UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | December 1 to December 7, 2025

Art & Culture

The 26th edition of the Hornbill Festival, which began Monday and is being organised with a budget of Rs 7 crore by the tourism department, is the first since the re-imposition.

• Hornbill Festival

— The 26th edition of the Hornbill Festival began in Nagaland on 1st December. Often referred to as the “Festival of Festivals,” the Hornbill Festival is one of the most iconic cultural events in Nagaland.

— The festival is named after the Great Hornbill which is found in primarily evergreen and moist deciduous forests, primarily inhabiting the canopy of tall trees.

— It is classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN and is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.

— In India, Greater Hornbills are found in the Western Ghats and the Himalayas. It is the state bird of Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala.

• New Geographical Indications (GI) tag from Tamil Nadu

— Five Products from Tamil Nadu secured GI tags, taking the states total to 74.

— These products are: Woraiyur cotton sari, Kavindapadi nattu sakkarai (jaggery powder), Namakkal makkal pathirangal (soapstone cookware), the traditional Thooyamalli rice variety and Ambasamudram choppu saman (wooden toys).

 

Events

• International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) 2025

— Every year, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) is marked globally on December 3 to promote the rights and well-being of people with disabilities at every level of society and development.

— It was first celebrated annually in 1992, following its proclamation by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 47/3.

— The theme for this year is “fostering disability-inclusive societies for advancing social progress”.

• Navy Day 2025

— December 4 is annually celebrated as India’s Navy Day. December 4 marks Operation Trident, when the Indian Navy inflicted heavy damage on Pakistani vessels in Karachi harbour amid the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

— Interestingly, the date behind the commemoration has changed over time. On October 21, 1944, the Royal Indian Navy held its first Navy Day. By 1945, it was celebrated in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Karachi on December 1. After Indian Independence and until 1972, it was marked on 15 December.

A cheetah mother is on the lookout. (Express archives)

• International Cheetah Day

— Every year, December 4 is marked as International Cheetah Day to raise awareness about the shrinking Cheetah population.

— In 2022, India launched the Project Cheetah to introduce African cheetahs into India from Namibia and South Africa. Initially, 20 cheetahs were imported from the two countries.

— India was home to Asiatic cheetahs, and not the African subspecies that were introduced in 2022. The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List and is believed to survive only in Iran. While African Cheetah is listed as a vulnerable (VU) species on the IUCN Red List.

• Kashi Tamil Sangamam 4.0

— The Kashi Tamil Sangamam, carrying forward the cultural and civilisational link between Tamil Nadu and Kashi, began in Varanasi on 2nd December.

— This year’s theme is “Let Us Learn Tamil – Tamil Karkalam,” placing Tamil language learning and linguistic unity at the centre of the Sangamam.

— Organised by the Education Ministry, the first edition was held in 2022. This year’s programme involves teachers traveling from Tamil Nadu to Varanasi to teach Tamil to school students there. Students from Uttar Pradesh will also visit Tamil Nadu to learn the language at educational institutions in the State.

 

Polity

• Sanchar Saathi

— The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has formally withdrawn the directive asking smartphone makers to preinstall the state-developed cybersecurity app on all new and existing devices.

— The Sanchar Saathi portal was launched in 2023, and the mobile application in June 2025, to empower users to secure their devices and report fraud.

— What the Sanchar Saathi app does:

* Allows tracking and blocking of lost or stolen phones anywhere in India, based on the IMEI of the phones.

* Gives users the option to block lost or stolen mobile phones

* Can assist police authorities in tracing stolen or lost devices, which can potentially prevent counterfeit phones from entering the black market.

* Chakshu option allows users to report suspected fraud communications via calls, SMS, or platforms like WhatsApp.

• SIM Binding

— Recently, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has directed online messaging platforms to bar users from accessing their services without the SIM card used to register for the application. Technically, it is called SIM Binding.

— SIM binding is a process where a messaging app verifies that the registered SIM card remains active in your device. If the SIM is removed, replaced, or deactivated, the app will stop functioning.

— The department has said that the directive is a way to combat rising digital fraud in the country. These directives were sent to companies like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Arattai, Snapchat, Sharechat, Jiochat, and Josh.

— Drawing its powers from the Telecommunication Cybersecurity Amendment Rules, 2025, which were notified in October this year, the DoT has brought digital service providers under its oversight by classifying them as telecommunication identifier user entities (TIUEs).

