Context

The National Payments Corporation of India has introduced a charge of 0.4% that most merchants will have to pay banks and payment processors on UPI payments they receive in excess of ₹2,000 per transaction. The new structure takes effect from October 15.

Background & Key Facts

• What is charged: The Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) will not be applicable to person-to-person UPI transactions and UPI transactions to small vendors. All person-to-merchant transactions of up to ₹2,000 done on UPI or through RuPay debit cards will also be exempt.
• Flat-rate sectors: In sectors such as Railways, telecom, insurance, fuel and agriculture inputs, transactions over ₹2,000 will incur a flat MDR of ₹5, "to ensure cost stability in critical public services and thin-margin industries," the Finance Ministry said.
• Capital markets: Payments towards mutual funds, securities, stockbrokers and dealers will attract an MDR of 0.02%, capped at ₹300, aimed at encouraging retail participation in formal financial markets.
• P2P untouched: "For person-to-person (P2P) transactions, there will be no charges at all, irrespective of transaction value," the Finance Ministry said, adding that P2P transactions constitute 37% of total UPI transaction volume and 70% in value terms. Charges apply only to person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions exceeding ₹2,000.
• Pass-through barred: The Centre said banks have been advised to ensure that merchants do not pass on the MDR charges to customers for UPI payments — a key fear during the public debate.
• Who bears the cost: The 0.4% charge will be "shared amongst the payment ecosystem partners, including banks and app providers." For transactions of ₹75,000 and above, the MDR will be capped at ₹300 per transaction.
• Small merchant carve-out: Small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh per month via UPI QR codes under the Person-to-Person Merchant (P2PM) classification will not have to pay any MDR on any UPI transactions they receive.
• Limited impact claimed: The Finance Ministry's data analysis shows that only 4% of merchant transactions will be impacted by the MDR introduction, since most transactions fall below the ₹2,000 threshold or qualify under the zero-MDR P2PM framework.
• Small-vendor fund: A dedicated fund for promoting UPI use by small merchants will be set up using 5% of total MDR collections, to "bridge informal street vendor setups with formal merchant acquiring accounts, promoting digital adoption in the unorganised sector."
• Political reaction: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi accused the government of opening the door to UPI charges, with Mr. Gandhi alleging the move resulted from the government "surrendering to American pressure," referencing long-standing opposition from American payment companies to India's zero-MDR policy. Jairam Ramesh noted the notification permits charges above ₹2,000 without explicit protection, calling it an example of "Modi Govt's FAST moves (First Announce, Subsequently Think)."
• Government's rebuttal: BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said 96% of UPI merchant (P2M) transactions are ₹2,000 or below and are 100% charge-free, RuPay debit-card payments remain charge-free, and P2P UPI transactions remain completely free, terming Congress's claims a "jhooth ki dukaan (shop of lies)."

Context

India's trade deficit fell in August, driven by strong merchandise exports that grew more than 26%, outpacing import growth in both percentage and absolute value terms, said Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, adding that this has happened for the first time.

Background & Key Facts

• Overall trade: India's overall exports, including merchandise and services, grew 25.4% to $82.7 billion in August 2026. Imports grew at a relatively slower 18.7% to $92.1 billion. As a result, India's total trade deficit shrank to $9.4 billion in August 2026, compared to $11.6 billion in August last year.
• Merchandise surge: Merchandise exports grew 26.1%, or by $9.07 billion, in August 2026 to $43.8 billion. Merchandise imports grew 14%, or by $8.71 billion, to $70.7 billion in the same period.
• A first: "This is the first time we are seeing that in absolute value terms also that export growth is higher in value than import growth," Mr. Agrawal said, calling it "a positive sign."
• Not just currency-driven: While acknowledging the positive impact of a depreciating rupee on exports, Mr. Agrawal said the growth in exports has been in dollar terms as well as in rupee value, and that a large amount of India's exports have grown strongly in volume terms — not merely due to the depreciating rupee. "There is always a debate about whether this is volume or value-led growth. We looked into that as well. India's merchandise export surge is not only a value-led growth, but also a remarkable volume growth," he said.
• Breadth of growth: Granular data available up to July shows segment volumes have gone up in the majority of segments, underscoring the demand and breadth of demand in the global market. Of 168 principal commodities that India exports, 68 saw both volume and value growth, while 39 saw value growth but not volume growth.
• Services sector softer: In comparison to merchandise, India's services sector saw slightly more subdued growth in August 2026. Services exports grew 24.6% to $38.9 billion compared to last year, while services imports grew a much quicker 37.4%.

Context

India is "deeply concerned" by the blockades in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Tuesday, even as the Houthis ramped up attacks on Saudi cities and a ship carrying 14 Indian seafarers was targeted on Sunday off the Oman coast.

