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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Health Ministry strengthens allied and healthcare education standards

    Health Ministry strengthens allied and healthcare education standards

    Why in the News

    The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare moved to strengthen education and professional standards for allied and healthcare professionals.

    Core Facts

    1. Governing law: Standards are set under the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021.
    2. Apex body: The Act created the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP), a statutory body that regulates education and practice in these fields.
    3. State tier: The Act also provides for State Allied and Healthcare Councils.
    4. Mandate: The Commission frames standards for education and curricula, and maintains a central register of practitioners.

    Static Context

    1. Enactment aim: The Act was enacted to regulate and standardise a large set of allied health professions.
    2. Coverage: The Act groups professions into defined categories such as medical laboratory science, radiology, physiotherapy and nutrition.
    3. Parent ministry: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare administers the framework.

    Prelims Angle

    1. The governing law is the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021.
    2. The apex regulator is the NCAHP, a statutory body.
    3. It works through State Allied and Healthcare Councils.

    Mains Angle

    1. GS2, issues in the health sector and human resources: A question can ask how professional regulation improves the quality of India’s health workforce.
    2. The delivery side: It can probe whether standard setting reaches the districts where allied professionals actually practise.
  • Constitutional faultlines in FCRA Bill

    Constitutional faultlines in FCRA Bill

    Why in the News

    The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 creates a statutory framework for the vesting, supervision, management and disposal of foreign contributions and the assets built from them. Where an organisation’s certificate under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 is cancelled, surrendered or ceases to exist, including through non renewal, the Central government may appoint a Designated Authority in which those contributions and assets vest provisionally.

    What is the Designated Authority?

    1. It is appointed by the Central government: The appointment is triggered where an organisation’s FCRA certificate is cancelled, surrendered or ceases to exist, including due to non renewal.
    2. Assets vest in it provisionally: The foreign contribution and the assets created from it may vest in the authority on a provisional basis.
    3. It may take possession and manage those assets: The government may, through the authority, take possession of and manage assets created from foreign contributions.
    4. It may also run the organisation’s activities: Where considered necessary or expedient in the public interest, it may undertake the management of the concerned organisation’s activities.

    How far do the consequences of losing registration now travel?

    1. The existing consequences were financial and regulatory: Registrations could be withdrawn, cancellation could follow continuing non compliance, and penalties attached to the diversion or misappropriation of foreign contributions.
    2. A vesting provision already existed: The current law already contains a provision for vesting assets created from foreign funds upon cancellation.
    3. The Bill supplies the machinery that was missing: What is added is a detailed statutory framework for provisional vesting, possession, management, restoration and ultimately permanent vesting and disposal.
    4. The end point changes in kind, not in degree: What was previously limited to the loss of eligibility to receive foreign funds can now extend to provisional management and, where registration is not restored within the prescribed period, permanent vesting and disposal of assets.

    Why does management control matter more than formal ownership?

    1. The ownership and custody distinction has limited practical force: The legal separation between owning an asset and holding custody of it does not change the practical consequence for the institution.
    2. Institutions run on continuity of management: An entity whose success depends on continuous administration places greater weight on control than on ownership.
    3. The relationship with the state changes: Ownership may remain formally undisturbed, and a change in management control still alters the relationship between the institution and the state.
    4. The affected entities are operating institutions: A hospital, a school or a laboratory is not made effective by ownership alone, and depends on its independence to administer for charitable ends what it owns.

    Does the Bill satisfy constitutional proportionality?

    1. A legitimate objective is not sufficient by itself: The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the state pursuing a legitimate objective does not settle the constitutional question.
    2. The means must fit the end: The means adopted must bear a reasonable connection to that objective and must maintain an appropriate balance between the public purpose and the burden imposed on rights.
    3. A heavier consequence demands heavier safeguards: Where losing registration can lead to provisional vesting and government appointed management, the safeguards attending that transfer must be commensurately robust.
    4. The Bill does provide safeguards: It provides for the restoration of assets where registration is obtained, renewed or restored within the prescribed period, and for mechanisms of revision and judicial appeal.
    5. The open question is their quality: What remains contested is whether those safeguards are sufficiently clear, timely and effective, and what standards govern decisions on possession, management and permanent vesting.

    Why does the regulatory backdrop raise the stakes?

    1. Registrations have lapsed at scale: Over the past decade thousands of FCRA registrations have ceased to operate, for reasons ranging from non renewal to alleged statutory violations.
    2. An administrative lapse and a proven violation converge: Non renewal is not a finding of wrongdoing, and under the proposed framework it can attract the same asset consequence as a violation.
    3. The Bill has drawn parliamentary opposition: Opposition members of Parliament have protested in New Delhi demanding the withdrawal of the Bill.

    Challenges to the FCRA Amendment Bill, 2026

    1. Renewal is a recurring administrative cliff: FCRA registration must be renewed every five years, and a delay in deciding a renewal application would now carry asset consequences rather than only a pause in funding. Eg. The Ministry of Home Affairs has repeatedly issued blanket extensions of FCRA validity as renewal deadlines approached, which shows the decision backlog is routine rather than exceptional.
      The Fix: Provide by statute that registration continues in force until a renewal application is decided, so a pending file cannot trigger vesting.
    2. The receiving channel is already a single point of failure: The 2020 amendment required every recipient to receive foreign contribution only in a designated account at one specified bank branch in New Delhi. Eg. Organisations working in every State had to open and operate that one account irrespective of where they function.
      The Fix: Allow any scheduled bank branch to host the designated account with the same automated reporting feed to the Ministry.
    3. The bar on onward granting cuts off the smallest organisations: The 2020 amendment prohibited the transfer of foreign contribution to any other person, ending the model in which a registered body funded unregistered grassroots groups. Eg. Community organisations that never held registration of their own lost their funding route entirely.
      The Fix: Restore sub granting to registered entities under a reporting requirement rather than a blanket prohibition.
    4. The administrative expense cap squeezes research and advocacy work: The 2020 amendment cut the share of foreign contribution usable for administrative expenses from 50 percent to 20 percent, and staff salaries are the principal cost of such work. Eg. A research institute’s main expenditure is staff time, which the cap treats as overhead rather than as programme cost.
      The Fix: Define programme staff costs as programme expenditure rather than as administrative expenditure.
    5. Remedies move slower than an operating institution can survive: Restoration and appeal run through the Ministry and then the courts, and a hospital or school under government appointed management cannot suspend operations while that runs. Eg. Writ challenges to FCRA cancellations have taken years to reach a hearing on merits.
      The Fix: Fix an outer statutory time limit for deciding restoration, with automatic revesting in the organisation once that limit expires.
    6. Freedom of association is engaged, not only property: Article 19(1)(c) protects the right to form associations, and control over an association’s assets and management directly affects its capacity to function. Eg. In Noel Harper v. Union of India (2022) the Supreme Court upheld the 2020 amendments and held that receiving foreign contribution is not an absolute right, which leaves the associational effect of asset control unsettled.
      The Fix: Write into the Bill an express requirement that the least restrictive measure available be recorded in writing before management is assumed.

