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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

  • Focus on the children, not the platform

    Focus on the children, not the platform

    Why in the News

    Meta has settled a $171 billion case with several United States States over allegations about the effect of its apps on children’s mental health. The settlement requires daily usage limits and “nighttime blocks” for teenagers. It requires “enhanced age assurance measures” (checks intended to establish a user’s age before access is granted) to keep children off the apps. It also requires the depersonalisation of feeds, so a child is served random content rather than content matched to that child’s interests. The outcome is being read as a step towards holding platforms accountable. That framing places the platform at the centre of the problem rather than the child, and the two framings do not produce the same policy.

    Why does a platform centric approach to child safety misfire?

    1. The measures are difficult to enforce: An age gate assumes a child will not defeat it, while children are sophisticated and motivated users of technology who find ways around such checks.
    2. It ignores what children need to be safe online: Poorly designed recommendation systems expose children to harmful content, and stripping personalisation replaces that risk with irrelevant or inappropriate material. It also makes it harder for educational and support services to reach the children who need them.
    3. Online spaces are the only support some children have: Children experiencing neglect or abuse, LGBTQIA+ children and socially isolated children use platforms to find information, companionship or help. A child’s participation is not confined to one service, so a platform that becomes too restrictive simply loses them to platforms with weaker protections.
    4. The offline environment is what pushes children online: In India screens fill a vacuum rather than displacing abundant offline opportunities, because many children have no access to safe public spaces or affordable recreational facilities.

    What would a child centred approach ask for instead?

    1. Equip the child, as is done in the physical world: Children are taught what not to share, how to respond to unsolicited contact, how to recognise manipulation, when to block or report someone, and when to seek help.
    2. Treat digital literacy as the instrument, not the afterthought: Digital literacy and sensitisation are what change a child’s behaviour at the moment a technical control fails, and they receive far less policy attention than platform obligations.
    3. Address the whole ecology of childhood: Responsibility sits across platforms, parents, schools, communities, public spaces and children themselves, so a measure aimed at one of the six leaves the other five untouched.

    Why does the harder answer receive less policy attention?

    1. A platform obligation is visible and countable: A regulator can order a control, verify that it shipped, and record compliance, none of which a curriculum or a public playground delivers on the same timescale.
    2. India’s move so far is a recommendation, not a mandate: The 2026 Economic Survey called for a digital wellness curriculum in schools, and whether it is implemented widely and appropriately is untested.
    3. The effective lever sits outside the regulator’s reach: Digital literacy runs through school systems and recreational space runs through municipalities, while enforcement powers sit with technology and data protection regulators.
    4. The argument does not absolve platforms: Platform responsibility survives intact, and the contest is over which lever produces a safer child rather than over whether platforms owe anything at all.

    Conclusion

    Child online safety is presently measured by the number of controls a service ships. The better measure is what a child is able to do when a control fails, and the settlement model produces no information about that at all. The capability side of the problem belongs to schools, parents and municipalities. The enforcement side belongs to a technology regulator, and nobody owns the gap between the two.

    Child Online Safety in India

    1. What the field covers: The rules governing children’s access to online services, the data those services may collect about a child, and the content they may direct at one.
    2. How India regulates it: Through due diligence obligations on intermediaries under technology law and consent rules under data protection law, rather than through a single children’s online safety statute.
    3. Who counts as a child: Indian data protection law treats every person below 18 as a child, a higher threshold than the 13 year line used in United States children’s privacy law.

    Laws and Rules Governing Child Online Safety

    1. Information Technology Act, 2000, amended in 2008: The parent statute for offences committed through a computer resource, carrying Section 66D on cheating by impersonation and Section 69 on interception.
    2. Section 67B separately punishes publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit acts.
    3. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, amended in 2023: Impose due diligence, grievance redressal and content takedown obligations on intermediaries.
    4. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, with the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025: Govern consent, data fiduciary duties, breach notification and the Data Protection Board of India.
    5. Section 9 requires verifiable parental consent before a child’s personal data is processed, and bars tracking, behavioural monitoring and advertising targeted at children.
    6. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012: Defines and punishes sexual offences against persons below 18, covers offences committed using electronic material, and makes reporting mandatory.

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

  • Missing: boundary walls, bathrooms, blackboards

    Why in the News

    Government schools across Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are running without boundary walls, functional wash rooms, sufficient classrooms or electricity. Children in several of them sit on verandas, under trees, or in a single room shared with storage almirahs and meal utensils. A citizen audit campaign called ‘School thik karo’, run by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) since 15 August, asks residents to download a checklist, audit their local school and post the findings, covering drinking water, boundary walls, wash rooms and midday meals. These schools have sanctioned buildings, sanctioned teaching posts and an annual maintenance head in the budget. What is absent is the capacity to convert those into a room a child can sit in. State attention has meanwhile moved to a small tier of flagship institutions.

    What did the four State ground reports find?

    1. Bihar, schools operating without a facility of any kind: Three schools in Muzaffarpur and Vaishali districts run without a boundary wall, a wash room or storage for midday meal supplies.
    2. A primary school of 119 students, established in 1982, has plaster falling from the corridor its two classrooms open onto. Its six teachers use neighbours’ bathrooms and the children go in the open.
    3. A middle school of 283 students has two rooms, so Class 8 sits on the veranda and Classes 1 and 2 sit under a tree behind the kitchen.
    4. A primary school in Vaishali has no building of its own. It runs 91 students across Classes 1 to 5 in a single room of a community centre, alongside department almirahs and meal utensils.
    5. Rajasthan, the approach to the school is itself the barrier: In Unchki village of Deeg district there is no public road to the school, so students walk through a graveyard and a muddy path to reach it.
    6. Corridors serve as classrooms in three schools of the district, and one teacher takes Classes 4 and 5 together for want of rooms or electricity.
    7. None of the three has functional wash rooms, so children walk home in the middle of the school day and return.
    8. The district falls within the National Capital Region and lies 165 km from Delhi.
    9. Uttar Pradesh, the cost of a dirty wash room: A cab driver in Lucknow is moving his 11 year old daughter out of a government primary school after a prolonged urinary tract infection that the family attributes to the school’s wash room.
    10. The transfer costs an additional Rs 4,000 a month, which the household is meeting by cutting other spending.
    11. Drinking water at the school arrives intermittently and the wash room’s water supply is often dysfunctional, so students fetch water from nearby houses.
    12. Madhya Pradesh, buildings condemned and services withdrawn: A middle school in Hirapur village of Sehore district runs eight classes in three rooms, after the primary block on the same premises was abandoned six months ago.
    13. Its 22 students sit on mats without benches, in rooms with dim lighting, broken almirahs, fans that do not work and rainwater seeping through the roof.
    14. One of the two student wash rooms is functional, so girls and boys use the same toilet.
    15. The self help group contracted to cook the midday meal stopped three months ago, and the school in charge is buying ration himself while awaiting reimbursement.
    16. A second school 20 km away, of 104 students, has had its electricity connection cut because water leaking through the ceiling was reaching the wiring.

    Where does the teaching itself break down?

    1. Attendance runs at roughly half the roll: Teachers at the three Rajasthan schools say 50 to 60 percent of enrolled students come on a given day, and they attribute part of that absence to the infrastructure.
    2. Posted teachers are absent or shared: At one Rajasthan school neither of the two teachers came on the day of the visit, and a teacher posted elsewhere visits only after finishing his own school day.
    3. Senior classes go unstaffed: At the Madhya Pradesh school of 104 students, all three teachers for Classes 6 to 8 were on leave and the principal was away at a training exercise, leaving two primary teachers in charge.
    4. The commute eats the school day: One headmaster travels 15 km each way and a teacher 40 km daily by motorcycle to reach schools in rural Bihar.
    5. Staff are under orders not to speak: Teachers in the Rajasthan schools said their supervisors had instructed them not to speak to the media, so their complaints surface only anonymously.

    Why do repairs not happen even when schools ask for them?

    1. The annual grant cannot fund a repair: One Madhya Pradesh school receives Rs 25,000 a year for miscellaneous works, which is spent on hiring a worker once a month to clean the wash rooms.
    2. Proposals go unanswered for years: That school has sent annual repair proposals for five years without a response, over the same period its building has been in poor condition.
    3. The panchayat fills the gap the department leaves: Its floor, boundary wall and gate were built by the village panchayat after a school alumnus became its head.
    4. Budget is the stated reason given to schools: Rajasthan teachers say district authorities answer requests for more classrooms by citing the absence of budget, while the District Magistrate’s position is that complaints are acted on quickly and vacancies filled regularly.
    5. Attention has moved to a flagship tier: A State School Education Department official says the focus in Madhya Pradesh has been on Sandipani Schools, earlier called CM Rise, and Excellence schools, so small rural schools have struggled for basic infrastructure.

    Who stays in these schools, and who leaves?

