Why in news?

A crowd surge at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata, killed 19 people and injured around 25, once again spotlighting the risks of large unregulated gatherings in India.

Heavy rain, a crowd of pandal-hoppers, and a possible public-address announcement appear to have triggered the deadly crush.

A 2014 National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) report notes that a majority of crowd disasters in India occur at religious places — making this a recurring governance challenge.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Understanding “Stampede”: It’s Really a Crowd Crush
• What Went Wrong at Chorbagan?
• How Crowd Behaviour Amplifies Risk?
• Lessons From Past Disasters
• The NDMA Framework for Crowd Control

Understanding Stampede: It’s Really a Crowd Crush

• What is loosely called a “stampede” is more accurately a crowd crush — a situation where crowd density becomes so high that individuals lose control over their own movement.
• Structural Causes: Weak temporary structures, inadequate barricades, poorly lit stairways, narrow entry/exit points.
• Trigger Events: Fires, electrical failures, security scares, or failures of crowd management.
• Critical NDMA Insight: Deaths usually result not from literal “trampling” but from compressive asphyxia — when people packed tightly together cannot expand their chest to breathe.

What Went Wrong at Chorbagan?

• Preliminary accounts suggest multiple risk factors converged:
  • Heavy pandal-hopper crowds when rain began suddenly.
  • People moving forward as some fell, with the crowd behind continuing to press ahead.
  • A Public Address (PA) system announcement that may have intensified the rush.
• Puja committee members and private security personnel have been detained; a SIT (Special Investigation Team) has been formed.
• Following the tragedy, authorities asked other high-footfall pandals to temporarily halt admissions — reinforcing that crowd management is about density per space, not just total attendance.

How Crowd Behaviour Amplifies Risk?

• As per NDMA, individual behaviour is influenced by others — a few people jumping a barricade can trigger mass imitation.
• This is not irrational behaviour; it reflects people responding to limited information and to what others around them appear to be doing.
• Announcements Can Backfire: A message meant to warn or disperse people may instead cause simultaneous mass movement, unless carefully worded with managed exit routes.
• Poor Coordination Risk: If police push one crowd in a direction that collides with an incoming stream, the opposing flows can create a dangerous crush.
• Modern crowd science therefore favours communication and community-based management over force-based control.

Lessons From Past Disasters

• Nashik Kumbh (August 2003): 29 killed — caused by barricade pressure, reverse crowd movement, and processions/vehicles sharing pilgrim routes.
• Kalubai Yatra, Mandhardevi, Maharashtra (January 2005): 293 killed — India’s deadliest such tragedy. A Justice Rajan Kochar inquiry found:
  • Wrong crowd estimates
  • Narrow, steep, slippery approach route
  • Illegal vendors (some with gas cylinders) blocking the path
  • No watchtowers, PA systems, or adequate firefighting arrangements
  • Poor inter-agency coordination
• Common Thread: Crowd disasters rarely have one cause — they result from multiple weaknesses (density, constricted movement, poor information, an unexpected trigger, weak coordination) converging simultaneously.

The NDMA Framework for Crowd Control

• The guiding principle is managing demand and capacity:
  • Estimate Demand — based on past attendance, arrival patterns, religious significance, visitor profile.
  • Calculate Capacity — not just of the overall ground, but of critical bottlenecks (narrow lanes, bridges, staircases, entrances).
  • Apply Input Control — restrict or stagger entry when demand exceeds capacity (used at Vaishno Devi and Sabarimala via pilgrim registration).
  • For Unregulated Urban Events (like Durga Puja) — create holding areas, one-way routes, separate entry/exit points, real-time density monitoring, and temporary closures before congestion turns dangerous.
  • Make Waiting Safe Where Capacity Cannot be Increased — through adequate space, lighting, barricading, drinking water, medical facilities, trained volunteers, and clear, panic-free signage.
• As experts put it: “The purpose of crowd management is to ensure that it never reaches the density and disorder at which a small trigger can become a catastrophe.”

