PIB Weekly, 12 October – 18 October 2026

Syllabus: GS1 › Women, population, poverty & urbanisation › Women's labour force participation & the care economy

A government account of 'Women, Work and Enterprise' put the female labour-force participation rate (15 years and above, usual status) at 40.0% in 2025, against 23.3% in 2017-18, with about 20 crore women in work. The monthly labour survey for September 2026 gives a lower figure because it uses a different yardstick.

First covered in the Daily Brief: "Women's Workforce Participation Rises to 40%: Gains and Gaps"

• Two measures, two numbers: usual status counts anyone who worked for a major part of the year (40.0% in 2025); current weekly status counts work in the last seven days (34.6% for women in September 2026). Never compare across the two.
• Rural women drive the rise: rural female participation (38.9% weekly status, September 2026) is well above urban, and most of the increase is self-employment, including unpaid work in family enterprises.
• Enterprise: about 3.69 crore MSMEs registered on Udyam and Udyam Assist are women-owned, roughly 38% of all registrations.
• Labour Codes: equal remuneration, night-shift work with consent and safeguards, and maternity benefit continue under the Code on Wages, 2019 and the Social Security Code, 2020.
• Urban young women remain the weak spot: unemployment among urban women aged 15-29 was 26.6% in September 2026.

Know the concept: Labour-force participation rate = (employed + unemployed seeking work) ÷ working-age population. A rise driven by unpaid family work and distress self-employment raises participation without raising earnings; the quality test is the share of regular wage work and the gender pay gap.

UPSC asked (Mains GS1 2024): Distinguish between gender equality, gender equity and women’s empowerment. Why is it important to take gender concerns into account in programme design and implementation? Open →

Mains: GS1 (role of women) and GS3 (employment): argue that India's female participation story has moved from 'missing women' to 'informal women'; the next frontier is the care economy (childcare, elder care) that frees time for paid work. Use the usual-status versus weekly-status distinction to show command of the data.

Syllabus: GS1 › Indian art, literature & architecture › Heritage conservation & intangible culture

Among five Ladakh projects dedicated on 15 October is a park at Sindhu Ghat near Leh to protect and display the region's prehistoric rock carvings, the first dedicated petroglyph park in the country.

• Petroglyph versus pictograph: a petroglyph is carved, pecked or abraded into rock; a pictograph is painted on it. Ladakh's Indus valley has thousands of petroglyphs of ibex, hunters, yaks and symbols, many along the river terraces.
• Ladakh's rock-art map: Domkhar (Sham valley) already has a community-protected rock-art sanctuary; Alchi and Khaltse stretches carry carvings from the Bronze Age to the Buddhist period.
• The Indian comparison set: Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh, paintings, World Heritage 2003), Edakkal caves (Wayanad, Kerala, engravings), Unakoti (Tripura, rock-cut reliefs), Konkan petroglyphs (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, on the Tentative List).
• Threat profile: road-widening, quarrying and riverside construction destroy open-air rock art faster than weathering does; a park fences the site and routes tourism around it.
• Heritage tourism is the stated purpose: carvings become an asset for guided visits rather than loose stones for builders.

Know the concept: Open-air rock art is 'immovable' heritage without a building: protection depends on notification under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 or on State and community custody. A conservation park is the administrative form that puts a fence, a path and a custodian around a landscape.

Mains: GS1 art and culture: cite the park as an example of taking prehistoric art out of the 'Bhimbetka only' frame, and of pairing conservation with livelihoods in a border district.

Syllabus: GS1 › World physical geography › Climatology: monsoon, cyclones & air masses

The Meteorological Department declared the southwest monsoon fully withdrawn from the country on 15 October 2026, the normal date, and simultaneously declared the onset of the north-east monsoon over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema, Kerala and south-interior Karnataka.

• Calendar: withdrawal began from west Rajasthan on 19 September (normal 17 September) and reached completion on 15 October, the normal date.
• Season total: all-India rainfall was 87% of the long-period average, a deficit of 12.6% (about 759 mm against a normal of about 869 mm), with the north-eastern States among the deficit regions.
• Criteria for withdrawal: no rain for five consecutive days, an anticyclone in the lower troposphere (850 hPa) and a marked fall in moisture content, judged station by station from the north-west.
• North-east monsoon: October-December rains from north-easterly winds picking up moisture over the Bay of Bengal; Tamil Nadu receives close to half its annual rain in this season, which is why its onset is a separate declaration.
• Why the same day matters: the reversal of winds over the peninsula is a single event seen from two sides, the end of one monsoon and the start of the other.

