Context:

• The article critically examines the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G), which replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
• Despite government claims of expanded employment guarantees and higher allocations, early implementation data indicates a sharp decline in rural employment generation.
• This has raised concerns over livelihood security, cooperative federalism and workers' rights.

Government Claims vs Ground Reality:

• The Centre has projected VB-G RAM G as an upgraded version of MGNREGA with -
  • 125 days of guaranteed employment (up from 100 days).
  • Universal rural coverage.
  • Record budgetary allocation by the Centre.
  • Additional 40% financial contribution by States.
  • Greater efficiency through digital monitoring.
• However, official data presents a contrasting picture -
  • Nearly 50% year-on-year decline in rural employment generated during the first month of implementation (July 2026).
  • Employment generation between January–June 2026 declined from about 335.4 million person-days (2025) to 215.2 million person-days, a fall of 35.8%.
  • The number of households demanding work reportedly declined by nearly 50%, despite persistent rural distress, unemployment and drought conditions.

Major Criticisms of VB-G RAM G:

• The "125-day employment" myth: Although the law promises 125 days of guaranteed employment,
  • Workers are often denied work despite demand.
  • The legal responsibility to guarantee employment has effectively shifted to State governments.
  • The Centre has not committed sufficient financial resources beyond its own "normative allocation," making the guarantee difficult to implement.
• Inadequate financial allocation:
  • ₹95,000 crore of Central allocation, and an additional 40% contribution by States, taking the total notional outlay to about ₹1.55 lakh crore.
  • However,
    • Budgetary allocation is meaningful only if work is actually provided.
    • Complex cost-sharing discourages States from expanding employment.
    • The funding model risks shifting responsibility for poor implementation from the Centre to States.
• Higher wage claims: The law prescribes a floor wage of ₹300 per day. However, critics argue that -
• The wage remains below statutory minimum wages in many States.
• It is significantly lower than the Satpathy Committee recommendation of ₹375 per day (2018 prices) for a national minimum wage.
• Consequently, wage enhancement may not adequately address rural livelihood concerns.
• Digital governance and worker exclusion:
  • VB-G RAM G relies heavily on digital monitoring through e-KYC verification, facial recognition system, National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS), and geo-tagged attendance.
  • However,
    • Large-scale deletion of job cards following e-KYC requirements has excluded many genuine workers.
    • Facial recognition and app-based attendance create operational difficulties, especially in remote rural areas.
    • Digital compliance has become a barrier to accessing employment rather than improving service delivery.
• Concerns over cooperative federalism: The law mandates 40% State funding, however,
  • States were not adequately consulted before introducing the new funding model.
  • The arrangement allegedly conflicts with Article 258 of the Constitution (Allocation of administrative functions between the Union and States).
  • It envisages Central financial support where States implement Central laws imposing additional responsibilities.
  • The new model may weaken the fiscal autonomy of States instead of promoting genuine cooperative federalism. 

Concerns:

• Legislative and democratic:
  • VB-G RAM G was enacted without meaningful consultation with workers' organisations, State governments, Parliamentary Standing Committees, and Opposition parties.
  • Parliamentary scrutiny was limited despite widespread objections from labour unions and civil society groups.
• Socio-economic: The weakening of the employment guarantee framework may -
  • Reduce livelihood security for rural households.
  • Increase vulnerability during agricultural distress and drought.
  • Disproportionately affect women workers, who constitute a significant share of rural employment guarantee beneficiaries.
  • Worsen rural unemployment at a time of growing economic uncertainty.
• Constitutional and governance issues:
  • Imposing additional financial obligations on States without adequate compensation raises constitutional concerns (Article 258).
  • Governance issues: Fiscal federalism, social security and right to livelihood, digital inclusion versus digital exclusion, accountability in welfare delivery, and evidence-based public policy.

Critical Analysis:

• The new legislation weakens rather than strengthens India's rural employment guarantee system.
• While concerns deserve careful examination, a balanced assessment would also require evaluating the government's stated objectives (over a longer implementation period) of -
  • Improving efficiency,
  • Reducing leakages and
  • Expanding employment opportunities.
• Since the programme is relatively new, its long-term outcomes will depend on adequate funding, effective Centre-State coordination, and timely correction of implementation bottlenecks.

