Current Affairs – January 10, 2026

{GS2 – MoC} Private Participation in Monument Conservation **

Context (IE): The Ministry of Culture is ending the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) sole control, allowing private agencies to undertake monument conservation works.

The Ministry will empanel Heritage Conservation Architects, allowing private donors to directly hire implementation agencies.
Eligibility Criteria: The implementing conservation agencies must have prior experience in conserving heritage structures over 100 years old.
Supervision: The ASI retains regulatory oversight, including mandatory approval of all Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), while private agencies implement projects.
Funding: Conservation funds are routed through the National Culture Fund (NCF); all contributions qualify as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure with 100% tax exemption.

About Monument Conservation in India

The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) Act, 1958, provides the legal framework for monument protection and archaeological excavations.
AMASR Amendment: The 2010 amendment designates a 100-metre “Prohibited Area” (no construction) and a 200-metre “Regulated Area” (construction with permission) around protected monuments.
- It created the National Monuments Authority (NMA) to manage the prohibited & regulated areas.
Constitutional Provisions: Article 49 obligates the State to protect nationally important monuments, while Article 51A(f) imposes a duty on citizens to preserve heritage.

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)

The ASI is the statutory body (AMASR Act, 1958) under the Ministry of Culture for archaeological research and monument protection.
It was established in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham, regarded as the Father of Indian Archaeology.
It prevents smuggling of antiquities under the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972.

{GS2 – Vulnerable Sections} Counting Women’s Invisible Labour

Context (TH): A large share of women’s work in India remains unpaid, unmeasured, and undervalued, despite being central to household functioning, labour productivity, and economic stability.

Status of Women’s Invisible Labour in India

Time Burden: Indian women spend ~5.5 hours/day on unpaid care work, compared to ~1.5 hours for men, as per the Time Use Survey 2019.
Labour Force Impact: Despite rising participation, nearly 60% of working-age women remain outside paid employment due to care responsibilities.
Care Economy Size: Unpaid care and domestic work in India is valued at ₹22–26 lakh crore annually, roughly 13–15% of GDP, but remains outside national accounting.
Care Work Share: Women perform ~83% of total unpaid care work, among highest gender gaps.

Reasons for Undervaluation of Women’s Labour

GDP Bias: National income accounting considers only market-based activities as “productive,” excluding unpaid care and domestic work that support labour productivity and long-term economic growth.
Gender Norms: Women perform over 80% of unpaid domestic and care work in India, reinforcing the belief that such labour is a natural social obligation rather than an economic contribution.
Policy Blind Spots: Public expenditure on childcare, elder care and social care services remains below 1% of GDP, shifting the bulk of care responsibilities onto households and women.
Statistical Gaps: Labour force surveys undercount unpaid and home-based work, leading to an underestimation of women’s work participation by nearly 20–25%.

Consequences for India

Low Female LFPR: India’s female labour force participation is ~37%, far below global averages.
Income Inequality: Women earn approximately 28% less than men on average, further affected by an unpaid work burden.
Intergenerational Poverty: Care burdens shift to poorer women, with over 70% domestic workers belonging to socially marginalised groups.
Growth Loss: McKinsey estimates India could add $700 billion to GDP by 2025–30 by enabling women’s full economic participation.

Way Forward

Income Security: Provide social security credits for caregivers; E.g., Germany’s pension system counts child-rearing and caregiving years as contributory periods for old-age pensions.
Welfare Boards: Strengthen State-level Domestic Workers’ Welfare Boards; E.g., Tamil Nadu Domestic Workers Welfare Board (2007) provides pensions, maternity aid and education support.
ILO Alignment: Ratify ILO Convention 189 to align rights with global labour standards; E.g., ratifying countries show higher wage compliance and social security coverage for domestic workers.
Contract Mandate: Ensure written contracts specifying wages, hours, leave, and benefits; E.g., Uruguay legally mandates employment contracts for domestic workers, reducing wage exploitation.
Gender Sharing: Promote shared domestic roles; E.g., Sweden’s parental leave policy reserves non-transferable paid leave for fathers, sharply increasing male participation in caregiving.

