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  • Why is the Centre opposed to totalisers?

    Why in the News

    A three judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice of India has asked the Central government to examine introducing totaliser machines for counting votes recorded in Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), in order to protect the secrecy of booth-wise voting patterns and prevent electors at individual booths from being identified and victimised. The direction was given on September 1, 2026, on a public interest petition filed in 2014 by Yogesh Gupta and Imran Khan seeking that votes cast at the various polling stations in a constituency be mixed before counting. The Election Commission of India has supported the measure since 2008 and has recommended it to the Union government. The Centre has opposed it throughout, arguing at different points that booth-wise disclosure causes no intimidation and that a totaliser could leak data before counting begins. The tension is between the secrecy of the ballot at the level of a locality and the granular booth data that campaigns and the administration both now rely on.

    What is a totaliser?

    1. What it does: A totaliser allows the votes cast in about 14 polling booths to be counted together, against the present practice of tallying votes booth by booth.
    2. How it connects: It is an interface connected to the main control unit of a cluster of 14 EVMs.
    3. What it outputs: Pressing the result button gives the consolidated votes polled by each candidate across the 14 machines, without revealing the voting pattern of any individual polling area.
    4. Who built it: It was developed by Bharat Electronics Limited, Bengaluru and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad.

    Why was the petition filed?

    1. The stated purpose: The petitioners sought a direction to the poll panel to mix the votes cast at various polling stations in a constituency, on the ground that this was necessary to stop candidates intimidating voters in areas that had rebuffed them.
    2. The illustration offered: The petitioners cited alleged intimidation by a late former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra in the Baramati constituency during the last general election, where voters were allegedly threatened that his party would detect voting patterns from the EVM readings and cut off their water supply.
    3. Booths map onto communities: Polling booths in India are marked geographically, so where social groups live in segregated clusters, which is the case across much of rural India and increasingly in urban slums, a booth result roughly identifies how a numerically large community voted.
    4. The risk has grown since 2014: Advanced geospatial tools now allow booth trends to be correlated with social settings and causal inferences to be drawn from that correlation, which goes beyond what the petitioners feared when they filed.

    What has been the Centre’s position?

    1. The 2017 argument, that there is no harm: The Centre told the apex court that identifying booth-wise voting patterns did not lead to voter intimidation and that there was no need to stop the disclosure of booth-wise results.
    2. The 2017 argument, that there is a benefit: It contended that knowledge of booth-wise vote shares allowed candidates to work harder in areas where support for them was low, producing better results for everyone involved.
    3. The 2018 argument, that the machine is the risk: The Additional Solicitor General told the Bench, then led by the Chief Justice of India, that installing a totaliser could lead to a data breach even before vote counting began.
    4. The ministerial decision on record: A Law Ministry affidavit told the Court that a group of ministers headed by the then Union Home Minister had decided that intimidation or victimisation of voters as apprehended may not occur on a larger scale in this era of media activism.

    What is the Election Commission’s stand?

    1. Consistent support since 2008: The poll body first suggested the measure to the United Progressive Alliance government in 2008 and has recommended the totaliser system to the Union government since.
    2. The 2018 submission: It told the Supreme Court that a time has come for introduction of the totaliser for counting of the votes.
    3. The position in the current hearings: Counsel for the Commission backed the goal of protecting voter anonymity, and that support has carried into the present round.
    4. The caveats it has entered: It flagged practical and legal difficulties in implementing the proposal, including how booth-wise verification would work and how the exercise interacts with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), the printer attached to a voting unit that shows the elector a paper slip of the vote cast before it drops into a sealed box.

    What has the Court now directed?

    1. The direction to the Centre: The Court asked the Central government to state its position on introducing a totaliser system for counting votes recorded through EVMs.
    2. The specific questions: It sought to know whether there are any impediments to introducing such a mechanism and whether there would be any negative impact from it.
    3. The deadline on the data breach point: The Centre’s repetition of the data breach apprehension prompted the Court to give the Election Commission two weeks to respond to that fear.
    4. The parallel instruction: The Commission has also been asked to submit its proposal to the government, which moves the question from litigation into an executive decision.

    Challenges to introducing the totaliser

    1. Booth level data has administrative uses beyond campaigning: Turnout and result data at the polling station is what flags a station for scrutiny or a re-poll. Eg. An implausibly high turnout at a single station is the standard trigger for ordering a re-poll there.
      The Fix: Retain booth-wise data with the Election Commission for audit and re-poll decisions, and publish only the aggregated cluster result.
    2. A re-poll cannot be isolated once votes are mixed: If the machines of 14 booths have been aggregated, a re-poll ordered at one of them cannot be separated from the counted total. Eg. Re-polls after booth capturing or machine failure are ordered station by station, not cluster by cluster.
      The Fix: Run the totaliser only after every re-poll in the constituency is complete and the machines are back in the strongroom.
    3. Slip verification is anchored to the polling station: The mandatory VVPAT count is done for randomly selected polling stations and compared against that station’s electronic count, which presumes station-wise totals exist. Eg. The Supreme Court’s direction requires slip counting in five randomly selected polling stations in each assembly segment.
      The Fix: Complete the station-wise slip verification first and aggregate through the totaliser only after the match is recorded.
    4. Clustering does not conceal a pattern in a homogeneous area: Where one community occupies most of a 14 booth cluster, the aggregate reveals its voting pattern as clearly as a single booth would. Eg. Reserved constituencies with geographically concentrated settlements would gain little anonymity from aggregation.
      The Fix: Form clusters across socially mixed areas rather than across contiguous ones, so no single cluster maps onto a single community.
    5. The Commission cannot act alone: Counting procedure is governed by the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, and the mixing provision presently covers ballot papers rather than voting machines. Eg. Rule 59A permits mixing of ballot papers before counting in specified elections and does not extend to EVMs.
      The Fix: Amend Rule 59A to extend the existing mixing provision to electronic voting machines, which is the single step that converts the recommendation into a usable power.

    Conclusion

    The Election Commission has backed this measure across successive governments and it has still not been introduced, because the decision sits with the Centre and not with the poll body. The objection now on record has shifted from denying that booth-level victimisation happens to warning that the counting device itself is insecure, which is a question about design and custody rather than about whether ballot secrecy is worth extending to a locality. The Centre’s reply to the Court and the Commission’s fresh proposal to the government are the two documents that decide whether the proposal moves this time.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “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?”

  • Voter lists shrink by 15.7% in 17 States and U.T.s after SIR

    Why in the News

    Draft electoral rolls published after the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) show the electorate in 17 States and Union Territories falling 15.7 per cent, from 35,50,50,008 at the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to 29,93,00,115. Maharashtra recorded the largest drop in absolute numbers at 15,896,198 electors, or 17.08 per cent, and Delhi and Chandigarh the sharpest percentage falls at 35.89 per cent and 31.84 per cent. The revision rebuilds the roll rather than updating it, so an elector’s presence on the previous roll does not by itself carry them onto the new one. Of the 6.15 crore electors deleted in this phase, 1.11 crore are marked dead, and the remainder are recorded as absent, multiply enrolled or in an others category. The contest is over that remainder, since absence at the moment of verification is not the same thing as ineligibility.

    What happened to the rolls between the 2024 polls and the revision?

