Context

• The debate over banning social media for minors has become a major policy issue in the digital age.
• Countries such as Australia and the U.K. are introducing or considering restrictions, while the U.S. follows varied approaches.
• India faces a similar choice. Concerns about addiction, cyberbullying, manipulation, harmful content and privacy risks are genuine, but bans may not provide a lasting solution.
• The larger challenge is preparing young people for a world increasingly shaped by social media, artificial intelligence and digital technologies.

Why Fear is Not the Answer?

• Lessons from Earlier Communication Revolutions
  • Every major communication revolution has generated anxiety.
  • The printing press, radio, television and the Internet were once viewed as threats to established social structures.
  • Yet societies gradually learned that the objective should not be to prevent information from flowing, but to promote its responsible use.
• The Digital Transformation
  • The smartphone has combined the functions of a printing press, library, classroom, marketplace and public square.
  • Social media and AI are accelerating this transformation. Young people are growing up amid technological disruption, economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and social instability, making fear a powerful influence on policy.
• Limits of Technological Restrictions
  • Fear should not become the principal basis for regulation. Protecting children is essential, but child safety and technological innovation need not be opposing goals.
  • Governments should create safeguards without discouraging innovation.
  • Technological restrictions are also increasingly difficult to enforce. VPNs, encrypted applications, alternative platforms and AI-enabled tools can help users circumvent barriers.
  • Completely isolating young people from digital platforms is therefore becoming increasingly impractical.
• Beyond Social Media: The AI Challenge
  • The debate may soon extend beyond social media. Children will increasingly interact with AI systems capable of educating, entertaining, advising and influencing them.
  • The real question is not how to keep young people away from technology, but how to prepare them to use it safely, intelligently and responsibly.
• Regulation with Responsibility
  • Government regulation remains necessary, but regulation alone cannot solve the problem. Authorities should ensure platform transparency, child protection and privacy while combating online crime.
  • At the same time, families, schools and society must develop the judgment, self-control and resilience required to navigate the digital world.

The Role of Government and Regulation

• Authorities should demand greater transparency from technology platforms, establish effective child-protection standards, strengthen privacy safeguards, combat online criminal activity and encourage responsible innovation.
• However, regulation alone cannot address a problem that is simultaneously social, cultural, educational and psychological.
• Laws can establish boundaries, but they cannot create judgment, self-control or resilience. India therefore needs a broader strategy combining sensible regulation with strong human institutions.

Drawing from One’s Roots

• India has a long tradition of transmitting knowledge, values and responsibility across generations. Families, educational institutions and cultural traditions historically helped young people navigate uncertainty.
• The guru-shishya tradition emphasised not merely knowledge but also character, discipline, responsibility and ethical development.
• These principles can be adapted to the digital age. Parents should become more digitally literate and actively engage with their children’s online lives.
• Schools should teach digital citizenship, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, online safety and resilience, alongside technical skills.
• Religious and cultural organisations can contribute by engaging constructively with technology rather than retreating from it.
• Technology companies, educators, parents and civil society should cooperate to promote responsible digital behaviour.

Building Digital Resilience

• The ultimate objective should be to develop young people capable of navigating technology responsibly rather than simply avoiding it.
• Children must learn to identify manipulation, evaluate information, protect privacy, manage screen use and respond appropriately to harmful online experiences.
• India’s ability to absorb external influences while preserving its cultural core offers an important advantage.
• As a rapidly expanding digital society, India can demonstrate that technological progress and cultural continuity can coexist.

Conclusion

• A social-media ban for minors may appear attractive because it offers a simple response to complex dangers.
• Yet blanket restrictions cannot adequately address rapidly evolving technologies. India should pursue a balanced framework combining regulation, platform accountability, parental involvement and education.
• The goal should not be to build a larger digital firewall, but to create capable, resilient and responsible digital citizens.
• The future will favour societies that learn to govern technology while preserving human judgment, values and responsibility.

