Context:

• Recent incidents of violence against citizens feeding street dogs — including fatal and serious assaults in Raipur, Gwalior, and Kolkata — highlight growing hostility toward animal caregivers.
• The debate over managing India’s large free-roaming dog population has intensified, marked by legal confusion, policy inconsistency, and vigilantism.
• These developments raise important issues related to animal welfare laws, urban governance, public health (rabies control), and citizen rights.

Rising Violence Against Animal Caregivers:

• Recent attacks reveal increasing intolerance toward people involved in feeding, sterilising, and vaccinating street dogs, despite such activities being lawful.
• Key concerns:
  • Citizens feeding dogs have faced physical assaults and intimidation.
  • Victims were engaged in activities consistent with legal animal welfare frameworks.
  • Public rhetoric and social media debates have contributed to anti-feeder vigilantism.
  • Weak law enforcement response has emboldened perpetrators.
• This reflects a breakdown in rule of law and civic tolerance.

Legal Framework for Street Dog Management:

• Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023: The ABC Rules framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 provide the official policy framework.
• Core provisions:
  • Humane capture of free-roaming dogs.
  • Sterilisation to control population growth.
  • Anti-rabies vaccination.
  • Release back to original location.
  • Municipal responsibility for implementation.
• This model emphasises humane and scientific population control.

Judicial Interventions and Policy Confusion:

• Supreme Court directions:
  • Recent (August 2025) judicial interventions have added uncertainty.
  • The apex court directed municipal bodies in Delhi-NCR to remove street dogs and house them in shelters indefinitely.
  • The critics argued that this contradicted the ABC Rules, 2023.
• Subsequent developments (2026 hearings):
  • The earlier orders were reversed and partially restored.
  • The court held that feeding should occur within private premises, and states could be liable for compensation if dog attacks occur.
• Concerns: Courts entering the policy-making domain. Lack of clarity for municipal authorities. Conflicting interpretations of animal welfare law.

Ecological Reality - Limits of Elimination Policies:

• The “vacuum effect”:
  • Attempts to remove street dogs fail due to ecological dynamics, such as removed dogs being replaced by migrating animals, remaining dogs reproduce faster, and populations return to original levels.
  • This phenomenon is well-documented globally.
• Indian experience:
  • Cities (like Chennai) attempting removal policies have seen no long-term population reduction.
  • Dogs continue to roam even where such directives are attempted.
  • Street dogs are a resilient landrace embedded in South Asia’s urban ecology.

Evidence-Based Solutions:

• Strengthening ABC implementation: Large-scale sterilisation is the most effective strategy. Scientific data shows that around 70% sterilisation coverage slows reproduction, stabilises populations, reduces bite incidents, and controls rabies transmission.
• Adoption of Indian-breed dogs: Encouraging adoption can reduce free-roaming populations, promote animal welfare, and reduce commercial breeding demand.
• Legal protection for caregivers:
  • Animal caregivers fill gaps left by under-resourced municipalities, assist vaccination and monitoring.
  • Therefore, policy should recognise caregivers legally, protecting them from harassment and violence.
• Rabies and public health measures: Dog bites can be reduced through vaccination campaigns, public awareness, safe human-animal interaction, and waste management.

Major Challenges:

• Policy and legal ambiguity: Due to lack of coordination between courts and municipalities.
• Administrative weakness: Poor funding for sterilisation programmes. Limited veterinary infrastructure. Inadequate municipal capacity.
• Social polarisation: Anti-feeder sentiment, vigilante violence, and public fear of dog attacks.
• Public health concerns: India accounts for a large share of global rabies deaths. Poor vaccination coverage.
• Urban governance issues: Poor waste management sustains dog populations. Rapid urbanisation increases conflict.