Know the concept: The 2020 revision of normal dates moved the start of withdrawal to 17 September (from 1 September) and the completion to 15 October. 'Normal' now describes a later, shorter withdrawal phase than older textbooks give.

Mains: GS1 geography: a short, dated example for any answer on monsoon variability; pair the on-time withdrawal with a below-normal season to show that timing and quantum are different things.

Syllabus: GS2 › Constitutional bodies › Governor, Vice-President & other offices

Rashtrapati Bhavan announced Governors for six States on 12 October: Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, who had held additional charge of Tamil Nadu since 12 March, becomes its full-time Governor; Om Prakash Mathur moves from Sikkim to Keralam (the State's official name since 25 August 2026); Braj Mohan Ram goes to Odisha, Sudha Yadav to Karnataka, Dhal Singh Bisen to Uttarakhand and Dushyant Gautam to Sikkim.

• Article 153 proviso (7th Amendment, 1956): the same person can be appointed Governor of two or more States; 'additional charge' is the everyday name for it.
• Article 155: appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal; Article 156: holds office during the President's pleasure, normally five years, and continues until a successor enters office.
• Transfer is appointment: there is no constitutional 'transfer' of a Governor; a move from one State to another is a fresh appointment under Article 155.
• Article 158: cannot be a member of Parliament or a State legislature, and holds no other office of profit; emoluments are shared as the President determines when one person governs two States.
• Oath under Article 159 is administered by the Chief Justice of the High Court of that State.
• Keralam: the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Act, 2026 changed the State's name in the First Schedule with effect from 25 August 2026; a State's name is altered by Parliament under Article 3, by simple majority, after the President refers the Bill to the State legislature for its views.

Know the concept: Sarkaria (1988) and Punchhi (2010) both asked for Governors to be eminent persons from outside the State, appointed after consulting the Chief Minister, with a fixed tenure and removal only for cause. Frequent reshuffles are the practice those reports argued against.

UPSC asked (Mains GS2 2026): Discuss the position of the Governor in the federal polity of India. What is the nature of his power while giving assent to a bill passed by the State Legislature ? Is he bound by the aid and advice of his Council of Ministers in all his functions ? Open →

Mains: GS2 federalism: use the reshuffle as a factual hook for the 'Governor as agent of the Centre' debate; the substance is tenure security, consultation with the State and the assent power the Supreme Court has since read down.

Syllabus: GS2 › Government policies & interventions › Health & sanitation policy

The pricing regulator used its extraordinary powers to cap the trade margin, the gap between the price to the stockist and the retail price, at 30% for 137 non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines, including patented ones and direct hospital supplies. Revised maximum retail prices apply from 9 November 2026.

First covered in the Daily Brief: "Trade Margins Capped on 137 Cancer Drugs"

• Legal route: Paragraph 19 of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, which lets the regulator fix prices of non-scheduled drugs in the public interest; the Order itself flows from section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
• Mechanism: a trade-margin cap, not a ceiling price; the maximum retail price is rebuilt from the manufacturer's net sales realisation (March 2026) plus a margin of 30% and tax.
• Precedent: the 2019 pilot covered 42 anti-cancer drugs and 526 brands, with retail cuts of up to 90% on some brands; this round extends the method to 137 molecules.
• Who gains: patients paying out of pocket for oncology drugs outside the National List of Essential Medicines; estimated annual savings are about ₹2,500 crore.
• Scheduled versus non-scheduled: medicines on the National List (Schedule I) get ceiling prices; all others may raise prices by at most 10% a year.

Know the concept: The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (1997) administers the 2013 Order under the Department of Pharmaceuticals. Trade-margin rationalisation targets distribution mark-ups rather than manufacturer prices, so it is less likely to drive a product off the market than a hard ceiling.

Mains: GS2 health: present the cap as the 'light-touch' end of price regulation, between no control and ceiling prices; weigh affordability against supply incentives and the risk that hospitals shift margins to procedures.