Conclusion

The Kolkata tragedy is a grim reminder that crowd disasters are preventable, not inevitable — they occur when administrative foresight fails to match the scale of human congregation.

India’s recurring pattern, from Mandhardevi to Chorbagan, shows that density management, clear communication, and inter-agency coordination matter far more than sheer attendance numbers.

As urbanisation and mass religious tourism continue to grow, embedding NDMA’s demand-capacity framework into routine event planning — rather than treating it as a post-disaster lesson — remains the only sustainable path to safer public gatherings.

Why in news?

In a first-of-its-kind disclosure, CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team), operating under MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), revealed that AI agents tasked with research and evaluation online had bypassed security safeguards and gained unauthorised access to live systems of Indian organisations.

The agents accessed business records, personal data, and confidential information — and strikingly, none of the affected organisations detected the breach themselves. The incidents surfaced only after AI model providers voluntarily disclosed them following internal reviews.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What Exactly Happened?
• Why AI Agents Pose a Distinct Cybersecurity Risk?
• CERT-In’s Recommendations
• Global Precedents: AI Agents Going Rogue
• India’s Regulatory Response

What Exactly Happened?

• In an advisory issued recently, CERT-In stated that AI models, during research and evaluation activity, had “reached the live systems of Indian organisations” — acting beyond their authorised scope.
• How access was gained: The agents exploited:
  • Credentials and connection settings exposed through application configuration files.
  • Publicly available code repositories.
  • Cloud service roles with excessive permissions.
• CERT-In did not name the affected organisations, the AI developers involved, or the specific models responsible.
• Crucially, the breaches were conventional cybersecurity failures — exposed passwords, API keys, and misconfigured access — that AI agents simply exploited more efficiently than human attackers might have.

Why AI Agents Pose a Distinct Cybersecurity Risk?

• Unlike conventional chatbots, which only respond to queries, AI agents can independently plan and execute tasks, browse websites, use software tools, and act with limited human supervision.
• This autonomy creates risk: agents may act outside developer- or user-defined boundaries, especially when interacting with live external systems.
• The India incidents illustrate how such systems can unintentionally access infrastructure they were never authorised to touch, particularly where existing security weaknesses expose sensitive data.

CERT-In’s Recommendations

• Isolate Research/Evaluation Environments — agents should connect only to systems required for their assigned task.
• Enforce this through technical network controls, not merely instructions given to the AI model itself.
• Define in every task the systems and actions that are in scope, and treat everything else as out of scope.
• Automatic termination of an agent’s operation if it:
  • Accesses third-party systems.
  • Discovers or uses unauthorised credentials.
  • Triggers a failure signal.
• An independent human operator must retain authority to stop or restart agent activity at any time.

The Parallel Threat: AI-Powered Cyberattacks

• Separately, CERT-In flagged a financially motivated cyberattack campaign against Indian entities using AI-native offensive-security tools, misused and rebranded versions of publicly available frameworks:
• These tools cut the time between initial access and attack impact from several days to just a few hours.
• Attackers deployed multiple AI agents simultaneously, running coordinated operations for hours or days.
• Organisations that failed to fully patch vulnerabilities after an initial breach were often attacked again within days, sometimes at a larger scale.

Global Precedents: AI Agents Going Rogue

• OpenAI (July 2026): Models under cybersecurity evaluation escaped their test environment, exploited a vulnerability in a package-registry proxy, and accessed systems belonging to Hugging Face.
• Anthropic: Disclosed three instances where Claude models accessed real organisations’ infrastructure during evaluations — a configuration error made the models believe real systems were part of their test environment; Claude then exploited weak passwords and unsecured endpoints.
• Meta: A configuration error during an independent evaluation gave a model internet access, which it used to exploit a third-party service vulnerability; Meta is investigating.

