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Current Affairs: 24th October 2025

U.S. sanctions Russian oil majors; Indian refiners poised to cut buy

Context: Rosneft and Lukoil hit with sanctions for ‘funding Kremlin’s war machine’, pushing global oil prices up 3%; Trump saysIndia will cut down imports to ‘almost nothing’ by year-end; Indian firms are ‘recalibrating’ to align with govt. guidelines.

• U.S. President Donald Trump hit Russia’s two biggest oil companies with sanctions in his latest policy shift on Moscow’s war in Ukraine, prompting global oil prices to rise by 3%.
• Mr. Trump also reiterated his claim that India has agreed to “stop” buying oil from Russia and would bring its oil purchases down to “almost nothing” by the end of the year, and said he would persuade China to do the same. India and China are the two biggest buyers of Russian oil.
• Indian refiners — including Reliance, the top Indian buyer of Russian crude — are poised to sharply curtail imports of Russian oil to comply with the new U.S. sanctions, industry sources said.

‘Funding war’

• The U.S. sanctions target oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, which between them account for more than 5% of global oil output. The U.S. Treasury has given companies until November 21 to wind down their transactions with the Russian oil producers.
• “Given [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
• Oil and gas revenue, currently down 21% year-on-year, accounts for a quarter of Russia’s budget and is the most important source of funding for its war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
• Mr. Trump expressed confidence regarding India’s response to the sanctions. “India, as you know, has told me they are going to stop [buying Russian oil]… It’s a process. You can’t just stop… By the end of the year, they’ll be down to almost nothing, almost 40% of the oil. India, they’ve been great. Spoke to Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi yesterday. They’ve been absolutely great,” the U.S. President told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
• Reliance Industries, which operates the world’s biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, has a long-term deal to buy nearly 500,000 barrels per day of crude from Rosneft and also buys Russian oil from intermediaries. It now plans to reduce or cease imports of Russian oil, including halting purchases under its deal with Rosneft, people familiar with the matter said.

‘Recalibration on’

• “Recalibration of Russian oil imports is ongoing and Reliance will be fully aligned to GOI [Government of India] guidelines,” a Reliance spokesman said in response to a query on whether the company plans to cut its crude imports from Russia.
• Nayara Energy, another private Indian refiner whose biggest shareholder is Rosneft, also buys oil from the Russian state company, but did not respond to a request for comment on the sanctions.
• State-owned oil refineries, including Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, are reviewing their Russian oil trade documents to ensure no supply will be coming directly from Rosneft and Lukoil, though trade sources said their purchases are typically made through intermediaries.
• “There will be a massive cut. We don’t anticipate it will go to zero immediately as there will be some barrels coming into the market” via intermediaries, a refinery source said.
• The U.S. sanctions came after Mr. Trump cancelled a planned summit with Mr. Putin in Budapest, saying that it would not achieve the outcome he wanted. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova shrugged off the likely impact of the sanctions, saying Moscow had developed a “strong immunity” to such restrictions. Moscow’s main revenue source comes from taxing output, not exports, which is likely to soften the immediate impact of the sanctions on state finances.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. for the new sanctions, saying they were “very important” but that more pressure would be needed to get Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.

Pan-India SIR to cover more than 10 States in first phase

Context: The Election Commission (EC) is all set to announce the schedule for a country-wide roll-out of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls at a press conference in the next few days.

• The first phase of the process will be implemented in more than 10 States and one Union Territory, including election-bound Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal.
• The EC took stock of the preparedness of all States and Union Territories for the pan-India SIR, at the two-day conference of Chief Electoral Officers (CEO) that concluded here on Thursday.

Schedule soon

• The full commission will now discuss the matter and take a call on the schedule, which would be announced soon.
• The process is expected to be rolled out in two phases, beginning with Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal, where Assembly elections are due in 2026.
• Those States where local body polls are scheduled to be held and are likely to experience harsh weather conditions during the winter will be tackled in later phases.
• The sources said the commission heard the points raised by the CEOs of all States at the conference and while it responded to general queries and held a presentation on the SIR, no concrete decisions were announced at the meeting. It was stated that a decision would be communicated to all CEOs after the meeting of the Election Commission members.
• The commission assessed the progress made on the directions previously issued to the CEOs to map the current electors with the electors as per the last SIR in the States and Union Territories, according to an official statement by the poll body.
• The statement said the commission also interacted one-to-one with the CEOs of poll-bound States/Union Territory of Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal.
• The two-day conference was held as a follow-up to the SIR preparedness conference held on September 10, during which all the States/U.T.s gave detailed presentations on the number of electors, qualifying date of last SIR, and the electoral rolls in their respective States/U.T.s as per the last completed SIR.
• The SIR process has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The court, while not questioning the EC mandate to conduct the SIR, had asked the poll body to include Aadhaar as the 12th document to prove identity.

Union govt. asks CJI to recommenda successor

Context: The Centre has, in a letter to Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, sought his recommendation for naming his successor. The CJI is currently on a four-day visit to Bhutan. His office said he would come back and send his recommendation to the government.

• As per seniority norms, Justice Surya Kant is the next in line to become the 53rd CJI. Chief Justice Gavai is scheduled to retire on November 24.

• Under the Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of the CJI and Supreme Court Judges, the Law Ministry seeks the recommendation of the outgoing CJI on the next appointment. The letter from the government kickstarts the appointment process for the next CJI.

• Justice Kant became the youngest Advocate-General of Haryana on July 7, 2000, and was designated a senior advocate in March 2001.
• He was elevated as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on January 9, 2004 and was appointed the Chief Justice of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh in October, 2018.
• He was appointed as a Supreme Court judge on May 24, 2019. He is due to retire on February 9, 2027.

Modi to participate in ASEAN meet virtually, drops Malaysia travel plan

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not travel to Malaysia to attend the 47th ASEAN summit on October 26, but will participate in it virtually. This was announced by him in a social media post.

• The annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-nation grouping, and associated meetings will be held from October 26 to 28 in Kuala Lumpur.
• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has not provided any reason for Mr. Modi’s decision, though Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said that Mr. Modi had cited the “ongoing Deepavali celebrations” as the reason for the change in plans.

Jaishankar goes instead

• The Ministry announced that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar would represent Mr. Modi and lead the Indian delegation at the summit on October 27.
• “Had a warm conversation with my dear friend, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia. Congratulated him on Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship and conveyed best wishes for the success of upcoming summits. Look forward to joining the ASEAN-India Summit virtually, and to further deepening of the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” Mr. Modi said.
• In a statement posted on X, Mr. Ibrahim said he had discussed the details of the summit with Mr. Modi. “…I respect his decision and extended my greetings for a happy Deepavali to him and the people of India.”
• The summit will draw a host of dignitaries, including U.S. President Donald Trump. It was expected that the venue would be a meeting opportunity for Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump, especially as the India-U.S. relations remain uneasy after Mr. Trump imposed punitive tariff on India because of India’s purchase of Russian crude oil.
• Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi exchanged greetings on Deepavali on Tuesday as the India-U.S. negotiations for a trade pact continue. The two sides, however, gave differing takes of the conversation with Mr. Trump telling a group of prominent Indian-Americans and Indian Embassy officials in the White House that the call focused on trade deal, purchase of Russian oil and “no war with Pakistan”, and the Indian sources maintaining that Pakistan was not discussed during the call.
• Officials had earlier given mixed signals about Mr. Modi’s travel plans for Kuala Lumpur saying that the Bihar election campaign requires the Prime Minister’s attention. Earlier, Mr. Trump had invited Mr. Modi to the Sharm-el-Sheikh peace summit for ceasefire in the Gaza Strip but India was represented at the event by Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs.
• Since the U.S.’s imposition of 50% punitive tariff on India on August 7, Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump have spoken on multiple occasions, but have not met despite meeting opportunities. The official-level conversation has also become difficult as Mr. Trump continues to insist that he mediated an end to the May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan, a claim that Indian officials have refused to confirm.

India, Bhutan review border management and security

Context: India and Bhutan reviewed border management and security in a meeting held at Thimphu from October 16-17, a statement by the Union Home Ministry.

• The Ministry said the two countries had reviewed bilateral security cooperation and border management issues, including mobile signal spillover, future road map for integrated check posts, maintenance of boundary pillars, and cross-border movement.
• Discussions covered capacity building for Bhutan’s police. The delegations expressed satisfaction at the constructive discussions and reiterated their resolve to work together for a secure border, the Ministry said.
• This was the 14th India-Bhutan Border Management and Security meeting. The last meeting was held in 2019. The Indian delegation was led by Rajendra Kumar, Secretary, Department of Border Management, Home Ministry, while the Bhutanese side was headed by Sonam Wangyel, Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.

Tri-services to get systems, platforms for ₹79,000 cr.

Context: The acquisitions are designed to enhance lethality, mobility and intelligence-gathering capabilities across the services; Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by Rajnath, approves the proposals.

• The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, on Thursday approved a series of capital acquisition proposals worth around ₹79,000 crore aimed at strengthening the operational capabilities of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
• The Defence Ministry said the approvals granted during a meeting at South Block would cover a wide spectrum of platforms and systems designed to enhance lethality, mobility, and intelligence-gathering capabilities across the Services.
• For the Army, the DAC accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the procurement of the Nag missile system (tracked) Mk-II (NAMIS), ground-based mobile ELINT System (GBMES), and high-mobility vehicles (HMVs) with material handling cranes.
• The NAMIS (Tracked) will bolster the Army’s ability to destroy enemy armoured vehicles, bunkers, and other fortified positions, while the GBMES will provide round-the-clock electronic intelligence on enemy emitters. The induction of HMVs is expected to significantly enhance logistic support in challenging terrains.
• For the Navy, the AoN was granted for the acquisition of landing platform docks (LPDs), 30 mm naval surface guns, advanced light weight torpedoes (ALWTs), electro-optical infrared search-and-track systems, and smart ammunition for 76 mm super rapid gun mounts.
• The LPDs will augment the Navy’s amphibious warfare capabilities and enable it to undertake joint operations with the Army and Air Force. They will also enhance India’s capacity to conduct peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief (HADR) missions. The indigenously developed ALWT by the DRDO’s Naval Science and Technological Laboratory is capable of engaging conventional, nuclear, and midget submarines.
• For the Indian Air Force, the AoN was accorded for the collaborative long-range target saturation/destruction system (CLRTS/DS) and other related systems. The CLRTS/DS features autonomous take-off and landing, navigation, target detection and payload delivery capabilities, aimed at augmenting the IAF’s long-range precision engagement capacity.
• The approvals reflect the government’s continuing emphasis on modernisation, self-reliance and indigenisation under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, officials said.

‘90% of Gaganyaan development work done’

Context: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V. Narayanan said that about 90% of the development work on the Gaganyaan mission had been completed.

• “The Gaganyaan mission is going on very well. A lot of technological development has to take place. Number one, the rocket has to be human-rated, the life support system, the crew escape system and of course, human-centric products. I can say today that approximately 90% of the development work has been completed,” Mr. Narayanan said.

3 uncrewed missions

• He added that the crewed mission to launch the Indian astronauts into space would take place in 2027 and prior to that, ISRO would undertake three uncrewed missions.
• “Three uncrewed missions have to be accomplished, the first uncrewed mission with the humanoid Vyomitra is expected to take flight by the end of this year. We want to accomplish the crewed mission by 2027,” he said.

‘UPI leads in payment volume, RTGS value; debit card deals dip’

Context: In the half year ended June 2025, payment transaction volume was 12,549 crore, amounting to ₹1,572 lakh crore, according to a RBI report.

• In terms of volume, payment transactions grew from 3,248 crore in Calendar Year (CY) 2019 to 20,849 crore in CY 2024 and in terms of value from ₹1,775 lakh crore to ₹2,830 lakh crore during this period, according to Payment Systems Report, a bi-annual publication released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
• In the half year (HY) ended June, transaction volume was 12,549 crore, amounting to ₹1,572 lakh crore. Almost all of the growth in payments was attributable to digital payment transactions.
• “In CY19, digital payments accounted for approximately 96.7% of the total payment transactions by volume and 95.5% by value,” as per the report.
• By CY24, these figures had risen to 99.7% in terms of volume and 97.5% in terms of value.
• The volume of UPI transactions has increased significantly from 1,079 crore transactions in CY19 to 17,221 crore transactions in CY24. The total value of transactions grew from ₹18.4 lakh crore in CY19 to ₹246.8 lakh crore in CY24.

• In H1 of CY25, the volume of UPI transactions stood at 10,637 crore amounting to ₹143.3 lakh crore in value.
• During the period CY19 to CY24, NEFT transactions more than tripled in terms of volume, from 262.2 crore to 926.8 crore. However, during the same period, in terms of value, they grew from ₹232.9 lakh crore to ₹432.8 lakh crore.
• In H1 of CY25, NEFT already processed 490.5 crore transactions, worth ₹237 lakh crore, indicating sustained growth and widespread adoption.

RTGS surges

• Large value payment system RTGS transactions volume grew from 14.8 crore in CY19 to 29.5 crore in CY24, while transaction value rose from ₹1,388.7 lakh crore to ₹1,938.2 lakh crore during this period.
• In CY25, by H1 alone, RTGS recorded 16.1 crore transactions amounting to ₹1,079.2 lakh crore, indicating sustained growth and usage.

Debit cards dip

• Transactions in debit cards witnessed a decline since 2019, both in volume and value. In volume terms, debit card transactions declined from 495.32 crore in CY19 to 173.80 crore in CY24, while in value terms, they declined from ₹6.83 lakh crore to ₹5.15 lakh crore during this period.
• In H1 2025, debit cards recorded 69.09 crore transactions valued at ₹2.22 lakh crore. While Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) transaction volume rose from 516.2 crore in CY19 to 698.9 crore in CY24, transaction value remained almost at the same level of ₹2.23 lakh crore during this period. During H1 of 2025, PPIs recorded transaction volume of 404.7 crore and value of ₹1.23 lakh crore.

India’s Russian crude imports in October remain ‘robust’: Kpler

Context: India’s imports of Russian crude oil remain ‘robust’, tracking at approximately 1.8 million barrels per day at present, provisionally up by 2,50,000 barrels per day from September, maritime data and analytics provider Kpler mentioned in a blogpost.

• The blogpost added Russian barrels remained the ‘largest single source of crude for India accounting for about 34% of the overall share and entailed ‘compelling discounts’ which were ‘too significant for refiners to ignore’.
• Thus, it sought to infer U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks initially made on October 15 suggesting India would reduce Russian crude imports, are “likely pressure tactics linked to trade negotiations.” India’s Russian oilpurchases have been the single major point of contention in the talks for a favourable U.S. trade deal.

‘Cutting imports costly’

• With Moscow accounting for 30-35% of the Indian basket off late, the blog held, “substitution would require rapid scaling from multiple suppliers at higher costs.”
• Kpler also observed though there has been a stronger push for diversification, Russian contracts are typically signed 6-10 weeks before arrival. “Rewiring all that takes time.”

‘Ethanol tender order may hit 350 makers’

Context: Ethanol producers have raised concerns on the recent ethanol tender order for the 2025-2026 ethanol supply year that reportedly favours new entrants in deficit zones.

• The published allocations indicate at least 350 distilleries are deprived of adequate procurement orders from Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs). Many of the units were set up on an understanding with the OMCs or were part of earlier policy steps, as per the Grain Ethanol Manufacturrers Association (GEMA).
• GEMA said in a release that according to the “Allocation Methodology and Criteria” in the tender document, “The zones where the offers from the distilleries located in the zone are less than the requirement of the zone, this has been considered as deficit zone. For these zones, offers from vendors shall be considered in full for allocation.”
• The policy, which appears to support local sourcing in deficit areas, ignores surplus capacity promoted by the OMCs in neighbouring States. The allocation method bypasses distilleries established with understandings such as long-term off-take pacts and expression of interest.

Current Affairs: 19th,20th & 22nd October 2025

Traffic police introduce e-accident report feature on its ASTraM app

Context: In a move to make accident reporting faster and hassle-free, the Bengaluru City Traffic Police have introduced the E-Accident Report feature on the BTP ASTraM App.

• This new feature enables motorists to digitally report minor accidents and instantly receive an acknowledgement faster to help them get insurance and damage claims, eliminating the need for in-person visits to traffic police stations.
• The initiative reflects BTP’s commitment to citizen-first, tech-driven policing for a smarter Bengaluru, Home Minister G Parameshwara, said while receiving 50 bikes from Honda India Foundation for the traffic police to be used as traffic patrolling.
• “There are around 150 to 200 acknowledgement for minor accidents sought across the city everyday. The E-accident report will help reduce stress with no station visit or police to visit the spot through few simple steps,” a police official said.
• Once getting into the e-accident option, people can select the ‘report my accident’ option, enter the date and time, drop a pin on the map, and a short note about the issue, click the picture of the damaged vehicle to submit, and receive the official acknowledgement. This report has a unique ID and passkey with a QR code and a short link that will enable the insurance companies to check the authenticity of the report. This option is applicable only for minor accidents, and for the injuries and serious accidents, the app will guide people to call 112 to report.
• “There will not be any station visit or wait for the police to visit the spot for minor cases thus reduce valuable time, said a police officer adding that this will help faster claim process and less paper work. The time tab and Geo tag report will also improve accuracy and reduce stress for the people,” the official added.

Every inch of Pak. within the reach of BrahMos: Rajnath
Context: Minister commissions first batch of BrahMos missiles in Lucknow, says its strike capabilities make it one of the most-advanced missile systems; India’s role as a defence exporter has been growing Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the BrahMos missiles were a symbol of India’s growing indigenous strength in defence manufacturing and every inch of Pakistan was within their reach.

• Mr. Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath commissioned the first batch of BrahMos missiles made at the Lucknow unit of BrahMos Aerospace Ltd.
• “It is a matter of immense joy for me that the state-of-the-art BrahMos booster building is being inaugurated in Lucknow. The delivery of missiles on Dhanteras signals a landmark in the country’s self-reliance in defence, while also generating economic growth and employment,” he said.
• Hailing the Lucknow facility, inaugurated in May 2025 at a cost of ₹380 crore and spread over 200 acres, the Minister said it would produce approximately 100 missiles annually for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, generating a turnover of ₹3,000 crore and ₹500 crore in GST revenue.
• “The speed and efficiency of this achievement have set a history, and will strengthen the reliability of Lucknow and Uttar Pradesh. Alongside BrahMos credibility, Lucknow’s identity has been further reinforced,” he said. Emphasising the missile’s supersonic speed, accuracy, and long-range strike capability with conventional warheads, Mr. Singh said these made the BrahMos one of the world’s most-advanced missile systems.
• “During Operation Sindoor, the missile has proven its technological superiority and strengthened India’s defence credibility globally,” he said. He highlighted India’s growing role in defence exports and said the latest contracts value roughly ₹4,000 crore with countries, including the Philippines, signalling India’s emergence as a global defence partner.
• Mr. Adityanath said ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ is now a “reality taking shape” and India now stands “confidently on the global stage for its defence production capabilities”. “Today, India is attracting global attention as the fourth-largest economy. Even in the defence sector, the vision that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had 11 years ago is now taking shape under the leadership of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh,” he said.

At IMO, 57 nations vote for delaying framework for caon-free shipping
Context: Vote on implementation of the framework aimed at moving shipping industry away from fossil fuel has been postponed for a year amid U.S. President’s ‘outrage’; Trump administration had issued threats against countries that had supported it

Pressured by the United States, member countries of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) postponed a vote on a strategic plan to move the shipping industry away from the use of fossil fuel and become “net-zero” by 2050.

In April, a sub-committee of the IMO approved a framework to bring in a new fuel standard for ships and a global pricing mechanism for carbon emissions. It was decided then that countries would formally vote in a meeting in October to bring these measures into force beginning 2027.

At that time, 63 countries voted ‘yes’ (including the 27 European Union members, Brazil, China, India, Canada, the U.K., Korea and Japan) and 16, including the United States, against it.

U.S. threats

While countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia have been opposed to the framework, the United States administration since then continues to issue explicit threats against countries that had supported the framework.

Ahead of the vote in London on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “I am outraged that the International Maritime Organization is voting in London this week to pass a global Carbon Tax. The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it in any way, shape, or form. We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers OR, the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend YOUR money on their Green dreams. Stand with the United States, and vote NO in London tomorrow!”

When proceedings began on October 14, deliberations reportedly became fractious. Ultimately, Singapore brought in a proposal to delay a decision for a year. Saudi Arabia proposed a vote. This resulted in 57 countries voting in favour of delay; 49 against it; and 21 not voting.

The Hindu could not confirm which way India voted.

“We regret that IMO members followed Singapore’s initial proposal to delay the adoption of the framework by 12 months, which Saudi Arabia called to a vote. This is unacceptable given the urgency we face in light of accelerating climate change,” Ralph Regenvanu, Minister for Climate Change, Republic of Vanuatu, who was present at the meeting, said in a statement.

“The IMO’s failure to adopt the framework this week marks a failure of this United Nations agency to act decisively on climate change. This makes the road to Bélem and beyond more difficult. But we know that we have international law on our side and will continue to fight for our people and the planet,” he added.

Shipping emissions

The 2023 IMO GHG (greenhouse gas) Strategy — the umbrella framework — envisages, in particular, a minimum 40% reduction in carbon intensity of international shipping (to reduce CO2 emissions per transport work) by 2030.

Women form 49% of total hospital admissions with Ayushman Bharat
Women account for 49% of total hospital admissions under the government’s flagship health insurance scheme, the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), according to the annual report for 2024-25 of the National Health Authority. This signals improved access to institutional healthcare for women, the report said.

Haemodialysis was the most availed treatment (14%), followed by multiple packages (7%); treatment for acute febrile illness (4%); acute gastroenteritis, and cataract and related procedures (3%).

The AB-PMJAY, launched in 2018, is among the largest health insurance schemes in the world, aiming to provide a health cover of ₹5 lakh for a family every year. Recently, Odisha and Delhi were onboarded for the scheme’s implementation.

Except West Bengal, 35 States and Union Territories are now under the AB-PMJAY umbrella.

As of March 31, the AB-PMJAY covers 15.14 crore eligible families, with an additional 8.57 crore families under State-specific schemes, the report added.

“So far, over 9.19 crore hospital admissions have been facilitated under AB-PMJAY, with treatment worth ₹1,29,386 crore completed and 31,005 hospitals empanelled, ensuring nationwide accessibility — 55% public, and 45% private,’’ the report said.

It added that under the nationwide Ayushman card saturation drives, over 40.45 crore cards had been issued, covering 14.69 crore families.

The Aapke Dwar Ayushman (ADA 3.0) initiative achieved outreach through technology-led, community-based, self-registration campaigns, empowering citizens at the grassroots.

To further facilitate inclusivity, the 2023 interim Budget announced the inclusion of 37 lakh families of frontline workers, including Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi workers, and Anganwadi helpers, into the AB-PMJAY.

In October 2024, the scheme included all citizens aged 70 and above, irrespective of income or socio-economic status.

The most ancient Indian wolf is set to be a new species
A discreet, charismatic denizen of scrubland and grasslands, the Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), whose population has dwindled to just around 3,000 individuals in India and Pakistan, is likely to be classified as a new species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Indian wolf was first placed within the umbrella genus of the grey wolf that roamed swathes of Asia. However, it has the oldest living lineage of the world’s wolves.

The canine has also been listed as “vulnerable”, bringing it much-needed attention as well as incentives to protect it and conserve its rapidly shrinking habitat.

This animal faces many threats, Y.V. Jhala, former dean of the Wildlife Institute of India and now a senior scientist of the Indian National Science Academy, explained. They are poisoned for preying on livestock, their natural prey base is vastly depleted in its fragile habitat, and the semi-arid areas they inhabit are destroyed by highways and renewable energy projects, Dr. Jhala told The Hindu.

“A den site I studied in Kutch is now engulfed by the Adani Solar Farm.”

The wolf’s persecution is curious, as they aren’t known to attack humans. “There have been two recent spates of wolf-human conflict, one in 1996 and the other last year in Bahraich district [in Uttar Pradesh],” Dr. Jhala said.

According to reports, since September, six people, including four children, were killed and 30 others were injured in wolf attacks in Bahraich. Meanwhile, almost the entire pack was shot to death.

“There has been a call for over two decades to have it be declared a distinct species,” Abi Vanak, director of the Centre for Policy Design at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology, Bengaluru, told The Hindu.

