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Subject: International Relations

  • India and Morocco hold inaugural Joint Defence Committee meeting

    Why in News

    1. First committee meeting: The inaugural Joint Defence Committee (JDC) meeting between India and Morocco was held in New Delhi on 8 September 2026.

    Core facts

    1. Administering body: The Ministry of Defence hosted the meeting.
    2. Co-chairs by position: India’s Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence and Morocco’s 2nd Bureau Chief co-chaired the session.
    3. Domains discussed: training and education, peacekeeping operations, military exercises, medical cooperation, cyber defence and defence industries.
    4. Industrial cooperation: Both sides agreed to explore joint production, joint ventures, technology collaboration, and maintenance and sustainment.
    5. Visit dates: The Moroccan delegation visited India from 7 to 10 September 2026.
    6. Institutional origin: The JDC was created by a defence cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in September 2025.
    7. Milestone ahead: The two countries mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2027.

    Static Context

    1. Morocco is a North African kingdom on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. It borders the Strait of Gibraltar.
    2. A Joint Defence Committee is a standing bilateral mechanism. It institutionalises regular defence dialogue between two states.
    3. India and Morocco established diplomatic relations in 1957.

    Prelims angle

    1. Location of Morocco: North West Africa, near the Strait of Gibraltar.
    2. Mechanism: The India and Morocco Joint Defence Committee as a bilateral defence institution.

    Mains angle

    1. GS2, international relations: A question can assess India’s deepening defence diplomacy with African states and its strategic value in the western Indian Ocean and Atlantic approaches.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “No direct PYQ traced in the provided files. Closest Microtheme: Bilateral Relations (International Relations).”

  • IAEA’s board reports Iran to UN Security Council for ‘failure to cooperate in probe’

    Why in the News

    The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, has reported Iran to the UN Security Council. The referral cites Iran’s failure to cooperate with a long-running investigation into uranium traces that inspectors detected at undeclared sites. This is the first such referral in 20 years. The step had been under consideration since June 2025, when the Board found Iran officially in non-compliance with its non-proliferation obligations over the same lack of cooperation. Referral opens Iran to sanctions and asset freezes, and Iran’s allies on the Council hold vetoes that make such measures unlikely.

    How did the Board vote?

    1. The margin: Twenty-three of the 35 members of the Board of Governors voted for the resolution at the Agency’s headquarters in Vienna, in a closed-door session.
    2. The opposition: China, Russia and Niger voted against. Eight members abstained and one did not vote because it was in arrears.
    3. The movers: The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

    What is the investigation actually about?

    1. The finding: Inspectors detected uranium traces at sites that Iran had not declared to the Agency.
    2. The Western reading: Western officials suspect the traces could evidence a secret nuclear weapons programme that ran until 2003.
    3. Iran’s stated position: Iran says it is not pursuing nuclear weapons and that its programme is entirely peaceful.

    What does a Security Council referral change?

    1. The formal consequence: Referral opens Iran to possible sanctions and asset freezes decided by the Council.
    2. The practical limit: Russia and China are allies of Iran and hold veto power on the Council, so punitive measures are unlikely to pass.
    3. What it does accomplish: The referral moves a technical safeguards finding onto the agenda of the UN’s political enforcement body.

    How has Iran responded?

    1. Rejection of the resolution: Iran’s Ambassador to the UN in Vienna described the resolution as a “political tool”.
    2. A charge against the Agency: The same response said the resolution ruined confidence in the IAEA’s “independence, impartiality and credibility”.
    3. Access ruled out for the present: Iran indicated that compliance with any obligation to allow UN inspections of nuclear sites inside the country is impossible at the moment.

    Challenges to the IAEA safeguards system

    1. Verification depends on the cooperation of the state being verified: Inspectors reach only what the safeguards agreement and the host state permit. Eg. Iran stopped implementing the Additional Protocol, its expanded access arrangement, in February 2021 and removed Agency surveillance cameras from declared sites in June 2022.
      The Fix: Make continued Additional Protocol implementation a standing condition of any sanctions relief, so access is not the first item traded away.
    2. The Additional Protocol is voluntary: Detection of undeclared activity rests on an instrument states join at their own choice. Eg. Additional Protocols are in force for over 130 states, and several with significant nuclear programmes have never brought one into effect.
      The Fix: Tie nuclear fuel and technology supply to an Additional Protocol in force, so the instrument becomes a condition of trade rather than a favour.
    3. Enforcement stops at the Security Council: The Board can find non-compliance and refer, and only the Council can impose a consequence. Eg. Iran was referred to the Council in 2006 and the sanctions that followed did not end enrichment.
      The Fix: Build graduated Agency-level consequences, such as suspension of technical cooperation and of Board voting rights, that do not require a Council vote.
    4. Referral turns a technical file into a political one: A state that reads a safeguards finding as coercion withdraws the access the finding was meant to secure. Eg. North Korea expelled inspectors in December 2002 and announced withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in January 2003 as its safeguards dispute escalated.
      The Fix: Keep a standing technical channel open alongside the political track, so the inspection relationship survives the escalation.

    Conclusion

    The Board has taken the file as far as its own authority extends. The Council can now take it up and is unlikely to act on it. That leaves an investigation with no route to completion and an inspection relationship that Iran now says it cannot honour. The marker to watch is whether the Agency retains any access inside Iran during the period the matter sits with the Council.

    Back2Basics: International Atomic Energy Agency

    1. Establishment: Set up in 1957 under its own Statute, following the “Atoms for Peace” address to the UN General Assembly in 1953.
    2. Status and reporting: An autonomous organisation within the UN system, headquartered in Vienna, reporting annually to the General Assembly and to the Security Council where required.
    3. Mandate: Promotes peaceful uses of nuclear technology and applies safeguards to verify that nuclear material is not diverted to weapons use.
    4. Safeguards instruments: Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements are required of non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT. The Additional Protocol adds inspector access to undeclared locations.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2020] In India, why are some nuclear reactors kept ‘IAEA Safeguards’ while others are not? (a) Some use uranium and others use thorium (b) Some use imported uranium and others use domestic supplies (c) Some are operated by foreign enterprises and others are operated by domestic (d) Some are State-owned and others are privately-owned ANSWER: (b)”

  • India, Sri Lanka sign three defence sector MoUs during Rajnath’s visit

    Why in the News

    India and Sri Lanka have signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on defence equipment and training. The agreements cover the upgradation of L70 guns for the Sri Lanka Air Force and cooperation between the National Cadet Corps and the National Defence Colleges of the two countries. They follow the seven MoUs signed during the Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka in 2025, one of which was an overarching defence sector agreement. This is the first visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Sri Lanka in nearly 40 years. Colombo used the meeting to repeat that its territory will not be used against India’s security interests, and to state that it enters agreements with countries around the world as a sovereign State.