    Conclusion

    The Bill moves FCRA from policing money to holding institutions. That shift is not by itself unconstitutional, and it is what makes the safeguards the whole of the question. The unresolved tension is that the trigger for the heaviest consequence can be an expired file rather than a proved diversion, and the remedy for a wrong trigger runs slower than the institution it applies to. Whether the Bill survives a proportionality challenge will turn on how tightly Parliament defines the Designated Authority’s discretion, and on how fast restoration actually works in practice.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it regulates: The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 governs the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution and foreign hospitality by individuals, associations and companies in India.
    2. Who administers it: It is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and it replaced the earlier Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976.
    3. How access is granted: An association must hold either registration, valid for five years and renewable, or prior permission tied to a specific purpose and a specific foreign source.
    4. Who is barred outright: Election candidates, judges, government servants, members of the legislature, journalists and political parties are prohibited from accepting foreign contribution.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] Examine critically the recent changes in the rules governing foreign funding of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 1976.”

  • NTA looks for exam centres, seeks help from technical education body

    NTA looks for exam centres, seeks help from technical education body

    Why in the News

    The National Testing Agency (NTA) has begun assembling a network of government owned computer laboratories to run the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Undergraduate (NEET-UG) as a computer based examination. It has asked the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to collect information from government institutions on their information technology infrastructure and available space. The move follows the government’s decision to shift NEET-UG out of pen and paper mode from next year, taken after a question paper leak forced the cancellation of the examination and a nationwide protest. The constraint the request exposes is physical rather than procedural. A nationwide computer based test needs a geographically distributed network of secure, connected centres, and that network does not yet exist in public hands.

    What is a Standard Testing Centre?

    1. A vetted venue rather than a hired hall: A Standard Testing Centre is a facility identified and developed in advance for computer based testing, instead of being arranged afresh for each examination cycle.
    2. The infrastructure it must carry: Institutions have been asked to report the number of functional computers and computer systems, their information technology systems, networking and internet connectivity, availability of power backup, and CCTV and related facilities.
    3. It must have usable spare capacity: Institutions have also been asked to report vacant space, since a centre needs room that is not already committed to teaching.
    4. Only government institutions qualify at this stage: The information has been sought only in respect of government colleges and institutions approved by AICTE.

    Why is NTA routing the search through the technical education regulator?

    1. AICTE approved institutions are the largest pool of public computer laboratories: Engineering colleges, polytechnic institutes, government university departments and other state run technical or management institutions all sit inside its approval network.
    2. The requirement is geographic spread, not raw seat count: The stated reason is the progressive migration of examinations to computer based mode and the need for a wider geographically distributed network of testing centres.
    3. The request travelled down the institutional chain: NTA wrote to AICTE on 5 August, and AICTE then wrote to Vice Chancellors of state run technical universities and to directors and principals of approved government institutions.
    4. The returns are dated and must be certified: Institutions must submit details that are accurate, complete and duly verified by the competent authority of the institution, by 15 September.

    What forced the shift to computer based testing?

    1. A paper leak invalidated the examination: The Union Education Ministry cancelled the NEET-UG entrance examination held on 3 May after the question paper leaked.
    2. The scale of the disruption: Around 22 lakh candidates had appeared in that examination.
    3. The political cost: The cancellation sparked nationwide protests and the Union Education Minister resigned.
    4. The stated remedy: The government has said NEET-UG will move from pen and paper mode to computer based testing from next year.
    5. The agency itself is being restructured: The search for centres runs alongside an ongoing overhaul of NTA, the nodal autonomous body that conducts NEET-UG and other entrance tests for higher educational institutions.

    Challenges to migrating NEET-UG to computer based testing

    1. The scale has no precedent in computer based testing: No Indian examination has run a computer based test for a cohort of this size in a single sitting, so the centre requirement is a multiple of anything currently operated. Eg. The Joint Entrance Examination (Main) already runs on computer, and it is spread across multiple sessions and days rather than one day.
      The Fix: Publish the shift and session design alongside the centre inventory, so candidates know in advance whether scores will be compared across papers.
    2. Multiple shifts require score normalisation, which is itself contested: Candidates sitting different question papers must be compared through a statistical adjustment rather than through raw marks. Eg. Percentile normalisation in the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) has repeatedly been challenged for producing rank differences between shifts.
      The Fix: Release the normalisation formula and shift wise difficulty data with the result, rather than only the final percentile.
    3. Rural and small town candidates face a familiarity gap: A test taken on a keyboard and screen advantages candidates with routine computer access, and NEET-UG draws heavily from districts where school computer laboratories are shared or non functional. Eg. The very shortage of government computer infrastructure that NTA is now mapping is the same shortage those candidates study under.
      The Fix: Fund a compulsory mock test on the actual examination software at the allotted centre before the examination day.
    4. The centre, not the press, is the historic weak point: Leaks and impersonation cases have originated at the examination venue, and a computer based test moves that risk to local network access and administrator privileges. Eg. The compromise that led to the May cancellation happened before candidates ever reached the hall.
      The Fix: Log and audit every administrator level action at a centre, with the log held by the agency rather than by the host institution.
    5. Host institutions are being asked to supply capacity without a funding line: A college that lends its laboratory absorbs power, staff time and lost teaching hours on examination days. Eg. The AICTE communication seeks an inventory of infrastructure and states nothing about what a host institution receives in return.
      The Fix: Attach a per candidate hosting grant to the Standard Testing Centre designation, paid against certified compliance with the infrastructure norms.

    Conclusion

    The decision to move NEET-UG onto computers has already been announced. The capacity to run it has not yet been counted. The agency is conducting an inventory now, which means the size of the network will be known only after the mode has been committed to. The point to watch is what those returns show. If the public system cannot supply enough certified centres, the test either returns to private venues, which is where the security problem originated, or it splits across shifts and sessions, which substitutes a scoring dispute for a leak.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: The All India Council for Technical Education is the national body for the planning and coordinated development of technical education in India.
    2. Statutory basis: It was set up in 1945 as an advisory body and given statutory status by the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987.
    3. Where it sits: It functions under the Department of Higher Education in the Ministry of Education.
    4. What it does: It grants approval to technical institutions and prescribes norms and standards for courses and infrastructure, across fields including engineering, technology, management, architecture, pharmacy and hotel management.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “No direct PYQ traced in the provided files. Closest microtheme: Domestic Bodies/Agencies.”