‘Best models’

“The Indian wolf is already under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act. The wolf, like the bustards and other denizens of the open natural ecosystems, do not need strict protected areas. Rather they serve as the best models for co-existence, and this is what needs to be incentivised. With the downgrading of the wolf to ‘vulnerable’ (I don’t call it upgrading), hopefully more international attention and funds can flow towards its conservation, and the protection of its habitats.”

Going forward, Dr. Jhala said, it’s important to acknowledge the IUCN assessment by developing a national policy and management plan for the unique, ancient Indian wolf.

Microbial link between arsenic in soil, lower rice yield uncovered
New research reveals that rice paddy microbes, and not soil arsenic levels alone, dictate arsenic toxicity and crop losses; managing microbial balance may thus be key to protecting the yield and its safety
Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently has warned that the type of microbes in rice paddies can determine whether arsenic, a notorious carcinogen and plant toxin, builds up in rice grains and triggers drastic crop losses.

The study has identified an important balance between arsenic-methylating bacteria, which convert inorganic arsenic into the toxic organic forms, versus demethylating archaea, which can undo this process. Where the methylating bacteria dominate, rice plants absorb the compound dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) and its more toxic derivative, dimethylated monothioarsenate (DMMTA). These compounds pose health risks to humans as well as induce straighthead disease.

“Straighthead needs to be considered as a physiological disorder rather than a disease in the absence of any infectious agent,” rice pathologist Sridhar Ranganathan, who wasn’t involved in the study, said.

“The symptoms are erect panicles with unfilled grains, often remaining green. Due to empty grains affecting the weight of the panicles, the ear-bearing tillers don’t droop down and remain green and upright, as can be seen with unaffected healthy plants bearing normally filled matured grains in which the plants droop down showing symptoms of initiation of senescence of the leaves and the grains.”

While long dismissed as a local agronomic issue, straighthead disease is now recognised as a global threat. In parts of the US and China, farmers have reported significant outbreaks, often in newly established or rotated paddies. West Bengal in India and Bangladesh have also previously reported straighthead disease.

The condition can result in up to 70% yield losses in severely affected areas. It occurs even when the total arsenic level in the soil is relatively low because the real problem is arsenic speciation, i.e. the chemical form arsenic takes in the soil and plant. The new study has found that the microbial communities that dominate in the paddies determine this speciation. The research team, led by Peng Wang at Nanjing Agricultural University in China, analysed rice paddies of different ages in China, unearthing a surprising pattern. Soils younger than 700 years were dominated by arsenic-methylating bacteria, so the rice grown there accumulated more DMA and DMMTA and the fields were more prone to straighthead disease outbreaks. Soils older than 700 years had more demethylating archaea, which broke down DMA and reduced the compounds’ buildup.

The researchers combined these field data with controlled soil incubation tests, genetic analyses, and a global survey of 801 paddy soil microbiomes. Eventually, they identified 11 methylating microbes and six demethylating archaea whose abundance could accurately predict arsenic risk.

In the paper, the team also reported that newly cultivated paddy regions like the U.S., southern Europe, and northeast China showed high ratios of methylating to demethylating microbes, rendering them particularly vulnerable to straighthead outbreaks. Ancient rice-growing regions had stronger demethylating communities instead. When the ratio of methylating to demethylating microbes exceeded 1.5, the risk of straighthead disease was found to rise sharply.

India is the world’s second-largest producer and consumer of rice. While much of the farming occurs in old, legacy paddies with relatively balanced microbial communities, several States have had new or reclaimed paddy fields established in the last few decades. These fields may be at greater risk, per the new study.

Experts said the research also intersects with climate change. Higher temperatures and altered flooding regimes are expected to increase the soils’ arsenic content (whether from natural sources or anthropogenic), and could tip the microbial balance towards the more harmful varieties. For a country where rice contributes nearly 40% of the population’s caloric intake, the crop’s safety and productivity are crucial.

Dr. Ranganathan said that even if the crop can’t be saved in a single cropping season, agronomic interventions can mitigate risks. According to the research paper, draining the rice fields midseason can ‘suppress’ the methylating microbes by reintroducing oxygen into the soils. Silicon fertilisation has also been known to reduce rice plants’ arsenic uptake. He also said crop rotation strategies can be adjusted to avoid destabilising microbial communities.

At the policy level, the findings highlight the need to monitor arsenic speciation, and not just total arsenic levels, as part of food safety regulations. Current standards, including those of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s ‘Codex Alimentarius’, focus on inorganic arsenic, leaving gaps around methylated species like DMMTA.

20th October

• In Doha, Pakistan and Afghanistan agree on ceasefire

Context: Both sides decide to establish mechanisms for lasting peace, stability, a statement said after talks between Defence Ministers of the two nations.

• Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and setting up of “mechanisms” to ensure lasting peace after days of violent clashes along the border that left several soldiers, civilians, and terrorists dead on both sides.
• The breakthrough came following negotiations between Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Afghanistan’s Acting Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob in Doha, facilitated by Qatar and Turkiye, according to a statement issued by Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.
• “During the negotiation, both sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire and establishment of mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability between the two countries,” the statement read.
• The two neighbours also agreed to hold “follow-up meetings” in the coming days to ensure the “implementation” and “sustainability” of the truce “in a reliable and sustainable manner” to achieve security and stability in both countries, it said. The development comes amid heightened tensions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, triggered by cross-border clashes after alleged Pakistani air strikes near Kabul last week.

‘Verifiable action’

• The Doha talks began on Saturday with Pakistan urging the Afghan Taliban authorities to take “verifiable action” against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which Islamabad accuses of launching cross-border terrorist attacks from Afghan soil.
• The Foreign Office, in a statement, said Pakistan had stressed the need for the Afghan authorities to honour their “commitments to the international community” and to address Islamabad’s “legitimate security concerns” by taking verifiable action against terrorist entities. “Pakistan appreciates the mediation efforts of Qatar and hopes these discussions contribute to peace and stability in the region,” it said.
• Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained strained since 2023.
• Islamabad has been repeatedly raising concerns over the use of Afghan soil by militants carrying out cross-border attacks.
• The situation further deteriorated following repeated terrorist attacks by TTP, including one in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Orakzai district recently, which claimed the lives of 11 military personnel, including a Lieutenant-Colonel and a Major.
• The Foreign Office announced that a temporary ceasefire had been agreed with Afghanistan for the next 48 hours amid the recent border hostilities. Later on Friday, the ceasefire was extended.
• However, hours after Islamabad and Kabul extended their two-day ceasefire, Pakistan launched fresh air strikes targeting terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan late.
• Three Afghan cricketers were among several people killed in the strikes, which followed a terror attack at a military installation in North Waziristan, claimed by TTP.
• Following the incident, the Afghanistan Cricket Board withdrew from participating in the upcoming Tri-Nation T20I Series involving Pakistan, scheduled to be played in late November.
• Army chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir warned Afghanistan to choose between “peace and chaos” as it asked Kabul to take firm and immediate action against terrorists using Afghan soil to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

• GRAP Stage 2 curbs kick in as Delhi’s air turns ‘very poor’

Context: The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has invoked Stage II of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) across Delhi-NCR as the city’s air quality slipped into the “very poor” category, with the AQI crossing the 300 mark.

• The move came after the Sub-Committee on GRAP reviewed the worsening pollution levels and forecasts by the India Meteorological Department and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, which warned of further deterioration in the coming days.
• “The AQI of Delhi has shown an increasing trend since morning and has been recorded as 296 at 4 p.m. and 302 at 7 p.m.,” the CAQM said, directing authorities to implement all Stage II measures with immediate effect, in addition to Stage I actions already in force.
• The panel also asked all implementing agencies to keep strict vigilance, particularly on dust mitigation and to ensure compliance with targeted timelines laid down under the comprehensive policy to curb air pollution in NCR.
• Under Stage II of GRAP, several curbs and intensified actions include daily mechanical or vacuum sweeping and water sprinkling on identified roads, preferably before peak traffic hours, to control dust.
• Construction and demolition sites face intensified inspections to ensure strict enforcement of dust control measures.
• To promote cleaner mobility, the GRAP Stage II mandates augmentation of public transport services through additional CNG and electric buses and increased frequency of metro services, along with differential fare rates to encourage off-peak travel.

• PM to face Quad, BRICS leaders at ASEAN meet next week

Context: India’s balancing act between the Quad and BRICS will come to the fore at the upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur from October 26 to 28, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the East Asia Summit (EAS) along with U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

• Leaders or representatives of China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand are expected at the EAS, while Brazil President Lula da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend as observers at the ASEAN-related summits.
• This means Mr. Modi, if he does travel to Kuala Lumpur this week, will have the chance to meet all counterparts from the Quad and key founder members of BRICS as well, as India prepares to host both summits next year.
• While the External Affairs Ministry has not so far confirmed Mr. Modi’s participation, Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan announced last week that Mr. Modi would attend the ASEAN-related summits, including the EAS, and government officials said Mr. Modi was “likely” to attend.
• India was meant to be the host of the Quad Summit this year, but with India-U.S. tensions overshadowing the past few months, officials have indicated the Quad Summit could be held in 2026. India will also take over as chair of the BRICS, and host the summit of the 11-nation grouping of emerging economies in 2026. India is the only common factor between the two groupings often antithetical to each other, as one includes the U.S. and its allies, while the other includes Russia and China. In addition, Mr. Trump’s trade tariffs, threats against India for buying Russian oil, sanctions on Iran (a new BRICS member), and threats to slap 100% tariffs on the BRICS members that he accuses of backing a common currency to counter the U.S. dollar, have added to the strain.
• “The downward trend in global economic growth, uncertainty in investment flows and interest rates, unilateral measures and supply chain disruptions have come to define the current international economic landscape,” Sudhakar Dalela, Secretary (Economic Relations), External Affairs Ministry, told a conference organised by the Chintan Research Foundation in Delhi last week. “India’s BRICS chairship comes at a time when the world is navigating through multiple challenges, particularly affecting the Global South countries,” he said, describing India’s plans to host the summit in the 20th year of BRICS.
• Meanwhile, Indian and American officials working on setting up the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, have also been discussing scheduling the Quad summit, but no date has emerged thus far, a number of diplomatic sources said. If the U.S.-India-Australia-Japan summit cannot be held this year, as is looking more likely, it will be the second year in a row that India-U.S. tensions would have derailed New Delhi’s plans.
• Mr. Modi had invited Quad leaders to a summit in January 2024, timed with Republic Day, but the invitation was declined by then-U.S. President Joe Biden amid a strain over the Pannun case. Mr. Biden subsequently hosted the Quad Summit in September 2024 in the U.S.
• At a closed-door session on the Quad in Delhi this week, organised by the Jindal Global University, experts said Mr. Trump’s ‘America first’ doctrine now posed a “test to Quad resilience”.
• As a result, while Mr. Modi’s visit to Kuala Lumpur is planned primarily for ASEAN-related meetings with South East Asian leaders, including the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), his schedule may also be crowded with discussions on the way forward on the two important groupings India will host in the upcoming months — the Quad and BRICS.

• Chandrayaan-2 makes first-ever observations on lunar exosphere: ISRO

Context: The CHACE-2 payload aboard the spacecraft’s orbiter showed an increase in total pressure of dayside lunar exosphere when impacted by the sun’s coronal mass ejection, says space agency.

• The lunar orbiter of India’s second moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, has made the first-ever observation of the effects of the sun’s coronal mass ejection (CME) on the moon.
• The Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2) payload onboard the orbiter had made the observation.
• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that the observations from CHACE-2 showed an increase in the total pressure of the dayside lunar exosphere (very thin atmosphere) when the CME impacted the moon.
• “The total number density (number of neutral atoms or molecules present in an environment per unit volume) derived from these observations showed an increase by more than an order of magnitude. This increase is consistent with earlier theoretical models, which predicted such an effect, but CHACE-2 onboard Chandrayaan-2 has observed such an effect for the first time,” the ISRO said.

Rare occurrence

• The space agency added that the opportunity to directly observe the effects of the CME on the moon came on a rare occurrence, on May 10, 2024, when a series of CMEs were hurled by the sun. “This increased quantity of solar coronal mass that impacted on the moon enhanced the process of knocking off the atoms from the lunar surface, thereby liberating them to the lunar exosphere, which manifested as the enhancement of the total pressure in the sunlit lunar exosphere,” it added.
• The space agency said that this observation would provide scientific insight into the understanding of the lunar exosphere and space weather effects on the moon.

Lunar base

• “Apart from pushing the edge of our scientific understanding about the moon and the lunar space weather, this observation also indicates the challenges of building scientific bases on the Moon. Lunar base architects need to account for such extreme events, which would temporarily alter the lunar environment, before the effects subside,” it said.
• Launched on July 22, 2019 using the GSLV-MkIII-M1 rocket, Chandrayaan-2 carried eight experiment payloads. However, the Vikram lander, while attempting to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface, lost communication from the lander and the ground stations.

• 146 species recorded in Kaziranga bird survey

Context: The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve recorded 146 species in the latest bird survey, Assam’s wildlife officials said. The survey was conducted across five key locations – Agoratoli, Gamiri, Panbari, and Panpur ranges of the national park and the adjoining Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary.

• The surveyors recorded 1,919 avian individuals belonging to 146 species. Agoratoli showed the highest diversity with 89 species, followed by Gamiri and Panbari (59 species each), Panpur (55 species), and Laokhowa (37 species).
• Kaziranga officials said that several important resident and migratory birds were recorded during the survey.

22nd October

• New H-1B visa fee will not apply for change of status: U.S. govt.

Context: Fee will not apply to existing visa holders granted an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay, says the USCIS guidelines; the cut-off date is set at September 21, and current H-1B visa holders can travel freely to and from the U.S.

• In a further relaxation of its rules relating to the new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, the United States government said that the fee will not apply to applications for a change of status or an extension of stay in the U.S.
• On September 19, U.S. President Donald Trump had signed a proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas. Hours later, his government clarified that this would be a one-time fee and would only apply to new applications.
• Guidelines issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Department reiterated this, saying that the proclamation “does not apply to any previously issued and currently valid H-1B visas, or any petitions submitted prior to 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025”.
• “The Proclamation also does not apply to a petition filed at or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025, that is requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay for an alien inside the United States where the alien is granted such amendment, change, or extension,” the guidelines added.
• Notably, they also said that the proclamation does not prevent any holder of a current H-1B visa from travelling to and from the U.S.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had filed a lawsuit last week challenging the $100,000 fee, saying it overrides existing provisions in current laws that apply to the H-1B programme, including provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Indian interests

• The H-1B visa, and any related fees, are of particular interest to Indians since they are the largest beneficiaries of this visa programme.
• While the U.S. government does not share data on the number of H-1B visa holders currently located in the U.S., other sources — such as FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy body co-founded by Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg — say that there were 7.3 lakh H-1B visa-holders in the U.S. as of January of this year. Of these, about 70% were Indian citizens.
• Further, as per data from the USCIS, Tata Consultancy Services had 5,505 H-1B visas approved in 2025 as of the end of June, the second-highest number of H-1B visas granted to any company that year, after Amazon (10,044).

• Net FDI fell 159% in August: RBI data

Context: Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into India fell 159% in August, with more money leaving the country than entering it, according to official data. This is the second time this financial year that outflows have exceeded inflows.

• However, the picture is reversed when looked at over a longer time period, with net FDI between April and August 2025 more than 121% higher than in the same five-month period of the previous year.
• Data released by the Reserve Bank of India shows that the repatriation and disinvestment by foreign firms in India and the investments done abroad by Indian companies — which add up to the total money leaving the country — were higher than the gross amount that was invested into India in August 2025.
• Gross investments into India stood at $6,049 million in August 2025, 30.6% lower than their level in August last year and 45.5% lower than in July this year.
• This was the lowest level of gross inflows in this financial year so far.
• The amount repatriated and disinvested by foreign companies operating in India stood at $4,928 million in August 2025, down 5.4% from the amount in August 2024 but nearly 30% higher than the amount in July 2025.
• Foreign investments by Indian companies contracted 29.7% in August 2025 to $1,736 million, the lowest in this financial year.
• Taken together, this meant that net FDI into India — the difference between the gross amount coming in and the total amount going out — stood at -$616 million in August 2025, 159% lower than in August last year. That is, more money left the country in August 2025 than entering it that month.
• This had happened in May 2025 as well, albeit at a smaller scale, as net FDI had stood at -$5 million during that month.

Longer period, better picture

• However, the FDI picture looks better when looked at over a longer timeframe.
• Net FDI in the April-August 2025 period was $10,128 million, more than 121% higher than in the same period last year. This was driven by an 18.2% increase in gross inflows ($43,760 million) entering the country and a 6.1% contraction in repatriation and disinvestment ($21,205 million) leaving India during this period.
• Foreign investment by Indian companies stood at $12,427 million in the April-August 2025 period, up nearly 26% over the same period of the previous year.

• Core sector growth slows to three-month low

Context: Growth in activity in the eight core sectors slowed to a three-month low of 3% in September on contraction in the coal, crude oil, natural gas and refinery products, as well as a relatively sharp slowdown in fertilizers.

• Slowdown driven by 4 fuel-related sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas, and refinery products; Steel was the only one of the eight core sectors that saw growth quicken in September to 14.1%
• Growth in activity in the eight core sectors of the economy slowed to a three-month low of 3% in September dragged down by contraction in the coal, crude oil, natural gas and refinery products as well as a relatively sharp slowdown in fertilizers, official data showed.
• The data in the Index of Eight Core Industries released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry shows the index’s performance in September was faster than a year earlier but slowest since this June.

Fuel-related sectors

• The slower growth was driven by fuel-related sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas and refinery products.
• The coal sector contracted 1.19% compared with 2.6% growth a year earlier, and a 11.4% growth in August.
• Crude oil sector contracted 1.25% from a contraction of 3.9% in September last year. Notably, the crude oil sector had grown 2.4% in August, the first month of growth in eight months.
• The natural gas sector witnessed the largest contraction, of 3.8%, in September. The sector contracted for 15 consecutive months, data showed.
• Likely due to the side in the crude oil sector, refinery products contracted by 3.6% this September compared with a 5.8% growth a year earlier.

Fertilizers slow down

• The fertilizer sector saw growth slowing to 1.6% in September compared with 1.9% a year earlier and 4.6% in August 2025. The cement sector, too, saw growth slowing to 5.3% in September from 7.6% a year earlier.
• Growth in the electricity sector slowed to 2.1% in September, faster than the 0.5% seen in September 2024, but slower than the 4.1% in August this year.
• The steel sector was the only one of the eight core sectors that saw growth quicken in September to 14.1% from 1.8% in September last year, and 13.6% in August 2025.

• Deepavali fireworks send Delhi air quality inching to a five-year low

Context: Following Deepavali, pollution in Delhi inched close to a five-year low with average concentrations of particulate matter (PM) 2.5 across several locations crossing 400 microgram per cubic metre (g/m³) — levels not seen since 2021.

• On Deepavali day, nine cities out of the 293 monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) reported an air quality index (AQI) value of above 300, classed as ‘very poor’ air quality. On the day after Deepavali, Tuesday (for most of the country), this rose to 16 cities, according to data available on the organisation’s website.
• Nearly all of these cities fell in North India and in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Nationally, Dharuhera in Haryana reported the worst AQI reading of 462.

Violation suspected

• An analysis of PM 2.5 trends, which was recorded by the CPCB’s automatic air quality sensors, by independent weather-and-climate agency, Climate Trends, showed a sharp spike in particulate matter concentration from 4 p.m. on Deepavali day (October 20) in Delhi.
• From values of around 150 at 4 p.m., it spiked to nearly 650 by 11 p.m. This coincides with the period during which bursting firecrackers was legally permissible (8 p.m. to 10 p.m.) on Deepavali day, per the reprieve by the Supreme Court.
• The SC, in its order, had allowed the use of only CSIR-validated ‘green crackers’, which reportedly emit a minimum 30% less smoke than their traditional counterparts. However, the sheer volume of fireworks during the period, anecdotal reports of the unavailability of these firecrackers, and the air quality index of the day following Deepavali, suggest that these norms were violated.
• A key parameter that determines air quality levels is wind speeds on the festival night, as well as temperatures.
• When night temperatures are low, smoke and chemical pollutants hover like haze and will not rise to higher reaches of the atmosphere and get flushed out. Temperatures on Deepavali night this year ranged from 23-25 degree Celsius, the warmest in five years but low wind speeds and the quantity of smoke retarded its egress out of the Delhi and the Gangetic plain airshed.
• “When examined together, PM 2.5 and temperature data reveal a consistent pattern: high emissions from fireworks and low night-time temperatures jointly contribute to elevated PM 2.5 concentrations. The sharp post-Deepavali spikes indicate both sustained emissions and poor atmospheric dispersion,” the Climate Trends report notes.
• “The Diwali of 2025 was one of the most polluted in recent years. The spike between the nights of the 19th and 20th directly corresponds to the widespread use of firecrackers across Delhi-NCR. Moreover, visuals and ground data confirm that burning so-called ‘green’ crackers made no measurable difference compared to regular ones. It’s now evident that allowing firecrackers during this time of year is simply not sustainable for the NCR region’s already critical air quality,” Palak Balyan, Research Lead, Climate Trends, said in a statement.
• A perusal of the AQI values on Deepavali and the subsequent day on the CPCB website shows that in 2023, Delhi’s post-Deepavali (November 13) AQI was 358 (very poor) – close to the 351 (very poor) reported at 4 p.m. this year. The five-year record, however, was on November 5 in 2021, when it recorded 462 (‘severe’).
• Deepavali AQI this year in the city was 345, only topped by Deepavali AQI of 382 on November 4, 2021.
• The CPCB presents an annual report of air quality and noise-pollution levels nationally on Deepavali night and following day. It is expected later this week. The Environment Ministry didn’t offer any comment or analysis of the Delhi air quality.

• Indian mission in Kabul gets embassy tag

Context: Days after the visit by Taliban administration’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, India has upgraded its Technical Mission in Afghan capital Kabul to an embassy. A Ministry of External Affairs statement said,“This decision underscores India’s resolve to deepen its bilateral engagement with the Afghan side in all spheres of mutual interest.”

• Days after the visit by Taliban administration’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, India has upgraded its Technical Mission in Afghan capital Kabul to an embassy. In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the upgrading took place with “immediate effect”.
• “In keeping with the decision announced during the recent visit of the Afghan Foreign Minister to India, the government is restoring the status of the Technical Mission in Kabul to that of Embassy of India in Afghanistan with immediate effect. This decision underscores India’s resolve to deepen its bilateral engagement with the Afghan side in all spheres of mutual interest,” said the MEA in a statement. Official sources said a chargé d’affaires (CDA) would soon be appointed who would steer the embassy till the appointment of an ambassador.
• Multiple major powers such as Iran, China, Russia, Gulf countries and Central Asian republics have engaged the Taliban but Russia alone has granted recognition to the Taliban as the de jure ruler of Afghanistan. Sources indicated that it may be sometime before India sends a formal ambassador to take charge of the embassy in Kabul.
• The decision to upgrade the Technical Mission was taken after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met with Mr. Muttaqi on October 10 against the backdrop of intense hostilities that had broken out between Afghanistan and Pakistan along the Durand Line. Subsequently, the two sides have declared a ceasefire through mediation of Qatar. India had shut its embassy in Kabul and withdrew the existing staff in August 2021 when the Taliban overthrew the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

• London Book of Records defends recognition of Shakti scheme, KSRTC

Context: After a row over the ‘London Book of World Records’ recognition for Karnataka’s Shakti scheme and the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), the London Book of Records issued a clarification defending its decision.

• The London Book of World Records has issued a clarification in response to what it described as “defaming and tarnishing” reports published on social media platforms. On October 16, a social media post by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah celebrating world record recognitions for the State’s Shakti Scheme and the KSRTC kicked off a row after opposition parties alleged that the certifying agency, the London Book of World Records, had been dissolved months earlier in the United Kingdom.
• Following the backlash, the original post was deleted on October 17. By then, screenshots of the certificates and the X post had already gone viral.
• In a release, the London Book of World Records stated that social media posts had created confusion regarding its registration and functioning. It clarified that the London Book of Records is a privately registered company under the Companies Act of 2006, with its registered office in England and Wales, and service offices in Pune and Delhi. The company, it said, was initially incorporated under Company No. 15807855 on June 28, 2024, at the Company House in Cardiff.
• However, the release added that this company was dissolved on July 15, 2025, and subsequently re-registered under a new number (16667234) on August 22, 2025, with the same name and management.
• “There is no question of anything dubious, suspicious and issues of a dissolved company,” the statement read, while adding that all contact details are available on the official website.
• The organisation defended its recognition of the KSRTC and Shakti scheme for empowering women.