Conclusion:

• India's rural employment guarantee remains a crucial social protection mechanism for millions of vulnerable households.
• To achieve the objectives of inclusive growth and Viksit Bharat, employment guarantee reforms must strengthen—not dilute—access to work by facilitating rather than excluding beneficiaries.

Why in news?

UPI has completed 10 years since its launch, now accounting for 86% of all digital transactions in India.

But explosive growth has piled up costs for the payments ecosystem, reviving the debate on who should pay for it — with a recent amendment to the Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 now permitting merchant fees on UPI payments.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• How UPI Came About?
• Early Growth Was Slow
• Zero MDR: The Turning Point
• Banks Have Been Left Behind
• The Case for Reintroducing MDR

How UPI Came About

• The RBI's 2012 "vision document" noted an average Indian made just six non-cash transactions a year — a figure unthinkable today.
• UPI was built by the RBI-regulated NPCI and the Indian Banks' Association, with groundwork starting in 2012-13.
• It launched as a pilot in April 2016 and went fully operational that August.
• By 2025-26, India recorded 28,174 crore digital transactions — 86% via UPI, used by over 55 crore people through 703 participating entities.

Early Growth Was Slow

• Even after demonetisation in November 2016, adoption crawled: monthly transaction value stayed under Rs 10,000 crore until December 2017.
• It took another year to cross Rs 1 lakh crore a month.
• A key barrier was the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) — the fee merchants paid on digital transactions.

Zero MDR: The Turning Point

• The Nandan Nilekani-led High-Level Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments (2019) recommended scrapping MDR for customers and small merchants, with government subsidy instead.
• From 2020, the government began subsidising UPI/RuPay transactions up to Rs 2,000, capped at 0.15% of transaction value, shared between banks and payment providers.
• The COVID-19 pandemic then accelerated adoption sharply, as people avoided cash handling.
• Private Investment Fuelled the Boom
  • A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) paper noted investment in Indian fintech spiked in 2019 (driven by UPI adoption and big deals like Paytm, PhonePe) and again in 2021 (post-COVID digital payment preference).
  • Most investment flowed into companies offering payment services and point-of-sale infrastructure.

Banks Have Been Left Behind

• Two US-backed apps — PhonePe and Google Pay — together handled 80% of UPI transaction volume and 83% of value in July 2026.
• As per the experts, banks have "missed the payments bus" and can't match these volumes.
• SBI itself handled just 0.1% of UPI volume in July — ranked fourth among banks, behind Kotak Mahindra Bank (0.6% share).
• A regulatory cap limiting any single player to 30% market share has been repeatedly postponed; the current deadline is December 2026.

The Cost Problem

• UPI transaction growth has been staggering — up 1,800%, compared to just 17% growth in card transactions since November 2019.
• This scale comes with rising costs — technology, banking infrastructure and compliance — estimated at around Rs 20,000 crore a year.
• Government subsidies for sub-Rs 2,000 transactions don't cover this gap.

The Case for Reintroducing MDR

• Industry voices argue zero MDR was right for driving initial adoption, but the next phase needs to create more value per transaction, including data-driven credit access for merchants and consumers.
• The industry is pushing for MDR of 0.3-0.6% on transactions above Rs 2,000 for large merchants.
• Such transactions form just 4% of person-to-merchant payments but account for 68% of total value — making them a viable revenue base without hurting small merchants or ordinary users.

The Next Wave of Growth

• The finance ministry has said subsidies alone cannot sustain UPI's next growth phase.
• Domestically, growth is expected to come from rural and semi-urban areas.
• Internationally, NPCI is targeting greater cross-border presence — UPI already operates in nine countries (Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, UAE, Qatar, Cambodia).
• The India-Singapore UPI-PayNow linkage, active for over three years, is seen as a template, since traditional international transfers can cost up to 7% and take days to settle.

Conclusion

UPI's decade-long journey from a pilot project to handling 86% of India's digital transactions is a genuine success story of financial inclusion.

But sustaining this scale now demands a fairer cost-sharing model — one that funds future growth without compromising the accessibility that made UPI a global example.

Why in news?

A three-member parliamentary inquiry committee has found former Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma unable to explain the presence, source or ownership of a "huge quantity" of unexplained cash discovered at his official residence.

