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Type: Explained

These Newscards correspond to the explained section of various newspapers. They become immensely important for both prelims and mains and special attention needs to be paid to them

  • SC lauds repealed MGNREGA as ‘neither freebie nor exploitation’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    The Supreme Court has described the repealed Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) as a “salutary scheme” that was neither a freebie nor an exploitation of rural workers.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    What did the Court say about the repealed employment guarantee law?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recorded an unqualified endorsement: The Chief Justice of India, heading a three judge Bench, orally observed that the repealed Act was a good and effective scheme.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

  • India, U.K. review bilateral defence ties at DCG meeting

    Why in the News

    India and the United Kingdom reviewed bilateral defence cooperation at the 25th India United Kingdom Defence Consultative Group (DCG) meeting in New Delhi on 21 August 2026. The Defence Secretary and the United Kingdom’s Permanent Under Secretary for Defence co chaired the meeting. Defence industry and research and development were the declared focus of the review. The two sides also acknowledged their maritime security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and reaffirmed a commitment to mutual security and strategic autonomy. The meeting places the industrial and research pillar, rather than platform purchases, at the centre of a partnership that has historically been defined by equipment supply.

    What is the India United Kingdom Defence Consultative Group?

    1. The institutional channel for the defence relationship: The DCG is the standing bilateral mechanism at which the two defence establishments review the whole of their cooperation.
    2. Who leads it: It is co chaired at the level of the Defence Secretary on the Indian side and the Permanent Under Secretary for Defence on the British side.
    3. How long it has run: The New Delhi round was the 25th meeting of the group, which makes it one of the longer running bilateral defence dialogues India maintains.

    What is the India United Kingdom Vision 2035?

    1. The current roadmap for the partnership: Vision 2035 is the agreed framework that sets out where the two countries intend to take defence, technology, trade and security cooperation over the coming decade.
    2. The defence component: It is paired with a 10 year Defence Industrial Road map, which is the instrument the two sides use to sequence joint industrial and research work.

    What is the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative?

    1. India’s cooperative framework for the maritime region: The initiative is an India led arrangement announced in 2019. Partner countries take the lead on specific pillars such as maritime security, resources and capacity building.
    2. How partners participate: A country joins by leading or co leading a pillar rather than by signing a treaty, which is how the United Kingdom is engaged in it.

    What did the two sides review on defence industrial cooperation?

    1. Industry and research were the declared focus: The review of bilateral defence cooperation was framed around defence industry and research and development rather than around procurement.
    2. Where that work is anchored: Ongoing defence industrial cooperation was reviewed with particular emphasis on research and development under the India United Kingdom Vision 2035 and the 10 year Defence Industrial Road map.

    How will military to military exchanges expand?

    1. Three named channels of expansion: The two countries agreed to expand exchanges between their armed forces through joint exercises, training and capacity building initiatives.
    2. Why the format matters: Exercises and training create the interoperability that industrial cooperation alone cannot produce.
    3. The visit itself: The meeting marked the first visit to India by the British official in his current capacity. He laid a wreath at the National War Memorial during the visit.

    What does the maritime security agenda add?

    1. Cooperation acknowledged in the Indo-Pacific: Both sides recorded robust maritime security cooperation between the two countries in the Indo-Pacific.
    2. A new institution named: That cooperation includes the establishment of the Regional Maritime Security Centre of Excellence under the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative.

    What framing did the two sides put on the partnership?

    1. Regional security was discussed directly: The two sides exchanged views on regional peace and security.
    2. Two commitments reaffirmed: They reaffirmed their commitment to mutual security and to strategic autonomy, which retains each side’s freedom of independent decision.
    3. The declared basis of the relationship: They reiterated that the India United Kingdom Strategic Partnership is anchored in shared values of peace, stability, freedom and mutual respect.

    Challenges to the India United Kingdom Strategic Partnership

    1. Divergent positions on Russia: London has openly criticised the invasion of Ukraine, and New Delhi maintains its own relationship with Moscow. Eg. India’s continued crude imports from Russia have drawn repeated criticism in British parliamentary debate. Fix. Ring fence the disagreement in the political dialogue and keep the defence industrial track on its own timeline.
    2. Extremist activity abroad affecting bilateral trust: Separatist mobilisation on British soil is treated by India as a security matter and by Britain as a policing and speech matter. Eg. The Five Eyes investigation into the Nijjar killing, which includes the United Kingdom, strained the relationship. Fix. Create a standing bilateral mechanism to review threats to diplomatic premises and personnel with agreed timelines for response.
    3. Unsettled extradition of economic offenders: Cases pending for years in British courts weaken confidence in legal cooperation. Eg. The extradition of high profile fugitives such as Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi remains unresolved. Fix. Agree a case management protocol with fixed review points so that requests do not stall indefinitely.
    4. Carbon border levies on Indian exports: The proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism threatens Indian steel and aluminium exports and is read in India as protectionism in an environmental form. Eg. Steel and aluminium are among India’s largest industrial exports to the European market. Fix. Negotiate a mutual recognition arrangement for India’s own carbon credit trading scheme so that a domestic carbon price is counted at the border.
    5. Migration and mobility remain unsettled: High visa fees and the health surcharge raise the cost of temporary movement, and no migration and mobility agreement covers the illegal migrant population. Eg. More than one lakh illegal Indian immigrants are estimated to be in the United Kingdom. Fix. Fast track the Double Contribution Convention so that Indian temporary workers are exempted from British National Insurance payments.
    6. Intellectual property divergence in pharmaceuticals: British insistence on tighter intellectual property norms conflicts with India’s priority of affordable medicines. Eg. Data exclusivity demands would delay generic entry for medicines India exports at scale. Fix. Keep intellectual property provisions at the standard set by the World Trade Organization agreement and settle the rest through voluntary licensing arrangements.

    Conclusion

    The defence relationship has moved from an equipment supply relationship to a joint industrial and research relationship, and the 25th DCG meeting recorded that shift rather than announcing a new agreement. The stage reached is a completed secretary level review under an agreed decade long roadmap, with no new procurement decision announced. The next markers are the delivery of projects under the 10 year Defence Industrial Road map and the operation of the Regional Maritime Security Centre of Excellence.

  • Unimpeded trade needs IPMDA as the answer

    Unimpeded trade needs IPMDA as the answer

    Why in the News

    Maritime domain awareness has been identified as the missing focus in United States and India cooperation on unimpeded trade, a term both sides have agreed to without qualification. The Foreign and Commerce Ministers of the two countries have underscored the need for reciprocal trade and energy agreements. The setting is adverse on three counts: mounting sanctions have strained the relationship, visa problems affect Indians travelling to the United States, and the war in West Asia has produced an energy crisis. What is contested is whether Washington can keep the sea lanes its economy depends on open without regional powers such as New Delhi carrying part of the surveillance load.

    What is the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA)?

    1. A Quad initiative launched in 2022: IPMDA was launched under the Quadrilateral framework of India, Australia, Japan and the United States as the most credible multilateral architecture yet devised for the surveillance problem.
    2. What it actually does: It is a technology based mechanism for sharing near real time maritime data across partner nations.
    3. What the data is for: The shared picture allows partners to detect, deter and respond to threats to the free flow of trade.
    4. Where its operationalisation rests: Its full operationalisation is anchored in cooperation between the United States and India under the Quad.

    What is maritime domain awareness (MDA)?

    1. A layered picture of activity at sea: MDA is the assimilation of data from several technologies into an effective understanding of the maritime domain.
    2. What the picture is used to judge: It covers the effects of maritime activity on security, safety, the economy and the environment together, rather than naval movement alone.

    What is the Automatic Identification System (AIS)?

    1. A transponder that broadcasts a ship’s identity and position: AIS is the transponder carriage requirement applied to vessels. A fitted vessel continuously transmits its identity, position, course and speed to nearby ships and shore stations.
    2. Why switching it off matters: A vessel that disables its transponder disappears from the civil tracking picture without leaving the water, which is the practice analysts call going dark.

    Why is the Indo-Pacific the artery on which the trade argument rests?

    1. The circulatory system of the global economy: The Indo-Pacific is a vast maritime corridor through which nearly 7 trillion dollars in trade flows annually.
    2. What the corridor connects: It links energy producers in the Persian Gulf to manufacturing hubs in East Asia and to consumer markets across the Americas.
    3. The chokepoints inside its waters: The Straits of Malacca, the Lombok and the Sunda straits, Hormuz, Bab-al-Mandeb and the Mozambique channel all sit within it, and each is crucial for both energy and container supplies.
    4. Why the West Asia crisis widened the frame: The crisis demonstrated that the region is a geostrategic location not only for India and the United States but for the rest of the world.

