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  • Centre doubles validity of green clearances for ports to 20 years

    Why in the News

    The Centre has notified a relaxation in the country’s environmental clearance process, doubling the validity of clearance granted to ports and harbours to a minimum of 20 years. The notification amends the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, which governs the environmental clearance process. Two further extensions of five years each are now available, subject to conditions. The amendment follows requests from industry and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways to rationalise the earlier framework. The change trades the repeated re-appraisal of a coastal project against a longer settled clearance for the developer.

    What is the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006?

    1. Prior clearance requirement: New projects in specified sectors require prior environmental clearance (EC) before they may proceed.
    2. Coverage beyond new projects: Project expansion, modernisation, capacity additions and product-mix changes beyond specified thresholds also require clearance.
    3. Basis of the decision: Clearance rests on environmental impact assessments, public hearings where applicable, and final appraisal by expert committees.

    What does the amendment change for ports and harbours?

    1. Validity doubled: Environmental clearance for a port or harbour project is now valid for a minimum of 20 years.
    2. First extension: Clearance can be extended by five years beyond the 20-year period. Appraisal committees must review the adequacy of existing environmental safeguards before that extension is allowed.
    3. Second extension: A further five-year extension may be granted in “deserving cases” where the project remains non-operational.
    4. Recommending authority: The sectoral expert appraisal committee or the state-level expert appraisal committee can recommend the second extension after examination and subject to environmental safeguards.

    Why was a longer validity period sought?

    1. Ten-year ceiling: Environmental clearance for ports and harbours was valid for an initial period of ten years, extendable by a further period of one year.
    2. Fresh clearance burden: A project that had not completed that window had to seek fresh clearance from the beginning.
    3. Industry and ministry request: The notification records a request to rationalise the validity period, made by industry and by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

    Challenges to the 20-year clearance validity for ports

    1. Ageing environmental baseline: A single appraisal can now govern a coastal project for two decades, so the site conditions assessed at appraisal may no longer hold when work actually proceeds. Eg. The earlier framework forced a project to return for a fresh clearance after ten years.
      The Fix: Tie each five-year extension to a fresh baseline study of the site, rather than to a review of the existing safeguards alone.
    2. No repeat public consultation: The public hearing sits before the first appraisal, so people affected later in the extended window have no statutory occasion to be heard. Eg. Under the EIA Notification, 2006 public hearings precede the expert committee’s final appraisal.
      The Fix: Attach a public compliance hearing at the project site to every extension application.
    3. Dormant projects holding clearance: The second extension is available precisely where a project has not started operating, so a coastal site stays committed with no construction on the ground. Eg. The amendment allows the further five years in “deserving cases” of non-operational projects.
      The Fix: Make that extension conditional on a dated construction schedule, with the clearance lapsing if the schedule is missed.

    Conclusion

    The validity question is now settled in favour of predictability for port developers. Environmental protection rests entirely on how appraisal committees use the extension review, since the automatic trigger that forced a coastal project back for a fresh look has been removed. The thing to watch is whether those committees record their safeguard reviews in a form the public can read.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2019] Consider the following statements: The Environment Protection Act, 1986 empowers the Government of India to 1. state the requirement of public participation in the process of environmental protection, and the procedure and manner in which it is sought 2. lay down The standards for emission or discharge of environmental pollutants from various sources 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 (b)”

  • Saving the rhino, restoring grasslands

    Why in the News

    The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has set out a shift in India’s rhino conservation strategy on World Rhino Day, September 22, from safeguarding existing concentrations of the greater one-horned rhinoceros to establishing secure populations across suitable parts of its historical range. The framework for that shift is the National Conservation Strategy for the rhinoceros, launched in 2019, which had already committed to restoring the species to suitable former habitats. The species has recovered from around 1,500 animals in the 1980s to more than 4,000 as of September 2024. The recovery now runs into a habitat problem rather than a protection problem, because the grasslands the species depends on degrade without active management.

    What is the National Conservation Strategy for the rhinoceros?

    1. Scope of the strategy: It provides the framework for strengthening existing rhino populations and for restoring the species to suitable former habitats.
    2. Genetic and spatial security: It commits to maintaining genetic security and habitat connectivity, so separated populations do not become isolated breeding units.
    3. Planned movement of animals: It promotes scientifically planned translocation, the deliberate capture and release of animals into a new site to found a population there.
    4. Climate in the protection framework: It recognises climate-resilient management as part of the protection framework for the species rather than as a separate exercise.

    Where does the rhino live now, and where did it once live?

    1. Present distribution: The wild population in India is concentrated mainly in Assam, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
    2. Historical range: The animal’s range extended across the northern Indian Subcontinent, along the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra river systems.
    3. The two landscapes it belongs to: It is an integral part of the ecological and cultural landscape of the Brahmaputra floodplains and the Terai grasslands.
    4. The strategic consequence: Conservation confined to existing concentrations leaves most of that historical range empty, which is the gap range expansion is meant to close.

    What does Phase I of the range expansion commit to?

    1. Duration and funding route: The five-year Phase I runs from 2026 to 2031 and is proposed for support through the National CAMPA Authority, which holds compensatory afforestation funds collected when forest land is diverted.
    2. States brought together: It covers Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
    3. Named focus areas: Scientific monitoring, protection, habitat restoration and management, translocation planning, coexistence and capacity building.
    4. The expansion target: Beyond consolidating existing populations, it seeks to support the species’ expansion into suitable areas in Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh.
    5. The habitat instrument: The Rhino Conservation Action Plan provides for mapping grasslands and wetlands, identifying invasive species, prioritising habitats for intensive restoration and developing management protocols specific to each protected area.

    Why does saving the rhino depend on how grasslands and floodplains are managed?

    1. Grasslands as dynamic systems: Grasslands require science-based management to prevent degradation, inappropriate succession, meaning the drift of grassland into woody cover, and the spread of invasive species.
    2. Species riding on the same habitat: Rhino habitat also carries swamp deer, wild buffalo, elephants, tigers, grassland birds and several smaller species, so habitat condition decides outcomes well beyond one animal.
    3. A national grassland assessment: A five-year project running from 2026 to 2031 on the Comprehensive Assessment of Indian Grasslands will be implemented by the Wildlife Institute of India, the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education and the Forest Survey of India.
    4. What it will measure: It will assess grassland extent, ecological condition, biodiversity, degradation, ecosystem services and carbon potential, and will support a National Grassland Atlas, restoration priorities and long-term management guidelines.
    5. Flooding as a design condition: Flooding is intrinsic to landscapes such as Kaziranga, and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events create new conservation pressures on top of it.
    6. What flood management requires: Maintaining access to higher ground, securing ecological connectivity, protecting dispersal routes and managing habitats are the named requirements.

    Who actually delivers protection on the ground?

    1. What technology adds: Modern surveillance, spatial monitoring, veterinary diagnostics, genetic tools and decision-support systems reinforce traditional fieldcraft.
    2. What technology cannot replace: No technology substitutes the forest guards, watchers, mahouts, veterinarians and field officers who patrol these landscapes.
    3. Communities around the habitat: The communities living around rhino habitats are equally important to the outcome, since the animals move through land those communities use.
    4. Conservation as shared enterprise: The future of the species depends on conservation being treated as a shared enterprise rather than an isolated governmental activity.

    How far does cooperation extend beyond national boundaries?

    1. The regional forum: The Second Asian Rhino Range States Conservation Meeting was held in New Delhi in 2019.
    2. The New Delhi Declaration: India joined Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal in adopting the Declaration to strengthen conservation cooperation for Asian rhinoceros species.
    3. What followed: The Centre and the rhino-bearing states have continued to work within that broader framework, which places a domestic range expansion inside a regional commitment.

