Why in News?
Telangana has recently banned Paraquat, one of the world's most widely used and highly toxic herbicides (weedicides), becoming only the third State in India to prohibit its use.
About Paraquat
Paraquat, also known as Paraquat Dichloride, is a highly toxic synthetic (human-made) non-selective herbicide used worldwide to control weeds and grasses.
It was originally developed as a chemical dye in the 1880s, but its herbicidal properties were discovered during the 1950s, after which it became one of the most extensively used weed killers in agriculture.
Besides weed control, Paraquat is also used as a desiccant, helping crops dry before harvesting, and in some cases as a plant growth regulator, where it can either induce or delay flowering. Unlike many herbicides, it has no residual activity in the soil, meaning it becomes inactive after coming into contact with soil particles.
Key Characteristics
Paraquat is valued for its rapid action, as it destroys the green parts of plants within a short period by disrupting the process of photosynthesis. Since it is a contact herbicide, it kills only the plant tissues it touches and does not move extensively within the plant.
Health and Environmental Concerns
Paraquat is regarded as one of the most toxic herbicides used globally and has no specific antidote. Even a small quantity can be fatal if swallowed. After ingestion, it causes severe damage to the mouth, stomach, and intestines, before spreading through the bloodstream and affecting vital organs, particularly the lungs, kidneys, and liver.
Exposure to Paraquat can occur through ingestion, inhalation, or skin contact, and severe poisoning often leads to respiratory failure, multi-organ damage, and death.
More than 70% of self-poisoning cases involving Paraquat are fatal, making it one of the deadliest agricultural chemicals.
Regulatory Status
Due to its extreme toxicity, Paraquat has been banned in over 74 countries, including many in Europe. However, it has not yet been banned nationwide in India.
Within India, Kerala became the first State to prohibit Paraquat in 2011. It was followed by Odisha, and Telangana has now joined the list by banning its use. Andhra Pradesh has also imposed restrictions on the herbicide.
Significance
The decision to restrict Paraquat reflects growing concerns over farmer safety, public health, and the promotion of safer and sustainable agricultural practices. The move is also expected to encourage the adoption of less hazardous alternatives for weed management while reducing accidental poisoning and suicide-related deaths associated with the chemical.
Latest News
According to the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2026, India has been ranked 127th among 163 independent countries and territories.
What is the Global Peace Index (GPI)?
Coverage of the Index
The Global Peace Index ranks 163 independent states and territories, covering approximately 99.7% of the world's population.
Methodology and Parameters
Global Peace Index 2026 Rankings
According to the Global Peace Index 2026, Iceland has retained its position as the world's most peaceful country for the 19th consecutive year, reflecting its strong institutions, low crime rates, and stable political environment.
It is followed by New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Ireland, which together constitute the top five most peaceful countries in the world.
At the other end of the rankings, Russia has been identified as the least peaceful country, followed by Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and Israel, reflecting the impact of prolonged armed conflicts, political instability, and security challenges.
India's Performance
In the Global Peace Index 2026, India has been placed at 127th position among 163 countries.
India's ranking reflects the combined impact of factors such as internal security challenges, cross-border tensions, terrorism, social stability, and the country's level of militarisation. At the same time, India's democratic institutions, improving law enforcement capabilities, and sustained economic growth continue to contribute positively to several dimensions of societal resilience.
Significance of the Global Peace Index
The Global Peace Index serves as an important global benchmark for assessing peace, stability, and security. It helps governments evaluate security policies, guides international organisations in conflict prevention, assists investors in assessing political risks, and supports academic research on peace and sustainable development.
Recently, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), in collaboration with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), organised a Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Roundtable, where the DigiDukaan initiative was discussed as a key step towards digitising India's kirana retail ecosystem and strengthening digital commerce.
What is DigiDukaan?
DigiDukaan is an initiative of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) aimed at digitising kirana stores by enabling them to undertake Business-to-Business (B2B) procurement through an open digital network.
The initiative seeks to modernise India's traditional retail sector by improving procurement efficiency, reducing supply chain costs, and creating direct digital linkages between kirana stores, distributors, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies.
By leveraging ONDC's open digital infrastructure, DigiDukaan enhances transparency, competition, and operational efficiency across the entire retail value chain.
