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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Why India’s R&D system needs a map of where funds really go

    Why India’s R&D system needs a map of where funds really go

    Why in the News

    A NITI Aayog report, ‘Ease of Doing R&D in India’, drawing on a survey of over 400 institutional leaders and 850 scientists, has found that close to 80% of funding under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF, India’s apex research funding body, whose governing board is headed by the Prime Minister and which is mandated to draw much of its funding from non-governmental sources alongside Central contributions) is concentrated in the IITs, despite ANRF’s own mandate to support a wider base of universities and research bodies. The report also flagged that multiple central agencies may be funding overlapping research areas, leading to what it calls “inefficient” use of public money. NITI Aayog’s proposed response is the Unified Project Management System (UPMS), meant to streamline planning, funding, monitoring and evaluation of public R&D projects across ministries. The article argues that UPMS does not by itself fix the deeper gap it is meant to solve: India has no system that can tell funders, researchers or the public who is being funded, by whom, for what, and whether that funding has already been given elsewhere.

    What is a persistent digital identifier (PID), and why does India’s R&D funding lack one?

    1. Persistent digital identifier (PID): A permanent, unique, machine-readable identifier attached to every research grant, comparable to how a PAN number identifies a taxpayer or an IMEI number identifies a phone.
    2. Attached metadata: Each PID is meant to carry a standard set of details, which agency gave the money, to which institution, to which named researcher, what amount, over what period, and in which field, linked so officials can track outcomes when the PID is cited in a published paper.
    3. Scattered and inconsistent records today: This information already exists inside Indian funding agencies, but scattered across dozens of separate databases, in inconsistent formats, often as free text. Eg. A researcher’s name may appear as “IISc, Bangalore” in one dataset and “Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru” in another, enough for an automated system to fail to recognise them as the same institution.

    What does the NITI Aayog report reveal about India’s R&D funding?

    1. Concentration in a few institutions: Close to 80% of ANRF funding is concentrated in the IITs, despite ANRF’s mandate to support a wider base of universities and research bodies than the traditional funding model has managed.
    2. Possible duplication across agencies: Multiple Central agencies are possibly funding similar research areas, resulting in overlap and “inefficient” use of public money, per the report’s survey of over 400 institutional leaders and 850 scientists.
    3. The underlying gap: Both findings point to the same root cause, the absence of a system that can tell funders, researchers or the public who is funded, by whom, for what, and whether that funding has already been given elsewhere.

    How have other countries solved this identifier problem?

    1. Crossref’s Grant Linking System (global, non-profit): Built by the open digital infrastructure organisation Crossref, this system now has more than 2 lakh grants registered worldwide from funders seeking to track duplication and concentration.
    2. Research Organisation Registry (ROR) and ORCID: A funder ID identifies the funding agency down to the division or department; a ROR ID identifies the receiving institution; an ORCID identifier, already familiar to Indian researchers since most journals require it, identifies the individual researcher so funding can be aggregated per person.
    3. Grant DOI, since 2020: Crossref extended its system to a permanent identifier for the grant itself, which can be linked to whatever the grant produces, papers, patents or data.
    4. Government-owned national portals compatible with the global standard: The U.K.’s “Gateway to Research” portal and the European Union’s CORDIS and OpenAIRE infrastructure run their own government-owned single points of entry for funding agencies, while generating identifiers fully compatible with the Crossref/ROR/ORCID standards, giving national governments ownership without breaking compatibility with the global dataset.
    5. Documented scale of the problem elsewhere: A 2013 analysis of U.S. federal grant applications using automated text-matching estimated duplicate or overlapping funding may have cost the U.S. nearly $70 million; a 2020 analysis of nearly 20,000 competitive grants in Denmark found funds concentrated among a small group of researchers and a narrow set of topics, a pattern the article says mirrors what NITI Aayog flagged for India.

    What are India’s options going forward?

    1. Build a sovereign national registry: India could develop and maintain its own India-specific grant registry from the ground up, giving it full control and the ability to tailor the system to its own agencies, federal structure and State research schemes.
    2. Join the existing global infrastructure: India’s funding agencies could become members of the Crossref ecosystem directly, which can be implemented faster since the technical standards and governance already exist internationally.
    3. A hybrid middle path: India could build a single national portal, the NITI Aayog’s own proposed UPMS, that internally mints Crossref-compatible grant DOIs and links every record to ROR and ORCID identifiers, following the model of the U.K.’s Gateway to Research and the EU’s CORDIS/OpenAIRE.

    Challenges to the Unified Project Management System (UPMS)

    1. Legacy data inconsistency: Migrating scattered, free-text agency records into a structured PID system requires resolving years of inconsistent naming across agencies before the system can produce reliable data. Eg. The same institution recorded as “IISc, Bangalore” in one dataset and “Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru” in another. Fix. Mandate a common institutional and researcher master list, cross-validated against existing ORCID and ROR records, before agencies are required to report through UPMS.
    2. Compliance is not self-enforcing: A national portal only produces reliable data if every Central and State funding agency consistently deposits data into it; a voluntary or partially adopted system reproduces the same blind spots the report identifies. Fix. Make UPMS reporting a precondition for releasing funds under any Central research scheme, so compliance is enforced through the funding process itself.

    Conclusion

    NITI Aayog’s Unified Project Management System addresses the process of streamlining India’s R&D funding, but by itself does not supply the persistent digital identifier and metadata infrastructure that would let funders, researchers and the public actually see where public research money goes and whether it has already gone somewhere else. The next milestone is whether UPMS is designed to mint Crossref-compatible identifiers and how many agencies are made to report through it.

    “[2024, GS2, 15 marks] What are the aims and objects of the recently passed and enforced, The Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024? Whether University/State Education Board examinations, too, are covered under the Act?”

  • SEBI’s ITRI: Global test for India’s future-ready financial architecture

    SEBI’s ITRI: Global test for India’s future-ready financial architecture

    Why in the News

    The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has introduced an IT Resilience Index (ITRI) to assess the technological robustness of Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs), meaning stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations. The index responds to growing global concern about outages and cyberattacks at systemically important financial market infrastructure. It follows comparable resilience frameworks already adopted by regulators in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. The tension is between certifying resilience on paper through a scored index and ensuring MIIs make the operational investment the index is meant to incentivise.

    What does the ITRI assess?

    1. Nine weighted parameters: The index scores each market infrastructure institution across nine parameters covering system uptime, cyber-incident preparedness, disaster recovery capability and related technology governance measures.
    2. Comparative design: SEBI has drawn on resilience frameworks used by regulators in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia in constructing the index.

    Why has SEBI shifted from compliance-checking to a quantitative resilience score for MIIs?

    • Systemic-risk trigger: Rising technological dependence in capital markets means even minutes of disruption at an MII can affect millions of investors and billions of rupees in trades.
    • Regulatory foundation: SEBI’s 2015 circular first classified MIIs as systemically important, mandating a robust cybersecurity framework.
    • Boardroom shift: Retail participation through online platforms, algorithmic trading volumes, and faster settlement cycles have made technology reliability inseparable from market efficiency.
    • Global first: ITRI is among the first attempts by any regulator to design a resilience barometer as measurable as capital adequacy is for banks.

    How does ITRI’s weighting structure reflect SEBI’s risk-prioritisation approach?

    • Nine-parameter design: ITRI rests on nine parameters, each weighted by a systemic-risk hierarchy, with sub-parameters to be defined by the Industry Standards Forum of MIIs.
    • Highest-weighted parameters: Availability and security carry the highest weight, at 20% each, as the first line of defence for market functioning.
    • Recovery-focused weighting: Business Continuity and Reliability carries 10% weight, reflecting a regulatory shift from preventing failures to absorbing shocks and recovering quickly.
    • Growth-risk calibration: Scalability carries only 5% weight, reflecting SEBI’s view that rapid market growth does not yet pose an immediate stability risk.
    • Early Warning System: MIIs will build an Early Warning System to detect parameter deterioration before it causes performance issues or disruptions.

    What do global resilience frameworks show about the alternatives to a single numeric index?

    • United Kingdom — FCA/PRA: Operational resilience rules require institutions to identify important business services and demonstrate recovery capability from severe shocks, without a single numeric score.
    • European Union — DORA: The Digital Operational Resilience Act functions as a regulatory rulebook rather than a numerical scorecard.
    • United States: No single resilience index exists for exchanges; technology resilience is embedded into general regulatory oversight instead.
    • Singapore — Monetary Authority of Singapore: Technology risk guidelines are considered particularly relevant to India given comparably high digital financial penetration and large retail investor bases.
    • Hong Kong: Cyber resilience assessment frameworks use measurable maturity levels, making them the closest structural parallel to SEBI’s numeric approach.

