Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-II: India and its neighbourhood- relations, and Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
What’s the ongoing story: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi met Friday and discussed “management of peace and tranquillity in border areas”, resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, flight connectivity and trans border rivers.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What are the border issues between India and China relationship?
— What is G20? What is the importance of G20 for India?
— What are the areas of cooperation and conflict between India and China?
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— How India and China cooperation can strengthen G20, BROCS and SCO?
Key Takeaways:
— Meeting on the sidelines of the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers in Johannesburg Jaishankar and Wang held talks amid diplomatic efforts between the two countries to address bilateral issues and regional challenges.
— The meeting comes at a time when India and China are trying to repair bilateral ties which dived in the wake of Chinese incursions along the LAC in May 2020 and led to a military standoff. The disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh signalled moves to look at the road ahead.
— “India and China are members of the G20, SCO and BRICS. There are also regional and global issues of mutual interest, where an exchange of perspectives will be to our mutual benefit,” he said.
Do You Know:
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— Kanti Bajpai writes: Economically, India and China need each other. India’s economy is stubbornly stuck on a 30-year growth path of 7 per cent per annum. China’s economy is languishing at 5 per cent per annum and could further slow down.
— To grow, Indian businesses desperately need Chinese products including in many key areas like pharmaceuticals, electronics, and also infrastructure. As for Chinese businesses, they need to diversify in a world where Western protectionism against them is growing. Looking ahead, India is a potentially huge market for China.
— Politically, both Delhi and Beijing must constantly worry about Washington. Despite all the bonhomie between India and the US, differences abound: Over immigration, trade, relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh…
— China must also worry about America’s “naming and shaming” of Beijing’s policies in Tibet and Xinjiang. In short, India and China face a common challenge — how to enhance their bargaining power with the US. One way is to signal to Washington that they have other strategic choices and partners if pushed too hard.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
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📍India and China need each other. But will the detente last?
📍On India-China ties, Delhi takes one step forward, two steps back
UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(1) ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is sometimes mentioned in the news in the context of the affairs of (2016)
(a) African Union
(b) Brazil
(c) European Union
(d) China
UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
‘China is using its economic relations and positive trade surplus as tools to develop potential military power status in Asia’, In the light of this statement, discuss its impact on India as her neighbor. (2017)
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EXPLAINED
Why LNG is central to the future expansion of India-Qatar trade
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
General Studies-III: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
What’s the ongoing story: The India-Qatar trade relationship has predominantly been fueled by New Delhi’s heavy imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), of which Doha is India’s largest supplier. With the two countries now aiming to double bilateral trade over the next five years, LNG, or super-chilled gas, is likely to play a pivotal role in that endeavour as well.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is the significance of Qatar for India?
— Why is India dependent on oil imports from other countries?
— How can India balance its trade deficit with Qatar?
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— What are the other areas of cooperation between India and Qatar?
— Why is India’s LNG dependence increasing?
— What is GCC?
Key Takeaways:
— The reason: India’s LNG imports are expected to surge over the next five years as the country’s natural gas consumption is set to grow significantly. The expected growth in imports would coincide with Qatar expanding its LNG export capacity.
— The recent state visit of Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani saw New Delhi and Doha setting a target to double bilateral trade to around $28 billion a year by 2030, apart from elevating the bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership.
— LNG imports accounted for 50 per cent of India’s overall imports from Qatar, which totalled $11.49 billion in the first 11 months of 2024. Notably, other major imports were also fossil fuel-linked commodities and products like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), crude oil, plastics, and other petrochemicals. By contrast, India’s exports to Qatar during the 11-month period totalled just $1.61 billion.
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— India’s largest LNG importer Petronet LNG has a long-term contract with Qatar for 7.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG, which only last year was extended till 2048.
— The Indian government has set an ambitious target to increase the share of natural gas in the country’s primary energy mix to 15 per cent by 2030 from a little over 6 per cent at present, which is bound to result in a rapid increase in LNG imports over the next few years.
— According to Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), India’s natural gas consumption is seen rising nearly 60 per cent over 2023 levels to 103 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2030, while LNG imports are set to more than double between 2023 and 2030 to 65 bcm a year, driven by steady demand growth and a much slower rise in domestic production.
— Over the coming years, the US is expected to be Qatar’s biggest competitor for LNG market share in India. The US, which is the world’s largest LNG exporter, is currently India’s second-largest source of super-chilled gas.
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Do You Know:
— The Cooperation Council for the Arab Gulf States, often called the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is one of the most important regional organisations in the Gulf and the wider Middle East region.
— The six member states of the GCC, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, came together in 1981 to form the regional grouping in the light of the tumultuous politics at the time to develop collective mechanisms to deal with political, security and economic challenges facing the member states.