    What does the surveillance gap allow?

    1. A gap that is geographic, jurisdictional and institutional at once: The threat to the corridor is a convergence of state sponsored coercion, illegal maritime activity and a surveillance deficit that even the United States finds challenging to address alone.
    2. Vessels going dark: Hundreds of vessels across the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Western Pacific routinely disable their AIS transponders, likely to evade sanctions and conceal cargo, which also creates safety and environmental threats.
    3. Contraband movement at sea: Such vessels may be engaged in smuggling or in ship to ship transfers of contraband, which never touch a monitored port.
    4. Fishing fleets outside the rules: Many smaller fishing vessels fall outside mandatory AIS carriage requirements and are found fishing illegally in other nations’ waters or on the high seas, which depletes regional stocks and undermines the food security of littoral states.
    5. Grey zone coercion: Non state and state affiliated actors conduct operations designed to intimidate and coerce. Those operations are calibrated to escape any legal or conventional military response.

    How does the shared surveillance architecture work?

    1. The 2026 collaboration layer: The Quad’s Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration 2026 (IPMSC) sits under the IPMDA architecture and rests on the shared understanding that no country can monitor the vast oceans alone.
    2. What data is fused: It integrates commercial satellite based radio frequency monitoring, radar fusion and existing partner nation sensor networks.
    3. What the fusion produces: Sharing that fused data with like minded partners creates a layered, near continuous picture of maritime activity.
    4. The Indian acquisition behind it: India purchased SeaVision technology from the United States in 2025, along with software enhancements, training and the logistical support needed for mutual MDA cooperation.

    Why is cooperation between the United States and India necessary but not sufficient?

    1. The American interest is one of concentration: Regional cooperation in the Indian Ocean is essential for the United States if it is to focus on its immediate neighbourhood in the Pacific and the Atlantic.
    2. India already holds the matching institution: The Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), established at Gurugram in 2018, is a natural institutional complement to the regional hub architecture of IPMDA.
    3. Why the arrangement suits India: IPMDA amplifies India’s reach without requiring it to surrender control over its own maritime data or decisions.
    4. The stated limit: With the basics already in place, cooperation between the two countries is necessary and not sufficient to cover the corridor.

    Which partners have to join for the architecture to cover the region?

    1. The Quad and Southeast Asia: Full potential is realised only through the active participation of existing Quad partners and of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partner states.
    2. The Pacific Island nations: These states constitute critical maritime corridors and are indispensable to a continuous picture of the Pacific approaches.
    3. The European Union: The bloc has upheld the importance of free and open trade since the Hormuz crisis, which signals an appetite for engagement that Washington and New Delhi must cultivate.
    4. Smaller littoral partners: Bangladesh, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Fiji hold independent surveillance infrastructure of their own.
    5. Why their systems fail: Their waters are frequently exploited because those systems remain ineffective against maritime crimes that originate beyond their jurisdictions, which is precisely the gap a shared picture closes.

    What does the shift from presence to transparency change about deterrence?

    1. The old assumption has collapsed: The strategic environment has systematically dismantled the assumption that open trade is unilaterally sustainable.
    2. Contestation hardens into precedent: Freedom of navigation is increasingly contested, and contestation that goes unrebutted has become precedent in recent years.
    3. Transparency as a deterrent: In a region where coercion has become the currency of power, visibility of what happens at sea has to function as deterrence in its own right.

    Challenges to IPMDA

    1. Data classification limits what can be shared: Partners will not release sensor derived military data on the same terms as commercial satellite data, which thins the picture at the point where it matters. Eg. Radio frequency and radar tracks of naval auxiliaries are routinely withheld even among treaty allies. Fix. Build the shared layer on unclassified commercial data by default and keep classified feeds in a separate bilateral channel.
    2. Detection without enforcement changes nothing: A dark vessel identified in an exclusive economic zone still needs a ship or aircraft to intercept it. Eg. Illegal fishing fleets operating off East Africa are frequently tracked and rarely boarded. Fix. Pair the data hub with pooled coast guard patrol assets and pre agreed boarding arrangements between neighbouring states.
    3. ASEAN hesitancy about Quad branding: Several Southeast Asian states avoid initiatives read as an anti China bloc, which limits regional take up. Eg. Divergent positions within ASEAN on the South China Sea have repeatedly blocked a unified maritime response. Fix. Route the data offer through ASEAN centred bodies and existing information fusion centres rather than under a Quad label.
    4. Dependence on a single technology supplier: The picture rests on platforms and commercial imagery contracts controlled outside the region. Eg. India’s own MDA upgrade in 2025 came through the purchase of an American software platform. Fix. Fund an indigenous radio frequency satellite constellation so that the regional picture survives a supplier or sanctions disruption.
    5. Continuity of a leaders’ level grouping: The Quad has no secretariat or treaty base, so its programmes track political calendars in four capitals. Eg. The grouping failed to convene a leader level summit in 2025. Fix. Anchor the surveillance programme in a standing technical secretariat with its own multi year budget line.
    6. The dark fleet keeps growing faster than the sensors: Sanctions evasion has created a large fleet of ageing tankers with opaque ownership and no reliable insurance. Eg. Ship to ship transfers of sanctioned crude are routinely conducted outside monitored ports. Fix. Tie port entry and insurance recognition to a verified transponder record for the whole voyage.

    Conclusion

    Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific can no longer be underwritten by a single navy, and the response has shifted from presence at sea to a shared picture of what happens at sea. IPMDA and its 2026 surveillance layer make that picture technically possible, and their value depends on whether capacity constrained littoral states, ASEAN members, the Pacific Islands and the European Union are inside the arrangement rather than outside it. What remains unresolved is enforcement, since detection produces deterrence only where a partner state can act on what it has been shown.

    “[2021, GS2, 15 marks] The newly tri-nation partnership AUKUS is aimed at countering China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. Is it going to supersede the existing partnerships in the region? Discuss the strength and impact of AUKUS in the present scenario.”

  • Saving faces: Use of facial recognition equipment at protest site is worrisome

    Why in the News

    The Delhi Police has told the Supreme Court that it deployed a facial recognition system at the site of the Cockroach Janta Party protests, along with a mobile surveillance van, a command and control vehicle, smart spectacles and drones. The disclosure came in the same proceeding. In that proceeding the force has continued to deny using excessive force or manhandling demonstrators, contrary to the protestors’ own testimonies. India is therefore normalising the technical ability to subject political gatherings to searchable biometric surveillance. Legislation and judicial oversight have not yet settled when the state may lawfully do so. The contest is between a policing capability that is already operational and a legal framework that names no threshold, no authorising authority and no retention rule for its use.

    What is a facial recognition system?

    1. It converts a face into a searchable record: The system extracts measurable geometric features from a face image and stores them as a numeric template that can be matched against other templates.
    2. Two distinct operations, two different risk profiles: Verification matches one face against one claimed identity. Identification matches one face against an entire database, and only the second turns a crowd into a search.
    3. Real time capture removes the choice to participate anonymously: Cameras enabled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) scan faces as people move and run matches against a database without any interaction with the person scanned.

    What surveillance equipment did the police say it had deployed?

    1. A facial recognition system with AI enabled cameras: These scanned faces in real time against a database. The demonstration was under way at the time.
    2. A mobile surveillance van: A vehicle mounted capture platform able to move with the crowd rather than covering a fixed field.
    3. A command and control vehicle: The on site node where feeds from the various capture devices were aggregated and acted on.
    4. Smart spectacles: Wearable devices used to identify individuals on the move, which extends identification beyond fixed and vehicle mounted cameras.
    5. Drones and videographers: Aerial and handheld recording covering the site from angles the ground cameras did not reach.
    6. Private contractors hold two of these systems: The van and the spectacles have been tied to private contractors on terms that have never been disclosed, so a commercial entity sits inside the capture chain on an unknown mandate.

    What did the police not disclose?

    1. Whether every face in range was processed: The force has not addressed whether actual biometric processing occurred for every individual within the range of the cameras, which is the difference between targeted identification and mass capture.
    2. Where discarded images went: Images from checks that produced no match were open to copying in the interim, and the force has not said whether any copy survives.

