Current Affairs – June 02, 2026

{GS1 – IS} Victim Protection Plan on Human Trafficking **

• Context (TH): Supreme Court, in Prajwala v. Union of India, approved a binding Victim Protection Plan against human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), shifting the focus from a purely punitive approach to survivor-centric rehabilitation.

• The Court held that the right to rehabilitation for survivors flows from Art 21 and forms an integral part of right to live with dignity.
• The judgment emphasised that human trafficking must not be conflated with voluntary adult sex work, and consenting adults engaged in sex work by choice are not be treated as trafficking victims.

Key Directives of the Protocol

• Non-Criminalization: Rescued persons must be treated as victims, not offenders, and cannot be detained in police stations or Anti-Human Trafficking Units.
• Rights-Based Rehabilitation: Access to protection and support cannot be conditioned on cooperation with law enforcement; informed consent is central to all care and rehabilitation measures.
• Uniform Protocol: States and UTs must ensure safe shelter, healthcare, psychological counselling, legal aid, education, skill training, and livelihood support through a common protocol.

Constitutional and Statutory Framework against Trafficking

• Right Against Exploitation: Article 23(1) prohibits trafficking in human beings, begar (forced, unpaid labour), and similar involuntary servitude as a violation of fundamental rights.
• Rehabilitation Basis: Under Article 21, Supreme Court interpreted the right to life to include living with dignity, forming the basis for mandatory victim rehabilitation.
• Offense Defined: Section 143, BNS 2023, criminalizes recruiting, transporting, harboring, or receiving persons through threats, force, coercion, abduction, or fraud for exploitation. The victim’s consent is immaterial in determining the offense of trafficking.
• Organized Exploitation: Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, penalizes structured exploitation: running brothels, pimping, and living off another’s sex-work earnings.
• Child Protection: Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act, 2012, shields minors from sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation via special courts and victim-centric procedures.
• Debt Bondage: Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act, 1976, outlaws debt bondage and forced labour, a primary driver of internal trafficking in agriculture, brick kilns, and domestic work.
• Treaty Obligation: India has ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Palermo Protocol to prevent and punish trafficking in persons.

{GS2 – IR} India-Oman CEPA **

• Context (PIB | PIB): India-Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), signed in December 2025, has entered into force.

• India is the second country, after the US, to secure a comprehensive pact with Oman. It’s India’s second CEPA in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), following the one with the UAE (2022).

Key Highlights of the CEPA

• Goods Liberalization: Oman grants immediate duty-free access to 99% of India’s exports by value. This will benefit MSMEs, engineering goods, gems, jewelry, and pharmaceuticals.
• Services Market Access: Oman opens 127 services sub-sectors, the most comprehensive services commitment by any GCC country to India.
• India’s Concessions: India liberalises 77% of tariff lines accounting for 94% of imports from Oman, while excluding agriculture, bullion, jewelry, and base metal scrap.
• Trade Routes: The agreement leverages Duqm and Salalah ports as secure transit corridors to the Gulf and East Africa, reducing dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.
• Investment: Indian companies will receive 100% FDI permission to establish commercial presence in Oman’s major service industries.
• Mobility: Oman, for the first time, offers binding mobility pathways for certain professionals and raises intra-corporate transferee quotas from 20% to 50%.
• Pharmaceuticals: Indian medicines and ingredients get zero-duty access, while global-agency-approved Indian generics receive Omani approval in 90 days.
  • Oman became the first country to commit to traditional medicine, AYUSH, in its trade framework.

Read More > India-Oman relations

{GS3 – Envi} Cool Roofs: A Missed Opportunity in India

• Context (DTE): Amid escalating and prolonged heatwaves across India, ‘cool roofs’ remain a missed opportunity for heat management.

• A cool roof uses materials with high solar reflectance (albedo) and thermal emittance to reflect sunlight and dissipate heat efficiently. Telangana pioneered the Cool Roof Policy in 2023.

Significance of Cool Roofs

• Public Health: Reduces indoor temperatures by up to 5°C, improving comfort for residents of informal settlements and low-income groups.
• Microclimate Regulation: Reflecting solar radiation away from dense built-up areas reduces the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in Indian megacities.
• Energy Conservation: Widespread adoption decreases space-cooling demand, lowering peak electricity loads during severe summers.
• Emission Mitigation: Helps lower fossil fuel-generated electricity use, supporting India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) decarbonisation goals.

