Current Affairs – February 07, 2026

{GS1 – Geo} India’s Thorium Roadmap **

• Context (IE): India’s three-stage nuclear programme aims to overcome limited uranium reserves by converting abundant thorium, and with expanding PHWR capacity now enabling a faster transition.

Importance of Thorium-Based Nuclear Fuel for India

• Resource Endowment: India possesses ~25% of global thorium reserves, while holding only ~1–2% of global uranium, making thorium central to long-term fuel security.
• Energy Sovereignty: India imports over 70% of its uranium needs, whereas thorium is domestically available in coastal and riverine sands.
• Proliferation Safety: Uranium-233 bred from thorium has higher proliferation resistance, strengthening India’s non-proliferation credentials

How PHWR Scale-Up Enables Faster Thorium Transition?

• Irradiation Capacity Boost: Rapid expansion of PHWRs using imported uranium provides large platforms to irradiate thorium and build uranium-233 stock at scale.
• Fast Reactor Delay Hedge: With fast breeder reactor deployment progressing more slowly than planned, PHWRs offer a practical near-term alternative to regain momentum.
• Fuel Flexibility: Thorium blended with enriched fuels such as HALEU can function as a drop-in fuel in PHWRs, improving economics and safety.
• Accelerated Timeline: A planned 50–75 GWe PHWR capacity by 2047 implies annual additions of 3 GWe, significantly speeding thorium readiness.

Challenges for Thorium Push

• Fissile Inventory Requirement: Large and sustained uranium-233 production is essential before thorium reactors can operate independently at a national scale.
• Fuel Cycle Infrastructure: Advanced reprocessing, handling and recycling systems must expand safely to manage thorium and Uranium-233 flows.
• Economic Viability: Developing a parallel, thorium-specific infrastructure requires massive initial capital investment, which may not be economically competitive with established uranium reactors.

Way Forward

• Irradiation Platforms: Large-scale PHWR expansion to systematically convert thorium into uranium-233 under the Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat, targeting 100 GWe by 2047.
• Technology Demonstration: Scale up thorium-ready reactor designs to validate long-term viability; E.g., Advanced Heavy Water Reactor as a thorium utilisation demonstrator with passive safety systems.
• Next-Gen Systems: Invest in self-sustaining thorium reactor research; E.g., ongoing work on thorium molten salt reactors producing U-233 equal to consumption.
• Capacity Additions: Leverage imported reactors for near-term power; E.g., SHANTI Act, 2025, enabling Light Water Reactor deployment alongside indigenous pathways.

{GS2 – Governance} Vegetable Oil Products, Production and Availability (Regulation) Amendment Order, 2025 (VOPPA 2025) *

• Context (PIB | NOA): The government issued show-cause notices to edible oil companies for not complying with the VOPPA Order, 2025.

• The Vegetable Oil Products Production and Availability (Regulation) Amendment Order, 2025 (VOPPA Order, 2025), amends the 2011 Order.
• Objective: To strengthen regulatory oversight, enhance transparency, curb hoarding and black marketing, and ensure stability in the edible oil sector.
• Nodal Authority: Issued by the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD), it functions under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.
• Legal Framework: It is notified under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, and incorporates data collection provisions under the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008.
• Compulsory Registration: All manufacturers, processors, blenders, and re-packers must register with the National Single Window System (NSWS) and the VOPPA portal.
• Monthly Reporting: Registered entities must submit monthly returns, detailing metrics like production, stock, sales, and imports.
• Scope: The regulation covers a wide range of commodities, including crude and refined vegetable oils, solvent-extracted oils, vanaspati, and margarine.
• Penalties: Non-compliance results in show-cause notices and stock confiscation under Section 6A of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.

{GS3 – IE} DISCOMs Recorded a Positive Turnaround in FY 2024-25

• Context (TH): After years of financial distress, DISCOMs recorded a turnaround, marked by reduced AT&C losses, a narrowing of the ACS-ARR gap, and improved financial discipline.

About DISCOMs

• Distribution Companies (DISCOMs) are the “Cash Register” of the Indian power sector, responsible for retail power supply and revenue collection.
• Core Mandate: They manage sub-stations and low-voltage lines to ensure “last-mile” connectivity for final consumers.
• Institutional Structure: The sector comprises 72 utilities, including 44 state-owned DISCOMs, 16 private entities, and 12 power departments.
• Origin: The Electricity Act, 2003, created DISCOMs by unbundling State Electricity Boards (SEBs) to separate the functions of generation, transmission, and distribution.