    1. The exit has a price: A private school near the Rajasthan cluster costs about Rs 18,000 a year, which a grandparent says rules out sending all his grandchildren to one.
    2. Enrolment collapses where an alternative exists: The Madhya Pradesh middle school runs eight classes for fewer children than a single functioning class would hold, and the school in charge says dominant communities in the village send their children to private schools.
    3. Those who remain are the poorest: Most of the students left at that school are from marginalised communities, and its neglect tracks who is left in it.
    4. Residents read the neglect as targeted: Locals around the Rajasthan schools allege that their requests are ignored because they live in predominantly Muslim areas.
    5. The reason parents give is not academic: The Lucknow parent cites a peaceful atmosphere in which a child can concentrate, not examination results, as what the private school offers.

    Conclusion

    A school counts as functioning in the record when it has a building, a sanctioned staff strength and a maintenance head in the budget. None of those three states whether a child can sit in a lit room, use a toilet, or eat a cooked meal that day. The forward move is to make the release of school funds conditional on periodic physical verification of those conditions, rather than on the return the school files about itself. Until that link exists, the audit is being done by residents with a downloaded checklist while departmental records show nothing wrong.

    Back2Basics: Sandipani Schools, earlier CM Rise Schools

    1. What they are: A Madhya Pradesh government programme creating a tier of well resourced composite schools, running from the pre primary stage to Class 12 on a single campus.
    2. What they provide: Selected schools receive upgraded buildings, laboratories, libraries, digital classrooms and transport for students drawn from surrounding villages.
    3. How they differ from an ordinary school: They are a small, high investment tier rather than a universal upgrade, so a district holds a handful of them alongside its regular government schools.
    4. Why the name changed: The schools were launched as CM Rise Schools and were later renamed Sandipani Vidyalaya.

    [2022, GS2, 15 marks] The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 remains inadequate in promoting incentive-based system for children’s education without generating awareness about the importance of schooling. Analyse.”

  • Play leading role in skilling push: Govt tells industry

    Play leading role in skilling push: Govt tells industry

    Why in the News

    The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has asked industry to take the leading role in the Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs (PM-SETU) scheme. The scheme’s own design already places industry there. Industry partners take a controlling 51 percent stake in the Section 8 companies (not for profit companies registered under the Companies Act, 2013, which cannot pay dividends to their members) that will manage clusters of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). The Centre and the States put up the bulk of the money. Industry’s 17 percent share qualifies as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending. Control over curriculum, technology and delivery therefore passes to a partner whose own contribution comes out of a statutory obligation rather than commercial risk capital.

    What is PM-SETU?

    1. What it is: A central scheme carrying an outlay of Rs 60,000 crore to upgrade government Industrial Training Institutes.
    2. What it funds: Upgraded laboratories, new machines and revised trade curricula at the institutes it covers.
    3. What it is measured on: Employability, since the stated purpose is the quality and relevance of vocational training rather than the number of training seats created.

    What does the ownership structure change?

    1. Industry holds control of the managing entity: Industry partners take a controlling 51 percent stake in the Section 8 companies that will manage ITI clusters.
    2. The state pays and industry decides: The Centre and the States provide the bulk of the funding, against an industry contribution of 17 percent.
    3. The industry share is a statutory obligation, not risk capital: That 17 percent is eligible under Corporate Social Responsibility, so the controlling partner can meet it from money the Companies Act, 2013 already requires it to spend.
    4. What moves into the partner’s hands: Curriculum design, technology adoption and the running of skill development pass to the industry partner.

    Why is industry being asked to lead?

    1. The demand side gets to write the syllabus: Placing curriculum and technology decisions with employers is meant to keep trade training aligned to the machines and processes actually in use.
    2. The immediate driver is the energy and manufacturing transition: The appeal was addressed to the power and utilities industry, whose workforce requirements are changing as generation and grid technology change.
    3. A working cluster is being held up as the model: ArcelorMittal’s leadership of the Vizag cluster has been cited as the benchmark for what the arrangement should produce.
    4. Institute workshops lag the shop floor: ITIs have long trained on equipment that industry has already replaced, which is the specific gap upgraded labs and employer set curricula are meant to close.

    Challenges to PM-SETU

    1. Most trades have no anchor employer: A cluster needs a large firm willing to hold a controlling stake and carry the management burden, which exists in steel or power and not across most trades an ITI teaches. Eg. Plumbing, welding and electrical work are served largely by contractors and micro enterprises, with no single firm able to lead a cluster.
      The Fix: Allow a sector skill council or an industry association to hold the controlling stake in trades where no single anchor firm exists.
    2. Corporate Social Responsibility money contracts in a downturn: A partner funding its share from CSR can redirect that spending in a year when its own hiring slows. Eg. The obligation is calculated at two percent of average net profits of the preceding three financial years, so it falls exactly when industrial demand falls.
      The Fix: Fix the industry contribution as a multi year commitment inside the cluster agreement, so a cluster’s operating budget does not track one partner’s profits.
    3. Control is granted without an outcome obligation: A controlling stake gives industry decision rights over publicly funded assets with no placement or wage commitment attached to those rights. Eg. The National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme has repeatedly recorded engagement below its sanctioned targets, since participation carried no binding hiring commitment.
      The Fix: Tie renewal of a cluster’s management contract to verified placement and wage outcomes for its trainees.
    4. Clusters will form where industry already is: The model reproduces the existing gap between industrialised and lagging States, because the anchor employer is the precondition. Eg. Institutes in the north eastern States operate with far thinner employer presence than those in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat or Maharashtra.
      The Fix: Reserve a share of central funding for clusters in districts with no large anchor employer, with a public sector undertaking as the lead partner.
    5. The trained worker is a poachable asset: A Section 8 company cannot distribute surplus, so a firm’s only return is the workers it hires, and a competitor can hire them instead. Eg. A firm that trains a welder who then joins a rival bears the full cost and gets none of the benefit, which is the standard problem in employer funded training.
      The Fix: Publish cluster wise trainee supply data so participating firms recruit from a pool they collectively financed rather than each underwriting a rival’s hiring.

    Conclusion

    The scheme moves the state from provider of vocational training to financier of it. That works where a large employer wants the workers and is willing to run the institution, and the scheme has not said who takes charge in the trades where neither condition holds. The marker to watch is the first set of cluster agreements, and specifically whether any hiring or wage commitment is attached to the controlling stake.

    Back2Basics: Industrial Training Institutes

    1. What they are: Post school institutions offering trade level vocational training in engineering and non engineering trades, entered after Class 8, 10 or 12 depending on the trade.
    2. Who runs them: Government institutes are run by State governments alongside a large private sector, with standards set by the Directorate General of Training under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
    3. What a trainee gets: Trainees sit the All India Trade Test and are awarded the National Trade Certificate.
    4. Where they sit in the system: They form the country’s oldest and largest formal vocational training network, run under the Craftsmen Training Scheme since 1950.

    [2023, GS2, 15 marks] Skill development programs have succeed in increasing human resources supply to various sectors. In the context of the statement analyze the linkages between education, skill and employment.

  • Centre’s rationale for not using OBC lists for caste enumeration is flawed, say associations

    Centre’s rationale for not using OBC lists for caste enumeration is flawed, say associations

    Why in the News

    Associations representing Other Backward Classes (OBC) have rejected the Union government’s stated reason for not using the Central and State OBC lists in the caste enumeration component of the 2027 Census. The government’s position is that those lists record classes rather than castes, so caste names cannot be drawn and codified from them. Castes other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes will instead be recorded through an open column, in which the enumerator writes down what the respondent states. The associations argue that a government which recognises these communities as OBCs for reservation cannot disregard their caste identities when it collects population data. What is contested is whether an enumeration run without a pre-coded caste frame can produce a usable OBC population figure at all.

    How would the two methods of enumeration differ?

    1. The open column method: Castes other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are recorded as stated by the respondent, without a pre-coded list of caste names for the enumerator to select from.
    2. The list based alternative: Caste names would have been drawn from the Central and State OBC lists and codified in advance, so responses map onto a fixed set of entries.
    3. Where the lists already exist: The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are enumerated against notified lists, which is the precedent the associations point to.

    What is the government’s reason, and how do the associations answer it?

    1. The stated rationale: The OBC lists identify backward classes rather than castes, so caste names cannot be lifted from them for enumeration.
    2. The associations’ core objection: The All India OBC Students’ Association (AIOBCSA) calls the class and caste distinction artificial, arguing that a government recognising these communities as OBCs for reservation and other affirmative action cannot then disregard their caste identities when collecting population data.
    3. Fix the lists rather than drop them: The associations say that if the existing lists are inadequate or carry inconsistencies for enumeration, the government should use experts to draw and rationalise the caste names from them, not “drop them altogether”.
    4. Administrative records already do both: The AIOBCSA points out that certificates and official records routinely identify communities by their specific social and caste identities, and that even Economically Weaker Section certificates identify the beneficiary through prescribed social or category criteria. Administrative classification and social identity therefore coexist in practice.
    5. A charge of bad faith: The OBC Public Representatives Forum said the justification adds to the perception that the government agreed to enumerate castes with no real intention of doing it properly.