{GS3 – Envi} Integrating Grasslands into National Climate Action Frameworks **

Context (TH): As the United Nations observes 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, researchers emphasise the inclusion of grasslands in national climate plans.

About Grasslands

Grasslands are terrestrial ecosystems dominated by grasses and other non-woody plants.
They cover nearly 40% of Earth’s land surface; in India, they occupy about 20–24% of the land area.
Types:
- Tropical Grasslands: Occur near the equator, in warm temperatures year-round; e.g., the Serengeti (Africa), the Llanos (Venezuela), and the Campos (Brazil).
- Temperate Grasslands: Found in mid-latitudes with high seasonal temperature variation, e.g., the Prairies (North America), Steppes (Eurasia), and Pampas (Argentina).

Indian Grasslands: Include the montane–alpine Bugyals of Uttarakhand, semi-arid Banni in Gujarat (Asia’s largest tropical grassland), and Terai wet grasslands, such as Phumdis, in Manipur.

Significance of Grasslands

Carbon Storage: Grasslands store nearly 90% of carbon underground in root biomass and soil organic carbon (SOC), making them resilient, long-term carbon sinks.
Albedo Effect: Grasslands reflect more solar radiation than dark forest canopies, resulting in a net surface cooling effect.
Hydrological Regulation: Grasslands act as natural sponges, improving infiltration, recharging groundwater, reducing erosion, and limiting flash floods.
Biodiversity Hotspots: They support endangered species, like the Great Indian Bustard (GIB), the Lesser Florican, and pollinators essential for 35% of global crop production.
Livelihood Support: Often termed global “breadbaskets,” grasslands sustain pastoral and nomadic communities, providing fodder essential for milk and meat security.

Key Challenges Faced by Grasslands

Wasteland Label: India’s Wasteland Atlas historically classified grasslands as unproductive, enabling diversion for industry, infrastructure, and solar projects.
Afforestation Bias: Tree-plantation in grasslands under climate policies, like the Green India Mission, often damages local ecology and releases stored soil carbon.
Climate Finance Gaps: Global climate finance prioritises forests over grasslands despite similar mitigation potential; e.g. COP30 focused on forests via the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).
Overgrazing Pressure: Livestock numbers exceeding carrying capacity lead to soil compaction, loss of palatable grass species, desertification, and increased flood vulnerability.
Invasive Species: In Banni grasslands, Prosopis juliflora now covers over 50% area, suppressing native grasses and reducing soil carbon by nearly 25%.
Governance Fragmentation: Grasslands lack a dedicated regulatory body; in India, responsibilities are divided among 18 ministries, causing policy incoherence.

Way Forward

NDC Recognition: Explicitly recognise grasslands as distinct carbon sinks in Nationally Determined Contributions under UNFCCC.
Balanced Planning: Adopt ecosystem-based planning in climate strategies, balancing forests, grasslands, wetlands, and mangroves.
Rio Convention Synergy: Aligning the goals of UNCCD (Desertification), CBD (Biodiversity), and UNFCCC (Climate) to prevent “extinction by afforestation.”
Reclassification: Remove the “wasteland” tag from official land records and recognise grasslands as Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs).
Community Management: Expand pastoralist-led systems like the “Wada” model (in Banni), combining invasive species removal with rotational grazing.
Flagship Conservation: Protect keystone species like the GIB as umbrella species to support wider grassland conservation.

{GS3 – IE} SEBI (Stock Brokers) Regulations 2026 **

Context (TH): SEBI notified the Stock Brokers Regulations, 2026, shifting brokerage regulation from compliance-heavy controls to an investor-centric framework.

Objective: It replaces the 1992 framework to align brokerage rules with modern digital trading practices.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the statutory regulatory body for the securities and commodity markets in India, under the Ministry of Finance.

