Type: States

Many questions regarding developments in specific states are asked in both prelims and mains. These Newscards correspond to such developments.

Bengal ‘Anti-Goonda’ Bill fails to get President’s nod due to overlap with Central legislation
Why in the News
The President has returned the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026 to the State for reconsideration. The Bill was introduced in the Assembly in June to curb anti social activities. The Centre’s note recorded that one clause of the Bill may create a parallel preventive detention mechanism for drug related activities. The stated objection is that this raises an issue of repugnancy under Article 254 of the Constitution. The contested point is that a State preventive detention law was stopped on duplication of a Central statute rather than on the reach of the powers it confers.
What does the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026 do?
1. The externment power: A District Magistrate, a Commissioner of Police or an authorised police officer not below the rank of Deputy Inspector General may order a person identified as a goonda out of a specified area, district or part of a district. The prohibition on entering or returning may run for up to one year.
2. The reporting power: The same order may require that person to report his movements, or to report himself, at specified times to a specified authority.
3. The trigger: The power turns on the authority’s apprehension that the person is engaging in or will engage in anti social activities. No finding on a past offence is required.
4. The stated safeguard: The Chief Minister assured the Assembly that the legislation would not be used for political vendetta and that the preventive arrest provisions would not be misused.
What exactly did the Centre object to?
1. The clause in question: The Bill’s definition of goonda covers a person who commits, attempts to commit, abets, promotes, finances or facilitates any offence punishable under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act). The objection is confined to that single reference.
2. The Central statute it collides with: The Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988 (PITNDPS Act) already provides a preventive detention framework for persons engaged in illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The Centre’s note describes it as a specific Central legislation on that subject.
3. The change asked for: The note asked that the reference to NDPS Act offences in the definition clause be deleted. Deletion is the only remedy proposed, and it leaves the rest of the Bill untouched.
Why does a State law duplicating a Central law fail at the assent stage?
1. The rule in Article 254: Article 254(1) makes a State law void to the extent that it is repugnant to a Central law on the same Concurrent List subject. Repugnancy does not require the State law to be objectionable in itself.
2. The saving clause: Article 254(2) saves such a State law where it has been reserved for and has received the assent of the President. Presidential assent is therefore the only route by which an inconsistent State law can stand.
3. The assent route: Under Article 200 a Governor may assent to a State Bill, withhold assent and return it once for reconsideration, or reserve it for the President. A Bill carrying a possible conflict with Central law travels by the third route.
4. The ground of the return: The objection is to duplication rather than to the preventive powers. A parallel State mechanism on a subject a Central Act already occupies is precisely what Article 254 is designed to prevent.
What happens to the Bill now?
1. Return to the Assembly: The recorded position of the State administration is that the Bill may be tabled again once the conflicting portion is changed. It would then be sent again for the assent of the President.
2. The six month clock: Where a reserved Bill is returned, the legislature must consider it within six months. The President is under no obligation to act if the Bill reaches him a second time.
3. No judicially enforced deadline: State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu (2025) required a decision within three months on a Bill reserved for the President. The Supreme Court’s later advisory opinion on the Presidential Reference under Article 143 held that courts cannot impose timelines under Articles 200 and 201.
Challenges to the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026
1. Procedure is the only real check: Preventive detention is tested on the fairness of its procedure rather than on guilt. Eg. Article 22 was read as a self contained code in 1950, and since 1978 the procedure for any deprivation of liberty must also be just, fair and reasonable under Article 21.
  The Fix: Write the grounds, the representation route and the review reference into the statute itself rather than leaving them to executive instructions.
2. Central statutes already occupy the field: Each class of preventive detention already has a Central Act, so a State Act reaching the same conduct invites the objection this Bill received. Eg. Smuggling and foreign exchange violations are covered by the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA).
  The Fix: Screen a State preventive detention Bill against every Central Act on the same subject before introduction rather than at the assent stage.
3. The assent stage has no agreed discipline: A State Bill reserved for the President can wait without a stated end date, and the reform proposals on this have not been acted on. Eg. The Punchhi Commission recommended time limits for granting assent in 2010.
  The Fix: Require the Centre’s observations on a reserved Bill to be published within a fixed period, so a State learns the objection during the same session.
Conclusion
The objection returned to West Bengal is narrow and curable by deleting one reference. That is also what makes it revealing. A State preventive detention law was stopped on the tidiness of the statute book rather than on the reach of the powers it grants, and nothing in the return questions the externment or reporting powers themselves. The thing to watch is whether the amended Bill goes back with only the drug reference removed, or whether the Assembly uses the reconsideration to write procedural safeguards into the text.
Back2Basics: Preventive detention
1. Nature of the power: Detention imposed to prevent a future act rather than to punish a past one. No trial follows, and the detention rests on executive satisfaction.
2. Safeguards that do not apply: Articles 22(1) and 22(2) do not apply, so there is no right to be produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours and no constitutional right to counsel at the initial stage.
3. The outer limit: Article 22(4) caps detention at three months without a reference to an Advisory Board. Parliament may extend that period under Article 22(7).
4. The Central statutes: The National Security Act, 1980 covers national security and public order, COFEPOSA covers smuggling and foreign exchange, and the PITNDPS Act covers drug trafficking.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2026, GS2, 15 marks] Discuss the position of the Governor in the federal polity of India. What is the nature of his power while giving assent to a bill passed by the State Legislature? Is he bound by the aid and advice of his Council of Ministers in all his functions?”
September 25, 2026
In parched Maharashtra, why drought can’t be declared yet
Why in the News
Maharashtra cannot formally declare a drought despite a rainfall deficit across 31 of its 36 districts, because the rules governing central relief fix an assessment window that has not yet opened. Under National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) norms, a kharif drought assessment can begin only from 5 October, once the monsoon starts to withdraw, and a rabi assessment only in March 2027. Opposition leaders have asked that a drought be declared, and the Chief Minister has said the government is taking all steps necessary to deal with an alarming situation. The contested point is that a declaration framework built around fixed seasonal windows cannot respond to a crop failure that has already occurred.
Why has a drought not been declared yet?
1. The kharif window: NDRF rules allow a drought assessment for the kharif season, which runs from June to October, to begin only from 5 October, once the monsoon starts to withdraw.
2. The rabi window: For the rabi season, which runs from October to April, the assessment can be held only in March 2027.
3. What the timing means on the ground: The kharif crop has already failed, so the assessment that decides relief will measure a loss that was complete before the window opened.
Who declares a drought, and on what basis?
1. No single national definition: There is no definition of drought accepted across India, so the threshold is not uniform between States.
2. The State declares: States hold the authority to declare a drought based on local conditions.
3. The Centre holds the money: The State’s report must conform to the parameters specified under NDRF norms, and disaster relief funds are unlocked by the Centre.
4. Why the two halves do not match: A State can act on local conditions but cannot fund the response on its own, so the operative standard is the central one whatever the State’s own assessment says.
What are the NDRF parameters for a declaration?
1. Crop loss: The extent of loss to the standing crop is the primary trigger.
2. The moisture adequacy index: The index measures how far available soil moisture meets crop water requirement, and it is used to assess soil health for the purpose of the declaration.
3. Rainfall deficit: The deficit must be up to 70 per cent.
4. Sowing shortfall: Sowing must fall below 50 per cent of the total cultivable kharif or rabi area.
5. Drinking water and groundwater: Drinking water shortage must be severe and groundwater tables must be shrinking.
6. Fodder shortage: Availability of fodder for livestock must be short.
7. Food production and migration: A decline in food production and labour migration in search of work are both counted.
What do the rainfall and sowing figures show?
1. The driver: The rain deficit this season is El Nino driven, and it has hit an agriculture dependent State economy directly.
2. The spread of the deficit: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) records that 31 of 36 districts in Maharashtra are rain deficient, with 20 of them facing a deficit of 25 per cent to 58 per cent.
3. The gaps between spells: In more than 100 of the State’s 355 drought hit talukas, gaps between rain spells have stretched to 40 to 60 days.
4. A delayed sowing: Kharif sowing began only on 15 July against the normal 10 June, and rain failure after sowing then stunted flowering and fruiting.
5. The area lost: The main kharif crop, sown across 147 lakh hectares, has withered.
6. The crops worst hit: Soybean and cotton, the mainstay of small and marginal farmers in Marathwada and Vidarbha, are the worst affected. The dry spell has also stunted sugarcane growth in Marathwada and parts of western Maharashtra.
7. Rain that damaged rather than helped: Where rain did fall it was short and intense, which damaged soil health and caused erosion in some areas.
8. The structural exposure: Maharashtra’s agriculture is largely rain fed, and its irrigation potential, at under 20 per cent, is far below that of States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
How bad is the water storage position?
1. Major and medium dams: Data up to 20 September shows the State’s 138 major dams at 85 per cent of capacity and 264 medium dams at 65 per cent, against 96 per cent and 77 per cent at the same point last year.
2. The smallest storages are worst off: The State’s 2,630 small and micro dams stand at 43 per cent against 57 per cent a year ago, and these are the storages that villages draw on directly.
3. The regional split: Marathwada, which has the most dams at 929, holds 46 per cent against 81 per cent last year. Amravati division stands at 64 per cent, Nagpur at 72 per cent, Nashik at 83 per cent, Pune at 88 per cent and Konkan at 76 per cent.
4. Why drinking water is the immediate concern: Storage has to carry the State through the dry months to the next monsoon, so a deficit measured in September is a supply problem for the following summer.
What has the State done in the meantime?
1. Loss assessment has begun: The State government has begun surveys and panchanamas to assess crop loss, so that the administration can quantify losses in food production and in money terms.
2. A proposal after the window opens: Maharashtra has decided to submit a proposal to the Centre for financial assistance after 5 October.
3. A central team follows: Before relief funds are released, a central team will visit the affected regions and make its own assessment.
4. Relief already announced: The Chief Minister announced a farm loan waiver of Rs 40,385 crore during the monsoon session in July, with an additional Rs 50,000 incentive for farmers who repaid their loans regularly.
Challenges to the drought declaration framework
1. Relief is timed to the calendar rather than to the failure: An assessment window keyed to monsoon withdrawal starts counting after the loss is complete, so compensation arrives a season late. Eg. A kharif crop lost in August is assessed only from October under the present norms.
  The Fix: Allow a provisional interim assessment on a triggered basis once sowing and rainfall thresholds are breached, with the final assessment reconciling it later.
2. Taluka level averages hide the worst affected villages: Declaration works off administrative units, so a severely affected pocket inside a unit that is only moderately deficient receives nothing. Eg. Rain spell gaps vary sharply between talukas within the same division in the present season.
  The Fix: Use village level rainfall and satellite crop condition data as the unit of assessment, as crop insurance already does.
3. Rainfall totals do not capture distribution: A season can end close to the normal total and still destroy the crop through long dry spells at flowering. Eg. Short intense spells this season damaged soil and caused erosion while adding to the recorded total.
  The Fix: Weight dry spell length and the timing of rainfall against crop growth stages in the declaration parameters, not only the seasonal deficit.
4. The measure of damage is production, not income: Parameters built around crop loss and food production miss the loss of farm wage work and of livestock income that follows a failed season. Eg. Labour migration is counted as an indicator of drought rather than compensated as a loss.
  The Fix: Attach an automatic expansion of rural employment guarantee workdays and fodder camp funding to a declared drought, independent of the crop loss estimate.
5. Rain fed districts carry the shock every time: Where irrigation potential is under 20 per cent, the same districts fail in every deficit year and relief substitutes for capacity that was never built. Eg. Marathwada and Vidarbha carry the worst crop loss in the current season, as in earlier deficit years.
  The Fix: Tie drought relief transfers to a schedule of watershed treatment and micro irrigation coverage in the districts that receive them most often.
Conclusion
The declaration is a funding instrument and not a description of conditions, which is why a State can be in drought and not declared to be in one. The gap this exposes is between a relief architecture organised around seasons and a rainfall pattern that no longer arrives in them. The immediate status is that the State is conducting crop loss surveys and will submit its proposal once the assessment window opens. The winter season is the one to watch, since the rabi position is not assessed until March 2027.
Back2Basics: National Disaster Response Fund
1. Statutory basis: The Fund is constituted under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, and is held by the central government to supplement a State’s own response effort.
2. Relationship with the State fund: A State first meets relief from its State Disaster Response Fund, and the NDRF is accessed when that fund is inadequate for a disaster of severe nature.
3. How it is financed: It is financed through a cess levied for the purpose and through budgetary support, and it is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
4. Coverage: It covers notified disasters including drought, cyclone, flood, earthquake, hailstorm, landslide, pest attack, cloudburst and cold wave.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2014, GS3, 12.5 marks] Drought has been recognised as a disaster in view of its party expense, temporal duration, slow onset and lasting effect on various vulnerable sections. With a focus on the September 2010 guidelines from the National disaster management authority, discuss the mechanism for preparedness to deal with the El Nino and La Nina fallouts in India.”
September 24, 2026