Way Forward:

• Policy measures: Strict implementation of ABC Rules, 2023. Dedicated funding for sterilisation and vaccination. National guidelines for municipal animal management.
• Legal measures: Clear judicial interpretation aligned with statutory rules. Protection of lawful animal caregivers. Accountability for violence and vigilantism.
• Administrative measures: Expand veterinary infrastructure. Create municipal animal management units. Data-driven population monitoring.
• Social measures: Public awareness on humane coexistence, community participation in ABC programmes, and responsible pet ownership.
• Public health measures: Universal anti-rabies vaccination, bite-prevention education, and improved waste management.

Conclusion:

• India’s street dog issue cannot be resolved through elimination or reactionary policies.
• Policy must be guided by science, legality, and compassion, ensuring both public safety and animal welfare.
• A balanced approach — rooted in evidence-based governance and civic responsibility — is essential to prevent violence and build safer, more humane cities.

Context

• For decades, India was widely perceived as the world’s back office, a destination for low-cost outsourcing and routine business services.
• However, India has emerged not merely as a support base for multinational corporations (MNCs), but as a strategic nerve centre that shapes global corporate decision-making and innovation.
• The rise of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) marks a watershed moment in India’s economic history.
• These centres have evolved from cost-cutting units into global growth engines that define product strategy, technological development, and enterprise leadership.

The Evolution of GCCs

• Phase One: Labour Arbitrage and Routine Operations
  • The first wave of GCCs was driven by labour arbitrage. MNCs established captive centres in India primarily to reduce operational costs.
  • These centres handled repetitive tasks such as IT support, data processing, and back-office functions. India’s advantage lay in its large English-speaking workforce and lower wage structures.
• Phase Two: Process Specialisation
  • Over time, GCCs expanded their scope to include specialised operational processes such as finance, analytics, human resources, and compliance.
  • While still support-oriented, these functions required higher technical and managerial capabilities.
• Phase Three: Knowledge Integration
  • The third wave saw Indian centres participating in product development, engineering support, and advanced analytics.
  • GCCs moved beyond execution and began contributing to knowledge creation and innovation processes.
• Phase Four (GCC 4.0): Strategic Ownership and Innovation
  • Today’s GCC 4.0 era represents a decisive shift. Indian centres now:
    • Own end-to-end product lifecycles
    • Lead global research and development (R&D)
    • Develop proprietary intellectual property (IP)
    • Deploy advanced technologies such as Agentic AI
  • Nearly 58% of GCCs are investing heavily in autonomous AI systems capable of reasoning and executing complex tasks.
  • This reflects a transition from experimentation to enterprise-scale innovation. Indian centres are now indispensable nodes in global value chains.

Strategic Benefits for Multinational Corporations

• Access to Scale and Talent
  • India hosts over 1,800 GCCs employing nearly two million professionals. This provides MNCs with access to a multidimensional talent pool at a scale unmatched elsewhere.
  • The follow-the-sun operational model enables continuous development cycles, accelerating innovation.
• Centres of Excellence (CoEs)
  • Indian GCCs have evolved into global Centres of Excellence in areas such as:
    • Finance
    • Legal services
    • Human resources
    • Advanced R&D
  • These centres centralise high-value corporate functions in a high-skill, high-efficiency ecosystem.
• Shift in Corporate Power
  • In many cases, the technical depth and execution capacity within Indian GCCs rival or surpass those at traditional headquarters.
  • This has created a form of shadow leadership, where strategic influence increasingly resides in India.

Socio-Economic Impact on India

• Creation of High-Value Employment
  • The GCC boom has generated intellectually stimulating, well-compensated jobs, contributing to the emergence of a globally competitive professional class.
  • These roles significantly exceed traditional service-sector wages.
• Regional Economic Diversification
  • Growth is expanding beyond major technology hubs such as Bengaluru and Hyderabad into Tier-II and Tier-III cities like Coimbatore, Indore, and Kochi. This decentralisation:
    • Reduces pressure on saturated metros
    • Stimulates local infrastructure development
    • Boosts real estate and retail economies
    • Promotes balanced regional growth