• It described the initiative as a “testimony of exemplary achievement,” noting that the recognition was based on public service excellence and jointly certified by international chairman Avinash Sakunde and Ivan Gacina, European Union Head, Republic of ​Croatia.

• Modi congratulates new Japan PM, says ties vital to promote Indo-Pacific peace

Context: Ties between India and Japan are “vital” for regional and global peace, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulating Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

• Officials said the two leaders are expected to speak over the telephone in the next few days, and are likely to meet as early as this weekend, on the sidelines of the upcoming Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
• Mr. Modi is expected to travel for the summits, although the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has not made an announcement yet.
• In a message on social media, Mr. Modi said he looked forward to working closely with Ms. Takaichi to further strengthen the India–Japan ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’.
• “Our deepening ties are vital for peace, stability, and prosperity across the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” Mr. Modi added.

Agreements inked

• The change in government in Japan comes just weeks after Mr. Modi visited Tokyo to hold the 15th India-Japan summit with then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on August 29.
• The two sides had signed a number of agreements including an Economic Security Partnership, including cooperation on building critical mineral industry capacity, and an upgraded Strategic Partnership. Experts say Ms. Takaichi is expected to continue the upward trend in India-Japan ties, and strengthen them further.
• “Ms. Takaichi is a protegee of former PM Shinzo Abe, whose tenure in office (2012-2020) is seen as the golden period for India-Japan ties,” former Ambassador to Japan Deepa Wadhwa. “As a result, she will likely continue to focus on the Indo-Pacific as Mr. Abe did, and we can expect her to be more proactive about the Quad engagement as well,” Ms. Wadhwa added.

• FATF may discuss state sponsorship of terrorism; Pakistan entities in focus

Context: The ongoing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meetings in Paris are expected to deliberate on state sponsorship as a means to fund and support terrorism, including the financing of banned outfits and their proxies operating in Pakistan, said sources in law-enforcement agencies.

• The FATF week started, and its Plenary will be held from Wednesday to Friday. Representatives of over 200 jurisdictions and observers are attending the meetings.
• “Over 130 terror entities and individuals based in, or linked to, Pakistan are listed on the United Nations Security Council’s ISIL/Al-Qaeda Sanctions List. The Resistance Force, a proxy of Pakistan-based banned outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the gruesome killings in Pahalgam on April 22, has also been designated by the United States as a global terror outfit,” an official said.
• In June, the FATF issued a statement condemning the Pahalgam terror attack, stating that it could not “occur without money and the means to move funds between terrorist supporters”. In July, it released a report, “Comprehensive update on terrorist financing risks”, which, for the first time, recognised state sponsorship as a longstanding terror-financing threat to global peace and security.
• State sponsorship includes providing direct funding, logistics, materials, or training.
• Indian security agencies have gathered inputs showing that the LeT, under the front of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, has raised funds to rebuild its headquarters in Muridke, which was destroyed by the Indian Air Force on May 7.
• In May, the Pakistani government had announced that it would finance reconstruction of the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed facilities. It allocated four crore Pakistani rupees to the LeT for its headquarters Markaz Taiba, while the estimated cost of its complete reconstruction was likely to exceed 15 crore Pakistani rupees. Therefore, according to the agencies, the outfit raised funds on the pretext of “relief for flood victims”.

Current Affairs: 18th October 2025

• AI-based facial recognition tech to record staff attendance at govt. schools, colleges

Context: FRA has already been implemented as a pilot project for three months in schools and PU colleges in Mandya, Haveri, and Bengaluru South districts

• The State government has decided to implement the Artificial Intelligence Powered Facial Recognition Attendance (FRA) system to record the accurate attendance of teachers, lecturers, and other staff in government, aided schools and Pre-university colleges in the State.
• FRA has already been implemented as a pilot project for three months in schools and PU Colleges in Mandya, Haveri, and Bengaluru South Districts, after which steps have been taken to extend it to teachers, lecturers, and staff of all schools and colleges across the State.
• The government has already developed a separate app to record the attendance of government and aided school children, and has decided to use the same app for the attendance of teachers and lecturers, and other staffs.
• Through FRA, teachers, lecturers, and staff must check-in and check-out twice a day, once when school starts and after school ends.
• “The attendance of teachers and lecturers is important for the future of students and quality education. In this context, steps have been taken to implement the ‘AI-Powered Facial Recognition Attendance’ system,” said V. Rashmi Mahesh, Principal Secretary of DSEL.
• There was a discrepancy between the number of students in the Student Achievement Tracking System (SATS) and the number of students attending classes.
• Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced the implementation of the FRA in the State Budget for 2025-26.
• Initially, a pilot project was conducted in the Uttara Kannada district, and after its success, steps have been taken to implement the FRA in all schools across the State.
• Absenteeism of teachers and lecturers is also common in most government schools and PU colleges. There have also been allegations that many teachers and lecturers used to sign the attendance register and then engage in their personal work. Sources said that, this affected the results of SSLC and II PUC students.
• The School Development and Monitoring State Committee (SDMC) had urged for the FRA for teachers in all government and aided schools.

• “The mobile app developed by the government for FRA can be easily installed on any smartphone. Steps have already been taken to include the information of all teachers, lecturers and staff in this app. Instead of individual photos of each staff member, photos of all teachers, lecturers and staff of the respective schools and colleges will be taken ​simultaneously and uploaded through the app.

• Resolution of Palestinian question necessary for IMEC: Egyptian FM

Context: In Delhi for the first India-Egypt Strategic Dialogue, Abdelatty urges India to join the Egyptian Suez Canal Economic Zone; meets Jaishankar, calls on PM Modi; IMEC project, unveiled at the G-20 Summit in 2023, stalled soon after due to Gaza war.

• Plans for the India-Middle East-Europe-Economic Corridor (IMEC) cannot proceed without some progress on the Palestinian question, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said on Friday, adding that Egypt would be interested to join all such connectivity projects once the situation is “conducive”.
• Mr. Abdelatty told a group of presspersons that he had discussed the IMEC project with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during the first India-Egypt Strategic Dialogue on Friday, and also proposed that India join the Egyptian Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE), where Russia, China, and a few other countries already have separate industrial complexes.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi for the Gaza Peace Plan signed with U.S. President Donald Trump this week.

Derailed by attacks

• The IMEC was launched during the G-20 in New Delhi in September 2023 by a number of countries including India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the European Union, and is meant to be routed via Israel’s Haifa port.
• The project floundered within a month, however, after the October 7 terror attacks in Israel and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

• While welcoming all connectivity projects “between the east and west”, Mr. Abdelatty said that the aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own State was necessary for peace and security in the region, and it would not be possible to run a cross-regional connectivity project like the IMEC without it.
• “If we are serious about having final peace and security, a comprehensive deal and the security for Israel and the whole region, the only solution is to respond positively to the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to have their own statehood, to have their own independent state,” Mr. Abdelatty said in response to a question from The Hindu.

Indian industrial zone

• Turning to bilateral matters, Mr. Abdelatty said that India and Egypt have committed to doubling bilateral trade from the present level of $5 billion, with particular potential in the areas of chemicals, minerals, pharmaceuticals, phosphates, digital technology, artificial intelligence, and renewable energy.
• “We have a special industrial zone for China and for Russia in the SCZONE and we are encouraging an Indian industrial zone where we would provide all facilitation and incentives to Indian companies,” he said, adding that India would be able to export goods beyond Egypt, with its population of 120 million, to a market of more than “two billion inhabitants” across Africa, South America, Europe, and Arab countries that are connected to Egyptian ports through free trade agreements.

• Nashik unit open; HAL can roll out 24 Tejas jets a year

Context: Rajnath Singh flags off the first light combat aircraft Mk1A produced at the facility; Minister opens the third production line for the fighter and the second of Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 aircraft.

• The production lines of the light combat aircraft Tejas Mk1A and the training aircraft HTT-40 are proof of the synergy among government, industry and academia, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said here on Friday, asserting that no challenge was too big if faced together.
• He was speaking after inaugurating the third production line of Tejas Mk1A and the second of the Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. facility.
• The Defence Minister flagged off the first LCA Mk1A aircraft produced at the facility, describing it as a symbol of India’s growing self-reliance in defence.
• Highlighting the transformation of India’s defence sector in the past decade under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, Mr. Singh said the country, which once imported 65-70% of its military hardware, now manufactured nearly 65% of it domestically. “Our goal is to increase this to 100% in the near future,” he said.
• He recalled that when the government under Mr. Modi came to power in 2014, it faced numerous challenges such as limited defence preparedness, import dependence, and a lack of private sector participation.
• “Earlier, defence production was largely confined to government enterprises. There was insufficient focus on planning, advanced technology, and innovation, which made us dependent on other nations and created strategic vulnerabilities,” he said. “These challenges pushed us to adopt new thinking and reforms. Today, we are manufacturing domestically what we used to import — fighter jets, missiles, engines, and electronic warfare systems.”
• Mr. Singh reaffirmed the government’s commitment to inducting indigenous technologies into the armed forces and hailed HAL as the backbone of India’s defence manufacturing ecosystem. He commended HAL for supporting the recently decommissioned MiG-21 fleet and its pivotal role during Operation Sindoor.
• “In our security history, few instances have tested our system as much as Operation Sindoor. HAL provided round-the-clock support to the Indian Air Force, ensuring operational readiness. The Nashik team carried out crucial integration of the BrahMos missile on Su-30 aircraft, which destroyed terrorist hideouts during the operation,” he said.
• “This proved that India can design, produce, and deploy its own systems effectively,” he added.

HAL plans

• The first two production lines of the LCA and the first production line of the HTT-40 are in Bengaluru. The company initiated establishment of the third production line to fast-track delivery of Tejas to the IAF. The production line in Nashik has a capacity of eight aircraft a year.
• The company said that with the third production line, HAL would achieve a total production capacity of 24 aircraft per year for LCA Mk1A.
• The third Line had resulted in creation of approximately 1,000 jobs, and development of more than 40 industry partners in and around Nashik, including in cities of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh.
• In two years, the company plans to expand capacity in Nashik up to 10 aircraft a year by way of establishing an additional Assembly Jig Line, Tooling and Pre-installation Check facilities for Line Replaceable Units.

• Rotavirus vaccine effective against gastroenteritis in children: study

Context: A recent study on the impact of the indigenous rotavirus vaccine in India found marked reductions in rotavirus-based gastroenteritis in sites across the country.

• Published in the recent edition of The Nature Medicine, the study ‘Impact of the indigenous rotavirus vaccine Rotavac in the Universal Immunization Program in India during 2016–2020’, is an observational, multi-centre analysis by Nayana P. Nair and Samarasimha N. Reddy, on behalf of the collaborators of the rotavirus vaccine effectiveness and impact assessment network.
• The study looked at 31 hospitals in nine States between 2016 and 2020, to compare proportions and trends before and after the introduction of Rotavac in the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
• In 2016, India introduced Rotavac, an indigenous oral rotavirus vaccine, administered at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age, in its UIP. When a vaccine is introduced in the UIP, it is provided free to all eligible beneficiaries.
• The authors said, “Evaluating its effectiveness under routine programmatic conditions is critical, given the variable performance of rotavirus vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.”
• They noted, “The effectiveness of the routine use of indigenous Rotavac vaccine in the national immunisation program was 54%. This was reassuringly similar to the efficacy of 54%, reported during the phase 3 vaccine trial.” Further, the effectiveness was sustained in the first two years of life, when the burden of rotavirus is at its greatest.
• They found that the proportion of paediatric rotavirus hospitalisations also declined substantially.
• Rotavac was developed as part of a public-private partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, Bharat Biotech, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Stanford University, and PATH, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

• Gagandeep Kang, Indian virologist and microbiologist who played a key role in Rotavac’s development, stressed the importance of the study in a post on social media. “Rotavirus vaccine effectiveness is similar to efficacy in India! In other words, vaccines work in the real world and not in just controlled clinical trials. [This is] The first data from India from one of the largest- ever rotavirus vaccine effectiveness studies, contributed by collaborators across many States and organisations. It took a really long time to generate the data and publish it, but it was important to conduct this study for the first indigenous oral rotavirus vaccine.”

• ‘For India, Agentic AI is huge opportunity, potential liability’

Context: For India, where digital public infrastructure and AI-driven innovation are becoming central to economic growth, agentic AI is a massive opportunity as well as a potential liability, said Saugat Sindhu, global head, advisory services, cybersecurity & risk services, Wipro Ltd.

• However, he added, “Security, privacy, and ethical oversight must evolve as fast as AI itself.”
• The future of AI in India would be defined by the intelligence of its systems, their strength and responsibility the country takes to deploy and secure them.
• According to Mr. Sindhu, agentic AI technologies are reshaping productivity, governance, and national security in an era where machines no longer just assist but act.
• Listing out some of the most critical cyber risks of agentic AI, he said India’s digital economy was booming — from UPI payments to Aadhaar-enabled services. But as AI evolves from passive large language models (LLMs) into autonomous, decision-making agents, the cyber threat landscape is shifting dramatically.

Current Affairs: 16th & 17th October 2025

• Trade deficit widens 93% in Sept. as services slump

Context:  month. However, the data shows that for the first half of the financial year — April to September 2025, the trade deficit shrank by 2.3%.

• Data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday showed that India’s total exports stood at $67.2 billion in September 2025, up 0.8% over September 2024.
• Total imports, on the other hand, grew 11.3% to $83.8 billion over the same period.
• As a result, the trade deficit in September nearly doubled to $16.6 billion, compared to $8.6 billion in September 2024.

Goods exports grow

• Notably, the relatively poor performance of the export sector was due to lower exports of services and not goods. India’s goods exports grew 6.7% to $36.4 billion in September 2025 despite that being the first full month of 50% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on imports from India.
• Services, which have so far bolstered India’s export performance, saw exports shrinking 5.5% in September 2025 to $30.8 billion.
• However, while the data shows that India’s exports to the U.S. are indeed 13.4% higher in the cumulative April-September 2025 period than in the same period last year, they have been declining steadily over the last few months. That is, where India’s exports to the U.S. stood at $8.8 billion in May 2025, they were valued at $5.5 billion in September 2025.
• “It is heartening to know that in this turbulence, our merchandise exports have kept up,” Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said in a press briefing. “That means our industry has been resilient and they have been able to withstand the turbulence by retaining their supply chains and business. They might be taking on some of the costs on themselves,” Mr. Agrawal added.
• He also sought to downplay the increase in the trade deficit in September, saying that international trade does not always follow the same pattern from year to year.
• “On a cumulative basis, we are still doing better than last year,” Mr. Agrawal said. “That means the part of the exports that are not facing tariffs are growing well, but also the part of the exports that do face the tariffs are also growing. The exports have not come down.”
• Looking at the first half of the financial year, the data shows that total exports grew 4.45% in the April-September 2025 period to $413.3 billion. Total imports grew at a relatively slower 3.55% to $472.8 billion over the same period. As a result, the trade deficit during the first half of the financial year shrank by 2.3%.

• Night light data from 2013 and 2023 reveals limited urban growth in Bihar

Context: A comparison of night light data from 2013 and 2023 shows that most Assembly constituencies in Bihar continue to remain predominantly rural. Only a few constituencies have shown significant growth in nighttime luminosity, primarily in Patna, which was already among the more urbanised parts of the State.

• Nighttime illumination can serve as a useful proxy for gauging human activity and electricity usage in an area. A higher concentration of night lights often reflects not just street or vehicular lighting, but also ongoing economic activities such as construction or roadwork. Together, these patterns of brightness offer a visual measure of urban growth and development.
• This method is used to classify constituencies in a State as rural, semi-rural, semi-urban, or urban. This approach is adopted due to the absence of up-to-date official data on the subject, and as administrative boundaries vary from political boundaries.

• Delhi HC seeks responseon vacancies in National Commission for Minorities

Context: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Union government on long-pending vacancies in the National Commission for Minorities (NCM).

• A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, while hearing a PIL plea filed by Mujahid Nafees, who claimed to be the convener of the Minority Coordination Committee working on the welfare of minorities across India, pointed out that the commission cannot remain headless for so long.
• Granting time to the Central government’s counsel to obtain instructions in the matter, the court said the petition was raising a very important issue.
• “Do not wait for the next date of hearing. Please ensure that things start moving,” the court said. The petition stated that the posts of chairperson, vice-chairperson and members of the NCM have been vacant since April, the month Iqbal Singh Lalpura completed his term as chairman.

• The National Commission for Minorities which works under the Ministry of Minority Affairs and has quasi-judicial powers, should have seven members, including the Chairperson, and the Vice-Chairperson.
• The National Commission of Minorities Act, 1992 mandates the appointment of one member from each of the six minority communities — Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, and Jain.

• “There is a complete and systematic incapacitation of the National Commission for Minorities due to the Centre’s failure to appoint its head and members ,” the plea states.

• The petition added that the government’s inaction is further aggravated by the fact that it is in direct contravention of the spirit and letter of a prior order from the High Court where it had expressed its dissatisfaction with such delays.

• China files WTO complaint on India’s EV, battery subsidies

Context: China has filed a complaint against India in the World Trade Organization (WTO) over New Delhi’s subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.

• Commerce Secretary said that the Ministry will look into the detailed submissions made by China.

Similar applications

• Confirming the move, an official said that China had also filed similar applications against Turkiye, Canada and the EU.n“They have sought consultations with India,” the official said.
• Seeking consultation is the first step of the dispute settlement process as per WTO rules.
• If the consultations requested with India do not result in a satisfactory solution, the EU can request the WTO set up a panel in the case to rule on the issue raised.

• China is the second-largest trading partner of India. In the last fiscal, India’s exports to China contracted 14.5% to $14.25 billion against $16.66 billion in 2023-24.
• The imports, however, rose by 11.52% in 2024-25 to $113.45 billion against $101.73 billion in 2023-24.
• India’s trade deficit with China had widened to $99.2 billion during the year 2024-25.

• Russia backs AMCA, offers to make Su-57 jets in India

Context: Russia reaffirmed its commitment to deepen defence cooperation with India with its Ambassador Denis Alipov expressing his country’s readiness to support India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme through “local production” of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet.

• The move underscores the long-standing strategic partnership between the two nations, which has evolved far beyond a traditional buyer-seller relationship into one of joint development, co-production, and full technology sharing. He also said that both sides are exploring collaborations in next-generation technologies.
• The announcement comes amid growing speculation about the future of the India-Russia oil trade, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that India would soon halt such purchases.
• However, the Ambassador said that “Russian energy remains the most cost-effective option on the global market”.
• On the defence ties with India, he said: “For over six decades, Russia has been a trusted defence partner and a key contributor to India’s military modernisation, with nearly 70% of India’s defence equipment of Russian origin, and a testament to its effectiveness has (been) demonstrated by Operation Sindoor. The partnership has produced several landmark achievements, most notably the joint production of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which is now being upgraded to a hypersonic version.”
• Mr. Alipov said that both sides are exploring collaborations in next-generation technologies, including anti-drone systems, advanced radar solutions, and precision strike capabilities.

• Trump and MEA at odds over Russian oil imports

Context: Trump claims Modi gave commitment to stop buying oil from Russia ‘soon’; Ministry denies the leaders discussed the issue, but says govt. is ‘broad-basing’ and ‘diversifying’ its energy sources.  

• India and the United States continued to differ publicly over Russian oil as U.S. President Donald Trump said he had been assured by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India will stop buying oil from Russia, while the Ministry of External Affairs maintained the two leaders had not spoken about the issue.
• However, the MEA said that India was “broad-basing” and “diversifying” its sources of energy according to market needs, and did not specifically deny the claim that it was reducing its intake.

Bone of contention

• The subject of Russian oil, which has led to the U.S. imposing penalty tariffs on India, is also believed to be holding up trade talks between the two countries. While the government has consistently denied it would bow to pressure, data analysed by The Hindu showed that oil public sector undertakings have dropped their Russian imports by as much as 45% between June and September this year, even though Russia remains India’s biggest supplier overall.
• “I am not aware of any conversation yesterday between the two leaders,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters here on Thursday, also clarifying that a call between Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump last Thursday had only dealt with the Gaza peace plan and India-U.S. trade issues.
• Mr. Trump had said he was confident that India would end its oil imports “soon” but not “immediately”.

• Farmers of rain-fed areas to get input subsidy of ₹17,000 per ha

Context: As farmers incurred crop loss on 12.82 lakh hectares on account of excess rainfall during the south-west monsoon in the State, the Karnataka Cabinet has fixed the input subsidy to farmers of rain-fed area crops at ₹17,000 per hectare, ₹25,500 per hectare for crops in irrigated land, and ₹31,000 per hectare for perennial crops.

• The input subsidy would be given for a maximum of up to two hectares. The input subsidy fixed by the government was higher than the amount fixed under NDRF norms.
• A sum of ₹1,090 crore would be additional burden to the government, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister after a Cabinet meeting.
• He said the Cabinet cancelled the necessity of securing occupancy certificates (OC) by owners of residential houses constructed on 1,200 sqft in municipalities. However, the owners must construct houses as per the plan approved by the authorities.

Cricket stadium

• It has cleared a ₹2,350 crore for construction of a cricket stadium at Suryanagara of Anekal taluk of Bengaluru Rural district. However, the final clearance would be given after obtaining detailed project report, he said. The stadium would be developed on 75 acres.
• A sum of ₹54.92 crore was approved for purchase of necessary equipment for commencement of a super-speciality 100-bed hospital in Vijayapura. It also approved ₹100 crore each for developing NIMHANS-like hospitals in Kalaburagi and Mysuru medical colleges.
• The Cabinet approved ₹650 crore for treating sewage in Vrishabhavati River Valley and treated water would be used for filling tanks in Bengaluru Urban and Rural and Chickballapur districts.
• The Cabinet decided to cancel the necessity of passing the Kannada language test by probationary officers after the recruitment. Since candidates have to pass a 150-mark Kannada language test during the recruitment, it was decided to scrap the test after the recruitment.

• FSSAI says only WHO-approved products can be labelled as ORS

Context: A Hyderabad-based paediatrician’s long-standing fight against sugar-rich beverages falsely marketed as oral rehydration solutions (ORS) has resulted in a major regulatory change. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued an order stating that no food brand may use the term ‘Oral Rehydration Salts’ or ‘ORS’ on its products unless the formulation adheres strictly to the standards recommended by the World Health Organisation.

• The directive, issued mandates the immediate withdrawal of all previous permissions granted to food business operators for using ‘ORS’ in conjunction with their brand names.
• Specifically, it rescinds two earlier orders, dated July 14, 2022, and February 2, 2024, that had allowed the use of ‘ORS’ as part of a trademark with a prefix or suffix, provided the label included a disclaimer stating, “The product is not an ORS formula as recommended by WHO.”

• FSSAI issued a detailed clarification reaffirming that the use of ‘ORS’ in any food product’s name, whether fruit-based, non-carbonated, or ready-to-drink, violates the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and related regulations. The regulator stated that such labelling ‘misleads consumers by way of false, deceptive, ambiguous, and erroneous names or label declarations,’ and therefore contravenes multiple provisions under the Act.

• This regulatory intervention stems from a persistent legal campaign by paediatrician Sivaranjani Santosh, who began questioning deceptive marketing practices nearly a decade ago.

• ‘Studying space weather mustbe a major activity for humans’

Context: The PUNCH Space Mission, launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) earlier this year to observe the ‘young solar wind,’ is “making the invisible, visible,” Craig Edward DeForest, Principal Investigator of the mission, has said.

• “We are making the solar wind visible,” Dr. DeForest said on Wednesday evening, while giving a public lecture on ‘Imaging Almost Nothing At All…With the PUNCH Space Mission of NASA’ in Thiruvananthapuram. The lecture was jointly organised by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), the Christ University Nodal Office and the local chapter of the Breakthrough Science Society.

• PUNCH, short for ‘Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere,’ is attempting to understand the corona (the Sun’s outermost atmosphere) and the solar wind as “a single system,” according to Dr. DeForest, who is also Director of the Department of Solar and Heliospheric Physics, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

• Studying and forecasting space weather should be important activities for humans, Dr. DeForest said. He points out that they provide a way to “protect ourselves.” Solar events such as the solar wind and coronal mass ejections can have impacts across the solar system.

Solar maximum

• The sun is now in a time of solar maximum, a period of high activity. In five years or so it will be much quieter, he said. “We cannot predict when an ejection will happen, but we can predict that ejections will happen over an interval of time,” he said.