Background & Key Facts

• Ministerial engagement: The developments in the Red Sea region were discussed on Sunday when External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Delhi. More than 2.4 million Indians live and work in Saudi Arabia, where several cities — including Abha, Jeddah, Jazan, Taif, Yanbu, Makkah and AlUla — are on alert amid attacks from the Houthis.
• Government's condemnation: "We have condemned the attack on the Saudi sovereign territory, including on civilian infrastructure and economic assets. Such attacks undermine regional stability and threaten freedom of navigation through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, calling the Houthi strikes "unacceptable." He said oil supplies from the region had not been affected thus far.
• The El Gaia incident: Omani authorities are helping with search operations for a missing Indian seafarer after a ship with 23 crew members, including 14 Indians, was hit off the Omani coast. The Panamanian oil tanker El Gaia was believed to have struck an Iranian mine in the Strait of Hormuz and was being towed back to Oman. All but two crew members, including 13 Indians, were rescued. The U.S. military has claimed the ship was targeted by an Iranian missile last month, and by a drone over the weekend.
• Dark mode operation: MT El Gaia, the tanker hit by a projectile over the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz, was reportedly operating in "dark mode," with its Automatic Identification System (AIS) switched off, and its coordinates were not available at the time of reporting. Its last port of call was Sohar, Oman.
• Crew details: The tanker had 25 crew members on board: 14 Indians and 11 Pakistani nationals. Two crew members remain unaccounted for: Muhammad Hammad Obaida, a Pakistani Third Engineer, and Sumit Kumar Singh, an Indian Oiler who had joined the vessel on June 25, 2026, when the ship called on Dahej, Gujarat. The 20-year-old ship, with a cargo-carrying capacity of 48,000 tonnes, is owned and managed by Dubai, UAE-based companies. The Omani Coast Guard boarded the vessel and transferred the remaining 23 crew ashore.
• Government's appeal: "We deeply thank the Omani authorities for rescuing our nationals, and our Embassy (in Muscat) is in close touch," Mr. Jaiswal said. "The targeting of commercial shipping, targeting of seafarers, civilians and civilian infrastructure in the region is unacceptable to us. We also urge that free and safe navigation and flow of commerce through international waterways in the region be restored at the earliest," he added.
• BRICS exchange: The incident occurred over the weekend when Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in Delhi for the BRICS Summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted to him the need for "safeguarding freedom of navigation and commerce, and the safety and well-being of seafarers." However, the readout did not mention any assurances from the Iranian President on allowing safe passage for Indian ships and seafarers in the Strait of Hormuz.
• China angle: The MEA spokesperson also took questions on comments from Beijing about Mr. Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters after returning to Beijing that the two leaders had reached an "important consensus," and claimed Mr. Modi had said India would not allow "any force to engage in anti-China activities on its territory" in response to Mr. Xi's concerns.

Context

The ongoing wave of ethnic violence in Manipur claimed two more lives on Tuesday. Officials in the Naga-majority Tamenglong district confirmed that unidentified gunmen attacked Leisangphai village around 3 p.m., killing two Kuki women.

Background & Key Facts

• The victims: Phalneichong alias Chonga Sitlhou, 78, was collecting firewood when the assailants fired at her. Kimjalhing, alias Kimneo Singson, 28, who had returned home to assist her parents with farming after completing her nursing course, was shot dead at the same place.
• Preceding events: The attack followed the September 13 killings of four Kuki civilians, including two women, allegedly by Naga extremists in Tamenglong and Noney, also Naga-dominated districts. On August 27, alleged Kuki armed groups had killed four Naga civilians in the Kuki-majority Kangpokpi district.
• KZC's response: Condemning the attack, the Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) said the repeated killing of Kuki-Zo civilians has assumed an "unacceptable and alarming pattern" that "could no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents." It views these killings as involving the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) — NSCN(IM) — and the Zeliangrong United Front (Kamson) — ZUF-K — as part of an escalating pattern of attacks against Kuki-Zo civilians.
• KZC's demands: The Council demanded that the Manipur and Central governments protect vulnerable civilians, bring perpetrators to justice, and take firm, lawful action against armed groups attacking civilians.
• Protest measure: To register its protest, the KZC notified all Kuki-Zo civil society organisations that no Kuki-Zo person killed by Naga armed groups in Manipur would be buried until further notice.

Context

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) of Bangladesh sentenced seven former Ministers and senior officials of the Awami League to death on Tuesday. Among those who received the death sentence is Obaidul Quader, former Minister of Road Transport and Bridges. The verdict was delivered by a three-member tribunal led by Justice Nozrul Islam Chowdhury.

Background & Key Facts

• The sentence: A Bangladesh court sentenced seven senior leaders of the former ruling party, including two ex-Ministers, to death in absentia on Tuesday for their role in trying to crush the 2024 uprising.
• The charge: The seven men, members of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, were convicted of crimes against humanity, including murder, as well as instigating and provoking killings.
• In absentia: The sentencing was delivered in absentia, indicating the convicted leaders are not in Bangladeshi custody, most likely having fled or remaining outside the country's jurisdiction, consistent with Sheikh Hasina's own continued absence from Bangladesh.