    Why do the associations link this to the EWS estimate?

    1. The estimate behind EWS: When the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota was introduced, the government worked with an estimate that the population outside the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs was about 35 to 40 percent.
    2. What a rigorous count would do to it: The Backwards Classes Intellectual Forum argues that a scientific enumeration of OBC populations would show that estimate to be an overestimation.
    3. The alleged motive: The same body argues that the refusal to codify existing caste names and count caste group populations, as is done for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, is intended to cover up the basis on which EWS reservation was justified.

    Why has the OBC count been the core of the caste Census demand?

    1. The figure has never been counted: The OBC population across the country has only ever been estimated in India, based on the caste Census data of 1931.
    2. The demand was built on that gap: Enumerating the OBC population has historically been the principal argument driving the demand for a caste Census.
    3. The method is what is now questioned: Senior Opposition leaders have questioned the utility of the open column methodology for enumerating every caste other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

    Challenges to caste enumeration through an open column

    1. Free text responses multiply into unusable entries: A column with no pre-coded frame collects spellings, surnames, sub castes and clan names as separate answers, and classifying them afterwards becomes a second exercise larger than the count. Eg. The Socio Economic and Caste Census, 2011 returned roughly 46 lakh distinct caste and related entries, and its caste data was never released.
      The Fix: Publish a codified caste directory built from the Central and State lists and State commission reports before enumeration, and let the open column carry only the entries that directory does not hold.
    2. No single classification governs across States: Central and State OBC lists differ, so the same caste name can carry backward class status in one State and not in another or at the Centre. Eg. Jats were added to the Central OBC list in 2014 and the inclusion was set aside by the Supreme Court in Ram Singh versus Union of India (2015), while several States continue to list them.
      The Fix: Record the State of enumeration against each caste entry, so the count can be read against the list actually applicable to that respondent.
    3. Data collected without a publication commitment invites contest: A count whose tables and methodology are not released cannot settle any claim, and every group then disputes its own number. Eg. Bihar’s caste survey of 2023 was challenged in court, and several communities publicly disputed the figures recorded for them.
      The Fix: Fix a statutory deadline for publishing the caste tables together with the methodology note.
    4. Self declaration can be strategic: Where recognition carries reservation benefits, the answer given to an enumerator responds to the benefit rather than to the record. Eg. Sections of the Maratha community in Maharashtra have pressed for recognition as Kunbi in official records in order to access OBC reservation.
      The Fix: Cross check declared entries against existing caste certificate records at the tabulation stage rather than at the point of enumeration.

    Conclusion

    The same administration recognises these communities by caste for the purpose of reservation and declines to name them by caste for the purpose of counting. That is the contradiction the associations have put on the record, and no procedural reason offered so far reconciles the two positions. The decision also determines whether the coming enumeration produces a number that can be used in policy or one that has to be reclassified before anyone can read it. What to watch is whether a codified caste directory is issued to enumerators before fieldwork begins.

    Back2Basics: Economically Weaker Section reservation

    1. What it is: A 10 percent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for economically weaker sections outside the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
    2. Its constitutional basis: It was introduced by the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019, inserting Articles 15(6) and 16(6).
    3. How eligibility is set: Eligibility rests on income and asset criteria notified by the government, not on social or educational backwardness.
    4. Its judicial status: The Supreme Court upheld the amendment in Janhit Abhiyan versus Union of India (2022) by a majority of three to two.

    [2022, GS2, 10 marks] Discuss the role of the National Commission for Backward Classes in the wake of its transformation from a statutory body to a constitutional body.

  • Govt has deferred Census in Manipur amid calls for NRC to be carried out

    Govt has deferred Census in Manipur amid calls for NRC to be carried out

    Why in the News

    The Union government has decided to defer the 2027 Census in Manipur. The decision followed a meeting of the Union Home Minister with the Governor and the Chief Minister of Manipur, and the State government said it came out of discussions on the demand that the Census be held only after a National Register of Citizens (NRC), a register of persons verified as Indian citizens, is implemented in the State. Meitei and Naga organisations want citizenship settled before any population figure is recorded. Kuki-Zo organisations want the reverse order, arguing that the Census is the credible data source against which citizenship allegations should be tested. The count is contested because the same figures will eventually decide how Assembly seats are shared between the valley and the hills.

    Why is the Census being opposed?

    1. Citizenship and demographic change: Meitei civil society groups in the valley and Naga communities in the hill districts allege that migration from Myanmar and elsewhere has altered Manipur’s demographic composition. They want an exercise distinguishing Indian citizens from illegal immigrants before population figures are recorded.
    2. Displacement from the ethnic conflict: Thousands remain displaced more than three years after the violence that began in May 2023. Meitei groups say a count taken while people live away from their homes would record the consequences of displacement rather than the underlying population pattern.
    3. Political representation: Census figures will eventually govern delimitation, and Manipur has had no fresh delimitation implemented since the 1970s.

    How old is the NRC demand?

    1. It predates the current conflict: The demand existed before the May 2023 violence, and the influx from Myanmar and the conflict later gave it a sharper political and security dimension.
    2. A joint memorandum in 2022: In June 2022 the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), representing Meitei civil society, and the United Naga Council (UNC) jointly demanded an NRC and a State Population Commission.
    3. The Assembly endorsed it twice: The Manipur Assembly adopted a resolution seeking both on 5 August 2022, and reaffirmed it on 1 March 2024.
    4. The growth figures the resolution cited: The resolution recorded population growth of 153.3 percent between 1971 and 2001 and 250.9 percent between 2001 and 2011 in the hill districts, against 94.8 percent and 125.4 percent respectively in the valley. Those figures do not by themselves establish illegal immigration.
    5. An institution was created: The State government constituted the Manipur State Population Commission in February 2023.

    What did the Myanmar crisis add?

    1. Displacement across the border: Fighting in Myanmar’s Chin State and adjoining areas after the 2021 military coup drove thousands across the border into India.
    2. Ethnic links on both sides of the border: Many of those arriving belonged to Chin and related communities with ethnic and familial ties to the Kuki-Zomi population in Manipur.
    3. The State government’s framing: The Manipur government linked the influx to new settlements, poppy cultivation, encroachment and demographic change.
    4. The counter position: Kuki organisations disputed that framing, arguing that legitimate Indian citizens were being conflated with recent arrivals from Myanmar.
    5. A border policy change: The Centre scrapped the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar in February 2024, citing security and demographic concerns.

    What are the Meitei and Naga groups demanding now?

    1. A fixed sequence: The UNC stated on 18 August, “NRC first: No Census, No Delimitation Before Implementation of NRC in Manipur.”
    2. An old base year: It demanded an NRC with 1951 as the base year, followed by the Census and then delimitation.
    3. The demand cuts across party lines: The State Congress president, himself a former Chief Minister, supported the demand for an NRC before the Census on 19 and 20 August, placing the two main parties broadly on the same side.

    Why do the Kuki-Zo groups oppose it?

    1. A national exercise, not a State one: The Kuki-Zo Council called an NRC before the Census “premature and unjustified”, stating on 23 August that there is no provision for a community or a State government to unilaterally initiate a separate NRC in one State.
    2. Allegations should be tested against data: It argued that the demand rests on unsubstantiated allegations about the Kuki-Zo community, and that such claims should be tested against credible demographic data. The Census is the appropriate source of that data.
    3. It supports delimitation on verified data: The Council has backed delimitation once verified demographic figures exist.
    4. The documentary cut off is the underlying fear: Kuki, Zomi and Chin communities straddle the India-Myanmar border, so a register built on an old documentary cut off could raise doubts about people who have lived in Manipur for generations.

    Why does delimitation matter so much here?

    1. The present seat split: Manipur has 60 Assembly seats, 40 in the valley and 20 in the hills.
    2. The demographic map behind it: The State’s 16 districts divide broadly into hills, where Nagas and Kuki-Zomis predominate, and the valley, where Meiteis are in the majority.
    3. The map is more than fifty years old: The present political map goes back to the 1973 delimitation, which was based on the 1971 Census.
    4. Manipur was left out of the last exercise: A national delimitation based on the 2001 Census ran between 2002 and 2008, and Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland were excluded after the Centre deferred it in 2008, citing security concerns and challenges to the credibility of the 2001 Census data in the region.
    5. The disputed 2001 figures: In nine hill subdivisions the increase between 1991 and 2001 was over 40 percent, and in four it exceeded 100 percent.
    6. What the valley’s political class fears: A new Census followed by delimitation could move the 40:20 distribution to something closer to 35:25 or 30:30.