• Google’s new AI finds promising approach for cancer treatment

Context: Opening a portal to a new approach to drug discovery, Google unveiled a family of artificial intelligence tools that proposed a drug combination for detecting cancer that human experts did not know about, which seemed effective in laboratory conditions.

• This is a rare instance of AI being used in the process of scientific discovery to design practical drug candidates.
• The Cell2Sentence-Scale 27B (C2S-Scale) is a 27-billion-parameter foundation model designed to understand the language of individual cells. “This announcement marks a milestone for AI in science,” Shekoofeh Azizi and Brian Perozzi, staff scientists at Google DeepMind and Google Research, respectively, said in a blogpost, adding, “C2S-Scale generated a novel hypothesis about cancer cellular behaviour and we have since confirmed its prediction with experimental validation in living cells. This discovery reveals a promising new pathway for developing therapies to fight cancer.”
• Their research paper, with the scientific details, was made available for public scrutiny at bioRxiv, a repository of pre-prints.
• The problem that researchers set out to solve was how to detect an emerging tumour when the immune system itself was unaware of it. A strategy was to force such nascent tumours to display immune-triggering signals through a process called antigen presentation.
• The C2S-Scale 27B model was given a task: find a drug that boosts immune signals only if low levels of interferon are present. Interferons are proteins produced by the body and act as frontline defenders against infections and tumours.
• This is a situation that exists when a tumour is likely secretly growing while avoiding the body’s natural threat detection system. Small AI, or Large Language Models were unable to learn this. By exposing the 27-billion parameter model to two large data sets — real-world patient samples with tumour-immune interactions plus low-level interferon signalling and cell-line data with no immune context — the scientists trod upon insight.
• They first simulated the effect of over 4,000 drugs and noted how many of them worked in situations where interferon levels were low even as the tumours grew. Out of the many drug candidates highlighted by the model, a fraction (10%-30%) of drug hits are already known in prior literature, while the remaining drugs were “surprising hits with no prior known link”. The model zeroed in on a chemical drug called silmitasertib that only seemed to boost the immune system when it suspected a tumour.
• “With more pre-clinical and clinical tests, this discovery may reveal a promising new pathway for developing therapies to fight cancer,” Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet, posted on X on Thursday.

• Indian iron and steel exporters face the highest CBAM levy

Context: Indian exporters of iron and steel to EU may have to pay about €301 million (approximately ₹3,000 crore) in Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) fees, the highest among all countries exporting similar products to the EU, an analysis by European non-profit think-tank Sandberg has found.

• CBAM is a levy that European importers must pay if they buy products from countries whose production emits more carbon dioxide per tonne than equivalent goods manufactured within the EU.
• An online calculator developed by Sandberg, made public, estimates that Russia will face the next highest CBAM charges (€240 million), followed by Ukraine (€198 million) and China (€194 million).
• The analysis further indicates that India’s total CBAM liability, covering exports of aluminium and cement in addition to iron and steel, stands at about €330 million, or roughly 1.05% of the value of all traded goods. However, the study also suggests that Indian exporters could earn higher revenues, estimated at €510 million, if they shift to cleaner technologies, resulting in a net cost reduction of around €180 million.
• India has consistently opposed the CBAM, with industry bodies describing it as a “non-tariff barrier”.
• Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in July that if the EU implemented the CBAM, India would “retaliate with taxes of its own.”

• India in active talks for trade pact with U.S., EU, Oman: Goyal

Context: India has implemented a number of free trade agreements with developed nations and is in active dialogue for such pacts with nations including the U.S., Oman, and the EU, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.

• India has implemented trade pacts with Australia, the UAE and EFTA bloc. It has also signed an agreement with the U.K.
• “We have done free trade agreements (FTAs) with many developed countries in the last three years… We are in active dialogue with the U.S., EU, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Oman,” the Minister told reporters here.
• “It clearly shows that India is the favoured and preferred destination both for investment and for bilateral trade,” he added.

Pact with Brazil

• Mr. Goyal also said with Brazil also, he has discussed expanding preferential trade agreement from its current level so that “we can” in the future penetrate the South American market in a bigger way.
• The Indian official team is in Washington now to hold trade talks with U.S. counterparts. The team will be there till October 17. In February, leaders of India and the U.S. asked officials to negotiate a Bilateral Trade Agreement. They fixed a deadline to conclude the first tranche of the pact by the fall (October-November) of 2025.

Current Affairs: 15th October 2025

• Dashboard to keep track of govt. litigation launched

Context: The Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice, inaugurated the “Live Cases” dashboard under the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS), designed to provide real-time data visualisation of court cases and offer an overview of upcoming hearings.

• Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal inaugurated the dashboard, describing it as “a significant step towards enhancing transparency, accountability, and efficiency in government litigation management.”
• According to official data, the portal currently tracks 7,23,123 live cases from 53 ministries and departments.

• India to train border security force of Mongolia, says Modi

Context: India will start a new programme to help in capacity building for the border security force of Mongolia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

• Welcoming visiting Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Mr. Modi highlighted common Buddhist bonds between Mongolia and India. He announced that holy relics of two of Lord Buddha’s leading disciples would travel to Mongolia next year. He also said that India would start issuing free e-visas for Mongolian citizens.
• “Our defence and security cooperation is also steadily strengthening. We have launched several new initiatives, from training programmes to the appointment of a Defence Attaché at the Embassy. India will also launch a new capacity-building programme for Mongolia’s border security forces,” Mr. Modi said.
• Explaining the announcement, senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs said India and Mongolia already had joint defence exercises, saying, “They are interested and they see a lot of benefits of training with us.”
• Mr. Modi highlighted common Buddhist links between India and Mongolia and said, “I am happy to announce that next year, the holy relics of two great disciples of Lord Buddha — Sariputra and Maudgalyayana — will be sent from India to Mongolia.”
• The two sides signed 10 MoUs covering areas such as immigration, cooperation, humanitarian aid, geology and mineral resources, and yoga.

• Get advertisements pre-certified, EC tells parties ahead of polls

Context: Ahead of the Bihar Assembly election, the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday directed political parties to get advertisements pre-certified, and asked candidates to inform it about their “authentic” social media accounts while filing nominations.

• The election will be held in two phases on November 6 and 11, followed by counting of votes on November 14.
• In a statement, the EC said it had issued orders on October 9, requiring every registered, national and state political party, and every candidate to apply to the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee for pre-certification of all political advertisements on electronic media, including social media, before publication.
• The statement said such committees had been constituted at the district and State levels for pre-certification of political advertisements under the prescribed guidelines and no political advertisements were to be released to any Internet-based media or websites, including social media websites, by political parties or candidates without pre-certification by the respective committee.
• These panels shall keep a strict vigilance on suspected cases of paid news in the media and take suitable action.
• The poll panel said that bulk SMS and audio messages during the 48-hour “silence period”, which starts before the conclusion of voting, is prohibited.
• “Further, given the penetration of social media in the electoral landscape, candidates have also been instructed to share the details of their authentic social media accounts at the time of filing nomination,” it said.
• Political parties should also submit a statement of expenditure incurred on campaigning through Internet, including social media websites, to the EC within 75 days of the completion of the election.

• India calls for swift action on climate measures at Pre-COP

Context: Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav emphasised the need to “implement” climate measures, in a series of meetings in Brasilia, Brazil, on Monday in the build-up to the 30th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) in the city of Belem, beginning November 10.

• “We must now focus on implementing ambitious climate measures and, above all, addressing the most pressing challenge: the urgent lack of resources for developing countries to deliver adaptation and mitigation,” he said. The Minister stressed that the time for continuous reviews without action has passed. “Dialogue is important, but action is imperative.”
• These meetings called ‘Pre-COP’ meetings are an annual feature ahead of the main meeting and usually involve participation by a small group of senior delegates representing their countries, to iron out differences, find common bridging points to improve the chances of a successful outcome at the COP meeting.
• Mr. Yadav acknowledged the successful conclusion of the first Global Stock Take (GST), a five-yearly process established by the Paris Agreement to assess the world’s collective progress on climate action.
• He said that the GST is designed to strengthen ambition by performing three essential roles — enabling Parties (member countries) to evaluate collective progress, identify remaining gaps, and guide enhanced actions both domestically and globally.
• The Minister also met Mr. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

• WHO issues product alert on three contaminated oral liquid medicines

Context: The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a medical product alert on three liquid medicines identified in India as contaminated and reported to it on October 8.

• They have been identified to be of specific batches of Coldrif, Respifresh TR and ReLife, manufactured by Sresan Pharmaceutical, Rednex Pharmaceuticals, and Shape Pharma, respectively.
• The UN agency said Indian regulatory authorities had been advised to consider targeted market surveillance, with particular attention to informal and unregulated supply chains where products might circulate undetected.
• They should carefully evaluate the risks associated with any oral liquid medicines originating from the same manufacturing sites — particularly those produced since December 2024.
• “The CDSCO [Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation] has informed WHO that none of the contaminated medicines have been exported from India and there is currently no evidence of illegal export,” it said adding that the affected products contained active ingredients commonly used to relieve symptoms of the common cold, flu, or cough.

Substandard product

• The WHO said the products were considered substandard as they failed to meet quality standards and specifications. On October 8, the CDSCO reported presence of diethylene glycol in at least three oral liquid medicines. Diethylene glycol is toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.
• “WHO continues to collaborate closely with Indian health authorities to monitor the situation, identify the source of the contamination and mitigate any potential public health risks,” it said.
• The agency warned that the contaminated products posed significant risks to patients and could cause life-threatening illness.

• Defence Minister calls for reformed multilateralism upholding global order

Context: Some nations are violating or undermining global rules while others seek to impose their own, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, asserting that India stands firm in upholding the international rules-based order even as it pushes for reform of outdated multilateral structures to meet contemporary challenges.

• Addressing senior military leaders of the United Nations Troop Contributing Countries (UNTCC) at the inaugural session of the Chiefs’ Conclave under way at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi from October 14 to 16, and being hosted by India for the first time, the Defence Minister highlighted a “4C formula” — consultation, cooperation, coordination, and capacity-building — as a guiding principle for UN peacekeeping. The approach was essential to tackle emerging challenges, and ensuring sustainable global peace, he said.
• Urging technologically advanced and financially capable nations to enhance their contributions through troops, logistics, technology, and specialised capacities, the Minister said innovations such as secure communications, surveillance systems, and unmanned platforms could make missions safer and more effective.
• “Meeting the emerging challenges demands more than bravery; it requires adaptability and innovation on the part of troop-contributing countries,” Mr. Singh said.
• Mr. Singh leader reaffirmed India’s steadfast support to UN peacekeeping, noting that nearly 2,90,000 Indian personnel had served in over 50 missions across the world, from the Congo and Korea to South Sudan and Lebanon. “India is ready to contribute troops, share expertise, and support reforms that make peacekeeping more effective and accountable,” he said.
• In his welcome address, Chief of the Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi highlighted India’s long-standing contributions to UN peacekeeping.

• Google to invest $15 billionin AI data centre at Vizag

Context: This would be the tech giant’s largest AI hub ever outside the United States; Bharti Airtel, AdaniConneX to help build the ‘gigawatt-scale’ compute capacity data centre.

• In a yet another boost to Andhra Pradesh’s digital ambitions, tech giant Google announced Tuesday that it would be investing approximately $15 billion over the next five years to develop a ‘gigawatt-scale’ compute capacity data centre focussed on artificial intelligence (AI) in Vishakhapatnam.
• The MoU was signed in the presence of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union IT and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh, and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, and senior officials. Mr. Kurian informed this would be the largest AI hub the California-based tech company would be building outside the U.S.
• The tech giant would be partnering with telecom services provider Bharti Airtel and data centre services provider AdaniConneX to help build the data centre. The AI hub would look to provide high-performance and low-latency services that businesses require to scale their AI-powered suites.
• Additionally, Google’s AI hub investment would also look to create a connectivity hub in Vishakhapatnam seeking to bring multiple international sea cables to land in the Port City. This would be further connected with the tech-giant’s two million miles of existing terrestrial and subsea cables, thus, enhancing connectivity. “We see this hub not just serving India but from India serving Asia and other parts of the world,” Mr. Kurian stated.
• Welcoming the announcement as “historic”, Mr. Naidu emphasised in a larger context, “AI is key to addressing some of our most pressing challenges, from agriculture and manufacturing to healthcare and finance. It will transform critical sectors, bring far-reaching benefits to our people, enhance governance, empower businesses and improve lives.”
• Ms. Sitharaman hailed the collaboration as a milestone in India’s digital evolution. “The establishment of an AI Data Centre and subsea cable landing station in Visakhapatnam is a major stride toward our national growth vision,” she said.

‘Explore Andamans’

• Mr. Vaishnaw suggested that Google explore the Andaman region to lay their undersea subsea cables. “It is a very strategic location, and Singapore today is all choked. Why can’t we make Andaman as the next global hub for data transfer,” he said, assuring the Union Government’s support. He emphasised the region could help reach Southeast Asia, Australia and a “large part of the world which is today looking at totally new capacity”.
• He sought to know if the facility could be used for developing employment potential and talent to cater to AI services which were emerging as a “major new category of the digital economy”.

• IMF forecasts India to grow 6.6% in 2025, cuts projection for next year

Context: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its October outlook, increased India’s growth projections by 20 basis points to 6.6% for 2025 whilst projecting a decline of the same intensity to 6.2% in 2026.

• The Washington-headquartered financial institution predicted that global growth would edge upwards by 20 basis points to 3.2% this year, with the outlook for 2026 unchanged at 3.1%.
• Elaborating the rationale for the upward revision for India, IMF attributed it to a carry-over effect from a “strong” first quarter, which helped New Delhi “more than offset” the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump-induced tariff regime since July.
• India’s GDP in June-end had peaked to a five-quarter high of 7.8%, driven primarily by sectors such as manufacturing, services and construction.
• The downward revision for 2026, thus, considers a fading of the momentum from the first quarter.
• IMF attributed the slowdown in global growth to headwinds from “uncertainty and protectionism”.
• The IMF, however, stated that the impact of the tariff was “smaller than originally announced [anticipated]”.

• Saudi Arabia to boost ties with India in textile sector

Context: A high-level Saudi Arabia delegation led by Vice-Minister for Industry and Mineral Resources Khalil ibn Salamah met Union Textiles Secretary Neelam Shami Rao in New Delhi to advance bilateral cooperation in the textile sector.

• India was the second-largest supplier ($517.5 million) to Saudi’s textile and apparel sector in 2024 capturing 11.2% share of textile and apparel imports.
• At the meeting, there was mutual recognition of Saudi’s strength in petrochemical-based industries and India’s expanding capabilities in Man-Made Fibre and technical textiles.

Current Affairs: 14th October 2025

• Gaza declaration inked as Hamas sets hostages free

Context: Trump, leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye sign document meant to cement the ceasefire; Hamas releases last of the 20 surviving hostages and Israel hands over 1,968 mostly Palestinian prisoners.

• U.S. President Donald Trump hailed a “tremendous day for the Middle East [West Asia]” as he and regional leaders signed a declaration on Monday meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners.
• Mr. Trump sat down at a resort in Sharm el-Sheikh with more than two dozen world leaders to discuss the deal. The U.S. President along with leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye signed the declaration as guarantors to the Gaza deal.
• “The document is going to spell out rules and regulations and lots of other things,” Mr. Trump said before signing, repeating twice that “it’s going to hold up.”
• As part of Mr. Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, Hamas freed the last 20 surviving hostages it held after two years of captivity in Gaza. In exchange, Israel released 1,968 mostly Palestinian prisoners held in its jails.
• Under the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is also due to return the bodies of 27 hostages who died or were killed in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in 2014 during a previous Gaza conflict.

• Retail inflation eases to 8-year low of 1.54%

Context: Retail inflation fell to a more than eight-year-low of 1.54% in September on falling food and fuel prices, official data showed. This is once again below the Reserve Bank of India’s lower comfort bound of 2%.

• Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, was last lower in June 2017, when it stood at 1.46%.
• Inflation had fallen below the RBI’s lower comfort limit in July 2025, before rising marginally to 2.1% in August.
• The food and beverages grouping saw a contraction of 1.4% in September, compared with a growth of 0.05% in August and 8.4% inflation in September last year. “Looking ahead, food inflation is likely to stay benign supported by a favourable base and good monsoon,” Rajani Sinha, chief economist at CareEdge Ratings, said.
• “That said, risks remain from the late withdrawal of the monsoon and heavy rain in certain regions, which could risk crop damage.”
• In addition, Ms. Sinha said that persistently high double-digit inflation in edible oils warrants close monitoring, given weak sowing trends, import dependence, and elevated global edible oil prices.
• Inflation in the oil and fats category stood at 18.3% in September, the 11th consecutive month of double-digit inflation in the sub-grouping.
• Inflation in the fuel and light category came in at 1.98% in September, down from 2.3% in August. Save for one month, inflation in this category has been easing since April.
• “The moderation in food and fuel prices has provided much-needed relief to households and improved purchasing power,” Rajeev Juneja, president of the PHDCCI, said.
• Inflation in the clothing and footwear category was 2.28% in September, marginally lower than the 2.33% seen in August 2025 and the 2.7% in September last year. This is the fifth consecutive month of slowing inflation in this category.
• Inflation in the pan, tobacco and other intoxicants category, however, quickened to 2.7% in September from 2.5% in August. Similarly, the housing sector also saw inflation quickening to 4% in September from 3.1% in the previous month.
• Economists say that the low inflation figures, with the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee revising downwards its inflation forecast for the year for the fourth time in a row, raises hopes of a rate cut again in December.

• ‘India’s rare earth elements strategy should align with global shifts’

Context: India’s rare earth elements strategy should align with global supply chain shifts and geopolitical pressures, aiming to reduce dependency on dominant players like China, said Abhishek Bhatia, Managing Director & Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BGC).

Steady growth

• The country’s rare earth elements market is set to grow steadily, driven mainly by the rising demand for magnets used in green technologies, he said, while elaborating on a ​topic ‘Critical minerals – Global Scenario and ​Strategy for India’, at the Critical Mineral Summit organised by Foundation of Science Innovation and Development at Indian Institute of Science.
• The rare earth elements market is expected to grow at over 6% CAGR until 2040, with magnet applications growing even faster at 8 to 9% CAGR.
• According to him, magnets account for just 35% of rare earth element volume but generate over 80% ​of total industry value, highlighting their economic importance. “This growth is fuelled by demand from electric vehicles, offshore wind power, robotics, and consumer electronics, all relying on permanent magnets,”.

• India invites Carney for AI summit, both sides agree to restart trade talks

Context: India and Canada agree to restore ties against the backdrop of talks held between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Canadian counterpart Anita Anand; the two countries also begin discussions on SMR nuclear-powered reactors.

• India and Canada agreed on a series of measures to restore relations, including relaunching the energy dialogue, after talks between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand.
• Sources said the delegations discussed an invitation for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to visit India in February next year for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit. While Mr. Carney has not yet accepted the invitation, a senior official from the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office was present during the meetings, indicating the visit to India was being considered seriously.

Areas of interest    

• Among the major announcements, both sides agreed to begin at the earliest, their ministerial-level discussions on bilateral trade and investments, besides re-establishing the Canada-India Ministerial Energy Dialogue for cooperation on renewables and critical minerals, relaunching the Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee, and encouraging Canadian AI companies and researchers to participate in India’s AI Impact Summit from February 19 to 20, 2026.
• India and Canada have also begun preliminary talks on SMR (Small Modular Technology) nuclear-powered reactors and other cooperation in civil nuclear energy.
• The focus on a number of issues that have been put on the back-burner since 2023, when Canada accused Indian “government agents” of being involved in the killing of a Khalistani activist in Canada, was an attempt, said officials on both sides, to not allow the security issues between the two countries to overshadow all other areas of cooperation.

On repair mode

• Since Mr. Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in June this year, Delhi and Ottawa have intensified talks on repairing relations, and held security level talks separately when Canadian National Security and Intelligence Advisor Catherine Drouin met with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Delhi in September.
• “Building on the momentum of Prime Minister Carney’s meeting with PM Modi this summer at the G7 Summit, Canada and India are elevating the relationship between our countries, while maintaining our law enforcement and security dialogue and expanding our economic relationship,“ Ms. Anand said in a statement.
• The officials said that although Mr. Carney and Mr. Modi had agreed during their meeting to restart trade talks for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), they may now abandon the previous effort, and start from scratch.
• “Our discussions focused on exploring areas of cooperation in the field of energy, technology, and food security. Also, reiterated India’s readiness to reinvigorate mutually beneficial trade, investment, and economic ties based on trust and respect,” Mr. Goyal posted, without speaking specifically about the CEPA.

• Number of births declines; deaths rise slightly: report

Context: The Vital Statistics of India, based on the Civil Registration System report for 2023, shows 86.6 lakh deaths were registered that year, recording a marginal increase from the 86.5 lakh in 2022.

• India registered 2.52 crore births in 2023, around 2.32 lakh fewer than in 2022, the Vital Statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System (CRS) report for the year 2023 shows.
• The report, compiled by the Registrar-General of India (RGI) and released on Monday, stated that 86.6 lakh deaths were registered in 2023, a marginal increase from 86.5 lakh deaths in 2022.
• The report shows that there was no major spike in deaths in 2022 and 2023, despite the COVID-19 dashboard maintained by the Health Ministry showing that the total number of pandemic-induced deaths stood at 5,33,665 as on May 5.
• However, there was a significant rise in deaths in 2021, the second-year of COVID-19 lockdown, which recorded an excess of 21 lakh deaths from the 2020 count.
• There were 81.2 lakh deaths in 2020 and 102.2 lakh in 2021.
• The report also said that Jharkhand recorded the lowest sex ratio at birth at 899, followed by Bihar at 900, Telangana at 906, Maharashtra at 909, Gujarat at 910, Haryana at 911 and Mizoram at 911. Since 2020, Bihar has been recording the lowest sex ratio, which is defined as the number of females born per 1,000 males.

Sex ratio count

• The highest sex ratio was reported by Arunachal Pradesh at 1,085, followed by Nagaland at 1,007, Goa at 973, Ladakh and Tripura at 972, and Kerala at 967.
• The share of institutional births in total registered births is 74.7 % in 2023. However, the report did not include information from Sikkim. Overall registration of births for the year 2023 stood at 98.4%.

Statewise data

• The report said that 11 States/Union Territories achieved more than 90% registration of births within the prescribed time limit of 21 days.
• These States are Gujarat, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Punjab. Five States — Odisha, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh — reported 80-90% registration, while in 14 States — Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Bihar, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh — the registration stood at 50-80%.
• Hike in PF pension under consideration of Cabinet: Minister

Context: Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told a meeting of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) here that the Cabinet was actively considering increasing the minimum PF pension.

• Though the issue was not on the agenda, trade union members in the CBT said during the discussions that the minimum PF pension should be revised from the present ₹1,000 a month. “The Minister did not rule it out and said the Cabinet is actively considering the proposal,” a CBT member after the meeting.
• The meeting also discussed the issue of delay in distributing higher pension as per the Supreme Court order. Some CBT members argued that the EPFO must withdraw the guidelines framed on the matter, and said that new guidelines should be implemented in tune with the top court order. “The response was not positive,” another member said.
• The Labour Ministry, in a release, said the meeting took a number of path-breaking decisions, including simplification and liberalisation of the EPF partial withdrawal provisions.
• “To enhance ease of living of EPF members, CBT decided to simplify the partial withdrawal provisions of EPF Scheme by merging 13 complex provisions into a single, streamlined rule categorised into three types namely, Essential Needs (illness, education, marriage), Housing Needs, and Special Circumstances. Now, members will be able to withdraw up to 100% of the eligible balance in the Provident Fund, including employee and employer share,” the Ministry said.
• Withdrawal limits have been liberalised — education withdrawals will be allowed up to 10 times and marriage up to five times (from existing limit of a total of three partial withdrawals for marriage and education in all). “Requirement of minimum service has been uniformly reduced to only 12 months for all partial withdrawals,” it added.

• Uttarakhand eases UCC rules for people from Nepal, Bhutan
• The Uttarakhand government on Monday approved a crucial amendment to the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), bringing relief to citizens of Nepali and Bhutanese origin who are living in the State and do not have an Aadhaar card as identity proof to register their marriage.
• Sources stated that the State has allowed people from Nepal, Bhutan and even Tibet to register their marriage using a certificate from the Foreign Registration Officer. The official added that the aim was to give respite to people of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet, who share historic and cultural ties with the State.