  • Note on meeting over caste census rewritten after Ministry pushback

    Note on meeting over caste census rewritten after Ministry pushback

    Why in the News

    The Office of the Registrar General of India has rewritten its record of a meeting on caste enumeration after the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment objected to how its position had been minuted.

    What is the open ended caste question, and how does it differ from a drop down?

    1. An open ended question records what the respondent says: The enumerator writes down the caste name as reported, without matching it to any approved list at the point of collection.
    2. A drop down constrains the answer to a fixed list: The Census already uses drop down lists for the notified Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, where a legally settled list exists.
    3. The stated reason for the choice: The government’s position is that an open ended response is the only way to run the exercise without the state itself becoming an arbiter of caste identities.
    4. The cost is deferred, not avoided: The work of converting millions of individual responses into reliable, standardised caste data moves from the field to the stage after enumeration.

    How was the record of the June meeting rewritten?

    1. The Ministry offered the OBC list at the meeting: Ministry officials expressed willingness to share the list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) maintained by the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) for the caste enumeration exercise.
    2. The first draft minutes did not carry the offer: The initial draft of the minutes prepared by the Registrar General’s office did not reflect that offer accurately.
    3. The circulated note recorded a flat denial instead: A four paragraph note circulated on 8 June stated that Ministry officials had informed the meeting that there is no constitutional mandate for the Ministry to maintain a caste list, and that no such list is available with it.
    4. The note then drew the operative conclusion: It recorded that in view of the absence of any list of castes, enumeration of castes in Census 2027 may not be possible using any pre defined list in the Census question.
    5. The Ministry read the wording as a trap: Ministry officials said the onus for not going forward with a pre defined list was being shifted onto them.
    6. The amended note was accepted: The Ministry sent a revised version on 11 June, and the Registrar General’s office accepted the revised notes on 30 June.

    What lists does the Ministry actually maintain?

    1. Two statutory lists, not a general caste list: The revised note recorded that the Ministry maintains the List of Scheduled Castes and the Central List of Other Backward Classes as mandated by the Constitution, and that no separate list of castes is required to be maintained.
    2. The Scheduled Caste list: It comprises 1,258 entries and had already been shared with the Registrar General’s office by a letter dated 25 September 2025.
    3. The Central OBC list: It comprises nearly 2,483 entries, and the Ministry said it would be provided to the Registrar General’s office if required.
    4. Where the assistance stopped: The note recorded that officials of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment were unable to assist further, given the absence of any mandate to maintain a list of castes beyond those two.

    Why does the 2011 experience shape this decision?

    1. The last attempt produced unusable variety: Respondents in the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) reported 46.7 lakh distinct caste names, against 4,147 recorded in 1931.
    2. The cost: That exercise cost about ₹4,900 crore.
    3. The caste data was never released: The SECC data was published by the Ministries of Rural Development and Urban Development in 2016, and the dataset on caste was excluded.
    4. Classification was outsourced and never completed: The raw caste data went to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which formed a group of experts under the then Vice Chairperson of NITI Aayog for classification and categorisation, and that data is yet to be made public.
    5. The government told the Supreme Court the data was unusable: Affidavits filed on 21 September and 14 December 2021 said the SECC 2011 data was inaccurate and marked by technical flaws.
    6. The Court recorded that position: On 15 December 2021 the Supreme Court noted that the affidavit before it states that the data as collated “is not accurate and is unusable for any purpose whatsoever”.
    7. The same failure is expected to recur: The assessment recorded inside the Ministry is that the 2027 count is set to repeat the failure of the previous exercise.

    How did the 2027 caste count come about?

    1. Cabinet approval reversed a standing position: The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs approved caste enumeration in Census 2027 on 30 April 2025, conceding a long pending demand and reversing the government’s earlier position.
    2. The demand was first conceded in 2010: The then government promised caste enumeration alongside Census 2011 in May 2010 and referred the question to a Group of Ministers.
    3. It was then diverted out of the Census: Acting on that Group’s recommendations, the Union Cabinet decided in September 2010 to conduct a separate SECC instead of counting caste in the Census itself.
    4. The field timetable is already running: Population enumeration together with the caste census is scheduled across the country in February 2027, and it began on 1 September 2026 in hilly and snow bound areas to avoid winter difficulties.
    5. The Opposition objection is about usability, not about counting: The Leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha argued that social justice policies cannot be effectively implemented without accurate data.

    Challenges to caste enumeration in Census 2027

    1. Open responses multiply into synonyms, sub castes and surnames: One community reports itself under several names across districts, and no field rule decides which of those names denote the same group. Eg. The Bihar caste survey of 2023 enumerated against a pre defined list of castes rather than an open field, precisely to avoid that outcome.
      The Fix: Publish the standardisation methodology and the mapping rules before enumeration begins, so the conversion is auditable rather than discretionary.
    2. The classification stage carries no statutory deadline: Raw responses become policy relevant only after grouping, and nothing fixes when that grouping must be completed or released. Eg. The Census Act, 1948 and its rules set the enumeration schedule and say nothing about publishing a caste classification.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory deadline for publishing classified caste tables, as already exists for the primary Census abstracts.
    3. Self reported caste can be reported strategically: Where a count is known to feed benefit eligibility, a respondent has an incentive to report the category that maximises entitlement. Eg. Reservation litigation regularly turns on disputed community claims to Other Backward Class or Scheduled Tribe status.
      The Fix: Delink the enumeration record from individual entitlement, using it only for aggregate policy design.
    4. Numbers alone do not satisfy the constitutional test: Population share does not establish that a group is socially and educationally backward, which is what the Constitution requires before reservation follows. Eg. Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) fixed a ceiling on reservation and required backwardness to be demonstrated rather than assumed.
      The Fix: Collect the socio educational indicators the constitutional test needs in the same schedule as the caste question.
    5. Two arms of government own different halves of the exercise: The Registrar General’s office runs the enumeration and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment holds the statutory lists, and neither is answerable for the output the other needs. Eg. The rewriting of the meeting note turned entirely on which of the two would be recorded as having ruled out a pre defined list.
      The Fix: Name a single accountable authority for the caste module, with the other body’s inputs recorded as statutory obligations rather than as offers.

