Current Affairs 27 June 2026

Tungabhadra Dam: 33 Spillway Gates Inaugurated, Inter-State Water Sharing Consensus

Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Union Minister of Jal Shakti C.R. Patil jointly inaugurated 33 newly installed spillway gates at the Tungabhadra Dam reservoir at a public function in Munirabad taluk, Koppal district, Karnataka, on Thursday, 25th June 2026. The three Chief Ministers also held a meeting on Tungabhadra water-sharing issues and arrived at a consensus to protect farmer interests in the river basin.

• On 10th August 2024, the 19th of the dam’s 33 crest gates was washed away after its operating chain snapped under heavy inflow pressure, releasing an estimated 70,000–1,00,000 cusecs of stored water in an uncontrolled discharge. The incident occurred after roughly seven decades of operation and was the first major structural failure at the dam since its commissioning.
• A temporary gate was installed within about a week. Karnataka’s government, then led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with Mr. Shivakumar as Deputy Chief Minister holding the Irrigation portfolio, subsequently decided that emergency repair was only a stopgap, and ordered a full replacement of all 33 gates rather than the single damaged one, based on expert assessment of the dam’s ageing gate infrastructure.
• The replacement of all 33 gates was completed at a cost of approximately ₹51 crore, within around 123 days, and finished before the onset of the current monsoon — an unusually rapid timeline for inter-state dam infrastructure work, completed within a single Kharif season.
• At the inauguration, Mr. Shivakumar said the three states had reached a consensus addressing farmer leaders’ appeal to conserve 33 TMC of water in the dam, and that the Union Jal Shakti Minister would formally announce the decision. He also referred to discussion of a proposed parallel reservoir at Navali (Karnataka) and the matter of desilting the reservoir.
• Mr. Naidu termed the event historic for inter-state water diplomacy, while Mr. Reddy called it a “Red Letter Day,” describing the joint meeting as a first step towards amicable sharing of Tungabhadra waters and recalling that the erstwhile princely state of Mysore had similarly set aside differences with neighbouring states to protect agriculture.

• The Tungabhadra River is a major right-bank tributary of the Krishna River, formed by the confluence of the Tunga and Bhadra rivers, both of which originate in the Western Ghats (near Varaha Parvatha and Gangamoola in Karnataka) and meet at Kudli, near Shivamogga.
• The river flows for about 531 km through Karnataka, forms parts of the Karnataka–Andhra Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh–Telangana borders, and joins the Krishna River at Sangamaleshwaram in Andhra Pradesh.
• The combined Krishna waters flow eastward and enter the Bay of Bengal at Hamsaladeevi.

• Commissioned in 1953 near Hosapete in Karnataka’s Vijayanagara district (foundation stone laid on 28th February 1945); it is the agricultural lifeline for drought-prone districts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, irrigating over 16.38 lakh acres.
• The dam’s original design storage capacity was 134 TMC. Decades of heavy siltation have reduced its current effective live storage to approximately 105 TMC, with around 34 TMC of capacity lost to accumulated silt — the persistent siltation crisis that triggers recurring downstream water deficits.
• Sir M. Visvesvaraya served as chairman of the board of engineers overseeing the dam’s construction. The dam is one of only two non-cement (pure stone masonry) major dams in India, the other being the Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala.

• Water sharing at Tungabhadra was settled by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-I, 1969), headed by Justice R.S. Bachawat, whose final order (gazetted 31st May 1976) fixed the sharing of Tungabhadra water and evaporation losses in a 65:35 ratio between Karnataka and undivided Andhra Pradesh, with the Tungabhadra Board (constituted by the President on 1st October 1953) entrusted to manage the works.
• Against the original 134 TMC capacity, the Tribunal allocated 230 TMC for utilisation (including about 18 TMC of evaporation losses), since the reservoir fills more than once a year — during the monsoon and again in the post-monsoon period.
• Following the 2014 bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana holds an allocated entitlement of 15.9 TMC from the Tungabhadra system, but infrastructural decay in the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS) — an inter-state irrigation project of Karnataka and Telangana that diverts water via a 143-km canal to drought-prone areas of both states and Andhra Pradesh — restricts Telangana to drawing only 5–6 TMC.
• Andhra Pradesh filed an original suit in the Supreme Court in 2023 against Karnataka’s upstream Upper Bhadra lift irrigation scheme, arguing that it threatens downstream flows to critical reservoirs such as Srisailam.