Context

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent firm of Instagram and Facebook, will share child sexual abuse material (CSAM) reports with Indian law enforcement in addition to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the company said on Tuesday.

Background & Key Facts

• Existing channel: Indian agencies have for years already had access to CSAM reports from Meta and other U.S.-based technology companies, following an MoU in 2019 between the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and NCMEC.
• The new direct channel: Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the Cybercrime portal managed by I4C (Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre), under the Union Home Ministry, "to collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm," a spokesperson said.
• Scale of prior reporting: As on 31.03.2024, more than 69.05 lakh Cyber Tipline reports had been shared with States/UTs concerned, Union Minister of Women and Child Development Annpurna Devi had told the Rajya Sabha in 2024.
• Company's stated commitment: "Protecting children on our platforms is a priority for us and we are committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible," a Meta spokesperson said.
• Context of scrutiny: Meta has been scrutinised in recent weeks by the Union government and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) over news reports describing CSAM being served in ads on Instagram and Facebook. The firm had said that while it screens all ads being posted by third parties on its platform, some bad actors are able to get such content posted anyway.

Context

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said the BJP should implement the Uniform Civil Code by legislating over it in Parliament rather than pushing it through BJP-ruled States, questioning the move to use the "back-door entry." Meanwhile, key NDA allies TDP and Shiv Sena backed Home Minister Amit Shah's assertion that UCC will be implemented in all NDA-ruled States before 2029, while the JD(U) said it would examine the Bill's provisions before taking a position.

Background & Key Facts

• Omar Abdullah's argument: "The government should not take the back-door route and should instead bring the Bill before Parliament. If you have numbers, bring it to Parliament. Why are you doing this through different States?" he said, noting several NDA allies are "opposed to the idea of the UCC" and that "not all the NDA allies are in favour of the proposal," which is why the government is "taking the [BJP-ruled States] path."
• Universality argument: "A measure of this nature could not be considered universal if it was implemented only in BJP-ruled States," Mr. Abdullah said. "The whole country is not a BJP-ruled State. Therefore, if you apply it only to BJP States, it's not universal." He pitched that such an issue "should not be decided by individual States and must be addressed at the national level through Parliament."
• JD(U)'s position: The Janata Dal (United) clarified its stance on the UCC, with senior leader and Bihar Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Chaudhary stating: "The JD(U) will first analyse and study the provisions of the UCC, and if they are found unexceptionable, why should we oppose it for no reason?"
• RJD's counter-offer: Opposition RJD legislator Bhai Virendra extended an invitation to JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar to leave the BJP alliance and rejoin the RJD, alleging the current government "was working on instructions from Nagpur (where the RSS headquarters is located)."
• TDP's backing: TDP's Andhra Pradesh president P. Srinivasa Rao said in Amaravati that the party is bound by the Union Home Minister's statement on UCC as an NDA partner: "Yes, I have seen our Union Home Minister's statement on UCC and as NDA partners we are bound to go by his statement." He acknowledged critics say UCC "infringes on religious freedom" but argued the country is "culturally diverse" and the UCC will "strengthen and unify the country."
• Shiv Sena's backing: Maharashtra Deputy CM and Shiv Sena president Eknath Shinde backed Mr. Shah, invoking Bal Thackeray's vision: "'Hinduhridaysamrat' Balasaheb Thackeray's vision was 'one country, one law' with equal justice for all. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has also stated the same position on UCC." He added the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra "remains positive" about UCC and will make a "definitive decision at an appropriate time."
• Border de-escalation aside: Separately, Mr. Abdullah welcomed the de-escalation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), calling it "a good step," and said, "Our foreign policy is our own. Why do we look for other countries' certificates?" — commenting on China's recent praise of India's foreign policy. He also credited the BRICS Summit's condemnation of the Pahalgam terror attack as a diplomatic success.

Context

The Registrar-General and Census Commissioner of India (RG&CCI) has written to all States, saying that the margin for error during the second phase of Census 2027 is "narrower" as the questions are "numerous, sensitive, and more consequential." The official also underscored the importance of rigorous training for the nearly 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors who will conduct the exercise.

Background & Key Facts

• The letter: In a letter sent on September 9, RG&CCI Mritunjay Kumar Narayan also asked for the integration of gender sensitisation in the training programme for enumerators, with an emphasis on respectful interaction, accurate recording, and strict avoidance of assumptions or bias.
• Self-enumeration continues: The circular said self-enumeration would continue in the second phase. Enumerators and supervisors, most of whom are government school teachers and staff, will be trained to validate, edit and accept responses submitted through the self-enumeration portal and mobile application.
• India's first digital Census: In what is being called India's first digital Census, enumerators are to record data through an app on their personal phones. The same process was followed during the first phase, the House Listing Operations (HLO), which began on April 1 and will conclude by September 30.
• Encouraging self-enumeration: The circular said enumerators "may be encouraged to do self-enumeration of their own households to get better acquainted with questions through the SE (self-enumeration) Portal." Hands-on practice with the Population Enumeration Mobile App is mandatory for all enumerators and supervisors.
• Rollout sequencing: Following completion of Population Enumeration in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, the second phase of Census 2027 will be carried out in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and the remaining parts of Uttarakhand from November 16.