Key Challenges Facing the GCC Ecosystem

• The Talent Gap
  • While India produces millions of engineering graduates, demand for niche skills in AI security, cloud architecture, and quantum-resistant cryptography far exceeds supply.
  • This has triggered intense competition and wage inflation, potentially eroding India’s cost advantage.
• Cybersecurity and Data Protection Risks
  • As GCCs handle increasingly sensitive global data, they have become prime targets for state-sponsored cyber-attacks.
  • Compliance with data protection regulations has increased governance pressure. Cybersecurity has emerged as the most expensive operational mandate for modern GCCs.
• Taxation and Fiscal Uncertainty
  • The introduction of the OECD’s Global Minimum Tax (Pillar Two) reduces the tax arbitrage benefits previously enjoyed by MNCs.
  • Additionally, ongoing debates regarding transfer pricing and Safe Harbour rules create fiscal unpredictability, making regulatory clarity a top board-level concern.
• Geopolitical Volatility and Protectionism
  • Global trade uncertainties, tariff volatility, and reshoring policies, particularly in advanced economies, pose long-term risks.
  • The growing emphasis on digital sovereignty may encourage corporations to relocate critical data operations back to domestic markets, slowing new GCC investments in India.

Policy Recommendations to Sustain the Momentum

• Introduce a Single-Window Clearance system for GCC establishment.
• Rationalise transfer pricing norms.
• Provide tax safe harbours for R&D-intensive operations.
• Strengthen industry-academia collaboration to address skill gaps.
• Offer capital subsidies to promote expansion into Tier-II cities.

Conclusion

• India’s transformation from the world’s outsourcing hub to a global innovation command centre represents a historic economic shift.
• GCCs have redefined the country’s role in the global value chain, positioning it as a driver of strategy, research, and technological advancement.
• If managed effectively, India’s GCC revolution has the potential to secure its position not merely as a participant, but as a leader in the global innovation economy for decades to come.

Context

• The Women’s Reservation Act, passed in September 2023, promises one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies.
• It seeks to correct the long-standing underrepresentation of women in Indian politics and was widely celebrated as a step toward gender equality and inclusive democracy.
• Yet the legislation postpones its own operation. The Act links implementation to future constitutional processes, meaning women will not immediately receive guaranteed political participation.
• The reform therefore recognises women’s rights in principle while delaying their exercise in practice, raising questions about the real pace of democratic reform.

The Constitutional Framework Behind the Delay

• The Two Mandatory Preconditions
  • The Act makes reservation conditional upon two sequential processes:
  • A national Census conducted after 2026.
  • A delimitation exercise based on that Census.
  • Both steps are constitutionally required and cannot be bypassed.
• The Census Timeline
  • The next Census is expected in 2027. After enumeration, the data must be verified and officially published, a process historically taking 12–18 months.
  • Only after publication can the next constitutional step begin.
• Delimitation Process
  • After publication, the President establishes a Delimitation Commission under Article 82.
  • The Commission must redraw 543 parliamentary constituencies and thousands of Assembly constituencies while ensuring population balance, administrative boundaries, and existing SC/ST reservations, along with women’s reservation.
  • Previous commissions have taken several years. Even under optimistic conditions, delimitation is unlikely to finish before 2032–2033.

Why Implementation Before 2029 Is Impossible?

• India’s next general election is scheduled for 2029. Because both Census and delimitation cannot be completed beforehand, reservation cannot operate in that election.
• The earliest likely implementation is around 2034.
• The delay results from constitutional procedures rather than administrative uncertainty.
• Until prerequisites are completed, the promised representation remains legally inoperative.

Political Logic Behind the Design

• Avoiding Immediate Displacement
  • Immediate implementation would convert roughly 181 constituencies into women-only seats.
  • A similar number of male incumbents would lose their positions. Political parties therefore faced direct electoral cost.
• Expansion Instead of Replacement
  • By connecting reservation to delimitation, representation is introduced alongside an expected expansion of Parliament.
  • A larger House allows new reserved seats without removing sitting members. Political loss is avoided through expansion rather than replacement, though the cost is a long delay in women’s participation.

