About Ingerana aizawl:

• It is a new species of frog.
• It was discovered at Hratdawng Stream on the Mizoram University campus.
• Features:
  • The new frog is small and stout-bodied.
  • It has a distinct circular tympanum, a prominent supratympanic fold, small rounded discs at the tips of its fingers and toes, and a notably wrinkled dorsal surface.
  • The species is closely associated with water and forest habitats.
  • Its breeding season appears to coincide with the monsoon.

About Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary:

• It is strategically located in Haryana.
• It lies on the Southern Delhi Ridge of the Aravalli hill range.
• Flora:
  • The semi-arid forest vegetation of the Aravali region provides homes to certain plant species.
  • It includes dhak (flame of the forest), babool (Acacia), khejri, and various shrubs and grasses that are well-adapted to dry conditions.
• Fauna:
  • It is home to a wide variety of animals, including the Indian leopard, jackal, Indian blue bull, sambar deer, wild boar, and mongoose.
  • It is also a birdwatcher’s paradise, with many species of birds spotted here, including the Indian peafowl, crested serpent-eagle, and Indian roller.
  • Reptiles such as the monitor lizard, Indian cobra, and Russell’s viper can also be found here.

About Kawal Tiger Reserve:

• Location: It is located in
• The reserve is nestled in the Sahyadri Mountain Ranges.
• Geographically, the reserve is situated at the southernmost tip of the Central Indian Tiger Landscape, having linkages with the Tadoba-Andhari (Maharashtra) and Indravati (Chhattisgarh) tiger reserves.
• Rivers: It is a major catchment of the river Godavari and local rivulets like Peddavagu and Kadam.
• Habitat: It has diverse habitats comprising dense forests, grasslands, rivers, streams, and water bodies.
• Vegetation: Southern Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest.
• Flora: It consists of teak along with bamboo and other species like Anogeissus latifolia, Mitragyna parviflora, Terminalia crenulata, Terminalia arjuna, Boswellia serrata, etc.
• Fauna: he major wild animals include: tiger, nilgai, chousinga, chinkara, black buck, sambar, spotted deer, wild dog, wolf, jackal, fox, leopard and the jungle cat.

About Steneucyrtus wayanadensis:

• It is a new species of darkling beetle.
• It belongs to the genus Steneucyrtus and was discovered during a scientific survey deep within the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. 
• The researchers have officially named it for paying permanent tribute to its type locality in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

Key Facts about Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary:

• It is located in
• It forms an integral part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• It is bordered by the protected areas of Nagarhole and Bandipur in Karnataka on the northeastern side and Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu on the southeastern side.
• Rivers: Rivers like the Kabini, Cherupuzha, and Bavali flow through the sanctuary.
• Tribes living in these forests include some scheduled adivasis, such as Paniyas, Kattunaikkans, Kurumas, Ooralis, Adiyans, and Kurichiyas.
• Vegetation: It is a mosaic of the Western Ghats’ significant vegetation types, ranging from moist deciduous to dry deciduous and semi-evergreen patches.
• Flora: Teak, rosewood, eucalyptus, and silver oak.
• Fauna: It is home to leopards, gaur (Indian bison), sambar deer, wild boars, sloth bears, and jungle cats.

About SARAL AI:

• It converts research published in its journals into engaging and accessible videos.
• It is an AI-based platform that demystifies and converts complex research publications and patents into podcasts, short videos, posters, business briefs.
• It is an initiative of Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) New Delhi.
• Features:
  • Researchers upload research papers via arXiv links or direct LaTeX files. The system automatically extracts content and figures.
  • AI Script Generation: System generates engaging presentation scripts using advanced AI models like Gemini and GPT for educational content.
  • Voice Synthesis: System converts scripts to natural-sounding audio narration with support for multiple Indian languages including Hindi.
  • Video Production: System automatically creates professional presentation videos combining slides, narration, and visual elements. The video can be shared on social media
  • Multilingual Support: It presentations and rich social media content in 18 Indian languages, enabling wider dissemination of scientific knowledge across the country.

About MERCOSUR Group:

• The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR for its Spanish initials) is a South American regional economic organization.
• It is the fourth largest integrated market after the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and ASEAN.
• It was created in 1991 by signing the Treaty of Asunción.
• Objective: Free movement of goods, services, capital and people and it became a customs union in January 1995. 
• Member countries: 
  • It originally comprised Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay as its members. 
  • Bolivia and Venezuela joined it later. (Venezuela has been suspended since December 1, 2016).
  • Mercosur also counts Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname as associate members.
• Headquarters: Montevideo, Uruguay.
• Its official working languages are Spanish and Portuguese.
• Governance of MERCOSUR Group:
  • Common Market Council: It is the bloc’s highest decision-making body, and provides a high-level forum for coordinating foreign and economic policy. 
  • The group consists of the foreign and economic ministers of each member state, or their equivalent, and decisions are made by consensus. 
  • The group’s presidency rotates every six months among its full members.

