The Hindu UPSC News Analysis For 25 February 2026

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is an exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India to purify electoral rolls by identifying and removing duplicate, fake, or logically inconsistent voter entries. It involves house-to-house verification and mapping. For UPSC, SIR is relevant under GS-II (Election Commission, Article 324, voter rights, universal adult franchise) and raises questions about the balance between electoral purity and citizens’ right to vote.

Article 142 empowers the Supreme Court to pass any decree or order necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it. In the SIR case, the SC invoked Article 142 to declare that voters included in supplementary voter lists would be deemed part of the final electoral roll published on February 28, 2026 — ensuring no voter is disenfranchised during the ongoing revision.

IMEC is an intercontinental connectivity project announced at the G-20 Summit in Delhi (September 2023). It aims to provide a shipping, railway, and data pipeline corridor connecting India to Europe via the Middle East, serving as an alternative to the Suez Canal route. For UPSC, it is relevant under GS-II (International Relations), GS-III (Infrastructure, Economy), and has links to India-Israel, India-Gulf, and India-EU strategic partnerships.

The India-EU FTA, signed on January 27, 2026, after nearly two decades of negotiations, creates a free trade zone covering nearly two billion people. It reduces or eliminates tariffs on over 90% of traded goods, boosting market access for Indian exporters in textiles, leather, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and marine products. It is described as the “mother of all deals” and marks a decisive shift in India’s global trade strategy.

Lenacapavir is the world’s first capsid-based HIV inhibitor, approved by the US FDA in June 2025. Unlike traditional daily medications, it is injected once every six months and showed 100% effectiveness in preventing HIV infection in clinical trials. For UPSC, it is relevant for GS-III (Science & Technology, Health) as it represents a paradigm shift in HIV prevention — the closest thing to an HIV vaccine — and demonstrates how persistence in basic science research can lead to breakthrough applications.

India’s nationwide HPV vaccination programme targets girls aged 14 with the Gardasil vaccine (quadrivalent), which protects against HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18. Types 16 and 18 cause cervical cancer (the 2nd most common cancer among Indian women with ~80,000 new cases annually). The vaccination is voluntary and free, conducted at government health facilities, and procured through India’s partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

ISRO’s PSLV-C61 (May 2025) and PSLV-C62 (January 2026) both failed due to the third stage failing to ignite. A national-level expert committee including former ISRO Chairman S. Somanath and former PSA K. Vijay Raghavan has been constituted to investigate systemic and organisational issues — going beyond technical failure analysis to examine procurement, manufacture, and quality control processes, especially given increasing private sector involvement in India’s space ecosystem.

In Tehseen Poonawalla v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court issued comprehensive guidelines to prevent and punish mob violence by cow vigilantes — including appointing nodal officers, taking preventive action, and compensating victims. The recent development is significant because CJI Surya Kant described these guidelines as “unmanageable,” effectively stepping back from enforcement — even as cow vigilantism has grown and several States have given vigilantes quasi-policing powers. This raises serious concerns about rule of law and judicial accountability.

The US imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions in 2025, disrupting skilled Indian professionals (India holds ~71% of all H-1B approvals). This has created a reverse brain drain opportunity — Indian students from Ivy League universities seeking positions in India rose by ~30%. With 1,600+ Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India, the government has launched initiatives like GATI and VAJRA to attract returning talent. However, challenges include poor quality of life infrastructure, inadequate R&D spending (0.64% of GDP), and lack of family-readiness in Indian metros.

After 4 years, the war has devastated both economies. Russia’s growth fell below 1% under Western sanctions. Ukraine’s GDP contracted by ~30% in 2022; reconstruction costs are estimated at $558 billion (~3× its 2025 GDP). Defence spending exceeds 50% of Ukraine’s budget (26% of GDP), while social spending on education, health, and social protection has halved since 2021. Food prices have surged significantly in both countries — bread prices in Russia rose 50% over five years. The conflict has caused an estimated 1.2 million Russian and 5-6 lakh Ukrainian casualties.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued a SIM-binding directive in November 2025 requiring messaging platforms like WhatsApp to verify that a user’s registered SIM card is provisioned on the handset used to access the service. It also requires WhatsApp Web to be logged out every 6 hours. The directive applies to any Telecommunication Identifier User Entity (TIUE) — services using phone numbers as identifiers. WhatsApp’s beta versions now show SIM verification prompts, indicating compliance preparation. This raises privacy concerns under the Puttaswamy judgment (Right to Privacy, Article 21).

PM Modi’s standalone visit to Israel (without Palestinian engagement) comes amid multiple geopolitical headwinds — US-Iran tensions, Israel’s West Bank expansion, and Netanyahu’s “hexagonal alliance” proposal targeting Iran, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. India’s challenge is maintaining its de-hyphenated approach (engaging Israel independently from Palestine) while preserving ties with Iran (Chabahar port, energy security, BRICS), Gulf states (trade, diaspora), and upholding its traditional support for Palestinian statehood. The visit tests India’s strategic autonomy in a polarising regional environment.