UPSC Key: Anti-defection law, B’nei Menashe Jews and Women in Corporate Governance

Key Points to Ponder:

• What constitutes defection?

• What is the difference between horse trading and defection?

• What Supreme Court said in the SR Bommai case (1994) with respect to Defection?

• What is the anti-defection law, and what is its purpose?

• The 52nd Amendment Act of 1985 and 10th Schedule of the Constitution is related to what?

• What constitutes defection? Who is the deciding authority?

• What Supreme Court of India said in Kihoto Hollohan case (1993)?

• Is anti-defection law are subject to judicial review?

• Has the anti-defection law ensured the stability of governments?

• The 91st Amendment Act of 2003 made one change in the provisions of the Tenth Schedule. What was that?

• The disqualification of member on the ground of defection does not apply in the two exceptional cases. What is that ‘exception’?

• Compare the AAP case with other defection cases.

Key Takeaways:

• In fact, had his proposed Bill been enacted, Chadha would have needed the support of seven, not six, from his party to cross over. And the present team would have been barred from contesting elections for six years for splitting the party.

• Because the Constitution (Amendment) Bill that Chadha, then a trusted aide of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, brought to the House as a Private Member’s Bill on August 5, 2022 – this was three months after he entered Rajya Sabha – sought a stiffer anti-defection law, one that would require a three-fourths majority, not two-thirds, to engineer a legitimate split.

• Citing “nefarious floor crossing by legislators in total disregard of the democratic wishes of the electorate who returned them”, Chadha’s proposed Bill sought to strengthen anti-defection norms through more stringent provisions for the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which pertains to disqualification of elected representatives on ground of defection.

• The proposed legislation, according to its objectives, aimed to “strengthen our democracy and help our public representatives in becoming informed lawmakers rather than political party workers” by amending Articles 102 and 191 of the Constitution and increasing the threshold for inter-party mergers from 2/3rd to 3/4th of a party’s legislative strength through an amendment to the Tenth Schedule.

Do You Know:

• The 91st Constitutional Amendment Act of 2003 did two things.
—First, it said that to avoid disqualification proceedings, at least two-thirds of the members of a party in a House had to switch over to another party, something that would be seen as a merger. If the numbers were below two-thirds of that party’s strength of the House, the shifting members would be liable to face disqualification proceedings.
—Second, the Act laid down that the total number of ministers in a government would not exceed 15% of the total strength of Lok Sabha or state Assembly, adding that the number would not be less than 12 in very small states.

• This Act strengthened the 10th Schedule as it stood after the 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act 1985 which inserted the above Schedule. However, the 10th Schedule in 1985 recognised a split of one-third of the members of a party in a House as legitimate. As this, too, was misused many times, the 91st Constitutional Amendment Act made switching over more difficult by deleting the one-third reference from the 10th Schedule, and mandating that two-thirds had to switch for a merger that would save them from disqualification proceedings.

• Article 102 (2) of the Constitution states ‘A person shall be disqualified for being a member of either House of Parliament if he is so disqualified under the Tenth Schedule.’ According to 191 (2), ‘A person shall be disqualified for being a member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of a State if he is so disqualified under the Tenth Schedule.’

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Will AAP Rajya Sabha MPs face disqualification after joining BJP? Explained

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
1) With reference to anti-defection law in India, consider the following statements? (UPSC CSE, 2022)
1. The law specifies that a nominated legislator cannot join any political party within six months of being appointed to the House.
2. The law does not provide any time-frame within which the presiding officer has to decide a defection case.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

2) Which one of the following Schedules of the Constitution of India contains provisions regarding anti-defection? (UPSC CSE, 2015)
(a) Second Schedule
(b) Fifth Schedule
(c) Eighth Schedule
(d) Tenth Schedule

Previous Year Mains Questions Covering the same theme:
📍The role of individual MPs (Members of Parliament) has diminished over the years and as a result healthy constructive debates on policy issues are not usually witnessed. How far can this be attributed to the anti-defection law, which was legislated but with a different intention? (2013)

Govt’s online content blocking orders double to 24,000 in a year, over half on X

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development

Main 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 number of online content blocking orders passed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has doubled in the past one year, with authorities pointing to the surge of deep fakes on social media as well as objectionable posts and content generated by Artificial Intelligence on a variety of platforms.