    Which laws currently govern facial recognition, and what do they leave open?

    1. No statute governs the technology: There is no law in force that regulates the use of facial recognition systems by the state, so deployment rests on executive decision alone.
    2. The data protection law is not yet operative on this point: The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, whose data processing obligations are not yet in force, still makes broad exemptions for state agencies.
    3. The existing police database is purpose limited: The Automated Facial Recognition System of the National Crime Records Bureau is meant for identifying criminals and unidentified bodies, not for scanning an assembly.
    4. The 2022 statute widened records, not subjects: The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 expanded the set of records the police may collect, but only from specified persons rather than from the public at large.
    5. The gap is the crowd: Every one of these instruments operates against identified groups of people, and none of them authorises indiscriminate capture of everyone present at a location.

    Can mass biometric capture at a protest survive the proportionality test?

    1. The state carries the burden: Interference with the right to privacy must clear a well established proportionality test, and the burden of establishing each limb sits on the state.
    2. The first limb already fails on the facts: The existence of a legitimate objective is hard to establish for facial recognition used en masse, because the technology is indiscriminate at the point of capture and cannot be aimed at a suspect.
    3. A less restrictive alternative exists: Conventional policing achieves the same objective of maintaining order and identifying offenders without capturing the biometrics of every person present.
    4. Constitutional validity is not the only test: Even leaving aside the constitutionality of the police action, a capability deployed without a governing standard sets the precedent for the next deployment.

    How does biometric surveillance affect the right to protest?

    1. The deterrent operates before any legal restriction: The chilling effect on potential participants curtails the right to protest without any order prohibiting the protest.
    2. Anonymity is part of the freedom: Assembly has historically carried the assurance that presence in a crowd is not the same as being recorded as an individual participant.
    3. The cost falls on people with the most to lose: Government employees, students facing institutional discipline and people in precarious work self select out once presence becomes a permanent identified record.
    4. The chill is unfalsifiable: Nobody counts the people who stayed home, so the harm never appears in the record a court would examine.

    What remains unanswered before this use can be justified?

    1. The access controls: It is unknown which officers, agencies or contractor personnel could query the captured images and against which databases.
    2. The authorising legal provisions: The provisions relied on to authorise the major decisions, including the decision to scan an entire assembly, have not been identified.
    3. The false positive rate: The expected error rate of the system has not been stated, and a false match at a protest site produces detention of an innocent person on machine evidence.

    Challenges to the regulation of facial recognition technology in India

    1. Deployment has run far ahead of legislation: State and city police forces have procured systems under general policing powers rather than under any enabling statute. Eg. Several State police departments and airports adopted facial recognition without a dedicated legal framework in place. Fix. Enact a facial recognition statute prescribing permitted purposes, a judicial or independent authorisation requirement, and a fixed retention period.
    2. The data protection statute exempts the principal user: Broad exemptions for state agencies mean the very actor conducting mass capture falls outside the consent and purpose limitation architecture. Eg. The Justice B N Srikrishna Committee had recommended narrow and specified exemptions rather than open ended ones on grounds of sovereignty and public order. Fix. Replace the blanket agency exemption with a case by case exemption that must be notified with reasons and laid before Parliament.
    3. Accuracy is unequal across populations: Error rates for facial recognition are consistently higher for darker skinned faces, women and younger subjects, so the burden of false matches is not evenly distributed. Eg. Independent testing of commercial systems has repeatedly found the highest error rates for darker skinned women. Fix. Mandate published accuracy testing disaggregated by skin tone, sex and age before any system is procured for policing use.
    4. Private contractors sit inside the state’s capture chain: Outsourcing capture hardware and processing places biometric data with entities that are not accountable through public law remedies. Eg. Police facial recognition deployments in several States run on vendor supplied platforms whose procurement contracts are not in the public domain. Fix. Require every surveillance procurement contract to be published with its data handling clauses, and make the contractor a joint respondent in any privacy proceeding.
    5. There is no oversight body with jurisdiction: No standing authority audits police biometric systems, so no institution can verify retention, deletion or match logs after the event. Eg. Agencies conducting interception under existing law are reviewed only by an internal executive review committee. Fix. Establish a statutory surveillance oversight commission with power to inspect match logs and order deletion.
    6. Function creep is the default trajectory: A database built for one purpose is progressively opened to others once the infrastructure exists. Eg. Facial recognition adopted for airport boarding convenience has been proposed for wider identity verification uses. Fix. Write a statutory bar on cross purpose querying, with each authorised purpose requiring a separate legislative amendment.

    Conclusion

    The disclosure establishes that the capability to convert a political gathering into a searchable biometric record is already deployed, contracted out in part, and operating without a statute that says when it may be used. The proportionality test, on the facts available, is not close: the technology captures indiscriminately, a less restrictive alternative exists, and the state has not identified the provision that authorised the decision. Until Parliament enacts a facial recognition law with a stated purpose, an authorising authority, a retention limit and published accuracy standards, each deployment simply widens the precedent for the next one.

    “[2024, GS3, 10 marks] Describe the context and salient features of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023″

  • SIR’s exclusion of citizens is made possible by complicity of institutions

    Why in the News

    Tribunals in West Bengal are struggling to handle the caseload thrown up by the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, and every State running the exercise is reporting rising numbers of electors marked “absent”, “shifted”, “dead” and “duplicate”. The Supreme Court settled the legal question in Association for Democratic Reforms and Others v. Election Commission of India and Others (May 2026). That ruling upheld the Election Commission of India’s power to conduct the revision. It also recorded the Court’s satisfaction with the procedure the Commission adopted, holding the deletions to be within the parameters of that procedure. The contest is now over whether a constitutional court that declines to scrutinise an electoral authority is protecting institutional autonomy or removing the only check available to an elector who has been struck off.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?

    1. A house to house verification, not a paper update: SIR is a time bound enumeration of the whole roll. Booth Level Officers physically visit every household to verify each entry on it.
    2. It differs from the routine revision: The annual Summary Revision works off claims and objections filed by electors. SIR re-verifies every single existing entry.
    3. Its stated objects: It removes deceased, duplicate and permanently shifted entries, registers newly eligible electors, and extends high security Electors Photo Identity Cards to full coverage.
    4. It is periodic, not novel: Intensive revisions were first run between 1952 and 1956, and India has conducted roughly fourteen such exercises, including those of 1983, 1995, 2002 and 2004.

    What did the Court actually hold in the SIR case?

    1. The power was affirmed: The judgment upholds the Commission’s authority to conduct an intensive revision of the rolls.
    2. The procedure was endorsed: The Court recorded its satisfaction with the procedure the Commission adopted, rather than testing that procedure against outcomes.
    3. The deletions were validated collectively: Deletions were held to fall within the parameters of the approved procedure, which forecloses an individual challenge on the ground that the procedure itself is defective.

    Which of the two available approaches did the Court choose?

    1. The first option was structured suspicion: The Court could have adopted scepticism towards the Commission’s claims of authority, on the view that judicial vigilance is needed to hold the balance between asserted state power and citizens’ rights.
    2. The second option was institutional trust: It could instead repose trust in another constitutional authority, on the assumption that constitutional institutions are themselves sufficiently committed to protecting citizens’ rights, making intensive scrutiny unnecessary.
    3. It took the second: The judgment rests on the premise that a constitutional body does not need to be watched, which is precisely the premise a rights challenge exists to test.
    4. Rights are lost by practice, not only by intent: An authority can undermine citizens’ rights without any explicit intention to do so, simply through unreasonable practices applied at scale.
    5. Trust tests motive, scrutiny tests effect: A court satisfied that a body means well never reaches the question of what the body’s method actually produces on the ground.
    6. The error is not isolated: It sits inside a broader contemporary judicial tendency that increasingly privileges “authority” over the citizen asserting a right against it.

    How does the ruling fail the principle of representation?

    1. Representation was the missing anchor: The judgment is not anchored in the foundational principle underlying the controversy, which is representation, so the logic of representation did not inform how the Commission’s authority was read.
    2. Inclusion is now a defining requirement of citizenship: As democracy has evolved and the idea of citizenship has expanded, full inclusion has become one of its central requirements.
    3. The requirement runs in two directions: Citizenship must not be denied or diminished on grounds such as sex, religion, race, caste or class, and political representation is not meaningful if citizens are effectively disabled from participating in elections as voters.
    4. The arithmetic follows: Leaving eligible electors out of an election inevitably produces flawed representation, whatever the quality of the procedure that excluded them.