    1. The rolls first grew: Between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the cut-off date for the enumeration phase, these States and Union Territories added around 57.75 lakh electors, taking the cumulative total to 36,08,07,394.
    2. One State drove most of the addition: Maharashtra added 47.92 lakh electors, and ten other States including Haryana added about 9.83 lakh between them.
    3. Six States and Union Territories moved the other way: Delhi’s roll fell from 1,52,14,638 at the polls to 1,45,10,299 before the revision, a drop of more than 7 lakh.
    4. The other five declines: Uttarakhand fell by 4.7 lakh, Odisha by 3.17 lakh, Chandigarh by 1.44 lakh, Punjab by 1.1 lakh and Arunachal Pradesh by 10,937.

    What are the deletions made of?

    1. Death is the smaller share: Of the 6.15 crore electors deleted, 1.11 crore are marked dead, which is the only category that is verifiable against an independent record.
    2. Absence is the largest category: 4.52 crore electors are marked absent, meaning the enumerator did not find them at the registered address during the field round.
    3. Duplicate registration: 49.58 lakh are recorded as having multiple enrolments, which removes a name from one roll rather than removing the person from the electorate.
    4. The residual: Around 3 lakh fall into an others category that the draft does not break down further.

    Where does the exercise now stand?

    1. The current phase: The third phase covers 16 States and three Union Territories. Draft rolls have been published for 17 of them, with Nagaland due on September 20 and Tripura on October 21.
    2. Final rolls begin: The rollout of final lists starts with Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur on September 6, and the numbers in the final lists can rise, since the Election Commission provides a window for claims and objections and for registration of new voters.
    3. Already completed: The revision is over in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.
    4. Assam is on a different track: A special revision was conducted there instead, because of legal questions connected to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Assam-specific register of citizens prepared under Supreme Court supervision.
    5. What remains: With the third phase, the exercise covers the entire country except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, whose schedule is to be announced later.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision

    1. The largest deletion category is the least verifiable: An elector recorded as absent may be a migrant worker away for the season rather than a person who has moved permanently. Eg. Out-migration from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar peaks between sowing and harvest, which is when field verification is conducted.
      The Fix: Accept a claim filed remotely from a declared work address, with the home address retained, before a deletion on grounds of absence is confirmed.
    2. The remedy reaches the wrong address: The claims and objections window opens after publication and depends on the elector learning of the deletion, and notices are served at the registered address the elector was not found at. Eg. A household away for work misses both the enumeration visit and the notice that follows it.
      The Fix: Require the booth level officer to record a served notice and one repeat attempt before any absence-based deletion becomes final.
    3. The burden of proof inverts: In an intensive revision the existing roll stops being evidence of eligibility, so an elector already enrolled must establish the claim again. Eg. Electors absent from the previous intensive revision roll have had to produce documentary proof of eligibility rather than relying on their existing entry.
      The Fix: Treat the previous roll as presumptive evidence, and require the Electoral Registration Officer to record a specific ground before displacing that presumption.
    4. Field capacity is thin at the point where accuracy is decided: A single booth level officer covers a polling station of up to 1,500 electors within a fixed enumeration window. Eg. The verification and the draft publication in this phase ran across 19 States and Union Territories simultaneously.
      The Fix: Publish the per-officer elector load and the number of verification visits made, so the quality of the field round can be audited rather than assumed.

    Conclusion

    The draft numbers are not the final numbers. The claims and objections window decides whether an elector deleted in absence returns to the roll, and its use depends on people who are away learning that they were removed. A revision that removes duplicate entries and a revision that removes voters produce the same headline figure and are not the same event. The final lists are where the two become distinguishable.

    Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

    1. An intensive revision rebuilds the electoral roll from scratch, enumerating every elector afresh, rather than adding and deleting names at the margin as a summary revision does.
    2. It is conducted by the Election Commission of India under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
    3. The sequence is fixed: house-to-house enumeration, publication of a draft roll, a window for claims and objections, then publication of the final roll.
    4. The last countrywide intensive revision was carried out in 2002-03, and revisions since then have been summary revisions.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “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?”

  • Why is BRICS exploring cross-border payments?

    Why in the News

    The 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi, with India as Chair, is expected to push for mechanisms to settle payments between members, including links between national digital payment systems and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which are digital versions of a national currency issued by its central bank. Finance ministry and central bank representatives from member countries met at Jaipur on August 12-13 to discuss financial cooperation, payments and the wider use of national currencies in settling trade between members. The push follows a 2024 BRICS report under Russia’s chairmanship, which argued that this part of the financial system is monopolised by a single institution and that the monopoly raises transaction costs. India has framed its own proposal as a way of cutting costs and speeding settlement rather than as a move away from the dollar. The tension is that every workable alternative needs a critical mass of banks and regulators to join before it saves anyone money, and the members most eager to build one are the members others are most wary of joining.

    How does a cross-border payment move today?

    1. The chain of correspondents: Money does not travel directly between the buyer’s bank and the seller’s bank. It moves through a series of correspondent banks that hold accounts with each other. Eg. An importer in Cape Town paying an exporter in Chennai is routed through a larger international bank typically headquartered in London or New York.
    2. The dollar as a vehicle: Very few banks hold both rupees and rand, so the payment is converted from rand to dollars and then from dollars to rupees, with no American party to the trade.
    3. Messaging is separate from settlement: The instructions travel over SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a Belgium-based cooperative overseen by the National Bank of Belgium along with the G-10 central banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve. It carries payment instructions; the money is settled separately.
    4. Why the network is hard to displace: SWIFT is used directly by more than 11,000 institutions in over 200 countries, and smaller banks reach it indirectly through larger member banks.

    What does the chain cost?

    1. Foreign exchange margins are paid twice: Every intermediary charges a fee, and the two currency conversions mean the exchange margin is taken on both legs.
    2. The measured margins: A 2019 BRICS survey of cross-border payment systems conducted by Brazil found Brazilian respondents reporting foreign exchange margins of 2.5 per cent, rising to 8.5 per cent for payments into Africa and in some cases as high as 20 per cent.
    3. The network has thinned: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found active correspondent banking relationships fell by 20 per cent between 2011 and 2018, with regional declines ranging from 12 per cent to 30 per cent and Latin America worst affected. The reasons were largely commercial, since payment volumes kept growing through the same period.
    4. Speed is no longer the binding problem: SWIFT states that its Global Payments Innovation service has cut transaction times substantially, and the remaining delays are structural rather than a function of chain length.

    Why does BRICS want to change this system?

    1. Exposure to other countries’ monetary policy: Settling in a handful of dominant currencies, the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen, exposes developing economies to policy decisions taken by the issuing countries.
    2. The stated cost argument: The 2024 BRICS report held that concentration of the messaging layer in one institution raises what every participant pays to transact.
    3. Sanctions are the sharpest driver and the sharpest deterrent: Several Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions-hit Russia has pushed hardest for an alternative, and that is also the reason other members are wary of joining one.
    4. The adoption problem: An alternative rail is useful only once a large number of banks and regulators have joined it, and a bank that uses one to deal with sanctioned entities risks sanctions itself.

    What alternatives are on the table?

