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Making progress towards normal ties after border peace: India, China

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies II: India and its neighbourhood- relations.

What’s the ongoing story: Underlining that “peace and tranquillity in the border areas” has enabled “progress towards gradual normalization of bilateral relations”, Indian and Chinese officials have held talks in Beijing on delimitation, border management, mechanism building and cross-border cooperation.

• The recent meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC)- what are the key takeaways?

• What is the significance of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) in addressing India-China border disputes?

• Standoff between India and China-what you know about the same?

• Map Work– Line of Control, Line of Actual Control, Chang Chenmo river, Gogra-Hot Springs, Kongka Pass, Galwan Valley, Depsang Plains, and Charding Nala region

• Know the terms ‘De-induction’ ‘Disengagement’ and ‘De-escalation’?

• What ‘De-induction’, ‘Disengagement’ and ‘De-escalation’ means in India-China Context?

• As a future policymaker, suggest a multi-pronged strategy to address border management issues while strengthening India-China cooperation in areas such as cultural diplomacy, trans-border water management, and multilateral institutions.

• The two countries have been trying to restore ties that plummeted after Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh triggered a military standoff six years ago.

• Disengagement of troops from friction points was completed in November 2024, a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met in Kazan, Russia. But an estimated 50,000 troops remain deployed in the depth areas on each side of the LAC in the region as the two countries move to restore ties.

• The Indian delegation was led by Sujit Ghosh, Joint Secretary (East Asia), while Hou Yanqi, Director General of the Boundary & Oceanic Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led the Chinese delegation.

• Ghosh had earlier served as Director (China) and was India’s Deputy High Commissioner in the UK. Hou Yanqi was China’s Ambassador to Nepal (2018 to 2022). So, both officials have a background in dealing with the border issues between India and China.

• The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km. It is divided into three sectors: the eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the western sector in Ladakh.

• The alignment of the LAC in the eastern sector is along the 1914 McMahon Line, and there are minor disputes about the positions on the ground as per the principle of the high Himalayan watershed. This pertains to India’s international boundary as well, but for certain areas such as Longju and Asaphila. The line in the middle sector is the least controversial but for the precise alignment to be followed in the Barahoti plains.

• According to the Maj Gen (retd) Prof G G Dwivedi, every conflict has a cycle – it begins with escalation, and is followed by contact, stalemate, de-escalation, resolution, peace-building and reconciliation. The de-escalation process entails talks at multiple levels, and ground action in various stages. For example, there have been three rounds of talks at the Corps Commander level, simultaneous talks between Joint Secretaries, and at the level of Special Representatives between India and China after Galwan clash. On the ground, the first step in the de-escalation process is of disengagement – i.e., to break the ‘eyeball-to-eyeball’ contact between the opposing troops on the forward line by pulling back to create a buffer zone. The next step is the pulling back of the troops in the immediate depth, followed by reserve formations in the rear.

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme: 📍‘China is using its economic relations and positive trade surplus as tools to develop potential military power status in Asia’, In the light of this statement, discuss its impact on India as her neighbour. (UPSC CSE GS2, 2017) 📍With respect to the South China sea, maritime territorial disputes and rising tension affirm the need for safeguarding maritime security to ensure freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region. In this context, discuss the bilateral issues between India and China. (UPSC CSE GS2, 2014)

Manipur: EC considers special registration officers for internally displaced electors

Main Examination: General Studies II: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act.

• The term “internally displaced persons” (IDPs) refers to what?

• Which Article of the Constitution deals with the superintendence, direction and control of elections in India?

• What are the constitutional mandate of the Election Commission of India in ensuring free and fair elections?

• What are the challenges faced by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in exercising their voting rights.

• Know the relationship between citizenship, voter identity, and democratic rights.

• How can India strengthen electoral participation among vulnerable and marginalized groups?

• After that, the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and AEROs are supposed to issue notices to those electors who have not been able to establish their eligibility by giving the details of themselves or their parents.

• Sources said the office of Manipur Chief Electoral Officer has submitted a proposal to the EC for appointing special AEROs for the IDPs, similar to the deployment of designated Assistant Returning Officers for the conduct of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the state.