• Water management falls under the State List (Entry 17), while the regulation and development of inter-state rivers falls under the Union List (Entry 56).
• Article 262 empowers Parliament to adjudicate inter-state river disputes and to bar the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over them — a power exercised through the Inter-State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956.
• The Supreme Court’s Cauvery Judgment (2018) established that “inter-State rivers are national assets,” rejecting exclusive state ownership and mandating equitable apportionment — the doctrinal backdrop against which the present consensus should be read.

• The gate replacement addresses structural safety but does not by itself resolve the underlying siltation crisis; no firm desilting roadmap has yet been finalised, and the Navali parallel reservoir remains at the discussion stage rather than a sanctioned project.
• Telangana’s shortfall against its 15.9 TMC entitlement is rooted in RDS infrastructure decay, which the present gate-replacement and consensus announcement does not directly address.

Textiles Summit 2026 Concludes: Focus on Sustainability, Exports and Global Market Expansion

The Ministry of Textiles concluded the two-day Textiles Summit 2026, held on 23rd–24th June 2026, bringing together representatives of State Governments, industry and academia to deliberate on the sector’s growth roadmap. Union Minister of Textiles Giriraj Singh, in his concluding remarks, called for executing District and State textile plans with a proactive mindset, while Textiles Secretary Neelam Shami Rao said the discussions marked a transition from dialogue to action.

• Recommendations received from States, districts, industry stakeholders and Export Promotion Councils are to be incorporated into a comprehensive National Textile Export Roadmap, prioritising high-value segments, quality, innovation and sustainability, backed by stronger institutional coordination.
• Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal urged industry to swiftly leverage recently concluded Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), highlighting that the Department of Commerce has already conducted 500 workshops to address information asymmetry on FTA benefits at the district level, and urged States/UTs to join the revived Districts as Export Hubs (DEH) initiative.
• The summit’s two concluding sessions covered (i) Quality, Sustainability Certifications and Sourcing Decisions — including digital product passports for traceability, closed-loop recycling, and simplified compliance for MSMEs — and (ii) Export Enablement, FTA Utilisation and Market Diversification, which stressed man-made fibres (MMF), in-house design capability, export finance and risk mitigation, and building globally competitive “Champion MSMEs.”
• India has signed 15 FTAs with partner countries whose combined textile import demand stands at approximately USD 198.9 billion; the European Union alone imports textiles worth about USD 268.8 billion, more than twice the size of the US market, and India is in active FTA negotiations with the EU.

• India’s textile and apparel exports have hovered in the USD 35–38 billion range for nearly a decade, with the 2001–2014 period’s 9% CAGR giving way to broad stagnation amid the lapse of the EU trade preference scheme, COVID-19 disruption and high channel inventories. Reaching the USD 100 billion target by 2030 would require a sustained double-digit (around 19%) compound annual growth rate, a considerably steeper trajectory than the sector has achieved in over a decade.
• India continues to face stiff competition from lower-cost producers such as Vietnam and Bangladesh in the garmenting segment, underscoring why the summit placed renewed emphasis on man-made fibres and value-added technical textiles rather than relying solely on traditional cotton-based exports.

NFSA Amendment: Per-Capita Foodgrain Entitlement Proposed for AAY Households

The Department of Food and Public Distribution published the draft National Food Security (Amendment) Bill, 2026 on its website, proposing changes to Section 3 of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, in respect of foodgrain entitlements under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY). Public comments on the draft are invited until 13th July 2026.

• Under the current NFSA, 2013, every AAY household is entitled to a flat 35 kg of foodgrains per month, irrespective of the number of members in the household, supplied free of charge to AAY cardholders.
• The draft amendment proposes that every person belonging to an AAY household be entitled to 7 kg of foodgrains per month, subject to a ceiling of a maximum of 35 kg per household.
• By contrast, beneficiaries under the Priority Household (PHH) category — the larger of the NFSA’s two beneficiary classes — already receive 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month, with no household cap.
• Illustratively, under the proposed design: a 1-member AAY household would receive 7 kg; a 2-member household, 14 kg; a 3-member household, 21 kg; a 4-member household, 28 kg; and households of 5 or more members would receive the existing ceiling of 35 kg, i.e., no change at that household size.

The notice accompanying the draft states that the existing household-based AAY entitlement, “though intended as a protective measure for the most vulnerable families, results in significant inequities depending upon the size of the household,” since smaller households currently receive a higher per-capita entitlement while larger households receive a lower per-capita entitlement — in some cases falling below what Priority Households receive. The government states the aim is to remove intra-category inequities, provide more rational foodgrain allocation, and better align entitlements with nutritional requirements.