Context

• India has a vast pool of academically capable students, but access to quality test preparation remains unequal.
• The test-preparation market is estimated at $14.8 billion in FY26 and may reach $23-26 billion by FY30, with nearly 2,00,000 coaching centres.
• Around 17–20 million students in Classes 9-12 participate in private coaching, imposing a substantial financial burden on families.
• The central challenge is not a shortage of educational material but unequal access to quality instruction, personalised mentoring, doubt-solving and credible assessment.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI), combined with Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), can make high-quality preparation accessible without replacing private coaching.

The Need for Better Learning Outcomes

• The goal should not be to eliminate the private coaching industry but to ensure that students unable to afford expensive coaching receive comparable opportunities.
• A free AI-powered coach and tutor could provide personalised academic support, especially to students dependent on costly or poor-quality coaching.
• No single private platform can serve India's enormous student population. Therefore, the solution should be a platform-and-network model rather than a vendor contract.
• The government should become the market-maker, infrastructure provider and trust layer, while private companies, teachers and institutions compete to provide content and mentoring.

Public Infrastructure, Private Innovation

• India's experience with UPI and ONDC demonstrates how open digital networks can challenge closed platforms.
• Education can adopt a similar model. The government should provide identity, discovery, payments, credentialing, standards and interoperability, while private providers supply lessons, tests, doubt-solving and mentoring.
• Traditional coaching bundles content, mentoring, peer learning, discipline and quality signalling.
• Digital infrastructure can unbundle these services, reducing the cost of content and AI-based doubt-solving while allowing students to choose specialised services.
• An education-focused not-for-profit institution, potentially modelled on NPCI, could steward the network and establish common standards.

Begin with JEE and NEET

• The initiative should initially focus on JEE and NEET, India's major competitive entrance examinations.
• Their standardised syllabi, objective questions and machine-gradable assessments make them particularly suitable for an AI-enabled preparation network.
• The government need not create all content itself. High-quality material already exists across digital platforms.
• What is scarce is trusted discovery, personalised learning, reliable assessment and effective doubt-solving.
• An open content registry could organise lessons, problem sets and mock examinations according to a common JEE/NEET taxonomy.
• Educational companies and individual teachers could contribute material and compete on mentoring and specialised services.

Interoperability and Student Ownership

• The foundation of the network should be content and data portability. Students must be able to change providers without losing their learning history.
• A government reference application with open APIs could allow DIKSHA, State education applications and other platforms to access approved resources.
• An AI recommendation engine could identify weaknesses and direct students to the best available module, irrespective of its provider.
• A student-owned learning wallet and progress ledger could record lessons, mock scores and topic-wise mastery.
• Aadhaar/DigiLocker could support authentication, while APAAR could connect learning records with academic credentials, subject to appropriate consent and privacy safeguards.

Ensuring Equity and Accountability

• The system must reach students without smartphones or reliable internet.
• Data-light streaming, downloadable content, school computer laboratories and Common Service Centres can extend access to disadvantaged communities.
• The government should publish provider- and module-level outcome data, enabling students to judge resources through actual performance rather than advertising.
• Independent accreditation should verify content quality and prevent misleading claims. A strict no-lock-in rule should guarantee portability of student data.
• Basic preparation should remain free, while premium services such as live mentoring and graded assignments could be offered through affordable payments or government-funded vouchers. 

AI as the Personal Tutor

• AI's greatest value lies in personalised practice, instant doubt-solving and adaptive learning.
• Affordable AI models can provide continuous academic assistance at a fraction of the cost of conventional tutoring.
• AI can identify weaknesses, generate targeted questions, explain errors and adjust difficulty according to individual performance.
• Human teachers would continue to provide advanced mentoring, motivation and complex conceptual guidance, while AI could serve as an always-available first layer of academic support.
• The government should enable AI tutors rather than build one itself.
• Its responsibility should be to create standards, infrastructure, interoperability, accreditation and universal access.

