UPSC Key: Mahatma Gandhi, Union Public Service Commission and Courage

Tawang chosen as venue for tourism meet, China among countries invited

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: India and its neighbourhood- relations.

What’s the ongoing story: The government is set to hold a mega international event in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh towards the end of this month. The International Tourism Mart, being organised by the Ministry of Tourism from October 27 to November 1, will bring together delegates from around 20 countries.

Key Points to Ponder:

• Map Work-Tawang

• Why is the eastern sector of the India-China boundary strategically important?

• What geographical features influence India’s security concerns in Arunachal Pradesh?

• How are relations between China and India currently?

• “The 2005 Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles between the two countries was a landmark treaty on the boundary dispute, which seemed to set explicit bookends and benchmarks for the eventual resolution of the boundary dispute”-What is that ‘2005 Agreement’?

• What is the significance of border tourism for the socio-economic development of India’s frontier regions?

• Tawang lies in a region where tourism, cultural heritage, border security and geopolitics intersect—What are the opportunities and challenges arising from this convergence?

• How India’s promotion of tourism in Arunachal Pradesh can contribute to both economic development and greater integration of the Northeast with the rest of India?

Key Takeaways:

• Delegates from China have also been invited to the annual event which is held, by rotation, in one of the North-Eastern states. The 2025 edition of the event was held in Sikkim, and was attended by government representatives and industry stakeholders from over19 countries.

• Sources maintained it is a routine rotational event, but the decision to hold the event in Tawang is significant, coming as it does weeks after the government identified 27 places/features in Arunachal Pradesh by standard place and feature names on the official maps of Survey of India for “their accurate recognition and better awareness among the public at large”.

• Tawang in the eastern sector is a primary bone of contention in the boundary dispute between India and China.

• Beijing refers to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan or South Tibet and claims that it belongs to China. New Delhi strongly rejects China’s territorial claim, reiterating that Arunachal Pradesh is an “inalienable and integral part of India”.

• Sources said invitations for the Tawang event have been sent to all participating countries and industry delegations. Participation confirmation will be known closer to the event date, the sources said.

Do You Know:

• Tawang is a primary bone of contention between India and China. Beijing refers to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan or South Tibet and claims it belongs to China. Delhi rejects China’s claim, reiterating that Arunachal Pradesh is an “inalienable and integral part of India”.

• While government representatives from China have not attended the tourism event traditionally, there have been instances of private tour operators participating at the event since it offers a lot of scope for B2B tie-ups. At the 2018 edition in Agartala, over 60 tour operator delegates from different countries participated, including those from Bangladesh, Australia, Canada, China and France.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Indian, Chinese soldiers engage in Tawang face-off; ‘minor injuries’ to both sides

Previous year 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 neighbour. (UPSC, GS2, 2017)

POLITICS

UPSC turns 100: PM urges shorter exam cycles, youth-centric reforms

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. 

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.

What’s the ongoing story: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday hailed the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on its centenary, calling it a proud milestone and a celebration not just of its legacy of serving the people but also of the aspirations of lakhs of youths year after year.

Key Points to Ponder:

• The Articles 315 to 323 in Part XIV of the Constitution contain what?

• What are the constitutional status, composition and functions of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) under the Constitution of India?

• Why was an independent Public Service Commission considered necessary for India’s administrative system?

• What safeguards does the Constitution provide to ensure the independence and impartiality of the UPSC?

• What is the significance of merit, impartiality, confidentiality and fairness in civil-service recruitment?

• The centenary of the UPSC provides an opportunity to reconcile three objectives, preserving institutional credibility, ensuring equitable access to public-service careers, and selecting administrators capable of governing an increasingly complex India—What is your take?

Key Takeaways:

• Praising the UPSC for its enduring credibility despite changing generations, governments, technologies, and syllabi, PM Modi marked the occasion by releasing a commemorative postage stamp, a special coin, and a compilation of 100 significant case laws.