• A total of 18,620 IDPs were eligible to vote in the 2024 elections. The EC had set up 94 special polling stations for the IDPs in relief camps. As of now, the total number of IDPs has gone down from 62,000 in 2023 to around 57,000, according to government records. Sources said arrangements are likely to be made for around 14,000-15,000 IDPs who are eligible for participation in the SIR exercise.

• According to the EC, there are 20.91 lakh electors spread across 2,996 booths in Manipur. As per the schedule, electors will have till June 28 to fill the enumeration forms.

• Under The Representation of the People Act, 1950, Electoral Registration Officers and AEROs are appointed for maintaining the electoral rolls of Assembly constituencies. In the case of Manipur, where thousands of electors have been displaced from their home constituencies, the EC is considering appointing special AEROs to decide on eligibility of the electors staying in camps.

SIR judgment gets the law right, and the ground reality wrong

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national importance, Indian Polity and Governance

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act, Constitution of India — features, significant provisions and basic structure.

What’s the ongoing story: S Y Quraishi Writes-The SC has told us the SIR is constitutional. What it has not told us — and what no judgment can — is whether a democracy that disenfranchises its poorest voters in the name of clean rolls deserves to call itself one

• The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise is primarily associated with what?

• What are the constitutional basis of the Election Commission of India’s power to revise electoral rolls?

• What is Supreme Court judgment on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

• The electoral integrity and democratic inclusion in the context of voter roll revisions-what should be traded off?

• How does migration and urbanization complicate electoral roll management in India?

• What is the impact of denying welfare benefits to persons deleted from electoral rolls?

• How Special Intensive Revision (SIR) affected vulnerable groups such as migrants, women, marginalised communities and Informal workers?

• The court has affirmed what election administrators have long known: Clean electoral rolls are not an administrative nicety but the foundation of democratic legitimacy.

• More than two decades had passed since Bihar’s last Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Rapid urbanisation and large-scale migration had produced rolls riddled with duplication, dead voters, and multiple recording of migrant voters. Annual Summary Revisions were addressing these issues, but problems persisted. The ECI’s decision to undertake the SIR was legally and constitutionally valid, as the SC has upheld — even if the manner of its execution was anything but.

• The Court correctly holds that the SIR is traceable to Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, read with Article 324, and does not conflict with the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections.

• More importantly, it draws an intelligent and necessary line on citizenship: The ECI can examine it, but for the limited purpose of determining inclusion or exclusion from the electoral roll. Deletion from the voter list does not amount to a declaration of non-citizenship. Final adjudication remains with the competent authority under the Citizenship Act. Without this guardrail, the SIR could have silently become a backdoor NRC. The Court refused that.

• One more direction deserves appreciation. The ECI has been told to refer, within four weeks, all persons whose names were deleted from the 2003 Bihar roll on citizenship grounds to the competent authority — and if that authority finds them to be citizens, their names shall be restored. On paper, this is a meaningful protection.

• The judgment does not address what is perhaps the most fundamental objection: What the current ECI conducted was not a revision at all. It was a de novo collection of data — starting from scratch, discarding rolls on which successive ECs had laboured for nearly three decades.

• The Court upheld the use of the 2003 roll as the reference baseline, meaning every voter enrolled after 2003 must re-verify. Think carefully about who that is: The young first-time voter, the migrant labourer, the woman newly enrolled under SVEEP. These are the citizens that the ECI’s own outreach programmes spent years bringing into the democratic process. The SIR, as validated, risks systematically disenfranchising the people democratic deepening was meant to reach.

• At the heart of the Supreme Court’s ruling recently, which upheld the legal validity of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls by the Election Commission (EC), is a striking contradiction.

• While the court underlined that the SIR was restricted to electoral eligibility and deletion from the voter’s list “does not amount to a declaration that the individual is not a citizen of India,” it also directed that those excluded from the list will face “adjudication of their citizenship” before the next elections.

