Why in the News?

• Following a catastrophic glacial collapse and flash flood on August 26 that killed over 1,200 people, Nepal has launched a diplomatic demand for climate compensation from the world's three biggest emitters, the United States, China and India.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Nepal’s Demand (Background, Nepal’s Demand, Third Pole Paradox, Impact of Distant Warming, Economic Devastation, Climate Finance Gap, Implications for India)

The Disaster and Nepal's Response

• Nepal's Foreign Minister declared that the country was "paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create."
• What makes Nepal's response significant is not the scale of the tragedy alone but the shift in approach. Instead of issuing the customary appeals for humanitarian aid, Kathmandu launched a diplomatic offensive demanding direct climate compensation.
• By moving foreign policy from seeking charity to enforcing legal liability, Nepal has turned a national disaster into a global test of climate justice, forcing the international community to confront the limits of adaptation.

The Third Pole Paradox

• The injustice Nepal represents is stark in numerical terms.
• Nepal contributes a negligible 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions and generates almost all its electricity from renewable hydropower. Yet its geography places it at the epicentre of global warming.
• The Hindu Kush Himalayas, often called the "Third Pole", are warming at nearly twice the global average, melting glaciers at ten times their historical norms.

How Distant Warming Reaches the Himalayas?

• This accelerated melt does not occur in isolation. It is driven by global teleconnections: warming in the North Eurasian Arctic disrupts planetary waves and the stratospheric polar vortex, which in turn destabilises the South Asian monsoon.
• The August 26 disaster, triggered by a massive glacial collapse on the Nepal-China border, demonstrated how extreme events in the cryosphere can cascade down into densely populated valleys.
• The major powers treated Nepal's crisis as a localised weather event manageable through temporary relief. But the Himalayan ecosystem depends on a delicate climatic balance now failing under the weight of Northern Hemisphere pollution.

Economic Devastation

• Nepal's development strategy rested heavily on hydropower. The country had planned to harness its 43,000 MW of commercially viable capacity to become a regional energy exporter, and had only recently achieved net-exporter status.
• The August floods reversed this in a matter of days:
  • Approximately 10% of installed capacity was crippled
  • Older surface-level plants such as Devighat were wiped out
  • Under-construction projects were completely buried in mud
  • Nepal was forced to halt exports and import power to survive the winter
• Rebuilding will require climate-resilient, underground engineering, driving up future project costs by 10% to 12%.
• Total damages are estimated between $4 billion and $7 billion, roughly a tenth of Nepal's entire GDP.

The Climate Finance Trap

• Nepal's demand also exposes the inadequacy of existing global climate finance architecture.
• At COP27 in 2022, vulnerable nations successfully fought to establish the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), which was operationalised at COP28 a year later.
• In practice, however, the mechanism is handicapped by slow-moving bureaucracy. For a country in ruins, waiting months for a standard UN review is a luxury it cannot afford.
• By bypassing normal channels and launching an out-of-cycle demand on September 1, just six days after the disaster, Nepal has forced the fund's board to decide whether it can respond to a real-time emergency or remains merely a paper-pushing exercise.
• The Scale Mismatch
  • The entire global fund holds a mere $700 million in pledges.
  • Under pilot phase rules, individual grants are capped between $5 million and $20 million.
  • A $20 million payout against a $7 billion catastrophe exposes the system's inability to provide meaningful compensation.
  • There is a further concern. With the fund temporarily hosted by the World Bank, debt-saddled developing nations fear that "compensation" may eventually morph into crippling loans.

Why This Matters Beyond Nepal?

• Nepal's diplomatic gambit has already altered the landscape, regardless of its immediate outcome.
• Even if Kathmandu does not extract a multi-billion-dollar cheque, its stance has exposed the profound inadequacies of global climate diplomacy.
• The gap between the scale of climate damage and the scale of available compensation is now impossible to ignore.
• More significantly, Nepal has shifted the framework from charity to liability, setting a disruptive precedent for the entire Global South that heavy emitters will find increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Implications for India

• This incident carries particular consequences for Indian climate diplomacy.
• India has long argued for differentiated responsibility based on historical emissions and per-capita metrics.
• Nepal's application of that principle within South Asia creates an uncomfortable position, one where India finds itself on the receiving end of an argument it has advanced globally.
• At the same time, India faces genuine Himalayan climate risk itself. Glacier retreat threatens river systems supporting hundreds of millions across northern India, making the region's ecological stability a shared rather than purely bilateral concern.

