Current Affairs 25 June 2026

Hidden Climate Cost of Everyday Life in India

Climate change is usually framed as a distant target year — most countries, including India, have pledged net-zero emissions only by 2070. However, recent economic commentary highlights that for ordinary Indian households, climate change is already an “end-of-the-month” problem: heatwaves and erratic monsoons are quietly raising the cost of food, electricity, water, and healthcare, with the burden falling hardest on those who can least afford it.

• When a heatwave strikes north India, its effects cascade quickly: higher vegetable prices, erratic power cuts, rising hospital bills, and spiking electricity bills as cooling demand surges.
• Economists have warned that this year’s combination of intense heat and a weaker monsoon could push overall inflation above 5%, driven largely by food and energy costs.
• Food and beverages carry the heaviest weight in India’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) — about 45.86% in the current series — so any climate shock to agriculture is transmitted almost immediately into retail prices.

• A weaker or delayed monsoon reduces harvests and disrupts planting, while extreme heat can damage yields even when rainfall is adequate.
• In 2023, a below-normal monsoon (about a 6% rainfall deficit) reduced the sown area for pulses and oilseeds; retail prices of rice, wheat, and pulses rose by 6–15% year-on-year by early October that year.
• Repeated climate shocks set off a chain reaction: lower yields → supply bottlenecks → hoarding and speculation → higher retail prices, producing more persistent food inflation rather than one-off spikes.

• Rising temperatures push up cooling demand and strain the electricity grid. During the May 2026 heatwave, India’s power demand repeatedly hit a record 270.8 gigawatts (GW), driven by fans and air-conditioners running longer.
• To meet emergency peak demand, utilities scramble to procure expensive coal and imported fuel, and these costs are eventually passed on to consumers through higher tariffs and surcharges.
• For middle-class households, a higher electricity bill is an irritant; for informal workers and low-income families, it forces trade-offs — often cutting back on food and education spending.

• In rural India, erratic rainfall and groundwater depletion are making wells run dry more often, forcing households to spend more time and money securing water.
• In cities, unreliable municipal supply has given rise to a parallel “tanker economy,” where households pay private vendors steep premiums for basic drinking and domestic water.
• Dalit, Adivasi, and other marginalised communities living in informal settlements and slums — who already face economic and social disadvantage — bear these extra costs disproportionately, compounding existing inequalities.

• Heat stress, deteriorating air quality, and the spread of climate-sensitive diseases are driving up out-of-pocket health spending, which is already high in India.
• Rural women bear a disproportionate burden — walking longer distances for water, working in hotter fields, and caring for sick family members.
• Every extra day lost to climate-induced illness is a day of wages gone for informal workers, and every clinic visit draws from already thin household budgets, trapping families in cycles of debt.

A 2018 World Bank report, “South Asia’s Hotspots: The Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards,” found that rising temperatures and changing monsoon patterns could shave up to 2.8% off India’s GDP by 2050 and depress living standards for nearly half the population. Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra were identified among the worst-affected hotspots — states that already overlap with zones of agrarian distress marked by low and volatile farm incomes, high indebtedness, and persistent farmer suicides.

Wealthier households with land and capital can invest in climate-adaptive technologies such as advanced irrigation to insulate themselves. Marginalised castes and tribes, by contrast, are less likely to adopt and sustain such coping strategies even as climate pressures mount. In effect, climate change acts like a regressive tax — taking the most from those who contributed the least to the problem, while leaving them to absorb costs through debt, distress migration, or cutting back on food and education.

• Disaster Management Act, 2005: Heatwaves and cold waves are not classified as notified national disasters, restricting affected workers’ and vulnerable groups’ access to National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) assistance. The 15th and 16th Finance Commissions allowed States to use up to 10% of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for local/State-specific disasters, but no central statutory mandate exists for heat.
• Essential Commodities Act, 1955: Tools such as stock limits and export bans address short-term price spikes but do not tackle the underlying climate-induced supply disruption.
• Energy Conservation Act, 2001: The India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) remains advisory, with no legal mandate for developers to integrate passive cooling design (heat-resistant roofs, cross-ventilation) in low-income urban housing, pushing the urban poor into concretised “hotboxes” with higher active-cooling costs.

• Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY): Reliance on village-level (rather than farm-level) damage assessment often overlooks localised climate damage, leading to inadequate insurance payouts.
• PM-KISAN: The fixed ₹6,000 annual support is not indexed to inflation or climate-related losses, eroding its real value during extreme weather years.
• Heat Action Plans (HAPs): Over 250 Indian cities and districts across 23 heat-prone States have operational HAPs, but most lack dedicated budgetary allocation or statutory backing, relying instead on the fragmented administrative capacity of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs).
• Healthcare financing: Schemes such as Ayushman Bharat (PM-JAY) primarily cover in-patient hospitalisation, while the bulk of climate-induced health distress (heat illness, vector-borne disease) requires Out-Patient Department (OPD) care, which remains largely unregulated and paid out-of-pocket.
• Water pricing: No statutory price-control mechanism exists for emergency/private water supply, allowing profiteering in the urban “tanker economy.”

• Omnibus Climate Resilience and Adaptation Act: Move beyond the reactive Disaster Management Act, 2005 framework by establishing a statutory National Climate Adaptation Authority (NCAA) with powers to enforce inter-ministerial compliance on adaptation metrics.
• “Right to Thermal Comfort”: Read into Article 21 (Right to Life), giving statutory backing to the India Cooling Action Plan and making passive-cooling design metrics legally binding for State RERA approvals in affordable housing.
• Green Budgeting: Institutionalise a Climate-Risk Budgeting Framework (on the lines of Gender Budgeting), requiring ministries to assess climate vulnerabilities and allocate funds for resilience-building rather than post-disaster reconstruction.
• Climate-sensitive inflation management: RBI to formally incorporate climate-induced supply shocks into its inflation-forecasting framework.
• Statutory municipal heat governance: Replicate models such as Germany’s Kommunale Wärmeplanung, legally binding Urban Local Bodies to map heat islands and execute green-infrastructure interventions.

16th BRICS National Security Advisers’ Meeting Held in New Delhi

India hosted the 16th BRICS National Security Advisers’ (NSA) Meeting in New Delhi, chaired by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, as part of India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship. The meeting brought together NSAs and senior security officials from BRICS member and partner countries to deliberate on non-traditional security challenges amid a turbulent global landscape.

• The meeting was held against the backdrop of significant geopolitical shifts and rising tensions in West Asia, and serves as a key preparatory track ahead of the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit, which India is set to host later in 2026.
• Focus theme: “Non-traditional security challenges confronting the world today,” with deliberations covering cybersecurity, terrorism, artificial intelligence, and technology governance.
• NSAs and heads of delegation reviewed the outcomes of the recently held BRICS Joint Working Groups on Counter-Terrorism and on Security in the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
• India welcomed the US-Iran Islamabad MoU at the meeting and highlighted the opening of the Strait of Hormuz as a critical step to relieve global supply-chain bottlenecks and ensure energy security.
• Participating dignitaries included senior security and political officials from Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Egypt, the UAE, Indonesia, and Iran, reflecting the grouping’s expanded 11-member format.

• India holds the BRICS Chairship for the fourth time in 2026, having previously chaired the grouping in 2012, 2016, and 2021. The chairmanship rotates annually among members in the order of the acronym (B-R-I-C-S).
• The 2026 chairship theme is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability,” reflecting a people-centric, “humanity-first” approach.
• BRICS today comprises 11 full members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Indonesia.
• The grouping’s agenda has expanded from its original economic focus to three core pillars: political and security cooperation, economic and financial cooperation, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Gujarat’s Dolphin Count Tops 680, Boosts Conservation Efforts

Gujarat has recorded more than 680 dolphins along its 4,087-km coastline, underscoring the State’s growing importance in marine biodiversity conservation and strengthening its position as one of India’s key dolphin habitats.