India and MERCOSUR:

• The India-MERCOSUR PTA was signed on 25 January 2004 and entered into force on 1 June 2009.
• The Agreement provides preferential tariff concessions on 450 tariff lines by India and 452 tariff lines by the MERCOSUR side.

About Incentive Scheme for Promotion of Domestic PNG Connections:

• It is aimed at accelerating the growth of active domestic Piped Natural Gas (PNG) connections across the country.
• It enables households to access clean, safe and affordable cooking gas through piped supply.
• It provides incentives to City Gas Distribution (CGD) network entities for converting unbilled connections into active, billed connections.
• It was launched in 2026, and seeks to encourage City Gas Distribution (CGD) entities to connect more households to piped natural gas.
• CGD networks are developed by entities authorised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). 
• Nodal ministry: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
• Working:
  • The scheme will be implemented in two tranches over a six-month period.
  • A minimum number of domestic connections have been fixed for every Geographical Area, with eligible CGD entities required to add billed domestic connections above the prescribed threshold during the performance period.
  • For each such incremental connection, the entity earns an additional allocation of 200 Standard Cubic Metres (SCM)of gas.

Why in news?

India's southwest monsoon this year has been erratic and deficient, largely because of a strengthening El Niño.

The combined effect of a weak monsoon, a likely very strong El Niño in the coming months, and escalating geopolitical tensions in West Asia and Russia-Ukraine could push up food inflation, which has so far remained relatively under control.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• How the Monsoon Unfolded?
• Overall Monsoon Picture
• Impact on Kharif Crops
• El Niño Outlook
• Threat to the Rabi Season
• Global Price Pressures Are Building

How the Monsoon Unfolded?

• The season's performance varied sharply month by month:
  • June: Normally sees about three low-pressure systems (LPS) covering around 11 days. This year, not a single LPS formed. Rainfall was 38 per cent below the long-period average (LPA).
  • July: Four LPSs formed, close to the climatological average. They persisted longer, giving 24 LPS days against the normal 13.56. Rainfall was 1 per cent above the LPA.
  • August: Six LPSs formed against the average of 5.38, with 26 LPS days against the normal 16.3. Yet rainfall was 16.3 per cent below the LPA. El Niño weakened the easterly trade winds, reducing the transport of moisture-laden air towards the subcontinent.
• A low-pressure system brings rain when warm, moist air near the ground rises, cools and condenses into clouds.

Overall Monsoon Picture

• Cumulative all-India rainfall was 14.7 per cent below the LPA as of September 13.
• 24 of the country's 36 meteorological subdivisions recorded deficiency above 10 per cent.
• The southern states, along with Marathwada and Vidarbha in Maharashtra, were worst affected.
• Rainfall was largely confined to Odisha, Chhattisgarh, eastern Madhya Pradesh, Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Impact on Kharif Crops

• The headline sowing figure looks reassuring. Total kharif acreage stood at 1,096.5 lakh hectares as of September 11, only 1.4 per cent below the 1,112.5 lakh hectares of the same period in 2025.
• But three better indicators tell a more worrying story.
  • Fertiliser sales: Sales of di-ammonium phosphate, muriate of potash and complex fertilisers were significantly lower in April–July 2026 than a year earlier. Even urea sales fell 6.6 per cent, despite government efforts to ensure gas availability for domestic production and imports amid West Asia-induced supply shocks.
  • Market prices: Wholesale prices have risen sharply over last year, reflecting bullish trader expectations of a smaller crop.
  • Production forecasts: The US Department of Agriculture projects India's rice output falling to 147 million tonnes from last year's record 154 mt, and maize to 50 mt from 55.1 mt.
• The uneven temporal distribution (long dry spells interspersed with heavy downpours) and spatial distribution of rainfall are likely to lower yields even where sowing has been completed.

El Niño Outlook

• El Niño is currently in a strong state, with sea surface temperatures (SST) in the equatorial Pacific off Ecuador and Peru about 1.8°C above normal.
• The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects:
  • Over 90 per cent chance of a very strong El Niño (SST more than 2°C above normal) from September to January.
  • Strong conditions (more than 1.5°C above normal) till March.
  • Weak-to-moderate conditions (0.5°C to 1.5°C above normal) till May.

Threat to the Rabi Season

• El Niño suppresses rainfall and raises temperatures in India. A very strong event could produce a short, warm winter.
• The rabi crops most at risk include wheat, rapeseed-mustard, chana, masoor, matar, potato, onion, garlic, jeera, saunf and dhaniya.

