UPSC Current Affairs 02 September 2026

• Host & Chair: Hosted at the Yrys Ordo Congress Hall in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, chaired by President Sadyr Japarov.
• Participants: Brought together the 10 full member states—India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Belarus—alongside 15 partner countries and 2 observer nations.
• Cultural Coincidence: The summit overlapped with the opening ceremony of the 6th World Nomad Games in Bishkek.

• Bishkek Declaration: Signed by all heads of state to reform global governance, ensure equal decision-making, and consolidate the bloc's vision.
• Long-Term Planning: Adopted the SCO Development Strategy until 2035 to streamline collective contributions.
• Security & Trade Action Plans: Approved the Economic Development Strategy Action Plan until 2030, the Energy Cooperation Strategy until 2030, and a three-year cooperation program (2025-2027) to combat terrorism, separatism, and extremism.

• De-dollarisation Efforts: Members resolved to increase the share of national currencies in mutual financial settlements and transactions.
• Anti-Drug Strategies: Signed a new five-year Anti-Drug Strategy alongside an MoU between the SCO Secretariat and the Central Asian Regional Information Coordination Center.
• Infrastructure & Environment: Prioritised transport infrastructure—such as the proposed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway—and adopted pacts regarding nuclear safety, climate change, and eco-tourism.
• Key documents: Bishkek Declaration + 4 MoUs + 20+ decisions/statements (27+ documents in all).

• The Three Pillars: Prime Minister Modi addressed the summit, emphasising that the SCO's future must focus on Security, Connectivity, and Opportunity.
• Cultural Initiatives: India led the push for several distinct inclusions in the Bishkek Declaration, notably adopting English as an official language in the SCO Charter.
• Civilisational Forums: India announced it will host the first-ever SCO Civilisation Dialogue Forum later this year, alongside establishing a Young Scientist Forum and a Young Author's Conclave.
• Bilateral Engagements: On the sidelines, India conducted high-level bilateral talks with leaders from Russia, China, Iran, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan.

• Lead-Up to Celebrate: It serves as a precursor to Ayurveda Day, observed annually on September 23.

• Organising Authority: An autonomous institute under the Ministry of Ayush—the All-India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), New Delhi.
• Core Objective: Disseminate scientific perspectives, authentic knowledge, and clinical validation of Ayurveda to national and international audiences.
• The Equinox Association: September 23 marks the Autumnal Equinox, where day and night are equal. This symbolises the core Ayurvedic philosophy of balance and equilibrium.
• Shifting from Lunar Calendar: The series highlighted shifting Ayurveda Day from Dhanvantari Jayanti (Dhanteras)—a moving lunar date—to a fixed solar date for consistent global branding.
• Target Audience: Open to students, young scholars, global researchers, clinicians, and the general public.
• Where to Watch: Broadcasted via official AIIA Social Media Channels including YouTube, Facebook, X, and Instagram.

• Scientific Foundations: Evidence-based Ayurveda and contemporary clinical research.
• Integration: Blending traditional healing systems with modern medical sciences.
• Public Health: Leveraging preventive care and healthy lifestyles globally.
• Tech & Innovation: The role of technology, digitisation, and younger generations in evolving Ayurveda.
• Natural Resources: Conservation and use of medicinal plants.

• Targeted Approach: Modelled exactly after NITI Aayog's Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP), but is the first-ever scheme focusing exclusively on agriculture and allied activities.
• Nodal Ministry: Managed primarily by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in close guidance with NITI Aayog.
• Target Area: Implemented across 100 agriculturally underdeveloped districts across India, ensuring at least one district is selected from every State and Union Territory.

• Total Outlay: A substantial budget of ₹1.44 lakh crore spread over a period of 6 years (from FY 2025-26 to FY 2030-31).
• Annual Allocation: Disburses ₹24,000 crore per year.
• Funding Mechanism: Uses an innovative budget convergence mechanism; it has no separate standalone budget but instead fuses allocations from 36 existing schemes across 11 central departments (such as PM-KISAN, PMFBY, and PMKSY).
• Fund Breakdown: Allocated strategically with 40% for subsidies, 30% for infrastructure, 20% for loans, and 10% for training and market linkage.