    1. Bilateral linkage of national systems: Two countries can connect their domestic payment systems directly, avoiding correspondent banks and dollar conversion. Eg. India and Singapore have linked the Unified Payments Interface with PayNow for remittances. Building such links pair by pair does not scale.
    2. A shared hub: Project Nexus, designed by the BIS and handed to a company set up by six central banks including the Reserve Bank of India, lets each country join one connection rather than many. It goes live only in 2027 and is not a BRICS initiative.
    3. CBDC settlement on a common platform: Central banks issue digital versions of their currencies for use between banks, a settlement asset distinct from the retail digital rupee held by individuals, and exchange them on one platform. Both legs of a currency swap occur at the same instant or not at all, which removes the risk of paying out before the other side pays and cuts the capital banks must set aside.
    4. The one platform running today: mBridge, built by the BIS with the central banks of China, Thailand, Hong Kong and the UAE, was handed to its participants when the BIS left in October 2024. Over 95 per cent of its settlement volume is in China’s digital yuan, according to People’s Bank of China figures.
    5. The BRICS-specific proposal: The Kazan declaration of 2024 agreed to discuss and study the feasibility of an independent settlement system called BRICS Clear. The Rio declaration the following year did not mention it.

    What is India’s position?

    1. The proposal: India has proposed that members link their CBDCs for trade and tourism payments, extending the linkage idea from retail systems to central bank money.
    2. The framing is deliberate: Indian officials have consistently presented the payment systems as a means of cutting transaction costs and speeding settlement, not as an initiative to displace the dollar.
    3. Other members have gone further: Russian proposals, and those of some Brazilian economists, have moved towards alternative financial systems explicitly aimed at reducing dependence on the dollar.
    4. The reason for the caution: In November 2024 the U.S. President threatened 100 per cent tariffs on BRICS countries that moved away from the dollar, and a further 10 per cent on countries aligning with vaguely defined anti-American BRICS policies. The threats were not carried out.

    Challenges to a linked BRICS payment system

    1. Domestic rails are not built alike: Member systems differ in message formats, operating hours and rules on when a payment becomes final, so linking them forces each participant to change domestic infrastructure. Eg. The Unified Payments Interface settles instantly and around the clock. Several member country systems settle in batches on business days only.
      The Fix: Require every participant to migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard and extend operating windows so linked systems overlap for a common settlement period.
    2. Most member currency pairs have no liquid market: Settling directly in national currencies needs someone willing to hold and convert the receiving currency, which does not exist for most BRICS pairs. Eg. Indian exporters accumulated rupee balances in special vostro accounts under the rupee trade settlement mechanism that counterparties could not readily deploy.
      The Fix: Establish central bank swap lines and designated market makers for the main pairs, so balances can be converted rather than parked.
    3. One platform needs one rulebook: Customer verification, anti money laundering standards and dispute resolution differ across members, and a shared platform cannot function on several standards at once. Eg. Financial Action Task Force grey listing constrains banks anywhere from dealing with counterparties in a flagged jurisdiction.
      The Fix: Agree a common rulebook and a named dispute resolution seat before the platform carries live value rather than after.
    4. CBDC readiness is uneven across members: A linkage of central bank digital currencies cannot include a member whose currency has not reached production. Eg. India’s wholesale and retail digital rupee pilots began in 2022 and remain pilots.
      The Fix: Sequence the linkage in waves, beginning with members whose wholesale CBDC is already in live operation.

    Conclusion

    The grouping has no shortage of proposals and a shortage of commitment. Every model on the table asks members to surrender something domestically, either control over settlement or their own infrastructure standards, before any of them saves a rupee. The declarations so far have moved in the opposite direction, agreeing to study a settlement system in one year and passing over it the next. The New Delhi summit is where the members either name one model and a date for it or repeat the study language a third time.

    Back2Basics: Bank for International Settlements

    1. Established in 1930 and headquartered at Basel, Switzerland, it is the oldest international financial institution.
    2. It is owned by 63 member central banks, including the Reserve Bank of India, and functions as a bank for central banks rather than for governments or individuals.
    3. It hosts the committees that set global financial standards, including the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
    4. Its Innovation Hub builds payment and settlement prototypes and hands them over to participating central banks, which is how both mBridge and Project Nexus were created.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the Central Bank digital currencies, consider the following statements: 1. It is possible to make payments in a digital currency without using US dollar or SWIFT system. 2. A digital currency can be distributed with a condition programmed into it such as time-frame for spending it. 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”

  • The economy, its math and politics

    Why in the News

    A former Economic Affairs Secretary in the Ministry of Finance has claimed that nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the first quarter of 2026-27 was 2.6 per cent, against the 10.3 per cent estimated by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). Adjusted for inflation of 2 to 2.5 per cent, that arithmetic puts real growth at zero rather than at the official 7.8 per cent. The claim was built by comparing the April-June 2025 GDP level computed on the old 2011-12 base year with the April-June 2026 level computed on the 2022-23 base year that MoSPI adopted in February 2026. Splicing two series produces a growth rate that measures neither of them. The contest is between an official estimate the government spent a week publicly defending and a public mood in which a very low growth number was readily believed.

    What is a base year in GDP computation?

    1. The purpose: A base year fixes the set of prices at which output in every later year is valued, so a change in the measured total reflects a change in volume and not a change in prices.
    2. Nominal against real: Nominal GDP values output at the prices ruling in the year it was produced. Real GDP values that same output at base year prices, which is what makes growth comparable across years.
    3. The worked illustration: A country producing only crude oil sells 10 million barrels at $10 in year 1, giving a GDP of $100 million, then 5 million barrels at $30 in year 2, giving $150 million. Measured at year 1 prices, year 2 output is $50 million, so the economy has contracted by half even though its nominal GDP rose 50 per cent.
    4. What the base year carries: It fixes the relative prices and the weights of the period chosen, and those weights then run through every year of the series.

    Why is the base year revised every five to six years?

    1. Consumption patterns move: What households spend on shifts substantially over a decade, so an old price structure misvalues what the economy now produces. Eg. Telecom tariffs collapsed after 2016 and digital services barely existed as a separate category in 2011-12.
    2. Measurement itself improves: Technology and method allow faster and more precise capture of output and prices than were available when the previous base was set.
    3. Administrative data replaces proxies: The 2022-23 series draws on Goods and Services Tax returns, the Public Financial Management System for central government accounts, e-Vahan for transport spending, and the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises and the Periodic Labour Force Survey for the informal economy.
    4. Every earlier year is restated: When the base moved from 2011-12 to 2022-23, the GDP values changed for all years from 2011-12 onwards, so growth must be computed between two comparable periods within the new series.

    Where did the disputed calculation go wrong?

    1. The splice: The claim took the April-June 2025 level from the 2011-12 series and the April-June 2026 level from the 2022-23 series, then divided one by the other.
    2. What that number actually measures: A ratio across two series captures the gap between two different valuations of the economy, not the change in output between two quarters.
    3. The office lent the claim weight: The claimant had headed the Department of Economic Affairs and was designated Finance Secretary, which is why the government machinery responded for most of a week rather than ignoring the claim.
    4. The rebuttal crossed party lines: A Congress Rajya Sabha member who is himself critical of the government’s economic management wrote publicly that the arithmetic behind the real growth estimate was not among the things wrong with India’s economy.

    Why did a wrong number travel so far?

    1. Perception ran ahead of the arithmetic: A low growth number was plausible to a section of readers before any of them checked how it was derived.
    2. The protest backdrop: The claim landed during the Jantar Mantar protests, which had already made the government’s economic record a live public argument.
    3. The employability gap: An education system that does not leave its graduates job ready weakens the link between a headline growth number and what people observe.
    4. The demographic pressure: More than a crore young people enter the job market every year, so growth is judged against absorption rather than against output.
    5. Political amplification and its limit: The Congress and several of its leaders amplified the claim. The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, a standing critic of the government’s economic policy, did not comment on it.