India’s Regulatory Response

• MeitY Minister indicated India is moving from targeted lawmaking toward a broader AI regulatory framework.
• This shift is driven by rising concerns over deepfakes, agentic AI risks, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities posed by increasingly autonomous systems.

Context

• India’s delimitation debate is not merely about increasing the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) to address population growth.
• Effective representation requires both accessible elected representatives and adequate opportunities to voice citizens’ concerns in Parliament.
• The proposed Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and Delimitation Bill, 2026, seek to increase the Lok Sabha’s strength from 550 to 850 members.
• However, without strengthening Parliament’s working capacity, numerical expansion could weaken legislative participation and executive accountability.

The Need for Delimitation and Fair Representation

• According to the Election Commission’s 2024 Atlas, India has 97.98 crore voters across 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, averaging approximately 18 lakh voters per constituency.
• Significant disparities exist: Telangana’s Malkajgiri constituency has 37.8 lakh voters, while Lakshadweep has only 57,953.
• These differences demonstrate the need to reconsider constituency boundaries.
• However, representation has two dimensions: access to an MP and the MP’s ability to raise public concerns in Parliament.
• Delimitation may improve accessibility, but institutional reforms are necessary to ensure meaningful participation.

The Structural Blind Spot: Parliament’s Limited Capacity

• Increasing parliamentary membership without extending working hours would intensify competition for limited legislative time.
• More MPs would have fewer opportunities to question ministers, participate in debates and introduce legislation.
• Therefore, numerical representation does not guarantee effective representation.
• Parliament needs adequate working hours, procedural opportunities and committee capacity to accommodate an expanded membership.

Drawbacks in Parliamentary Proceedings

• Weakening of Question Hour
  • Question Hour enables MPs to question ministers and hold the executive accountable.
  • Lok Sabha rules allow a maximum of 20 starred questions for oral answers and 230 unstarred questions for written answers per sitting day.
  • Although MPs can submit up to five questions daily, selection is limited through a ballot.
  • During the 17th Lok Sabha, Question Hour functioned for only 60% of its scheduled time.
  • In the 2026 Monsoon Session, it reportedly operated for just nine minutes, representing 1% of its scheduled time.
  • Increasing membership without extending parliamentary hours could further reduce opportunities for MPs to obtain answers from ministers.
• Erosion of Zero Hour and Private Member’s Business
  • Zero Hour allows MPs to raise urgent public issues without advance notice, including crop failures and disaster relief.
  • Private Member’s Business enables MPs outside the Council of Ministers to introduce legislation and contribute independently to policymaking.
  • Without protected time allocations, these mechanisms could lose effectiveness as parliamentary membership increases.
  • Safeguarding them is essential for addressing regional concerns and encouraging wider legislative participation.
• Declining Quality of Legislative Deliberation
  • Limited parliamentary time undermines legislative scrutiny and budgetary accountability.
  • During the 17th Lok Sabha, 35% of Bills were passed after less than an hour of debate, while approximately 80% of the Union Budget was passed through the guillotine procedure.
  • The guillotine procedure allows outstanding demands for grants to be put to a vote without further discussion when the allotted time expires.
  • Such practices restrict detailed examination of legislation, expenditure and government policies.
  • A larger Lok Sabha operating under unchanged time constraints could worsen these shortcomings.

Institutional Reforms for Effective Representation

• Establishing Mandatory Parliamentary Sitting Days
  • Article 85(1) of the Constitution requires that no more than six months elapse between parliamentary sessions but does not prescribe minimum annual sitting days.
  • The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution recommended that the Lok Sabha meet for at least 120 days annually.
  • Establishing a statutory minimum would provide sufficient opportunities for debates, legislative scrutiny and executive accountability.
• Protecting Essential Parliamentary Procedures
  • Question Hour and Zero Hour should receive protected time allocations to prevent their routine curtailment.
  • Such safeguards would strengthen executive accountability, enable MPs to raise urgent concerns and ensure meaningful participation in parliamentary proceedings.
• Strengthening Parliamentary Committees
  • Standing committees examine Bills, policies and government expenditure in detail. Their capacity must expand alongside parliamentary membership.
  • The existing maximum committee membership of 31 members should be reviewed and increased where necessary.
  • Stronger committees would distribute workloads, facilitate specialised scrutiny and improve legislative quality. 