    Can a power to purify the rolls be exercised without becoming a power to exclude?

    1. The power was accepted without its limit: Having accepted that the Commission may prepare rolls and examine whether a person is genuinely entitled to be on them, the Court did not ensure that this power of scrutiny stops short of excluding or harassing eligible voters.
    2. The default duty runs the other way: In a democratic election the Commission’s first responsibility is to include, not to exclude, and a verification drive inverts that default by design.
    3. The Commission was not seized of inclusion: Nothing in the record shows the Commission asking whether its verification drive keeps eligible electors on the roll.
    4. The instrument turns on its purpose: Without a stated inclusion duty, the revision becomes a hatchet rather than a purifying procedure.

    Who bears the cost of a documentation based test of eligibility?

    1. Exclusion is not random in practice: The state’s exclusion operates randomly as a general rule, but a documentation regime used as evidence of citizenship does not fall evenly.
    2. The exposed groups are identifiable in advance: Vast numbers of women, the poor and the marginalised are particularly vulnerable to being trapped by such regimes, both as a matter of theory and as an empirical reality.
    3. The democratic cost is the endpoint: A disproportionate exclusion of these groups undermines democratic representation itself, not merely the individual entitlements of those removed.

    What happens to a citizen after the name is deleted?

    1. The verdict routes deletions to the executive: It directs the Commission to report to the Home Ministry the names of persons whose entries have been deleted, for further adjudication of their claims.
    2. The exercise acquires a second use: That direction allows the Commission and the government to weaponise the revision, pushing individuals into a zone of doubt, suspicion and harassment.
    3. A cautious judgment produced an expansive institution: A ruling anxious not to enter the Commission’s domain has obliquely enabled the Commission to transcend that domain and become enmeshed with executive authority.
    4. The consequences run past the vote: The exercise may end by creating a class of shifted, absent and duplicate persons pushed to the margins of formal existence, with passports and claims to welfare schemes also cast into doubt.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision

    1. Booth level staff are set impossible targets: Verification of every entry within a compressed window is loaded onto officers who already hold full time teaching or clerical posts. Eg. Booth Level Officers in West Bengal reported acute duty stress during the current cycle, including cases of suicide. Fix. Cap the number of entries assigned per officer per day and pay a separate verification honorarium tied to that cap.
    2. Legacy document requirements exclude the undocumented: Asking for a birth certificate or an ancestral roll entry disqualifies people whose births were never registered. Eg. Civil registration of births was far from universal in the birth cohorts now in their fifties and sixties. Fix. Accept a widened evidence set including electricity bills, ration cards and community certificates, with a declaration by the Booth Level Officer as a residual proof.
    3. Grievance redress does not keep pace with deletions: Claims and objections pile up faster than hearing officers can dispose of them, so the roll freezes with the disputes unresolved. Eg. Only a fraction of the roughly six million claims filed in West Bengal were disposed of before the poll freeze. Fix. Constitute standing appellate tribunals for electoral rolls that sit year round rather than temporary benches raised at revision time.
    4. Field marking is subjective: A single officer decides on one visit whether an elector is “shifted” or “absent”, with no second visit and no corroboration requirement. Eg. Households locked at the time of a daytime visit are routinely marked absent. Fix. Mandate geotagged evidence of at least two visits at different times of day before any absence marking is recorded.
    5. Manual capture introduces avoidable error: Offline field data is later keyed into the database by hand, so transcription mistakes enter the roll after verification has finished. Eg. Name and age mismatches between the field form and the uploaded entry are a recurring source of objections. Fix. Issue tablets with offline forms that sync directly, removing the separate data entry step.
    6. Fear of a citizenship screen suppresses cooperation: Residents who read the exercise as a covert citizenship test refuse to produce documents, which raises the very deletion risk they fear. Eg. Households in border districts have declined to hand over papers during roll verification. Fix. Print on the enumeration form itself that the exercise determines electoral registration only and creates no finding on nationality.

    Conclusion

    The exclusions now surfacing across States are not an administrative accident sitting downstream of a sound legal position. They follow from the judicial choice set out above, and from the direction routing deleted names to the executive for further adjudication. What remains unresolved is whether a court will accept that a power to verify carries a matching duty to include, because until it does, the elector who is struck off has a procedure to follow and no forum that will ask whether the procedure was reasonable.

    “[2024, GS2, 10 marks] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to “one nation-one election” principle.”

  • Routine data or citizenship check? Why Census questionnaire sparked concern

    Why in the News

    The questionnaire for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027 has triggered a political controversy. The principal Opposition party has alleged that detailed questions about respondents and their parents could facilitate surveillance and serve a “deeper nefarious purpose”, and the Left has raised the same objection. The controversy follows a report of 15 August 2026 that several new or modified questions in the Census questionnaire were also part of the National Population Register (NPR) schedule notified in 2020. That schedule became contentious during protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and fears of a nationwide National Register of Citizens. Two things are now contested: whether a statistical exercise should collect identifiers that link a person across government databases, and whether a register of residents can stay separate from a register of citizens when the law connects the two.

    What is the National Population Register?

    1. A register of usual residents, not of citizens: The NPR records every person ordinarily resident in a local area, and it makes no finding on anyone’s nationality.
    2. Usual resident, defined: A usual resident is a person who has lived in a local area for at least six months, or who intends to stay there for the next six months.
    3. Foreigners can be on it: A foreign national who meets the six month residence test is a usual resident and is entered in the register.
    4. It is not a new exercise: The NPR was first prepared in 2010 alongside the houselisting phase of the 2011 Census, and it was updated through a door to door exercise in 2015.

    What is the National Register of Citizens?

    1. A register of verified citizens: The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of persons established to be Indian citizens, prepared by verifying claims against documentary proof of descent or residence.
    2. It has been compiled only in one State: The single updated NRC exercise so far was the Supreme Court monitored update in Assam, completed in 2019.

    What exactly has changed in the Census 2027 questionnaire?

    1. Scale of the change: The schedule carries 40 questions, of which 14 are new or modified compared with the 2011 Census.
    2. Eight questions carried over from the 2020 NPR schedule: These are nationality as declared, father’s particulars, mother’s particulars, mobile number, Aadhaar, voter identity card, passport and driving licence.
    3. The parental fields are the most contested: The NPR schedule sought the date and place of birth of a person’s father and mother, down to the district and the State.
    4. A foreign birthplace had to be named: Where a parent was born outside India, the country of birth had to be recorded. These parental questions were at the centre of the political opposition to the NPR.

    Why is the privacy objection different from earlier Census rounds?

    1. The stated purpose has always been aggregate: Census data has traditionally been collected for population statistics and planning, not for identifying a named individual.
    2. The new schedule collects identifiers, not just attributes: It seeks a much wider range of personal information, including details that can identify a person or link that person to other government databases.
    3. The real question is downstream, not upstream: The issue is not how much data the government collects. It is how that data is stored, protected and used once collected.

    How is the Population Register linked in law to the citizens’ register?

    1. A statutory chain exists between the two: The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 provide for the preparation of a Population Register and for its verification for the preparation of the citizens’ register.
    2. The Rules create a category of doubt: They also provide for individuals whose citizenship is considered doubtful to be marked for further inquiry.
    3. The link is legal, not political: The connection sits in subordinate legislation, so it survives any assurance given by a government of the day.

    Why did that legal link become politically explosive in 2019-20?

    1. The sequencing was the problem: The NPR was revived soon after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by Parliament.
    2. Assam supplied the precedent: The NRC exercise in Assam had excluded around 19 lakh people, giving a concrete picture of what a documentation based citizenship test produces.
    3. The Union executive named the sequence itself: The Union Home Minister repeatedly spoke of a nationwide NRC and asked people to understand the “chronology”. That chronology placed the Act first and the register after it.
    4. Perception overtook the instrument: A previously uncontroversial statistical exercise came to be read as one associated with the possibility of citizenship being questioned.

    What did the government say in 2020, and why did the assurance not settle the issue?

    1. The contested fields were declared optional: The government stated that the questions on parents’ date and place of birth need not be answered.
    2. The stated purpose was welfare delivery: The NPR was described as primarily a database of residents intended to improve policy formulation and the delivery of welfare schemes.
    3. The administrative case was demographic: Knowing the demographic composition of an area was said to help governments plan services and identify beneficiaries.
    4. The assurance contradicted the record: In December 2019 the Union Home Minister said NPR data would never be used for an NRC and that the two exercises were governed by different laws. Earlier government statements in Parliament had taken the opposite position, as the statutory link set out above already did.