Syllabus: GS2 › Groupings & agreements › Free trade agreements & India's trade negotiations

The India–UK Joint Economic and Trade Committee met in New Delhi on 12 October, its first meeting after the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement entered into force, and set the ambition of doubling bilateral trade by 2030.

• JETCO is the ministerial trade forum of the two governments, co-chaired this time by Piyush Goyal and the UK's Jonathan Reynolds; it now oversees how the trade agreement is used, with sub-committees and working groups.
• Five priority areas: infrastructure and clean energy; advanced manufacturing and supply chains; technology and innovation; financial services; healthcare and consumer goods.
• The agreement: signed 24 July 2025, in force from 15 July 2026, giving zero-duty access for most Indian goods; Vision 2035 is the umbrella roadmap.
• India's ask: clear guidance on tariff schedules and rules of origin so that MSMEs can actually claim the concessions.
• Utilisation tracking: the two sides agreed to exchange data on how much eligible trade actually claims the agreement's preferences every year, starting one year after it entered into force.

Know the concept: A trade agreement's benefit depends on its utilisation rate: the share of eligible trade that actually claims preferential duty. Rules of origin, certificates and awareness decide that rate, which is why implementation committees matter as much as signing ceremonies.

Mains: GS2 (bilateral relations) and GS3 (external sector): use the utilisation-review idea to argue that India's new generation of agreements (UAE, Australia, EFTA, UK) will be judged on uptake, not on signing.

Abbreviations: EFTA: European Free Trade Association · JETCO: Joint Economic and Trade Committee

Syllabus: GS2 › Groupings & agreements › Strategic partnerships & autonomy

The Prime Minister spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on 13 October, and Canada's Foreign Minister Anita Anand met the External Affairs Minister in New Delhi on 14 October, with a trade minister-led business delegation in the country the same week.

• Both sides reaffirmed the aim of concluding the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement at the earliest opportunity; negotiating rounds resumed this year after the 2023 freeze.
• Security track restored: the ministers welcomed a recent dialogue between the two National Security Advisers, the channel frozen after 2023.
• Milestones of the reset: Carney's visit to India and a joint leaders' statement earlier in 2026; a Prime Ministerial visit to Canada is expected in December.
• Canada's stated goal is to more than double two-way trade by 2030; critical minerals, energy, education and technology are the named sectors.
• Diaspora and students remain the structural link: Indians are the largest group of international students in Canada.

Know the concept: A 'strategic partnership' is a political label, not a treaty; it signals regular leader-level contact and institutional dialogues (trade, security, energy). The India–Canada case shows how one such partnership can be suspended and rebuilt without any formal document changing.

Mains: GS2 bilateral relations: a case study in de-escalation, with the sequence (NSA dialogue, leaders' meeting, trade talks) as the template; note the limits set by domestic politics on both sides.

Abbreviations: NSA: National Security Adviser

Syllabus: GS2 › Health, education & human resources › Health: primary care, insurance & workforce

A government account of the tuberculosis programme this week foregrounded the new Joint Squad for Health (JOSH) teams, youth volunteers deployed from 8 October in 55 districts of 11 States and Union Territories to find cases early and fight stigma.

• JOSH works under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, with the Youth Affairs and Defence ministries and the Delhi government as partners for the first phase; 6,347 squads were formed at the launch.
• Trend: India's TB incidence fell about 21% between 2015 and 2024, against a global decline of about 12%; treatment success is around 90%.
• Support package: Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana pays ₹1,000 a month to every notified patient for nutrition (raised from ₹500 in November 2024); Ni-kshay Mitras adopt patients for food baskets.
• Targets: India set 2025 as its elimination year, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goal date of 2030; the campaign now speaks of 'before 2030'.
• Programme name: the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (renamed from the Revised National TB Control Programme in 2020).

Know the concept: 'Elimination' in TB policy means incidence below one case per million population, not zero cases. India's strategy rests on four pillars: detect, treat, prevent, build; community volunteers address the first and the last.

Mains: GS2 health: use the missed 2025 target honestly, then show the shift from hospital-centred control to community-led case finding; JOSH is the current example of 'Jan Bhagidari' in health.

Abbreviations: TB: tuberculosis

Syllabus: GS2 › NGOs, SHGs & the development sector › Self-help groups & microfinance

The President inaugurated the National SARAS Mela at Punnami Ghat, Vijayawada, on 15 October, the first time the national edition of the self-help-group fair has been held outside Delhi-NCR. It runs till 31 October with more than 1,500 SHG women from over 30 States and Union Territories.

