Current Affairs – September 17, 2025

{GS1 – A&C – Sites} Seven Indian Sites Added to UNESCO’s Tentative List *

• Context (BS): Seven new natural sites are now on UNESCO’s Tentative List for India, increasing the total of Indian properties to 69 (49 cultural, 17 natural, and three mixed).

• UNESCO’s Tentative List is an inventory of properties proposed by each country for potential nomination to the World Heritage List and serves as a mandatory step before final inscription.

About the Newly Added Sites

• The Deccan Traps at Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra are vast volcanic basalt formations, representing one of the largest volcanic provinces on Earth.
• St. Mary’s Islands near Udupi in Karnataka feature spectacular and rare columnar basaltic lava formations and are recognised as a unique geological heritage site of national importance by the GSI.
• The Meghalayan caves in East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, are limestone systems with speleothems.

• The Naga Hill Ophiolite in Kiphire district, Nagaland, offers rare surface evidence of plate tectonic activity and continental collision.
• The Erra Matti Dibbalu near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh features striking red dunes from the late Quaternary period that record sea-level changes, climate shifts, and coastal geomorphology.
• The Tirumala Hills near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, home to the Silathoranam quartzite arch, show a geological feature over 1.5 billion years old.
• The Varkala Cliffs in Kerala are composed of Mio-Pliocene laterite and sedimentary sequences near the Arabian Sea.

{GS1 – Geo – EG – Water Resources} India’s Contract for Deep-Sea Exploration

• Context (TH): India became the first country to sign an agreement with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for exploration of polymetallic sulphides in the Carlsberg Ridge.

Polymetallic Sulphides & the Carlsberg Ridge

• Polymetallic Sulphides: These are rock-like deposits on the deep ocean floor, rich in manganese, cobalt, nickel, and copper, seen as future sources of essential minerals for clean energy transitions.
  • Uses: In batteries, electronics, renewable energy systems, and advanced alloys.
• Carlsberg Ridge: It is a 300,000 sq. km underwater mountain range in the Arabian Sea, forming the boundary between the Indian and Arabian tectonic plates.

India’s Previous Applications for Rights

• First Contract: India obtained exploration rights in the Central Indian Ocean Basin in 2002, which have been extended twice and are valid until March 2027.
• Second Contract (2016): A new licence was signed for polymetallic sulphides in the Indian Ocean Ridge, valid until September 2031.
• 2024 Applications: India applied for rights in Carlsberg Ridge and Afanasy-Nikitin Seamount, but Sri Lanka contests the latter under UNCLOS continental shelf provisions, which allow claims up to 350 nautical miles, and in the Bay of Bengal up to 500 miles.

Read More on Deep Sea Exploration | India’s Deep Ocean Mission

{GS2 – Vulnerable Sections – Women} Women’s Economic Empowerment Index*

• Context (TH): Uttar Pradesh introduced India’s first district-level Women’s Economic Empowerment Index (WEE) to mainstream data-driven gender-inclusive policymaking.

• Parameters: The Index evaluates all 75 districts using 49 indicators across five segments: employment, education & skilling, entrepreneurship, livelihood & mobility, and safety with inclusive infrastructure.
• Groupings: Districts are grouped as Champions, Leaders, Contenders, or Aspirational to direct schemes, budgets, and monitoring priorities.
• Objective: It functions as a governance tool to reveal participation gaps and structural barriers, enabling cross-departmental corrective action.

Significance of Gender-Focused Indices

• Data Deficit: National indices seldom disaggregate data by gender, hiding women’s true economic contribution and making participation gaps invisible to policymakers.
• Beyond Participation: It shifts policy focus from enrolment numbers to structural barriers. For example, women complete skilling programmes but often face credit barriers.
• Fiscal Precision: By providing measurable outcomes, these indices enable authentic gender budgeting, ensuring public funds are allocated to impactful sectors beyond symbolic welfare.
• Actionable Insights: Sectoral data drives tangible reforms; for example, evidence of women’s exclusion in transport prompted new recruitment initiatives and the addition of essential facilities like restrooms.

{GS2 – Social Sector – Education} Personalised Adaptive Learning

• Context (IE | TH): An independent study in Andhra Pradesh by Nobel laureate Michael Kremer found that Personalised Adaptive Learning (PAL) doubled learning rates.

