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  • Global watchdog says rise of ‘digital hawala’ is aiding money laundering, terror financing

    Why in the News

    The latest report of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body that sets the global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, identifies the fusion of virtual assets with the traditional hawala system as one of the most significant developments in underground banking. The report is titled “Investigating Professional Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and the Use of Hawala and Other Similar Service Providers”. Nearly 70 per cent of surveyed jurisdictions have reported the integration of new technologies into such networks. The uses run from routine money laundering to the financing of terrorist organisations. The difficulty this creates is that a system built on trust between operators has acquired the speed and reach of digital finance without acquiring any of its supervision.

    What is “digital hawala”?

    1. The underlying system: Hawala is a centuries-old value transfer arrangement in which an operator in one country pays out to a recipient on the instruction of an operator in another, and the two settle their standing balance later between themselves.
    2. What makes it digital: “Digital hawala” covers the spectrum of technologies that facilitate the coordination, execution, settlement or concealment of these transactions.
    3. What has changed: Virtual assets now supply a settlement layer to a network that previously balanced its books through cash and trade alone.

    What are the six configurations the report identifies?

    1. Digital coordination with traditional settlement: Operators use encrypted messaging applications, shared ledgers and online platforms to communicate instructions, recruit clients and couriers, and maintain records, and settlement between them still moves through cash or trade.
    2. Digital customer interface: The client faces a mobile wallet or a fintech application, and settlement between operators again happens via cash or trade.
    3. Virtual asset-based settlement: Stablecoins are used to settle balances between operators directly, replacing the cash leg of the arrangement.
    4. Integration with formal digital infrastructure: Funds are moved through payment service providers, fintech platforms and virtual International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs), which are account identifiers issued without a physical branch relationship behind them.
    5. Artificial intelligence based tools: These automate transaction structuring, route value dynamically through mule accounts, and convert between currency and cryptocurrency at high speed.
    6. “Hawala” apps: These are bundled digital ecosystems combining messaging, cloud storage, social media, Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), lending applications and gaming platforms in one product.

    Why do these configurations make detection harder?

    1. Speed and opacity rise together: The configurations make transactions faster, more opaque and more complex than the courier and ledger version they build on.
    2. The network gets larger and more durable: Digitisation expands both the reach of a network and its resilience, so removing one operator no longer breaks the chain.
    3. Digitisation is a catalyst and not a replacement: Traditional settlement mechanisms persist alongside the new layers rather than disappearing under them.
    4. Cash remains the pressure point: Cash stays critical at the collection and exit points, which is where an investigation still has a physical trail to find.

    What does the Turkiye case show about terror financing?

    1. The network’s purpose: Turkiye uncovered a “digital hawala” network financing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
    2. The seizures: Raids in 2023 on a self-described ISIL “administrative officer” produced about $57,250 in cash, followed by a further $554,000.
    3. The evidence trail: Investigators recovered “hawala” notebooks alongside digital transfer receipts, so the paper ledger and the digital layer were running in parallel.
    4. The cover used: A jeweller and two mobile phone shops operated as fronts, and the transfers themselves were disguised as charity donations.

    Challenges to countering digital hawala

    1. Token settlement clears outside supervised payment rails: Balances settled in stablecoins move on public blockchains that no single national payments regulator oversees. Eg. FATF’s periodic reviews have found most assessed jurisdictions only partly compliant with its Travel Rule for virtual asset transfers.
      The Fix: Enforce originator and beneficiary information requirements on every registered Virtual Asset Service Provider, which in India are reporting entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
    2. Mule accounts scatter the trail across thousands of holders: Automated routing splits a single transfer across accounts opened in other people’s names, so no account shows an abnormal balance. Eg. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre has identified mule accounts as the standard cash-out layer in online fraud networks.
      The Fix: Require banks to share mule account indicators in near real time through a common registry rather than case by case after a complaint.
    3. Cooperation moves slower than the transaction: Formal evidence requests between countries take months while a chain of transfers completes in minutes. Eg. FATF’s 2024 mutual evaluation of India recorded delays in concluding money laundering prosecutions despite a broadly compliant legal framework.
      The Fix: Use the Egmont Group channel between financial intelligence units for immediate operational exchange, reserving formal treaty requests for trial-admissible evidence.
    4. The fronts are ordinary licensed businesses: Jewellers, phone dealers and travel agents handle high cash turnover legitimately, so the anomaly is invisible in the trading pattern itself. Eg. Dealers in precious metals and stones are treated as designated non-financial businesses under the FATF standards precisely because of this exposure.
      The Fix: Extend beneficial ownership disclosure and threshold reporting to these trades, and audit compliance rather than relying on registration alone.
    5. The regulated perimeter lags the product: Bundled applications combining messaging, lending and gaming fit no single licensing category, so no regulator holds clear jurisdiction over them. Eg. Application stores continue to host unregistered lending and wallet products that operate across borders.
      The Fix: Adopt an activity-based test that applies value transfer obligations to any product that moves value, whatever licence category it claims.

    Conclusion

    Underground banking has not been displaced by digital finance, it has absorbed it. Enforcement is left holding a mandate built for couriers and ledgers against a network that settles in tokens and routes itself automatically. Two things decide whether that gap closes. The first is whether virtual asset supervision reaches operators who never register, and the second is whether financial intelligence units can exchange information at the speed a transfer actually moves. The next marker is India’s follow-up reporting under the FATF mutual evaluation process, where the treatment of virtual asset service providers is the specific item under assessment.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: FATF is the inter-governmental standard setter on money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, established in 1989 at the G7 summit in Paris.
    2. How it works: Its Secretariat is housed at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, and its standards are the 40 Recommendations that member states are assessed against.
    3. Its enforcement tool: It maintains two public lists, jurisdictions under increased monitoring and high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action, which affect a listed country’s access to international finance.
    4. India’s position: India has been a full member since 2010, and is also a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS3, 15 marks] Discuss counterfeit currency and money laundering as major sources of terror funding in India. State the actions being taken at International level to check these menaces. Highlight the role of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and methods of compliance by its member states in preventing terror funding.”

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

    Why in the News

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

    What is the “Correct the Map” resolution?

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

    Why did African states push for a new projection?

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

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

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

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

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

    Challenges to the UN world map’s boundary depiction

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

    Conclusion

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

    Matching Previous Year Question

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

  • India’s opportunity to put BRICS back together

    Why in the News

    The 18th BRICS Summit is to be held in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026 under India’s chairship. The grouping now carries 11 members and 10 partner countries after an expansion India and Brazil both resisted. Its founding practice of adopting documents only by consensus has been bypassed more than once since 2020, most recently at the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in New Delhi in May 2026. The contest is over what the group is for: a reform coalition of emerging economies working inside existing institutions, or a bloc defined by opposition to the West. The summit is the point at which the chair can push that choice one way or the other.