Conclusion

• India's coaching economy reflects enormous demand for examination preparation but also a serious access and affordability gap.
• The solution is neither government-controlled coaching nor displacement of private providers, but an open education network built on public digital infrastructure.
• By aggregating demand, establishing standards, enabling interoperable content, protecting student-owned data and deploying AI for personalised tutoring, India can transform test preparation from an expensive paywall into a free, competitive and high-quality digital public service.

Context:

• China’s manufacturing surge is intensifying competitive pressure on India, making it crucial to accurately assess the health, productivity and competitiveness of Indian manufacturing.
• While the government has promoted Make in India and Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, conflicting signals from manufacturing data raise three questions.
• The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has undertaken substantial revisions under the new GDP methodology.
• Hence, there is the need to analyse whether the sector is actually growing as strongly as the latest national accounts suggest, as problems with the earlier manufacturing data series were widely recognised.

Q1: Why is the Manufacturing GVA Deflator Showing Negative Growth?

• The new estimates show the manufacturing Gross Value Added (GVA) deflator recording negative growth for nine consecutive quarters between 2023 and 2025.
• This is puzzling because -
  • Core CPI inflation remained positive.
  • The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was negative only for some quarters.
  • The GVA deflator should broadly capture changes in prices relevant to manufacturing output.
• The GVA deflator is not identical to either CPI or WPI; it is intended to capture price movements associated with the value added generated by a sector.
• Therefore, divergences from consumer or wholesale inflation do not automatically imply an error, but unusually persistent divergence warrants methodological scrutiny.
• The issue is important because real GVA is obtained by deflating nominal GVA for price changes.
• If the deflator is unusually low or negative, real manufacturing growth can be significantly overstated.

Q2: Why Has Real Manufacturing GVA Diverged from IIP?

• The second concern is the growing gap between real manufacturing GVA and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
• Using 2022-23 as the common base (=100), by 2025-26,
  • Real manufacturing GVA was at least 15 percentage points above IIP.
  • Average manufacturing growth between 2022-23 and 2025-26 was approximately 11% according to GVA, compared with about 6% according to IIP.
• The two indicators, however, measure different things. GVA measures the economic value created after deducting intermediate consumption, while IIP is primarily an index of industrial production volumes.
• Real GVA can therefore grow faster than physical output if firms improve productivity, efficiency or the value generated from intermediate inputs.
• The informal sector is sometimes cited as an explanation because real GVA includes informal manufacturing while IIP largely captures the organised/formal sector.
• However, this explanation appears insufficient, because recent GVA estimates are increasingly benchmarked using formal-sector data.

Q3: Why Has the Correlation Between GVA and IIP Weakened?

• Before the 2011-12 methodology change, IIP and real manufacturing GVA moved broadly together, with a correlation of around 0.8.
• Afterwards, the relationship weakened substantially and appears to have become even more divergent in the latest data.
• Since September 2022, the two series have behaved very differently: real GVA has shown strong growth while IIP has remained relatively stable.
• Though this does not prove that the new GDP series is flawed, the absence of convincing explanations makes it difficult to confidently interpret the recent manufacturing revival.

Broader Implications:

• The reliability of manufacturing statistics matters beyond statistical methodology.
• India’s efforts to counter Chinese manufacturing competition, deepen domestic value chains and attract investment depend on an accurate understanding of manufacturing performance.
• The debate also affects assessment of recent government interventions, including Make in India, PLI schemes and other industrial-policy measures.
• If output, value addition and productivity are sending substantially different signals, policymakers need to identify the reasons before claiming a structural manufacturing transformation.

Way Forward:

• India needs greater transparency in national accounts methodology, including detailed documentation of deflators, sectoral estimates and the relationship between GVA and IIP.
• Better reconciliation of different datasets would strengthen confidence in economic policymaking.

