27 August 2025

• Economy: PMJDY at 11 years : 56.2 crore Jan Dhan accounts hold Rs 2.31 lakh crore.
• Health: Geriatric heat burden : elderly suffer 55 per cent higher heat mortality risk. WHO report.
• Polity: Criminalisation of politics : 31 per cent of Lok Sabha MPs in 2024 have serious criminal cases.
• Defence: MiG-21 retires September 26, 2025 : six decades of IAF service ends.
• Economy: Digital Service Taxes : India's Equalisation Levy on foreign digital companies under review.

GS area: Governance (Financial Inclusion), Economy

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana completed 11 years on August 28, 2025 : launched August 28, 2014.

• Account count: 56.2 crore accounts as of August 2025. 67 per cent held by rural/semi-urban account holders. 56 per cent owned by women.
• Balance: Rs 2.31 lakh crore in Jan Dhan accounts. Average balance per account: approximately Rs 4,116.
• Zero balance accounts: Fell from 77 per cent (2014) to 6 per cent (2025) : a significant shift to active accounts.
• RuPay debit cards: 36.38 crore RuPay cards issued. Cards include accidental insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh.
• Overdraft facility: Account holders are eligible for an overdraft of Rs 10,000 after six months of satisfactory operation.
• JAM Trinity: PMJDY is the J of the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan - Aadhaar - Mobile). The trinity enables direct benefit transfers (DBT), cutting leakages. DBT savings since 2014: Rs 3.48 lakh crore (as of 2024).

Static linkage: Financial inclusion, welfare schemes, governance.

GS area: Health, Environment (Climate Change)

A WHO report on Climate Change and Health quantified the disproportionate heat mortality risk among the elderly.

• 55 per cent higher risk: People aged 65 and above face 55 per cent higher risk of dying from extreme heat events compared to the general adult population.
• Physiological reasons: Reduced sweating capacity, slower cardiovascular response to heat, higher rates of comorbidities (heart disease, diabetes), polypharmacy (multiple medications can impair thermoregulation), reduced thirst sensation leading to dehydration.
• India's elderly population: 149 million (2024). Will reach 347 million by 2050 as the demographic dividend ages.
• Heatwave definition in India: The India Meteorological Department defines a heatwave as a condition when maximum temperature exceeds 40 degrees Celsius in plains and 30 degrees in hills, and departure from normal is 4.5 to 6.4 degrees Celsius.
• Ahmedabad model again: The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan specifically includes geriatric outreach : home visits by trained workers for elderly living alone.

Static linkage: Health, climate change, disaster management.

GS area: Polity (Elections, Governance)

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections found 31 per cent of elected MPs have serious criminal cases.

• Trend: In 2009, 15 per cent of MPs had criminal cases. By 2014: 21 per cent. By 2019: 29 per cent. By 2024: 31 per cent. The trend is consistently upward.
• "Serious criminal cases": Cases involving cognisable offences that carry five or more years imprisonment : including murder, rape, kidnapping and financial fraud.
• Supreme Court interventions: In Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India (2018), the SC ordered political parties to publish criminal antecedents of candidates. In Brajesh Singh v. Nand Kishore Yadav (2021), the SC tightened disclosure requirements.
• Why disclosure has not worked: Voters cannot easily access or interpret candidate declarations. Candidates with resources can delay trial indefinitely. Party tickets go to "winnability" over character.
• Constitutional bar: Disqualification under Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 occurs only on conviction, not on framing of charges.

Static linkage: Elections, Polity, governance.

GS area: Defence, History (Modern India)

The Indian Air Force retired the MiG-21 Bison : its last active MiG-21 fleet : on September 26, 2025.

• Induction: First MiG-21 inducted in 1963. India was one of the first non-Soviet countries to fly this aircraft.
• Peak fleet: At its peak, the IAF operated over 800 MiG-21s across multiple variants.
• Variants in India: MiG-21FL (first variant), MiG-21M, MiG-21BIS and MiG-21 Bison (upgraded with modern radar and BVR capability).
• Combat history: Fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Shot down a Pakistani F-16 during Operation Sindoor in February 2019 (Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman flew a MiG-21 Bison).
• Safety record: Known as the "flying coffin" : over 400 accidents in Indian service, with over 200 pilot fatalities. The obsolete design and maintenance challenges made it disproportionately dangerous.
• Replacement: LCA Tejas Mk1A and Mk2 are the immediate replacements. The IAF's full transition to indigenous aircraft is targeted by 2035.

Static linkage: Defence, history, IAF.

GS area: Economy (Taxation, Technology)

India's Equalisation Levy on foreign digital companies was under policy review amid OECD Pillar One discussions on global digital tax rules.

• Equalisation Levy (2016): A 6 per cent levy on payments to non-resident online advertising platforms (Google, Meta) for B2B transactions.
• Extended EL (2020): Extended to a 2 per cent levy on e-commerce supply by non-resident operators : covering online sales of goods and services to Indian customers. This is the contested provision.
• OECD Pillar One: An international framework to allocate taxing rights over digital multinationals based on where they earn revenues : not just where they are incorporated. If Pillar One succeeds, India is expected to withdraw its unilateral 2 per cent EL.
• US pressure: The US Trade Representative designated India's EL as discriminatory under Section 301. The US threatened tariffs on Indian goods in retaliation.
• Revenue impact: India collected approximately Rs 4,500 crore annually from the EL. Pillar One could yield more if a global agreement is reached.

Static linkage: Economy, taxation, technology policy.

GS area: Governance (Education, Technology)

Indian courts were asked to restrict access to Sci-Hub : the shadow library that provides free access to scientific papers : amid publisher copyright litigation.

• Sci-Hub background: Founded 2011 by Alexandra Elbakyan (Kazakhstan). Hosts over 85 million research papers : effectively the world's largest library of scientific literature.
• Publisher argument: Elsevier, Wiley and Springer Nature hold the copyrights. Sci-Hub infringes those copyrights. Publishers won blocking orders in the US and EU.
• Counter-argument: Research institutions in low-income countries cannot afford journal subscriptions. Sci-Hub democratises access to knowledge produced largely with public funding.
• ONOS (One Nation One Subscription): India's response : a government scheme to negotiate bulk licensing of journal access for all Indian academic institutions. Estimated cost: Rs 1,800 crore per year.
• Tension: ONOS would provide legal access to a subset of journals. Sci-Hub provides illegal access to virtually everything. The debate is fundamentally about who profits from publicly funded research.

Static linkage: Education, governance, technology.

• Carbon markets NDA: India's National Designated Authority for carbon credit trading is being set up under the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS), notified 2023. India aims to host a domestic carbon market by 2025-26. Article 6 of Paris Agreement governs international carbon trading.
• IAS 2024 batch: The 2024 IAS batch had 180 officers. Women constituted 27 per cent : the highest share in recent years. Nearly 40 per cent of top rankers (Rank 1-50) were women.
• MGNAREGA wages 2025: MGNREGS wages were revised upward to Rs 267 per day nationally, with state-level variations. The demand for work under MGNREGS in 2024-25 was the second-highest ever : 408 crore person-days.