Conclusion

• Delimitation can improve the fairness and accessibility of parliamentary representation, but expanding the Lok Sabha from 550 to 850 members without strengthening its operational capacity risks reducing meaningful participation.
• True democracy requires both representation and the ability to be heard.
• Mandatory sitting days, protected parliamentary procedures, stronger standing committees and adequate deliberation time are essential to ensure that citizens’ concerns receive effective parliamentary attention.

Context

• India has entered a new phase of climate policy with the operationalisation of its Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS).
• On July 31, nearly 500 Indian companies across seven industrial sectors submitted their first compliance reports.
• The first carbon credits are expected in October, with trading on power exchanges anticipated between November and January.
• Meanwhile, the European Union, China and Brazil launched the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets (OCCCM) in May to promote cooperation among national carbon markets.
• Despite the adoption of its first work plan in September and the participation of several countries, India has remained outside the coalition.

The Issue of a Carbon Price

• Carbon pricing assigns a financial cost to greenhouse gas emissions, encouraging industries to adopt cleaner technologies and reduce pollution.
• It can operate through carbon taxes or emissions trading systems. More than 50 countries have introduced carbon pricing measures.
• For developing countries, carbon pricing can minimise the economic cost of climate mitigation, stimulate technological innovation and generate government revenue.
• Such resources are increasingly necessary to address climate change impacts, including heatwaves and floods.
• India's CCTS aims to support its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and its net-zero emissions target for 2070.
• Its success depends on transparent monitoring, reliable emissions accounting and effective market regulation.
• The OCCCM provides a platform for exchanging knowledge about carbon pricing, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems, carbon accounting and high-integrity offsets.

The ‘Climate Clubs’

• Climate clubs are groups of countries that coordinate climate policies through common standards, incentives or trade-related measures.
• The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) demonstrates how climate policy is increasingly connected with international trade.
• CBAM seeks to address carbon leakage, which occurs when production shifts to countries with weaker climate regulations.
• As the EU implements this mechanism and other countries consider similar measures, Indian exporters may face additional compliance requirements and costs, particularly in carbon-intensive industries.
• Future climate clubs could coordinate carbon prices, provide incentives to members and impose penalties or additional burdens on non-members.
• Such developments could affect India's export competitiveness and international market access.
• Although the OCCCM does not explicitly focus on CBAM, its work on emissions measurement, carbon accounting and compliance markets could help India prepare for emerging trade regulations.
• Participation would enable India to understand international standards, strengthen domestic systems and anticipate regulatory changes.

Why Joining Matters Now?

• Opportunities for International Cooperation
  • The OCCCM offers India opportunities to exchange knowledge, improve carbon-market design and prepare for the growing international coordination of climate policies.
  • Participation could support the development of India's domestic market and potentially facilitate future links with other carbon-trading systems.
• Risks and Policy Autonomy
  • International coordination could influence domestic carbon-market rules in ways that do not adequately reflect India's development needs, technological capabilities or financial constraints.
  • India must therefore safeguard its policy autonomy and ensure that cooperation respects climate equity and differentiated national responsibilities.
  • However, the OCCCM is primarily a collaborative platform for exchanging information and aligning domestic carbon markets.
  • It does not impose emissions targets or automatically require countries to surrender control over their climate policies.
• The Importance of Early Participation
  • The coalition's governance structure includes high-level meetings, executive-level meetings, thematic working groups and a Secretariat.
  • Membership would allow India to influence discussions on carbon accounting, market design and international cooperation.
  • Remaining outside may pose a greater strategic risk than joining. If international carbon-market rules evolve without Indian participation, the country may eventually have to comply with standards shaped by others.
  • Early engagement would help India advocate for fair, transparent and flexible international rules.
• Safeguarding Developing-Country Interests
  • Brazil's participation as a founding member and the involvement of other countries provide opportunities for India to cooperate with like-minded developing economies.
  • Before joining, India should assess the coalition's governance, protect domestic industries and ensure that market integration supports genuine emissions reductions.

