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Drones of Warfare and Clean energy technologies and its significance for the UPSC Exam? Why are topics like Global Gap Gender Index, Code of Conduct for Judges, Instruments of monetary policy important for both preliminary and main exams? Discover more insights in the UPSC Exam Notes for June 13, 2025 |
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Critical Topics and Their Significance for the UPSC CSE Examination on June 13, 2025
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How drones are the new face of warfare?
For Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international significance
For Mains Examination: GS III - Defence Acquisition
Context:
India’s Operation Sindoor in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack has marked a notable shift in the country’s adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in combat. In combination with standoff weapons, India’s use of UAVs in active combat represents a tactical shift in military doctrine — part of a global playbook
Read about:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Key takeaways:
India’s Evolving Use of UAVs in Warfare
India’s Operation Sindoor, initiated after the Pahalgam terror attack, highlights a significant shift in the country’s military strategy with the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in combat scenarios. This operation, which involved the use of drones alongside standoff weaponry, reflects an evolution in India’s tactical approach, aligning with a broader global trend. Similarly, Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web showcases how cost-effective, makeshift UAVs can achieve notable strategic outcomes.
Global Trends in Drone Warfare
- Drones are increasingly seen as key instruments in modern warfare, bridging the gap between traditional military hardware and commercial technology. Their adaptability and scalability make them effective force multipliers. To remain competitive, India must focus on producing modular and redundant drones on a large scale and support a responsive domestic defence industry.
- A pivotal example came during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Azerbaijan leveraged loitering munitions, such as Israeli-made Harop drones, to dismantle enemy air defences.
- In Ukraine, drones have become central to warfare innovation, with a wide range of models deployed and rapid adaptation becoming the norm. Myanmar’s insurgents have also begun using 3D-printed drones against a more advanced military, narrowing the technological disparity.
- India must draw key lessons from these conflicts as it continues to modernize its armed forces. China, with its vast and varied UAV arsenal, and Pakistan, which is enhancing its drone capabilities through collaborations with China and Türkiye, pose growing threats, particularly along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Building Resilience and Counter-Drone Capabilities
- Although drones are transformative, they remain susceptible to countermeasures such as jamming, interception, and anti-aircraft systems. Their success hinges on the ability to either bypass or overwhelm these defences. However, even air defence systems have limitations and can be compromised through evolving tactics and technologies.
- India has developed a layered counter-drone infrastructure, featuring both homegrown soft-kill and hard-kill systems, which were instrumental in neutralizing recent threats from Pakistan.
- Enhancing drone survivability requires advanced capabilities like autonomous route correction, AI-based navigation, and signal frequency hopping. Ukraine has pioneered the use of machine vision and pre-loaded terrain data to circumvent air defences, while operating drones at low altitudes to avoid radar detection.
- Some UAVs are now equipped with their own electronic warfare suites, enabling them to disrupt enemy communications and radars. Ukraine has even used fibre-optic tethering to guide drones effectively and securely.
- Mass deployment of drones and decoys is another effective method, as seen in Russia’s drone offensives that aim to saturate Ukrainian air defence systems. This creates challenges in resource allocation and opens pathways for precision attacks.
- India’s Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) demonstrated robust performance in countering recent drone and missile strikes.
- Nonetheless, ensuring sustained capability in prolonged engagements will require increasing the production and procurement of air defence munitions like the S-400, MR-SAM, and Akash systems. On the offensive side, considering the high attrition rate of drones, India must build capacity in both numbers and diversity of loitering munitions.
Strategic Outlook for India
- The increasing use of UAVs signals a broader transformation in military planning and execution. India’s integration of drones with standoff weaponry during Operation Sindoor has introduced a level of ambiguity in its response strategy, broadening its options below the threshold of full-scale conventional or nuclear conflict. At the same time, China’s provision of drone technology to Pakistan introduces an added layer of strategic concern.
- China continues to expand its drone capabilities, investing heavily in a range of UAVs — from long-range reconnaissance platforms like the Soaring Dragon and Wing Loong II to swarming kamikaze drones such as the CH-901. These developments amplify the threat along India's borders.
- For India, drones serve as a complementary asset within its defence framework and can help offset disparities in conventional strength through asymmetric strategies. However, the lessons from Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Myanmar stress the importance of developing an affordable, large-scale drone production capacity.