Context

Phase 3 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 19 States and Union Territories is witnessing notably more deletions during the enumeration phase, compared with States and UTs where the SIR process happened during the previous two phases.

Background & Key Facts

• Overall numbers: Of the 19 States/UTs, 17 have already released their draft SIR rolls, except Nagaland and Tripura. The 17 States and UTs combined had a total of 36.1 crore voters in the electoral rolls before the SIR. This came down to 29.9 crore in the draft SIR rolls following the deletion of 6.15 crore (17.1%) names.
• Comparison with earlier phases: This is 4.8 percentage points higher than the 12.8% of deletions witnessed during the enumeration phase of the 13 States and UTs that underwent SIR in the first two phases (which included Bihar, where SIR first happened). Those 13 States and UTs had a total of 58.9 crore voters before the SIR, shrinking to 51.7 crore in the draft SIR rolls, a deletion of 7.22 crore names (12.3%).
• Final rolls trend: While final rolls are yet to be released for Phase 3 States and UTs, patterns from Phases 1 and 2 show that the magnitude of deletions is unlikely to come down significantly — net deletions in the first two phases changed only marginally from 12.3% to 10.5% between draft and final rolls.
• State-wise divergence: Among States/UTs with at least one crore voters, only Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh saw more than 15% deletions in draft rolls during the first two phases. In Phase 3, six have seen more than 15% deletions, of which four — Delhi, Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh — saw deletions of 20% (one-fifth) or more.
• Urbanisation doesn't fully explain it: The Election Commission (EC) has not provided reasons for the rise in deletions. Phase 3 States being highly urbanised cannot fully explain it, since States such as Tamil Nadu, Keralam and Gujarat — also highly urbanised — did not see such high deletions during Phase 2. The Hindu found that deletions in urban centres of Phase 3 States (Hyderabad in Telangana, Mumbai in Maharashtra, Bengaluru in Karnataka) are of a higher magnitude than in urban centres of Phase 2 States (Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Ahmedabad in Gujarat).
• Non-urban divergence too: Among States that are not urban, Jharkhand saw 16.5% deletions in Phase 3, compared with 12.9% deletions in Chhattisgarh in Phase 2.
• Shifting reasons for deletion: A bewildering trend in Phase 3 is that a higher magnitude of deletions is accompanied by an increasing share of people deleted for reasons marked as "Permanently Shifted" or "Untraceable/Absent." Consequently, the share of deletions under reasons "Deceased" or "Duplicate (Already enrolled)" has come down. A well-defined process uniformly applied is unlikely to cause such a difference in reasons for deletion between different phases.
• The "Others" category: More States are reporting deletions with reason marked as "Others" in Phase 3. Around 9.73 lakh names have been deleted under this category as per Chief Electoral Officers' press statements. However, an analysis of the full lists of deletions by The Hindu found that for Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana, not a single person's reason was marked "Others" in the system, indicating they were all clubbed under the "Absent" category instead.

Phase-wise SIR Deletions

*Phase 3 includes 19 States in the SIR schedule; draft rolls have yet to be released for Nagaland and Tripura, so the table above reflects the 17 States for which data is available.

Context

Writing in The Hindu, Bharath Reddy and Pranay Kotasthane of the Takshashila Institution argue that Indian startups are rebuilding their products on Chinese open-weight AI foundations — Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi — which allow significant cost savings while running almost as well as the American frontier and lagging it by only about six months. They assess China will begin restricting access to its frontier open-weight models around late 2028.