    Can a single numeric score capture resilience across MIIs with different technology architectures?

    • Architecture heterogeneity: Stock exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories operate different technology architectures and functions, raising doubts about a common index applying uniformly.
    • Weight uncertainty: Questions remain on the statistical estimation of the assigned weights, finalised through Technical Advisory Committee discussions rather than validated outage data.
    • Provisional status: The current weights are a starting framework that SEBI may have to refine using actual outage data, cyber incidents and stress tests.
    • Pace mismatch: Technology risks evolve faster than regulatory frameworks, making the index vulnerable to obsolescence even as it is being implemented.
    • Investment burden: Building automated monitoring systems, continuous testing and redundant infrastructure requires substantial investment from MIIs.

    Back2Basics: Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs)

    1. MIIs are the entities that provide the trading, clearing and settlement backbone of the securities market: stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations.
    2. They are classified as systemically important, since their failure or compromise can disrupt trading and settlement across the entire market rather than a single participant.
    3. SEBI regulates MIIs under the SEBI (Stock Exchanges and Clearing Corporations) Regulations and the SEBI (Depositories and Participants) Regulations.

    Conclusion

    SEBI’s ITRI converts technology resilience from a compliance checklist into a quantitative, weighted score, a model most global regulators have not attempted. Whether this scoring approach works depends on unresolved questions: the statistical basis of the weights, the comparability of a single index across MIIs with different architectures, and whether a high score actually translates into faster recovery during an actual technology shock. Until validated against real incident data, ITRI remains a measurement framework rather than a proven resilience guarantee.

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] For achieving the desired objectives, it is necessary to ensure that the regulatory institutions remain independent and autonomous. Discuss in the light of the experiences in recent past.”

  • Congress urges PM to scrap caste census questionnaire

    Congress urges PM to scrap caste census questionnaire

    Why in the News

    The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the questionnaire prepared for the caste census be scrapped. They have asked that a new questionnaire be prepared to ensure accurate enumeration of castes.

    What is being contested about the questionnaire’s design?

    1. The objection targets an open-ended format: The two leaders object to an open-ended format proposed for recording caste details, arguing it could allow the same caste to be recorded under different names, sub-castes, and linguistic variants, undermining accurate counts.
    2. They demand consultation before the survey form is finalised: The letter asks the government to formulate a new survey form only after consulting political parties, experts, and the public, rather than proceeding with the existing draft.
    3. The stated purpose is enumeration accuracy, not the census itself: The objection is to the questionnaire’s design, not to the decision to conduct a caste census, and the leaders frame the current format as an obstacle to the caste enumeration’s own stated purpose of social justice.

    Constitutional & Legal Angle

    • Article 15: Prohibits discrimination on grounds including caste and enables special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes.
    • Article 16(4): Enables reservation in public employment for backward classes that are not adequately represented.
    • Article 46: Directs the State to promote the educational and economic interests of weaker sections, particularly SCs and STs.
    • Article 340: Provides for a Commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes.
    • Article 17: Abolishes untouchability, making caste-related discrimination a key constitutional concern.
    • Privacy dimension: Caste is sensitive personal information, so enumeration also requires safeguards against misuse and unauthorised disclosure. UPSC has repeatedly tested the Right to Privacy under Article 21.

    Why Accurate Caste Data Matters

    • Reliable data → identify deprivation → better targeting of welfare → evidence-based reservation policy → social justice
    • Poor classification can lead to:
      • Under-counting of communities
      • Over-counting due to duplicate names
      • Difficulty comparing data across regions and time
      • Distorted assessment of representation and deprivation

    “[2009] Which one among the following South Asian countries has the highest population density ?

    (a) India

    (b) Nepal

    (c) Pakistan

    (d) Sri Lanka

  • Centre moves to simplify medical device regulations

    Why in the News

    The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has proposed amendments to Rule 44 and Rule 63 of the Medical Devices Rules, 2017, adding the European Union to the list of jurisdictions whose regulatory approval India recognises for faster market entry. The Medical Devices Rules, 2017 currently grant an expedited licensing route in India to devices already approved by a short list of recognised foreign regulators, such as the US Food and Drug Administration. Adding the European Union’s regulatory approval to that recognised list extends the fast-track route to a much larger set of globally marketed devices.

    What do Rule 44 and Rule 63 currently govern?

    1. Rule 44, predicate device and approval-based licensing: Rule 44 of the Medical Devices Rules, 2017 sets out the conditions under which a device already approved in a recognised foreign jurisdiction can secure an Indian manufacturing or import licence through a faster review, rather than a full fresh evaluation.
    2. Rule 63, licensing timelines and reliance on foreign approval: Rule 63 governs the timelines and documentary requirements for import licences, with reliance on foreign regulatory approval used to compress India’s own review period for devices from recognised jurisdictions.
    3. Currently recognised jurisdictions are limited: The existing fast-track list includes major regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration, but has not included the European Union’s regulatory framework, requiring EU-approved devices to go through India’s standard, longer review.

    Why add the European Union to the recognised list?

    1. The EU covers a large share of globally marketed devices: A significant share of medical devices sold worldwide first secure approval under the European Union’s regulatory framework, so recognising EU approval widens the pool of devices eligible for India’s fast-track route considerably.
    2. Reduces duplicate testing for already-approved devices: Recognising EU approval avoids re-running clinical and safety evaluations in India for a device that has already cleared a comparably rigorous regulatory process abroad.
    3. Intended to speed access to newer medical technology: A faster licensing route is expected to bring newer diagnostic and treatment devices to the Indian market sooner than the standard review timeline would allow.

    Conclusion

    The proposed amendments to Rule 44 and Rule 63 extend India’s fast-track medical device licensing route to European Union-approved devices, alongside the jurisdictions already recognised. The amendments are at the proposal stage, with the next step being their formal notification under the Medical Devices Rules, 2017.

    Back2Basics: Medical Devices Rules, 2017

    1. Notified under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Medical Devices Rules, 2017 created a dedicated regulatory framework for medical devices, distinct from the drug-licensing framework they had earlier been regulated under.
    2. Classify devices by risk into four classes, A to D, with review stringency rising with the device’s risk class.
    3. Are administered by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the national regulator for drugs and medical devices.
    4. Recognise approval from specified foreign regulators to allow an expedited licensing route for devices already cleared in those jurisdictions.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] For achieving the desired objectives, it is necessary to ensure that the regulatory institutions remain independent and autonomous. Discuss in the light of the
    experiences in recent past.”

  • When the inspector leaves: Can food safety become a daily habit?

    Why in the News

    Food safety compliance in Maharashtra has risen sharply since inspection drives intensified in May, with more than 3,000 inspections producing 165 licence suspensions and 750 improvement notices between 25 May and 31 July. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drive follows the appointment of a new State Commissioner, and restaurant associations have been sending compliance reminders to members in response. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) separately revised its turnover based licensing categories with effect from 1 April this year. Compliance that improves when inspections intensify is not compliance embedded in daily operation, and the regulatory question is whether safe practice survives once the drive ends.

    What is the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)?

    1. A statutory regulator under the health ministry: FSSAI is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to protect and promote public health through food regulation.
    2. Its core powers: It frames standards for food products, regulates their manufacture, storage, sale and import, and grants licences to food businesses based on compliance with those standards.
    3. Enforcement is shared with the States: FSSAI sets standards centrally, and inspection, sampling and prosecution are carried out by State food safety commissioners and their food safety officers.

    What do the revised turnover based licensing slabs require?

    1. Registration for the smallest businesses: Food businesses with an annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore must obtain FSSAI registration.
    2. State licence for the middle tier: Businesses with a turnover between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 50 crore require a State FSSAI licence.
    3. Central licence at the top: Businesses with turnover above Rs 50 crore require a Central FSSAI licence.
    4. The slabs are a proxy for reach, not risk: The distinction matters because India’s food sector ranges from small local vendors and retailers to large restaurants, manufacturers, importers and exporters, and turnover is the only variable the tiering uses.
    5. The licensed base is already large: FSSAI has issued around 26,000 licences across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Madhya Pradesh, covering five-star restaurants as well as importers and exporters handling essential commodities through various ports.
    6. A licence establishes presence, not practice: A licence establishes that a business sits within the regulatory system. It does not establish that safe practices are being consistently followed.