Objectives of DigiDukaan
The primary objective of DigiDukaan is to strengthen the competitiveness of small neighbourhood kirana stores by integrating them into India's digital commerce ecosystem.
The initiative seeks to improve procurement efficiency, reduce intermediaries, optimise inventory management, enhance working capital utilisation, and provide greater market access for retailers and distributors alike.
It also supports the broader vision of Digital India, ONDC, and Atmanirbhar Bharat by empowering Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and promoting inclusive digital commerce.
Key Features of DigiDukaan
For kirana stores, DigiDukaan enables direct procurement from suppliers through a digital platform, allowing retailers to improve their profit margins by obtaining better prices and greater visibility into promotional schemes offered by brands.
The platform also improves fill rates, ensuring higher product availability, while facilitating more efficient working capital management through streamlined procurement.
For distributors, DigiDukaan expands retailer coverage without increasing field sales costs. The digitisation of order placement, collection, and inventory management enables distributors to serve a larger number of retailers efficiently while reducing operational expenses.
For consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, the initiative provides direct access to real-time retailer demand signals, enabling better production planning, efficient deployment of promotional schemes, improved inventory planning, and enhanced monitoring of sales performance across retail outlets.
Implementation Status
The initiative has already demonstrated encouraging progress in Hyderabad, where more than 10,000 retailers have adopted the DigiDukaan platform.
About the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)
The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was launched in April 2022 as an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Unlike conventional e-commerce platforms that operate through closed digital ecosystems, ONDC is based on an open protocol, allowing buyers and sellers to transact seamlessly across multiple digital platforms irrespective of the application they use.
The network seeks to democratise digital commerce, prevent digital monopolies, and provide equal opportunities to MSMEs, startups, small traders, and local businesses to participate in India's expanding digital economy.
Objectives of ONDC
The primary objective of ONDC is to create a level playing field for buyers, sellers, logistics providers, payment service providers, and technology platforms through an open, interoperable digital network.
The initiative promotes competition, consumer choice, innovation, and interoperability, thereby reducing dependence on a few dominant e-commerce platforms and encouraging inclusive economic growth.
Scope of ONDC
The ONDC network supports digital commerce across a wide range of sectors, including grocery, food delivery, mobility services, hotel booking, travel, fashion, electronics, logistics, and several other retail and service categories. Any network-enabled application can discover and transact with buyers and sellers connected through ONDC, irrespective of the platform they use.
Significance
The DigiDukaan initiative represents an important step towards the digital transformation of India's traditional retail sector. By integrating kirana stores into the ONDC ecosystem, it improves supply chain efficiency, strengthens market competition, enhances financial inclusion, and supports the formalisation of small businesses.
Latest News
Recently, Avataar.ai, an AI-native transformation company, launched the Varya AI Model, a next-generation distilled video generation model developed with support from the IndiaAI Mission. The model aims to make frontier video Artificial Intelligence (AI) more affordable, accessible, and relevant for India's rapidly growing AI ecosystem.
What is the Varya AI Model?
The Varya AI Model is an advanced text-to-video and image-to-video Artificial Intelligence model designed to generate high-quality videos at significantly lower computational cost.
It has been developed to democratize video AI technology, enabling educators, businesses, creators, and government institutions to generate professional-quality videos without requiring expensive computing infrastructure.
Unlike conventional video generation models that demand enormous computing resources, Varya has been optimized through an advanced AI distillation technique, making it one of the most cost-efficient video generation models developed in India.
Development and IndiaAI Mission
The model has been developed by Avataar.ai with support from the IndiaAI Mission, a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
The IndiaAI Mission aims to establish India as a global leader in Artificial Intelligence by promoting indigenous AI research, developing AI infrastructure, encouraging innovation, and creating AI solutions for governance, education, healthcare, agriculture, and industry.
The launch of Varya represents India's growing capability in developing indigenous Generative AI technologies.
Key Features of the Varya AI Model
The most significant feature of Varya is its use of AI Distillation, which drastically reduces the computational steps required to generate videos. Traditional frontier video AI models generally require more than 50 iterative denoising steps before producing a final video.
In contrast, Varya reduces this process to only four steps, while maintaining almost the same output quality.