• PM Modi emphasised the need for the institution to adapt to future challenges while safeguarding its foundational credibility for the next century. He highlighted that the core identity of the UPSC, characterised by independence, impartiality, merit, confidentiality, and fair processes, must always be preserved without compromise.

• Underlining the need to ensure that those being selected were measured against the two principles of ‘nation first and citizen first’, he said, “The kind of governance needed for Viksit Bharat now, the UPSC and state selection commissions are also significant mediums for it. The youth you are selecting today will play an important role in the creation of a Viksit Bharat; they are also going to be the biggest beneficiaries of a Viksit Bharat.”

• PM Modi said there is a need for professionals who have the empathy to understand the struggles of the poor, can innovate in problem-solving, and recognise the country’s needs. He said it was important to bring into public service youth attracted not by public office but by public service, making it important for recruitment examinations to test not only how much a candidate knows but also why they want to join the civil services.

• PM Modi said that by 2047, India’s socio-economic landscape will change significantly. As the nation becomes more urbanised and the gap between rural and urban areas narrows, youth expectations will rise dramatically. To meet these expectations, traditional service delivery models must evolve. Citizens will demand rapid, real-time solutions, powered by artificial intelligence, in an instant-delivery world.

• The prime minister paid tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who played a foundational role in creating India’s civil service. He said it was an essential “steel frame” needed not only to maintain the country’s independence but also to govern the newly formed nation effectively. He also discussed the role of the youth in nation-building, highlighting the importance of reforming the examination systems, issues that have gained significant attention in national politics recently.

• Comparing the UPSC’s origins in the British Raj in 1926 with its evolution following independence, PM Modi said the system successfully shifted its focus to fulfil the dreams of a free nation. The ‘Mai-Baap’ governance mindset of the past, he said, had been replaced with the principle of ‘Nagrik Devo Bhava’ or the citizen being no less than a deity.

Do You Know:

• The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is India’s central recruiting agency and an independent constitutional body, as it derives its authority directly from the Constitution. Articles 315 to 323 in Part XIV contain detailed provisions relating to the Commission’s composition, appointment and removal of members, as well as its independence, powers and functions.

• The UPSC consists of a Chairman and other members appointed by the President of India. The Constitution does not prescribe the strength of the Commission. Instead, it leaves the matter to the discretion of the President, who determines its composition.

• The Constitution does not prescribe specific qualifications for membership of the Commission. However, at least half of its members must have held office for a minimum of ten years under the Government of India or a State government. The Constitution also empowers the President to determine the conditions of service of the Chairman and other members of the Commission.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍UPSC Turns 100: Commission pushes exam reforms to assess reasoning, spontaneous thinking

THE EDITORIAL PAGE

We have a model investment treaty. And are losing billions because of it

Syllabus:

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: Surjit S Bhalla Writes- Our record of bad or no action has nothing to do with whichever political regime is in power. It has to do with the Deep State, and with the officials who pull the strings on behalf of their political and economic masters.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What is a Bilateral Investment Treaty?

• Why do countries enter into Bilateral Investment Treaty?

• How are Bilateral Investment Treaty different from Free Trade Agreements?

• Why does an investor need protection in a foreign jurisdiction?

• What is Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)?

• How Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is different from Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI)?

• What were the major features of India’s 2016 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty?

• What are the three key principles on which the Centre is remodelling its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with countries?

• How Present BIT model is different from 2016 BIT model?

• Why India needs a forward-looking approach to Bilateral Investment Treaties?

• What is most-favoured nation clause?

• Why India is moving away from most-favoured nation clause?

Key Takeaways:
Surjit S Bhalla Writes-

• It has been 18 months since Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that the Model BIT of 2016 would be revised; in foresight and in hindsight, it really wasn’t much of a model. Consider what it demanded.

• Before going to international arbitration, a foreign investor had to litigate in Indian courts for five years. The rest of the world, those who receive foreign investment and those who send it, asks for a consultation period — typically three to six months — in which the parties try to settle, rather like the cooling-off before a divorce.