• Organiser: the Ministry of Rural Development under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission, with Andhra Pradesh's Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty.
• The President's framing: from 'Lakhpati Didis' (annual household income above ₹1 lakh) to 'Crorepati Didis', and a call to remove intermediaries between producers and buyers.
• SARAS fairs are the marketing layer of the SHG movement: regional and national fairs give rural producers a direct retail channel and buyer contacts.
• Lakhpati Didi target: three crore women, raised from two crore in the 2024-25 Budget.
• Scale of the mission: the rural livelihoods mission is the world's largest women's collective platform, organised in SHGs, village organisations and cluster federations.

Know the concept: An SHG is a group of 10-20 women who save, lend internally and then borrow from banks on joint liability; bank linkage (NABARD's 1992 pilot) turned it into a credit channel, and federations turned it into an enterprise platform. SARAS converts that into market access.

UPSC asked (Prelims GS1 2023): Consider the following statements: Open →

Mains: GS2 (SHGs) and GS1 (women): pair the Vijayawada fair with the Lakhpati Didi metric to argue that the mission's next stage is enterprise and markets, not credit alone.

Abbreviations: NABARD: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development · SARAS: Sale of Articles of Rural Artisans Society (the SHG fair) · SHG: self-help group

Syllabus: GS2 › Health, education & human resources › Human resources, skills & human capital

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports issued operational guidelines on 16 October for the revised Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations, which runs from 2026-27 to 2030-31 with an outlay of ₹7,386.74 crore.

• Parent decision: part of the ₹36,441 crore package approved by the Cabinet on 31 July 2026 together with the revamped Khelo India programme.
• New windows: up to ₹50 crore for hosting an international event and up to ₹50 crore for the National Games, cleared by a committee under the Sports Secretary.
• Single-sport Olympic Training Centres, support for indigenous sports, and sports cooperation with the Global South, BRICS and BIMSTEC partners are new components.
• Continuing components: national coaching camps, foreign coaches and support staff, participation in and hosting of national championships.
• Context: the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and the bid for the 2036 Olympics.

Know the concept: Federations are private societies that select national teams; public money flows to them through this scheme and is conditioned on governance norms, now codified in the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 (elections, age and tenure limits, athlete representation).

Mains: GS2 governance: funding with conditions is the State's lever over autonomous federations; weigh autonomy (Olympic Charter) against accountability for public funds.

Abbreviations: BIMSTEC: Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation · BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (and newer members)

Syllabus: GS2 › Government policies & interventions › Housing, water & sanitation: PMAY, Jal Jeevan, Swachh Bharat

The tenth Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs approved 1.93 lakh houses on 16 October under the Beneficiary-Led Construction and Affordable Housing in Partnership verticals in eleven States, taking cumulative sanctions under PMAY-U 2.0 to about 20.80 lakh.

• Largest shares: Uttar Pradesh (about 73,000), Bihar (about 53,000) and West Bengal (about 16,500); the eleven States include Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim and Telangana.
• Women's ownership: about 97% of houses sanctioned so far are in a woman's name, singly or jointly.
• PMAY-U 2.0 (approved August 2024): one crore additional urban houses over five years for economically weaker, low-income and middle-income families.
• Four verticals: Beneficiary-Led Construction, Affordable Housing in Partnership, Affordable Rental Housing, and Interest Subsidy.
• The first phase (2015-2024) sanctioned about 1.1 crore houses; combined completions under both phases had crossed 99 lakh by July 2026.

Know the concept: A sanctioning committee approves proposals that States submit; sanction, grounding and completion are three different counts, and the gap between them is where delays live. Rental housing is the vertical aimed at migrants who do not want to own.

Mains: GS1 (urbanisation) and GS2 (housing policy): use the women's-ownership condition as an example of policy design doing social work; flag land, not money, as the binding constraint in cities.

Abbreviations: PMAY-U: Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban

Syllabus: GS3 › Conservation, pollution & EIA › Conservation of biodiversity, wetlands & forests

Two more Indian wetlands were listed under the Ramsar Convention on 15 October: Sukhna Wetland, Chandigarh's first, and Sauj Jheel in Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, taking the national count to 103.