    Challenges to rhino range expansion

    1. Founder population size at a new site: A population begun from a few released animals carries low genetic variation and can fail to establish. Eg. Rhinos moved to Manas National Park under Indian Rhino Vision 2020 were lost to poaching in the years after release, setting that site back.
      The Fix: Fix a minimum release cohort and sex ratio for each new site before a release is authorised, with monitoring obligations running for a set number of years afterwards.
    2. Invaded habitat at the release site: Grassland taken over by weedy or woody cover no longer carries the grazing biomass a rhino needs, so a site can be legally protected and biologically unsuitable. Eg. Mikania micrantha has spread through Kaziranga’s grasslands and displaced native forage.
      The Fix: Make invasive removal and a measured forage-biomass threshold conditions of certifying a site as suitable, rather than treating protected status as sufficient.
    3. Mortality outside the protected area during floods: Animals leaving a flooded park cross roads and settlements, so deaths occur where the park’s protection does not reach. Eg. Animals crossing from Kaziranga to the Karbi Anglong hills during floods are killed by vehicles on the national highway that separates the two.
      The Fix: Complete elevated animal passages on the highway stretches identified as crossing points and enforce speed restrictions through the flood months.
    4. Persistent demand for horn: The horn holds high value in illegal trade, so the cost of protection does not fall as the population grows. Eg. Assam publicly burned a stockpile of over 2,400 rhino horns in 2021 to signal that the horn carries no medicinal value.
      The Fix: Extend stockpile audits and DNA profiling of seized horn to every rhino-bearing state, so a seizure can be traced back to the population it came from.

    Conclusion

    The rhino’s recovery was achieved inside a small number of well-protected areas, and it is a genuine result. Expansion asks a harder question, whether land outside those areas can be brought to a condition that will hold a founder population and keep it. That makes habitat condition, and not animal numbers, the binding constraint on the next phase. What to watch is whether the programme begins reporting grassland condition alongside population counts, because a range that cannot feed the species is not range.

    Grasslands in India

    1. Extent and loss: Grassland area has declined by 31 per cent, from 18 million hectares to 12.3 million hectares, and common lands by 19 per cent, from 90.5 million hectares to 73.02 million hectares.
    2. Conversion pressure: Humans have converted 70 per cent of the world’s grasslands and 50 per cent of savannahs for agriculture and grazing, compacting soil and accelerating desertification.
    3. Species that depend on them: Grassland conversion has contributed to the decline of the Great Indian Bustard and the Lesser Florican.
    4. Invasive spread: Prosopis juliflora is spreading across Rajasthan and degrading grassland there.

    Government Initiatives for wildlife habitat conservation

    1. Project Tiger (1973): Uses core and buffer reserve management to reduce habitat pressure and limit human-tiger interaction in tiger-bearing landscapes.
    2. Project Elephant (1992): Protects elephant habitats and corridors, which reduces crop damage and accidental deaths in the districts those corridors run through.
    3. National Wildlife Action Plan (2017-31): Sets the national agenda on habitat conservation, protection of endangered species and coexistence strategies.
    4. Mission Sahbhagita (2022) and the Save Wetlands Campaign (2023): Mobilised more than 2 million citizens, resulting in the ground-truthing of over 170,000 wetlands and boundary demarcation of nearly 100,000 of them.

    Back2Basics: Greater one-horned rhinoceros

    1. Conservation status: Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, listed in CITES Appendix I, and placed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
    2. The only rhino in India: It is the sole rhino species found in India, also called the Indian rhino, and is Asia’s largest rhino among the five rhino species worldwide.
    3. Core protected areas: Pabitora Wildlife Reserve, Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park.
    4. Identification: A single black horn and a grey-brown hide with pronounced skin folds, and it is an excellent swimmer.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2019] Consider the following statements: 1. Asiatic lion is naturally found In India only. 2. Double-humped camel is naturally found in India only. 3. One-horned rhinoceros is naturally found in India only. Which of the statements given above is / are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 (a)”

  • Global order is under stress, we need reformed multilateralism: Jaishankar

    Why in the News

    India has called for “reformed multilateralism”, stating that the global order is “under stress” from extreme competition and geopolitical tensions, and that the “4F crisis of fuel, food, fertiliser and finance” needs “frameworks and guardrails”. The External Affairs Minister said this at the first-ever Partners for Multilateralism, International Law, Peace & Prosperity (P4M) Summit, held on the margins of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The call comes days after the US President signed the Russia sanctions Bill, taking the authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas, India and China among them. The position therefore asks for rules-based cooperation at the moment a leading power has armed itself with a unilateral tariff instrument aimed partly at India.

    What is the P4M Summit?

    1. What it is: The inaugural summit of Partners for Multilateralism, International Law, Peace & Prosperity, a grouping formed around the defence of international law and multilateral practice.
    2. Co-sponsors: India co-sponsored it along with Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, the European Union and Kenya.
    3. Where it sat: It was held on the margins of the 81st session of the UNGA, which put it alongside the annual gathering of world leaders rather than inside the UN’s own machinery.
    4. Who attended: The co-sponsors were represented at the level of the President of the European Council, the President of Kenya, and the Prime Ministers of Australia and Barbados.

    What case did India make for reformed multilateralism?

    1. Rebalancing versus rupture: For some decades the world has witnessed a steady rebalancing, described as a long-expected structural evolution. Extreme competition, geopolitical tensions and actual conflicts have given that rebalancing an entirely different character.
    2. The stated consequence of inaction: Left unchecked, this would call into question the very spirit of international cooperation, which is why multilateralism must assert itself strongly at this juncture.
    3. Observance of law as the precondition: Multilateralism is best served when international law, rules and norms are scrupulously observed.
    4. Two named reforms: More participative deliberations and more transparent decision-making were both described as overdue.
    5. Advocacy and practice together: For multilateralism to move ahead, both its advocacy and its practice have to be strengthened, so reform is put as an institutional task and not only a rhetorical one.

    Why does the ‘4F crisis’ need frameworks and guardrails?

    1. Nature of the risk: The crisis of fuel, food, fertiliser and finance cannot be left to itself, and where new capabilities and concerns arise there is a powerful case for frameworks and guardrails.
    2. Chokepoint dominance: Where there is a threat of chokepoint dominance and disruption, de-risking and diversifying must be encouraged.
    3. Coalitions of the like-minded: Where there is a compelling cause, the like-minded must have the confidence to come together, which accepts smaller groupings as a route when the universal body is blocked.
    4. Conflicts addressed in parts: Specific dimensions of ongoing conflicts can be addressed in parallel with the search for a broader peace.
    5. What is at stake: The issues named as real were the future of peace and international security, climate justice, countering terrorism and strengthening supply chains, all of which depend on a “will to cooperate”.

    Where does the Security Council reform question stand?

    1. A polarised Council: The 15-nation UN Security Council (UNSC) remains deeply polarised, with sharp divisions among its five permanent, veto-wielding members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
    2. India’s claim: New Delhi has been pitching for a seat on the Council to reflect the realities of today’s world.
    3. Support from Central Europe: The Visegrad Group backed India’s inclusion as a permanent member, with Slovakia’s Foreign Minister saying India “must be at the table” as a permanent member.
    4. Reform on the bilateral agenda: Council reform was among the multilateral issues taken up with the French Foreign Minister.

    What did the India-Visegrad meeting and the bilaterals produce?

    1. A first meeting: India held its first foreign ministers’ meeting with the four-member Visegrad Group of Central European countries, which was described as a “new historic occasion”.
    2. What the group is: The Visegrad Group (V4) is a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia that aims to advance cooperation in military, economic, cultural and energy affairs.
    3. Agreed outcome: India and the group agreed to step up political, economic and defence cooperation.
    4. Bilaterals held: Separate meetings were held with the counterparts from Ukraine, France, Moldova and Hungary.
    5. Substance with France: Regional and global issues were discussed, specifically the Ukraine and Gulf crises, along with multilateral issues.
    6. Substance with Ukraine: The discussion covered peace efforts and the situation in the Black Sea, with restoring freedom of navigation identified as critical for global food security.