    Challenges to the 2022-23 GDP series

    1. The deflator is built for goods: Converting nominal output into real output leans heavily on the Wholesale Price Index, which carries no services component at all. Eg. Services are close to 55 per cent of gross value added and are deflated using price indices constructed for wholesale goods transactions.
      The Fix: Complete the Wholesale Price Index base revision and introduce a Producer Price Index, which is the standard deflator in most large economies.
    2. The corporate database carries inactive firms: Private corporate value added is estimated from company filings, which can include shell and dormant entities. Eg. A National Sample Survey Office technical report on the corporate affairs database found a large share of sampled companies untraceable or wrongly classified.
      The Fix: Publish an annual reconciliation of the active company frame against Goods and Services Tax filings before the frame is used for estimation.
    3. Independent verification lags the release: The detailed sources and methods document that lets researchers reproduce the estimates is published well after the series itself. Eg. After the 2011-12 revision, the back series for years before that base remained contested for years, with a committee estimate and the official estimate disagreeing about growth in the 2000s.
      The Fix: Release the sources and methods volume on the same day as the new series rather than as a follow-up publication.
    4. Growth is not tracked by tax collections: High measured nominal growth that is not matched by proportionate corporate tax receipts leaves the estimate open to challenge. Eg. Direct tax buoyancy has repeatedly diverged from nominal GDP growth in years of strong headline expansion.
      The Fix: Publish the nominal GDP to tax base reconciliation alongside quarterly estimates, so the divergence is explained rather than argued over.

    Conclusion

    The arithmetic is settled and the credibility question is not. Two incompatible growth claims about the same quarter circulated side by side because most readers have no way to adjudicate between them. A statistical office that must be publicly defended each time a headline number is disputed is carrying a trust problem that no revision of the base year resolves. The transition to the 2025 System of National Accounts, due by 2029-30, is the next occasion on which that gap is either closed or carried forward.

    What is National Income Accounting?

    1. About: National income accounting is the set of methods used to measure economic activity across a national economy as a whole, producing indicators such as GDP, Gross National Product and Net National Income.
    2. Rationale: National accounts give fiscal policy, monetary policy, welfare targeting and cross-country comparison a single common measurement base.
    3. Named typology, the three methods: The production method sums value added at each stage across agriculture, industry and services. The income method sums rent, wages, interest, profit, mixed income and net income from abroad. The expenditure method totals consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.
    4. Who compiles it in India: The National Statistical Office under MoSPI prepares the estimates using the benchmark indicator method.

    Laws and Rules Governing National Income Accounting

    1. Collection of Statistics Act, 2008: Empowers the Centre, State governments and local bodies to collect statistics on economic, demographic, social, scientific and environmental matters, and makes furnishing the information a legal obligation.
    2. Collection of Statistics Rules, 2011: Prescribe how a statistical collection is notified and how statistics officers are appointed and their powers exercised.
    3. Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Act, 2017: Extended the parent Act to Jammu and Kashmir, closing a jurisdictional gap in national statistical collection.

    Key Facts about National Income Accounting

    1. National Statistics Day is observed on 29 June, the birth anniversary of P.C. Mahalanobis.
    2. MoSPI was created in 1999 by merging the Department of Statistics with the Department of Programme Implementation.
    3. The National Statistical Commission was set up in 2005 on the recommendation of the Rangarajan Commission and remains a non-statutory advisory body.
    4. The first estimate of India’s national income was made by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1868, and the first official post-Independence estimates came from the National Income Committee of 1949.

    Challenges in National Income Accounting

    1. The unorganised economy resists direct measurement: A large share of output comes from unregistered enterprises that file no accounts, so their contribution is surveyed and then projected forward. Eg. The informal sector contributed roughly 45 per cent of gross value added in 2022-23.
      The Fix: Shorten the interval between unincorporated enterprise surveys so projection periods are measured in months rather than years.
    2. Final and intermediate goods are hard to separate: Counting the same output twice inflates the total, and the distinction depends on who buys the good rather than on the good itself. Eg. Flour bought by a bakery is an intermediate input, and the identical flour bought by a household is final consumption.
      The Fix: Extend the Supply and Use Tables framework, which balances production against consumption and forces the discrepancy to surface.
    3. Non-market work is excluded by construction: Subsistence farming, barter and unpaid care work produce real output that no price attaches to, so they never enter the total. Eg. Time use survey data shows women performing several hours of unpaid domestic and care work daily, none of which is counted.
      The Fix: Publish satellite accounts for household and care production alongside the main accounts, as several statistical systems already do.
    4. Natural capital depletion is treated as income: Resource extraction adds to measured output and the loss of the resource is not netted out anywhere. Eg. Groundwater drawn beyond recharge in Punjab and Haryana raises agricultural value added. The stock that produced it shrinks, and nothing in the accounts records the loss.
      The Fix: Build a Green GDP series that deducts resource depletion and pollution costs, reported as a companion to the headline estimate.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Explain the difference between computing methodology of India’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP) before the year 2015 and after the year 2015.”

  • Geothermal Energy

    Geothermal Energy

    Why in News

    The Press Information Bureau (PIB) published a thematic Backgrounder on Geothermal Energy on 4 September 2026. The piece is a subject explainer written for exam and public awareness value.

    Core facts

    1. Definition: Geothermal energy is heat stored inside the Earth. This heat is tapped through wells at sites with high underground temperature gradients.
    2. Nature of the source: Geothermal power is a renewable and baseload source. It generates around the clock, unlike solar or wind.
    3. Nodal ministry: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is the nodal ministry for geothermal energy in India.
    4. Verification note: The release body did not resolve on the source page this run, so release-specific figures are not quoted. The static estimates below come from standard reference data.

    Static Context

    1. India’s first project: India commissioned its first geothermal wells at Puga Valley in the Changthang region of Ladakh. A 1 Megawatt (MW) pilot geothermal plant is planned as the first demonstration scale project.
    2. Implementing agency: The ONGC Energy Centre, a body of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), leads the Puga project with the Ladakh Administration.
    3. Estimated potential: India’s geothermal potential is estimated at about 10,600 MW (standard reference figure).
    4. Survey base: The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has documented about 381 hot springs. India has ten geothermal provinces, including the Himalayan, Son Narmada Tapi (SONATA), West Coast, Cambay and Godavari belts.
    5. Key sites: Notable geothermal sites include Puga and Chumathang in Ladakh, Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh, Tattapani in Chhattisgarh, and Bakreshwar in West Bengal.
    6. Policy frame: A National Policy on Geothermal Energy was notified in 2025, with the MNRE as the promoting authority.

    Prelims angle

    1. Nodal ministry: MNRE. Lead agency for Puga: ONGC Energy Centre.
    2. First site: Puga Valley, Ladakh. Survey body: GSI, with about 381 hot springs mapped.
    3. Source character: Renewable and baseload, driven by internal Earth heat.
    4. Geothermal provinces: Himalayan, SONATA, West Coast, Cambay, Godavari and others.

    Mains angle

    GS Paper 3, energy and infrastructure. A question can ask how geothermal energy can add firm renewable baseload capacity to India’s energy mix, and can weigh the high exploration cost and site concentration in the Himalayas against the round the clock output advantage.

    “[2013] Consider the following :

    (1). Electromagnetic radiation

    (2). Geothermal energy

    (3). Gravitational force

    (4). Plate movements

    (5). Rotation of the earth

    (6). Revolution of the earth

    Which of the above are responsible for bringing dynamic changes on the surface of the earth?