    What is BRICS?

    1. What it is: BRICS is a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formed to give the emerging economies a greater voice in global governance and institutions, particularly financial and economic ones, and to work towards a more equitable multilateral order.
    2. How it works: It has no treaty and no binding decision procedure. It operates by consensus, and its output is a summit declaration adopted by all members.
    3. What it has built: Its principal institution is the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the members to lend for infrastructure and sustainable development.

    What did India originally want from BRICS?

    1. A vehicle for reform: India was an enthusiastic early participant, treating the group as a means of securing genuine reform of multilateral institutions.
    2. The first Indian-hosted summit: The fourth BRICS summit, held in India in 2012, took the theme “Global Stability, Security and Prosperity”, which tacitly reflected a much broader geopolitical canvas than economics alone.
    3. What the Indian presidency produced: It helped lead to the establishment of the New Development Bank. Other Indian initiatives followed, including the integration of a counter-terrorism architecture into the group’s work.
    4. The current chairship’s framing: This year’s theme rests on four pillars, Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, and draws on the Prime Minister’s “Humanity First” vision and a “people-centric” approach to BRICS cooperation.

    How did China’s use of BRICS diverge from the reform agenda?

    1. A different purpose from the start: China saw the group as a counterpoise to Western domination, a view India also shared initially in the specific context of reform.
    2. Why China needed the platform: A group of emerging economies accounting for nearly 20 per cent of world GDP in 2010 could amplify Chinese global ambitions in a way China could not do alone.
    3. The outreach mechanisms carried the design: BRICS-Plus and BRICS Outreach were used to reach the Global South and consolidate its profile as a second pole in a future bipolar world.
    4. Reform support proved selective: China resisted supporting the bids of India, Brazil and South Africa for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. India then shifted its own effort towards consolidation and intra-BRICS matters to resist Chinese grandstanding.

    What has happened to the consensus principle?

    1. Consensus is what held the group together: It is the practice that prevents a majority from binding the rest, and its erosion changes what membership is worth.
    2. The 2019 summit was the high point of restraint: The Brasilia summit was held with no invited guest countries at all, only the five original members.
    3. The first breach came in 2020: Under the Russian presidency a chair’s statement on COVID-19 was issued without consensus, probably the first such document in the group’s history.
    4. It has become routine: Non-consensus documents were resorted to again at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May 2026, because the new members could not agree.
    5. The failure model already exists: The danger is that BRICS goes the way of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), where a majority can bulldoze its view through.

    What has expansion done to the group’s cohesion?

    1. China pushed it and India resisted: China pressed first for expansion of the New Development Bank and then for expansion of BRICS itself. India and Brazil both resisted and were overruled.
    2. The size now: The group has 11 members following the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, along with 10 partner countries.
    3. The original five manage their differences: Some of those differences are serious, and the five handle them with the maturity that keeping the group intact requires.
    4. The new members do not: They carry their bilateral conflicts into the group and are subverting it through them.
    5. The regional precedent: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is the case of a grouping paralysed by the bilateral disputes of its own members.

    Is BRICS non-West or anti-West?

    1. India’s line is “non-West”: India has worked to keep the group non-West against pressure from some members to turn it explicitly anti-West.
    2. Events push the other way: China is competing with the United States for global leadership, Russia is at war with Ukraine with the full backing of Europe, and Iran is being bombarded by the United States and Israel.
    3. Two members are under direct pressure: Brazil and India have both been subjected to punitive tariffs by the U.S. President, and the U.S. Congress is considering legislation empowering the President to levy punitive tariffs on countries importing Russian oil.
    4. India’s other options are weakening at the same time: The Quad is being emasculated by the United States, India-U.S. relations are under great pressure, Pakistan is being courted by the United States at India’s expense, and global institutions are being made dysfunctional by the West.
    5. The restraint has support inside the group: Many members share India’s effort to prevent an anti-Western drift, since they gain from engaging actors in different camps in their own national interest. They want change without geopolitical realignment behind China and Russia.

    Why is de-dollarisation not moving as China wants?

    1. The parallel currency proposal has stalled: The push for de-dollarisation through the establishment of a BRICS currency is receiving a lukewarm response.
    2. The reason is who would dominate it: Members are uncomfortable with a currency dominated by the renminbi.
    3. What they will accept instead: The preference is for interlinking payment systems, central bank digital currencies and transactions settled in national currencies.
    4. China is proceeding on its own track: After a successful pilot, it is formally launching mBridge, an alternative cross-border financial payment system.
    5. What India is guarding against: An alternative Bretton Woods system dominated by China is the outcome India least wants.

    What parallel orders are being built outside BRICS?

    1. Both major powers are writing their own rules: The United States and China are enunciating parallel visions of the world and playing by rules of their own rather than internationally negotiated ones.
    2. The contested areas are new ones: Parallel structures and standards are being set in artificial intelligence, digital and Internet governance, data ownership, state control, 5G and 6G telecom, satellite navigation and electric vehicles.
    3. China has added an institution: It has set up a World AI Cooperation Organisation in Shanghai.
    4. The financial architecture already has a rival: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road challenge the Bretton Woods institutions and their governance and financing models.
    5. Neither power wants reform: Both are building around the existing institutions rather than seeking to change them, and both see BRICS as one vehicle for those broader goals.

    What is “reformed multilateralism” and why does India want it back?

    1. Where it came from: The Prime Minister first articulated the vision of “reformed multilateralism” at the leaders’ retreat of the 2018 BRICS Summit in South Africa.
    2. How it became group language: By 2019 it had found its way into the summit document at Brasilia, with India, Brazil and South Africa pushing for it.
    3. What it commits the group to: Changing the governance of existing institutions rather than replacing them, which is the opposite of building parallel structures.
    4. Why it matters now: Reviving it makes BRICS a strong voice for the non-West middle powers and, by extension, for the Global South.

    Can BRICS be an organisation of Global South middle powers?

    1. A Global South middle power is a different thing: The middle powers described at Davos by the Canadian Prime Minister are broadly West-centric, and a Global South middle power does not share that anchoring.
    2. BRICS is the only credible platform: If there is a credible organisation of Global South middle powers, it is BRICS.
    3. Its largest member does not fit the description: China is hardly a middle power and holds disproportionate influence within the group.
    4. The India-China relationship is the constraint: The two need greater synergy on emerging global issues even as their bilateral differences are being contained.
    5. The composition is incomplete: Some middle powers that ought to be in the group are not represented in it, which limits what it can claim to speak for.