    What do the three agreements cover?

    1. Air defence equipment: One MoU covers the upgradation of L70 guns for the Sri Lanka Air Force. The L70 is a 40 mm towed anti-aircraft gun of Bofors design, in service with air defence units across South Asia.
    2. Cadet training: A second covers cooperation between the National Cadet Corps of the two countries, the youth military training organisations that run school and college level cadet programmes.
    3. Professional military education: The third covers cooperation between the National Defence Colleges, which train senior officers and civil officials in national security strategy.

    What else did the two sides take up?

    1. The scope of the talks: The Defence Minister and the Sri Lankan President held extensive discussions on strengthening the defence, economic, maritime and regional partnerships between the two countries.
    2. Narcotics: The Sri Lankan President briefed the visiting Defence Minister on an islandwide programme recently launched to combat drug trafficking.
    3. Fisheries: The two leaders paid special attention to the fisheries issue in the Palk Strait.

    How did Colombo frame its assurance to India?

    1. The security assurance repeated: The Sri Lankan President recalled his interactions with the Prime Minister and reiterated that Sri Lanka would never allow its territory to be used for activities inimical to India’s security interests.
    2. A sovereignty qualifier alongside it: His office stated that Sri Lanka takes its decisions considering both national and regional interests.
    3. Room left for other partners: The same statement said Sri Lanka enters agreements with countries around the world as a sovereign State, remaining mindful of regional security.

    Challenges to India-Sri Lanka defence cooperation

    1. The fisheries dispute cuts against the security relationship: Bottom trawling by Indian vessels in Palk Bay waters produces arrests of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy every year. Eg. Sri Lankan authorities detained hundreds of Indian fishermen and dozens of boats in 2024.
      The Fix: Convert the Joint Working Group on Fisheries into a scheduled mechanism with a funded deep-sea transition plan for Tamil Nadu trawler owners.
    2. Third-country naval access remains unsettled: Port calls by foreign research and survey vessels sit outside the bilateral defence understanding and are settled politically each time. Eg. The Chinese vessel Yuan Wang 5 docked at Hambantota in August 2022, and Sri Lanka later announced a one-year moratorium on foreign research vessels from January 2024.
      The Fix: Agree a standing notification and clearance protocol for survey and research vessels, so each visit follows a rule rather than a negotiation.
    3. Colombo’s fiscal position limits what it can absorb: Defence modernisation competes with debt servicing. Eg. Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt in April 2022 and entered an International Monetary Fund programme in March 2023.
      The Fix: Structure transfers as grant-funded upgrades and training rather than as credit lines that add to the external debt stock.
    4. Political turnover reopens settled agreements: An understanding reached with one government has been cancelled by the next. Eg. The 2019 agreement with India and Japan to develop the East Container Terminal at Colombo Port was cancelled by Sri Lanka in 2021.
      The Fix: Anchor cooperation in institution-to-institution channels such as the annual defence dialogue and the Colombo Security Conclave, so continuity does not rest on one leadership.

    Conclusion

    Defence cooperation with Colombo has moved from a framework agreement to named equipment and training projects. Colombo has given the assurance India wanted and has paired it with a stated right to sign agreements elsewhere. Those two positions have not yet had to be reconciled in a concrete case, and the next one will define the limit of the assurance. The fisheries question is the immediate test, since both sides flagged it at this meeting and neither resolved it.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2022, GS2, 10.0 marks] India is an age-old friend of Sri Lanka.’ Discuss India’s role in the recent crisis in Sri Lanka the light of the preceding statement.”

  • At BRICS, India’s task is to keep the Ukraine peace process moving

    Why in the News

    The Prime Minister has again urged the Russian President to end the war in Ukraine, at their meeting in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. Two envoys of the U.S. President travelled to Moscow and Kyiv over the same weekend carrying fresh peace proposals, and the guns briefly fell silent during that visit. The U.S. President has followed with a call to the Russian President asking for a swift end to the war so that U.S.-Russia ties can be restored. After more than four and a half years, the war is edging towards the negotiation of an endgame. India chairs BRICS this year, the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa now expanded to eleven members, and hosts its summit in New Delhi this weekend. The settlement itself will be written elsewhere.

    Where does the American peace track stand?

    1. The 2025 process paused rather than ended: The Alaska process of 2025 produced the Anchorage summit, successive plans and counter-plans, and negotiating rounds at Geneva and Abu Dhabi.
    2. Six months of lost momentum: The American initiative stalled as Washington’s attention was taken up by Iran. The U.S. was drawn into the West Asian theatre as a belligerent.
    3. The file has been reopened: The U.S. President’s follow-up call to the Russian President confirms the return to Ukraine. A plan or at least a ceasefire may now emerge from a trilateral seating the U.S., Russian and Ukrainian Presidents in one room.

    Why did the last bargain collapse?

    1. The reported “3+2” formula: Circulating accounts described the Russian President reducing Moscow’s demands to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, with Zaporizhzhia and Kherson beyond that.
    2. The Donbas is the sticking point: Russia holds Crimea and insists on the whole of the Donbas, including ground it has not taken.
    3. The trade that was offered: Russia offered to let Kyiv keep the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia it could not capture, against an easing of sanctions.
    4. Kyiv refused: The U.S. Secretary of State has admitted that Ukraine would not agree. Washington can keep the parties in the room. It cannot make Kyiv cede the Donbas, nor make Moscow accept less than it believes it has won.