Conclusion:

• India’s manufacturing revival may be real, but the magnitude and sustainability of that revival require careful scrutiny.
• Manufacturing is central to India’s employment generation, export competitiveness, import substitution and strategic economic resilience.
• Therefore, improving the credibility and interpretability of manufacturing data is as important as improving manufacturing itself.

Why in the News?

• The National Horticulture Board (NHB) has amended its guidelines for commercial horticulture schemes, introducing stricter eligibility criteria, a revised definition of family and lower subsidy rates.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• About NHB
• News Summary (Subsidy Guidelines, Need for Changes, Significance, etc.)

National Horticulture Board

• The National Horticulture Board (NHB) is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. It supports the development of commercial horticulture and related post-harvest infrastructure.
• One of its schemes, Development of Commercial Horticulture through Production and Post-Harvest Management of Horticulture Crops, provides financial assistance for large-scale commercial cultivation of horticultural crops.
• The scheme covers crops such as capsicum, cucumber and tomato, along with flowers including rose, lilium and chrysanthemum.
• Under the earlier guidelines, financial assistance could cover up to 50% of project cost, subject to a maximum subsidy of Rs. 1 crore per family.

News Summary

• The NHB amended the scheme guidelines, stating that the changes are intended to rationalise financial assistance, ensure equitable distribution of benefits, prevent duplication of subsidies and improve transparency.
• The revised guidelines make the following categories ineligible for financial assistance:
  • Holders of constitutional posts.
  • Union and State Ministers, MPs, MLAs and MLCs.
  • Mayors of municipal corporations and chairpersons of district panchayats.
  • Serving employees of Central and State government ministries and departments, PSUs, autonomous bodies and local bodies, except MTS/Class-IV/Group D employees.
  • Retired or superannuated pensioners receiving a monthly pension of Rs. 10,000 or more, with the stated exception for MTS/Class-IV/Group D employees.
  • Groups of farmers.
• However, family members of persons belonging to these categories may avail one-time assistance, subject to the revised family definition and other applicable provisions.

Revised Definition of Family

• The definition of "family" has been expanded.
• Earlier, family meant the husband, wife and dependent minor children. Under the revised guidelines, it includes Spouse, Father, Mother, Sons & Daughters.
• The revised rules also establish a one-family-one-assistance principle. Only one member of a family can receive financial assistance under NHB schemes, whether the application is made individually or through a HUF, partnership, proprietorship firm or as a company director.
• Financial assistance received by any member is treated as assistance received by the same family.
• Once one family member has received assistance under an NHB scheme or component, another member cannot receive further assistance under any NHB scheme, including where part of the earlier maximum ceiling remains unused.

Context of the Rule Change

• The changes follow a recent investigation concerning beneficiaries of the horticulture subsidy scheme.
• The report stated that Bhagirath Choudhary, Minister of State in the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, had received a Rs. 99 lakh subsidy for his farm under the scheme in 2025.
• The report also identified the wife, son and mother of Naresh Pal Gangwar, then serving as Secretary of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, among beneficiaries.
• The report stated that Choudhary subsequently returned the subsidy amount to the government.
• The revised NHB guidelines now explicitly exclude serving ministers, government officials and several other categories from direct eligibility.

Reduction in Subsidy

• The NHB has also reduced the maximum subsidy component.
• For beneficiaries in general-category States, the subsidy has been reduced from 50% to 35% of the eligible project cost.
• For beneficiaries in North-Eastern and Himalayan States, the subsidy component has been reduced from 50% to 45%.
• The changes therefore affect both who can receive assistance and the proportion of project costs that can be subsidised.
• Misrepresentation and Recovery
  • The revised guidelines provide that suppression of information, misrepresentation or submission of incorrect information to obtain financial assistance can result in recovery of the subsidy along with applicable interest.
  • This provision is intended to strengthen compliance and deter applicants from circumventing the eligibility and family-level restrictions.