Another major advantage is its cost efficiency. The model can generate videos at approximately ₹0.48 per second, making it up to 10 times more cost-effective than several leading global video generation models.
How Does the Varya AI Model Work?
The model allows users to either provide a text prompt describing the desired scene or upload a reference image.
Using advanced Generative Artificial Intelligence, the model converts the input into a realistic video clip. Users can subsequently extend the generated video by continuously creating additional clips, allowing the development of longer and more detailed visual sequences.
Potential Applications
The Varya AI Model has applications across multiple sectors.
In education, teachers can generate animated visual lessons in regional languages, making classroom teaching more interactive, particularly in rural and remote areas.
In the MSME sector, businesses can quickly produce product demonstrations, promotional advertisements, and digital marketing content without hiring expensive production teams.
In governance, government departments can create multilingual awareness campaigns, public service announcements, and citizen-centric informational videos to improve outreach and digital inclusion.
The technology can also support healthcare communication, agriculture extension services, digital skilling, and e-learning platforms, making knowledge dissemination more accessible.
What is Distilled Video Generation?
Distilled Video Generation is an advanced machine learning model compression technique in which a smaller and faster Student Model learns to imitate the outputs of a much larger and computationally intensive Teacher Model.
Instead of repeating dozens of computational steps during video generation, the student model learns the essential patterns and directly produces high-quality outputs with far fewer calculations.
In conventional diffusion-based video models, the AI gradually removes noise from random data through more than 50 denoising steps before producing a final video. Through knowledge distillation, the student model learns to skip most of these intermediate computations and generates comparable-quality videos in only four denoising steps.
This significantly reduces computational cost, accelerates processing speed, lowers power consumption, and makes advanced AI accessible on relatively modest hardware.
Significance for India
The launch of the Varya AI Model demonstrates India's growing capability in developing indigenous Generative AI technologies. It aligns with the objectives of the IndiaAI Mission, Digital India, and Atmanirbhar Bharat by reducing dependence on expensive foreign AI platforms and making cutting-edge AI tools affordable for Indian users.
Why in News?
India sold over 2 million Electric Vehicles (EVs) in 2024, registering a 27% year-on-year growth, driven by initiatives such as FAME-I, FAME-II, PM E-DRIVE, and the Automotive PLI Scheme. With the target of achieving 30% EV penetration by 2030, India's battery market is expected to reach ₹25.05 trillion (US$300 billion).
However, this transition depends heavily on critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, making India vulnerable to external supply chains, especially China.
What are Critical Minerals?
Critical minerals are minerals that are essential for economic development, national security, clean energy technologies, defence, and advanced manufacturing, but whose supply is vulnerable due to limited domestic availability or concentrated global production.
These minerals form the backbone of EV batteries, renewable energy systems, semiconductors, aerospace, and defence equipment.
For India, the most important critical minerals include Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Graphite, Rare Earth Elements (REEs), Copper, and Manganese.
Growing Demand for Critical Minerals
Rapid Expansion of Battery Market
India's lithium-ion battery market is projected to increase from 10.8 GWh in 2022 to 160.3 GWh by 2030, reflecting the rapid expansion of electric mobility and renewable energy storage.
According to NITI Aayog, producing 100 GWh of batteries annually would require nearly 193,000 tonnes of cathode active material, 98,000 tonnes of anode active material, along with significant quantities of lithium, copper, aluminium, and graphite.
Rising Import Dependence
NITI Aayog's 2026 assessment estimates that under a Net Zero scenario, India's demand for critical minerals will be 51% higher than under current policies. Consequently, the country's critical mineral import bill has already increased from US$3.03 billion (2020-21) to US$8.01 billion (2023-24), widening the trade deficit.
The China Factor
Heavy Import Dependence
India is 100% import-dependent for lithium, cobalt, and nickel, imports more than 90% of its copper requirements, and about 60% of natural graphite.
China supplies over 80% of India's lithium imports and dominates the processing of cobalt, nickel, and graphite, making India's clean energy transition strategically vulnerable.
China's Global Dominance
China controls nearly 90% of global rare earth processing, 68% of nickel refining, 65% of lithium chemical processing, and 74% of cobalt refining. Even minerals mined in countries like Australia, Argentina, Congo, and Indonesia often require processing in China before reaching global markets.
