One Nation One Election129th AmendmentBasic StructureArticle 83Article 172
- P. Chidambaram opposed the proposal for simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections while appearing before the Joint Committee of Parliament examining the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
- He described the initiative as monstrous, mindless and unconstitutional.
- According to sources he told the committee that the proposed legislation, which seeks to synchronise Lok Sabha and Assembly elections under the One Nation One Election framework, violates the Constitution's Basic Structure, arguing that curtailing the tenure of a legislature elected for a fixed five-year term would directly undermine constitutional principles and parliamentary democracy.
- He added that his conscience did not permit him to support the Bills and contended that the government lacked the two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional amendment.
- The committee, headed by BJP MP P.P. Chaudhary, recorded his concerns and invited specific suggestions for improving the legislation.
- The constitutional mechanics are what an answer needs. Article 83(2) fixes the term of the Lok Sabha at five years unless sooner dissolved, and Article 172 does the same for State Assemblies.
- Synchronising elections requires either curtailing or extending terms, which is why amendments to Articles 83, 85, 172, 174 and 356 are involved.
- The Basic Structure argument runs that free and fair elections, federalism and parliamentary democracy are basic features, and that a State Assembly's term being cut to fit the national cycle subordinates the State legislature to the Union's electoral calendar.
- The counter-arguments are equally examinable: reduced expenditure, less disruption from the repeated operation of the Model Code of Conduct, and less policy paralysis.
- India in fact held simultaneous elections from 1951-52 until the cycle broke in 1968-69 with premature dissolutions.
- The unresolved practical problem, which the report notes think tanks have flagged, is what happens when a government falls mid-term: the options are structured limits on President's Rule or caretaker governments restricted to routine administration, neither of which sits comfortably with responsible government.
Practice Questions
The fixed five-year term of a State Legislative Assembly, unless sooner dissolved, is provided for in:
A Article 83
B Article 172
C Article 174
D Article 356
Consider the following statements about simultaneous elections in India:
I. India held simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections until the cycle broke in 1968-69.
II. The proposal is contained in the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024.
III. Reduced expenditure and less disruption from the Model Code of Conduct are among the arguments advanced in favour.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A I and II only
B II and III only
C I and III only
D I, II and III
Fire SafetyHospital InfrastructureSNCUNational Building CodeDisaster Preparedness
- Three newborns were killed and 36 rescued after a fire broke out in the early hours of August 24 at the Special Newborn Care Unit of the District Women's Hospital in Amravati, Maharashtra.
- Police said the blaze started after a ventilator exploded and caught fire on the third floor of the unit.
- Six infants were rescued from the affected area and the flames were doused in ten to fifteen minutes.
- At the time of the fire, 39 newborns were admitted to the SNCU, which treats premature babies and newborns of low birth weight in critical condition.
- Doctors, nurses and other staff rushed to the ward, disconnected medical equipment and shifted the infants to safety.
- A nurse on duty described removing babies while the ventilator burned.
- Eyewitnesses said the ward's fire alarms failed and the automatic water sprinkler system did not activate even as smoke filled the ward.
- One parent said he rescued his eight-day-old child himself. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called the incident heartbreaking, ordered a high-level probe and announced ex gratia of five lakh rupees to the family of each deceased infant.
- Health Minister Prakash Abitkar, who visited Amravati, flagged grave irregularities at the hospital and said a seven-member panel would report within eight days.
- He noted that the hospital had been constructed only two years earlier.
- For the examination this is a fire-safety and institutional-accountability case study rather than a natural disaster.
- The critical failures are specific and repeatable: alarms that did not sound and sprinklers that did not activate in a two-year-old building.
- A Special Newborn Care Unit is a facility established under the National Health Mission at district level for sick newborn care, and its occupants cannot self-evacuate, which is precisely why passive and automatic fire protection matters more there than almost anywhere else.
- Candidates should connect this to the National Building Code fire safety provisions, mandatory fire audits of hospitals, and the recurring pattern of hospital fires in India where electrical or equipment faults meet non-functional suppression systems.