Key Provisions of the 2026 Regulations

Expanded Scope: Brokers may undertake activities regulated by RBI, IRDAI, or IBBI through a single entity, subject to SEBI conditions.
Record Retention: Books of accounts and records must be maintained for 8 years instead of five.
- Digital Records: They can be maintained electronically to simplify audits and inspections.
Board Governance: Every brokerage firm must appoint one Designated Director residing in India for at least 182 days annually.
Whistleblower: Brokers must have a written whistleblower policy with a confidential reporting system.
Entry Experience: New applicants need at least two years’ securities trading or dealing experience.
QSB Criteria: Norms for Qualified Stock Brokers are streamlined to enhance oversight of large-client, high-volume entities.
Return Ban: Brokers are explicitly prohibited from promoting schemes that promise indicative, guaranteed, or fixed investor returns.
Primary Oversight: Stock exchanges are acknowledged as the primary regulators of stockbrokers, with increased reporting responsibilities.
Brokerage Caps: Brokerage fees paid by Mutual Funds are capped at 6 basis points in cash markets and 2 basis points in derivative transactions.

Significance of the Regulations

Business Ease: The regulations reduce the administrative burden by simplifying regulatory compliance.
Flexibility: Stockbrokers are permitted to offer multiple financial services on a single platform.
Redundancy: Outdated provisions like physical share delivery are removed to match current practices.
Investor Protection: It reinforces fiduciary accountability and brokers’ duty to protect clients’ interests.

{GS3 – Agri} Alternate Wetting and Drying Method of Rice Cultivation

Context (IE): Rice farmers can increase incomes and reduce methane emissions by adopting the Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) method.

Traditional rice cultivation accounts for about 10–12% of global anthropogenic methane emissions.
Emission Process: Continuous flooding creates anaerobic soils, in which methanogenic archaea decompose organic matter and emit methane.

About Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)

AWD is a sustainable water management practice for rice cultivation that replaces continuous flooding with periodic drying and reflooding of the field.
Periodic flooding creates aerobic (oxygen-rich) soil conditions, suppressing methane-producing microbes while sustaining rice growth.
Mechanism: Farmers re-irrigate after the water level in the paddy field drops to a certain threshold (usually 15 cm below the soil surface).
Monitoring Tool: A low-cost water tube of perforated PVC or bamboo is installed in the field to monitor subsurface water levels visually.

Key Benefits of AWD

Methane Reduction: AWD cuts emissions by 30–50%, with some studies showing up to 85% reduction.
Water Conservation: It saves 25–40% of irrigation water compared with the traditional method.
Input Savings: Reduced irrigation lowers labour requirements and pumping costs (fuel or electricity).
Yield Effect: Properly implemented AWD remains yield-neutral and can even increase yields by up to 20% through improved root aeration.
Health Safety: Periodic soil drying reduces the accumulation of toxic heavy metals, such as arsenic (up to 64%) and cadmium, in rice grains.
Economic Benefit: AWD enables income generation through carbon credits; it reduces emissions by 2.5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, yielding ₹3,000–4,000 per hectare per crop cycle.

Carbon Credit: A tradable permit representing one metric tonne of CO₂ equivalent reduced or removed, sold to polluters to offset their carbon footprint and meet “Net Zero” targets.

Key Challenges of AWD

Weed Pressure: Drying removes the natural water layer that suppresses weed growth, leading to higher weed growth and increased management costs.
GHG Trade-off: Alternating wet–dry cycles can stimulate nitrifying bacteria, increasing Nitrous Oxide emissions, a greenhouse gas about 300 times more potent than CO₂.
Infrastructure Gap: India’s gravity-based canal systems, with a “field-to-field” flow, restrict individual farmers’ ability to dry fields without affecting neighbours.
Pricing Disincentive: Flat-rate or free irrigation offers little financial incentive for farmers to conserve water through AWD.

{Prelims – Health} National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS)

Context (PIB): The Government of India has achieved over 50,000 National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS) certifications for public health facilities.

The NQAS is a comprehensive framework launched in 2015 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to improve healthcare quality in public health facilities.
Nodal Agency: It is managed by the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) as a technical support unit under the National Health Mission (NHM).
Scope: It initially covered District Hospitals, later extended to other secondary care, primary care, and Integrated Public Health Laboratories (IPHL) (2024).
Focus Areas: NQAS evaluates facilities across eight ‘Areas of Concern’ aligned with global benchmarks and International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) accreditation.
Key Target: The government aims to certify at least 50% of public healthcare facilities by March 2026.
Significance: The rapid NQAS scale-up aligns with India’s pursuit of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), guided by the National Health Policy 2017.