Key Points to Ponder:

• ‘The number of online content blocking orders passed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has doubled in the past one year’-Why?

• What is a deepfake? What are they for?

• How deepfake are made? Are deepfakes always malicious?

• URL stands for what?

• Under which provision or act, Governments take down URLs or block websites?

• The Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 says what?

• Know the constitutional validity of Section 69A in light of freedom of speech.

• Social media rules in India vs social media rules in other countries-compare and contrast

• What are present legal framework governing content blocking in India?

• There should be balance between national security and free speech in digital governance-examine

• What is the role of the executive, legislature and judiciary in regulating online content?

• What are the digital rights in India?

Key Takeaways:

• Officials in the Ministry said that currently, roughly 60% of orders for blocking URLs were for content on X (formerly Twitter); 25% for Facebook and Instagram; and 5% for YouTube.

• While Parliament had, in 2023, been informed that an average of 6,000 blocking orders were being passed by MeitY, senior officials told The Indian Express that this number increased to around 12,600 in 2024 and 24,300 in 2025, both till December.

• Requests to MeitY for blocking online content and subsequent blocking orders peaked during Operation Sindoor in May 2025 and has remained “very high” ever since. Sources said more than half the requests and complaints came from nodal officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs, and the rest from other Ministries, Departments and individuals.

• According to sources, several of these blocking orders were for taking down URLs of Instagram, Facebook and YouTube posts of political parties and politicians. Some politicians have also complained to the Home Ministry or MeitY about fake social media posts using their name and images.

• The most recent “high-profile” complaint to the Home Ministry and MeitY came earlier this month from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. Speaking to The Indian Express, Tharoor said deep fake videos of him had emerged. “It was best that I put up my complaints in writing. The fake content was apparently being generated from Pakistan and I am told, at least in India the fake content has been blocked,” he said.

Do You Know:

• The blocking orders are passed under provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, which empowers the Government to block public access to computer resources on any of these five grounds: maintain the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity; safeguard its defence and security; maintain friendly relations with foreign states; preserve public order; and investigate offences.

• Similar to rules and guidelines for the interception of electronic communications, Section 69A stipulates the procedure before a final blocking order can be passed:
—MeitY has a Designated Officer to head the “Blocking Committee”. The Committee includes representatives, or “nodal officers”, from the Ministries of Law and Justice, Home and Information and Broadcasting, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), as its members, either of Joint Secretary rank or above.
—Each blocking order passed by the Committee needs final approval of the Secretary, MeitY.

• Section 69A also has an “emergency” clause whereby the Designated Officer has to put down in writing as to why the “interim measure” of issuing an urgent blocking order was being issued without the sitting of the Committee. The order then has to be approved by the Committee within 48 hours.

• Information on the extent of blocking of “objectionable” URLs has been coming in bits and pieces, with the Government refraining from providing the complete data even to Parliament and via RTI. In 2023, the then IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrashekhar informed Parliament that his Ministry had blocked 36,838 URLs between January 2018 and October 2023, roughly 6,000 a year.

• Deepfake is a portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake”. It is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software that superimposes a digital composite on to an existing video (or audio). The origin of the word “deepfake” can be traced back to 2017 when a Reddit user, with the username “deepfakes”, posted explicit videos of celebrities. “The term first rose to prominence when Motherboard reported on a Reddit user who was using AI to superimpose the faces of film stars on to existing porn videos, creating (with varying degrees of realness) porn starring Emma Watson, Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson and an array of other female celebrities,” a report in The Guardian said.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Explained: The growing ambit of India’s online censorship mechanism

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
3) Right to Privacy’ is protected under which Article of the Constitution of India? (UPSC CSE 2021)
a) Article 15
b) Article 19
c) Article 21
d) Article 29

Previous year UPSC Main Question Covering similar theme:
📍Social media and encrypting messaging services pose a serious security challenge. What measures have been adopted at various levels to address the security implications of social media? Also suggest any other remedies to address the problem (2024)

Explained

Why below-average rains don’t rule out flood threat

Preliminary Examination: Indian and World Geography

Mains Examination: General Studies I: Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

What’s the ongoing story: This year’s monsoon season is likely to bring below-normal rainfall. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said the country as a whole was expected to receive only 92% of normal rainfall this season. This forecast, however, does not capture the intra-seasonal and regional variations in rainfall that are a standard feature of Indian monsoon. These would become evident only at a later stage.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What is a normal monsoon?

