The Hindu
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Daily Current Affairs · Raman Academy, Shimla
U.S. clears Russia sanctions Bill; India faces threat
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which would authorise the U.S. President to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying oil and gas from Russia. The House voted 262-159 in favour, as an amendment to a Senate Bill that had cleared 86-11 in August. The legislation also targets Russia’s energy sector, individuals and the “shadow fleet” of tankers. India is squarely within its intended reach.
Key Analytical Points
The Bill aims at the top five “largest importers, by total volume” in the twelve months preceding enactment, who knowingly make new purchases on or after 30 days from the date the Bill becomes law. Countries taking significant steps to cut Russian gas imports, or whose gas imports fall below 15% of Russia’s total gas export, would be exempt. The President retains authority to waive sanctions in the national interest — which is where the real discretion lies.
Russia accounted for more than 51% of India’s oil imports in July, an all-time high, up from a little under 50% the previous month. India imported 110.4 lakh tonnes of Russian oil that month. Having risen from a negligible base since 2022, the dependence that delivered cheaper crude is precisely what now creates legal exposure.
The Ministry of External Affairs said India “remains firmly committed to ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people” through diversified sourcing of energy inputs determined by evolving market conditions. The framing is deliberate: sourcing decisions follow market forces and national energy security, not external political direction. The Ministry noted the issue has been raised at high levels with U.S. interlocutors, even as the two sides negotiate a preliminary trade deal.
The Bill was not uncontested. An amendment that would have named the top ten importers — China, India, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Slovakia, the UAE and the Kyrgyz Republic among them — did not make the final version. Several legislators across both parties objected to the breadth of tariff power it confers on the President, and to the fact that measures aimed at Russia would also strike allies including Canada and European Union members.
Using tariff authority as a foreign policy instrument reflects a shift toward policing global supply chains through domestic legislation. For developing economies this creates predictability risk: export-oriented manufacturing cannot plan against a tariff that may be imposed, waived or withdrawn by executive discretion.
While Western frameworks work to isolate Moscow’s energy revenues, groupings such as BRICS press multipolar trade mechanisms in the opposite direction. Countries balancing ties with both Washington and Moscow face pressure from two structures pulling against each other — the theme running through today’s fourth article and editorial.
Anatomy of the Bill
| Element | Provision |
|---|---|
| Instrument | Tariffs of up to 100% on goods from targeted countries — not asset freezes or trade bans |
| Target set | Top five largest importers of Russian oil and gas by total volume in the preceding twelve months |
| Trigger | Knowingly making new purchases on or after 30 days from enactment |
| Exemption | Significant steps to reduce Russian gas imports, or gas imports below 15% of Russia’s total gas export |
| Presidential discretion | Authority to waive sanctions in the national interest |
| Legislative path | Senate 86-11 in August; House 262-159 as an amendment to the Senate Bill |
| India’s position in the target set | Russian crude exceeded 51% of India’s oil imports in July — an all-time high |
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Sanctions vocabulary: Primary versus secondary sanctions; unilateral or autonomous sanctions versus UN Security Council sanctions under Chapter VII; extraterritorial application of domestic law; blocking statutes as a countermeasure.
- Energy security: India imports over 80% of its crude requirement — a figure now running above 85% — making price volatility and source diversification core macroeconomic variables; Strategic Petroleum Reserves; the oil import bill’s effect on the current account.
- Strategic autonomy: The doctrine that sourcing and security decisions follow national interest rather than bloc alignment; the parallel with Cold War-era dilemmas of navigating superpower friction.
- Institutions and instruments: The G7 price cap on Russian crude; the “shadow fleet” and maritime insurance as enforcement chokepoints; the role of dollar clearing in giving domestic legislation global reach.
India Implications
- The measure creates a legal risk rather than an immediate cost. The 30-day trigger, the exemption tests and the Presidential waiver together mean the Bill’s practical effect will be settled by negotiation, not by the statute — which is itself the point of drafting it this way.
- India’s exposure is a direct consequence of a decision that was economically rational at the time. Cheaper crude cushioned inflation and the current account for three years; the discount and the vulnerability were always the same thing.
- That several U.S. legislators objected on the ground that the Bill would also hit Canada and the EU is worth noting in an answer: broad-spectrum economic instruments are hard to aim, and their collateral reach is a standing argument against them.
- India’s realistic options are diversification of sourcing, quiet negotiation through the trade track, and building the institutional capacity to respond — the last being precisely what today’s editorial argues India currently lacks.
- HP AngleThere is an instructive structural echo here for a state like Himachal Pradesh. The mechanism the Bill relies on is the reach of pressure to parties who had no hand in the decision being punished, and that is roughly HP’s position inside India’s own energy politics. The state buys no crude, negotiates no import contract and has no representation in those decisions, yet it consumed the benefit of discounted Russian oil through softer pump prices and would absorb the reversal just as passively. The transmission is not limited to fuel: Russia is among India’s principal sources of fertiliser, and payment and shipping channels for Russian-origin cargo are exactly what secondary sanctions constrict — which would reach HP’s orchards through the spring nutrient application window. Read alongside the Canadian potash discussion earlier this month, the lesson for an HPAS answer is that a hill state’s farm input security depends on two separate things: the diversity of supply sources, and the resilience of the payment channels that reach them.
