Current Affairs – September 21, 2025

Context (IE): UNICEF report (2025), based on NFHS data (2006-2021), highlighted a sharp rise in childhood and adolescent obesity in India.

India is projected to account for 11% of the global obesity burden by 2030, while already ranking among the top five for adult obesity.

Key Findings from UNICEF Report

Childhood Obesity: The Number of overweight children under five more than doubled between 2006 and 2021.
Stunting & Undernutrition: 36% of under-five children are stunted; only 11% of breastfed children (6-23 months) receive an adequate diet.
Anaemia in Women: 57% of women (15-49 years) are anaemic.
Maternal Linkages: Poor dietary practices of mothers often pass on nutrition deficits to children.

Causes of Rising Obesity

Increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods high in sugar, unhealthy fats, and salt is replacing traditional diets rich in fruits and vegetables.
Urban youth lead more sedentary lifestyles due to lifestyle changes and a lack of physical activity infrastructure.
Cultural and social norms influence food choices and nutritional deficits, with adolescent girls and women often eating last and least.
Low-income groups rely heavily on cheap, calorie-dense but nutritionally poor carbohydrates in diets.

Government Initiatives

Policy Framework: Fit India Movement, Eat Right India campaign, POSHAN Abhiyaan 2.0, and Saksham Anganwadi.
Awareness Measures: Schools and offices are encouraged to display sugar and oil consumption boards.
Nutrition Schemes: Take-home rations, iron & folic acid supplementation, & focus on acute malnutrition.

Policy Recommendations by UNICEF

Recognise both undernutrition and obesity as public health issues affecting different classes.
Move beyond calorie sufficiency to ensure intake of proteins, vitamins, fruits, and vegetables.
Invest in cycling tracks, playgrounds, and public fitness infrastructure.
Stronger checks on the marketing of ultra-processed foods targeting children.
Extend nutrition and lifestyle interventions beyond women and children to all age groups to counter NCDs like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

Read More About > Obesity

{GS2 – Vulnerable Sections – Children} Child Marriage in India

Context (TH): The Sample Registration System (SRS) 2023 shows 2.1% of Indian females were married before 18, the national average for child marriage.

West Bengal continues to record the highest rate of child marriages in India at 6.3%.

Causes of Child Marriage in India

Poverty: About 23% of women aged 20-24 were married before 18 (NFHS-5). Poor families marry off daughters early to lessen financial burdens like dowry and household costs.
Cultural Beliefs: Child marriage is practised to preserve family honour and girls’ chastity, especially in patriarchal communities, despite legal bans.
Patriarchy: Entrenched gender norms, dowry and community pressures still drive early unions.
Education: Only around 47% of rural girls complete secondary schooling (UNICEF), limiting their ability to challenge early marriage.
Safety Concerns: High rates of violence against women (over 37,000 cases in 2023, NCRB) cause families to marry daughters early for protection.
Weak Enforcement: Though the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006, bans child marriage, enforcement is inconsistent with low conviction rates, especially in rural regions.

Measures Taken by the Government to Check Child Marriage

Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006, It criminalises child marriage, prohibiting marriage for girls under 18 and boys under 21.
Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, it provides care and protection for children at risk of early marriage.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme (2015) aimed at promoting gender equality and empowering girls through education and awareness.
Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat Campaign (2024), it is a nationwide initiative aiming to eliminate child marriage through education,
National Action Plan to Prevent Child Marriage for better data collection, awareness campaigns, and coordination between state and local governments to support at-risk girls.
Programs like Rajasthan’s Action Approach and West Bengal’s Kanyashree and Rupashree schemes offer financial support to delay marriage and keep girls in school.

Policy implications

Cash transfers alone are insufficient; multi-sectoral action is essential. Education, health, social protection, and law enforcement must converge.
Urban strategies need to be different from rural ones, such as targeting slums, migrant families and night-schools, adolescent-friendly services.
Real-time monitoring (linking Anganwadi, UDISE data with legal ID systems) is needed to identify at-risk girls early.

Way Forward

Combine cash benefit (like Kanyashree scheme) with guaranteed skilling, so delaying marriage has a tangible economic payoff.
Pilot “Urban Adolescent Protection Cells” in high-incidence municipal wards, offering evening schools, counselling, birth-registration drives and legal aid.
Link one-time grants to completion of secondary schooling (class X or equivalent) and vocational placement verification.
Mandatory, rapid birth registration drives, issue school-linked age certificates to prevent fake ages at marriage.

{GS3 – Infra – Airways} Porta Cabins

Context (IE): Bihar inaugurated its fourth civilian airport at Purnea, built with prefabricated porta cabins under the UDAN scheme.

Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN): Launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, it subsidises regional flights to make air travel affordable and connect smaller towns with major cities.

Porta cabins are modular buildings made in factories from steel or polyurethane foam and then transported for installation at the site.
Benefits: Porta cabins offer low-cost terminals that can be operational within weeks, bypassing land acquisition delays; they also enable modular expansion.
Challenges: They offer limited durability, space, amenities, & lack premium facilities and aesthetic appeal.
Previous Use: Airports at Shirdi in Maharashtra, Hubballi and Kalaburagi in Karnataka, and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh also began operations using such cabins.

Polyurethane is a lightweight, firm synthetic polymer that offers good building insulation.

{GS3 – Agri – Sustainability} Indian Agriculture and Shifting Monsoon Patterns

Context (BS): In 2025, the southwest monsoon began early and is retreating prematurely with 7% excess rainfall, highlighting weather variability as the new normal.