    Challenges to reformed multilateralism

    1. The amendment threshold: Changing the Council’s composition requires a UN Charter amendment ratified by two-thirds of the membership including every permanent member, so each of them holds a veto over reform itself. Eg. The Council has been enlarged only once, in 1965, when the elected seats went from six to ten.
      The Fix: Pursue an interim category of longer-term renewable elected seats, which enlarges participation without touching the veto.
    2. Incompatible claimant blocs: Rival groupings press models that cannot both be adopted, so the negotiation has no single text to amend. Eg. The G4 of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan seeks new permanent seats, and the Uniting for Consensus group opposes any new permanent members.
      The Fix: Move the Intergovernmental Negotiations onto a single negotiating text with positions recorded against each clause, so movement between sessions is visible.
    3. Financing concentrated in a few states: Assessed contributions are concentrated among a handful of members and arrears interrupt operations, so budget leverage substitutes for votes. Eg. The UN has run repeated liquidity crises from unpaid assessed contributions, forcing hiring and spending freezes at the Secretariat.
      The Fix: Shift a larger share of the regular budget onto multi-year assessed commitments, so operations do not turn on the timing of one member’s payment.
    4. Enforcement resting on the states to be restrained: Council decisions bind all members, and implementation rests with the same powers whose own conduct is contested. Eg. Draft resolutions on the war in Ukraine were blocked in the Council and moved to the General Assembly, whose resolutions are recommendatory.
      The Fix: Build on the requirement that a vetoing member explain itself before the General Assembly, making the Assembly’s recourse automatic whenever a veto blocks action.

    Conclusion

    India’s argument rests on two claims. The first is that the existing order cannot absorb the competition now running through it. The second is that energy, food and supply risks need standing frameworks rather than case-by-case responses, which is a demand for machinery and not only for representation. Backing from a group of Central European states adds a voice to the reform demand without altering the arithmetic that governs it. The External Affairs Minister addresses the General Debate on September 26, which is where the case is put to the full membership rather than to co-sponsors.

    Back2Basics: UN Security Council

    1. Founding: It was created under the UN Charter in 1945 as the organ carrying primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
    2. Elected members: Ten non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, with no immediate re-election.
    3. Binding force: Its decisions are binding on all UN members, which distinguishes them from General Assembly resolutions.
    4. India’s record: India has served eight terms as a non-permanent member, most recently in 2021-22.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12.5 marks] Discuss the impediments India is facing in its pursuit of a permanent seat in UN Security Council.”

  • AI is now a great-power game. Three difficult questions for India

    Why in the News

    The United States and China are opening a formal bilateral dialogue on artificial intelligence (AI) and its risks, with the Chinese President received in Washington by the US President on Thursday for their third summit in less than 10 months. The meeting comes barely 10 days after the Delhi BRICS summit, where China offered its own vision of international cooperation on AI. The two events set out opposite agendas for the same technology, one built on openness and diffusion and the other on preventing accidents, miscalculation and misuse. BRICS rhetoric on AI may be multipolar. Technological power at the frontier remains concentrated in the United States and China.

    What is strategic stability in the AI age?

    1. Strategic stability: A condition in which neither of two rival powers has an incentive to strike first or to race, sustained by shared understanding of each other’s capabilities and by channels that stop an accident being read as an attack.
    2. Origin of the term: It comes from nuclear arms control, where the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated rules to reduce mutual risk during an active contest for advantage.
    3. What it covers in AI: Preventing accidents, miscalculation and misuse arising from the most capable models, including their military applications.
    4. What it does not cover: It is narrower than agreement on the technological order as a whole, so a strategic stability understanding can be reached with chips, export controls and market access still contested.

    What does China’s BRICS offer on AI amount to?

    1. Openness, access and diffusion: The Chinese framing at Delhi placed the emphasis on spreading AI capability rather than on containing its risks.
    2. World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (WAICO): BRICS members were invited to join this body, which China launched in Shanghai this summer as a venue for international AI cooperation.
    3. Open models for the forum: China proposed that BRICS host an open-source AI community, which makes models and tools available for others to use and adapt.
    4. Champion of affordable access: China presented itself as the advocate of developing countries seeking affordable access to AI models and applications.

    Why does the Washington agenda invert the BRICS agenda?

    1. Subject of the conversation: The Washington discussion concerns the dangers generated by increasingly powerful models and the need to prevent accidents, miscalculation and misuse, which is the opposite end of the technology from access and diffusion.
    2. Who is writing the security rules: As the world’s leading AI powers, the United States and China are beginning to shape the security and geopolitical architecture of the new technology.
    3. The distance between rhetoric and capability: Multipolar language at BRICS does not change where the most advanced capability sits, and the journey from Delhi to Washington in barely 10 days is what makes that visible.
    4. Cold War precedent: The United States and the Soviet Union competed and cooperated in the nuclear and space domains at the same time, and the rules they negotiated inevitably affected the rest of the world.

    What has the US-China AI channel produced, and where does it still diverge?

    1. Opening of the channel: A tentative channel was opened by the Biden administration after the two leaders met at Woodside, California, in November 2023.
    2. The one concrete outcome: At Lima a year later the two leaders affirmed that humans, not artificial intelligence, must control decisions on the use of nuclear weapons.
    3. Guardrails discussed without result: The two leaders discussed possible AI “guardrails” when they met in Beijing in May, and no formal arrangement followed.
    4. What is now on the table: After talks in New York last weekend between the US Treasury Secretary and the Chinese Vice-Premier, Washington said the two sides had considered a standing AI dialogue and a notification system for incidents with national-security consequences.
    5. Why such a mechanism matters: In a crisis the first requirement is not agreement on the entire technological order. It is the ability to establish what has happened, whether it was accidental or deliberate, and who is responsible.
    6. The American objective: The United States wants a framework to manage the risks posed by powerful models and their military applications.
    7. The Chinese objection: China treats safety discussions as a possible instrument for preserving American technological advantage and for legitimising restrictions on its own access to advanced computing.
    8. The named disagreements: The two also disagree on open-source models, data governance, state regulation and the legitimacy of export controls.
    9. Entanglement with trade: Safety discussion under the present US administration runs alongside disputes over advanced chips, export controls, rare earths, tariffs, computing power and the race to build the most capable models, so no grand bargain is at hand and what is sought is a narrower understanding on strategic stability.

    What three questions does this leave India?

    1. Navigating the technological contest: India sits inside the US-led Pax Silica initiative on technology and supply chains, which follows from its deep integration with the American digital and AI ecosystem, and it has stayed out of China’s WAICO amid enduring security problems and mutual distrust. As a BRICS member it still cannot avoid AI rhetoric shaped by the forum’s dominant power.
    2. Competing offers to developing societies: India’s emphasis on making AI work for developing societies found considerable resonance at the Delhi AI summit earlier this year. China’s deeper capabilities in computing, infrastructure, hardware and advanced models let it offer the Global South a wider package of technological cooperation.
    3. Rule-setting by two powers: A dialogue that begins on strategic stability could become an effort to set rules for everyone else, producing discriminatory technology controls against states outside it.
      Counter-pressure: Geopolitical rivalry and competition for markets between the two powers could limit such collusion and create leverage for emerging technological powers such as India.

    Challenges to a US-China understanding on AI risk

    1. Absence of a countable unit: Model capability cannot be counted or inspected the way delivery systems were, so compliance with any understanding cannot be confirmed. Eg. The New START treaty rested on declared launcher numbers and on-site inspection, and neither has an analogue for a training run or a set of model weights.
      The Fix: Anchor the dialogue on physical proxies such as data-centre compute capacity and chip transfers, which are countable and already tracked.
    2. Controls that leak through third countries: Export controls bind firms rather than territory, so restricted chips move through intermediaries in jurisdictions outside any bilateral arrangement. Eg. Washington’s October 2022 controls on advanced computing chips were widened a year later after routes through third countries emerged.
      The Fix: Tie the notification commitment to a shared list of controlled items, so a transfer is traceable rather than disputed after the fact.
    3. Capability held by private developers: The most capable models are built by companies, so a state-to-state understanding does not bind the actors doing the building. Eg. The 2023 Bletchley Park declaration on frontier model safety rested on voluntary commitments from developers rather than obligations on them.
      The Fix: Require incident reporting from developers under domestic law, so a state can honour a notification commitment over conduct it does not itself control.
    4. Exclusion of the states the rules will govern: Terms settled between two powers become conditions of access for everyone else without their participation. Eg. India stayed outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and needed a separate Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver in 2008 before it could trade in nuclear material.
      The Fix: Route AI risk rules through a body with wider membership, so conditions of access are negotiated by the states they bind.