• India asked for 10 times that, in a judicial system where five years does not produce a judgment anyway. Even the judiciary is criticised only cautiously, so as not to run afoul of India’s near-unique contempt laws.

• The rule never brought any resolution. It only brought inordinate delay. The new treaties since that 2016 black-letter day, with the UAE in 2024 and Israel in 2025, cut the holding period to three years — still six times the norm. The recommendation, by some, is two years. Why don’t we ask for the logic, or the reasoning, behind our own recommendations? Where did two years come from? Why not the conventional and reasonable practice that the rest of the world follows — three to six months of consultations?

Do You Know:

• A BIT is an agreement between two countries which spells out the rules governing private investment in either nation from companies in the other. As such, they help promote, protect, and provide clarity to foreign investments.

• A model BIT creates a standard template that can be followed whenever such agreements are being pursued with other countries. The model text is used as a guide and the final agreement between two countries depends on the negotiations that take place. At present, the Indian government follows the BIT model approved in December 2015 and adopted in January 2016.

• BITs are crucial for promotion and protection of investors as they pour money into each other’s countries. At present, the government follows the BIT model approved in December 2015 and adopted in January 2016, which mandates exhaustion of domestic remedies prior to the initiation of international arbitration proceedings.

• Before the 2016 model, India had signed bilateral investment treaties with 83 countries based on the model BIT of 1993, and as amended in 2003. Out of these, 74 were ratified. Among these 74 bilateral investment treaties, notice of termination was issued to 68 countries with request to re-negotiate based on the 2016 model, according to Government data shared in Parliament in March 2023.

• Since the revised 2016 model, India has signed BITs with Belarus, Kyrgyz Republic, Investment Cooperation and Facilitation Treaty (ICFT) with Brazil, UAE and Uzbekistan, a Lok Sabha reply from April 2025 showed. In the BIT with the UAE, the window for exhaustion of local remedies was reduced to three years from five years. A Bilateral Investment Agreement has also been signed between India Taipei Association and Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre, it said.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Why India needs a forward-looking approach to Bilateral Investment Treaties

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
1) Consider the following: (UPSC, CSE, 2021)
1. Foreign currency convertible bonds
2. Foreign institutional investment with certain conditions
3. Global depository receipts
4. Non-resident external deposits
Which of the above can be included in Foreign Direct Investments?
(a) 1, 2 and 3
(b) 3 only
(c) 2 and 4
(d) 1 and 4

2) With reference to India’s decision to levy an equalization tax of 6% on online advertisement services offered by non-resident entities, which of the following statements is/are correct? (UPSC CSE, 2018)
1. It is introduced as a part of the Income Tax Act.
2. Non-resident entities that offer advertisement services in India can claim a tax credit in their
3. home country under the “Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements”.
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

3) A great deal of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to India comes from Mauritius than from many major and mature economies like the UK and France. Why? (UPSC CSE, 2010)
(a) India has preference for certain countries as regards receiving FDI
(b) India has double taxation avoidance agreement with Mauritius
(c) Most citizens of Mauritius have ethnic identity with India and so they feel secure to invest in India
(d) Impending dangers of global climatic change prompt Mauritius to make huge investments in India.

Gandhi’s first fight was for the vote

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: History of India and Indian National Movement.

Mains Examination: General Studies I: Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present significant events, personalities, issues.

What’s the ongoing story: C. Uday Bhaskar Writes-On Gandhi Jayanti, those part of the administrative machinery steering the SIR, all sworn to abide by the Constitution, must abide by the Gandhian counsel and the three tests.

Key Points to Ponder:

• Mahatma Gandhi-Know about him

• What are the Major Gandhian Ideologies?

• What is Gandhi’s idea of Secularism?

• What was the significance of Mahatma Gandhi’s early political struggle for voting rights in South Africa?

• How Mahatma Gandhi’s early political struggle for voting rights in South Africa influenced his political evolution?

• Why did Gandhi regard the right to vote as an issue of self-respect and political equality?

• Why Mahatma Gandhi is relevant today?

• How Mahatma Gandhi matters in day to day life?