    Does the government have a legitimate case for collecting this data?

    1. Detailed demographic data has real administrative value: A comprehensive database of residents helps the government formulate policy, plan public services, identify beneficiaries and improve national security.
    2. Linkage cuts duplication: Information drawn from different government databases reduces duplication and discrepancies in records, and cuts paperwork for citizens.
    3. The identifiers were the design, not an add on: The NPR was envisaged as a way of bringing basic demographic information together with mobile numbers and identity documents, so that government services run more efficiently.
    4. The objectives are not unreasonable in themselves: Neither the resident register nor the citizens’ register is inherently improper as an exercise in public administration.

    Is the objection to the questions themselves or to the trust deficit around them?

    1. The questions are ordinary in isolation: A field asking for a parent’s place of birth is a standard demographic variable in statistical systems worldwide.
    2. Timing converted them into a citizenship test: The 2019-20 difficulty was that the register was revived at a moment of dented public trust, and the assurances offered failed to restore it.
    3. Trust, once lost, redefines the instrument: Questions that would otherwise read as routine are now read through the prism of citizenship and surveillance.

    Challenges to the Census 2027 data collection exercise

    1. No purpose limitation on identifier fields: Nothing in the notified schedule bars the linkage of Census records to other identity databases at a later date. Eg. The Aadhaar number was originally described as voluntary proof of residence and later became a precondition for a range of subsidies. Fix. Notify a purpose limitation clause under the Census Act, 1948 barring individual level linkage of Census records with any other database.
    2. Digital collection widens the breach surface: A mobile application based enumeration of over 1.4 billion people stores personally identifiable data in a way a paper schedule never did. Eg. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited breach of May 2024 leaked 278 gigabytes of subscriber data from a public sector network. Fix. Designate the Census data centres as Critical Information Infrastructure and mandate independent security audits before the enumeration window opens.
    3. Self enumeration depends on digital capability: The self enumeration option assumes a smartphone, connectivity and the literacy to complete a 40 question schedule unaided. Eg. Rural self response rates in comparable digital surveys run far below urban rates. Fix. Fund assisted self enumeration desks at common service centres and panchayat offices for the duration of the window.
    4. Fear of citizenship scrutiny corrupts the data: Households that suspect the schedule feeds a citizenship check give incomplete or inaccurate answers, which damages the statistics the exercise exists to produce. Eg. Enumerators in Assam faced sustained non cooperation during the NRC update. Fix. Issue a public statement in the enumeration instructions that no Census response will be used in any individual citizenship or law enforcement proceeding.
    5. Caste enumeration invites organised inflation: Recording caste for the first time since 1931 creates an incentive for groups to coordinate responses in pursuit of quota gains. Eg. The Socio Economic and Caste Census of 2011 recorded over 46 lakh distinct caste and sub caste entries, which made the data unusable for policy. Fix. Publish a pre coded, State specific list of jatis drawn from State Backward Classes Commission records before enumeration begins.
    6. State capacity is stretched across two exercises: The same district administration runs the Census and the electoral roll work in the same period, which raises error rates in both. Eg. Booth level staff across several States have been simultaneously assigned roll revision and enumeration duties. Fix. Ring fence enumeration staff from all other duty assignments for the notified Census period.

    Conclusion

    The dispute is not really about how many questions the schedule carries. It rests on the statutory link set out above, which is why a statistical instrument can be read as the first step of an eligibility test. The government’s administrative case for richer data is sound on its own terms, and the downstream safeguard on that data remains unpublished. Until it is published, every additional field in the schedule will be argued over as a citizenship question rather than a statistical one.

    “[2021] With reference to India, consider the following statements:

    1. There is only one citizenship and one domicile.

    2. A citizen by birth only can become the Head of State.

    3. A foreigner, once granted citizenship, cannot be deprived of it under any circumstances.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) 1 and 3

    (d) 2 and 3

  • Pakistan factor: Why West Asia war hurt Indian airlines more than foreign ones

    Why in the News

    International air passenger traffic to and from India fell 9.1 per cent year on year in April to June 2026, to 1.72 crore, after the West Asia conflict closed large parts of Gulf airspace. The decline was driven entirely by Indian carriers, whose combined international traffic fell 26.6 per cent. Foreign airlines carried 6 per cent more passengers than a year earlier. India has barred its own carriers from Pakistani airspace since late April 2025, and Pakistan’s reciprocal closure applies only to them. The result is that a shared shock produced an asymmetric outcome, transferring market share on India’s own international routes to airlines that could still fly the short way west.

    How does an airspace ban change an airline’s operating economics?

    1. The right involved: A carrier overflies a third country under the International Air Services Transit Agreement of 1944 or under a bilateral permission, and either can be withdrawn at short notice.
    2. The detour cost: A closure forces a longer track, which adds block hours, fuel burn and crew duty time to every affected departure.
    3. The payload penalty: A longer sector makes the aircraft trade revenue payload for fuel, or forces a technical stop, and either outcome erodes the margin on the route.

    What does the passenger data show?

    1. Total volume: Total international air passenger volume to and from India fell 9.1 per cent year on year in April to June, from 1,89,12,598 to 1,72,00,140, in an analysis of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.
    2. Indian carriers: Their combined international passenger numbers fell 26.6 per cent, from 87,34,038 to 64,14,896.
    3. Foreign carriers: Their cumulative passenger base rose 6 per cent, from 1,01,78,560 to 1,07,85,244.
    4. Market share shift: Foreign operators expanded their share of India’s international traffic to 62.7 per cent from 53.8 per cent, and domestic carriers dropped to 37.3 per cent from 46.2 per cent.

    Why did the loss fall on Indian carriers alone?

    1. Their biggest market closed: Flights to the United Arab Emirates and other West Asian markets, the largest destinations for Indian airlines, were heavily curtailed.
    2. The damage spread beyond West Asia: Indian carriers were forced to cut flights to destinations well outside the region, under war related financial pressure and the standing ban on flying over Pakistan since late April 2025.
    3. The route economics broke first: Air India and IndiGo curtailed their west bound network because the unavailability of Pakistani airspace made some services financially and operationally unviable to run.
    4. The pressure predated the war: Both leading carriers were already taking longer routes and adding refuelling halts on west bound services from their Delhi hub before the conflict began in late February, and some routes had been suspended outright.

    How did foreign carriers turn the same shock into share?

    1. They kept the short way west: Foreign carriers faced the same surging jet fuel prices, and many held one decisive advantage in the continued availability of Pakistani airspace.
    2. Spare capacity was redeployed: Once the war began, carriers from Europe and other regions west of India increased operations to and from the country using aircraft freed by their own curtailed West Asia flying.

    Which Indian airlines lost most?

    1. IndiGo: Remained the largest Indian carrier on international routes with a 15.4 per cent decline to 33.4 lakh international flyers, and an international market share slipping to 19.4 per cent from 20.9 per cent.
    2. Air India: Fell 27.2 per cent to 19.3 lakh passengers, with its international market share contracting to 11.2 per cent from 14 per cent.
    3. Air India Express: Its footfall halved to 8.34 lakh, since its network is highly concentrated in West Asia, and its share fell to 4.8 per cent from 8.9 per cent.
    4. The Air India group: Combined international traffic fell 36.3 per cent year on year to 27.61 lakh in the quarter.
    5. SpiceJet: Recorded the sharpest percentage fall at 56 per cent, to 1.38 lakh international flyers, with share contracting to 0.8 per cent from 1.7 per cent.
    6. Akasa Air: The only Indian airline to register higher international passenger numbers, growing on a low base through an expanding fleet.