Why in News?

• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the 2,367-kg EOS-05, an advanced Earth Observation Satellite (EOS), aboard GSLV Mk II-F17 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
• The mission is significant because EOS-05 is India’s first dedicated imaging satellite placed in a geosynchronous orbit, enabling near-continuous observation of the Indian landmass.
• The success also provided a major boost to the GSLV programme, following the failure of the EOS-03 mission in 2021 and subsequent setbacks involving PSLV missions.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• A New Capability in Earth Observation
• Strategic Significance
• Boost to GSLV Mk II
• Growing Role of the Private Space Sector
• Conclusion

A New Capability in Earth Observation:

• “Eye in the Sky”:
  • EOS-05 has been positioned in a high-altitude orbit of around 36,000 km, above the South Asian landmass, at an inclination of about 19.28° to the equator.
  • Geosynchronous orbit means the satellite's orbital period matches Earth's rotation, allowing it to return to the same position relative to Earth at regular intervals.
  • A geostationary orbit is a special case of geosynchronous orbit—circular, equatorial and appearing stationary over one point on Earth.
  • EOS-05's inclined orbit is therefore more precisely described as geosynchronous rather than strictly geostationary.
  • Unlike conventional Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Earth-observation satellites, which periodically pass over the same region, EOS-05 can maintain an almost-continuous watch over the Indian region.
• Advanced imaging:
  • The satellite carries multi-spectral and hyper-spectral imaging capabilities, allowing -
    • Weather and cloud monitoring.
    • Rapid assessment of cyclones, floods and cloudbursts.
    • Agricultural and crop assessments.
    • Earth-resource monitoring.
    • Near-real-time imagery for strategic applications.
  • It can capture selected field images approximately every five minutes and cover the entire country in around 30 minutes.
  • Its assured mission life is seven years, with the possibility of operational longevity beyond this period.

Strategic Significance:

• EOS-05 has been described as a “strategic satellite” and an “Eye in the Sky”.
• Its high-altitude imaging capability can strengthen India's ability to continuously monitor its territory and surrounding areas.
• Its applications include:
  • Border surveillance: Continuous observation can supplement existing terrestrial and space-based surveillance systems.
  • Disaster management: Rapid imagery can improve early warning, damage assessment and post-disaster response.
  • Agriculture: Frequent observations can support crop monitoring, agricultural assessment and planning.
  • Weather monitoring: Persistent observation is particularly valuable for tracking rapidly evolving weather systems.
• Thus, EOS-05 represents a shift from periodic Earth observation towards persistent, high-frequency space-based monitoring.
• The satellite's multi-spectral and hyperspectral capabilities also expand the range of information that can be extracted from imagery compared with conventional optical observation.

Boost to GSLV Mk II:

• The mission is particularly important for the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk II, whose developmental history was affected by problems associated with its indigenous cryogenic upper stage.
• GSLV Mk II has consequently earned the informal nickname “Naughty Boy” because of its earlier reliability issues.
• Of its 13 Mk II missions, 11 have reportedly been successful, including the latest GSLV-F17 mission.
• The cryogenic upper stage performed successfully during EOS-05, reaching an apogee of approximately 31,026 km, higher than initially expected. This could potentially increase the satellite's operational life by several years.
• EOS-05 was also the heaviest satellite launched by GSLV into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) or sub-GTO trajectory, demonstrating improved launch-vehicle capability.

Growing Role of the Private Space Sector:

• The mission also highlights India's evolving space-sector ecosystem, with increasing participation by domestic industries.
• Hundreds of Indian industries contributed components, raw materials, propulsion systems and structural assemblies for the mission.
• Ananth Technologies Pvt. Ltd., for instance, supplied critical avionics, electronics and spacecraft subsystems, including 28 packages for the launch vehicle.
• The government is increasingly encouraging private participation in satellite and launch-vehicle manufacturing while enabling ISRO to concentrate on deep-space exploration, advanced research and strategic missions such as Gaganyaan.
• IN-SPACe is facilitating private participation through measures including technology transfer, access to space data and infrastructure, and financial incentives.