Current Status of DISCOMs

• Financial Turnaround: The sector recorded a Profit After Tax (PAT) of ₹2,701 crore in FY 2024-25, reversing the massive loss of ₹67,962 crore incurred in FY 2013-14.
• Operational Efficiency: Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses declined from 22.62% to 15.04% in FY 2024-25.
• Cost Recovery: The gap between the Average Cost of Supply (ACS) and Average Revenue Realised (ARR) narrowed to ₹0.06 per unit in FY 2024-25, indicating near-complete cost recovery.
• Liquidity Discipline: Strict enforcement of the Late Payment Surcharge Rules, 2022, reduced outstanding dues to generators from ~₹1.4 lakh crore to under ₹5,000 crore by January 2026.

Drivers of Improved Performance of DISCOMs

• Reform Incentive: The Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) tied the release of central funds directly to the implementation of performance-based reforms.
• Statutory Enforcement: The Late Payment Surcharge (LPS) Rules, 2022, compelled utilities to clear legacy dues through interest-free EMIs.
• Smart Metering: The rollout of prepaid smart meters curbed power theft and improved billing accuracy in high-loss areas.
• Dynamic Pricing: Amended Electricity Rules prevented the accumulation of new deficits by automatically passing through fuel cost variations to consumers.
• Feeder Segregation: Separation of agricultural loads in states like Gujarat allowed for precise energy auditing and targeted supply.

Persistent Challenges with DISCOMs

• Structural Dependency: Profitability is often artificial; states rely on subsidy payouts and RDSS grants to cover operational losses rather than address structural inefficiencies.
• Tariff Under-recovery: “Non-cost reflective tariffs” create a persistent revenue gap, undermining the economic foundation of DISCOMs.
• Infrastructure Deficit: Obsolete distribution infrastructure in rural areas leads to high technical losses, frequently exceeding the 6-8% global benchmark.
• Data Blindspots: The prevalence of unmetered flat-rate supply in the agricultural sector prevents accurate measurement of consumption and leakage.
• Cross-Subsidisation: High tariffs for industrial consumers push industries toward captive power plants, reducing the customer base for DISCOMs.

Way Forward

• Solarise Agriculture: Deploy schemes like PM-KUSUM to solarise farm pumps and permanently reduce power procurement costs.
• Arrest Leakage: Enforce universal metering and feeder segregation to capture accurate real-time consumption data.
• Protect Autonomy: Empower State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) to mandate cost-reflective tariffs without political interference.
• Grid Modernisation: Adopt AI-enabled “Smart Grid” technologies for demand forecasting and cost optimisation.
• Foster Competition: Delicense distribution to separate “Carriage and Content,” allowing consumers to choose their power supplier.

Read More > India’s Power Sector

{GS3 – Agri} India’s Rice Production Surge Raises Food Security & Sustainability Concerns

• Context (IE): India recently overtook China to become the world’s largest rice producer, but this achievement raises concerns about food security and environmental stability.

Sustainability Concerns

• Water Stress: Rice cultivation requires 3,000–4,000 litres of water per kg. In Punjab and Haryana, water extraction exceeds recharge by 35–57%, causing water tables to drop significantly.
• Monoculture Risk: FAO warned that nine crops provide 66% of global production, highlighting the economic and environmental risks of over-reliance on monocultures.
• Methane Emissions: Flooded paddy fields create anaerobic conditions that promote methanogenic bacteria, accounting for about 15–20% of India’s and 12% of global agricultural GHG emissions.
• Air Pollution: Legislative delays in paddy sowing to conserve groundwater shorten harvest windows, pushing farmers toward stubble burning, worsening air quality in northern India.
• Soil Degradation: Over-irrigation causes soil salinisation and alkalisation, while excessive urea use has skewed NPK ratios, leading to micronutrient deficiencies.

Food Security & Structural Concerns

• Nutritional Imbalance: Monoculture dominance has crowded out nutrient-dense crops such as pulses, millets, and oilseeds, contributing to nutritional deficiencies, like anaemia.
• Stagnant Yields: India’s average rice yield (~2,929 kg/hectare) is much below China’s (~7,100 kg/hectare), implying that growth is driven by area expansion, not productivity gains.
• Climate Vulnerability: Rising temperatures and erratic monsoons could reduce rice yields by 6–10%, threatening the global food supply due to dependence on Indian exports.
• Infrastructure Gaps: About 90% of farmers are marginal, small, or medium-sized, limiting mechanisation; labour shortages during peak seasons delay transplantation and lower yields.
• Market Shocks: Domestic production shocks often prompt export bans; while these bans stabilise domestic prices, they undermine India’s reliability as a trading partner.