    Challenges to Indian carriers on international routes

    1. Gulf hubs capture the through fare: Foreign carriers connect Indian cities to the West over their own hubs and book the full journey revenue. Eg. Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad carry a large share of India to Europe and North America traffic over Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. Fix. Build a domestic transfer hub with matched arrival and departure banks, and price transfer charges to reward connecting traffic.
    2. Wide body fleet shortage: Non stop long haul flying needs aircraft Indian carriers do not have in sufficient number. Eg. Air India’s wide body cabin refit programme has run behind schedule because of queues at overseas retrofit facilities. Fix. Expand domestic maintenance, repair and overhaul capacity so heavy checks and retrofits are not queued abroad.
    3. Fuel taxation: Aviation turbine fuel sits outside the goods and services tax and carries high state value added tax, so the largest cost line is not creditable. Eg. Fuel accounts for about 40 per cent of an Indian airline’s operating cost. Fix. Bring aviation turbine fuel under the goods and services tax with input tax credit for carriers.
    4. Ageing bilateral entitlements: Traffic rights negotiated years ago cap Indian carriers in some markets. The same rights leave foreign carriers entitlements they can deploy at short notice. Eg. India’s bilateral seat entitlement with the United Arab Emirates has been unchanged for over a decade. Fix. Renegotiate bilaterals with entitlement tied to actual utilisation and reciprocal hub access.
    5. Financing and leasing sit offshore: Most aircraft are leased through foreign lessors, so rentals and repossession law lie outside Indian jurisdiction. Eg. The aircraft leasing framework at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) remains small relative to the fleet on lease. Fix. Deepen the domestic leasing regime and fully operationalise the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act, 2025 giving effect to the Cape Town Convention.

    Conclusion

    The quarter’s traffic decline was distributed by airspace access rather than by exposure to the war, so Indian carriers absorbed the whole of a shock both sides faced. The share transferred to foreign operators is not automatically reversible, since network presence and slot use tend to persist once established. Recovery depends on the reopening of Pakistani airspace to Indian carriers and on the restoration of West Asian capacity, neither of which is within the sector’s control.

    “[2024, GS3, 15 marks] What is the need for expanding the regional air connectivity in India? In this context, discuss the government’s UDAN Scheme and its achievements.”

  • Indigenous N-reactors top pick for companies in nuclear power expansion

    Why in the News

    The indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) is emerging as the preferred technology for new entrants into India’s civil nuclear power sector, as the tightly regulated strategic sector opens to private players. Representatives of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Adani Atomic Energy and Jindal Steel said at a panel discussion at the BloombergNEF Summit in New Delhi that the existing 700 megawatt electric (MWe) PHWR is the right starting point, given established design standards, a mature domestic supply chain and an existing ecosystem of vendors. The discussion followed the release of the draft rules under the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, 2025 (SHANTI Act, 2025), about a week earlier. The choice is revealing: entrants are picking the reactor with the least regulatory and supply risk rather than the one that scales fastest, and that reactor alone cannot deliver the 100 gigawatt electric target set for 2047.

    What is a Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor?

    1. Design: A pressurised heavy water reactor uses heavy water as both moderator and coolant, which lets it run on natural uranium without any enrichment step.
    2. Why it suited India: Natural uranium fuelling matched a country with limited enrichment capacity that long stood outside international fuel supply arrangements.
    3. Place in the programme: It is Stage 1 of the three stage nuclear programme designed by Homi Bhabha, producing plutonium 239 as a by product for the fast breeder stage that follows.
    4. The Indian standard unit: The 700 MWe variant is the largest indigenous design in the series.

    What is a Small Modular Reactor?

    1. Definition: A small modular reactor (SMR) is an advanced reactor of up to 300 MWe, built as factory made modules and transported to site for assembly.
    2. Use case: The smaller unit size suits captive industrial power and the replacement of retiring coal units on existing sites.

    Why are private entrants choosing the 700 MWe PHWR?

    1. Design certainty: The 700 MWe design is standard, approved, operational and already carries regulatory clearance, in the assessment of the business head of Adani Atomic Energy.
    2. Supply chain depth: The supply chain for that design in India is almost fully indigenised, at 90 per cent to 95 per cent.
    3. What the sector is short of: The two major constraints named for the sector are the availability of a robust supply chain and the lack of standardised reactor designs, and the 700 MWe unit is the one design that resolves both.
    4. A second entrant agrees: Jindal Steel plans to go with 700 MWe PHWRs in its initial phase for the same reason, moving to other technologies in later phases as clarity emerges on supply chains, regulatory approvals and standardisation.

    What capacity are the new entrants targeting?

    1. The national target: India aims to scale domestic civil nuclear capacity to 100 gigawatt electric (GWe) by 2047.
    2. Corporate targets: NTPC’s capacity target is 30 GWe, the Adani group’s is 10 GWe, and Jindal Steel’s is 18 GWe in the coming years.

    What has opened the sector to private entrants?

    1. Statutory replacement: The SHANTI Act, 2025 supersedes the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010.
    2. End of the state monopoly: It permits private and foreign firms to build, own and operate reactors, which no earlier law allowed.
    3. Regulator strengthened: It gives the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board independent statutory status for safety oversight.
    4. Liability rewritten: It removes statutory supplier liability and sets tiered damage caps, with a Nuclear Damage Claims Commission to adjudicate compensation after an incident.
    5. What the Centre keeps: Enrichment, reprocessing and uranium and thorium exploration remain with the Union government.
    6. What the draft rules cover: The rules released in August 2026 set out the framework for private participation, captive generation, licensing, safety oversight and nuclear liability.

    Why will the PHWR alone not deliver 100 GWe?

    1. The stated limit: PHWRs alone will not be sufficient to reach 100 GWe by 2047, in the assessment of the Adani Atomic Energy business head.
    2. The intended sequence: Deploy 700 MWe PHWRs in fleet mode first, follow with pressurised water reactors (PWRs), and bring in small modular reactors at a later point.
    3. Where foreign designs fit: Foreign reactor technologies and SMRs are expected to play a role only at a later stage, once the sector matures.
    4. The phasing is deliberate: Later phases are contingent on clarity around supply chains, regulatory approvals and design standardisation, not on a fixed date.

    What will decide whether imported designs work in India?

    1. Localisation is the condition: Global reactor technologies, including PWRs and SMRs, would need to maximise localisation in India to stay commercially viable.
    2. Cost sets the ceiling: Cost matters a great deal in the Indian market, and any technology has to reach a price the buyer of the electricity will commit to.
    3. The buyer decides: For a project to make commercial sense the consumer has to accept the tariff, which puts affordability ahead of technology preference in the selection.

    Challenges to India’s 100 GWe nuclear target

    1. The heavy component vendor base is shallow: Only a handful of Indian firms can forge and supply large reactor components, so a fleet order queues behind them. Eg. Larsen and Toubro and Bharat Heavy Electricals supply most large forgings and steam generators for the domestic programme. Fix. Qualify a second tier of suppliers through advance purchase commitments tied to the sanctioned fleet order book.
    2. No certified standard design outside the heavy water line: A project without a frozen design spends years in negotiation before construction. Eg. The Jaitapur project with the European Pressurised Reactor has been under negotiation since 2010 without first pour of concrete. Fix. Certify one design per technology class through the regulator before any commercial order is placed.
    3. Tariff acceptance by distribution utilities: Nuclear power has to clear the price a distribution company will sign a purchase agreement at. Eg. Around 42 gigawatts of renewable capacity currently sits without a power purchase agreement on price grounds. Fix. Create a separate payment for firm, dispatchable low carbon power so the grid pays for reliability rather than for energy alone.
    4. Insurance capacity is thin: Liability caps do not create the underwriting capacity a reactor needs. Eg. The India Nuclear Insurance Pool formed in 2015 carries a capacity of ₹1,500 crore. Fix. Expand the pool with reinsurance from global nuclear insurance pools, now that supplier liability has been removed.
    5. Licensed operator manpower: A fleet of reactors needs certified control room staff that only one training system currently produces. Eg. Operator training runs almost entirely through the Department of Atomic Energy’s own training schools. Fix. Accredit private and university training programmes against a regulator certified curriculum and examination.

    Conclusion

    Private entry into nuclear power has reached the point where entrants are naming capacity targets and choosing a reactor, and all three have chosen the indigenous 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactor over imported designs. The regulatory framework is at the draft rules stage under the SHANTI Act, 2025, released by the Department of Atomic Energy, with comments closing on 4 September 2026. Whether the 100 GWe target is reachable turns on the technologies after the first fleet, and on whether foreign designs localise enough to reach a tariff a distribution utility will sign.

    “[2018, GS3, 15 marks] With growing energy needs should India keep on expanding its nuclear energy programme? Discuss the facts and fears associated with nuclear energy.”