Key Takeaways:

• Against the backdrop of the raging SIR controversy, Gandhi Jayanti is an opportune moment to recall the young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi and his travails in South Africa, where a colonial regime was seeking to deny Indians their vote. His first political battle was not satyagraha but the right to vote. In July 1894, the Natal government proposed to disenfranchise Indians as part of colonial policy. In his petition to Lord Ripon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Gandhi wrote that an Indian without the vote would lose “self-respect, to remain in the Colony”. A year later, he warned that the consequences of disenfranchisement were “too dreadful to contemplate”.

• That fight, in a colony, became his template for India and what he envisioned for the free Indian citizen. In the decades preceding 1947, many in Congress and in Whitehall argued that India was too illiterate, caste-ridden and diverse for adult franchise. Gandhi opposed this unequivocally.

• In Young India and Harijan through the 1920s, he argued that universal adult franchise must be the basis from day one, for it compels the powerful to listen. At the 1931 Round Table Conference, he demanded it without qualification, for men and women, rich and poor, literate and illiterate, irrespective of faith and caste. There, he recounted from personal experience how voters’ lists could be manipulated.

• In September 1896 in Durban, Mohandas Gandhi found his name on an electoral roll even though he had not applied. A candidate, knowing a few Indians had the vote, had included Gandhi’s name without his knowledge to secure his support. Recalling this 35 years later, he said, “Since then, I have known how voters’ lists are prepared.”

Do You Know:
Dinesh Singh, Krishangi Sinha Writes—

• On M K Gandhi’s birth anniversary, we pay tribute by highlighting an important but not much-discussed facet of his life. On specific occasions, he displayed moral and physical courage regardless of the consequences. Courage, in Gandhi’s life, was never about reckless defiance or dramatic gestures. It was about discipline, self-mastery, and the willingness to put his own life, comfort, and family on the line for principles he believed were higher than fear or personal well-being.

• Our story commences in Johannesburg in 1904. The city was gripped by a bubonic plague outbreak. Large numbers of infected patients had been abandoned by their kith and kin. Gandhi volunteered to care for the abandoned sick, ignoring the highly infectious nature of the deadly disease. Gandhi asked for volunteers, but he chose only those who had no family. In contrast, Gandhi himself was 35 years old and his family was entirely dependent on him. An English nurse who had volunteered to be with Gandhi caught the plague and died. Undeterred, Gandhi soldiered on and tried his methods of unorthodox nursing on patients who had been condemned as lost cases. He managed to save several of them, ignoring the grave risk to himself.

• Upon his final return to India from South Africa in 1915, Gandhi set up his ashram in Ahmedabad. The ashram was financially dependent on societal support. At the same time, Gandhi was aware that his views opposing the practice of untouchability were at complete variance with societal values. Yet he consciously admitted an “untouchable” family into his ashram. This upset his sponsors, and financial support dried up. The ashram was on the verge of extinction, but Gandhi refused to budge. In the nick of time, one of Ahmedabad’s most prominent citizens, Ambalal Sarabhai, came to the rescue.

• In 1946, communal riots ravaged Noakhali in Bengal. Villages were destroyed, people slaughtered, and fear ran deep. Gandhi chose to make an extended trip to Noakhali. He walked barefoot from one riot-scarred village to another, with no police protection. There was a real danger to his life but he went about his task of engendering peace and harmony. Gandhi’s courageous message of peace and compassion worked a miracle and peace prevailed.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍The cartoon, a mirror and the Mahatma

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
4) Who among the following is associated with ‘Songs from Prison’, a translation of ancient Indian religious lyrics in English? (UPSC, CSE, 2021)
(a) Bal Gangadhar Tilak
(b) Jawaharlal Nehru
(c) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(d) Sarojini Naidu