    Challenges to BRICS

    1. De-dollarisation is rhetorical rather than operational: The share of world trade actually settled outside the dollar has barely moved despite a decade of declarations. Eg. The US dollar is still used in over 80 per cent of global trade settlement.
      The Fix: Set a measurable target for local-currency settlement of intra-group trade and report performance against it at each summit.
    2. Intra-group trade is thin: Members trade far more with the G7 than with each other, so the group’s combined economic weight does not convert into bargaining leverage. Eg. Most members still rely on G7 markets for high-technology imports and services exports.
      The Fix: Negotiate a tariff-preference arrangement covering a limited list of goods, rather than a full trade agreement the membership cannot agree on.
    3. There is no permanent secretariat or charter: Work does not carry between summits, so each chair restarts the agenda and commitments lapse without anyone recording that they have. Eg. The New Development Bank remains the only permanent institution the group has built since its first summit.
      The Fix: Create a small standing secretariat with the single mandate of tracking summit commitments and reporting compliance.
    4. Sanctions constrain the group’s own bank: Western sanctions on Russia limit the New Development Bank’s ability to lend for certain projects, which weakens the alternative it was built to be. Eg. The bank put new transactions in Russia on hold in 2022.
      The Fix: Raise the share of local-currency lending and widen the capital base to more Global South members, so exposure to one jurisdiction’s sanctions falls.
    5. The political systems diverge too far for common positions on norms: The membership spans established democracies and autocracies, so joint declarations cannot carry commitments on rights or governance standards. Eg. Group declarations avoid the language on domestic governance that G7 communiqués routinely carry.
      The Fix: Confine collective positions to the areas where interests genuinely converge, namely institutional reform, development finance and technology standards.

    Conclusion

    BRICS is now being asked to do two jobs that pull against each other. One is to press for reform of institutions that its largest member has no interest in reforming. The other is to hold an enlarged membership carrying live bilateral quarrels inside a body that can only decide unanimously. The Delhi outcome will indicate which job the group has chosen. The specific marker is whether the summit closes on a declaration adopted by every member or on a chair’s statement issued over the heads of some.

    Global South Plurilateral Groupings in India’s Foreign Policy

    1. About: A plurilateral grouping is a small, issue-focused coalition of states that operates outside a formal treaty organisation. Its instruments are summit declarations and working groups rather than binding law.
    2. Why India uses them: They allow India to pursue different interests with different partners at the same time, which is what multi-alignment means in operation.
    3. The spread in practice: India sits in BRICS and the SCO alongside Russia and China, and in the Quad and the I2U2 grouping alongside the United States, without either set of memberships cancelling the other.
    4. What they are measured by: Their output is agenda-setting and coalition building, not enforceable commitment, so their value lies in shifting what larger institutions are willing to discuss.

    Key Facts about BRICS and Global South Groupings

    1. The name: The acronym BRIC was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist to group high-growth emerging economies. The first Foreign Ministers’ meeting was held on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.
    2. The first summit: The first leaders’ summit was held at Yekaterinburg in Russia in 2009, and South Africa joined in 2011 to make the grouping BRICS.
    3. Current weight: The enlarged grouping accounts for over 45 per cent of the world’s population, about 3.6 billion people, and roughly 37 per cent of global GDP measured at purchasing power parity, ahead of the G7 share.
    4. Energy: It controls roughly 42 per cent of global oil production and exports.
    5. New Development Bank: Headquartered at Shanghai, it has approved over $35 billion in infrastructure lending since it began operations.
    6. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A $100 billion pool providing short-term liquidity support to members facing balance of payments pressure.
    7. Other Global South platforms: IBSA, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, was formed in 2003. The G-77 was formed at the United Nations in 1964 with 77 founding members and now carries over 130.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”

  • India votes in favour of UNGA resolution on new world map

    Why in the News

    India has voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution aimed at correcting the world map to promote a “more accurate representation” of continental landmasses. The 193-member Assembly adopted the resolution “Correct the map: rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world’s regions, particularly Africa”, which was sponsored by Togo. It encourages governments and institutions around the world to replace the traditional Mercator map with the Equal Earth projection, which “shows locations more accurately”. The resolution carried 164 votes in favour, with a lone vote against from the United States. The question the vote raises is whether a projection designed in the sixteenth century for navigation should continue to set how the world’s regions are seen.

    What is a map projection, and what does the Mercator do to area?

    1. The underlying problem: A projection is the rule for transferring a curved surface onto a flat sheet, and no flat map can preserve shape, area, distance and direction at the same time. Every projection therefore chooses which property to keep and which to sacrifice.
    2. What the Mercator keeps: It preserves angles, so a line of constant compass bearing plots as a straight line. That property is what made it a navigator’s map.
    3. What it sacrifices: Scale grows with distance from the equator, so landmasses near the poles are inflated and those near the equator are compressed. Eg. Greenland reads as roughly the size of Africa, though Africa is about 14 times larger.
    4. What Equal Earth does instead: It is an equal-area projection, so every region occupies its true share of the map’s surface. The cost is a controlled distortion of shape rather than of size.

    What did the Assembly actually adopt?

    1. The instrument is a recommendation: The resolution encourages governments and institutions to switch projection. A General Assembly resolution of this kind carries no binding force on any member state.
    2. The sponsor and the stated purpose: Togo sponsored the text, and its stated aim is the equitable representation of the world’s regions, and of Africa in particular.
    3. The campaign behind it: It carries forward an African Union-backed campaign to limit use of the Mercator map on the ground that visual under-representation reinforces a perception of the continent as peripheral.
    4. India’s vote: India voted in favour, placing it with the large majority rather than with the abstaining or dissenting group.

    What does the voting pattern show?

    1. The scale of support: 164 of the 193 members voted in favour, which is an overwhelming margin for a text with a contested premise.
    2. The single dissent: The United States cast the lone vote against.
    3. The abstentions: Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.
    4. What a wide margin does not settle: Adoption records agreement on a principle. It creates no obligation on any national mapping agency, publisher or platform to change what it prints.

    Challenges to replacing the Mercator projection

    1. No projection is politically neutral, and equal-area maps distort in their own way: Preserving area forces a distortion of shape, so a switch trades one visual misrepresentation for another. Eg. The Gall-Peters projection was promoted on the same equity argument in the 1970s and 1980s, and it stretched Africa vertically enough that seven North American geographic bodies passed a joint resolution in 1989 against rectangular projections of that kind.
      The Fix: Pair any recommendation with published guidance on which projection suits which purpose, so a navigation chart and a thematic world map are not held to one standard.
    2. The digital map layer is locked into Mercator by design: Web mapping tiles use a Mercator variant because it keeps north upward and shapes locally correct at every zoom level, which is what makes seamless zooming possible. Eg. Web Mercator underlies the standard tile schemes of the major online mapping services.
      The Fix: Require default map interfaces to switch to an equal-area view at continental and global zoom levels, where the distortion is largest and the navigation property is not being used.
    3. The change has to travel through textbooks and curricula, which move slowly: School atlases, examination material and classroom wall maps are procured on multi-year cycles, so a resolution adopted in one year reaches a classroom several later. Eg. Boston’s public school district switched its classroom maps to an equal-area projection in 2017, and the change stayed confined to that district.
      The Fix: Route the recommendation through national survey agencies and curriculum bodies, which specify the base maps that textbook publishers are obliged to reproduce.