    (a) 1, 2, 3 and 4 only

    (b) 1, 3, 5 and 6 only

    (c) 2, 4, 5 and 6 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3, 4. 5 and 6.

  • NAMASTE Cards distributed to waste pickers in Najafgarh zone

    NAMASTE Cards distributed to waste pickers in Najafgarh zone

    Why in News

    The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) inaugurated distribution of NAMASTE Cards to waste pickers in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Najafgarh Zone on 4 September 2026.

    Core facts

    1. Scheme name: NAMASTE stands for National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem. It is a central scheme for the safety and dignity of sanitation workers.
    2. Implementing bodies: The scheme is run jointly by the MoSJE and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
    3. Event substance: Profiled waste pickers received NAMASTE identity cards. The cards formally recognise the worker and link the worker to scheme benefits.
    4. Officeholder: The distribution was inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment. The individual identity is not material to the policy content.

    Static Context

    1. Objective: NAMASTE targets zero fatalities in sanitation work in India. It seeks to end direct human contact with faecal matter in sewer and septic tank cleaning.
    2. Coverage expansion: NAMASTE originally covered sewer and septic tank workers (SSWs). The scheme was later extended to enumerate and cover waste pickers. A national digital application for profiling waste pickers was launched on World Environment Day 2025.
    3. Benefits design: The scheme provides occupational profiling, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, Ayushman Bharat health cover, and a capital subsidy for sanitation related livelihoods.
    4. Predecessor: NAMASTE subsumed the earlier Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS).
    5. Governing law: Manual scavenging is prohibited under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.

    Prelims angle

    1. Scheme full form and nodal ministries: NAMASTE is run by the MoSJE with the MoHUA. Expect a purpose or ministry match question.
    2. Beneficiary categories: Sewer and septic tank workers, and waste pickers. The waste picker inclusion is the newest hook.
    3. Benefit bundle: PPE, Ayushman Bharat health cover, capital subsidy, occupational profiling.
    4. Predecessor scheme: SRMS. Governing Act: Manual Scavengers Act, 2013.

    Mains angle

    GS Paper 2, welfare schemes for vulnerable sections. A question can frame the shift from a rehabilitation model (SRMS) to a mechanisation and formalisation model (NAMASTE), and ask whether profiling and card based inclusion secures the rights of informal sanitation workers.

    “[2016] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyaan’ is a national campaign to

    (a) rehabilitate the homeless and destitute persons and provide them with suitable sources of livelihood

    (b) release the sex workers from their practice and provide them with alternative sources of livelihood

    (c) eradicate the practice of manual scavenging and rehabilitate the manual scavengers

    (d) release the bonded labourers from their bondage and rehabilitate them.

  • ISRO launches advanced imaging satellite EOS-05

    ISRO launches advanced imaging satellite EOS-05

    Why in the News

    The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched the advanced earth observation satellite EOS-05 aboard the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F17).

    What is EOS-05?

    1. What makes it a first: It is India’s first dedicated imaging satellite operating from geosynchronous orbit, where a satellite’s orbital period matches the earth’s rotation so it holds position over the same region.
    2. What it carries: The satellite has multi band operating capabilities and an operational life of nine years.
    3. What it replaces: It takes the place of EOS-03, lost in the unsuccessful GSLV-F10 mission of August 2021.
    4. Where it is now: ISRO has confirmed that the valves are operating, the solar panel is deployed and the satellite’s health is intact, and the orbit will be raised over the coming days to place it on the geo platform.

    Why does imaging from geosynchronous orbit matter?

    1. It removes the revisit gap: A low earth orbit imaging satellite passes over a given area only periodically, while a geosynchronous platform holds the same region in view continuously.
    2. The applications are time sensitive: Near real time imagery serves agriculture, environment monitoring and disaster management, where the value of an image collapses if it arrives days after the event.
    3. The data is described as strategic: ISRO has stated that the platform will supply important strategic data supporting “national activities”, which is the standard formulation for defence and security use.
    4. The trade off is resolution: Ground resolution falls as orbital distance rises, so a geosynchronous imager buys persistence at the cost of the fine detail a low orbit satellite returns.

    What does the mission say about the launch vehicle?

    1. It was the heaviest payload the vehicle has carried: The 2,367 kg satellite is the heaviest ISRO has injected using this launch vehicle.
    2. The growth is measurable against the first flight: The first GSLV flight, GSLV-D1, carried a payload of 1,536 kg.
    3. The gain came from two specific changes: ISRO has attributed the improvement to optimising the vehicle’s structural mass and improving its propulsion systems.
    4. The vehicle configuration: The GSLV is a three stage, 51.7 metre vehicle with a lift off mass of 420.5 tonnes, and its third stage is cryogenic (using propellants stored as liquids at extremely low temperatures, which yields higher efficiency than conventional stages).
    5. The mission count: This was the 19th GSLV mission and the 107th launch from Sriharikota.

    Why had ISRO stopped launching?

    1. Two consecutive vehicle failures: The PSLV-C61 mission failed on 18 May 2025, and the PSLV-C62 mission carrying the EOS-N1 earth observation satellite failed on 12 January 2026.
    2. The response was a deliberate halt: ISRO adopted a cautious approach after the back to back failures and refrained from carrying out further launches.
    3. The cost was an entire quarter: Seven missions, including this one, had been scheduled for the first quarter of 2026, and no satellite was launched during the period.

    Challenges to India’s earth observation programme

    1. Launch cadence lags the manifest: A single quarter of stood down launches pushes an entire year’s schedule, and satellites waiting for a slot age against their design windows. Eg. Seven missions planned for the first quarter of 2026 were carried forward without a single flight.
      The Fix: Move routine earth observation payloads onto the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle and commercial providers, so a review of one vehicle does not freeze the whole manifest.
    2. The cryogenic stage remains the vehicle’s hardest element: The GSLV’s performance depends on a stage that took India close to two decades to prove. Eg. The first fully successful flight of the indigenous cryogenic upper stage came only with GSLV-D5 in January 2014.
      The Fix: Sustain a parallel production line and ground test cadence for cryogenic stages, so a flight failure does not idle the vehicle for want of a qualified replacement stage.
    3. Optical imaging fails when it is needed most: An optical imager cannot see through cloud, and India’s worst flood and landslide events occur during the monsoon under continuous cloud cover. Eg. Disaster response during the monsoon depends on radar imaging satellites such as EOS-04 rather than on optical payloads.
      The Fix: Pair the geosynchronous optical platform with a scheduled radar imaging constellation, so persistent coverage survives the cloud season.
    4. Imagery is only as useful as its downstream users: Data value depends on agencies and states being able to ingest and act on it rather than on the satellite alone. Eg. Access to national imagery is routed through the Bhuvan platform and the National Remote Sensing Centre, and uptake varies sharply across state departments.
      The Fix: Fund state level remote sensing application centres with standing analyst posts, so imagery reaches district administrations as advisories rather than as raw files.

    Conclusion

    The satellite is in a transfer orbit and not yet at its station, so the mission’s outcome is settled only once orbit raising is complete and the platform is commissioned. The capability it brings is persistence over one region rather than sharper pictures, which suits warning and monitoring more than reconnaissance. The launch pause has ended on the vehicle that had the weaker record, which is the more demanding of the two returns to flight. What to watch is whether the remaining missions deferred from the first quarter of 2026 now fly on schedule, since a single successful launch does not by itself restore a cadence.