• What is above normal monsoon and below normal monsoon?

• How is Indian monsoon predicted?

• How IMD defines rainfall as ‘normal’, ‘above normal’ and ‘excess’?

• What are the main drivers of Indian monsoon?

• know the terms and their influence on Indian Monsoon—El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), El Nino, La Nina.

• What is the arrival and departure of monsoon?

• What is meant by the “onset of the monsoon”?

• What are these conditions, which determine the onset of monsoon?

• Monsoon mechanism in India-Know in detail

• How Arabian Sea branch and Bay of Bengal branch are associated with Indian monsoon?

• What is difference between Arabian Sea branch and Bay of Bengal branch?

• What is the difference between the southwest monsoon and the Northeast Monsoon?

• What is the India Meteorological Department?

Key Takeaways:

• The below-normal rainfall forecast, for example, is no indicator of the number of extreme rainfall events that are likely to occur this coming season. These kinds of events have been steadily increasing over the last decade or two, and have routinely turned into, or triggered, large-scale disasters. Several studies have linked the increasing trend of such incidents in recent years to climate change.

• In the past decade or so, starting with the Kedarnath tragedy in 2013, India has seen at least one major rainfall-related disaster every year. In some years, like 2023, there have been multiple such incidents. The overall extent of monsoon rainfall over the country as a whole has had no bearing on the frequency or severity of extreme rainfall events. Such disaster-inducing rainfall incidents have happened even in the years when the overall rainfall during the season was relatively low, like in 2015, 2018 or 2023.

Table 1: In the past decade or so, starting with the Kedarnath tragedy in 2013, India has seen at least one major rainfall-related disaster every year.

• Such extraordinarily high rainfall is extremely difficult to predict. In many such instances, IMD is able to see the chances of very heavy rainfall and issues appropriate alerts, but whether the eventual rainfall would be in the range of 250 mm or 500 mm is something that cannot be said with any reasonable degree of certainty. This is an inherent limitation of the weather science itself. Weather is an extremely chaotic system, with very small changes in initial conditions giving rise to big differences in the end result.
Do You Know:

• IMD classifies any rainfall above 21 cm in a 24-hour period as extremely heavy rain. Typically, these account for less than 0.1% of all recorded rainfall events in the country. But their number seems to be increasing. In the four-year period between 2008 and 2011, for example, the maximum number of extremely heavy rainfall events in any season happened to be 64 (in 2008), according to IMD’s Annual Monsoon Reports.

Table 2: The number of extremely heavy rainfall events has been consistently, and comfortably, above 100 every year since 2017.

• In 2024, as many as 181 extreme rainfall events were recorded, while last year this number was 160.

• For more than a decade now, India has seen at least one major rainfall-induced disaster during the monsoon season. Some of these, like the Jammu and Kashmir flooding of 2014, the Chennai urban flooding of 2015 and the Kerala floods of 2018, have been record-breaking, once-in-a-century, or once-in-50-years, kind of events.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Below normal monsoon, but no cause for alarm

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
4) Consider the following statements: (UPSC CSE, 2012)
1. The duration of the monsoon decreases from southern India to northern India.
2. The amount of annual rainfall in the northern plains of India decreases from east to west.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

How a ‘lost tribe’ in Northeast India forged ties with Israel

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: 

• General Studies I: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

• General Studies II: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.

What’s the ongoing story: Around 250 members of the B’nei Menashe Jewish community of Manipur and Mizoram, who claim descent from one of the “ten lost tribes of Israel”, landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday night.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What are the lost tribes of Israel?