    Conclusion

    The design of the caste question has been settled by default rather than by decision. Neither arm of government was willing to own the list a closed format needs, and the open format was what remained. The methodological problem that broke the last attempt is therefore untouched: responses will be collected freely and must still be grouped afterwards by someone. What to watch is whether the standardisation rules are published before enumerators go into the field, or arrive only after the data is already in.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: The National Commission for Backward Classes examines requests for inclusion in and exclusion from the Central List of Other Backward Classes and advises the Central government on them.
    2. Constitutional status: The Constitution (One Hundred and Second Amendment) Act, 2018 inserted Article 338B and gave the Commission constitutional status, replacing its earlier statutory basis.
    3. Composition: It consists of a Chairperson, a Vice Chairperson and three other members appointed by the President.
    4. States retain their own lists: The Constitution (One Hundred and Fifth Amendment) Act, 2021 restored the power of States and Union Territories to prepare and maintain their own lists of socially and educationally backward classes.
  • Mental health must anchor public health

    Mental health must anchor public health

    Why in the News

    Mental health has been placed at the centre of India’s public health agenda as a determinant of every other health goal rather than as a separate specialty. India’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision carries a Healthcare for All pillar built on strengthening Ayushman Bharat, expanding primary healthcare, reducing out of pocket expenditure and promoting preventive care.

    How wide is the gap between mental illness and mental healthcare?

    1. Prevalence: Mental illness affects one in seven Indians, with nearly 200 million people living with a diagnosable mental health condition.
    2. A rising share of total disease burden: The contribution of mental disorders to India’s total disease burden has doubled over the past three decades.
    3. The treatment gap: The national treatment gap stands at 84.5%, so more than four out of five people who need care do not receive it.
    4. Specialist density: India has 0.3 psychiatrists per 1,00,000 population.
    5. The shortage runs across the whole care team: Clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers and psychiatric nurses are all in significant short supply, the result of decades of insufficient attention to the field.

    Why does neglecting mental health weaken physical health programmes?

    1. The risk runs both ways: Mental disorders significantly raise the risk of chronic disease, and chronic disease in turn raises the risk of mental illness.
    2. Most primary care patients are already affected: More than 60% of people attending primary care facilities have a diagnosable mental disorder.
    3. Specific comorbidities are worse: Rates of anxiety and depression are substantially higher among people living with diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
    4. The cost falls on disease control programmes: Ignoring mental health undermines efforts to control non communicable diseases and to reduce healthcare expenditure.

    What is the economic case for universal screening?

    1. The study: A 2025 modelling study by researchers from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) examined integrating universal depression screening into India’s primary healthcare system.
    2. The estimated saving: It put net savings at ₹291 billion to ₹482 billion annually.
    3. The scale relative to the economy: That is equivalent to as much as 0.32% of GDP.
    4. The framing that follows: On those numbers mental health is a human capital investment and an economic growth strategy, not a social welfare issue alone.

    What delivery foundation already exists?

    1. Primary care conversion: More than 1.73 lakh sub centres and primary health centres have been converted into Ayushman Bharat Arogya Mandirs.
    2. Mental health sits inside the service package: Mental healthcare is included among the essential service packages those centres are meant to deliver.
    3. District coverage: The District Mental Health Programme now covers more than 90% of districts.
    4. A national tele service: Tele-MANAS (Tele Mental Health Assistance and Networking Across States), launched in 2022, has expanded across all States and Union Territories.

    What three priorities does scaling this foundation require?

    1. Make frontline workers the backbone of community mental healthcare: India’s one million Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) form the world’s largest community health workforce, and with training and supervision they can identify, support and refer individuals with common mental disorders. Validated screening tools, digital learning platforms and performance linked incentives are the levers that would scale the model. Eg. Evidence from Madhya Pradesh and other States shows ASHAs already performing that role.
    2. Invest systematically in community based care: Trained community workers bridge the gap between awareness and treatment, particularly in rural and underserved populations, and these approaches improve access while reducing costs. Eg. Zimbabwe’s Friendship Bench, Atmiyata in India and programmes run by The Live Love Laugh Foundation all operate on this model.
    3. Complete the promise of financial protection: Extending outpatient mental health benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana would cover the continuous care that mental illness actually needs. Strengthening implementation of insurance parity under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 would make that care affordable for people currently going without it.

    Challenges to integrating mental health into primary care

    1. Stigma stops care seeking before any service is reached: A diagnosis treated as a family reputational risk rather than as an illness keeps the patient out of the system entirely. Eg. Tele-MANAS was built as an anonymous telephone service precisely because anonymity lowers a barrier that in person help seeking raises.
      The Fix: Fund sustained district level anti stigma communication through the same channels that already carry immunisation and tuberculosis messaging.
    2. District coverage is counted in districts, not in staff: Sanctioned psychiatrist, psychologist and psychiatric social worker posts at district level frequently remain vacant, so a covered district may still have no functioning team. Eg. District hospitals must recruit specialists against private practice pay, which is why the posts stay open.
      The Fix: Allow districts to contract trained mid level providers against unfilled specialist posts rather than carry the vacancy.
    3. The rights framework depends on authorities that were slow to appear: The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 requires every State to constitute a State Mental Health Authority and to register mental health establishments, and several States were late in doing so. Eg. The Act’s advance directive and nominated representative provisions cannot be exercised without a functioning State authority.
      The Fix: Tie a State’s central mental health funding to a constituted and staffed State Mental Health Authority.
    4. Psychotropic medicines are not reliably stocked below district level: Treatment breaks when a patient stabilised at a district hospital cannot refill medication at the primary health centre. Eg. Antipsychotics and mood stabilisers sit outside the routine stock lists many sub district facilities actually maintain.
      The Fix: Place the core psychotropic list on the essential drug list procured for every Ayushman Bharat Arogya Mandir.
    5. Suicide prevention has no single accountable owner: Prevention needs police, education, agriculture and health departments to act together, and none of them is answerable for the outcome. Eg. The National Suicide Prevention Strategy, released in 2022, set a target of reducing suicide mortality by 10% by 2030 and relies on voluntary departmental convergence.
      The Fix: Give the strategy a named nodal authority in each State reporting against annual targets.

    Conclusion

    Mental health is not a missing programme in India. It is a programme that exists at scale and does not reach people. The binding constraint is who delivers care at the point a person first presents, and that is a workforce question before it is a financing question. Closing the gap therefore turns on whether frontline and community workers are trained, supervised and paid to do the work, and on whether the payment system follows the patient out of the hospital. Until those two move together, coverage will keep expanding without treatment expanding with it.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: Tele-MANAS is a national round the clock tele mental health service providing free counselling and psychiatric support by telephone, run under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
    2. Origin: It was announced in the Union Budget for 2022-23 as the National Tele Mental Health Programme and launched in October 2022.
    3. How it is organised: It works in two tiers, with State level cells staffed by trained counsellors and a second tier of specialists and district programme resources for escalation.
    4. Nodal institution: NIMHANS is the nodal centre for the programme, with technical support from the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.

    [2024] With reference to the ‘Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan’, consider the following statements:

    1. This scheme guarantees a minimum package of antenatal care services to women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy and six months post-delivery health care service in any government health facility.

    2. Under this scheme, private sector health care providers of certain specialities can volunteer to provide services at nearby government health facilities.