• Kerala Food Minister Anoop Jacob has said his State government would formally write to the Union Government against the proposed amendment, arguing that the flat 35 kg per AAY household must continue, since its removal would reduce allocations to States such as Kerala.
• Anuradha Talwar of the Right to Food Campaign has argued the amendment would create a “North-South divide,” since southern States tend to have smaller average household sizes (three to four members) than northern States (four to five members), so the 35 kg cap would disproportionately affect larger households concentrated in the north. She also noted that AAY household counts have not been updated since the delayed Census, leaving eligible families excluded from benefits.
• Right to Food activists, including economist Dipa Sinha, have separately argued that the amendment addresses only cereals and makes no provision for pulses or edible oils, even though India’s poorest households often lack market access to purchase these nutrients themselves; they argue any rationalisation should be paired with a fuller nutritional package rather than a cereal-only adjustment.
• Activists have long demanded a higher allocation of 14 kg of foodgrains per person, referencing nutritional benchmarks recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research.

After considering public comments received by 13th July 2026, the Government is expected to place a revised draft before State Governments and other departments, ahead of a final bill being brought to Parliament. Since the matter is politically sensitive and elections in States such as Uttar Pradesh are approaching, the Government is expected to proceed cautiously.

India–Seychelles Ties: PM Modi’s Visit and the Diaspora Link

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is undertaking a three-day State visit to Seychelles from 27th–29th June 2026, at the invitation of President Dr. Patrick Herminie, to attend the country’s 50th Independence Day (Golden Jubilee) celebrations as Guest of Honour. The visit also marks 50 years of formal India–Seychelles diplomatic relations, established in 1976.

• Five Indians landed in Seychelles as plantation workers in 1770, alongside seven African slaves and 15 French colonists, among the first recorded inhabitants of the islands.
• A constant flow of Indian migrants, mostly from Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and later Gujarat, settled in Seychelles as traders, labourers and construction workers from the 20th century onward, aided by Seychelles being governed from the Bombay Presidency for a period during British colonial rule.
• Today, Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) comprise about 5% of Seychelles’ population; around 6,000 PIOs hold Seychelles citizenship, predominantly from the Gujarati and Tamil communities, in a country with a population of roughly 1,00,000–1,20,000. Over 9,000 NRIs additionally hold Gainful Employment Permits, working largely in construction, retail and professional sectors.

• Diplomatic ties were established when Seychelles attained independence on 29th June 1976; a contingent from INS Nilgiri took part in that year’s Independence Day celebrations.
• This year, an Indian Armed Forces contingent and two Indian Navy ships are participating in the 50th Independence Day celebrations, with PM Modi attending as Guest of Honour at the invitation of President Dr. Patrick Herminie.
• Earlier in 2026, PM Modi described Seychelles as a key part of India’s maritime policy — Vision MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions).
• The visit is Modi’s second to Seychelles as Prime Minister, after his 2015 trip; the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Seychelles was Indira Gandhi, in 1981.

• Seychelles is a critical maritime partner for India in the Western Indian Ocean, helping combat seaborne terrorism, piracy and illegal fishing, and controlling an Exclusive Economic Zone of over 1.3 million sq. km.
• Positioned close to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, Seychelles serves as a strategic counterweight to China’s expanding footprint in the Indian Ocean region, even as both India and China frame their respective engagement with Seychelles in non-competitive, developmental terms.

• A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was erected at the Peace Park in Victoria in June 2022, alongside statues of Nelson Mandela and Sir James Mancham, the founding President of Seychelles.
• In 2015, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award was conferred on Justice D. Karunakaran of the Supreme Court of Seychelles — the second such recipient from the country after entrepreneur V. Ramadoss in 2006.
• More than 1% of Seychelles’ population has received professional training in India, and India continues to extend Lines of Credit and grant assistance for infrastructure, healthcare, education and public transport.
• India remains a leading medical tourism destination for Seychellois patients, with institutional tie-ups linking island hospitals to facilities in cities such as Chennai. PM Modi has also announced a Special Economic Package reported at USD 175 million for Seychelles this year (figure per available reporting; not independently confirmed via an official source in this analysis).