• Achieving Centre’s rooftop solar targets to remain a challenge: study

Context: Despite a near four-fold increase in applications between March 2024 and July 2025, only 13.1% of the targeted 1 crore solar rooftop installations, under the PM Surya Ghar Yojana (PMSGY), has been achieved, and just 14.1% of the allocated ₹65,700 crore in subsidies released till July 2025, a report said.

• “In this scenario, the FY2027 target [of 1 crore installations] continues to be viewed as a considerable challenge,” said the report on the performance of the scheme, jointly published by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and JMK Research and Analytics.
• Reasons included tardy approval processes, which could stretch anywhere from 45 to 120 days, stemming largely from “meter shortages, lack of coordination between consumers, installers, and DISCOMs, and procedural inefficiencies at the utility level,” it noted.

• The PMSGY is a Centre-led endeavour to encourage more homes to install rooftop solar connections. The government provides capital upfront via loans.

• As of July 2025, the period until which the report tracked progress, the PMSGY had received 57.9 lakh applications for residential rooftop solar installations. The scheme has facilitated the installation of 4,946 MW of rooftop solar capacity till July 2025 across various States and Union Territories, indicating “robust on-ground execution”, the report said.
• Subsidy disbursements have crossed ₹9,281 crore ($1.05 billion), benefiting over 16 lakh households. As of July 2025, the 4.9 GW of installations added under the PMSGY accounted for approximately 44.5% of the country’s total residential rooftop capacity.
• The PM solar scheme only incentivises solar installations, whose component parts are entirely manufactured in India. Called “DCR-compliant modules”, they are on average costlier by ₹12/watt over imported variants. “These higher prices are making larger residential installations less economically attractive,” the report said.
• “Establishing clear, time-bound rooftop solar capacity targets at the State level is essential for creating a coherent vision,” said Vibhuti Garg, Director, IEEFA-South Asia, and a contributing author, in a statement.

• Mokyr, Aghion and Howitt win Nobel economics prize

Context: Winners are professors in U.S., French and British universities; prize worth $1.2 mn highlights work on innovation-driven economic growth.

• Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt won the 2025 Nobel economics prize for “having explained innovation-driven economic growth”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1.2 million).
• “The laureates have taught us that sustained growth cannot be taken for granted,” the prize-awarding body said in a statement. Economic stagnation, not growth, has been the norm for most of human history. Their work shows that we must be aware of, and counteract, threats to continued growth.”
• Mr. Mokyr is a professor at Northwestern University, in Evanston in the United States, while Mr. Aghion is professor at the College de France and INSEAD, in Paris, and at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in Britain. Mr. Howitt is a professor at Brown University, in Providence in the United States. Mr. Mokyr was awarded half the prize with the other half being shared between Aghion and Howitt.
• “Joel Mokyr used historical observations to identify the factors necessary for sustained growth based on technological innovations,” John Hassler, member of the Nobel Committee, said.

Creative destruction

• “Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt produced a mathematical model of creative destruction, an endless process in which new and better products replace the old.”
• The awards for medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and literature were announced last week.
• Those prizes were established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been handed out since 1901, with a few interruptions mostly due to the world wars.
• The economics prize was established much later, being given out first in 1969 when it was won by Norway’s Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen from the Netherlands for work in dynamic economic modelling. Tinbergen’s brother Nikolaas also won a prize, taking home Medicine in 1973.
• While few economists are household names, relatively well-known winners include former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman. Last year’s economics award went to U.S.-based academics Simon Johnson, James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu for research that explored the relationship between colonisation and the establishment of public institutions to explain why some countries have been mired in poverty for decades.

• Snow leopards are the world’s least genetically diverse big cat

Context: A new Stanford-based study explains the implications of this phenomenon for the future of the elusive feline; researchers used whole-genome sequencing data for 37 snow leopards and concluded that the low genetic diversity is likely due to a persistently small population size.

• The snow leopard, the agile “ghost of the mountains” that inhabits the rugged ranges of 12 Asian countries, including India, has the lowest genetic diversity of any big cat species in the world, even lower than that of the dwindling cheetah.
• A new study led by researchers at Stanford University, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on October 7, explained the implications of this phenomenon.
• The researchers used whole-genome sequencing data for 37 snow leopards and concluded that the low genetic diversity is, however, “likely due to a persistently small population size throughout their evolutionary history rather than recent inbreeding.”

‘Purging’ of mutations

• This means that “mutations that could potentially cause health issues in snow leopards have been removed from the population over many generations,” lead author Katie Solari, a research scientist in biology at Stanford, told The Hindu.
• The PNAS paper added, “We found snow leopards to have the lowest heterozygosity of any big cat species, with heterozygosity for every snow leopard sample included in this study falling lower than that observed in any other big cat.” This included cheetahs, “which have long been considered the archetype of low heterozygosity in big cats.”
• The good news is that snow leopards, compared to several Panthera species, have a significantly lower highly deleterious homozygous load — genes inherited from the mother and father that have fewer instances of duplicated copies of potentially harmful mutations that are connected with health issues.
• This, the authors said, suggests effective “purging” of bad mutations during their evolutionary history at small population sizes.
• “If a negative trait surfaced, those individuals died before reproducing, or their progeny were less successful. This purging, facilitated by historic inbreeding, allowed the snow leopard population to remain relatively healthy even at their small numbers,” an article in the Stanford Report read.
• In fact, “the inbreeding coefficient of snow leopards is significantly higher than other big cats and was even significantly lower than the Asian leopard and puma, indicating that the lower genetic diversity observed in snow leopards is not explained by higher inbreeding,” per the research paper.
• The very low genetic diversity and small population sizes mean they may not be able to adapt well to future anthropogenic challenges.

Critical to Asia’s mountains

• The wild feline indeed faces a long list of threats today: climate change, habitat loss, decreased availability of primary prey (mountain ungulates such as the Siberian ibex), retaliatory killings for livestock predation, and poaching for their skin. All this while climate change in Asia’s high mountains threatens their future. Despite this, snow leopards, which were first listed as ‘endangered,’ were controversially downlisted to ‘vulnerable’ in 2017, as they did not meet certain criteria for population size.
• There are no more than 4,500 to 7,500 individuals, each critical to the Asian mountain ecosystem “that offers immense ecosystem services — acting as an important source of carbon storage and providing water to almost two billion people.”
• Hearteningly, however, the international community has worked for decades to establish a sustainable zoo population: in 2008, there were 445 snow leopards across 205 institutions globally, the paper read.
• The snow leopard, distinguished by an unusually long tail, which acts as a rudder to help it keep its balance as it traverses its rough terrain, happens to be the least genetically studied of all big cat species. There is, however, evidence of continuous habitat connectivity across at least 75 km in Pakistan and around 1,000 km in Mongolia, and the animal is known to cross long distances between mountain ranges, according to the study.

‘Very poorly studied’

• As for India, a pioneering survey last year estimated that 718 snow leopards exist in the wild: 477 in Ladakh, 124 in Uttarakhand, 51 in Himachal Pradesh, 36 in Arunachal Pradesh, 21 in Sikkim, and nine in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian snow leopard accounts for 10-15 percent of the global population.
• “Of the 12 countries with wild snow leopards, India has the highest numbers after China and Mongolia. That makes India one of the most important countries for the conservation of this species,” Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi, with the India programme of the Snow Leopard Trust at the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), Mysore.
• He added that the genetic diversity of leopards in India “is very poorly studied … We need to sample across the high mountains to understand the genetic diversity of snow leopards in India.”
• “India’s Project Snow Leopard, dedicated to the conservation of snow leopards, and NGOs such as the NCF, have been working on snow leopard conservation for 27 years. Local community members from snow leopard habitats such as Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal are key partners in the conservation of snow leopards,” said Dr. Suryawanshi.
• But the snow leopard in India is threatened by land use change and climate change, he said.
• “Almost the entire snow leopard habitat in India is within 50-100 km of the international border. Large-scale infrastructure is changing the face of this region. Climate change-induced warming and floods are impacting the wildlife of this landscape, including the snow leopards, to a large extent.”

Maintaining integrity

• Dr. Suryawanshi, who is a co-author of the paper, said the main challenge of studying snow leopards is in “getting the samples.” Bureaucratic hurdles in getting permissions to study snow leopards generally slow down research, he said.
• “In addition, the timelines of funding and permissions often do not match. The Stanford study collaborated with researchers around the world, and only then were they able to put together enough samples to make an assessment of the genetic diversity of snow leopards. We need to collect a similar number of samples from within India to understand the genetic diversity of snow leopards in the country.”
• On the future fate of snow leopards of the fragile high-elevation landscape of the Himalayas, “we need to treat these landscapes and the people that live here with respect,” said Dr. Suryawanshi. “The effects of rampant large infrastructure projects are clearly visible in the scale of destruction in the recurrent floods that occur every monsoon.”
• Maintaining the integrity of the snow leopard’s habitat is crucial for the long-term conservation of this charismatic species of the Himalaya, Dr. Suryawanshi added.

• Arctic seals, birds in new ‘red list’of endangered species: IUCN

Context: Arctic seals and birds are coming under increasing threat, mainly due to climate change and human activity, according to an updated list of endangered species released by the world’s top conservation body.

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said habitat loss driven by logging and agricultural expansion is a threat to birds. At the same time, seals were at risk mostly due to global warming and human activities, including maritime traffic.
• The IUCN said it was changing the status of the hooded seal from vulnerable to endangered while bearded and harp seals are now classified as near threatened.
• “This timely global update highlights the ever increasing impact human activity is having on nature and the climate and the devastating effects this has,” its director general Grethel Aguilar told reporters at its World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
• The IUCN red list now includes “172,620 species of which 48,646 are threatened with extinction,” it said in a statement.
• Global warming is destroying the natural habitat of animals including seals that live in the cold parts of the world. Maritime traffic, mining and oil extraction, industrial fishing and hunting are among other risks to the species.
• “Global warming is occurring four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions, which is drastically reducing the extent and duration of sea ice cover,” the IUCN said.
• “Ice-dependent seals are a key food source for other animals,” it added.
• They “play a central role in the food web, consuming fish and invertebrates and recycling nutrients” and are one of the “keystone species” of their ecosystem.
• Kit Kovacs, a scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute, raised the alarm about the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between Norway and the North Pole.
• “When I lived on the archipelago, just a couple of decades ago, we had five months of sea ice cover in areas that are now winter ice-free. It is really hard to express just how rapidly the Arctic is changing,” she said.
• The IUCN said its red list of birds is the fruit of nine years of work by “thousands of experts”.
• “Overall, 61% of bird species have declining populations — an estimate that has increased from 44 percent in 2016,” the IUCN said.
• It studied thousands of bird species worldwide and found that “1,256 (or 11.5%) of the 11,185 species assessed are globally threatened”.
• This year’s update focused on regions where the destruction of tropical forest poses a growing threat to birds. In Madagascar, 14 species were newly classified as near threatened and three others were labelled vulnerable. In West Africa, five more bird species were found to be near threatened in addition to one more in Central America.
• The report also mentioned a positive development. The green turtle is no longer endangered, it said, citing “decades of sustained conservation action” that saw its population recover by 28% since the 1970s.
• Nicolas Pilcher, the Executive Director of the Marine Research Foundation, said this success should spur action not complacency.
• “Just because we have reached this great step in conservation isn’t a reason to sit back and then become complacent,” he said.

Current Affairs: 13th October 2025

• Ready for talks with Pak., but options open: Muttaqi

Context: Taliban say 58 Pakistani soldiers killed in operations by Afghan forces across Durand Line; Foreign Minister says women journalists left out of Friday’s press meet in Delhi due to a ‘technical error’.

• Afghanistan is open to dialogue and diplomacy for a peaceful resolution of its conflict with Pakistan, but if the efforts do not succeed, it has “other means”, the acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban administration, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said here in response to the border clashes between the two countries.
• “There are some special groups in Pakistan that are trying to disturb our relation. After they initiated hostile activities last week, we responded to defend our territory, and after that, our friends Saudi Arabia and Qatar intervened. Our doors are open for dialogue, but if Pakistan does not take this opportunity, then we have other means,” he said.
• Pakistan carried out airstrikes against targets in Kabul and in response, the Afghan Defence Forces conducted operations across the Durand Line in which 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed, said Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesperson of the Taliban administration.
• Mr. Mujahid accused Pakistan of sheltering IS fighters from multiple countries in West Asia, and said Pakistan-based IS elements were behind the attacks in Russia and Iran.
• Pakistan had claimed that Thursday’s airstrikes in Kabul eliminated leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Mufti Noor Wali Mehsood, a claim that was denied by sources in the TTP.
• Pakistan has been claiming that TTP is drawing support from the Afghan Taliban administration and is using Afghan territory to launch attacks against it. Responding to the accusations, Mr. Muttaqi said the real problem is Pakistan’s inability in maintaining law and order along the Durand Line and the forced expulsion of the Afghan refugees from Pakistan.
• “There are no terror groups inside Afghanistan. We have removed them all over the last four years. Pakistan, which carried out attacks deep inside Afghanistan, is unable to stop attacks that are taking place deep inside its own territory. They should look into their internal failures,” said Mr. Muttaqi, urging Pakistan to control the law and order situation along the Durand Line.
• Faced with multiple questions on the condition of women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Mr. Muttaqi said, “Afghanistan has Islamic rule. In Islam, everyone’s rights are protected, be it men or women. Everyone has rights.
• ‘Mane Manege Police’

Context: Enumerators of the Social and Educational Survey and the police are visiting houses in Bengaluru these days, for different purposes.

• While enumerators are conducting the survey, asking multiple questions, the police have launched a unique initiative called ‘Mane Manege Police’ (police to every home) in an attempt to build stronger ties with communities and make policing more approachable.
• The police have been collecting information about the number of people residing in the house, their names, and their phone numbers.
• The exercise is aimed at building trust between the police and the community within all police station limits.

• State to appoint three Information Commissioners soon

Context: The State government has reportedly finalised the names of three candidates for filling vacancies in the Karnataka Information Commission.

• A meeting chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is said to have finalised the names of former IAS officer Richard Vincent D’Souza, journalist Venkat Singh, and former journalist and currently officer on special duty to Legislative Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti, Mahesh Valvekar.
• State government is expected to issue a notification on the appointment of the three information commissioners.
• Chief Information Commissioner Ashit Mohan Prasad is expected to retire on October 31.

• India sends Minister to Egypt for Gaza summit

Context: India will send Minister of State for External Affairs Kirtivardhan Singh to represent the country at the Peace Summit on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh to be co-hosted by Egypt and the United States.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among more than 20 world leaders invited over the weekend to attend the summit, which will be co-hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and U.S. President Donald Trump, to discuss the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, brokered mainly by negotiators from the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar.

Egypt’s FM to visit Delhi

• Mr. Singh left for Cairo and will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, the officials said. Mr. Modi is, however, expected to meet Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty later this week, who is travelling to Delhi to hold the India-Egypt Strategic Dialogue.
• According to sources, Mr. Abdelatty’s visit is part of the Sisi-Modi Strategic Partnership Agreement signed in January 2023, and this is his first visit to India since taking over in 2024.
• Mr. Abdelatty is also expected to brief the government on the plans for the reconstruction of Gaza.
• Although Egypt is not a member of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), it has been keen to discuss alternative route alignments through Sharm el-Sheikh with India, given the security issues with Israel’s Haifa port, where the current alignment lies.

Finalise truce deal

• “The summit seeks to help restore regional stability and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in line with U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for peace in the region,” it added.
• Mr. Modi had welcomed the Gaza ceasefire agreement last week.

• Email accounts of 12 lakh Central govt. employees now run on Zoho’s platform

Context: Over the past one year, all 12 lakh email addresses of Union government employees, including those of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), have migrated from a National Informatics Centre-based system to a platform developed by Zoho,. Zoho is a multinational firm based in Tamil Nadu.

• A senior official said Zoho’s suite had also been activated to ensure that government employees did not use open source applications to create text files, spreadsheets and presentations.
• Though the suite was available earlier, not many employees were using it.
• “It was found that many government employees were using open source tools, which could compromise security of files, and it was decided to make them aware of, and display, the suite’s features prominently on the internal mail platform,” the official said. On October 3, the Union Education Ministry issued an order to its officials to use the Zoho suite “in alignment with the Government of India’s broader vision of transforming the nation from a service economy into a product nation, and in pursuit of building a self-reliant ecosystem in technology, hardware, and software solutions”.
• It said the Zoho Office Suite was already incorporated in the NIC mail system and “by embracing Zoho’s indigenous office productivity tools, we take a bold step in the Swadeshi movement, empowering India to lead with home-grown innovation, strengthen digital sovereignty, and secure our data for a self-reliant future.”
• Another official added that the domain name of the emails remained the same — nic.in or gov.in — but the host storing and processing the data has changed from NIC to Zoho. The private firm was awarded the contract in 2023 for seven years, the official added.

• The NIC, established in 1976 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is the technology partner of the Union government and provides technology-driven solutions to it and the State governments.

• Environment Minister heads to Brazil for key pre-COP talks

Context: Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav will attend the pre-COP meeting in Brasília on October 13 and 14 as India steps up preparations for the UN climate summit COP30, which will be held in Belém, Brazil, in November.

• The two-day pre-COP brings together environment ministers, senior negotiators and observers to narrow differences on politically sensitive topics and try to build ministerial consensus ahead of the UN climate conference.
• India plans to submit two important documents ahead of or at COP30: an updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) extending commitments to 2035 and India’s first national adaptation plan (NAP).

• Natural farming gains traction in Himachal

Context: The hill State’s flagship Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan Yojana and MSPs have helped farmers to steadily shift away from chemical-based agriculture toward sustainable, non-chemical practices.

• Amid a national push for natural farming, farmers in Himachal Pradesh are gradually adopting chemical-free agricultural practices. Supported by State policies aligned with sustainable farming, the hill State is witnessing a quiet transformation that seeks to balance farmer welfare with environmental conservation.
• Sunil Kumar, 42, a farmer from Balakrupi village in Kangra district, expressed satisfaction after receiving a payment of ₹2.25 lakh for 25 quintals of turmeric this year. “Earlier, I used to sell naturally grown raw turmeric at ₹60 a kilogram locally. This time, the State government procured it at ₹90 a kg,” he said.
• “Natural farming has not only improved soil and plant health on my farm, but has also helped me reap better yields and profits than chemical-based farming,” he added. Mr. Kumar shifted to non-chemical natural farming three years ago after receiving training under the State government’s flagship Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan Yojana (PK3Y).

• Launched seven years ago, PK3Y promotes non-chemical farming practices. So far, 3.06 lakh farmers have been trained under the scheme, and 2.22 lakh farmers are practising it partially or fully on 38,437 hectares across the State. Over two lakh farmers are certified under CETARA–NF (Certified Evaluation Tool for Agriculture Resource Analysis), a self-assessment tool devised under PK3Y to certify natural farming practitioners.

• Rishu Kumari, 37, a master trainer and natural farmer from Jamanabad village in Kangra district, said she sold 10 quintals of naturally grown wheat to a government agency at ₹60 a kg compared with ₹22 a kg in the local market earlier. Ms. Kumari and other women farmers now plan to increase the area under wheat cultivation.
• “The farmers are far more independent now with natural farming, as it has reduced our dependence on the market. We can produce all inputs on our farms,” she said.
• The State government has been promoting natural farming by introducing a minimum support price (MSP) for naturally grown crops such as maize (₹40 a kg), wheat (₹60 a kg), and raw turmeric (₹90 a kg) under PK3Y.
• “With the government now supporting us through MSP, it will build up a market for such crops. Until now, natural and chemically grown produce were treated alike for pricing in local mandis,” said Ramesh Chand, a farmer from Mandi district.
• Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, “We want people to take up natural farming as it is sustainable. It is not only healthy for farmers, who often fell ill due to chemical sprays, but also environmentally friendly and yields chemical-free, nutrition-rich crops.”

• Diane Keaton, Oscar winner, star of Annie Hall, Godfather, dead

Context: Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s Annie Hall and her role in The Godfather films, has died at age 79.

• Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in Annie Hall, the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer.
• The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.
• The actress made her mark co-starring in eight Allen movies, from Play It Again, Sam (1972) to Manhattan (1979) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993).
• In The Godfather films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.

Current Affairs: 12th October 2025

Trump envoy meets PM, raising hopes of a thaw
Ambassador-designate meets with Jaishankar, Doval, and Misri; discussions cover defence, trade, technology, and cooperation on critical minerals; strains in ties stem from tariffs, visa restrictions

The intensity of the meetings with India’s foreign policy leadership is an indicator of the U.S. government’s eagerness to get India-U.S. relations back on the rails after months of strain over the 50% tariffs on Indian goods, visa crackdowns, U.S. pressure over ending India’s Russian oil imports, and differences over the narrative on Operation Sindoor. However, Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump have had two telephone calls in the past month, which have raised hopes they can repair the rupture in ties.

In particular, any move by India to reduce its intake of Russian Ural will be watched closely, with the import level having dipped already despite larger discounts being offered in recent weeks.

Mr. Modi’s praise of Mr. Trump’s Gaza peace proposal and tweets in seven different languages are believed to be aimed at addressing Mr. Trump’s obvious annoyance that India did not join other countries in endorsing him for the Nobel Peace Prize and has denied that the U.S. had any role in ending the Operation Sindoor conflict with Pakistan.

“Discussed the India-U.S. relationship and its global significance,” Mr. Jaishankar posted on social media after the meeting with Mr. Gor, wishing him for his new responsibility in Delhi. According to the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson, Mr. Gor and Mr. Misri had a “productive exchange on the India-U.S. Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership and its shared priorities”.

Mr. Gor is accompanied by Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael J. Rigas, arriving days after the U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment as the U.S. Ambassador to India. His visit is unusual, as according to normal protocol, he would arrive in Delhi, and conduct meetings only after he has presented his credentials to President Droupadi Murmu.

However, the timing of the meeting, just weeks before the ASEAN summit, as well as the unorthodox manner of U.S. diplomacy are seen as reasons for the sudden visit. In particular, Mr. Gor is believed to have conveyed the urgency of finalising the India-U.S. trade agreement at the earliest, before the leaders meet.

According to a U.S. State Department release, Mr. Gor was to be in India from October 9 to 14. However, he attended the Indian Embassy Deepavali party in Washington on October 10 before arriving in Delhi on Saturday for the meetings. According to sources, Mr. Gor will stay on for the next few days for meetings inside the U.S. embassy as well as with other stakeholders in Delhi. He is expected to return at a later date to present his credentials and take charge of the U.S. embassy in Delhi as well as his role in the region.

India-Afghan ties will grow in the coming days: Taliban Minister
India-Afghanistan relations have a bright future, said visiting Afghan Taliban administration’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Saturday.

Mr. Muttaqi, the first top-level Taliban leader to be hosted by the famed seminary, Darul Uloom in Deoband, was honoured by the Rector of the Darul Uloom, Maulana Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani.

Mr. Muttaqi described Darul Uloom of Deoband as his group’s “alma mater”.

“God willing, India-Afghanistan relations will advance a lot in the coming days. I am thankful for such a grand welcome and the affection shown by the people of the region and by the students and teachers of Darul Uloom. I am hoping that we will exchange more visits with India in the coming days. My discussion in Delhi was also very good. India-Afghanistan relations will have a bright future and we are about to send our diplomats to Delhi,” said Mr. Muttaqi, following his meeting with the students and teachers at the seminary.

Mr. Muttaqi is on a six-day visit to India.
At the packed venue at Deoband, Mr. Muttaqi took the microphone and said, “Deoband hamara madar-e-ilmi hei (Deoband is our alma mater)”, indicating the role that the tradition of Deoband’s Darul Uloom has played in strengthening the Taliban movement during the years of occupation of Afghanistan under the Soviet era in the 1980s and the U.S.-led NATO in the 21st century.

Darul Uloom Deoband had been the inspiration behind the seminary of Darul Uloom Haqqania in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The seminary, started by Abdul Haq, a teacher in Darul Uloom Deoband, was one of the main centres of the Taliban movement during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when the Mujahideen fighters fought Soviet troops on Afghan soil. The tradition then spread across the Af-Pak frontiers.

Mr. Muttaqi met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Thursday and raised the case of Afghan prisoners in Indian jails, and discussed intensifying Indian humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Following Mr. Jaishankar’s assurance on Friday, the Indian technical mission in Kabul handed over a substantial consignment of humanitarian assistance to the Taliban administration in Kabul on Saturday. The consignment will be sent to the earthquake-hit eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar.

Mr. Muttaqi prayed with a large number of students and teachers and read a Hadith (Prophet’s teachings) alongside the congregation. The special honour bestowed on him at Deoband qualifies him to be a teacher at the seminary.