    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

  • Over 7,200 CBI cases under Prevention of Corruption Act pending trial, says CVC report

    Over 7,200 CBI cases under Prevention of Corruption Act pending trial, says CVC report

    Why in the News

    The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reported in its annual report that over 7,200 cases investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 were awaiting completion of trial at the end of 2025.

    Where does the anti-corruption pipeline stall?

    1. Trials run past two decades: More than 400 of the 7,229 pending Prevention of Corruption Act trials have been open for over 20 years.
    2. Appeals add a second backlog: 14,083 appeals, revisions and writ petitions under the Act were pending in the High Courts and the Supreme Court.
    3. Over a third of those are more than a decade old: 3,161 were 10 to 15 years old, 1,347 were 15 to 20 years old and 739 were over 20 years old.
    4. The wider trial load is larger still: Counting cases outside the Act, 11,510 CBI court cases were pending trial at the end of the year.

    What do the investigation and conviction figures show?

    1. Convictions improved: The conviction rate in CBI cases was 71.71 percent in 2025 against 69.14 percent in 2024.
    2. Investigation pendency is small by comparison: 755 corruption related cases were pending investigation, made up of 679 regular cases, 63 preliminary enquiries and 13 Lokpal references (cases the Lokpal has referred to the CBI for investigation).
    3. A year is the usual limit, and 274 cases crossed it: Of the 679 regular cases, 274 had been pending for over one year.
    4. The intake in 2025: The CBI registered 797 regular cases, 177 preliminary enquiries and recorded 31 Lokpal references during the year.

    What capacity does the vigilance system have?

    1. One in seven CBI posts is vacant: Against a sanctioned strength of 7,300, 1,088 posts were vacant, with the largest gap of 672 in the executive ranks.
    2. Departmental inquiries under the Commission: For officers under CVC jurisdiction, 1,460 departmental inquiries were in process during 2025 and 731 were completed.
    3. Inquiries outside its purview: For employees outside its jurisdiction, 9,883 inquiries were in process and 5,561 were completed.
    4. Complaint disposal kept pace: The Commission received 34,153 complaints in 2025 in addition to 1,260 carried forward from 2024, and disposed of 35,193.

    Challenges to prosecuting corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act

    1. Sanction is a gate the executive controls: Section 19 requires the government’s sanction before a court can take cognisance against a public servant, and Section 17A, added by the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, requires prior approval even to begin an inquiry into a decision taken in official capacity. Eg. In Vineet Narain v Union of India (1997) the Supreme Court fixed a three month limit for sanction decisions, and the 2018 amendment wrote that limit, extendable by one month, into Section 19 itself.
      The Fix: Treat sanction as deemed granted when the statutory period lapses without a decision.
    2. Special courts are too few for the load: Section 3 of the Act requires trials before special judges, and the same judges carry other criminal work, so a corruption trial waits behind the general docket. Eg. In Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v Union of India the Supreme Court in 2021 recorded 4,984 pending criminal cases against legislators and directed special courts to prioritise them.
      The Fix: Designate exclusive special judges for Prevention of Corruption Act trials in every district with a CBI court, with a monthly disposal target monitored by the High Court.
    3. State consent limits where the CBI can act: Under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 the CBI needs a State’s consent to investigate within it, and a growing list of States has withdrawn general consent so every case needs a fresh order. Eg. West Bengal withdrew general consent in November 2018, and in 2024 the Supreme Court allowed the State’s suit against the Union over CBI investigations to proceed to trial.
      The Fix: Enact a standalone CBI statute defining its jurisdiction, as the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice recommended in 2023.
    4. Deputation, not a cadre, staffs the agency: The CBI fills most executive posts by deputation from State police and central forces, so vacancies persist when States decline to release officers. Eg. In May 2013, during the coal block allocation hearing, the Supreme Court described the CBI as a “caged parrot” after the agency’s status report had been shared with the Law Minister.
      The Fix: Expand direct recruitment at the sub inspector and deputy superintendent levels and offer fixed tenure with cadre security to reduce reliance on deputation.

    Conclusion

    The Commission’s numbers show the agency’s work improving at the stages it controls and stalling at the stages it does not. The pendency now sits with the courts and the sanctioning authorities rather than with the investigators. The marker to watch is whether the next annual report shows the oldest trials closing rather than the backlog growing.

    Back2Basics: Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

    1. Origin: Set up in 1964 on the recommendation of the Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption, and made a statutory body by the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003.
    2. Composition: A Central Vigilance Commissioner and up to two Vigilance Commissioners, appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
    3. Powers over the CBI: It exercises superintendence over the CBI’s investigations of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act by virtue of Section 4 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, and reviews the progress of those investigations.
    4. Reporting: It submits an annual report to the President, and the report is laid before both Houses of Parliament.

    [2026, GS2, 15 marks] “Transparency and accountability in governance are not about controlling corruption but about creating the trust of stakeholders in the policy process by following the Rule of Law and Participatory Governance.” Comment.”

  • Consumer Affairs notifies Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026

    Consumer Affairs notifies Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026

    Why in the News

    The Department of Consumer Affairs notified the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026.

    Core facts

    1. Notifying body: The Department of Consumer Affairs, under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, issued the notification.
    2. Instrument: The rules are framed under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, the parent law governing weights, measures and units of measurement.
    3. Purpose: The rules set Indian Standard Time (IST) as the single reference time for official, legal, commercial and administrative use.
    4. Unverified detail: The compliance timeline, exempted sectors and penalty provisions stated in the release body could not be verified this run. PRID 2304613.

    Static Context

    1. Legal Metrology Act, 2009: It replaced the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 and the enforcement Act of 1985. It standardises units, mandates verification of weighing and measuring instruments, and regulates packaged commodity declarations.
    2. Indian Standard Time: IST is fixed at the 82 degrees 30 minutes East standard meridian passing near Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. It runs 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Coordinated Universal Time.
    3. Time keeping authority: The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), maintains and disseminates IST.
    4. Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS): BIS is the national standards body under the BIS Act, 2016. Standardisation of time complements product and quality standardisation functions.

    Prelims angle

    The parent Act (Legal Metrology Act, 2009), the standard meridian (82 degrees 30 minutes East), the IST offset (UTC plus 5:30), and the custodian of IST (NPL under CSIR) are the testable static hooks.

    Mains angle

    GS Paper 2 (Governance, regulation of standards) and GS Paper 3 (standardisation and the economy). A question can frame the costs and benefits of a single legal time reference for a country of India’s longitudinal span.