[23rd September 2026] The Hindu OpED: Water wealth

Question (2025, GS3 – 15 Marks):Examine the factors responsible for depleting groundwater in India. What are the steps taken by the government to mitigate such depletion of groundwater?”
Linkage: Directly targets the root causes of aquifer depletion in intensive agrarian states—such as flood irrigation, crop-choice mismatch (paddy in semi-arid zones), and unrestricted deep tube-well extraction—while demanding policy interventions to reverse the trend.

Mentor Comment

Punjab’s groundwater extraction rate stands at 152 per cent, meaning the State draws half again as much each year as is annually replenished. Depletion has now begun to redistribute wealth among farmers. Those who can afford deeper tube wells continue to reach the falling water table. Those who cannot are forced to buy water from them, which hands larger landowners a claim on smaller cultivators. The conflict is between an electricity and procurement structure that makes extraction the safe choice and a conservation goal that requires additional extraction to become expensive.

How far has Punjab’s groundwater been drawn down?

Extraction rate: The 2025-26 Dynamic Groundwater Assessment records the State’s groundwater extraction rate at 152 per cent.
Blocks in the red zone: 72 per cent of Punjab’s 153 blocks sit in the red zone, the highest share among States.
Marginal improvement: Interventions reduced the number of over-exploited blocks by five across the last two assessments.
Deepening wells: The fraction of observation wells with water below 40 metres in the post-monsoon period grew by two percentage points between 2022 and 2025.
Principal consumer: Irrigation for rice and wheat accounts for nearly 25 billion cubic metres a year in the latest estimate.

Why has the rice-wheat system held against its water cost?

Origin in food security: The pattern began as a strategy to improve food security and settled into a concentrated rice-wheat cropping system.
Three supports that removed risk: Assured procurement, subsidised electricity and access to groundwater made high-yield varieties, intensive irrigation, fertilizer use and mechanisation less risky than alternative modes of cultivation.
Unaddressed barriers to switching: Farmers’ reluctance to take up other crops rests on uncertainties in storage options, prices, processing infrastructure and supply chains, and that reluctance has gone relatively unaddressed.

How does groundwater depletion widen the gap between farmers?

Efficiency against capacity: A study in the Economic and Political Weekly found that farmers with marginal landholdings use water more efficiently. The same study found wealthier farmers better equipped to access lower water tables and to draw higher volumes.
Forced water purchase: Farmers unable to afford the requisite tube wells buy water from those who own them. The purchase transfers wealth to larger landowners and creates unregulated dependencies.
Returns against productivity: A study in Discover Sustainability reported that in Sangrur and Barnala larger farms earned higher returns and recorded lower groundwater productivity for paddy than smaller farms.
Capital as the gate: Depletion raises the capital required for irrigation, which systematically privileges farmers with better access to finance.

What would make conservation pay the cultivator?

Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao: The scheme entitles a farmer to cash for every unused kilowatt-hour of pumping electricity below a threshold.
Redirecting the electricity subsidy: Part of the electricity subsidy bill can instead directly support smallholder farmers.
Collective irrigation assets: Irrigation infrastructure can be collectivised, so that access to water stops depending on owning a tube well.
Benefit tied to the cultivator: Where benefits follow the cultivator, including tenants, rather than the owner of the land or the pump, welfare subsidises access to water rather than groundwater extraction.

Challenges to groundwater regulation in Punjab

Efficiency gains overwhelmed by scale: State efforts to manage demand continue, and the volume of extraction outruns the gains those efforts produce. Eg. The count of over-exploited blocks fell by five and most of the State’s blocks stayed in the red zone.
The Fix: Set a declining annual extraction ceiling for each red zone block, so efficiency measures are judged against a volume target rather than against a block count.
Incentives measured in electricity, not water: Conservation payments are calculated on unused pumping units, which is a proxy for water and not a measure of it. Eg. Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao pays for kilowatt-hours left unused below a threshold.
The Fix: Meter pumped volume at the connection, so payment tracks abstraction directly.
Voluntary enrolment: A scheme a farmer must opt into reaches those already confident about their water access, and not those most exposed to a falling table. Eg. Enrolment in Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao remains low.
The Fix: Enrol every metered connection by default and allow farmers to opt out.

Conclusion

Punjab’s groundwater question has stopped being only a question about the aquifer. Depletion now decides which farmers can irrigate at all, and it converts water access into a form of wealth that moves from the smaller cultivator to the larger one. Conservation has to be paid for in a form that reaches the person farming the land, including the tenant, rather than the person who owns the pump. The thing to watch is whether the State converts part of its electricity subsidy into direct support tied to the cultivator.