    Can an NRC be held only in Manipur, and what else is the Centre weighing?

    1. The usual national sequence is stalled: A nationwide NRC is supposed to follow an update of the National Population Register (NPR), a register of usual residents, and the government has not notified the NPR to be taken up with the 2027 Census.
    2. No legal bar on a State specific exercise: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 vests the power to compulsorily register citizens and maintain the National Register of Indian Citizens in the Centre. No statutory requirement makes simultaneous nationwide deployment necessary.
    3. The decision is political rather than legal: The Centre could in principle notify the exercise for a particular State or border region, and the recorded position is that this is a political call.
    4. An alternative route already exists: A High-Level Committee on Demographic Change, announced in May this year, is examining demographic change arising from illegal immigration and other abnormal causes, and will recommend policy, legislative and administrative measures. Its findings could form the basis of a policy specific to Manipur.

    Challenges to holding the Census in Manipur

    1. Displacement distorts where people are counted: An enumeration records a person where they are living on the reference date, so a district hosting relief camps absorbs the population of the district people fled. Eg. Displaced Kashmiri Pandit families have been counted in Jammu and Delhi rather than in their home districts across successive Censuses.
      The Fix: Record a home district field for persons enumerated in relief camps, so displacement is visible in the data instead of silently altering district totals.
    2. A register built on an old base year excludes documented residents: Citizenship registration turns on producing legacy documents, which the poorest and the most mobile are least able to hold. Eg. Assam’s updated register, worked against a 1971 cut off, left 19,06,657 persons out of the final list published in August 2019, and the appeals process has still not concluded.
      The Fix: Publish the documentary standard and a binding appeal timeline before enumeration begins, so exclusion is contestable within a fixed period.
    3. A deferred count leaves the State on stale data: Allocations for welfare programmes are pegged to Census population, so a State that is skipped keeps running on figures more than a decade old. Eg. Coverage under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is still fixed against the 2011 Census population.
      The Fix: Notify an alternative statutory data source, such as updated ration and electoral rolls, for allocations in the deferred State until enumeration is held.
    4. The credibility of the count is itself contested in the region: A count that any side believes is inflated cannot settle the question it is being deferred to answer. Eg. Nagaland recorded decadal growth of about 64 percent in the 2001 Census and a fall of about 0.6 percent in 2011, and the earlier count was widely described within the State as inflated.
      The Fix: Publish subdivision level growth anomalies alongside post enumeration survey results, so a disputed count is audited rather than defended.

    Conclusion

    Deferring the count postpones the dispute without resolving either question behind it. The two demands cannot be met on the same timetable, since one side wants citizenship settled before people are counted and the other wants the count to test the citizenship allegations. A deferral also leaves the State without the current population data that its own programmes and its own representation ultimately rest on. What to watch is whether the Centre fixes a date for enumeration in the State or lets the deferral run open ended.

    Back2Basics: National Register of Indian Citizens

    1. What it is: A register of persons verified as citizens of India, maintained by the Centre.
    2. Its statutory basis: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 empowers the Centre to compulsorily register every citizen and to issue national identity cards.
    3. How it is meant to be built: The rules contemplate verification of the particulars collected in the National Population Register to sort residents into citizens and doubtful cases.
    4. Where it has been done: The only State level exercise so far was in Assam, carried out under Supreme Court supervision, with the final list published in 2019.

    “[2009] Consider the following statements :

    1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times.

    2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled.

    Which of the statements given abova is/are correct ?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

  • CJP cases scrapped: Supreme Court’s much-debated powers under Article 142

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has used Article 142 of the Constitution to quash first information reports filed across several States against participants in the nationwide examination protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The order gives legal force to an assurance the Union government had already given to CJP members. A negotiated settlement between the Centre and a protest group therefore takes effect as a judicial decree. Article 142 allows the Court to pass any decree or order necessary for doing “complete justice” in a matter pending before it, and it neither defines that phrase nor states when the power may be used. The Court has itself held that this power may fill a gap in a statute but may not override a statutory scheme. What is contested is whether quashing thousands of pending cases in a single order, without examining any of them on its own facts, fills such a gap or replaces one.

    What is Article 142?

    1. The text of the power: Article 142 lets the Supreme Court pass such decree or order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
    2. What the provision leaves open: It does not define “complete justice” and it does not specify the circumstances in which the power may be used.
    3. Its statutory ancestor: The provision traces to Section 210 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and behind that to the colonial practice of deciding disputes on “justice, equity and good conscience” where the written law was silent.

    How did a power this wide enter the Constitution without debate?

    1. Adopted as Draft Article 118: The provision appeared in the Draft Constitution as Article 118 and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 27 May 1949 without a debate.
    2. Two amendments were dropped: Two amendments to it were moved and then withdrawn.
    3. The nearest the Assembly came to discussing it: During an earlier debate on a related Article granting the court special leave to hear appeals, the member Krishna Chandra Sharma compared the proposed powers to the Privy Council’s own power to step in wherever justice demanded, appeal or no appeal.
    4. The scope was left to the Court: The content of the Court’s widest power was worked out case by case over the following seven decades rather than settled at the drafting stage.

    How has the Court used this power?

    1. The Bhopal gas tragedy settlement: Article 142 was used to secure a payout of 470 million dollars from Union Carbide and to quash the criminal cases against the company.
    2. The Ayodhya title dispute: The power was used to settle the dispute on a “preponderance of probability” and to direct that five acres of land be given to the Muslim side.
    3. A convict’s release: The Court ordered the release of A G Perarivalan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
    4. Routine civil use: The provision is also used to grant divorce where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, and in public interest litigation.
    5. The measured scale of its use: An empirical study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad examined every case between 1950 and 2023 citing “Article 142” or “complete justice”, and found 1,579 references and 791 direct invocations, mostly in civil matters.

    Has the Court fenced its own power?

    1. Consistency with law and rights: In Prem Chand Garg versus State of Uttar Pradesh (1962) the Court held that orders under Article 142 must still be consistent with fundamental rights and with the law.
    2. Supplement, not supplant: In Supreme Court Bar Association versus Union of India (1998) the Court held that Article 142 can supplement a statute by filling a gap the law leaves open. The same ruling held that it cannot supplant a statute or override an existing statutory scheme.
    3. The limits are not self enforcing: The Court has often disregarded its own caution, and no institution outside the Court can hold it to these two rulings.
    4. Discretion multiplies across benches: The effect of an undefined discretion is magnified in a court of 38 judges sitting mostly in benches of two.

    How does the CJP order test that limit?

    1. The ordinary statutory route: A first information report is examined on its own facts before being quashed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, with the court asking whether an offence is made out or whether the case is plainly malicious.
    2. What the order did instead: Thousands of first information reports across several States were clubbed together and quashed without that scrutiny, as part of a negotiated settlement.
    3. The statutory scheme is displaced, not supplemented: The order substitutes the Court’s view of how the law ought to operate for the procedure the statute lays down for quashing.
    4. The Court also decides who is excluded: The same discretion under Article 142 determines which protesters are left out of the relief.
    5. The scholarly objection: Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia argues that criminal law provisions cannot be overridden through a blanket judicial decree.

    Why had Article 142 already drawn criticism?

    1. The Tamil Nadu Bills order: The Court used the same provision last year to deem long withheld Bills of the Tamil Nadu legislature as assented to.
    2. The response from the Vice President: The Vice President described that use of the power as a “nuclear missile” against democratic institutions.
    3. A former law officer’s warning: A former Attorney General of India wrote in 2017 that the provision had done “tremendous good” for deprived sections of society, and that it was time to build in checks and balances.
    4. A proposal to restrict who may invoke it: After the Sabarimala judgment the same former Attorney General described Article 142 as a “Kamdhenu from which unlimited powers flowed”, and proposed that only Constitution Benches of five judges be allowed to invoke it, so that its use does not turn on the reading of a single smaller Bench.

    Challenges to Article 142

    1. No stated standard for “complete justice”: The Constitution attaches no test to the power, so its width is settled afresh in each case by the Bench exercising it. Eg. In Delhi Development Authority versus Skipper Construction Company (1996) the power was used to reach the personal assets of persons who were not parties to the proceeding before the Court.
      The Fix: Require every order made under the provision to record on the face of the order the specific statutory gap it is filling and the limits of the relief granted.
    2. Bench strength does not scale with the consequence: No minimum Bench is prescribed, so an order altering an outcome for an entire class can issue from a small Bench. Eg. A three judge Bench in 2024 set aside the declared result of the Chandigarh mayoral election and declared the defeated candidate elected.
      The Fix: Maintain a published, reasoned compilation of orders made under the provision, so a body of standards accumulates instead of scattered discretion.
    3. The relief creates no right for the next litigant: An order for complete justice is granted on the facts of one case, so a similarly placed person cannot claim the same relief from a lower court. Eg. Divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown, allowed in Shilpa Sailesh versus Varun Sreenivasan (2023), is available only from the Supreme Court, since that ground does not exist in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
      The Fix: Where the power is repeatedly used to fill the same statutory gap, refer that gap to the Union government with a reasoned recommendation to amend the statute.
    4. Only the same court can correct such an order: An order issues from the highest court, so the sole remedy is a review or a curative petition before that court. Eg. The curative petition route created in Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra (2002) is itself a judge made remedy and succeeds in very few cases.
      The Fix: List every order that departs from a statutory scheme for a compliance hearing before the same Bench, so an order that misfires is corrected on the record.