Conclusion: The passage of the Bill marks a turning point in contemporary economic diplomacy. For India, holding the balance between safeguarding energy corridors and managing strategic trade partnerships with Western economies will require sustained diplomatic engagement, active market diversification, and continued adherence to the principle that sourcing decisions are made in New Delhi.
Q. Consider the following statements regarding secondary sanctions:
- Secondary sanctions seek to penalise third-country entities for economic transactions with a sanctioned country.
- They necessarily require the sanctioned country to be a party to the transaction.
- They can affect countries that are not directly subject to the primary sanctions.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Click to reveal answer
Statements 1 and 3 are correct — reaching third-country entities that are not themselves subject to the primary sanctions is the defining feature of the instrument. Statement 2 fails on “necessarily”: the sanctioned state need not be a party at all. Secondary sanctions routinely catch intermediaries — a bank financing a shipment, an insurer covering a vessel, a shipping manager handling cargo of sanctioned origin — where the transaction runs entirely between third parties.
Q. “The growing use of secondary sanctions reflects the changing nature of economic statecraft in international relations.” Discuss.
10 Marks · 150 WordsPM pitches India as a global destination for chipmaking
Inaugurating SEMICON India 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched India as a “new and trustworthy location” for electronics manufacturing, urging global chipmakers to look to the country to relieve the weaponisation of supply chains. His argument was about sequence: semiconductor ecosystems elsewhere came together only after decades of work, whereas India has moved simultaneously on chip design, manufacturing, equipment manufacturing, the materials ecosystem and testing capability.
Key Analytical Points
High-technology industry depends on geographically concentrated nodes for microchips, which makes it hostage to geopolitical tension and export restriction. India is pitching its democratic credentials and systemic scale as a diversification option — the “trusted supplier” argument rather than the low-cost one.
The address followed the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission, with an outlay of ₹1.27 lakh crore. ISM 2.0 spans six pillars: chip design, fabrication, advanced packaging, equipment and materials, applied R&D, and workforce training. The stated ambition is to move India from assembly toward end-to-end “Silicon to Systems” capability.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government is committed to training one lakh technicians over five years for employment in the factories now coming up, and to supporting at least 200 start-ups and firms under ISM 2.0’s chip-design pillar — almost double the first phase. He described the objective as creating a “global pool of talent”.
SEMI CEO Ajit Manocha estimated the global semiconductor industry would cross $1.3 trillion this year and $2 trillion by 2030. Applied Materials committed $5 billion over five years to expand its R&D centre and supply chain. Micron said commercial production had begun at Sanand, with capacity already exceeding the memory required for India’s entire laptop market. Infineon described India as a market of tremendous importance, having raised hiring in India by 28%.
A working semiconductor sector needs concurrent advances in logistics, clean and uninterrupted energy, and raw material access. Integration with multimodal freight infrastructure — including the dedicated freight corridors — reduces operational friction and is part of what makes a fab economically viable rather than merely possible.
The Semiconductor Value Chain
| Stage | What it involves | Barrier to entry |
|---|---|---|
| Design (EDA and IP) | Circuit architecture and layout using electronic design automation tools | Talent and software licences — capital-light; India already has deep strength here |
| Fabrication | Etching circuits onto silicon wafers in a cleanroom | Highest — multi-billion dollar fabs, extreme process control, ultra-reliable power and water |
| ATMP / OSAT | Assembly, testing, marking and packaging of fabricated wafers into chips | Moderate — the usual entry point for a new entrant |
| Advanced packaging | Stacking and interconnecting dies for performance gains | Rising in importance as transistor scaling slows |
| Equipment and materials | Lithography systems, ultra-pure chemicals, specialty gases, photoresists | Extremely concentrated globally — a chokepoint in its own right |
| Key exam point | A country with ATMP capability does not thereby possess fabrication capability — these are separate industrial competences requiring different capital and expertise | |
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Policy architecture: The India Semiconductor Mission and its phases; the Semicon India Programme; Design Linked Incentive; Production Linked Incentive schemes for electronics; Make in India and the National Policy on Electronics.
- Demographic dividend: Converting a young workforce into high-technology capability through technical education and cleanroom training; the gap between engineering graduate numbers and industry-ready skills.
- Strategic technology: Semiconductors as dual-use critical technology; export control regimes covering semiconductor equipment; the “China plus one” and friend-shoring logic driving diversification.
- Enabling infrastructure: Why fabs demand uninterrupted power of very high quality, ultra-pure water at scale, and fast predictable logistics — the reason fab location is constrained by far more than land price.
India Implications
- India’s pitch rests on being a trusted location rather than a cheap one, which is a meaningfully different proposition — and one that today’s first article makes more persuasive, since every buyer of chips is now weighing legal and political risk alongside price.