September 23, 2026

Towards recognising women farmers
Why in the News
Maharashtra has passed the Women Farmers’ Empowerment Bill. The law grants women independent recognition as farmers irrespective of land ownership, through a Woman Farmer Certificate. It is the first Indian State legislation to give enforceable legal form to the activity-based, land-delinked definition of ‘farmer’. The National Policy for Farmers set that definition out in 2007 and never operationalised it. A comparable central law was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2011 and lapsed. The contested point is that recognition as a farmer in India runs through land revenue records, and those records stand primarily in men’s names. The United Nations has named 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer.
What is the Woman Farmer Certificate under the Women Farmers’ Empowerment Bill?
1. Land-delinked definition: The Act recognises women residents engaged in agriculture for at least one agricultural season a year, irrespective of the nature of the land. It broadens the definitions of both ‘agriculture’ and ‘farmer’.
2. Woman Farmer Certificate: The certificate is the document that confers an independent agricultural identity on a woman, drawn from what she does rather than from a title in a land record.
3. Categories named in the Act: It explicitly recognises the landless cultivator, the landless livestock rearer, the agricultural labourer, the plantation labourer and the pastoralist.
How far has women’s participation in agriculture outrun their recognition as farmers?
1. Workforce size: In 2025 agriculture employed roughly 110 million women and 127 million men in rural India, on Census adjusted Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) estimates, bringing the sector close to gender parity.
2. Rate of increase: The women’s agricultural workforce has more than doubled since 2017-18.
3. Concentration in agriculture: Nearly three-quarters of all rural women workers are now in agriculture, against less than half of men.
4. Unpaid work: In 2025 more than 41% of female agricultural workers were unpaid, against 20% of men.
5. Own-account work: Nearly 63% of men were own-account workers, against 39% of women.
Why does the land record decide who counts as a farmer?
1. Ownership held by men: Women largely work family land without owning it or appearing on the land record, because patriarchal norms keep records in men’s names.
2. Share of holdings: Only 14% of operational agricultural land holdings, measured primarily through land records, are with women, as per the Agriculture Census 2015-16.
3. Land record as the source of truth: Each State uses its land revenue record for administrative purposes, so the bias against women is carried forward into databases and scheme access.
4. What exclusion costs: A woman left off the record cannot reach credit, subsidies, technology, extension services and related opportunities tied to land titles.
What does scheme access reveal about the recognition gap?
1. PM-KISAN coverage: Only 23% of beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) are women.
2. PM-KISAN design: The scheme pays Rs 6,000 a year in direct financial assistance to eligible landholding farmer families for agricultural expenses and household needs.
3. Gap where women dominate the workforce: Even in States where women are more than 50% of the agriculture workforce, women are under one-third of beneficiaries in most of them.
4. Three measures of the gap: The gap is approximated by three shares taken together, women as a share of all agriculture and allied workers in 2025, women’s operational holdings as a share of all operational holdings in 2015-16, and women as a share of eligible PM-KISAN beneficiaries in 2024.
5. Comparability caveat: The holdings and PM-KISAN figures sit nine years apart, and PM-KISAN counts individuals per landholding family, including successor widows, while the Census counts each holding once.
Why is the binding constraint the identification system rather than land itself?
1. Missing instrument: A women farmers’ registry delinked from land records had been absent before this legislation, so recognition shifts from the owner of land to the person who farms.
2. Meghalaya: Women are 70% of PM-KISAN beneficiaries there, a share that reflects matrilineal inheritance under which women are the customary landholders.
3. Kerala: Women are 44% of beneficiaries, and collective farming through groups such as Kudumbashree provides an alternative route to participation and recognition.
4. Odisha: The KALIA scheme has reached landless and sharecropper women without a land title as the gate.
5. Widest gaps: In Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh women are nearly two-thirds of the agricultural workforce but a small fraction of beneficiaries.
6. The constraint named: Where the land record is the gatekeeper women are filtered out, and where an alternative mechanism exists their access rises substantially.
What will turning recognition into access require?
1. Route to registration: Implementation runs through either self-registration or identification of women farmers by the Gram Sabha, including women with no land and women with no title in their name.
2. A new database: The Act provides for a database of women farmers, which has to be connected to existing agricultural databases.
3. Digital integration: Linking the certificates to Agri Stack, the digital agriculture platform developed by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and issuing FarmerIDs to women is what carries them into the wider digital agricultural ecosystem.
Challenges to the Woman Farmer Certificate
1. Duplication and exclusion in the register: A second database beside existing agricultural databases can record the same woman twice or leave her out of both. Eg. States hold no common definition for identifying a woman farmer, issuing her certificate or maintaining the record.
  The Fix: Build a standardised cross-State system of definitions, certificates and databases, so one woman farmer carries one identity across schemes and platforms.
2. Awareness as the binding step: A certificate confers status without telling its holder what the status unlocks. Eg. Registration depends on a woman either applying herself or being identified by her Gram Sabha, and a woman who knows of neither route stays uncounted.
  The Fix: Run a continuous local information campaign naming the schemes and the credit lines the certificate opens.
3. Central eligibility still keyed to land: A State certificate does not by itself alter the eligibility test a central scheme applies. Eg. PM-KISAN pays landholding farmer families, so a landless certificate holder still fails that test.
  The Fix: Rewrite scheme eligibility around the activity-based definition of a farmer rather than around a land title.
Conclusion
One State has separated the identity of a farmer from the ownership of land. Access to credit and welfare still runs through databases that read titles. The unresolved question is whether scheme administrators treat an activity-based certificate as proof of farmer status, or whether a second register simply sits beside the first without opening anything. What to watch is whether other States legislate a comparable registry, and whether the Gram Sabha route reaches women who have never appeared in any agricultural record.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2014, GS1, 10 marks] Discuss the various economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving increasing feminization of agriculture in India.”
September 23, 2026
Karnataka Houses adopt resolution against report on Western Ghats
Why in the News
The Karnataka Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council have adopted a unanimous resolution urging the Union government to confine the Ecological Sensitive Area (ESA) identified as per the Kasturirangan report on conservation of the Western Ghats to notified forests alone. The resolution follows the Centre’s seventh draft notification on the ESA in the State. It asks that the draft not be finalised for one year. A physical survey of the areas coming under the ESA would be completed in that period. It also asks that the final decision be taken only after the State submits its report and only after detailed discussion between the Centre and the State. The contest is between a delineation drawn from satellite data and a State claim that only a joint survey on the ground can fix which land belongs inside an ecologically protected zone.
What is the Ecological Sensitive Area proposed for the Western Ghats?
1. Source of the delineation: The ESA is the area identified for conservation as per the Kasturirangan report on the Western Ghats.
2. Route of notification: The Centre gives the ESA effect through a draft notification, and the draft issued on 27 July is the seventh in the series.
3. Extent in Karnataka: That draft covers 20,668 sq km, spread over 1,449 villages across 10 districts of the State.
What does the resolution ask the Centre to do, and on what terms?
1. ESA confined to notified forests: The resolution urges the Union government to restrict the ESA to notified forests, leaving other categories of land outside it.
2. One-year pause on finalisation: The draft notification should not be finalised for the next one year, by when the physical survey would be completed.
3. State report before any decision: The final decision on the ESA should follow the State’s own report and a detailed discussion between the Centre and the State.
Why does the State say the delineation is wrong?
1. Satellite data instead of a ground survey: The resolution alleges the ESA is not accurate, because it was determined from satellite data rather than a joint physical survey by the Forest and Revenue departments.
2. Scale of the correction sought: The State’s stand on the ESA would reduce the notified area to about 16,000 sq km.
3. High-level committee: Karnataka would constitute a high-level committee to suggest measures correcting the “lacunae” in the report through appropriate modifications.
Challenges to the Western Ghats ESA notification
1. A regime that never reaches finality: Successive draft notifications keep the protective regime provisional, so neither the conservation restriction nor land use certainty actually operates. Eg. The notification now in contention is the seventh draft on the ESA.
  The Fix: Fix a statutory outer date by which a draft must either be notified or withdrawn, so the interim period cannot be extended indefinitely.
2. Village boundaries decide household livelihoods: The ESA is applied over villages, so an error at a village boundary decides which households face restrictions on what they may do with their land. Eg. The draft covers 1,449 villages across 10 districts of Karnataka.
  The Fix: Publish the village-wise survey numbers proposed for inclusion, so an objection can be filed against a specific parcel rather than against the map as a whole.
3. Ecologically significant land outside notified forests: Confining the ESA to notified forests leaves out ecologically sensitive stretches that are recorded as revenue or plantation land. Eg. Karnataka’s stand would cut the ESA to roughly three-quarters of the area the Centre proposes.
  The Fix: Retain non-forest ecologically significant stretches under a lighter regulatory category, instead of removing them from the notification altogether.
4. A resolution carries no legal force: The notifying power sits with the Union government, so a State legislature can only urge rather than alter the instrument. Eg. Both Houses adopted the resolution unanimously and still had to address it to the Centre as a request.
  The Fix: Route the State’s objections through the formal objection process the draft notification itself provides, with the survey findings attached as the evidentiary record.
Conclusion
The question of who fixes an ecological boundary is now open between a Centre that holds the notifying power and a State that holds the forest and revenue records. Karnataka has committed itself to a survey it has yet to begin, and its demand for a pause is only as strong as that survey’s completion. The thing to watch is whether the Centre holds the draft for the survey year the resolution asks for, or finalises it as it stands.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2014] With reference to ‘Eco-Sensitive Zones’, which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. Eco-Sensitive Zones are the areas that are declared under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. 2. The purpose of the declaration of Eco-Sensitive Zones is to prohibit all kinds of human activities in those zones except agriculture. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 (d)”
September 23, 2026
In MP, probe into how farmers’ identities were used to sell cheap moong to govt at a profit
Why in the News
