What makes it digital: “Digital hawala” covers the spectrum of technologies that facilitate the coordination, execution, settlement or concealment of these transactions.
    3. What has changed: Virtual assets now supply a settlement layer to a network that previously balanced its books through cash and trade alone.

    What are the six configurations the report identifies?

    1. Digital coordination with traditional settlement: Operators use encrypted messaging applications, shared ledgers and online platforms to communicate instructions, recruit clients and couriers, and maintain records, and settlement between them still moves through cash or trade.
    2. Digital customer interface: The client faces a mobile wallet or a fintech application, and settlement between operators again happens via cash or trade.
    3. Virtual asset-based settlement: Stablecoins are used to settle balances between operators directly, replacing the cash leg of the arrangement.
    4. Integration with formal digital infrastructure: Funds are moved through payment service providers, fintech platforms and virtual International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs), which are account identifiers issued without a physical branch relationship behind them.
    5. Artificial intelligence based tools: These automate transaction structuring, route value dynamically through mule accounts, and convert between currency and cryptocurrency at high speed.
    6. “Hawala” apps: These are bundled digital ecosystems combining messaging, cloud storage, social media, Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), lending applications and gaming platforms in one product.

    Why do these configurations make detection harder?

    1. Speed and opacity rise together: The configurations make transactions faster, more opaque and more complex than the courier and ledger version they build on.
    2. The network gets larger and more durable: Digitisation expands both the reach of a network and its resilience, so removing one operator no longer breaks the chain.
    3. Digitisation is a catalyst and not a replacement: Traditional settlement mechanisms persist alongside the new layers rather than disappearing under them.
    4. Cash remains the pressure point: Cash stays critical at the collection and exit points, which is where an investigation still has a physical trail to find.

    What does the Turkiye case show about terror financing?

    1. The network’s purpose: Turkiye uncovered a “digital hawala” network financing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
    2. The seizures: Raids in 2023 on a self-described ISIL “administrative officer” produced about $57,250 in cash, followed by a further $554,000.
    3. The evidence trail: Investigators recovered “hawala” notebooks alongside digital transfer receipts, so the paper ledger and the digital layer were running in parallel.
    4. The cover used: A jeweller and two mobile phone shops operated as fronts, and the transfers themselves were disguised as charity donations.

    Challenges to countering digital hawala

    1. Token settlement clears outside supervised payment rails: Balances settled in stablecoins move on public blockchains that no single national payments regulator oversees. Eg. FATF’s periodic reviews have found most assessed jurisdictions only partly compliant with its Travel Rule for virtual asset transfers.
      The Fix: Enforce originator and beneficiary information requirements on every registered Virtual Asset Service Provider, which in India are reporting entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
    2. Mule accounts scatter the trail across thousands of holders: Automated routing splits a single transfer across accounts opened in other people’s names, so no account shows an abnormal balance. Eg. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre has identified mule accounts as the standard cash-out layer in online fraud networks.
      The Fix: Require banks to share mule account indicators in near real time through a common registry rather than case by case after a complaint.
    3. Cooperation moves slower than the transaction: Formal evidence requests between countries take months while a chain of transfers completes in minutes. Eg. FATF’s 2024 mutual evaluation of India recorded delays in concluding money laundering prosecutions despite a broadly compliant legal framework.
      The Fix: Use the Egmont Group channel between financial intelligence units for immediate operational exchange, reserving formal treaty requests for trial-admissible evidence.
    4. The fronts are ordinary licensed businesses: Jewellers, phone dealers and travel agents handle high cash turnover legitimately, so the anomaly is invisible in the trading pattern itself. Eg. Dealers in precious metals and stones are treated as designated non-financial businesses under the FATF standards precisely because of this exposure.
      The Fix: Extend beneficial ownership disclosure and threshold reporting to these trades, and audit compliance rather than relying on registration alone.
    5. The regulated perimeter lags the product: Bundled applications combining messaging, lending and gaming fit no single licensing category, so no regulator holds clear jurisdiction over them. Eg. Application stores continue to host unregistered lending and wallet products that operate across borders.
      The Fix: Adopt an activity-based test that applies value transfer obligations to any product that moves value, whatever licence category it claims.

    Conclusion

    Underground banking has not been displaced by digital finance, it has absorbed it. Enforcement is left holding a mandate built for couriers and ledgers against a network that settles in tokens and routes itself automatically. Two things decide whether that gap closes. The first is whether virtual asset supervision reaches operators who never register, and the second is whether financial intelligence units can exchange information at the speed a transfer actually moves. The next marker is India’s follow-up reporting under the FATF mutual evaluation process, where the treatment of virtual asset service providers is the specific item under assessment.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: FATF is the inter-governmental standard setter on money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, established in 1989 at the G7 summit in Paris.
    2. How it works: Its Secretariat is housed at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, and its standards are the 40 Recommendations that member states are assessed against.
    3. Its enforcement tool: It maintains two public lists, jurisdictions under increased monitoring and high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action, which affect a listed country’s access to international finance.
    4. India’s position: India has been a full member since 2010, and is also a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS3, 15 marks] Discuss counterfeit currency and money laundering as major sources of terror funding in India. State the actions being taken at International level to check these menaces. Highlight the role of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and methods of compliance by its member states in preventing terror funding.”

  • US share in India’s LPG imports surged to over 50% from under 10%

    Why in the News

    The share of the United States in India’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports has crossed 50 per cent in the six months since the West Asia conflict began, against less than 10 per cent in the preceding six months. The war began with United States and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, and it halted vessel movement through the Strait of Hormuz. India’s import basket had been dominated by Gulf suppliers, so the loss of that route forced a substitution rather than a fall in demand. The tension is that a supply system built on a short haul from four Gulf sellers has been replaced inside six months by a long haul from a single seller. The concentration has moved rather than dissolved.

