Current Affairs 01 July 2026

Adolescent Malnutrition in India: NFHS-6 Findings and School-Based Interventions

Data from the sixth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6, 2023-24) points to a worsening nutrition profile among Indian adolescents, with obesity, elevated blood sugar, and other lifestyle-linked conditions climbing sharply. The findings have renewed calls for schools to take on a bigger role in nutrition education and physical activity.

• A Double Burden: India is dealing with undernutrition and a fast-rising overweight/obesity problem side by side, and adolescents are caught in the middle of both trends.
• Lifestyle Diseases on the Rise (NFHS-6, 2023–24): Obesity levels climbed to 30.7% among women and 27.3% among men; high blood sugar prevalence rose to 17.8% in women and 20.9% in men — both signalling a deterioration in metabolic health nationwide.
• This is no longer confined to cities. Inactive routines, stress, and processed-food consumption are pushing up obesity and metabolic risk among rural adolescents just as much as urban ones.
• The Thin-Fat Phenotype: A large share of adolescents look lean on the outside but carry high visceral fat internally, putting them at elevated risk of early Type-2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
• The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS, 2019) found that 27.4% of adolescents are stunted, and many who appear thin are nonetheless metabolically unwell. Separately, 35% of stunted under-five children already show adult-level triglyceride readings, raising their long-term diabetes and cardiovascular risk.
• Weak Diets: Adolescent diets skew heavily toward cereals, with too little protein, fruit, vegetables, and dairy, even as intake of High Fat, Sugar and Salt (HFSS) foods and Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) grows fast — UPF consumption alone is rising more than 13.7% a year.
• Cereal-dominant eating patterns leave adolescents well short of what the Dietary Guidelines for Indians 2024 recommend, namely that fruits and vegetables should make up roughly half the plate by volume.
• A Growing Future Burden: A 2025 Lancet study forecasts that by 2050, 21.8 crore men and 23.1 crore women in India will be overweight, with the sharpest rise expected among 15–24 year-olds.
• Inactivity: Sedentary behaviour has become a serious public health concern across both urban and rural adolescent populations.
• Long screen time and inactive routines feed into poor eating habits, compounding the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease.

• Building Practical Skills: Students need hands-on training in reading food labels, judging portion sizes, and spotting deceptive junk-food advertising.
• The ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition's Let's Fix Our Food (LFOF) consortium is already working toward this, promoting nutrition literacy and distributing food-label reading kits to build healthier food environments.
• In 2025, the CBSE directed more than 24,000 affiliated schools to put up "Sugar Boards" that expose the hidden sugar content in packaged snacks and drinks.
• Tools such as the NCERT–UNESCO comic book "Let's Move Forward" can make nutrition education more engaging, helping students absorb lessons on hidden sugars, balanced diets, and physical wellbeing.
• Cleaning Up the School Food Environment: Campuses should go UPF- and HFSS-free by adopting FSSAI's Eat Right School Initiative, which combines curricular nutrition education with practical steps like healthier canteen menus.
• Schools also need to enforce FSSAI's 2020 rule barring the sale of High Fat, Salt and Sugar foods within 50 metres of school premises.
• PM POSHAN meals should lean more on protein and millets, while school gardens and fruit breaks can build a habit of eating fresh, seasonal produce from an early age.
• Rethinking the Curriculum: Nutrition can't stay confined to a chapter in a biology textbook — understanding macro- and micronutrients deserves the same everyday importance as arithmetic.
• Physical education and sport need to become a fixed, non-negotiable part of the school day, not an optional extra, as a direct counter to rising screen time and sedentary habits linked to obesity and non-communicable disease.
• Going Beyond Height and Weight Checks: Schools should link up with the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) for more comprehensive health screening.
• Holding periodic Adolescent Health and Wellness Days on campus would let schools screen for early metabolic risk, BMI deviations, and anaemia, and route students to primary health centres when needed.
• Bringing Parents In: What children eat is largely decided by what's bought at home, so parental awareness sessions on the risks of UPFs and the value of dietary variety are essential to make school-based habits stick.
• Policy Levers: At the national level, higher taxes on sugary drinks and tighter curbs on surrogate junk-food advertising aimed at children would reinforce what schools are trying to do.