    “[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

  • Nepal wants climate compensation, putting major emitters on the hookNepal wants climate compensation, putting major emitters on the hook

    Nepal wants climate compensation, putting major emitters on the hookNepal wants climate compensation, putting major emitters on the hook

    Why in the News

    Nepal has demanded direct climate compensation from the United States, China and India, the world’s three largest emitters. The demand follows the glacial collapse of 26 August on the Nepal China border, which killed over 1,200 people and buried hydropower tunnels and valleys downstream. Nepal’s Foreign Minister has framed the country as paying the ultimate price for a crisis it did not create.

    What is the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage?

    1. What it is for: It is the dedicated financing mechanism for climate damage that has already occurred and can no longer be adapted to, as distinct from funds for mitigation or for adaptation.
    2. How it came about: Vulnerable nations secured its establishment at COP27 in 2022, after decades of resistance from developed countries to any dedicated loss and damage facility.
    3. When it began operating: It was operationalised a year later at COP28.
    4. Where it sits: It is temporarily hosted by the World Bank, which places a development lender at the centre of a compensation mechanism.

    Why does Nepal sit at the centre of climate injustice?

    1. Its own contribution is negligible: Nepal accounts for 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and generates almost all its electricity from renewable hydropower.
    2. Its geography is the exposure: The Hindu Kush Himalayas, described as the “Third Pole”, are warming at nearly twice the global average, and their glaciers are melting at 10 times their historical norms.
    3. The driver is remote, not local: Warming in the North Eurasian Arctic disrupts planetary waves and the stratospheric polar vortex, which in turn destabilises the South Asian monsoon.
    4. The scale was misread: The major powers treated the event as a localised weather emergency manageable with temporary relief, when the cryosphere failure cascaded down into densely populated valleys.

    What did the disaster do to Nepal’s economy?

    1. It struck the sector the country had bet on: Nepal’s strategy for economic sovereignty rested on harnessing 43,000 MW of commercially viable hydropower to become a regional energy exporter, and it had only recently achieved net exporter status.
    2. A tenth of installed capacity is gone: The floods crippled approximately 10 percent of installed capacity, wiping out older surface level plants such as Devighat and burying under construction projects in mud.
    3. The trade position reversed overnight: A country banking on power exports to narrow its trade deficit with India halted exports and began importing power to survive the winter.
    4. Rebuilding costs more than building did: Climate resilient underground engineering will raise future project costs by 10 to 12 percent.
    5. The bill is a tenth of the economy: Total damages are estimated between 4 billion dollars and 7 billion dollars, roughly a tenth of Nepal’s entire gross domestic product.

    Why has Nepal named the United States, China and India?

    1. The case against the United States is cumulative: America accounts for over 20 percent of cumulative global emissions since 1850, which anchors the claim in historical liability rather than current output.
    2. The case against China is proximity and data: China is the current top annual emitter, and Nepali officials had asked at a bilateral meeting in Kathmandu in May 2026 for real time data sharing on glacial lakes and avalanches in the Tibetan region.
    3. What China supplied instead: Beijing provided only heavy rain forecasts, and the absence of transboundary early warning proved fatal when the glacial lake burst.
    4. The case against India inverts India’s own argument: New Delhi has long cited low per capita emissions and demanded “common but differentiated responsibilities” from the West, and Nepal now applies that logic regionally to South Asia’s largest economy and emitter.
    5. India’s regional conduct is part of the charge: India’s refusal to buy power from Nepali projects built by Chinese contractors has complicated Nepal’s recovery and spread the friction horizontally across the region.

    Why can the existing fund not answer the demand?

    1. The fund is smaller than one country’s damage: It holds a mere 700 million dollars in pledges, against a single catastrophe costing several billion.
    2. The grant ceiling makes the arithmetic absurd: Pilot phase rules cap individual grants at between 5 million and 20 million dollars, so the maximum available payout answers a fraction of one percent of the loss.
    3. Speed is the second failure: The mechanism is handicapped by slow moving bureaucracy, and Nepal’s out of cycle demand on 1 September forces its board to decide whether it can respond to a live emergency at all.
    4. Compensation may arrive as debt: Debt saddled developing nations fear that money routed through a development lender converts into loans, turning a liability payment into a further obligation.
    5. The major powers answered with relief, not liability: China and India responded with helicopters, rescue teams and medicines, which supplies assistance while conceding no legal responsibility.

    Challenges to Nepal’s compensation claim

    1. The climate treaty framework expressly rules out liability: The decision adopting the Paris Agreement records that loss and damage provisions do not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation. Eg. Developed countries insisted on that language in 2015 as the price of accepting loss and damage in the text at all.
      The Fix: Pursue the claim through state responsibility and human rights forums in parallel, so the treaty carve out does not extinguish the legal route entirely.
    2. Attributing a single collapse to named emitters is contested: Compensation requires linking one event to specific contributors, and attribution science produces probabilities rather than the causal certainty a liability claim needs. Eg. The International Court of Justice advisory proceedings on climate obligations turned substantially on whether such a link can ground state responsibility.
      The Fix: Commission an independent forensic attribution study of the 26 August collapse before the claim reaches any forum, so the demand rests on published evidence.
    3. Pledged climate money has a record of not arriving: Announced sums and disbursed sums diverge by years in climate finance. Eg. The 100 billion dollar a year promise made for 2020 at Copenhagen in 2009 was reported as met only in 2022.
      The Fix: Attach disbursement deadlines and public tracking to each pledge, so a pledge that is not paid is visible rather than absorbed into a cumulative total.
    4. Upstream data sharing rests on no binding obligation: Early warning for glacial hazards depends on the upstream state volunteering information, and no treaty compels it. Eg. Hydrological data on the Brahmaputra reaches India through renewable memoranda of understanding, and sharing lapsed after the 2017 Doklam standoff.
      The Fix: Negotiate a Hindu Kush Himalaya data protocol with automatic sensor level transmission, so glacial lake readings do not depend on the state of bilateral relations.
    5. Regional politics undercuts regional claims: Nepal is asking India for differentiated responsibility while its recovery is being slowed by an Indian trade restriction. Eg. Power from Nepali projects built by Chinese contractors is refused entry to the Indian market.
      The Fix: Separate the power trade rules from the security screening by publishing objective eligibility criteria, so recovery generation is not blocked by contractor nationality.

    Conclusion

    Nepal’s claim will not be paid, and that was never the whole point of making it. A country responsible for a rounding error in global emissions has converted a disaster into a legal argument, and the argument lands on India rather than only on the West. The precedent it sets is that differentiated responsibility runs downward as well as upward, which is uncomfortable for every middle emitter that has used the doctrine as a shield. What to watch is the fund board’s response to an out of cycle demand, since a refusal establishes that the mechanism handles paperwork rather than emergencies.

    Back2Basics: Common But Differentiated Responsibilities

    1. What the principle holds: All states share responsibility for protecting the global environment, and their obligations differ according to their historical contribution to the problem and their present capacity to act.
    2. Where it is written: It appears as Principle 7 of the 1992 Rio Declaration and in Article 3.1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 1992.
    3. How it was first operationalised: The Kyoto Protocol, 1997 split countries into Annex I parties carrying binding emission targets and non Annex I parties carrying none.
    4. How the Paris Agreement restated it: The 2015 text retains the principle “in the light of different national circumstances”, replacing the fixed two group split with nationally determined contributions.