Historical Background: A Long Wait

• Efforts for reservation began in 1996, followed by repeated debates, amendments, and lapses. The proposal passed the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but never became law at that time.
• The 2023 Act appeared to conclude decades of legislative struggle, yet implementation is postponed for another election cycle, extending a wait that has lasted nearly three decades.

Linkage with Delimitation and Federal Tensions

• Delimitation redistributes seats according to population. States with higher population growth may gain representation, while others may lose proportional strength.
• This north-south imbalance has historically caused political conflict and led to the 1976 freeze on seat redistribution, later extended in 2001.
• By tying women’s reservation to this unresolved federal issue, the Act places women’s rights within a broader federal dispute unrelated to gender justice.
• Any disagreement over seat allocation can postpone representation further.

Design Gaps in the Act

• Exclusion of Upper Houses
  • Reservation applies only to directly elected bodies. The Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils remain outside its scope.
• Absence of OBC Sub-Reservation
  • While Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women receive proportional representation, OBC women do not receive a separate quota despite forming a major demographic group.
• Rotation of Constituencies
  • Reserved constituencies will rotate after each election, but operational rules are unclear.
  • Frequent boundary changes and shifting constituencies may create uncertainty for candidates and parties.

Possible Solutions for Early Implementation

• Several options could enable earlier implementation:
  • A constitutional amendment delinking reservation from delimitation
  • Temporary reservation within existing constituencies
  • Immediate Lok Sabha expansion with additional seats reserved for women
• Article 15(3) already allows special provisions for women. Implementation therefore depends primarily on political will, not constitutional impossibility.

The Larger Democratic Question

• The Act illustrates the tension between symbolic reform and substantive Legal recognition alone does not guarantee participation.
• Representation is essential to democratic legitimacy, and prolonged postponement weakens the meaning of equality.
• A right that cannot be exercised remains incomplete within a democratic system.

Conclusion

• The Women’s Reservation Act acknowledges the necessity of women’s political participation but delays its realization.
• By linking implementation to future Census and delimitation processes, the law transforms a reform into a deferred constitutional project.
• The measure’s success will depend not on its enactment but on its execution. Democratic equality requires not only recognition but timely application.
• Until women occupy the seats promised to them, representation remains unrealised. In democratic governance, representation delayed becomes representation denied.

About Exercise Vajra Prahar:

• It is the joint Special Forces exercise between the Indian Army and US Army.
• The exercise is designed to deepen defence cooperation, enhance interoperability and joint operational readiness, and enable the exchange of advanced special operations tactics, techniques, and procedures.
• The year 2026 marks the 16th edition of the exercise.
  • It will be held at the Special Forces Training School, Bakloh, Himachal Pradesh.
  • The focus this year will be on the exchange of advanced special operations tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), honed through rigorous training in realistic combat scenarios.
  • It will place strong emphasis on counter-terror operations, precision strikes, intelligence-based missions, and joint planning under simulated battlefield conditions.

About Baglihar Hydropower Project:

• It is a 900 MW run-of-the-river power project on the Chenab River in the Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir.
• It consists of a concrete gravity dam.
• The project consists of two stages of 450 MW each.

Key Facts about Chenab River:

• It is the largest of the five tributaries of the Indus River.
• Course:
  • Origin: It is formed by the confluence of two streams, Chandra and Bhaga, in the Lahaul and Spiti Districts of Himachal Pradesh.
  • In its upper reaches, it is also known as the Chandrabhaga.
  • It flows through the Jammu and Kashmir union territory, Himachal Pradesh, and after receiving the Jhelum River near Trimmu, the Chenab empties into the Sutlej River.
• The Chenab valley is a structural trough formed by the great Himalayan and Pir Panjal ranges.
• Major Tributaries:
  • Left Bank: Niru, Tawi, Neeru, and Liddrari.
  • Right Bank: Ans, Bhut Nalla, Bichleri, Kalnai Marusudar, and Miyar Nalla.
• Major Dams on Chenab River: Salal (rockfill dam), Aalal (concrete dam), Baglihar, and Dul.