• National Family Health Survey (NFHS): A large-scale, multi-round household survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) with the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai as the nodal agency. NFHS-6 (2023-24) is the sixth round, covering nearly 6.79 lakh households across 715 districts, and for the first time was coordinated solely by IIPS without USAID involvement.
• Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS), 2019: India's first nationally representative micronutrient and non-communicable disease risk survey among children and adolescents (0–19 years), conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with UNICEF support.
• Dietary Guidelines for Indians 2024: Issued by ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad; recommends that half the plate by volume consist of fruits and vegetables, alongside limits on HFSS/UPF intake.
• FSSAI Eat Right School Initiative: A programme by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India that certifies schools as "Eat Right Campuses" through safe food handling, healthy canteens, and nutrition education modules for students.
• Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK): A child health screening and early intervention programme under the National Health Mission, covering the 4 Ds — Defects at birth, Diseases, Deficiencies, and Development delays — in children from birth to 18 years.
• PM POSHAN (erstwhile Mid-Day Meal Scheme): A centrally sponsored scheme providing hot cooked meals to school children to improve nutritional status and encourage school attendance.

SUMAN Roadmap 2030: Strengthening Maternal and Newborn Healthcare

• Union Health Minister Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda unveiled the SUMAN Roadmap 2030 at the 16th Conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW).
• The same event saw the rollout of several other digital health tools — Aarogya Setu 2.0, eSushrut@clinic, the Ayushman Sarathi PM-JAY WhatsApp chatbot, a Drug Registry, and the Unified Health Interface.

• Overview: The Roadmap is a strategic blueprint from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare aimed at overhauling maternal and newborn healthcare delivery nationwide.
• Approach: It blends national priorities with ground-level realities across States, using an evidence-based approach to move India toward its SDG commitments on maternal and newborn health by 2030.
• RMNCHA+N Framework: The Roadmap sits within the RMNCHA+N framework — Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition — taking a life-cycle view that spans pre-pregnancy through the postnatal period.
• Managing High-Risk Pregnancies: A core focus is identifying and tracking high-risk pregnancies across four stages: antenatal care, the third trimester, intrapartum care, and the postnatal period.
• What It Tackles: The plan takes on transport gaps, healthcare access in tribal and remote regions, quality of emergency obstetric care, grassroots participation via SUMAN Panchayats, and the growing threat climate change poses to maternal and newborn health.
• Where the Focus Is: Time-bound interventions are being rolled out in 130 districts across 13 high-focus States — Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal.
• Targets: The Roadmap sets out to bring the Maternal Mortality Ratio below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030, cut the Neonatal and Infant Mortality Rates further, secure universal coverage of quality maternal and newborn care, and ultimately eliminate preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
• Broader Interventions: These span pre-pregnancy folic acid supplementation, nutrition support for anaemic and undernourished mothers, closer surveillance of high-risk pregnancies, Maternal Death Surveillance and Response (MDSR) and Maternal Near Miss (MNM) reviews, Non-Pneumatic Anti-Shock Garments (NASG) for obstetric haemorrhage, AI-enabled labour rooms, climate-responsive planning, rationalising Caesarean section rates, and folding in the Samagra Shishu Bal Swasthya Karyakram (SSBSK).
• Backing It Up: Implementation support includes new Centres of Excellence, a centralised SUMAN Call Centre for grievances, stronger referral chains between facilities, and digital tracking via the JANANI Portal.

• Drug Registry: A unified digital repository under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) that standardises information on generic drugs, branded medicines and other substances to improve e-prescriptions, interoperability, and clinical decision-making.
• Unified Health Interface (UHI): An interoperable ABDM service layer letting citizens and verified providers discover, book and access digital health services across different apps rather than being locked into one platform.
• National Ambulance Services (NAS) Operational Guidelines 2026: Sets a common national standard for emergency medical transport, covering ambulance deployment, AIS-125 compliance, Integrated Command and Dispatch Centres, GPS tracking, and integration with the 112 emergency response number.
• Aarogya Setu 2.0: A rebuilt national health app and Personal Health Record platform for creating an ABHA ID, managing health records, using the PM-JAY wallet, setting medicine reminders, finding nearby health services, and controlling consent-based data sharing.
• Ayushman Sarathi: A WhatsApp chatbot for PM-JAY that offers round-the-clock access to eligibility checks, Ayushman Card downloads, hospital search, grievance tracking and treatment history.
• eSushrut@Clinic: A lightweight, ABDM-linked Hospital Management Information System built by C-DAC for small clinics, PHCs, Health and Wellness Centres, and private practices.
• Samagra Shishu Bal Swasthya Karyakram (SSBSK): Brings Home-Based Newborn Care and Home-Based Care for Young Child under one umbrella, delivering continuous home- and community-based care from birth to 36 months.

• Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW): The apex advisory body headed by the Union Health Minister, with State Health Ministers as members, to promote coordinated health policy and planning between the Centre and States; health being a State subject under the Constitution.
• JANANI Portal: A Ministry of Health digital platform used for tracking maternal health service delivery and, per this Roadmap, for mapping haemoglobin testing records of pregnant women.
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): A national digital health ecosystem launched in 2021 to create a unique digital health ID (ABHA) for every citizen and interoperable digital health records.
• Maternal Death Surveillance and Response (MDSR) / Maternal Near Miss (MNM): WHO-recommended review mechanisms that track and analyse maternal deaths/near-miss events at facility level to identify preventable causes and corrective action.

Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: Revised Operational Guidelines

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued revised Operational Guidelines for the Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, coinciding with eight years since the programme's launch, and setting out a sharper strategy to tackle anaemia across the country.

• A Shift in Approach: The revised guidelines move India's anaemia response away from a purely preventive model toward active, case-based treatment — backed by more intensive testing, tracking, and follow-up protocols.
• From 6x6x6 to 7x7x7: The earlier six-part strategy has been expanded with three new structural additions:

• A Seventh Beneficiary Group: Low Birth Weight (LBW) babies aged 0–6 months are now covered, aiming to break the intergenerational cycle of anaemia right from the start.
• A Seventh Intervention — "Eating Right": This pushes for daily, conscious consumption of diverse, iron-rich food as a habit rather than a one-off supplement.
• A Seventh Institutional Mechanism: A digitally integrated Monitoring and Evaluation system has been added to keep the programme accountable end-to-end.

• The T4 Strategy: The programme's operating model has moved from T3 (Test, Treat, Talk) to T4 (Test, Treat, Talk, Track), building in stricter follow-up and referral through the full continuum of care.
• Stronger Clinical Options: For severe or non-responding cases among pregnant and lactating women, Intravenous Iron Therapy — using Ferric Carboxymaltose (FCM) and Iron Sucrose — is now a standard clinical tool.
• One Digital Backbone: A new centralised Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan Portal will pull together data from the JANANI Portal (maternal screening), the RBSK Portal (child screening), and the U-WIN Portal (immunisation tracking) for unified monitoring.
• Whole-of-Government, Whole-of-Society: The Abhiyaan leans on inter-ministerial coordination alongside two community-facing campaigns — 'Jan Bhagidari' for mobilisation and 'Jan Chetna' to de-normalise anaemia as an accepted condition.
• What It's Aiming For: The revised push is explicitly tied to bringing down the Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Ratio while improving overall maternal and child health outcomes.

• Background: Launched in 2018 under the National Health Mission, AMB was India's move toward tackling anaemia across the life cycle rather than through isolated interventions, addressing both nutritional and non-nutritional causes.

• Preventive IFA Supplementation: Age- and status-specific, colour-coded Iron-Folic Acid tablets are distributed — biweekly syrup for infants, weekly pink tablets for 5–10 year-olds, weekly blue for adolescents, red for non-pregnant women, and a daily dose for pregnant women.
• Twice-Yearly Deworming: Carried out under National Deworming Day on 10th February and 10th August each year, targeting parasitic infection in children and adolescents aged 1–19. Pregnant women are dewormed separately during their second trimester through antenatal care.
• Fortified Food: IFA-fortified foods are mandatorily worked into government-funded public health programmes.
• Beyond Nutrition: The programme also screens for and treats non-nutritional causes of anaemia — malaria, haemoglobinopathies like Sickle Cell Disease, and fluorosis.
• Digital Tools: Point-of-care testing and treatment have been digitised as part of the programme's rollout.

