18 June 2025

• SIPRI's 2025 Yearbook puts global nuclear warheads at 12,241. China is expanding fastest at roughly 100 warheads a year.
• India has achieved 1 km secure wireless quantum communication using entangled photons. DRDO and IIT Delhi led the work.
• The International Big Cat Alliance held its first assembly in New Delhi. India chairs the nine-nation body.
• India covers roughly 20 per cent of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz. Operation Sindoor raised the strategic stakes.
• India's pension system covers only 12 per cent of the workforce. Old-age dependency will hit 30 per cent by 2050.

GS Paper 2 (International Relations) and GS Paper 3 (Security)

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released its 2025 Yearbook on global armaments. China's rapid expansion stands out. India and Pakistan both figure prominently given the recent Operation Sindoor episode.

• Global inventory: 12,241 nuclear warheads held by nine states as of January 2025.
• High alert: approximately 2,100 warheads remain on high operational alert, ready for rapid launch.
• Russia: 5,459 warheads, the largest national stockpile.
• USA: 5,177 warheads. The New START treaty expires in 2026 with no successor agreement under negotiation.
• China: 600 warheads, expanding at roughly 100 per year since 2023. China is constructing approximately 350 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos.
• India: 180 warheads as of January 2025. India is developing canisterised missiles capable of carrying multiple warheads. Canisterisation extends missile shelf life and enables faster deployment.
• Pakistan: 170 warheads. Operation Sindoor brought Indian and Pakistani forces into confrontation near nuclear-linked military sites.
• No-first-use: India maintains a declared no-first-use posture. Pakistan has not adopted one.

The expiry of New START without a replacement marks the first time since 1972 that no legally binding US-Russia nuclear arms-control framework exists. That gap matters for the NPT review cycle.

Revises topics: Nuclear Non-Proliferation, India's Strategic Doctrine, International Security Architecture

GS Paper 3 (Economy: Social Sector)

Pension assets in India stand at 17 per cent of GDP. The OECD average is 80 per cent. With 85 per cent of India's workforce in the informal sector, old-age income security is a structural vulnerability.

• NPS and APY combined coverage: 5.3 per cent of the workforce as of FY2024.
• Atal Pension Yojana (APY): 629 lakh subscribers. 93.7 per cent have chosen the minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1,000 per month. APY targets unorganised sector workers aged 18 to 40.
• Unified Pension Scheme (UPS): launched August 2024 for central government employees. Guarantees a minimum pension of Rs 10,000 per month. Blends defined-benefit assurance with a contributory structure.
• Old-age dependency ratio: projected at 30 per cent by 2050. That means 30 people aged 60 or above for every 100 working-age adults.
• Informal workforce: 85 per cent of workers lack access to formal pension channels. Seasonal and contractual workers fall outside both NPS and APY by design.

The structural issue is that contributory schemes require a regular income stream. Informal workers with irregular earnings cannot sustain contributions. Expanding the APY guarantee tier or creating a universal basic pension are the two policy options debated.

Revises topics: Social Security Schemes, Labour Market Informality, Demographic Dividend

GS Paper 3 (Environment: International Conventions)

The UN climate intersessional began in Bonn on 16 June 2025. These meetings do the technical groundwork before the annual Conference of Parties.

• Bodies meeting: Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). Both meet between COP sessions to prepare draft decisions.
• Theme: "Operationalising the Global Goal on Adaptation." The UAE consensus at COP28 set a framework for adaptation. Bonn is tasked with writing the operational indicators.
• Delegates: more than 5,000 from parties, observer states and civil society.
• COP30: scheduled for Belem, Brazil in November 2025. Bonn conclusions feed directly into Belem negotiating texts.
• Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA): agreed at COP28 as a parallel ambition to the 1.5 degree mitigation target. Unlike mitigation, adaptation has no single measurable metric. Bonn must design the measurement framework.

Revises topics: UNFCCC Bodies and Architecture, COP Process, Climate Adaptation vs Mitigation

GS Paper 3 (Environment: Biodiversity)

The International Big Cat Alliance held its inaugural assembly in New Delhi on 16 June 2025. India launched the alliance in April 2023 to consolidate big cat conservation across range countries.

• Species covered: tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma. These are the seven species classified as big cats.
• Headquartered: in India. India also hosts the Secretariat.
• Funding: Rs 150 crore from India for the period 2023 to 2028.
• First assembly attendance: nine nations participated in the founding session.
• Context: India holds the largest wild tiger population globally. The cheetah reintroduction to Kuno National Park (2022) and subsequent expansion to Gandhi Sagar (planned) fall under the alliance's species mandate.

The alliance fills a gap. No single global body previously coordinated conservation for all seven big cat species across their range states. CITES covers trade prohibition. The IBCA adds active range-state cooperation.

Revises topics: Biodiversity Conservation, Tiger Project, Cheetah Reintroduction

GS Paper 3 (Science and Technology: Quantum)

DRDO and IIT Delhi demonstrated a 1-kilometre secure wireless quantum communication link. This is a milestone under India's National Quantum Mission.