    What do the Maharashtra inspection figures show?

    1. Statewide drive since May: More than 3,000 inspections were conducted across Maharashtra between 25 May and 31 July, which is the whole period since the drive began.
    2. Statewide outcomes: Those inspections resulted in 165 licence suspensions and 750 improvement notices, so the great majority of adverse findings were correctable rather than disqualifying.
    3. Pune leads on complaints: Pune recorded the highest number of complaints among the State’s divisions, which is what directed the drive’s field effort towards that division.
    4. Pune division activity: Between 25 May and 19 August the Pune division alone saw 691 inspections, with 53 licences suspended and 408 improvement notices issued.
    5. The regional baseline: Inspections in the western region identified around 2,300 improvement notices last year, and those findings arose even among larger and licensed businesses.
    6. The trigger was administrative: Inspection drives intensified after a new Maharashtra FDA Commissioner took charge in May, which ties the enforcement level to a posting rather than to a system.

    Why does compliance rise with inspection intensity and fall without it?

    1. The checklist does not verify itself: A refrigerator may have to be maintained at a prescribed temperature, an employee may have to follow a hygiene protocol and an outlet may have to maintain a register. The existence of a checklist does not guarantee that any of it happens when an inspector is absent.
    2. Enforcement is treated as preventive health by the regulator: The State FDA Commissioner has framed food safety as part of the non-communicable disease burden, on the position that a significant portion of that burden comes from what is consumed.
    3. Established operators run their own parallel systems: A 90-year-old Pune restaurant carries out pest control twice a month, checks refrigerator temperatures, cooking oil registers and staff training, and maintains hand-wash stations, exhaust systems and insect-proof doors and windows.
    4. Industry associations act as a second layer: The Pune Restaurants and Catering Association has been circulating compliance reminders and double-checking member compliance with both FDA and FSSAI requirements.
    5. The industry asks for proportionality, not leniency: The association has urged a “rational” approach in which minor compliance issues attract time to correct rather than public shaming, with the distinction drawn between a correctable deficiency and a violation that poses a public health risk.
    6. The stated goal is sustained compliance: The association’s own position is that the real challenge is sustained compliance without making the system dependent on periodic crackdowns.

    Why is training not producing behaviour change?

    1. Certification is not a precondition to a licence: Food safety training and certification, known as FoSTaC, is not currently mandatory before a food licence is issued, so an operator can be licensed before being trained.
    2. Awareness of the requirement is itself missing: Many food operators lack awareness of food safety laws and do not know that FoSTaC exists.
    3. Training risks becoming a document: Businesses must actually understand and implement what they have been taught, or the certificate becomes another compliance document rather than a mechanism for changing behaviour.
    4. The regulator’s own diagnosis agrees: The FSSAI regional director for the western region identifies lack of awareness and education as the major cause of non-compliance.
    5. Outreach has been substantial: Over the past three to four years FSSAI has trained street vendors, students and other groups to detect adulteration, with around 10,000 street food vendors trained in Mumbai and over 60 officer-led training programmes on street hygiene.
    6. Visible practice has shifted at the margin: Vendors are reported using headgear, steel chopping boards and smarter waste disposal methods, alongside farmer-connect programmes linking food businesses and farmers.

    Should enforcement be a numbers game or risk-based?

    1. Visibility works, delay undoes it: A former FSSAI Chief Executive Officer holds that visible and credible action of the kind seen in Maharashtra can change behaviour, and that long delays between violation detection and final accountability weaken deterrence.
    2. Violations are not equal in risk: Not all violations pose the same health risk, so regulatory effort should be prioritised rather than spread evenly across the licensed base.
    3. Prioritisation should follow hazard, not visibility: Effort should target foods, establishments and supply chains with the highest risk, including microbial and chemical hazards that are not always visible during an inspection.
    4. The remedy set is procedural: Faster case adjudication, credible evidence, proportionate penalties and transparency about outcomes are what convert detection into deterrence.
    5. Transparency must cover acquittals too: Outcomes should be published including where allegations do not hold, so publicity is not itself the penalty.

    What do international results show about restaurant focused food safety?

    1. Restaurants are a concentrated transmission point: Food is prepared in large quantities and served to many people, so an outlet level failure reaches a population rather than a household.
    2. Los Angeles County, United States, graded hygiene publicly: A publicly displayed restaurant hygiene grading system was introduced in 1998, and foodborne-disease hospitalisations were compared against trends elsewhere in California.
    3. The measured effect was large and durable: After adjustment for baseline temporal and geographic trends, the grading programme was associated with a 13.1 per cent reduction in foodborne-disease hospitalisations in the first year, sustained over two years.
    4. Training and systems show similar gains: A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of food safety interventions in catering establishments found a 28.6 per cent reduction in microbial contamination, from interventions involving food-handler training and food safety systems.
    5. The pathogen list is specific: Restaurant level food safety has been effective against norovirus, Salmonella Typhi which causes typhoid fever, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli which affects the kidney, Shigella which infects the intestinal lining, hepatitis A which affects the liver, and Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter which trigger gut infection.

    What does the detection and laboratory gap add?

    1. Elaborate rules, weak implementation: India’s food safety regulations are elaborate, and implementation is weakened by poor enforcement, manpower shortages, inspection capacity limits, delayed test results and lack of coordination among agencies.
    2. A violation must be provable, not merely observed: The capacity to detect and establish a violation is a separate constraint from the capacity to inspect, and it sits with accredited testing laboratories.
    3. Delay destroys the deterrent: A regulator can inspect a food business, and if laboratory results are delayed or enforcement action takes too long, the deterrent effect is weakened.
    4. Manpower limits targeting: If inspection teams do not have the manpower to identify the highest-risk businesses and supply chains, the existence of detailed rules matters little.
    5. The requirement is a shift in approach: The recommendation is to move from a reactive, routine approach to a risk-based system focused on high-risk foods, supply chains and repeat violators, supported by robust laboratory infrastructure, advanced analytical capacity and speedy access to test results.

    What lies beyond kitchen hygiene?

    1. The definition of food safety is wider than the kitchen: Food safety is not merely about clean kitchens, pest control or properly stored ingredients. It also concerns what consumers are told about food and how products are marketed.
    2. Deceptive practice is a safety question: The convenor of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPi), a network of public health professionals working on nutrition policy, holds that food safety means protection from deceptive practices by food manufacturers.
    3. The data gap on ultra-processed foods: Immediate action is needed to assess risks and generate data about consumption of ultra-processed foods in India.
    4. Two consumer protections remain pending: Front-of-Pack Labelling (FOPL) and tighter restrictions on marketing of ultra-processed and high-fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) foods have not been notified.
    5. Regulatory gaps defeat the compliance drive: Major regulatory gaps of this kind will defeat the purpose of normalising clean dining, because the risk migrates from preparation to composition.
    6. The product mix keeps moving: Complexity is increasing as the food industry expands into nutraceuticals and functional foods, which sit between food and medicine in the standards framework.

    Challenges to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India

    1. No statutory definition of high-fat, salt and sugar foods: FSSAI has not precisely defined the HFSS category, so restrictions cannot be enforced against a class of products that has no legal boundary. Eg. The Indian Nutrition Rating star scheme has been under consultation without notification. Fix. Notify threshold values for salt, sugar and fat per 100 grams first, and attach the labelling scheme to those thresholds.
    2. Laboratory capacity limits prosecution: A limited number of notified food laboratories causes delays in sample analysis, and a delayed report weakens the case at trial. Eg. Sample results in adulteration cases routinely arrive after the statutory reporting window. Fix. Accredit private laboratories under the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories to a published turnaround standard and pay them per sample.
    3. Approval delays for new formulations: Lengthy approval of proprietary food formulations delays market entry and pushes products into the unregulated segment. Eg. Nutraceutical and functional food products face repeated re-submission. Fix. Introduce a deemed approval on lapse of a notified timeline, with post-market surveillance replacing pre-market delay.
    4. Weak enforcement allows recurring adulteration: Poor field monitoring lets known adulteration patterns persist across cycles. Eg. Cases of synthetic milk and spurious honey recur across States. Fix. Publish a State-wise repeat violator register so a business cannot re-register under a fresh licence after suspension.
    5. Industry resistance to disclosure: Packaged food makers resist front-of-pack labelling on the expectation that it reduces sales, and consultation stretches indefinitely. Eg. Debate continues between star ratings and clearer warning labels of the Nutri-Score type. Fix. Fix a statutory deadline for notification, with the warning label design applying by default if no consensus design is notified by that date.
    6. Marketing to children is unregulated: Endorsements associate unhealthy products with aspiration at an age when food preference is formed. Eg. Celebrity endorsement of high sugar beverages remains permitted. Fix. Prohibit celebrity and cartoon endorsement of products crossing the HFSS thresholds once those thresholds are notified.