• What Causes It: Iron deficiency is the leading cause, though folate, vitamin B12, and vitamin A deficiencies also contribute; the result is low haemoglobin and reduced oxygen delivery to organs.
• The WHO classifies women of reproductive age as anaemic below 12 g/dL haemoglobin, and children under 5 below 11.0 g/dL.
• Consequences: Anaemia brings fatigue and can impair cognitive and motor development in children; in pregnant women, it raises the risk of perinatal loss, premature birth, and low birth weight babies.
• Who's Most Affected: Children under 5, menstruating adolescent girls, and pregnant/postpartum women bear the heaviest burden.
• The Scale of the Problem: Globally, anaemia affects 40% of children aged 6–59 months, 37% of pregnant women, and 30% of non-pregnant women aged 15–49.
• In India, NFHS-5 recorded anaemia in 67.1% of children under 5, 59.1% of adolescent girls (15–19), 57.0% of women (15–49), and 52.2% of pregnant women.
• More than half of pregnant women in India (52%) experience anaemia — defined as haemoglobin below 11 g/dL — at some point during pregnancy.

• National Health Mission (NHM): An umbrella programme (2013) combining the National Rural Health Mission and National Urban Health Mission to provide accessible, affordable, quality healthcare; AMB operates as a flagship sub-scheme under NHM.
• Ferric Carboxymaltose (FCM): An intravenous iron formulation used for rapid correction of iron-deficiency anemia in patients who cannot tolerate or do not respond adequately to oral iron supplementation.
• Haemoglobinopathies: Inherited blood disorders (e.g., Sickle Cell Disease, Thalassemia) affecting haemoglobin structure or production; India runs a dedicated National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission targeting 2047.
• U-WIN Portal: A digital platform for tracking universal immunization coverage, now proposed to feed into the unified Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan Portal for children's anemia records.

India's First 3D-Printed Artificial Reefs off the Ramanathapuram Coast

Tamil Nadu is preparing to lower India's first 3D-printed artificial reef modules into the sea as part of the second phase of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, a step toward restoring degraded marine habitats along the coast.

• The Pilot: Six newly designed reef modules will be tested off the Ramanathapuram coast to see how they hold up in Indian coastal waters.
• Researchers will track how durable and ecologically effective the modules prove to be before deciding whether to scale up the programme.
• Who's Involved: The project pairs the Visakhapatnam Regional Centre of ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute with Tvasta, a Chennai-based, IIT Madras-incubated startup that built the roughly 1-tonne modules.
• What Sets Them Apart: Unlike traditional iron-reinforced concrete reefs, these are printed without iron and feature intricate crevices, folds, and attachment surfaces.
• The added porosity and surface complexity is meant to make the structures more hospitable to corals, sponges, and other reef-dwelling marine life.
• Who Benefits: Funded jointly by the Centre and Tamil Nadu government on a 60:40 basis, the project is part of a larger reef-building effort spanning 213 sites in the State, expected to help traditional fishing communities through richer fish stocks and healthier ecosystems.

• Concept: These are engineered underwater structures meant to rebuild marine habitats in places where natural reef systems have weakened or vanished.
• How They're Made: 3D-printing lets designers build far more intricate, tailored, and species-specific reef shapes than pouring conventional concrete allows.
• Design Advantage: Varying cavity sizes, folds, and textured surfaces give marine organisms places to shelter, attach, and breed.
• Ecological Payoff: The complex surfaces attract corals, sponges, algae, crustaceans and fish, gradually seeding a new marine ecosystem.
• Fisheries Angle: New habitat and nursery grounds can boost fish biomass, supporting more sustainable fisheries.
• Why It's Useful: The technology allows flexible, quickly-modified designs suited to specific sites and species.
• Caveats: Long-term success hinges on durability, using non-toxic materials, sensible placement, and continued ecological monitoring — artificial reefs don't always deliver on their intended goals.
• Bigger Picture: As a restoration tool, 3D-printed reefs can strengthen marine biodiversity, support coastal livelihoods, and take some pressure off natural coral reefs.

• Origins: Launched on 10th September 2020, PMMSY was designed to drive a "Blue Revolution" and make India's fisheries sector more sustainable, productive, and inclusive.
• Goals: It aims to lift fish production and productivity, modernise the value chain, build up post-harvest infrastructure, and tighten quality management.
• Money: The scheme was approved with a ₹20,050 crore outlay for 2020-21 to 2024-25, since extended to 2025-26.
• How It's Structured: It runs through two arms — a Central Sector Scheme fully funded by the Centre, and a Centrally Sponsored Scheme implemented by States with partial central funding.
• What It Covers: Focus areas include boosting production, fisheries infrastructure, post-harvest handling, women's participation, climate-resilient coastal villages, biofloc technology, and digital platforms.
• Results So Far: Fish production under PMMSY reached 195 lakh tonnes in 2024-25, exports have grown, 58 lakh livelihoods have been created, and 99,018 women have been supported through the scheme.

• ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI): A premier fisheries research institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, headquartered in Kochi, mandated to conduct research on marine fisheries resource assessment, management, and conservation.
• Blue Revolution: The umbrella term for India's policy push (since the 7th Five Year Plan, revitalised under PMMSY) to boost fish production and fisheries-sector income through modernised aquaculture and marine fisheries management.
• Conventional vs. 3D-printed reefs: Traditional artificial reefs use reinforced concrete blocks/scuttled ships; 3D-printing allows intricate, iron-free, high-porosity geometries tailored to specific species' habitat needs, a distinguishing exam-relevant fact.

Garudastra: Indigenous Long-Range 120mm Vehicle-Mounted Mortar System

India has carried out a successful trial of Garudastra, an indigenously built long-range 120 mm vehicle-mounted mortar system, at the Infantry School in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh — the Army's oldest training establishment. The live demonstration for the Indian Army showcased the system's mobility, precision, and rate of fire. Garudastra has been developed by Nibe Ltd.

• What It Is: Garudastra is a vehicle-mounted 120mm mortar system built for accurate indirect fire support, combining high mobility with a fast battlefield response. It is being described as India's heaviest indigenous 120mm vehicle-mounted mortar system to date.
• Who Built It: The system comes from Nibe Ltd.
• Standout Features: It supports rapid deployment, a high rate of fire, shoot-and-scoot operation, Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact (MRSI), precision-guided munitions, and integration with command-and-control networks. The vehicle-mounted, shoot-and-scoot design lets it reposition quickly after firing, reducing the chance of being detected or hit by counter-battery fire.
• How Precise It Is: Garudastra can hit targets 7–10 km away using GPS and laser guidance, aiming for pinpoint accuracy with minimal collateral damage, and can link directly into command-and-control and battle management networks.
• Speed of Operation: It can be brought into firing position in under 30 seconds, fire two rounds within 15 seconds, and relocate within 15 seconds to dodge counter-battery fire.
• Rate of Fire: Just two crew members can operate it, and it's capable of firing 12 rounds in 60 seconds without losing accuracy.
• Payload: Its 17-kg warhead is built to punch through reinforced concrete, making it effective against bunkers and other hardened targets.
• Why It Matters: The system is a step forward for India's indigenous defence manufacturing base, aligning with the Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat push.

• Shoot-and-scoot: A tactical doctrine where a mobile artillery/mortar platform fires and immediately relocates before the enemy can identify its position and return fire (counter-battery fire) — a survivability feature increasingly standard in modern indirect-fire systems.
• Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact (MRSI): A firing technique where a single gun/mortar fires several rounds along different trajectories timed so that all rounds land on the target simultaneously, maximising surprise and lethality without needing multiple guns.
• Aatmanirbhar Bharat in defence: India's self-reliance push in defence manufacturing, involving indigenisation lists, defence corridors, and incentives for private players (like Nibe Ltd) alongside DRDO/OFB-linked entities.

The Fiscal Tightrope for State Governments

• State debt accumulates over time whenever spending outpaces tax and other receipts. Although the Union government collects the bulk of taxes, States shoulder a disproportionately large share of public spending.
• States fund their expenditure partly through their own revenue — chiefly State GST and sales tax — and partly through Union government transfers, grants, and loans.
• Whatever gap remains between spending and receipts is bridged through market borrowings, on which States pay interest.

• Kerala and Tamil Nadu rank among India's most socially and economically advanced States, yet their finances — like those of most States — are under real strain; White Papers released by both governments flagged their outstanding debt as a matter of concern.
• It's tempting to read State debt purely as fiscal mismanagement, but it may just as easily reflect a gap between what States aspire to deliver developmentally and the limited fiscal room they actually have.
• Most State spending goes toward social sectors like health and education and economic sectors like agriculture and irrigation — areas that directly shape people's day-to-day lives.
• In Kerala, decades of comparatively high social-sector spending, dating back to the 1960s, have been central to the State's social progress. Per capita, State social expenditure ran 30% above the all-India average in Kerala and 20% above it in Tamil Nadu, while it lagged by 35% in Bihar and 40% in Uttar Pradesh, based on an analysis of RBI's State Finances: A Study of Budgets covering 2020-23.
• States raise their own revenue mainly through SGST and sales tax, topping this up with Union transfers, grants and loans.
• Kerala does relatively well on this front — its per capita own-tax revenue runs 1.5 times the all-India average. Yet its share of Union tax devolution stood at just 1.92%, below its 2.6% share of India's population in 2023–24.
• Whatever gap remains between what States spend and what they raise gets filled through market borrowing, with interest payments attached.