The committee's report, tabled in the Lok Sabha recently, also held that Justice Varma interfered with material evidence and gave misleading explanations, and rejected his argument that his withdrawal from the inquiry should end the proceedings.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Background of the Case
• The Three Charges
• Why He Was Held Responsible for the Notes' Disappearance?
• Why Withdrawal Couldn't Stop the Inquiry?
• What Happens Next?

Background of the Case

• Wads of burnt and partially destroyed currency notes were discovered at Justice Varma's official bungalow in New Delhi in March 2025, when he was serving as a judge of the Delhi High Court.
• Following this, 146 Lok Sabha MPs moved a removal motion against him in August 2025.
• A three-member committee — comprising Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, Bombay High Court Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, and senior advocate B.V. Acharya — was constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, to investigate the matter.

The Three Charges

• The committee framed three specific "articles of charge" against Justice Varma:
  • Unexplained cash: Possession of "substantial unexplained Rs 500 denomination currency notes" in a storeroom at his official residence, with no lawful explanation for their source.
  • Interference with evidence: Failure to preserve material evidence, leading to the unexplained disappearance of the burnt currency notes before they could be lawfully seized.
  • Misleading conduct: Furnishing "evasive and misleading explanations" that lacked the candour expected of a constitutional functionary.
• The committee found all three charges proved.

Why He Was Held Responsible for the Notes' Disappearance?

• No direct proof he removed the cash himself.
• But his secretary and attendant were seen cleaning the storeroom after the fire, turning away a guard who offered help.
• Call records show Varma was in phone contact with them that night, despite being out of town.
• He took no steps to secure the room or file a police complaint — termed a "dereliction of duty."

Why Withdrawal Couldn't Stop the Inquiry?

• The committee said a statutory inquiry can't hinge on the "unilateral" decision of the judge being probed.
• By the time of withdrawal: charges were framed, defence statements filed, nine witnesses examined and cross-examined, evidence marked.
• The panel held he'd been given a fair opportunity — he chose to walk away rather than enter the witness box.

What Happens Next?

• Justice Varma had already resigned as a judge with immediate effect on April 9, 2026 — a resignation that takes effect from the date the letter is addressed to the President, without requiring formal acceptance.
• Historically, judicial resignations during inquiry proceedings — as with Justices P.D. Dinakaran and Soumitra Sen in 2011 — have caused impeachment motions to lapse, since the objective of removing a judge from office becomes moot once he no longer holds it.
• Unresolved constitutional question
  • This raises an unresolved constitutional question: can Parliament proceed with a removal motion against a judge who has already resigned?
  • According to jurists, impeachment is not legally possible against someone no longer holding office, and even discussion of the report in Parliament may not be permissible under the Act.
  • They suggest Parliament should amend the Judges' Inquiry Act to address such situations for future cases.
  • However, other senior advocates noted that the report's findings could still enable criminal prosecution against Justice Varma, since he no longer enjoys the protections available to sitting judges — while clarifying that the parliamentary inquiry was not equivalent to a criminal trial and did not establish personal ownership of the money.

Conclusion

The Varma case exposes a critical gap in India's judicial accountability framework — a judge's resignation can effectively neutralise an ongoing impeachment process, even after serious charges are proved.

This underscores the need to strengthen the Judges' Inquiry Act to ensure accountability keeps pace with such strategic exits.

Context:

• India's food security debate has entered a new phase.
• Data from the latest household consumption survey show the share of households unable to afford the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) recommended diet fell from about 52% in 2011-12 to 25% in 2023-24.
• This is real progress, but crores of households still cannot afford a healthy diet.
• Against this backdrop, the draft National Food Security (Amendment) Bill, 2026 proposes linking Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) entitlements to household size — a move that needs careful scrutiny to ensure it corrects inequity without weakening existing food access.

The Problem with Flat Entitlements

• Currently, Priority Households get 5 kg of foodgrain per person monthly, while AAY households get a flat 35 kg regardless of size.
• This protects small, vulnerable families but disadvantages larger ones — a seven-member AAY household gets only 5 kg per person, and an eight-member household gets just 4.4 kg, less than what Priority Households receive.
• The draft Bill proposes 7 kg per person, capped at 35 kg.