    Conclusion

    The Court’s limits on its own widest power are self imposed, and nothing outside the Court enforces them. The unresolved question is whether a power designed to fill silences in the law may be used to set aside a procedure the law expressly provides, on terms agreed between a litigant and the government. What to watch is whether the Court itself frames a standard for when the power may be exercised, because no other institution can.

    Back2Basics: Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

    1. What it is: The statute governing criminal procedure in India, covering investigation, arrest, trial and the powers of criminal courts.
    2. What it replaced: It came into force on 1 July 2024 in place of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
    3. Its companion statutes: It was enacted alongside the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
    4. The quashing power it carries: Section 528 preserves the inherent powers of a High Court, which include quashing proceedings to prevent abuse of the process of a court.

    [2019, GS2, 10 marks] Do you think that constitution of India does not accept principle of strict separation of powers rather it is based on the principle of ‘checks and balance’? Explain.”

  • Courtroom dramas, clipped and shared

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has barred the use and circulation of audio and video clips of judicial proceedings on social media and other digital platforms without prior permission from court registrars.

    What does the interim order leave unsettled?

    1. The stated reason: A Bench led by the Chief Justice of India said “isolated excerpts” risked “trivialising” the administration of justice.
    2. The carve out: The Court later clarified that “recognised news outlets” may continue reporting on proceedings, but may not “utilise” audio or video clips.
    3. The undefined term: The Court did not define “recognised news outlets”, which leaves independent journalists unable to tell whether they are covered.
    4. Who has been added to the case: High Courts and social media intermediaries, including Meta, LinkedIn and X Corp, have been brought into the proceedings while the Court considers a broader protocol.

    How was live streaming established as a right?

    1. The barrier that prompted the petition: Interns were allowed inside Supreme Court courtrooms only on certain days to prevent overcrowding, and litigants travelling from remote parts of the country often could not enter the courtroom hearing their own case.
    2. The ruling: In September 2018 the petition in Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India culminated in a ruling recognising live streaming as part of the right to access justice under Article 21 of the Constitution.
    3. The reasoning: The public’s right to know how justice is administered is integral to a functioning democracy, on the principle that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
    4. The direction to High Courts: The Court urged High Courts to introduce live streaming gradually while framing rules to govern its use.
    5. The safeguards built in from the start: Matrimonial cases, sexual assault cases and proceedings involving children and juveniles were excluded from live streaming.

    How far has live streaming actually spread?

    1. The Supreme Court’s start: The Court began live streaming proceedings before its Constitution Benches in 2022. These Benches comprise five or more judges deciding substantial questions concerning the interpretation of the Constitution.
    2. The limit on coverage: The Court has 17 functioning courtrooms and largely streams only Constitution Bench hearings, which sit intermittently.
    3. The audience: The Court’s official YouTube channel has amassed over 2.67 lakh subscribers.
    4. A rare exception: A video of the suo motu hearing in the R.G. Kar rape and murder case, uploaded in September 2024, has been viewed nearly 48,000 times, and is one of the few instances of a rape case streamed on the channel.
    5. The High Courts: Live streaming was operational in 11 High Courts as of March 2026, per a statement to the Lok Sabha. Gujarat, Karnataka and Calcutta stream daily from a majority of their courtrooms.
    6. The first mover: The Gujarat High Court became the first to formally go live on YouTube in July 2021, and its channel now has nearly 1.97 lakh subscribers.

    Where does unauthorised courtroom footage actually come from?

    1. Virtual hearing access: The Supreme Court and the High Courts allow lawyers and litigants to join hearings virtually through platforms such as Cisco Webex, with links often published in the daily cause lists.
    2. How the links spread: Links are shared indiscriminately beyond litigants and lawyers, so anyone logged in can record the proceeding.
    3. Why the exclusion list does not hold: A High Court can pause streaming for a sensitive case while the virtual hearing continues, so footage from sexual offence, matrimonial and child custody matters has reached social media.
    4. The rule that already covers this: The Supreme Court e-Committee’s Model Rules of 2021 prohibit unauthorised dissemination of courtroom footage and its use for commercial, promotional or advertising purposes.

    Why is a permission regime contested?

    1. The shift it marks: Requiring an ordinary citizen to seek a registrar’s permission to share a proceeding that is already being live streamed converts open access into a permission regime.
    2. The procedural gap: There is no stated method for seeking permission, no ground on which it is to be granted or refused, and no recourse where it is refused.
    3. Who the exemption favours: An exemption confined to “recognised news outlets” advantages established media organisations over citizen journalists and smaller newsrooms.
    4. The inconsistency: A written account of a courtroom exchange remains permitted while a video clip faithfully reproducing the same exchange does not.
    5. The alternative safeguard proposed: Expanding live streaming and archiving on authorised platforms would let a complete official record expose a manipulated clip, which a circulation ban does not.
    6. Where a line is accepted: Artificially generated or doctored video should be prohibited, and faithful reporting permitted whatever the medium.

    What does the case for reporting oral remarks rest on?

    1. What an oral remark is: Judges use oral observations to test arguments, and a prima facie view expressed at the outset can change as arguments unfold. Such remarks do not necessarily reflect the reasoning recorded in the final order.
    2. Why they are still reported: Oral observations offer insight into judicial thinking and hold a mirror to the institution, which is the ground on which they are treated as reportable despite carrying no binding value.
    3. The precedent: Chief Election Commissioner vs M.R. Vijayabhaskar (2021) protected the reporting of oral remarks. The Supreme Court there stressed the role of public scrutiny in ensuring institutional accountability.
    4. The cost feared on the Bench: The prospect of being quoted out of context could make judges more circumspect and less willing to engage freely with counsel, and the litigant bears the consequence.
    5. The risk predates the medium: Oral remarks were misquoted in print long before social media, which locates the problem in reporting quality rather than in the format.
    6. What that implies for reporting: Court proceedings are technical, so an accurate account depends on journalists trained to follow what is happening.

    What has clipping already exposed about judicial conduct?

    1. The Karnataka episode: In September 2024 videos of a Karnataka High Court judge circulated online. He was seen referring to a Muslim dominated locality in west Bengaluru as “Pakistan” in one video, and making a sexist remark to a woman lawyer in another.
    2. The response to it: A Supreme Court Bench took suo motu cognisance within days and cautioned judges against “casual observations” reflecting communal bias or misogyny. The judge apologised and the proceedings were closed.
    3. A more recent instance: A reported reference to “cockroaches” by the Chief Justice of India during a hearing on fake law degrees drew widespread criticism and gave rise to the Cockroach Janta Party, which went on to lead protests against examination paper leaks. The remark was later said to have been misquoted.
    4. What draws an audience: Matrimonial and custody cases attract the most attention, with controversial matters drawing over one lakh views.
    5. The effect on the Bar: Lawyers use a judge’s remark to build a social media following, and a client who can watch the hearing is less willing to accept an unnecessary adjournment.

    How have the Bar and legal media responded?

    1. The Bar Council circular: In July 2026 the Bar Council of India prohibited reels and promotional content from court premises.
    2. The enforcement machinery it created: State Bar Councils were directed to designate social media ethics nodal officers to handle complaints. Lawyers were directed to submit a signed undertaking on professional social media conduct at the time of enrolment.
    3. The change in legal media: A legal news portal has largely shifted to explanatory videos without courtroom footage since the interim order, having earlier limited its edits to trimming pauses and removing litigants’ personal details.
    4. The editorial line already being drawn: Heated exchanges between the Bench and the Bar were withheld where, viewed in isolation, they could misrepresent what actually happened in court.

    What should a permanent protocol take into account?

    1. How news is consumed: People aged 18 to 24 citing social media as their main source of news rose from 21 per cent in 2015 to 39 per cent in 2025, overtaking news websites and apps, per a March 2026 Reuters Institute report.
    2. The nature of that consumption: Young audiences are increasingly “social first”, with much of their news reaching them incidentally rather than through a deliberate search.
    3. What that means for a video bar: Permitting an oral exchange to be reported in print while restricting its circulation as video sits at odds with how that audience actually receives news.
    4. The process objection: An institutional reform of this kind should involve all High Courts and other stakeholders rather than proceed as a unilateral decision.