    What has India actually done, and on what reasoning?

    1. A shuttle inside the American track: The External Affairs Minister travelled from Moscow to Kyiv days before the American envoys set out, urging dialogue and diplomacy and carrying a message between the two capitals.
    2. No branded Indian plan: China, Switzerland and Turkey each proposed peace frameworks of their own and each effort stalled. India worked inside the existing U.S. peace track instead, offering to help only if both belligerents asked and keeping the Americans informed.
    3. The energy position: India holds that cutting oil imports will not stop the war, that its citizens’ energy security is not negotiable, and that sanctions for their own sake are no substitute for diplomacy.
    4. The growth argument: Conflict anywhere threatens the growth trajectory on which India expects to reach developed economy status within two decades.

    Why does the Global South claim a stake in ending this war?

    1. Energy and food costs travelled outward: The war raised energy prices and struck the security of food and fertiliser supplies well beyond the theatre.
    2. Balance sheet damage in uninvolved states: It fed inflation and sovereign debt stress in countries with no part in the fighting.
    3. Institutional erosion: It frayed the multilateral institutions that smaller states depend on for dispute settlement and finance.
    4. Peace as a global public good: Nations with no soldiers near the Dnieper have paid a heavy price, and that gives them standing to press for a settlement.

    What can a BRICS chair actually deliver?

    1. India will not be in the room: The settlement will be authored in Washington, Moscow and Kyiv, and sealed in a trilateral of the three Presidents.
    2. Representation rather than mediation: India’s nudge is an act of representation for a constituency that is watching, is affected, and wants the guns silenced. It is not a claim to a mediator’s role.
    3. The summit seats belligerents and no mediator: The New Delhi summit will seat Russia from the European war and Iran from the West Asian one, and neither the United States nor any other mediator.
    4. The deliverable is a text: India’s task is to steer a summit declaration that reflects the reality of these conflicts, does not echo the case of any single party, and carries a collective call for peace.

    Challenges to the Ukraine peace process

    1. A ceasefire needs monitoring that nobody has agreed to provide: A line of contact running over a thousand kilometres cannot be policed by a declaration. Eg. The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 were monitored by an unarmed Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission that logged violations without being able to stop them.
      The Fix: Settle the verification mechanism, its mandate and its funding in the same document that fixes the ceasefire line.
    2. Security guarantees for Kyiv have no agreed form: A guarantee that is political rather than legal collapses at the moment it is needed. Eg. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 gave Ukraine assurances in exchange for surrendering Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and those assurances carried no enforcement obligation.
      The Fix: Write any guarantee as a treaty with named guarantors and a stated trigger for action.
    3. Sanctions relief and territory move on different clocks: Sanctions can be reimposed and ceded territory cannot be recovered, so the sequencing decides who carries the risk. Eg. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, relief was staged against verified nuclear steps, and the U.S. exit in 2018 showed how fast staged relief reverses.
      The Fix: Tie each stage of relief to a verified and reversible step, with a dispute mechanism agreed before the first stage begins.
    4. Europe funds the outcome without negotiating it: The party carrying reconstruction and refugee costs has no seat in the trilateral that would settle them. Eg. European Union states have hosted over four million Ukrainians under temporary protection since 2022.
      The Fix: Seat the parties that will fund reconstruction and enforce sanctions in the negotiation that creates those obligations.

    Conclusion

    Wars end at a table, and the immediate question is whether one is kept standing. The chair of a plurilateral grouping cannot summon belligerents, and India has not claimed that it can. What a chair can do is put the cost borne by uninvolved states on the record of a summit that both a European and a West Asian belligerent will attend. Watch whether the New Delhi text speaks for the affected rather than for a party.

    About BRICS

    1. What it is: BRICS is a plurilateral grouping of major emerging economies that coordinates positions on global governance. It began as an investment category and became a geopolitical bloc.
    2. Origin and evolution: The acronym “BRIC” was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist. Foreign Ministers first met on the margins of the UN General Assembly in 2006, and the first Leaders’ Summit was held at Yekaterinburg in 2009.
    3. Membership: South Africa joined in 2011. Expansion was agreed at the Johannesburg summit of 2023, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joining in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025, taking full membership to eleven. Saudi Arabia participates with its formal status left nuanced, and a “Partner Country” category was introduced in 2024 for states such as Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria.
    4. Weight: The grouping holds over 45 percent of the world’s population, about 37 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms, ahead of the G7’s share, and roughly 42 percent of global oil production and exports.

    Institutional Initiatives of BRICS

    1. New Development Bank: Headquartered in Shanghai, it lends for infrastructure and sustainable development in member and partner states, and has approved over $35 billion in loans.
    2. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A $100 billion facility that provides short-term liquidity support to a member under balance of payments pressure.
    3. BRICS Pay: A cross-border payment system in pilot stage, intended to settle trade outside the SWIFT messaging network.
    4. Partnership on New Industrial Revolution: A cooperation track on artificial intelligence, digitalisation and green technology. A BRICS Space Council was added in 2025 to coordinate deep-space and lunar research.
    5. BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre: Set up during the pandemic to support technology transfer and vaccine access across members.

    Challenges in BRICS

    1. Internal rivalries block strategic cohesion: Two of the largest members carry an unresolved bilateral dispute into every common position. Eg. The India-China boundary dispute has kept security cooperation within the grouping nominal.
      The Fix: Prioritise health, space and education cooperation, where a common position is available without settling the political disputes first.
    2. Members run incompatible political systems: Joint declarations cannot carry a common position on human rights or democratic norms. Eg. India and Brazil sit as electoral democracies alongside Russia, China and Iran.
      The Fix: Confine declarations to areas where a shared position genuinely exists, and record differences rather than negotiating the text down to nothing.
    3. Slow de-dollarisation: The shift to local currency trade is far behind the rhetoric around it. Eg. The U.S. dollar still settles over 80 percent of global trade.
      The Fix: Deepen bilateral local currency settlement in trade flows that are already balanced, such as rupee-rouble and rupee-dirham arrangements, before attempting a common unit.
    4. Expansion risks a talk shop: A wider membership lowers the common denominator of any agreed text. Eg. The Non-Aligned Movement widened steadily and lost the ability to produce decisions.
      The Fix: Formalise admission criteria for Partner Countries, so entry follows economic synergy rather than geopolitical alignment.
    5. No charter and no permanent secretariat: The grouping runs on an annual rotating chair and its summit declarations, with nothing tracking implementation between them. Eg. The European Union operates through standing institutions and binding instruments, and BRICS has neither.
      The Fix: Create a small standing secretariat to carry implementation of declarations across chairs.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10.0 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”