- The honest framing for an answer is that India is strong in design, entering at ATMP, and only beginning in fabrication. Treating a packaging plant as a fab is the commonest error in writing on this subject.
- The one lakh technicians target is the part most likely to determine success. Fabs can be financed; a cleanroom-capable technical workforce takes years and cannot be imported at scale.
- The ecosystem requirement links this story to the logistics and power stories of this fortnight: chipmaking is as much an infrastructure question as a technology one.
- HP AngleHimachal Pradesh will not host a fabrication plant, and it is worth being clear-eyed about why: fabs require flat, large, seismically stable sites, very large volumes of ultra-pure water, uninterrupted grid power of exceptional quality, and fast predictable freight access — and HP’s terrain, seismic zoning and first-mile road penalty rule out the combination. But two of ISM 2.0’s six pillars are within reach precisely because they need no such infrastructure. Chip design is capital-light and needs only engineers, electricity and bandwidth, which suits a hill state well; and workforce training toward the one-lakh-technician target is something HP’s institutional base can genuinely supply, given IIT Mandi, NIT Hamirpur, the state’s engineering colleges and its network of polytechnics and ITIs. The realistic Himachali ambition in this sector is to export talent and design services rather than to host silicon — and aligning polytechnic and ITI curricula to semiconductor packaging and cleanroom protocols is a concrete state-level action that does not wait on any central allocation.
Conclusion: India’s push into semiconductor manufacturing connects domestic employment generation to global economic security. By building a collaborative ecosystem across design start-ups, academic research and heavy industrial incentives, India aims to become a durable node in technology supply chains — with the caveat that fabrication capability, unlike design capability, is measured in decades rather than announcements.
Q. With reference to semiconductor manufacturing, consider the following statements:
- Semiconductor manufacturing is dependent on highly specialised equipment and materials.
- Semiconductor supply chains can become vulnerable when critical stages of production are geographically concentrated.
- A country possessing semiconductor assembly and testing capability necessarily possesses advanced fabrication capability.
- Semiconductor security has implications for both economic and national security.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Click to reveal answer
Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct. Statement 3 fails on “necessarily” and is the heart of the question: assembly, testing, marking and packaging is a different industrial capability from fabrication. Many countries run ATMP or OSAT facilities without any fab at all — India’s own trajectory, entering through packaging and testing while fabrication capacity is still being built, is the clearest illustration.
Q. Why are semiconductors considered a critical component of economic and strategic security? Discuss in the context of India’s semiconductor ambitions.
10 Marks · 150 WordsWhy patient safety needs more than hospital checklists
World Patient Safety Day, observed on 17 September, carried the WHO theme ‘Safe care for non-communicable diseases’ for 2026. The argument doctors make in this piece is that clinical safety begins well before the operating theatre and extends well past it — encompassing accurate diagnosis, timely care, safe hospital environments, protected data, and a shared understanding among every stakeholder that the patient comes first.
Key Analytical Points
The surgical “timeout” — the brief pause before an operation when the team confirms patient identity, procedure and site — is a vital final barrier. But as a consultant surgeon quoted in the piece explains, it is only one layer in the Swiss cheese mechanism, in which several independent layers of checks must overlap so that when one barrier fails, another catches the error before it reaches the patient.
The availability of sophisticated diagnostic equipment has not solved the problem of inaccurate diagnosis. The president of the Infection Control Academy of India attributes part of this to doctors moving away from basic clinical examination — auscultation, percussion, palpation — describing the emerging pattern as ‘no touch’ healthcare, where the clinician engages with a computer before adequately engaging with the patient.
Errors rise with the number of medicines available. Look-alike and sound-alike brand names create real risk: a patient may end up taking the same medicine twice under different names, or a pharmacist may dispense the wrong drug from a similar-sounding one. The recommendation is practical — separate labelling, physical separation of look-alike and sound-alike medicines on shelves, and quality control. Technology has reduced some prescription errors, but typed and printed prescriptions are not universal, especially at small clinics.
Safety extends to hospital fires, electrical faults and infrastructure hazards. With hospital numbers increasing, some facilities are decades old, raising questions about wiring and electrical connections and requiring regular audits. Infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial resistance, remain central — driven by unnecessary antibiotic use, delayed diagnosis, unhygienic environments and non-adherence to control protocols.
As healthcare becomes digitised, data privacy becomes a safety issue, and rising digitisation creates new risks around cybersecurity and access to medical records. On artificial intelligence the caution is explicit: it should remain a tool and must never become a substitute for clinical reasoning.
Patients with chronic conditions — chronic kidney disease, lung disease, cancer — interact with healthcare facilities repeatedly and over long periods, which multiplies every one of these exposure points. That is the reasoning behind the WHO choosing non-communicable diseases as this year’s theme.
