GS Paper III 2020

Sustainable development serves today's needs without leaving future generations unable to meet theirs; inclusive growth asks that today's gains reach everyone. Equity thus has two faces: within a generation and across generations.

Intra-generational equity: inclusive growth

• Meaning: fairness among people alive today, across income, gender, caste, region and the rural-urban divide, in access to jobs, health, education and resources.
• Inclusive growth lens: growth that bypasses the poor, informal workers and lagging regions widens gaps; the remedies are jobs, skills, social protection, financial inclusion and basic services.

Inter-generational equity: sustainable development

• Meaning: today's use of forests, groundwater, soil, minerals, the atmosphere and public debt must not leave those who come later poorer or burdened.
• Sustainability lens: groundwater depletion, coal-heavy growth and climate change shift costs to the young and the unborn, who have no vote in today's decisions.
• Tools: the polluter-pays and precautionary principles, green finance and renewables, and fiscal prudence so that debt does not become a tax on the future.

Balancing the two

• Poverty can force over-use of commons, while growth-first policies help today's poor but burden tomorrow; the SDG pledge to leave no one behind asks for growth that is both shared and within ecological limits.

Both equities serve one aim: growth whose gains are widely shared today and whose costs are not passed on to those who cannot yet speak.

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Potential GDP is the highest output an economy can sustain when its labour, capital and technology are fully and efficiently used without pushing up inflation; the shortfall of actual output from it is the output gap.

Determinants

• Labour: the size, participation and skills of the workforce.
• Capital: the stock of machinery, buildings and infrastructure built up by investment.
• Productivity: technology, research and how efficiently inputs are combined (total factor productivity).
• Resources and institutions: land, minerals and energy, plus the quality of laws, markets and governance that decide how well they are used.

Why India falls short

• Labour under-used: low female labour force participation, weak learning and health outcomes, and skill mismatch waste much of the demographic dividend.
• Investment slump: the investment rate has fallen from its earlier highs under stressed bank and corporate balance sheets, with high logistics and power costs.
• Low productivity: a large workforce still in low-productivity farming, widespread informality, firms that stay small, and little spending on research.
• Institutional friction: rigid land and labour markets, compliance costs, slow contract enforcement and regulatory uncertainty deter investment.
• Demand and shocks: rural distress and weak consumption, the global slowdown and the COVID-19 contraction widened the output gap, while high debt limits fiscal space.

Closing the gap needs higher investment, better skills and productivity, and institutional reform, so that faster growth can be sustained without inflation.

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India grows large surpluses of grain, fruit, vegetables and milk, yet the farmer often gets a small share of the consumer's price because produce is hard to move, store and sell.

Transport constraints

• Last-mile roads: weak rural and feeder roads slow movement from farm to market, especially in the monsoon.
• Cold logistics: few refrigerated vehicles and pack-houses, so perishables spoil in transit; rail and waterways are barely used for farm produce.
• Cost: high freight and handling charges eat into the margin on small consignments.

Marketing constraints

• Storage: too few warehouses and cold stores near farms force distress sales right after harvest and cause heavy post-harvest losses of fruit, vegetables, milk and fish.
• Market structure: regulated mandis are few and far apart, commission agents dominate, and small farmers sell to village traders at low prices.
• Fragmented holdings: a small marketable surplus makes grading, standardisation and collective bargaining hard and weakens credit against stored produce.
• Information: e-NAM's own objectives name the gap, information asymmetry between farmer and trader and weak price discovery, and its reach is still uneven.

Rural roads, cold chains, aggregation through FPOs and open, transparent markets such as e-NAM would raise the farmer's share of the consumer's rupee and cut waste.

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India is among the world's largest producers of milk, pulses, fruit and vegetables, yet only a small share is processed; that gap is both the sector's challenge and its opportunity.

Challenges

• Fragmented supply chains and weak cold storage and transport, so raw material arrives late, damaged or not at all.
• Small, scattered units with low technology, weak grading and quality standards, and thin credit.
• Seasonal, perishable supply and price swings, high logistics costs and the cost of food-safety compliance.