Grow export-oriented crops, Modi tells farmers
Launching the Dhan Dhaanya Krishi Yojana and the Pulses Self-Reliance Mission, the Prime Minister calls for reducing the dependence on imports and focusing on export-oriented crops
The reforms in Goods and Services Taxes (GST) have resulted in double the savings for rural households and lowered costs on both daily-use items and farming tools, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Saturday while launching two schemes — the Dhan Dhaanya Krishi Yojana and the Pulses Self-Reliance Mission — for the agriculture sector. He asked farmers to not only work towards self-sufficiency but also target the global market by growing export-oriented crops that can reduce imports and boost India’s agricultural exports.

Beyond flour, rice

The Prime Minister said the Pulse Self-Reliance Mission is also a mission to empower future generations. He asked farmers to think beyond flour and rice. “While flour and rice can satisfy hunger, adequate nutrition requires more, and we need to plan for that. Protein is crucial for India’s nutrition today, especially for vegetarians. Protein is one of the things we need. It is equally important for our children, for their physical development as well as mental development,” he said, adding that pulses are the way to go.

“Today, the country imports pulses in large quantities from other countries. And therefore, the Pulse Self-Reliance Mission is crucial,” he said. The scheme is worth more than ₹11,000 crore. The target is to increase the cultivation of pulses by 35 lakh hectares. “This will directly benefit about two crore pulse farmers of the country,” Mr. Modi said.

He said Indian farmers will have to focus on crops that become popular in the world markets. “We have to reduce imports and should not lag when it comes to exports. The PM Dhan Dhanya Krishi Yojana and the Pulse Self-Reliance Mission would play a major role in this,” he said.

Tractor sales

Maintaining that the Centre’s effort is to reduce the expenses of every farmer and provide them with more profits, he said that following the GST reforms, the news coming from the market showed that farmers are buying tractors in large numbers during the festive season. “Because tractors have become even cheaper. When the Congress government was in power, everything was expensive for the farmers. Just look at tractors; the Congress government used to charge a tax of ₹ 70,000 on a tractor. After the new GST reforms, the same tractor has become cheaper by about ₹ 40,000,” he said.

India, EU may close trade deal this year
Following the 14th round of negotiations in Brussels, officials optimistic about finalising pact; while bilateral trade reached €120 billion in 2014, challenges remain over tariffs, sustainability, and carbon regulations; another round of talks is expected to be held in New Delhi in November
Indian and European Union officials remained confident that a trade deal between the two sides could be concluded by the end of the year, as the 14th round of negotiations drew to a close on Friday in Brussels.

“I can’t imagine a scenario where we’re not close to or have not concluded the FTA at the end of the year,” an EU official, who did not want to be named, told The Hindu.

Rajesh Agrawal, who has thus far led the negotiations with the U.S. and taken over as Commerce Secretary on October 1, was in Brussels this week, and left the city on Friday evening. The Hindu understands that with Mr. Agrawal’s appointment as Commerce Secretary, the Ministry’s Darpan Jain will lead India’s negotiations with the U.S., with Mr. Agrawal still having a very hands-on role in those talks.

The Indian negotiating team for the EU is led by L. Satya Srinivas. Another round of talks is expected in New Delhi in November but discussions will continue in the interregnum.

Bilateral trade in goods in 2024 stood at €120 billion ($139 billion) but difficulties remain and both sides complain of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Challenging areas have included services, agricultural and dairy sectors, pharma, automobiles, and wines and spirits. The sides have decided to set aside the most sensitive areas from the negotiations.

Political mandate

While officials are under a political mandate set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in February this year to conclude an agreement by the end of 2025, some of these tough issues remain, including “trade and sustainable development”.

India has for long objected to the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The tax, which seeks to price emissions released during the production of goods, including imports, is due to come into full effect on January 1, after a two-year transition period.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has repeatedly said that India will retaliate if its products are subject to the mechanism. Mr. Goyal had warned, in a speech in New York at the end of September, that the CBAM “trap” could isolate Europe and cause inflation there. The government has also objected to bundling climate action with trade.

The issues around the CBAM and sustainability were very much still under discussion as of Friday afternoon, The Hindu learned from a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

The EU would need to adjust its approach on trade and sustainable development so the outcome is “something India can live with”, Chief Negotiator Christophe Kiener had told the European Parliament’s trade committee on September 25, saying a chapter on trade and sustainable development will still, however, be needed. Mr. Kiener had also said that while the sides had not made progress in the 13th round in New Delhi, they had improved their understanding of each other. Towards the end of such negotiations “things are bound to be difficult”, Mr. Kiener had said.

For the EU, India’s Quality Control Orders (QCOs) are among the oft-cited difficulties.

India’s Ambassador in Brussels, Saurabh Kumar, is optimistic about the trade talks.

“It is not a single point or one particular aspect that has overarching weight. Trade negotiations by definition are not easy and there are difficulties, but both sides are committed to it [the FTA] and determined to complete it,” Mr. Kumar told The Hindu, adding, “There is a strong political directive to complete discussions by December.”

Mr. Goyal is expected in Brussels at the end of the month.

IMEC ‘Sherpa’ meet

Brussels has been busy this week, with more than just trade. The Global Gateway Forum (the bloc’s strategy for investment in other jurisdictions) was also held this week along with a steering meeting (i.e., a ‘Sherpa’ meeting) for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Deputy National Security Adviser Pavan Kapoor, who represented India at the meeting, participated virtually.

With a ceasefire kicking off between Israel and Gaza and the possibility of less fighting in the future, Brussels is keen on the project that was announced at the G-20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023.

Key corridor

The corridor, when built, will provide transport, fibre optic and energy routes from India to Europe via West Asia.

“We are very keen on it, and the Indians are very keen on it, as are others. And we have these various investments we’re making to support legs of it. The key thing is the Middle East being sorted out,” the EU official said, adding that Washington’s attention to the issue was still necessary.

“We need the oomph of the Americans as well,” the official said.

Asked if there was any specific limiting factor to operationalise the IMEC project, Mr. Kumar said the countries involved in the project were now identifying their responsibilities.

“There is no limiting factor. The countries involved are trying to organise themselves as to how they are to move ahead and who looks after which aspect,” he said.

Centre asks States to adopt digital payments in schools
The Ministry of Education has written to States and Union Territories to adopt Unified Payments Interface (UPI), mobile payments, and Net banking for school-related financial transactions, the Centre said in a statement on Saturday. The Department of of School Education and Literacy sent this letter as part of its efforts to promote “Ease of living and schooling”. The Ministry cited “multiple advantages” of transitioning from cash to digital transactions, including convenience and transparency, the statement said. The government said the shift to digital payments would be an “important stride” in the government’s broader goal of digital transformation.

Overcoming U.S. tariffs, the U.P. way
Uttar Pradesh has introduced a range of financial schemes under the new Export Promotion Policy 2025–30 to support exporters impacted by tariffs and to strengthen their presence in new markets such as Europe and Asia; these schemes provide wider and more practical assistance than before
Uttar Pradesh has stepped up efforts to diversify its exports amid the challenge of the 50% U.S. tariffs that came into effect from August 27 this year. Our State’s key industries- carpets, leather, textiles, and handicrafts, form an important part of India’s $86.5 billion exports to the United States. We see this challenge as an opportunity to build a stronger and more resilient export base for Uttar Pradesh.

As Uttar Pradesh’s Minister for Export Promotion, I want to assure that the State is adopting a comprehensive and multi-pronged approach to support our exporters. Through initiatives like One District One Product (ODOP), we have been extending financial assistance and providing artisans and small businesses with the skills and tools to meet international standards, while also strengthening global connectivity so that our products can access newer markets. Also, at this crucial juncture, the Government of Uttar Pradesh has rolled out the Export Promotion Policy 2025–30, a landmark initiative that expands the scope of assistance and introduces new incentives, ensuring that our businesses are better equipped to withstand tariff pressures, diversify into alternative markets, and seize emerging opportunities across the world.

The recent U.S. tariffs have created difficulties for several export sectors of Uttar Pradesh. Leather factories have reduced production due to lower orders from the U.S., while Bhadohi’s carpet industry — contributing nearly 60% of India’s carpet exports to the U.S. — now faces about a 35% cost disadvantage compared with competitors such as Vietnam, which may affect employment. Gems, jewellery, and textiles are also likely to see an impact, with industry estimates suggesting a possible decline of over $4 billion.

These tariffs add to existing challenges such as higher shipping costs due to distance from ports, the need for greater skilling support for artisans to meet global standards, and U.P.’s current share of about 4.89% in India’s total exports (2024-25). While the situation is challenging, I want to assure our exporters and stakeholders that we are addressing these issues with practical and timely solutions.

Financial aid

Uttar Pradesh has introduced a range of financial schemes under the new Export Promotion Policy 2025–30 to support exporters impacted by tariffs and to strengthen their presence in new markets such as Europe and Asia. These schemes provide wider and more practical assistance than before, ensuring that both large and small exporters can compete globally.

Through the enhanced Marketing Development Assistance (MDA), exporters now get reimbursements at the rate of 75% across categories, with a cap of up to ₹25 lakh per exporter per year, including support for participation in international, domestic, and virtual trade fairs, as well as reimbursement for stall costs, airfare, publicity, certifications, and sending product samples. This will help our exporters showcase their products widely, build international networks, and diversify beyond the U.S. market.

Logistics support

As a landlocked State, U.P.’s exporters face higher transport costs to reach seaports. To ease this burden, the new policy provides 30% freight assistance up to ₹30 lakh per exporter annually, including air freight support up to ₹10 lakh. Special incentives have also been introduced for small exporters using LCL shipments, so they too can access global markets competitively. These steps will reduce logistics costs and help our exporters overcome the landlocked disadvantage.

To strengthen our exporters in the face of global challenges, the policy provides 30% reimbursement of ECGC premiums up to ₹5 lakh annually, a one-time 75% support on e-commerce onboarding fees capped at ₹3 lakh, and 75% reimbursement of postage charges through Dak Ghar Niryat Kendras up to ₹1 lakh per year. These measures reduce risks, cut costs, and open new global channels for Uttar Pradesh’s exporters.

To drive expansion and new investments, the policy introduces performance-linked rewards of 1% on year-on-year incremental export growth, up to ₹20 lakh annually per exporter. Further, new export-oriented projects will be supported with a capital subsidy of 40% of project cost, capped at ₹10 crore. These measures encourage both scaling of existing enterprises and the setting up of fresh, export-led industries in Uttar Pradesh.

Empowering artisans

Launched in 2018, the One District One Product (ODOP) scheme has become a strong driver of growth by promoting the unique products of all 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh—be it Banarasi sarees or Moradabad brassware.

Through skilling and provision of modern tools, the scheme ensures that our artisans produce quality goods aligned with international standards. In FY 2024-25 alone, 1,829 projects worth ₹1.06 crore were approved under ODOP. This initiative is not only enhancing production standards but also helping our artisans tap into emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Europe etc. Complementing this, the new U.P. MSME Audyogik Aasthan Prabandhan Policy offers further relief to the MSME sector. Nearly 700 acres are being developed as MSME parks, with land allotment to be facilitated through the GeM portal at a reserve price of ₹2,500 per sq. metre in central U.P. and ₹2,000 per sq. metre in the Bundelkhand region.

Building connections

The government under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is committed to creating world-class infrastructure that makes exports seamless and cost-effective. Uttar Pradesh today has four international airports and nine domestic airports, with the upcoming Jewar airport poised to be a game-changer. Once operational, it will have an initial cargo capacity of 1 lakh tonnes.

At the same time, platforms like the Uttar Pradesh International Trade Show (UPITS) are strengthening our exporters’ linkages with global buyers.

$1-trillion goal

Through financial assistance, the ODOP initiative, improved connectivity, and focused skilling of artisans, we are strengthening the backbone of our export ecosystem. The recently launched U.P. Export Promotion Policy 2025–30, along with dedicated policies for footwear, leather, non-leather, and MSMEs, is attracting foreign investment and giving industries confidence to expand. These efforts not only create jobs and boost foreign exchange earnings but also pave way for U.P.’s $1 trillion economy vision.

Why did MOFs pioneers win the chemistry Nobel?
How are metal-organic frameworks being put to use across different applications? Why are they significant?
An MOF called CALF-20 can efficiently capture carbon dioxide from factory exhaust and is already being tested in industrial plants
For centuries, chemistry’s main terrain was to craft ever more complex molecules but it soon became clear to scientists that they were all confined to their own boundaries. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 honours three scientists who expanded that horizon. Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi have been feted for developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), little molecular scaffolds with vast internal spaces where other atoms and molecules can move, react or stay.

What is an MOF?

MOFs are crystalline structures in which metal ions serve as nodes and organic molecules as connectors. The resulting structure can have enormous internal surface areas — thousands of square metres per gram — and their pores can be customised to attract or hold specific molecules. By carefully choosing the building blocks, researchers can control the size and shape of the cavities and the chemical environment within. MOFs are thus among the most versatile materials ever created.

What did Robson and Kitagawa achieve?

In the 1970s, Richard Robson at the University of Melbourne was preparing ball-and-stick models to show students how atoms connect. He realised that the positions of the holes drilled into each atom contained all the information needed to determine the molecule’s shape. If that logic worked for small molecules, he wondered if it could be scaled up.

A decade later, Robson combined copper ions, which like to bond in a tetrahedral arrangement, with an organic molecule bearing four arms ending in nitrile groups. To everyone’s surprise, instead of a messy tangle, the components self-assembled into a diamond-like crystal. This lattice wasn’t dense like a diamond but full of empty cavities, each capable of hosting other molecules. Robson predicted that such “frameworks” could be tailored to trap ions, catalyse reactions, and sieve molecules by size.

However, Robson’s early crystals were fragile. Susumu Kitagawa in Japan made them stable and functional. Guided by his philosophy of finding “usefulness in the useless”, Kitagawa pursued porous materials even when they seemed too delicate to matter. In 1997, he used cobalt, nickel or zinc ions linked by a bridging molecule called 4,4’-bipyridine to build a true three-dimensional MOF. When the material was dried and refilled, gases such as methane, nitrogen, and oxygen could flow in and out without damaging the structure.

Kitagawa also recognised that MOFs could be soft rather than rigid, with flexible molecular joints allowing them to expand, contract or bend around depending on temperature, pressure, and the molecules inside.

What was Yaghi’s contribution?

Omar Yaghi in the U.S. gave MOFs their structural strength and reproducibility. Having grown up in modest circumstances in Jordan, Yaghi was fascinated by chemistry’s ability to create new forms of order. At Arizona State University in the 1990s, he sought a way to build extended materials by design, not by chance, using metal ions as joints and organic molecules as struts. In 1995, he made the first two-dimensional frameworks linked by cobalt or copper ions that could host other molecules without collapsing. Four years later, he achieved a landmark with MOF-5, a robust three-dimensional lattice made from zinc ions and benzene-dicarboxylate linkers. MOF-5 was strong and, notably, just a few grams had an internal surface area comparable to a football field. It was also intact when heated to 300°C and emptied of all ‘guest’ molecules.

By the early 2000s, his team had built entire families of MOFs with the same underlying geometry but different pore sizes and functions.

Why are MOFs important?

Chemists can easily make use of them for different applications. An MOF called CALF-20 can efficiently capture carbon dioxide from factory exhaust and is already being tested in industrial plants. MOF-303 can harvest drinking water from arid desert air by absorbing vapour at night and releasing it in sunlight. UiO-67 can remove persistent forever chemicals (PFAS) from water. MIL-101 and ZIF-8 can speed up the breakdown of pollutants and recover rare-earth metals from wastewater.

In the energy sector, NU-1501 and MOF-177 can store hydrogen or methane safely at moderate pressure, a crucial step toward clean-fuel vehicles. Others serve as containers for toxic gases in semiconductor manufacturing and as drug-delivery capsules that release medicines in response to biological cues.

How is the immune system kept in check?
What did the three Medicine Nobel awardees discover and why is it important? How do regulatory T cells function? How does their work on regulatory T cells lay the ground for a new field of research leading to new treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases?
The Nobel Prize season for 2025 began with the announcement of the Physiology or Medicine Prize on October 6. The three awardees — U.S.-based researchers, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, and Japan’s Shimon Sakaguchi — were chosen for their “discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.” Their discovery enabled a fundamental understanding of how the immune system works — how it is regulated and kept in check. This has led to the evolution of several new potential treatment options, currently being tested, including for cancer.

What does their discovery mean?

Unless the body’s immune system is kept in check, it can attack its own organs. In that case, why do most people not develop autoimmune conditions where the body turns on itself? U.S. and Japanese scientists, working independently, arrived at an explanation for how the immune system is kept in check. It is for their work in making discoveries concerning what prevents the immune system from attacking the body that the Nobel was awarded. The laureates identified the immune system’s regulatory T cells which perform the precise task of preventing immune cells from launching an attack on the body.

Literally every day the immune system, a formidable army, is on guard, battling pathogens that try to invade the body. The question here is how do these cells “know what they should attack and what they should defend”, as the Nobel Committee pointed out. “Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases,” said Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee.

What are regulatory T cells?

The story goes back to Sakaguchi when he was working at the Aichi Cancer Centre Research Institute, Japan, some four decades ago. All T cells have special proteins called T-cell receptors on their surface. These receptors can be likened to a type of sensor. Using them, T cells can scan other cells to discover whether the body is under attack. There are a vast number of T cells with different receptors that can detect invaders, including new viruses. But they also have receptors that can attach to human tissues. But then, intuitively, is there a switch mechanism that warns the T cells off body cells?

In the 1980s, scientists realised that when T cells mature in the thymus, a small gland located in the upper chest behind the breastbone and in front of the heart that plays a crucial role in the immune system, they are taught to recognise and eliminate the body’s own proteins in a process called central tolerance. By the time Sakaguchi began his research into trying to understand this mechanism, his colleagues had already reportedly performed an experiment on newborn mice. They hypothesised that the mice would develop fewer T cells and have a weaker immune system if they removed the thymus. Instead, the immune system went into overdrive and ran amok, with the little mice developing several autoimmune conditions. This experiment might not have satisfied its primary goal, but in it was the idea for a Nobel that would come about 30 years later. Sakaguchi took off from where the experiment stopped. He injected these mice with T cells and it appeared that the T cells could protect the mice from autoimmune diseases.

Veering off from the current scientific wisdom of the time, Sakaguchi was convinced that the immune system must have some form of security guard — one that calms down T cells and keeps them in check; in this case, protecting the mice from the autoimmune condition. It took him over a decade, but in 1995, he presented to the world, a new class of T cells to the world, those that carried an extra protein called CD25 on their surface. This was called the regulatory T cell. But other researchers were not convinced yet of this idea.

It would take a second act, and efforts from Brunkow and Ramsdell, to concretely prove the experiment. A new set of mice, being studied since the Manhattan Project in fact, stood up to the occasion. In this instance, half of all the male mice were sickly and died in a few weeks, while the females thrived. It turned out the male’s organs were being attacked by T cells that destroyed the tissues. The Nobel-winning pair, who were then working at a biotech company Celltech Chiroscience in the U.S., realised that the mice could provide important clues in their work. After years of study, at an age when molecular biology was at best infantile, with a great deal of patience, they narrowed down on the faulty, mutant gene and named it Foxp3. They finally had an explanation for why a specific mouse strain was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases. They also showed that mutations in the human equivalent of this gene cause a serious autoimmune disease, IPEX.

Two years later, Sakaguchi and others could prove, this time, convincingly, that the Foxp3 gene controls the development of the regulatory T cells, being able to prevent other T cells from mistakenly attacking the body’s own tissue, in a process that is called peripheral immune tolerance. Regulatory T cells also ensure that the immune system calms down after it has attacked invaders, answering Sakaguchi’s initial question.

What are the specific uses in medicine?

While specific therapies are yet to hit the market, over 200 studies involving regulatory T cells are currently in progress, said Thomas Perlmann, secretary-general of the Nobel Assembly, while making the announcement of the prize on October 6. These stand testimony to the potential slew of new treatment modalities to address various conditions.

This includes work on cancer — dismantling the regulatory T cells so that the immune system can access the tumours and set to work on them; and on autoimmune disorders where researchers are trying to promote the growth of more regulatory T cells, inside the body, but also outside of it, in order to make sure that the immune system does not attack its own body.

It is also believed that this research will have far-reaching implications for organ transplantation by regulating organ acceptance. Clinical studies are afoot to test many of these pathbreaking treatment modalities.

What is macroscopic quantum tunnelling?
What did the three physics Nobel laureates conduct research on? How will their findings open the door to emerging technologies used to collect information? What can a circuit with a Josephson junction mimic? How will it help superconducting quantum processors?
Particles can sometimes cross barriers they don’t have the energy to climb, like boring through a mountain instead of scaling it first, as per quantum mechanics. This process, called tunnelling, is common in nuclear and atomic physics. The 2025 physics Nobel Prize laureates John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis showed that such behaviour can occur not only in subatomic particles but also in an electrical circuit made of superconductors.

What is a Josephson junction?

The fundamental unit of the award-winning experiments the trio conducted is a device called a Josephson junction. Here, two superconductors are separated by a very thin insulator. The trio wanted to know if a parameter of the circuit as a whole, in this case the junction’s phase difference, could behave like a single quantum particle. They came away from their experiments with a resounding ‘yes’, by observing both macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and discrete energy levels in the circuit. In a superconductor, many electrons pair up and move without resistance. In a Josephson junction, the phase difference between the two superconductors measures how out of step the collective quantum wave of paired electrons is on one side compared with the other. This phase’s value controls how easily the pairs can cross the insulating barrier. When this phase becomes trapped in an ‘energy valley’, quantum mechanics allows it to tunnel through to the other side, producing a small but measurable voltage across the junction.

When the scientists sent a current through the Josephson junction, they found that if it was small enough, the flow of paired electrons was stalled by the insulator and the circuit produced no voltage. In classical physics, this state would never change: the electrons’ flow would remain blocked. But in the quantum world, the current has a small chance of suddenly tunnelling through the insulator and flowing freely on the other side, creating that voltage.

Why was the circuit fragile?

In the early 1980s, several groups searched for this tunnelling by varying the current and recording the value at which the junction produced a voltage. If the electron pairs were simply escaping to the other side due to thermal fluctuations — akin to being heated enough to jump across the mountain — cooling the device ought to steadily increase the amount of current required to produce a voltage. On the other hand, if the electron pairs were tunnelling through, the rate of crossing over would eventually stop changing with temperature. Simple though the setup was, the challenge was in keeping stray microwave radiation from affecting the circuit and producing data consistent with the temperature-independent behaviour. So the experimenters needed to reduce and characterise environmental noise with great care.

The team led by Clarke, working with Devoret and Martinis, solved this problem by redesigning their setup so stray signals couldn’t interfere. They used special filters and shielding to block unwanted microwaves and kept every part of the experiment extremely cold and stable. Then they sent in faint yet precisely tuned microwave pulses to gently test how the circuit responded, allowing them to measure its electrical properties accurately. When they finally cooled the system to very low temperatures, they saw that its behaviour matched the exact patterns predicted by quantum tunnelling theory.

How did the circuit show quantum effects?

The researchers also wanted to find out if the circuit’s trapped state behaved like a quantum system with distinct energy steps — a hallmark of a quantum state — instead of a smooth range. They shone microwaves of different frequencies onto the junction while adjusting the current. When the frequency exactly matched the gap between two allowed energy levels, the circuit suddenly escaped more easily from its trapped state. The higher the level, the faster this escape happened. These patterns showed that the circuit’s overall state could only receive or emit fixed packets of energy, which is also how a single particle following the rules of quantum mechanics would behave. In short, the circuit as a whole behaved like a quantum particle.

Put together, the results revealed two facts. First, a macroscopic electrical circuit — one that you could see with the naked eye — could display quantum behaviour when sufficiently isolated from its environment. Second, a relevant macroscopic variable in that circuit could be understood using the standard tools of quantum mechanics. These experiments also pointed to a practical path for controlling and ‘reading’ macroscopic quantum states — in this case using a bias current, weak microwaves, and sufficient protections to shield from external radiation — one that gave the field a template to make reliable quantum measurements in solid-state devices. Subsequent work extended these ideas, developing superconducting qubits, embedding them in microwave resonators, and improving their coherence.

What are the applications of this work?