Layers of Defence in Patient Safety
| Layer | What it guards against | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Accurate diagnosis | Treating the wrong condition entirely | Over-reliance on screens; decline in physical examination skills |
| Prescription and dispensing | Wrong drug, wrong dose, duplicate medication | Look-alike and sound-alike names; handwritten prescriptions |
| Surgical timeout | Wrong patient, wrong site, wrong procedure | Treated as a formality rather than a genuine pause |
| Infection prevention and control | Hospital-acquired infection and antimicrobial resistance | Protocol non-adherence; unhygienic environments; unnecessary antibiotics |
| Physical environment | Fire, electrical hazard, slips and falls | Ageing facilities; irregular safety audits |
| Data protection | Breach or misuse of medical records | Weak cybersecurity in digitising systems |
| The model’s core claim | An adverse event occurs when weaknesses in several layers line up — so safety is a systemic property, not an individual’s virtue | |
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Regulatory governance: Drug regulation and counterfeit medicines; the Drugs and Cosmetics Act framework; NABH accreditation for hospitals; biomedical waste management rules.
- Public health burden: Rising non-communicable diseases — diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease; the National Programme for Prevention and Control of NCDs; antimicrobial resistance and the National Action Plan on AMR.
- Health system architecture: Ayushman Bharat with health and wellness centres and PM-JAY; the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and the health data privacy questions it raises; the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 as applied to medical records.
- Concepts: The Swiss cheese model of accident causation; active failures versus latent conditions; the distinction between blaming individuals and designing safer systems; medical education quality assurance under the National Medical Commission.
India Implications
- The central governance insight transfers well beyond medicine: safety is produced by system design, not by exhorting individuals to be careful. A checklist is a layer; treating it as the whole defence is the error.
- Antimicrobial resistance is the sharpest long-term risk in this list, because it converts a local lapse in one hospital into a population-level threat that no single institution can contain.
- Digitisation is simultaneously a safety gain and a safety risk — it reduces prescription error while creating a new category of harm through data breach, which is why the health data framework needs to be treated as clinical infrastructure rather than IT policy.
- The multi-stakeholder point deserves emphasis: policymakers, accreditation bodies, hospital staff, patients, caregivers and even housekeeping staff each hold a layer. Safety fails at the seams between them.
- HP AngleIn Himachal Pradesh the layer most likely to fail is not in the hospital at all — it is the journey to it. The state's tertiary capacity is concentrated at IGMC Shimla, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College at Tanda and AIIMS Bilaspur, while most patients first present at a PHC or CHC in a valley several hours away by road. Every referral therefore adds a long ambulance leg over ghat sections, subject to landslide closure in the monsoon and snow in winter, and the delay that the Swiss cheese model treats as a latent condition is here a matter of terrain. The WHO’s NCD theme sharpens this further: HP has a relatively old resident population in villages emptied of working-age adults by out-migration, and chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease require repeated, scheduled, lifelong contact with a facility — which is exactly the pattern that hill distance punishes most. For an HPAS answer, the state-level version of “more than checklists” is strengthening the layers nearest the patient: functioning CHC diagnostics, reliable drug supply at the block level, telemedicine that genuinely substitutes for a journey, and fire and electrical safety audits in older hospital blocks.
Conclusion: Holistic patient safety requires moving past reactive checklists toward proactive, systemic health governance. Addressing structural gaps in medical education, tightening regulation of drug naming and dispensing, maintaining physical infrastructure and fostering accountability across every stakeholder is what builds a health system capable of caring safely for chronically ill patients over a lifetime.
Q. With reference to the “Swiss Cheese Model” of patient safety, consider the following statements:
- It views accidents as the result of a single isolated error by an individual.
- It conceptualises multiple layers of defence against hazards.
- An adverse event may occur when weaknesses in different layers align.
- It highlights the importance of systemic approaches to risk management.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Click to reveal answer
Statements 2, 3 and 4 are correct. Statement 1 states the opposite of what the model holds: the Swiss cheese model was developed precisely to move analysis away from blaming an individual for an isolated slip and toward examining how several layers of defence, each with its own holes, allowed a hazard to pass through. If you remember only one thing about this model, remember that it is an argument against the single-culprit explanation.
Q. Patient safety is as much a governance issue as it is a clinical issue. Discuss.
10 Marks · 150 WordsDoes the BRICS summit signify a shift for Indian foreign policy?
The New Delhi Declaration pushed back against unilateral Western sanctions, criticised Israeli military action, and referenced financial de-dollarisation frameworks. Does that amount to a departure in Indian foreign policy? In a Parley moderated by Suhasini Haidar, Ajay Bisaria — former High Commissioner to Pakistan and Canada — and Happymon Jacob, author of India after Non-Alignment, reach broadly the same conclusion by different routes: this is continuity dressed in more confident optics.
Key Analytical Points
Bisaria argues the declaration is in keeping with India’s established policy, whether one calls it strategic autonomy, multi-alignment or multi-vector engagement. What has changed is optics: India is “on the front foot and less apologetic” about it, increasingly comfortable asserting that it is emphatically part of a non-Western forum. That signals greater comfort with a different set of optics rather than a change of posture.
Jacob is blunter: comparing current policy to historical non-alignment is a misnomer, because non-alignment was a strategy for a weak state in a bipolar world. India today seeks to become one of the poles in a multipolar world. The declaration’s nod to the Bandung Spirit, he argues, is nostalgia rather than real policy. He also notes that BRICS is a political platform, not a security one.