• Sukhna: a man-made lake at the foot of the Shivalik hills, built in 1958 by damming a seasonal stream; a wintering ground for migratory waterbirds and the Union Territory's first site.
• Sauj Jheel: a shallow lake in the Ganga floodplain surrounded by farmland; Uttar Pradesh now has among the largest State tallies.
• Trajectory: 26 sites in 2014, 100 by World Environment Day 2026, 103 now; the growth reflects nominations, not new wetlands.
• Listing criteria: nine Ramsar criteria covering representativeness, threatened species, waterbird numbers (20,000 birds or 1% of a population) and fish.
• India's domestic law is separate: the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017 under the Environment (Protection) Act, with State Wetland Authorities.

Know the concept: The Ramsar Convention (1971, Ramsar, Iran; in force 1975; India acceded on 1 October 1981, in force for India from 1 February 1982, with Chilika and Keoladeo the first sites) asks parties to designate sites and practise 'wise use' of all wetlands; the Montreux Record lists sites under threat (Keoladeo since 1990, Loktak since 1993; Chilika was removed in 2002). Designation brings obligations and attention, not funds.

UPSC asked (Prelims GS1 2019): Consider the following statements: Open →

Mains: GS3 environment: the count is a Prelims fact; for Mains, argue that listing must be matched by management plans, catchment protection and the Amrit Dharohar scheme's community use.

Syllabus: GS3 › Border management & organised crime › Border-area development

The Prime Minister inaugurated and dedicated five projects in Ladakh on 15 October, from Sindhu Ghat, Leh: a new integrated terminal at Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, the 298-km Nimmu–Padum–Darcha road, a 9 MW Hanu small hydroelectric project with a 66 kV transmission line, a petroglyph conservation park and 40 water bodies in 40 villages.

First covered in the Daily Brief: "Ladakh: The Centre's Two-Stage Plan and Article 240"

• Nimmu–Padum–Darcha: built by the Border Roads Organisation, it links Manali to Leh through Zanskar via Shinku La, the third axis after Srinagar–Zoji La–Kargil and Manali–Rohtang–Baralacha La; the Shinku La tunnel under construction will make it all-weather.
• Leh airport terminal: a ₹640 crore, 23,800 sq m integrated terminal with geothermal heating, raising capacity to about 35 lakh passengers a year from about 10 lakh.
• Hanu hydro: 9 MW for a district where winter power still depends on diesel; a 66 kV double-circuit Dah–Hanu–Khaltsi line evacuates it.
• Water: 40 reservoirs or ponds in 40 villages under Project Him Sarovar, to hold snow and glacier melt for the dry months.
• Heritage: the petroglyph park at Sindhu Ghat protects prehistoric rock carvings (see the GS1 card).

Know the concept: Border-area connectivity has a security logic (all-weather access to Siachen and eastern Ladakh), an economic logic (tourism, horticulture) and a welfare logic (health evacuation in winter). Three axes to Leh mean no single pass can cut the Union Territory off.

Mains: GS3 (infrastructure, border management): cite the three-axis idea; pair it with the Vibrant Villages Programme and the Sixth Schedule demand to show that infrastructure and political demands run in parallel in Ladakh.

Abbreviations: MW: megawatt

Syllabus: GS3 › IT, space, robotics, biotech & IPR › Patents, pharmaceuticals & compulsory licensing

A status report by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks counts 4,077 Ayush-related patent applications and 711 grants between 2014-15 and 2025-26; annual filings rose from 63 to 590.

• Peak and dip: filings touched 606 in 2022-23, fell to 299 in 2023-24 and recovered to 590 in 2025-26; grants rose from 3 in 2015-16 to 204 in 2023-24.
• What can be patented: a new formulation, extraction process, dosage form or device, not the traditional knowledge itself; section 3(p) of the Patents Act, 1970 excludes 'an invention which in effect is traditional knowledge'.
• Defensive shield: the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (2001, CSIR with the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, now the Ayush ministry) gives patent offices worldwide searchable prior art in five languages, blocking patents like the neem and turmeric cases.
• Institutions: the Patent Office is under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; the Ayush ministry (2014) funds research through its research councils and the All India Institute of Ayurveda.
• The All India Institute of Ayurveda marked its tenth foundation day this week with MoUs and digital launches, including an Ayush start-up portal.