- A crucial insight from the Ukraine conflict is the need for a strong, agile defence manufacturing ecosystem capable of scaling operations during high-intensity warfare. To fully harness the potential of drones, India’s Ministry of Defence must support the growth of its defence industry, ensuring rapid production, replenishment, and upgrade of drones, loitering munitions, and missile systems — a critical step toward operational resilience in modern conflict scenarios
Follow Up Question
1.Consider the following statements: (UPSC CSE Prelims 2023)
- Ballistic missiles are jet-propelled at subsonic speeds throughout their flights, while cruise missiles are rocket-powered only in the initial phase of flight.
- Agni-V is a medium-range supersonic cruise missile, while BrahMos is a solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
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Answer (d)
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- Nickel plays a crucial role in powering a wide array of technologies, from electronic devices to green energy systems. However, its current extraction process is far from environmentally friendly.
- A recent study has introduced a potentially transformative and eco-friendly approach to extract nickel from low-grade ores using hydrogen plasma rather than carbon. This innovative method is a single-step, carbon-free process that reportedly conserves both energy and time.
- Nickel is especially critical for clean energy applications such as electric vehicles (EVs), and global demand for the metal is projected to exceed six million tonnes annually by 2040.
- Although EVs are promoted as a greener alternative to fossil fuel vehicles, their production, particularly the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, comes with environmental drawbacks.
- A significant component of these batteries is nickel, whose extraction is highly carbon-intensive. The production of one tonne of nickel can emit over 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
- Therefore, even as EVs help lower emissions during usage, the extraction and processing of key raw materials like nickel shift the environmental burden to sectors like mining and metallurgy.
- India possesses sizable reserves of nickel laterite, notably in Odisha’s Sukinda region. These resources, which contain 0.4–0.9% nickel as nickeliferous limonite found in chromite mine overburden, are often neglected due to the inefficiency of conventional extraction methods with low-grade ores.
- However, according to Dierk Raabe, a professor and director at the Max Planck Institute and co-author of the study, the newly proposed technique is effective in recovering nickel from these underutilized sources. He emphasized its potential importance as demand increases for sustainably sourced materials.
- This is particularly relevant for rapidly developing countries like India, which must balance economic growth with climate commitments and opportunities in the green economy.
- Nevertheless, scaling up this hydrogen plasma-based process for industrial use may pose several challenges. These include the need for significant initial investment in infrastructure and renewable energy sources, possible limitations on the types of ores that can be processed, and the requirement for more detailed studies on reaction kinetics.
- Moreover, a consistent supply of free oxygen species at the arc-melt interface would be essential for the process to function effectively on a larger scale.
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Answer (C)
On August 7, 2020, the Delhi government officially launched its Electric Vehicles (EV) Policy 2020 . No other states or union territories—such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, or Tamil Nadu—had an EV policy rollout on that specific date.
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- According to a recent demographic report from the United Nations, India’s population was estimated to have reached 1.4639 billion by April. The report also notes that the country’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has dropped to 1.9, which is below the replacement threshold of 2.1.
- The report, titled “State of the World Population 2025: The Real Fertility Crisis”, predicts that India’s population will continue to rise, reaching around 1.7 billion, before it begins to decline in roughly four decades. It identifies India as the most populous country in the world, placing China’s current population at 1.4161 billion.
- The demographic trends mentioned in the UNFPA report are consistent with projections made by India’s technical expert group in 2019. That forecast estimated India’s population in 2025 to be around 1.411 billion.
- India’s 2021 Census has been delayed, and the government now aims to complete it by March 2027. The last Census was held in 2011.
- As per the 2021 Sample Registration System (SRS) data released by the Office of the Registrar General of India, the country’s TFR stood at 2.0, the same as the previous year. The report indicated that India had achieved replacement-level fertility on a national scale.
- TFR refers to the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her reproductive years. Replacement-level fertility represents the rate at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next.
- Rather than focusing solely on population numbers, the UN report emphasizes a more nuanced issue: that many individuals cannot fulfill their reproductive intentions. It terms this the “real fertility crisis”, advocating for greater reproductive autonomy—the freedom to make informed choices about sexual health, contraception, and family planning—in an evolving global context.
- India continues to have a substantial youth population, with 24% aged 0–14, 17% between 10–19, and 26% in the 10–24 age range. Moreover, about 68% of the population falls within the working-age group (15–64 years). Currently, 7% of Indians are aged 65 or older, a number projected to rise as life expectancy improves.
- By 2025, life expectancy at birth in India is expected to be 71 years for males and 74 years for females, according to the UN report. The demographic data presented are based on nationally representative surveys, such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), and estimates from UN and inter-agency sources
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Answer (B)
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1. The Global Gender Gap Index, published yearly by the World Economic Forum (WEF), was launched in 2006. It evaluates gender parity progress across four main areas: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. The index uses a scale from 0 to 1, where 1 signifies full gender equality. Any value less than 1 indicates the extent of the gender gap.