Conclusion:

• The EOS-05 mission illustrates the convergence of space technology, national security, disaster management, agriculture, climate monitoring and private-sector participation.
• For India, the larger objective is to build an integrated space ecosystem in which ISRO increasingly focuses on frontier science and complex missions, while private industry expands manufacturing, launch services and downstream applications.

Context

• India is reportedly revising its 2015 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), a framework adopted after a series of disputes involving foreign investors.
• The revision is significant because BITs must reconcile two competing objectives: protecting foreign investment and preserving the State’s right to regulate in the public interest.
• India’s 2015 model strongly prioritised regulatory autonomy, but its limited success in concluding new BITs suggests that the framework may have moved too far in one direction.

Background: Why India Adopted the 2015 Model BIT

• India’s investment treaty policy underwent a major reassessment after foreign investors initiated several claims against India for alleged treaty violations.
• The resulting review produced two major policy decisions: India began terminating older BITs and adopted the 2015 Model BIT as the foundation for negotiating new agreements.
• The 2015 model reflected India’s desire to protect its policy space and regulatory sovereignty.
• It narrowed the scope of investor protections and imposed several procedural and substantive conditions before investors could pursue international claims.
• While these safeguards were intended to prevent frivolous or excessive litigation against the government, they also generated uncertainty among foreign investors.

A Model Out of Balance

• A successful BIT should establish a reasonable equilibrium between investment protection and the State’s right to regulate.
• India’s 2015 model, however, has arguably tilted too heavily towards regulatory autonomy.
• India has concluded only a limited number of BITs based on the model over the past decade.
• This suggests that potential investment partners have found its provisions insufficiently attractive.
• Concerns over regulatory uncertainty, weak governance mechanisms and delays in the judicial system further increase the risks faced by foreign investors.
• Consequently, India now needs to move the pendulum towards the centre. The revised model should provide stronger and clearer protections for investors while preserving legitimate governmental authority to regulate areas such as public health, environment, taxation, labour and national security.

The Democratic Deficit in Treaty-Making

• The second and often neglected dimension is the process through which the Model BIT is revised.
• International economic treaties can significantly influence citizens, businesses, public finances and governmental policymaking.
• Therefore, those affected by such agreements should have meaningful opportunities to participate in their formulation.
• This raises the issue of a democratic deficit. The term describes situations where important decisions are largely shaped by executive authorities, bureaucracies and technical experts without sufficient parliamentary or public scrutiny.
• A lack of transparency can weaken public confidence and exclude perspectives from academics, economists, lawyers, industry, civil society and other stakeholders.
• Since investment treaties can constrain future governments and influence domestic regulation, they should not be treated as purely technical or bureaucratic instruments.

International Practices and India’s Experience

• The United Kingdom and Australia, for instance, require negotiated treaties to be presented before Parliament before ratification, enabling legislative scrutiny.
• Norway conducted public consultations on its updated model BIT, while Colombia also released its model for public discussion.
• India itself followed a consultative approach in 2015 by circulating the draft Model BIT for public comments.
• The Law Commission of India subsequently constituted an expert group and examined the draft, making several recommendations in its 260th Report.
• Although India eventually adopted a revised model in December 2015, some of these recommendations were not incorporated.
• The 2015 experience demonstrates that consultation is possible, but the forthcoming revision should make it more comprehensive, transparent and consequential.

A Meaningful Consultative Process

• First, the government should establish an independent core group consisting of experts in international investment law, economics and foreign investment.
  • Academics, researchers, lawyers and specialists from think tanks could provide an external sounding board.
• Second, wider consultations should involve industry associations, arbitrators, law firms and civil society organisations.
  • Their practical experience can identify problems that may not be visible within government.
• Third, a draft Model BIT should be placed in the public domain for widespread consultation, allowing citizens and stakeholders to submit detailed comments.
• Fourth, the draft should be presented before Parliament and relevant parliamentary committees for discussion and scrutiny. This would strengthen legislative oversight and democratic legitimacy.