Bisaria makes a point worth carrying into any answer on multilateralism: in a joint document a country can say aloud what it will not say in a national statement. Everyone understands that the phrase “unilateral coercive measures” refers to U.S. action — but signing it is not the same as condemning a named country on a named date. Multilateral text and national position are understood to be different registers.
Every BRICS summit since 2022, including the 2024 summit hosted by Russia, referred to Ukraine. The New Delhi Declaration is the first to drop the reference entirely. Bisaria’s reading is a Russian veto, and his verdict is unsparing — that a major multilateral forum failing to call on belligerents to end a war is an error of omission, accepted in the interest of achieving consensus.
On the strong language regarding Israel, Bisaria sees India seeking neutral and balanced positions on both conflicts, taking shelter in United Nations language — the declaration draws on UN Security Council Resolution 2803 of November last year, which addressed an International Stabilisation Force and a Board of Peace. Jacob notes the disjunction with the Prime Minister’s own remarks in Israel, but argues that with the UAE, Egypt, Iran and Indonesia in the room there was only so much India could do to soften the language, and that a multilateral declaration is symbolic where a bilateral statement is consequential.
Jacob distinguishes two things: India supports local currency payment mechanisms but has not backed a permanent payment mechanism under the BRICS umbrella, because a non-dollar mechanism would in practice elevate China’s currency. His closing argument is the most quotable in the piece: India has limited diplomatic capital and must pick its battles, forums and partners — and the next world order will be shaped less in forums like BRICS than in the smaller rooms where AI and space governance are being framed.
Three Doctrines That Are Routinely Confused
| Doctrine | Historical context | Core logic | Posture toward blocs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-alignment | Cold War bipolarity; Bandung 1955, NAM founded 1961 | A weak state avoids entanglement in a contest between two superpowers | Stay out of both blocs |
| Strategic autonomy | Post-Cold War; unipolar then multipolar | Preserve independent decision-making on security and economic choices | Engage anyone; be captured by no one |
| Multi-alignment | Contemporary; issue-based | Join multiple, even competing, groupings according to the issue at hand | Be in several blocs at once — G7 invitee, Quad, BRICS, SCO |
| Multipolarity | The stated objective | Become an independent pole rather than balance between others’ poles | Aspire to be a bloc-shaper, not a bloc-joiner |
| Common misconception | That non-alignment required equidistance and barred bilateral defence arrangements — it did not, as India’s own treaty history shows | ||
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Evolution of Indian foreign policy: From idealistic non-alignment in the Bandung era, through pragmatic alignment, to issue-based multi-alignment — engaging the G7, Quad, I2U2, BRICS and the SCO simultaneously.
- NAM basics: The Bandung Conference (1955) and the Panchsheel principles; NAM formally founded at Belgrade in 1961; the roles of Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah.
- Consensus diplomacy: How unanimity requirements in an expanded bloc produce omissions and constructive ambiguity; the difference between a joint declaration and a chair’s statement.
- BRICS structure: A consultative grouping without charter or secretariat; expansion and the partner-country category; the 10 or 11 members represent roughly 40% of the global economy and about 25% of global trade.
- Terminology: “Unilateral coercive measures” as the standard multilateral formulation for sanctions imposed outside the UN framework.
India Implications
- The most useful takeaway for an answer is the distinction between optics and substance. Both experts agree the photographs changed and the policy did not — and being able to argue why a summit can be simultaneously significant and non-transformative is what separates an analytical answer from a descriptive one.
- The Ukraine omission is the genuine analytical puzzle. It shows what consensus costs: an expanded bloc bought unanimity by saying less, which is the recurring trade-off of enlargement.
- India’s currency position is consistent and worth stating precisely — support for bilateral local currency settlement, reluctance about a permanent bloc mechanism, because the alternative to dollar dominance is not neutrality but another dominant currency.
- Jacob’s point about finite diplomatic capital is the strategic one: presence in every forum is not a strategy. Choosing which rooms matter — and he nominates AI and space governance — is.
- HP AngleThe transferable lesson here is federal rather than diplomatic, and it applies directly to how a small state conducts itself in national forums. Himachal Pradesh has four Lok Sabha seats and limited political weight, and it operates in exactly the position Happymon Jacob describes — finite capital, therefore pick your battles, forums and partners. The forums where HP’s interests are actually settled are the Finance Commission hearings, the GST Council and the NITI Aayog Governing Council, and the state’s standing claims there are consistent across governments: recognition of hill-state cost disabilities in devolution formulae, the treatment of its power sector entitlements, and central support for disaster-prone infrastructure. The Bisaria point applies too, and is worth noticing: a state can say things collectively, in a grouping of hill or Himalayan states, that it would not press alone in a bilateral conversation with the Centre — which is precisely why India uses multilateral declarations the way it does.