China has also established an integrated value chain, covering mining, refining, battery manufacturing, and recycling, while investing heavily in mineral-rich countries such as Congo, Indonesia, Argentina, and Peru.
Geopolitical Risks
Critical mineral supply chains have increasingly become tools of geopolitical leverage, as demonstrated by China's restrictions on rare earth exports to Japan in 2010. Similar disruptions could significantly impact India's EV and renewable energy sectors.
Challenges Before India
Limited Domestic Resources
Although India possesses abundant reserves of iron, manganese, aluminium, and copper, it has only inferred lithium resources of about 5.9 million tonnes in Jammu & Kashmir, while commercially viable reserves of cobalt, nickel, and battery-grade graphite remain negligible.
Weak Processing Capacity
India has only recently commissioned its first battery-grade lithium refinery with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes per annum, while cathode and anode manufacturing is still largely confined to pilot projects.
Regulatory Bottlenecks
Exploration has traditionally been dominated by public sector agencies, with limited private participation. Multiple environmental clearances, Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) restrictions on monazite-bearing sands, and regulatory complexities continue to delay mining projects.
Financing Constraints
Midstream activities such as mineral refining, battery material production, and recycling require substantial capital investment, long gestation periods, and face volatile global commodity prices, discouraging private investment.
Government Initiatives
Demand Creation
The Government has promoted EV adoption through FAME-I, FAME-II, and the recently launched PM E-DRIVE Scheme, which has an outlay of ₹10,900 crore to expand electric buses, two-wheelers, and charging infrastructure.
National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM)
The National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) is a ₹34,300 crore initiative covering FY 2024-25 to 2030-31, aimed at achieving self-reliance in 30 critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements.
The mission focuses on domestic exploration, overseas acquisition of mineral assets, technology development, and mineral recycling.
Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme
The ₹25,938 crore PLI Scheme for the automobile sector provides incentives ranging from 8% to 18% for manufacturing EVs, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and their critical components, thereby strengthening India's domestic EV ecosystem.
International Partnerships
India has entered into lithium exploration agreements with Argentina, critical mineral partnerships with Australia, and actively participates in the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), Quad Critical and Emerging Technologies Working Group, and the India-EU Trade and Technology Council.
Way Forward
Securing Raw Material Supply
India must accelerate domestic exploration by simplifying environmental clearances and encouraging private investment. Simultaneously, it should expand overseas acquisition of mineral assets through strategic partnerships in Argentina, Australia, Africa, and Latin America.
Developing Domestic Processing Capacity
India needs to establish advanced refining and processing facilities through technology partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and the European Union, thereby reducing dependence on Chinese processing infrastructure.
Promoting Alternative Battery Technologies
Investment in sodium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and other alternative chemistries should be increased, as these technologies depend less on scarce critical minerals.
Building a Circular Economy
India should develop a robust battery recycling ecosystem under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to recover lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite from used EV batteries through urban mining.
Creating a Supportive Financial Ecosystem
Establishing a National Critical Minerals Fund with blended finance, viability gap funding, and political risk insurance would attract long-term private investment into exploration and refining.
Conclusion
India's transition towards clean mobility is not merely an environmental objective but also a matter of economic security and strategic autonomy. Achieving the ambitious target of 30% EV penetration by 2030 requires securing reliable supplies of critical minerals, developing domestic refining and manufacturing capacity, strengthening battery recycling, and diversifying supply chains beyond China.
Why in News?
As India prepares for the 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC), the debate has largely focused on salary hikes, fitment factors, and pension revisions. However, experts argue that the Commission should go beyond pay revision and undertake structural reforms to create a fair, transparent, performance-oriented, and fiscally sustainable public compensation system.
What is the Central Pay Commission (CPC)?
The Central Pay Commission (CPC) is a government-appointed body constituted periodically to review and recommend salary structures, allowances, pensions, and service conditions of Central Government employees and pensioners.
The recommendations are advisory in nature and become effective only after approval by the Union Government. Since Independence, seven Pay Commissions have been constituted, with the 7th CPC implemented from 1 January 2016, and the 8th CPC expected to shape the next phase of public sector compensation reforms.