• Productivity: Boosting crop yield in areas lagging significantly below national averages.
• Diversification: Encouraging crop rotation, sustainable agricultural habits, and organic farming.
• Infrastructure Expansion: Constructing robust post-harvest storage facilities at village Panchayat and Block levels to minimize agricultural wastage.
• Financial Inclusion: Expanding immediate short-term and long-term credit availability to smallholders.

• Low Yields: Low agricultural productivity per unit area.
• Low Cropping Intensity: Regions where fewer than 1.5 crop cycles are cultivated on the same land annually.
• Credit Deprivation: Below-average formal credit and financial institutional support for local farmers.

• Target Audience: Reaches over 1.7 crore farmers directly.
• Smallholder Focus: Primarily aids small and marginal farmers owning under 2 hectares of land, who make up roughly 86% of India's agricultural workforce.

• Three-Tier Monitoring: Managed seamlessly through dedicated committees at the District, State, and National levels.
• Local Planning: District Collectors head the Dhan Dhaanya Samiti to draft localized District Agriculture and Allied Activities Plans (DAAP).
• Knowledge Partners: Backed technically by institutions like the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and NABARD.
• Strict Evaluation: Monitored continuously via 121 specific performance indicators (74 output and 47 outcome metrics) updated monthly on a transparent digital dashboard.

• Audio Alerts: Provides real-time, loud voice confirmations for successful UPI transactions to prevent payment fraud.
• DakPay Suite Expansion: Integrates seamlessly into the existing DakPay Digital Payment Ecosystem launched by the Department of Posts and IPPB.
• Interoperable Network: Accepts payments generated from any standard UPI applications.

• SIM-Based Connectivity: Operates entirely on cellular network data without requiring localized Wi-Fi.
• Language Customisation: Designed to play audio readouts in multiple regional Indian languages for local merchants.
• Built-in Speaker: Outfitted with robust volume limits to stay audible inside busy, noisy marketplace environments.

• Eliminates Screen Checking: Merchants do not need to constantly unlock phones or look at screens during peak hours.
• Last-Mile Trust: Extends secure, assisted fintech banking directly to unbanked or underbanked micro-merchants.
• Independent Operation: Reduces reliance on personal smartphones to track shop collections.

• Coral bleaching is a critical environmental crisis occurring en masse because the planet has crossed a vital thermal tipping point due to global warming.
• Recent data reveals that an unprecedented 84% of the world's coral reefs are experiencing extreme heat stress, making this the worst global mass bleaching event on record.

• Symbiotic Relationship: Corals are marine invertebrates made of tiny animals called polyps. They share a mutualistic bond with microscopic, single-celled algae called zooxanthellae that live inside their tissues.
• Food and Colour: The zooxanthellae use photosynthesis to provide the coral host with up to 90% of its required nutrients and are responsible for the vibrant colours of healthy reefs.
• Stress Response: When environmental conditions shift dramatically, the relationship turns toxic. The stressed coral polyps forcibly eject the zooxanthellae.
• Ghostly Appearance: Deprived of the colourful algae, the coral's translucent flesh exposes its stark, white calcium carbonate skeleton underneath.
• Not Immediately Dead: Bleached corals are still alive, but they are starving, highly fragile, and exceptionally prone to infectious diseases.
• Reversible Window: If water conditions cool down and return to normal within a few weeks, the zooxanthellae can re-colonize the tissue, allowing the reef to recover.

• Marine Heatwaves: Sustained spikes in sea surface temperatures driven by climate change are the absolute primary driver of bleaching.
• Ocean Acidification: As seawater absorbs excess atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), its pH drops, heavily impairing a coral’s capacity to secrete its protective calcium carbonate shell.
• Solar Irradiance: Calm, clear weather shifts cause lesser cloud cover, leading to high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation that intensely burn shallow reefs.
• Chemical and Nutrient Runoff: Agricultural fertilizers, industrial chemical spills, and non-biodegradable ingredients from sunscreens (like oxybenzone) pollute near-shore marine habitats.
• Sedimentation: Coastal infrastructure development, land clearing, and heavy storms cause siltation that physically smothers reefs and blocks essential sunlight.
• Extreme Low Tides: Sudden meteorological shifts or low tides leave shallow corals entirely exposed to the open air and searing sun.