Conclusion

• India’s revision of its Model BIT is an opportunity to correct the imbalance in its investment treaty framework.
• A modern treaty should simultaneously provide credible investment protection, regulatory certainty and adequate policy space for the State.
• Yet a sound treaty is not determined only by its legal provisions; its legitimacy also depends on the process through which it is created.
• A transparent consultation involving experts, industry, civil society, the public and Parliament would strengthen both the quality and legitimacy of the revised Model BIT.
• By combining balanced investment protection with meaningful democratic oversight, India can build a treaty framework that is more attractive to investors, more accountable to citizens and more resilient in the long term.

Context

• For decades, India approached West Asia through strategic caution, economic pragmatism and diplomatic balancing.
• The region was primarily a source of crude oil, employment and remittances, while New Delhi maintained relations with competing powers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and the UAE.
• This policy of multi-alignment allowed India to maximise economic benefits without becoming involved in regional conflicts, however, West Asia’s geopolitical environment is changing rapidly.
• The changing American role, emerging regional security arrangements and growing threats to trade routes require India to reconsider its traditional approach. Economic influence alone can no longer guarantee strategic relevance.

What Worked Until Now?

• India’s policy was based on maintaining friendly relations with all major regional powers without becoming excessively dependent on any one of them.
• This enabled cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and the UAE despite their rivalries.
• West Asia offered enormous economic opportunities because of its oil and gas resources, accumulated capital, strategic geography and demand for foreign labour.
• Millions of Indians working in the Gulf strengthened people-to-people ties, while remittances contributed significantly to India’s economy.
• This approach also benefited from the United States acting as the principal security guarantor of the region.
• American military power helped protect maritime routes and maintain regional stability, allowing India to concentrate largely on commerce and diplomacy.
• That foundation is now weakening. As Washington adopts a more selective approach to global commitments, West Asian countries are seeking alternative and dependable security partners.

A Changing Regional Security Architecture

• The emergence of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement involving Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan demonstrates the changing regional security environment.
• Such arrangements can combine Gulf financial strength, Turkish defence technology and Pakistani military expertise, creating new strategic configurations close to India’s western maritime neighbourhood.
• West Asian countries increasingly expect partners to provide tangible security capabilities rather than diplomatic assurances.
• This weakens the strategic value of maintaining distance from regional security arrangements.
• For India, the development is significant because the region is vital to its energy security, trade routes, diaspora and maritime interests. New Delhi must therefore reconsider whether traditional multi-alignment remains sufficient.

Why Economic Ties Alone Are Insufficient?

• Economic relationships cannot protect infrastructure from drones, asymmetric warfare, terrorism and maritime disruption.
• Ports, energy facilities and logistics corridors can remain vulnerable despite massive technological investment.
• The Gulf’s economic model also depends heavily on foreign companies and expatriate workers.
• Prolonged insecurity can damage investor confidence, encourage capital flight and reduce the attractiveness of the region.
• Disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandab can affect energy supplies and global trade.
• For India, instability directly threatens commercial interests and the welfare of its large Gulf diaspora.

The Strategic Gap Facing India

• India’s dependence on transactional diplomacy is becoming a weakness.
• High-level visits, investment agreements, energy contracts and diaspora diplomacy remain valuable but cannot replace naval protection, intelligence cooperation and strategic deterrence.
• Regional powers increasingly seek defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, counter-terrorism capabilities and maritime security. If India remains hesitant, other powers will fill the strategic vacuum.

The Hard Moves India Must Make

• India should evolve from a beneficiary of regional stability into an active contributor to security.
• It should expand maritime cooperation across the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Somali waters and Bab-el-Mandab.
• This requires joint naval patrols, logistics access, maritime surveillance and information-sharing networks with friendly regional states.
• India should also use its expanding defence manufacturing ecosystem to offer West Asian countries alternatives in military technology.
• Joint production, military exercises, defence research and technology partnerships should complement arms sales.
• Flexible minilateral security partnerships with the UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia can create a strategic deterrence network without forcing India into rigid military alliances.
• Greater intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation would further strengthen regional security.