Opportunities

• Rising urban incomes and demand for packaged and ready-to-eat food, export potential, and a large domestic raw-material base.
• Rural non-farm jobs close to production clusters.

Raising farm incomes

• Value addition: processed products fetch more than raw produce, and farmers share the gain when linked as suppliers or owners through FPOs and cooperatives.
• Less waste: processing and cold chains near the farm cut post-harvest loss, so more of the harvest is sold.
• Assured demand: contract farming with assured procurement and grading at source give steady offtake and better prices.
• Diversification: demand for processable fruit, vegetables, pulses and milk lets farmers move beyond low-value cereals.
• Support: PM Kisan SAMPADA Yojana (mega food parks, cold chains), the PMFME scheme for micro units, and liberal FDI norms.

A strong processing sector can turn surplus into income and jobs, provided supply chains, credit and quality standards are built alongside.

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Nanotechnology is the engineering of matter at the scale of roughly 1 to 100 nanometres (a nanometre is a billionth of a metre), where materials show optical, chemical and biological properties they lack in bulk.

What nanotechnology is

• It builds particles, materials and devices atom by atom or molecule by molecule; at this scale surface area rises sharply and quantum effects appear, giving new strength, reactivity and conductivity.
• India's Nano Mission of the Department of Science and Technology (2007) funds research and infrastructure in the field.

Uses in the health sector

• Targeted drug delivery: nanoparticles and liposomes carry a drug to diseased tissue, as in cancer therapy, raising effect and cutting side effects.
• Diagnostics and imaging: nano-biosensors, quantum dots and contrast agents detect disease early; lab-on-chip devices enable low-cost point-of-care tests.
• Vaccines: lipid nanoparticles carry the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines, showing nanotechnology serving public health at scale.
• Treatment and repair: nano-scaffolds for tissue engineering, nano-coatings for implants, and silver nanoparticles as antimicrobial agents in wound care.

Concerns

• Nanotoxicity and unknown long-term effects, accumulation in the body and environment, and thin regulation call for safety testing and clear norms.

Nanotechnology can make diagnosis earlier and treatment more precise, provided safety testing and regulation keep pace with the science.

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From the food on the plate and the vaccine in the arm to the phone in the hand, science and its technologies shape daily life, usually without being noticed.

Science in everyday life

• Health: vaccines, antibiotics and diagnostics have lengthened lives; clean water and sanitation rest on chemistry and microbiology.
• Connectivity and money: mobile phones, the internet and UPI payments run on semiconductors and satellites.
• Energy and home: electricity, LEDs, refrigeration and household appliances; weather forecasts and ISRO's remote-sensing services guide farmers, fishermen and disaster response.
• Mind and State: scientific temper, a fundamental duty under Article 51A(h), and evidence-based, data-driven governance.

Striking changes in agriculture

• Green Revolution: high-yielding dwarf wheat and rice, with fertiliser and assured irrigation, turned food deficit into self-sufficiency in foodgrains.
• Biotechnology and breeding: Bt cotton (2002), hybrids, tissue culture and improved livestock breeds; Operation Flood helped make India the largest milk producer.
• Precision and digital farming: drones, satellite crop and soil monitoring, soil health cards, weather advisories, e-NAM and mobile advisory apps.
• Water and inputs: drip and sprinkler irrigation, bio-fertilisers, integrated pest management, cold chains and climate-resilient seeds.
• The cost: soil and groundwater damage, pesticide residues, monoculture and biodiversity loss, and unequal access.

Science is woven into every part of life; in agriculture its next task is to move from raising yield alone to sustainable and shared gains.

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The EIA Notification, 2006, issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, makes prior environmental clearance mandatory for listed projects. The draft notification of March 2020 (S.O. 1199(E)) proposed to replace it and differs on five counts.