Supreme Court: Right to Walk on Footpaths is a Fundamental Right

A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court — Justices P.S. Narasimha and A.S. Chandurkar — held in Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz & Anr vs P. Ayyappan & Ors (judgment dated 19th June 2026) that walking on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right, and urged the Government to introduce dedicated legislation declaring this right. The ruling arose from a case involving the death of a five-year-old schoolboy in a road accident.

• The appellant’s five-year-old son was struck by a tanker from behind while walking to school with his father; there was neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing at the accident site. The child died of his injuries.
• The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (MACT) had originally awarded ₹7,82,000 in compensation; the High Court reduced this on appeal to ₹4,70,000. The Supreme Court found the reduction unjustified, set aside the High Court order, and enhanced the compensation to ₹11,44,628, payable within two months.
• Beyond the compensation question, the Bench used the case to address the wider constitutional issue of pedestrian rights, holding that the right to walk on a demarcated footpath is a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(d) (freedom of movement), read together with Article 19(1)(a), (b) and (c), and Article 21 (right to life).
• The Court directed that the case be re-numbered as a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, with the cause title changed to “Re: Fundamental Right to Walk and Footpath”, for continued monitoring of the broader issue, and ordered a copy of the judgment sent to the Ministries of Housing and Urban Affairs, Rural Development, and Road Transport and Highways, as well as to the Law Commission of India.

• The Court observed that “walking is not just motion,” and embodies expressional, congregational and associational rights under Articles 19(1)(a), 19(1)(b) and 19(1)(c) respectively — not merely a mobility function.
• Drawing on the urban theorist Jane Jacobs’ concept of “eyes on the street,” commentators note that public spaces become safer when more people — residents, shopkeepers, pedestrians, cafe patrons — are present, meaning a pavement designed only as a sterile engineering strip, without shade, rest spaces or street life, may remain unsafe even if physically present.

• India has the world’s highest number of road accident fatalities; the Court identified this partly as a consequence of pedestrians being excluded from how roads are designed and built.
• Pedestrians, cyclists, two-wheeler users and public transport users are disproportionately likely to be road accident victims, and are also more likely to be poorer than private car users — meaning safer-road infrastructure investment skewed toward vehicular flow effectively privileges wealthier road users over others. Per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways data cited in policy commentary, pedestrian deaths in India have more than doubled over the past decade.

• The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 imposes duties on motorists toward pedestrians but is fundamentally a law for motor vehicles; it cannot by itself secure pedestrians’ public rights.
• Municipal responsibility for pavements is typically fragmented across tasks such as tree pruning, sweeping, drainage and hawker regulation, without any single agency accountable for overall pedestrian outcomes; development authorities, public works departments, electricity boards and traffic police all separately interact with the same street space.
• The Supreme Court has called for a standalone regulatory framework under which municipalities, development authorities and panchayats are made responsible for the right to walk, rather than leaving it to be addressed piecemeal across existing agencies.

Several recent design-led pedestrian projects — such as Chandni Chowk and Aurobindo Marg in Delhi, Church Street and Gandhi Bazaar in Bengaluru, and CG Road in Ahmedabad — demonstrate good intent but remain small, geographically limited interventions. Commentators argue that translating the Court’s ruling into a mainstream, local right to walk will require achievable, budget-realistic interventions — prioritising areas with the highest pedestrian footfall, such as around schools, bus stands, railway stations and low-income neighbourhoods — over isolated, perfectly designed but geographically narrow pedestrian zones. This should also avoid pitting the pedestrian right of way against the livelihood rights of street hawkers, instead integrating vending, shade trees and rest spaces into the design of the pedestrian ecosystem.

Beyond Green Symbolism: Environmental Security Must Be a National Priority

This is an opinion piece by Amal Chandra, author and policy analyst, written around World Environment Day (5th June), arguing that environmental security should be elevated to the status of a national priority on par with food security, economic reform and national defence. The arguments below reflect the author’s analytical framing; the cited statistics are drawn from established global and national assessments.

• The State of Global Air assessment identifies air pollution as the world’s leading environmental risk factor, contributing to nearly 8 million deaths globally in 2023; India remains among the countries with the highest exposure to fine particulate matter, with links extended beyond respiratory illness to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and dementia.
• Air pollution is estimated to reduce India’s economic output by more than 1% of GDP through premature deaths, illness and lost productivity — a hidden tax on growth via lower labour efficiency and higher healthcare expenditure.
• India is home to nearly 18% of the world’s population but only about 4% of its freshwater resources, and accounts for roughly a quarter of global groundwater withdrawals, with extraction in many regions outpacing natural recharge.

