24 June 2025

• The WMO's Asia climate report confirms that Indian coastal seas are rising faster than the global average and that over 450 heat-related deaths occurred in India in 2024.
• UNEP released cooling guidelines urging nations to embed cooling targets in their NDCs, as the sector already accounts for 7 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
• The UK passed a landmark assisted-dying Bill, reviving the debate in India over passive euthanasia and advance directives.
• Women now constitute 42 per cent of Maoists killed in 2025 operations in Chhattisgarh, raising sharper questions about recruitment and coercion in Left Wing Extremism.
• India's first comprehensive national household income survey was formally announced, filling a data gap that has persisted since the 1950s.

GS area: GS-I Geography (Climate Change); GS-III Environment and Ecology

The World Meteorological Organization's annual regional report confirms that Asia is warming at twice the global rate and that Indian coastal sea levels are rising above the global mean.

• Asia warming rate: Asia is warming at roughly twice the global average rate. This acceleration compounds the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events across the continent.
• Arabian Sea sea-level rise: 3.9 ± 0.4 mm per year. The global average is 3.4 mm per year. Low-lying coastal regions within 50 km of the Arabian Sea coast face a submergence risk over the coming decades.
• Bay of Bengal sea-level rise: 4.0 ± 0.4 mm per year. The Bay of Bengal's rise is among the highest recorded for any regional sea and directly threatens the densely populated deltaic coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh.
• Heat-related deaths in India (2024): over 450. Lightning fatalities in the same year crossed 1,300.
• Himalayan glaciers: 23 of 24 monitored Central Himalayan glaciers are losing mass. Glacier retreat accelerates the risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs). A GLOF occurs when a moraine or ice dam holding a proglacial lake fails suddenly, releasing a catastrophic flood downstream.
• GLOFs: concentrated in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan arc. Communities in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh face the greatest exposure.

The report reinforces the case for mandatory coastal zone management plans and early-warning infrastructure for extreme heat and glacial events, both of which remain uneven across Indian states.

Revises: Climate Change; Glaciers and Water Security; India's Coastal Geography.

GS area: GS-III Environment; GS-II International Relations (Climate Diplomacy)

The United Nations Environment Programme issued the first systematic guidelines for countries to integrate cooling sector targets into their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

• NDC: Nationally Determined Contribution. Each country party to the Paris Agreement submits an NDC describing its climate commitments. Cooling has so far been absent from most NDCs despite its large emissions footprint.
• Cooling's current share of global GHGs: 7 per cent. The sector's share is projected to exceed 10 per cent by 2050 if no action is taken.
• Building electricity consumption: cooling accounts for 20 per cent of all building electricity globally. In the UAE it exceeds 50 per cent of building electricity.
• Access gap: 1.1 billion people lack access to sustainable cooling. This gap concentrates in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South-East Asia.
• Six-stage action process: the guidelines propose a baseline assessment, target formulation, Measurement-Reporting-Verification (MRV), policy development, governance architecture, and finance mobilisation.
• Emission reduction goal: the guidelines aim to cut cooling-sector emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 relative to a business-as-usual trajectory.

Integrating cooling into NDCs matters for India: rapid urbanisation, rising incomes and extreme heat events are driving appliance ownership up sharply, and the sector's emissions could overwhelm other mitigation gains if left unaddressed.

Revises: Paris Agreement and NDCs; India's Climate Commitments; Building Energy Efficiency.

GS area: GS-II Polity (Fundamental Rights, Judicial Decisions); GS-IV Ethics

The United Kingdom passed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. The law applies to England and Wales and lays down a multi-authority approval process before a patient may receive assisted dying.