Balancing Ambition with Strategic Autonomy

• India must increase its security role without becoming entangled in West Asian conflicts.
• Strategic engagement should therefore focus on maritime security, deterrence, intelligence and protection of economic interests, rather than permanent military intervention.
• Such an approach would preserve strategic autonomy while giving India greater influence over developments that directly affect its national interests. 

Conclusion

• India’s traditional West Asia policy succeeded because it matched the geopolitical conditions of its time.
• However, the changing American role, emerging security partnerships and growing threats to critical infrastructure have made passive diplomacy increasingly inadequate.
• India needs a new balance between economic engagement and security responsibility.
• Stronger naval capabilities, defence partnerships, intelligence networks and flexible minilateral arrangements can help protect its energy supplies, trade routes and diaspora.
• The objective should not be unnecessary military intervention but the creation of sufficient strategic capacity to safeguard Indian interests.
• India must evolve from being merely an economic partner to becoming an active and credible security stakeholder in West Asia.

Why in news?

The Union government has deferred the 2027 Census in Manipur, following demands that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) be conducted first. While Meitei and Naga groups support this demand, Kuki-Zo groups strongly oppose it.

Understanding this dispute requires unpacking three interlinked issues: citizenship, displacement, and political representation.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why Is the Census Being Opposed?
• Is the NRC Demand New?
• The Myanmar Factor
• What Do Kuki-Zo Groups Say?
• Why Delimitation Is the Real Stakes?
• Can Manipur Have Its Own NRC?
• Alternative Tools Being Used

Why Is the Census Being Opposed?

• Citizenship and demographic change: Civil society groups in both the valley and Naga-dominated hill districts allege that migration from Myanmar has altered Manipur's population composition.
  • They want an exercise to distinguish citizens from illegal immigrants before population is recorded.
• Displacement from ethnic conflict: More than three years after violence began in May 2023, thousands remain displaced. Meitei groups argue a Census conducted now would capture displacement patterns rather than the state's real population.
  • Hence, the Meitei Alliance wants Census delayed until displaced people return home.
• Political representation: Census figures feed into delimitation, and Manipur hasn't had fresh delimitation since the 1970s. This gap means new figures could significantly alter Assembly seat equations.

Is the NRC Demand New?

• In June 2022, the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) and the United Naga Council (UNC) jointly demanded an NRC and State Population Commission.
• The Manipur Assembly adopted a resolution seeking both on August 5, 2022, reaffirmed on March 1, 2024.
• The resolution cited hill district population growth of 153.3% (1971-2001) and 250.9% (2001-2011), compared to 94.8% and 125.4% in the valley — though these figures alone don't prove illegal immigration.
• The then government set up the Manipur State Population Commission in February 2023 to identify "illegal immigrants".

The Myanmar Factor

• The 2021 military coup in Myanmar triggered fighting in Chin State, driving thousands into India — many with ethnic ties to Manipur's Kuki-Zomi population.
• The state government linked this influx to new settlements, poppy cultivation and encroachment.
• Kuki organisations disputed this, saying legitimate Indian citizens were being wrongly conflated with recent arrivals.
• In February 2024, the Centre scrapped the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar over security and demographic concerns.
• Various groups of Manipur have explicitly tied the demand to Census and delimitation, declaring: "NRC first: No Census, No Delimitation Before Implementation of NRC in Manipur," demanding NRC with 1951 as base year.

What Do Kuki-Zo Groups Say?

• The Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) holds the opposite position, calling a pre-Census NRC "premature and unjustified." Its arguments:
  • NRC is a national exercise — no state or community can unilaterally initiate a separate NRC.
  • Allegations against the Kuki-Zo community are largely unsubstantiated and should be tested against credible Census data, not the reverse.
  • Since Kuki, Zomi and Chin communities straddle the India-Myanmar border, an NRC using an old documentary cut-off could wrongly implicate families that have lived in Manipur for generations.
  • KZC supports delimitation, but only based on verified demographic data.

Why Delimitation Is the Real Stakes?