    Conclusion

    Maharashtra’s inspection drive has produced a measurable rise in compliance, and the drive itself is tied to a change of Commissioner rather than to a permanent system. The current status is that FSSAI’s revised turnover based licensing slabs are in force from 1 April this year, with Front-of-Pack Labelling and restrictions on HFSS marketing still pending notification. The next milestone is whether FoSTaC certification is made a precondition to licensing and whether enforcement is reorganised around risk rather than inspection count. The evidence from graded hygiene systems elsewhere shows that a design change in how compliance is displayed and adjudicated moves outcomes more than the number of inspections does.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] For achieving the desired objectives, it is necessary to ensure that the regulatory institutions remain independent and autonomous. Discuss in the light of the experiences in recent past.”

  • ‘Retirement-income replacement 35-40% vs. 60% globally’

    ‘Retirement-income replacement 35-40% vs. 60% globally’

    Why in the News

    India’s retirement income replacement rate stands at about 35 to 40 percent, against roughly 60 percent globally. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), the statutory regulator of the pension sector, has set a target of covering 30 crore people through the National Pension System (NPS) and the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) over the next four to five years. That target sits almost entirely outside government employment, where the regulator says people neither hold a pension account nor know the product exists. Coverage therefore turns on distribution and awareness rather than on the design of the two schemes.

    What is the National Pension System (NPS)?

    1. A defined contribution retirement scheme: Subscribers and, where applicable, employers contribute to an individual account, and the accumulated corpus depends on contributions and market returns rather than on a promised payout.
    2. Who administers it: The scheme is regulated by the PFRDA under the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 2013, with contributions invested by registered pension fund managers.
    3. Two account types: Tier I is the retirement account with withdrawal restrictions, and Tier II is a voluntary savings account without them.
    4. Exit design: A part of the corpus is withdrawn as a lump sum at retirement, and the balance is used to buy an annuity that pays the monthly pension.

    What is a retirement income replacement rate?

    1. Retirement income measured against final pay: The replacement rate is the share of a person’s last drawn pay that their retirement income reproduces, so a rate of 60 percent means retirement income equals 60 percent of final pay.
    2. Why the benchmark sits below 100: Work related costs and savings contributions end at retirement, so the accepted global benchmark of about 60 percent is treated as enough to hold living standards steady.

    What is the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS)?

    1. An assured payout option within the NPS framework: UPS gives central government employees covered by the NPS an assured monthly payout linked to the average basic pay drawn in the last twelve months of service, in place of a purely market linked corpus.

    What does the regulator say individuals should do about the shortfall?

    1. Encouraging higher contributions is the stated response: The regulator’s position is that people have to be encouraged to invest more, since the gap between India’s replacement rate and the global benchmark is a savings gap rather than a scheme design gap.
    2. No prescribed savings target: The PFRDA declined to fix how much an individual should save to secure a decent retirement income, on the ground that the amount cannot be predicted.
    3. Illustrations in place of a target: The regulator will instead show how regular monthly contributions can grow over a given number of years, drawing on past fund performance.
    4. The amount saved is not uniform: How much an individual saves depends on lifestyle and priorities, which is why a single national savings figure is not offered.
    5. The observed contribution range: Contributions among NPS subscribers now range from 200 rupees a month to 2 lakh rupees a month.

    Why is the non government segment the focus of the coverage push?

    1. Government enrolment is already growing: The PFRDA has about 2.2 crore NPS subscribers across government and non government categories, and government enrolment continues to rise on its own.
    2. The gap sits outside government service: The regulator’s stated job is to focus on the non government sector, whose workers do not have the benefit of NPS and do not know about it.
    3. The APY base is far larger: The Atal Pension Yojana already has about 10 crore customers, which makes it the wider of the two channels for the 30 crore target.
    4. Self employed and gig workers are the identified frontier: The regulator sees significant scope to expand pension coverage among the self employed and gig workers, who have no employer to enrol them.

    How is the digital push meant to widen distribution?

    1. Two platforms under development: The StAR NPS platform is being developed with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), and NPS Tatkal is being developed with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app.
    2. What distributors are paid: The PFRDA gives distributors a 200 rupee onboarding fee and roughly 0.3 percent of assets under management as annual commission.
    3. Why the platform route matters: Digital onboarding could substantially cut the cost of acquiring each new client, which is the binding constraint on selling a small ticket pension product.

    What is changing in how pension funds invest?

    1. Resilience in returns is the stated focus: Pension funds have to diversify across asset classes to generate better returns at low volatility.
    2. Direct investment capability is being examined: The PFRDA is examining how pension funds can develop the expertise to invest directly in firms rather than only through market instruments.
    3. Competition among fund managers: The regulator had 14 pension fund managers and holds that greater competition could both raise returns and expand the scheme’s reach.

    What do the newer products add to the pension architecture?

    1. NPS Vatsalya: The product allows parents or guardians to build retirement savings for children and has crossed four lakh unique customers.
    2. NPS Swasthya: The product under preparation combines pension savings with a dedicated health corpus and top up health insurance.
    3. Why the health link is being added: Medical expenditure is the main claim on retirement savings, so a separate health corpus protects the pension corpus from being drawn down early.

    Where does the Unified Pension Scheme sit on cost?

    1. Between the contributory and the old model: The cost of the UPS to the government will be higher than the NPS and substantially lower than the Old Pension Scheme. That scheme paid an unfunded defined benefit from the exchequer.

    Conclusion

    India’s pension system currently replaces about a third of final pay against a global benchmark of about 60 percent, and the regulator has framed this as a savings and coverage problem rather than a design problem. The stated position is a target of 30 crore subscribers across NPS and APY within four to five years, with the non government, self employed and gig segments as the intended addition. The next markers are the rollout of the StAR NPS platform with the BSE and NPS Tatkal with the NPCI, and the launch of NPS Swasthya.

    “[2017] Who among the following can join the National Pension System (NPS)?

    (a) Resident Indian citizens only

    (b) Persons of age from 21 to 55 only

    (c) All State Government employees joining the services after the date of notification by the respective State Governments

    (d) All Central Governments Employees including those of Armed Forces joining the services on or after 1st April, 2004

  • SC lauds repealed MGNREGA as ‘neither freebie nor exploitation’

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has described the repealed Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) as a “salutary scheme” that was neither a freebie nor an exploitation of rural workers. A three judge Bench made the observation. It was hearing a petition seeking directions to the government to pay delayed wages under that Act along with compensation. Civil rights groups have meanwhile claimed that the successor law has produced a 50 per cent fall in employment generation. What is now contested is whether a guarantee of work rests on an enforceable right or on a Directive Principle that Parliament may redesign at will.

    What did the Court say about the repealed employment guarantee law?

    1. The Bench recorded an unqualified endorsement: The Chief Justice of India, heading a three judge Bench, orally observed that the repealed Act was a good and effective scheme.
    2. The reach was part of the praise: The observation noted that the scheme did a wonderful job in rural areas and was implemented across the whole country.
    3. It rejected both political labels attached to the scheme: The Bench held that the scheme was neither a freebie nor exploitation, which answers the charge that guaranteed public work is a handout and the charge that it is underpaid labour.
    4. The endorsement carries no operative effect: These were oral observations in a hearing, not a finding recorded in a judgment, so they bind nothing.

    What has changed under the successor law?

    1. A new statute has replaced the 2005 Act: The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, or VB-G RAM G Act, is now the governing law for rural employment guarantee.
    2. Guaranteed days have gone up: The entitlement rises from 100 days to 125 days of work per household each year.
    3. Employment generated has gone down: Civil rights groups claim a 50 per cent decline in employment generation under the new law, despite the higher entitlement.
    4. The design has moved from demand to allocation: The new law reflects a shift from a demand driven, rights based framework to a centrally controlled model.
    5. The funding split has been rewritten: The Centre to State ratio moves from 90:10 to 60:40, which raises the funding burden on States threefold.

    What did the petition ask the Court to do?