• With its limited resources, Kerala manages to put only about 10% of spending toward capital expenditure that builds future productive capacity; the remaining 90% goes to routine, day-to-day expenses.
• Around a fifth of the State budget goes to government salaries — mostly teachers, nurses, doctors, and police. Pensions eat up 15.3%, and interest on market borrowings another 16.5%.
• This leaves Kerala stuck: cutting revenue spending — trimming pensions, shrinking the workforce — would undercut the very social-sector gains that define the State, yet without fresh capital investment in infrastructure, higher education, research, and public transport, Kerala risks falling behind in knowledge-driven sectors.
• Young, educated Keralites are leaving in large numbers simply because the State can't generate enough matching educational and career opportunities at home.
• Meanwhile, private wealth in Kerala is conspicuous — large houses, expensive cars, a dense network of gold shops — standing in sharp contrast to the government's fiscal constraints, a gap that risks deepening inequality.
• Bank data reflects the same story: Kerala's credit-to-deposit ratio sits at roughly 66%, well below the national average of 76% and far below the 100%-plus ratios seen in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (2023) — a sign of large amounts of savings sitting idle rather than being deployed.
• Had Kerala managed to channel even part of this surplus savings into investment between 2016 and 2026, its capital expenditure could plausibly have doubled.

• In China, the lion's share of growth-boosting investment comes not from the central government but from provinces and lower-tier local governments, working within a framework coordinated by central planning.
• Chinese local governments tap local government bonds (LGBs), land sales, and off-budget borrowing through local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) to raise funds, on top of public savings and central transfers.
• India, by contrast, imposes tighter limits on how much States can borrow — and makes that borrowing markedly more expensive. States pay 6.5% to 7.5% interest on the State Development Loans (SDLs) they issue to raise market debt, roughly 0.25 to 0.75 percentage points above the Union government's own borrowing cost, and far above the roughly 2% Chinese local governments pay when borrowing from their domestic banking system.
• That higher interest burden tightens the fiscal squeeze on State governments even further.
• There's a broader point here: debt a government takes on is, in a real sense, a debt owed to its own citizens. A government that borrows to widen welfare and opportunity is arguably doing something more valuable than one that simply avoids debt — much like a family might prefer to fund a local public university with its savings rather than spend those savings sending one child to study far away.
• In practice, both State and Union bonds in India are bought overwhelmingly by domestic financial institutions, including commercial banks.
• The author's underlying argument is that India needs fiscal structures letting States tap domestic savings more easily and cheaply to finance well-planned development projects.

• State Development Loans (SDLs): Market borrowings raised by State governments through the Reserve Bank of India via auctions; States pay a yield typically higher than the Union government's G-Secs due to perceived higher credit/liquidity risk.
• FRBM Act framework: The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (Centre, 2003) and corresponding State-level FRBM legislations cap States' fiscal deficit (generally around 3% of GSDP, with conditional additional borrowing space tied to power-sector and other reforms).
• Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs): Off-budget entities used by Chinese local governments to raise infrastructure investment financing, distinct from India's system where States borrow directly against fiscal deficit limits set by the Union government/Finance Commission recommendations.

Criminal Justice System's Digital Push: Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)

Starting January 1, 2027, every investigation and trial procedure under India's new criminal laws is set to be recorded digitally, according to a senior Home Ministry official. The nationwide rollout of the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) — which brings police, courts, prisons, forensics, and prosecution onto one platform — is nearing completion, with the focus now on making the entire workflow paperless end-to-end. The underlying data sits on the government-owned MeghRaj cloud.