— A TIUE is defined as “a person, other than a licensee or authorised entity, which uses telecommunication identifiers for the identification of its customers or users, or for provisioning, or delivery of services.”

• Masala Bonds

— The adjudicating authority of the Enforcement Directorate has served show cause notices to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with others in connection with alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violations pertaining to the Masala Bond issued by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB).

— Masala Bonds are rupee-denominated bonds i.e. the funds would be raised from the overseas market in Indian rupees. According to RBI FAQ, any corporate, body corporate, and Indian bank is eligible to issue rupee-denominated bonds overseas.

— FEMA came in 1999 as a successor to the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act or FERA of 1973, with changing economic conditions in a post-liberalisation India. The ACt provides for cross-border transactions, foreign investments, and remittances, making India’s economy more global, transparent, and investor-friendly.

 

International Cooperation

President Murmu received Russian President Putin upon his arrival at Rashtrapati Bhavan (X/@rashtrapatibhvn)

• India-Russia Annual Summit

— Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India for the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit from December 4-5. It is the highest institutionalised dialogue mechanism in the strategic partnership between India and Russia. So far, 22 Annual Summits have taken place alternatively in India and Russia. The first India-Russia Annual Summit took place in New Delhi in October 2000, during the state visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Key outcomes:

— The two sides inked 16 pacts, ranging from health to maritime cooperation, fertiliser to customs, academic to media collaboration. Defence and nuclear energy cooperation dominated discussions.

— India and Russia signed two pacts on the movement of workers, one aimed at curbing illegal immigration and the other at facilitating labour mobility.

— India and Russia on Friday reiterated their commitments to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion from the current level of $70 billion and boost settlements using their domestic currencies.

— Both Sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the field of combating such common challenges and threats such as terrorism, extremism transnational organized crime, money laundering, terrorist financing and illicit drug trafficking.

— On the matter of Russia and Ukraine, PM Modi said, “India is not neutral, India is on the side of peace” and “we support all efforts towards peace”. Also, the two leaders did not mention the word “war” or “conflict”, and referred to the Ukraine situation as a “crisis”.

• WHO guidelines to combat obesity crisis

— The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released its first guidelines on the use of a new class of GLP-1 medicines to combat the obesity crisis.

— The WHO recommended long-term use of these medicines for obesity but added that those prescribed these medicines should also undergo intensive behavioural therapy as part of a multi-pronged approach to treating obesity.

— The recommendation is not strong owing to the lack of data on long-term use of the medicines.

— There are currently one billion people living with obesity across the world, including 188 million school-aged children and adolescents. If nothing is done to address the crisis, it is estimated that the numbers will double by 2030

 

Environment

• TERI study flags high surfactants level in the Yamuna 

— A new study by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has identified multiple hotspots along the Delhi stretch of the Yamuna river where untreated sewage, industrial effluents and solid waste are contributing to high surfactant levels, ammonia and microplastics in the river.

— During winter times, the Yamuna’s flow naturally dips resulting in more concentration of pollutants in the river, making the annual frothing more visible.

— When untreated sewage including detergent-rich wastewater with high concentrations of surfactants enters the river, they get vigorously agitated as the water falls over barrages. The turbulence traps air and reduces the water’s surface tension, causing bubbles to form quickly and accumulate as thick, persistent foam.

— According to Sciencedirect, “Surfactants are molecules that reduce interfacial energy and increase solubility of other pollutants in water.” It reduces the surface tension of the liquid which allows it to mix with oil or water which it normally wouldn’t.

— Delhi-based environmental activist Pankaj Kumar said the continued absence of any regulatory cap on surfactants is rendering even upgraded treatment plants ineffective in tackling foam formation.

The rock eagle owl is a Schedule I animal, on the endangered list. Adept at camouflage, it is hard to spot. (Express)

• Rock Eagle Owl

— Recently, quarrying was halted at Telengana quarry and visitors to the area were also restricted to ensure that the Rock Eagle owl’s eggs are not disturbed before they hatch

— The rock eagle owl is a Schedule I animal, on the endangered list. Adept at camouflage, it is hard to spot. It’s harder still to spot its nest.