Madhya Pradesh’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has booked three computer operators running procurement terminals at cooperative societies in Raisen district for an alleged moong procurement fraud. The operators are alleged to have used the land records of farmers who had never registered to sell under the support price scheme, created procurement registrations in the names of acquaintances, bought moong on the open market at low prices, and sold it to the government at the Minimum Support Price (MSP). The alleged scheme ran across three societies in Badi tehsil over two procurement seasons and netted roughly Rs 13.3 lakh. The criminal case follows two internal cooperative department inquiries. The tension is that the price floor worked exactly as designed while the registration step that decides who may claim it did not, and it has surfaced during sustained farmer protests in the State over moong procurement and MSP implementation.
What is the Minimum Support Price and how does procurement work?
1. Minimum Support Price: It is a price floor announced by the Centre for selected crops, so a registered grower is assured a stated rate irrespective of what the open market pays that day.
2. Who fixes it: The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices recommends the level for each season and the Centre announces it.
3. Coverage against actual purchase: The floor covers 22 crops, and assured physical procurement at scale is concentrated overwhelmingly in wheat and rice, so for other crops a declared floor binds only where an agency actually buys.
4. The registration step: A grower must first register the land on which the crop was raised, and the produce is then weighed against that registration at a procurement centre before payment is released.
How was the registration system allegedly turned into a trade?
1. Operator access to land records: Every operator at a cooperative society has access to the land records of all farmers in the area that centre serves, including those who own plots but have never registered to sell through the support price scheme.
2. Fraudulent registration: Agricultural land that no farmer had registered was allegedly registered by the accused in the names of their acquaintances, and moong was then weighed through those registrations.
3. The purchase leg: The moong weighed at the centres was allegedly bought from local markets at a lower price, so the registration manufactured a seller who had grown nothing.
4. How it surfaced: Farmers in the Raisen hinterland found they had apparently sold moong to the government without ever growing it, registering it or taking it to a procurement centre. Fake registrations were collected and witnesses questioned during the EOW’s complaint verification.
What do the case figures show about the size of the margin?
1. Dehri Kala registrations: Entries of 8.095 hectares and a further 4.532 hectares allegedly yielded 151.524 quintals procured at the 2025 support price of Rs 8,682 a quintal, a payout of Rs 13,15,531 against about Rs 4,54,572 spent acquiring the moong, a margin of Rs 8,60,959.
2. Registration in an accused’s own name: Another operator registered 3.523 hectares in his own name and procured 42.276 quintals for Rs 3,67,040, against an estimated Rs 1,26,828 of cost, a profit of Rs 2,40,212.
3. Bharkachh Kala registrations: Entries of 3.428 hectares yielded 41.136 quintals worth Rs 3,57,142 against an estimated Rs 1,23,408 of cost, clearing Rs 2,33,734.
4. How the figures were built: Investigators compared the procurement receipts against prevailing mandi rates for moong of comparable quality at Bareli over the same window.
Why did the price gap make the fraud worth running?
1. The spread: Bareli mandi rates for moong swung from as low as Rs 1,500 a quintal to as high as Rs 8,800 depending on grade, against a fixed support price of Rs 8,558 in the 2024 to 2025 season and Rs 8,682 the following season.
2. A fixed price against a variable one: The support price does not vary by grade while the mandi rate does, so every lot bought below the floor converts into a guaranteed margin at the procurement centre.
3. The alternative route: The Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) told investigators that the procurement route was never the only option open to the farmers whose names were used, since farmers can independently sell their produce.
4. The political setting: The case has surfaced during sustained farmer protests in Madhya Pradesh over moong procurement and the implementation of the support price.
Challenges to MSP procurement
1. Identity is verified at payment, not at registration: The system checks who is paid but not whether the registered grower actually raised the crop on the registered plot. Eg. Land never registered by any farmer was allegedly registered in the names of acquaintances across three societies in Badi tehsil.
  The Fix: Tie every registration to farmer authenticated consent and to a field or satellite verified sowing record for that survey number before weighing is allowed.
2. The operator is both data entry and gatekeeper: One terminal operator can create a registration, accept the produce and trigger the payment, so no independent step exists to fail. Eg. All three accused in Raisen ran procurement terminals at the societies where the registrations were made.
  The Fix: Separate registration, weighing and payment authorisation across three roles, with the cooperative society secretary countersigning first time registrations.
3. Procurement concentrated in wheat and rice: For crops outside that core the floor operates in short seasonal windows with thin agency capacity, which is where leakage collects. Eg. Maize in Punjab routinely sells below its support price for want of a procurement agency.
  The Fix: Publish crop wise and district wise procurement capacity before each season so a grower knows whether the floor will actually be available.
4. Grade based price variation invites arbitrage: A single flat support price against a wide mandi range for the same crop creates a standing incentive to buy low grade produce and present it at the centre. Eg. Bareli rates ranged from Rs 1,500 to Rs 8,800 a quintal against one fixed floor.
  The Fix: Apply published quality parameters with graded deductions at the weighing stage rather than one undifferentiated rate.
5. Detection depends on the farmer noticing: A farmer who never intended to sell has no reason to check the procurement record, so a fraudulent entry in his name can sit undisturbed for a full season. Eg. The Raisen farmers learned of the sales only when the entries were traced back to them.
  The Fix: Send an automatic message to the registered land holder at the moment a registration is created against his survey number, not after payment.
Conclusion
The failure here is not in the price but in the claim on it. A floor enforced correctly at the counter is still capturable by whoever controls the record of who is entitled to walk up to it, and that record sits with the same operator who processes the transaction. The case is at the investigation stage, with three operators booked after two departmental inquiries. What to watch is whether the response stays confined to a criminal case against three terminal operators or extends to separating registration from procurement across the State’s cooperative societies.
Back2Basics: Agricultural Produce Market Committee
1. What it is: It is a statutory market body constituted by a State government to regulate wholesale trade in notified agricultural produce within a defined market area.
2. Legal basis: Each State’s own Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act governs it, so market rules, fees and the list of notified commodities vary across States.
3. What it does: It licenses traders and commission agents, runs the regulated market yard or mandi, and records the sale price and volume of each transaction.
4. Why its record matters: The mandi rate it publishes is the reference price against which an alleged support price diversion can be measured.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2018, GS3, 10 marks] What do you mean by Minimum Support Price (MSP)? How will MSP rescue the farmers from the low-income trap?”
September 15, 2026
Ahead of election, Punjab talks drugs again; its children are still paying the price
Why in the News
Punjab’s narcotics trade has changed its form without shrinking. A transit route for opium derivatives has hardened into an entrenched narcotics economy, and it now runs on cheaper pharmaceutical drugs, on drone deliveries across the international border and on supply reaching inmates inside prisons. The state police campaign Yudh Nasheyan Virudh, launched in March 2025, has produced large arrest and seizure numbers, and the Punjab Governor has said the trade cannot survive even 10 days without the support of the police and the administration. With Assembly elections approaching, every party has again made drug eradication a campaign promise, which is what the previous three campaigns were as well. The contest is between the scale of enforcement recorded on paper and the availability of the drug on the street.
How has the nature of Punjab’s narcotics trade changed?
1. From transit route to economy: The origin of the crisis is traced to Punjab’s geography and its proximity to the Golden Crescent, the major opium producing region spanning Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. What began largely as a transit route evolved into a far more entrenched narcotics economy.
2. Pharmaceutical substitution: Cheaper pharmaceutical drugs now flood local markets alongside narcotics.
3. Misuse of prescription medicine: Chemists speak openly about the misuse of medicines meant for pain relief and neurological disorders. A pharmaceutical company based in Dehradun discontinued a pill, known locally as the “ghodeyanwala capsule”, after widespread allegations of its abuse.
4. The vocabulary of the crisis: Words such as “chitta” (heroin), “goliyan” (pills) and “sooiyan” (injectables) have become part of everyday language in the state.
5. A shift in public reaction: When the film Udta Punjab was released in 2016, many in the state objected that it tarnished Punjab’s image. That outrage has given way to grim acceptance.
What do the enforcement numbers under the current campaign show?
1. Case volume: Between 1 March 2025 and 2 September 2026 the police registered 59,293 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act).
2. Arrests and seizures: 696 major traffickers were arrested, 3,757 kg of heroin and 62 lakh tablets were seized, and Rs 22 crore in drug money was recovered.
3. Property action: Punjab also began attaching and demolishing properties allegedly built from drug proceeds, a method taken from Uttar Pradesh.
4. Availability unchanged: Voices on the ground insist the supply has not dried up, and that chitta remains as easily available as salt.
What does complicity inside the enforcement machinery do to the campaign?
1. The Governor’s assessment: The Punjab Governor, who has walked with Mothers Against Drugs, said the trade cannot survive even 10 days without the support of the police and the administration.
2. An admission in court: In an affidavit before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the police admitted that drugs are available inside prisons.
3. What the prison figures show: Inmates registered for opioid treatment rose from 2,540 at the time of entry to 15,768.
4. The court’s observation: The Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed that addiction had multiplied four to five times after incarceration.
How have the supply routes outrun the counter measures?
1. Drone deliveries: Drones now ferry drugs and weapons across Punjab’s nearly 500 km international border.
2. Daylight runs: Counter drone systems are deployed, and this summer drones still made deliveries in daylight.
3. A riverine route: During the 2023 floods the police cracked a case in which a trafficker from Jalandhar sent three swimmers across the Sutlej to retrieve 50 kg of heroin.
4. What the run paid: The swimmers were reportedly paid between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh for every kilogram ferried, and consignments grew larger during last year’s floods.
What is the human cost the enforcement figures do not capture?
1. A death in Sangrur: A labourer from Sangrur consumed Celphos tablets after allegedly being threatened by the local sarpanch and others for questioning a sitting minister about rampant drug abuse in the area.
2. Compensation still pending: His widow and his sons say they are yet to receive the compensation and the job they were promised.
3. Earnings consumed by the drug: One of his sons said he spent every paisa he earned as a daily wage labourer on chitta.
