The Delhi High Court has held that the grant of a visa and admission into India are two distinct acts, and that refusal of entry to a foreign national is a sovereign function — reaffirming the limited scope of fundamental rights available to non-citizens.

• Sovereign function: visa issuance, refusal of entry and immigration clearance involve national security, foreign policy and administrative discretion.
• Statutory reading: Section 3 of the 2025 Act requires a valid passport and visa, but bars entry of a foreigner found inadmissible; the framework does not make a visa an unconditional right of admission.
• Article 14 argument rejected: the husband’s admission did not show the two were similarly situated, since the adverse inputs concerned the petitioner alone.
• No writ: without an infringed legally enforceable right, no writ could issue under Article 226.

• Hans Muller of Nurenburg v. Superintendent, Presidency Jail (1955) — the Foreigners Act gives the Centre wide discretion over foreigners, including expulsion.
• Louis De Raedt v. Union of India (1991) — a foreigner’s fundamental rights are confined largely to Article 21; the right to reside and settle is for citizens only.
• NHRC v. State of Arunachal Pradesh (1996) — Article 21 protects the life and liberty of non-citizens, here the Chakma refugees.
• Mohammad Salimullah v. Union of India (2021) — the right not to be deported is ancillary to Article 19(1)(e) and is not available to non-citizens.

• Sealed covers: reliance on material the petitioner cannot see limits her ability to contest it — a recurring concern in Indian jurisprudence.
• Reasons: a minimum written communication of refusal, without disclosing sensitive inputs, could improve transparency.
• Balance: courts across democracies generally defer to the executive on admission of aliens, while requiring that decisions not be arbitrary.

Co-hosted by the Indian and Philippine navies, the five-day exercise reinforces India’s naval presence in Southeast Asian waters under the Act East Policy and the MAHASAGAR vision.

Figure 2 — The Philippines: between the South China Sea and the Pacific

Subic Bay lies on the west coast of Luzon, facing the South China Sea. Map courtesy BBC News; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• South China Sea: India’s presence supports freedom of navigation under UNCLOS, which the Philippines invoked in its 2016 arbitral award against China.
• ASEAN centrality: a multilateral ASEAN-wide exercise signals support for the region’s own security architecture rather than a bloc approach.
• Interoperability: HADR and VBSS drills build practical cooperation for disasters and maritime crime.

A year after the rate cuts of September 2025, the Union Finance Minister cites growth in reported taxable supplies and collections as evidence that a lighter rate structure can coexist with revenue growth. The GST Council takes up the second phase — process reforms — on 7 October.

• Proposals on registration, returns, refunds, disputes and smoother flow of ITC, developed with States.
• Stated aim: reduce the time and cost of compliance, especially for small and medium enterprises.
• The Minister notes that a higher share of tax liability is now discharged through credits, while accumulated credit has fallen relative to supplies — easing working capital.

• Attribution: part of the growth in supplies and collections reflects nominal GDP growth and compliance trends, not rate cuts alone; independent analysis is needed to separate the effects.
• Price pass-through: household gains depend on whether rate cuts are passed on to consumers.
• State finances: with GST compensation over, States depend on buoyancy of their own GST share; regional variation matters more than the aggregate.
• Persistent issues: inverted duty structures, refund delays and litigation — which the process reforms and the GST Appellate Tribunal are meant to address.

An eight-coach DEMU converted to run on liquefied natural gas alongside diesel was flagged off from Sabarmati, Gujarat on 27 September. The conversion is a way to cut emissions from existing diesel trainsets that cannot be hauled by electric locomotives.

• DEMUs have no provision to attach a locomotive, so they cannot be hauled by an electric engine.
• Many DEMUs still have years of service life; dual-fuel conversion makes productive use of existing assets while cutting diesel use.
• Diesel stock is also kept for exigencies such as disruption of overhead power.
• A hydrogen train, also built on a DEMU rake, has been unveiled, but hydrogen is harder to scale.