About Personalised Adaptive Learning

• PAL is a software-based approach that aims to provide each student with an individualised learning experience based on their unique needs and abilities.
• Gamified Design: Many programs incorporate game-like features where students earn points, face challenges, or advance through levels while learning.
• Pedagogical Basis: It is based on Benjamin Bloom’s “mastery learning” principle, which states that students achieve better results when instruction aligns with their pace and ability.

About the Study

• The study used a Randomised Control Trial (RCT), randomly dividing schools into PAL and non-PAL groups, and tracked outcomes over two academic years (2023–2025).

Key Findings

• Learning Gains: Students using PAL achieved about 1.9 years of additional schooling; Students in Grades 7–9 using PAL for 17 months learned almost twice as fast as peers without it.
• Gender Outcomes: Girls recorded higher gains than boys because they used the software for longer.
• Equity Impact: Weaker students gained the most, showing PAL’s potential to bridge learning gaps.

{GS3 – IE – Industry} Involution in China’s EV Sector

• Context (TH): China, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market, is currently facing a phenomenon known as “involution”.

About Involution

• A self-defeating cycle of cut-throat price wars that erode profitability despite rising output.
• In the Chinese EV sector, it refers to prices falling below production costs due to oversupply and aggressive competition, leading to industry-wide financial stress.

Factors Driving Involution in the EV Sector

• Trade Barriers: The U.S. imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs (2024), while the EU and other countries introduced additional duties, restricting access to global markets.
• Domestic Oversupply: With limited access to Western markets, Chinese EV makers intensified competition at home.
• Price Wars: To survive, companies undercut each other, triggering unsustainable competition that hurts profitability.

Implications for India and the World

• Global Trade: China’s EV crisis shows how overcapacity in strategic industries, combined with trade protectionism, can destabilise global supply chains.
• For India: This opens a window of opportunity to attract investments shifting away from China and expand domestic EV manufacturing under FAME and PLI schemes.

Read More > PM E-Drive Scheme | EV Transition

{GS3 – Agri – Dairy} Sorted Semen Facility in Bihar *

• Context (PIB): PM Modi inaugurated a ₹10-crore Sex Sorted Semen Facility at Purnea, Bihar, under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM).

• Purnea Semen Station is one of the largest government semen stations and the first of its kind in Eastern and North-Eastern India.
• The facility will use the indigenous ‘Gausort’ (Sex-Sorting) technology, launched in 2024.
• The initiative directly benefits small, marginal farmers and landless labourers, who form the backbone of India’s dairy sector.

{GS3 – Agri – Sustainability} Diversification of Food Production in India **

• Context (TH): FAO reports that India’s population, unable to afford a healthy diet, dropped from 74.1% in 2021 to 40.4% in 2024, indicating progress but emphasising the need for diversified food production.

Need for Diversification

• Malnutrition Burden: NFHS-5 (2019–21) shows that 35.5% of children under five are stunted, and anaemia persists due to a lack of a balanced diet.
• Farmer Security: Overreliance on wheat and rice exposes farmers to price crashes, while diversified cropping stabilises incomes and cushions market shocks.
• Livelihood Expansion: High-value sectors such as vegetables, horticulture, and dairy generate rural jobs, particularly empowering women through local employment opportunities.
• Climate Resilience: According to ISRO-SAC (2021), 29.77% of India’s land is degraded; promoting drought-resistant pulses and millets is crucial to sustain productivity amid land and water stress.
• SDG Alignment: Diversifying food production supports SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) by improving access to nutritious diets and farmer incomes.

Read More > India’s Agrifood Systems: Need for Reform & Policy Interventions

{GS3 – S&T – BioTech} Supreme Court Guidelines on DNA Evidence **

• Context (TH): The Supreme Court in Devakar v. State of Tamil Nadu (2025) issued uniform DNA evidence guidelines to standardise procedures & safeguard forensic credibility.

Guidelines for DNA Handling

• Collection Protocol: Collection must include FIR details and signatures of the doctor, investigator, and witness, ensuring authenticity and traceability.
• Timely Transport: Investigating officers must deliver sealed samples to Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL) within 48 hours, with written reasons for any unavoidable delay.
• Secure Storage: Samples cannot be opened, altered, or resealed without trial court approval, safeguarding against tampering and preserving evidential value.
• Custody Register: A chain-of-custody register must track every transfer, ensuring evidence remains verifiable throughout proceedings.