• Who are the B’nei Menashe?

• What is the history behind their claim of descent from a “lost tribe of Israel”?

• What is ‘Operation Wings of Dawn’?

• Why are so many B’nei Menashe Jews moving to Israel?

• What benefits do B’nei Menashe Jews will get in Israel?

• How did members of the Kuki and Mizo tribes — who speak languages of the Tibeto-Burman family begin believing that they were descended from a Jewish community that would have originated a world away?

• Between the 1930s and 1960s Christian revivalist movements sprang up across Mizoram. So how did this lead to Judaism?

Key Takeaways:

• The B’nei Menashe, numbering around 7,000, belong to the Mizo and Kuki tribal communities across the two states. Though thousands of community members have migrated to Israel since the 1990s, the batch that arrived in Israel on Thursday was the first to be relocated under an Israeli government relocation programme. More will follow them.

• Academic Gideon Elazar, in Jewish Communities in Modern Asia (2023), writes: “The identification of different groups of people in the region of upland Southeast Asia… as remnants of the tribes began with the highly successful efforts of Protestant missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century.”

• Baptist missionaries are believed to have brought the Bible to a people who had long believed in messiahs. This belief became a significant factor in the spreading of Christianity, with the missionaries often identified as the restorers of culture. Elazar notes: “In the case of the B’nei Menashe, it would seem that a similar dynamic was created as part of the violent resistance to Indian control over the region in the 1960s.”

• In 1951, a Mizo mystic named Challianthanga, or Mela Chala, claimed he had seen in a dream that Mizos, Kukis and Chins were descendants of ancient Israelite tribes, says Sayan Lodh, a PhD researcher at Presidency University. “I would guess that it was due to their dissatisfaction with the Christianity that was being practiced there,” says Lodh, whose research focuses on Judaising movements in India.

• The Judaising movement among the Chin-Kuki-Mizo tribes in Manipur and Mizoram actively developed after the late 1970s, he told The Indian Express.

• According to Lodh, propelling the movement was an Israeli organisation called Amishav, led by a Rabbi called Eliyahu Avichail, which aimed to bring all the scattered tribes to Israel “to fulfill the conditions for the coming of the Messiah”. The group began expressing their interest in establishing ties with Jews and the state of Israel in the 1950s, and the Mizo Israel Zionist Organization was founded for that purpose in 1974. Lodh says they gradually started to research Israel, contacted the Jewish communities of Bombay and Calcutta, and even sent a letter to the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament). “By the 1980s, their transformation into Judaism was complete, with help from Amishav,” says Lodh. Much of the population in Mizoram and Manipur, however, remains Christian.

Do You Know:

• Around 722 BCE, the Assyrian empire conquered northern Israel and resettled many of the people living there. According to Jewish tradition, the banished people were part of ten tribes — Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim and Manasseh.

• For centuries, Western Jews have searched for the descendants of these “lost tribes” around the world, including in the Indian subcontinent.
The Jewish community of Mizoram and Manipur believes it is descended from the largest of these tribes — Manasseh. B’nei Menashe literally means “sons” of Menashe or Manasseh.
The community’s members believe their exiled tribe headed east, wandering for centuries through Persia (modern-day Iran) and Afghanistan before settling in what is today Northeast India.

• In 2005 the Chief Rabbinate of Israel (the ultimate authority on Jewish religious matters within Israel) declared the B’nei Menashe the “Lost Seed of Israel”, officially recognising them as a lost tribe, based on inconclusive DNA evidence produced by scientists in Kolkata. However, scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa rejected these results and conducted their own tests, which were also inconclusive. In both cases, traces of the Cohen modal haplotype (a genetic marker found in some individuals identifying as Cohanim) were detected in a few samples. These findings, along with the Rabbinate’s ruling, led Israel to permit the migration of the B’nei Menashe to Israel, albeit in small batches; at times the process was halted.