Global Price Pressures Are Building

• The West Asia conflict has not yet caused a dramatic spike in global food prices, unlike Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• This is because back-to-back bumper crops in 2024-25 and 2025-26 produced record output of wheat, rice, maize, sugar, soyabean, rapeseed and palm oil. That cushion is now eroding:
  • The FAO Food Price Index stood at 133.3 points in August, the highest since November 2022, though below the all-time high of 160.2 in March 2022.
    • The index is a weighted average of world food commodity prices against a 2014-16 base of 100.
• The FAO vegetable oil index in August was the highest since June 2022; the cereals index touched a 27-month high.
• Running down of stocks, disrupted trade logistics from geopolitical tensions and a strengthening El Niño could push global prices further upward.

Conclusion

A deficient and uneven monsoon, a strengthening El Niño threatening the rabi season, and tightening global markets for cereals and edible oils point in one direction: food inflation is set to return and stay elevated.

Policymakers must prepare for supply management, buffer stock use and calibrated trade measures.

Why in news?

At the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed setting up a BRICS open-source artificial intelligence (AI) community. China offered to support cooperation among member countries on developing and deploying large language models (LLMs), AI training and a common digital cloud platform.

The initiative could widen Beijing's effort to position its AI technology as an alternative to proprietary systems controlled largely by American companies. The proposal has particular relevance for India, which has also pushed for wider access to compute, datasets and AI models for developing countries.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What Xi Proposed?
• What BRICS Actually Agreed To?
• Why China Is Promoting Open AI Models?
• The US-China Divergence in AI
• Where India Fits?

What Xi Proposed?

• Xi said China would take the lead in establishing a "BRICS AI open source community". The proposal has several components:
  • Cooperation on large language models.
  • Specialised AI seminars and training courses.
  • An open ecosystem for AI.
  • A separate BRICS digital ecosystem cloud platform.
  • Expanded cooperation on digital skills, technology exchanges and intelligent manufacturing.
• This builds on China's growing outreach to developing countries. At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in July 2026, Xi announced 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities for developing countries over five years.
• He also proposed AI application cooperation centres with groupings including BRICS, ASEAN and the African Union.

What BRICS Actually Agreed To?

• Xi's proposal has not been adopted as a BRICS-wide programme. The New Delhi Declaration issued after the summit does not mention the open-source community or the cloud platform.
• Instead, it:
  • Commits BRICS countries more broadly to cooperation on improving access to AI resources.
  • Emphasises safety, security, reliability and inclusiveness.
  • Refers to an earlier BRICS statement on global AI governance and pledges continued cooperation in this area.
• Since China takes over the BRICS chairship in 2027, it could place these proposals before the grouping again.

Why China Is Promoting Open AI Models?

• The proposal comes as Chinese companies release a growing number of open-weight AI models.
• DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen family of models can be downloaded and run by developers on their own infrastructure, subject to their licences.
• This differs from closed models, which are generally accessed through APIs controlled by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
• China has increasingly linked open AI with access for developing countries. It argues that AI should be more affordable and accessible globally.
• The BRICS proposal would extend this approach into a multilateral grouping spanning large developing economies across Asia, Africa, Latin America and West Asia.

The US-China Divergence in AI

• China's push to widen access to its AI ecosystem coincides with a debate in the United States about how Beijing's progress should shape efforts to regulate or slow advanced AI development.
• The American ecosystem views China as perhaps its biggest competitor.
• As per the analysts:
  • Any US attempt to slow powerful AI systems must account for China's pace of progress.
  • If US companies slowed down while Chinese labs advanced, China could close or reverse the technological gap.
  • A long-term global slowdown of frontier AI would require some form of agreement with China.
  • Such an arrangement would resemble Cold War-era arms-control agreements, with verification being critical, since either side could gain by secretly continuing development.

Where India Fits?

• India and China both aspire to lead the Global South, though Beijing currently holds a clear edge in AI capabilities.
• India has repeatedly called for wider access to AI resources:
  • At the AI Impact Summit earlier this year, the government pushed for broader access to compute, datasets, models and AI infrastructure, especially for developing countries.
  • Through the IndiaAI Mission, India is investing public money in domestic AI capacity, including subsidised compute infrastructure and support for Indian foundation models and datasets.
• Any BRICS initiative on shared models or cloud infrastructure would therefore sit alongside New Delhi's own effort to expand AI access without relying entirely on foreign technology providers.

Unanswered Questions

• For now, there is no formal BRICS open-source AI platform. Xi's announcement remains a Chinese proposal.
• Neither the New Delhi Declaration nor other summit documents specify:
  • Which models would be used;
  • Where common cloud infrastructure would be hosted;
  • How data would be handled;
  • Which countries would participate
• These details will determine how substantial the initiative becomes when China assumes the BRICS chairship in 2027.