Ladakh’s groups have long demanded Sixth Schedule status. The Ministry of Home Affairs has instead proposed inserting a new Article 371-K to give the Union Territory a directly elected legislative body — a sui generis model that raises new constitutional questions.

Figure 1 — The Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh

Ladakh (blue) comprises the Leh and Kargil districts and borders China and Pakistan-occupied areas — hence the Centre’s security concerns. Map supplied; depicts boundaries as per India’s official position. Reproduced for educational use.

• Flexible federalism: the Supreme Court has described Indian federalism as flexible — federal in normal times, unitary in an emergency (State of Rajasthan v. Union of India, 1977).
• Precedent: Parliament has already created special arrangements for UTs through Articles 239A and 239AA, so a tailored model for Ladakh is permissible.
• Procedure: inserting Article 371-K needs a constitutional amendment under Article 368 by a special majority of Parliament.

• Division of power: what will the elected body control, and what remains with the LG?
• Money: without financial autonomy, an elected body may have responsibility without resources.
• Protection of land and culture: will the body be able to legislate on land transfer and customary law — the core of the Sixth Schedule demand?
• Acceptance: the model will succeed only if Ladakh’s Leh and Kargil groups see it as meeting their concerns.

The elevation of seven district judges to the Delhi High Court has drawn attention to a long-standing imbalance: judges promoted from the subordinate judiciary hold only about one-fifth of High Court posts, despite decades of trial experience.

• Slow climb: officers join as civil judges in their late twenties; about 10 years to become senior civil judge and another decade to become district judge.
• Late elevation: most enter the zone of consideration in their late fifties, leaving only a few years before retirement at 62.
• Supreme Court: no sitting Supreme Court judge today began in the trial judiciary; the last was appointed in August 2021 and retired in June 2025.
• Colonial legacy: trial courts were once run by executive officers; independent State judicial services developed only after the Constitution separated the judiciary from the executive.
• Supreme Court’s 2023 order: declined to fix a 50% service quota, but asked High Courts to recommend service-cadre names before vacancies arise.

• For more service judges: long records of judgments, integrity and performance are already available, making appointments faster; better career prospects would attract talent to trial courts.
• For the Bar stream: senior advocates bring constitutional and appellate experience and wider perspectives, and serve longer tenures.
• Possible reforms: earlier recommendation of eligible officers; a transparent ratio in the Memorandum of Procedure; raising the High Court retirement age to 65 (proposed in the 114th Amendment Bill, 2010, which lapsed); an All India Judicial Service under Article 312.

After a series of sexual assaults on minors and women in parks, buses and public spaces, the Supreme Court held that the right to live free from the fear of violence is part of Article 21, and directed the Delhi Police to act within four weeks.

• Identify vulnerable pockets and step up patrolling.
• Audit lighting and CCTV coverage in public spaces within four weeks.
• File a detailed response on safety measures in parks, educational institutions and places frequented by women and children.
• Public spaces such as parks, buses and Metro stations must not become “zones of high risk” because of poor lighting and lax patrolling.

• Right to safe public space: links safety to the fundamental right to life, not just to crime control.
• Prevention over punishment: focuses on environmental design — lighting, visibility, patrols — rather than only on harsher penalties.
• Limits: courts can direct but not run policing; lasting change needs police staffing, women personnel, last-mile transport and faster trials.

After reviewing the law-and-order situation, the Ministry of Home Affairs has extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, in specified areas of three north-eastern States for six months from 1 October 2026, to 31 March 2027, keeping the status quo on areas covered.

• Security case: continued ethnic violence in Manipur, armed groups operating across the porous Myanmar border, and the need to protect forces operating in hostile terrain.
• Rights case: allegations of extra-judicial killings and alienation of local people; a law meant to be temporary has lasted over six decades.
• Middle path: phased withdrawal tied to measurable improvement, stronger State police, time-bound decisions on prosecution sanction, and political dialogue with armed groups.

The WHO has issued new guidelines to widen contraceptive choices and, for the first time, a Target Product Profile for reversible male contraceptives. The timing matters for India, where NFHS-6 (2023–24) shows that men carry almost none of the contraceptive responsibility.

Female sterilisation rose from 27.4% in NFHS-1 (1992–93) and has stayed at about 36–38% since NFHS-3. Male sterilisation fell from about 3.5% to just 0.5% over the same period.

Figure 6 — Female vs male sterilisation, NFHS-1 to NFHS-6

The gap has widened over 30 years. Image courtesy The Hindu Data Team; data: NFHS. Reproduced with credit for educational use.

Male sterilisation rose in 22 States between NFHS-5 and NFHS-6, but only Telangana (2% → 3.6%) gained more than one percentage point. Even States that reached low fertility early did not break the pattern.

Figure 7 — The ten States with the largest rise in male sterilisation

Even the “top gainers” remain below 2%, except Telangana. Image courtesy The Hindu Data Team; data: NFHS. Reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Social norms: contraception is seen as a woman’s responsibility; myths link vasectomy to loss of strength or masculinity.
• Historical memory: the Emergency-era drives left deep distrust of male sterilisation.
• Programme design: incentives and camps have focused on tubectomy; few male health workers promote vasectomy.
• Medical fact: vasectomy — especially no-scalpel vasectomy — is simpler, done under local anaesthesia, and has fewer complications than female sterilisation.

• Use the WHO Target Product Profile (safety, effectiveness, acceptability, affordability) to back Indian research on male methods such as RISUG.
• Counselling for couples, male outreach workers and awareness campaigns to counter myths.
• Expand reversible options for both partners, so the rise in traditional methods does not raise unintended pregnancies.

A Union Minister flagged off India’s first LNG-powered train at Sabarmati, Gujarat, along with projects worth over ₹1,542 crore on safety, line capacity and freight.

• LNG train: two 1,400 HP Driving Power Cars at the Sabarmati depot converted to a diesel–LNG dual-fuel system.
• Kavach: 157 km of Ahmedabad–Palanpur and 247 km of Ahmedabad–Samakhiyali.
• Line doubling: Sabarmati–Sarkhej (21 km, ₹313.27 crore) by March 2028, improving access towards the Dholera industrial region.

• Transition fuel: LNG cuts emissions and cost on routes that cannot yet be electrified, but it is still a fossil fuel and largely imported.
• Safety first: Kavach coverage is still a small fraction of India’s network of over 68,000 route km; faster rollout is the real priority after recent accidents.
• Freight share: high-power locomotives and doubling help Railways regain freight share lost to roads.

As a District Health Officer, you are told to raise male participation in family planning. Almost all sterilisations in your district are tubectomies; men cite myths about weakness, and some local leaders oppose the campaign.

• Gender justice: women bear the health risks of contraception almost alone.
• Autonomy vs targets: pressure to show numbers must not slide into coercion, as in the Emergency era.
• Informed consent: people must get accurate, complete information, including on reversibility and side-effects.