• During the second half of the 20th century, another Indian community claimed descent from a lost tribe — the Telugu-speaking B’nei Ephraim of Andhra Pradesh.
This community claims to be descendants of the tribe of Ephraim who arrived in India via Central Asia approximately 1,000 years ago. The identification of the group with Judaism began with a voyage made by their leader Shmuel Ya’acobi to Jerusalem in the 1980s. “The group belongs to the untouchable Dalit caste, and the claim to Jewish descent is often viewed as a means to overcome harsh caste discrimination by attracting attention from higher castes and from Jews in the United States and Israel,” writes Elazar.

• Another group often associated with the lost tribes are the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many are interested in exploring traditions of their Hebrew heritage. However, unlike the B’nei Menashe, they are devout Muslims and the issue of conversion is highly sensitive.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Tracing the roots of B’nei Menashe, the ‘lost tribe of Israel’ living in India

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
📍“India’s relations with Israel have, of late, acquired a depth and diversity, which cannot be rolled back.” Discuss. (2018)

Role heat and humidity play in India’s firecracker factory blasts

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

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: Over the course of three days this week, southern India saw two separate firecracker accidents that killed dozens of people.

Key Points to Ponder:

• How does a firework function?

• What chemicals are there in firework?

• What is the cause of fireworks accidents?

• What law says about fireworks in India?

• What are the rules and regulations for fireworks in India?

• How does climate affect firecracker safety?

• The human factor in handling fireworks-know in detail

• What are the safety precautions for fireworks?

• What is cold spark technology?

Key Takeaways:

• On Tuesday (April 21), at least 14 people were killed in Kerala’s Thrissur district after two explosions, seconds apart, ripped through a firework assembly unit. The incident, which came days ahead of the Thrissur Pooram festival, prompted the state government to scrap the annual event’s famed fireworks display.

• And on Sunday (April 19), a massive explosion at a fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district left at least 23 people dead. Virudhunagar manufactures 90% of the fireworks in India.

• The cause of the explosions is unclear. The Kerala government Wednesday ordered a judicial probe into the Thrissur incident. In the Virudhunagar incident, investigators are expected to examine potential safety lapses or mishandling of combustible chemicals.

• India regularly sees explosions in firecracker factories. In the firework manufacturing hub of Virudhunagar, for instance, over a hundred people reportedly died in firecracker unit accidents between 2022 and mid-2025. While part of the reason for such accidents lies in the chemical raw materials themselves, climate, safety violations and lack of enforcement also play a key part.

• The deeply chemical nature of firework production ensures that factors such as the climate, particularly extreme weather, drastically affects manufacturing. Warm, dry weather is more suitable for manufacturing fireworks than excess moisture conditions. But the summer heat also provides the conditions that can increase the risk of an explosion. The primary scientific risk attached to handling such volatile chemicals in large quantities together is the accumulation of static energy.

• Low-humidity environments prevent the safe dissipation of static charges in the air, which is exacerbated in the summer. As a result, basic movements on the factory floor — such as mixing dry chemical powders or sliding materials across a workbench — can generate an invisible static spark capable of igniting ambient chemical dust.

Do You Know:

• Scientifically, there are four components in a firecracker: An oxidiser, fuel, ‘stars’ and a binder.
—Burning requires oxygen. The oxidisers in fireworks are chemicals that release oxygen to allow the explosion to take place. The most commonly used oxidisers are nitrates, chlorates and perchlorates. Burning also requires fuel. The core explosive is generally black powder, a mixture comprising 10% sulfur, 15% charcoal, and 75% potassium nitrate.
—The oxidiser breaks down the chemical bonds of the fuel, releasing energy and heat — in other words, causing the explosion.
—The ‘stars’ are solid chemical lumps that are responsible for creating the bright colours and light we usually associate with a firework. Aluminium compounds produce brilliant whites, barium nitrate produces greens and the addition of copper results in blue light.
—Binders are used to hold the mixture of the firecracker together in a paste. Binders don’t actually begin to work until the firework has been lit.