5) With reference to the British colonial rule in India, consider the following statements: (UPSC, CSE, 2019)
1. Mahatma Gandhi was instrumental in the abolition of the system of ‘indentured labour’.
2. In Lord Chelmsford’s ‘War Conference’, Mahatma Gandhi did not support the resolution on recruiting Indians for World War.
3. Consequent upon the breaking of Salt Law by Indian people, the Indian National Congress was declared illegal by the colonial rulers.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1 and 3 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
📍What was the difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore in their approach towards education and nationalism? (UPSC, GS1, 2023)
📍Bring out the constructive programmes of Mahatma Gandhi during Non-Cooperation Movement and Civil Disobedience Movement. (UPSC, GS1, 2021)
📍Throw light on the significance of thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi in the present times. (UPSC, GS1, 2018)

EXPLAINED

Flawed execution: When lethal injections go wrong

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary—Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.

What’s the ongoing story: Authorities in the US failed to execute a 50-year-old woman on Tuesday despite twice administering a lethal drug through injection.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What is capital punishment?

• What are the constitutional position of the death penalty in India?

• What is lethal injection?

• Why lethal injection became the predominant method of execution in several US states?

• What is the significance of Article 21 in regulating the administration of criminal punishment in India?

• What is meant by “rarest of rare” in the context of the death penalty in India?

• Why has the method of execution remained an important component of the debate over the death penalty?

• Death Sentences in India—What exactly Annual Statistics Report every year says?

• How Countries retained Death Sentences or Capital Punishment?

• Know the important Supreme Court judgements related to Capital Punishments in detail

• What are the arguments for Capital Punishment in India?

• What are the arguments against Capital Punishment in India?

Key Takeaways:

• Christa Gail Pike, who had been sentenced to death for killing her classmate at the age of 18 in 1997, would have been the first woman executed in the US state of Tennessee in more than 200 years. Following the failure to carry out the sentence, Pike was taken to a hospital. Tennessee’s Governor has ordered a probe and her legal team has moved the state’s Supreme Court seeking a halt on the execution.

• But botched executions in the US are nothing new, regardless of the range of methods that are authorised by different states. A study of 8,776 executions in the US between 1890 and 2010 found that 276 (around 3%) of them were botched.

• The latest case, however, was an unprecedented failure, according to a death penalty expert quoted by the Associated Press. This is because no convict has ever survived once the lethal-injection drugs were actually administered.

• The Tennessee case used the single-drug procedure. According to AP, the state’s execution protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first set. It does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set — which is what happened in Pike’s case.

Do You Know:

• Countries that provide for capital punishment generally operate on the principle of minimising suffering — though the punishment itself is ethically controversial.

• In the US, capital punishment is legal in 27 of 50 states. These states authorise different, sometimes multiple, methods of execution — lethal injection, electrocution, nitrogen gas, firing squad, and hanging.
The lethal injection method, which was adopted in 1982, became the primary execution method in the 2000s; it is authorised by all 27 states that retain the death penalty.

• The lethal injection method itself follows two broad approaches: a three-drug protocol or a one-drug protocol.
In the first approach, a sequence of drugs is administered to a convict intravenously — first a sedative or an anaesthetic that is meant to render them unconscious, then a paralytic drug that stops muscle movement, and finally potassium chloride, which causes a cardiac arrest. But as drugmakers grew unwilling to supply drugs, saying they were meant to save lives and not take them, many US states shifted to more accessible single drugs such as pentobarbital and midazolam — Tennessee adopted pentobarbital in 2024.

• Pentobarbital is a barbiturate, a type of drug that can slow down activity in the brain and nervous system, and can be fatal in high doses on its own. But critics say pentobarbital and midazolam can cause excruciating pain, which would violate the principle of reducing pain and cruelty.

• In the case of lethal injections, convicts are secured to a table or gurney and IV lines are attached to them. This is where the problems come in. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a non-profit organisation that documents capital punishment in the US, lists out example after example of lethal injection executions being botched — either failing to kill a convict, delaying their death or causing them unnecessary agony — primarily because execution teams failed to connect or maintain IV lines.