4. Children as collateral damage: In Badshahpur village in Kapurthala three children were left alone at home after their father came out on bail in a case under the NDPS Act, their mother went to prison and their elder sister was detained over a video of her allegedly selling drugs.
Why have successive campaigns and political promises left the trade intact?
1. The 2014 campaign: The Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP government launched the state’s first anti drug campaign during its tenure in 2014.
2. The 2017 pledge: The Congress leader who became Chief Minister in 2017 swore on a holy book to eradicate drugs within four weeks.
3. The 2022 promise: The Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2022 with the Chief Minister promising decisive results within a year.
4. Drugs as a campaign asset: In 2017 the Aam Aadmi Party, then in Opposition, gained traction by making drug abuse one of its biggest campaign issues.
5. The current round: The Shiromani Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) made drugs the centrepiece of its speeches at the Rakhar Puniya rally, and the BJP’s Nasha Mukt Yatras begin in mid September and end in a rally to be addressed by the Union Home Minister.
6. Treatment through faith: A jailed Member of Parliament built much of his early popularity on promises of rehabilitation centres in gurdwaras, and families have arrived at the gurdwara in his native village of Jallupur Khera with drug dependent relatives.
Challenges to Punjab’s anti narcotics effort
1. Arrests that do not become convictions: Cases collapse at trial over procedural lapses in search, seizure and sampling, so enforcement volume does not produce deterrence. Eg. Section 50 of the NDPS Act requires a search to be offered before a gazetted officer or a magistrate, and failures there have repeatedly voided recoveries.
  The Fix: Route every commercial quantity case through dedicated NDPS special courts with trained prosecutors and time bound forensic reporting.
2. Users charged in place of suppliers: Most registered cases are small quantity cases against consumers, which fills prisons without reaching the supply chain. Eg. Section 64A of the NDPS Act offers immunity from prosecution to an addict who volunteers for treatment, and it is rarely invoked.
  The Fix: Divert small quantity cases into treatment under Section 64A and judge the campaign on trafficker convictions rather than on FIR counts.
3. Treatment capacity expanding faster than supervision: Opioid substitution treatment scales up without dispensing controls, so the substitute itself leaks into the market. Eg. Buprenorphine tablets dispensed at treatment centres are resold outside them.
  The Fix: Move outpatient opioid substitution to daily supervised dosing with a digital dispensing record at every centre.
4. A state campaign against an interstate supply chain: Diverted pharmaceutical stock and precursor chemicals enter from manufacturing states that a state police campaign cannot reach. Eg. Tramadol and similar opioid formulations move in from units outside Punjab.
  The Fix: Place licensed pharmaceutical distributors in the border districts on a common online sales trail audited against prescription records.
Conclusion
Punjab’s drug problem is not one of not knowing what to do. Successive campaigns have named the same targets, produced the same pledges and left the trade to change its form rather than its size. What has never been tested is action against the part of the machinery the Governor named, and that is the one variable the state fully controls. The measure to watch after the election is not the weight seized but the number of major traffickers convicted and the number of enforcement personnel prosecuted.
Drug trafficking in India
1. Narco terrorism: The use of drug trafficking by terrorist organisations or insurgent groups to fund, sustain and expand their operations, so proceeds from the narcotics trade finance violence and subversion against the state.
2. Financing of terror groups: Narcotics profits are a major source of funding for terrorist groups. Eg. Lashkar e Taiba, Babbar Khalsa International and Hizbul Mujahideen have used drug revenues to sustain operations.
3. The eastern corridor: Porous borders with Myanmar carry both drug trafficking and insurgent financing. Eg. The Moreh corridor in Manipur.
4. Maritime exposure: A long coastline with limited marine policing enables sea based narcotics trafficking into Indian ports.
Government Initiatives for drug trafficking control
1. Narcotics Control Bureau: The central agency that coordinates drug law enforcement across state and central agencies and handles trafficking cases with an interstate or international reach.
2. Four tier NCORD mechanism: The Narco Coordination Centre integrates effort from the national level down to the district level, bringing enforcement and intelligence agencies onto a single platform.
3. Seizure Information Management System: A portal developed under the NDPS Act to coordinate seizure data across all drug law enforcement agencies.
4. Anti Narcotics Task Forces: Dedicated State and Union Territory units led by senior police officers, set up to implement anti drug strategies and strengthen local enforcement.
5. National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction: Run by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to reduce addiction among users rather than to police supply.
6. Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: A demand reduction campaign of the same Ministry, focused on the most affected districts and combining awareness, community outreach and linkage to treatment facilities.
Back2Basics: Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985
1. India’s principal anti drug legislation, criminalising the production, manufacture, possession, sale, transport and trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
2. Penalties are graded by the quantity involved, with the harshest reserved for commercial quantity offences.
3. Bail in a commercial quantity case is barred unless the court records satisfaction that the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to offend again.
4. An addict charged with a small quantity offence may seek immunity from prosecution by volunteering for treatment.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2018, GS3, 15 marks] India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What counter-measures should be taken to prevent the same?”
September 15, 2026
For Bihar flood problem, solution lies beyond
Why in the News
Bihar received 27 per cent below normal rainfall between 1 June and the first week of September, and large parts of the state are still under water. Six rivers, the Ganga, Gandak, Kosi, Budhi Gandak, Punpun and Ghaghra, have risen above danger levels in different stretches. The flooding therefore cannot be explained by how much rain fell on the state, which locates the cause in how its rivers and channels are managed. The state’s inherited answer has been containment, holding rivers inside defined channels behind embankments since colonial times. That method separates a river from its floodplain, and with silt raising the bed year on year it reduces the channel’s capacity to carry the discharge it is given. The contested question is whether flood works should keep aiming to hold the river in, or to give it space to spread safely.
Why did rivers cross danger levels in a deficit monsoon?
1. The rainfall record for the season: The state recorded 27 per cent below normal rainfall for the period from 1 June to the first week of September.
2. Two causes acting together: High upstream river flows combined with erratic weather, meaning spells of heavy localised rainfall inside an overall seasonal deficit, pushed rivers over their banks.
3. A tributary can flood because the main river is high: The unusually high level of the Ganga created a backwater effect in the Gandak and the Punpun, the condition where a high level in the receiving river obstructs the outflow of a river draining into it.
4. What that effect did: Both tributaries drain into the Ganga, and its high level made their discharge difficult, so water backed up in the tributaries and added to the flooding.
5. Danger level is a gauge based threshold: It is the level fixed for each gauge site above which a river threatens habitation and property, so six rivers crossing it in different stretches describes localised failures rather than one basin wide event.
What does containment by embankment do to a river?
1. It cuts the river off from its floodplain: Embankments separate rivers from the floodplains that would otherwise absorb and spread a high discharge.
2. The bed rises inside the confined channel: Continuous silt deposition raises the riverbed and reduces the channel’s capacity to carry flow.
3. A breach concentrates the damage: When an embankment breaches, artificially contained water rushes into homes and fields at a depth and force an unconfined flood would not produce.
4. Each year of containment narrows the next year’s margin: A rising bed inside fixed embankments means the same discharge sits higher against the same defences, so the safety margin shrinks with no change in rainfall.
Why will higher embankments not settle the problem?
1. The premise needs revisiting: The state needs to reconsider the idea that higher or stronger embankments will by themselves contain floods, since the containment is what raises the bed against them.
2. Maintenance remains an obligation: Existing embankments protect settlements and land that have grown up behind them, so the choice is not between maintaining them and abandoning them.
3. The stated objective is the opposite of containment: Persistent monsoon floods point to the need to give the river space to spread safely during periods of high discharge, which a confined channel is designed to prevent.
4. This is an execution problem, not a knowledge problem: The measures required are already identified in policy, and the flooding continues, which places the failure in implementation rather than in diagnosis.
What must accompany embankment maintenance?
1. Restoration of drainage channels: The natural and constructed drains that carry water off the land have to be reopened, since water that cannot drain stays on fields after the river level falls.
2. Protection of floodplains: The land a river needs during high discharge has to be kept free of the construction and occupation that turns a spread into a disaster.
3. Better land use planning: Where settlement, cropping and infrastructure are permitted has to follow the flood behaviour of the stretch rather than precede it.
4. Restoration of wetlands: Wetlands in the basin hold and release flood water, and their loss transfers that volume to the channel and to the settlements behind the embankment.
5. Deployment of early warning systems: Warning converts an unavoidable flood into an evacuated one, and it is the only measure on this list that reduces loss without altering the river.
Why has an existing basin plan not changed the outcome?
1. The imperatives are already on record: The Ganga Basin River Management Plan, implemented for more than a decade, acknowledges these requirements.
2. The outcome has not followed: Persistent monsoon floods in Bihar show how much remains to be done to give the river room to spread during high discharge.
3. One requirement sits outside the state’s control: Addressing Bihar’s concerns requires greater coordination between the riverine states on reservoir releases, since a downstream state’s peak is partly set by upstream release decisions.
Where does the Farakka question sit in this argument?
1. The state’s long standing contention: Bihar has argued that the barrage and the India-Bangladesh Ganga water sharing treaty compounded its river management challenges.
2. The mechanism it alleges: Its case is that the barrage altered the Ganga’s flow regime, affecting the movement and deposition of the river’s sediment load.
3. The causal claim is not settled: The extent to which this contributes to flooding in Bihar remains contested, so it cannot carry the whole explanation for the season’s flooding.
4. The claim still belongs in the negotiation: Renegotiation of the 1996 treaty, which expires in December, should take account of Bihar’s concerns over silt accumulation and the state’s river management needs.
5. The evidence base has to be current: Any new arrangement needs to be informed by updated data on river flows and climate change projections rather than on historical records alone.
6. The principle extends past this treaty: In a period of erratic weather, states and countries sharing a river basin have to strengthen coordination to manage flows and reduce flood related distress.
Challenges to embankment based flood control in Bihar
1. The network is too long to maintain to standard: Bihar carries roughly 3,800 km of flood embankments, and every weak section of it is tested in the same few weeks each year. Eg. Breaches are recorded each season at several points across different river systems rather than at one predictable location.