Read More > Healthcare Sector of India

{Prelims – Eco} Payments Regulatory Board (PRB) *

Context (NOA): The first meeting of the Payments Regulatory Board (PRB) was held recently under the chairmanship of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Sanjay Malhotra.

About Payments Regulatory Board (PRB)

Statutory Body: The Payments Regulatory Board (PRB) is a statutory authority under the RBI, regulating payment and settlement systems in India.
Establishment: It replaced the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment Systems (BPSS) in 2025, following amendments to the Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS) Act, 2007.
Meeting Mandate: The board is legally required to meet at least twice every year.
Decision Making: Decisions are made by a majority vote, with the Chairperson exercising a casting vote in the event of a tie.
Institutional Support: The RBI’s Department of Payment and Settlement Systems (DPSS) reports directly to and assists the PRB.

Composition of the Board

Equal Representation: The PRB consists of six members with equal representation from the RBI and the Central Government.
Chairperson Role: The Governor of the RBI serves as the ex-officio Chairperson of the Payments Regulatory Board.
Legal Invitee: The Principal Legal Adviser of RBI attends meetings as a permanent invitee without voting rights.

Key Functions of the Board

Licensing Authority: It grants and revokes licences for payment systems, including UPI, cards, wallets, and RTGS.
Standard Setting: The board prescribes technical, operational, and security standards for digital and non-cash payments.
Supervisory Powers: It inspects payment system providers and issues binding directions to ensure compliance with the PSS Act.

{Prelims – S&T} Hydrogen Molecule Precision Tests

Context (TH): Recent theory updates allow hydrogen molecule (H₂) predictions to match ultra-precise measurements, making it a benchmark for testing fundamental physics.

Why H₂ is Used as a Benchmark for Fundamental Physics?

Simplest Molecule: H₂ contains only two protons and two electrons, making it the simplest stable molecule where molecular quantum effects fully appear.
First-Principles Testing: Its small size allows predictions to be made directly from basic physical laws.
Multi-Theory Sensitivity: At high precision, H₂ energy levels reflect effects of quantum mechanics and relativity together, unlike simpler atomic systems.
Experimental Precision: Modern spectroscopy measures H₂ transitions with accuracy of 1 part in 10¹¹, demanding equally precise theory.

Theoretical Challenges Faced Earlier

Electron Correlation: The two electrons interact strongly with each other, making single-particle or averaged approaches insufficient for accurate energy predictions.
Nuclear Motion Neglect: Earlier models assumed nearly stationary nuclei, underestimating how proton motion subtly alters electronic energy levels.
Relativistic Corrections: Electrons move fast enough for relativistic effects to matter, but these were only approximately included earlier.

What Changed in the New Theory?

Fully Nonadiabatic Approach: The new method treats electrons and nuclei dynamically together, removing the fixed-nucleus assumption entirely.
Recoil Effect Inclusion: Proton recoil due to electron motion is now explicitly included, correcting small but measurable frequency shifts.
High-Precision Matching: The refined theory now agrees with experiments at the kilohertz level, eliminating earlier megahertz-scale discrepancies.

{Prelims – Defence} Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LR-AShM) *

Context (ZN): The Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LR-AShM) is set to be showcased at the Republic Day parade.

LR-AShM is an indigenous hypersonic anti-ship missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Speed & Reach: It attains hypersonic speeds up to Mach 10 with a strike range exceeding 1,500 km.
Flight Profile: It operates as a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) launched by a solid-fuel booster.
Guidance System: It uses an advanced radio-frequency seeker and terminal manoeuvres to precisely hit moving naval targets.
Warhead Capability: It can carry conventional or nuclear payloads of roughly 1,000–2,000 kg.
Launch Platforms: The system supports land-based mobile launchers and naval vessels, with air-launched variants planned.
Significance: Induction of LR-AShM places India among an elite group of nations, including the US, Russia, and China, that possess operational hypersonic strike capability.