Implementation Challenges

• Policy Fragmentation: India lacks a national mandate; adoption depends on voluntary guidelines. Informal temporary shelters using tin-asbestos roofs remain outside building codes.
• Financial Barriers: Higher upfront costs of reflective materials deter adoption; builders incur installation costs, while tenants receive energy savings.
• Maintenance issues: Dust and soot in polluted cities reduce solar reflectance over time, necessitating frequent, difficult cleaning.
• Enforcement Gaps: BIS defines quality metrics like Solar Reflectance Index (SRI), but weak certification enforcement allows ineffective cool roofing products to enter the market.

Way Forward

• Policy Compliance: Strictly enforce cool roof provisions within the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) and embed cool roof compliance in PMAY and local Heat Action Plans (HAPs).
• Financial Incentives: Provide subsidies, tax rebates, and blended finance models to reduce installation costs for low-income households.
• Holistic Urban Planning: Deploy cool roofs with urban cooling measures, including tree cover, shaded public spaces, and reflective pavements.

{Prelims – Agri} National Seed Reserve

• Context (AIR): A national seed reserve of 1 lakh 74 thousand quintals has been established by the government.

• Objective: To safeguard farmers against seed shortages caused by natural disasters, climate-related disruptions, or supply-chain issues.
• Maintained by Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare with support from National Seeds Corporation and State Seed Corporations.
• The Seed Authentication, Traceability and Holistic Inventory (SATHI) digital platform has been established for seed authentication, inventory management, and supply-chain traceability.

{Prelims – Geo} Valley of Flowers

• Context (NOA): Valley of Flowers has opened to tourists for its annual monsoon blooming season.

• It is an alpine valley located at ~3,600 meters in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, within the transition zone between Zanskar and the Great Himalayas. It is associated with Bhotia tribes.
• Pushpawati River flows through it.
• It is a core zone of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. It is a National Park (since 1982) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (since 2005).
• Flora: Hosts over 500 rare wildflower species, including Himalayan Blue Poppy and Brahma Kamal.
• Fauna: Snow leopard, Asiatic black bear, musk deer, brown bear, and bharal (blue sheep).

{Prelims – Geo} Blue Micromoon

• Context (IE): A rare celestial event, the Blue Micromoon, occurred after more than five years.

• A blue micromoon occurs when a Blue Moon (the second full moon in a single calendar month) coincides with a micromoon (a full moon at apogee, the farthest point from Earth).
• It appears about 6-7% smaller & 10-14% dimmer than typical full moon due to its greater distance from Earth.
• The term ‘Blue’ is calendrical, referring to the second full moon occurring in one calendar month. True blue-coloured moons are rare, occurring only when smoke or ash particles from wildfires or volcanic eruptions scatter red light in the atmosphere.
• Rarity: While Blue Moons recur every 2-3 years and micromoons a few times yearly, their simultaneous alignment is rare, occurring once every couple of decades.

{Prelims – IE} Kill Switch

• Context (IE): RBI is exploring a ‘Kill Switch’ facility and a ‘Switch On/Switch Off’ mechanism to strengthen digital payment security and combat rising online fraud.

• A Kill Switch is an emergency mechanism that immediately blocks or disables access to an account, system, or service to prevent unauthorized transactions.
• Purpose: Designed to tackle digital frauds, particularly digital arrest scams, where fraudsters coerce victims into transferring money.
• Switch On/Switch Off Facility: RBI is considering extending the existing card-control feature to UPI, internet banking, and other digital payment modes, allowing users to activate services only when needed.
• Victims have reportedly lost nearly ₹3,000 crore to digital arrest scams, highlighting the need for stronger consumer protection measures.

{Prelims – IE} India’s First Blue Bond *

• Context (ET): Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited (SFCL) plans to issue India’s first Blue Bonds in FY 2026–27 to finance maritime and blue economy projects.

• Blue Bonds are debt instruments issued to raise funds earmarked exclusively for ocean-friendly projects and critical clean water resources protection.
• Similar to Green Bonds, Blue Bonds are a subset of green/sustainable bonds that specifically target marine and water-based projects.
• Seychelles launched the world’s first sovereign Blue Bond in 2018 backed by World Bank and Global Environment Facility.

{Prelims – IR} Padma Barrage

• Context (DTE): Padma Barrage is a proposed river-control project on the Padma River (Bangladesh’s stretch of the Ganga) in Rajbari district, Bangladesh.