    Challenges to regulating the circulation of courtroom footage

    1. A registrar is not a speech regulator: Prior permission to publish places a restriction on speech in the hands of an administrative officer, while Article 19(2) permits restriction only on stated grounds and by a law that is clear. Eg. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for vagueness about what speech it punished.
      The Fix: Specify the classes of proceeding from which clips may not be circulated at all, so the restriction operates by defined category rather than by case by case permission.
    2. Enforcement begins only after publication: A clip that has circulated cannot be recalled, and removal depends on intermediaries acting on a notice. Eg. Blocking and takedown under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology Rules, 2021 operate after the content is already public.
      The Fix: Route the registry’s removal requests through the intermediary grievance officer channel with a fixed response time, and record each outcome on the case file.
    3. There is no authoritative record to check a disputed clip against: Most hearings are neither streamed nor archived, so a viewer cannot compare an excerpt with the full proceeding it came from. Eg. Transcripts of Supreme Court hearings were introduced only as a pilot for Constitution Bench matters in 2023.
      The Fix: Publish an official transcript and full recording for every streamed hearing, and treat that record as the reference against which a disputed clip is judged.
    4. Contempt is an uncertain remedy: Action against a distorted clip would rest on criminal contempt, which is discretionary and slow, and using it against reportage carries its own cost to free speech. Eg. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 makes fair and accurate reporting of proceedings a defence, so a distortion case turns entirely on interpretation.
      The Fix: Handle distortion through a fast correction and right of reply mechanism at the registry, and reserve contempt for deliberate fabrication.
    5. An exclusion list does not protect identity: A case outside the excluded categories can still identify a vulnerable party, since names, addresses and medical details are read out in open court. Eg. Bail and quashing matters routinely disclose a complainant’s identity in offences whose reporting is otherwise restricted by law.
      The Fix: Mask party identifiers in the streamed audio and in the published record, as judgments in sexual offence cases already do.

    Conclusion

    The order changes the default rather than the rules on any single case. The Court has not yet drawn the line between publishers who may use footage and those who may not, and the reach of the restriction turns entirely on where that line falls. The case returns to the Bench on 18 September, with the High Courts and the platforms now on record. The test of whatever protocol emerges is whether it separates a distorted clip from a faithful one, or merely separates one publisher from another.

    Back2Basics: The Supreme Court e-Committee

    1. What it is: A body of the Supreme Court that oversees the computerisation of the Indian judiciary.
    2. When it was set up: It was constituted in 2004 to advise on a national policy for information and communication technology in the courts.
    3. What it runs: It steers the eCourts Mission Mode Project, covering case information systems, electronic filing and virtual hearing infrastructure across district courts and High Courts.
    4. What it issues: It frames model rules on court technology for adoption by individual High Courts, which are free to modify them.

    [2014, GS2, 12 marks] What do you understand by the concept “freedom of speech and expression”? Does it cover hate speech also? Why do the films in India stand on a slightly different plane from other forms of expression? Discuss.

  • A BIT of a reset, with a wider debate

    Why in the News

    India is revising its model bilateral investment treaty (BIT), and the revised text will soon be placed before the Union Cabinet. The Finance Minister signalled the intention to revamp the 2015 Model BIT in the Union Budget speech of 2025. The 2015 model was itself the product of an appraisal launched after several foreign investors sued India for treaty breaches. That appraisal produced two outcomes: unilateral termination of existing treaties, and a new model text as the basis for fresh negotiations. Debate on the current revision has concentrated almost entirely on what the treaty should say. The process by which the text is written has attracted almost no attention, and that is where the democratic deficit sits.

    What is the 2015 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty?

    1. What a model treaty is: A model bilateral investment treaty is the template text a country negotiates from when it concludes investment protection agreements with other countries.
    2. What such a treaty does: It grants legal protections to investors of one country investing in the other. It also gives those investors a route to bring a claim directly against the host state before an international arbitral tribunal.
    3. The two objectives it must balance: Investment treaties sit between investment protection at one end of the spectrum and the state’s right to regulate at the other.
    4. When India adopted it: India circulated a draft in 2015 and adopted the revised version in December 2015.

    Why has the 2015 model produced so few treaties?

    1. The record: India has concluded only a handful of treaties on the basis of the 2015 model in the last decade or so.
    2. The imbalance in the text: The model tilts heavily towards the state’s right to regulate and away from the protection of the investment.
    3. What capital exporting countries read into it: Countries that export capital to India doubt the legal protection available to their investments under such a text.
    4. What compounds the doubt: High regulatory risk, governance models that are not well developed, and a slow judicial system add to that concern.

    What legal changes are being proposed, and what is being left out?

    1. Easier access to arbitration: Experts have argued for making it easier for a foreign investor to take a treaty claim to international arbitration.
    2. Stronger substantive protections: The protections given to foreign investment in the text would be enhanced.
    3. Investment facilitation: The revised model would carry more measures aimed at facilitating investment rather than only protecting it.
    4. The half of the review that is missing: A treaty review has two components, the substantive and procedural changes to the law, and the process followed to make the outcome robust. Only the first has been deliberated.

    What is the democratic deficit in treaty making?

    1. The all-affected principle: International economic treaties have a conspicuous impact on citizens, which raises the question whether those affected should have a right to participate in the decision.
    2. What the term means: Democratic deficit refers to insufficient oversight of the technocrats, bureaucracies and political executive who negotiate treaty frameworks behind closed doors.
    3. Where it originated: The term originated in European debates on the accountability of decision making removed from elected legislatures.
    4. The first form the gap takes: Parliamentary supervision of the treaty making process is absent or inadequate.
    5. The second form: There is no external consultative process with other stakeholders, including subject matter experts and civil society organisations.

    What do other countries do before adopting an investment treaty text?

    1. United Kingdom and Australia: Both mandatorily place the text of a negotiated treaty on the floor of Parliament before ratification, so the legislature can express its views on it.
    2. Norway: Two rounds of public consultation were held on an updated draft model BIT, in 2008 and in 2015.
    3. Colombia: The country released its model BIT for public consultation.
    4. What the set demonstrates collectively: Consultation is applied to the model text itself and not only to a concluded treaty, which means the template a country negotiates from is treated as a public policy document rather than an internal instruction.

    What did India’s own 2015 consultation produce?

    1. The public comment stage: India circulated its draft 2015 model BIT for public comment in March 2015.
    2. The expert study it enabled: That opening allowed the Law Commission of India to assemble a team of experts to study the draft text.
    3. The report: The Law Commission’s 260th report made recommendations on how to improve the draft model treaty.
    4. What was carried through: Not all of the recommended changes were reflected in the version India finally adopted.

    What consultative process is proposed for the revision?

    1. What has presumably already happened: Intra-governmental deliberation on the model text has been undertaken inside government.
    2. A core team of external experts: Form a team outside government of international lawyers and economists drawn from universities, research institutions and think tanks, to act as a sounding board.
    3. Wider stakeholder engagement: Invite industry bodies, arbitrators, law firms and other civil society organisations to offer their views on the model text.
    4. A public draft: Prepare a draft and place it in the public domain, inviting comments from the public at large.
    5. Parliamentary scrutiny: Place the draft model treaty on the floor of Parliament for discussion, and rope in the relevant department related parliamentary committees.
    6. The standard the exercise must meet: The process must engage with dissenting views rather than run as a box ticking formality.

    Challenges to revising the Model Bilateral Investment Treaty

    1. A model text does not bind the counterparty: A model is a negotiating template, so a partner with stronger bargaining power will press its own text and the model’s provisions will be traded away one by one. Eg. Investment provisions have been among the unresolved items in India’s long running negotiations with the European Union.
      The Fix: Publish the provisions treated as non-negotiable separately from those open to trade-off, so a concluded treaty can be judged against a stated position rather than against the template.
    2. The local remedies requirement is long relative to the delay it addresses: The 2015 model requires an investor to pursue domestic remedies for five years before starting international arbitration, in a system whose delay is itself the investor’s complaint. Eg. White Industries Australia v Republic of India (2011), the first adverse award against India, arose from delay in Indian courts enforcing a commercial arbitration award.
      The Fix: Tie the domestic remedies condition to a defined procedural stage being reached rather than to a fixed number of years.
    3. Termination does not end exposure: A terminated treaty carries a survival clause that keeps protections alive for investments made before termination, so liability continues for years after the instrument goes. Eg. The 2020 Vodafone award was rendered under the India-Netherlands treaty after India had begun issuing termination notices in 2016.
      The Fix: Negotiate replacement treaties with express provisions displacing the survival clauses of the instruments they replace.
    4. Taxation is carved out of the model’s scope: The 2015 model excludes taxation measures from treaty protection, which removes the very category of dispute that produced India’s largest awards. Eg. The 2020 Cairn Energy award, made under the India-United Kingdom treaty, concerned a retrospective tax demand.
      The Fix: Bring expropriatory tax measures within the treaty’s scope while keeping bona fide tax policy outside it.
    5. Consultation without a legal basis is discretionary: No Indian law requires the executive to lay a treaty text before Parliament, so every consultation depends on the willingness of the government of the day. Eg. Treaties are concluded under executive power and reach Parliament only where implementing them requires a change in domestic law.
      The Fix: Enact a treaty scrutiny statute setting out which categories of treaty must be laid before Parliament and for how long before ratification.

