Economy: PM Modi praised 9 years of Digital India. Over 40 per cent of payments in India are now digital.
Agriculture: MSP legalisation debate returned. Only 6 per cent of farmers directly benefit from MSP procurement.
Constitutional body: 16th Finance Commission began work on its terms of reference. It will determine tax devolution till 2030.
Science: Japan's Minami-Torishima island confirmed as site of rare-earth deposits worth multiple decades of EV battery supply.
1. Digital India at nine: scale and gaps
GS area: Governance, Science and Technology
Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted achievements of the Digital India initiative, launched in July 2015, on its ninth anniversary. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology coordinates the programme.
Payments: Over 40 per cent of all financial transactions in India are now digital. India leads the world in real-time payment volumes through UPI.
BharatNet: Connects over 250,000 gram panchayats with optical fibre broadband. The programme aims for last-mile connectivity in rural areas.
SWAYAM: Online education platform offering university-level courses free of charge. Part of the National Education Policy implementation.
National Digital Library: Provides resources in over 200 languages. Aggregates textbooks, journals, and research papers.
UMANG app: Single platform for accessing over 1,200 government services.
Remaining gap: About 50 per cent of the population remains offline. Rural infrastructure, digital literacy, and device affordability are the three barriers.
Project Nexus, a Bank for International Settlements initiative, connects UPI with real-time payment systems of Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The target is to complete cross-border transactions within 60 seconds through a single network connection.
Static linkage: Digital governance (Polity/S&T), India's payment infrastructure.
2. 16th Finance Commission: terms of reference
GS area: Polity, Constitutional bodies
The 16th Finance Commission is chaired by Dr Arvind Panagariya, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman. Its recommendations will govern the distribution of central taxes between the Centre and states for five years starting 2025-26.
Constitutional basis: Article 280 requires the President to constitute a Finance Commission every five years. It consists of a Chairman and four members appointed by the President.
Core mandate: Determine the vertical share of central taxes going to states and the horizontal distribution among states.
Additional terms: Evaluate financing for Panchayati Raj institutions and urban local bodies. Assess disaster management financing frameworks. Examine grants-in-aid to states under Article 275.
Local body focus: The 15th Finance Commission had already increased grants to local bodies. The 16th is expected to link urban grants to property tax performance.
Panagariya's previous role: Panagariya served as the first Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog from 2015 to 2017.
The Finance Commission is not a permanent body. It is constituted fresh each time and dissolved after submitting its report.
The demand for legal guarantee to Minimum Support Price resurfaced in farm policy debates this week. MSP has been implemented since the 1960s but has no statutory backing.
Coverage: The government announces MSP for 23 crops each year. Only sugarcane has a statutory minimum price under the Sugarcane Control Order.
Procurement reach: Only about 6 per cent of farmers directly sell to government procurement agencies at MSP rates (Shanta Kumar Committee estimate, 2015). In 2019-20, 90 per cent of rice procurement happened in Punjab and Haryana while states like Karnataka and Gujarat saw only 1 per cent.
Swaminathan Commission recommendation: MSP should be set at cost of production (comprehensive cost C2) plus 50 per cent. The government currently uses a formula based on A2+FL costs plus 50 per cent, which critics say understates the real cost.
PM-AASHA: Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan. Uses a price deficiency payment mechanism for oilseeds and pulses to compensate farmers when market prices fall below MSP without physical procurement.
Legal guarantee concern: Economists argue that a legal MSP without matching procurement infrastructure would simply create an unfunded mandate. The fiscal and logistics implications would be enormous.
4. Colombo Process: India chairs first meeting in Geneva
GS area: International Relations, Governance
India chaired the first meeting of the Colombo Process in Geneva this week. The Colombo Process is a regional consultative forum on overseas employment and contractual labour.
Members: Twelve Asian labour-sending countries including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and China.
Secretariat support: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) provides administrative and technical support. The IOM has 175 member states.
Purpose: Shares best practices on migrant worker protection, pre-departure orientation, and bilateral labour agreements.
Static linkage: Labour migration (IR), multilateral forums.
5. Rare earths at Minami-Torishima (Japan)
GS area: Science and Technology, Economy
Japan confirmed large rare-earth deposits near Minami-Torishima island, Japan's easternmost territory, located 1,950 km southeast of Tokyo in the Pacific.
Quantity: Approximately 230 million tonnes of rare-earth mud. Contains an estimated 610,000 metric tonnes of cobalt and 740,000 metric tonnes of nickel.
Strategic significance: These quantities could supply Japan's EV battery industry for over a decade.
China's dominance: China controls roughly 85 per cent of global rare-earth processing capacity. Japan's discovery addresses a supply chain vulnerability that affects EV, electronics, and defence sectors worldwide.
Mining timeline: Extraction was expected to begin around 2025 with commercial scale by 2026.
Island status: Minami-Torishima is the easternmost point of Japan on the Pacific Plate. It is a raised coral reef atoll with a maximum altitude of 9 metres.
Zinc and legume resilience: Research showed that zinc enhances nitrogen fixation in legumes by supporting rhizobia bacteria. The transcription factor "Fixation Under Nitrate" regulates nodule activity. Reducing synthetic fertiliser use while maintaining yields is the long-term goal.
Snowblind malware: A new Android malware abuses the seccomp security feature in the Linux kernel to bypass anti-tampering protections in banking apps. Primarily targets Southeast Asia. Discovered by the security firm Promon.
Jadui Pitara: Play-based learning materials for children aged 3 to 8 developed under the National Curriculum Framework (National Education Policy 2020 implementation). Available in 13 Indian languages. Includes playbooks, toys, puzzles, and storybooks.
Practice MCQs
Check yourself
With reference to the Finance Commission of India, consider the following statements: 1. It is constituted under Article 280 of the Constitution. 2. It is a permanent constitutional body. 3. It determines both the vertical share of taxes going to states and the horizontal distribution among states. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Check yourself
Under the PM-AASHA scheme, the Price Deficiency Payment mechanism is applicable to:
Check yourself
Project Nexus, a cross-border payments initiative by the Bank for International Settlements, connects India's UPI with the payment systems of which group of countries?
Check yourself
The Colombo Process is a regional consultative forum on:
Check yourself
Consider the following statements about Minimum Support Price in India: 1. The government announces MSP for 23 crops annually. 2. Sugarcane has a statutory minimum price. 3. All 23 crops covered by MSP have statutory backing. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?