• The ignition mechanic is an age-old process. Take the case of an aerial firework.
—When the fuse or wick is lit, heat travels through the shell — the main part of the firework — which is housed inside a mortar (essentially a steel tube).
—The spark then reaches the “lift charge” — the black powder mentioned above. The ignition of this powder displaces enough gas to propel the shell out of the tube and into the atmosphere.
—Upon reaching a certain height, a timed second fuse ignites, activating the “burst charge”. This burst charge is responsible for setting off the chemical ‘stars’ housed in the shell.
—The ‘stars’ are densely packed with heavy metals such as barium, strontium and copper. When these compounds combust or are mishandled during assembly, they aerosolise into toxic, microscopic pollutants.
—The entire process is essentially a reaction involving powerful chemicals. This makes the process of manufacturing, handling and storing fireworks inherently risky.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍In Kerala, a fireworks tragedy and questions about safety

In Chinese military’s new Atlas drone swarm system, much to worry for India

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: 

• General Studies II: India and its neighborhood- relations.

• General Studies III: Security challenges and their management in border areas

What’s the ongoing story: In late March, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unveiled its new Atlas drone swarm system (atelasi). The one-of-a-kind system combines features like simultaneous mass launch, control of nearly 100 drones, and a single human touchpoint to control them all.

Key Points to Ponder:

• Atlas drone swarm system (atelasi)-know about the same

• What is this system?

• Does it outsmart its competitors?

• Who is the manufacturer?

• Has the Atlas system been tested or deployed? Could it be exported?

• What is the role of drones and drone swarms in the Chinese armed forces?

• What are the implications of these developments for India, and the Taiwan contingency?

Key Takeaways:

• The system is like a mini-battlefield network on wheels, where drones are truck-launched, remotely navigated by a single operator, and capable of scouting, communicating, confusing, and attacking defence across a large perimeter. More importantly, it is a very small, independent unit that is easy to hide, camouflage, and operate from remote corners.

• The Atlas system can simultaneously launch up to 96 small- and medium-sized speed drones that can form defensive structures and precision formations, both to defend and attack.

• The launch time between drones is less than three seconds. Thus, within 300 seconds, the system can launch all 96 drones for an attack, reconnaissance, or to confuse the adversary. For context, amid the recent West Asia war, the US advanced E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft at the Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia was destroyed by a swarm of 29 drones and a few ballistic missiles.

• The entire Atlas system consists of three units — a Swarm-2 ground combat vehicle, a command vehicle, and a support vehicle. A single Swarm-2 ground combat vehicle can carry and launch 48 fixed-wing drones, and a single command vehicle can simultaneously control up to 96 drones in a swarm. Its size and mobility make it extremely useful for reconnaissance, interception, and attack on high-value targets.

• Currently, China’s Atlas system, at least theoretically, outpaces and outsmarts all its competitors.

Do You Know:

• In the past 50 years, China has consistently learned from others’ wars. For instance, the two Gulf Wars compelled the PLA to pursue a strategy of winning local wars under informatised conditions. Similarly, China is taking notes on drone use from recent conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Palestine conflict, India’s Operation Sindoor, and the US’s Operation Epic Fury.
On the ground, China has amassed a substantial number of surveillance, attack, reconnaissance, advanced, and loitering ammunition drones and drone systems. The intelligent guesswork is that China has tens of thousands of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles across all four variants — smaller drones, medium-altitude long-endurance, high-altitude long-endurance, and advanced, novel, and stealth drones.

• Commissioning the Atlas system with the PLA’s Eastern and Western Theatre Commands and the Xinjiang and Tibet Military Districts could influence any future conflict’s outcome at various stages. The Atlas system can confuse and overwhelm Taiwan’s and India’s air defences, forcing these countries to waste multiple resources on eliminating them, which is difficult given its mobility and camouflage.
Furthermore, the system’s algorithm-driven kill chain and autonomous, independent target identification make it lethal against strategically valuable targets.
Especially on the India front, Tibet’s advanced road and rail network enables quick deployment and launch. These swarms could also be used to disturb the Indian army’s logistics and infrastructure lines by attacking the approach roads to India’s forward-deployed posts. Behind enemy lines, attacks isolate the forward posts, thereby making it easier for the aggressor to coerce them.
Finally, counter-jamming these swarms is challenging since they share information and adjust formations and targets without central human intervention.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Explained: China’s massive military parade, and capabilities and concerns it displayed