    Conclusion

    The revision is being handled as a drafting exercise. The gap it does not close is that India has no settled procedure for producing a treaty text at all, so the quality of the next model rests on the discretion of whoever drafts it. A text written without external scrutiny will attract the same legitimacy objection whichever direction it moves the balance in. What to watch is whether the draft reaches the public domain and the floor of Parliament before the Union Cabinet clears it, or only after.

    Bilateral Investment Treaties in India

    1. What they are: A bilateral investment treaty is an agreement between two countries setting the terms on which each protects investors from the other in its own territory.
    2. How disputes under them are settled: Most such treaties allow an investor to bring a claim directly against the host state before an international arbitral tribunal, without routing it through its own government.
    3. India’s treaty stock: India signed its first such treaty with the United Kingdom in 1994 and went on to sign more than 80. From 2016 it began terminating them and moved to renegotiate on the 2015 model.
    4. What has been concluded since: Treaties concluded on the newer template include those signed with the United Arab Emirates and with Uzbekistan in 2024.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Treaty Making

    1. Article 246 with Entry 14 of the Union List: Places entering into treaties and agreements with foreign countries, and implementing them, within Parliament’s exclusive legislative field.
    2. Entry 13 of the Union List: Covers participation in international conferences and associations, and the implementing of decisions taken at them.
    3. Article 253: Empowers Parliament to make law for the whole or any part of India to implement any treaty, agreement or convention with another country.
    4. Article 73: Extends the Union executive’s power to every matter on which Parliament may legislate, which is the basis on which the executive concludes a treaty without prior legislative approval.

    Back2Basics: Law Commission of India

    1. What it is: A non-statutory executive body constituted by the Government of India to advise on law reform.
    2. How it is constituted: It is set up for a fixed term by an order of the Ministry of Law and Justice, and is chaired by a retired judge.
    3. What it does: It examines existing laws and specific references made by the government, and submits reports carrying recommendations.
    4. The weight its reports carry: Its recommendations are not binding, and a change in law follows only where the government accepts them.

    [2010] A great deal of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to India comes from Mauritius than from many major and mature economies like UK and France. Why?

    (a) India has preference, for certain countries as regards receiving FDI

    (b) India has double taxation avoidance agreement with Mauritius

    (c) Most citizens of Mauritius have ethnic identity with India and so they feel secure to invest in India

    (d) Impending dangers of global climate change prompt Mauritius to make huge investments in India

  • Taking heart from the GDP story, behind the headline number

    Why in the News

    The Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation have defended the 7.8 per cent real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth estimate for the first quarter of 2026-27. They argue that the estimate is corroborated by high frequency indicators across investment, consumption, credit and goods movement. The defence answers academic scepticism about the reliability of India’s national accounts methodology, raised after the first quarter release. The specific charge concerns the GDP deflator, the price index used to convert output measured at current prices into output measured at constant prices. Manufacturing recorded a negative implicit deflator for Gross Value Added (GVA), meaning the accounts imply falling prices in a sector at a time when consumer prices are rising. The dispute is therefore not about the growth rate. It is about whether the price correction behind that rate can be read at all.

    How does double deflation work?

    1. Single deflation, the discontinued method: Nominal Gross Value Added was divided by a single output price index to arrive at real Gross Value Added.
    2. Double deflation, the current method: Output and intermediate consumption are deflated separately, each by its own price index.
    3. The residual: Real Gross Value Added is then taken as the difference between real output and real intermediate consumption.
    4. Why it is the accepted practice: Input prices and output prices move differently, so deflating each by its own prices is the global standard in national accounting.

    What do the high frequency indicators show about the first quarter expansion?

    1. Freight and business demand: Commercial vehicle sales grew 18.3 per cent, as firms expanded fleets in anticipation of higher demand.
    2. The investment cycle: Capital goods production grew 15.2 per cent. Machinery and equipment imports grew 51.5 per cent.
    3. Construction inputs: Cement production, finished steel consumption and infrastructure and construction goods all expanded strongly in the quarter.
    4. Goods movement and tax collection: Electronic way bill generation stayed in double digit growth. Gross Goods and Services Tax collections rose 8.4 per cent despite substantial rate rationalisation.
    5. Consumption: Household vehicle registrations and three wheeler registrations point to firming discretionary demand.
    6. Credit: Non-food bank credit grew 18.3 per cent year on year at end June, up from 15.9 per cent in March, with growth across agriculture, industry and services.

    Why did the GDP deflator become hard to read?

    1. The price database changed: The revised National Accounts moved from the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) to the new Output Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures prices received by producers at the factory gate rather than prices struck in wholesale markets.
    2. The deflation method changed: The February 2026 revision discontinued single deflation. It adopted double deflation wherever feasible and volume based extrapolation otherwise.
    3. The two changes landed together: Simultaneous change in method and in price database made recent movements in the deflator less readily interpretable.
    4. The index switch itself was minor: Revisions arising from the move from WPI to PPI were relatively small, which supports the position that WPI had introduced no material anomaly. The two indices are conceptually close.
    5. The deflator is not a single index: Constant price GVA is built using over 300 producer prices and price indices across a disaggregated set of inputs and outputs, not from a headline price index.

    Why can a negative implicit manufacturing GVA deflator be statistically sound?

    1. The arithmetic: Nominal GVA growth falls below real GVA growth when input prices rise faster than output prices. The implicit deflator then turns negative even though input and output prices are both rising.
    2. What happened in the quarter: Higher raw material inflation relative to output inflation lowered the GVA deflator. Weak price growth in some services widened the gap from headline consumer and wholesale inflation.
    3. The leverage inside manufacturing: Intermediate consumption is roughly 81 per cent of manufacturing output, leaving 19 per cent as GVA. A small divergence between input and output prices therefore produces a disproportionate movement in real GVA.
    4. The domestic precedent: 2024-25 recorded the same outcome, with input price inflation exceeding output price inflation.
    5. Not unique to India: Advanced economies using double deflation have encountered similar outcomes.

    What is the appropriate comparison for manufacturing activity?

    1. The mismatch in the criticism: Commentaries have set manufacturing Index of Industrial Production (IIP) growth, a volume index of factory output, against real manufacturing GVA growth.
    2. The correct counterpart: A volume index should be compared with manufacturing Gross Value of Output at constant prices, which is also a measure of output rather than of value added.
    3. What the correct comparison shows: Real Gross Value of Output averaged 6.7 per cent growth over 2023-24 and 2024-25, against 6.6 per cent for IIP.
    4. When the loose comparison still holds: Comparing manufacturing IIP with manufacturing GVA yields defensible short term results only where input and output prices move together.
    5. A separate reading of the same ratio: The ratio of intermediate consumption to Gross Value of Output at constant prices has been declining gradually, which indicates improving efficiency in the use of inputs.

    What is contested about the synthetic comparison country study?

    1. The method: A recent study builds a comparison country by combining economies whose performance moved closely with India’s before 2014. It uses that historical co-movement to estimate how India’s per capita GDP might have evolved after 2014.
    2. The objection: The study treats its estimated performance gap as a lower bound on the assumption that Indian growth is overstated, without demonstrating the methodological flaw it assumes.
    3. The stated position on scrutiny: Specific, focused and actionable scrutiny of the GDP methodology is welcomed. Inferences drawn by quoting aggregate and disparate numbers together are rejected.

