UNEPParis Agreementovershootnet zeroclimate change
- For the first time, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has set out a detailed 'overshoot, peak and decline' pathway - accepting that breaching the 1.5°C limit is now unavoidable and asking instead how small and short the breach can be made.
- The report, 'Limiting Overshoot', says global warming will cross 1.5°C 'in the next few years', exceeding the central goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement of holding the rise above pre-industrial levels to that threshold.
- The three numbers that define the gap: even if every country delivers on its national climate plan and net-zero target, peak warming reaches 1.8°C. On current policies, the rise is about 2.6°C by 2100. The pathway seeks to cap the peak as low as possible and bring temperatures back below 1.5°C by 2100.
- The framing is deliberately unsentimental: overshoot, peak and decline is 'by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway; it is simply the best remaining option'.
- Why the warning is about irreversibility: UNEP cautions that breaching the limit brings irreversible ecological losses that no adaptation initiative could undo - the argument for minimising both the magnitude and the duration of overshoot, not merely the end-point.
- Guterres framed the evidence as already visible: 'This summer's scorching heat, raging wildfires, and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead. We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible.'
- For the exam: understand what returning below 1.5°C after overshoot actually requires - net-negative emissions, i.e. removing more CO2 than is emitted, via carbon dioxide removal, afforestation and technologies such as BECCS and direct air capture, all unproven at the necessary scale. Note also the distinction between the peak and the end-of-century temperature, which is where this pathway differs from conventional targets.
Practice Questions
With reference to the UNEP report 'Limiting Overshoot', consider the following statements:
1. It projects that global warming will cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels within the next few years.
2. It estimates that even full delivery of national climate plans and net-zero targets would result in peak warming of about 1.8°C.
3. It describes the overshoot pathway as the preferred approach to climate action.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A 1 and 2 only
B 2 and 3 only
C 1 and 3 only
D 1, 2 and 3
Returning global temperatures below 1.5°C after an overshoot would necessarily require:
A Achieving net-negative emissions, that is, removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than is emitted
B Merely stabilising emissions at their current level
C Complete cessation of all economic activity worldwide
D A reduction in solar radiation reaching the Earth caused by natural volcanic activity
India-China boundarySiliguri CorridorDoklamSikkim SectorBhutan
- The phrase is India's own coinage: when Beijing proposed settling the Sikkim Sector alone, India's counter around 2019 was an 'Early and Substantial Harvest' covering the Sikkim Sector together with the entire Middle Sector, delineated along the watershed. China rejected it, later agreeing only to the Sikkim Sector and some undisputed Middle Sector areas - unacceptable to India.
- Why its reappearance in a joint document is ambiguous: either Beijing has accepted India's terms - which would mean giving up claims to about 2,450 sq km in the Middle Sector south of the watershed (Barahoti, Giu-Kaurik, Nilang-Jadhang, Sangcha Malla, Lapthal) - or it is an 'agreement with holes', nominally covering both sectors but confined to stretches where claims already coincide.
- The asymmetry risk: that would leave India conceding ground where its position is strong, with no movement in the Eastern and Western Sectors, where China holds to 'dong tiao xi rang' - adjustments by India in the East for corresponding Chinese concessions in the West.
- The legal casualty: it would jettison Article III of the 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, which requires a 'package settlement covering all sectors'. That clause exists because the four sectors are strategically interlinked, requiring cross-sector give and take.
- Even Sikkim is not open-and-shut: both sides accept the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 as the basis of alignment, but Article I contains two contradictory stipulations - the first sentence makes the watershed crest the boundary, the second names Mount Gipmochi as the starting point on the Bhutan frontier.
- The trijunction dispute that follows: British Indian maps of 1907 and 1913 placed the trijunction not at Gipmochi but about 6.5 km north, on the true watershed. India and Bhutan read the watershed principle as controlling and place it at Batang La; China invokes the literal Gipmochi reference to push the trijunction south to the Jampheri Ridge.
- Why this reaches the Siliguri Corridor: China's package proposal to Bhutan - relinquishing about 495 sq km in the north for roughly 269 sq km in the northwest including Doklam - would gain momentum, deepening China's presence in the Chumbi Valley and opening a path to the Jampheri Ridge, from which the Siliguri Corridor, India's only overland link to the Northeast, comes under direct observation.
- For the exam: the author's three conditions for a genuine harvest - delineation on the highest-watershed principle across the entire stretch, explicit exclusion of trijunction points from the Expert Group's mandate, and settlement of those only in consultation with the third country, namely Bhutan.