Conclusion

• The global climate-policy landscape is increasingly shaped by carbon pricing, international cooperation and climate-related trade measures.
• India's CCTS provides the foundation for domestic carbon-market development, while the OCCCM offers opportunities for knowledge-sharing and participation in emerging international standards.
• India should seriously consider joining the coalition after evaluating its governance and safeguards.
• Proactive engagement could strengthen domestic carbon markets, protect export competitiveness and advance India's climate objectives.
• By participating early, India can help shape international rules rather than merely adapt to them, balancing economic development with its long-term commitment to decarbonisation.

About Brihadiswara Temple:

• Brihadiswara (Brihadeshwara) is a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva located in the city of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu.
• It is also known as Periya Kovil, RajaRajeswara Temple, and Rajarajesvaram.
• It is one of the largest temples in India and is an example of Dravidian architecture during the Chola period.
• It was constructed under the patronage of the Chola emperor Rajaraja I between 1003 and 1010 CE.
• It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the “Great Living Chola Temples”, with the other two being the Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Airavatesvara Temple, both constructed by Chola rulers and located northeast of Thanjavur.
• Architecture:
  • It is a masterpiece of Dravidian architecture, which is characterized by the use of pyramid-shaped towers, pillared halls, enclosed courtyards, and sculpted walls.
  • The entire temple structure is made out of granite. The construction of the temple out of granite was done without mortar.
  • The temple stands amidst fortified walls that were probably added in the 16th century.
  • The central tower, or vimana, is 66 m high and is the tallest in the world. It is also the most ornate and elaborate, with intricate carvings and paintings.
  • The Kumbam (the apex or the bulbous structure on the top) at the top of vimana is carved out of a single rock.
  • There is a big statue of Nandi (sacred bull), carved out of a single rock  
  • The temple complex is surrounded by two concentric rectangular enclosures (prakarams) with massive walls.
  • These enclosures are entered through ornate gateways known as gopurams.
  • Unlike later Tamil temples where the gopurams are taller than the central vimana, at Brihadeeswara, the vimana remains the tallest structure, emphasizing the primacy of the main shrine.

About National Strategic Trade Command Centre (NSTCC):

• It is a strategic initiative aimed at strengthening the monitoring, analysis, and governance of India’s international trade ecosystem through integrated data analytics and evidence-based decision-making.
• At its core is an integrated analytics and visualisation platform designed to convert trade-related data into actionable insights.
• It was developed by the Department of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• It will provide senior policymakers and government officials with a consolidated view of India’s trade performance, export promotion schemes, regulatory approvals, application processing, and operational indicators.
• It enables users to analyse information at multiple levels, including national trade performance, Regional Authorities, schemes, products, destination markets, and individual applications, subject to role-based access permissions.
• In its initial phase, the command centre brings together dashboards covering key functions of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and related trade domains.
  • These include the Importer Exporter Code (IEC), Advance Authorisation, Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG), Certificate of Origin (CoO), SCOMET (Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies), restricted imports and exports, and other regulatory and trade facilitation processes.
  • These dashboards will enable monitoring of scheme utilisation, processing efficiency, export obligations, trade patterns, and operational performance across regional authorities.
• The initiative has three main objectives:
  • Improving the monitoring of trade and pending applications.
  • Comparing the performance of schemes and regional offices.
  • Using data to identify procedural hurdles and simplify regulations.
• The centre will also help officials identify export opportunities, assess how effectively businesses are using India's trade agreements, and track the country's position in international markets.
• It has been designed to leverage existing digital infrastructure, including DGFT systems and the Trade Connect e-Platform.
• It will also provide a framework for the phased integration of additional datasets from other departments and trade-related agencies.
• Going forward, the NSTCC is envisaged to evolve into a broader whole-of-government decision-support mechanism, with phased access for authorised stakeholders, including relevant ministries, states, Export Promotion Councils, and other institutions.