• The Ministry of Home Affairs, under the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners’ Tribunals, looks into aspects of citizenship contestations. The court’s order giving the EC a four-week window to report the deletions essentially shifts the burden on the deleted individual to prove their citizenship.

📍Ashok Lavasa writes: Supreme Court order hands EC a clean chit. SIR’s deleted still await justice

Main Examination: General Studies I: Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

• What are the causes behind the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves across the Europe?

• What is the relationship between global warming and record-breaking heat events in Europe?

• How does climate change influence the occurrence of compound extreme weather events?

• How do heat domes and jet stream disruptions contribute to prolonged heat waves?

• What is the impact of Arctic amplification on global weather patterns?

• How does the Mediterranean Sea influence climatic conditions in Europe?

• A warm spell in May is not entirely unusual for western Europe, but the average temperatures during this time usually hover around 20-22 degrees Celsius. This week, however, several places have seen temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius — unprecedented for this month.

• The prevailing heatwave has brought back uncomfortable memories of the unprecedented summers of 2022 and 2023 when temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius were recorded at many places in Europe. A large-scale drought in 2022, the worst in living memory, and the record-breaking temperatures in both years resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

• Things are not that bad right now, but this is just the month of May. The core summer months in Europe happen to be June and July, and it was in these months that most of the record-breaking temperatures in 2022 and 2023 were reached.

• Incidentally, the extreme European heat of 2022 coincided with a very strong La Niña phase in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which tends to have a cooling impact on the planet. This year, an opposite phenomenon, a strong El Niño, which has a warming effect, is taking shape.

• El Niño and La Niña are two distinct phases of a large ocean-atmosphere interaction over the Pacific region that influence weather patterns worldwide.

• The unusual heat in Europe right now is being attributed to the formation of a “heat dome” that is preventing warm air near the ground from rising and dissipating. This is leading to an increase in surface temperatures.

• This same system also prevents cloud formation and precipitation. Local influences can then amplify or weaken this phenomenon. For example, the heat dome effect over India often gets aggravated by the presence of dry soil, the “urban heat island effect” and the movement of hot air blowing from the deserts in the west. The urban heat island effect is a phenomenon where urban areas record higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas because their concrete traps heat during the day and radiates it at night.

• The formation of a heat dome is not an unusual phenomenon in European summers. This year, however, it has happened a little early, resulting in an extremely warm May — possibly the warmest May in several places.

• The Climate Prediction Centre of the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s most authoritative agencies tracking the Pacific Ocean, however, says it is too early to make any reliable prediction about its strength.

📍From Western Disturbance to El Niño: The climate terms you’re hearing this summer, explained

Trump’s call to expand Abraham Accords leaves West Asia baffled

Main Examination: General Studies II: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests,

What’s the ongoing story: US President Donald Trump on Monday (May 25) called on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Jordan to sign the Abraham Accords — a step towards recognising and normalising ties with its ally, Israel. The announcement comes amidst continued attempts by the US to negotiate an end to its war with Iran.

• What is the significance of the Abraham Accords in reshaping West Asian geopolitics?

• How have the Abraham Accords altered traditional Arab-Israel relations?

• What is the strategic objectives of the United States behind the Abraham Accords.

• What can be the impact of the Abraham Accords on regional security architecture?

• Pakistan, which has been mediating the US-Iran talks, rejected the proposal, with Defence Minister Khawaja Asif saying that joining the accords would clash with the country’s “fundamental ideologies”, including recognition of an independent and sovereign Palestine.

• Trump’s proposition has revived the debate around the Abraham Accords at a time when the region is destabilised by Israel’s war on Gaza, tensions with Iran, and growing anger across the Arab world over Israeli military actions in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

• The accords are essentially a series of peace agreements to normalise relations between Israel and Muslim-majority nations, stemming from the fact that upon the establishment of Israel in 1948, Arab states refused to accord diplomatic recognition to it.

• Named after the biblical figure of Abraham, the patriarch in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the agreements were presented by the US as a framework for peace, regional stability and economic cooperation between Israel and the Arab states.

• Introduced during Trump’s first term in 2020, the accords were framed as a negotiated resolution to the Palestinian issue; in practice, they have largely bypassed the question of Palestinian statehood altogether.