Evidentiary Value of DNA Evidence

• Forensic Accuracy: DNA’s unique markers enable precise identification from minute samples, enhancing the reliability of forensic investigations.
• Judicial Corroboration: Recognised as expert opinion under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, DNA provides crucial scientific corroboration in serious criminal offences.
• Exoneration Aid: DNA evidence offers strong exclusionary proof for exoneration, preventing miscarriages of justice, as demonstrated in the 2025 Devakar case.
• Victim Identification: DNA enables the identification of decomposed victims in mass disasters, facilitating closure, succession rights and insurance claims for affected families.
• Civil Dispute Resolution: Courts employ DNA in paternity, custody, and inheritance disputes; in Sharda v. Dharmpal (2003), its admissibility was judicially affirmed.

Concerns in DNA-Based Prosecution

• Procedural Lapses: Delays, improper sealing, or missing documentation risk contamination, undermining DNA’s admissibility as reliable forensic evidence.
• Forensic Capacity: Limited Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL), uneven training, and heavy backlogs delay testing, thereby prolonging trials and delaying justice delivery.
• Interpretation Limits: Low-template or mixed DNA samples complicate analysis, often yielding inconclusive results that weaken judicial confidence.
• Over-Reliance: Courts sometimes treat DNA as conclusive proof, overlooking its status as an advisory opinion under Section 39 of Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
• Privacy Concerns: The absence of dedicated DNA legislation heightens the risks of data misuse, state surveillance, and violation of individual genetic privacy.

Way Forward

• Legislative Action: Enact the DNA Technology Regulation Bill to establish a statutory profiling framework and privacy safeguards.
• Capacity Building: Train investigators and forensic staff on custody protocols and handling techniques to minimise human error and contamination.
• Lab Modernization: Augment Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL) with advanced technology for rapid analysis and develop a national DNA database for criminal tracking.
• Judicial Training: Sensitise judges and prosecutors on the strengths and limitations of DNA evidence, preventing undue reliance or outright dismissal.
• Oversight Authority: Establish an independent regulatory body to monitor DNA profiling, enforce ethical standards, and strengthen public trust.

Read More > DNA Fingerprinting

{GS3 – S&T – AI} NITI Aayog Report on AI For Viksit Bharat **

• Context (TOI): NITI Aayog’s 2025 report “AI for Viksit Bharat” highlights artificial intelligence as a critical driver of India’s inclusive economic growth.

Potential Outcomes for AI-led Value Addition

• GDP Boost: AI adoption could add $500-600 billion to India’s GDP annually by 2035, anchoring 8-9% long-term growth momentum.
• Manufacturing: Automation and defect-detection may drive a 30% rise in manufacturing output, adding $90 billion in annual GDP.
• Financial Inclusion: Alternate credit models powered by AI could onboard 150 million underserved borrowers, deepening India’s financial inclusion without collateral dependence.
• Farm Resilience: AI-driven advisories and yield modelling may improve farm output by 20–25%, especially across drought-prone, rainfed agricultural zones.
• Health Reach: In rural Community Health Centres (CHCs) with 80% speciality doctor vacancies, AI-assisted triage tools could halve diagnostic backlogs and reduce patient overloads.

Enablers for AI Readiness

• Compute Capacity: India will need public compute clusters with around 50,000 GPUs by 2027 to train large domestic AI models.
• Model Sovereignty: Developing foundational models in Indian languages is vital for reducing foreign dependence and making AI accessible to a diverse population.
• Data Access: AI adoption across sectors will require publicly available large labelled datasets and clear, enforceable rules for secure data sharing.
• Workforce Readiness: By 2030, about 25 lakh skilled professionals will be crucial to design, deploy, and manage AI systems across fields.
• Innovation Spread: Regional AI hubs with shared infrastructure can grow startup ecosystems and promote AI adoption outside metro areas.

Barriers to AI Deployment

• Compute Bottleneck: Severe GPU shortages, high energy needs, & long delivery timelines hinder India’s ability to train large AI models domestically. India holds less than 2% of global computing power.
• Data Fragmentation: Incomplete and siloed datasets weaken model accuracy, especially for Indian languages and regional contexts, slowing reliable AI deployment.
• Talent Shortage: Low researcher density and persistent brain drain reduce cross-domain expertise, weakening India’s pipeline for indigenous AI innovation.
• MSME Divide: Over 60 million MSMEs lack affordable tools and awareness, while large firms dominate adoption, widening the digital gap.
• Regulatory Lag: Absence of sector-specific rules on privacy, cybersecurity, and consent creates uncertainty in sensitive domains like healthcare and finance.