  • The Silver Bullet: Why everyone loves a Metro

    Why in the News

    Around 200 residents of Greater Noida West tied ropes to the last Metro pillar at the Sector 71 intersection in April and pulled, in a protest organised by the Noida Extension Flat Owners Welfare Association to demand a Metro line for an area it calls underserved by public transport. Days earlier the Central government had rejected the proposal for the Noida to Greater Noida West Metro corridor. Meerut became the latest city to get a Metro in February 2026, with an interchange to the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), India’s first semi high speed intercity rail service. The tension the two scenes expose is that demand for a Metro is now generated by politics and property. The ridership, fares and feeder transport that would justify one are generated by city planning that has not happened.

    What is the Metro Rail Policy, 2017?

    1. Purpose: It sets the conditions the Union government applies before it will approve or fund a metro rail project proposed by a state.
    2. Alternatives test: A state must evaluate cheaper options, including buses, bus rapid transit and trams, before committing to a metro, because metro rail is the costliest urban transport mode to build.
    3. Viability emphasis: It places greater weight on the financial viability of a project than earlier practice did.
    4. Appraisal method: It requires appraisal through economic and social cost benefit analysis, treating urban rail as a public project that delivers a public good.

    What is a Detailed Project Report?

    1. Definition: A Detailed Project Report (DPR) is the blueprint that lays out a metro project’s design, its costs, its ridership projection and its financial viability.
    2. Function: It is the document the Union government appraises the proposal against, and the document later audits measure actual performance against.

    How large has India’s Metro network become?

    1. Fourfold growth: The network has gone from around 250 km a decade ago to more than 1,100 km across 26 megacities and Tier 2 cities, with another 900 km under construction.
    2. Rate of sanction: The government is sanctioning 6 km of Metro lines every month.
    3. A young network: More than three fourths of the current network was conceived, constructed and operationalised less than 10 years ago.
    4. Aggregate ridership: Daily ridership across the country has crossed the 1 crore mark and is expected to exceed 1.25 crore in a year or two.
    5. The capacity argument: Some Delhi Metro corridors handle more than 50,000 passengers in the peak hour in the peak direction, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs calculated in January 2024 that serving that demand by bus would need 715 buses an hour in one direction, roughly one every five seconds.

    Which cities run a Metro, and how do the systems compare?

    1. Kolkata, 1984: The country’s first Metro system, and the only one run by the Indian Railways.
    2. Delhi, 2002: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) now runs 416 km with an average daily ridership of about 64 lakh, the largest network in the country.
    3. Bengaluru, 2011: Namma Metro runs 96 km, the second largest operating system outside the National Capital Region.
    4. Meerut, 2026: The newest system runs 23 km with an average daily ridership of about 1 lakh, a figure that includes RRTS ridership at the shared station.
    5. The rest of the map: Gurgaon opened in 2013, Chennai in 2015, Hyderabad, Kochi and Lucknow in 2017, Ahmedabad and Nagpur in 2019, Noida in 2019, Kanpur in 2021, Pune in 2022, Navi Mumbai in 2023, Agra in 2024, and Bhopal, Indore and Patna in 2025.

    Why does every city want a Metro?

    1. Density of unserved demand: The Greater Noida West association puts around 10 lakh residents and at least 80 societies in the area it says has no rapid transit.
    2. A visible proof of development: Local administrations and politicians want a Metro network in their constituency to demonstrate development, in the assessment of a rail and Metro consultant and former country head of Bombardier Transportation India.
    3. It has entered the manifesto: In five of the last six state elections, in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Bihar and Delhi, at least one major party promised Metro projects, their expansion, or fare concessions.
    4. Party specific claims: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) claimed credit for bringing Metro Rail service to Chennai. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar promised Metro trains in Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Bhagalpur and Darbhanga.

    Why does ridership fall so far short of projection?

    1. The systemic gap: Most Metro systems are meeting just 25 per cent to 35 per cent of their projected ridership, in a 2023 analysis by professors at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Delhi at 47 per cent and Kolkata at 38 per cent fared relatively better.
    2. Bengaluru: Namma Metro was projected to carry 18.54 lakh passengers a day by 2020-21, as recorded by the Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs in a 2022 report, and carries around 10 lakh in 2026.
    3. Kochi: The 28 km system should have reached 5.39 lakh daily riders by now under its DPR and averages around a lakh, with the projection since revised to 1.5 lakh a day, a target the operator hopes to meet in the next 10 months.
    4. Jaipur: Average daily ridership was 51,000 in the inaugural month of June 2015 and stood at 53,000 in June 2026, and the Union Cabinet approved a second phase in April for ₹13,037 crore.
    5. Nagpur: A 2022 Comptroller and Auditor General report found the New Airport station averaged 47 passengers a day over 18 months from the start of commercial operation in March 2019, against 5,474 a day envisaged in the DPR.

    Why does the Metro not fit the way Indian cities actually travel?

    1. Trip length mismatch: Research at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre finds the Metro efficient only for commutes beyond 10 km. Most city commutes are shorter than 5 km, and even in Delhi only 15 per cent of trips exceed 10 km and 7 per cent exceed 20 km.
    2. What the short trip costs: For a short journey a passenger has to add the time taken to reach the station, the stops en route and the last mile at the other end, which other modes avoid.
    3. Alignments miss the destinations: The Ahmedabad Metro does not serve SG Highway, the commercial hub holding the city’s offices and malls, nor the university area.
    4. Last mile decides the mode: A commuter with neither home nor office near a station finds public transport more expensive than a personal scooter or a hired cab.

    What in the city’s own design keeps people out of the Metro?

    1. Driving is not priced: Low or non existent parking charges make private vehicle use cheaper than it should be, and poor footpaths make the walk to a station unattractive.
    2. Feeder networks are not built: Last mile connections and integration across modes rarely materialise once a line opens, in the assessment of a Metro consultant, so a passenger reaches the station on his own or not at all.
    3. The city is not shaped to feed the line: The Mumbai Metro struggles to perform because the city was not planned in a way that channels trips into it, in the assessment of a transportation researcher at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

    Why are fares high, and who does that exclude?

    1. Fares follow the viability test: Metros are obliged to keep fares high mainly to make both ends meet, a consequence the first Managing Director of DMRC attributes to the emphasis the 2017 policy places on financial viability.
    2. Who is priced out: High fares keep out a section of the population. That section turns to less dependable but cheaper public transport.
    3. The pricing only works on some trips: A Lucknow resident finds the 23 km city Metro worth ₹70 for an airport trip against ₹400 by auto, and uses an auto or two wheeler for every daily commute.

    What do other countries’ networks show about where India stands?

    1. Absolute scale: India at 1,100 km is set to overtake the 1,400 km subway system of the United States, and remains far behind China’s 10,000 km network.
    2. Financing and operating culture: The Delhi Metro was funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency through flexible loans. It adopted a Japanese operating ethic centred on punctuality and queue discipline, giving Indian cities a template for dignified urban transit.
    3. When to start planning: The developed country model is to begin planning a Metro when a city’s population crosses 10 lakh and to have the system running by the time it reaches 20 lakh, on which basis the Metros in Patna, Jaipur, Bhopal and Lucknow are justified.
    4. Networks are built over generations: Tokyo, Hong Kong and Paris were not built in a day, so a large infrastructure investment has to begin well ahead of the demand it will eventually serve.
    5. Optimism is not an Indian trait: Large infrastructure projects globally overestimate initial projections and underestimate costs, and the shortfall is routinely overlooked on the ground of greater public good.

    Who decides whether a city needs a Metro?

    1. The decision precedes the study: The process typically begins with a state government deciding it wants a Metro, an idea that crystallises quickly and often before any formal study is done.
    2. The assessor is the beneficiary: State governments create a Metro authority and then ask that same body, which stands to run the project, to assess whether the city should build a Metro at all.
    3. What that produced in Jaipur: A 2017 Comptroller and Auditor General report found the city, with a population of 2.3 million, was not eligible for a metro rail project, and concluded that defective planning and hasty decision making introduced a financially unviable Metro system in Jaipur.
    4. Accountability is thin: Queries to the Metro systems in Delhi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Nagpur, Jaipur and Chennai went unanswered.

    Is the Metro over built, or is it under fed?

    1. For some riders it is the only option: A 21 year old hospital intern living in a central Delhi slum reaches work 17 km away in Noida in 45 minutes by Metro, against a 6 am start at a bus stop to arrive at 9 am, and returns after 9 pm because the Metro feels safe.
    2. The cost of waiting is higher: It is easier and cheaper to build a Metro in a smaller city before it grows and congests, and cities that do not start now will face the situation their larger counterparts already face.
    3. The objection is to the trade off, not the mode: The problem is not that governments promote the Metro but that they do so at the cost of other public transport, so a city must still depend on a reliable road based system alongside it.
    4. The official defence: Ridership projections account for a city’s Master Plan and its future development potential, ridership is significantly influenced by network density and extent, and ridership on many DMRC lines has exceeded the projections made in their DPRs.