Practice Questions
A Special Newborn Care Unit, of the kind affected by the Amravati fire, is a facility established at district level primarily to:
A Conduct routine immunisation of infants
B Provide care for sick newborns, including premature and low birth weight babies
C Perform paediatric surgical procedures
D Serve as a training centre for nursing staff
Consider the following statements about the Amravati hospital fire:
I. The fire is reported to have started after a ventilator exploded and caught fire.
II. Eyewitnesses said the fire alarms failed and the sprinkler system did not activate.
III. The hospital building was several decades old.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A I and II only
B II and III only
C I and III only
D I, II and III
ParandurLand AcquisitionAirport InfrastructureLARR Act 2013Farmland Protection
- Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay announced in the Assembly on August 24, through a suo motu statement under Rule 110, that his government has decided to drop the proposed airport project at Parandur and identify alternative sites for a second Chennai airport.
- In the interim a new Terminal 5 will be developed in the north-western part of the existing Chennai airport in collaboration with the Airports Authority of India, along with an approach road and a flyover.
- The DMK sought to speak on the issue but the Speaker declined to allow debate on a Rule 110 announcement, and DMK members walked out.
- The Chief Minister said he had consulted experts and that alternative sites had been identified which would cause minimal damage to farmland and human settlements, with the final site to be fixed after technical feasibility studies and departmental consultation.
- He recalled visiting Parandur in 2025 to express solidarity with protesting farmers.
- While acknowledging the role of airports in industrial development, he maintained that an airport should not be built at Parandur because it would affect vast tracts of farmland and settlements.
- Chennai airport currently handles 30 million passengers a year; after Terminal 5 the capacity would rise to 55 million.
- The Parandur project had drawn sustained resistance from villagers over the loss of agricultural land, water bodies and homes, and is one of the clearest recent instances of an infrastructure project being abandoned in the face of local opposition.
- For an answer the useful frame is the land question in infrastructure planning: a greenfield airport requires large contiguous land, which in a densely settled agrarian State means displacement and loss of cultivable land, whereas brownfield expansion of an existing airport avoids displacement but is constrained by surrounding urban development.
- Candidates should link this to the consent and social impact assessment requirements of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
Practice Questions
The Tamil Nadu government has decided that, pending a decision on a second airport, capacity will be expanded through:
A A new greenfield airport at Vikravandi
B Development of Terminal 5 at the existing Chennai airport with the Airports Authority of India
C Conversion of an air force base to civilian use
D Expansion of Tiruchirappalli airport
The principal objection to the Parandur airport project, as cited by the Chief Minister, was that it would:
A Exceed the permissible cost ceiling for State projects
B Affect vast tracts of farmland and human settlements
C Interfere with the flight path of the existing Chennai airport
D Fall within a designated eco-sensitive zone
Airport PrivatisationPPPACNatural MonopolyAERAPublic Private Partnership
- The Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee has given in-principle approval to the Ministry of Civil Aviation's proposal for the third round of airport privatisation, covering 11 airports across five bundles.
- The proposal now moves towards PPPAC's final approval, after which it will be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
- The five bundles are Amritsar and Kangra; Varanasi, Gaya and Kushinagar; Bhubaneswar and Hubballi; Raipur and Aurangabad; and Tiruchirappalli and Tirupati.
- The competition safeguard is the significant development. Responding to the PPPAC Chair's concern over the risks of oligopolistic concentration and over-leveraging in the airport sector, the Ministry said it plans to cap the number of bundles that can be awarded to a single bidder, with the modalities to be submitted as part of the final recommendation, per the Record of Discussion dated August 20.
- The context explains why. In the previous round the Adani Group won bids for all six airports on offer.
- At that time the PPPAC had rejected key recommendations from the Finance Ministry and NITI Aayog, including a limit of two airports per bidder and a requirement of prior airport operations and management experience.
- That a cap is now being contemplated is an implicit acknowledgement that the earlier design produced concentration.
- The examinable economics is that an airport is a natural monopoly at its location, so privatisation transfers a monopoly rather than creating competition, and the benefit depends entirely on the strength of the regulator and the bidding design.
- This is also where the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority becomes relevant, since it determines aeronautical tariffs at major airports.
- Over-leveraging matters because bidders who overbid must recover through user charges or defer capital expenditure, and the bundling of profitable with less profitable airports is a cross-subsidy device to make smaller airports viable.