Way Forward

• Compute Investment: Accelerate the IndiaAI Mission to deploy 50,000 GPUs through a federated public-cloud infrastructure, ensuring affordable access for startups and researchers.
• Data Governance: Operationalise the India Data Management Office (IDMO) to create sectoral data banks with standardised, anonymised, and ethically-sourced datasets.
• AI Skilling: Integrate AI education from school to postgraduate levels and offer industry-linked certifications to create 2.5 million professionals by 2030.
• Regulatory Sandboxes: Create sector-specific test-beds (e.g., fintech, healthtech) for safe AI innovation, enabling real-world validation before scale-up.
• Innovation Hubs: Establish AI centres of excellence in Tier-2/3 cities to decentralise research, incubate startups, and link them with local universities.

Read More > India’s Leadership in Global AI Governance

{GS3 – S&T – IPR} Patent Revocation of Novartis’ Vymada *

• Context (BT): The Indian Patent Office revoked Novartis’ patent on Vymada (Entresto), a cardiac medicine, under Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970.

• Impact: The revocation will enable the entry of generics in India’s cardiac drug sector, potentially reducing costs by more than 70% and increasing affordability.

Indian Patents Act of 1970

• The Indian Patents Act, 1970, governs patents in India; the 2005 amendment added pharmaceutical product patents to align with TRIPS.
• Section 3(d): This clause prevents “evergreening” (extending patents through minor modifications) by prohibiting new forms of known drugs unless they demonstrate superior efficacy.
• Key Feature: The Act provides for pre-grant and post-grant opposition (Section 25), enabling stakeholders to challenge weak patents.
• Significance: The Act ensures affordable medicines, strengthening India as the “pharmacy of the world” and aligns with the 2001 Doha Declaration.

Read More > Intellectual Property Rights

{GS3 – S&T – Tech} NITI Frontier Tech Repository *

• Context (PIB): NITI Aayog launched the Frontier Tech Repository under its Frontier Tech Hub to accelerate technology adoption for India’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.

• Frontier Tech Repository: The repository showcases 200+ impact stories in agriculture, healthcare, education, and security, demonstrating technology’s role in improving daily livelihoods.
• Frontier 50 Initiative: NITI Aayog will guide 50 Aspirational Districts and Blocks to adopt solutions from the repository, ensuring faster delivery of essential public services.
• NITI Frontier Tech Impact Awards: Three states will be honoured each year for governance innovations with frontier technologies, receiving support to expand developmental outcomes.

Read More> Nation Building Through Science and Innovation

{Prelims – MoHUA – Initiatives} Swachhata Hi Seva 2025 *

• Context (PIB): The 9^th edition of Swachhata Hi Seva 2025 was initiated under the Swachh Bharat Mission to engage citizens across the country in focused cleanliness campaigns.

• Principal Agencies: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• Focus: Revamping Cleanliness Target Units (CTUs), i.e., overlooked and hard-to-reach unclean areas such as waste disposal sites, degraded terrains, and alleys.
• Theme: “Swachhotsav” connects joyful celebrations with civic responsibility, offering a unified approach to cleanliness efforts.
  • Five Pillars: CTU Transformation; Clean Public Spaces; SafaiMitra Suraksha Shivir; Clean Green Festivities; and Advocacy for Swachhata.
• Mass Shramdaan: A national voluntary campaign “Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath” will be organised to encourage people to participate in community cleaning efforts.

{Prelims – In News} Moran Community *

• Context (IE): The Moran community has launched an economic blockade in Assam’s Tinsukia district to demand recognition as a Scheduled Tribe.

• Ethnic Origin: Morans are an indigenous community of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with roots in the Tibeto-Burman Kachari group of tribes.
• Language: Native Moran language, related to Dimasa, is extinct; now Assamese is mainly spoken.
• Religious Culture: The community largely follows Neo-Vaishnavism through satras and namghars, replacing older animistic practices.
• Historical Role: Morans led the Moamoria Rebellion (1769–1805), weakening the Ahom monarchy.