  • Dangerous phase

    Why in the News

    United States forces have struck five Iranian oil tankers in Gulf waters, citing Iranian attacks on U.S. warships in the region. Iran has answered with a ballistic missile attack on the Muwaffaq Salti U.S. air base in Jordan, and has promised a stronger response to every further U.S. strike. It has also declared a new restricted zone in the Strait of Hormuz, warning commercial ships against crossing it under American naval escort. The U.S. had until recently used intense military strikes and economic strangulation as separate tools, and is now applying both at once. The pressure has produced escalation instead of concessions, and the conflict has widened to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea.

    What has changed in the U.S. approach to Iran?

    1. Two instruments applied together: Military strikes and economic strangulation were used separately in the recent past to force Iran to surrender. They are now being used simultaneously as maximum pressure on Tehran.
    2. The blockade has closed the revenue line: The U.S. naval blockade has largely prevented Iran from exporting its oil.
    3. Escorted convoys have blunted the chokepoint: American naval escort for a limited number of ships out of the Strait of Hormuz has reduced the effect of Iran’s chokehold on global energy prices.

    Why has maximum pressure not produced concessions?

    1. Iran escalated rather than conceded: Iran attacked American warships outside the Persian Gulf in the knowledge that a stronger U.S. military response would follow.
    2. A reading of American domestic politics: Iran sees a window in the weeks before the U.S. midterm elections. The U.S. President remains politically weak at home.
    3. Strike capability has been rebuilt: The missile attack on U.S. bases in Jordan indicates capabilities that the U.S. President had claimed were destroyed.

    How far has the conflict spread beyond Iran and the U.S.?

    1. Saudi Arabia has been drawn in: Yemen’s Houthis, closely aligned with Tehran, launched an attack on Saudi Arabia and wounded dozens. Riyadh has vowed a response.
    2. A second maritime front: The Houthis control northern Yemen and parts of its Red Sea coast, and have enforced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia’s western ports.
    3. A ground offensive inside Yemen: The Houthis have launched an offensive against the forces of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government in Taiz and Mocha.
    4. Two waterways at risk at once: The Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, the trade channel between Europe and Asia, are both flashpoints. The conflict now runs horizontally from Tehran to Jordan and from Riyadh to Bab-el-Mandeb.

    Challenges to a maximum pressure strategy

    1. Coercion without an exit ramp invites escalation: A campaign that offers no negotiated off-ramp leaves the target with escalation as its only remaining lever. Eg. The U.S. left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement, in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, and Iran began exceeding the agreement’s enrichment limits from 2019.
      The Fix: Attach a stated and verifiable de-escalation offer to each coercive step, so compliance carries a defined and reversible reward.
    2. Energy prices transmit the conflict to uninvolved economies: A threat to a shipping chokepoint raises freight, war-risk insurance and crude costs for states with no part in the dispute. Eg. Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea from late 2023 pushed carriers to route around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly two weeks to Asia to Europe voyages.
      The Fix: Hold deeper strategic petroleum reserves and pre-contract alternative routings, so a closure is absorbed over months rather than priced within days.
    3. Aligned armed groups let the target strike elsewhere: Sanctions imposed on a state do not reach the armed groups that act with it. Eg. The September 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais facilities halted about half of Saudi crude output for a period.
      The Fix: Combine weapons transfer interdiction with a regional maritime security arrangement that includes the Gulf states, rather than an escort force drawn only from Western navies.
    4. Inspection access closes before the fighting does: Coercion removes the monitoring that would verify any later agreement. Eg. Iran stopped implementing the Additional Protocol, its expanded inspection arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in February 2021.
      The Fix: Ring-fence safeguards access from the coercive track, so inspections continue whatever the state of the political negotiation.

    Conclusion

    Neither side is placed to step back. Washington has committed to military and economic coercion at the same time and has no concession to show for it. Tehran has answered each strike with a wider one and gains from escalating during a period of unsettled American politics. The marker to watch is whether the new restricted zone is enforced against an escorted convoy, since that is the point at which a shipping war becomes a general one.

    Back2Basics: Strait of Hormuz

    1. Location: A narrow sea passage between Iran to the north and Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south, linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
    2. Dimensions: Roughly 33 km wide at its narrowest point, with the designated shipping lanes about 3 km wide in each direction.
    3. Traffic: Close to a fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption moves through it, along with most of Qatar’s seaborne liquefied natural gas.
    4. Bypass routes: Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to the Red Sea and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan to Fujairah pipeline are the only routes that move Gulf crude to open sea without crossing the strait.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026] Ships from which of the following countries have to cross the Strait of Hormuz to reach out to the Indian Ocean? 1. Bahrain 2. Syria 3. Qatar 4. Egypt (a) 1 and 2 (b) 1 and 3 (c) 2 and 3 (d) 3 and 4 ANSWER: (b)”

  • [9th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: India-Japan defence cooperation breaks new ground

    [9th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: India-Japan defence cooperation breaks new ground

    Question (2019, GS2 – 10 Marks): “‘The time has come for India and Japan to build a strong contemporary relationship, one involving global and strategic partnership that will have a great significance for Asia and the world as a whole.’ Comment.
    Linkage: This question directly evaluates the transition of India-Japan ties into a robust “Special Strategic and Global Partnership”. It challenges candidates to analyze whether political mechanisms (like the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogues and institutional agreements) are producing meaningful regional and global security outcomes

    Mentor comment

    India and Japan have announced a new maritime cooperation framework, joint work on naval shipbuilding and design, and early implementation of the transfer of Japan’s UNICORN integrated communications antenna system. The agreements came out of a visit to India by Japan’s Defence Minister in August 2026. They follow more than a decade of institution building through annual dialogues, the 2+2 mechanism that brings the two countries’ foreign and defence ministers to a single table, joint exercises, logistics arrangements and defence technology discussions. That machinery has not produced matching operational or industrial output. The contest is whether a relationship rich in declarations of strategic convergence can now deliver usable capability.