    Conclusion

    The vote settles a question of principle that was never seriously contested and leaves the operative one untouched. What people actually see is set by the default projection of a handful of digital mapping services and by the atlases that education departments procure, and none of them is bound by this text. The measure of the resolution is therefore not the margin it passed by. It is whether a national mapping agency or a major platform changes its default in the year that follows.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the United Nations General Assembly, consider the following statements : 1. The UN General Assembly can grant observer status to the non-member States. 2. Inter-governmental organisations can seek observer status in the UN General Assembly. 3. Permanent Observers in the UN General Assembly can maintain missions at the UN headquarters. Which of the statements given above are correct ? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • 128 countries agree text on lethal autonomous weapons

    Why in the News

    Nearly 130 countries have agreed on a text defining lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), called “killer robots” by their critics. The agreement, announced by 128 countries at Geneva, is a first step towards talks on a possible international treaty to regulate them. The text agreed upon has not yet been made public. Campaign groups following the talks say the definition and the measures meant to reduce harm to civilians were watered down before agreement was reached. The contest is between a definition that now exists on paper and a negotiating mandate that several of the largest military powers are resisting.

    What is a lethal autonomous weapons system?

    1. The defining capability: It is a weapon capable of selecting targets and using force against them without human intervention.
    2. The name its critics use: Campaign groups call these systems “killer robots”, and that label has framed the public argument around them.
    3. The category is not hypothetical: Countries are already developing and using weapons with this capability, which is why the definition is being written now rather than ahead of deployment.

    What was agreed at Geneva, and what was left open?

    1. Who agreed: The Dutch Foreign Minister announced the agreement by 128 countries, and the Netherlands has been overseeing the talks.
    2. What the text does: It defines the category of weapon and sets out measures to reduce the possible harmful effects of such weapons on civilians.
    3. What it does not do: It creates no obligation on any state, and it is described only as a first step towards talks on a possible treaty.
    4. Where the decision sits: UN member states will decide at the November talks of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) whether to move towards a treaty regulating such weapons.

    Why do campaign groups say the outcome is already weakened?

    1. The substance was diluted: One rights group said the text’s definition of an autonomous weapon, and the measures to reduce their possible harmful effects on civilians, appeared to have been watered down.
    2. The named obstruction: The executive director of Stop Killer Robots, an international alliance of campaign groups, accused the United States, Russia and their allies of trying to weaken the agreed text.
    3. The named opponents: Lex International, a Geneva-based philanthropic group that funds work on key policy issues, said the U.S., Russia, India and Israel are among the key opponents of negotiations.
    4. The named sponsors: The same group said the governments of Brazil, Ireland and Norway are leading efforts to get such negotiations started in November.

    What do humanitarian bodies want instead?

    1. The stated warning: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the unconstrained development and use of autonomous weapon systems pose serious legal, ethical and humanitarian challenges.
    2. The demand: The ICRC and several campaigning groups have called for international legally binding rules to restrict and regulate the use of these weapons.
    3. Why a definition alone will not deliver that: The CCW works by consensus, so a single state party can block the opening of treaty negotiations whatever the size of the majority behind them.

    Challenges to regulating lethal autonomous weapons

    1. Nobody is clearly answerable when the machine chooses wrongly: Responsibility for an unlawful strike is split between the commander, the operator, the programmer and the manufacturer, and no existing rule allocates it. Eg. Article 36 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 requires a state to legally review every new weapon, and there is no shared standard for reviewing software whose behaviour changes after deployment.
      The Fix: Require states to publish the methodology of their Article 36 reviews for autonomous systems, so the review becomes checkable rather than declaratory.
    2. States do not agree on how much human control is enough: The negotiations have run for a decade on competing formulations, and a treaty cannot be drafted around a threshold nobody has fixed. Eg. “Meaningful human control”, “appropriate human judgement” and “human-machine interaction” have all been advanced as the operative test at the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS.
      The Fix: Settle one operative term in the agreed text before the negotiating mandate is voted on, rather than after.
    3. Verification cannot see software: Arms control regimes are built to count and inspect physical objects, and autonomy is a line of code that can be loaded or removed before an inspection. Eg. The Chemical Weapons Convention, 1993 verifies a declared substance at a declared facility, and the same inspection tells an inspector nothing about a targeting algorithm.
      The Fix: Shift verification onto declared doctrine, test logs and procurement records, which are documentary and can be audited.
    4. The technology diffuses through civilian supply chains: Autonomy rides on commercial drones, cameras and machine vision software that no arms control list covers. Eg. Commercially available quadcopters have been modified for strike use at scale in the Russia-Ukraine war.
      The Fix: Add autonomous targeting software and machine vision payloads to the dual-use control lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement, so transfers are licensed rather than untracked.

    Conclusion

    A definition is the cheapest thing a negotiation can produce, and it has taken a decade to produce this one. The states that field the most advanced autonomous systems are the ones resisting a mandate to negotiate, which means the majority behind the text does not translate into a treaty. The next meeting of the Convention’s states parties is where that gap is either closed or carried forward. Whether the agreed definition survives publication intact is the first thing to check when the text is released.

    Back2Basics: Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

    1. What it is: The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects was adopted at Geneva in 1980 and entered into force in 1983.
    2. How it is structured: It is a framework convention that carries no prohibitions itself, and the substantive bans sit in protocols that states join separately.
    3. The protocols: Five protocols cover non-detectable fragments, mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons and explosive remnants of war.
    4. India’s position: India is a party to the Convention, and the LAWS discussion has been conducted within its Group of Governmental Experts rather than in a separate forum.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to ‘Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)’, consider the following statements: 1. It is an organization of European Union in working relation with NATO and WHO. 2. It monitors chemical industry to prevent new weapons from emerging. 3. It provides assistance and protection to States (Parties) against chemical weapons threats. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • The house of multilaterals

    Why in the News

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has held its 26th summit at Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic, marking the completion of 25 years since its launch. The Bishkek Declaration expressed deep concern at and condemned the military strikes on Iran, and reaffirmed support for its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It named the United States and Israel as having violated the principles of international law and the UN Charter. The summit was the first since the U.S. and Israel began their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials. The tension is that a grouping able to speak in one voice against outside powers closed the summit by handing its chair to Pakistan.

    What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation?

    1. Founding: The SCO was launched on 15 June 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, together known as the Shanghai Five, as its founding members. India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017.
    2. Institutional machinery: The grouping has 29 charter bodies, including the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meetings of heads of ministries and agencies, and the Council of National Coordinators, alongside over 40 working mechanisms.
    3. What the machinery is for: These bodies meet through the year and serve as formal channels of communication between member states. They give members a standing consultation route in a sudden conflict or a cross-border natural calamity.
    4. No collective defence: The SCO carries no collective defence component, and several of its members have disputes with one another.