• Objective: It aims to restore freshwater flows, reduce salinity intrusion, revive drought-prone southwest Bangladesh and improve water security.
• Environmental Concerns: Experts warn of sediment accumulation, increased flooding, ecological disruption, salinisation risks and impacts on riverine biodiversity.
• The project has implications for India–Bangladesh water-sharing, especially ahead of the expiry of the 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty in December 2026.

{Prelims – IR} Shangri-La Dialogue 2026

• Context (IE): The 2026 edition of the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) was held in Singapore.

• The U.S. described India as a “critical anchor” in maintaining the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region and supported a greater Indian role in Indo-Pacific security.

About Shangri-La Dialogue

• It is Asia’s premier defence and security summit that brings together defence ministers, military chiefs, policy makers and strategic experts across the globe.
• It is organised annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank.
• The dialogue is held in Singapore since 2002 at the Shangri-La Hotel, from which it derives its name.
• The Dialogue enables decision-makers from across the Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, the Middle East and beyond to discuss the most pressing regional security issues and share policy responses.
• India is a regular and prominent participant in the Shangri-La Dialogue. Raisina Dialogue is broadly considered India’s counterpart to the Shangri-La Dialogue.

{Prelims – Polity – Elections} SC Upholds Special Intensive Revision (SIR)

• Context (IE): In Association for Democratic Reforms v. ECI, Supreme Court held that ECI has constitutional and statutory authority to conduct SIR, holding that such authority flows from Article 324 and the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and is essential for maintaining accurate electoral rolls and free and fair elections.

• Citizenship Verification: The Court held that the ECI may examine citizenship during electoral roll revision, since Section 16 of RPA, 1950 bars non-citizens from registering as voters. However, existing voters enjoy a presumption of citizenship, and any exclusion from electoral rolls does not amount to a declaration of non-citizenship.
• Reference to Centre: In cases of doubtful citizenship, the ECI must refer the matter to the Central Government under the Citizenship Act, 1955, with a final decision to be made within a reasonable time, preferably before the next election.

Read More> Special Intensive Revision (SIR)

{Prelims – Social Sector} Codeine Cough Syrup Abuse

• Context (IE): Codeine-based cough syrups have emerged as a major substitute for alcohol in Bihar, leading to rising addiction cases, seizures, and law-enforcement challenges.

• Codeine is a naturally occurring opioid derived from morphine and is commonly used in cough syrups as a cough suppressant.
• Medical Use: Prescribed for severe and persistent coughs associated with respiratory illnesses.
• Health Risks: Misuse can cause addiction, respiratory depression, drowsiness, & mental health disorders.
• Bihar designated codeine cough syrups as “intoxicants” under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, with prohibition on sale and possession without proper authorisation.

{Prelims – Social Sector} Verily Debug Project *

• Context (TOI): Verily plans to release laboratory-bred male mosquitoes to suppress populations of Culex quinquefasciatus, a key vector of West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis.

• Mechanism: The released male mosquitoes (which do not bite) carry Wolbachia bacteria; when they mate with wild females lacking the same strain, the eggs fail to hatch, leading to a gradual decline in mosquito populations without using genetic modification or chemical pesticides.

About Wolbachia

• Wolbachia is a naturally occurring intracellular Gram-negative bacterium found in 40–60% of insect species and is harmless to humans and animals.
• It does not naturally infect several mosquito species, including Aedes aegypti (dengue vector) and Anopheles (malaria vector). In native carriers such as Culex, scientists use a different, incompatible strain for sterilization.
• Disease Control Mechanism: It helps control mosquito-borne diseases through cytoplasmic incompatibility (infected males produce non-viable offspring with incompatible females) and pathogen blocking (reducing viral replication inside mosquitoes).
• Deployment Strategies: Public health programmes use Wolbachia for population suppression (releasing infected males to reduce mosquito numbers) and population replacement (releasing infected males and females to replace disease-carrying populations with less harmful ones).

Read More> GM Mosquitoes to control Malaria

{Prelims – Misc} One-Liner

• Governance – SAMADHAN DIDI (NOA): An AI-enabled, voice-based, multilingual chatbot for complaint registration in regional languages developed by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) with Bhashini. Fully integrated with the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), it supports all 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
• Polity – Seva Se Samriddhi Workshop (PIB): Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) organized this regional workshop in Guwahati with the Common Services Center Special Purpose Vehicle (CSC-SPV) and the Assam government. It recognized top-performing Gram Panchayats, Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), and Champion CSCs, while showcasing state service delivery platforms, like e-Mitra (Rajasthan), e-Sewa (Punjab), and Assam’s Sewa Setu.