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
5) Consider the following activities: (UPSC CSE, 2020)
1. Spraying pesticides on a crop field
2. Inspecting the craters of active volcanoes
3. Collecting breath samples from spouting whales for DNA analysis
At the present level of technology, which of the above activities can be successfully carried out by using drones?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

The Editorial Page

For true nari shakti, take jobs where women workers are

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Mains Examination: 

• General Studies I: Social empowerment

• General Studies III: Inclusive growth and issues arising from it

What’s the ongoing story: Ashok Gulati, Ayushi Gupta, Bidisha Chanda Writes-The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam 2026 could not get through Parliament primarily because it was clubbed with the delimitation exercise. This raises a question: Is reservation the only way to empower women? While it may be desirable, we don’t think that it can result in true empowerment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• Why Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam 2026 failed in the parliament?

• Is reservation the only way to empower women?

• What are the prerequisites to truly empower women?

• What is female labour force participation rate (LFPR)?

• What is the present situation of female labour force participation rate in India?

• What are the factors contributing to lower female labour force participation rate in India?

• Skilling and training form a crucial pillar of financial independence-discuss

• How apparel sector in India can empower women?

• What are the issues and challenges in skilling the women workforce?

• What is PM MITRA scheme?

• How the PM MITRA scheme can help in enhancing the skills of the women’s workforce?

Key Takeaways:
Ashok Gulati, Ayushi Gupta, Bidisha Chanda Writes-

• To truly empower women, give them quality education, develop their skills for suitable jobs, and incentivise women’s employment in the formal sector. Only then will their participation in the workforce increase in a meaningful way.

• Skilling and training form a crucial pillar of financial independence. The government deserves credit for establishing the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in 2014, now spanning 38 sectors, with a 2026-27 allocation of Rs 9,886 crore, with Rs 3,400 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). PMKVY provides free skills training with certification to youth aged 18-45. Even with skill training, which sector can better absorb this trained population?

• Look to East and Southeast Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam used the garment sector to transition women into the formal wage economy. India’s apparel sector generates 153 jobs per Rs 1 crore of capital invested, compared to 27 in automobile manufacturing and just 14 in steel (Annual Survey of Industries, 2023-24). But the number that deserves attention is this: The apparel sector creates 55 female jobs per Rs 1 crore investment, while automobiles and steel generate fewer than one. If nari shakti is not to be reduced to a slogan, then the garment sector is the most powerful instrument.

Do You Know:
Ashok Gulati, Ayushi Gupta, Bidisha Chanda Writes-

• India’s female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in 2025 stood at just 40 per cent, as per PLFS data from MOSPI, although ILO (2025) puts this figure at 32.4 per cent, against 68.6 per cent in Vietnam, 59.1 per cent in China, and 80.7 per cent in Nigeria. At the state level, Bihar records an FLFPR of just 24.7 per cent, while Uttar Pradesh (UP) stands at 32.4 per cent, Jharkhand at 43.7 per cent, and Odisha at 47.3 per cent. Bihar also reports the highest fertility rate at 2.8, compared to the all-India figure of 1.9 (Sample Registration System, 2023), consistent with its high annual population growth rate of 1.43 per cent against the national average of 0.9
per cent.

• More concerning, it is girls in Bihar who exhibit the highest dropout rates in schools across states: 8.7 per cent at the primary level, 25.9 per cent at the secondary level, and 25.1 per cent at the higher secondary level (Unified District Information System for Education Plus, Ministry of Education 2023-24).

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍From the Opinions Editor | Women’s empowerment and the politics of benevolence

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
6) Democracy’s superior virtue lies in the fact that it calls into activity (UPSC CSE, 2017)
(a) the intelligence and character of ordinary men and women.
(b) the methods for strengthening executive leadership.
(c) a superior individual with dynamism and vision.
(d) a band of dedicated party workers.