    What did the declaration say on West Asia?

    1. Condolence and a peace process: Member states condoled the assassination of Ali Khamenei and welcomed the peace process supported and mediated by several countries, including SCO member Pakistan.
    2. Indirect backing on the nuclear question: The summit advocated the “inalienable right” of member countries to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which reads as support for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
    3. Palestine named as the root question: The declaration asserted that lasting stability in West Asia can be secured only through a just settlement of the Palestine question.
    4. Silence on Ukraine: Member states maintained silence on Russia’s role in the Ukraine war.

    Where did the declaration push back against the prevailing order?

    1. Missile defence: The declaration held that the “unilateral and unlimited build-up of global missile defence systems by groups of states” has a negative impact on international security and stability.
    2. Satellite Internet: It stated that “unauthorised satellite Internet services on the territory of Member States” violate international law, an evident reference to Starlink supplying Internet services in parts of eastern Ukraine and in Iran.
    3. Trade in local currencies: SCO leaders have periodically called for greater use of local currencies in trade, a practice viewed with scepticism in the West and particularly by the current U.S. leadership.
    4. A bank of its own: The announcement of the establishment of an SCO Development Bank is a further step in that direction.

    What did India press at Bishkek, and where did it diverge?

    1. No double standards on terrorism: The Prime Minister, who led the Indian delegation, spoke on ensuring that there is “no double standards” in fighting terrorism and called for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
    2. India’s Afghanistan record: He highlighted India’s role in supplying relief materials to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over the years, and the declaration separately called on Afghanistan to form an “inclusive government”.
    3. Connectivity with a condition: He spoke for greater connectivity between the markets of SCO members, and for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. That formulation is an apparent reference to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India has criticised for years.
    4. The Belt and Road split: India stayed away from endorsing the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Other member states expressed support for it and advocated alignment between the BRI and the Eurasian Economic Union, a customs union of Russia and four post-Soviet states.
    5. The troika language: The declaration carried strong language on the troika of challenges, “terrorism, separatism and extremism”, and “strongly condemned” terrorism, reflecting India’s concerns and those of other members.

    Why does the next chair create a problem for New Delhi?

    1. Pakistan takes the chair: With the conclusion of the summit, Pakistan has assumed the chair of the SCO, and the group’s next summit will be held in that country.
    2. The level of attendance is undecided: The Ministry of External Affairs has not clarified whether the Prime Minister will travel to Pakistan for it. The External Affairs Minister had visited Islamabad in 2024 for the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government.
    3. What has intervened since: The Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025, the subsequent Operation Sindoor, and India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty, the 1960 arrangement sharing the Indus system between India and Pakistan, “in abeyance” have further complicated relations.
    4. A decision, not a formality: These developments will be a factor in the level at which the government sends representatives to next year’s summit.

    What has India got out of the grouping since 2017?

    1. A route back to China after Galwan: India and China began to re-engage at the 2024 Kazan Summit in Russia, where the Prime Minister met the Chinese President.
    2. A concrete boundary outcome: A further meeting between the two leaders at Tianjin in 2025 produced an “Early Harvest” proposal on boundary delimitation and the resumption of border trade through three points.
    3. Political will survived a military crisis: The Tianjin meeting showed that both sides retained the will to meet despite the strain following Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when China supported Pakistan as India targeted terror camps in Pakistani territory.
    4. A multilateral setting for hard subjects: The SCO gives the world an opportunity to engage China multilaterally on issues such as freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and gives India and Pakistan a platform for sustained engagement inside a broader framework.
    5. Leverage in an uncertain phase with Washington: With the U.S. President imposing punitive tariffs on Indian goods, the grouping let New Delhi engage all major stakeholders and maintain diplomatic dialogue.

    Challenges to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

    1. Consensus decision-making lets one member stall an agenda: Every substantive document needs unanimity, so an economic or connectivity text is reduced to language all ten members can sign. Eg. India declined to endorse the Belt and Road paragraph at successive summits, and the connectivity language in SCO declarations has stayed generic as a result.
      The Fix: Adopt a consensus-minus-one procedure for economic annexures, so a project document can proceed without binding a dissenting member.
    2. Enlargement has widened the internal contradictions: Membership has grown from the original five to include India and Pakistan in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024, and each addition brings its own quarrels into the room. Eg. Two pairs of members, India and Pakistan and India and China, carry live disputes with each other.
      The Fix: Tier the agenda, so security cooperation runs among members with no active bilateral dispute and the full membership meets on economic and connectivity subjects.
    3. Members do not share a definition of terrorism: The counter-terrorism arm works from a list members interpret differently, so a summit can condemn terrorism in general and fail on any specific incident. Eg. The SCO defence ministers’ meeting at Qingdao in June 2025 ended without a joint communique after India refused to sign a text that omitted the Pahalgam attack.
      The Fix: Attach a standing annexure of entities already designated by the UN Security Council, so the counter-terrorism text is not renegotiated at every summit.
    4. Connectivity runs through bilateral corridors rather than a common framework: The grouping has no transit and customs instrument of its own, so trade routes are governed by separate bilateral or plurilateral agreements. Eg. The International North-South Transport Corridor, used by India, Iran and Russia, rests on a 2000 agreement signed outside the SCO entirely.
      The Fix: Bring the corridor’s customs, transit and insurance protocols under an SCO transport facilitation agreement, so members trade on one rulebook.

    Conclusion

    The grouping’s value to India has always been access rather than agreement. It is the one table where New Delhi can sit with Beijing and Islamabad without the meeting itself being the story. That access now comes attached to a host India has no ordinary diplomatic traffic with. The decision to watch is the level at which India is represented at the next summit, because it will show whether access is still worth the price of attending.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Critically examine the aims and objectives of SCO. What importance does it hold for India?”

  • Why is BRICS exploring cross-border payments?

    Why in the News

    The 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi, with India as Chair, is expected to push for mechanisms to settle payments between members, including links between national digital payment systems and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which are digital versions of a national currency issued by its central bank. Finance ministry and central bank representatives from member countries met at Jaipur on August 12-13 to discuss financial cooperation, payments and the wider use of national currencies in settling trade between members. The push follows a 2024 BRICS report under Russia’s chairmanship, which argued that this part of the financial system is monopolised by a single institution and that the monopoly raises transaction costs. India has framed its own proposal as a way of cutting costs and speeding settlement rather than as a move away from the dollar. The tension is that every workable alternative needs a critical mass of banks and regulators to join before it saves anyone money, and the members most eager to build one are the members others are most wary of joining.

    How does a cross-border payment move today?