2. According to the 2025 edition of the index, which assessed 148 countries, the gender gap has narrowed by 96.2% in Health and Survival, 95.1% in Educational Attainment, 61.0% in Economic Participation and Opportunity, and just 22.9% in Political Empowerment. The report highlights that while women account for 41.2% of the global workforce, they only occupy 28.8% of senior leadership roles.
3. Iceland continues to lead as the most gender-equal country for the 16th year in a row, having closed 92.6% of its gender gap—making it the only country to surpass 90% parity. Following Iceland are Finland, Norway, the UK, and New Zealand. In South Asia, Bangladesh showed remarkable progress, climbing 75 spots to 24th place globally. Other regional rankings include Nepal at 125, Sri Lanka at 130, Bhutan at 119, Maldives at 138, and Pakistan at 148.
4. India has fallen two places to 131st out of 148 countries. Despite this, its overall parity score has improved by 0.3 points, now standing at 64.1%, which is among the lowest in South Asia. In 2024, India ranked 129.5. The Economic Participation and Opportunity score increased by 0.9 percentage points to 40.7%, and parity in estimated income rose from 28.6% to 29.9%, improving the subindex score.
5. In the Educational Attainment category, India scored 97.1%, showing positive trends in female literacy rates and enrolment in higher education, thereby enhancing the overall subindex performance.
6. The report also notes improved gender parity in Health and Survival in India, driven by better sex ratios at birth and higher healthy life expectancy. Nonetheless, this parity comes amid a general decline in life expectancy for both genders.
7. In terms of Political Empowerment, India witnessed a slight drop of 0.6 points compared to the previous year. Women’s representation in Parliament decreased from 14.7% to 13.8% in 2025. Similarly, the percentage of female ministers dropped from 6.5% to 5.6%, causing a second consecutive annual decline in the indicator score.
Key Gender-Related Indices
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Gender Inequality Index (GII): Released by the UNDP in its Human Development Report, this index evaluates disparities in reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. Scores range from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (maximum inequality). In 2023, India’s GII score was 0.403, ranking 102nd out of 172 countries.
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Gender Development Index (GDI): Also by the UNDP, the GDI examines disparities in health, education, and economic resources by comparing male and female HDI values. For India, the 2023 female HDI was 0.631 versus 0.722 for males, resulting in a GDI of 0.874.
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Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI): A joint measure by UNDP and UN Women, the GGPI gauges gender parity in four development domains: health and well-being, education and skills, economic inclusion, and participation in decision-making.
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Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI): This composite index, developed by UNDP and UN Women, assesses women’s empowerment in five areas: health, education, inclusion, decision-making, and gender-based violence. Scores range from 0 to 1, with India scoring 0.52, indicating moderate empowerment
1.Which of the following gives ‘Global Gender Gap Index’ ranking to the countries of the world? (UPSC CSE 2017)
(a) World Economic Forum
(b) UN Human Rights Council
(c) UN Women
(d) World Health Organization
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Answer (a)
The World Economic Forum (WEF) releases the Global Gender Gap Index annually, which ranks countries based on gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment
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Post-Retirement Appointments for Judges
For Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international Significance
For Mains Examination: General Studies IV: Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration
Context:
Making clear he has decided not to accept any post-retirement role or position from the government, Chief Justice of India B R Gavai has said that judges taking up government appointments “immediately after retirement” or resigning to contest elections “raises significant ethical concerns and invites public scrutiny”.
Read about:
Code of Conduct for Judges
Doctrine of separation of powers
Key takeaways:
- The practice of appointing retired judges to political or administrative roles dates back to the era of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. However, it is increasingly important to confront a challenging question: Should former judges refrain from accepting government positions for a certain period after retirement, given that such appointments might cast doubt on the judiciary’s independence?
- In contrast to federal judges in the United States, who serve lifetime terms, Indian judges have a fixed tenure. Supreme Court judges retire at 65, while those in high courts retire at 62.
- Their tenure is constitutionally protected, meaning they do not serve at the discretion of the President and cannot be removed at will. The only way to remove them is through impeachment by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament, based on proven misconduct or incapacity.
- This process is extremely rare and has never been successfully carried out, although there have been attempts. As a result, judges enjoy significant job security during their time in office — a safeguard designed to uphold judicial independence.