    Why do further declarations of convergence add little?

    1. The convergence is already established: Both countries share concerns about coercive attempts to alter the status quo, the security of the maritime commons and the growing militarisation of the Indo-Pacific.
    2. Declarations now carry diminishing returns: The partnership has been more developed institutionally than operationally, so another statement of shared assessment changes nothing about what the two forces can do together.
    3. The test is joint operating capacity: The unmet task is converting shared assessments into arrangements that improve the two countries’ ability to operate together.

    What does the new maritime framework try to fix?

    1. Information sharing is the core: The framework places its emphasis on information sharing and Maritime Domain Awareness, the continuous picture of shipping, naval movement and activity in a maritime area assembled from radar, satellite, aircraft and vessel tracking inputs.
    2. The two sit at opposite ends of one theatre: Japan’s immediate security concerns are concentrated in the East China Sea and the waters surrounding Taiwan. India’s geographical position gives it a central role in the Indian Ocean maritime space.
    3. A single picture across two spaces: A closer information sharing architecture would build a more continuous strategic picture across these interconnected maritime spaces.
    4. The stated objective is operational: The aim is greater awareness, interoperability and operational familiarity between the two major maritime powers.

    What is being attempted in defence industry?

    1. Joint work on naval shipbuilding: The two sides are exploring joint development in naval shipbuilding and design, combining Japanese technological expertise with Indian production capabilities.
    2. Japanese use of Indian capacity: There was agreement to deepen discussions on Japan’s use of Indian production capabilities under the ‘Make in India’ framework.
    3. Reciprocal ship repair: The two sides agreed to move towards reciprocal arrangements for ship repair facilities.
    4. This is the weakest leg of the relationship: Defence industrial cooperation has consistently lagged behind strategic and political convergence.

    Why does the UNICORN transfer matter, and why is it not new?

    1. What the system is: UNICORN is an integrated communications antenna system that houses a warship’s antennas within a single composite mast, which reduces the ship’s radar signature.
    2. Described as a first, but already under way: Japan’s Ministry of Defence describes UNICORN as the first defence equipment transfer project between the two countries. A memorandum of understanding for the co-development of UNICORN masts, involving Bharat Electronics Limited, was signed in November 2024.
    3. The meeting advanced implementation: The August meeting represented a further step towards implementation rather than the initiation of a new project.
    4. The record it has to beat: New Delhi and Tokyo have struggled to convert their 2015 agreement on defence equipment and technology transfer into concrete outcomes.
    5. Research agencies are being linked: There are plans to deepen cooperation between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Japan’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA), the Japanese Defence Ministry body that runs procurement and technology development.
    6. Credibility now rests on delivery: The commitment to early implementation reflects a recognition that credibility depends on delivering projects rather than identifying possibilities.

    What do the exercises signal?

    1. Japanese fighters are flying in India: Japan’s fighter aircraft are participating in the Veer Guardian exercise in India from 9 to 22 September 2026, for the first time.
    2. Greater complexity by agreement: The two sides agreed to increase the complexity of bilateral exercises and to integrate unmanned systems.
    3. Short notice activation: They agreed to explore exercises organised at short notice, which tests readiness rather than choreography.
    4. Beyond the navies: They discussed cooperation between special operations forces, and with India’s future integrated theatre commands.

    Why does the western seaboard visit matter?

    1. The itinerary moved west: Before travelling to New Delhi, Japan’s Defence Minister visited the Western Naval Command in Mumbai and INS Chennai.
    2. Past the usual geography: The visit extended beyond the familiar strategic geography of the Bay of Bengal and the Strait of Malacca.
    3. What the western seaboard carries: It is central to India’s wider maritime interests, encompassing critical sea lanes, energy flows and India’s growing responsibilities in the western Indian Ocean.

    Is this a China-centric partnership?

    1. The message was sent without the name: The joint statement reiterated opposition to unilateral actions that impede freedom of navigation or seek to alter the status quo through force or coercion. Neither country named China.
    2. The value lies in going past China: The significance of India-Japan cooperation lies in its ability to move beyond a China-centric agenda.
    3. A wider agenda is already forming: Maritime security, resilient supply chains, defence industrial capacity, logistics and third country cooperation are becoming components of a wider regional security architecture.
    4. The civil side moved first: The July 2026 Annual Summit expanded cooperation across economic security, critical technologies and resilient supply chains, and the defence engagement followed it.

    Challenges

    1. Transfer agreements have not produced serial equipment flows: Named projects have repeatedly stalled between agreement and production. Eg. Negotiations on the US-2 amphibious search and rescue aircraft ran for years without producing a contract.
    2. Japan’s export control framework limits what can move: Japan’s post-war pacifist constitutional settlement and its restrictive export rules keep advanced and dual-use defence technology outside most transfer categories. Eg. The Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology, adopted in 2014, replaced a near-total export ban but still confine transfers to defined categories.
    3. Habitual joint operation is still shallow: Interoperability is built by repetition, and the bilateral exercise tempo remains thin against the range of services involved. Eg. Japan first joined the Malabar naval exercise in 2007 and became a permanent participant only in 2015.
    4. Defence industrial cooperation remains below potential: Defence industrial cooperation has consistently lagged behind strategic and political convergence.
    5. Strategic alignment is not identical: Japan’s Indo-Pacific approach is closely coordinated with the United States and the G7. India retains strategic autonomy and stays in groupings Japan is not part of. Eg. India’s participation in the Vostok exercises in Russia sits awkwardly with Tokyo’s position.