Prior clearance and violations

• 2006: clearance must come before construction; a project that starts without it is a violation. Draft 2020: clause 22 lets such projects be regularised on payment of a penalty, which critics call post-facto clearance that rewards the violator.
• Cognizance of a violation would rest on the promoter's own report, a government authority or an appraisal finding, so citizens must route complaints through officials.

Public consultation

• The notice period for a public hearing falls from 30 days to 20, and B2 projects and those declared strategic are exempt from consultation altogether.

Compliance and validity

• Promoters would file one compliance report a year instead of two, thinning monitoring.
• Clearance would stay valid longer: up to 50 years for mining (30 in 2006) and 15 years for river-valley projects (10 earlier).

Rationale and critique

• The government cites ease of doing business, online filing and transparency; critics say the draft dilutes public participation and the precautionary principle.

Faster, digital clearance is a fair aim, but it should not weaken the prior scrutiny, public voice and precaution that give impact assessment its meaning.

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Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA), launched on 1 July 2019, is a time-bound campaign to make water conservation and water security a people's movement, on the lines of Swachh Bharat, in the most water-stressed parts of the country.

Coverage and timing

• Focus on 1,592 water-stressed blocks in 256 districts, where teams of central officers work with the district administration.
• Two phases in 2019: 1 July to 15 September during the monsoon, and 1 October to 30 November for states that receive the retreating north-east monsoon.

Five interventions

• Water conservation and rainwater harvesting; renovation of traditional water bodies and tanks; reuse of water and recharge structures for borewells; watershed development; intensive afforestation.

Delivery

• A collaborative effort of Union ministries and state governments, coordinated by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, with block and district water conservation plans.
• Krishi Vigyan Kendras promote efficient irrigation and better crop choices, and a large communication campaign draws citizens in.

Later phases and links

• From 2021 the campaign continued as JSA: Catch the Rain, covering all districts, rural and urban.
• It complements the Jal Jeevan Mission (tap water for rural homes) and the Atal Bhujal Yojana (community groundwater management).

JSA works when conservation becomes local: recharge, reuse and community ownership build water security where the rain falls.

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Cyber crime is an unlawful act in which a computer or network is the tool, the target or both; India's main law on it is the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Types of cyber crime

• Against individuals: identity theft, phishing and online financial fraud, cyber stalking and bullying, sextortion and morphed images.
• Against organisations and infrastructure: ransomware and malware, denial-of-service attacks, hacking and data breaches, and attacks on power grids, banks and hospitals.
• Against the State and society: cyber terrorism and espionage, fake news and hate spread through social media, online radicalisation and cyber warfare.

Measures needed

• Law: enforce the IT Act, 2000 (Sections 66C, 66D and 66F on identity theft, cheating by personation and cyber terrorism) and penal provisions on fraud and stalking, plus a data-protection law (enacted since as the DPDP Act, 2023).
• Institutions: CERT-In for incident response, NCIIPC for critical information infrastructure, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the national cyber crime reporting portal, with trained police and forensic labs in every state.
• Technology: two-factor authentication, regular security audits, secure-by-design systems and prompt patching.
• People: cyber hygiene and awareness, especially for first-time internet users, women and children.
• Cooperation: with platforms for quick takedowns and with other countries on evidence and jurisdiction.

Fighting cyber crime needs sound law, capable institutions and alert citizens together, because technology changes faster than legislation.

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Militants in border areas survive on local shelter, information, supplies and recruits, so winning the community matters as much as guarding the line.

Denying local support

• Intelligence: village-level informant networks, community policing and stronger local police with quick response to tip-offs, and intelligence sharing among forces.
• Cutting lifelines: curb the smuggling, hawala and narcotics money that fund militancy; tighten cross-border movement with fencing, sensors and drones.
• Surrender and rehabilitation schemes that draw recruits away and separate militants from the community.
• Swift, fair action against those who shelter militants, with protection for villagers who refuse them.