Know the concept: Prior art defeats a patent; traditional knowledge is prior art that was never written in a form patent examiners could search. TKDL fixed the search problem, while section 3(p) fixed the law. Growth in filings shows the sector moving from defending knowledge to inventing on top of it.

UPSC asked (Mains GS3 2019): How is the Government of India protecting traditional knowledge of medicine from patenting by pharmaceutical companies? Open →

Mains: GS3 (IPR, S&T): use the two sides, defensive (TKDL) and offensive (patents), to argue for 'evidence-based Ayush' as both a health and an industrial policy.

Abbreviations: CSIR: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research · IPR: intellectual property rights

Syllabus: GS3 › Disaster management › Early warning, resilience & risk reduction

On 12 October, at the pre-cyclone exercise meeting for the October-December season, the Meteorological Department dedicated a web-GIS decision support system that layers cyclone track and intensity forecasts, wind distribution, district rainfall warnings, storm-surge estimates and river-catchment rainfall on one map.

• Users: State disaster managers, ports, fisheries and the public, through the IMD and Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre websites.
• RSMC New Delhi is one of six such centres under the World Meteorological Organization; it issues tropical cyclone advisories for 13 countries of the North Indian Ocean rim.
• Season logic: the Bay of Bengal's main cyclone season is October-December, after the monsoon withdraws; the meeting is held twice a year, before each season.
• Colour codes stay: green (no action), yellow (watch), orange (be prepared), red (take action) remain the public-facing language; the system feeds the data behind them.
• Storm surge, not wind, kills most people in a cyclone; a surge layer on a district map is the operational gain.

Know the concept: A decision support system turns forecasts into decisions by putting hazard layers (track, rain, surge) over exposure layers (districts, catchments). It sits between the forecaster and the collector; evacuation orders still rest with the State under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

UPSC asked (Mains GS1 2022): Discuss the meaning of colour-coded weather warnings for cyclone prone areas given by India Meteorological Department. Open →

Mains: GS3 disaster management: cite it as the 'last-mile' complement to early-warning accuracy, and link it to Mission Mausam and the Sendai priority of understanding risk.

Abbreviations: IMD: India Meteorological Department · RSMC: Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre

Syllabus: GS3 › Conservation, pollution & EIA › Pollution: air, water & waste

The Agriculture and Environment ministers jointly reviewed crop-residue management with the States on 13 October. Between 15 September and 12 October, fire events were about 53% lower in Haryana and about 32% lower in Uttar Pradesh than in 2025, but higher in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

• Directions: repair old crop-residue machines alongside new distribution, activate Custom Hiring Centres for small farmers, and run district flying squads and night patrols in hotspot blocks.
• Ex-situ push: link paddy straw to thermal power plants (biomass co-firing), compressed biogas and bio-ethanol plants, so that straw has a price.
• Data loop: real-time satellite fire counts shared with the Commission for Air Quality Management and the Central Pollution Control Board.
• The Commission separately reported 124 inspections across NCR between 25 September and 9 October, and field visits to hotspot villages in Punjab.
• The tool for NCR is the Graded Response Action Plan, with four stages triggered by air-quality bands from 'poor' to 'severe plus'.

Know the concept: In-situ management (Happy Seeder, bio-decomposer, mulching) keeps straw on the field; ex-situ management (pellets, co-firing, biogas) takes it away. The Commission for Air Quality Management (statutory since the 2021 Act) can issue binding directions to States in Delhi-NCR and adjoining areas.

UPSC asked (Prelims GS1 2018): With reference to the circumstances in Indian agriculture, the concept of “Conservation Agriculture” assumes significance. Which of the following fall under the Conservation Agriculture? Open →

Mains: GS3 environment: use the diverging State numbers to argue that incentives, not bans, change behaviour; the thermal-plant co-firing mandate is the demand-side fix.

Abbreviations: NCR: National Capital Region

Syllabus: GS3 › Science & technology in everyday life › Internet of Things, blockchain & quantum computing

On 14 October, DRDO reported configuring and testing a quantum key distribution platform on the live network of its dynamic test ranges at the Proof and Experimental Establishment, Chandipur, Odisha, to secure real-time telemetry from artillery and armoured-vehicle trials.

