The Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 2026, in force from 1 October 2026, replaces the 135-year-old Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 1891 with a technology-neutral regime for proving bank records in courts, arbitrations and investigations.

The new law retains the core design of 1891 — proof through certified copies rather than originals — but rebuilds it around electronic and digital records instead of treating them as an add-on.

• Electronic records as evidence: an electronic or digital copy of a banker’s book is admissible, valid and legally enforceable if (i) it is a true copy that correctly represents or is derived from the records, (ii) no unauthorised data change is detected, and (iii) no tampering or event affecting system integrity is detected.
• Proof without originals: contents of a banker’s book may be proved through a certified copy; the original need not be produced.
• Protection of bank officials: an officer cannot ordinarily be compelled to testify or produce books, especially where the bank is not a party.
• “Special cause” now defined: a court may summon an officer only by a written order recording special cause, which the Act limits to three situations (see Figure 2).
• Wider net: unlike the 1891 Act, the law can be extended by notification to other financial-sector entities — e.g. regulated lenders and intermediaries outside the “banking company” definition.

Figure 1 — The four pillars of the new Act

Modern evidentiary framework, standardised certification, protection for bank officials and flexible extension across the financial sector. Image courtesy PIB / Ministry of Law and Justice; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Digital reality: most banking now runs on Core Banking Solutions (CBS), UPI and mobile platforms; a paper-era statute patched in 2000 left gaps on authentication of digitally generated records.
• Judicial efficiency: bank officers have routinely been summoned in cheque-bounce (Section 138, NI Act), recovery, matrimonial and criminal cases merely to prove statements — a drain on both courts and banks.
• Ease of doing business: fits the wider drive to repeal or rewrite colonial-era laws and reduce compliance friction.
• Financial-sector convergence: lending and payments increasingly sit with NBFCs, fintechs and payment entities; the extension clause lets evidence rules follow the market.

• Two certification regimes: electronic evidence is generally governed by Section 63, BSA 2023 (successor to Section 65B, IEA). Courts will need to settle how the special banking regime interacts with it — an area already litigated in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer (2014) and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar (2020).
• Integrity tests rest on the bank’s own systems: “no tampering detected” depends on the bank’s audit trails and logs; an opposing litigant has limited means to verify them.
• Delegated legislation: extension by notification “with modifications” gives the executive wide latitude; parliamentary scrutiny of such notifications is often thin.
• Privacy: wider and easier production of customer records must be read with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the banker’s duty of confidentiality.
• Fair trial: limiting cross-examination of bank officials may disadvantage a party disputing an entry, though the special-cause route offers a safety valve.

• Prima facie evidence: evidence accepted as true unless rebutted.
• Certified copy: a copy attested by the bank’s principal accountant or manager (or by electronic means) as a true copy.
• Technology-neutral law: a rule that applies equally regardless of the medium — paper, electronic or digital.

The Indian Navy’s frigate INS Trishul reached Toulon, France, on 22 September 2026 for the 24th edition of Exercise Varuna, the annual bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian and French navies.

Figure 3 — Sea phase of Varuna 2026

INS Trishul’s crew during a close-quarters manoeuvre with a French Navy warship. Image courtesy PIB / Indian Navy; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Anti-submarine focus: drills with a nuclear attack submarine and MPA build skills relevant to rising submarine activity in the Indian Ocean.
• Platform familiarity: the Indian Navy already operates French-designed Scorpène (Kalvari-class, Project-75) submarines and has contracted 26 Rafale-M carrier fighters (2025); exposure to Charles de Gaulle carrier aviation is directly useful.
• Historical memory: the Indian Corps landed at Marseille in 1914 to fight on the Western Front — a recurring theme in India–France defence diplomacy.

• Bilateral exercises build interoperability, but their strategic value depends on sustained follow-through — joint surveillance, logistics access and co-development of platforms rather than one-off drills.
• A single frigate deployment is modest in scale; larger, multi-domain participation would test more complex operations.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released ASI 2024-25 results: 2.67 lakh registered factories, GVA up 9.59% and employment crossing 2.10 crore for the first time.

The number of establishments rose from 2.60 lakh to 2.67 lakh. GVA rose from ₹2,458.3 thousand crore to ₹2,694.2 thousand crore, and fixed capital grew by 10.54%.

• Most factories: Tamil Nadu (41,221), Gujarat (33,084), Maharashtra (27,379).
• Highest GVA: Maharashtra, followed by Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh — together over 54% of manufacturing GVA and 53.30% of establishments.

Figure 4 — Number of factories by major States, ASI 2024-25

Tamil Nadu leads in factory count; Maharashtra leads in value added — numbers and value do not move together. Image courtesy PIB / MoSPI; reproduced with credit for educational use.

Persons engaged rose from 1.96 crore to 2.10 crore (+7.19%), an addition of over 14 lakh. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana account for about 56% of registered manufacturing employment.

• Largest employers by industry: food products (23.61 lakh), textiles (17.57 lakh), basic metals (15.82 lakh), motor vehicles (14.80 lakh) and wearing apparel (14.60 lakh).
• Wages vs jobs: emoluments (+12.08%) grew faster than headcount (+7.19%), implying roughly 4.6% higher nominal emoluments per person engaged (derived from the reported growth rates).

Figure 5 — Persons engaged by major industry division (in thousand)

Labour-intensive sectors — food processing, textiles and apparel — remain the largest employers in registered manufacturing. Image courtesy PIB / MoSPI; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Input to National Accounts: ASI anchors the manufacturing GVA estimates and their revision.
• Policy feedback: provides evidence on schemes such as Make in India (2014) and the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes across 14 sectors (₹1.97 lakh crore).
• Regional concentration: the dominance of a handful of western and southern States in output and jobs raises questions of balanced regional industrialisation.