• Ecosystem Collapse: Coral reefs are nicknamed the "rainforests of the sea" because they house roughly 25% of all marine life despite covering less than 0.1% of the ocean floor. Their demise collapses entire marine food webs.
• Loss of Coastal Protection: Healthy reef barriers absorb up to 97% of wave energy, acting as natural storm shields. Without them, coastal communities face severe erosion, flooding, and damage from tsunamis.
• Economic & Food Insecurity: Over half a billion people globally rely on reefs for daily protein, tourism revenue, and local fisheries.
• Extinction Risk: Marine biologists warn that if global temperature rises are not firmly halted, over 99% of warm-water coral systems could permanently vanish before the turn of the century.

• Nodal Status: It serves as the apex, central governing authority for the adoption of Indian children.
• Parent Ministry: It functions directly under the administrative control of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD).
• Statutory Authority: Conferred autonomous statutory status via Section 68 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
• Hague Convention Signatory: Designated as the official Central Authority for inter-country adoptions under the 1993 Hague Convention, which India ratified in 2003.
• Target Demographics: Primarily regulates the care, rehab, and placement of orphaned, abandoned, and surrendered (OAS) children.

• Dual Monitoring Role: Mandated to strictly regulate and oversee both internal (in-country) and international (inter-country) adoption procedures.
• CARINGS Portal Management: Operates the centralized digital database system called Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS) to match prospective parents with children.
• Institutional Supervision: Controls and tracks auxiliary entities like State Adoption Resource Agencies (SARA) and Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAA).
• Home Suitability Auditing: Oversees the generation of mandatory Home Study Reports (HSR) conducted by ground-level agencies before approving any family.
• Post-Adoption Tracking: Conducts sustained web-based and physical follow-ups for a mandatory period of 2 years after a child is legally integrated into a family.

• In-Country Priority: Under global convention rules, children are mandatory-first offered to domestic Indian families before foreign applicants are considered.
• Live-in Couples: CARA rules extend the right to register and adopt to individuals living in verified live-in relationships.
• HAMA vs. JJ Act Distinction: While CARA regulates public adoptions via the Juvenile Justice Act, traditional personal law adoptions for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists also co-exist under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA), 1956.

• Location: Situated in the Lahaul region of the Lahaul-Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh, India.
• Altitude: Positioned at a high altitude of 4,070 metres (approx. 13,500 feet) above sea level.
• Water Volume: Holds approximately 35.08 million cubic metres of meltwater, making it one of the largest glacial lakes in the state.
• Dimensions: Measures roughly 2,464 metres in length and reaches up to 625 metres at its widest point near the glacial snout.
• Feeder Glaciers: Fed uniquely by three separate hanging glaciers melting off Mount Gipan Go—a rare configuration at this altitude.
• Outflow Channel: Water drains from its south-western edge into the Sissu Nullah, which drops steeply (90m per km) before joining the Chandra River.

• Moraine-Dammed Weakness: The lake is bounded by a fragile natural dam made of loose rocks, sand, and glacial debris.
• Trigger Factors: Heavy cloudbursts, sudden landslides, or massive ice avalanches falling into the lake could displace water and breach the moraine wall.
• The 21-Minute Hazard: Impact models show that if a breach occurs, floodwaters could reach Sissu village in just 21 minutes at speeds of 43 km/h, rising up to 20 metres high.
• Widespread Impact: A catastrophic burst could cause domino-effect flooding downstream through the Chenab River basin, affecting Jammu & Kashmir and stretching into Pakistan.

• Local Deity: Named after Lord Ghepan (Ghepan Ghat), the chief protector deity of the Lahaul Valley, giving the lake immense religious value to indigenous communities.
• Aesthetic Appeal: Renowned among adventure travellers for its striking, neon turquoise-blue alpine waters.
• Trekking Route: Serves as a challenging, high-end trekking destination that starts from Sissu, requiring navigation through intense boulder fields and active rockfall zones.

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