    Conclusion

    Two states are writing the safety rules for a technology they also lead, and the rules will reach states that were not in the room. India’s exposure is therefore not the rhetoric of any forum but the possibility of inheriting terms it did not negotiate. What decides its position is measurable and domestic: computing power, semiconductors, models, research, capital and talent. The thing to watch is whether the risk channel the two powers settle on is opened to third states or kept strictly bilateral.

    What is technology diplomacy?

    1. About: The use of a state’s technological assets, innovation ecosystem and digital standards to build international partnerships, influence global governance and secure national interests.
    2. Two halves: Tech-cooperation shares working tools such as digital payment systems with other states. Tech-governance shapes the norms for artificial intelligence and 6G.
    3. Named pillars: Exporting digital public infrastructure as a public good, securing lithium and cobalt through the Mineral Security Partnership, building trusted semiconductor supply chains, and cyber diplomacy.
    4. Why it is a distinct instrument: A state that sets a standard shapes the conduct of every state that adopts it, which gives technological capability a diplomatic return that trade or aid does not.

    Government Initiatives on artificial intelligence

    1. IndiaAI Mission (2024): Approved with an outlay of Rs 10,371 crore and implemented by IndiaAI under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), it builds compute, datasets, models, skills and safety capacity for startups, researchers and students.
    2. IndiaAI Compute: A national AI compute grid of over 38,000 graphics processing units, offering eligible users up to 40 per cent lower compute costs.
    3. AIKosh: The national AI dataset repository, carrying over 3,000 datasets and 243 models across 20 sectors for developers who cannot assemble their own data.
    4. IndiaAI Safety Institute: The mission’s trust pillar, covering bias mitigation, privacy, explainability and AI governance.

    Back2Basics: Pax Silica

    1. What it is: A United States-led initiative on technology and supply chains, which India is part of.
    2. Purpose: Building resilient semiconductor and electronics supply chains among trusted partners, so production is not concentrated in a single jurisdiction.
    3. Why it matters for India: Membership follows from India’s integration with the American digital and AI ecosystem, and it sits opposite the China-led venue India has declined to join.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 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.”

  • How to ensure hospitals don’t cheat patients

    Why in the News

    Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released purchase and billing comparisons for medical items sold by hospitals, showing that a drip set costing a hospital Rs 11 carries a printed price of Rs 325. The figures follow an audit of the bills of critical patients at private hospitals across Maharashtra, facilitated by Jan Arogya Abhiyan. A Department of Pharmaceuticals committee chaired by Sudhansh Pant had recorded in 2016 that high maximum retail prices were “a tool to cheat the helpless consumer”, and had recommended capping trade margins on all medicines and implants. Statutory price regulation still reaches only 18 per cent of medicines, so the gap between what a hospital pays for an item and what it bills the patient is set by the manufacturer’s printed price rather than by a regulator.

    What is the trade margin on a medicine?

    1. Trade margin: The difference between the price at which a hospital or a chemist buys a medicine or a consumable and the maximum retail price (MRP) printed on the pack, which is what the patient pays.
    2. Who sets the ceiling: For a product outside statutory price control the manufacturer prints the MRP itself, so the margin available to the seller is decided at the point of manufacture and not by a regulator.
    3. What price control actually covers: The Drug (Prices Control) Order lets the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) fix a ceiling price for formulations in the National List of Essential Medicines. Formulations outside that list carry only a cap on the annual price increase a manufacturer may take.
    4. Why an in-patient bill is different: A hospital both dispenses the item and bills for it, so the margin a chemist would earn is captured inside the hospital bill and the patient has no comparison to make.

    How large is the gap between what a hospital pays and what a patient is billed?

    1. Consumables at the regulator’s own count: A syringe bought for under Rs 7 is marked for sale at Rs 57.
    2. Compliance with the pandemic markup limit: Not one of the 46 medicine brands examined in the audit was charged within the limit of 10 per cent markup on purchase price that was fixed during the pandemic.
    3. Spread of the overcharging: For nearly half the medicines examined, patients paid more than 150 per cent above what the hospital had paid.
    4. Named medicines: A paracetamol drip bought for about Rs 33 was billed at Rs 408. An antibiotic injection bought for about Rs 180 was billed at Rs 950.
    5. The common range: Margins most commonly ran between 200 and 400 per cent.
    6. Consumables run higher than medicines: A drip set bought for about Rs 12 is typically billed at Rs 160 and sometimes at Rs 270. An oxygen mask costing about Rs 55 can be charged up to Rs 570.

    Why has the 2016 recommendation to cap trade margins not changed billing?

    1. The committee’s finding on MRP: Fixing the MRP was recorded as “free for all and largely arbitrary in which the consumer is the net loser”, which locates the defect in the printed price itself rather than in any individual seller.
    2. The recommended cap: Trade margins on all medicines and implants, price-controlled or not, were to be capped between 35 per cent and 50 per cent depending on the product’s price.
    3. Coverage the cap would have had: The recommendation applied to items outside price control as well, which is where the largest margins sit.
    4. Ten years without action: The recommendations were not implemented and patients continue to pay unjustified margins on many medicines and consumables, which contributes to medical impoverishment.

    What three steps does the proposal put forward?

    1. Purchase price on the bill: State FDAs can direct every private hospital to print, for medicines and consumables above a set value, both the price the hospital paid and the price it is charging, which gives the patient the ground to seek a discount or to buy from another source.
    2. Statutory price regulation extended: The Centre should extend price regulation to all essential medicines and medical consumables, since the present 18 per cent coverage is applied in a manner that is often over-permissive. This requires amendments to the Drug (Prices Control) Order, with the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the NPPA carrying it.
    3. A patient right already in force: Maharashtra’s FDA ordered in 2016, and again in 2022, that hospitals cannot force admitted patients to buy medicines only from the hospital pharmacy. The National Consumer Commission has called such compulsion an unfair trade practice, the right appears in the National Patients’ Rights Charter, and every hospital must display it.

    Challenges to statutory price control of medicines

    1. Scope tied to a list: A ceiling price binds only a formulation carried on the National List of Essential Medicines, so a product that moves outside the list escapes it. Eg. The list was revised in 2015 and again in 2022, leaving a long interval in which newer formulations stayed uncontrolled.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory revision cycle for the list, so a new formulation is assessed for inclusion on a schedule rather than at discretion.
    2. Devices and consumables outside formulation control: A syringe, a drip set or a mask is not a formulation, so it falls outside a price control system built around medicines. Eg. The NPPA had to notify cardiac stents and knee implants separately in 2017 to bring each under a ceiling price.
      The Fix: Bring consumables and implants under a single trade margin ceiling that applies by value rather than by product notification.
    3. Trade margin rationalisation used selectively: The regulator has capped trade margins on small sets of products rather than across the board, so the instrument exists without reach. Eg. In 2019 the NPPA capped trade margins at 30 per cent on 42 non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines.
      The Fix: Publish the purchase-to-billing margin for each notified product from hospital procurement records, so a cap is auditable rather than self-declared.
    4. Enforcement sits with understaffed state machinery: A ceiling price is notified centrally but detected at the point of sale by state drug inspectors, whose sanctioned strength is low. Eg. The Mashelkar Committee of 2003 recorded that state drug control departments were understaffed and recommended a centralised national drug authority.
      The Fix: Publish state-wise inspector strength and the amount of overcharging recovered against notified ceiling prices every year, so weak enforcement is visible before it is litigated.

    Conclusion

    Price regulation in India has been built around what a medicine may cost, not around what a seller may add to it. The patient’s money goes into the margin, so the margin is the variable that has to be capped, and a cap on it works whether or not the product is on any list. The test now is whether the Department of Pharmaceuticals acts on a margin cap that has been before it for a decade, or leaves billing disclosure to whichever state regulator chooses to order it.