Voluntary Exit from the Scheme

• The revised guidelines have also introduced a provision allowing beneficiaries to voluntarily exit the scheme during the prescribed lock-in period.
• A beneficiary can opt out by refunding the entire subsidy amount along with applicable interest, where applicable.
• Once NHB accepts the refund and the prescribed conditions are fulfilled, the beneficiary will be discharged from the obligations and restrictions associated with the subsidy.

Significance

• The revised framework seeks to improve the targeting of public subsidies by restricting access for specified categories and preventing multiple members of the same family from obtaining assistance under different NHB schemes.
• The changes also highlight the importance of transparent eligibility criteria, prevention of duplicate benefits and effective monitoring in subsidy programmes.
• For commercial horticulture, the reduction in subsidy rates may also affect the financing structure of new projects, particularly those requiring significant upfront investment.

Why in news?

On August 15, the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi celebrated "victory day," marking five years since the Taliban's takeover of Kabul.

The event, attended by Indian and around two dozen foreign diplomats, signalled how far India-Taliban ties have shifted — from New Delhi's hurried evacuation of its Kabul embassy on August 17, 2021, to today's open, if still unofficial, engagement.

Indian officials describe this as "cautious engagement," while critics call it "opportunistic."

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why India Is Deepening Engagement?
• Timeline of India's Outreach
• Security Concerns
• The Human Rights Question
• Conclusion

Why India Is Deepening Engagement?

• India invested heavily in Afghanistan after the Taliban's fall in 2001.
• When the Ashraf Ghani government collapsed in 2021 following the U.S. troop withdrawal announced by President Biden, New Delhi faced the prospect of losing its $2-3 billion developmental investment.
• This pushed India to upgrade engagement with the Taliban — without extending formal diplomatic recognition — both to protect this investment for the Afghan people and to build leverage and influence in the country.
• Three strategic factors accelerated this shift:
  • Pakistan-Taliban rift: Pakistan, once the Taliban's principal benefactor, has turned into an adversary, with repeated border clashes between the two. This fracture created a window of opportunity for India.
  • China's growing footprint: Beijing has been building infrastructure and pursuing natural resources in Afghanistan, filling the vacuum left by Western withdrawal.
  • Russia's parallel engagement: Russia, the only country to have formally established diplomatic ties with the Taliban, has been coordinating with India to monitor Chinese influence in the region.

Timeline of India's Outreach

• India's engagement evolved incrementally:
  • August 31, 2021: First official contact — India's ambassador to Qatar met the Taliban's political office chief in Doha.
  • September 2021: India acknowledged the Taliban as those "in positions of power and authority" in Afghanistan.
  • December 2021: India sent its first medicine consignment, distinguishing the Taliban regime from the Afghan people.
  • June 2022: First official Indian visit to Kabul post-takeover to oversee humanitarian aid delivery.
  • January 2025: Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri held a substantive meeting with Taliban Foreign Minister Muttaqi in Dubai.
  • May 2025: EAM S. Jaishankar spoke to Muttaqi by phone after India-Pakistan agreed to halt strikes during Operation Sindoor; the Taliban had condemned the Pahalgam terror attack.
  • October 2025: Muttaqi visited India; both sides upgraded missions to embassy level and appointed chargé d'affaires.

Security Concerns

• India's guiding principle remains that Afghan territory must not be used for anti-India activities or terrorism.
• A UN Security Council 1267 sanctions committee report noted that the terrorist threat from Afghanistan remains largely unchanged, with groups like ISIL-K and Al-Qaeda still active despite Taliban efforts to contain them.
• Notably, the report made no mention of anti-India groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammad — a relief for New Delhi, though it remains watchful.
• Taliban officials have sought to project Afghanistan as a hub for regional economic connectivity rather than terrorism, framing this as a message to both India and Pakistan.