Practice Questions
The Siliguri Corridor is strategically significant for India because it:
A Provides India's only overland connection to its north-eastern States
B Is the principal maritime route linking India to Southeast Asia
C Forms the boundary between India and Myanmar
D Contains India's largest reserves of critical minerals
The 2005 Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question is significant because it:
A Delimited the entire Line of Actual Control on the ground
B Provided for a package settlement covering all sectors of the boundary
C Transferred the dispute to arbitration by the International Court of Justice
D Recognised Mount Gipmochi as the India-Bhutan-China trijunction
National Security Actpreventive detentionhabeas corpusArticle 22personal liberty
- The Allahabad High Court quashed the detention of Akriti Chaudhary, a 25-year-old Delhi University law student, under the National Security Act (NSA), and ordered her immediate release unless required in another case.
- The Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev allowed her habeas corpus plea, flagged discrepancies in the arrest notice, and described the State's version as a 'concocted story' - unusually direct judicial language.
- The background: she was among several activists arrested over the Noida workers' protest between April 10 and 18, in which industrial and contractual workers demanded salary hikes and parity with wages paid in neighbouring Haryana. The protest turned violent on April 13 and roads were blocked.
- The number that matters: she had spent nearly five months in custody before the detention was found unsustainable - the core problem with preventive detention, where the remedy arrives long after the deprivation.
- What preventive detention is: detention without trial, to prevent an apprehended future act rather than punish a proven past one. The NSA, 1980 permits detention for up to 12 months on grounds including security of the State and maintenance of public order.
- The constitutional architecture: Article 22(3)-(7) carves preventive detention out of the ordinary safeguards in Article 22(1)-(2), so a detainee has no right to counsel or to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours in the usual way. The check is an Advisory Board of High Court judges, which must report within three months.
- Why habeas corpus is the operative remedy: since there is no trial to appeal, the legality of detention is tested through a writ under Article 226 or Article 32 - which is exactly what succeeded here.
- For the exam: India is unusual among democracies in providing for preventive detention in peacetime within the Constitution itself. Use this case to argue that the safeguard which actually bites is judicial review of the detaining authority's subjective satisfaction, not the Advisory Board.
Practice Questions
With reference to preventive detention in India, consider the following statements:
1. It involves detention without trial to prevent an apprehended future act.
2. Article 22 of the Constitution contains specific provisions relating to preventive detention.
3. A person detained preventively has the same right to legal representation as one arrested under ordinary criminal law.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
A 1 and 2 only
B 2 and 3 only
C 1 and 3 only
D 1, 2 and 3
The writ of habeas corpus, invoked successfully in this case, is directed towards:
A Securing the production of a detained person before the court to test the legality of the detention
B Directing a public authority to perform a statutory duty it has failed to discharge
C Restraining a subordinate court from exceeding its jurisdiction
D Questioning the authority of a person holding a public office
onion pricesexport policybuffer stockPDSagricultural marketing
- The structural tension since the 1960s: India balances affordably low consumer prices against remunerative prices for farmers, with State intervention focused on managing volatility in the short term.
- The whiplash in trade policy, all within roughly 18 months: an onion export ban from December 2023 to May 2024, then a $550/tonne minimum export price and a 40% export duty, cut to 20% in September 2024, and finally abolished in April 2025.
- The farmer's complaint is about timing, not just level: the government changes its mind after farmers have already made production decisions based on expected prices - so the signal arrives too late to act on.
- The procurement episode that exposed the limits: during the bounteous rabi harvest, Maharashtra farmers - the country's principal suppliers - argued the Centre's procurement price of ₹12.35/kg would not cover cultivation costs. The Centre raised it to as much as ₹26.45/kg, but many farmers, including some who had already sold at ₹1/kg because of low quality and lack of storage, could not capture the higher value.
- The compounding pressures this year: abnormal rainfall at harvest, a 5-7% drop in Maharashtra's kharif crop, and the well-known difficulty of storing onions and maintaining large buffers - with storage losses around 30%.
- Tamil Nadu's intervention and its risk: buying 1,000 tonnes to distribute 1 kg per ration card at ₹35, designed to discourage hoarding while letting private retail prices cool. But distributing onions through a dry-grain PDS network is fragile - the economic case collapses if post-harvest losses exceed 10-15%, and onions are far more perishable than wheat or rice.
- The systemic warning: if other States adopt similar measures, the Central buffer could be quickly exhausted, especially given this year's high storage losses.