    Health financing in India

    1. Public health expenditure: Government spending on health stands at 1.9 per cent of GDP, against the National Health Policy, 2017 target of 2.5 per cent, with the Centre’s own share at 0.29 per cent of GDP.
    2. Public and private together: Combined health expenditure is 3.8 per cent of GDP, so most health spending in India is private spending.
    3. Out-of-pocket expenditure: Payments households make directly at the point of care, without insurance or public cover absorbing them, fell from 55 per cent of health spending in 2017-18 to 39.4 per cent in 2021-22.
    4. The missing middle: About 30 per cent of the population carries no health insurance of any kind, being above the eligibility line for public cover and below the reach of private cover.

    Government Initiatives for affordable medicines and care

    1. Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana: Run by the Department of Pharmaceuticals, it sells quality generic medicines at low prices through Jan Aushadhi Kendras, aimed at patients paying for medicines themselves.
    2. AMRIT outlets: Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment stores inside government hospitals sell cancer and cardiovascular medicines, implants and devices at discounted prices.
    3. Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana: Provides hospitalisation cover to eligible households at empanelled public and private hospitals, with over 43.52 crore Ayushman cards created.
    4. Ayushman Vay Vandana: Extends a Rs 5 lakh health cover to citizens aged 70 and above irrespective of income, with over 93 lakh cards issued.

    Back2Basics: National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority

    1. What it is: An attached office of the Department of Pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, set up in 1997 as the price regulator for medicines.
    2. Core function: It fixes and revises the ceiling prices of scheduled formulations and monitors the prices of medicines that are not under ceiling control.
    3. Recovery power: It can demand the amount overcharged, along with interest, from a company that sells above a notified ceiling price.
    4. Policy role: It advises the Centre on pricing policy for drugs and on changes to the Drug (Prices Control) Order.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024, GS2, 15 marks] In a crucial domain like the public healthcare system, the Indian State should play a vital role to contain the adverse impact of marketisation of the system. Suggest some measures through which the State can enhance the reach of public healthcare at the grassroots level.”

  • From a jan sunwai in Delhi, lessons for poll body

    Why in the News

    Residents of Mangolpuri in Delhi lined up at a jan sunwai, a public hearing, to file claims and objections against being wrongfully excluded from the draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter list. The hearing produced a documented record of wrongful deletion in every category the draft roll used. The draft roll had been published four days earlier, with over 47 lakh names in Delhi marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). A further 11 lakh voters were dropped from the list altogether and 32 lakh were to receive notices, so one in two voters in Delhi was trying to get a name back on the roll. The Chief Election Commissioner has certified the process, on the claim that zero appeals have been filed against deletions in the 12 states where the revision is complete. A certification of no grievance and a public record of proven error cannot both describe the same exercise.

    How does the Special Intensive Revision work?

    1. About: The SIR is a house to house revision of the electoral roll in which every voter files a fresh enumeration form.
    2. Draft roll: The revision produces a draft list. Voters then file claims and objections against exclusion from it.
    3. Markings on exclusion: A name not carried forward is marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). Other names are dropped from the list outright or issued notices.
    4. Logical discrepancies: Mismatches that the software throws up against older entries are recorded as “logical discrepancies”.

    What did the Mangolpuri public audit find?

    1. Wrongful deletion in every category: The audit showed wrongful deletions across all the ASDD categories.
    2. Spouses split: In 95 houses one spouse was marked as shifted. The other spouse remained on the SIR list.
    3. An elector marked dead: An elector named Kanta Prasad, recorded as dead, came to the microphone at the hearing and asked what he could do to come back to life.
    4. The basis for that entry: The Chief Electoral Officer’s press note said he was placed in the dead category on information furnished by a family member. That family member is his son.
    5. The son’s account: The son has recorded a statement that he was tricked into signing a blank sheet of paper, on the pretext that it would restore his father’s name.
    6. A resettlement colony: Mangolpuri is a resettlement colony. The scale of deletion there caused extreme insecurity among residents.

    What six lessons does the public audit yield for the poll body?

    1. Three mandated house visits: The booth level officer (BLO) cannot complete the mandated three visits to every house, whatever orders are passed. Many houses were not visited even once.
    2. Burden of registration: De novo filling of enumeration forms by all voters shifts the burden of voter registration from the Election Commission to the voter, and is bound to produce mass exclusions. In 2002 booth level officers instead used the previously frozen voter list to verify additions and deletions house to house.
    3. Lineage based proof of citizenship: Proving citizenship by mapping oneself or one’s direct lineage onto the 2002 voter list has proved a nightmare. It falls hardest on migrant workers and on women who have shifted after marriage.
    4. Amplified data entry errors: The logical discrepancies amplify wrong data entries made over the years. The burden of correcting data that the administration entered wrongly falls on the citizen.
    5. Grievance redress machinery: The appeal and grievance redress process lies with the same machinery that is implementing the exercise. The system is arbitrary by design and must go.
    6. Public hearing before deletion: The election manual already provides for a public hearing at the panchayat, ward or booth level before any name is deleted or added. Those provisions must be implemented in letter and spirit.

    What does the poll body’s response to the audit show?

    1. A press note in defence of the deletions: Two days after the hearing the Chief Electoral Officer’s office responded through a press note. It stood by its deletions in all six cases it addressed.
    2. Restoration treated as first time registration: A wrongly deleted voter is required to return to the roll by filling Form 6. That form makes the voter declare that they are “applying for inclusion in the electoral roll for the first time”, which is false in their case.
    3. Accountability not offered: No redress or accountability was offered for the incorrect deletions the audit established.

    Can a citizen led public audit become part of revising the roll?

    1. A demonstrated method: The audit did not merely prove incorrect exclusions. It also demonstrated an efficacious method to update and revise the electoral roll.
    2. Ignored by the Commission: The Election Commission has almost entirely ignored that method.
    3. Orders that cannot be executed: The Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka, Telangana and Jharkhand have issued perfunctory orders for such hearings. One day has been allocated for the purpose, so the orders can never be carried out.

    Conclusion

    A revision that begins from a blank form makes the voter prove an entitlement the law already grants. The poll body’s own certification and the record produced at a public hearing cannot both be accurate. Nothing in the process decides between them, because the authority that deletes a name also hears the appeal against it. That is the question this exercise leaves open. What to watch is whether additions and deletions are put through an independent public audit before a roll is finalised, and Delhi is where that safeguard would be tested first.

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Unprecedented rupture inside Election Commission: ECs call steps on new voters ‘unauthorised, illegal’

    Why in the News

    Two of the three Election Commissioners have objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without their knowledge. Four of those objections were recorded on a single day, and five of the 14 notes were copied to the Chief Election Commissioner. They call the changes made to the form a new voter fills “unauthorised” and “illegal”. They also warn that the electoral roll database is being centralised in Delhi, restricting the statutory officers on the ground. The objections run alongside the national rollout of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has struck more than 13 crore names off the draft rolls in 30 States and Union Territories. The law requires this three-member constitutional body to transact its business unanimously as far as possible, and the two members who form its majority say they were kept in the dark.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls?

    1. About: The SIR is a special revision of the electoral roll that the Commission may order under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
    2. A one-time exception: The provision was invoked as a one time measure and exception, not as the ordinary revision route.
    3. Non-statutory forms: The forms prescribed for the SIR are specific to that exercise and are non-statutory, meaning they are not part of the law.
    4. Rollout: The revision began in Bihar in June 2025. It was then extended state by state, and was under way in 12 States and Union Territories by January 2026.

    How is the Election Commission legally required to transact its business?

    1. Constitutional composition: The Commission is a constitutional body under Article 324. It is made up of the Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners who are equal in rank.
    2. No power to decide alone: The Chief Election Commissioner is first among equals. He does not have the power to decide by himself.
    3. Unanimity as the default: Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires all business of the Commission to be transacted unanimously as far as possible. Where the members differ on any matter, that matter is decided by the opinion of the majority.
    4. Procedure only by unanimity: The same section lets the Commission settle its own procedure and the division of its work only by unanimous decision.
    5. Communications without approval: In April one Commissioner told senior officers that many communications go out in the ECI’s name without the Commission’s approval. Eight days later the other recorded that several communications are disseminated without the requisite approval of the Commission.
    6. Appointment route: All three members were appointed under the 2023 Act by a selection panel of the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The Opposition member on the panel recorded a dissent over the appointment process on both occasions.

