Relevance (UPSC): GS-III – Environment (air pollution, governance) Each winter, north India breathes through a mask of smog. The recipe is familiar: temperature inversion lowers the mixing height; the boundary layer shrinks; winds slow; and the region’s everyday emissions—traffic, industry, construction dust, waste burning—get trapped. Add festival fireworks for a night and stubble burning around the peak harvest week, and the Air Quality…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-III – Indian Economy (External sector, Balance of Payments) India’s net foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 159% in August, turning negative—that is, more money flowed out than came in, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s October bulletin and media summaries. Gross inward FDI cooled from July’s four-year peak to about 6 billion dollars, while repatriation/disinvestment by foreign companies rose,…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-III (Indian Economy—Agriculture, Food Management) Retail food inflation has cooled in recent months as supplies improved and global prices softened. That is good for households—but it now collides with the post-Diwali harvest rush, when arrivals flood markets and farm-gate prices weaken. The core policy test is familiar but sharp: keep food affordable without pushing farmers into distress sales. What is happening…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-I (Indian Culture and Society), GS-II (Women, Social Justice) What do women say about their own lives when tradition keeps them on the margins? India’s earliest answers come from the Therigatha—the “Verses of the Elder Nuns”—a luminous collection of poems in Pali where Buddhist nuns speak in their own voice about choice, grief, lust, freedom and peace. These verses, preserved in…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-II Polity & Governance; GS-I Indian Society For three decades India has had a national body meant to watch over the rights of religious minorities. Yet, long vacancies, weak powers and thin follow-up have turned the National Commission for Minorities into what many citizens experience as a postbox without teeth. If India wants social trust and equal citizenship, this commission must…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-I Society; GS-II Governance; GS-III Indian Economy (Demography) India’s Total Fertility Rate is now 1.9—below the replacement level of about 2.1. This single number has sparked two very different anxieties: some fear a “baby bust” and rapid ageing; others cheer a stabilising population. The truth is more nuanced. The headline figure is useful, but it can undercount real family size when…

Relevance (UPSC): GS-II (Polity & Governance), GS-I (Society), GS-III (Social Justice & Labour) India’s homes are also workplaces. Cooks, cleaners, live-in caregivers, drivers and child-minders keep cities running, yet their work is mostly invisible in law. Courts have lately asked the Union government to consider a comprehensive national framework for domestic workers. Several States have welfare boards and minimum-wage orders, but coverage is…