• Bill's scope: applies to terminally ill adults in England and Wales who have a life expectancy of less than six months.
• Approval gate: a patient's request must be certified by two physicians and one psychiatrist, reviewed by a senior lawyer, and assessed by a social worker. The multi-authority gate is designed to guard against coercion and misdiagnosis.
• Core ethical tension: the Bill sits between the principle of personal autonomy (the right of a competent adult to decide how and when to die) and the sanctity-of-life principle (that the state has a duty to protect life). Critics also warn of a slippery slope toward extending eligibility over time and argue that investment in palliative care is the superior response.
• Gian Kaur v State of Punjab (1996): a five-judge Constitution Bench held that the right to life under Article 21 does not include a right to die. This ruling overturned the two-judge bench decision in P Rathinam v Union of India (1994) that had briefly recognised such a right.
• Aruna Shanbaug v Union of India (2011): the Supreme Court for the first time permitted passive euthanasia in India. Passive euthanasia involves withdrawing life support rather than administering a lethal substance.
• Common Cause v Union of India (2018): a five-judge Constitution Bench recognised the validity of advance directives (living wills) under Article 21. An individual may now legally specify in advance that they do not wish to be kept alive artificially if they become terminally ill and incapacitated.
• Active vs passive euthanasia: active euthanasia (administering a substance to end life) remains illegal in India. Passive euthanasia and advance directives are legal under the 2018 ruling.

The UK law does not create a direct precedent for India but the debate it has revived is constitutionally live because Gian Kaur and Common Cause sit in tension with each other on the question of dignity in death.

Revises: Article 21 and Right to Life; Landmark Supreme Court Judgements; Bioethics.

GS area: GS-III Internal Security (Left Wing Extremism)

Security forces in Chhattisgarh conducted sustained anti-Maoist operations through 2024 and into 2025. The share of women among those killed has risen sharply, pointing to structural shifts in how the Communist Party of India (Maoist) recruits and deploys cadres.

• 2024 operations: 217 Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh. Women accounted for 74 of these: 34 per cent of the total.
• 2025 operations (through 20 June): 195 killed. Women accounted for 82: 42 per cent of the total.
• Bal Dastas: the Maoist practice of recruiting children, particularly from Adivasi communities, into armed units. Children inducted through Bal Dastas form a pipeline into adult combatant roles. Both male and female children are recruited.
• Recruitment drivers: coercion of Adivasi families in areas with minimal state presence, ideological indoctrination beginning in childhood, and the near-absence of alternative economic opportunities in deep-forest districts.
• Gender equality rhetoric: CPI (Maoist) documents formally espouse gender equality. The rising frontline deployment of women alongside their recruitment through coercion rather than voluntary enlistment reveals a contradiction between that rhetoric and operational reality.

The data raise a policy question that goes beyond security: without addressing land rights, livelihood options and state service delivery in LWE-affected districts, counter-insurgency operations alone will not break the recruitment cycle.

Revises: Left Wing Extremism; Tribal Rights and Fifth Schedule; Internal Security Architecture.

GS area: GS-II Social Justice (Women's Empowerment; Government Schemes)

The Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Ministry of Skill Development jointly launched NAVYA to provide vocational training to adolescent girls aged 16 to 18 in underserved districts.

• Implementing ministries: Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The dual-ministry structure links welfare with formal skill certification.
• Target group: adolescent girls aged 16 to 18 years in 27 districts across 19 states. Aspirational Districts and North-Eastern districts are explicitly included.
• Certification route: successful trainees receive certification under the PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana framework. PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana is the flagship skill development scheme under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
• Non-traditional roles: NAVYA specifically focuses on trades and job roles not conventionally associated with women, aiming to break occupational segregation from an early age.

Revises: Women and Child Development Schemes; Skill India Mission; Aspirational Districts Programme.

GS area: GS-I Art and Culture (Temples; Tribal and Folk Traditions)

Ambubachi Mela is an annual festival at the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati and one of the largest Tantric gatherings in the world. In 2025 the temple closed ceremonially to mark the occasion.

• Location: Kamakhya Temple stands on Nilachal Hills, 7 km from Guwahati, Assam.
• Dynasty: the present structure was reconstructed in 1565 by Chilarai, the general-commander of the Koch dynasty. The Koch dynasty ruled the Kamrup region of Assam from the early 16th century.
• Significance: the Mela celebrates the annual menstruation of the goddess Kamakhya, understood as the creative and fertilising force of the earth. The temple enshrines no idol: worshippers venerate a natural spring that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the rock.
• Temple layout: three chambers. The innermost chamber houses the yoni-shaped cleft and the spring that is the focus of devotion.
• Ritual closure: the temple closes ceremonially for three days during Ambubachi. Devotees and ascetics (sadhus) from across the country gather during this period.