    Challenges to the revised GDP deflation framework

    1. The deflators cannot be independently reproduced: The disaggregated producer price series that enter the constant price estimates are not published for outside users, so an external researcher cannot rebuild the sectoral deflators. Eg. Delays in the national accounts Sources and Methods publication have repeatedly held up independent verification of official estimates.
      The Fix: Release the sectoral deflators used, along with the underlying producer price series, alongside each quarterly estimate.
    2. Services deflation remains the weakest link: India has no producer price index covering the range of services, so services output is deflated using consumer price components and dedicated indices. Eg. Financial, real estate and professional services drove roughly 45 per cent of services value added growth in 2024-25, and their prices are proxied rather than directly observed.
      The Fix: Extend the producer price framework to services, starting with the sub-sectors that contribute most to value added.
    3. The unincorporated sector is estimated rather than observed within the quarter: Quarterly manufacturing estimates for small unregistered enterprises rest on survey benchmarks carried forward by indicators. Eg. The Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises replaced proxy indicators for this segment only with the 2022-23 base year series.
      The Fix: Publish the unincorporated enterprises survey on a fixed calendar and use it to benchmark each year’s quarterly manufacturing estimates.
    4. A base revision breaks comparability across the join: The series was rebased from 2011-12 to 2022-23, so growth rates on either side of the break are not directly comparable. Eg. Construction of a back series after the previous rebasing became a prolonged dispute over pre-2011 growth rates.
      The Fix: Publish a fully reconciled back series at the same sectoral detail as the new series with every base revision.
    5. Confidence rests on the standing of the producing body: A statistical estimate is accepted on the credibility of the institution that releases it, and that credibility has been contested. Eg. Two members resigned from the National Statistical Commission in 2019 over the withholding of survey results.
      The Fix: Give the National Statistical Commission a statutory basis, as an independent statistical commission was recommended in 2001.

    Conclusion

    The argument between the statistical system and its critics is not about whether the economy grew. It is about whether an outside user can see inside the price correction that turns nominal output into real output. A revision that changed the price database and the deflation method in the same round has raised the burden of explanation on the agency, not lowered it. The marker to watch is whether the producer price series used inside the estimates are released as a public series, and whether the methodology volume for the revised base year appears alongside the next annual release rather than after it.

    What is national income accounting?

    1. About: National income accounting is the set of methods used to measure economic activity for an economy as a whole, yielding aggregates such as GDP, Gross National Product and National Income.
    2. Rationale: It supplies the aggregates that fiscal and monetary policy design, welfare planning, sectoral resource allocation and cross country comparison all rest on.
    3. The three methods it rests on:
    4. Income method: sums factor incomes, meaning rent, wages, interest, profit, mixed income and net income from abroad.
    5. Expenditure method: totals final spending on consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.
    6. Production method: sums value added at each stage across agriculture, industry and services.
    7. Why the production method matters here: India’s quarterly estimates are built up as sectoral value added, so every sector needs a price deflator of its own.

    Key Concerns Regarding National Income Accounting

    1. Separating final from intermediate goods: Value added can be double counted where the same good is both an input and a final product. Eg. Flour bought by a bakery is an input, while flour bought by a household is a final good.
    2. Undisclosed income: Parallel transactions kept off records are not captured, which understates measured output.
    3. Environmental blind spot: Resource extraction is counted as income while the depletion of natural capital is not deducted.
    4. Non-monetised and non-market activity: Subsistence farming, barter, volunteer work and the care economy go uncounted, understating true output.

    Key Facts about National Income Accounting

    1. New base year: The GDP base was revised from 2011-12 to 2022-23, with the new series released on 27 February 2026.
    2. Companion rebasing: The Consumer Price Index base was updated to 2024 and the Index of Industrial Production base to 2022-23 alongside the GDP revision.
    3. New data sources: Goods and Services Tax returns, the Public Financial Management System, e-Vahan vehicle registration data and the unincorporated enterprise and labour force surveys replaced earlier proxy indicators.
    4. International alignment: The series follows the System of National Accounts 2008, with transition to the 2025 standard planned by 2029-30.

    [2019, GS3, 10 marks] Do you agree with the view that steady GDP growth and low inflation have left the Indian economy in good shape? Give reasons in support of your arguments.

  • Beyond GDP, brace for turbulence ahead

    Why in the News

    Long term government bond yields in the advanced economies have risen sharply, raising the risk free return foreign capital can earn without entering India. Official growth estimates for April to June, together with car, two wheeler and tractor sales and Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, show the economy absorbing the energy supply shock caused by the West Asia war. Strong output data does not settle the financing question, since capital compares India’s expected return against an assured dollar return. The dollars India did attract came through Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank), or FCNR(B), deposits, priced at rates Indian banks could offer only because the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) carried the hedging cost.

    How does the FCNR(B) deposit and swap arrangement work?

    1. The deposit: An FCNR(B) deposit is a term deposit placed with an Indian bank by a non-resident Indian, held and repayable in foreign currency.
    2. The bank’s exposure: The bank owes repayment in that foreign currency, so a fall in the rupee raises what the deposit costs it in rupee terms.
    3. The swap facility: The RBI bore the hedging cost against currency fluctuation through a special dollar rupee swap facility.
    4. Where the risk now sits: The banks transferred the risk of rupee depreciation to the central bank, which is what allowed them to pay a high rate in foreign currency.

    What do bond yields in Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom demonstrate about the cost of capital?

    1. Japan: The ten year government bond yield crossed 3 per cent for the first time since 1996, and the thirty year yield stands at 4.1 per cent.
    2. The United States: The ten year Treasury yield is at 4.8 per cent and the thirty year at 5.3 per cent.
    3. The United Kingdom: The ten year yield is at 5.2 per cent and the thirty year at 5.9 per cent.
    4. Why these set the benchmark: These instruments are virtually risk free, issued by governments that have never defaulted on their debts, so an assured 4.8 per cent dollar return is the floor any Indian asset has to beat.

    What did India have to pay to bring in dollars?

    1. The deposit rate: Indian banks offered 6 to 6.5 per cent interest on FCNR(B) deposits.
    2. The volume raised: The window mobilised $127.2 billion.
    3. The direction of travel: Foreign money no longer comes cheap, and the path of global bond yields points to it turning more expensive.

    Why does a strong growth number not settle the external financing question?

    1. The two measures test different things: Output and consumption data measure domestic demand. The financing question is whether a foreign investor’s expected return here beats a risk free alternative abroad.
    2. Equity returns are the transmission channel: Long term foreign capital enters on growth prospects that translate into equity market returns, and those prospects must be compelling against elevated yields.
    3. A window is not a policy: A special forex swap window is a one time reprieve for the external sector and cannot substitute for durable intervention.

    What would durable resilience require?

    1. Fiscal consolidation: In a rising interest rate environment a government cannot run high fiscal deficits, which crowd out private sector and other productive borrowing.
    2. Keeping the external account financeable: Those deficits must not spill into current account deficits, which are difficult to finance when global capital flows turn volatile.
    3. Export promotion: Exports are to be raised through increased access to global markets.
    4. Cheaper inputs for exporters: Duties on imported raw materials and components are to be eliminated.
    5. Predictability: Policy stability for foreign investors is the fourth durable intervention, alongside consolidation, exports and input duty removal.

    Challenges to relying on the FCNR(B) swap route

    1. The liability matures: A term deposit has to be repaid or rolled over on a fixed date, so an inflow raised in months becomes an outflow risk on a known one. Eg. The 2013 FCNR(B) swap window raised about $26 billion, and its redemption was concentrated in late 2016.
      The Fix: Stagger maturities across the deposit book and pre-announce the redemption profile, so repayment does not bunch into a single quarter.
    2. The central bank absorbs the currency loss: A hedging cost carried by the RBI becomes a loss on its own books if the rupee falls further than the swap rate assumed. Eg. The rupee’s record low against the dollar has been reset repeatedly since 2022.
      The Fix: Disclose the swap facility’s cost to the central bank’s balance sheet, so the public subsidy inside the scheme is visible.
    3. Debt creating inflows substitute for equity: A deposit is a repayable liability while direct investment is not, so the same headline inflow leaves a different obligation behind. Eg. Non-resident Indian deposits are counted within India’s external debt, and foreign direct investment is not.
      The Fix: Cap the share of external financing met through deposit schemes, so a reserve build is not increasingly borrowed.
    4. The inflow is rate sensitive and reversible: Money that arrives for an interest differential leaves when that differential narrows. Eg. Foreign investors withdrew from Indian debt in 2013 once United States yields rose after the taper announcement.
      The Fix: Build the buffer through current account improvement and equity inflows, so the stock of reserves does not depend on a rate spread.
    5. A headline reserves figure hides its composition: Reserves assembled through a swap window signal less resilience than the same figure built from a trade surplus. Eg. India’s reserves crossed $700 billion while the current account remained in deficit.
      The Fix: Report the hedged and unhedged components of reserves separately in the weekly statistical supplement.

    Conclusion

    India’s external position looks strongest at the moment it is most borrowed. A large stock of foreign currency has been assembled by paying for it, and part of that bill sits on the central bank’s own books rather than on the banking system’s. The tension left unresolved is one of timing: the measures that would make foreign capital cheap again work over years, and the rate environment that made it expensive changed in months. What to watch is whether a second window is opened when the first one matures.

    “[2013] Which one of the following groups of items is included in India’s foreign-exchange reserves?

    (a) Foreign-currency assets, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and loans from foreign countries

    (b) Foreign-currency assets, gold holdings of the RBI and SDRs

    (c) Foreign-currency assets, loans from the World Bank and SDRs

    (d) Foreign-currency assets, gold holdings of the RBI and loans from the World Bank