    Challenges to metro rail expansion in India

    1. Debt service migrates to the state budget: A corporation borrows against ridership that does not arrive, and repayment then falls on the exchequer. Eg. Kochi Metro Rail has run operating losses since 2017 and depends on continuing state support. Fix. Fund a defined share of operations from a dedicated urban transport levy on fuel and parking rather than from the farebox alone.
    2. No unified metropolitan transport authority: Bus, metro, suburban rail and para transit run as separate agencies with separate fares and no common timetable. Eg. Delhi’s Metro, cluster buses and Delhi Transport Corporation services operated for years without a single ticket. Fix. Constitute statutory Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities with fare setting and route rationalisation powers, as the National Urban Transport Policy, 2006 envisaged.
    3. The land value the line creates is not captured: Property owners along a corridor capture the price rise that public investment produced. Eg. Land values near Delhi Metro corridors rose sharply with no betterment levy accruing to the operator. Fix. Levy a betterment charge along corridors and grant development rights over station land to the metro corporation.
    4. Fare revision is politically blocked: Costs rise annually and fares are revised only when a government is willing to absorb the reaction. Eg. Delhi Metro fares went unrevised for years after the 2017 revision despite rising energy and staff costs. Fix. Make revision automatic through an indexed formula operated by a statutory Fare Fixation Committee.
    5. Signalling and rolling stock depend on a few suppliers: Core train control technology is supplied by a small set of foreign vendors, which raises cost and lengthens delivery. Eg. Communications based train control systems on Indian metros are supplied largely by three global vendors. Fix. Use the domestic content requirement in metro procurement to qualify Indian signalling suppliers through a guaranteed order pipeline.

    Conclusion

    India is adding metro rail faster than it is adding the ridership, fares and feeder transport that would make the network work, because the demand being satisfied is political and territorial rather than a measured transport demand. Nothing in the record suggests the mode is wrong for the corridors that genuinely carry the volume, and the record does show that the appraisal deciding which corridors those are is conducted by the body that stands to build them. The unresolved question is whether appraisal will be separated from execution, and whether bus and road based transport will be funded alongside the Metro rather than after it.

    “[2014, GS3, 12.5 marks] National Urban Transport Policy emphasises on ‘moving people’ instead of ‘moving vehicles’. Discuss critically the success of the various strategies of the Government in this regard.”

  • On interest rates, can’t be both dovish & hawkish

    Why in the News

    The Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) voted unanimously at its last meeting to hold the benchmark repo rate at 5.25 per cent, in a policy read as more dovish than expected. The minutes of that same meeting, released a few days ago, point the other way. Members drawn from the central bank displayed a distinct hawkishness, and the Bank’s own inflation projections imply negative real interest rates on a forward basis. The divergence is the problem: a stance described as neutral cannot be reconciled with projections that would stimulate activity, nor with a growth assessment the Bank itself calls resilient.

    What is a monetary policy stance?

    1. What it signals: The stance states the direction of the committee’s next expected move on the policy rate. That signal is separate from the rate set on the day.
    2. Accommodative: The committee signals that the next move is a cut, or that liquidity will stay supportive of demand.
    3. Neutral: The committee commits to no direction and keeps both a cut and a hike open at the following meeting.
    4. Tightening or withdrawal of accommodation: The committee signals that the next move is a hike, or the removal of surplus liquidity from the system.

    What is the real interest rate?

    1. Definition: The real interest rate is the nominal policy rate less expected inflation, so it measures what a lender actually earns once prices have risen.
    2. Why the sign matters: A negative real rate makes money cheaper than the rate at which prices are rising, which pushes households and firms toward borrowing and spending.

    What did the last policy decision signal?

    1. The stance retained: The committee kept the stance neutral alongside that hold.
    2. The tone: The policy read as more dovish than many analysts had expected at the time.
    3. The inference drawn: Analysts concluded that rate hikes were not imminent, even with inflation projected above target.

    How do the minutes of the same meeting read differently?

    1. A reversal in signal: The minutes suggest the current situation is unlikely to be maintained over the near term, and the divergence from the policy statement is striking.
    2. The internal members hardened: That hawkishness came from the members drawn from the central bank, not from the committee as a whole.
    3. How far each went: An assessment by economists at the State Bank of India reads the Governor’s minutes statement as showing an inclination toward policy tightening, records a Deputy Governor calling for a possible rate hike later in the year, and notes an Executive Director stopping just short of the same call.
    4. A different objection from outside: External members of the committee drew attention instead to the real interest rate.

    Can a neutral stance sit with negative real interest rates?

    1. The projections: The Bank has pegged inflation at 5.9 per cent in the third quarter, 5.5 per cent in the fourth quarter, and 5.3 per cent in the first quarter of the next financial year.
    2. What they imply: Against a repo rate of 5.25 per cent, those projections put real interest rates in negative territory on a forward basis.
    3. What negative real rates do: They stimulate economic activity, which is a different setting from the stance the committee has adopted.
    4. What neutral is supposed to mean: The Governor has previously stated that a neutral stance implies no support for economic activity and no support for controlling inflation.
    5. The growth assessment compounds it: The Bank describes growth as resilient, supported by domestic demand, sustained expansion in manufacturing and services activity, and robust exports, which removes the case for a stimulative real rate.

    What does the same uncertainty look like at other central banks?

    1. A shared condition: Central banks across the world are grappling with uncertainty over inflation and over the course of monetary policy.
    2. The United States: The Federal Reserve maintained interest rates in July, and the path of policy after that remains unclear.
    3. The same gap between decision and minutes: The minutes of that Federal Reserve meeting record that several participants favoured an increase of 25 basis points in the target range.

    What will decide the next move?

    1. The October meeting: By the time the committee meets next in October, there should be more clarity on agriculture and on the trajectory of inflation.
    2. The projections as the signal: The Bank’s revised inflation projections will show what it expects of underlying price pressures going forward.
    3. The consequence: Those expectations are what would produce an adjustment in the policy rate.

    Challenges to India’s flexible inflation targeting framework

    1. A headline target moved by food: Food and beverages carry close to half the weight in the Consumer Price Index, so the target responds to harvests that no policy rate can influence. Eg. Vegetable price spikes pushed headline inflation above the upper tolerance band in 2023 and 2024. Core inflation stayed subdued through the same period. Fix. Publish an explicit core inflation reference alongside the headline target, so the committee’s tolerance for supply shocks is visible in advance.
    2. An ageing consumption basket: The index in use rests on a consumption pattern captured years ago, so the measured basket drifts from what households actually buy. Eg. Services such as data, health insurance and education are underweighted relative to current household spending. Fix. Fix a statutory revision cycle for the index base year so the measure and the target are reset together.
    3. Exchange rate pressure competes with the target: Rate decisions taken for domestic prices collide with the management of capital flows. Eg. Record foreign portfolio outflows in 2025-26 forced heavy intervention to steady the rupee. Fix. State an explicit order of priority between the inflation target and exchange rate smoothing in the policy statement.
    4. No fiscal counterpart to the target: The framework binds the central bank alone, with no matching commitment on borrowing. Eg. Heavy government borrowing keeps longer tenor yields elevated regardless of where the repo rate is set. Fix. Pair each five year target reset with a stated debt to gross domestic product path under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003.
    5. Accountability stops at a report: A sustained breach obliges a report and nothing further. Eg. The report on a target breach goes to the Central Government and is not laid before Parliament. Fix. Require the report to be tabled in Parliament with a stated corrective path and a review date.

    Conclusion

    A unanimous hold read as dovish now sits alongside minutes that record internal calls for tightening and projections that imply negative real rates. The policy statement, the stance and the projections are describing three different settings, and only one of them can be the policy. The October meeting, with clearer information on agriculture and on the inflation trajectory, is where that inconsistency has to be resolved into either a rate move or a change of stance.

    “[2023] Consider the following statements :

    Statement-I: In the post-pandemic recent past, many Central Banks worldwide had carried out interest rate hikes.

    Statement-II: Central Banks generally assume that they have the ability to counteract the rising consumer prices via monetary policy means.

    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