Background & Key Facts

• Scale of adoption: Nikkei Asia reported in July 2026 that Indian companies are increasingly switching to Chinese large language models (LLMs) to contain AI costs, with one venture investor noting startups are cutting costs by an order of magnitude.
• Not charity, but strategy: The authors identify this open-weight generosity as neither charity nor a workaround for chip controls, but a strategy supported by five reinforcing logics, each durable but not permanent.
• Logic 1 — Cost: DeepSeek trained its R1 model for $294,000, a fraction of the costs OpenAI or Anthropic incur, aided by distillation from American models and architectural efficiency breakthroughs.
• Logic 2 — Prestige: DeepSeek's January 2025 release wiped roughly a trillion dollars off U.S. tech stocks. Xi Jinping's appearance at the Shanghai AI conference, the 29-country World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) bloc, and 5,000 training slots for developing countries exemplify open-weighting converted into diplomacy.
• Logic 3 — Commoditisation: American labs monetise proprietary weights; free Chinese models good enough for most commercial work hurt their pricing power. Chinese AI companies do not need to beat competitors' products — only destroy their ability to charge for them.
• Logic 4 — Capital: Financial repression traps Chinese household savings in state banks, which lend cheaply to strategic sectors — the same dynamic that flattened global solar and EV markets through overcapacity. This has led to 820 LLMs registered with China's cyberspace authority by early 2026.
• Logic 5 — Infrastructure: Free models drive AI adoption, which drives demand for complementary products China dominates — energy, cloud and physical infrastructure. Alibaba's cloud revenue grew 34% year-on-year while it gave Qwen away.
• When Beijing might close the gates: The Financial Times reported in July that Chinese regulators led by the Ministry of Commerce have been consulting leading AI companies (Alibaba, ByteDance, Zhipu) on limiting transfer of training data abroad and restricting free downloads of Chinese model weights.
• Three preconditions for restriction: (1) Consolidation — Beijing can coordinate five firms but not 800; Xinhua has already announced a shift from the "Hundred Model War" to the "Top Five Basic Models," with U.S. export controls ironically accelerating this consolidation. (2) Lock-in — restriction only becomes rational once global developers are deeply embedded in China's cloud stack; this threshold is currently far from being reached. (3) Saturation — once non-Chinese open-weight releases (Meta, Mistral, Nvidia) sustain competitive pressure independently, further Chinese releases buy nothing; the gap is narrowing but still exists.
• Likely graduated restriction: The authors expect not a sudden switch but differentiated pathways — frontier models served via API first with weights released after a six-month embargo, commercial licensing above a capability threshold, smaller distilled models left free as an on-ramp, tool-use and agentic scaffolding withheld even when weights are open, and preferential access for WAICO members — appearing around late 2028.
• What India should do: India should leverage the open ecosystem while pricing in switching costs, using model-agnostic architectures for government and regulated sectors, and considering an OpenRouter equivalent through MeitY instead of GPU compute subsidies. It should focus on areas where it can win — applications, industrial and language data, edge inference silicon, domain-specific fine-tuning — described as atmashakti (self-strength through selective capability) rather than full self-sufficiency.

Context

Writing in The Hindu, M.K. Narayanan, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau, former National Security Adviser and former Governor of West Bengal, argues that new forms of rebellion by Gen Z are emerging worldwide, driven by the belief that disruption is essential to challenge an old order proving unequal to new kinds of problems — with anger as the dominant impulse.

Background & Key Facts

• Regional precedent: In India's neighbourhood, student and youth upheavals in Nepal and Bangladesh resulted in the ouster of long-established regimes. The usual tactic in such upheavals is to brand rebels as "foreign agents" or worse, with a pliant media whipping up frenzy against them as "anti-national" or "traitors."
• Signal of growing discontent: Warning signs are seldom heeded by authorities, even in established democracies. Recent agitations by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), and more specifically the Jantar Mantar "sit-in protest," are pointers to what could happen — though far more spontaneous and less structured than movements in Bangladesh and Nepal.
• Underlying grievances: The pent-up fury among students over mismanagement of examinations (such as NEET-UG) and perceived collusion between authorities has been a signal that should not be ignored. Protests by students have occurred in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
• State's indiscriminate force: The tendency of State governments to use indiscriminate force against students — force meant for unruly, violent mobs — could prove self-defeating and trigger a backlash against all forms of authority. In Jharkhand, some individuals are drawing comparisons between students' protests over recruitment irregularities and the "eponymous tribal uprising" led by Birsa Munda, which could act as tinder for serious conflagration.
• Jharkhand's specific crisis: The situation in Jharkhand demands careful handling since the agitators have a recognisable leader, Devendranath Mahato, who went on a hunger strike and was subsequently hospitalised. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren's response — scrapping the examinations — "almost seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater," reflecting the anguish and inability of authorities to understand the nature of new protests.
• Misunderstanding the anger's nature: Repeated assertions by authorities that "Naxalism is dead" miss the point that Naxalism, depicted as "spring thunder over India" in the late 1960s, grew from small beginnings in Naxalbari into a major threat, as Home Minister Amit Shah constantly points out. Many of India's best and brightest were drawn into the movement, not only tribals but also the rural peasantry, working class and intelligentsia.
• "Dimagi Naxals" reference: The author warns the recent reference to "dimagi Naxals" (intellectual/ideological Naxals) has the potential to be exploited, leading to further rounds of protest with uncertain outcomes — since the spokesperson for the "dimagi Naxals" is already referring to the CJP as their sibling.
• Perception of institutional failure: There is a widespread belief among youth that deals are being struck at various levels at their expense, and that authorities appear to have no answer. Political institutions today give the impression of reduced salience in dealing with such situations, and the "baton has been taken over by the youth."
• The author's diagnosis: The growing centralisation of power and authority is aggravating the situation. Many segments of youth believe institutional safeguards are being systematically undermined. India's domestic political scene is possibly entering an era of "variable geometry," requiring those in charge to recognise the signs and address the many problems that have surfaced.