    1. The chain of correspondents: Money does not travel directly between the buyer’s bank and the seller’s bank. It moves through a series of correspondent banks that hold accounts with each other. Eg. An importer in Cape Town paying an exporter in Chennai is routed through a larger international bank typically headquartered in London or New York.
    2. The dollar as a vehicle: Very few banks hold both rupees and rand, so the payment is converted from rand to dollars and then from dollars to rupees, with no American party to the trade.
    3. Messaging is separate from settlement: The instructions travel over SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a Belgium-based cooperative overseen by the National Bank of Belgium along with the G-10 central banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve. It carries payment instructions; the money is settled separately.
    4. Why the network is hard to displace: SWIFT is used directly by more than 11,000 institutions in over 200 countries, and smaller banks reach it indirectly through larger member banks.

    What does the chain cost?

    1. Foreign exchange margins are paid twice: Every intermediary charges a fee, and the two currency conversions mean the exchange margin is taken on both legs.
    2. The measured margins: A 2019 BRICS survey of cross-border payment systems conducted by Brazil found Brazilian respondents reporting foreign exchange margins of 2.5 per cent, rising to 8.5 per cent for payments into Africa and in some cases as high as 20 per cent.
    3. The network has thinned: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found active correspondent banking relationships fell by 20 per cent between 2011 and 2018, with regional declines ranging from 12 per cent to 30 per cent and Latin America worst affected. The reasons were largely commercial, since payment volumes kept growing through the same period.
    4. Speed is no longer the binding problem: SWIFT states that its Global Payments Innovation service has cut transaction times substantially, and the remaining delays are structural rather than a function of chain length.

    Why does BRICS want to change this system?

    1. Exposure to other countries’ monetary policy: Settling in a handful of dominant currencies, the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen, exposes developing economies to policy decisions taken by the issuing countries.
    2. The stated cost argument: The 2024 BRICS report held that concentration of the messaging layer in one institution raises what every participant pays to transact.
    3. Sanctions are the sharpest driver and the sharpest deterrent: Several Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions-hit Russia has pushed hardest for an alternative, and that is also the reason other members are wary of joining one.
    4. The adoption problem: An alternative rail is useful only once a large number of banks and regulators have joined it, and a bank that uses one to deal with sanctioned entities risks sanctions itself.

    What alternatives are on the table?

    1. Bilateral linkage of national systems: Two countries can connect their domestic payment systems directly, avoiding correspondent banks and dollar conversion. Eg. India and Singapore have linked the Unified Payments Interface with PayNow for remittances. Building such links pair by pair does not scale.
    2. A shared hub: Project Nexus, designed by the BIS and handed to a company set up by six central banks including the Reserve Bank of India, lets each country join one connection rather than many. It goes live only in 2027 and is not a BRICS initiative.
    3. CBDC settlement on a common platform: Central banks issue digital versions of their currencies for use between banks, a settlement asset distinct from the retail digital rupee held by individuals, and exchange them on one platform. Both legs of a currency swap occur at the same instant or not at all, which removes the risk of paying out before the other side pays and cuts the capital banks must set aside.
    4. The one platform running today: mBridge, built by the BIS with the central banks of China, Thailand, Hong Kong and the UAE, was handed to its participants when the BIS left in October 2024. Over 95 per cent of its settlement volume is in China’s digital yuan, according to People’s Bank of China figures.
    5. The BRICS-specific proposal: The Kazan declaration of 2024 agreed to discuss and study the feasibility of an independent settlement system called BRICS Clear. The Rio declaration the following year did not mention it.

    What is India’s position?

    1. The proposal: India has proposed that members link their CBDCs for trade and tourism payments, extending the linkage idea from retail systems to central bank money.
    2. The framing is deliberate: Indian officials have consistently presented the payment systems as a means of cutting transaction costs and speeding settlement, not as an initiative to displace the dollar.
    3. Other members have gone further: Russian proposals, and those of some Brazilian economists, have moved towards alternative financial systems explicitly aimed at reducing dependence on the dollar.
    4. The reason for the caution: In November 2024 the U.S. President threatened 100 per cent tariffs on BRICS countries that moved away from the dollar, and a further 10 per cent on countries aligning with vaguely defined anti-American BRICS policies. The threats were not carried out.

    Challenges to a linked BRICS payment system

    1. Domestic rails are not built alike: Member systems differ in message formats, operating hours and rules on when a payment becomes final, so linking them forces each participant to change domestic infrastructure. Eg. The Unified Payments Interface settles instantly and around the clock. Several member country systems settle in batches on business days only.
      The Fix: Require every participant to migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard and extend operating windows so linked systems overlap for a common settlement period.
    2. Most member currency pairs have no liquid market: Settling directly in national currencies needs someone willing to hold and convert the receiving currency, which does not exist for most BRICS pairs. Eg. Indian exporters accumulated rupee balances in special vostro accounts under the rupee trade settlement mechanism that counterparties could not readily deploy.
      The Fix: Establish central bank swap lines and designated market makers for the main pairs, so balances can be converted rather than parked.
    3. One platform needs one rulebook: Customer verification, anti money laundering standards and dispute resolution differ across members, and a shared platform cannot function on several standards at once. Eg. Financial Action Task Force grey listing constrains banks anywhere from dealing with counterparties in a flagged jurisdiction.
      The Fix: Agree a common rulebook and a named dispute resolution seat before the platform carries live value rather than after.
    4. CBDC readiness is uneven across members: A linkage of central bank digital currencies cannot include a member whose currency has not reached production. Eg. India’s wholesale and retail digital rupee pilots began in 2022 and remain pilots.
      The Fix: Sequence the linkage in waves, beginning with members whose wholesale CBDC is already in live operation.

    Conclusion

    The grouping has no shortage of proposals and a shortage of commitment. Every model on the table asks members to surrender something domestically, either control over settlement or their own infrastructure standards, before any of them saves a rupee. The declarations so far have moved in the opposite direction, agreeing to study a settlement system in one year and passing over it the next. The New Delhi summit is where the members either name one model and a date for it or repeat the study language a third time.

    Back2Basics: Bank for International Settlements

    1. Established in 1930 and headquartered at Basel, Switzerland, it is the oldest international financial institution.
    2. It is owned by 63 member central banks, including the Reserve Bank of India, and functions as a bank for central banks rather than for governments or individuals.
    3. It hosts the committees that set global financial standards, including the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
    4. Its Innovation Hub builds payment and settlement prototypes and hands them over to participating central banks, which is how both mBridge and Project Nexus were created.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the Central Bank digital currencies, consider the following statements: 1. It is possible to make payments in a digital currency without using US dollar or SWIFT system. 2. A digital currency can be distributed with a condition programmed into it such as time-frame for spending it. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2”

  • ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) remains the governing framework for the world’s oceans, in the assessment of Tommy Koh. He presided over the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and led more than 150 nations to adopt the Convention in 1982. He is among this year’s Ramon Magsaysay award winners. He puts the number of parties at 172 and treats that as near universal. The United States has never ratified the Convention and still regards it as the authoritative law of the sea. Iran is not a party either, and the regime of transit passage binds it as customary international law. The Convention’s authority is therefore being tested in the Strait of Hormuz against a state that never accepted the treaty.