    [2017] Consider the following statements:

    1. The Standard Mark of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is mandatory for automotive tyres and tubes.

    2. AGMARK is a quality Certification Mark issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

  • Amid ‘NRC first’ demand, Centre defers Census exercise in Manipur

    Why in the News

    The Centre has deferred the house listing phase of Census 2027 in Manipur, which was to begin on 1 September. The deferment answers a demand from Meitei and Naga civil society groups that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise be carried out in the State before any count is taken. The Manipur High Court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by the Kangleipak Students’ Association and the International Peace and Social Advancement, along with a connected writ petition. It recorded an undertaking from the Centre that the operation would be postponed, and ordered that it remain in abeyance until the next hearing on 12 October. The tension is that a Census is a statutory national exercise run on a single schedule, and it has been suspended in one State on the argument that counting people before verifying citizenship fixes the wrong population base for future delimitation and resource allocation.

    What is the house listing phase of the Census?

    1. It is the first of two field phases: House listing records buildings, households and their amenities before the population enumeration that follows.
    2. It fixes the frame for the count: The list of houses prepared at this stage is what enumerators use to reach every household in the second phase.
    3. It runs on a notified schedule: The Centre issued a notification on 7 January 2026 providing for the exercise, under which States issue notifications of their own.
    4. Administrative boundaries are frozen before it starts: Manipur froze all its boundaries from 1 January 2026 to 31 March 2027 to prepare for the operation.

    How was the deferment actually effected?

    1. A high level review preceded the decision: A meeting chaired by the Union Home Minister reviewed the situation in Manipur, attended by the Governor, the Chief Minister and the Union Home Secretary.
    2. The undertaking was given in open court: The Deputy Solicitor General told the High Court that on the instructions of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner a decision had been taken to postpone the house listing operations.
    3. The January notification is to be formally modified: The Centre was to issue a fresh notification modifying the one that had provided for the exercise, and the court recorded this as an undertaking.
    4. The State kept its own notification in abeyance: Manipur told the court it would not commence house listing and would hold its 22 March 2026 notification in abeyance pending the Centre’s formal notification.
    5. Two grounds were cited: The Centre cited the demands from Meitei and Naga groups and the tenuous security situation in the State.

    What is the demand, and how long has it been pressed?

    1. The State Assembly has resolved for a register twice: Resolutions dated 5 August 2022 and 1 March 2024 sought the introduction and enforcement of the NRC in Manipur.
    2. The State government wrote to the Centre twice: Communications in January 2023 and June 2024 referred to concerns over illegal immigration and demographic change.
    3. Civil society leaders and legislators lobbied in Delhi: Delegations from 14 civil society organisations and a group of BJP MLAs travelled to press the demand.
    4. The Chief Minister recorded the acceptance: His office stated that the Centre agreed to defer the exercise considering the feelings and aspirations of the people of Manipur.

    Why do the Valley groups object to counting first?

    1. A count before verification would include the undocumented: The groups argue that a Census held before an NRC would place undocumented or allegedly illegal immigrants inside the population figure.
    2. The consequences run to seats and money: They contend the resulting figure could affect future delimitation and the allocation of resources.
    3. Opposition has been concentrated in the Valley: The demand has come principally from the Meitei dominated Imphal Valley, with Naga groups also pressing it.
    4. The boundary freeze itself triggered protests: It produced massive strikes, torch rallies and closure of educational institutions across the valley districts.

    Challenges to conducting Census 2027 in Manipur

    1. The population to be counted is displaced: Ethnic violence since 2023 has moved large numbers into relief camps, so the household’s usual residence is not where the enumerator will find it. Eg. Kuki-Zo and Meitei residents were displaced across the hill and valley divide and have not returned to their original homes.
      The Fix: Record a displaced household against its pre-displacement address with a separate camp flag, so the count and the entitlement do not diverge.
    2. Enumerators cannot cross the ethnic divide: Field staff are locally recruited teachers and government employees, and staff from one community cannot safely work in areas held by another. Eg. Movement between the valley and the hill districts has required security escort since the violence began.
      The Fix: Recruit and deploy enumerators within each administrative unit, and open self-enumeration through the Census portal wherever field access fails.
    3. Deferring one State breaks national comparability: A Census counts a population against a common reference date, so a State enumerated later yields figures that cannot be set beside the rest. Eg. The exercise has already slipped from its due year of 2021 to 2027.
      The Fix: Fix a single revised reference date for the deferred State rather than letting the schedule drift with the litigation.
    4. The register being demanded has no settled cut off date: A citizenship register requires a date before which residence establishes citizenship, and none has been fixed for this State. Eg. Groups in Manipur have pressed for 1951 as the base year, a date that appears in no law applying to the State.
      The Fix: Legislate a cut off date and an appeals machinery before any register exercise is contemplated, so the demand has a determinate object.
    5. A deferment invites the same demand elsewhere: Conceding a precondition in one State supplies a template for others to seek their own. Eg. Demands for citizenship verification ahead of enumeration have been raised in other Northeastern States.
      The Fix: Publish the criteria on which a State level deferment is granted, so the next such decision is a rule rather than a negotiation.

    Conclusion

    The Census calendar has been reopened by a demand the Census cannot itself satisfy, since an enumeration counts residents and does not determine citizenship. Manipur’s house listing now depends on the progress of litigation rather than on a notified date. The unresolved position is that the State has asked for a register whose legal machinery has been built for only one State in the country, and the Centre has deferred the count without saying whether it will build that machinery here. The thing to watch is the next hearing before the Manipur High Court, where the Centre must produce the notification it has undertaken to issue.

    Back2Basics: National Register of Citizens

    1. What it is: A register of Indian citizens, first prepared from the 1951 Census, listing the persons enumerated as citizens in that count.
    2. Legal basis: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 provide for its preparation.
    3. Updated in Assam alone: The update ran under a separate schedule tied to the Assam Accord, 1985, using 24 March 1971 as the cut off date.
    4. Outcome of the Assam update: The final list published in August 2019 excluded about 19 lakh of roughly 3.3 crore applicants and has still not been notified by the Registrar General.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2009] Consider the following statements : 1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times. 2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled. Which of the statements given abova is/are correct ? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (d)”

  • The broken promise of right to work

    Why in the News

    Employment under India’s rural work guarantee fell 68 per cent in July and August against the average of the preceding five years. The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, enacted by the Union government in December 2025 to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA), came into implementation on 1 July. A three judge Supreme Court Bench led by the Chief Justice of India dismissed a petition on minimum wages in rural employment guarantee programmes on 21 August and sought a fresh one. The same Bench asked whether the right to work should be treated on par with Article 21, the fundamental right to life. The tension is that the right to work sits in the unenforceable Directive Principles, and the one statute that had converted it into a demand driven entitlement has been replaced by a law that caps funds and shifts cost onto the States.

    What is the VB-GRAM G Act?