  The Fix: Publish a stretch wise condition rating for the full embankment length before each monsoon, with repair funds released against the ratings rather than spread evenly.
2. Containment creates waterlogging behind the line: An embankment that keeps a river out also keeps rainwater and local drainage in, so land behind it is lost to standing water rather than to flooding. Eg. Large areas in the Kosi and Gandak belts of north Bihar remain waterlogged well after river levels have fallen.
  The Fix: Build and maintain sluice and pump drainage at every point where an embankment crosses a natural drain, and treat the outfall as part of the embankment asset.
3. People live between the embankments: Villages inside the embanked corridor are flooded every year by design, without the protection the structure was built to provide. Eg. Settlements between the eastern and western Kosi embankments are inundated annually while the land outside them is defended.
  The Fix: Fix a statutory resettlement and compensation entitlement for households inside the embanked corridor, separate from general flood relief.
4. The decisive failure point can lie outside the state: The Kosi and the Gandak are regulated by structures in Nepalese territory, so a breach beyond Bihar’s jurisdiction can determine its flood year. Eg. The 2008 Kosi flood followed a breach at Kusaha, upstream of the barrage in Nepal, and displaced close to three million people in Bihar.
  The Fix: Establish a joint pre monsoon inspection and certification regime with Nepal for the Kosi and Gandak structures, with agreed repair timelines.
5. Warning lead time is short because the catchment is foreign: Rainfall and discharge data from the upper catchments decide how much notice a district can be given, and that data is not generated within India. Eg. A peak on the Kosi can reach the Bihar plains within a day of heavy rainfall in its Nepalese catchment.
  The Fix: Extend real time telemetry sharing across the upper catchments and route it directly to district administrations rather than only to state control rooms.
6. Silt removal has no funded programme: Reversing a raised bed is slow work with no annual budget head behind it, so the only measure reliably funded is raising the embankment. Eg. Dredging in the state is undertaken for navigation on specific stretches rather than for restoring channel capacity across a river.
  The Fix: Create a standing sediment management head in the state’s water resources budget, reporting channel capacity rather than embankment height as its outcome.
Conclusion
A flood season inside a rainfall deficit places the cause in the river system rather than in the monsoon, and that changes what a flood programme should be measured against. Protection built on confining rivers cannot hold once the beds inside those confinements keep rising. The question Bihar now faces is whether it makes channel capacity and floodplain space the stated objective of its flood works, or continues to judge success by the height and length of its defences. The water negotiation ahead is where the state’s sediment case will either become an operating rule or remain a grievance.
Back2Basics: Ganga Basin River Management Plan
1. What it is: A basin scale plan that treats the Ganga as a single hydrological unit, covering environmental flows and sediment alongside pollution abatement, rather than as a set of separate state level works.
2. Why a basin frame: The Ganga basin covers about 861,000 sq km in India, close to 26 per cent of the country’s geographical area, spread across 11 states.
3. Who carries the Ganga programme: The National Mission for Clean Ganga, under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, is the implementing arm of the National Ganga Council and was constituted as an authority under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
4. What a basin plan can and cannot do: It sets requirements across the basin and depends on state departments and inter state coordination to execute them, which is how its imperatives can stand on record for years without changing outcomes on the ground.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2017, GS1, 15 marks] In what way can floods be converted into a sustainable source of irrigation and all – weather inland navigation in India?”
September 12, 2026
Farakka treaty nearing expiry, JDU revives campaign against barrage
Why in the News
Janata Dal (United), a partner in the ruling coalition in Bihar, has launched a campaign across 12 districts of the state along the Ganga demanding that the Farakka barrage be dismantled, and opposing any renewal of the India-Bangladesh Ganga water sharing treaty. The treaty it is targeting was signed in December 1996 and set a 30 year framework for sharing Ganga waters at the barrage during the dry season. That framework lapses this December, which converts a standing state grievance into a live negotiating question. The state government’s own position is narrower, that Bihar’s interest should be guarded in the treaty, with the Chief Minister stating in Munger that the state receives Ganga water for only four months of the year against a need for year round flow. A bilateral water sharing arrangement is the Union government’s to negotiate, and what is now being pressed is not a better share but the removal of the structure the sharing is measured at.
What does the 1996 Ganga water sharing treaty do?
1. Who it binds and what it covers: It is a bilateral agreement between India and Bangladesh, signed in December 1996, regulating the sharing of Ganga waters at the Farakka barrage in West Bengal.
2. The season it governs: It applies primarily to the dry season, running from 1 January to 31 May, which is when the flow available at the barrage is least able to meet both countries’ requirements.
3. Why a 30 year term was written in: The treaty established a binding framework for 1996 to 2026 to replace the earlier short term stopgap arrangements and give both sides predictable distribution.
4. Where it now stands: That framework lapses this December, so continuation requires a fresh negotiation rather than an automatic rollover.
Why was the barrage built, and what did it change on either side?
1. The purpose it was built for: The barrage was built in 1975 to divert water from the Ganga into the Hooghly river, to flush out silt and keep Kolkata Port navigable.
2. The downstream effect in Bangladesh: The diversion reduced downstream flow into Bangladesh, producing severe water shortages, increased soil salinity and ecological stress in the south of that country.
3. The upstream effect Bihar reports: Heavy silt trapped behind the barrage has raised the Ganga’s riverbed, destroying the river’s natural storage capacity and driving seasonal floods.
4. One structure sits behind both complaints: The diversion that sustains a port channel downstream is the same arrangement that holds sediment upstream, so the barrage is what both sets of grievances point at.
What is Bihar’s stated grievance?
1. A flood and parch cycle upstream: The state government’s position is that the barrage has created a severe flood and parch dynamic upstream of it, alternating inundation with shortage rather than steadying the flow.
2. Four months of water against a year round need: The Chief Minister has stated that Bihar currently receives Ganga water only from July to October, and requires flow throughout the year.
3. What the state asks of the Union government: Its stated demand is that the treaty safeguard Bihar’s interest, which places a riparian state’s claim inside a negotiation it is not a party to.
What is the campaign demanding, and how is it being run?
1. A demand to dismantle, not to renegotiate: The party is demanding that the barrage be dismantled, citing a stance its chief and former Chief Minister has repeatedly taken with the Union government that the structure causes heavy siltation and floods.
2. Outright opposition to renewal: The party’s stated position is that it is completely against renewal, on the ground that the treaty fails to serve the state’s interests and remains a primary cause of flooding.
3. Where it is being taken: The ‘Nitish Samvad’ campaign covers the 12 districts through which the Ganga flows in Bihar, and has so far covered four, Buxar, Bhojpur, Begusarai and Khagaria.
4. How it is being conducted: It is led by the party’s national working president, a Rajya Sabha member, and carries recorded audio messages of the party chief, who is not travelling for it.
5. The timetable it is working to: The party intends to finish the campaign well before the treaty ends in December, which places it ahead of any decision on renewal.
Challenges to renegotiating the Ganga water sharing framework
1. A riparian state has no seat at the table: Water is a State subject, and a treaty with a foreign country is the Union government’s exclusive power, so a state can press a claim and cannot block an agreement. Eg. The India-Bangladesh Teesta water sharing draft has remained unsigned since 2011 over West Bengal’s objections, without the state being a party to it.
  The Fix: Constitute a standing consultative mechanism with the basin states before negotiation opens, with their submissions placed on record as part of the Indian position.
2. The sharing formula rests on historical flows: The arrangement was built on the average dry season availability recorded at the barrage over four earlier decades, and that baseline no longer describes current or projected flows. Eg. Its operation depends on how much water actually arrives at the barrage in each ten day period of the dry season.
  The Fix: Write the next arrangement on a rolling flow record revised at fixed intervals, rather than on a single fixed historical average.
3. Sediment has no institutional owner: The dispute Bihar raises is about silt rather than volume, and no authority holds the power to order desilting or to set a sediment budget for the river. Eg. The approach channel at Farakka itself requires repeated dredging to stay open, which relocates silt rather than reducing the load.
  The Fix: Attach a sediment management protocol to the barrage’s operating rules, naming the responsible authority and the annual dredging and disposal obligation.
4. The flood peaks are set outside India: The Kosi and the Gandak, the rivers that deliver Bihar’s worst flood peaks, rise in Nepal, so peak discharge is governed by catchments and structures beyond this treaty’s scope. Eg. The Kosi and Gandak barrages stand in Nepalese territory and are operated by India under the 1954 Kosi Agreement and the 1959 Gandak Agreement.
  The Fix: Pair the Ganga negotiation with a flow data sharing and release coordination arrangement with Nepal on the Kosi and Gandak.
5. Removing the structure moves the problem rather than ending it: Dismantling the barrage would restore downstream flow and withdraw the diversion that keeps the Bhagirathi-Hooghly channel and the Kolkata port route navigable. Eg. The feeder canal at Farakka exists solely to carry that diverted flow into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly system.
  The Fix: Commission an independent flow and sediment study of the barrage’s upstream and downstream effects, so the dismantling demand is tested against measured alternatives rather than settled politically.
Conclusion
A dry season sharing arrangement is now being contested on grounds it was never written to address, since the demand from Bihar concerns sediment and flood behaviour rather than the volume of water allotted. That mismatch is what makes renewal harder than an extension of terms. The decision to watch is whether the Union government opens the negotiation with a stated position on siltation upstream of the barrage, or confines it to the dry season allocation. Confined to allocation, a new agreement settles the bilateral question and leaves the domestic one exactly where it started.
Back2Basics: Farakka Barrage
1. Where it stands: Across the Ganga in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, a short distance upstream of the point where the river enters Bangladesh.
2. Its scale: The barrage runs about 2,240 metres across the river and carries a road and rail link over it.
3. How the diversion works: A feeder canal roughly 38 km long carries water from above the barrage into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly, the channel the diversion was designed to sustain.
4. Who operates it: The Farakka Barrage Project authority, under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, runs the structure and its regulating gates.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2016, GS1, 12 marks] Present an account of the Indus Water Treaty and examine its ecological, economic and political implications in the context of changing bilateral relations.”
September 12, 2026
Looking up at the drones
Why in the News