• Manipur has 60 Assembly seats: 40 in the valley (Meitei-dominated) and 20 in the hills (Naga and Kuki-Zomi).
• The current map dates to 1973 delimitation, based on the 1971 Census.
• Manipur was excluded from the 2002-2008 national delimitation exercise (along with Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland) due to security concerns and disputes over 2001 Census credibility.
• The 2001 Census showed some hill subdivisions growing over 100% between 1991-2001, fuelling controversy.
• Fear in valley political circles: fresh delimitation could shift the 40:20 split toward 35:25 or even 30:30, reducing the valley's political advantage.

Can Manipur Have Its Own NRC?

• A nationwide NRC is typically expected to follow updating of the National Population Register (NPR) — but NPR hasn't been notified for the 2027 Census.
• However, there's no legal bar on a state-specific NRC: under Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, the Centre holds power to maintain the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC), with no requirement for simultaneous nationwide rollout.
• Ultimately, this remains a political decision.

Alternative Tools Being Used

• Instead of (or alongside) NRC, the Centre has other mechanisms:
  • A High-Level Committee on Demographic Change (announced May 2026) to study illegal immigration-driven demographic shifts;
  • Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls — already excluded around 7% of voters in Manipur at the draft stage;
  • Tighter border management, biometric registration of migrants, and identification/deportation of illegal foreigners

Conclusion

The Manipur Census deferral reveals how deeply citizenship, ethnic conflict displacement, and electoral representation are intertwined in the state's politics.

While Meitei and Naga groups see NRC as essential to establishing an accurate demographic baseline, Kuki-Zo groups view it as a premature exercise that risks disenfranchising genuine citizens.

Resolving this standoff will require careful sequencing of NRC, Census, and delimitation — sequencing has now become the field of political contest.

Why in news?

The Supreme Court recently used its special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to quash FIRs filed against participants in nationwide exam protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).

This decision has renewed debate over a provision that gives the Court unusually wide powers — one that legal scholars have argued about since the Constitution was adopted.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What Happened in the CJP Case?
• About Article 142
• How Has the Court Used This Power Before?
• Has the Court Tried to Limit Its Own Power?
• A Recurring Source of Controversy

What Happened in the CJP Case?

• A bench led by CJI Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, closed cases linked to the July protests over the NEET-UG 2026 exam leak.
• The Centre told the Court it had "consciously decided" not to pursue these cases, and the Court also ordered compensation — within three months — for families of students who died by suicide over the leak.
• Nearly all FIRs from the protests were quashed, except those involving about 2,873 individuals with "serious and grave criminal antecedents."
• As part of the same hearing, CJP was asked to publicly commit to calling off a protest march planned for September 5.
• In effect, the Court became the platform through which the government fulfilled a demand CJP had made back in July.

About Article 142

• Article 142 allows the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary for "doing complete justice" in a case before it.
• Unusually for a constitutional provision, it does not define what "complete justice" means, or lay down when it can be used — leaving this entirely to the Court's discretion.
• Its roots go back to Section 210 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and further still, to the colonial-era practice of deciding cases based on "justice, equity and good conscience" when no written law applied.
• It appeared in the Draft Constitution as Article 118 and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on May 27, 1949 — without any real debate.
• Essentially, its true scope was left for the Court to shape over the following decades, case by case.

How Has the Court Used This Power Before?

• Because it is so open-ended, Article 142 has become one of the Supreme Court's most frequently used tools. Some notable examples:
  • Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1989): Used to secure a $470 million settlement from Union Carbide, and to quash criminal cases against the company.
  • Ayodhya Title Dispute: Applied to resolve the case on "preponderance of probability," awarding five acres of land to the Muslim side.
  • A G Perarivalan's release (2022): Ordered release of a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
• The Court has also used it to grant divorces where a marriage has "irretrievably broken down," and in various public interest cases
• An empirical study by IIM Ahmedabad researchers, examining all cases from 1950 to 2023 referencing "Article 142" or "complete justice," found 1,579 references and 791 direct invocations — mostly in civil matters.

Has the Court Tried to Limit Its Own Power?