Building a favourable perception

• Development: roads, schools, health centres and connectivity in border villages through the Border Area Development Programme, so locals have a stake in peace.
• Livelihoods: skills, jobs, local recruitment into forces and border works, and support for border trade and local produce.
• Conduct of forces: discipline, respect for human rights and local custom, prompt redress of complaints, and civic action such as medical camps.
• Communication: local-language outreach through community leaders, youth and local media, counter-narratives online and quick rebuttal of rumours.
• Political outreach: dialogue with elected local bodies and swift justice in local grievances.

A border is held by trust as much as by troops: development, fair conduct and local partnership starve militancy of the support it needs.

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In economics, investment is not the purchase of shares or gold but spending that adds to the stock of productive capital: plant, machinery, buildings, infrastructure and inventories. National accounts measure it as gross capital formation.

Investment as capital formation

• Gross capital formation is gross fixed capital formation by the public, corporate and household sectors plus the change in stocks; net of depreciation it is net capital formation, the true addition to capacity.
• It is financed by domestic savings and foreign inflows; when savings fall short, external capital fills the gap.
• Investment raises productive capacity, jobs and growth; the capital-output ratio shows how much investment each unit of growth requires, and public infrastructure crowds in private activity.

Designing a concession agreement

• Nature: a contract under which a private party finances, builds and operates a public asset for a fixed period and then hands it back, as in build-operate-transfer roads and airports.
• Risk allocation: assign each risk (land, construction, demand, regulatory change, force majeure) to the party best able to manage it; the Kelkar Committee (2015) was asked to suggest an optimal risk-sharing mechanism for PPPs.
• Revenue and returns: user-fee or annuity structure, the tariff revision formula, concession period and viability gap funding, so returns are fair without windfall gains.
• Performance: measurable service standards with penalties and incentives, independent monitoring and user protection.
• Safeguards: environmental and social obligations, and hand-back of the asset in good condition.
• Exit and disputes: termination payments, step-in rights for lenders, rules for renegotiation when circumstances change, and time-bound arbitration.
• Transparency: competitive bidding and public disclosure, and a clear account of the State's contingent liabilities.

A balanced concession agreement shares risk fairly, protects users and lenders, and ties the private party's returns to the service it actually delivers.

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GST subsumed most of the states' own indirect taxes. To secure their consent, Section 18 of the Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016 required Parliament to compensate states for revenue loss for five years, which the GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017 gave effect to.

Rationale for the Act

• Loss of autonomy: states surrendered much of their power to tax and feared losses, especially manufacturing states, since GST accrues to the state of consumption.
• Assurance: for five years from July 2017, each state's revenue is protected at 14% annual growth over its 2015-16 base; any shortfall is paid from a compensation cess on luxury and demerit goods credited to a dedicated fund.
• Trust: the guarantee was the price of cooperative federalism, letting states accept a common tax without fear.

COVID-19 and the fund

• Already strained: the 2019-20 slowdown left cess collections short of the 14% promise, and payments were delayed.
• Collapse: the 2020 lockdown crashed GST and cess receipts in 2020-21 while protected revenue kept growing at 14%, so the shortfall far exceeded the cess pool.

New federal tensions

• The Centre called the pandemic an 'Act of God', argued that it was not bound to fill a gap the cess could not cover, and offered states two borrowing options; states, led by opposition-ruled ones, replied that the guarantee was unconditional and that the Centre, which borrows cheaper, should borrow.
• Resolution: the Centre set up a special borrowing window in October 2020, borrowed Rs 1.10 lakh crore on behalf of the states and passed it on as back-to-back loans in lieu of cess releases.
• Deeper issues: states' loss of tax autonomy, the Centre's one-third vote weight in the GST Council (Article 279A), where decisions need a three-fourths majority, and a trust deficit over delayed dues.

GST compensation was the price of cooperative federalism; a lasting fix needs a predictable revenue guarantee, more buoyant state revenues and consensus in the Council rather than numbers.