Who Loses, Who Gains

• This reform sounds fair on paper, but the numbers tell a different story.
• It would cut support for households with one to four members by 20% to 80%, while leaving households of five or more unchanged — and crucially, no AAY household would receive additional grain.
• Tamil Nadu's data illustrates the scale of impact: 84.5% of its AAY households have fewer than five members, and the state estimates its monthly AAY allocation could fall by about 35.6%.
• Many smaller households include vulnerable individuals — an elderly person living alone, a widow, or a person with disability — who need protection, not reduced support.

Safeguarding the 35 kg Entitlement

• Experts recommend an explicit "no-loss safeguard" to preserve the existing 35 kg entitlement for every AAY household.
• Support beyond 35 kg for larger or highly dependent households should be examined separately, using consumption evidence, nutritional needs and transparent costing — not bundled into a formula that quietly reduces support for smaller households.

The Coverage Gap

• Beyond entitlement design, coverage itself needs updating.
• The National Food Security Act (NFSA) allows coverage of up to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population, but its 81.35-crore beneficiary ceiling is still based on Census 2011.
• Against India's estimated 2025 population of 146.4 crore, this ceiling covers only 55.6% of people.
• The ceiling should be recalculated once Census 2027 data is available, with updated population and deprivation criteria guiding a transparent review.

Beyond Grain: The Nutrition Challenge

• Food security cannot mean cereal security alone. NFHS-6 data show stunting among children under five fell from 35.5% to 29.3%, but wasting and underweight rates barely moved.
• Only about 15% of children aged 6-23 months get a minimally adequate diet.
• Meanwhile, India faces a parallel crisis — the ICMR-INDIAB study estimated 101 million Indians had diabetes and 136 million had prediabetes in 2021.
• This is India's "double burden of malnutrition," where undernutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) coexist.

Why More Grain Isn't the Answer?

• A 2025 ICMR-INDIAB study found carbohydrates supply 62.3% of daily energy for Indians nationally, and people with the highest carbohydrate intake had 30% higher odds of new type 2 diabetes.
• Interestingly, simply replacing refined cereals with whole-wheat or millet flour did not reduce this risk when carbohydrate share stayed high — but replacing some carbohydrate calories with protein-rich foods showed greater benefit.
• ICMR-NIN's 2024 guidelines recommend cereals and millets provide at most 45% of energy, with the rest coming from pulses, milk, nuts, vegetables and other protein sources.

A Balanced Way Forward

• The Public Distribution System (PDS) cannot deliver a complete healthy plate, but it can offer affordable, shelf-stable diversity — pulses, local rice, wheat, millets and healthy edible oils, supported by effective Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement.
• This diversification should link the PDS with Anganwadi services and PM POSHAN school meals, offering eggs, milk or suitable alternatives where feasible.
• Importantly, this must be separately budgeted — not financed by cutting cereal entitlements — and tested through phased state pilots before wider rollout.

Delivering with Dignity

• India's food distribution infrastructure is now formidable — by end 2025, nearly all 5.51 lakh fair price shops used electronic point-of-sale devices, and One Nation One Ration Card covered nearly all beneficiaries.
• Going forward, these systems must ensure offline alternatives and doorstep access for people with limited mobility, and guarantee that authentication failures never lead to denial of entitled foodgrains.
• Fair price shops could also support voluntary, confidential referrals to India's growing network of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs for NCD screening — without linking this to ration eligibility.

Three Safeguards for Reform

• The article proposes three anchors for the amendment:
  • Preserve the 35 kg entitlement through a no-loss guarantee;
  • Periodically review the adequacy of this ceiling for larger or more vulnerable households using solid evidence; and
  • Finance dietary diversification separately, without reducing existing cereal entitlements.

Conclusion

• India's next food security reform must do more than move tonnes of grain — it must protect the vulnerable from hunger while addressing the deeper dietary roots of diabetes and other lifestyle diseases, ensuring every household eats enough, eats healthier, and receives its entitlement with true dignity.

Context

• Indian independence in 1947 was an audacious experiment in democracy and equality.
• Freedom meant not merely liberation from colonial rule but the creation of a nation where every citizen, irrespective of caste, creed, class, political allegiance or gender, enjoyed equal status.
• Granting women equal citizenship and political rights from the beginning was particularly revolutionary.
• Yet, nearly eight decades later, the treatment of women in public and political life reveals a persistent gap between formal equality and lived equality.