    What is UNCLOS?

    1. What it is: A comprehensive treaty setting the legal order for the world’s oceans, adopted in 1982 after nine years of negotiation and in force since 1994.
    2. What it allocates: It fixes the maritime zones a coastal state may claim and the rights it holds in each, running outward from the territorial sea to the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and the high seas.
    3. What it does with the deep seabed: Part XI treats the deep seabed and its minerals as the “common heritage of mankind”, to be administered for all states rather than claimed by any one of them.
    4. Why it is described as a constitution: It settles jurisdiction, resource rights and dispute settlement in one instrument, so later ocean agreements are negotiated inside its framework rather than beside it.

    Why has the United States never ratified UNCLOS?

    1. The objection was to the seabed regime, not to the law of the sea: The Reagan Administration rejected Part XI as incompatible with free enterprise and private property norms.
    2. It reversed an earlier American position: The stance taken during the Carter Administration was changed under President Reagan, and the demands that followed were rejected by the developing countries.
    3. The 1994 repair did not change the outcome: A separate agreement in 1994 revised the Part XI arrangements to meet those objections, and ratification still did not follow.
    4. Non ratification is not confined to one objector: Iran and a number of other states have also stayed outside the Convention.

    What binds a state that is not a party?

    1. The count itself does the work: With 172 parties, the Convention’s rules describe general state practice rather than the internal arrangements of a treaty club.
    2. Custom reaches the non party: Transit passage through international straits has passed into customary international law, so it binds Iran although Iran never joined the Convention.
    3. The dispute is political rather than legal: There was no trouble in the Strait of Hormuz before the war, so the priority is ending the war rather than rewriting the law that governs the strait.
    4. A fourth conference answers the wrong question: Reopening the Convention to bring the remaining states in would put a settled architecture back on the negotiating table, and near universal participation already exists without it.

    Where does the Convention not reach?

    1. Dark fleet enforcement is happening outside it: States are designating vessels as a “dark fleet” and taking punitive material action against them, including on the high seas.
    2. The forum named for that problem is the IMO: The International Maritime Organization, rather than a law of the sea conference, is where the practice should be addressed.
    3. Boundary disputes are read as application, not failure: Exclusive economic zone and seabed contests in the South China Sea and over Indian Ocean boundaries are treated as arguments inside the Convention’s architecture rather than as evidence that the architecture has stopped working.

    Conclusion

    A treaty honoured by states that never signed it is strong in one sense and weak in another. Its rules describe how states actually behave, which is precisely what turns them into custom. It carries no way of compelling a state that decides to behave differently, because the states outside it are the ones its dispute settlement machinery cannot reach. That gap is where a closed strait sits, and no further round of accessions would close it.

    Back2Basics: International Maritime Organization

    1. What it is: The United Nations specialised agency responsible for the safety and security of shipping and for preventing marine pollution by ships.
    2. When it was established: It was created by a convention adopted in 1948, began functioning in 1959, and is headquartered in London.
    3. What it produces: Its principal instruments are the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
    4. How it enforces: It sets standards that flag states then apply to ships registered with them, so it regulates through member state implementation rather than by direct enforcement at sea.

    [2022] With reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, consider the following statements :

    1. A coastal state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baseline determined in accordance with the convention.

    2. Ships of all states, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.

    3. The Exclusive Economic Zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

    Which of the statements given above are correct ?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • UN sets pathway to tackle ‘inevitable breach’ of the 1.5°C global warming limit

    UN sets pathway to tackle ‘inevitable breach’ of the 1.5°C global warming limit

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has for the first time set out a detailed “overshoot, peak, and decline” pathway for global warming. Its report, Limiting Overshoot, states that a breach of the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit is now unavoidable and will bring irreversible ecological losses that no adaptation initiative can undo. That limit is the central goal of the Paris Agreement, 2015, which committed parties to holding the rise in average global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels. The shift is in the framing rather than in the science: the objective being planned for is no longer the prevention of a breach but the management of one, described in the report itself as by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway and simply the best remaining option.

    What is the “overshoot, peak, and decline” pathway?

    1. The sequence it describes: Average global temperature crosses the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, rises to a peak, and is then brought back down below the limit by 2100.
    2. What it tries to control: With the crossing treated as fixed, the two variables left are the height of the peak and the length of time spent above the limit, and the pathway seeks to hold both as low as possible.
    3. What it requires that mitigation alone does not: Returning below the limit after a peak requires removing carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, not only stopping additional emissions.

    What do the warming projections show?

    1. The breach is imminent: Global warming will cross 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next few years.
    2. Full delivery of every pledge still overshoots: A scenario in which every country delivers on its national climate plan and its net zero target puts peak warming at 1.8 degrees Celsius.
    3. Current policies point far higher: They point to a rise of about 2.6 degrees Celsius by 2100, within a range of 1.9 to 3.6 degrees Celsius.

    What are the compounding costs of time spent above 1.5 degrees Celsius?

    1. Sea level and ocean systems: Sea level rise accelerates, and coral reefs collapse.
    2. Cryosphere: Glacier loss exceeds a quarter of global glacier mass by 2100.
    3. Food systems: Global food production declines by up to 14% by 2050 without effective adaptation.
    4. Tipping points: The odds rise of irreversible transitions in the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the ocean current system that redistributes heat across the Atlantic, and the Amazon.

    Why is reversing an overshoot harder than avoiding it?

    1. Delay adds warming at a fixed rate: Every five years of continued high emissions adds roughly 0.1 degrees Celsius to peak warming.
    2. Removing the same warming costs far more than adding it: Reversing that 0.1 degrees Celsius afterwards means pulling about 220 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, over and above whatever is still being emitted.
    3. Emission cuts alone no longer close the gap: A steep scaling up of nature based removals, such as large reforestation programmes, is required alongside them.

    Why does the report single out methane?

    1. A first for the United Nations: This is the first time a report of this kind has placed significant stress on methane rather than treating carbon dioxide as the only lever.
    2. Its share of the problem is large: Methane contributes about 0.5 degrees Celsius of current warming.
    3. It is the fastest acting lever available: Cutting methane is described as the most effective way to slow warming in the near term, which is precisely what holding down the peak requires.

    How was the diplomatic ground for conceding an overshoot laid?

    1. The concession was made first at a climate conference, not in a science report: The 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), held in 2025 at Belém in Brazil, produced the consensus “Global Mutirão” decision, mutirão being a Portuguese term for collective effort.
    2. What made it significant: It was the first COP text to concede that a temporary overshoot of the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit was likely, given how fast the remaining carbon budget was being spent.
    3. The political framing accompanying the report: This summer’s heat, wildfires and floods have been described as a warning of what lies ahead, with the stated objective now to make the overshoot as small and as short as possible.