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The rice-wheat system of the Indo-Gangetic plains, led by Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, turned India from a food-deficit importer into a foodgrain-surplus nation; the same system now strains its water, soil, air and farm economy.

Factors behind the success

• Technology: high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat and rice that respond to fertiliser, with pesticides and mechanisation, raised yields sharply.
• Agro-ecology: fertile alluvial soils and assured irrigation from canals and tubewells; kharif rice followed by rabi wheat fits the climate and the crop calendar.
• Price and procurement: assured MSP and open-ended procurement by the FCI gave a guaranteed buyer at a guaranteed price for both crops.
• Input support: subsidised power, fertiliser and credit lowered costs, while ICAR and the agricultural universities supplied research and extension.
• Farmers: enterprising cultivators adopted the package quickly, and the two crops fitted well into a mechanised annual cycle.

How it became a bane

• Water: paddy is water-hungry, and free or cheap power for tubewells has pulled groundwater down to critical depths in Punjab and Haryana.
• Soil: heavy urea use has skewed the nutrient balance, organic matter has fallen, salinity and waterlogging affect canal commands, and yield growth has slowed.
• Air and climate: burning of paddy stubble in October-November thickens north India's winter smog, and flooded paddies emit methane.
• Economy: monoculture crowds out pulses, oilseeds and millets, grain stocks pile up beyond need, and farmers stay locked into MSP dependence at a rising fiscal cost.
• Biodiversity and health: loss of crop and varietal diversity, pest build-up and pesticide residues.

Way forward

• Crop diversification backed by MSP and procurement for pulses, oilseeds and millets; direct-seeded rice and shorter-duration varieties; in-situ straw management; and reformed power and fertiliser incentives.

The system fed the nation; keeping it sustainable now means rewarding water saved and crops diversified rather than grain alone.

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With per-capita water availability falling and groundwater depleting, India must both hold more of the monsoon where it falls and get more crop from every drop it stores.

Improving water storage

• Revive local storage: desilt and restore tanks, ponds and traditional structures; build check dams, farm ponds and percolation tanks under watershed programmes.
• Recharge aquifers: rainwater harvesting, managed aquifer recharge and watershed treatment, with community-led groundwater management as under the Atal Bhujal Yojana.
• Large storage: manage dams for multiple uses, desilt reservoirs and complete pending projects so that created capacity is actually used, as the AIBP component of PMKSY aims to.
• Reuse: treat urban wastewater and channel it to peri-urban irrigation, adding to supply without new abstraction.

Improving the irrigation system

• Efficient application: drip and sprinkler systems under Per Drop More Crop (PMKSY), laser land levelling, and canal lining and modernisation to cut seepage.
• Command-area works: field channels and on-farm development so that water released from dams reaches the tail end.
• Cropping choices: shift from water-intensive paddy and sugarcane in dry regions to millets, pulses and oilseeds, backed by MSP and procurement for them.
• Pricing and institutions: rational power tariffs and feeder separation, volumetric pricing of canal water, water user associations, and regulation of groundwater extraction.
• Technology: soil-moisture sensors, satellite advisories and village-level crop-water budgets so that irrigation follows need, not habit.

More storage and recharge must go with efficient use, right pricing and community management if irrigation is to survive a drier future.

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The pandemic showed how fast technology can be mobilised in a crisis: from genome sequencing and contact tracing to vaccines developed in under a year and public services delivered online.

Detection and surveillance

• Testing: RT-PCR and rapid antigen kits, pooled testing and genome sequencing tracked the virus and its variants; AI-aided reading of chest images supported diagnosis.
• Tracing: the Aarogya Setu contact-tracing app, GIS maps of containment zones, thermal screening, and drones for surveillance and public announcements.

Treatment and hospitals

• Telemedicine through eSanjeevani kept care going during lockdown; indigenous ventilators, PPE and testing kits were scaled up; robots and UV disinfection reduced staff exposure; trials tested plasma and repurposed drugs.