Context

Writing in The Hindu, Saibal Chattopadhyay (Chairman, National Statistical Commission) and Saurabh Garg (Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) explain that changing the GDP base year is not just about how growth is calculated — it can also change the estimate of how large the economy was in rupee terms (nominal GDP).

Background & Key Facts

• Not unidirectional: As recognised in international statistical practice, revisions from a base-year change do not necessarily move in one direction — the estimated size of the economy can go up or down depending on what new data and methods reveal.
• India's revision: With the recent base revision of GDP, across the three years for which both series overlap, India's nominal GDP was revised down by about 2.7% in 2022-23, 3.5% in 2023-24 and 3.8% during 2024-25.
• Not unique to India: Rebasing exercises in countries such as Nigeria (2014), Indonesia (2014), Brazil (2015), South Africa (2018), Mexico (2019), China (2021) and Spain (2024) all resulted in revisions to previously estimated nominal GDP levels. India's earlier shift from base year 2004-05 to 2011-12 also changed the estimated size of the economy.
• Uneven sector-wise revisions: A proper assessment requires looking at the sector-wise picture, where revisions are far from uniform. Agriculture and allied activities were revised up by about 3.8%–5.9%, while financial services, real estate, professional services and ownership of dwellings were revised up by roughly 7.8%–9.0%. In contrast, trade and transport and storage saw sharp downward revisions of around 23%–26%.
• Unincorporated sector — the key driver: Trade GVA was revised downwards by 36%, road transport by 16.9%, whereas hotels and restaurants' GVA was revised upwards by 5.7%, mainly on account of revised estimates of the unincorporated sector. In the 2011-12 series, this sector was estimated by moving forward benchmark indicators with proxy indicators; the new series uses ASUSE (Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises) and PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Survey) data for more direct measurement. Therefore, a major driver of the revision in nominal GDP is the improved measurement of India's unincorporated services sector.
• World Bank's validation: The World Bank's April 2026 India Development Update similarly notes that India's nominal GDP was revised down by 3–4% in each of the four years from FY23, mainly due to a reassessment of the informal economy. It also notes the revised series shows quarterly growth to be less volatile and more broad-based than previously estimated.
• Sector-specific revision, not uniform: Revisions in the unincorporated sector have not been uniformly applied but vary sector to sector. India's quarterly and provisional GDP estimates are built from previous year's quarterly figures and updated using GST collections and industrial production data — so when the FY 2022-23 GDP estimate was revised under the new methodology, the change naturally carried forward into all subsequent annual and quarterly estimates.
• Not a sign of slowdown: This does not mean the economy suddenly became smaller or slowed down in those years; part of the change reflects that calculation is now starting from a different, better-measured number.
• The authors' test: The new GDP series should be judged not by a single headline revision, but by the effort to make measurement of the Indian economy more current. The real test of a statistical system is not whether its numbers remain unchanged, but whether it is willing to change them when better evidence becomes available.

Context

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have offloaded Indian equities worth ₹13,138 crore in the first 10 trading sessions of this month, data showed. The selling has already wiped out 44% of the ₹29,631 crore net inflow recorded by foreign investors in August.

Background & Key Facts

• Record annual outflow: FPIs have been net sellers of Indian equities for most of 2026. Their cumulative net outflow from the stock market has reached ₹2,37,579 crore in the first eight months and 10 days of the year, making it a record annual sell-off so far.
• Brief revival questioned: Foreign investors had been reducing exposure to Indian equities for nearly three years, barring intermittent periods of strong inflows. July and August were notable exceptions, with FPIs turning net buyers during both months — a revival now at risk of losing momentum.
• Valuation concerns: V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, attributed renewed selling pressure largely to elevated Indian equity valuations relative to corporate earnings, with weak returns from the benchmark Nifty (particularly after adjusting for rupee depreciation) reducing the dollar-return attractiveness of Indian equities.
• Primary market resilience: Foreign investors have shown greater interest in India's IPOs and primary market. FPI investments through the primary market up to September 12 stood at ₹1,336 crore, taking total primary-market investment this year to ₹47,183 crore.
• Rupee under pressure: Persistent FPI outflows are adding pressure on the rupee, prompting the RBI to announce measures to attract dollar-denominated deposits from non-resident Indian (NRI) customers of domestic banks. The rupee weakened for the fifth consecutive session, closing at ₹95.88 against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday, down around 30 paise from its previous close of ₹95.54.
• Vulnerability factors: The rupee remains vulnerable to global macroeconomic factors, particularly U.S. monetary policy movements and crude oil prices. Analyst Dilip Parmar (HDFC Securities) noted the rupee "extended its losses for the fifth consecutive session, dragged down by a persistent surge in global bond yields and rising crude oil prices amid ongoing supply disruptions," with heightened risk aversion ahead of the critical FOMC rate decision also weighing on Asian currencies.
• Broader market impact: Benchmark Sensex tanked 778 points while Nifty closed at a five-month low on Tuesday amid surging oil prices, geopolitical tensions and weak global market trends. The Sensex tumbled 777.94 points (1.04%) to a three-month low of 74,003.82; Nifty dropped 279.50 points (1.19%) to 23,118.60, its lowest closing level since April 6.