• Developer: DRDO's Microelectronic Devices, Computational Systems and Cyber Security cluster, with a private production partner.
• What QKD does: two parties generate a shared secret key using photons; any eavesdropper disturbs the quantum states and is detected, so the key, not the message, is quantum-protected.
• Where it fits: the National Quantum Mission (2023, ₹6,003.65 crore to 2030-31) has four thematic hubs, computing (IISc), communication (IIT Madras), sensing (IIT Bombay) and materials (IIT Delhi).
• Earlier milestones: DRDO and IIT Delhi demonstrated QKD over 100 km of fibre in 2022; ISRO demonstrated free-space QKD in 2021.
• Not quantum computing: QKD is a communications technology; a quantum computer is a threat to today's public-key encryption that QKD and post-quantum cryptography are designed to answer.

Know the concept: Classical encryption rests on mathematical hardness; quantum key distribution rests on physics (the no-cloning theorem). A 'live network' test matters because laboratory QKD links often fail on noisy, long, shared infrastructure.

UPSC asked (Prelims GS1 2026): Which of the following statements with regard to the National Quantum Mission (NQM) is/are correct? Open →

Mains: GS3 S&T and security: an example of 'quantum-safe' military communication, and of the mission-to-deployment pipeline that India's missions are often criticised for lacking.

Abbreviations: DRDO: Defence Research and Development Organisation · IIT: Indian Institute of Technology · ISRO: Indian Space Research Organisation · QKD: quantum key distribution

Syllabus: GS3 › Economy: planning, growth & employment › Services sector, exports & the external sector

The Commerce and Industry Minister launched a data-analytics command centre on 15 October to monitor India's trade ecosystem on live dashboards: trade indicators, scheme performance, application pendency, processing times, regional trends and compliance.

• First scope: functions of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, including Importer-Exporter Codes, Advance Authorisation, the Export Promotion Capital Goods scheme, Certificates of Origin and SCOMET licences.
• Export controls: SCOMET (Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies) is India's dual-use control list; an inter-ministerial committee is to meet weekly if needed to clear pendency.
• Phased access for other ministries, States and export promotion councils, with automated alerts planned.
• Legal base: the Directorate works under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 and the Foreign Trade Policy 2023.
• Regime link: India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (2016), Wassenaar Arrangement (2017) and Australia Group (2018); SCOMET implements their lists domestically.

Know the concept: A command centre is governance by dashboard: it does not change rules but makes delay visible, which changes behaviour. Pendency in licences is a non-tariff cost on exporters; measuring it is the first step to trade facilitation under the WTO agreement of 2017.

Mains: GS3 external sector: use it with the September trade data to argue that facilitation (time, predictability) matters as much as market access for the USD 1 trillion goods-and-services export goal.

Abbreviations: WTO: World Trade Organization

Syllabus: GS3 › Economy: planning, growth & employment › Growth, employment & jobless growth

Three data points landed in one week: merchandise exports of USD 44.40 billion in September (up 23%), a monthly labour survey showing 5.0% unemployment, and foreign exchange reserves of USD 726 billion.

• Trade: imports USD 74.61 billion; goods deficit USD 30.21 billion (narrower than September 2025); April-September exports USD 259.89 billion, up 18.5%; electronics exports up about 70%, gold imports down about 81%.
• Jobs (current weekly status, 15 years and above): unemployment 5.0%; participation 55.5%; rural men 4.4% and rural women 3.9% unemployed, urban men 6.0% and urban women 9.2%; urban youth (15-29) unemployment 19.0%.
• Reserves: USD 726.03 billion in the week to 9 October, down for a second week from a record of about USD 786 billion in early September.
• Who publishes what: trade data by the Department of Commerce; the labour survey by the National Statistics Office (monthly since May 2025); reserves by the RBI's weekly statistical supplement.
• Why electronics: production-linked incentives for mobile phones have turned a large import line into India's fastest-growing export line.

Know the concept: Current weekly status counts a person as employed if they worked at least one hour on any day of the reference week; it is more sensitive to seasons than the annual 'usual status' figure. Reserves fall when the RBI sells dollars to steady the rupee or when valuation changes.

Mains: GS3 economy: three durable lessons, export diversification through electronics, the youth-urban unemployment problem behind a low headline rate, and reserves as a buffer against oil-price shocks.

Abbreviations: RBI: Reserve Bank of India