Data pooled from over 1,200 drones intercepted in Punjab since 2024 has mapped the cross border smuggling network that flies them. The mapping names the launch pads inside Pakistan’s Punjab, the Indian villages where payloads are dropped, the hours of peak activity and the altitudes flown. It follows an interception count that has held steady rather than fallen, with 294 Pakistani drones downed by the Border Security Force (BSF) and allied agencies in Punjab in 2024, 287 in 2025 and roughly the same number again by August 2026. Punjab had answered the threat in August 2025 with the Rs 51.4 crore ‘Baaz Akh’ (Hawk Eye) Anti-Drone System (ADS), the first state level anti-drone grid in the country. The same dataset shows why that answer is not holding, since drones now carry satellite links and a return to home fail-safe that turns them back before they can be brought down. The network along Punjab’s 550-km International Border is therefore better understood than at any point since 2019 and no easier to stop.
What is the ‘Baaz Akh’ Anti-Drone System?
1. What it is: A state funded anti-drone grid deployed by the Punjab government as a second line of defence behind the BSF’s own portable interception equipment.
2. The four functions it performs: It detects a drone’s movement and signal, tracks it on a digital map, jams its control link, and forces an emergency landing for ground recovery.
3. What it jams: It disrupts either radio frequency control signals or satellite navigation frequencies, and can identify the ground control station operating the drone.
4. Its reach: The system works over a range of 8 to 10 km and issues automated alerts to security agencies.
What does the intercepted drone data reveal about the network’s geography?
1. Eight launch pads, two of them primary: Sustained sorties come from at least eight launch pads in Pakistan’s Punjab, with the villages of Jahman and Masteki as the main two.
2. Both primary pads face Tarn Taran: Jahman sits directly across from the Khalra sector in Tarn Taran district. Masteki lies in the Sehjra enclave, a pocket of Pakistani territory surrounded by India on three sides, roughly opposite Khem Karan town.
3. The remaining pads: They lie near Kasur, opposite Khem Karan; Qila Jiwan Singh, opposite Rajatal in the Attari sector; Wagah, opposite Attari; and Narowal, across from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district.
4. The landing areas: Payloads are dropped at Bhindi Saidan, Attari, Rajatal, Dall, Daleri, Maari Meghaan, Wan and villages around Khem Karan including Kals and Mastgarh.
5. Where the drones are recovered: The highest number of interceptions on the Indian side occur 3.5 km to 10 km from the International Border.
What do the timing and flight patterns show?
1. A fixed nightly window: Maximum activity falls between 10 pm and 4 am, at an average of 12 to 15 drones an hour.
2. The drops cluster on two days: The highest number of consignment drops take place on Thursdays and Saturdays.
3. Sortie length separates stock from modified platforms: The average sortie runs 45 minutes, and modified drones average 24 minutes. Eg. One DJI Matrice drone recorded 42.67 minutes and a DJI Matrice 4 Pro recorded 15 minutes before it was downed.
4. Altitude separates them too: Commercial DJI platforms fly at about 500 feet, and a modified eight rotor platform, the octocopter, was tracked at 2,500 feet.
5. The drop point is chosen for pickup, not for accuracy: Consignments are dropped on agricultural fields for couriers to collect. Navigational error and incorrect GPS data put some payloads onto farmhouses and homes instead.
How has the technology changed since the incursions began?
1. The 2019 baseline: Pakistani drones were first noticed in Punjab around 2019, operating on rudimentary radio frequency direction control.
2. The 2026 platform: Drones now operating in Punjab carry satellite communication and anti-jamming capability, and some downed in Punjab were navigating on Starlink satellite links.
3. The airframes are commercial and Chinese made: The platforms in use for drug smuggling include the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, which can fly multiple sorties, and the DJI Matrice 300 RTK, which carries a large payload.
4. The payload has not narrowed: The consignments carry narcotics, weapons and explosives, launched from pads deep inside Pakistan’s Punjab and dropped across the border under cover of darkness.
Why does the fence no longer decide what crosses the border?
1. It was built for a different mode of entry: The 462-km fence along the International Border went up mainly in the late 1980s and early 1990s to stop infiltration and smuggling during the militancy years.
2. What it consists of: It is a multi-layered barrier of 8 to 12 feet, topped with rows of concertina and razor wire and, in places, high voltage ‘cobra’ wires, with a patrol track, observation towers and border outposts along it. Most of the feasible land border had been fenced and floodlit by 1993.
3. It does not stand on the border: Older ground rules placed it some 150 yards inside Indian territory. In many stretches it was built two to three km in, leaving large tracts of farmland between the fence and the Zero Line.
4. The gaps are physical as well as aerial: The line carries riverine and flood related gaps, and the incursions it was built to stop now arrive over it rather than through it.
Why does detection not translate into seizure?
1. The return to home fail-safe defeats the jam: Drones detect the interference from jamming, locking or control signal disruption and fly back to their launch point in Pakistan before they can be neutralised or recovered on the Indian side.
2. Jamming weakens with distance: Some attempts fail simply because the drone is too far from the jamming unit when it is engaged.
3. Autonomous platforms are not vulnerable to the method: Current systems fail against resilient drone networks built with features that reduce dependence on radio frequency control, which is what jamming targets.
4. Coverage is thin: Security officers put the requirement at at least 100 jamming units for effective wider coverage, against the units now deployed on vehicles and in fixed positions.
5. Recovery depends on people, not the grid: Interception is a layered system requiring coordination between the BSF, police quick reaction teams and ground recovery parties, so detection without a rapid ground response yields no seizure.
6. Three threats the grid does not yet address: Small and low signature drones go undetected, drones operating together in swarms on artificial intelligence and decentralised communication are anticipated, and remote terrain with harsh weather leaves some drop zones inaccessible.
What role do the border villages play in interception?
1. They are the first reporting layer: Punjab set up village defence committees to help tackle cross border smuggling and drones, and their members coordinate with the BSF and local authorities on stray drones and recovered weapons.
2. The reporting chain is unreliable: A committee member in Gilpan, where a drone dropped a kg of contraband in his kitchen garden 700 metres from the fence, got no response from the local police station or the Deputy Superintendent of Police, and the local police moved only after the Senior Superintendent of Police in Tarn Taran was called.
3. Recovery is a race the couriers usually win: In the same village a second drone dropped a payload at the village edge that evening. The BSF received the location and moved to cordon the area, and the men had already collected the consignment and fled by the time it arrived.
4. Farmers fear prosecution more than the drop: A farmer whose field received a consignment in Mahawa, Amritsar, approached the committee fearing arrest, and the police eventually filed a case against unidentified persons.
5. Some settlements sit inside the flight path: Mahawa lies a kilometre from the Zero Line with nearly 150 of its 2,800 acres between the Zero Line and the fence, and drones travel up to six kilometres inside the border directly over houses and fields.
6. Activism against the trade carries a cost: The sarpanch of Attari village, a settlement of around 25,000 known for its campaigning against drugs and smuggling, was injured in an alleged attack by narcotics smugglers.
Challenges to countering cross border drone smuggling
1. The cost asymmetry runs the wrong way: A commercial quadcopter costs a fraction of the detection and jamming equipment needed to stop it, so the defender pays more per sortie than the smuggler. Eg. The DJI platforms recovered in Punjab are off the shelf civilian models sold for survey and photography work.
  The Fix: Shift procurement toward cheap distributed sensors feeding one command picture, rather than a small number of high cost integrated units.
2. Jamming cannot be used freely in civil airspace: Broad spectrum jamming and navigation spoofing interfere with civil aviation and telecom signals, which limits where and how long a grid can be switched on. Eg. Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport sits within a few tens of kilometres of the border stretches under surveillance.
  The Fix: Authorise narrow band directional jamming tied to a designated counter drone corridor, cleared in advance with the civil aviation regulator.
3. Attribution stops at the launch pad: A recovered drone establishes the route and the airframe, and it does not establish who financed or ordered the consignment. Eg. Cases from border villages routinely close against unidentified persons because the courier is the only link recoverable on the ground.
  The Fix: Treat each recovered drone as a forensic exhibit, with serial, flight log and payload traced through a single dedicated investigation unit rather than by the local police station.
4. Responsibility is split across agencies: Border guarding, state policing and airspace regulation sit with different authorities, so no single body owns the counter drone task end to end. Eg. Punjab’s grid is a state asset operating alongside the BSF’s own portable interception equipment on the same stretch of border.
  The Fix: Place the state grid, the border force’s equipment and police response under one joint operations centre per border district.
5. Interdiction does not touch demand: Stopping a consignment in the air does nothing to the narcotics market that pays for the next one. Eg. Village committee members link the drone drops directly to drug use among young people in the border belt.
  The Fix: Pair the counter drone grid with treatment and de-addiction capacity in the border districts, so the seized supply is not simply replaced.
6. Legal cover for the technology is thin: Bringing down an aircraft, jamming a signal and seizing a payload each rest on different statutory powers, and none was written with armed drones in mind. Eg. Civil drone operations in India are governed by the Drone Rules, 2021, which regulate lawful operators rather than hostile cross border flights.
  The Fix: Enact a standing counter unmanned aircraft framework naming the authorities empowered to detect, jam, down and seize, and the evidentiary status of what is recovered.
Conclusion
The border belt’s smuggling geography is no longer a matter of inference, since the launch pads, the drop villages, the flying hours and the altitudes are now on record. That record shifts the problem from intelligence to coverage, because a mapped network still needs equipment dense enough to engage it before it turns back. The measure to watch is whether the jamming grid reaches the density its own operators have asked for, and whether the annual interception count starts falling rather than holding flat. A count that stays level while the grid expands would show the platforms are outrunning the countermeasure rather than being contained by it.
Back2Basics: Border Security Force
1. What it is: India’s primary border guarding force, raised on 1 December 1965 after the India-Pakistan war exposed the limits of relying on state armed police on the border.
2. Who it reports to: It is a Central Armed Police Force under the Ministry of Home Affairs, and it guards the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders in peacetime.
3. Where its powers come from: The Border Security Force Act, 1968 gives its personnel powers of search, seizure and arrest within a notified belt running inland from the border.
4. How far that belt extends: The Union government extended that jurisdiction to 50 km from the border in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam in 2021, up from 15 km in Punjab.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2023, GS3, 10 marks] The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by our adversaries across the borders to ferry arms / ammunitions, drugs, etc., is a serious threat to internal security. Comment on the measures being taken to tackle this threat.”
September 12, 2026