Context

The wake of the August 26 flash floods in Nepal, which devastated several towns and villages, killed more than a thousand people, and left several unaccounted for, follows a familiar pattern that emerged after the 2021 Chamoli floods, the South Lhonak Lake disaster in 2023, and the 2024 Thame floods — a call to rethink development in the Hindu Kush Himalaya in light of climate-exacerbated risks.

Background & Key Facts

• Scale of damage: At least 13 hydroelectric power projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river corridors, and one solar power plant, were extensively damaged. According to the UNDP, about 15 power projects with a planned capacity of 470 MW that were under construction were also damaged.
• Not an unforeseen risk: While the flood caught everyone by surprise, the flood risk itself was not new information. Between 2014 and 2024, the region reported more than 2,500 landslides, 258 earthquakes, and several glacial lake outburst floods, according to ICIMOD.
• The sediment problem: "Hydropower plants don't have an issue dealing with all the water coming. You can always release water that you cannot use," said Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz. "There are other things it cannot so easily deal with... and one thing is more sediment," he added. Himalayan rivers in the monsoon carry exceptionally high sediment loads, but infrastructure design tends to measure water flow and volume, not sediment load.
• Under-monitored threat: Kathmandu-based water and climate analyst Ajaya Dixit said sediment load is only sporadically monitored, and its threat is downplayed to the extent that it has not been adequately considered in the design of river infrastructure, especially for projects involving reservoirs.
• Sharp rise in sediment load: In a 2023 report, ICIMOD noted that the suspended sediment load from the Hindu Kush Himalaya's headwaters has increased by around 80% in the last six decades due to heavier rainfall, accelerating glacier melt, and thawing permafrost.
• Turbine wear and rising costs: Increasing sediment levels affect reservoirs' capacity to hold water and thus the power the attached turbines can produce. Most of the sediment is hard minerals like quartz and feldspar, which wear uncoated turbines and other parts away, rendering maintenance and repair work more frequent and increasing costs.
• Climate justice dimension: As facilities fail, risk extends beyond lost investments to endangering workers' lives. Dr. Steiner noted that in the 2021 Chamoli disaster, many workers at the Tapovan site were relatively poor migrant workers "who had no agency" and were "exposed to something that they could not calculate" — a pattern repeated in Nepal, where at least 900 workers were estimated trapped in hydropower plants during the August floods. After Chamoli, around 140 of 200 killed or missing were reportedly workers at the Tapovan facility.
• Lessons not fully learnt: "I'm certain that things are going to change now, but then I also thought that things were going to change after Chamoli. I would rather say they haven't changed as much as we would have hoped," Dr. Steiner said.
• Nepal's dependency: Nepal has limited options — over 90% of its power needs are met by hydroelectricity. The country has around 83,000 MW of technical hydroelectric potential, with an installed capacity of 3,435 MW by 2025, and 4,063 MW and 16,029 MW under construction and planned respectively. Electricity exports to India and Bangladesh brought in about $200 million in revenue in FY2025-26, which the flash floods are likely to disrupt. Nepal's Energy Ministry said the country will buy electricity from India to cover shortages in coming months.
• Rethinking the energy system: "There are now other renewable alternatives and hybrid decentralised systems available," said Mr. Dixit. "We need to rethink our broader energy system... we need a risk-informed approach to designing and operating these energy systems so that the risks they face are not externalised onto the economy, society, and people." He added that Hindu Kush Himalaya nations "must come together and seriously begin to discuss ways of designing infrastructure that resonate with the emerging reality of a changing climate and environment."
• Peak water context (companion report): A separate study (Systemiq, with ICIMOD, the Integrated Mountain Initiative and India's G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment) found the Himalaya are approaching "peak water" by mid-century — the point when river flows stop rising and start declining — with profound implications for water security, given the Himalaya underpins more than 20% of India's GDP. Only 21 of an estimated 40,000 glaciers across the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region are currently monitored on the ground. Though the Himalayan region makes up around 18% of India's land, it accounts for roughly 35% of the country's natural disasters.

Context

In a September 10 report, Anthropic said it had blocked users from using its Claude AI model for a range of potentially harmful activities across cybersecurity, surveillance, and biotechnology between December 2025 and August 2026. Writing in The Hindu, Vasudevan Mukunth examines an older, unaddressed problem the report raises about the limits of AI safety measures.