📍Abraham Accords have led to greater regional cooperation, expanding opportunities for India

Main Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

What’s the ongoing story: Industry associations and several government ministries have begun pushing for a suspension or pause in anti-dumping investigations into several chemical intermediaries due to a surge in prices and shortages caused by the ongoing war in West Asia.

• Which Act in India governs the imposition of anti-dumping duties on foreign imports?

• Know the role of anti-dumping duties in protecting Indian industries.

• How has geopolitical instability in West Asia affected India’s chemical and petrochemical sectors?

• How can India balance the interests of large domestic manufacturers and MSMEs in trade policy decisions?

• In April, the government exempted import duty on 40 petrochemical products till June 30, but it has begun fresh stocking efforts to ensure domestic availability of key chemicals. Many such requests are made to the Commerce and Industry Ministry by the downstream industry, such as the textiles and footwear sectors. An official said the Textile Ministry has also asked for a pause on several anti-dumping investigations on chemical intermediaries and deferment in anti-dumping duty investigation on input items such as elastomeric fibre yarn and viscose rayon filament yarn due to the war.

• India’s chemical manufacturers are the most protected sector in the country. An independent analysis of India’s trade policy during the last five years by the WTO Secretariat shows that 51% of all anti-dumping measures in force are related to chemical or allied industries, and Chinese products have been the top target of such investigations.

• Anti-dumping investigations have been a subject of deep divide between large manufacturers and the downstream sector, as anti-dumping duties typically protect large manufacturers abroad but lead to a surge in input item prices for MSMEs across the sector. The impact of such duties on the chemical sector particularly translates to high input prices, as chemicals are used in the production of nearly 80,000 downstream products in India, as per NITI Aayog.

• An anti-dumping duty is a protectionist measure a government uses to safeguard its economy from foreign imports priced lower than their fair market value. This tariff aims to protect local businesses by preventing foreign companies from flooding the market with cheaply priced goods. However, while designed to protect domestic industries, these duties can also lead to higher prices for local consumers and might impact international competition negatively.

Why SC online gaming tax verdict could be a final death blow to sector

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

What’s the ongoing story: The Supreme Court on Wednesday (May 27) upheld the constitutional validity of the government’s retrospective 28 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) levy on online gaming companies, delivering a massive setback to the country’s real-money gaming sector.

• Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming (PROG) Act, 2025-what are the key takeaways?

• Online gaming so far has been a state subject-true or false?

• Online Gaming Regulation in India—What laws and regulations says about the same?

• How India dismantled the high-flying online gaming industry?

• A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan dismissed petitions filed by several gaming companies and industry bodies challenging the GST regime and retrospective tax notices issued by authorities. Companies like Dream11 and Games Kraft would be impacted by the judgment.

• The dispute centred around the gaming sector’s contention that the 28% GST on online gaming should apply only prospectively, from 1 October 2023, after the amendments approved by the GST Council came into effect. After the GST council approved the new GST rate for the sector, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) had started issuing tax demand notices to such companies, which they alleged were being carried out on revenue earned before the new rates came into effect.

• Another contention put forth by the industry was whether GST should be imposed only on the platform fee or commission earned by gaming companies — known as gross gaming revenue (GGR) — or on the full face value of bets and contest entry amounts deposited by users. Gaming firms had argued that taxing the entire pooled amount was commercially unsustainable and contrary to the treatment of skill-based games. The court, however, has treated real money gaming involving uncertain outcomes as betting and gambling for GST purposes, irrespective of skill elements.

• Under the PROG Act, the government will prohibit any person from offering online games in India, failing which they could be imprisoned for up to three years, and penalised Rs 1 crore. Those promoting such platforms, such as social media influencers, will also face jail time of two years and a penalty of Rs 50 lakh. The government will also prohibit banks and financial institutions from facilitating financial transactions on such platforms. It applies to all online money gaming platforms irrespective of whether they are games of skill or chance, a distinction the industry had lobbied hard for in the past.

📍Online gaming rules expand compliance, leave room for esports