• While there are multiple examples of such failures, one particularly harrowing case from Alabama in 2022 is illustrative of just how wrong things can go when execution teams lack sufficient competence. In this case, officials tried and failed multiple times to place an IV line on the convict, Joe Nathan James Jr., before finally managing to put him to death three-and-a-half hours later — resulting in the longest botched lethal-injection execution in the US.

• Hanging, is the primary method in many other countries, such as India, Singapore and Japan. It relies on a “long drop” to snap a person’s neck, theoretically resulting in instant death. But a drop that is too short can fail to break the neck and result in prolonged strangulation. Conversely, a drop that is too long can risk decapitating the person. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, carries out executions by beheading with a sword. It is highly reliant on the executioner’s precision.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Hanging, lethal injection, beheading: How countries carry out executions

Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
6) Right to Privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty. Which of the following in the Constitution of India correctly and appropriately imply the above statement? (UPSC CSE, 2018)
(a) Article 14 and the provisions under the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution.
(b) Article 17 and the Directive Principles of State Policy in Part IV.
(c) Article 21 and the freedoms guaranteed in Part III.
(d) Article 24 and the provisions under the 44th Amendment to the Constitution.

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
📍“The Constitution of India is a living instrument with capabilities of enormous dynamism. It is a constitution made for a progressive society.” Illustrate with special reference to the expanding horizons of the right to life and personal liberty. (UPSC, GS2, 2023)

What saved flydubai plane: Smit Machchhar, fliers’ actions — and sheer luck

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies IV: Ethics and Human Interface

What’s the ongoing story: Captain Smit Machchhar, the pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, is being hailed globally for heroic actions that saved the aircraft from disaster, after his co-pilot allegedly stabbed him in an apparent bid to crash the aircraft.

Key Points to Ponder:

• The 9/11 attack-What Lessons did we learn?

• What is aviation safety?

• What is courage?

• What is meant by human factors in aviation safety?

• Why presence of mind is important ethical quality for public servants and professionals working in high-risk environments?

• Define sense of responsibility

• How is altruistic behaviour different from an action motivated purely by self-interest?

• “Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to act responsibly despite fear”—Attest this with actions of Captain Smit Machchhar.

• What ethical values are demonstrated when individuals use their skills and resources to protect the lives of strangers during an emergency?

Key Takeaways:

• Machchhar’s most critical actions involved fighting back against the attacking co-pilot and, despite multiple stab wounds, unlocking the sealed cockpit door while raising an alarm.

• Courage and presence of mind displayed by a few passengers, and a stroke of sheer luck — presence of relief pilots on board — followed Machchhar’s heroics in landing the aircraft safely at the Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia.

• Perhaps the first and the most consequential action taken by Machchhar was to fight back. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Indian pilot “fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker”, and credited him with preventing a “catastrophic mid-air disaster”.

• “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals. I wish Captain Machchhar a speedy and full recovery. He is a true hero,” Netanyahu posted on social media platform X.

Do You Know:

• Machchhar, who describes himself as a lifelong learner and as someone who helps others fly higher in his LinkedIn bio, has over 15 years of commercial flying experience. With a “strong focus on safety and operational excellence”, Machchhar joined flydubai in June 2022 and has been operating as a direct-entry captain. Before that, he served as the senior commander and line training captain with SpiceJet. He had flown over 9,500 hours with SpiceJet after joining the private airline in June 2011.

• After the stabbing incident, an alleged attempt to crash the plane, the jet plunged nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 m), and passengers, who entered through the cockpit door overpowered the attacker and other pilots onboard rushed into the cockpit; eventually, the aircraft made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. While Machchhar’s condition is stable and he has been admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk, the identity and motive of his attacker, the copilot, remain unknown and Israeli authorities are probing the matter, Israeli officials were quoted by Reuters as saying.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍‘Israel’s 9/11 averted’: India’s Smit Machchhar praised for preventing flydubai crash

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
📍What do you understand by the following terms in the context of public service? (UPSC, GS4, 2013)
a) Integrity
b) Perseverance
c) Spirit of Service
d) Commitment
e) Courage of Conviction

 

PRELIMS ANSWER KEY

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