The Audacious Promise of Independence

• India began its journey amid Partition, displacement, poverty and institutional weakness.
• The integration of princely states and the rehabilitation of millions of refugees were accompanied by severe shortages of wealth, education, healthcare, housing and industry.
• Despite these challenges, India chose hope over pessimism; the Constitution established equal citizenship rather than restricting political rights to the privileged.
• This decision made democratic inclusion a foundational principle and ensured that political equality was not a gradual concession but a basic right.

Universal Franchise and Women’s Citizenship

• The first general election in 1952 gave women and men the right to vote on equal terms.
• Registering women, however, presented a major challenge because many were identified only as someone’s daughter or wife rather than as individuals.
• The Election Commission’s effort to register women under their own names was therefore an important assertion of individual citizenship.
• Though millions of women were initially excluded from electoral rolls because they could not or would not provide their own names, the larger transformation was significant.
• Over time, women became increasingly autonomous political participants, and by 2019 the gender gap in voter turnout had effectively disappeared.

From Formal Equality to Lived Equality

• Legal equality does not automatically ensure social equality.
• The treatment of women participating in the Jantar Mantar protests demonstrates this continuing contradiction.
• Several women protesters reportedly faced doxxing, with their names, phone numbers and addresses circulated online, followed by abusive messages and threats.
• Such attacks can transform political participation into a dangerous experience and discourage women from entering public life.
• The unequal standards applied to women and men are equally troubling.
• When similar political behaviour attracts greater criticism from women, it reflects the persistence of gendered expectations in political discourse.

Paternalism and the Politics of Protest

• Describing protesting women as misguided daughters raises concerns about paternalistic politics.
• Such language can position women as children requiring guidance rather than citizens exercising democratic agency.
• Democracy requires recognition of protest, dissent and criticism as legitimate forms of political participation.
• Citizens do not lose their democratic rights because their language is offensive or because they challenge powerful political figures.
• The fundamental question is whether political equality extends beyond voting to the right to disagree without gender-based intimidation.

The Threat of Online Misogyny

• Digital platforms have expanded political participation while simultaneously amplifying online misogyny.
• Women involved in public debate can face attacks that are political, personal and sexualised.
• Doxxing, rape threats, death threats and character assassination seek to silence participation rather than defeat arguments.
• Such conduct undermines equal citizenship. If women possess legal equality but face disproportionate social and personal costs for exercising political speech, equality remains incomplete.

The Way Forward: Protecting the Hope of Equality

• India’s democratic achievement rests on the principle that citizenship is not conditional upon obedience.
• The rights to vote, protest, criticise and demand accountability must belong equally to all citizens.
• Political leaders must distinguish between criticism and personal insult, while institutions and society must protect citizens from harassment and threats.
• Digital platforms and law-enforcement agencies must prevent personal information from being weaponised against political participants.
• Above all, women must be recognised as autonomous citizens, not as daughters, wives or dependants subject to special standards of political behaviour.

Conclusion

• India’s independence was a bold commitment to equality amid adversity. Its survival through Partition, poverty and institutional fragility demonstrated the strength of democratic hope.
• The narrowing of the gender gap in voting shows considerable progress, but online misogyny and gendered responses to women protesters reveal that constitutional equality remains unfinished.
• The true test of democracy is not simply whether women can vote, but whether they can speak, protest, disagree and participate in public life without fear.
• India must therefore ensure that the hope of equality remains a living principle of citizenship, rather than becoming merely a promise of the past.

About Amphora:

• It is an ancient vessel form used as a storage jar, particularly in Mediterranean cultures.
• It is a two-handled pot with a neck that is considerably narrower than the body.
• The term "amphora" originates from the Greek word meaning "carried on both sides."
• There are two types of amphora:
  • the neck amphora, in which the neck meets the body at a sharp angle;
  • the one-piece amphora, in which the neck and body form a continuous curve.
• These vessels served both practical and ornamental purposes:
  • While functional amphorae were designed for trade and typically had a pointed base for upright storage, decorative versions were crafted for display within homes, often featuring a flat base.
• Initially appearing in the late Iron Age, amphorae were crucial for transporting various goods, such as wine, oil, and grains and played a significant role in the development of the wine industry.
• Over time, the design of amphorae varied by region and era, leading to distinctive shapes that helped identify their origins.
• Archaeological discoveries of amphorae provide valuable insights into ancient trade, dietary practices, and societal structures, as they were commonly found in shipwrecks and excavation sites.

About Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Program (PMNDP):

• It is a centrally-funded health scheme rolled out in 2016 with the objective to strengthen the district hospitals under National Health Mission (NHM) to make dialysis services affordable and accessible to the community.
• Under PMNDP, dialysis services are provided free of cost to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) beneficiaries at the public health facilities while non- BPL patients are benefitted of accessing the services close to the community at the subsidized rates.
• Initially, the Government recommended the setting up of haemodialysis centres in all district hospitals.
• Based on local requirements, States have been encouraged to scale down the facilities to Community Health Centres (CHCs) at the taluka level, especially in remote and tribal regions.
• The programme has two components namely Hemodialysis (HD) services & Peritoneal dialysis (PD) services.
• PMNDP supports establishment of dialysis centres (In-house & public private partnership/hybrid models) for HD service delivery as per the state/UT requirement.
• Currently, HD Services under PMNDP is operational in Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode in 14 States/UTs, in-house mode in 16 States/UTS and hybrid mode in 6 States/UTs.
• Under this initiative the PMNDP portal was launched in 2022.
  • The portal will integrate all the dialysis centres operational in the state under NHM and facilitate building of renal registry and ensuring portability within the state (one state one dialysis) and later throughout the country (One Nation-One Dialysis).
• Funding: The NHM provides financial assistance to States and UTs for establishing and operating dialysis centres to ensure equitable access to kidney care services for all, regardless of geography.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

About Sangeet Natak Akademi:

• It is India’s national academy for music, dance, and drama.
• It is the first national academy of the arts set up by the Republic of India.
• History:
  • It was set up in 1952 and became functional the following year, with the appointment of its first chairman, Dr. P. V. Rajamannar.
  • Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, inaugurated it on 28 January 1953.
• Currently, it is an autonomous body of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• Functions:
  • The academy functions as the apex body of the performing arts in the country to preserve and promote the vast cultural heritage of India expressed in music, dance, and drama.
  • It also works with governments and art academies in states and territories of the country.
• In addition, the Akademi:
  • Subsidizes the work of institutions engaged in teaching, performing, or promoting music, dance, or theatre.
  • Gives grants to aid research, documentation, and publishing in the performing arts.
  • Organises and subsidises seminars and conferences of subject specialists.
  • Documents and records the performing arts for its audio-visual archive.
  • Renders advice and assistance to the government of India in the task of formulating and implementing policies and programmes in the field.
  • Carries a part of the responsibilities of the state for fostering cultural contacts between regions in the country, as well as between India and the world.
  • Organises its annual festival of music, dance, and theatre in NCT Delhi.
• The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards are the highest national recognition conferred on practising artists.
• The Akademi also confers Fellowships on eminent artists and scholars of music, dance, and drama; and in 2006 instituted annual awards to young artists – the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar.
• The Akademi’s archive, comprising audio and video tapes, photographs, and films, is one of the largest in the country and is extensively drawn upon for research in the performing arts.
• Management:
  • The management of the Akademi vests in its General Council.
  • The Chairman of the Akademi is appointed by the President of India for a term of five years.

About Hallaniyat Islands:

• The Hallaniyat Islands, also known as the Kuria Muria Islands, is an archipelago of five islands located off the southeastern coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea.
• From west to east, the islands are Al-Hasikiyah, Al-Sawda, Al-Hallaniyah, Qarzawit, and Al-Qibliyah.
• Al-Hallaniyah, the largest of the islands, is the only one inhabited.
• The habitat is characterised by rocky patches, coral reefs, and sandy substrates.
• The area overlaps with the Halaaniyaat Islands Key Biodiversity Area and the Oman Arabian Sea Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Area.
• The shallow water of the islands is characterized by high diversity of corals, sponges, seaweeds, algae, fish, and other species.
• The Arabian Sea here is defined by the Somali Current and seasonal upwelling that creates one of the most productive marine zones in the Indian Ocean.
• Cold, nutrient-rich water rises from the deep during and after the monsoon season, fuelling plankton blooms that attract everything from whale sharks to humpback whales.
• The islands have significant strategic importance, as they lie along sea routes connecting the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.