Conclusion: The 2026 New Delhi Declaration is less an ideological pivot than a demonstration of pragmatic multi-alignment. By managing diverse stakeholders under one roof, India showed it can act as a bridge between the Global South and developed economies — while the omissions in the text are a reminder that consensus in an enlarged grouping is purchased by narrowing what the group is willing to say.
Q. With reference to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), consider the following statements:
- The Bandung Conference of 1955 preceded the formal establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement.
- The first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement was held at Belgrade.
- Non-alignment required member states to refrain from entering into any bilateral treaty of friendship or cooperation with either superpower.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Click to reveal answer
Statements 1 and 2 are correct — Bandung in 1955 laid the groundwork of Afro-Asian solidarity, and NAM was formally founded with its first summit at Belgrade in 1961. Statement 3 is a widespread misconception: non-alignment meant not joining a military bloc, not abstaining from bilateral arrangements. India signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR in 1971 while remaining a leading NAM member. The distinction between avoiding bloc membership and maintaining bilateral partnerships is exactly the confusion the experts in today’s debate are trying to clear up.
Q. What is strategic autonomy? How does India’s contemporary foreign policy differ from the traditional concept of Non-Alignment?
10 Marks · 150 WordsWhat is the Uniform Civil Code debate?
Renewed political momentum around the Uniform Civil Code has brought a long-standing constitutional debate back to the centre of discussion. This explainer by Rangarajan R. sets out how personal matters are governed today, what the Constitution says, and the arguments advanced on each side. What follows presents those positions as the explainer does, without adjudicating between them.
Key Analytical Points
India has uniform criminal law and common civil law across matters such as taxation, contracts and negotiable instruments. What remains governed by religion-specific personal law is a narrower set: marriage, divorce, maintenance, succession and inheritance. The debate concerns only that narrower set.
Uttarakhand has had a state-level UCC in force since January 2025, while bills passed by the legislatures of Assam, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh await Presidential assent. The Union Home Minister has indicated an intention to see it implemented across NDA-ruled States by 2029 — signalling a decentralised, State-led route toward Article 44 rather than a single central statute.
Article 44 provides that the State shall endeavour to secure a uniform civil code. The Constituent Assembly was divided: some members wanted it as a Fundamental Right, while many members of the Muslim community opposed inclusion on the ground that it would violate the right to religion guaranteed in Part III. It was finally placed in the non-justiciable Part IV. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar advocated a UCC but suggested it could remain voluntary — Parliament could provide for it to apply to citizens who declare themselves willing to be bound by it.
Two principal claims. First, that subjecting all citizens to the same personal laws would make India secular in the fullest sense. Second, and described in the explainer as the more vital argument, gender justice — a code would secure equal rights for women across religions in matters of inheritance, maintenance and marriage.
First, potential conflict with fundamental rights: Article 25 guarantees the freedom to practise a religion of one’s choice, and Article 29 gives any section of citizens the right to conserve its distinct culture; provisions of a code may run contrary to religious scripture and cultural doctrine. Second, the tribal exemption paradox — the four States enacting a UCC have exempted tribal populations, for constitutional and cultural reasons, and exempting one section while making the code compulsory for all others, including religious minorities, is argued to be discriminatory.
The Law Commission’s Consultation Paper on Reform of Family Law (2018) opined that a UCC was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”, arguing instead for reforming discriminatory provisions within each personal law. Its framing is the sharpest formulation in the whole debate: the emphasis should be on achieving “equality within communities” between men and women, rather than “equality between communities”.
Who Is Governed by Which Personal Law
| Community | Governing framework | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hindus | Hindu Marriage Act (1955), Hindu Succession Act (1956) | Already codified statute law, not scripture |
| Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs | Covered by the Hindu personal law statutes | Sikh marriages may also be registered under the Anand Marriage Act (2012) |
| Muslims | Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act (1937) | Largely uncodified in substance |
| Christians and Parsis | Their own personal law statutes | Separate marriage, divorce and succession legislation |
| Scheduled Tribes | Customary family law under constitutional exceptions | Exempted from State UCC frameworks enacted so far |
| Any citizen, by choice | Special Marriage Act (1954) | A secular, opt-in alternative already available irrespective of religion |
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Constitutional provisions: Article 44 in Part IV; Article 37 on the non-justiciability of Directive Principles; Articles 25, 26, 29 on religious and cultural freedoms; Article 14 and Article 15 on equality and non-discrimination.
- Constitutional morality: The doctrine that the right to religion under Article 25 is subject to constitutional morality and other fundamental rights including equality; judicial observations that practices running counter to gender equality do not find absolute shelter under religious or cultural freedoms.
- Precedents worth knowing: Shah Bano (1985) and the legislative response; Sarla Mudgal (1995); Shayara Bano (2017) on triple talaq; the Supreme Court’s observations on Article 29 in the 2024 Constitution Bench decision on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
- Existing examples: Goa’s common civil code inherited from Portuguese rule; the Special Marriage Act, 1954 as an already-available secular option; Uttarakhand’s State code of 2025.
- Institutional: The Law Commission of India and the status of its recommendations; Entry 5 of the Concurrent List, which places marriage, divorce and succession within the competence of both Parliament and State legislatures.