• The latest survey counted 498 dolphins in the Marine National Park and Marine Sanctuary area in the southern Gulf of Kutch, between Okha and Navlakhi, spanning 1,384 sq km.
• 168 dolphins were recorded in the northern Gulf of Kutch under the Kutch Circle (1,821 sq km); 10 dolphins were spotted in Bhavnagar’s 494 sq km area and four in Morbi’s 388 sq km area.
• Gujarat’s Forest and Environment Minister Arjun Modhwadia said dolphins, as top predators among marine mammals, play an important role in the food chain and help maintain balance in the marine ecosystem.
• Minister Modhwadia credited fishing communities along the coast from Kutch to Bhavnagar for supporting conservation efforts, noting that dolphins are now also a tourist attraction, with Shivrajpur and Poshitra emerging as popular dolphin-sighting destinations.
• Dolphins are a protected species in India, and hunting or harming them is a non-bailable offence.
• Gujarat’s marine waters commonly host Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins.

‘Passport is a Travel Document, Not Proof of Citizenship’

A senior Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official clarified on Wednesday that the Indian passport is a “travel document” and not a “citizenship document,” in response to a question on whether a passport could be used to challenge an exclusion from the voter list under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 16 States.

• The MEA official said the purpose of the Indian passport is to facilitate Indians’ transit and travel through foreign ports and territories, and that it should not be compared with documents used to establish citizenship rights.
• While a passport attests to nationality while travelling abroad, it is, in the official’s words, “not a document of your citizenship” in the legal sense used for domestic processes such as electoral roll verification.
• A second MEA official noted that the Indian passport is issued only after due diligence, including verification against documents from other government agencies such as Aadhaar and PAN card records.
• MEA officials said the government will intensify mobility engagements with western nations and Japan in the coming months to help Indian citizens access secure employment opportunities in these industrialised economies.

• The MEA will host the Human Resource Mobility Forum in New Delhi from June 30 to July 1, focusing on countries including Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Denmark.
• A large number of recruitment agencies are expected to participate, with the event highlighting ethical migration and creating awareness on avoiding unscrupulous agents who use illegal means to send Indians to conflict zones and high-risk areas.
• The official said there is a need to “demolish the myths” that one can migrate to countries such as Italy or Greece through unfair means and still remit large sums of money home.

• 27 countries currently give visa-free entry to Indian passport holders; 47 countries offer visa-on-arrival; and 66 countries provide e-visas to Indian passport holders.
• Around 10% of Indian passport holders currently possess an e-passport (a chip-based document).
• There are 545 Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) across the country, with the network now covering almost every Lok Sabha constituency.
• One-stop centres for distressed women in the Indian diaspora have been opened in Gulf countries and Singapore, with more planned in other countries.
• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, marking Passport Seva Divas, said chip-enabled e-passports and new Passport Seva Kendras have contributed to ease of travel and helped Indians access global job opportunities.

SC Had Agreed That Right to Associate is No Carte Blanche for Foreign Funds

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Rules, 2026, notified by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on June 22, 2026, have introduced tougher limits on the ability of NGOs to receive foreign donations. These amendments draw their legal legitimacy from the Centre’s consistent argument before the Supreme Court that the freedom to form associations, or to engage in charitable activity, does not include an unrestricted right to receive foreign funds or use such funds outside “permissible activities.”

• New Rule 9(1B) mandates that certificates of registration of NGOs must specify the “purpose or purposes and the States or Union Territories” for which registration is granted — restricting NGOs to specific, stated spheres of activity and excluding proselytisation, within defined geographical bounds.
• A new Rule 17B has been introduced, dealing with changes in the scope of registration: any already-registered association seeking to add or remove a purpose, or expand/reduce its geographical area of operation, must formally apply to the Central Government in Form FC-6F; such changes are no longer automatic.
• The definition of “key functionary” has been expanded to include directors of companies, partners in firms, trustees, the “karta” of Hindu Undivided Families, and other office bearers responsible for management and decision-making.
• Associations registered before the amendment must, within one year, submit an intimation in Form FC-6F specifying the purpose(s) and States/UTs for which they seek to retain registration.
• The Rules introduce additional fees for organisations seeking to operate across multiple States or for multiple purposes.