• LNG is still a fossil fuel; the emission benefit depends on the share of LNG used and on methane leakage across the supply chain.
• Fuelling infrastructure for LNG along rail routes is limited, which may restrict wider rollout.
• A long-term pathway may favour electric trainsets as diesel assets retire.

A study in Scientific Reports by researchers at ATREE, Bengaluru, finds that linking India’s naturally isolated river basins could carry invasive fish and aquatic pathogens into ecologically sensitive basins — a less-discussed cost of the National River-Linking Project.

• "Surplus" and "deficit" labels can mask seasonal and year-to-year variation in water availability.
• Transfers alter downstream flows, sediment transport, floodplains and deltas; dams and canals fragment habitats and block fish migration.
• On the Ken–Betwa link, experts warn that reduced flow and sediment could lower biodiversity in the Ken.
• Effects may extend to downstream countries sharing basins.

• A dedicated national policy on invasive alien species, as in Australia and the EU.
• Basin-level ecological risk assessment built into project appraisal, including pathways for species and pathogens.
• Barriers, screening and monitoring at link points; assured environmental flows downstream.

Scientists estimate that a 2024 marine heatwave killed about 99.9% of the coral that built Tuvalu’s islands. Pacific leaders visiting the atoll nation during a Fiji-hosted pre-COP meeting will see the damage first-hand.

Figure 5 — Tuvalu and Funafuti atoll in the Pacific

Tuvalu lies over 800 km north of Fiji; most land is only a few metres above sea level. Map courtesy BBC News; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Scientists attribute the coral loss directly to climate change, not to pollution or overfishing.
• Rising sea levels could make the archipelago uninhabitable by the end of the century.
• Local fishers report fewer red snappers and smaller fish — a direct livelihood impact.
• The annual UN climate conference is to be held in Turkey this year; the Fiji meeting is the Pacific’s pre-COP platform.

On 4 October, two male Great Indian Bustards bred at the Ramdevra and Sam centres were released at Sam in Desert National Park, Jaisalmer — the first step in rewilding captive-bred birds under Project GIB.

Figure 6 — Release of a captive-bred GIB at Desert National Park

Post-release monitoring of these two birds will shape protocols for future releases. Image courtesy MoEFCC / PIB; reproduced with credit for educational use.

Government surveillance recorded 54 rabies deaths in 2024, while an ICMR-led study estimates about 5,726 deaths a year. The gap reflects different methods, but it also shows that India lacks a single reliable count of a disease it aims to eliminate by 2030.

• IDSP-IHIP is a disease surveillance system relying on reporting by health facilities.
• MCCD records only medically certified causes of death, mostly from urban hospitals.
• Many rabies deaths occur at home or outside the formal health system — and go unrecorded.

• Make human rabies a notifiable disease uniformly across States.
• Strengthen verbal autopsy and civil registration to capture deaths outside hospitals.
• Ensure PEP availability at primary health centres; scale up mass dog vaccination — the most effective route to elimination.
• Adopt a One Health approach linking human, veterinary and municipal data.

Heritage activists, including the Kakatiya Heritage Trust, are seeking withdrawal of the proposed PVNR opencast coal mine at Venkatapur in Mulugu district, Telangana, arguing it could threaten the 13th-century temple and the adjoining Ramappa Lake.

Figure 8 — The Ramappa (Rudreshwara) Temple, Palampet

The temple stands on a raised platform over a sandbox foundation — the feature activists say could be affected by groundwater changes. Photograph reproduced with credit for educational use.

• The mine would be about 5 km downstream of the lake and temple, with excavation to about 300 m.
• A Geological Survey of India report is cited as saying lake water could move through geological lineaments and faults towards the mine.
• Experts fear "piping" through these lineaments could affect the sandbox foundation of the nearly 800-year-old temple, which is already showing signs of distress.
• The project is to be taken up by Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL); activists plan protests in 15 villages.

• Coal remains central to India’s power supply, and SCCL is a key supplier to southern States.
• World Heritage status carries obligations: UNESCO expects Heritage Impact Assessments for major projects near inscribed sites.
• An independent hydrogeological study before any clearance would test the claims on both sides.