- For the exam: the editorial's prescription is a shift from reaction to proactive capacity - better storage, a less erratic trade policy, more efficient inter-regional stock movement, and direct protection against price shocks. This is the classic case study for the consumer-versus-producer price dilemma and the limits of export bans as a price-management tool.
Practice Questions
Frequent changes in agricultural export policy, such as successive bans, minimum export prices and duty revisions on onions, are criticised principally because they:
A Distort price signals after farmers have already committed to production decisions, undermining planning
B Are prohibited under the Constitution's provisions on inter-State trade
C Automatically increase the minimum support price for all crops
D Apply exclusively to imported agricultural commodities
Distributing onions through the existing dry-grain Public Distribution System network carries a particular risk because:
A Onions are far more perishable than wheat or rice, so the economic case fails if post-harvest losses exceed roughly 10-15%
B The PDS is constitutionally barred from handling horticultural produce
C Onions cannot be transported across State boundaries
D Ration card holders are ineligible to receive vegetables
ease of doing businesssingle windowregulatory reformDelhicompliance
- The Delhi Cabinet approved the Delhi Ease of Doing Business Bill, 2026, promising 'fundamental changes' to how approvals, registrations, licences and clearances are obtained to set up an enterprise.
- The headline feature: a single-window system covering approvals, registrations, NOCs, consents and licences through one portal - extending to building plan sanctions, fire department approvals, and water, drainage and electricity connections.
- The inspection reform is the sharpest change: no routine inspection for three years after an enterprise registers, though an inspection may follow a serious complaint. Self-declaration will be accepted for low-risk businesses.
- Reducing duplicate registration: enterprises already registered under the GST Act, the Food Safety and Standards Act, the MSME Development Act or the four Labour Codes will not need separate registrations for establishments categorised as 'health-trade' and 'eating house'.
- The nodal agency will be the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation.
- The framing by CM Rekha Gupta: moving the government-enterprise relationship 'away from a mechanism based on control and suspicion to one based on trust and ease', through a system that is simple, transparent, time-bound and technology-driven.
- The constitutional wrinkle worth noting: because Delhi is a Union Territory with a legislature, the Bill goes to the Union Home Ministry, which is expected to seek the Legal Affairs Department's opinion, after which it may be taken up in Parliament or the Delhi Assembly - a live illustration of Delhi's distinctive legislative position under Article 239AA.
- For the exam: the reform's logic is risk-based regulation - concentrating scarce inspection capacity on high-risk activity while trusting self-declaration for low-risk. The counter-argument writes itself: weak enforcement in food safety, fire and building compliance is precisely where such trust has failed before.
Practice Questions
The proposed Delhi Ease of Doing Business Bill must be sent to the Union Home Ministry before enactment principally because:
A Delhi is a Union Territory with a legislature, whose legislative competence is circumscribed under Article 239AA
B All State Bills relating to commerce require prior Union approval
C The Bill seeks to amend the Constitution
D Ease of doing business is listed exclusively in the Union List
A regulatory approach that exempts low-risk enterprises from routine inspection while concentrating scrutiny on high-risk activity is best described as:
A Risk-based regulation
B Universal licensing
C Price control
D Compulsory adjudication
gender equalityreligious freedomKeralapublic participationArticle 14
- The trigger: veteran Islamic cleric Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar directed that Muslim women's participation in public celebrations be restricted, in the context of marking Prophet Muhammad's 1,501st birth anniversary.
- Why the editorial says this is not a doctrinal quarrel: it is a test of how far religious authority can intrude into the lives of women in a State that takes pride in its progressive social history.
- The defence offered: Kanthapuram says he is reminding followers of established religious norms; supporters argue Milad celebrations have moved beyond mosques and madrasas into large public events, and that scholars have a duty to caution against such departures.
- The editorial's rebuttal, and the core constitutional principle: communities have the right to preserve traditions and regulate religious practices, but these must conform to constitutional values. When women are told to stay home because their presence could cause 'chaos', the matter ceases to be religious observance and becomes a question of constitutional equality.
- The sociological point worth carrying into an answer: the Muslim community is not a monolith - more Muslim women are advancing in education, employment, politics and public life, and that progress is now meeting a counter-current of renewed orthodoxy and social control.
- The political response was uneven: the CPI(M) responded sharply despite a decades-old alliance with the Kanthapuram-led faction of Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama; the Congress was guarded until CM V.D. Satheesan called the decree antediluvian; the Indian Union Muslim League's silence - a party with an active women's forum and its first woman legislator in the Assembly - is described as harder to defend.