— The rock eagle owl or Indian eagle-owl (Bubo bengalensis), also called the Bengal eagle-owl, is a large-horned owl species native to hilly scrub forests in India. It is usually brown and grey in colour, with a white throat patch that has black stripes.

Science and Technology

• Alaknanda Galaxy 

— The Pune-based researchers have discovered a well-defined spiral galaxy, remarkably similar in structure to our own Milky Way — the kind of galaxy supposed to have evolved much later.

— They have named it Alaknanda, after the Himalayan river. A striking thing about Alaknanda is its textbook spiral structure. The galaxy has two well-defined spiral arms wrapping around a bright central bulge, spanning approximately 30,000 light-years in diameter.

— According to the current understanding of scientists, the earliest formed galaxies did not have well-defined structures, were chaotic and clumpy, extremely hot and turbulent. But Alaknanda is nothing like that.

— The discovery was made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful piece of observation equipment put into space, which was launched in 2021.

• GPS Spoofing

— Incidents of GPS or GNSS interference, primarily jamming and spoofing of the signals, have seen a surge in recent years, raising concerns regarding safe and efficient flight operations globally.

— In the context of aircraft, GNSS interference can broadly be classified into two categories—jamming and spoofing. Put simply, jamming involves overpowering GNSS receivers with strong radio interference, making the equipment GNSS-based navigation unusable for some time.

— Spoofing is a lot more serious than jamming, or a disruption in signals. GNSS or GPS spoofing is a deliberate act that involves transmitting counterfeit lookalike signals to deceive the receiver into believing that the aircraft position or time, or both, are not what they are supposed to be.

— This could cause abnormal behavior by certain aircraft systems, and unwarranted warnings—like that of terrain or low altitude—being sounded in the cockpit. Spoofing essentially tells the aircraft that it is where it is not supposed to be, and can create confusion in the cockpit.

• Fighter aircraft escape system

— The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has conducted a successful high-speed rocket-sled test of a fighter aircraft escape system at controlled velocity. The technical achievement places India in an elite club of nations with advanced in-house escape system testing capability.

— The test was carried out at the Rail Track Rocket Sled (RTRS) facility of the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL), a key DRDO facility in Chandigarh. It was conducted in collaboration with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the Ministry of Defence and public sector entity Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

— The rocket sled is a ground-based testing system, which is propelled by rockets to climb to high speeds while moving on rail tracks, simulating the aerodynamic conditions of an aircraft in flight.

— It involved dynamic ejection tests that are significantly more complex than static tests, which occur with the aircraft stationary or at zero altitude and zero speed.

— It is a major strategic milestone because until now, India has had to rely upon test ecosystems abroad to evaluate the performance of the ejection mechanisms. Sources have said that the indigenous tests cost between one-fourth and one-fifth as much as the tests conducted abroad.

— Possessing an in-house dynamic ejection-testing facility boosts India’s ability to design, certify, and upgrade ejection systems for both current and future fighter platforms.

Since its discovery in July, 3I/ATLAS has fascinated researchers as a confirmed interstellar object, likely originating from a distant, unidentified stellar system in the Milky Way. (Image: NASA)

• 3I/ATLAS

— The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is releasing a remarkable amount of carbon-based chemicals, with new observations showing unusually high levels of methanol.

— Methanol is central to early prebiotic chemistry and never previously detected in an object arriving from outside our solar system. Although it is a simple carbon-based compound, it acts as a crucial building block for more complex molecules tied to the origins of life.

— Comets or “dirty snowballs” are mostly made of dust, rocks and ice, the remnants from time the solar system was formed over 4.6 billion years ago. In the distant past, people thought of comets as “long-haired” stars that would appear unpredictably in the sky.

— So far, three known interstellar comets have been identified. These are: Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and 3I/ATLAS.

— Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-uh-MOO-uh), whose name refers in the native Hawaiian language to a messenger arriving from a great distance, was first detected by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope in 2017.

 

Defence

• Indian Maritime Doctrine 2025

— On 2nd December, the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh Tripathi released the Indian Maritime Doctrine 2025 on Navy Day, with the Service formally recognising “no-war, no-peace” as a distinct category between peace and conflict for the first time.

— The Indian Maritime Doctrine is the Navy’s apex guidance document, laying down the principles that govern its strategy, roles and employment across the full spectrum of conflict.

