Long-form explainers on the stories that matter for UPSC — each linked to the Previous Year Question it would answer, drawing on columnists and expert commentary most current-affairs sites overlook.
30 articles available.
A Delhi High Court judge asked why Jantar Mantar should not be shut as a protest site. Aakar Patel argues that a fundamental right has become a police permission. What Article 19 and the Supreme Court say.
Xi Jinping's first White House visit in over a decade produced tariff relief on $30 billion of goods and an AI dialogue, but no shift on Taiwan. Harsh V. Pant calls it managed rivalry, and sees room for India.
India budgets ₹1.71 lakh crore a year for fertiliser subsidy, yet 64% of tested soil samples are low in nitrogen. Sunita Narain argues that soil is a living system and India measures only its chemistry.
India's plan to merge 17 single-service commands into three integrated theatre commands is drafted but not approved. Ajai Shukla argues Parliament may need to legislate jointness, as the US did in 1986.
The RBI's NRI deposit scheme pulled in a record $132.98 billion, yet forex reserves just saw their biggest weekly fall. T.N. Ninan warns that rich countries may next restrict capital itself. What that means for India.
India made a record ₹1.78 lakh crore of defence equipment in 2025-26 yet remains the world's second-largest arms importer. Why the gap persists, where self-reliance worked and stalled, and what a smarter atmanirbharta looks like.
India's communist Left holds just 8-10 Lok Sabha seats after losing Kerala in May 2026. Yogendra Yadav's EPW analysis diagnoses a structural crisis: the Left's old model no longer fits India's 93% informal workforce and caste-gender realities.
India chaired the BRICS Summit in New Delhi (Sept 12–13, 2026), achieving a unanimous New Delhi Declaration despite deep geopolitical fractures. Harsh V. Pant of ORF argues this tests whether India's strategic autonomy model can deliver tangible development outcomes for the Global South.
India's current account deficit widens to $4.2B in Q1 FY27. Is this CAD cycle manageable or the start of external sector crisis? We examine drivers (oil, exports), mechanisms (BoP identity, rupee depreciation), debate (worry vs. calm), and policy options. NCERT-linked. Mains-relevant.
Pakistan's 2026 defence pact with Saudi Arabia challenges India's multi-alignment doctrine. With 60% of oil imports through Hormuz and $51.4B in Gulf remittances at stake, Shashi Tharoor argues India must shift to explicit security partnerships.
Shashi Tharoor analyzes Gen-Z activism, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), and Congress's persistent electoral challenge: a 6-7% vote share gap preventing opposition renewal. Can opposition harness youth energy? What structural reforms are needed? Deep dive on voter behavior, social movements, and political leadership.
July 2026: Inflation holds at 4.45%, RBI keeps repo rate at 5.25%. But behind the number, a deeper story about who inflation helps and who it hurts. We examine the mechanism, the trade-offs, and what this means for ordinary Indians.
CSE's State of India Environment Report 2026 shows extreme weather events occurred on 99% of days in 2025 across India. We examine the climate mechanism, ecosystem impacts, and policy failures. Can adaptation strategies keep pace with accelerating climate impacts?
India and the US finalize a trade agreement at 18% average tariffs under Trump 2.0. We examine the negotiating dynamics, India's strategic choices, and what this means for India's autonomy in a polarized world.
FY26 saw India's defence exports surge 63% to ₹38,424 crore. We examine what this means for India's military-industrial capacity, strategic self-reliance, and limitations that remain. Is this real transformation or supply-chain opportunity?
V-Dem's 2026 report ranks India 106th globally on democratic health—lowest since 1975. We trace how India went from constitutional democracy's global exemplar to a state described as 'electoral autocracy.' A historical reckoning.
Bharat Innovates 2026 launches ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development & Innovation (RDI) fund targeting AI, semiconductors, and biotech. We examine what this means for India's tech capability, what risks it poses, and whether funding alone can close the innovation gap.
UGC's new guidelines on caste-based discrimination raise fundamental questions about institutional accountability, constitutional equality, and federalism in higher education. We examine what actually changed and what's still contested.
Seven years after Article 370 was abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir was downgraded to a Union Territory, the promise of restoring full statehood remains unfulfilled. On July 20, 2026, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah led the ruling National Conference to Jantar Mantar to demand statehood, and was stopped from protesting. A K
At the ninth India-US Civil Space Joint Working Group, hosted by India in Bengaluru on 5-6 August 2026, NASA invited ISRO to join its Moon Base programme under the Artemis Accords. Ajey Lele of MP-IDSA argues that behind the diplomatic glow sits a harder question: whether a voluntary, non-binding framework built outsid
Japan's Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi is in Delhi this week at a moment of historic Japanese transformation, when Tokyo is finally treating military power, defence exports and security assistance as normal instruments of statecraft. C. Raja Mohan argues the visit should end incrementalism and push India and Japan t
India is now the world's second-largest honey producer and third-largest exporter by value, but the bulk of its exports goes to a single market at below-average prices. Ashok Gulati and his ICRIER co-authors argue the 'sweet revolution' must remodel itself into a premium, sustainable honey economy, and protect the bee
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have created a new security arrangement. But why was such an arrangement necessary in the first place, and what does it reveal about the Middle East's dependence on outside powers?
Shekhar Gupta reads RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's endorsement of Gen Z protesters as a rare public caution to the Modi government, and draws an Indira Gandhi-era lesson about leaders who have no one to counsel them.
India's headline fertility story is a triumph: the total fertility rate has fallen to about 2.0, right at the replacement level. But Srinivas Goli and K S James argue this number hides the babies nobody planned for, because the TFR counts all births, wanted and unwanted. Wanted fertility is about 1.6 children per woman
C. Raja Mohan reads India's twin shocks of 1990-91 | the Kuwait war and the Soviet collapse | as a template for today's wars in Iran and Ukraine. His argument: the real lesson is not diplomatic skill but domestic reform, and a foreign policy debate willing to think against the consensus.
Mumbai swung from a June water shortage to a July deluge in weeks. Environment and climate columnist Kaushik Das Gupta argues this is not a weather anomaly but a verdict on the utilitarian imagination of water in urban India, where water is treated as a resource to be extracted in summer and an inconvenience during the
India's flagship rural jobs scheme has been replaced: VB-G RAM G took over from MGNREGA on July 1, 2026, raising the annual guarantee from 100 to 125 days of paid work per rural household. The Financial Express argues the launch is mistimed, arriving as a weak, El Nino-driven monsoon threatens drought across 315 distri
In 1951, Major Bob Khathing hoisted the Tricolour at Tawang without firing a shot; eight years later, Har Mander Singh read Nehru's message to a fleeing Dalai Lama at the same monastery. Both were officers of the Indian Frontier Administrative Service, the special cadre Nehru and anthropologist Verrier Elwin built to a
The July 2023 Himachal Pradesh disaster killed 360-plus people and caused damages exceeding Rs 4,000 crore, a preview of what a warming Third Pole means for India. Climate policy experts Durwood Zaelke and Zerin Osho argue that decarbonising alone is too slow to save the mountains: the fastest lever is cutting short-li