Vaccines

• Vaccines came in record time on mRNA, viral-vector and inactivated-virus platforms; India's Covishield and Covaxin were delivered through CoWIN, which handled registration, slots and certificates.

Continuity of life and welfare

• Work from home and video conferencing, online classes through DIKSHA and SWAYAM, digital payments, and direct benefit transfers that reached the poor during lockdown.

Supply and logistics

• Lifeline UDAN flights and drones moved medical supplies, and online portals tracked hospital beds and essential goods.

Limits

• The digital divide excluded many from online classes and vaccine slots; tracing apps raised privacy concerns; misinformation spread as fast as facts; and imported inputs created dependence.

Technology helped detect, treat and cushion the crisis, but it worked only where public-health capacity, privacy safeguards and equal access backed it.

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Solar power converts sunlight into electricity through photovoltaic cells or solar thermal plants, and most of India receives abundant sunshine through the year.

Benefits over conventional generation

• Clean: no fuel is burnt in operation, so no carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide or fly ash, unlike coal plants.
• Water-light: photovoltaic plants need far less water than thermal plants, which matters in a water-stressed country.
• Secure and cheap: sunlight is free and inexhaustible, cuts oil, gas and coal imports, and solar tariffs have fallen steeply to compete with new coal power.
• Decentralised: rooftop and off-grid systems reach remote villages, cut transmission losses, run farm pumps and create local jobs; projects come up in months, not years.
• Limits to note: intermittency needs storage and grid balancing; land use, high upfront cost, imported cells and modules, and panel waste remain concerns.

Government initiatives

• National Solar Mission (2010): its target was raised to 100 GW of grid-connected solar by 2022 within a 175 GW renewable goal, delivered through solar parks and a rooftop programme.
• Farmers: PM-KUSUM for solar pumps and small farm-based plants, turning farmers into producers of power.
• Market design: reverse auctions by the Solar Energy Corporation of India, renewable purchase obligations on distribution companies, and waiver of inter-state transmission charges.
• Global lead: the International Solar Alliance, launched with France in 2015, and the One Sun One World One Grid vision.

Solar power offers clean, secure and decentralised energy; storage, grid integration and domestic manufacturing will decide how far India can lean on it.

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The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on 10 January 2019, is a time-bound national strategy to reduce air pollution across the country in a comprehensive way.

Target and coverage

• Target: a tentative 20-30% reduction in PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations by 2024, with 2017 as the base year (since revised to up to 40% in PM10 by 2025-26).
• Coverage: 102 non-attainment cities at launch, those consistently failing national ambient air quality standards, now 131 including million-plus cities, each with a city action plan.

Approach

• Collaborative, multi-scale and cross-sectoral: Central ministries, states and local bodies act together, and NCAP is dovetailed with existing programmes such as the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
• Sector action: city plans target vehicle emissions, road and construction dust, industry, biomass and waste burning, and household fuels.

Tools

• More monitoring stations, including rural ones; source-apportionment studies; certification of monitoring equipment; awareness and capacity building; and a stress on enforcement.

Institutions

• An Apex Committee at the Centre and Chief Secretary-level committees in states, sectoral working groups, project monitoring units, and city and district implementation committees.

Limits

• No statutory backing, a focus on particulate matter alone, weak city capacity and gaps in tracking outcomes against targets.

NCAP gives India a national target and a city-level plan; funding tied to results, monitoring and enforcement by cities will decide whether the air actually clears.

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Until the Disaster Management Act, 2005, India treated disasters as relief events to be handled after the fact; the Act, and the measures since, treat them as risks to be prevented, mitigated and prepared for across the whole cycle.

The shift in approach

• From counting relief to reducing risk: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, with the NDMA, state and district authorities as the institutional spine.