The Human Rights Question

• India has delivered substantial humanitarian aid since 2021, including 50,000 metric tons of wheat and over 445 tons of medicines and disaster relief material.
• However, human rights, women's rights, and minority rights — once part of India's stated concerns — are no longer publicly emphasised.
• The Taliban has systematically curtailed rights for Afghanistan's 22 million women: barring girls over 12 from school, restricting unaccompanied travel, and enabling child marriage.
• India had earlier voiced concern — including in December 2022 over university bans on women — and had backed a UN Security Council resolution (adopted August 30, 2021, under India's presidency) calling for inclusive governance and equal rights for women and girls.
• India has since dropped insistence on these red lines, instead moving forward with development cooperation and visas for Afghans for medical treatment, business, and education.
• Current Status
  • Afghan missions in Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad are now staffed by Taliban-appointed diplomats, though formal diplomatic recognition remains withheld.
  • This is symbolised by the Delhi embassy's flagpole still flying the former Afghan Republic's tricolour rather than the Taliban's flag.

Conclusion

India's Taliban engagement reflects pragmatic recalibration driven by strategic competition with Pakistan and China, rather than ideological alignment.

While New Delhi has protected its economic stakes and security interests, its retreat from earlier human rights and women's rights positions marks a significant, if quiet, shift — raising questions about the balance between strategic necessity and India's traditional foreign policy values.

Why in news?

Recently, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India directed the Union government to conduct a fresh survey of elephant corridors, ruling that these corridors cannot be blocked over fears of crop damage since elephant herds naturally travel long distances.

The bench was hearing an ongoing writ petition on managing human-elephant conflict, which had earlier also sought a ban on using fireballs, spikes, and similar methods to drive elephants away.

The Court asked the Centre to report on steps taken to prohibit such "coercive measures" that divert elephants' natural movement.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why Do Elephants Move Long Distances?
• India's Elephant Landscapes and Population
• Fragmentation of Corridors: Region-Wise Challenges
• Why Corridors Matter?
• Corridor Mapping and Key Findings

Why Do Elephants Move Long Distances?

• Asian elephants are highly mobile, social mammals. A male elephant's home range — the area used for food, water, and shelter — typically spans 50 to 300 square kilometres, expanding further depending on resource availability.
• Elephants move through their range either in herds or individually, with home ranges varying by habitat type, food and water availability, population density, and human disturbance.
• According to studies by the National Centre for Biological Sciences and the Wildlife Institute of India, elephant movement is strongly shaped by seasonal food and water distribution.
• For instance, elephants migrate into Kerala during dry months, drawn to the relatively moist forests of the Western Ghats.
• Historically, climate change and drought have also driven such migrations. Corridors are essential to this movement, enabling elephants to find food, disperse naturally, and move seasonally.
• But these routes are increasingly disrupted by infrastructure, mining, and farmland expansion.

India's Elephant Landscapes and Population

• India has four principal elephant landscapes:
  • Western Ghats — 11,934 elephants (53.2%), across Karnataka (6,013), Tamil Nadu (3,136), and Kerala (2,785)
  • North-Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains — 6,559 elephants (29.2%)
  • Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains — 2,062 elephants (9.2%)
  • Central India and Eastern Ghats — 1,891 elephants (8.4%)
• India's total elephant population stands at 22,446 (SAIEE 2021-25).
• 

Fragmentation of Corridors: Region-Wise Challenges

• Western Ghats: Once a contiguous elephant habitat, this landscape is rapidly fragmenting due to changing land use, coffee and tea plantations, invasive plant species, and farmland fencing — a concern flagged in the latest all-India elephant population estimation report.
• Shivalik and Brahmaputra plains: Similar fragmentation has been recorded here, chiefly driven by railway lines, roads, power infrastructure, and other land-use changes.
• Central India and Eastern Ghats: This landscape presents the biggest conservation challenge, with elephant numbers rising steadily since the mid-to-late 1980s.
  • Movement here began with El Niño-linked drought in erstwhile southern Bihar and later intensified due to iron ore mining in Jharkhand and Odisha.
  • Over the past two decades, elephants have moved into Chhattisgarh from Jharkhand and Odisha owing to habitat loss and mining pressure, further expanding into Umaria and Shahdol (Madhya Pradesh) and Gadchiroli (Maharashtra).