    Challenges to an overshoot, peak and decline pathway

    1. Carbon removal at the required scale does not exist: The pathway assumes gigatonne scale removal that current technology and land availability cannot deliver. Eg. Operating direct air capture plants worldwide remove a volume measured in thousands of tonnes a year against a requirement measured in billions.
      The Fix: Separate emission reduction and removal targets in every nationally determined contribution, so removal cannot be used to discount a country’s reduction obligation.
    2. Overshoot creates a moral hazard in near term policy: Once a temporary breach is accepted as planned for, the incentive to cut now weakens, because the shortfall is deferred to a future removal obligation. Eg. Net zero pledges dated to mid century already rely on unspecified future removals to close the residual gap.
      The Fix: Fix binding five year interim carbon budgets, so a country’s compliance is assessed against cumulative emissions rather than against a distant target year.
    3. Tipping points are not reversible when the temperature comes back down: Bringing temperature below the limit later does not restore a system that has already crossed its threshold. Eg. An ice sheet that has begun irreversible retreat continues losing mass even after warming stabilises.
      The Fix: Set the peak temperature, rather than the end of century value, as the headline metric against which climate policy is assessed.
    4. Nature based removal competes with food and land rights: Large reforestation programmes need land that is already used for cultivation, grazing or forest dwelling communities. Eg. Plantation drives on land recorded as degraded have displaced pastoral and forest dependent use in several countries.
      The Fix: Require free, prior and informed consent and a land tenure audit before any removal project is counted towards a national target.
    5. The cost falls on countries that did not cause the overshoot: Adaptation finance to survive the period above the limit is needed by economies with the least capacity to raise it. Eg. Small island developing states face permanent territorial loss from sea level rise they contributed almost nothing to.
      The Fix: Tie disbursement from the loss and damage fund to a published overshoot period schedule, so the finance arrives during the years the harm is being incurred.

    Conclusion

    The value of this pathway is that it makes the cost of delay arithmetic rather than rhetorical. Warming added by continuing to emit is cheap and automatic; warming removed afterwards is expensive, slow and dependent on technology that has not been built at scale. That asymmetry is what converts a distant target year into an immediate operational question about the next few years of emissions. The reform that follows is to shift the metric climate policy is judged on, from a date by which a country claims to reach balance to the height of the peak its emissions in this decade produce.

    [2025, GS3, 15 marks] Write a review on India’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement (2015) and mention how these have been further strengthened in COP26 (2021). In this direction, how has the first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) intended by India been updated in 2022?”

  • At SCO, Modi seeks dismantling of terror infra as Pak’s Shehbaz listens

    At SCO, Modi seeks dismantling of terror infra as Pak’s Shehbaz listens

    Why in the News

    The Prime Minister told the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) (the ten member Eurasian security grouping that includes India, Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran) that the crisis in West Asia demonstrates that a conflict in one region does not remain confined there. He said it impacts global energy security, maritime trade and supply chains, and that the Global South bears the brunt of the consequences.

    Why did India put the West Asia war at the centre of its SCO message?

    1. Security has widened: In an interconnected world the scope of security has expanded significantly, so a regional war becomes an energy, shipping and supply chain problem for every member.
    2. The meeting with Iran: Iran’s President was among the leaders at the summit. The Prime Minister met him on Monday, their first meeting since the start of the war.

    What did India demand on terrorism, and what gives the demand its weight?

    1. Beyond action and reaction: With Pakistan’s Prime Minister listening, the Prime Minister said terrorism remains a grave challenge for all of humanity and that the fight cannot be limited to a mere “action-reaction” mindset.
    2. Dismantle the whole ecosystem: He called for dismantling the entire ecosystem of terror financing, recruitment, radicalisation and safe havens, and for members to speak in one voice that there is no room for double standards.
    3. Terrorism as state policy: Countries that use terrorism as an instrument of state policy and shelter terrorists must be sent a strong message that terrorism cannot be a strategic asset for anyone.
    4. The Operation Sindoor antecedent: In May 2025, days after the Pahalgam terror attack, India launched Operation Sindoor, striking terror targets in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan. Four days of hostilities followed and ended with Pakistan seeking a ceasefire.
    5. The Tianjin precedent: At the SCO summit in Tianjin on August 31 and September 1 last year, the Prime Minister called the Pahalgam attack the “most heinous face of terrorism” and an open challenge to every nation, and said double standards on terrorism are unacceptable.

    What are the three pillars India set out for the SCO’s next 25 years?

    1. The framework: India’s vision for the SCO rests on three pillars, S for Security, C for Connectivity and O for Opportunity. Over 25 years the grouping built a tradition of dialogue across Eurasia, and the goal for the next 25 is to translate that cooperation into tangible results.
    2. Security: This pillar is the terrorism agenda set out above, carried as a demand on the grouping rather than as a bilateral grievance.
    3. Connectivity: Its scope must expand beyond roads, railways and air corridors to simplifying customs procedures, promoting digital documentation and enhancing the efficiency of logistics networks.
    4. Opportunity: The benefits of cooperation must directly reach people, with people-to-people ties at the heart of the next 25 years. The yardstick of success is new opportunities for youth, new markets for entrepreneurs, farmers benefiting from technology and improvement in citizens’ lives.
    5. Shared geography: As the world navigates uncertainty and instability, the task is to transform shared geography into shared opportunities.

    Why is connectivity the pillar that divides the members?

    1. Sovereignty as the condition: India supports all initiatives that connect markets, facilitate trade and open growth avenues, on the condition that respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations is paramount, which it described as the core spirit of the SCO Charter.
    2. The Iran route: India wants to access Central Asia through Iran, since Pakistan has denied India overland transit to the region.
    3. The corridor objection: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an irritant for India because it runs through territory India claims and so violates its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    What follows the summit?

    1. The Delhi BRICS summit: The Chinese President and the Russian President attended, and the Prime Minister met them informally during the leaders’ group photograph. Both are expected at the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12 and 13.
    2. A Pakistan-hosted summit: Pakistan hosts the next SCO summit in 2027, and India’s participation will be watched closely by members of the grouping.

    Conclusion

    India has made no double standards on terrorism the price of its engagement with the SCO. The grouping’s next chair is the country that demand is aimed at. Two dates now test the position: the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12 and 13, where the same Chinese and Russian leaders reconvene, and the next SCO summit under the Pakistani chair, where India must decide whether and at what level to attend.

    [2026] Which of the following countries are members of the European Union?

    1. Belarus

    2. Poland

    3. Germany

    4. Switzerland

    (a) 1, 2 and 4 (b) 1 and 4 only (c) 2 and 3 (d) 2 and 4 only