Implications

Higher Rainfall: The Central Water Commission reported reservoir storage exceeded previous years, supporting irrigation, but heavy rains caused increased natural disasters and crop losses.
Temperature Dynamics: Early cold weather benefits wheat, barley, and mustard in North India, but cold waves and frost remain concerns for farmers in Gujarat’s Kutch.
Food Security: A higher wheat production forecast of about 117 MT in 2025 boosts food security, although harvest rains damaging crops often lead to inflation.
Farm Incomes: Agricultural and processed food exports grew 9% year-on-year in April–July 2025, strengthening farmer earnings, though rainfall shocks still threaten perishables like vegetables.

Way Forward

Weather Services: Scale up satellite-based tools like WINDS and Krishi-DSS to enhance crop monitoring and yield forecasting for data-driven agricultural transformation.
Crop Insurance: Expand schemes like PM Fasal Bima Yojana to districts vulnerable to frost and rain.
Water Management: Reservoirs currently at about 84% storage (CWC) must be used judiciously, with parallel investments in drainage for flood-prone areas.
Climate Resilience: Investing in resilient seed varieties and decentralised food storage will enhance long-term adaptability.

{GS3 – Envi – Air Pollution} Stubble Burning *

Context (NIE): The Supreme Court urged the Centre to consider jail terms for stubble burning and asked CAQM to find alternatives to blanket bans, which affect workers’ livelihoods.

A blanket ban completely prohibits activity with no exceptions, such as stopping all construction during winter in Delhi-NCR.

About Stubble Burning

Stubble burning is the deliberate burning of leftover paddy stalks, adopted as a low-cost method to rapidly clear fields during the narrow interval between rice harvest and wheat sowing.
Consequences: The resulting smoke worsens Delhi-NCR winter smog, harms health, decreases soil fertility, and emits greenhouse gases.
Alternatives: Options include in-situ machines such as the Happy Seeder, bio-decomposer solutions, ex-situ uses like baling for biomass, and crop diversification towards less residue-intensive crops.

Government Initiatives to Reduce Stubble Burning

Legal Framework: The EPA 1986 prohibits stubble burning; the CAQM Act, 2021, empowers enforcement; and the 2024 CAQM rules impose fines up to ₹30,000 based on land size.
Residue Management: Farmers receive subsidised machines, Custom Hiring Centres, and PUSA bio-decomposers for in-situ use, while ex-situ channels use paddy straw in biomass power, ethanol, biogas, and packaging.
Financial Assistance: The Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation (SMAM) extends subsidies for Crop Residue Management machinery procurement to small and marginal farmers.

Read in Depth > Stubble Burning | Delhi Air Pollution

{GS3 – S&T – Tech} India’s Opportunity to Attract Top Talent in Critical Technologies

Context (IE): Global shifts like U.S. science funding cuts and stricter visa norms have opened a window for India to attract top talent in critical technologies.

India’s Research Profile and Challenges

India contributes only 2.5% of the world’s highly-cited scientific papers and 2% of the top global researchers.
China dominates key technologies while India, despite ranking in the top 5 in 29 technologies, lacks consistent breakthrough ecosystems.
Compensation, research facilities, and long-term career pathways remain uncompetitive.
Recruitment is often disconnected from national missions, leading to fragmented results.

Recent Government Initiatives include the Anusandhan National Research Foundation and a ₹1 lakh crore R&D Innovation Fund, with “Ease of Doing Science” reforms.

Proposed Solutions

Establish permanent Focused Research Organisations (FROs) within leading institutions in frontier technology domains.
Attract at least 500 top researchers over five years, with a focus on early-career scientists.
Integrate Indian talent through joint appointments, rotational leadership, and project-based entry.
Aim for continuity, predictable funding, and clear pathways for global talent absorption.
- For example, IIT Delhi plays a role in quantum communication research as a national anchor.

Design Principles for Maximum Impact

Use pooled industry and state resources for world-class salaries and sustained research funding.
Start a strategic mission focused on selected sovereign technologies.
Create hybrid ecosystems by blending global expertise, indigenous knowledge, and industry support.
Ensure permanent, mission-driven structures for long-term innovation and talent retention.

{GS3 – S&T – AI} Human Cost of Artificial Intelligence

Context (TH): Artificial Intelligence (AI), hailed as the digital economy’s backbone, relies on the often invisible, underpaid labour of workers who train and sustain its systems.

Human Role in AI Training

Machines cannot process raw data without human input; data annotators label images, videos, audio, and text to help AI learn concepts like colours, objects, and road signs.
Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini rely on annotators during supervised learning and reinforcement learning phases to fine-tune accuracy and remove errors.
Much of this work is outsourced to countries like India, Kenya, Pakistan, China, and the Philippines, where labour is cheaper and largely unregulated.

Invisible Labour Behind “Automation”

Content Moderation: Social media feeds marketed as “automatically” filtered rely on human moderators who examine disturbing content (pornography, violence, etc.) to train AI filters.
- These workers often suffer PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
Voice & Motion Capture: AI-generated voices, music, and videos are trained using human actors, sometimes even children, who record movements, songs, or conversations.
Gig Work: To cut costs, companies outsource through digital platforms where workers are paid per microtask, easily dismissed for not meeting targets.

Exploitation and Risks

Low Pay: Workers in counties like Kenya often earn less than $2 an hour for high-stress jobs, described as “modern-day slavery.”
Suppressed Rights: Attempts to organise or demand better conditions are met with dismissals, while subcontracting hides accountability.
Hidden Chains: Fragmented labour networks ensure opacity and prevent legal or social protections for workers.

Way Forward

Transparency: Mandate disclosure of labour supply chains for AI companies.
Fair Pay: Establish global minimum standards for wages, working hours, and occupational safety for digital workers.
Awareness: Among consumers and policymakers that AI efficiency is not “cost-free”, it is powered by human toil.