Background & Key Facts

• Self-policing model: Today, AI companies like Google, Anthropic and OpenAI are largely policing themselves while building out a powerful technology — a context in which self-policing claims should stoke concern, since companies could be talking up the benefits of their products while under-protecting society, and developers should not release new capability before engineering adequate safeguards.
• Anthropic's own admission: Anthropic's report is candid that its earlier Opus 4 and Sonnet 4.5 models had "less stringent" safeguards against biology misuse because internal evaluations concluded they were not capable enough — access was controlled only in newer models, especially Fable 5. The company also said in August that its filters to block conversations about biological weapons had been inactive on roughly 133 million exchanges for nearly a year.
• Case studies of misuse: The report describes users who used older models for biology research for many weeks — including one researcher who wished to draft a grant proposal for gain-of-function research on the chikungunya virus, and developers who involved Claude in a guided rocket programme, including a field test with Claude-made code. In all cases, Anthropic said it terminated the users' accounts once the potential for illicit use became clear.
• How classifiers work: AI models require input and output classifiers, which respectively check user inputs and model outputs for harm. As the report put it, a classifier "cannot simultaneously enable benefit and prevent harm" in contexts where knowledge can be used for good or bad.
• The exfiltration gap: A user using Claude to design something dangerous — like guidance code for a missile — could have already saved that output offline before Anthropic spotted the misuse and closed the account. This means a claim of "having safeguards" can become misleading if data can still be exfiltrated before the account is closed.
• Two conflated details: The company needs a checkpoint, and the checkpoint needs to be able to recognise information as harmful. There is a built-in gap between output generation and output delivery, but the checkpoint also needs to reliably assess whether output is harmful — and it would be reckless to attempt this based on single messages, since classifiers work by detecting accumulated patterns, not one-off content.
• The rifle-or-wheelchair analogy: If you watch a worker hand small pieces of metal through a window and must judge whether the recipient is building a rifle or a wheelchair, at first you cannot tell — pins, springs, plates and screws could go either way. Only over time, as the sequence of parts accumulates, does the intended object become clear. Similarly, code for a control loop appears in both guided missiles and household appliances; classifiers are only alert once a sufficient pattern has accumulated.
• What this reveals about "safeguards": A statement that "there are safeguards" can be true to the extent that classifiers act on harmful information once detected, but false if taken to mean safeguards prevent harm altogether — since data exfiltration before account termination remains possible.
• Historical precedent — export controls: This is not a new problem; older systems dealt with similar issues by converging on two alternatives: restricting who can access a technology, then tracking usage patterns over time (the "trusted access programmes" paradigm the Anthropic report also mentions). Export control regimes like the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Nuclear Suppliers Group never inspect individual shipments — instead requiring an export licence linked to a specific end-user and end-use certificate, and barring shipments to listed organisations and countries.
• Other precedents: Similar dynamics played out in anti-money-laundering efforts (banks monitoring single transactions), large ammonium nitrate purchase restrictions after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and pseudoephedrine sale restrictions during the American methamphetamine crisis — in each case, for different reasons, empowering the classifier/checkpoint alone was not sufficient.
• Open question: The article concludes that the question of completely restricting access to dangerous AI models — given the prospect of "data exfiltration before termination" — remains open.

Context

In its second month of operation, the government's new rural employment scheme, Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) — VB-G RAM G — registered a modest improvement in employment generation. However, a year-on-year comparison with MGNREGS for August shows a 9% decline in the availability of work for the rural poor.

Background & Key Facts

• First month decline: In its first month of implementation, the new scheme reported a 48.01% decline in persondays generated compared with MGNREGS, falling from 17.65 crore in July 2025 to 9.18 crore in July 2026.
• Second month narrows the gap: August showed a smaller year-on-year decline than July. Persondays generated fell from 12.12 crore in August 2025 to 11.03 crore in August 2026, a decline of 9.01%.
• Cumulative decline: Taken together, July and August 2026 showed lower employment generation than the corresponding period in 2025 — cumulative persondays fell from 29.78 crore to 20.21 crore, a decline of 32.13%.
• West Bengal distortion: The gap could be wider still since no persondays were generated in West Bengal in 2025 — the implementation of MGNREGS in West Bengal was stalled in December 2021, with the Union government officially freezing all financial disbursements to the State on March 9, 2022.
• "Too early to judge": According to senior officials in the Union Rural Development Ministry, it is too early to judge the new scheme's performance. They said the 60-day pause in agricultural activity has also contributed to the dip in employment generation. So far, 16 States and Union Territories have notified their respective peak agricultural periods.
• Flexibility built in: The Act allows States to tailor peak agricultural periods to local agro-climatic conditions and cropping patterns, issuing area-specific notifications for districts, blocks, or gram panchayats as needed. This flexibility enables the employment programme to complement, rather than compete with, peak agricultural activity.
• New enrolment: Since the operationalisation of the new jobs programme, 6,40,779 new Gramin Rozgar Guarantee cards have been issued across States and Union Territories.
• e-KYC transition: While the government has reiterated that workers can continue to access employment using job cards issued under MGNREGS, it has also clarified that every worker registered under MGNREGA, irrespective of e-KYC status, has been migrated to VB-G RAM G. The Ministry underlined that pending e-KYC does not prevent a worker from demanding or receiving employment. So far, e-KYC of 15.89 crore workers has been completed, including 10.27 crore of the 10.84 crore active workers, or approximately 95%.