    1. Payment of arrears with compensation: The petition sought directions for the government to pay wages already delayed under the repealed Act, together with compensation for the delay.
    2. A test of the wage floor: The Court was urged to examine whether a law may prescribe minimum wages lower than the threshold determined by the State concerned.
    3. Elevation of the work guarantee: The petition asked that the statutory guarantee of rural work be raised to the status of a fundamental right under Article 21.
    4. The fiscal claim behind the numbers: It was submitted that States must now find nearly half the funds under the new law, that employment has halved, and that States do not have the money.

    Can a statutory guarantee of work be raised to a fundamental right?

    1. The Bench located the right in Part IV: A judge on the Bench observed that the Constitution does not make the right to work a fundamental right, and that it is more a democratic aspiration under the Directive Principles of State Policy.
    2. The consequence of that placement: To achieve that aspiration the state formulates a policy providing work at a graded, compensatory level. That is a matter of legislative choice rather than of enforceable entitlement.
    3. The petitioner’s route runs through dignity: It was argued that the right to lead a dignified life is part of Article 21, that a dignified life requires employment at minimum wages, and that anything below minimum wages amounts to forced labour.
    4. The question the Bench put remains open: Whether a Directive Principle worked out through a statute should be treated on par with Article 21 was posed from the Bench and not answered.

    Why did the Bench doubt a judicially fixed wage floor?

    1. A floor can shrink the work available: A judge on the Bench noted that mandating a minimum wage threshold might risk reducing the number of employment opportunities offered.
    2. Wages track local conditions: The Chief Justice of India observed that wages are usually linked to prevailing local conditions rather than to a single national figure.
    3. The two positions are not reconcilable within the scheme: A wage set by dignity produces one number, a wage set by local labour market conditions produces another, and only a legislature can choose between them.
    4. The judicial instrument is blunt here: A court can strike down a wage as unconstitutional, but it cannot fund the difference, which is why the Bench treated the question as a fiscal one.

    How did the Court dispose of the matter?

    1. The old law is no longer the right frame: A judge on the Bench stated that the issues raised must be examined afresh in the light of the new law rather than under the repealed Act.
    2. The petition was disposed of: The Court disposed of the present petition rather than deciding the questions it raised.
    3. Liberty was granted to start again: The petitioner was asked to file a fresh petition, which resets the challenge against the successor statute.
    4. The practical effect is delay: Both questions the petition raised survive, but only in a proceeding that has yet to be filed.

    Challenges to the rural employment guarantee framework

    1. A demand driven scheme collapses if funds are capped: Where the budget is fixed in advance, field staff suppress the registration of work demand rather than record an unmet entitlement. Eg. Work demand under the earlier scheme was routinely recorded only after funds were released for the block. Fix. Make the budget line for the guarantee an open ended charge that is revised at the supplementary stage against recorded demand.
    2. Delayed wages convert a guarantee into a loan from the worker: Payment beyond the statutory window pushes households into informal borrowing at the exact moment the scheme is meant to protect them. Eg. A large share of wage payments under the earlier scheme was released beyond the fifteen day statutory window in successive financial years. Fix. Automate the delay compensation payment through the same payment system that releases the wage, without requiring a claim.
    3. A higher State share transfers the risk to the weakest States: Poorer States with the largest demand for guaranteed work are least able to fund a 40 per cent share. Eg. States facing the highest rural distress also carry the highest ratio of committed expenditure to revenue. Fix. Apply a differentiated matching ratio linked to a State’s own revenue capacity rather than a uniform national split.
    4. Asset quality is weakly monitored: Works are selected for their ability to absorb labour rather than for durable value, so the assets created decay within seasons. Eg. Earthen works taken up before the monsoon are frequently washed out before they are measured. Fix. Require every work above a threshold cost to carry a technical sanction and a geotagged completion audit.
    5. Social audit is the design safeguard and the weakest link: The Gram Sabha audit is meant to catch fake muster rolls, but audit units are staffed and funded by the same administration they examine. Eg. Social audit units in several States operate with a fraction of their sanctioned staff. Fix. Fund social audit units directly from the central share and place their reporting line under the State Accountant General.
    6. Women’s participation depends on facilities that are rarely provided: Creche facilities and worksite shade are statutory entitlements that are treated as optional. Eg. Worksites routinely operate without the creche required where more than five children under six are present. Fix. Make release of the next tranche of administrative expenditure conditional on verified worksite facility compliance.

    Conclusion

    The Court’s endorsement of the repealed Act is a comment on record and nothing more, and the Bench made clear that the live questions must now be argued against the successor statute rather than the one it replaced. The petition was accordingly disposed of with liberty to file afresh, so both questions it raised remain undecided. The next milestone is the filing of that fresh petition. That petition will test the constitutional status of the work guarantee and the legality of a wage below a State determined minimum against the VB-G RAM G Act for the first time.

    “[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

  • Centre set to expand mechanised sanitation scheme to rural India

    Why in the News

    The Social Justice Ministry has moved a proposal to extend the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme from towns and cities to rural parts of the country. The scheme profiles sewer and septic tank workers as the route to its benefits, and coverage is being widened ahead of a delivery channel that approves capital subsidy for a small fraction of those profiled.

    Components of NAMASTE

    1. Profiling and identification: Sanitation workers are enumerated at camps run by urban local bodies, and that profile is the entry point to every other component of the scheme.
    2. Occupational safety: Profiled workers are given safety training and personal protective equipment for the work they already perform.
    3. Capital subsidy for self employment: A profiled worker or a Private Sanitation Service Organisation may apply for a capital subsidy to buy mechanised equipment and set up a sanitation enterprise.
    4. Emergency Response Sanitation Units: Urban local bodies are supported to set up standing units equipped with suction and jetting machines, so that a sewer or septic tank is cleaned by machine instead of by human entry.

    What is manual scavenging?

    1. Manual scavenging: Manual scavenging is the manual handling, carrying or disposing of human excreta from an insanitary latrine, an open drain, a pit or a railway track. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 prohibits both the practice and the employment of any person for it.

    Who is a sewer and septic tank worker (SSW)?

    1. Sewer and septic tank worker: A sewer and septic tank worker (SSW) is a person engaged in cleaning sewer lines, manholes and septic tanks, whether employed directly or engaged through a contractor. The category is distinct from manual scavenging in law, since the work is lawful when performed with mechanised equipment and prescribed safety gear.

    What is a Private Sanitation Service Organisation (PSSO)?

    1. Private Sanitation Service Organisation: A Private Sanitation Service Organisation (PSSO) is a private entity providing mechanised sanitation services that can propose projects for capital subsidy under the scheme. It is one of two proposal routes, the other being an application by an individual worker.

    What is the Safai Udyami Yojana?

    1. Safai Udyami Yojana: The Safai Udyami Yojana is the self employment component under which sewer and septic tank workers receive capital subsidy to set up their own sanitation enterprise. It is one of the two self employment routes in which the National Commission for Scheduled Castes has flagged rejections.

    What does the proposed expansion change?

    1. Geographic extension: The proposal takes the scheme’s scope from towns and cities to rural parts of the country for the first time.
    2. New worker categories: Coverage will be widened to include drain cleaners, and workers in sewage treatment plants and faecal sludge treatment plants.
    3. Outlay and horizon: The Ministry has proposed around ₹498.73 crore for the expanded scheme, to be spent from this fiscal year to 2030-31.
    4. Second widening of scope: The scheme initially covered only sewer and septic tank workers and was first expanded to include waste pickers, so the rural extension is the second enlargement.
    5. Original aim retained: The scheme was started in 2023-24 with the aim of eradicating sewer and septic tank deaths, and the expansion does not alter that objective.

    Why has the scheme’s delivery record become the central concern?

    1. Profiling against approval: 90,915 sewer and septic tank workers have been profiled across the country, and only 810 have been approved for capital subsidies.
    2. Approval against disbursal: Of the 810 approved, 147 had actually received their funds as on 31 March 2026.
    3. Subsidy covers only part of the cost: The capital subsidy meets up to 50 per cent of total project cost, so an approved worker still has to raise the balance before the enterprise can start.
    4. Manual scavengers identified: Only 2,652 projects have been approved against the 58,000 manual scavengers identified under the scheme.
    5. Both routes inside the count: The 2,652 approvals include projects proposed by Private Sanitation Service Organisations as well as by individuals, so the figure is not a count of individual entrepreneurs alone.
    6. Waste picker coverage: 1.3 lakh waste pickers have been profiled alongside the sewer and septic tank workers, per the Ministry’s annual report for 2025-26.

    What has the National Commission for Scheduled Castes flagged?