    Way Forward

    1. Convert agreements into deliverables: Attach dated production milestones and named Indian production partners to defence transfers so that agreements move from signing to implementation.
    2. Work within Japan’s export framework: Concentrate joint projects on permitted categories such as sensors, communications, surveillance and rescue platforms.
    3. Build sustained interoperability: Establish a standing annual calendar covering naval, army and air exercises, with a short-notice activation slot.
    4. Deepen defence industrial cooperation: Move from individual technology transfers towards joint development, co-production and reciprocal maintenance, combining Japanese technological expertise with Indian manufacturing capacity.
    5. Strengthen maritime information sharing: Develop a more integrated Maritime Domain Awareness architecture and improve information sharing between the two countries’ maritime forces.
    6. Institutionalise strategic consultation: Establish a standing consultation mechanism on third-country engagements so that differences arising from India’s strategic autonomy do not become unexpected diplomatic surprises.
    7. Measure the partnership by outcomes: The ultimate benchmark should be delivered equipment, operational capability and functioning industrial partnerships, rather than another round of declarations.

    Back2Basic: About India-Japan Relations

    1. A Special Strategic and Global Partnership: The relationship was upgraded to this status in 2014, covering political, economic and security cooperation.
    2. Indo-Pacific convergence: India’s Act East Policy and its Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) align with Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, and the two also work together within the Quad.
    3. Economic weight: Japan is the fifth largest investor in the Indian economy, with 6.6 per cent of India’s total foreign direct investment inflows. Bilateral trade stood at USD 25.17 billion in 2024-25.
    4. Development footprint: The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project is the flagship connectivity work, and Japan is the only country undertaking development work in India’s Northeast, through the India-Japan Act East Forum.

    Initiatives and Agreements in India-Japan Cooperation

    1. Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), 2011: It covers trade in goods and services, investment and intellectual property rights.
    2. India-Japan Industrial Competitiveness Partnership, 2021: It works on India’s manufacturing base and on supply chain resilience.
    3. Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement, 2020: It allows reciprocal provision of supplies and services between the two countries’ defence forces.
    4. Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, 2017: It provides the legal basis for Japanese civil nuclear cooperation with India.
    5. Supply Chain Resilience Initiative: Run with Australia, it seeks to diversify supply chains away from dependence on a single country.
    6. Asia-Africa Growth Corridor: It aims to link East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia more closely with Africa.

    Key Facts about India-Japan Relations

    1. Joint exercises: JIMEX is the bilateral naval exercise and Dharma Guardian the army exercise. Both countries also take part in the Malabar and Milan multilateral exercises.
    2. The G4 grouping: India and Japan work with Brazil and Germany in the G4 to press for expansion of the United Nations Security Council.
    3. India Vision 2025: It frames the development of India’s Northeast as the convergence point between the Act East Policy and Japan’s Indo-Pacific vision.
  • A possible G3 is casting a shadow over BRICS

    A possible G3 is casting a shadow over BRICS

    Why in the News

    BRICS leaders meet in Delhi this week to add further layers of cooperation, ranging from agriculture, health to digitalisation. The grouping’s two principal driving forces, Russia and China, are at the same time exploring separate and joint accommodations with the United States, whose domination of the world order BRICS exists to counter.

    What will the Delhi summit actually produce?

    1. More layers, slowly added: The summit will extend cooperation into agriculture, health and digitalisation.
    2. The declaration is not the draw: The last summit, at Rio de Janeiro, issued a declaration of 126 paragraphs without changing anything in the international system.
    3. The attraction is attendance: International interest is focused on the presence of the leaders of China, Russia and Iran.
    4. One bilateral carries the weight: The Chinese President is visiting India for the first time since 2019, and the two leaders are expected to stabilise the boundary situation and reset economic relations.

    Why has BRICS become less coherent?

    1. Expansion cut both ways: Enlargement added weight to the grouping and subtracted coherence from it.
    2. The Iran war split two members: The conflict opened a sharp divide between Tehran and Abu Dhabi, now fellow members of the grouping.
    3. Two incompatible asks: Iran wants BRICS to condemn American and Israeli military action. The United Arab Emirates, which suffered Iranian attacks and disruption to commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, stresses sovereignty, protection of civilian infrastructure and freedom of navigation.
    4. It has already cost an outcome: Those differences prevented the BRICS foreign ministers from issuing a consensual joint statement in Delhi in May.

    Why is a G3 conceivable now?

    1. A leader driven American approach: The US President has long held that good personal relations with the Russian and Chinese leaders could reduce global strategic tensions and produce major political and economic deals.
    2. Domestic and allied resistance: That instinct has repeatedly encountered resistance from the American foreign policy establishment, Congress and US allies.
    3. European and Asian fears differ: The Europeans worry that an accommodation with Moscow could be made at their expense. Asian allies fear that a bargain with Beijing could weaken American commitments to regional security.
    4. Nothing has been transformed yet: Neither relationship has been changed, and the preference for leader driven diplomacy keeps the possibility of movement open.
    5. The idea has been tested before: The possibility of such a meeting was explored last summer, during the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

    What does Russia bring to that table?

    1. The war has not been won: Four and a half years of fighting have produced no decisive victory, and the front remains costly and difficult to move.
    2. A channel has reopened: Shuttle diplomacy by American envoys between Moscow and Kyiv has reopened the diplomatic channel, without any sign that the fundamental differences between Russia and Ukraine are narrowing.
    3. Both sides hedge: Moscow and Kyiv are supporting the American peace initiative and preparing for escalation at the same time.
    4. European security could become a chip: Russian security questions could be treated by Washington as part of a larger bargain with Beijing.

    What does China bring?

    1. It negotiates from strength: China approaches Washington from a stronger position than Russia does.
    2. A sequenced diplomatic run: Its journey from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Bishkek, through Cairo and Delhi, to the White House later this month presents China as the leader of the Global South and as a co-equal manager of the international order at the same time.
    3. What a second summit could yield: An extension of the trade truce, additional Chinese purchases from the United States and negotiations over technology restrictions are the available deliverables.
    4. The differences are structural: Washington accuses China of relying on subsidised exports and industrial overcapacity. Beijing uses rare earths, market access and its control of important supply chains as leverage.
    5. Taiwan is the standing ask: China will continue to press for a reduction in American support for Taiwan.