    “[2017, GS3, 15 marks] ‘Climate Change’ is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change?

  • [5th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: Warning on warming

    [5th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: Warning on warming

    Question (2025, GS3 – 15 Marks): “Write a review on India’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement (2015) and mention how these have been further strengthened in COP26 (2021). In this direction, how has the first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) intended by India been updated in 2022?
    Linkage: This is the most direct conceptual parallel. To analyze the gap between “climate pledges” and “actual policy trajectory” highlighted by the UNEP, candidates must evaluate India’s specific NDCs under the Paris Agreement, how they were upgraded at COP26, and their final 2022 formalization

    Mentor Comment

    The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming limit brings irreversible losses that adaptation cannot undo. Its report, Limiting Overshoot, accepts that the limit has already been breached. Full delivery of every existing national climate pledge still puts the world on course for 1.8 degrees Celsius, and current policies point to 2.6 degrees Celsius. The report’s new emphasis falls on greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, and on methane above all. The disagreement it reopens is between assessments that measure climate progress by mitigation and major developing economies that measure it by the finance and technology they receive. That disagreement now reaches India directly, because a smaller neighbour hit by a glacial disaster has named India among the emitters responsible.

    What is the “overshoot, peak and decline” pathway?

    1. What it describes: Average global temperatures rise above the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, countries hold that peak as low as they collectively can, and temperatures are brought back below the limit by the end of the century.
    2. Why the peak is the variable that matters: Neutralising the heating effect of even a tenth of a degree is far harder than preventing that rise in the first place, so every fraction avoided at the peak is a fraction that never has to be reversed.
    3. What it refuses to concede: The pathway accepts the scientific reality of a 1.5 degrees Celsius world and rejects the conclusion that nothing further can be done once the threshold is crossed.

    Why has the report shifted attention to gases other than carbon dioxide?

    1. Methane carries a large share of present warming: It is responsible for about 0.5 degrees Celsius of current warming, so cutting it changes the temperature curve within years rather than decades.
    2. It is the fastest available brake: Action on methane is treated as the most effective way to slow warming in the near term, which is precisely the window in which the peak is decided.
    3. The collective instrument already exists: More than 155 countries have joined the Global Methane Pledge, committing to cut anthropogenic methane at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.
    4. India stands outside it: India has not joined the Pledge, so the single fastest near term lever is not one the country has committed to pull.

    Why do major developing economies resist a mitigation first framing?

    1. They claim the transition is already under way: These economies argue that they are moving away from fossil fuels and should not be assessed as though they were not.
    2. The damage they face comes from someone else’s stock: Their vulnerability arises from historical accumulations of carbon released by richer developed countries, which is the basis of their claim to greater financial support and affordable technology.
    3. The report is silent where they are loudest: Limiting Overshoot has little to say on adaptation finance, so the question these economies bring to every negotiation goes unanswered in the assessment they are asked to act on.

    How does the Bhotekoshi disaster complicate India’s position?

    1. A vulnerable neighbour has named India: Nepal’s Foreign Affairs Minister has said that major industrial emitters such as China, the United States and India must consider the impact of rising temperatures on small countries such as Nepal.
    2. The victim framing no longer holds unchallenged: India’s per capita emissions remain below the world average, and a section of the world nonetheless now places India within the group causing the problem rather than the group suffering it.
    3. The next negotiation is dated: Countries convene in Turkiye in November for COP31, where the familiar disagreements over mitigation and finance are expected to resurface with this new complication attached.

    Challenges to the overshoot, peak and decline pathway

    1. The return leg depends on removal capacity that does not exist at scale: Bringing temperatures back below the limit assumes large volumes of carbon dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere later in the century. Eg. The direct air capture plants operating in Iceland remove tens of thousands of tonnes a year at most, against annual global emissions measured in tens of billions of tonnes.
      The Fix: Treat removal as a supplement to be verified and funded now, and set peak temperature targets that assume no removal beyond capacity already demonstrated.
    2. Some losses do not reverse when the temperature does: Ice sheets, coral reefs and glaciers respond to the peak rather than to the eventual average, so returning below 1.5 degrees Celsius does not restore what the overshoot destroyed. Eg. The August 2026 glacial collapse on the Nepal China border destroyed valleys that no later cooling will reconstitute.
      The Fix: Attach separate thresholds for irreversible systems to the pathway, so peak height is judged against them rather than against the century end average alone.
    3. The methane lever sits with countries that have not pulled it: The largest sources of anthropogenic methane are concentrated in a handful of economies outside the Pledge. Eg. India’s methane arises chiefly from livestock and paddy cultivation, which are livelihood activities rather than industrial infrastructure that can be shut down.
      The Fix: Fund livestock feed and paddy water management programmes that cut methane without cutting output, so the reduction is not paid for by farm incomes.
    4. The pathway offers nothing to those already past adaptation: A framework organised around peak management assumes adaptation absorbs the interim, and for the most exposed countries it does not. Eg. Nepal contributes a negligible share of global emissions and has lost roughly a tenth of its economy to a single event.
      The Fix: Pair every overshoot pathway with a stated adaptation finance figure, so the interim period carries a costed obligation rather than an assumption.

    Conclusion

    The threshold argument is over and the argument about who pays for its consequences is not. India has spent three decades arguing that historical responsibility sits elsewhere, and that argument is now being made about India by a country downstream of the Himalayas. Refusing the mitigation frame no longer settles the question, because the objection is arriving from the Global South rather than from the West. What to watch is whether India carries a methane position and an adaptation finance demand into COP31 as a single package, or continues to press the second while declining the first.

    Back2Basics: United Nations Environment Programme

    1. What it is: The United Nations body responsible for setting the global environmental agenda and coordinating environmental work across the UN system.
    2. When it was created: It was established in 1972, following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm that year.
    3. Where it sits: Its headquarters are at Nairobi, making it the first UN agency headquartered in a developing country.
    4. What it publishes: Its recurring assessments include the Emissions Gap Report, the Adaptation Gap Report and the Global Environment Outlook.
  • The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    Why in the News

    Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have entered a collective defence arrangement, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, at India’s western maritime doorstep. The agreement follows an American retreat into an unpredictable “selective engagement” posture, which has opened a security vacuum that regional states are now filling with new partners. India’s West Asia policy was built for the opposite condition. The United States guaranteed regional security and kept sea lines of communication open, so India could hedge between Riyadh, Tehran, Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi without accepting security obligations to any of them. That posture, called multi alignment, bought influence while the region wanted markets, labour and capital. The region now wants security guarantees, and India has none on offer.

    What is the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement?

    1. Three capabilities in one arrangement: It links Gulf capital to Turkish defence technology and to Pakistani military manpower and skill, inside a collective defence framework.
    2. It is framed as defensive: The pact is presented as a way of managing shared vulnerabilities among its members rather than as a bloc aimed at any particular state.
    3. Its significance is structural: It signals that West Asia’s security framework is being rewritten, and that the rewriting is being done by actors whose strategic interests run counter to India’s long term objectives.

    What did India’s multi alignment rest on?

    1. The region was read as an economic hinterland: West Asia was treated as a critical source of crude oil, a reliable destination for outbound labour and a vital conduit for remittances.
    2. Hedging was the default in a crisis: India balanced relations between competing power centres and declined security obligations to any single capital.
    3. The framing was macroeconomic: The region’s geography, oil and gas reserves, capital accumulation and appetite for imported labour and skills positioned it as the bridge between a debt burdened West and a rising Asia.
    4. Distance was itself the asset: Being friendly to all without being too friendly to any was the point of the policy, since an obligation to one power centre would have cost access to another.