Need for Reform Beyond Salary Revision
The existing compensation framework influences not only employee welfare but also administrative efficiency, institutional effectiveness, fiscal sustainability, and public trust. Therefore, the 8th CPC provides an opportunity to modernize India's public sector compensation architecture rather than merely revising pay scales.
Challenges in the Existing Compensation System
Absence of a Uniform Evaluation Framework
India currently lacks a common and objective framework for assessing risk, responsibility, technical expertise, hardship, and career progression across different public services. Although Pay Commissions evaluate demands from various services, their recommendations often rely on service-specific representations instead of standardized benchmarks.
Inter-Service Parity Issues
Ensuring equitable compensation across different services remains a major challenge. Civil services, armed forces, police, scientific organisations, and other public institutions operate under distinct career structures and service conditions. Yet, compensation is often aligned without clearly defined principles, leading to perceptions of inequity and affecting institutional harmony.
Civil Services and Armed Forces: Structural Differences
The comparison between civil services and the armed forces illustrates the limitations of the present framework. Military personnel face high operational risks, early retirement, limited promotional opportunities, and a sharply pyramidal hierarchy, whereas civilian officials generally enjoy longer careers and wider avenues for promotion. Achieving genuine parity requires compensation systems that account for these structural differences rather than relying on uniform pay comparisons.
Concerns Related to Career Progression
Balancing Efficiency and Experience
Recent efforts to accelerate promotions and reduce experience requirements for senior administrative positions seek to improve governance efficiency. However, effective public administration depends not only on speed but also on institutional memory, accumulated expertise, and informed decision-making. A balanced approach is therefore essential.
Rationalisation of Allowances
Allowances are intended to compensate employees working under difficult, remote, hazardous, or operationally demanding conditions. However, the absence of transparent criteria often leads to disparities across services. A standardized assessment mechanism would enhance fairness, consistency, and transparency.
Debate on Non-Functional Upgradation (NFU)
Non-Functional Upgradation (NFU) allows certain officers to receive financial upgradation without assuming higher responsibilities. While introduced to compensate for limited promotional opportunities, NFU weakens the link between performance, accountability, and compensation, raising concerns about institutional efficiency and equity.
Growing Pension Challenge
Multiple Pension Systems
India currently operates multiple pension frameworks, including:
Old Pension Scheme (OPS) – Defined Benefit Pension
National Pension System (NPS) – Defined Contribution Scheme
Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) (introduced for eligible central employees)
Separate pension arrangements for constitutional authorities and elected representatives
The coexistence of multiple pension models creates concerns regarding uniformity, fairness, and administrative complexity.
Fiscal Sustainability
Increasing expenditure on salaries, pensions, and interest payments places significant pressure on government finances. Higher committed expenditure reduces the fiscal space available for infrastructure, education, healthcare, and social welfare, making fiscal sustainability and inter-generational equity important policy considerations.
Fragmentation in Compensation Frameworks
Compensation structures for the Executive, Judiciary, Legislature, Armed Forces, and Public Sector Enterprises evolve through separate mechanisms. Although constitutional independence must be preserved, excessive fragmentation often creates inconsistencies and reduces public transparency. A more coherent framework could strengthen institutional credibility.
Way Forward
Institutionalised Compensation Review
Instead of relying solely on periodic Pay Commissions, India could adopt a system of continuous and institutionalised compensation reviews, similar to several advanced economies. Regular assessments would improve predictability and fiscal planning.
National Compensation Authority
The establishment of an independent National Compensation Authority could provide a common framework for evaluating responsibility, skill, hardship, risk, experience, and career progression across different public services. Such an authority would promote transparency and consistency without compromising institutional autonomy.
Performance-Oriented Compensation
Future reforms should strengthen the connection between performance, accountability, and remuneration, ensuring that career progression and financial benefits reflect actual responsibilities and outcomes.
Conclusion
The 8th Central Pay Commission should not be viewed merely as an exercise in increasing salaries and pensions. Instead, it offers an opportunity to build a modern, transparent, equitable, and fiscally sustainable public compensation framework.
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We provide offline, online and recorded lectures in the same amount.
Every aspirant is unique and the mentoring is customised according to the strengths and weaknesses of the aspirant.
In every Lecture. Director Sir will provide conceptual understanding with around 800 Mindmaps.
We provide you the best and Comprehensive content which comes directly or indirectly in UPSC Exam.
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