India Implications
- The constitutional question a balanced answer must address is the relationship between Part III and Part IV — how a non-justiciable directive is to be reconciled with justiciable rights, and the settled position that the two are to be read harmoniously rather than as rivals.
- The State-led route raises a distinct federal question, separate from the merits. Marriage, divorce and succession fall in the Concurrent List, so State codes are within legislative competence — but multiple State codes would produce variation across State lines, which sits awkwardly with the word “uniform”.
- The tribal exemption is the most analytically interesting feature. Both sides invoke it: as evidence that cultural accommodation is constitutionally legitimate, and as evidence that selective application undercuts the equality rationale.
- The Law Commission’s distinction between equality within communities and equality between communities is the single most useful phrase for an answer on this topic, because it reframes the question from uniformity to gender justice — which is where the two sides actually differ least.
- HP AngleHimachal Pradesh has a live, concrete instance of the exact paradox this explainer identifies. The state has Scheduled Areas under the Fifth Schedule covering Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti districts, and Pangi tehsil and Bharmour sub-tehsil of Chamba. Under Section 2(2) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Act does not apply to members of Scheduled Tribes unless the Central Government notifies otherwise — so a Gaddi, Kinnaura, Lahaula or Pangwala woman’s rights in ancestral property are governed by customary law rather than by the codified succession statute that applies to her neighbour in the next district. The Supreme Court in Kamla Neti (2022) urged the Centre to examine amending that provision so that tribal women are not denied equal succession rights. For an HPAS answer this is the most valuable observation available: the question of whether cultural exemption protects a community or disadvantages the women within it is not hypothetical in Himachal Pradesh — it is current law in four of its tribal areas, and it can be discussed on purely constitutional grounds without entering the political argument at all.
Conclusion: The Uniform Civil Code debate turns on how the goal of gender justice is to be reconciled with the preservation of India’s cultural and religious pluralism. One view holds that a common code is the surest route to equal rights; the Law Commission has favoured reforming discriminatory provisions within existing personal laws instead. Both positions claim gender justice as their objective, and it is on the means rather than the end that the debate actually rests.
Q. With reference to the Uniform Civil Code, consider the following statements:
- Article 44 of the Constitution places the Uniform Civil Code among the Directive Principles of State Policy.
- Directive Principles of State Policy are enforceable by any court in the same manner as Fundamental Rights.
- Goa has a common civil code applicable to its residents, inherited from the period of Portuguese rule.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Click to reveal answer
Statements 1 and 3 are correct — Article 44 sits in Part IV, and Goa has retained a common civil code derived from Portuguese law, which is why it is so frequently cited in this debate. Statement 2 is directly contradicted by Article 37, which provides that Directive Principles shall not be enforceable by any court while remaining fundamental in the governance of the country. That non-justiciability is exactly why Article 44 has remained an aspiration for seven decades rather than an obligation.
Q. “Article 44 reflects the Constitution’s attempt to reconcile social reform with India’s pluralistic social structure.” Discuss.
10 Marks · 150 WordsA war room for India in an age of sanctions
Context
Syed Akbaruddin, former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, opens with an image that frames the whole argument: the next sanctions crisis may begin with a name on a Washington list and end in an Indian kitchen. Between them lie a New York bank, a London insurer, a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and several Ministries in Delhi. Foreign pressure now travels through one system — but no single Ministry follows the whole journey. Diplomacy, law, banking, trade, shipping and fuel supplies sit in different parts of government. Who owns the combined response?
Key Analytical Points
Coined by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, the concept describes how dominant states leverage centralised hubs in global networks — SWIFT, New York clearing banks, maritime insurance markets — to project power. Two effects follow: the panopticon effect, or surveillance of flows, and the chokepoint effect, or the ability to cut them off. Whoever controls a critical network can exert pressure on everyone who depends on it.
Washington sanctioned four India-based companies over alleged trade in Iranian oil and petrochemicals. Secondary sanctions tell a foreign business to abandon a targeted transaction or risk losing access to American finance — and the experience of European companies that withdrew from Iran in 2018 despite having legal protection at home shows how decisive the threatened loss of dollar access can be.
Iran is using a different chokepoint — at sea. Its Persian Gulf Strait Authority published a list of vessels it called non-compliant, including an LNG carrier serving India and an Indian-flagged bulk carrier, and warned insurers covering listed ships. One order travels through bank wires; the other waits at sea. Both reach the same cargo.
Foreign policy, trade, banking regulation and maritime shipping are handled by distinct Ministries and regulators. No department tracks the full transaction lifecycle — from a New York bank wire and a London insurance policy to a tanker in the Gulf and an LPG cylinder in an Indian kitchen. Economic coercion has become a domestic governance problem, and the gap is in cross-sectoral crisis management.
Beijing has told its firms not to recognise or comply with unilateral sanctions. India also says it upholds sanctions mandated by the UN Security Council and does not accept unilateral ones — but saying so is not the same as being able to act on it. China’s market size, state-directed economy and leverage over critical supply chains give it room to resist that India’s deeper financial integration and import dependence do not. A legal objection alone offers little comfort to an Indian firm that still bears the cost.