    1. It replaced the 2005 employment guarantee law: The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-GRAM G) Act took over from MGNREGA with effect from 1 July.
    2. Funding is capped rather than demand driven: The Act places an arbitrary cap on funds instead of releasing money against work actually demanded.
    3. The wage is not tied to a minimum wage: The Act does not link its wage rate to any statutory minimum wage.
    4. Areas can be denotified: It carries provisions to denotify specified areas and exclude them from the scheme, which ends the universality MGNREGA carried.

    What has happened to rural employment since 1 July?

    1. Employment fell 68 per cent in July and August: The comparison is with the average for those two months over the preceding five years.
    2. The five year average was 3.44 crore households: They generated about 44 crore person days of work in July and August.
    3. This year the figures are 1.39 crore households and 14.94 crore person days: The data are as on 31 August 2026 for 2026-27.
    4. The decline predates the new law: Households employed in those months fell steadily from 4.79 crore in 2021-22 to 2.44 crore in 2025-26 under MGNREGA itself.
    5. Household earnings have halved: Estimated total earnings of households in July and August fell to about half of the same months last year.

    Why does the Constituent Assembly debate matter to the present dispute?

    1. The disagreement was about placement, not value: Most members agreed that a right to work was vital, and the argument was whether it belonged among the fundamental rights or in the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), which are precepts for framing law rather than enforceable rights.
    2. K.T. Shah argued for a fundamental right: He held that the State needed a constitutional and positive legal mandate to guarantee socio-economic security to its citizens.
    3. B.R. Ambedkar held it was not yet enforceable: He treated the right to work as an essential goal whose immediate universal enforcement was not fiscally or institutionally viable in a newly independent India hollowed out of its resources.
    4. The placement was aspiration, not abandonment: Locating the right among the Directive Principles reflected a deliberate constitutionalism of aspiration rather than a rejection of the welfare ideal.

    Which constitutional provisions carry the right to work?

    1. Article 41 states the obligation: The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work.
    2. Article 39 covers livelihood and equal pay: It directs the State towards an adequate means of livelihood and equal pay for equal work for both men and women.
    3. Articles 42 and 43 cover conditions and wages: They require just and humane conditions of work, and a living wage with a decent standard of life for all workers.

    How did the aspiration become a statutory right?

    1. Olga Tellis established the link to life: In Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) the Supreme Court ruled that the right to livelihood was a necessary condition for the fundamental right to life.
    2. Activists and rural workers drove the legislation: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed in 2005 following their collective effort.
    3. It made a pan-India right to work real for the first time: The State carried a statutory obligation to provide employment at minimum wages.
    4. The scope was always narrow: The guarantee covered 100 days of work per rural household, and the programme was chronically underfunded.

    What is wrong with the Bench’s own remark on minimum wages?

    1. The remark links a wage floor to fewer workers: The Bench observed that if financial resources remained the same, a minimum wage threshold could reduce the number of workers who could be given employment.
    2. It cuts against Sanjit Roy: In Sanjit Roy vs State of Rajasthan (1983) the Supreme Court held that payment below minimum wages violates Article 23 of the Constitution and is akin to forced labour.
    3. It assumes a fixed budget: The reasoning rests on the resources for a welfare programme remaining unchanged and constrained.
    4. Higher wages raise demand, not only cost: Higher rural wages increase purchasing power and effective demand for goods and services, producing a multiplier effect on productivity.

    How did the wage fall behind in the first place?

    1. Wages were delinked from the wage law in 2009: MGNREGA wages ceased to be tied to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.
    2. They barely kept pace with inflation: The daily wage in July and August rose from Rs 210 in 2021-22 to Rs 282.5 this year while person days collapsed.
    3. They stayed below agricultural minimum wages: The MGNREGA rate remained lower than the minimum agricultural wage in most States.
    4. Women are increasingly unpaid family workers: Rural wages have been stagnant for a decade, and women are recorded in growing numbers as working without pay within the household.

    Why does the new Act face a constitutional objection?

    1. Non-retrogression bars rolling a realised right back: Once the State has reached a level of progressive legislation and enforceability of a right, it cannot adopt measures that deliberately undo it.
    2. The Supreme Court affirmed the doctrine in Navtej Singh Johar vs Union of India: It operates as a check on State power, ensuring that rights once realised are not diluted later.
    3. The replacement appears to breach it: Substituting a demand driven statutory entitlement with a fund limited mission dilutes a right that had already been realised in law.
    4. The fiscal shift compounds the problem: States already face curtailed borrowing limits under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) framework, and the new Act adds to what they must fund.

    Challenges to the rural employment guarantee

    1. A capped budget converts a guarantee into a scheme: Work can be refused once the allocation is exhausted, so the entitlement lapses at the point demand peaks. Eg. MGNREGA allocations were routinely spent before the fourth quarter, leaving States carrying negative opening balances into the next year.
      The Fix: Treat the allocation as a first charge revised at the supplementary budget stage against verified work demand.
    2. Wage payment delay destroys the incentive to seek work: A worker who waits months for payment stops applying, and the falling application count is then read as falling need. Eg. Delayed wage payments under MGNREGA drew repeated censure from the Supreme Court and from parliamentary committees.
      The Fix: Release the statutory delay compensation automatically from the central account rather than on an individual worker’s complaint.
    3. Work demand is registered by the body that must then supply it: A gram panchayat under budget pressure has an incentive not to record demand, so the shortfall never appears in the data. Eg. Dated receipts against work applications are prescribed by law and are rarely issued in practice.
      The Fix: Allow demand to be registered through an independent time stamped channel outside the implementing agency.
    4. Social audit units depend on the governments they audit: Their staff and budgets come from the State administration, which limits what they are able to report. Eg. Social audit units in several States operate well below their sanctioned staff strength.
      The Fix: Fund social audit units through a ring fenced central allocation and place their findings before the State legislature.
    5. Asset creation is measured by expenditure rather than durability: A work is closed on payment rather than on verified usefulness, so the durable asset the programme exists to create goes unchecked. Eg. Comptroller and Auditor General audits of MGNREGA have repeatedly reported incomplete and unusable works.
      The Fix: Make geo-tagged completion and a one year durability check the condition for closing a work in the management information system.

    Conclusion

    An unenforceable directive principle survives only through the statute that implements it. India now has a rural work law that no longer carries the features which made the earlier one a right, and the collapse in employment is the first measurable consequence of that. What must change is that the wage be linked to a living wage standard, that payment be made on time, and that social audits be run by panchayati raj institutions holding real powers. These are the minimum conditions under which a work guarantee functions as a guarantee at all.

