8 June 2025

• Northeast: Assam flood situation improved on 8 June. No rivers were above danger level. Ferry service resumed on the Brahmaputra between Guwahati and North Guwahati. About 2.5 lakh people remained in 11 districts, sheltered across 130 relief camps.
• Space: Axiom-4 mission carrying Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla continued to face deferral from its originally scheduled date. The mission remained on standby at Kennedy Space Center.
• Environment: CDRI (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure), India's initiative launched in 2019, held preparatory meetings ahead of ICDRI 2025 in Europe.
• Economy: the World Bank revised the global poverty line upward to $3 per day (PPP 2021) from $2.15 per day (PPP 2017), revising estimates of India's poverty profile.

GS area: Disaster Management, Geography (Indian Rivers)

The Assam flood situation improved on 8 June 2025. The state had been hit by early monsoon floods affecting over six lakh people at its peak (around 4 June). By 8 June, the flood had receded significantly.

• Status on 8 June: 2.5 lakh people still affected across 11 districts and approximately 740 villages. Three lives were lost in Kamrup district. About 25,000 people remained in 130 relief camps.
• River levels: no rivers were flowing above danger levels on 8 June. Ferry service between Guwahati and North Guwahati resumed over the Brahmaputra, a practical sign of normalcy returning.
• SDRF: State Disaster Response Force teams were deployed for rescue and relief. SDRF is constituted under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• Brahmaputra geography: India's largest river by volume. Flows 725 km through Assam. Enters Assam at Sadiya (from Arunachal Pradesh). Drains into Bangladesh as the Jamuna before merging with the Ganga (Padma). The river swells rapidly with snowmelt and monsoon rain.
• Why Assam floods annually: the Brahmaputra carries the highest sediment load of any major Indian river because it flows through tectonically active and geologically young mountains. This raises the riverbed over time. Combined with heavy rainfall and flat floodplains, large-scale annual inundation is structural rather than exceptional.
• National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA): the apex body under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. The Prime Minister chairs it. State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) operate at the state level under Chief Ministers.

Static linkage: Disaster Management (DM Act, NDMA, SDRF), Indian geography (Brahmaputra, northeast rivers).

GS area: Science and Technology (Space exploration)

The Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission carrying Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Air Force continued to face launch deferrals from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

• Mission background: Ax-4 is a private crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) organised by Axiom Space. It carries four astronauts from the United States, India, Poland, and Hungary.
• Indian astronaut: Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is the mission pilot. He is shortlisted for India's Gaganyaan Mission, ISRO's first human spaceflight programme.
• Historical significance: Shukla's flight will make him the second Indian in space and the first in 41 years after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, who flew aboard a Soviet Soyuz in 1984.
• Launch vehicle: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon capsule.
• Duration: planned 14 days aboard the ISS for scientific research. About 60 experiments from 31 countries are on the mission manifest.
• Deferral reason: bad weather and later a liquid oxygen leak detected in the Falcon 9 booster caused repeated postponements. The mission eventually launched on 25 June 2025.
• Gaganyaan: ISRO's first crewed spaceflight programme. It aims to send a three-person crew to a 400 km orbit for three days. The G20 target was set for 2025 but the programme has faced delays.
• ISS: the International Space Station operates in Low Earth Orbit at approximately 400 km altitude. It is a joint project of NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, and CSA.

Static linkage: Science and Technology (space exploration, ISRO, Gaganyaan).

GS area: Economy (Poverty measurement, Development economics)

The World Bank revised its international poverty line upward to $3 per day at PPP 2021 prices, from the earlier threshold of $2.15 per day at PPP 2017 prices.

• What the poverty line measures: the World Bank's international poverty line is a threshold below which a person is considered to live in extreme poverty. It is expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms to allow cross-country comparison.
• PPP: Purchasing Power Parity is an exchange rate that equalises the cost of a basket of goods across countries. PPP dollars represent the same purchasing power everywhere.
• New threshold: $3 per day (PPP 2021). The revision reflects updated PPP conversion factors.
• Impact on India: under the revised line, extreme poverty in India stands at approximately 5.3 per cent of the population (2022-23), down from 16.2 per cent in 2011-12.
• Moderate poverty: under the $4.20 per day lower-middle-income threshold, India's poverty rate is 23.9 per cent.
• Institutions: the World Bank is headquartered in Washington DC. India is the third-largest shareholder in the World Bank's IBRD. The World Development Report is the World Bank's flagship annual publication on poverty and development.

Static linkage: Economy (poverty measurement, World Bank, development indicators).

GS area: International Relations, Disaster Management (International organisations)

India launched the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) in 2019 on the sidelines of the UN Climate Action Summit.

• Established: 2019 by India.
• Headquarters: New Delhi.
• Membership: 46 countries and 8 partner organisations as of 2025.
• Goal: make infrastructure climate-resilient globally by 2050. The focus is on transport, energy, telecommunications, and social infrastructure in developing countries.
• ICDRI 2025: the International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure 2025 was held in Europe for the first time (previous editions were in New Delhi). The 2025 theme was "Shaping a Resilient Future for Coastal Regions."
• India's context: India is among the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Cyclones, floods, earthquakes, and heatwaves cause significant annual losses. The CDRI initiative is India's contribution to building global norms on climate-proof infrastructure.
• Sendai Framework: the global framework for disaster risk reduction (2015-2030) adopted at the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan. It emphasises resilient infrastructure and early warning systems.

Static linkage: International Relations (multilateral initiatives, India's global role), Disaster Management (international frameworks).

• Brahmaputra facts for map questions: the river originates in Tibet (known as Yarlung Tsangpo). It enters India via Arunachal Pradesh through the Dihang gorge (one of the world's deepest gorges). In Bangladesh it is called Jamuna. It merges with the Ganga (Padma) before reaching the Bay of Bengal. Total length: about 2,900 km.
• Rakesh Sharma (1984): India's first astronaut, who flew aboard Soyuz T-11 to the Soviet space station Salyut 7 on 3 April 1984. When asked by PM Indira Gandhi how India looked from space, he replied "saare jahaan se achha." His flight was a joint Soviet-Indian programme.
• SDRF powers: under Section 44 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, each state must maintain a State Disaster Response Force. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is the central force with specialised training for flood, cyclone, earthquake, and chemical disaster response.