A coordinated response, because sanctions increasingly target entire transactions rather than stopping with the seller. An Economic Security and Sanctions Office under the Cabinet Secretariat should become India’s permanent war room, bringing together officials from foreign policy, finance, commerce, energy, shipping, law and defence alongside the RBI and market regulators — tracking where transactions could fail, from payment and insurance through to shipping and delivery. Alongside it: more LPG storage, an expanded India-controlled tanker fleet, a stronger maritime insurance pool, and long-term LNG contracts sourced outside Hormuz.
How a Network Becomes a Weapon
| Network hub | Effect available to whoever controls it | India’s exposure | Proposed remedy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dollar clearing and correspondent banking | Chokepoint — deny access to finance | Banks with foreign branches; exporters needing settlement | Alternative settlement channels; rupee trade where balances permit |
| SWIFT messaging | Panopticon — visibility over transaction flows | Cross-border payment traffic | Domestic messaging capability; diversified channels |
| Maritime insurance markets | Chokepoint — withdraw cover and the ship cannot sail | Chartered vessels carrying Indian cargo | A stronger domestic maritime insurance pool |
| Physical straits | Chokepoint — detention, confiscation, delay | Tankers transiting Hormuz | Larger India-controlled tanker fleet; sourcing outside the Gulf |
| Storage and reserves | Time — the ability to absorb a disruption | Household energy supply | Expanded LPG storage and strategic reserves |
| Coordination itself | The gap no adversary needs to create | Fragmented Ministries; no owner of the whole chain | An Economic Security and Sanctions Office under the Cabinet Secretariat |
Static Dimensions to Revise
- Core concept: Weaponised interdependence (Farrell and Newman) — the panopticon effect and the chokepoint effect; how networks that were built for efficiency become instruments of coercion.
- Sanctions architecture: Primary versus secondary sanctions; UN Security Council sanctions versus unilateral measures; blocking statutes, and why European blocking regulations failed to keep firms in Iran after 2018.
- Financial infrastructure: SWIFT and correspondent banking; India’s alternatives including UPI internationalisation and rupee vostro arrangements; the Structured Financial Messaging System.
- Maritime dimension: Protection and indemnity insurance clubs; flag-State jurisdiction; the Strait of Hormuz and the security of sea lanes; Indian shipping tonnage and seafarer employment.
- Institutional design: Whole-of-government coordination models; the Cabinet Secretariat; the National Security Council structure — and the general principle that cross-cutting risks need a standing owner.
India Implications
- The editorial’s real contribution is to relocate the problem. Sanctions are usually discussed as foreign policy; this argues they are a domestic administrative capability question — and administrative capability is something a state can build without anyone’s permission.
- The China comparison is the honest part of the argument and should be reproduced carefully in an answer: India’s legal position and India’s practical leverage are not the same thing, and pretending otherwise substitutes a declaration for a capability.
- The proposals are notably unglamorous — storage, tankers, insurance pools, an inter-ministerial office. That is the point. Resilience is built out of boring infrastructure rather than announcements.
- Read with today’s first article, the two pieces complete each other: one describes the instrument being sharpened, the other describes India’s institutional readiness to absorb it.
- HP AngleThe institutional diagnosis here — a hazard that crosses every departmental boundary and is therefore owned by none — is one Himachal Pradesh knows in a different register. The state’s recurring crisis is not sanctions but monsoon disaster, and its transmission runs exactly the same way: a cloudburst becomes a landslide, which closes a national highway, which strands a district, which cuts fuel and medical supply, which crosses PWD, Jal Shakti, Revenue, Health, HRTC, the police and the SDMA in a single afternoon. The severe monsoon losses of recent years exposed the same gap the editorial identifies at the national level — plenty of departments with a piece of the response, and no standing body that owns the whole chain from the first rainfall warning to the last restored water connection. For an HPAS answer, that makes this editorial unusually portable: the argument for an Economic Security and Sanctions Office under the Cabinet Secretariat is structurally identical to the argument for a genuinely empowered, permanently staffed disaster coordination authority at the state level, and both rest on the same principle — a cross-cutting risk needs a permanent owner, not a committee convened after it materialises.
Conclusion: Navigating an age of economic coercion requires India to institutionalise a unified, whole-of-government approach. A centralised coordinating mechanism, alongside stronger domestic shipping insurance, expanded strategic reserves and carefully managed multi-vector diplomacy, is what would convert India’s stated position on unilateral sanctions into an actual capacity to withstand them. The first test of sovereignty is when Delhi decides; the second comes when a New York bank or the Strait of Hormuz meets that decision.
Q. What is weaponised interdependence? Explain its significance for India’s strategic autonomy.
15 Marks · 250 WordsQ. Economic coercion increasingly cuts across the mandates of several Ministries and regulators. Examine the case for a standing whole-of-government coordinating mechanism, drawing on comparable institutional designs for cross-cutting risks.
10 Marks · 150 Words