    Why do two Commissioners call the change to the new voter form unauthorised and illegal?

    1. The change: From July the form every adult citizen fills to become a voter began asking whether the applicant, or a parent or grandparent, exists in the electoral roll of the last SIR. Applicants could not proceed without answering.
    2. Three options and no fourth: The applicant had to pick between their own name in the roll of the last SIR held in the early 2000s, a parent’s or grandparent’s name in that roll, or neither. The section was not marked mandatory, yet the form could not be submitted without an answer.
    3. A statutory form has a statutory route: Form 6 for new registration and Form 8 for corrections are prescribed statutorily. Neither can be altered without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
    4. The warning on file: One Commissioner recorded in May that a sentence in an SIR order or guideline cannot change a form fixed by law. His colleague concurred on file three days later.
    5. The advised course: The recorded advice was to send the proposal to the Government for changes to the rules. A draft of the changes to both forms was to be placed before the Commission.
    6. The precedent for the correct route: Parliament amended the Representation of the People Act, 1950 in 2021 to let the Commission collect Aadhaar numbers from voters. The Law Ministry’s Legislative Department, not the Commission, notified the consequent changes to the Rules and to Form 6 in June 2022.
    7. The objection on record: In August one Commissioner recorded that the change was “unauthorised and illegal” and “must be removed immediately so that young and would-be first time voters, who are otherwise eligible, can register themselves as voters as per law, without any harassment”.
    8. The change survived the objection: The question was still on the portal more than a month after that note.
    9. Why it matters for an 18 year old: The right to vote belongs to the individual, who qualifies by age, citizenship and residence. An applicant whose parents and grandparents did not figure in the last SIR roll could not truthfully choose either of the first two options, and the form did not explain the consequence of choosing the third.

    What does centralisation of the voter database do to the statutory officer on the ground?

    1. The decentralised design: The Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 assign the electoral roll to an Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), one for each Assembly seat, usually the sub-divisional magistrate. The ERO prepares the list, hears claims and objections, and decides which names stay.
    2. The Commission’s standing defence: For decades the ECI has answered allegations of mass manipulation of rolls by pointing to that design. No single person is supposed to control the voters’ list.
    3. The platform: ECINet, launched in January, brought more than 40 of the Commission’s apps and portals under one roof as the technology backbone for almost a billion voters. It subsumed ERONet, the earlier roll management system.
    4. Warnings before the launch: In November 2025 a Deputy Election Commissioner wrote, on a Commissioner’s directions, that the statutory functions of the ERO, the District Election Officer and the Chief Electoral Officer were “to be strictly exercised by them and no one else”.
    5. Warning on the new module: In January 2026 the same officer asked that the system not restrict the ERO’s discretion to act, as EROs were put on a new module for issuing notices and holding hearings. ECINet was launched twenty days later.
    6. Access withdrawn in practice: In August one Commissioner recorded that state level officials said they did not have “proper and complete access” to ERONet and so could not perform their statutory duties. Their powers had been “curtailed by centralised control of ERONet at DG(IT) level”, he wrote.
    7. Question of legal authority: The Commission’s Director General (Information Technology) has no legal authority to restrict the access and freedom to operate that the law gives the statutory authorities, that note recorded.
    8. Audit proposed: In May one Commissioner flagged the “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database”. He proposed an audit, with an outside expert from the Indian Institutes of Technology, to certify that only the concerned statutory authorities hold credentials to change the voter database.
    9. Two committees proposed: One committee was to review the systems periodically and certify who holds those credentials. A second was to check whether ECINet complies with the law and to bring policy changes before the Commission.
    10. Outcome of the proposal: The other Commissioner endorsed it in July. In August he recorded that any action taken on the two notes was not known to him.
    11. What is at stake: A voter can be eligible, prove it, be found eligible by the officer the law appoints, and still not appear on the roll. A team in Delhi that controls what the software permits can stall, override or cancel what ground level officials decide.

    How was the oversight layer over the IT division removed?

    1. The chain that existed: A Deputy Election Commissioner in New Delhi oversaw the IT division’s work and routed its files to the three-member Commission. The two Commissioners had used that chain to seek briefings and to propose the audit.
    2. The reallocation: In late July a Senior Deputy Election Commissioner was given additional charge of administration during the regular officer’s leave. Within hours he changed the work allocation without consulting the Commission, taking the Deputy Election Commissioner out of oversight of the IT division.
    3. Escalation outside the Commission: The two Commissioners each wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary the next day. They called the order a clear violation of the law governing the Commission and sought appropriate action against the officer.
    4. The order set aside: A day later the two jointly set the order aside as “without any reason and justification”. They directed the previous work allocation to continue until the Commission reached a consensus.
    5. First full meeting in four months: The Chief Election Commissioner and the two Commissioners then met on 9 September. It was their first full meeting in four months.

    What did the West Bengal appeals and the Goa rejections expose?

    1. Scale of contestation in West Bengal: The SIR was most deeply contested in West Bengal. Of the 294 seats that went to polls, deletions exceeded the victory margin in 49, and those were shared almost evenly, with 26 won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 21 by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
    2. The Court’s intervention: The manner in which names were struck off prompted the Supreme Court in February 2026 to take the last leg of the SIR out of the Commission’s hands. Judicial officers were directed to decide the cases of 60 lakh voters flagged for “logical discrepancies”.
    3. Deletions and appeals: The Commission subsequently deleted 27 lakh of those electors. Tribunals of retired High Court judges were ordered to hear appeals, and 38 lakh appeals are now pending before them.
    4. Appeals against restored voters: Of those pending appeals, 22.21 lakh were filed by deleted voters seeking restoration. The other 16.10 lakh were filed against voters whom the judicial officers had included, and the Commission did not say who filed them.
    5. The objection recorded: One Commissioner asked in August who was authorised to file appeals on the ECI’s behalf, and who actually filed them. Neither Commissioner nor the state’s Chief Electoral Officer had been informed of the basis or the process, he recorded.
    6. Goa, a decision the software could not hold: A “logical discrepancy” is a mismatch the software throws up when it tries to link a voter to a parent or relative on an older roll, such as a name that does not match or an age gap that does not add up. Goa’s EROs heard such cases on the documents produced and found 97 voters eligible for the final roll.
    7. Eight unanswered letters: Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer’s office wrote eight times in February to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of the state, copying the Director General (Information Technology) each time. It asked for the rollback option that would let EROs reverse the earlier deletions, as the Supreme Court had directed in January.
    8. The outcome: The provision was not enabled before the deadline for publishing the final roll. The 97 were left off the final voters’ roll in Goa.

    How does this rupture differ from earlier dissent inside the Commission?

    1. The 2009 episode: In January 2009 the Chief Election Commissioner wrote to the President recommending that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla be removed for alleged partisan conduct. The Government rejected the recommendation in March 2009, and Chawla succeeded him as Chief Election Commissioner that April.
    2. The 2019 episode: In May 2019 Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner that he would stop attending meetings on Model Code of Conduct complaints until his minority decisions were recorded in the final orders. He had disagreed with the majority’s clean chits to the Prime Minister and to the then president of the BJP.
    3. How that ended: The full Commission decided, 2-1, that dissents would be recorded in the file but not in the orders. Lavasa left the Commission the following year, before his turn as Chief Election Commissioner.
    4. Dissent on an outcome, not on process: In both episodes an individual member dissented on a specific decision on which he had been overruled.
    5. This time the majority is in the dark: The two Commissioners who form the majority are recording that decisions were taken, orders issued and cases filed without their knowledge. That is a statement about how the Commission functions, not a disagreement over a result.
    6. No response: The Commission and both Commissioners did not respond to questionnaires, emails and follow up calls.