Revises: Temples of North-East India; Shakta Tradition; Koch Kingdom History.

GS area: GS-II International Relations (International Organisations)

The OIC is in the news in the context of its annual deliberations and the ongoing OIC-2025 Ten-Year Action Plan.

• Founding: established in 1969. The OIC was formed in response to an arson attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
• Membership: 57 member states. It is the second-largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations.
• Headquarters: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• UN status: the OIC holds permanent observer status at the United Nations General Assembly.
• OIC-2025 Ten-Year Action Plan: 107 goals across 18 priority areas covering political, economic, social, cultural and scientific cooperation among member states.
• India and OIC: India is not a member. Pakistan has periodically raised the Kashmir issue at OIC forums. India has consistently rejected OIC intervention as interference in its internal affairs.

Revises: International Organisations; India-Pakistan Relations; India's West Asia Policy.

GS area: GS-III Indian Economy (Data and Statistics; Income Measurement)

The government formally announced the launch of India's first comprehensive nationwide household income survey. Previous attempts at income data collection lapsed after the early post-Independence period.

• Survey name: Household Income Survey 2026.
• Oversight: a technical expert group chaired by economist Dr Surjit S Bhalla. Dr Bhalla is a former Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund representing India.
• Historical gap: India ran limited pilot studies in the 1950s to 1970s and a partial exercise in 1983-84. All previous efforts failed primarily due to systematic underreporting of income by respondents.
• Distinction from NSSO data: the National Sample Survey Office collects consumption expenditure data (the HCES series). Income surveys are conceptually distinct: they measure what households earn rather than what they spend. India has relied on consumption proxies for distributional analysis in the absence of income data.
• Policy relevance: robust income data are required to design progressive tax policy, calibrate direct benefit transfers, measure inequality (Gini coefficient), and evaluate the impact of welfare programmes.

Revises: National Statistical Office; Income Distribution and Inequality; Budget and Fiscal Policy.

GS area: GS-I Modern Indian History (Social Reform Movements)

Sree Narayana Guru (1856-1928) is among the most consequential social reformers of modern India. His legacy is periodically revisited in the context of caste discrimination debates.

• Core message: "One Caste, One Religion, One God for humanity." The slogan rejected the hierarchical caste system and advocated a universal human identity rooted in shared divinity.
• Aruvippuram Consecration (1888): Guru consecrated a Shiva Lingam at Aruvippuram in Kerala, defying the Brahmin monopoly on temple consecration. When upper-caste critics objected that a Shudra had no authority to install a deity, he reportedly replied that he was consecrating an Ezhava god, not a Brahmin one.
• Temples: established over 40 temples open to all castes at a time when most temples barred lower-caste entry.
• SNDP Yogam (1903): Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam. The organisation worked for the social, economic and educational advancement of the Ezhava community and by extension other marginalised groups in Kerala.
• Sivagiri Mutt (1904): founded as a centre for education, cleanliness, devotion to God, and organisation of society. Sivagiri Mutt in Varkala, Kerala continues as an active religious and educational institution.
• Influence on Gandhi: Mahatma Gandhi visited Sivagiri in 1925 and acknowledged Guru's moral authority. Gandhi described his work as a movement of spiritual and social regeneration.
• Education: Guru established schools for marginalised communities decades before the state made education universal. Access to education was central to his philosophy of liberation.

Revises: Social Reform Movements of 19th-20th Century; Kerala Renaissance; Caste and Modern India.

• Ambubachi Mela pilgrimage: draws hundreds of thousands of devotees annually to Kamakhya and is one of the four major Shakta pilgrimages in the subcontinent.
• OIC and Kashmir: the OIC has passed multiple resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir since 1994. India treats these as non-binding and rejects OIC jurisdiction over a bilateral matter governed by the Simla Agreement (1972).
• NAVYA and NEDi: the inclusion of North-East districts aligns NAVYA with the North East Development Initiative framework.
• WMO GLOF warning: the 2023 South Lhonak Lake GLOF in Sikkim is the most recent large-scale Indian example, having caused downstream destruction in the Teesta valley.