    Can anti-Western rhetoric and a seat at the American table hold together?

    1. Alignment and hedging run together: Russia and China are closer to each other than ever and share concerns about the United States. Both also seek a workable relationship with Washington.
    2. Both claim the high table: For all their anti-Western rhetoric, each claims a place at the high table with the United States.
    3. The claim has history: Russia was once part of the G8, the group of Western industrial states, and engaged directly with NATO. China now sees itself as America’s peer.
    4. What a trilateral would signify: Both lay claim to shaping the global order established after 1945, and a summit of the three leaders would mark the beginning of triangular global leadership as a successor to the Yalta System.
    5. It is not imminent: A global directorate of three is not close, and the idea remains an exploration rather than a plan.

    What are India’s three answers?

    1. Build national power first: The first answer is internal reform and accelerated economic development.
    2. Separate multipolarity from anti-American bloc politics: Russia and China use BRICS to expand their diplomatic options and to preserve the freedom to negotiate with Washington. India must approach the emerging order with the same realism.
    3. Widen the partnership base: India must intensify bilateral and minilateral cooperation with the Anglosphere, Brazil, Europe, Japan, Korea and other middle powers that have no enthusiasm for a G3 world.

    Challenges to BRICS

    1. Internal rivalry limits cohesion: Friction between the two largest Asian members prevents a common strategic position inside the grouping. Eg. The unsettled India-China boundary has kept the two from a shared security line inside the same forum.
    2. Consensus across incompatible political systems: The membership spans vibrant democracies and autocracies, which makes agreement on human rights or democratic norms unreachable in joint declarations. Eg. The entry of Iran and Ethiopia alongside Brazil and India widened that political range further.
    3. De-dollarisation is slower than the rhetoric: Local currency settlement has grown, and the US dollar still settles the overwhelming share of global trade. Eg. Rupee-rouble and rupee-dirham settlement covers only a fraction of India’s external trade.
    4. There is no permanent secretariat: The grouping has no charter and no standing institution, so continuity depends entirely on the annual chair. Eg. Each presidency resets the agenda, and commitments lapse when the chair changes.
    5. Intra-group trade stays low: Members continue to rely on G7 markets for high technology imports and services exports. Eg. Most members source advanced semiconductors and aerospace components from the United States, Europe and Japan.
    6. Expansion risks dilution: A larger BRICS+ risks becoming a discussion forum that produces no decisions. Eg. The Non-Aligned Movement grew past 120 members and lost the ability to reach operative positions.

    Way Forward

    1. Focus on areas of common interest: Confine joint positions to areas where members already agree, such as development finance and public health, rather than seeking a security consensus that does not exist.
    2. Adopt variable geometry: Move towards a variable geometry model in which subsets of members can sign issue specific instruments without binding the whole group.
    3. Strengthen payment infrastructure: Target payments infrastructure that lowers settlement cost and time, rather than focusing primarily on the displacement of the US dollar as a reserve currency.
    4. Create a permanent institutional mechanism: Establish a small standing secretariat with a limited mandate to track implementation of past declarations and maintain institutional continuity.
    5. Promote intra-BRICS supply chains: Direct the New Development Bank towards financing intra-group industrial supply chains, particularly in strategic sectors such as advanced technology and manufacturing.
    6. Formalise expansion criteria: Establish clear entry criteria for partner countries, ensuring that future expansion is based on economic complementarity rather than political alignment.

    Conclusion

    Multipolarity has always had two possible shapes: one distributes power across many capitals; the other concentrates it among a handful and calls the result a balance. BRICS rests on the first assumption; its two strongest members hedge towards the second. For India the operative question is not whether a three cornered directorate forms, which it may not, but whether Indian diplomacy is organised for a world in which its two largest partners in the grouping negotiate separately with Washington. That answer will show up in what India builds outside the room, not in what the room declares.

    About BRICS

    1. What it is: BRICS is an informal grouping of major emerging economies that coordinates political and economic positions outside Western led institutions, without a founding treaty.
    2. Membership: Its full members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Saudi Arabia participating without having formalised its status.
    3. Its weight: The grouping accounts for over 45 per cent of the world’s population, about 37 per cent of global output measured at purchasing power parity, which exceeds the G7’s share, and roughly 42 per cent of global oil production and exports.
    4. Its stated objectives: Reform of the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for more equitable representation, a multipolar order, and reduced reliance on the US dollar and on SWIFT, the messaging network banks use to instruct cross border payments.

    Key Facts about BRICS

    1. The acronym predates the grouping: ‘BRIC’ was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist to identify high growth emerging economies.
    2. From officials to leaders: The first meeting of foreign ministers was held on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. The first formal Leaders’ Summit was held at Yekaterinburg in Russia in 2009.
    3. How it grew: South Africa joined in 2011. Expansion was decided at the 2023 Johannesburg Summit, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joining in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025.
    4. A partner tier: A ‘Partner Country’ category was introduced in 2024 to engage states such as Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria without granting full membership.

    Initiatives under BRICS

    1. New Development Bank: Headquartered in Shanghai, it has approved over USD 35 billion in infrastructure lending.
    2. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A USD 100 billion fund providing short term liquidity support to members.
    3. BRICS Pay: A cross border payment system in pilot stage, intended to work around SWIFT.
    4. BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre: Set up during the pandemic for technology transfer and vaccine equity.
    5. Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation: Six satellites contributed by member states, sharing data for disaster management.
    6. Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR): Cooperation on artificial intelligence, digitalisation and green technology.
    7. BRICS Space Council: Established in 2025 to coordinate deep space exploration and lunar research.

    Back2Basics: The Yalta System

    • Why the term recurs: ‘Yalta System’ is used as shorthand for an international order settled among a small number of great powers rather than by the wider membership.f BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”
    • Where the term comes from: The Yalta Conference of February 1945 brought together the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to settle the shape of the post-war order.
    • What it settled: It fixed the occupation and reorganisation of Europe and confirmed agreement on creating the United Nations.
    • The concert it produced: It led to a Security Council with permanent seats and a veto for five powers, entrenching great power management of international peace.