The author argues that climate change has shifted from a future risk to a present reality — the past decade has been among the warmest on record, with more frequent heatwaves, erratic monsoons and recurring urban floods and dry spells. Unlike advanced economies that industrialised before confronting major climate costs, India must pursue growth and climate adaptation simultaneously, making resilient infrastructure (roads, ports, power systems, housing) as important a policy priority as emissions reduction.

• Wetlands, mangroves, forests and grasslands function as natural infrastructure — absorbing floodwaters, protecting coastlines and regulating local climates — and are often cheaper to conserve than to replace with engineered alternatives.
• Globally, more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually, of which less than 10% is recycled; India has introduced restrictions on certain single-use plastics and extended producer responsibility mechanisms, though the author argues bans alone cannot resolve the deeper linear (extract-use-discard) production model.

The central argument is conceptual: environmental policy can no longer be treated as a specialised sector separate from finance, industry, transport and agriculture, since environmental considerations now shape trade policy, industrial strategy, energy planning and climate diplomacy. The author frames sectors such as solar manufacturing, battery storage, green hydrogen and critical minerals processing as arenas of both geopolitical and commercial competition, where India’s renewable energy expansion offers a template that could be extended to water management, pollution control and urban planning.

India Eases Drug Import Rules for R&D; Jackson Laboratories’ Licences Cancelled

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released two draft amendments to the Drugs Rules, 1945, aimed at easing drug imports for research and reducing the compliance burden on pharmaceutical companies and researchers. Separately, the Centre has cancelled the manufacturing licences of Jackson Laboratories’ units in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, following an investigation linking the company’s oxytocin injection to maternal deaths in Rajasthan.

• The first draft amendment simplifies the procedure for obtaining permission to import drugs for examination, test or analysis, introducing an acknowledgement-based system for importing all drugs in small quantities for analytical and non-clinical testing purposes.
• Applicants will be required to submit a prior intimation through an online portal, and may import the drug once an acknowledgement is generated — eliminating the earlier requirement of a licence (Form 11) for low-volume research imports, and allowing start-ups, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies to begin testing without regulatory delay.
• Certain high-risk product categories will continue to require prior licences: sex hormones, cytotoxic drugs, beta-lactam drugs, biologics containing live micro-organisms, and narcotic and psychotropic substances.
• This builds on a similar notification-based system introduced for domestic test licences in January 2026, under amendments to the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019.

• In a separate amendment to Rule 31 of the Drugs Rules, 1945 — published via Gazette Notification G.S.R. 505(E) dated 22nd June 2026 — the Ministry has proposed replacing the existing requirement that imported drugs retain more than 60% of their approved shelf life at the time of import with a uniform minimum residual shelf life of 12 months at the time of import.
• Crucially, the existing “more than 60%” requirement will continue to apply to biological products and radiopharmaceuticals, given their specialised nature and public health sensitivity; the 12-month rule applies to other categories of imported drugs.
• The Ministry states the change will ensure patients receive medicines with adequate usable shelf life, improve utilisation of pharmaceutical inventories, optimise supply management, reduce costs, and strengthen availability of essential medicines — while clarifying that the amendment alters only the residual shelf-life requirement and does not change any other regulatory requirement relating to quality, safety or efficacy under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the Drugs Rules, 1945.
• Both draft notifications are open for public feedback for 30 days from their respective dates of publication.

• The Centre has cancelled the manufacturing licences of Jackson Laboratories’ units in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, following joint inspections by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the respective State drug regulators.
• The action follows reports of at least seven maternal deaths in Kota and Bikaner districts, Rajasthan, after caesarean section operations, with health authorities suspecting that spurious (counterfeit) oxytocin injections — used to induce or strengthen labour and to control post-childbirth bleeding — contributed to the deaths.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has sought additional information from the Government of India on the matter, as part of its routine global pharmacovigilance and regulatory surveillance process; officials have clarified that this request is a standard part of international risk assessment and should not be construed as a finding against the product or manufacturer.

While the import-easing amendments are framed around Ease of Doing Business and accelerating pharmaceutical R&D, the concurrent Jackson Laboratories episode underscores that India’s drug-safety architecture continues to face significant enforcement challenges at the distribution end, particularly around spurious drug circulation in regulatorily weaker State markets — a tension between liberalising import/testing procedures and tightening downstream quality enforcement.