    Conclusion

    A constitutional body’s strongest answer to charges of roll manipulation has been that no single office controls the list. That answer now turns on who holds the credentials to the software. The two members who form the majority have put on record that they cannot verify the claim themselves, and the Commission has not answered the questions they raised. The markers to watch are whether the disputed declaration is taken off the new voter form, whether the proposed audit of database credentials is placed before the full Commission, and whether the Commission discloses who filed appeals in its name against voters that a court’s officers had restored.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS2, 10 marks] In the light of recent controversy regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), what are the challenges before the Election Commission of India to ensure the trustworthiness of elections in India?”

  • 1986 ruling holds, can’t penalise for not singing: SC at Vande Mataram hearing

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has said that a person who declines to recite one or all stanzas of the national song cannot be subjected to “criminal consequences”. A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India said it will examine whether refusal to sing the Vande Mataram can carry penal consequences. The Bench was hearing a challenge by Carnatic vocalist T M Krishna to the law mandating the singing of all six stanzas. The Centre has amended Section 3 of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, extending to Vande Mataram the same legal protection that Jana Gana Mana carries. The Bench reminded the Centre of Bijoe Emmanuel and Others vs State of Kerala and Others (1986). It said the law declared in that case will govern the amended Act. The contest is between an elected legislature’s power to declare what the national song is and an individual’s freedom not to sing it.

    What is the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971?

    1. Amended Section 3: Section 3 now extends to Vande Mataram the same legal protection the Act already gave Jana Gana Mana.
    2. A new expression in the statute: The amendment introduced the expression “national song” into the Act. The Act itself does not define what a national song is.
    3. The operative guideline: The requirement to sing all six stanzas at official functions rests on an office memorandum. That memorandum is not gazetted and cites no enabling provision.
    4. Custom and usage: By custom and usage the national song has always been understood as Vande Mataram.

    What did Bijoe Emmanuel (1986) settle?

    1. The facts: Students belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses were expelled for refusing to sing the national anthem. They had stood respectfully in silence during the anthem.
    2. The holding: The Supreme Court held that the expulsion violated their fundamental rights.
    3. Its standing today: The declaration of law in that case has not yet been questioned, the Bench said. It expects that declaration to govern the amended Act.
    4. What is not in dispute: The Bench said that what the national song is, is not in dispute before it.

    Why did the Bench not take up the secularism argument?

    1. The petition’s ground: The plea argues that the guideline on singing all six stanzas violates the constitutional principle of secularism. The last four stanzas carry explicit Hindu references.
    2. The Bench’s view: A national song expressing homage to a particular God or form of God would not perhaps impact secularism, the Bench said.
    3. The Centre’s position: The Solicitor General argued that secularism “will never be this narrow”.
    4. The question taken up instead: The Bench said the question whether a conscientious objector, meaning a person who refuses on grounds of conscience, can be subjected to penal consequences may require examination.

    What is the vagueness objection to the amended law?

    1. An undefined term in a penal statute: A penal statute cannot operate in the realm of vagueness. The Act makes conduct punishable and leaves the expression at the centre of that offence undefined.
    2. Risk of misuse: Counsel for the petitioner called the absence of a definition a serious lacuna in the Act that can be misused.
    3. A change in settled scope: The national song has been understood as two stanzas. For the first time after 80 years it is being presented as more than two.
    4. Consensus before penalty: Use of the term national requires the building of public opinion and consensus. It cannot be thrust on citizens with penal consequences attached.

    Where does the line fall between the legislature’s choice and the individual’s right?

    1. The legislature’s domain: It is for the democratically elected state to decide what the national song is, whether two stanzas or four, the Bench said.
    2. The Court’s limited remit: It is not the remit of the Court to second guess the national sentiments and aspirations associated with Vande Mataram.
    3. The individual’s protection: Nobody who feels an infraction of Article 25 and Article 26 rights would be subjected to penal consequences. The same protection extends to a conscientious objector who declines to recite one or all stanzas.
    4. Extent of penalty reserved: The extent of penal consequences requires examination, the Bench said.
    5. Scope of the hearing: The Bench declined to take note of the Solicitor General’s remark that “lawmaking cannot be as per Naxalite’s ideas”. It confined itself to the constitutional issue before it.

    Conclusion

    A statute can borrow the authority of the word national without saying in law what that word covers. That is the gap this hearing has exposed. The Court has split the question in two, leaving the choice of the national song to the elected legislature and signalling that an individual’s refusal to sing it cannot be punished. The Centre has been asked to file its counter-affidavit within two weeks, and the extent of penal consequences is what the Bench has reserved for itself to decide.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017, GS2, 15 marks] Examine the scope of Fundamental Rights in the light of the latest judgement of the Supreme Court on Right to Privacy.”

  • Reiterating the basics of criminalisation

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has held that the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 is “still-born” and that proceedings under it cannot survive. A two-judge Bench decided this in Shiv Pratap Singh vs. State of U.P. and Himanshu Srivastava vs. State of U.P. The Bench found that the Act never created an offence at all. Who counts as a gangster was fixed by Rules framed under the Act, so the determination was left to the “ipse dixit of the Executive”, an assertion resting on official say-so rather than on proof. The Act had governed gangsters and anti-social activities in the State for four decades. The contest is between a State’s claim to a special law against organised crime and the constitutional requirement that only a legislature may create a crime.

    What is the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986?

    1. Subject matter: The Act was the State’s dedicated special law against gangsters and anti-social activities in Uttar Pradesh.
    2. Determination of a gangster: The Act defines a gangster. Who is a gangster for the purpose of punishment is prescribed in the Rules framed under the Act.
    3. Gang chart: Chapter 3 prescribes the procedure for preparing the gang chart. This is the document through which administrative and police authorities record a person as a gangster.
    4. Section 23: Section 23 carries special provisions for trial and bail, together with the rule-making power.

    Why did the Court call the Act “still-born”?

    1. Creation of the crime: A penal law must create the crime by explicitly identifying the act made punishable. The Court applied the definition of “offence” in the General Clauses Act and concluded, “We cannot find any offence having been created.”
    2. Criminal law-making as a legislative function: Making an act or omission subject to penal consequences is “essentially a legislative function”. The Court held that this function “cannot be thrown away and left to sprout in the thicket of subordinate legislation”.
    3. Exclusion of the executive: The Rules left the determination of who a gangster is to the executive. The Court treated the exclusion of the executive from rule-making and from guilt determination as the desirable position.
    4. Punishment must follow the statute: The Court held that punishment must accord with what the penal law itself prescribes. A subordinate instrument cannot supply it.

    Why is criminal law-making reserved to the legislature?

    1. The definitional role: The role of defining crime and punishment is “assigned primarily and broadly to the legislature, secondarily and interstitially to the courts, and to no one else”. That formulation comes from Herbert L. Packer’s The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (1968).
    2. Deliberation before enactment: Enacting a criminal law through the legislature forces detailed debate and due deliberation. Subordinate legislation supplies neither.
    3. Unquestioned executive opinion: The problem arises when the opinions of the executive are accepted without question on categorisation and on punitive action.

    How does the principle of legality bar an executive-defined crime?

    1. Principle of legality: Criminalisation is rooted in the principle of legality. It requires the act and its punishment to exist in law before the conduct occurs.
    2. Two maxims: The principle draws on nullum crimen sine lege, no crime without law, and nulla poena sine lege, no punishment without law. An administrative classification satisfies neither.
    3. Bar on retrospective criminalisation: The principle also prohibits ex-post facto legislation. Conduct cannot be made punishable after it has taken place.
    4. Article 20(1): Article 20(1) creates a right against conviction except for violation of a law in force at the time of the act charged as an offence. It also bars a penalty greater than what the law in force prescribed.

    How did the Act turn a criminal trial into a formality?

    1. Status as the punishable thing: The Act punished mere status. That status was settled by administrative and police authorities rather than in court.
    2. Nothing left for the judge: Once the status is so determined, “nothing remains to be considered by the judicial officer but to punish him”, the Court held.
    3. A foregone conclusion: The Court described the end result of a trial under the Act as “a foregone conclusion, a statutory imprimatur to punish”.
    4. Culpability without reasons: Challenges in this and in earlier cases argued that executive authorities reached conclusions of culpability without verifiable evidence or reasoning.