Strategic Interventions for Sustainable Rice Production

• Water-Smart Technologies: Scale up Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) and the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to save up to 50% more water while increasing crop yields.
• Yield-Mechanisation Gap: Establish Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) to give small landholders affordable machinery access and bridge the yield gap.
• Crop Diversification: Implement Johl Committee recommendations to shift 20% of paddy area towards millets or oilseeds; replace input subsidies with direct income support to incentivise the change.
• Methane Mitigation: Expand Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) irrigation and utilise the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) to reward farmers for reducing GHG footprints.
• Ecological Restoration: Promote in-situ residue management with Happy Seeders and adopt Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) that combine rice with fisheries to improve soil health.
• Nutritional Alignment: Promote “Nutri-cereals” (Millets) to improve the National Nutrition Profile and enhance India’s competitiveness in the global “Green Rice” export market.
• Policy Refinement: Implement the PM-PRANAM scheme for balanced fertiliser use and the “Purvodaya” strategy to shift the “rice bowl” to water-abundant regions in Eastern India.

Read More > India Becomes the World’s Largest Rice Producer

{GS3 – Envi} India’s MFP Procurement Collapse **

• Context (TH): Government procurement of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) at MSP fell sharply in 2024–25, with volumes dropping across 19 States as per data tabled in Parliament.

About MFP

• Meaning: Forest products of plant origin other than timber, collected by tribal and forest communities. E.g. Tendu leaves, bamboo, mahua flowers, tamarind, lac, honey, sal seeds, etc.
• Livelihood Role: Contributes 20–40% of annual income for many tribal households in forest regions.
• Institutional Support: Procured through State agencies with TRIFED coordination.
• Legal Provision: The forest dwellers are legally empowered with the governance of the MFP through the PESA Act-1996, and the Forest Rights Act (FRA)-2006.

Key Trends in MFP Procurement

• Sharp Decline: MSP-based MFP procurement dropped by over 92%, falling from around 51,400 MT in 2023–24 to just 3,920 MT in 2024–25, indicating major operational disruption.
• Value Crash: The total value of procured MFP fell sharply from ₹124.3 crore in 2023–24 to only ₹16.68 crore in 2024–25, severely impacting tribal incomes.
• Uneven State Performance: While States like Mizoram, Nagaland, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka & Gujarat recorded higher procurement, forest States like Odisha, Assam & Andhra Pradesh saw steep declines.

Existing Government Support Framework

• Expanded MSP Basket: The number of MFP items eligible for MSP procurement has increased from 10 items in 2013–14 to 87 items, widening income support coverage.
• Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs): Since 2019–20, 4,125 VDVKs have been sanctioned with funding of ₹612.12 crore to promote value addition and marketing by tribal SHGs.
• TRIFED Marketing Network: TRIFED operates 116 Tribes India outlets (own stores, franchises and consignment outlets) to sell tribal products nationally.
• PM Janjatiya Vikas Mission (PMJVM): A mission-mode programme focusing on MSP procurement, value chain development, entrepreneurship and livelihood diversification for tribal communities.

{GS3 – Envi} India’s Urban Heat Amplification **

• Context (TH): Indian cities are warming much faster than surrounding rural areas, with climate models significantly underestimating urban temperature rise.

Key Findings on Urban Warming

• Faster City Heating: Indian cities are warming nearly 45% faster than nearby rural regions, driven by strong urban heat island effects.
• Temperature Underestimation: Climate models project about 2.2°C warming, but actual urban temperatures may reach 2.6–2.7°C once city effects are included.
• Extreme Outliers: Patiala could see temperature rise almost double the regional projection, implying close to 4°C warming under a 2°C global scenario.

Why Climate Models Miss Urban Heat Risks?