The technological applications flow from the same physics. A circuit with a Josephson junction can be made to mimic the quantised energy levels of an atom; microwaves could drive the circuit to jump between these energy levels; and carefully coupling the circuit to a resonator could allow an operator to measure changes in the circuit without disturbing it. This architecture, known as circuit quantum electrodynamics, is the foundation of many of today’s superconducting quantum processors (The resonator is like an echo chamber for microwaves. When the circuit is coupled to a resonator, the two can exchange energy in a controlled way, allowing scientists to measure the circuit’s state indirectly by observing changes in the resonator’s behaviour).

Superconducting circuits that exploit macroscopic quantum effects are central to several emerging technologies. They are quantum amplifiers that boost extremely weak signals without adding noise — a useful ability in diagnostics as much as searches for dark matter. They are used to measure current and voltage with extraordinary precision. They can be microwave-to-optical converters that link quantum processors to fibre-optic networks. They are components in quantum simulators used to model complex materials or even chemical reactions atom by atom.

Current Affairs: 11th October 2025

• Menstrual leave: Challenges of implementation

Context: The decision to grant one menstrual leave per month has raised concerns about its implementation with many questioning how will workflow be maintained without disruptions.

• A union leader pointed out that while many employers argue that menstrual leave will discourage hiring women, similar arguments were raised globally against maternity leave at one point in time.
• A day after the Karnataka Cabinet’s landmark decision to approve the Karnataka Menstrual Leave Policy-2025 that will ensure one day’s paid leave in a month across government and private sectors, many women workers welcomed the move.
• With this decision, Karnataka becomes the first State to cover both the government and private sectors in its menstrual leave policy. Odisha and Bihar have a policy for government employees while Kerala has implemented the policy in universities.
• Gargi M., who works with a semiconductor firm in the city, said that while their work may not involve physical labour, women still need rest during menstruation. She added that the option of working from home does not necessarily help in such situations, and therefore, the policy approval is welcome.
• Meanwhile, union leaders from multiple unorganised sectors stressed the need for inclusion of menstrual leave policy in unorganised sector too, under the provision through Labour Welfare Boards or similar mechanisms.

Menstrual leave: Challenges of implementation

• Umesh A.H., Deputy Labour Commissioner, (Region-1), said that main challenge is workforce adjustments and understanding who will handle the work of those on leave, especially since manpower remains limited in both government and private sectors.
• “Convincing private firms to implement a paid menstrual leave is also a challenge as most companies operate on a five-day work week. However, as society, we can overcome these challenges and will consider these aspects carefully while notifying the policy,” he said.
• India’s Kabul mission to be upgraded to embassy

Context: Jaishankar makes announcement during meeting with Taliban Foreign Minister, raises concerns over forced repatriation of Afghan refugees by Pak., calls ‘cross-border terror’ a common challenge.

• India will upgrade its ‘technical mission’ in Kabul to the status of an embassy, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said.
• The announcement came during Mr. Jaishankar’s meeting with Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, at Hyderabad House. Mr. Jaishankar also raised India’s concerns over the forced repatriation of Afghan refugees by Pakistan and described “cross-border terrorism” as a common challenge to both India and Afghanistan.
• “India is fully committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Afghanistan. Closer cooperation between us contributes to your national development, as well as regional stability and resilience. To enhance that, I am pleased to announce today the upgrading of India’s technical mission in Kabul to the status of Embassy of India,” said Mr. Jaishankar.
• India had shut its embassy in Kabul in 2021 after the U.S.-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
• In an interaction at the Embassy of Afghanistan, Mr. Muttaqi welcomed the decision and said, “We will send our diplomats to the Embassy of Afghanistan.” He clarified that the Taliban may not send an ambassador at the beginning.
• Mr. Jaishankar noted that India and Afghanistan share a “common commitment towards growth and prosperity” but cautioned that “these are endangered by the shared threat of cross-border terrorism that both our nations face.” He did not name Pakistan but urged Mr. Muttaqi to “coordinate efforts” to counter the threat.
• The meeting took place hours after an explosion in Kabul reportedly killed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, a claim later denied by TTP sources.
• Mr. Jaishankar thanked Kabul for condemning the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22, saying, “We appreciate your sensitivity towards India’s security concerns.” He also reiterated India’s commitment to facilitating travel for Afghan nationals through a new visa module introduced in April, with more medical, business, and student visas being issued. A joint statement issued after the meeting said that scholarships from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and other organisations are “under active consideration” to enable more Afghan students to study in India.
• The joint statement welcomed starting of the India-Afghanistan Air Freight Corridor, which is expected to “streamline connectivity and boost bilateral trade”.
• It further said that both sides “agreed to cooperate on hydroelectric projects with a view to addressing Afghanistan’s energy needs and support its agricultural development.”
• Mr. Jaishankar also announced six new health projects for Afghanistan, with details to be shared soon. India will gift 20 ambulances to Afghanistan as a “symbolic step” and provide MRI and CT scan machines to hospitals. He further confirmed that India will continue supplying vaccines, cancer medicines, and relief material to earthquake-affected areas in eastern Afghanistan, adding, “We would like to contribute to the reconstruction of residences in the affected areas.”

• Ceasefire takes effect as Israel forces pull back to agreed area

Context: A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect in Gaza on Friday, the Israeli military said, hours after Israel’s Cabinet approved a deal to pause the fighting and exchange the remaining hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

• Israeli forces have withdrawn to agreed deployment lines for the first stage of the ceasefire, it added.
• Tens of thousands of people who had gathered in Wadi Gaza in central Gaza started walking north after the military’s announcement at noon. Beforehand, Palestinians reported heavy shelling in parts of Gaza throughout Friday morning, but no significant bombardment was reported after.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted in a televised statement on Friday that the next stages would see Hamas disarmed and Gaza demilitarised.
• “If this is achieved the easy way — so be it. If not — it will be achieved the hard way,” he said.
• Under the deal, all 48 hostages are expected to be released. In exchange, Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
• The ceasefire marks a key step toward ending a ruinous two-year war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, reduced much of Gaza to rubble, destabilised West Asia, and left dozens of hostages, living and dead, in the territory.
• Israeli Brig. General Effie Defrin, a military spokesman, said that troops had completed their withdrawal to the deployment lines by Friday afternoon, a few hours after the ceasefire officially went into effect.
• Earlier, an Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military would control around 50% of Gaza in their new positions.
• In Israel’s offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly 1,70,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The hostage and prisoner releases are expected to begin on Monday, two Egyptian officials briefed on the talks and a Hamas official said, though another official said they could occur as early as Sunday night.
• All living hostages are expected to be released at the same time, followed by the bodies of the deceased, which could take more time.
• Five border crossings are expected to reopen, including the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the Egyptian and Hamas officials said. That will allow aid to flow into the territory, parts of which are experiencing famine.

• Private hospitals threaten to halt paediatric surgeries under RBSK

Context: Demanding immediate reimbursement of over ₹23 crore dues pending since 2017 for paediatric surgeries done under Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), small and medium private hospitals in Karnataka have threatened to suspend their participation in the State’s health schemes.

• The hospitals, which said they are left with no option but to take legal recourse, said if the dues are not cleared at the earliest, they will halt paediatric surgeries under the State’s Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka (AB-ArK) health scheme. The dispute dates back to 2016, when the State government introduced additional procedure codes under RBSK, a centrally-funded health scheme under the National Health Mission (NHM), without prior approval from the Centre.
• Private hospital authorities claimed that they acted in good faith on the published codes and provided critical services to ailing children between 2016 and 2018. However, audits later flagged that these codes lacked central clearance, leaving the claims stuck.

Technical glitch

• Officials attribute the delay to a technical glitch in the listing of procedures on the portal of Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST), the nodal agency implementing the State’s health schemes. The issue is now before the government.

• RBSK was launched in 2013-2014 to improve survival, growth and development of children in the 0-18 years group.
• Focusing on the screening of infants, children and young adults for 4 D’s — Defects at birth, Deficiencies, Diseases, Developmental delays and Disabilities — the scheme initially covered a total of 40 medical procedures which subsequently increased to 104.
• The scheme ensured children diagnosed with illness received follow-up care including early intervention services at the district level and including surgeries at tertiary level, free of cost under NHM. Services not available in government hospitals are made available in private empanelled hospitals.

• Mr. Gupta added that the matter is under review and will be placed before the State Cabinet. He clarified that if the Centre has not approved the additional procedures, the State government will have to bear the expenditure.

• SC gives Centre four weeks to respondto pleas for restoration of J&K Statehood

Context: Urging the Supreme Court to weigh the constitutional implications for India’s federal structure, petitioners on Friday pressed the Union Government to honour its “solemn promise” of restoring Jammu and Kashmir’s Statehood.

• A Bench of Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran asked Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union Government, to respond to the submissions within four weeks, even as it acknowledged that “various considerations” had to be factored in while making such a decision, including the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
• The Bench was hearing an application seeking the restoration of Statehood within a specified time frame, preferably two months. The petitioners, an academic and a social activist, contended that the continued Union Territory status “violates the idea of federalism”, an essential feature of the Constitution’s basic structure. They further pointed out that the smooth conduct of both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections showed there were no longer any security concerns hindering the restoration of Statehood.

Institutional promise

• Senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, appearing for MLA Irfan Hafiz Lone, argued that the assurance of restoring Statehood was not a mere political declaration but an “institutional promise” made by the Centre before a constitutional court. She urged the court to consider the “larger question” of what it would signify for Indian federalism if a State could be reduced to a Union Territory “in this fashion”.
• Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for petitioners Zahoor Ahmad Bhat and Khurshaid Ahmad Malik, read from the Supreme Court’s December 2023 judgment on the abrogation of Article 370 to emphasise that the court had refrained from deciding the Statehood issue only because the Solicitor-General had assured it would be restored after elections.

• Sea phase of KONKAN 25 ends with high operational tempo
• The sea phase of the bilateral maritime exercise KONKAN 25 between the Indian Navy and U.K.’s Royal Navy concluded following a series of high-tempo naval operations designed to enhance interoperability, operational readiness, and maritime cooperation between the participating navies.
• Indian Navy informed that during the sea phase, the forces undertook a wide spectrum of complex maritime drills encompassing tactical air warfare, air defence, surface and anti-submarine operations, and underway replenishment. The sea phase ended with a ceremonial steampast, where participating units exchanged traditional naval courtesies.

• Hydropower project on Chenab gets clearance

Context: The Sawalkote project was first accorded an environmental clearance in 2017; the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan added momentum to the approval process, says official

• An apex committee of the Environment Ministry has accorded a fresh environmental clearance to the Sawalkote hydroelectric project, proposed to come up on Chenab river in Ramban, Jammu and Kashmir.
• Planned as a run-of-the-river project utilising the flow of the Chenab to generate electricity, it is reportedly the first major hydropower project on the Indus rivers to be accorded environmental clearance following India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) on April 23, following the Pahalgam terror attack.
• “The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), after examining the information submitted and detailed deliberations, reiterated its earlier recommendation on the project and recommended the proposal for grant of prior Environmental Clearance to Sawalkote H.E. Project,” said the minutes of a meeting conducted on September 26.
• The project was first accorded an environmental clearance by a designated committee in 2017, when it was originally being steered by the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation (JKPDC). However, the JKPDC signed a deal with the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) Ltd. in 2021 to build and commission the project and be effectively in charge of it until 2061.
• Despite the designated committee’s nod, the Environment Ministry could not clear the project as the JKPDC could not procure a forest clearance – which follows a parallel approval process. In September 2023, the project was first accorded a ‘stage 1 forest clearance’ as per publicly available records.
• While the process of transferring the project to the NHPC has been on since 2021, a slew of approvals from the Central Electricity Authority and the Central Water Commission were accorded in July 2025. Public hearings, required to be done under the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, were done between December 2022 to February 2023.
• “The Sawalkote project was already going through various stages of approval. Given its size — though it does not have a storage dam — it will be the largest project of its kind and has always had certain strategic importance. The suspension of the IWT and the plan to utilise the full potential of the eastern Indus rivers have added momentum to the approval process,” a senior official, aware of the approval process of hydroelectric projects, but declined to be identified.

• Centre issues guidelines for retiring govt. employees; welfare officer to assist them

Context: The Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare (DPPW) under the Centre said that it has finalised guidelines for timely payment of retirement dues of Union government officials, which entail appointment of a welfare officer, or pension mitra, for each employee.

• The officer would be deputed by the head of office and assigned to each retiring employee to facilitate filling up of forms and other formalities. The officer shall also be responsible for hand-holding the dependents for documentation and verification in the event of death of the pensioner while submitting the claim for family pension.
• The guidelines have been issued for effective inter-ministerial coordination for timely payment of retirement dues (pension and pensionary dues) and issue of Pension Payment Orders (PPOs)/e-PPOs of Central Civil Services (CCS) employees.
• “Major procedural reforms such as clarification on vigilance clearance before the retirement has been included for reducing the delay in issuance of PPOs/ePPOs. It has been clarified that no pension can be delayed for the want of vigilance clearance as per the specific provisions under CCS(Pension) Rules, 2021. It has been underlined that each ministry/department should ensure that vigilance clearance in respect of their retiring employees is issued three months prior to retirement since the validity of the clearance is of three months as per extant norms,” the Department stated.

• 6 State-level RTI panels are defunct; appeals can take years to be heard: report

Context: As the 20th anniversary of the Right to Information Act, 2005 approaches, many State Information Commissions (SICs) and the Central Information Commission (CIC) are either paralysed or so understaffed that hearings could take years to happen, according to a report by a citizens’ group working to promote transparency in government functioning.

• The SICs and the CIC hear appeals and complaints when citizens are dissatisfied with the result of an RTI application. There were over 2.4 lakh appeals in 2024.
• The latest edition of the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS)’s annual assessment shows that six SICs — Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh — were defunct for varying periods of time between July 1, 2024 to October 7, 2025 as no new Commissioners were appointed upon the incumbents demitting office.”
• The SICs of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar are functioning without a full strength of Commissioners.
• Meanwhile, the Central Information Commission, which hears appeals against RTI responses to Union government organisations, is functioning with only two Information Commissioners, with nine vacancies, including for the Chief Information Commissioner, and hearings can take over a year to come up.
• The backlog is mounting, with Commissions only able to dispose of 1.8 lakh cases in a year with 2.4 lakh appeals. In some States, the current speed of hearings taking place is far slower: the SNS’s report “shows that the Telangana SIC would take an estimated 29 years and two months — a matter filed on July 1, 2025 would be disposed [of] in the year 2054.”
• Over 4 lakh appeals and complaints were pending as of June, with Maharashtra (95,340), Karnataka (47,825) and Tamil Nadu (41,059) with the largest outstanding backlog.

• Govt. notifies land acquisition to raise Almatti dam height

Context: A total of 1,33,867 acres will be acquired for increasing the height of the dam from 519.60 metres to 524.25 metres.

• The State government has issued a notification for the acquisition of lands for implementing the much-delayed Upper Krishna Project (UKP) Phase III, and the land acquisition process is expected to begin soon.
• A total of 1,33,867 acres would be acquired for increasing the height of the Almatti dam from 519.60 metres to 524.25 metres. Land would be acquired for submergence of land by raising the height of the dam as well for canal projects.

Annual spend

• An estimated ₹75,000 crore would be spent for implementing the project, including land acquisition, reconstruction and rehabilitation, in the next four years.
• Annually, ₹18,000 crore would be provided to the Water Resources Department, it said. The notification said 75,563 acres would be acquired for submerging the land for raising the height of the dam, 6,467 acres for rehabilitation of 20 villages and portion of the Bagalkot town and 51,837 acres for canals.
• When completed, the UKP Phase-III would irrigate 5.94 lakh hectares of land in North Karnataka districts of Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Raichur, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Koppal and Gadag.

Cabinet clearance

• The special Cabinet meeting held on September 16, 2025, gave clearance for the acquisition of land in one go through “consent award or direct purchase” from farmers.
• The compensation amount, totalling approximately ₹70,000 crore, would be paid over three financial years starting from the current year.
• Farmers whose lands would be submerged due to the increase in dam height would receive ₹40 lakh and ₹30 lakh per acre of wet and dry land, respectively. Farmers whose lands would have to be acquired for building canals would receive ₹30 lakh and ₹25 lakh per acre of wet and dry land, respectively.
• The entire land acquisition process will be taken up through consent or direct purchase to expedite the process, while legal measures would be taken to move the cases related to land acquisition that are pending before various courts to a mediation process.

• Microfinance loan defaults surged in 2024-25: Sa-Dhan data

Context: Bihar performed the worst, not only accounting for the highest amounts of loans outstanding, but also the highest rates of default on these loans.

• The rate of delinquencies of microfinance loans rose sharply in 2024-25, according to the latest report by microfinance self-regulatory body Sa-Dhan. The percentage of microfinance loans overdue by more than 30 days increased to 6.2% from 2.1% in 2023-24.
• Similarly, the share of loans more than 90 days overdue increased to 4.8% by the end of March 2025 compared with 1.6% in the previous year.
• “Delinquency levels have risen across the industry,” the 2025 edition of the annual Bharat Microfinance Report by Sa-Dhan said. “The Portfolio at Risk (PAR) 30+ days past due (dpd) surged to 6.2%, up significantly from 2.1% in the last financial year.”
• “State-wise data further corroborate this upward trend in delinquency across the industry,” the report added.
• According to the data, Bihar had ₹57,712 crore worth of microfinance loans outstanding as of March-end 2025.
• Of these, 7.2% were more than 30 days overdue compared with the national average of 6.2%. About 4.6% of the loans were overdue by more than 90 days, the conventional benchmark used to categorise a loan as a non-performing asset.
• The data also showed that rural borrowers fared the worst in terms of loan repayment.
• Of the ₹2.3 lakh crore of loans outstanding for rural customers, 6.4% were overdue by more than 30 days, compared with 6.1% and 6% for semi-urban and urban borrowers, respectively.

• India may open retail power to private firms

Context: India plans to open up its retail electricity market for private companies nationwide, ending the dominance of State-run distributors in most States, a draft bill by the federal power ministry showed.

• The move will allow private companies such as Adani Enterprises, Tata Power, Torrent Power and CESC to strengthen their presence across India. A similar attempt in 2022 faced opposition from State distribution companies (discoms).
• Only a handful of India’s electricity distribution zones — including the national capital region, Odisha and industrial States like Maharashtra and Gujarat — are currently privatised as the rules do not specifically provide for it. Most are under State control and are burdened with deep financial losses.
• New Delhi has been pushing State-run power utilities to cut losses, clean up balance sheets and upgrade age-old infrastructure. Earlier this year, the country’s most populous State Uttar Pradesh invited bids to privatise two of its four power distribution companies. As of June, State discoms owed power generators about $6.78 billion.

• Venezuela’s María Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize

Context: Venezuelan Opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness”.

• The former Opposition presidential candidate is a “key, unifying figure” in the once deeply divided Opposition to President Nicolas Maduro’s government, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.
• Reacting to the honour, Ms. Machado said she was confident the Opposition would succeed in securing a peaceful transition to democracy in her country.
• “We’re not there yet. We’re working very hard to achieve it, but I’m sure that we will prevail,” she told Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Nobel Institute and secretary of the Nobel Committee.

Dedicates win to Trump

• “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” she later wrote on X.
• Mr. Maduro’s government has routinely targeted its real or perceived opponents.
• Ms. Machado, who turned 58 this week, was set to run against Mr. Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government disqualified her.
• The crackdown on dissent only increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary. The election results announced by the Electoral Council sparked protests to which the government responded with force that ended with more than 20 people dead.

• Ms. Machado becomes the 20th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Current Affairs: 10th October 2025

• India inks £350-mn deal with U.K. to buy missiles

Context: As many as 64 Indian firms commit to invest £1.3 billion in the U.K.; Modi and the visiting U.K. PM Starmer agree on a £250-million deal to advance collaboration on electric engines for Naval ships.

• India has signed a £350-million defence deal with the U.K. to buy missiles for the Indian Army, the British government.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his U.K. counterpart, Keir Starmer, also agreed to take forward their collaboration on electric-powered engines for Naval ships, worth an initial £250 million.
• In a separate release, the U.K. government said 64 Indian companies had so far committed to invest £1.3 billion (or ₹15,430 crore) in the U.K., a sign of the growing business confidence boosted by the India-U.K. trade deal.

U.K. varsities in India

• However, the U.K. government also said that the University of Lancaster and the University of Surrey had been given approval to open campuses in India to help meet booming demand from Indian students.
• The missile deal paves the way for a “broader complex weapons partnership” between the U.K. and India, which is currently under negotiation between the two governments, the U.K. government said in its statement.
• “The contract is set to deliver U.K.-manufactured Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMM) built in Belfast to the Indian Army, delivering on the Government’s Plan for Change in another significant boost for the U.K. defence industry,” it said.
• “A new milestone has also been reached in the U.K. and India’s cooperation on electric-powered engines for naval ships as both countries signed the Implementing Arrangement to advance collaboration to the next stage, worth an initial £250 million,” it added.

Indian investments in the U.K.

• “Nearly 7,000 brand new jobs will be created in the United Kingdom thanks to a raft of major new deals secured by the Prime Minister during his visit to India this week,” the U.K. government said. “As a result, Indian investment will flow into a range of U.K. sectors including engineering, technology and the creative industries, driving growth and creating jobs across every region of the country – from Basingstoke to Birmingham,” it added.
• Among the major investment announcements are TVS Motor’s plan to invest £250 million in Solihull to expand its Norton Motorcycles operations and develop next-generation electric vehicles.
• “Engineering company Cyient is investing £100 million to boost innovation in semiconductors, geospatial tech, mobility, clean energy, and digital domains – creating 300 U.K. jobs and strengthening its long-standing presence in the country,” the release said.
• Muthoot Finance UK Limited, a part of the Muthoot Group, plans to invest £100 million to expand its branch network to 20 locations in the U.K. Hero Motors plans to invest £100 million in the U.K. over the next five years in its e-mobility, e-bicycles and aerospace divisions.
• On the first day of Mr. Starmer’s visit to India, Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic said that his company has “deep ambitions to develop India as a home for Rolls-Royce”. He did not, however, mention any specific investment details.
• “The Prime Minister has confirmed that the University of Lancaster and the University of Surrey have been given approval to open new campuses in India, to help meet their booming demand for higher education places,” the U.K. government said in a separate release.

• State nod for one day paid menstrual leave in govt., pvt. sectors

Context: In a landmark decision, the State Cabinet approved the Karnataka Menstrual Leave Policy-2025 that will ensure one day’s paid leave in a month across government and private sectors.

• With this decision, Karnataka becomes the first State to cover both the government and private sectors in its menstrual leave policy. Odisha and Bihar have policy for government employees while Kerala has implemented the policy in universities.
• The policy moved by the Karnataka’s Labour Department follows a recommendation from a committee that submitted its report and had pushed for paid menstrual leave. It is applicable to all sectors where women are employed.
• Though there has been no uniform policy on menstrual leave in the country, several States and private companies have had menstrual leave policy, a Cabinet note said.
• Welcoming the decision, the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) said that the move would empower millions of women in both sectors and was a progressive measure to protect the rights of women.
• It noted that when the trade unions had strongly urged for menstrual leave policy for one day a month, the employers were against it while the Labour Department had recommended six days per year. “We now request the government to immediately take measures to implement the decision through legislative action,” AITUC said in a note.
• The government approved ₹405.55 crore to construct 11 residential schools for children of construction workers, ₹2,000 crore for rebuilding 39 major bridges, and a ₹16 crore aerial ladder platform that can reach up to 54 metres to meet the needs of high-rise buildings in case of fire accidents.
• It also approved ₹550 crore to set up an autonomous medical college at Kanakapura with an initial intake of 150 students for MBBS, approved amendment to Karnataka Workers Welfare Fund Act and ₹38 crore to improve security of the State Data Centre.

• India sees increase in international and domestic airfares from 2019 to 2025

Context: India has witnessed a 13% increase in international airfares in H1 (first half) 2025 versus H1 2019, as per the 2025 edition of the Airfare Trends for the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions.

• The 2025 trends were released by the Airports Council International Asia-Pacific & Middle East (ACI APAC & MID) which is the trade association representing airports.

Top five countries

• While, India witnessed a 13% increase in international airfares in H1 2025 versus 2019, the top five countries which had an increase in the international fare are Chinese Taipei (34%), Singapore (33%), South Korea (31%), Vietnam (24%), and Indonesia (24%).
• However, India figured among the top five countries which saw an increase in domestic airfares as it saw a 38% increase in H1 2025 as compared to 2019.
• The top five countries which saw an increase in the domestic fare are New Zealand (63%), Malaysia (53%), Vietnam (52%), Indonesia (47%) and India (38%). “Despite substantial recovery of passenger traffic, across the region, an increasing trend is witnessed from H1 2019 to H1 2025, in contrast to the decreasing pattern observed during pre-pandemic years. The surge is largely driven by inflation (CPI) and reduced airline competition in some key sectors,” ACI APAC & MID said.