— The GCC countries are home to one of the largest expatriate Indian communities in the world, estimated at 8.5 million, and this is the largest concentration of its citizens outside India.
— The GCC is also one of the largest trading blocs of India’s foreign trade. For example, in 2023-24, the bilateral trade between India and GCC was US$161.82 billion comprising 14.22 percent of India’s total foreign trade.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍India-GCC relations: From historical bonds to strategic dialogue
UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(2) Which of the following is not a member of ‘Gulf Cooperation Council’? (2016)
(a) Iran
(c) Oman
(b) Saudi Arabia
(d) Kuwait
UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
The question of India’s Energy Security constitutes the most important part of India’s economic progress. Analyse India’s energy policy cooperation with West Asian countries. (2017)
Can Ex-gratia be paid in cash? Here’s what the rules say
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance – Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues
Mains Examination: General Studies-II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
What’s the ongoing story: The disbursal of ex-gratia compensation to the next of kin of those who died in the stampede at the New Delhi railway station last week has raised eyebrows, specifically with regards to the mode of payment.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is ex-gratia?
— How is ex-gratia different from compensation?
— How have different government departments approached ex-gratia payments in past incidents?
— How does the distribution of ex-gratia payments reflect the ethical principles of justice, equity, and compassion in public administration?
— What are the issues of crowd mismanagement?
Key Takeaways:
— Ex-gratia payments are payments made out of moral — not legal — obligation. For instance, ex-gratia payment by the government after a tragedy, such as the one which occurred in New Delhi last Saturday, shows its goodwill, and does not involve admitting any liability or wrongdoing.
— Compensations, on the other hand, are made out of a legal obligation. They are reparatory payments made to reimburse or make amends for the loss of life, property, or livelihood, among other things.
— While disbursal of ex-gratia payment in cash is not common, there are no strict government-issued guidelines on the mode of such disbursals.
— “[Payment] is made in cash because the families usually do not have bank details in hand or some of the victims do not have bank accounts… The station master has the power to order the withdrawal of money [from the official account], which is then disbursed by the Commerce Department,” railways officials say.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍New Delhi railway station stampede: Postmortem reports reveal cause of deaths
EDITORIAL
Powering America
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
What’s the ongoing story: Sanjaya Baru writes: Irony lies in the fact that a large number of President Donald Trump’s supporters may well come from families that first migrated to the US when they were no different from today’s desperately aspirational Indians seeking entry by any means into that land of opportunity.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is the issue of illegal migration? What is India’s stand on illegal migration?
— What is the Dunki route?
— What are the areas of cooperation and conflicts between India and the USA relationship?
— What is the issue of H-1B visa?
— What is the history of American colonisation?
Key Takeaways:
— The only difference lies in the fact that Europe colonised and populated the Americas when migration was a natural phenomenon.
— The ongoing debate on the legality of migration is shaped by the fact that middle-class India desperately seeks visas for legal migration and worries that the focus on illegal migrants may not only tar the image of the Indian American but also reduce opportunities for legal migration.
— Two facts have been missed in much of the popular response to illegal migration. First, the deportees from the US have not broken any Indian law. Their action of entering the United States without a visa is a crime only…
— A second, and far more important fact is that the Americas are what they are because of human migration, legal and illegal. Over the past half-century, the US economy has been powered by talented and skilled migrants across social classes from across East Asia, South Asia, Europe and Africa.
— With President Trump repeatedly focusing attention on tariff differentials between the US and India and accusing India of unfair trade practices, it is time that Indian economists developed a more comprehensive estimate of the nature of the economic relationship between India and the US.
— India needs to put forward a more robust defence of its trade and industrial policies also in order to push back on the US attempt to use its complaints against India to push for increased defence sales.
Do You Know:
— Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump held a bilateral meeting at the White House last week. Key Takeways:
— Transforming Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology (TRUST) initiative: Taking forward the Biden administration’s Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), India and the US decided to rename it and launch the US-India TRUST initiative.
— It aims to catalyse collaboration among governments, academia and the private sector to drive innovation in defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, energy and space.
— Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance: It refers to India-US cooperation in the area of underwater domain awareness technologies. The US has offered a few co-production and co-development opportunities for UDA technologies, on a commercial basis. India is the very first country with whom US defence industry has offered to work with on these sensitive technologies.
