Current Affairs – June 10, 2026

{GS1 – IS} Menstrual Protection in India **

Context (TH): Kerala government’s proposal to grant schoolchildren up to three days of optional monthly menstrual leave under “Project Menstrual Dignity” aims to ensure safe menstrual protection.

Menstrual Leave Policy in India

Constitutional Status: The Supreme Court declared Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH) an integral part of the Right to Life under Article 21 but declined to mandate a nationwide menstrual leave policy.
Pioneer State: Bihar became the first Indian state to introduce menstrual leave in 1992, granting two days of paid leave each month to all female government employees.
Sectoral Mandate: Karnataka became the first state to issue a binding notification extending one day of paid monthly menstrual leave to women aged 18-52 across both government and private sectors.
Higher Education: Kerala introduced the first menstrual leave mandate for the higher education sector, reducing the minimum attendance requirement for female university students from 75% to 73%.

Overview of Menstrual Protection in India

Usage Rate: Hygienic menstrual protection use among women aged 15 to 24 rose from ~58% in 2015-16 (NFHS-4) to 79.2% in 2023-24 (NFHS-6).
Adoption Gap: Urban areas report 89.4% hygienic menstrual product penetration against 72.3% in rural settlements. The lowest wealth quintile accounts for 53.6%, compared with 94.8% in the highest.
Education Gradient: Hygienic menstrual protection use scales from 43.5% among women with no schooling to 90.3% among those completing 12 or more years of schooling.
Full Access: Only 27.7% of young women have access to all four menstrual hygiene pillars: hygienic products, an unshared toilet, water on the premises, and soap.
Dropout Rate: 23% of adolescent girls drop out of school permanently upon reaching menarche. Girls who remain in school miss approximately 20% of school days annually.

Challenges in Menstrual Management in India

Policy Blindspot: School-centric distribution programmes leave out-of-school adolescents, disproportionately from SC/ST communities, without any menstrual hygiene coverage.
Awareness Deficit: 71% of adolescent girls in India remain unaware of menstruation until their first cycle, with formal clinical curriculum reaching fewer than 30%.
Cloth Persistence: Reusable cloth maintains a 49.6% national footprint, due to lower affordability barriers. Eco-friendly alternatives such as reusable menstrual cups account for less than 0.3% of total usage.
Disclosure Gap: The absence of mandatory ingredient disclosure rules for pad manufacturers under Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) protocols exposes consumers to plasticisers and traces of dioxin.

Government Initiatives for Menstrual Protection

Subsidised Access: Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS) provides sanitary napkin packs at ₹6 for six pads to rural adolescent girls through frontline ASHA workers.
Affordable Procurement: Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) sells biodegradable Suvidha napkins at ₹1 per pad across more than 19,000 Janaushadhi Kendras.
Institutional Mandates: University Grants Commission (UGC) Guidelines direct all higher educational institutions to install sanitary napkin vending machines and disposal incinerators on campus.
Decentralised Distribution: Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin funds rural self-help groups to manufacture low-cost sanitary towels and install community-level mini-incinerators for waste disposal.
Policy Mandate: National Menstrual Hygiene Policy coordinates inter-ministerial efforts to ensure low-cost manufacturing, gender-segregated school toilets, and eco-friendly waste management.
Tax Exemption: The GST Council has eliminated the 12% national tax on commercial sanitary pads to reduce retail cost barriers and expand access to products.

{GS1 – IS} Rising Youth-Led Protests **

Context (DTE): A massive wave of youth-led protests is sweeping across continents, from Bangladesh and Nepal to Kenya and the Americas, highlighting systemic discontent.

India has absorbed similar demographic frustrations without systemic collapse but remains vulnerable to localised flashpoints.