Type: States

Why in the News

What does the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026 do?

What exactly did the Centre object to?

Why does a State law duplicating a Central law fail at the assent stage?

What happens to the Bill now?

Challenges to the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026

Conclusion

Back2Basics: Preventive detention

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

Why has a drought not been declared yet?

Who declares a drought, and on what basis?

What are the NDRF parameters for a declaration?

What do the rainfall and sowing figures show?

How bad is the water storage position?

What has the State done in the meantime?

Challenges to the drought declaration framework

Conclusion

Back2Basics: National Disaster Response Fund

Matching Previous Year Question

Mentor Comment

How far has Punjab’s groundwater been drawn down?

Why has the rice-wheat system held against its water cost?

How does groundwater depletion widen the gap between farmers?

What would make conservation pay the cultivator?

Challenges to groundwater regulation in Punjab

Conclusion

Why in the News

What is the Woman Farmer Certificate under the Women Farmers’ Empowerment Bill?

How far has women’s participation in agriculture outrun their recognition as farmers?

Why does the land record decide who counts as a farmer?

What does scheme access reveal about the recognition gap?

Why is the binding constraint the identification system rather than land itself?

What will turning recognition into access require?

Challenges to the Woman Farmer Certificate

Conclusion

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

What is the Ecological Sensitive Area proposed for the Western Ghats?

What does the resolution ask the Centre to do, and on what terms?

Why does the State say the delineation is wrong?

Challenges to the Western Ghats ESA notification

Conclusion

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

What is the Minimum Support Price and how does procurement work?

How was the registration system allegedly turned into a trade?

What do the case figures show about the size of the margin?

Why did the price gap make the fraud worth running?

Challenges to MSP procurement

Conclusion

Back2Basics: Agricultural Produce Market Committee

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

How has the nature of Punjab’s narcotics trade changed?

What do the enforcement numbers under the current campaign show?

What does complicity inside the enforcement machinery do to the campaign?

How have the supply routes outrun the counter measures?

What is the human cost the enforcement figures do not capture?

Why have successive campaigns and political promises left the trade intact?

Challenges to Punjab’s anti narcotics effort

Conclusion

Drug trafficking in India

Government Initiatives for drug trafficking control

Back2Basics: Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

Why did rivers cross danger levels in a deficit monsoon?

What does containment by embankment do to a river?

Why will higher embankments not settle the problem?

What must accompany embankment maintenance?

Why has an existing basin plan not changed the outcome?

Where does the Farakka question sit in this argument?

Challenges to embankment based flood control in Bihar

Conclusion

Back2Basics: Ganga Basin River Management Plan

Matching Previous Year Question

Why in the News

What does the 1996 Ganga water sharing treaty do?