• The Supreme Court is often called one of the most powerful constitutional courts in the world, largely because of how it uses Article 142.
• This power becomes even more significant in a "polyvocal" court, where 38 judges typically sit in small benches of two.
  • A "polyvocal" court is a supreme court that speaks through multiple small, independent benches rather than a single unified voice, leading to different or overlapping interpretations of the law.
  • The term is most famously used to describe the Supreme Court of India.
• The Court has occasionally tried to set boundaries on itself:
  • Prem Chand Garg v State of Uttar Pradesh (1962): Held that Article 142 orders must still respect fundamental rights and existing law.
  • Supreme Court Bar Association v Union of India (1998): Held that Article 142 can fill gaps left by a statute, but cannot override an existing statutory scheme.
• However, the Court has often departed from its own cautionary rulings.

Why Does the CJP Order Raise Concerns?

• Normally, an FIR is examined individually — under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita — to check whether an offence is genuinely made out, or whether the case is clearly malicious.
• In the CJP order, however, thousands of FIRs from multiple states were grouped together and quashed without individual scrutiny, as part of a negotiated deal between the government and a protest group.
• Legal scholars argued that criminal law provisions cannot be overridden through such a blanket judicial decree — since this bypasses the normal legal process, rather than simply filling a gap in it.

A Recurring Source of Controversy

• This isn't the first time Article 142 has drawn sharp criticism:
  • When the Court last year used the same provision to treat long-pending Tamil Nadu Bills as automatically assented to, the then Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar described it as a "nuclear missile" against democratic institutions.
  • Former Attorney General K K Venugopal wrote in 2017 that while the provision had done "tremendous good" for disadvantaged sections, it needed proper checks and balances.
  • After the Sabarimala judgment, he went further, calling Article 142 a "Kamdhenu from which unlimited powers flowed" (referring to the mythical wish-granting cow).
  • He suggested that only five-judge Constitution Benches should be allowed to invoke it — to prevent its use resting on the interpretation of a single small bench

Conclusion

Article 142 remains one of the Supreme Court's most powerful yet controversial tools — enabling it to deliver justice beyond the limits of ordinary law, but also raising concerns about judicial overreach when used to bypass established legal procedures.

The CJP case highlights this tension sharply, reviving long-standing calls for clearer limits on how and when this extraordinary power should be exercised.

About Reverse Vaccinology:

• It is an emerging concept in the field of vaccine development.
• It is defined as an innovative approach to vaccine development that utilizes bioinformatics and computational analysis.
• It identifies potential vaccine targets within pathogen genomes, allowing for the modeling of epitopes and the creation of tailored vaccines for improved efficacy and safety.
• Reverse vaccinology is a term coined by Rino Rappuoli in 2000.
• He described it as a method for vaccine design that uses the information obtainable from whole-genome analysis. 
• It was first applied to the development of a vaccine against serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis (MenB). 
• The concept of reverse vaccinology has also successfully been applied to many other pathogens, for example, Bacillus anthracis, Streptococcus pneumonia, M. tuberculosis.
• Mechanism:
• Genome Sequencing: It involves the cloning and expression of all the proteins in an organism’s genome sequence that are predicted in silico to be surface exposed or secreted.
• Screening: Then each protein is screened, through high-throughput immunization.
• Laboratory Testing: Scientists make the chosen proteins in a lab and test them in animal models to see if they safely cause immunity.

About Limiting Overshoot Report:

• It is released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
• It has for the first time, set out an overshoot, peak and decline pathway, warning that breaching the 1.5°C global warming limit is now unavoidable.
• Key highlights of the Report:
• Even a scenario in which every country delivers on its national climate plan and net-zero target puts peak warming at 1.8°C
• According to the report, current policies point to a rise of about 2.6°C by 2100, with a range of 1.9–3.6°C.
• It warned that time spent above 1.5°C carries compounding costs such as faster sea-level rise, coral reef collapse, glacier loss exceeding a quarter of global mass by 2100, declines of up to 14% in global food production by 2050 without effective adaptation,
• Irreversible tipping points in the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Amazon.
• It placed significant stress on methane and suggested that cutting it is described as the most effective way to slow warming in the near term.