• The New Criminal Codes: The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Sakshya Sanhita (BSS), and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) took over from the Indian Penal Code (1860), the Indian Evidence Act (1872), and the Code of Criminal Procedure (1898) respectively, coming into force on 1 July 2024.
• Over the past two years, 74.66 lakh FIRs have been registered under BNS. Because the new laws demand upgraded infrastructure and forensic capacity, States and Union Territories have a five-year window to put every pillar of the system in place.
• The Zero-FIR Provision: A total of 63,572 zero-FIRs — FIRs that can be filed regardless of jurisdiction — have been registered under the BNSS. The practice existed informally before, but the BNSS now gives it formal statutory backing. A police officer cannot turn away a complainant wanting to file a zero-FIR; the case is then transferred to the police station with actual jurisdiction, which decides whether to close it or investigate further.
• Around 13,000 of these zero-FIRs involved transfers between districts within the same State.
• Digital Filing Backbone: The Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems (CCTNS), used to file FIRs across roughly 16,000 police stations nationwide, supports case registration in 23 languages, with the Bhashini App translating zero-FIRs into the language of the jurisdiction handling the case.
• How States Are Doing: Of 36 States and Union Territories, Haryana, Goa, Assam, Punjab, and Chandigarh have rolled out every parameter of the digital justice system, while 23 States and UTs (including Delhi) sit above the national average. Some north-eastern States are lagging, largely due to connectivity gaps.
• Forensic Capacity: Since the new laws mandate forensic examination for offences carrying a sentence of seven years or more, 25 new forensic laboratories have been added in two years, pushing the national total from 129 in 2023 to 154 in 2025.
• Forensic labs handled 8,44,589 cases in 2023, with 4,64,879 pending; by 2025, intake had risen to 11,11,798 cases, with 3,90,786 still pending. Over 700 mobile forensic units have been deployed to date.
• Progress on Implementation: The national implementation score rose from 46.47% in January 2025 to 70.06% by June 2026. Sixty-day chargesheet compliance climbed from about 51% to 67%, and 90-day compliance from roughly 40% to 61%. Separately, 46.5 lakh digital evidence (Sakshya) IDs have been generated and 56.74 lakh e-summons served.
• One weak spot: only 46% of registered cases — less than half — have gone through full FIR consumption by courts, the step where a case is electronically transmitted to and received by court systems.
• As of May 31, 2026, the shared database held 37.68 crore police records, including 9.9 crore FIRs and 7.64 crore chargesheets, accessible to police and investigating agencies.
• What Remains: Improving internet connectivity in remote and north-eastern areas, standardising processes across States and UTs, achieving full interoperability between platforms, and training personnel are the challenges officials flagged going forward.

• Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS): An e-governance initiative integrating databases of police (CCTNS), courts (e-Courts), prisons (e-Prisons), forensics (e-Forensics) and prosecution (e-Prosecution) into a single searchable platform, enabling real-time exchange of information across the criminal justice ecosystem.
• Zero-FIR: An FIR that can be registered at any police station regardless of the jurisdiction where the offence occurred; the case is subsequently transferred to the police station with territorial jurisdiction. It was a Supreme Court/administrative practice earlier and now has explicit statutory backing under BNSS.
• MeghRaj (GI Cloud): The Government of India's national cloud computing infrastructure, hosting e-governance applications and data including criminal justice records.
• e-Sakshya (Digital Evidence IDs): A system for uniquely identifying and tracking digital evidence collected during investigations, mandated to strengthen chain-of-custody standards under the new evidence law (BSS).

Amit Shah Launches New FCRA Portal and e-OCI Card

Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah has launched a new portal designed to cut down paperwork, speed up clearance of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) registration applications, and enable real-time tracking of foreign fund inflows. The FCRA 2.0 Portal and an e-Overseas Citizen of India (e-OCI) card initiative were unveiled in the presence of Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Intelligence Bureau Director Mahesh Dixit, and other senior officials.