• Coarse Resolution: Earth System Models operate at large spatial scales, blending cities with surrounding rural landscapes and masking sharp temperature contrasts.
• Surface Averaging: Urban impervious surfaces like concrete and asphalt are treated similarly to soil and vegetation, underestimating heat absorption.
• Albedo Oversight: Dark urban materials reflecting less solar radiation are poorly represented, reducing the accuracy of urban heat buildup projections.
• Microclimate Neglect: Local factors such as building density, street geometry and airflow are excluded, despite strong influence on city temperatures.

Modelling Reforms Needed

• High-Resolution Mapping: Shift from coarse global grids to city-scale climate models capturing sharp urban–rural contrasts; E.g., ward-level heat mapping used in Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan.
• Surface-Specific Inputs: Integrate urban materials, impervious cover and building density instead of land averaging; E.g., satellite-based urban surface datasets used in European city climate models.
• Vegetation Calibration: Explicitly model reduced urban greenery and weaker evapotranspiration cooling; E.g., green cover indices integrated into Singapore’s urban climate projections.

{Prelims – Geo} Lake Urmia

• Context (DTE): The Iranian government initiated cloud seeding in the Lake Urmia basin to combat severe drying, which reportedly led to salt storms.

• Lake Urmia lies in the Armenian Highlands of northwestern Iran, spanning the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan.
• It is an endorheic lake, meaning it has no natural outlets and loses water only through evaporation.
• It is the largest lake in the Middle East and was once the sixth-largest saltwater lake in the world.
• The lake area has shrunk 90-95% due to droughts, dam building on feeder rivers, and excessive groundwater use for agriculture.
• The basin is primarily recharged by the Zarīneh, Sīmīneh, and Talkheh rivers.
• It is a hypersaline lake, with a salt concentration approximately one-fourth that of the Dead Sea.
• Colour Phenomenon: The lake water turns red in summer due to high salinity, which triggers blooms of Dunaliella salina (algae) and Halobacteriaceae (bacteria).
• International Status: The Lake is designated as a Ramsar Site and a biosphere reserve under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme.
• Biodiversity Concerns: The ecosystem supports migratory flamingos and the endemic brine shrimp (Artemia urmiana), now threatened with extinction from rising salinity.

{Prelims – Species} Giant Phantom Jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea) *

• Context (IT): Researchers recently captured rare footage of the Giant Phantom Jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea) off the coast of Argentina.

• Since its discovery in 1899, this elusive species has been documented fewer than 130 times.

About Giant Phantom Jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea)

• About: The species is a rare deep-sea Scyphozoan (true jellyfish) belonging to the family Ulmaridae.
• Appearance: It has a deep reddish-brown bell spanning up to 1 metre in diameter, with four ribbon-like oral arms extending over 10 metres.
• Feeding Mechanism: Unlike most jellyfish, this species lacks marginal stinging tentacles; instead, it uses its four massive oral arms to capture prey.
• Habitat: The jellyfish primarily inhabits the Midnight Zone (1,000 to 4,000 metres depth), where sunlight does not penetrate.
• Distribution: The species has a global presence across all ocean basins, except for the Arctic Ocean.
• Diet: It is a predatory carnivore that consumes plankton and small fish by enveloping them with its elongated oral arms.
• Symbiosis: The jellyfish exhibits symbiosis with the Pelagic Brotula fish (Thalassobathia pelagica), which takes refuge within its bell and arms.
• Ecological Role: As one of the largest invertebrate predators, it occupies a critical niche within the deep-sea food web.
• Key Threats: Deep-sea mining, bottom trawling (bycatch), and ocean acidification.

{Prelims – S&T} Indian Scientists Developed an Affordable Dipstick Assay for AMR in Sewage *

• Context (TH): Indian scientists have developed a rapid, affordable dipstick assay for monitoring Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in sewage.

• Functional Mechanism: The device functions like a pregnancy test, where PCR-amplified genetic material produces a visible colour band if resistance genes are present.
• Detection Capability: It can identify 16 different resistance genes simultaneously and deliver visible results within two hours.
• Adaptive Platform: The tool demonstrates high adaptability, as it can be updated to detect newly emerging resistance gene variants within three days.
• Cost Efficiency: At ₹400-550 per unit, it offers a cheaper alternative to shotgun sequencing, which costs over ₹9,000.
• Infrastructure Accessibility: It is specifically designed for low-resource settings, eliminating the need for complex laboratory infrastructure or sterile environments.
• Epidemiological Application: The innovation facilitates Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) to track community-level drug resistance trends beyond traditional clinical settings.

Read More > Antimicrobial Resistance