    Can the gravity of a social menace justify an executive-defined offence?

    1. No licence for arbitrary action: However compelling or threatening the social menace, a penal enactment to curb it “cannot lead to arbitrary and capricious actions against the one, alleged with the commission of an offence”, the Court held.
    2. Loose labelling in public life: Indian public discourse applies labels such as deshdrohi and “urban naxal” at will. Precise definition of categories such as crime and offence is what keeps that habit out of statute.
    3. A reform agenda: The ruling sets out an agenda for reform of the Gangsters Act. It also restates the limits within which enforcement agencies may operate.

    Conclusion

    A State penal law can name a social danger without ever defining the act it punishes. That is what this ruling ends. The reform it invites is legislative, because the offence, its ingredients and its punishment have to sit in the statute a legislature passes rather than in rules the executive writes afterwards. The marker to watch is whether Uttar Pradesh re-enacts its special law with the offence on the face of the statute, and whether other State special laws that punish a status recorded by police are now tested on the same ground.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2021] A legislation which confers on the executive or administrative authority an unguided and uncontrolled discretionary power in the matter of application of law violates which one of the following Articles of the Constitution of India? (a) Article 14 (b) Article 28 (c) Article 32 (d) Article 44 (a)”

  • How SC has strengthened safeguards around re-arrest

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has held that an accused released because the grounds of arrest were not communicated is not released on bail. Such a person is released from an “illegal and unconstitutional detention”. A two judge Bench held that the safeguards under Article 22(1) are “fundamental principles which are required to be followed” whenever a person’s liberty is curtailed. The ruling builds on Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra (2025), which settled that the grounds of arrest must be communicated in writing under all statutes. The Bench was hearing an appeal by an accused in a POCSO case in Punjab, a prosecution under the child sexual offences law. The contested point is whether an investigating agency retains any power to correct its own breach by arresting the same person again.

    What do Article 21 and Article 22 require on arrest?

    1. Right to life and personal liberty: Article 21 protects the right to life and personal liberty. The arrest safeguards operate at the point where that liberty is curtailed.
    2. Article 22(1), grounds of arrest: Article 22(1) requires the police to inform an arrested person of the grounds of arrest. It also provides for legal representation.
    3. Article 22(2), production before a magistrate: Article 22(2) requires that an arrested person be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest.

    How did the written grounds requirement evolve through the Court’s rulings?

    1. Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (2023): The question of a written copy of the grounds of arrest first arose here. Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act requires a person to be informed “of the grounds of such arrest” without specifying how that information is conveyed.
    2. The reasoning in Pankaj Bansal: The Court held that the safeguard would mean little if the grounds were merely read out and not handed over. A written copy must be furnished “as a matter of course and without exception”.
    3. Ram Kishor Arora v. Directorate of Enforcement (2023): That position was diluted. The Court held that Pankaj Bansal would apply only prospectively, so an arrest predating it was validly made by reading the grounds out without furnishing a copy.
    4. Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2024): The Court reaffirmed that an arrested person must be provided the grounds of arrest in writing at the earliest.
    5. Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra (2025): The Court settled the position. Communicating the grounds of arrest in writing, in the language the arrestee understands, is mandatory for arrests under all statutes, and non-compliance renders “the arrest and subsequent remand… illegal”.
    6. The oral exception: Mihir Rajesh Shah allowed grounds to be conveyed orally in exceptional cases. A written copy must follow within a reasonable time, and at least two hours before the accused is produced for remand.

    What did the Court hold, and why is the release not bail?

    1. Violation invalidates the arrest itself: Any violation of Article 22(1) or Article 22(2) invalidates the arrest. The Court held that any breach “would entail immediate release of the arrested person because such arrest is unconstitutional.”
    2. No power to tinker with the safeguard: The Bench recorded that it cannot tinker with “the most important safeguards provided under Article 22”.
    3. Release without conditions: A release on bail is conditional. Here the arrest is invalid in law, so the accused stands in the position of a person who was never arrested.
    4. Rejection of the blanket immunity argument: The State argued that the seriousness of the offence meant Article 22(2) should not give the accused “blanket immunity” from re-arrest. The Court rejected this and held that the police cannot simply re-arrest an accused on their own where the arrest was unconstitutional.
    5. Weight of the safeguard in serious offences: The requirement of written grounds matters most in serious offences, where securing bail is often difficult. The safeguard is what allows an accused to challenge the arrest or oppose remand.

    What procedure must an agency now follow to re-arrest?

    1. Grounds furnished first: An agency that believes custody is necessary must first furnish the grounds of arrest to the accused.
    2. Prior magisterial approval: The agency must then move the jurisdictional magistrate with an application explaining the need for custody. The application must also state the reasons for the earlier non-compliance.
    3. Endorsement by a superior officer: The application requires endorsement by the officer’s immediate superior.
    4. Transfer of the investigation: The judgment requires the investigation to be transferred to a different officer. It also requires a departmental enquiry.

    What remedy does the ruling open for an unconstitutional arrest?

    1. Compensation as a public law remedy: High Courts may award compensation “as part of the public law remedy in a case of violation of Article 22(2) of the Constitution”.
    2. Private civil remedy preserved: The accused retains liberty to pursue a remedy under private civil law in addition to the public law remedy.
    3. A right needs a consequence: Breach of a constitutional provision must carry a consequence, since a right without a remedy and a result is not enforced.
    4. Judicial supervision over police power: The decision places the judiciary in supervision over the State’s power to deprive a person of liberty. It does not extend to supervision over the integrity of the investigation itself.

    Challenges to the Article 22 arrest safeguards

    1. Compensation is rarely awarded: The public law remedy depends on courts using it, and courts do not award compensation often enough in cases of illegal arrest or detention. Eg. The ruling permits a High Court to award compensation and leaves the award to its discretion.
      The Fix: Require a reasoned order wherever a court finds an arrest unconstitutional and declines to award compensation.
    2. Repeated dilution of the standard: The written grounds requirement has been raised and then narrowed across successive rulings, so the content of the safeguard has depended on which judgment governed a given arrest. Eg. The “without exception” rule in Pankaj Bansal was confined to future arrests within the same year.
      The Fix: Write the written grounds requirement, its language and its timing into statutory arrest procedure, so the standard does not turn on the date of the arrest.
    3. Scope of the oral exception: Grounds may be conveyed orally in exceptional cases, and the arresting agency decides in the first instance whether a case is exceptional. Eg. The written copy is due only within a reasonable time, at least two hours before remand.
      The Fix: Require the agency to record in writing, at the time it relies on the exception, why oral communication was unavoidable.
    4. Supervision stops at the arrest: The judicial check operates on the power to detain and not on the investigation, so an unconstitutional arrest does not by itself disturb the case built around it. Eg. The remedy prescribed is transfer of the probe to another officer rather than any consequence for the material already gathered.
      The Fix: Attach the magistrate’s finding on the earlier non-compliance to the officer’s service record, so a repeated breach carries a cost beyond the single case.
    5. Pressure for offence-specific exceptions: The argument that a grave offence should narrow the safeguard will recur in every serious case, since the cost of releasing such an accused is what makes the safeguard contested. Eg. The appeal itself arose from a prosecution for a child sexual offence.
      The Fix: Treat any offence-specific exception as a matter for Parliament rather than for a case by case reading of the constitutional provision.

    Conclusion

    An arrest that fails the constitutional requirement is now void rather than curable, and the investigating agency can no longer repair it by arresting the same person again. The safeguard’s weight has shifted to two actors outside that agency. The magistrate decides whether fresh custody is justified, and the High Court decides whether an unconstitutional detention carries a monetary consequence. The measure to watch is how often compensation is actually awarded, since a remedy that exists but goes unused leaves the safeguard where it was before the ruling.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS2, 15 marks] ”The Constitution of India is a living instrument with capabilities of enormous dynamism. It is a constitution made for a progressive society”. Illustrate with special reference to the expanding horizons of the right to life and personal liberty.”

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