— US-India COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st century: Under this initiative, they committed to drive transformative change across key pillars of cooperation – defence, investment and trade, energy security, technology and innovation, multilateral cooperation, people to people connection.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍UPSC Issue at a Glance | PM Modi’s US Visit: 4 Key Questions You Must Know for Prelims and Mains
📍UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week
UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
‘What introduces friction into the ties between India and the United States is that Washington is still unable to find for India a position in its global strategy, which would satisfy India’s National self-esteem and ambitions’. Explain with suitable examples. (2019)
A law weaponised
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-I: Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India
What’s the ongoing story: Yashaswini Basu writes: This couple from Bhopal had approached a local court in the city to notify their intention to marry as per the requirements of the Special Marriage Act, 1954. But their stepping stone to a life of togetherness was ruthlessly interrupted by a group of vigilantes who stormed into the court complex and beat the male partner up.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is the Special Marriage Act?
— What is the UCC?
— How is the Right to Privacy protected by the Constitution?
— Do you think marriage as a sacrament is loosing its value in Modern India?
Key Takeaways:
— The clampdown on interfaith couples is no longer novel in the contemporary context. Mired in the blanket term, “love jihad”, almost every Muslim-Hindu marriage is assumed to be an act of religious coercion or indoctrination.
— The Act facilitated any man above the age of 21 years and any woman above the age of 18 years, who don’t have any other living spouses and are capable of consenting to marriage, to legally solemnise their marriage.
— But, this Act demands a peculiar formality: The intending couples must give notice to their relevant marriage registrar a month before their desired date of marriage and within this period, anyone can raise objections to the marriage.
— While the caveats to such notice must be grounded on either partner’s ineligibility to marry, the danger this publicly accessible notice brews is that the couple’s privacy gets severely compromised.
— In the landmark judgment of Justice K.S Puttaswamy vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court had ordained the right to privacy as inalienable to human existence.
Do You Know:
— The Special Marriage Act of 1954 (SMA) was passed by the Parliament on October 9, 1954. It governs a civil marriage where the state sanctions the marriage rather than the religion.
— Issues of personal law such as marriage, divorce, adoption are governed by religious laws that are codified. These laws, such as the Muslim Marriage Act, 1954, and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, require either spouse to convert to the religion of the other before marriage.
— However, the SMA enables marriage between inter-faith or inter-caste couples without them giving up their religious identity or resorting to conversion.
— The Indian system, where both civil and religious marriages are recognised, is similar to the laws in the UK’s Marriage Act of 1949. An earlier version of the SMA was enacted in 1872 and was later re-enacted in 1954 with provisions for divorce etc.
— The applicability of the Act extends to the people of all faiths, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists, across India. The minimum age to get married under the SMA is 21 years for males and 18 years for females.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍What is the Act, how does it work, what is the notice period?
📍Knowledge nugget of the day: Right to Privacy
UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(3) Which Article of the Constitution of India safeguards one’s right to marry the person of one’s choice? (2019)
(a) Article 19
(b) Article 21
(c) Article 25
(d) Article 29
UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
How does Indian society maintain continuity in traditional social values? Enumerate the changes taking place in it. (2021)
THE IDEAS PAGE
The missing growth strategy
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc
Mains Examination: General Studies-III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation, of resources, growth, development, and employment.
What’s the ongoing story: Ishan Bakshi writes: In 2007, India joined the ranks of middle-income countries, classified, to be precise, as a lower middle-income economy. Almost 18 years later, it remains in that category.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is the lower-middle income trap and why has India remained a lower middle-income economy for nearly two decades?
— How do regional disparities in per capita income impact India’s overall economic growth strategy?
— What role do Production-Linked Incentives (PLIs) play in boosting manufacturing and services in India’s western and southern states?
— Why is export-led growth crucial for India’s transition to a high-income economy, and what challenges might hinder this?
— How does the disconnect between political power and economic power in India influence the formulation of national economic policies?
Key Takeaways:
— Over these years, the country’s per capita income has risen from $1,022 to about $2,700. Some have argued that if a country remains a lower middle-income economy for 28 years — in India’s case that would mean a decade more — then it is caught in a lower middle-income trap.
— The per capita income now required to join the ranks of upper-middle-income countries is $4,516. Moving up to this category does seem possible in a decade, though not by the end of this decade. The IMF expects India’s per capita income to touch $4,195 by 2029.
— For India to reach a per capita income in excess of $10,000, the current growth structure necessarily requires western and southern states to have higher levels of per capita income, attaining high-income status years before.
— With more job opportunities in these regions, labour, across the skill spectrum, and capital should continue to flow to these states. This could help keep wages under check and ensure steady access to capital, possibly allowing them to maintain their competitiveness.
— At the same time, for the vast majority of states, where the bulk of the country’s population resides, moving up from the low-income category — like Bihar with an average income of $729 — or moving towards the upper middle-income levels — for states like Chhattisgarh ($1,780), West Bengal ($1,861) and Odisha ($1,970) — will be a difficult journey.