— First released in 2004, revised in 2009 and amended in 2015, the 2025 edition reflects major shifts in India’s maritime environment and strategic outlook over the past decade.

Persons in News

(Just FYI: Noting historical personalities’ anniversaries aids UPSC prep. UPSC often includes such personalities in questions, so revisiting their lives refreshes your static syllabus.)

Dr Tessy Thomas

• Dr Tessy Thomas 

— Renowned aerospace engineer who helped shape the country’s strategic missile programme, Dr Tessy Thomas, was honoured with the eighth Paulos Mar Gregorios Award 2025. The award recognises her “outstanding contribution in women empowerment, space and missile technology”.

— The award was instituted in the memory of Paulos Mar Gregorios, the scholar, theologian and former President of the World Council of Churches.

• Siddhi Jain

— Siddhi Jain became the first female cadet to be awarded the President’s Medal for overall order of merit. She was selected for the 149th course of the National Defence Academy (NDA) as part of the second batch of female cadets.

— Women’s entry into the NDA became possible after an interim order passed by the Supreme Court in August 2021 while hearing a plea seeking directions to allow eligible women to appear for the NDA and Indian Naval Academy examinations conducted by the UPSC.

•  CEC Gyanesh Kumar

— Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar took over as the 2026 chair of International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), a Sweden-based intergovernmental organisation. India assumed the annual Chairship from the 2025 Chair, Switzerland

— International IDEA is an intergovernmental organization (IGO) with a mandate to support sustainable democracy worldwide. India has been a member since 1995. The organisation includes 35 democratic countries and two observer nations.

US President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center last Friday. (AP Photo)

• Donald Trump

— US President Donald Trump has been given the inaugural FIFA peace prize at the 2026 World Cup draw in Washington.

— FIFA says the new peace prize is meant for “individuals who help unite people in peace through commitment and special actions”. However, the details of the selection process have not been made public.

 

Places in News

(Just FYI: The location of the place is important, considering that UPSC has asked several questions about places that were in the news, such as Aleppo and Kirkuk, in the 2018 UPSC Prelims. The best way to remember them is to plot them on a world map.)

• Seva Teerth

— The new complex housing the Prime Minister’s Office will be called ‘Seva Teerth. The new PMO, constructed as a part of the government’s Central Vista redevelopment project, is nearing completion and the PMO is likely to shift from South Block to the new complex soon.

— The complex, named ‘Seva Teerth’, comprises three buildings for the PMO, the Cabinet Secretariat and the National Security Council Secretariat.

A lamp lit at Thiruparankundram temple as part of ‘Karthigai Deepam’ festival celebrations, in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (PTI Photo)

• Thiruparankundram hill, Madurai, Tamil Nadu

— On December 1, Madras High Court ordered temple authorities to light the ceremonial  “Karthigai Deepam” lamp at the Deepathoon — a stone pillar located on the lower peak of Thirupparankundram Hill — near but not within the Sulthan Sikkandar Avulia Dargah premises.

— For centuries, Thiruparankundram hill has been regarded as a centre of religious coexistence and communal harmony, with it housing the historic Subramaniya Swamy Temple, the Kasi Viswanathar Temple, as well as the Sikkander Badusha Dargah — a 17th-century mosque built long after the temples came into existence.

— Thiruparankundram was at the centre of controversy earlier this year, after some Muslim groups demanded that the hill be renamed Sikkandar Hill.

 

Test Your Knowledge

(Note: The best way to remember facts for UPSC and other competitive exams is to recall them through MCQs. Try to solve the following questions on your own.)

(1) With reference to ‘IFC Masala Bonds’, sometimes seen in the news, which of the statements given below is/are correct? (UPSC CSE 2016)

1. The International Finance Corporation, which offers these bonds, is an arm of the World Bank.

2. They are the rupee-denominated bonds and are a source of debt financing for the public and private sector.

Select the correct answer using the code given below.

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

(2) Consider the following statements about Rock Eagle Owl:

1. Categorised as Schedule I under the Wildlife Protection Act.

2. native to hilly scrub forests in India

Which of the above-mentioned statements are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) 1 and 2

(d) None

(3) Thirupparankundram Hill, which was recently in the news, is located in which state?

(a) Kerala

(b) Tamil Nadu

(c) Karnataka

(d) Andhra Pradesh

Prelims Answer Key

1. (c)     2. (c)    3. (b)

 

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