Practice Questions
In the third round of airport privatisation, the 11 airports are proposed to be offered:
A Individually to separate bidders
B In five bundles
C As a single package to one operator
D Only to public sector undertakings
Consider the following statements about the third round of airport privatisation:
I. The Ministry of Civil Aviation plans to cap the number of bundles awarded to a single bidder.
II. In the previous round, one group won bids for all six airports on offer.
III. The proposal requires clearance by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs after PPPAC final approval.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A I and II only
B II and III only
C I and III only
D I, II and III
Educated UnemploymentGovernment VacanciesReservationContractualisationYouth Employment
- The Congress accused the government on August 24 of undermining reservation through what it called a back door route, citing more than 8.2 lakh sanctioned posts lying vacant across civilian Central government establishments.
- Party president Mallikarjun Kharge said graduates account for 67 percent of unemployed Indians aged 20 to 29, questioned the promise of creating two crore jobs, and argued that secure employment is increasingly being replaced by contractual and part-time work.
- He listed paper leaks, delayed recruitment, a widening skills gap and disappearing quality jobs as having put the future of the youth at risk.
- The party also flagged rising prices of food items including sugar, onions and milk.
- Two ideas deserve unpacking. The first is educated unemployment, the paradox that unemployment rates in India rise with educational attainment rather than falling.
- The explanation is that education raises reservation wages and aspirations towards formal salaried work, while the economy generates most new work in low-productivity informal activity, so graduates queue for scarce formal jobs rather than accept available informal ones.
- The report notes the related finding that a large share of unemployed tertiary-educated youth have been unemployed for more than two years, and that households support unemployed graduates for extended periods.
- The second is the link between vacancies and reservation. Because reservation operates on posts filled through recruitment, sanctioned posts left vacant, or work outsourced and contractualised, reduce the number of reserved positions actually filled without any formal change to reservation policy.
- That is the substance of the back door allegation. For an answer, candidates should be able to present the government's side too: fiscal constraints on expanding permanent government employment, and the argument that public sector recruitment cannot be the primary answer to youth employment in an economy where the state is a small share of total jobs.
Practice Questions
The phenomenon in which unemployment rates rise with higher levels of educational attainment is referred to as:
A Frictional unemployment
B Educated unemployment
C Disguised unemployment
D Cyclical unemployment
The argument that leaving sanctioned government posts vacant undermines reservation rests on the premise that:
A Reservation percentages are revised annually based on vacancies
B Reservation operates on posts actually filled through recruitment, so unfilled or outsourced posts yield no reserved appointments
C Vacant posts are automatically converted into unreserved posts
D Reservation does not apply to Central government establishments
NGTCPCBNAAQSAir PollutionSilicosis
- The National Green Tribunal has allowed the Central Pollution Control Board ten weeks to standardise the methods for testing three new parameters in ambient air: aluminium, iron and silica.
- At present the CPCB tracks 12 major pollutants under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
- The significance lies in what these three substances represent. Aluminium, iron and silica in ambient air are characteristically associated with crustal and industrial particulate sources such as mining, ore handling, stone crushing, construction and metallurgical operations.
- Silica in particular is an occupational and public health concern because respirable crystalline silica causes silicosis, an irreversible fibrotic lung disease, and is classified as a human carcinogen.
- Adding these parameters moves air quality monitoring from measuring the mass of particulate matter towards identifying what that particulate is actually made of, which matters because two locations with identical PM10 readings can pose very different health risks depending on composition.
- The regulatory architecture is examinable. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards were last notified in 2009 under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and currently cover twelve pollutants including PM10, PM2.5, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, ammonia, lead, benzene, benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic and nickel.
- The CPCB is the apex body under the 1981 Act and also under the Water Act, 1974, while the National Green Tribunal was established under the NGT Act, 2010 as a specialised body for environmental cases with the power to issue directions of this kind.
- A standard is only meaningful if a validated and reproducible test method exists, which is precisely why the Tribunal has directed method standardisation before any limit can be enforced.