Why Corridors Matter?

• Corridors provide more than physical connectivity — they enable genetic exchange between fragmented elephant populations, maintaining genetic diversity.
• They also give elephants access to food and water during seasonal changes, reducing the likelihood of crop raiding and human-elephant conflict.

Corridor Mapping and Key Findings

• The government's last major corridor-mapping exercise in 2023 documented 150 elephant corridors across 15 States within the four major landscapes.
• A subsequent report on human-elephant conflict in South India identified bottlenecks across 32 corridors in the region, citing highways, railway projects (such as the Bengaluru-Chennai line), hydel projects, high-tension power lines, electric fences, quarries, corridor narrowing, tea and coffee estates, resorts, and ashrams as key obstructions.
• West Bengal recorded the highest number of corridors — 26 across its northern and southern regions.
• Corridor sizes vary widely; the Charmar-Jingol corridor, largely in Chhattisgarh, is a notable example at 20 km long and 2.5 km wide, facilitating movement of an estimated 80-100 elephants from Odisha into Chhattisgarh's interior.

Conclusion

Elephant corridors are vital lifelines connecting fragmented habitats, enabling seasonal movement, genetic exchange, and reduced human-elephant conflict.

With infrastructure, mining, and land-use change increasingly obstructing these pathways, the Supreme Court's intervention signals growing judicial recognition that safeguarding corridors is essential — not just for elephant conservation, but for long-term conflict mitigation between humans and India's largest terrestrial mammal.

About United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO):

• It is a British Royal Navy-sponsored organisation that was formed in 2001 with an office in Dubai to handle distress calls during maritime security threats.
• In 2014, it was moved to Portsmouth in the K.
• It is the primary point of contact for commercial vessels with military forces in the region.
• The UKMTO works in West Asia and the Indian Ocean Region through an information framework agreement and operates a “Voluntary Reporting Scheme (VRS) within the Voluntary Reporting Area (VRA)” outlined in a maritime security chart.
• UKMTO issues several categories of communication to the maritime community. These are in the form of Warnings, Advisories, Reports, and Records of Maritime Information Exchange Meetings.
• The UKMTO hosts all warnings on its website as well as hosting notices from partner organisations.

About Narwhal:

• It is a medium-sized toothed whale that belongs to the family Monodontidae.
• The only other member of this family is the beluga whale.
• Scientific Name: Monodon monoceros
• Habitat and Distribution:
  • They live in the Arctic Ocean, mostly in the Atlantic sector, but they have also been recorded in the Pacific sector.
  • Their largest numbers live around Canada, Greenland, and eastern Russia.
  • They usually migrate from under the ice in the winter to inshore waters in the spring and coastal waters in the summer.
• Features:
  • It is best known for its tusk—a long, spiraled tooth that usually only the males develop. (Females occasionally do.)
    • Recent observations suggest that the males use their tusks to hunt fish and to detect the level of salt in the waters through which they swim.
  • Narwhals have stout, torpedo-shaped bodies with a low dorsal ridge in place of a dorsal fin and a concave-shaped tail fin.
  • Like belugas, narwhals have short paddle-shaped front flippers, but they lack their extremely flexible neck and well-defined beak.
  • Adult narwhals are light grey with numerous irregular black spots; the spots are more numerous on the back and fewer on the belly.
  • Narwhals tend to travel in groups of 15 to 20, though larger gatherings of hundreds or even thousands of individuals have been observed.
  • They are one of the deepest diving whales in the world and can hold their breath for 25-30 minutes at a time.
  • Narwhals feed on fish, squid, and shrimp.
  • They use sound to communicate with each other, as well as to navigate their surroundings, hunt, and see.
• Conservation Status:
  • IUCN Red List: Least Concern