- The editorial's closing line is the usable one: religious freedom does not confer on religious authorities the right to regulate women's freedom of movement, association and participation in society. Keralam 'cannot claim to be progressive while making exceptions for orthodoxy'.
- For the exam: frame this as the recurring tension between Article 25 (freedom of religion) and Articles 14, 15 and 21 - the same axis as Sabarimala, triple talaq and entry-rights litigation - and note the essential religious practices doctrine as the tool courts use to draw the line.
Practice Questions
The constitutional tension highlighted by restrictions on women's participation in public religious celebrations is best described as one between:
A Freedom of religion under Article 25 and the guarantees of equality and personal liberty under Articles 14, 15 and 21
B The legislative competence of the Union and that of the States
C Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles concerning cottage industries
D The right to property and the power of compulsory acquisition
The 'essential religious practices' doctrine has been used by Indian courts principally to:
A Determine which practices are integral to a religion and therefore protected under the freedom of religion
B Decide the order of precedence among religious festivals
C Allocate government funding among religious institutions
D Establish the number of members required to form a religious denomination
IranStrait of HormuzGulf securityenergy securityWest Asia
- The escalation: Iran fired on U.S. allies in the Gulf following a night of American bombardment, which Iranian officials say included a deadly strike on a wedding party.
- The sequence: fighting intensified after the U.S. struck Iranian assets on an island in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. Iran retaliated with missiles at American bases in Jordan, which were intercepted; Kuwait and Bahrain said they had also come under attack.
- Iran's stated losses: four members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard died in the U.S. attacks.
- Why the geography is the whole story: the fighting is centred on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a very large share of seaborne crude transits. Widening the conflict to Gulf states hosting U.S. forces puts energy infrastructure and shipping across the region at risk.
- The direct line to India: India imports 85-90% of its crude, and the Chief Economic Adviser has already warned that Hormuz uncertainty will keep oil above $80 a barrel. Escalation transmits to India through the import bill, current account deficit, rupee and imported inflation.
- The second Indian exposure is human: the Gulf hosts a very large Indian diaspora and is India's principal source of remittances, so instability carries consular and economic consequences well beyond oil.
- For the exam: this is the live context for India's balancing act - PM Modi met President Pezeshkian days earlier urging freedom of navigation, while Iran asked India to use its 'extensive contacts' to aid dialogue. Being trusted by parties on opposite sides is the practical dividend of strategic autonomy.
Practice Questions
Escalation of conflict around the Strait of Hormuz affects India most directly through which channel?
A A rise in crude oil prices that widens the import bill and current account deficit
B A reduction in India's foreign exchange reserves caused by treaty obligations
C An automatic increase in India's defence expenditure mandated by law
D Loss of India's voting rights in multilateral organisations
The Strait of Hormuz is bordered to the north by Iran and to the south principally by:
A Saudi Arabia
B Oman and the United Arab Emirates
C Yemen
D Qatar
Nepal floodsdisaster rehabilitationhydropowerpublic healthrecovery
- The transition point: Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the focus would shift from search, rescue and relief towards rehabilitation and reconstruction - the formal turning point in any disaster response.
- The hydropower toll: 279 people have been rescued from the ruins of hydropower projects, but at least 639 remain missing, some believed trapped in tunnels.
- Why rescuers persisted: Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet noted that the tunnels of several hydroelectric plants have powerhouses with spaces and rooms where people could shelter - the basis for hope of survivors.
- The candid assessment: 'The hope of finding survivors is decreasing,' said Phanindra Paudel of the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC), adding, 'We pray and are hopeful. Hope is hope!'
- The transboundary count: across the border in Tibet, China's official toll has held steady since Sunday at 16 dead and 546 missing.
- The emerging risk: UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said aid agencies were 'very concerned' about the growing public health risk - the predictable second wave in flood disasters, from contaminated water, damaged sanitation and unrecovered remains.
- For the exam: note the phases of the disaster management cycle - preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation - and that the shift from response to recovery is a policy decision with real consequences, since it reallocates resources away from search operations while families still await answers. India's framework rests on the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the NDMA.
Practice Questions
The announcement that a government is shifting focus from search and rescue to rehabilitation and reconstruction marks a transition between which phases of the disaster management cycle?
A From response to recovery
B From mitigation to preparedness
C From preparedness to prevention
D From recovery to mitigation
The public health risk that typically follows a major flood disaster arises principally from:
A Contamination of water sources, damaged sanitation infrastructure and unrecovered remains
B An increase in atmospheric ozone concentrations
C The permanent loss of soil fertility in affected areas
D Reduced availability of solar radiation for crops