• Technology used: Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) using entangled photons. Entangled photons share quantum states. Any eavesdropping disturbs those states and is detectable.
• Secure key rate: 240 bits per second. This is the speed at which cryptographic keys are generated and exchanged.
• Error rate: below 7 per cent. UPSC-relevant threshold: QKD is considered secure when the quantum bit error rate stays below roughly 11 per cent.
• Significance: wireless QKD removes the fibre-optic constraint. It enables secure communication between mobile platforms or across terrain where laying fibre is impossible.
• National Quantum Mission: approved in 2023 with an outlay of Rs 6,003 crore over eight years. Targets satellite-based QKD over 2,000 km by 2031.

Revises topics: National Quantum Mission, Cryptography, Dual-Use Technology

GS Paper 3 (Science and Technology: Palaeobotany)

Fossilised leaves of genus Nothopegia were recovered from the Makum Coalfield in Assam. The specimens are approximately 24 million years old and represent the oldest known fossil record of this genus.

• Makum Coalfield: located in Tinsukia district of Assam. Part of the Upper Assam coalfields.
• Age: Late Oligocene epoch. The Oligocene ended approximately 23 million years ago.
• Current habitat of Nothopegia: restricted to the Western Ghats in present-day India. The genus has been absent from Northeast India for millions of years.
• Cause of local extinction: the Himalayan uplift and associated tectonic shifts during the Late Oligocene altered drainage patterns and climatic conditions across the Northeast. The genus could not persist under the new conditions.
• Scientific value: the find establishes a pan-Indian distribution for Nothopegia in the geological past. It also records vegetation conditions in Assam before the Himalayas reached their current height.

Revises topics: Geological History of India, Himalayan Formation, Biodiversity Hotspots

GS Paper 2 (International Relations: Defence Cooperation)

The 8th edition of Exercise Shakti began on 18 June 2025 at Camp Larzac in southern France and runs until 1 July 2025.

• Participants: Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (Indian Army) and the French 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade.
• Focus areas: sub-conventional warfare and United Nations peacekeeping operations. Sub-conventional warfare covers counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism tactics below conventional war threshold.
• Objective: enhance India-France military interoperability for both bilateral operations and multilateral missions.
• Indo-French defence relationship: anchored in the 2023 Horizon 2047 Roadmap. France is India's largest European defence supplier (Rafale aircraft, Scorpene submarines).
• Camp Larzac: a French Army base on the Larzac plateau in the Aveyron department. It has hosted NATO and bilateral exercises.

Revises topics: India-France Relations, India's Military Exercise Programme, UN Peacekeeping

GS Paper 3 (Disaster Management)

Thirteen people were killed by lightning in Bihar within 24 hours. Lightning causes more than 2,000 deaths annually in India, making it among the deadliest weather phenomena by frequency of fatality.

• Temperature of a lightning bolt: approximately 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That is roughly five times the surface temperature of the sun.
• Damini App: developed by the India Meteorological Department. Provides real-time lightning alerts with a 40-minute advance warning window. Users set a radius and receive alerts when lightning is detected nearby.
• Lightning Resilient India Campaign (LRIC): a national programme targeting an 80 per cent reduction in lightning fatalities. Coordinates awareness, early warning dissemination and community-level preparedness.
• Ex-gratia in Bihar: Rs 4 lakh per affected family. Ex-gratia is a compassionate payment and does not require proof of negligence by any authority.
• Vulnerability pattern: deaths cluster in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and eastern Uttar Pradesh during pre-monsoon and monsoon thunderstorm season.

Revises topics: Disaster Management Frameworks, IMD Services, State Disaster Response

GS Paper 1 (Geography: Important Straits) and GS Paper 2 (India's Energy Security)

Operation Sindoor and the ongoing Iran tensions have brought the Strait of Hormuz back into strategic focus. India's energy import route runs directly through it.

• Geography: the strait is approximately 167 km long. Its narrowest point is 33 km wide. Iran occupies the northern shore. The United Arab Emirates and the Omani exclave of Musandam occupy the southern shore.
• Oil throughput: roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day pass through the strait. That is approximately 20 per cent of global oil trade.
• LNG throughput: approximately 30 per cent of global liquefied natural gas trade transits this route.
• India's dependence: India sources roughly 85 per cent of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately 50 per cent of India's LNG imports also pass through it.
• Operation Sankalp: India's naval escort mission launched in 2019 to protect Indian-flagged and Indian-interest vessels in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea approaches to Hormuz.
• Iran closure threat: Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait during periods of US-Iran tension. Closure would require navigating the Cape of Good Hope route, adding roughly 15 days to tanker transit.

Revises topics: World Geography (Straits and Chokepoints), India's Energy Security, Indian Ocean Region Strategy

• The Bonn session will also negotiate rules under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (carbon markets). Text agreed here goes to COP30 for adoption.
• Exercise Shakti is part of a broader India-France defence calendar that includes naval exercises (Varuna) and air force exercises (Garuda).
• The Damini App is available free on Android and iOS. The IMD also runs a companion app called Mausam for general weather.
• Canisterised missiles (referenced under SIPRI) do not require fuelling before launch, cutting response time from hours to minutes. India's Agni-P is a canisterised system.
• APY is implemented through banks and post offices. Contributions attract a co-contribution from the Government of India only for those who joined before March 2016 and were not income-tax payers.