Key Characteristics of Modern Youth-Led Protests

Informal Leadership: Unlike historic union-led movements, modern agitations are decentralised and digitally driven, making negotiation or suppression difficult.
Issue-Based: Young citizens are bypassing electoral politics for street action targeting specific socio-economic issues, as in Bangladesh’s 2024 student protests against the job quota system.
Digital Mobilisation: Encrypted apps (Telegram and Signal) are used to bypass surveillance and can quickly escalate local grievances into nationwide crises.
- In 2025, Nepal’s Gen Z coordinated over Discord to vote for an interim prime minister.

Key Drivers and Systemic Triggers

Structural Underemployment: The ILO notes that youth underemployment has become structural, leaving degree-holding youth below their academic expectations.
Cost-of-Living Crisis: Post-pandemic inflation, energy cost spikes, and food shortages triggered protests and riots in nearly 150 nations.
Trust Deficit: Earth4All and UN DESA surveys indicate low confidence in governments’ long-term decisions, prompting youth to take direct action.
Climate Anxiety: Rising disaster risks have made environmental governance a core trigger, with youth calling for systemic economic reforms over corporate wealth generation.

Why India Has Not Seen a Regime-Level Revolt

Safety Valves: India institutionalises dissent via Article 19(1)(a) (free speech) and Article 19(1)(b) (peaceful assembly), allowing civil society and judicial expression over revolutionary regime change.
Federalism: State governments offer alternative governance models and localised political engagement (e.g., Kerala’s local governance, Gujarat’s industrialisation, Tamil Nadu’s welfare schemes).
Digital Public Infrastructure: Aadhaar, UPI, and DigiLocker have improved transparency and reduced grassroots corruption, building legitimacy.
Migration: Interstate mobility allows youth from stagnant regions to move to industrial hubs, reducing geographic stagnation seen in smaller countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Institutional Trust: 74% of Indians trust that government decisions will benefit the majority. (Earth4All)

{GS2 – IR} Trust Deficit in India-Bangladesh Ties

Context (TH): India-Bangladesh relations face a trust deficit following Bangladesh’s 2024 political upheaval and the subsequent election of PM Tarique Rahman of the BNP in early 2026.

Key Issues Driving the Trust Deficit

Trade Barriers: India withdrew transhipment facilities for Bangladeshi exports to third countries, while port restrictions on readymade garments persist.
Mobility Reductions: Delays and restrictions on Bangladeshi business, tourist, and medical visas have disrupted people-to-people links and fuelled resentment.
Water Concerns: The 1996 Ganga Water Treaty expires in December 2026, raising Bangladeshi concerns over agriculture and river management.
Illegal Migration: Persisting disputes over unauthorised cross-border migration, push-ins, and unfenced frontier gaps hinder coordination between border forces.
Hasina Factor: Sheikh Hasina’s exile in India and political statements remain a symbolic flashpoint in Bangladesh’s domestic politics.

Significance of Bangladesh for India

Strategic Geography: Bangladesh supports India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East policies and offers transit to the Northeast, bypassing the vulnerable Siliguri Corridor.
Internal Security: India’s 4,096 km border with Bangladesh makes cooperation essential to counter insurgent safe havens and organised crime networks.
Economic Integration: Bangladesh is India’s largest South Asian trading partner, providing an export market, regional supply-chain opportunities, and sub-regional growth through BIMSTEC.
Maritime Security: Defence cooperation in Bay of Bengal helps India secure sea lines & balance extra-regional naval influence.
Energy Connectivity: Cross-border projects like the India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline support energy security and sub-regional power sharing.

Read More > India-Bangladesh Relations

{GS3 – Envi} Legal Personhood for Nature

Context (HT): Discussions have gained momentum regarding granting legal personhood to natural ecosystems, particularly fragile Himalayan regions and hill stations, in the backdrop of increasing landslides, forest fires, ecological degradation etc.

What is Legal Personhood for Nature?

It refers to granting a natural entity such as a river, forest, mountain, or ecosystem, the status of a “legal person” with enforceable rights and protections under law.
Importance: The legal standing to nature enables designated guardians to file cases, halt harmful construction, and enforce ecological protections on behalf of the natural entity.
Global Precedents: New Zealand has been the most successful implementor of this framework. It granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River, Urewera Forest and Mount Taranaki.