— Thus, India’s development challenge, as some have also argued, exists at two levels. One, to ensure that the western and southern states do not get trapped in the middle-income trap. And two, to see to it that the poorer states grow rapidly. This will necessarily involve operating across the entire smile curve — engaging in both low and high-value-added activities.
Do You Know:
— What should be the strategy to become a developed country in the next two decades? Analysts are considering redesigning industrial policy in light of ongoing global developments. After World War II, many East Asian countries adopted an export-led growth strategy and made rapid progress. In contrast, although India’s share in world exports was also 0.6 per cent in 1970, it only increased to 2.5 per cent by 2022.
— The strategy should be multi-dimensional: Emphasise exports, services, manufacturing, agriculture etc. It would be useful to identify our “sunrise” industries. For example, the food processing industry may be given high priority as it is labour-intensive, helps agriculture and has export demand.
— Another critical issue is the creation of adequate jobs. The impact of technological changes means a reduction in the absorption of labour per unit of output.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍For India to become ‘developed’ by 2047, here’s what we need to do
📍In 2025, where growth will come from
Mains Question Covering similar theme:
Discuss the challenges and policy measures required to ensure balanced economic growth, particularly for low-income states like Bihar and Odisha, while preventing middle-income traps in more prosperous states like Telangana and Karnataka.
THE BIG PICTURE
The great tech rush: After DeepSeek wake-up call, how India plans to get a seat at AI high table
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-III: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
What’s the ongoing story: Over the last couple of years, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and many more — all examples of what are known as Large Language Models (LLMs) — have given people a glimpse into the possibilities that AI was always believed to have. These LLMs have shown an exceptional proficiency to ‘understand’, and interact with, human languages in a meaningful way, considered an extremely difficult task for computers.
Key Points to Ponder:
— Understand the terms and types associated with the AI
— How AI can be applied in healthcare, policy implementation, and the education sector?
— What are the steps taken by India to integrate AI in different sectors?
— What is India’s AI Mission?
— What are the concerns related to the AI?
Key Takeaways:
— Language proficiency is just one capability. There are other fields in which AI is making a profound difference. For example, an AI-based tool called AlphaFold has shown such a remarkable ability in predicting protein structures.
— AI is currently one of the most coveted technologies. The recent release of DeepSeek, a Chinese LLM built at a fraction of the cost of its American rivals whose domination of the technology had remained unchallenged till then, was described by many as a “Sputnik moment” — the beginning of a new age of technology war, reminiscent of the space wars between the US and the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s.
— LLMs are a good example of foundational models as they can handle language-related tasks — engage in a conversation, summarise large texts, prepare notes, write computer programmes or even generate poems on demand.
— For now, the big race among nations and corporations is to develop their own foundational models as building applications on top of someone else’s model can bring in layers of vulnerabilities. For example, models trained on global datasets often lack local nuances and can insert foreign biases, thereby producing unwanted or erroneous results.
— In applications related to defence or national security, a foreign model always carries potential dangers of sabotage, leaks of sensitive data or uncertainties over updates. On the other hand, home-grown models can spur innovation across sectors, and can result in the establishment of an AI ecosystem.
— Shortage of GPUs, currently in high demand and short supply, is a big challenge. While the AI Mission seeks to procure at least 10,000 of these chips, some researchers feel there is lack of expertise to run these clusters.
Do You Know:
— Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines, especially computers, to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include things like understanding language, recognising patterns, solving problems, and making decisions.
— AI can be classified into two types: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) also known as weak AI and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) also referred to as strong AI.
— ANI is designed for specific tasks and excels within a narrow domain. Examples include virtual assistants like Siri, recommendation systems on platforms like Netflix, and image recognition software.
— In contrast, AGI aims to replicate human cognitive abilities, enabling it to perform any intellectual task a human can do. AGI would possess general reasoning skills, understand context, and adapt to new situations across various domains.
— Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) are subsets of AI but differ in complexity and capabilities. ML involves training algorithms to learn from data and make predictions and often requires manual feature extraction.
— DL, a subset of ML, uses neural networks with many layers (hence “deep”) to automatically learn features from large datasets. While ML works well with smaller datasets, DL requires vast amounts of data and computational power.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍UPSC Issue at a Glance | DeepSeek breakthrough: 4 Key Questions You Must Know for Prelims and Mains
📍What is Artificial Intelligence, how is it revolutionising healthcare
UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does Al help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of Al in healthcare? (2023)
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| PRELIMS ANSWER KEY |
| 1. (d) 2. (a) 3. (b) |
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