Practice Questions
The three new parameters that the CPCB has been directed to develop testing methods for in ambient air are:
A Lead, arsenic and nickel
B Aluminium, iron and silica
C Benzene, ozone and ammonia
D Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide
Consider the following statements:
I. The CPCB currently tracks 12 major pollutants under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
II. The CPCB is a statutory body under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
III. Respirable crystalline silica is associated with silicosis, an irreversible lung disease.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A I and II only
B II and III only
C I and III only
D I, II and III
Medical Devices RulesCDSCOEase of Doing BusinessRegulatory ReliancePatient Safety
- The Union Health Ministry has proposed amendments to the Medical Devices Rules, 2017 to promote ease of doing business, seeking to simplify regulatory requirements, standardise testing fees and facilitate faster market access for eligible medical devices.
- Two specific relaxations are set out. Under the proposed amendment to Rule 44, manufacturers who outsource the sterilisation of their devices to a facility already holding a valid licence under the Medical Devices Rules will no longer need to obtain a separate licence for that outsourced sterilisation.
- Second, the Centre has expanded the list of countries and regulatory jurisdictions whose approvals can support a waiver of clinical investigation requirements in India.
- The second change is the one to think about carefully. Waiving domestic clinical investigation on the strength of approval by a trusted foreign regulator is a recognised regulatory reliance mechanism that avoids duplicating expensive trials and speeds patient access.
- The counter-consideration is that device performance can vary with the population in which it is used, and that reliance transfers part of India's regulatory judgment to another jurisdiction whose risk appetite and post-market surveillance capacity may differ.
- For context, medical devices in India were historically regulated as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
- The Medical Devices Rules, 2017 created a dedicated framework classifying devices into risk classes A to D, from low risk such as thermometers to high risk such as implantable devices, with licensing authority split between State licensing authorities for lower classes and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation for higher ones.
- All devices were brought under regulation through a 2020 notification.
- The examination frame is the standing tension in regulation between ease of doing business and patient safety, and the answer is usually not deregulation but strong post-market surveillance and adverse event reporting.
Practice Questions
Under the Medical Devices Rules, 2017, medical devices in India are classified into risk classes:
A Class I and Class II only
B Classes A, B, C and D
C Classes 1 to 5
D Schedule M and Schedule N categories
The proposed expansion of the list of foreign regulatory jurisdictions whose approvals can waive clinical investigation in India is an example of:
A Compulsory licensing
B Regulatory reliance
C Price control
D Parallel importation
Ssangyong ExerciseUS-South Korea AllianceIndo-PacificStrategic OverstretchExtended Deterrence
- South Korea said on August 24 that the United States had cancelled the Ssangyong drills, a joint amphibious landing exercise scheduled for next month, because of constraints on force availability arising from the Iran conflict.
- Separately, the report notes a planned China visit aimed at mending ties.
- The strategic reading matters more than the cancellation itself. Ssangyong, meaning twin dragons, is a large bilateral amphibious exercise involving United States Marine forces and the Republic of Korea Marine Corps, and is one of the visible signals of alliance readiness on the Korean peninsula.
- Cancelling it for force availability reasons is an admission of strategic overstretch: resources committed to West Asia are not available for the Indo-Pacific.
- That trade-off is exactly the question India should be watching. American extended deterrence in the Indo-Pacific rests on the credibility of force presence, and a conflict in one theatre reducing exercises in another tests the assumption that the United States can sustain simultaneous commitments.
- For India, which has deepened defence cooperation with Washington through logistics agreements and the Quad while retaining strategic autonomy, this is a live data point about the reliability of partner capacity in a crisis, and an argument for indigenous capability and diversified partnerships.
- Candidates should also note the second-order effect on the peninsula. Reduced allied exercises can be read by North Korea as a lowering of deterrent signalling, and may create space for coercive behaviour, while South Korea itself faces domestic debate about the sufficiency of alliance guarantees.
- The reference to a China visit to mend ties fits the same pattern of states hedging when the security guarantor appears stretched.
Practice Questions
The Ssangyong exercise, cancelled in August 2026, is a joint military exercise between the United States and:
A Japan
B South Korea
C the Philippines
D Australia
The cancellation of the exercise is strategically significant primarily because it illustrates:
A A formal end to the United States-South Korea alliance
B Strategic overstretch, where commitments in one theatre reduce capacity in another
C A change in South Korea nuclear policy
D The expiry of a bilateral defence treaty