    What has changed in the region’s security market?

    1. Distancing has lost its value: West Asian capitals no longer treat non alignment or multi alignment as a virtue, and are actively seeking dependable security partners.
    2. Diplomatic and commercial offers no longer buy influence: What is sought is naval patrols, intelligence sharing, defence industrial collaboration and credible counter terrorism capability, not platitudes and routine economic cooperation.
    3. The vacuum is filled by whoever arrives first: Türkiye has already converted the opening into a treaty commitment, and regional security arrangements will coalesce with or without Indian participation.
    4. The exposure is concrete: Hostile regional pacts and the growing influence of external powers bear directly on India’s trade routes, its energy security and the welfare of millions of Indian citizens in the Gulf.

    Why does economic infrastructure not buy security?

    1. Low cost weapons defeat capital intensive assets: The eruption of hostilities involving Iran showed that state of the art port facilities, energy networks and logistics corridors remain vulnerable to low cost drones in grey zone, asymmetric warfare, meaning attacks kept below the threshold of declared war and carried out by deniable or irregular means.
    2. A secure enclave is not secure: Hyper secure economic zones stay exposed to spillover from the instability around them, because the perimeter is not where the risk originates.
    3. The Gulf model is hostage to perception: The economy runs on foreign corporations and expatriate labour, so talent and capital exit as rapidly as they arrived once security risk crosses a psychological threshold.
    4. A corridor is only as strong as its worst link: Disruption at a narrow naval chokepoint or along an overland route stalls the whole supply chain, whatever the quality of the infrastructure at either end.

    What hard moves are available to India?

    1. Build presence at the chokepoints: The named priorities are the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, the waters off the Somali coast and the Bab el-Mandeb.
    2. Convert presence into standing arrangements: Joint maritime patrols, permanent logistics access arrangements and interoperable surveillance networks with friendly Gulf states are what turn deployments into a net security provider role.
    3. Sell capability rather than only buying it: India’s defence manufacturing base can offer West Asian states an alternative source of hardware and technology, with collaborative ventures, exercises carrying real operational content and deep intelligence sharing replacing procurement discussions.
    4. Use minilaterals rather than alliances: Security frameworks with the United Arab Emirates or Israel, and separately with Saudi Arabia, build a counterweight against hostile axes without the rigidity of a Cold War style alliance.

    Challenges to an Indian security role in West Asia

    1. India holds no base of its own in the region: Sustained naval presence at several chokepoints needs repair, replenishment and crew rotation ashore, which an access agreement does not guarantee during a crisis. Eg. India’s logistics in the western Indian Ocean rest on access to Port Duqm in Oman rather than on infrastructure it controls.
      The Fix: Convert existing access arrangements into pre stocked logistics hubs with agreed wartime access clauses, so replenishment does not turn on a host government’s decision mid conflict.
    2. A Gulf security partnership collides with the Iran relationship: Deeper security alignment with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi narrows the space for India’s connectivity investments in Iran. Eg. The Chabahar port project has already run into payment and equipment difficulties because of exposure to United States sanctions.
      The Fix: Keep the maritime role functional rather than political, built around freedom of navigation and anti piracy tasks from which Iran also benefits.
    3. Pakistan’s institutional depth in Gulf security cannot be matched quickly: Decades of troop deployments, training missions and personnel exchanges give it standing that a new partner cannot replicate through joint exercises. Eg. Pakistani personnel have served in Saudi Arabian training and internal security roles across successive decades.
      The Fix: Compete where the incumbent is weak, in maritime domain awareness, satellite surveillance and cyber defence, rather than in ground manpower.
    4. The defence export base is small relative to the offer: Supplying a serious regional partner requires sustained production, spares and lifecycle support, which the Indian ecosystem has demonstrated in a narrow band of systems. Eg. India’s defence exports remain concentrated in components, subsystems and a small number of complete platforms.
      The Fix: Anchor offers to systems with a proven service record and a committed spares chain, instead of promising a full spectrum supplier relationship the industrial base cannot yet sustain.
    5. A guarantor role imports the region’s own quarrels: Standing commitments make India a party to disputes among partners who are themselves in conflict with each other. Eg. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backed rival factions in Yemen while both are named as prospective Indian partners.
      The Fix: Restrict commitments to maritime and counter terrorism tasks with defined geographic limits, excluding participation in intra regional ground conflicts.

    Conclusion

    The currency of influence in West Asia has changed from investment to protection, and India’s instruments were built for the older one. Trade volume and a large resident population do not translate into a seat in a security arrangement, which is what the region is now assembling. The marker to watch is whether the Mecca arrangement acquires operational content, meaning a joint command, basing rights or a published exercise calendar, since that is the point at which a signed pact becomes a standing capability. India’s answer will register in the same currency or it will not register at all.

    India and West Asia

    1. The policy has a named progression: A pro Arab, Non Aligned Movement era stance gave way to full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, a “Look West” policy in 2005 centred on the Gulf Cooperation Council, and a “Think West” approach from 2014 that added maritime security, counter terrorism and investment to oil and diaspora.
    2. Energy is the base of the relationship: The region supplies nearly 60 percent of India’s crude oil and about 70 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas requirements.
    3. The Gulf is India’s largest trading bloc: India-GCC bilateral trade stood at $178 billion in FY 2024-25, making the Gulf Cooperation Council India’s largest trading partner bloc.
    4. The human link is the largest anywhere: About 10 million Indians live and work in West Asia, and the region contributes roughly 38 percent of India’s global remittances.

    Government Initiatives and Frameworks for India-West Asia Relations

    1. I2U2: A grouping of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, working on joint projects in food and energy security.
    2. India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): A rail and shipping corridor intended to link India to Europe through the Gulf, bypassing the Suez route.
    3. India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA): A bilateral trade agreement that removed tariffs across most trade lines and deepened investment flows between the two countries.
    4. Chabahar port agreement: A ten year contract signed in 2024 to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal in Iran, giving India a land and sea route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that avoids Pakistan.

    Challenges in India’s West Asia Engagement

    1. Energy import concentration: A large share of India’s crude and gas comes from a single region whose export routes run through two narrow straits. Eg. Qatar supplies roughly 40 percent of India’s liquefied natural gas imports.
      The Fix: Expand long term contracts with West African, American and Australian suppliers, so no single region carries a majority of the import basket.
    2. Remittance dependence at the State level: Household incomes and State finances in parts of India rest on Gulf transfers that fall the moment the regional economy contracts. Eg. Kerala reported roughly a 20 percent decline in monthly Gulf inflows during the 2026 crisis.
      The Fix: Widen the destination mix for emigrant workers through skill mobility agreements with Japan, Germany and Australia, so remittance flows are not tied to one region’s business cycle.
    3. Fertiliser and food input exposure: Gulf sourced urea and phosphate underpin Indian crop cycles, so a shipping disruption reaches the farm within a season. Eg. Long term potash and phosphate supplies from Jordan and Oman are central to India’s fertiliser availability.
      The Fix: Hold buffer stocks timed to the Rabi and Kharif input calendars, and widen phosphate sourcing towards Morocco, so one corridor’s closure does not hit a sowing season.

    [2018, GS2, 15 marks] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?”

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