Average increase

• The analysis, developed with the assistance of Flare Aviation Consulting further stated that the Asia-Pacific region has witnessed an average +8% increase in H1 2019 to H1 2025 as compared to an average -18% decrease observed during H1 2014 to H1 2019.
• “However, the increase reported over the first half of the current year has been much more acute at country level, especially in the Oceania and ASEAN regions. The Middle East has seen +15% surge in H1 2019 to H1 2025 as compared to an average -9% decrease observed during H1 2014 to H1 2019,” it stated.

Other key findings

• Other key findings of the 2025 trends include that airfares have surged across all markets except China and that India and China are currently below the regional average in terms of airfare levels.
• “China has seen domestic airfares decrease by 39% as compared to H1 2019. Oceania has higher general domestic airfares; a high deviation between countries is observed,” it stated.

Study

• Director General of the ACI APAC & MID, Stefano Baronci said that this study proves that lowering airport charges does not translate into reduction in ticket prices, instead, it limits airports ability to invest in capacity and technology to enhance service quality.
• “To make air travel more affordable from a consumer perspective, policymakers should focus on liberalising markets such as open skies, market access and efficient slot policy that can strengthen airline competition while ensuring airports can continue to invest to build capacity to support the growth in the coming years,” Mr. Baronci said.

• ‘Indira food kit’ to replace 5 kg rice under Anna Bhagya scheme

Context:  It will benefit about 4.48 crore population holding below poverty line cards and will include toor dal, oil, sugar and salt.

• Considering the misuse of rice being supplied to beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS) and to ensure better diversity in consumption, the Karnataka government on Thursday decided to provide “Indira food kit” to about 1.26 crore households in the State in lieu of the five kg rice being provided under the Anna Bhagya scheme currently. The kit will benefit about 4.48 crore population holding below poverty line (BPL) cards and will include toor dal, oil, sugar and salt.

Additional cost

• Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.K. Patil told presspersons in the post-Cabinet meeting briefing that tender would be invited soon for the supply of food items other than rice. He said that the new scheme could cost an additional ₹61.19 crore to the exchequer, which was approved by the Cabinet.
• Acknowledging that the decision was based on reports of widespread misuse of rice being supplied through the PDS, Food and Civil Supplies Minister K.H. Muniyappa told presspersons that surveys showed the misuse of rice being supplied, and feedback from beneficiaries provided insights to the need to replace five kg rice supply with food items.
• “About 90 % of the surveyed felt that other food items would help the households and will add to nutrition. The government also felt that the quantum of rice could be high. The misuse was also noted,” he said
• The Congress government, which promised an additional five kg rice under Anna Bhagya along with the five kg rice supplied by the Centre ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, could not supply rice initially and provided ₹170 per person per month in lieu of rice as the Centre refused to supply the required quantum of rice for the Anna Bhagya scheme.
• Since last year, as the Centre resumed supply, the DBT of ₹170 was withdrawn and rice supply had commenced.
• However, large scale diversion of rice and misuse by beneficiaries had also been reported.

Food kit

• Providing details about the new project, the Minister said that the quantum of food kit will be dependent on the size of the family. “Quality and quantity will be ensured in the supply of food kit and transparency will be maintained,” he said, adding that the current allocation would be enough to switch from supply of rice to the other food items since it is expected to cost a similar amount.

Subject to family size

• According to him, a household consisting of one or two persons would get half kg of each item whereas a family comprising three to four persons will one kg each while families with five or more persons will get one and a half kg of each item.
• As per data provided by him, of about 1.26 crore households holding BPL cards, about 32.56 lakh households have one or two persons totalling to about 53.27 lakhs, about 63 lakh households have three to four persons totalling to about 2.26 crore and about 30 lakh households have five or more persons totalling to about 1.69 crore.

• Karnataka Sahitya Academy awards

Context: Writers Shudra Srinivas, Pratibha Nandakumar, M. Basavanna, D.B. Nayak and Vishvanath Karnad and have been honoured with the Karnataka Sahitya Academy honorary award for the year 2024.

• The awards were announced at an all-member meeting held headed by L.N. Mukudaraj, Chairman of the Academy, at Kannada Bhavana in Bengaluru.
• In consideration of the remarkable service given to the field of Kannada literature, 10 writers are being given the ‘Sahitya Shri’ award of Karnataka Sahitya Academy for the year 2024. They are: K.Y. Naranaswamy, B.M. Puttaiah, Padmalaya Nagaraj, B.U. Suma, Mamata Sagara, Sabita Bannadi, Abdul Hai Toranagal, Gurulingappa Dabale, H.S. Anupama and Amaresha Yatagal.

• Modi, Starmer call for a ‘two-state solution’ to Israel-Palestine conflict

Context: The two PMs support ‘an immediate, lasting ceasefire’; relationship with the U.K. is an ‘important pillar of global stability, economic progress’ in turbulent times, says Modi; he speaks to Trump over phone, congratulates him on Gaza peace plan.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his U.K. counterpart, Keir Starmer, gave a joint call for a “two-state solution” to end the Israel-Palestine conflict and expressed support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.
• Mr. Modi also spoke with Mr. Trump over the phone and congratulated him on the Gaza peace initiative. “Spoke to my friend, President Trump and congratulated him on the success of the historic Gaza peace plan. Also reviewed the good progress achieved in trade negotiations. Agreed to stay in close touch over the coming weeks,” the Prime Minister posted on X.
• Mr. Modi, who welcomed Mr. Starmer to India, said the partnership between India and the U.K. serves as an “important pillar of global stability” in the current turbulent international scenario. The two leaders also called for “a just and lasting peace” in war-ravaged Ukraine.
• “India and the U.K. are natural partners. In the current era of global instability, this partnership remains a vital pillar of global stability and economic progress,” said Mr. Modi, adding that the government is working to combine the U.K.’s industrial expertise and R&D with India’s talent and scale.
• Mr. Modi highlighted the importance of “dialogue and diplomacy” in resolving the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, and said India and U.K. are “committed” to enhancing “maritime security cooperation” in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Resolution of the enduring conflicts in West Asia and Ukraine featured in a joint statement issued at the end of official-level talks held in Mumbai. The two Prime Ministers supported “an immediate and lasting ceasefire, the release of the hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid, and their shared commitment to a lasting and just peace as a step towards a two-state solution, with a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable Palestinian state.”
• Mr. Starmer and Mr. Modi highlighted cooperation between the two sides within the context of the Commonwealth and agreed to work closely on “climate change, sustainable development, and youth engagement” for the 2.5 billion population of the Commonwealth member countries. The statement reiterated shared commitment to “global peace, prosperity and rules-based international order”. They also expressed support to continue the dialogue on Migration and Mobility Partnership.
• In his remarks following the delegation-level talks, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri reiterated India’s commitment to talks on streamlining migration and said, “We don’t support illegal immigration.” Mr. Starmer expressed U.K.’s condemnation of the Pahalgam attack and Mr. Modi condemned the attack outside a synagogue that left two persons dead in Manchester during Yom Kippur last week.

• India and Australia sign key defence agreements

Context: Australia and India have taken significant steps to strengthen their defence partnership, with both nations committing to an expanded framework of cooperation across land, air, maritime, and industrial domains.

• The announcements came after the inaugural Australia–India Defence Ministers’ dialogue, co-chaired by Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles and India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Canberra.
• Mr. Singh is on a two-day official visit to Australia. The meeting marked five years of the India-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership.
• The discussions culminated in the signing of three key agreements — an agreement on information sharing, a Memorandum of Understanding on submarine search and rescue cooperation, and terms of reference for establishing joint staff talks.

• Taliban Minister Muttaqi gets ‘warm welcome’; to meet Jaishankar today

Context: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will meet Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for a formal meeting, the first time New Delhi has officially hosted a leader of the Taliban regime that took power in Kabul in 2021.

• Mr. Muttaqi, who is on a week-long official visit to India, arrived in Delhi morning accompanied by a delegation of five Taliban officials to a “warm welcome” from the Modi government.
• The delegation will also travel to Deoband to visit the Dar ul Uloom seminary, the home of the ideological roots of the Taliban group, on Saturday. On Sunday, Mr. Muttaqi will travel to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, which sources said he had requested.
• “A warm welcome to Afghan Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi on his arrival in New Delhi,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on its channel on Thursday. “We look forward to engaging discussions with him on bilateral relations and regional issues,” it added.
• Mr. Muttaqi, who was a Minister in the previous Taliban regime from 1996-2001, is also on the United Nations Security Council’s List of sanctioned terrorists. He is in Delhi after two attempts by India to request permission for the visit. During the visit allowed from October 9 to 16, Mr. Muttaqi will address the media, speak at the Vivekananda International Foundation think-tank, and interact with businessmen and Afghan traders at an event hosted by business chamber FICCI.
• He is also expected to meet with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.  If that meeting is confirmed, it will be particularly significant as Mr. Doval was the seniormost official who travelled to Kandahar in December 1999 to negotiate the release of hostages on board IC-814, where the Taliban government facilitated the handover of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and other terrorists freed from Indian prisons, to Pakistani officials.

• Army inducts ‘Saksham’ to neutralise aerial threats

Context: The Indian Army has initiated procurement of the indigenously developed ‘Saksham’ Counter-Unmanned Aerial System Grid System.

• Developed in collaboration with the Bharat Electronics Limited, Ghaziabad, Saksham, or Situational Awareness for Kinetic Soft and Hard Kill Assets Management, is a modular, high-end Command and Control system operating on the secure Army Data Network.
• The system is designed to detect, track, identify, and neutralise hostile drones and unmanned aerial systems, ensuring comprehensive airspace security across the newly defined Tactical Battlefield Space.

• Judicial officers with seven years’ experience in Bar can become District Judges: SC

Context: In a bid to infuse young talent into the upper echelons of the district judiciary, a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai held that judicial officers with seven years in the Bar before their recruitment to the subordinate judicial service are entitled to be appointed as District or Additional District Judges.

• District Judges are considered for appointment to the High Court. So far, only practising lawyers with seven years’ experience were eligible for direct recruitment as District Judges. In-service judicial officers, even with seven years of previous practice as advocates, were not considered, leading to lack of drive, which the court observed may be one of the reasons for pendency in lower courts.
• Chief Justice Gavai reasoned that a lawyer does not cease to be one upon joining the judicial service.

• The court noted that no eligibility criteria are prescribed under Article 233(2) for a person already in judicial service of the Union or the State for being appointed as District Judge. “A person who has been or who is in judicial service and has a combined experience of seven years or more as an advocate or a Judicial Officer would be eligible for being considered and appointed as a District Judge/Additional District Judge under Article 233 of the Constitution,” the Bench held in its judgment.
• Further, the Constitution Bench directed that the minimum age for being considered and appointed as a District Judge or Additional District Judge, both for advocates and judicial officers, would be 35 years as on the date of application.

• EC cautions against misuse of AI during poll campaign

Context: The Election Commission has directed parties to refrain from misusing artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools to create deepfakes that distort information or spread misinformation on social media platforms.

• “Further, all parties and their leaders, candidates, and star campaigners shall take necessary measures for prominent labelling of AI-generated/synthetic content, if any, being shared for campaigning through their social media platforms or in the form of advertisements using clear notations such as ‘AI-Generated’, ‘Digitally Enhanced’, or ‘Synthetic Content’,” the EC said in a statement.
• A strict watch is being kept on social media posts to ensure that the election atmosphere is not vitiated. The EC has made elaborate arrangements for effective implementation of the Model Code of Conduct guidelines, warning that any violation would be dealt with firmly.

• Help excluded Bihar voters file appeals: SC to legal aid workers

Context: Experience in State must have made EC wiser ahead of pan-India SIR, says court; information about the 3.66 lakh excluded from list should be collated by the legal service authority and submitted as a status report to the court in a week, it added.

• The Supreme Court said the litigious road traversed in the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise must have made the Election Commission (EC) “wiser”, even as it activated paralegal volunteers and legal aid lawyers in Bihar to help 3.66 lakh people excluded from the final voter list file appeals without delay.

• “You have decided to carry out SIR on a pan-India basis. So, this experience [with Bihar] would have made you wiser now… The next time you introduce a SIR module, owing to what you experienced now, you would also bring some improvement,” Justice Surya Kant, heading a Bench including Justice Joymalya Bagchi, addressed the EC orally.

• CDSCO calls for list of all Indian cough syrup makers

Context: The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has asked the State governments to submit a list of cough syrup manufacturers while initiating a joint audit of these companies, said a senior Health Ministry official.

• The CDSCO has also informed the World Health Organization (WHO) that it had identified three contaminated cough syrups – Coldrif, Respifresh and ReLife — linked to the recent child deaths in India as containing diethylene glycol (DEG). It stated that none of the products were exported from India.
• It said that the products had been recalled and identified manufacturers had been ordered to stop production of all medical products.
• The WHO said that it was “ready to support national authorities in investigating and responding to these tragic events”, adding that it had not received official information on the source of the DEG contamination.
• The organisation also flagged the “regulatory gap in DEG/EG screening for domestically marketed medicines in India.”

• Retrospective age limits under surrogacy law violate reproductive autonomy: SC

Context: Observing that concerns over a couple’s parenting abilities cannot be invoked retrospectively to restrict their reproductive choice, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the age limits under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, do not apply to couples who had frozen their embryos and initiated the surrogacy process before the law came into force on January 25, 2022.

• A Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and K.V. Viswanathan delivered concurring opinions while hearing applications filed by three couples who argued that they had created and preserved embryos long before the enactment of the 2021 law and were therefore, unfairly disqualified by the subsequent age limits.
• Under the Act, an intending couple is eligible for surrogacy only if the woman is between 23 and 50 years of age and the man is between 26 and 55 years.
• The petitioners contended that these limits could not retrospectively disqualify those who had already completed the medical procedures culminating in embryo freezing.
• Justice Nagarathna observed that the law should not draw a distinction between couples who conceive naturally and those who require medical assistance to do so.
• The Bench clarified that it was not “questioning the wisdom of Parliament” in imposing age limits or examining the validity of those restrictions but was confined to the issue of their retrospective application.

• It also held that the exemption would extend to cases where embryos were created and frozen before the commencement of the Act, even if implantation in the surrogate’s womb had not yet taken place.

• India to launch ‘Red List’ survey to assess extinction risks to plants and animals

Context: The goal of the project is to publish National Red Data Books on flora and fauna by 2030. India is set to conduct a first-of-its-kind assessment of nearly 11,000 species of plants and animals and assess how vulnerable they are to extinction.

• While India already lists endangered animals in various “schedules”, this proposed exercise, called the National Red List Assessment of Indian Flora and Fauna, will, according to officials, give the most accurate assessment of the threats faced and thereby, inform conservation measures. The exercise is expected to go on till 2030.
• The methodology adopted for the exercise will be as per that followed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, currently the global standard which lists species worldwide on the basis of the extinction threats.
• “The vision of the initiative is to establish a coordinated, science-based red listing system that accurately reflects the conservation status of Indian species.
• The project’s goal is to publish National Red Data Books on flora and fauna by 2030, forming a central resource for conservation planning and threat mitigation. With this, a pool of 300 certified assessors will be created within the country enhancing the capacity and expertise,” according to a statement from the Environment Ministry.
• “To fulfil our commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), India has launched the National Red List Assessment initiative, aligned with IUCN global standards,” said Kirtivardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment.
• Mr. Singh was leading an Indian delegation at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
• The project will be entirely funded using public funds, Pratyush Mahapatra, Scientist, Zoological Survey of India. The estimated budget is ₹95 crore.

• India rolls out pilot fore-com payments via ChatGPT

Context: The National Payments Corporation of India and fintech firm Razorpay have collaborated with Microsoft-backed OpenAI to introduce AI-driven payments on ChatGPT.

• The pilot will evaluate how the service can be expanded across verticals and how UPI can be used to enable AI agents with payment credentials “to autonomously complete transactions on behalf of users in a safe, secure, and user-controlled manner,” the companies said.

• NTPC REL, Gujarat govt. inkMoU for solar, wind projects
• NTPC Renewable Energy (NTPC REL), a wholly owned subsidiary of NTPC’s Green Energy arm, said that it had signed an MoU with the Gujarat government to develop solar parks and projects with a cumulative capacity of 10 GW and wind projects of 5 GW.
• At present, NTPC REL has four solar energy projects with a cumulative capacity of 2.36 GW, 3 wind energy projects of 354 MW and one 226 MW hybrid energy project in varied stages of implementation in Gujarat.

• PM pitches India’s fintech start-ups to Global South

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched India as a fintech hub for the Global South to “enhance digital cooperation and partnership across the world,” at an event where he shared the stage with Prime Minister of U.K. Keir Starmer, at Mumbai.

• Speaking at the last day of Global Fintech Fest 2025, Mr.Modi said, “India’s success in technology is not just for its own benefit — it is a beacon of hope for the Global South. India wishes to enhance digital cooperation and partnership across the world, sharing its experience and open-source frameworks as global public goods,” adding India’s AI journey also is to make it resilient, sustainable and inclusive.
• Echoing this, Mr.Starmer named four fintech companies — Razorpay, Cred, Paytm and Perfios — which plan to invest in the U.K. During his speech, he said he had come to India with a 126-member delegation of British businesses comprising who’s who of the Indian finance and technology sector.
• He further cited instances of such collaborations like the COVID vaccination programme in India, which was an outcome of Oxford, AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India collaboration.

Investment office

• The U.K. premier also said the country is set to open a dedicated investment office for fintech firms intending to enter the U.K. Mr. Starmer lauded the U.K.-India FTA as the largest post-Brexit deal for the U.K. India-U.K. bilateral trade is currently worth $56 billion and in five years, it needs to be doubled but the target can be reached earlier than that, said Mr. Modi.

• Centre eases PLI scheme rules for MMF industry

Context: The Ministry of Textiles has notified revisions to the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for MMF Apparel, MMF Fabrics, and products of technical textiles, reducing the minimum investment and turnover limits.

• A statement said applications received from August 1, apart from adding eight new products of manmade fibre (MMF) apparel and nine new varieties of MMF fabrics under the scheme, the minimum investment from the applicants should be ₹150 crore (for part one) and ₹50 crore (for part two) categories. It was ₹300 crore and ₹100 crore respectively earlier.

• Israel, Hamas agree to Trump-led ceasefire deal and hostage release

Context:  Israel’s Cabinet to meet to discuss the release plan, with the deal expected to be signed in Egypt after indirect negotiations; the deal follows a 20-point peace plan announced by Trump; Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich opposes the deal.

• Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire deal to free the remaining living hostages, in a major step towards ending a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe.
• Israel’s Cabinet will meet at 1500 GMT to discuss a plan for the release of all hostages, while a deal should be signed later on Thursday in Egypt, where indirect negotiations are under way.
• The agreement follows a 20-point peace plan for Gaza announced last month by U.S. President Donald Trump, under which Israel should withdraw from Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages.

• After more than two years of war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, the deal also envisions a surge of aid into Gaza, where the UN has declared famine.

• The Israeli army said it was preparing to pull back troops in Gaza, in line with the agreement, while the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the agreement would only take effect with Cabinet approval.

Smotrich opposes

• However, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he opposed the Gaza ceasefire deal, insisting that he would vote against it.
• “There is immense fear of the consequences of emptying the prisons and releasing the next generation of terrorist leaders who will do everything to continue to pour rivers of Jewish blood here, God forbid,” Mr. Smotrich said on X.
• “For this reason alone, we cannot join in short-sighted celebrations or vote in favour of the deal.”
• He added that the militant group must be destroyed following the return of hostages from Gaza.
• Mr. Trump’s plan also calls for the disarmament of Hamas and for Gaza to be ruled by a transitional authority headed by the U.S. President himself, though these points have yet to be addressed in any discussions.
• A source within Hamas said the group will exchange 20 living hostages all at the same time for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal’s first phase, with the swap to happen within 72 hours of its implementation.

• László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature

Context: Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”.

• The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art,” Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel committee said at the announcement.
• “László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through [Franz] Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.
• Several works, including his debut, “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.
• Mr. Krasznahorkai, 71, could not immediately be reached for his reaction. He did not speak at the announcement. He was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and has since travelled the world. Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.
• Mr. Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
• But in a post on Facebook, Mr. Orbán was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”
• Mr. Krasznahorkai has received many awards, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.
• Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

• China outlines curbs on exports of rare earths, technology

Context: China outlined new curbs on exports of rare earths and related technologies, extending controls over use of the elements critical for many products ahead of a meeting later this month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

• The regulations announced by the Ministry of Commerce require foreign companies to get special approval to export items that contain even small traces of rare earths elements sourced from China.
• Beijing also will impose permitting requirements on exports of technologies related to rare earths mining, smelting, recycling and magnet-making, it said.
• China accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s rare earths mining. It also controls roughly 90% of global rare earths processing.

• UN to cut 25% of its global peacekeeping force in response to U.S. funding strains

Context: The United Nations will begin slashing its peacekeeping force and operations, forcing thousands of soldiers in the next several months to evacuate far-flung global hotspots as a result of the latest U.S. funding cuts to the world body, a senior UN official said.

• The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting, briefed presspersons on the 25% reduction in peacekeepers worldwide as the United States, the largest UN donor, makes changes to align with President Donald Trump’s “America First” vision.
• Roughly 13,000 to 14,000 military and police personnel out of more than 50,000 peacekeepers deployed across nine global missions will be sent back to their home countries.
• The decision to institute a major overhaul of the peacekeeping force — known globally for their distinctive blue berets or helmets — followed a meeting on Tuesday between UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and representatives from major donor countries, including Mike Waltz, the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

• ‘Russia’s gas supplies down by 20% after Ukrainian attacks’

Context:  Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities may have reduced gasoline supplies in Russia by up to a fifth, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as both sides step up attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure.

• With diplomatic efforts to end the war largely stalled and little movement along the fiercely contested front line, Russian forces have focused on crippling Ukrainian gas production while Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil refining capacity.
• “This still needs to be verified, but we believe that they’ve lost up to 20% of their gasoline supply — directly as a result of our strikes,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in remarks to presspersons released on Thursday.
• However, the Kremlin has said that Russia’s domestic fuel market is fully supplied.

• What are the various electoral forms?

Context: The Election Commission (EC) has just concluded the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. It proposes to roll it out in other States in a phased manner.

What is the current significance?

• Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RP Act), deals with the preparation and revision of electoral rolls. A summary revision is carried out before each general election or by-election in any constituency. The RP Act also authorises the EC to carry out a special revision of the electoral roll at any time.
• The EC, through its order dated June 24, had decided to conduct SIR for the entire country. Since the Bihar Assembly elections are due in November, the Commission issued guidelines for the SIR of the Bihar electoral roll, with July 1 as the qualifying date.
• The SIR process in Bihar involved submission of enumeration forms by all registered voters, submission of any eligible documents to prove citizenship (for electors registered after 2003), publication of draft electoral rolls based on forms submitted, a period for filing claims and objections, verification and disposal of claims and objections by the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO), and publication of final roll.
• The SIR process was challenged in the Supreme Court. In its interim orders, the court had directed the EC to accept Aadhaar as one of the eligible documents to be submitted along with the enumeration forms as proof of identity. The final roll for Bihar was released by the EC on September 30. The Commission proposes to complete the SIR process for the entire country in a phased manner based on the Assembly election schedules for various States.

What are the various forms?

• In the present context, it is important for citizens to be aware of the various forms that deal with electoral rolls. These forms are provided in the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 (RER).
• A brief summary of all the important forms as per RER is provided in the Table given above. It also contains detailed guidelines for filling out the application with respect to each of these forms.

What should citizens do?

• There are political arguments both for and against the SIR exercise as carried out in Bihar. However, clean electoral rolls are paramount for the conduct of free and fair elections, which is essential for our functioning democracy. The EC would hopefully devise a more spread-out schedule in future SIRs that provides adequate time for hassle-free participation by voters. The list of eligible documents is also likely to include Aadhaar as proof of identity, in subsequent SIRs as per the Supreme Court directive.
• Meanwhile, citizens should ensure that they verify the published draft rolls. They should fill out the enumeration forms as required.
• New voters and electors who have migrated to different constituencies should fill out the relevant forms. Political parties and civil society groups should assist citizens, especially the most marginalised sections, throughout the process. This would ensure a clean electoral roll without compromising on the right to vote of every eligible citizen