    [2026, GS2, 10.0 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.

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

    Why in the News

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

    What is the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme?

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

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

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

    Challenges to the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme

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

    Conclusion

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

    Back2Basics: Bureau of Energy Efficiency

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

    “[2023] Consider the following statements :

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

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

    Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?

    (a) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct and Statement-II is the correct explanation for Statement-I

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

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

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

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

    Why in the News

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

    Why did a shipping chokepoint translate into an LPG shock?

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

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

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

    Why did the United States become the fallback supplier?

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

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

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

    Challenges to India’s LPG supply security

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

    Conclusion

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

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • Arunachal and Aksai Chin between ‘unspecified’ claim lines on UN-endorsed map

    Why in the News

    A new world map endorsed at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) shows Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as distinct regions lying between Indian and Chinese “claim lines”. The endorsement came through the “Correct the Map” resolution adopted on 4 September 2026, which India backed and voted for. The External Affairs Ministry has stated that its vote covered the underlying principle of promoting equal-area cartographic representation. The Ministry has also stated that the resolution constitutes no endorsement of any specific map, projection or depiction of national boundaries. The contest is over what the vote carried with it. A resolution India supported has put into circulation a boundary depiction India rejects, on a document multilateral institutions worldwide will use.

    What is the “Correct the Map” resolution?

    1. About: It is a UNGA resolution endorsing the Equal Earth cartographic projection, a method that renders every landmass at its true relative area rather than inflating the higher latitudes.
    2. The document it endorsed: The accompanying draft world map was authored by the UN Geospatial office on 1 July 2026 and taken up in informal UNGA consultations.
    3. Its legal weight: The map binds no state, and it will still be used by multilateral institutions worldwide as their reference outline.

    Why did African states push for a new projection?

    1. The founding demand: The African Union supported the Equal Earth projection in March 2026 on the ground that it represents Africa more accurately than the projection then in use.
    2. The framing used: The African Union called this approach “cognitive justice”, treating a distorted world image as a distortion of political standing and not only of geometry.
    3. The route to the Assembly: Togo prompted UNGA consultations on the map in April 2026, and the Assembly opened informal consultations in July 2026.
    4. The sponsorship: Togo sponsored the resolution with African Union support, so the campaign’s centre of gravity sat outside the states whose frontiers the map redraws.

    What does the map show along India’s contested frontiers?

    1. Arunachal Pradesh: The map marks the State’s southern border with Assam as the Chinese line and its northern border as the Indian line, and it eliminates the State’s border with Nagaland altogether.
    2. Aksai Chin: The eastern borders of the region are shown as the Indian line and the western borders as the Chinese line, leaving it as a zone between two competing depictions.
    3. The labelling change: These lines continue earlier UN maps, and unlike the 2011 UN map they are not specified as “claim lines” anywhere on the July 2026 sheet.
    4. Jammu and Kashmir: The map uses a dotted line for the Line of Control (LoC), with a printed note recording that the dotted line represents approximately the LoC agreed upon by India and Pakistan and that the final status of the region has not yet been agreed by the parties.
    5. Kalapani: The depiction runs in India’s favour on the Nepal frontier, reflecting India’s control over the Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura region that Nepal claims.

    Why does India’s vote sit uneasily with the map it endorsed?

    1. The stated basis of the vote: The External Affairs Ministry has framed India’s support as a vote on equal-area representation as a principle, detached from any boundary depiction.
    2. The standing red line: The Ministry’s position is that India’s sovereign territory, including Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, must be depicted in accordance with India’s official map, and that any inaccurate or misleading depiction is unacceptable.
    3. The gap the map leaves: No note on the map explains why Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin alone were placed between two claim lines, so the depiction carries no stated cartographic reasoning a state can answer.
    4. The asymmetry in treatment: The disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir is written out in a note on the map, and the northern frontier lines carry no equivalent qualification.

    Challenges to the UN world map’s boundary depiction

    1. A non-binding map still becomes the working outline: Agencies reuse a United Nations base map in reports, datasets and briefings long after the political moment that produced it. Eg. China issued a “standard map” in 2023 placing Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin within its own boundary, and India rejected the depiction formally.
      The Fix: Press for an explicit cartographic note recording the northern lines as unsettled claims, on the pattern the same map already applies to other disputed frontiers.
    2. Third party cartography hardens bilateral disputes: A published depiction gives each side a document to cite in a boundary question only the two states can settle. Eg. Nepal amended its Constitution in 2020 to adopt a map including Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, and India rejected the amended map.
      The Fix: Route objections through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs and the India-Nepal Boundary Working Group rather than through the publisher alone.
    3. Depiction is settled in expert bodies, not in the plenary: Boundary conventions are prepared by geospatial specialists and arrive at member states as a finished draft. Eg. Cartographic standards are developed through the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management rather than by a floor vote.
      The Fix: Place Indian surveyors and cartographers inside those expert bodies so a depiction is contested at drafting stage rather than after adoption.
    4. Domestic map rules carry no force on foreign publishers: India regulates how its boundaries are shown within its own jurisdiction and holds no equivalent leverage over a document issued abroad. Eg. Foreign platforms have repeatedly shown Jammu and Kashmir with dotted boundaries in editions sold outside India.
      The Fix: Publish the Survey of India’s official outline as a free machine readable dataset, so the authoritative version is the cheapest one for an international user to adopt.

    Conclusion

    A cartographic reform demanded on grounds of equity has produced a frontier depiction India does not accept, on a document India voted to endorse. The projection question and the boundary question travelled together, and only the first was ever put to the Assembly. What to watch is whether the External Affairs Ministry secures a labelling correction from the UN Geospatial office before the map settles into routine multilateral use. The second marker is whether India’s objection is recorded on the sheet itself rather than in a statement alongside it.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 15 marks] “The reform process in the United Nations remains unresolved, because of the delicate imbalance of East and West and entanglement of the USA vs. Russo-Chinese alliance.” Examine and critically evaluate the East-West policy confrontations in this regard.”