Ecuador’s Constitution (2008) was the first in the world to enshrine Rights of Nature (Pacha Mama), the right of nature to exist, regenerate, and flourish.

India’s Attempt and Structural Failure

In 2017, Uttarakhand HC declared Ganga and Yamuna rivers and subsequently the entire Himalayan ecosystem legal persons.
Failure: The implementation faced challenges because the State itself was made the guardian. This created a conflict of interest, as the State could become both violator and protector simultaneously.

Need of Legal Personhood for Himalayan and Hill Regions

Ecological Fragility: Hill regions are witnessing increasing landslides, flash floods, water shortages, forest fires, and soil erosion.
Climate Change Impact: Extreme rainfall events, glacier retreat, and biodiversity loss have intensified ecological vulnerabilities in the Himalayas.
Unregulated Development: Excessive tourism, illegal construction, encroachment on river corridors, and poor carrying-capacity assessments have worsened environmental degradation.
Recent Crisis: Joshimath land subsidence, the Kedarnath disaster (2013), degradation of Nainital Lake, and recurring forest fires in the Nilgiris highlight the growing crisis.

Proposed Solution: Independent Guardian Councils

Permanent councils consisting of environmental scientists, geologists, forest experts, disaster-management specialists, local community representatives, and court-appointed legal guardians.
Functions: These councils can regulate tourism scientifically, enforce carrying-capacity norms, and protect of ecologically sensitive areas independent of electoral politics.

{GS3 – S&T} SIPRI Yearbook 2026

Context (NDTV): SIPRI Yearbook 2026 reported that the 15 largest military spenders accounted for 80 per cent of the world’s military expenditure in 2025.

SIPRI Yearbook has been published annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute since 1969, covering military expenditure, arms trade, and armed conflicts.

Key Findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2026

Global military spending reached a record $2.9 trillion in 2025, marking the 11^th consecutive year of growth and representing 2.5% of world GDP.
- Top Spenders: USA was the largest spender, followed by China, Russia, Germany, and India.
Interstate armed conflicts doubled from three in 2024 to six in 2025, displacing around 117.3 million people by mid-2025.
Nine nuclear-armed states hold ~12,187 nuclear warheads, with ~80% in military stockpiles and ~18% on high operational alert.

India-Specific Findings

India ranked 5th in military spending, with a defence budget of $92.1 billion, up 8.9% year on year. It is the second-largest importer of major arms, accounting for 8.2% of total imports, behind only Ukraine.
India’s nuclear arsenal grew to 190 warheads by January 2026, up from 180 the previous year. For the first time, 12 warheads are assessed as deployed during peacetime, suggesting a shift away from India’s traditional practice of storing warheads separately from delivery systems.

{Prelims – Envi} Istanbul Platform

Context (DTE): The Istanbul Platform: Zero Waste Package to Accelerate Climate Action, launched by the Zero Waste Forum, in Istanbul, during a strategic coordination meeting of the MPGCA.

It is aimed at connecting, strengthening coordination and delivery of zero waste solutions across the Global Climate Action Agenda in the lead-up to COP31 in Antalya.

About Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action (MPGCA)

Formal UNFCCC framework designed to mobilize and support climate action by non-party stakeholders, including cities, regions, businesses, investors, and civil society.
Launched in 2016 at COP22 by the first two Climate High Level Champions, MPGCA’s primary goal is to bridge government negotiations and real-world implementation.

About Zero Waste Forum

The Zero Waste Forum is a distinguished international gathering dedicated to transforming our relationship with materials, consumption patterns, and the environment.
The Forum convenes global leaders, policymakers, innovators, urban authorities, and community stakeholders to drive tangible progress toward a zero-waste future.
It is organized by the Zero Waste Foundation in Istanbul, Türkiye.