7) With reference to the Indian economy after the 1991 economic liberalization, consider the following statements: (UPSC CSE, 2020)
1. Worker productivity (Rs. per worker at 2004 — 05 prices) increased in urban areas while it decreased in rural areas.
2. The percentage share of rural areas in the workforce steadily increased.
3. In rural areas, the growth in non-farm economy increased.
4. The growth rate in rural employment decreased.
Which of the statements given above is/are Correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 and 4 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 4 only

Economy

Women underrepresented on boards despite compliance by firms

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies IV:  Corporate Governance.

What’s the ongoing story: The Women’s Reservation Act, or the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, was passed by Parliament in 2023 with the aim that a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, and in Delhi will be held by women. While the Centre’s efforts to bring the law’s implementation failed, corporate India has had its own version of the same for over a decade. And its results have been mixed.

Key Points to Ponder:

• Role Of Women in Corporate Governance-know in detail

• Why there is a dearth of women representation in corporates?

• Women in Corporate leadership and their representation in corporates -What various reports highlights on their representation?

• What are the driving factors which contributing to lower representation of Women in Corporates?

• What Companies Act, 2013 says about women representation in corporates?

• What is corporate ethics?

• There are generally certain business or Corporate ethics principles-What are they?

• Why is corporate ethics Important?

• Corporate governance and corporate ethics-Connect the dot

• Is corporate governance the same as corporate ethics?

Key Takeaways:

• According to data compiled by The Indian Express, 17 of the Nifty 50 entities — which include some of India’s biggest companies — have only one female director on their boards.

• “Under current regulations, many corporates appoint a female director for the sake of compliance, while some place family members as a form of token,” a corporate governance expert at a domestic law firm said, requesting anonymity.

• “There have been some discussions (on increasing female representation), but it’s not currently at the forefront. The focus has been on other reforms in the corporate world, such as improving ease of doing business and simplifying regulations. But the government has to take a look at this (female representation) also sooner rather than later,” the expert added.

• While this is broadly in line with how women are represented in positions of power in India in other spheres — teaching positions in higher education and owners of unincorporated enterprises, for instance – it remains below global levels.

• Among India’s Nifty 50 companies, the boards of Eternal (3 of 6) and Apollo Hospitals (5 of 10) have 50% representation by women.

• According to McKinsey’s latest Women in the Workplace report, while a majority of companies see diversity as a high priority and more than 80% remain committed to inclusion, commitment to women’s advancement is “much lower”.
“Only about half of companies say women’s career advancement is a high priority, and fewer are prioritising women of colour’s advancement. This matters: companies that place a high priority on gender diversity and women’s advancement see larger gains in women’s representation,” the report said.

Do You Know:

• As per The Companies Act of 2013, every listed company with a paid-up share capital of more than Rs 100 crore or a turnover greater than Rs 300 crore must appoint at least one female director to its board. And while companies are largely meeting this requirement — among Nifty 50 companies, ONGC is the only one without any women on its board of directors after Alka Mittal’s six-month term as the interim chairperson and managing director ended in August 2022 — the overall numbers don’t make for encouraging reading.

• As per MSCI’s Women on Boards and Beyond report for 2025, women occupied 28.3% of board seats at publicly listed large- and mid-cap companies globally, up from 27.3% in 2024. More encouragingly, nearly 49% of companies had at least 30% female directors.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍To understand what reservation can do for women in politics, let’s take a look at corporate boards

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
8) Disguised unemployment generally means (UPSC CSE, 2013)
(a) large number of people remain unemployed
(b) alternative employment is not available
(c) marginal productivity of labour is zero
(d) productivity of workers is low

Previous year UPSC Main Question Covering similar theme:
📍Given below are quotation of great thinkers. What do each of these quotations convey to you in the present context? (2024)
‘To awaken the people, it is the women who must be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves, the nation moves.’’ –Jawaharlal Nehru

📍What do you understand by ‘moral integrity’ and ‘professional efficiency’ in the context of corporate governance in India? Illustrate with suitable examples. (2023)

 

PRELIMS ANSWER KEY

1.(b)  2.(d)  3.(c)  4.(c)  5.(d) 6.(a) 7.(b) 8.(c)

  

For any queries and feedback, contact priya.shukla@indianexpress.com

Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.