    1. Repeated correspondence: The Commission has written repeatedly to the Social Justice Ministry since last year on the continued rejection of applications under the self employment and capital subsidy components.
    2. Rejections identified as the cause: It has held that one reason for the low number of approved projects is the high rate of rejections.
    3. Rejections across every part: It has noted rejections under each part of the capital subsidy component, and asked that these be examined.
    4. The August 2025 letter: That letter flagged rejections in the self employment components, both in the Safai Udyami Yojana and in the component for Private Sanitation Service Organisations.
    5. Source of the mandate: The Commission acts under Article 338, which empowers it to investigate and monitor safeguards for the Scheduled Castes and to inquire into specific complaints.

    Why do sewer and septic tank deaths persist under a statutory prohibition?

    1. Deaths on record: 498 people died across the country while engaged in the hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks from 2019 to June 2026, per the Social Justice Ministry’s reply to Parliament in August 2026.
    2. Enforcement rests with the employer: The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 bars hazardous cleaning without protective gear, and the duty to enforce falls on local authorities who are frequently the employers themselves.
    3. Contracting layer: Sewer cleaning is routinely outsourced, which separates the municipal principal from the worker who enters the tank.
    4. Rehabilitation lag: A worker whose capital subsidy application is rejected returns to the same work, so profiling without disbursal leaves the occupational risk untouched.
    5. Rural gap unmeasured: Rural areas have been outside the scheme until this proposal, so deaths in village septic tanks have had no dedicated scheme response.

    Challenges to NAMASTE

    1. Rejection concentrated in the subsidy pipeline: The bottleneck sits between profiling and approval rather than between approval and identification. Eg. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has recorded rejections under every part of the capital subsidy component and has asked the Ministry to explain them.
    2. Balance financing after subsidy: The worker must raise the uncovered share of project cost as a loan against negligible collateral. Eg. National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation term loans routed through State channelising agencies have carried low utilisation and weak recovery.
    3. Urban local body capacity: Emergency Response Sanitation Units need trained crews and maintained machines, which small municipalities cannot sustain. Eg. The Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge launched in 2020 enrolled 246 cities to become sewer death free, and participation was concentrated in large municipal corporations rather than small towns.
    4. Contractor liability gap: Outsourcing lets the principal employer distance itself from a death inside a manhole. Eg. In Delhi Jal Board v National Campaign for Dignity and Rights of Sewerage and Allied Workers (2011), the Supreme Court held that the principal employer cannot escape liability by engaging contractors for sewer cleaning.
    5. No rural delivery cadre: Rural sanitation is administered by gram panchayats, which have no wing equivalent to an urban local body’s sanitation department. Eg. Faecal sludge emptying in villages is done by informal private operators outside any municipal register, which leaves no employer to profile a worker against.
    6. Monitoring by profiling count: Progress is reported as workers profiled rather than as workers rehabilitated, so the headline number rises without entitlement delivery following it. Eg. The Ministry’s annual report for 2025-26 leads with profiling totals for sewer and septic tank workers and waste pickers, and not with the count of workers placed in an alternative livelihood.

    Conclusion

    The Social Justice Ministry has proposed extending the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme to rural India, to drain cleaners and to treatment plant workers. The proposal is at the stage of a Ministry submission and has not yet been notified, and the next milestone is approval of the expanded scheme and its outlay. The delivery record it inherits is a profiling count far ahead of the number of capital subsidy cases funded, alongside 498 sewer and septic tank deaths between 2019 and June 2026.

    “[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

  • UGC equity rules being reconsidered: Centre to SC

    Why in the News

    The Centre told the Supreme Court on 20 August 2026 that it is reconsidering the University Grants Commission regulations framed to prevent caste discrimination in higher education institutions. The regulations name the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes as the protected groups, and that naming is what general category petitioners have challenged as exclusion.

    What are the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026?

    1. What they do: The University Grants Commission (UGC) (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 impose a compliance framework on higher education institutions to prevent and redress discrimination against students and faculty.
    2. Notification and stay: They were notified on 13 January 2026 and stayed by the Supreme Court on 29 January 2026, which revived the 2012 framework until further orders.
    3. Two definitions inside them: Regulation 3(1)(c) defines caste based discrimination as discrimination on the basis of caste or tribe against members of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. Clause 3(e) defines discrimination more broadly, covering unfair or differential treatment on the ground of caste against any stakeholder.
    4. Present position: The Centre has told the Court that the regulations are being reconsidered, so they stand stayed and unenforced.

    What is a "separate yet equal" classification?

    1. Separate yet equal: A "separate yet equal" classification permits separate facilities for different groups on the argument that the facilities provided are of equal quality. Constitutional courts treat the act of separation as the injury, since equality of facilities does not cure the stigma of being set apart.

    How far are students currently protected against caste discrimination on campus?

    1. Governing regulations restored: The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012 are back in force, requiring institutions to constitute an Equal Opportunity Cell and to publish an anti discrimination policy.
    2. Criminal protection: The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 covers caste based insult, intimidation and social boycott, including inside educational institutions, and is tried by Special Courts. Its 2015 Amendment added new offences and mandated Exclusive Special Courts and time bound trial.
    3. Separate ragging machinery: The UGC (Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2009 mandate an Anti Ragging Committee and an Anti Ragging Squad in every institution, alongside an anti ragging affidavit from every student and parent.
    4. Reservation in admission: The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 reserves 15 per cent of seats for the Scheduled Castes, 7.5 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes and 27 per cent for the Other Backward Classes, alongside 10 per cent for the Economically Weaker Sections.
    5. Reservation in teaching posts: The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019 restored the institution rather than the department as the unit for computing reservation in faculty recruitment.
    6. No standalone statute: India has no dedicated anti discrimination Act for education, so protection is assembled from regulations, criminal law and reservation statutes.

    Constitutional Provisions Related to Equality and Non-Discrimination

    1. Preamble: Declares equality of status and of opportunity, and fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual.
    2. Article 14: Guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws to every person.
    3. Article 15(1): Prohibits the State from discriminating against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
    4. Article 15(4): Enables special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes and for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    5. Article 15(5): Enables reservation in admission to educational institutions, including private unaided institutions, other than minority institutions.
    6. Article 15(6): Enables reservation of up to 10 per cent of seats for the Economically Weaker Sections.
    7. Article 16(4): Enables reservation in public employment for any backward class not adequately represented in State services.
    8. Article 17: Abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form.
    9. Article 21: Guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, read to include the right to live with dignity.
    10. Article 29(2): Bars denial of admission to a State maintained or State aided educational institution on grounds of religion, race, caste or language.
    11. Article 46: Directs the State to promote the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, particularly the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    12. Article 338 and Article 338A: Establish the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate and monitor constitutional safeguards.

    Why were the 2026 Regulations framed?

    1. Origin in litigation: The regulations stem from a 2019 petition filed in the Supreme Court by the mothers of Payal Tadvi and Rohith Vemula.
    2. The two deaths: Payal Tadvi and Rohith Vemula died by suicide over alleged caste based discrimination in 2019 and 2016 respectively.
    3. Relief sought: The petition asked for enforcement of robust anti discrimination mechanisms across higher education institutions.
    4. Gap in the earlier framework: The 2012 regulations relied on Equal Opportunity Cells without naming caste based discrimination as a distinct wrong.
    5. Regulatory answer: The 2026 regulations responded by carving out caste based discrimination as a separate defined category rather than leaving it inside general discrimination.

    Why did the Supreme Court stay the regulations rather than let them operate?

    1. Sweeping consequences: The bench said the issue raised important questions that, if left unexamined, could have very sweeping consequences and could divide society.
    2. Prima facie ambiguity: The order recorded that on a prima facie consideration some provisions of the impugned regulations suffer from certain ambiguities, and that the possibility of their misuse cannot be ruled out.
    3. Status quo preserved: The Court directed that the 2012 Regulations will continue in force till further orders, so institutions were not left without an equity framework.
    4. Notices issued: Notices were issued to the Centre and to the University Grants Commission, so the challenge proceeds on merits rather than by administrative withdrawal.
    5. Narrow target of challenge: The petitions, filed by Mritunjay Tiwari, Vineet Jindal and Rahul Dewan, primarily challenge Regulation 3(1)(c) and not the regulations as a whole.

    Why has an anti-discrimination rule drawn objections from protected and general categories alike?