    Why did a shipping chokepoint translate into an LPG shock?

    1. The route’s function: The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, and it is the primary evacuation route for energy supplies from the wider Gulf region.
    2. Its global weight: The strait accounted for a fifth of world oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows, so its closure was a global disruption before it was an Indian one.
    3. India’s exposure through it: About 90 per cent of India’s LPG imports came from West Asia through the strait, against about 40 per cent of crude oil imports and 60 per cent of LNG imports.
    4. Why LPG was hit hardest: Movement through the strait effectively covered around 54 per cent of India’s total LPG consumption, so one blocked route touched more than half the cooking fuel base.

    How did India’s LPG import basket change in six months?

    1. Overall volumes: India’s total LPG imports in the six months to August fell 43.1 per cent from the preceding six months, to 7.14 million tonnes.
    2. United States: Supplies surged 281.1 per cent to 3.78 million tonnes for a 53 per cent share, against about 993,000 tonnes and a 7.9 per cent share in September to February.
    3. United Arab Emirates: Volumes crashed 79.8 per cent to about 958,000 tonnes, and the share of the pre-war leading supplier fell to 13.4 per cent from 37.8 per cent.
    4. Qatar: Volumes plummeted 84.7 per cent to about 405,000 tonnes, and the share shrank to 5.7 per cent from 21.1 per cent.
    5. Kuwait: Volumes fell 81.7 per cent to about 346,300 tonnes, and the share contracted to 4.9 per cent from 15.1 per cent.
    6. Saudi Arabia: Volumes fell 76.1 per cent to about 423,700 tonnes, and the share dropped to 5.9 per cent from 14.1 per cent.

    Why did the United States become the fallback supplier?

    1. Pre-existing scale: Washington was the largest LPG exporter worldwide before the crisis, so it was the only seller with spare volumes at the scale India needed.
    2. Price position: United States propane was already cheaper than Asian supplies before the war, which made the switch commercially defensible and not only an emergency measure.
    3. Availability over distance: With no nearby alternative, India accepted a higher delivered cost to bring cargoes from further away, because keeping cooking gas available was the operative priority.
    4. The precedent it follows: The redirection mirrors the earlier flow of Russian crude barrels to India, where a disrupted market was replaced by whichever seller could load immediately.

    What does the episode reveal about India’s energy import dependence?

    1. The dependence baseline: India imports over 88 per cent of its oil, 60 per cent of its LPG and about 50 per cent of its natural gas, so a routing disruption anywhere becomes a domestic supply question.
    2. Concentration is the real exposure: Four Gulf sellers on one waterway meant a single closure removed most of the basket at once, and no diversification existed to absorb it.
    3. Substitution has a time cost: Rebuilding half the basket around one distant supplier took six months of scrambling, which is the lead time a chokepoint closure imposes on an importer.
    4. The dependence is unresolved: American flows are expected to stay strong until West Asian supply normalises, and no clarity exists on when that will happen.

    Challenges to India’s LPG supply security

    1. The long haul carries a freight and transit penalty: A United States cargo takes far longer to reach an Indian port than a Gulf cargo, and the added voyage cost sits on every tonne landed. Eg. American propane bound for Asia moves through the Panama Canal, where transit slots were rationed during the drought-driven draft restrictions of 2023 and 2024.
      The Fix: Contract a share of American volumes on delivered terms with an alternative Cape of Good Hope routing priced into the contract.
    2. Import and bottling infrastructure is concentrated on one coast: India’s very large gas carrier berths and bottling capacity sit largely on the western seaboard, built around short Gulf voyages and rapid turnarounds. Eg. The major LPG import terminals cluster at west coast ports such as Kandla, Mundra and Sikka.
      The Fix: Expand east coast import capacity and extend LPG pipeline evacuation on the model of the Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur line.
    3. Administered retail prices push the shock onto the exchequer: Domestic cylinder prices are held stable, so a higher landed cost is absorbed by oil marketing companies or by the Budget rather than by the consumer. Eg. The targeted subsidy paid per cylinder under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana sits on top of a capped base price.
      The Fix: Move the subsidy fully to a direct transfer indexed to the import price, so the fiscal cost is visible and bounded rather than carried on company balance sheets.
    4. India holds no strategic reserve for cooking gas: Emergency stocks exist for crude oil alone, so an LPG disruption has to be managed through spot buying at the worst available price. Eg. The Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves caverns at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur store crude oil and not LPG.
      The Fix: Build dedicated pressurised or refrigerated LPG storage at the major import terminals with a mandated minimum cover in days of consumption.
    5. Substitution away from cylinders is only partial: Piped natural gas and electric cooking reach a limited share of households, so LPG demand cannot be shifted quickly when imports tighten. Eg. City gas distribution networks operate only in geographical areas awarded through bidding rounds by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.
      The Fix: Accelerate piped connections inside already awarded city gas areas and tie household conversion targets to the licence conditions.

    Conclusion

    India has replaced a blocked route rather than reduced a dependence. The basket is now anchored on one distant seller in place of four near ones, and the switch was completed at speed because no stock cushion existed to buy time. The status is that American cargoes are expected to hold their share until West Asian supply normalises. The marker to watch is whether the Gulf share recovers once traffic through the Strait of Hormuz resumes, or whether contracts written during the disruption lock in a permanently longer supply line.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 15 marks] “Energy security constitutes the dominant kingpin of India’s foreign policy, and is linked with India’s overarching influence in Middle Eastern countries.” How would you integrate energy security with India’s foreign policy trajectories in the coming years?”

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