• Noel Harper vs Union of India (April 2022): A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that “no one can be heard to claim a vested right to accept foreign donation, much less an absolute right.” The Court disapproved of the tendency to seek funds from abroad, observing that it created an impression that the nation was incapable of looking after its own needs.
• Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF) vs Union of India (March 2020): The Supreme Court agreed with the Centre that the “regulation of acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution is for the purpose of protecting national interest.” However, the Court called for a “balance” between this regulatory objective and the rights of voluntary organisations to access foreign funds, and held that only associations playing a role in active or party politics were barred from accessing foreign funds.

• The Centre has argued that the FCRA and its Rules regulate the manner of doing business concerning foreign contributions, and were not intended to stop charitable work; the regulatory regime, it contends, does not infringe the fundamental rights to form associations (Article 19(1)(c)) or to practise a profession, trade, or business (Article 19(1)(g)).
• Article 19(4) permits the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the freedom to form associations under Article 19(1)(c) in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, or to protect public order or morality.
• Article 19(6) similarly permits reasonable restrictions on the right to trade, business, or occupation under Article 19(1)(g), where such restrictions are shown to be in the public interest.

Kingmakers: Meet the Insects That Make India’s Favourite Mangoes

As India’s mango season peaks, scientific research highlights the underappreciated role of wild insect pollinators — ants, wild bees, hoverflies, and flies — in determining mango yields, even as neonicotinoid pesticides used to protect mango crops are eroding the very pollinator populations that sustain production.

• Between December and March each year, mango trees bloom, producing branches called panicles, each bearing a few hundred to up to 10,000 small, cream-coloured flowers; a single mango tree can carry up to about 3,000 panicles.
• Mango flowers may be male-only, female-only, or hermaphrodite (containing both parts); regardless of type, pollen must travel between flowers for a mango to form.
• Mango flowers emit a sweet, slightly fermented odour — a trait that could not be explained by the older theory that mango pollination occurs purely through wind, pointing instead to insect pollination.

• A 2023 study by researchers in Bengaluru, in collaboration with German peers, surveyed Badami mango farms across urban and rural areas of the city. The study found that allowing flowers access to ants and flying visitors (bees, hoverflies, non-syrphid flies) dramatically increased mango yield by 350%, underscoring the importance of wild insects for mango pollination.
• Important flying pollinators identified included wild bees such as the dwarf honey bee (Apis florea), giant honey bee (Apis dorsata), and stingless bees (Tetragonula sp.), along with hoverflies (Syrphus sp.), the common housefly (Musca domestica), and blow flies (Calliphoridae family).
• Mango yields dropped when crawling insects such as ants were barred from flowers, leading researchers to describe ants as “messy pollinators” warranting further study.
• Similar studies on Mexico’s ‘Ataulfo’ mango and Australia’s ‘Kensington Pride’ variety found that wild and native insects were the most efficient pollinators, producing higher fruit yields than non-native managed bees.
• In Mexico, non-native European honey bees (Apis mellifera) were abundant and contributed to 80% of pollination visits, but this did not translate into higher yield, since these bees stayed within the same orchard and delivered the “wrong” pollen, producing malformed fruit. Native bees, by contrast, transferred pollen between orchards, producing fuller, juicier fruit.