Recent measures

• Planning: the National Disaster Management Plan (2016, revised 2019), aligned with the Sendai Framework, covers every hazard from prevention to recovery.
• Agenda: the Prime Minister's ten-point agenda (2016) mainstreams risk management in all development sectors, and seeks risk cover for all, women's leadership, risk mapping and technology.
• Early warning: better cyclone forecasts by the IMD, tsunami warning by INCOIS, flood forecasting by the CWC, and impact-based, last-mile alerts that let people move before the event.
• Resilient infrastructure: the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), launched by India in 2019, and projects such as the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project.
• Funding: dedicated mitigation funds at national and state levels, recommended by the 15th Finance Commission, shift money from relief to prevention and preparedness.
• Community and capacity: Aapda Mitra volunteers, NDRF training and mock drills, school and hospital safety programmes, and GIS and drones for mapping and response.

Gaps that remain

• Weak local-body capacity, uneven enforcement of land-use and building codes, and thin risk data; risk-informed planning must reach panchayats and municipalities.

The test of the shift is fewer lives lost per event: preparedness, resilient infrastructure and community capacity save more lives and money than relief ever can.

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Left-wing extremism (LWE) has taken root in the forested, mineral-rich tribal belts of Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal, where the State arrived late and thinly and grievances found an armed outlet.

Determinants

• Land and forest: displacement by mining, dams and industry with poor rehabilitation, alienation of tribal land, and weak recognition of forest rights.
• Development deficit: poverty, thin schools, health care, roads and mobile connectivity, youth unemployment, and exploitation by contractors and moneylenders.
• Governance gaps: absent or corrupt local administration, weak policing, and poor implementation of PESA, 1996 and the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
• Terrain and tactics: dense forests and hills give cover; extremists extort, coerce and exploit grievances, and slip across state borders.

Strategy: Government of India

• Fund and coordinate: special central assistance to the worst-hit districts, roads and mobile towers, and a unified command with the states; the SAMADHAN doctrine (2017) sets the security frame.

Strategy: civil administration

• Reach every village: schools, health centres, skilling and financial inclusion; full application of PESA and the Forest Rights Act; fair rehabilitation before projects; and grievance redress that works.

Strategy: security forces

• Hold ground: coordinated operations by CAPFs and state police, intelligence sharing, fortified police stations, technology, and strict respect for rights so that operations do not create new recruits.
• Surrender and rehabilitation schemes that offer a way out, and community outreach that builds trust.

Security operations create the space, but lasting peace comes from land and forest rights, roads, schools and responsive local governance.

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India's western, eastern and north-eastern land borders pose different threats: cross-border terrorism and narcotics in the west, illegal migration and smuggling in the east, and insurgent sanctuaries and drugs in the north-east. Each needs a different guard.

Pakistan border and the LoC

• Infiltration of terrorists across the LoC under cover of ceasefire violations; arms, narcotics and fake currency smuggled across the international border, including by drones and tunnels.
• Narcotics money and hawala feed terror networks and the criminals who move their logistics.

Bangladesh border

• Illegal migration, cattle and goods smuggling, human trafficking and fake currency, exploited by criminal networks along unfenced and riverine stretches.

Myanmar border

• Insurgent camps and cross-border movement of militants, arms trafficking, and drugs from the Golden Triangle, with misuse of the free movement arrangement for locals.

Common threads

• Smuggling, hawala and narcotics finance terror and insurgent groups, and criminal networks lend them logistics; porous terrain and demographic change add to the strain.

Role of the security forces

• Army: holds the LoC, counters infiltration and works with the police in the hinterland.
• BSF: guards the international borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, checks smuggling and illegal crossing, and runs border outposts, fencing and floodlighting.
• Assam Rifles: guards the Myanmar border and fights insurgency in the north-east.
• Support: state police, the Intelligence Bureau, NIA, NCB and customs share intelligence and investigate; force-level talks with neighbours help coordination.
• Measures and gaps: fencing, floodlighting, the CIBMS technology pilot, integrated check posts and border roads help, but unfenced terrain, manpower shortfalls, drones and overlapping roles remain.

Each border needs its own mix of fencing, technology, intelligence and local goodwill, with clear command and coordination among the forces that guard it.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.