    Back2Basics: Minimum Wages Act, 1948

    1. Purpose: It empowers the appropriate government to fix and revise minimum rates of wages payable in scheduled employments.
    2. Dual authority: Both the Centre and the States act as appropriate governments, each notifying rates for the employments within its own sphere.
    3. Components of the wage: A minimum wage may combine a basic rate with a cost of living allowance, so it moves as prices move.
    4. Current status: It has been subsumed into the Code on Wages, 2019, which extends a statutory floor wage across all employments rather than scheduled ones alone.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2011] Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”? (a) Adult members of only the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households (b) Adult members of below poverty line (BPL) households (c) Adult members of households of all backward communities (d) Adult members of any household ANSWER: (d)”

  • Step up regulation

    Step up regulation

    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.”
    Linkage: The fact that non-government institutions account for 85–86% of AYUSH colleges is a stark example of the “marketisation” of healthcare education. The incentive of private players to “maximise student intake without matching increases in faculty and laboratory infrastructure” illustrates the precise “adverse impacts” of market-led growth that the state must step in to regulate.

    Mentor Comment

    Non-government institutions accounted for 86 per cent of Ayurveda colleges and 85 per cent of homoeopathy colleges in 2024, according to government data. Permitted seats rose by 43 per cent and total admission capacity by 25 per cent between 2021 and 2024. The Centre’s AYURGYAN allocation for AYUSH education, training, research, innovation and capacity building increased nearly sixfold over the same period, AYUSH being the group of systems covering Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy. Through that expansion the sector’s regulators have been denying permissions and grading colleges poorly. The tension is that private led growth carries an incentive to maximise student intake without matching increases in faculty and laboratory infrastructure, and the regulatory answer to it arrives one inspection at a time.

    How fast has AYUSH education expanded, and who is running it?

    1. The private sector runs the great majority of colleges: Non-government institutions accounted for 86 per cent of Ayurveda and 85 per cent of homoeopathy colleges in 2024.
    2. Seats grew faster than institutions: Permitted seats rose by 43 per cent and total admission capacity by 25 per cent between 2021 and 2024.
    3. Public funding rose alongside private capacity: The AYURGYAN allocation increased nearly sixfold over the same period.
    4. The private sector is leading the build out: The expansion of AYUSH medical education infrastructure is being driven by non-government institutions rather than by State run colleges.

    Why do the quality questions differ from those in allopathic education?

    1. The allopathic concern is narrower: Debate there has been confined to whether institutions adequately prepare students for evidence-based practice.
    2. AYUSH raises two questions at once: The first is the quality of training delivered, and the second is what students are being trained to practise.
    3. The evidence base is itself in question: Tougher quality control does not settle the separate question of the evidence backing AYUSH medicinal systems.

    Do the quality problems predate the current expansion?

    1. A 2005 audit found widespread deficiencies: The Comptroller and Auditor General found insufficient hospital beds, outpatient services or staff to be widespread among homoeopathy colleges.
    2. Bed occupancy ranged from 1 per cent to 71 per cent: The same audit recorded that spread across the colleges it examined.
    3. Faculty shortfalls exceeded half the requirement: A 2020 article in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine reported that many institutions fell short by more than 50 per cent of the teaching staff required by the standards then in force.

    What are the regulators finding now?

    1. The Ayurveda regulator has denied 17 permissions: As of 21 August the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) had listed 17 Ayurveda colleges, all private, whose permissions it had denied.
    2. Several denials were for obstructing the process itself: The stated reason in several cases was non-compliance with the inspection process.
    3. The homoeopathy regulator graded 41 per cent of colleges lowest: The National Commission for Homoeopathy placed that share at the bottom grade, including nearly half of all private institutions.
    4. The recorded failures are specific and repeated: They include inadequate or disputed faculty strength, failures in inspection requirements and student intake numbers, and allegations of fictitious faculty.

    What incentive does private led expansion create?

    1. Intake is the revenue lever: Expansion led by private institutions is accompanied by an incentive to maximise student intake while holding faculty size and laboratory infrastructure at existing levels.
    2. A court has recorded the practice: The Karnataka High Court in Hillside Ayurveda Medical College (2023) acknowledged that educational institutions are often guilty of admitting excess students for financial gains.
    3. The regulatory response is retrospective: Permission withheld after an inspection corrects a college that has already been built and has already admitted students.
    4. Causation is not yet established: It is premature to infer that the rapid expansion has amplified these problems, and the persistent non-compliance is established on its own.

    Challenges to regulating AYUSH medical education

    1. Faculty can be produced on paper: A college can satisfy a faculty norm on inspection day by listing teachers who do not actually teach there. Eg. Aadhaar linked biometric attendance was introduced in allopathic medical colleges precisely because faculty were being shown only for inspections.
      The Fix: Extend biometric and payroll linked faculty verification to every AYUSH college and publish the verified roll monthly.
    2. Approval and assessment sit with the same body: A regulator that grants permission to a college also rates it, so a poor rating is a verdict on its own earlier approval. Eg. Allopathic regulation separated the two, creating a distinct Medical Assessment and Rating Board under the National Medical Commission.
      The Fix: Split permission and rating into separate boards with published criteria, on the model already used in allopathic regulation.
    3. Seats are cheaper to add than laboratories: Where fees are capped, a college raises revenue by raising intake rather than by improving what it teaches with. Eg. Private professional education in India has produced capitation fee litigation running from T.M.A. Pai Foundation (2002) onward.
      The Fix: Link seat sanction to an audited per student cost of teaching and clinical infrastructure rather than to floor space and declared faculty strength.
    4. Clinical exposure is measured by beds, not patients: An attached hospital can meet a bed norm without meeting an occupancy norm, so a student can qualify with very little clinical contact. Eg. Minimum standard requirements for AYUSH colleges specify bed numbers, which a college can satisfy with wards that stay largely empty.
      The Fix: Make verified average bed occupancy and outpatient footfall a condition of annual permission renewal.
    5. Efficacy sits outside the regulator’s remit: A regulator can enforce faculty and infrastructure norms without settling whether the therapy being taught works. Eg. Research on Ayurvedic medicine is largely funded and evaluated by the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences, a body under the same ministry that promotes the system.
      The Fix: Route efficacy trials for AYUSH therapies through independently assessed, pre-registered protocols outside the promoting ministry.

    Conclusion

    AYUSH education can expand meaningfully only when capacity growth is matched by quality assurance. Stronger faculty verification, independent assessment, outcome based accreditation and evidence based research can ensure that expansion delivers credible, high quality healthcare education.

    Back2Basics: National Commission for Indian System of Medicine

    1. Governing Act: Established under the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act, 2020 as the statutory regulator for Indian systems of medicine.
    2. Predecessor: It replaced the Central Council of Indian Medicine, which had regulated the sector since 1970.
    3. Jurisdiction: It covers education and practice in Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Sowa-Rigpa.
    4. Structure: It works through autonomous boards handling education standards, assessment and rating of institutions, and ethics and registration of practitioners.