    1. General category objection: Naming the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in Regulation 3(1)(c) is read as excluding general category students and faculty from specific protection against caste based discrimination.
    2. The broader clause cuts against the narrower: Clause 3(e) already covers unfair or differential treatment on the ground of caste against any stakeholder, so the narrower clause adds a group specific label without adding a group specific remedy.
    3. Dalit and Other Backward Class objection: Sections of Dalit and Other Backward Class opinion oppose the stay and any rollback, since deleting the named categories would dissolve the recognition the regulation created.
    4. Division within the protected groups: Some Dalit opinion opposes bringing the Other Backward Classes under the same protective umbrella, treating caste discrimination against the Scheduled Castes as a distinct harm.
    5. Absent machinery: The regulations create a named category of caste based discrimination without prescribing a distinct complaint, inquiry or penalty procedure for it.

    What questions has the Supreme Court framed for examination?

    1. Nexus of Regulation 3(1)(c): Whether Clause 3(1)(c) bears a reasonable and rational nexus to subserve the object and purpose of the 2026 Regulations, particularly since no distinct or special procedural mechanism has been prescribed to address caste based discrimination as against the exhaustive and inclusive definition of discrimination in Clause 3(e).
    2. Effect on sub classification: Whether introducing the term caste based discrimination has any bearing on the existing constitutional and statutory sub classification of the Most Backward Castes within the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, and whether the new rules provide adequate and effective safeguards to such Extremely Backward Castes against discrimination and structural disadvantage.
    3. Segregation and the equality guarantees: Whether including the expression segregation in the context of allocation of hostels, classrooms, mentorship groups or similar academic or residential arrangements, albeit on transparent and non discriminatory criteria, would amount to a separate yet equal classification infringing the guarantees of equality and fraternity under Articles 14 and 15 and the Preamble.
    4. Omission of ragging: Whether omitting the term ragging as a specific form of discrimination is a regressive and exclusionary legislative omission, and whether that omission creates an asymmetry in access to justice for victims of discrimination and so falls foul of Articles 14 and 21.

    Why has the issue become an electoral question in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar?

    1. Upper caste protest: The rules triggered protests among sections of the upper castes, who argued that the explicit reference to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes amounted to exclusion of general category students.
    2. Dalit disquiet over rollback: There is concern within the ruling party that the stay and any rollback may cause disquiet among Dalit communities.
    3. Election calendar: Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are due next year, which places the dispute inside an active campaign in the largest State.
    4. Bypoll reading: One reason attributed within the ruling party for its defeat in the recent Bankipur Assembly bypoll in Bihar was upper caste dissatisfaction over the University Grants Commission issue.
    5. Cost in both directions: Retaining the clause loses general category support and withdrawing it loses Dalit and Other Backward Class support, which is why reconsideration rather than defence is the chosen route.

    Major debates surrounding caste discrimination in higher education

    1. Group specific against universal protection: Whether an anti discrimination rule should name the historically excluded groups, or state a caste neutral prohibition that any student can invoke, is the live legal fault line.
    2. Sub classification within the Scheduled Castes: The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in State of Punjab v Davinder Singh permitted States to sub classify the Scheduled Castes for reservation, and the debate now extends to whether protection against discrimination can be similarly graded.
    3. Creamy layer for the Scheduled Castes: Judicial opinion is divided on extending the creamy layer exclusion, applied to the Other Backward Classes since Indra Sawhney (1992), to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
    4. Merit against representation: The framing of open competition as merit and reservation as compensation is contested by the argument that access to coaching, language and schooling already prices the entry test.
    5. Institutional autonomy against central regulation: Whether a central regulator can prescribe internal grievance machinery binding on State and private universities is disputed by State governments.
    6. Empirical gap: Caste wise data on discrimination complaints and on student suicides in higher education institutions is not published in consolidated form, so the scale the dispute turns on is itself contested.

    Challenges to enforcing the UGC Equity Regulations

    1. Grievance machinery controlled by the respondent: Equal Opportunity Cells are constituted by the same administration that a complaint is frequently directed against. Eg. In the Rohith Vemula case, the suspension from the hostel that preceded his death in January 2016 came from the University of Hyderabad's own disciplinary machinery.
    2. Retaliation risk suppresses reporting: A complaint against senior faculty or residents is made inside a hierarchy that controls the complainant's evaluation. Eg. Payal Tadvi's complaint at BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai in 2019 named senior residents in her own department.
    3. Regulatory reach ends at grant conditionality: University Grants Commission regulations bind institutions that seek its recognition and grants, and enforcement over State universities is weak. Eg. The 2012 regulations required every institution to publish an anti discrimination policy, and publication was never made a condition for release of grants.
    4. A stayed regulation does not operate: A judicial stay leaves the earlier and weaker framework in charge for the entire period of litigation. Eg. The 2026 regulations have been suspended since 29 January 2026, so the 2012 framework they were written to replace still governs every campus.
    5. Faculty representation shortfall: A grievance system staffed almost entirely by unreserved category faculty carries limited confidence among complainants. Eg. Central universities have reported persistent backlogs of unfilled reserved category professor and associate professor posts in successive parliamentary replies.
    6. Definitional contest displaces the remedy: Litigation on who is covered has consumed the entire period in which the compliance machinery was to be built. Eg. Seven months after notification the regulations have produced no Equal Opportunity Cell restructuring, no complaint procedure and no penalty.

    Conclusion

    A regulation written to give caste discrimination a name has become unworkable because targeted protection and formally neutral protection are being demanded of the same clause. The Centre has told the Supreme Court that the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 are being reconsidered, so the measure stands stayed and the 2012 framework continues in force until further orders. What remains unresolved is the defect the Court itself identified, that the regulations create a distinct category of caste based discrimination without prescribing any distinct procedure to act on it.

    What is Substantive Equality?

    1. About: Substantive equality treats equality as an outcome the law must produce, so it permits differential treatment where identical treatment would preserve entrenched disadvantage.
    2. Rationale: Formal equality applies the same rule to unequally placed persons, which reproduces the existing distribution of advantage; substantive equality asks what the rule does to those on whom the disadvantage already falls.
    3. Redressing disadvantage: The first dimension asks whether a measure removes the material and social disadvantage a group carries, rather than whether it treats everyone alike.
    4. Countering stigma, prejudice and violence: The second dimension asks whether a measure reduces the humiliation, stereotype and hostility attached to group membership.
    5. Enhancing voice and participation: The third dimension asks whether the affected group has a say in the institutions that decide for it, since exclusion from decision making sustains the disadvantage.
    6. Accommodating difference through structural change: The fourth dimension asks whether the institution itself is altered to fit the group, rather than requiring the group to conform to an existing design.

    Key Concerns Regarding Substantive Equality

    1. Ceiling on affirmative action: The 50 per cent limit set in Indra Sawhney (1992) restricts how far redistribution can go, and the 10 per cent Economically Weaker Sections quota upheld in Janhit Abhiyan (2022) breached it for a non caste category.
    2. Benefit capture within the beneficiary group: Reservation gains concentrate among the better placed sections of a reserved category, which is the argument behind creamy layer and sub classification demands.
    3. Absence of enumeration: Caste wise socio economic data has not been published since 1931 in a full Census, so the extent of disadvantage the doctrine seeks to redress is inferred rather than measured.
    4. Reach limited to the public sector: Reservation binds the State and State aided institutions, and the bulk of new employment and higher education capacity has grown in the private sector.
    5. Conflict with efficiency claims: Article 335 requires that claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes be considered consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, which is repeatedly invoked against extending measures.
    6. Enforcement gap in horizontal relations: Constitutional equality guarantees bind the State, and discrimination between private individuals on a campus or in housing has no general statutory remedy.

    Laws and Rules Governing Anti-Discrimination in Higher Education

    1. University Grants Commission Act, 1956: Establishes the Commission and empowers it to coordinate and determine standards in universities.
    2. Section 26 gives the Commission power to make regulations, which is the source of both the 2012 and the 2026 equity regulations.
    3. Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955: Penalises the enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability, including in educational institutions.
    4. Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: Section 16 requires educational institutions to provide inclusive education and reasonable accommodation.

    Government Initiatives for Equity in Higher Education

    1. Post Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Caste students: Meets tuition and maintenance costs of Scheduled Caste students pursuing post matriculation courses, targeted at students below a stated family income ceiling.
    2. National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students: Funds Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy research by students of these categories in recognised universities.
    3. PM Young Achievers Scholarship Award Scheme for Vibrant India (PM YASASVI): Supports school and higher secondary education of Other Backward Class, Economically Backward Class and De notified Tribe students, feeding the higher education pipeline.
    4. National Overseas Scholarship: Funds postgraduate and doctoral study abroad for Scheduled Caste, De notified Tribe, landless agricultural labourer and traditional artisan category students.
    5. Dr Ambedkar Centres of Excellence: Provide free civil services examination coaching to Scheduled Caste students in selected universities.
    6. Remedial Coaching and Equal Opportunity Cells: University Grants Commission supported cells run bridge and remedial courses for students from reserved categories in colleges and universities.