In 2022, the UN officially proclaimed 30 March as the International Day of Zero Waste. The UN now frames waste as part of the “triple planetary crisis” moving away from narrowly treating waste as a recycling problem.

{Prelims – Geo} Coal Exchange

Context (PIB): Ministry of Coal notified the Coal Exchange Rules, 2026, to shift India’s coal marketing from a “one-to-many” monopoly to a “many-to-many” trading model.

Coal exchange is an electronic commodity-trading platform for physical coal, replacing state-notified prices and fragmented e-auctions with automated, real-time price discovery.
Coal Controller Organisation (CCO) is the designated central authority responsible for registering, regulating, and auditing coal exchanges.
CCO-authorised exchange operators receive a 25-year registration, subject to maintaining a minimum net worth of ₹50 crore.
Demutualised Structure: Ownership and management of the exchange are separate from trading rights to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure neutral oversight.
Contract Scope: Contracts are limited to delivery-based physical transactions. Speculative or financial derivative trading is not permitted.
The final settlement price is adjusted based on the physical quality of delivered coal, certified by a CCO-recognised sampling agency.

{Prelims – Geo} Super Typhoon Sinlaku

Context (TOI): Satellite imagery analysis revealed that Super Typhoon Sinlaku generated atmospheric gravity waves reaching Earth’s mesosphere.

Sinlaku originated in the western North Pacific and intensified into a Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone, affecting Micronesia and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The cyclone generated atmospheric gravity waves via latent heat from hot towers near the eyewall. These waves reached 80-100 km altitude and persisted because of weak stratospheric winds.
- Atmospheric gravity waves are air ripples caused when gravity pulls displaced air back.

NASA’s Aqua satellite detected thermal emissions from gravity waves in the stratosphere. NOAA-20 utilised the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) to detect waves as airglow (faint night-time glow from atmospheric atoms releasing solar energy).

A super typhoon is a typhoon with 1-minute sustained surface winds of at least 240 km/h.
Federated States of Micronesia is a sovereign island nation in the Caroline Islands with coral atolls.
Northern Mariana Islands, located north of Guam, are a U.S. territory comprising volcanic islands bordering the Mariana Trench, the deepest oceanic trench.

{Prelims – PIN World} Mindanao Island

Context (PIB): A powerful earthquake struck off Mindanao Island in the Philippines.

Known as the “Food Basket of the Philippines“, Mindanao is the second-largest island of the Philippines after Luzon and is located in the southern part of the archipelago.
The Philippines is an island country of Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean, surrounded by the Philippine Sea, the Celebes Sea, the Sulu Sea and the South China Sea. It lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, making it highly vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.

{Prelims – PIN World} Sea of Azov *

Context (BBC): Ukraine has claimed to have struck five vessels in the Sea of Azov and Russian-occupied Ukrainian waters.

Sea of Azov is a shallow inland sea located between Ukraine and Russia, connected to the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait.
Fed primarily by the Don River and Donets River, making it relatively low in salinity. It is also one of the world’s shallowest seas, with an average depth of only about 7 metres.
Provides access to key ports such as Mariupol & Berdyansk. Since the 2022 war, the Sea of Azov has become a major flashpoint in the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Context (HT): Kerala faced a severe shigellosis outbreak, leading to multiple hospitalisations.

Shigellosis is a highly contagious intestinal infection caused by Gram-negative bacteria called Shigella.
Shigella is the second leading cause of diarrhoeal death worldwide, after Rotavirus. It spreads through faecal-oral means via contaminated water, unhygienic food, and sexual contact.
Symptoms: Inflames the colon lining, causing bacillary dysentery, characterised by bloody diarrhoea, high fever, and cramps. Severe shigellosis may cause hemolytic uremic syndrome and reactive arthritis.
Risk Group: Children under five, the elderly population, and the immunocompromised.
Prevalence: Endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries, with infections in India rising during the pre-monsoon and the monsoon season.