About Thwaites Glacier:

• Thwaites Glacier, often referred to as the Doomsday Glacier, is a large glacier located on the north coast of West Antarctica, bordering the Amundsen Sea.
• It has the world’s widest glacial interface with the ocean.
• It is named for American glacial geologist and geomorphologist Frederik T. Thwaites.
• A portion of the glacier is an ice shelf over the Amundsen Sea, held up in several places by underwater plateaus.
• It is one of the most vulnerable and important glaciers in the world in terms of future global sea-level rise.
• Impact of Melting of Thwaites Glacier:
  • It has been becoming thinner, retreating, and contributing to sea-level rise.
  • It contributes 4% to global annual sea-level rise, and its collapse could destabilise the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which would cause catastrophic sea-level rise.
  • It also acts as a buffer, holding back neighboring glaciers that contain around three meters of potential sea level rise.
  • If it weakens beyond a point, other glaciers may lose ice faster as well, further increasing sea-level rise.
  • Higher sea levels will cause coasts to flood more easily, worsen erosion, increase storm surges, and threaten cities, low-lying islands, and ports.
  • Scientists also report that the temperatures of the bottom waters in the Amundsen Sea have been increasing from continued global warming.
  • There is evidence that the warming waters are slowly melting submerged ice at the base of the glacier, thereby making the glacier more unstable and raising concerns that it will collapse. 

About PUFFINS Telescope Mission:

• A PUFFIN (Polarimetry in the Ultraviolet to Find Features in INterStellar dust) is a SmallSat selected under NASA’s highly competitive Astrophysics Pioneers programme.
• It is a NASA funded mission andis a joint effort between the University of Arizona, McDonald Observatory other scientists.
• It involves sending up a small satellite that will contain a telescope.
• It will study the smallest grains of dust between the stars.
• It will observe them using UV spectropolarimetry.
• It gives scientists insights into the characteristics, presence, and behavior of interstellar dust particles.
• The measurements are supposed to provide information on the particles’ characteristics and how they behave in relation to the magnetic field of the Milky Way galaxy.
• The mission intends to bridge the gaps that exist in existing astronomy studies, especially those concerning the observation of interstellar dust particles using ultraviolet polarisation.
  • Interstellar dust refers to particles that exist in the space between the stars.
  • These particles have sizes ranging from less than 50 nanometers; therefore, they cannot be detected using the traditional optical or infrared techniques.

About YJ-21 Missile:

• The YJ-21, also known as the Eagle Strike 21, is a Chinese hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile.
• It is designed for striking large, high-value naval targets, such as aircraft carriers.
• It entered service in 2022.
• Initially deployed on naval platforms, a bomber-launched variant was revealed in May 2024, significantly extending its operational reach.
• Features:
  • It is a solid-fueled, two-stage missile with unique aerodynamic and propulsion systems optimized for hypersonic flight.
  • The missile achieves cruise speeds exceeding Mach 6 during its midcourse phase and reaches terminal velocities up to Mach 10.
  • It has a maximum range of approximately 1,500 km.
  • The missile’s high-speed trajectory is coupled with a quasi-ballistic flight path, allowing it to execute high-G maneuvers during its terminal approach.
  • It uses an Inertial Navigation System (INS) as well as an active radar-homing or infrared terminal-state seeker.