• Current FCRA Landscape: Around 14,500 organisations currently hold FCRA registration in India. Registration under the Act is compulsory for any NGO or association wanting to receive foreign donations; the Ministry of Home Affairs receives roughly 15,000–20,000 applications a year and processes about 17,000 annual returns.
• What the New Portal Offers: Hosted on the National Government Cloud (MeghRaj), the FCRA 2.0 Portal brings process re-engineering, an integrated dashboard, Aadhaar-based authentication, e-Sign, and OCR-based document analysis.
• One notable change: the new portal drops the section showing year-wise fresh registrations, a feature the old website carried. Separately, in 2022, the MHA had already removed the sections listing NGOs whose registrations were cancelled and the page detailing each NGO's annual returns.
• Shri Shah said the government's approach is to combine transparency with technology, making compliance simple for genuine actors while building strict surveillance around bad actors. The new system, he said, would sharpen monitoring of foreign funds received with questionable intent and do away with physical document submission altogether.
• He noted that before 2014, the FCRA process was buried in paperwork and lacked proper oversight — a gap that matters for both national security and development. He added that applications and the volume of foreign donations have both risen sharply in recent years.
• The e-OCI Card: More than 50 lakh OCI cardholders stand to benefit from the switch. After 20 years, when a person's passport is renewed, they will no longer need to get the OCI booklet reissued, and each cardholder's registration number will now be unique.
• The digital card also solves the problem of a lost or damaged physical document, and lets cardholders verify their status in real time on their own.

• Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA): Regulates the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contributions/hospitality by individuals, associations and companies to safeguard national interest; registration under FCRA is mandatory for NGOs/associations wishing to receive foreign donations, and it is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Overseas Citizen of India (OCI): A permanent, non-citizen immigration status introduced under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2005, granted to persons of Indian origin (with some exceptions) settled abroad, allowing multiple-entry lifelong visa-free travel to India and most rights of NRIs (except voting, holding constitutional posts, and buying agricultural land).
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) parallel — MeghRaj (GI Cloud): The same government cloud infrastructure hosting the FCRA 2.0 Portal is used across multiple e-governance platforms (as also seen in the health-sector digital initiatives), reflecting a common technology backbone strategy across ministries.

709 New Species and 353 Taxa Added to India's Fauna and Flora Database

India's fauna list grew by 709 species in 2025 — 483 species entirely new to science and 226 recorded in India for the first time. The country's flora count expanded too, with 353 new taxa added, 14 of them infraspecific. The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and Botanical Survey of India (BSI) released these findings, unveiled by Union Environment Minister Shri Bhupender Yadav in Kolkata.

• A ZSI press statement noted that India's total faunal biodiversity has now reached 1,05,953 species, reinforcing the country's place among the world's mega-diverse nations.
• Where the New Fauna Turned Up: Kerala topped the list with 98 new animal species, followed by West Bengal (76), Karnataka (67), and Arunachal Pradesh (65).
• Which Groups Grew Most: Hymenoptera led with 106 new additions, followed by Lepidoptera (65), Diptera (64), Arachnida (64), Coleoptera (55), and Pisces (50).
• Notable New Finds: Myotis himalaicus, a newly identified Himalayan bat species, features among the year's discoveries. Two new green fan-throated lizard species, Ptyctolaemus mamdaphaensis and Ptyctolaemus siangensis, were also described, along with Lycodon irwini, commonly called Irwin's wolf snake.
• On the Plant Side: Of the 353 new plant taxa, 221 are entirely new to science, while the remaining 132 mark first-time distributional records for India.
• Where the New Flora Was Found: Arunachal Pradesh led with 49 discoveries, followed by Uttarakhand (39) and Kerala (37).
• The BSI's Plant Discoveries, 2025 report catalogues 154 angiosperms, three pteridophytes, 13 bryophytes, 62 lichens, 93 fungi, 22 algae, and six microbes.
• Among the more significant finds are wild relatives of economically and ecologically important plant groups, including Begonia, Impatiens (balsams), legumes, and orchids.
• A BSI statement noted that vascular plants make up roughly 43% of the newly described taxa.

• Zoological Survey of India (ZSI): Established in 1916, headquartered in Kolkata, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; the premier national organisation for faunal taxonomic and survey research, publishing the annual "Animal Discoveries" report.
• Botanical Survey of India (BSI): Established in 1890, headquartered in Kolkata, also under the MoEFCC; the apex national research organisation for plant taxonomy, publishing the annual "Plant Discoveries" report.
• Mega-diverse country: A classification for countries harbouring a majority of the Earth's species and high levels of endemism; India is one of 17 recognised mega-diverse countries.
• Infraspecific taxa: Taxonomic ranks below species level (e.g., subspecies, variety, form) used to classify populations showing consistent but minor morphological/genetic differences within a species.
• New to science vs. new record: "New to science" denotes species never previously described/named anywhere; "new record" denotes species already known to science elsewhere but documented in India (or a region) for the first time.