    Challenges in Ensuring Equity in Higher Education

    1. Enrolment gap by category: Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education remains below the national average for the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes. Eg. The All India Survey on Higher Education for 2021-22 recorded an overall Gross Enrolment Ratio of 28.4 per cent, against 25.9 per cent for the Scheduled Castes and 21.2 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes.
    2. Language of instruction: Professional and postgraduate programmes are taught almost entirely in English, which disadvantages students from State board schooling in regional languages. Eg. Engineering and medical curricula translated into Indian languages under the National Education Policy, 2020 cover a small share of programmes and enrolment.
    3. Financial barriers and delayed disbursal: Scholarship money arrives after fees fall due, forcing students into private borrowing. Eg. Post Matric Scholarship disbursal depends on release of the State share, and delays in that release have stalled payments across academic years.
    4. Residential segregation on campus: Hostel allotment and mess arrangements reproduce caste separation informally even where no rule prescribes it. Eg. The Supreme Court has framed the allocation of hostels, classrooms and mentorship groups as a separate yet equal question in the present case.
    5. Mental health and support systems: Counselling capacity in most institutions is not staffed to the size of the student body, and first generation learners carry the heaviest adjustment burden. Eg. Successive parliamentary replies have recorded student suicides in central institutions, with a disproportionate share from reserved categories.
    6. Growth outside the reservation perimeter: Capacity expansion has been largest in private unaided institutions, where implementation of Article 15(5) reservation is uneven. Eg. The provision was upheld for private unaided institutions in Ashoka Kumar Thakur (2008) and again in Pramati Educational Trust (2014), and compliance is not centrally monitored.

    Back2Basics: University Grants Commission (UGC)

    1. Formation: Set up in 1953 and given statutory status by the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, which came into force on 3 November 1956.
    2. Parent ministry: Functions under the Ministry of Education, with its headquarters in New Delhi and six regional offices.
    3. Constitutional basis: Draws from Article 246 read with Entry 66 of the Union List, which covers coordination and determination of standards in institutions for higher education.
    4. Composition: Consists of a Chairman, a Vice Chairman and ten members appointed by the Central Government.
    5. Mandate: Coordinates and determines standards in universities, disburses grants, frames regulations and advises the Union and State governments on higher education.
    6. Recognition function: Recognises institutions under Sections 2(f) and 12(B) of the Act, which determines their eligibility for central grants.
    7. Proposed replacement: A Higher Education Commission of India has been proposed to subsume its regulatory functions, with grant disbursal moved to a separate body.

    Way Forward

    1. Prescribe a distinct procedure: Attach a dedicated complaint, inquiry and penalty procedure to caste based discrimination, since the absence of one is the core defect the Court has framed.
    2. Independent grievance forum: Place the inquiry authority outside the institution's own administration, with an external member drawn from a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe commission panel.
    3. Keep the broad clause as the residual protection: Retain the wide definition in Clause 3(e) as the universal guarantee, so no category of student is left without a remedy. The group specific recognition created by Regulation 3(1)(c) is retained alongside it.
    4. Make compliance a grant condition: Tie release of central grants and continuation of Section 12(B) status to the constitution and reporting of a functioning equity mechanism.
    5. Publish disaggregated data: Require every institution to report complaints, outcomes, dropouts and student deaths by category in an annual public return.
    6. Fill reserved faculty posts in mission mode: Run a time bound special recruitment drive for the backlog of reserved category teaching posts, since representation among decision makers is what makes a grievance forum credible.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS2, 10] Whether National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) can enforce the implementation of constitutional reservation for the Scheduled Castes in the religious minority institutions? Examine.”

  • J&K Census enumerators raise tech concerns

    Why in the News

    A readiness review for the Population Enumeration phase in Doda district recorded that Census enumerators and supervisors in the snow bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) hold mobile devices below the configuration the Census application requires. Census 2027 is India’s first digital headcount, and it runs on personal phones owned by school teachers and government employees rather than on equipment the state issues.

    What is the Digital Census 2027?

    1. First digital enumeration: Census 2027 is the first Census in India to be conducted digitally, with field data captured through a mobile application instead of printed schedules.
    2. Field workforce: Enumerators and supervisors are drawn mostly from school teachers and government employees, who record entries on their own handsets.
    3. Device specification: The application requires a minimum of 8 GB of RAM and Android 13 or above on the device used for Population Enumeration.
    4. Phased design: A self enumeration portal opens before field work, after which enumerators conduct door to door visits within a fixed window.

    What is self enumeration?

    1. Self enumeration: Self enumeration lets a household fill its own Census entries on an online portal instead of waiting for an enumerator to visit. The entry is verified later by the field functionary during the enumeration window.

    Why has device configuration become an enumeration problem?

    1. Hardware shifted to the enumerator: The Census application runs on the enumerator’s personal phone, so the capacity to count depends on assets the state neither owns nor issues.
    2. Specification threshold breached: Functionaries in the snow bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir were found holding phones below the 8 GB RAM and Android 13 requirement.
    3. Cost borne privately: The field workforce is composed of school teachers and government employees, so meeting the specification is a private expense rather than a budgeted input.
    4. Terrain compounds the gap: The affected districts are enumerated ahead of the rest of the country, which leaves the least time to replace or upgrade equipment.
    5. Resolution left open: The review recorded the shortfall for appropriate resolution without naming a procurement or substitution route.

    Why are Ladakh and the snow bound areas enumerated ahead of the rest of the country?

    1. Second phase advanced: The second phase of the Census in Ladakh and the snow bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh is being conducted ahead of the rest of the country.
    2. Weather window: Snowfall closes road access to these habitations, so the field round has to be completed before winter sets in.
    3. Self enumeration first: The self enumeration portal for these regions remains available from 17 August to 31 August.
    4. Field window: Door to door enumeration starts on 1 September and concludes by 30 September 2026.
    5. District level review: Doda district’s readiness for that window was reviewed at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office Complex under the Chief Principal Census Officer.

    How is the exercise being prepared for hard to count populations?

    1. Migratory populations: Special attention was directed to the enumeration of migratory populations, whose movement across the enumeration window produces both omission and double counting.
    2. Tribal communities: Tribal communities were named as a category requiring focused enumeration effort.
    3. Remote forest residents: Residents of remote forest areas were named alongside them, since habitations there fall outside routine administrative contact.
    4. Verification discipline: Enumerators and supervisors were directed to ensure that all entries are properly recorded, verified and cross checked.
    5. Field inspection: Charge officers and supervisors were instructed to conduct regular field inspections and quality checks.
    6. Awareness campaigns: District authorities were asked to intensify awareness campaigns through newspapers, pamphlets, social media and local outreach programmes ahead of enumeration.

    Why is the postponement of the Census in Manipur being demanded?

    1. Deferral sought: The principal Opposition party has sought postponement of the Census exercise in Manipur, citing continuing violence and the displacement of thousands of people.
    2. Displacement scale: Nearly 60,000 people have remained homeless since violence in the State began on 3 May 2023, with many still living in relief camps.
    3. Housing stock destroyed: Over 10,000 houses have been destroyed in the State.
    4. House listing defeated: Accurate house listing of thousands of homeless people living in relief camps is not practicable, so the record would capture a household structure that no longer exists.
    5. Postponement, not cancellation: The demand is for deferral until conditions become conducive, and not for cancellation of the exercise in the State.
    6. Raised in Parliament: The Inner Manipur Lok Sabha member said he had raised the matter in Parliament.

    Does a digital Census widen or narrow the count?

    1. Speed against reach: Digital capture shortens the gap between field entry and tabulation, and it makes the count conditional on device capability in the districts hardest to reach.
    2. Uniform standard on an uneven base: A single minimum specification treats a school teacher in Doda and one in a metropolitan district as equally equipped.
    3. Self enumeration favours the connected: An online portal transfers effort to the household, which advantages literate and connected households and leaves the rest dependent on a field visit.
    4. Displacement defeats the frame: A Census counts people at a usual place of residence, and conflict displacement breaks that anchor before any technology is applied.
    5. Errors travel further: A digital schedule locks an entry into a database at the point of capture, so an unverified record propagates instead of being caught at manual tabulation.

    “[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 above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2