• Nominal, not real: at current prices, part of the 9.59% GVA growth reflects prices; real growth needs deflation.
• Narrow slice of jobs: 2.10 crore is a small share of India’s workforce; most manufacturing workers are in informal units outside the ASI frame.
• Productivity: GVA per person engaged rose only about 2.2% in nominal terms (derived) — a sign of labour absorption, but also of modest productivity gains.
• Long-standing target missed: the National Manufacturing Policy, 2011 aimed to raise manufacturing to 25% of GDP and create 100 million jobs by 2022; the share has remained well below that.
• Frame transition: with the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 subsuming the Factories Act, the ASI frame’s registration base will need to be re-anchored without breaking the time series.

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), Used Water Management (UWM) aims to stop untreated sewage reaching water bodies and to reuse treated water; city models from Jaipur, Indore, Surat, Navi Mumbai and Tirupati show how.

• Jaipur — scale and automation: the Dehlawas STP (215 MLD, built 2020–23 over 22.5 ha) is Rajasthan’s largest; it uses a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) and SCADA automation. Part of the treated water goes to a nearby colony; the rest is discharged into the Dravyavati River (formerly the Amanishah Nala).
• Indore — the first Water+ city (2021): no untreated wastewater enters its rivers or drains; by 2020 it had 7 decentralised and 3 centralised STPs and 200+ km of treated-water pipelines; over 1.25 lakh rainwater harvesting units were installed in 2022.
• Surat — water as an economic good: four tertiary treatment plants (116 MLD) supply industry, agriculture and lake rejuvenation through pipelines and tanker-filling stations; 170 sewer-cleaning machines, some robotic.
• Navi Mumbai — reuse built into services: STPs designed for 30 lakh population; 100% mechanised sewer and septic-tank cleaning; septic tanks monitored by level transmitters; over 30% of treated water reused in gardens, vehicle washing and road dividers.
• Tirupati — a revenue model: the Thukivakam STP (50 MLD, ₹19 crore) reuses 24 MLD; it sells 5 MLD to an industrial buyer for a reported net ₹6 lakh a month and gives 18 MLD free to farmers.

• Water stress: treated water for non-potable uses frees freshwater for drinking and reduces groundwater draw.
• River health: untreated sewage is the main cause of polluted river stretches and high BOD levels.
• Financial sustainability: sale of treated water (Tirupati, Surat) can fund operation and maintenance, the weakest link in Indian STPs.

• Installed ≠ operational: CPCB data have repeatedly shown STPs running below capacity or failing discharge norms; sanctioned capacity is not the same as treated water.
• Network gap: plants without house connections and sewer lines remain under-utilised; many small towns rely on septic tanks.
• Reuse standards and demand: farmers and industry need assured quality and price; the National Framework on Safe Reuse of Treated Water (2022) is advisory, and few States have binding reuse mandates.
• ULB capacity: municipal finances and technical staff are thin; long-term reuse planning needs predictable funding beyond mission timelines.
• Free supply to farmers supports agriculture but limits cost recovery — the trade-off must be priced in.

On the Swachh Bharat Mission’s anniversary, the Government highlighted four approaches — waste-to-energy (Goa), citizen-led zero waste (Gandhinagar), digital tracking (Kakinada) and carbon credits (Ghaziabad).

• Saligao, Goa — dump to integrated facility: a former garbage dump, now run by the Goa Waste Management Corporation over 113,000 sq m, handles 250 tonnes a day. Wet waste becomes biogas and electricity (about half supplied to the State electricity department) and 7–8 tonnes of compost daily; residual dry waste goes to cement kilns for co-processing. It processes about one-third of Goa’s waste.
• Gandhinagar — citizens first: a Zero Waste Week (2–7 September 2026) across 25 locations engaged 600+ citizens directly and 40,000+ online; “My Theli” stalls had women’s SHGs turn donated clothes into carry bags; a “Swachhata Se Shuruvat” campaign targeted schools.
• Kakinada — technology-led: 50 wards split into 382 micro-pockets (250–350 households each); RFID tags at every household gate, GPS on 108 hopper vehicles, and facial-recognition attendance for sanitation workers, all feeding a Central Command Centre. Kakinada is now headquarters of Kakinada district, carved out of East Godavari in 2022.
• Ghaziabad — carbon value: the Municipal Corporation has registered a project under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) covering LED streetlighting and wet-waste composting; it expects about 2.7 lakh tonnes of CO₂ reduction, i.e. 2.7 lakh credits (1 credit = 1 tCO₂e) (government projection). It would be the first ULB in Uttar Pradesh and second in India after Indore to do so.

• Verified Carbon Standard: run by Verra, a non-profit — it is a voluntary carbon market standard, not a UN mechanism, though the release links it to the UNFCCC framework.
• Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS), 2023: India’s domestic market, notified under the Energy Conservation Act, 2001 (amended 2022), with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency as administrator.
• Article 6, Paris Agreement: rules for international trading of emission reductions.
• Co-processing: using non-recyclable waste as fuel or raw material in cement kilns.

• Credit integrity: voluntary-market credits face scrutiny over additionality and over-estimation; revenue depends on volatile credit prices. Projected credits are not issued credits.
• Surveillance and labour: facial recognition and GPS tracking of sanitation workers raise privacy and dignity questions; data use needs clear limits.
• Legacy dumps: most Indian cities still carry large legacy waste sites; showcase facilities need replication at scale.
• Events vs habits: week-long campaigns build awareness, but sustained segregation needs user charges, enforcement and reliable collection.