- According to the Indian Constitution, a retired judge of the Supreme Court is barred from practicing law in any court or before any authority within the country. During the Constituent Assembly debates, economist and legal expert K.T. Shah proposed that judges from the higher judiciary should also be prohibited from accepting government positions post-retirement, to eliminate any lure of higher salary or prestige that could potentially compromise their impartiality.
- However, B.R. Ambedkar rejected this suggestion, arguing that the judiciary typically handles cases where the government's involvement is minimal or nonexistent.
- Ambedkar's viewpoint reflected the reality of his time, when the judiciary mainly dealt with private legal matters, and government-related litigation was infrequent.
- However, this is no longer true in modern India, where the government is now one of the most frequent parties involved in court cases. Therefore, the concern about possible government influence over judges is far more relevant today.
- The Law Commission, in its 14th report published in 1958, observed that retired Supreme Court judges generally pursued two types of post-retirement roles: first, private advisory work, such as giving legal opinions and serving as arbitrators (what we might now call "chamber practice"), and second, taking up prominent posts in the government.
- Although the Commission disapproved of chamber practice, it did not call for a ban on it. However, it strongly recommended that former Supreme Court judges should not take up government jobs after retirement, considering the government’s extensive presence as a litigant in courtrooms. Despite the Commission’s clear stance, these recommendations were never adopted
Follow Up Question
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Answer (C)
Statement 1: True Statement 2: True |
Instruments of monetary policy
For Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international significance
For Mains Examination: GS III - Economy
Context:
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is expected to cut the repo rate – the key policy rate – by 25 basis points (bps) in the policy meeting scheduled from June 4 to 6, to support growth as inflation continues to remain below the 4 per cent target
Read about:
What are the instruments of monetary policy?
What happens to lending rates if repo rate is left steady?
Key takeaways:
Monetary Policy Overview and Tools
Monetary policy governs the availability and cost (interest rates) of money within the economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), through its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), meets bi-monthly to review economic conditions and adjust the repo rate — the rate at which it lends to commercial banks — to manage inflation and stabilize price levels.
According to the RBI, the following are the key instruments used to implement monetary policy:
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Repo Rate: This is the interest charged by the RBI when providing short-term liquidity to banks via the Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF), using approved securities as collateral.
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Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) Rate: Introduced in April 2022, this is the rate at which the RBI accepts overnight, uncollateralised deposits from banks. It acts as both a liquidity tool and a financial stability mechanism, placed 25 basis points below the repo rate, replacing the fixed reverse repo as the LAF floor.
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Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) Rate: This penal rate allows banks to borrow overnight from the RBI by tapping into their Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) reserves within a capped limit (2%). It offers a buffer against unexpected liquidity crunches and is 25 basis points above the repo rate.
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Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF): A key monetary tool, LAF includes repo and reverse repo operations (both fixed and variable rate), SDF, and MSF. Additional instruments for liquidity management include open market operations (OMOs), forex swaps, and the Market Stabilisation Scheme (MSS).
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Reverse Repo Rate: This is the rate at which the RBI absorbs excess liquidity from banks using government securities. Since the SDF was introduced, the RBI now uses the fixed reverse repo selectively.
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Bank Rate: This is the rate at which the RBI buys or rediscounts commercial paper. It also serves as the penalty rate for banks failing to meet reserve requirements. The bank rate is aligned with the MSF and changes in tandem with the policy rate.
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Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR): A mandatory reserve that banks must maintain with the RBI as a percentage of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL).
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Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR): Banks must maintain a specific portion of their liabilities in liquid assets (like cash, gold, or government securities), as notified by the RBI.
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Open Market Operations (OMOs): These involve direct buying or selling of government securities by the RBI to regulate long-term liquidity
Current Policy Outlook
- With inflation easing, experts anticipate that the MPC may reduce the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.75%. One basis point equals 0.01%.
- Headline inflation, measured via the Consumer Price Index (CPI), dropped to 3.2% in April — the lowest since July 2019 — following a steady decline in food prices. CPI inflation has consistently stayed below the RBI’s 4% target (with a permitted ±2% range under the Flexible Inflation Targeting framework) for three consecutive months: February, March, and April.
- Given these developments, economists suggest CPI inflation may align with the 4% target over the next year. The RBI is also expected to revise its FY26 projections for real GDP and inflation.
- Its latest report cites improved global commodity trends, relaxed supply constraints, and likely strong agricultural output from an above-normal monsoon as positive indicators for inflation stability in FY26
Follow Up Question
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Answer (C)
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