• Neonicotinoid insecticides, commonly sprayed on mango trees to control pests, are neurotoxic and impair bees’ cognitive functions — including navigation, learning, and memory — ultimately threatening their survival; these toxins travel through pollen and nectar back to the hive.
• The Bengaluru-based study found that fewer bees visited flowers on insecticide-treated farms, and harvested fruit was lighter by almost 30%, resulting in a three-way loss for farmers: expensive pesticides, loss of pollinators, and reduced fruit yield.
• Monoculture farms, which are common in rural areas, are more prone to pest attacks and consequently suffer higher pollinator loss as well.
• Researchers see hope in bee-safe pesticides and in farmers timing their sprays to avoid peak pollinator activity — practices already adopted in several western countries.

• The Indian government has recognised pollinators in the country’s new “environmental accounting” framework, acknowledging that India has more than 800 bee species, plus butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, bats, and flies that serve as pollinators and are ecologically important for agriculture.
• The government has attached a monetary value to pollinators equivalent to 8–10% of total crop output value, amounting to ₹2.6 lakh crore in 2021-22.
• Researchers suggest this valuation could nudge policy towards actively protecting pollinators through farm- and landscape-level changes, such as increasing natural and semi-natural areas (native forest patches, wildflower strips) near orchards to attract more wild insects.
• In a significant global precedent, stingless bees in Peru became, in May, the first insects to win legal rights to exist, thrive, and be represented in court — a development seen as important for protecting pollinator species against insecticides, climate change, and competition from non-native insects.

India’s Rise Merits a Seat at the UNSC

This is an opinion piece by Bimal N. Patel, Vice-Chancellor of Rashtriya Raksha University and a member of the National Security Advisory Board and the UN International Law Commission, and Ankit K, Assistant Professor at Rashtriya Raksha University. The authors argue that India’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has moved from being an aspiration to a test of whether the institution can adapt to current geopolitical realities.

• India is the world’s largest democracy, representing one-sixth of the world’s total population, and ranks among the top three economies by purchasing power parity (PPP), with 2026 GDP (PPP) estimated above $20 trillion.
• India influences global trade flows, technology supply chains, energy markets, and developmental finance.
• India’s armed forces are among the world’s largest, and the country is among the top defence spenders, with a 2026 defence budget reaching a record $86 billion.
• India is among the few countries with a credible nuclear triad, while its strategic culture has remained oriented toward deterrence and stability rather than revising the existing international order.

• India’s troop contribution to UN peacekeeping has been among the largest since 1948, despite the country suffering one of the highest numbers of fatalities among UN peacekeeping contributors.
• India has demonstrated leadership on cross-cutting global agendas such as energy transitions, green finance, and technological innovation — including through the International Solar Alliance and its G20 Presidency under the theme “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.”
• On maritime security, India’s role in the Indian Ocean reflects a strong commitment to freedom of navigation and adherence to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and institutions such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

• Despite Asia accounting for 60% of the world’s population, only one Asian state currently holds a permanent UNSC seat — an imbalance the authors argue UNSC expansion could help correct.
• The G4 initiative — comprising India, Japan, Brazil, and Germany — calls for increasing UNSC permanent membership by six new seats, including two each for Asia and Africa.
• The authors note that since the 1960s, the UNSC expanded its non-permanent membership to 10 without altering the P5 (the five permanent veto-holding members), which, in their view, increased the relative influence of the permanent members over time.
• The growing practice of consensus-based decision-making has given rise to “de facto vetoes,” since outcomes such as presidential/press statements or sanctions committee decisions require unanimity, allowing any member — permanent or elected — to block or delay action.

• Expanding permanent membership with veto power, as the G4 proposes, faces resistance from the existing P5, several of whom are wary of diluting their relative influence.
• The “Uniting for Consensus” group (including Pakistan, Italy, and others) opposes new permanent seats, favouring instead an expansion of non-permanent, longer-term, renewable seats.
• Critics caution that adding more veto-wielding members could make UNSC decision-making even more deadlock-prone, compounding the existing problem of major-power vetoes.
• Achieving the two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of member states (including all P5 members) required to amend the UN Charter remains a high procedural bar that has stalled UNSC reform for decades.