15 July 2025

• Polity: Supreme Court expressed concern over online hate speech and communal polarisation, citing Wazahat Khan and Hemant Malviya cases. The court warned that state regulation might become necessary.
• Environment: 78 per cent of India's thermal power units are exempted from installing Flue Gas Desulphurisation systems, a rollback of the 2015 mandatory norms.
• Defence: India's first batch of AH-64E Apache attack helicopters is arriving. They will be based at Jodhpur for western border security.
• Science: Indian scientists at Raman Research Institute found that quantum noise can generate entanglement, not just destroy it, reversing a long-held assumption.
• Parliament: Digital attendance via Multimedia Devices begins in Lok Sabha from the Monsoon Session starting 21 July 2025.

GS area: Polity (fundamental rights, judiciary)

The Supreme Court, hearing the cases of Wazahat Khan (offensive religious posts) and Hemant Malviya (political cartoon), raised concerns over growing misuse of online speech.

• Article 19(1)(a): Guarantees freedom of speech and expression to all citizens.
• Article 19(2): Permits reasonable restrictions on the grounds of sovereignty and integrity of India, security of state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency, morality, contempt of court, defamation and incitement to offence.
• Court's concern: Misinformation, hate speech, defamation and communal polarisation on social media platforms. The court urged citizens to exercise self-restraint and warned that state intervention might become inevitable.
• Tension: The court's nudge towards self-restraint does not resolve the structural question of whether platform liability or state regulation is the right tool. Both have been debated in Parliament through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and proposed Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill.

Static linkage: Polity (fundamental rights, Article 19, freedom of speech, reasonable restrictions).

GS area: Environment (pollution), Governance

The Ministry of Environment categorised India's thermal power units into three tiers for FGD (Flue Gas Desulphurisation) compliance.

• Category A (11 per cent): Plants near the National Capital Region and major cities. Deadline: December 2027.
• Category B (11 per cent): Plants in critically polluted areas. Deadline: December 2028.
• Category C (78 per cent): Exempted from FGD installation.
• What FGD does: Captures sulphur dioxide before it leaves the smokestack, preventing it from forming secondary PM2.5 pollutants (ammonium sulphate).
• Health impact: SO2 contributes roughly 15 per cent of ambient PM2.5. Links to asthma, heart disease and bronchitis.
• 2015 norms: Required all thermal plants to install FGD by 2017. Deadlines were extended repeatedly. The three-tier system now formalises the exemption for 78 per cent of plants.

Static linkage: Environment (air pollution, FGD, thermal power, NCAP, PM2.5).

GS area: International Relations (Indo-Pacific security, defence)

Talisman Sabre 2025 is Australia's largest-ever joint military exercise, involving 19 nations and over 35,000 troops.

• Core participants: QUAD members (India, Japan, USA, Australia) plus the UK, France, Germany, Indonesia, South Korea and others.
• First inclusion: Papua New Guinea operations, expanding the exercise's geographic scope.
• Objective: Enhance multinational military coordination and project deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
• India's participation: Signals deepening military-to-military engagement beyond the QUAD framework.

Static linkage: International relations (QUAD, Indo-Pacific, military exercises, Australia).

GS area: Science and Technology (quantum science)

Scientists at the Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru found that quantum noise can generate quantum entanglement, not only destroy it.

• Quantum noise: Arises from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and from environmental interactions. Previously treated as a purely disruptive force in quantum computing.
• New finding: Under certain conditions, noise can stabilise intraparticle entanglement rather than break it.
• Significance: This is a paradigm shift. It could simplify the design of quantum computers by reducing the need for extreme environmental isolation.

Static linkage: Science and technology (quantum computing, quantum mechanics).

GS area: Defence

India's first batch of AH-64E Apache attack helicopters is arriving and will be based at Jodhpur, primarily for western border security.

• Manufacturer: Boeing.
• Main armament: 30 mm chain gun, Hellfire anti-tank missiles and Hydra rocket pods.
• Radar: Longbow millimetre-wave radar system. Detects up to 256 targets simultaneously and classifies threats by priority.
• Strategic value: The Apache is India's primary rotary-wing anti-armour asset. Its Jodhpur basing places it in range of the Rajasthan-Pakistan border sector.
• India-US link: The acquisition is under the Foreign Military Sales programme and is part of broader India-US defence cooperation.

Static linkage: Defence (helicopters, anti-armour, India-US defence cooperation).

GS area: Polity (Parliament, governance)

The Lok Sabha is implementing digital attendance using Multimedia Devices at each seat from the Monsoon Session, which begins on 21 July 2025.

• System: Biometric, PIN or smart card verification at each member's seat.
• Process benefits: Replaces paper registers. Real-time recording. Reduces disputes over attendance records.
• Monsoon Session 2025: Scheduled from 21 July to 22 August 2025.
• Governance angle: Parliamentary attendance data is a transparency metric. Digital capture enables better accountability tracking.

Static linkage: Polity (Parliament, Monsoon Session, parliamentary procedure).

GS area: Economy (infrastructure, ports), History

The Machilipatnam greenfield port in Andhra Pradesh is 48 per cent complete with operations expected by end of 2026.

• Location: Andhra Pradesh, on the Bay of Bengal.
• History: An ancient port since the Satavahana era. Thrived under the Golconda Sultanate as a textile export hub.
• Capacity: Phase 1 has 4 berths. Expandable to 16 berths with a projected capacity of 36 million tonnes per annum.
• Cargo focus: Coal, cement, pharma and fertilisers.
• Inland link: A dry port corridor to improve rail connectivity to the hinterland.

Static linkage: Economy (ports, infrastructure, Sagarmala), history (ancient ports, Satavahana, Golconda).

• Silicon-Perovskite tandem solar cells: ART-PV India, an IIT Bombay startup, achieved 29.8 per cent efficiency in silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells, approaching the 30 per cent theoretical threshold. Supports India's domestic solar manufacturing under Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
• Sierra Leone World Heritage: The Gola-Tiwai Complex (Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary and Gola Rainforest National Park) became Sierra Leone's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2025. Tommy Garnett's Environmental Foundation for Africa planted 2 million trees here over three decades.