Current Affairs of 22 August 2026

Ensuring Equity Amid India’s Educational Progress

Context

• India’s school education system has made significant progress in gross enrolment, student retention, dropout reduction, teacher availability and basic infrastructure.
• With 1.47 million schools, 240 million students and 10.2 million teachers, the system has achieved remarkable scale.
• However, progress remains uneven across regions and social groups.
• Differences in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), dropout rates, pupil-teacher ratios (PTR), infrastructure and accessibility reveal that educational expansion has not yet produced equal opportunities for all.

Regional and Social Imbalances

• Uneven Access and Enrolment

  • Educational access varies considerably across States and Union Territories.
  • Aadhaar seeding ranges from 99.6% in Andhra Pradesh to only 35% in Meghalaya, against a national average of 90.2%.
  • School distribution is also shaped by population density and geography.
  • Uttar Pradesh has the largest share of schools and enrolment, while Chandigarh records an average enrolment of 1,194 students per school and Ladakh only 64.
  • Such differences reflect variations in population density, settlement patterns and geographical accessibility.

• Social Inequality

  • Social composition varies significantly across regions.
  • Several northeastern and Himalayan regions have substantial ST enrolment, Punjab has a high share of SC students, while OBC representation is prominent in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
  • National GER also varies across social categories, requiring policies that address socioeconomic disadvantage and unequal educational opportunities.
  • Gender participation presents a positive trend, with the Gender Parity Index favouring girls across most States and Union Territories.
  • Sustaining this achievement, particularly through secondary education, remains important.

Regional Variation in GER and Dropout Rates

• GER varies sharply across educational stages. Meghalaya records a Foundational GER of 131, while Bihar records only 24.
• At the Secondary level, Chandigarh records 109 compared with Bihar’s 48. Such variations can reflect differences in enrolment, age-grade patterns, migration, delayed entry and continuation through successive stages.
• Dropout rates reveal another dimension of inequality.
• Bihar records the highest Preparatory dropout rate at 7.9% and Middle-level rate at 9%, while Ladakh records the highest Secondary dropout rate at 14.8%.
• These patterns underline the need to strengthen student retention and transition from primary to secondary education.

Teacher Availability and Quality

• The pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) directly influences classroom interaction and individual attention.
• Densely populated States generally experience greater pressure on teachers. Jharkhand records a Secondary PTR of 43, while Sikkim records only 6.
• Rural and remote schools face additional shortages, with teachers often handling multiple grades, subjects and administrative responsibilities.
• Teacher policy must therefore prioritise equitable deployment, subject-specific availability and retention in disadvantaged areas, rather than focusing solely on aggregate teacher numbers.

Persistent Infrastructure and Inclusion Gaps

• Access to electricity and drinking water has improved, but infrastructure remains uneven.
• Remote, tribal, hilly and border regions continue to face shortages of schools, transportation and quality learning facilities.
• Districts such as Bageshwar, Ganjam, Kandhamal, Kathua and Palghar illustrate the difficulties created by geographical isolation.
• Children belonging to SC, ST, minority and economically vulnerable communities face additional barriers to enrolment, attendance and completion.
• Children with disabilities require accessible classrooms, appropriate learning resources, assistive technologies and trained teachers to ensure genuine inclusion.

Targeted Investment and Policy Reform

• A uniform approach cannot address India’s diverse educational challenges.
• In accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, investment should be targeted towards educationally deprived regions and vulnerable groups.
• Priority areas include school infrastructure, transport facilities, equitable teacher deployment, digital connectivity and learning resources.
• Scholarships, residential facilities and community-based interventions can improve retention among disadvantaged children.
• Digital expansion must also avoid creating a new digital divide by ensuring access to devices, connectivity and local-language content.
• Inclusive education requires accessible buildings, toilets, assistive technologies and trained teachers.
• Better monitoring of district-level outcomes can help direct resources towards areas with the greatest educational deficits.

Conclusion

• India’s education system presents a paradox of progress: access, participation and basic infrastructure have improved, yet substantial regional and social inequalities persist.
• The next phase of reform must shift from access to equity, enrolment to learning, and aggregate improvement to targeted outcomes.
• Bridging these disparities requires coordinated investment in infrastructure, teachers, digital resources, social protection and inclusive education.
• Ensuring that location, social background, economic circumstances or disability do not determine educational opportunity is essential for strengthening human capital, social mobility, economic growth and balanced regional development.

Ensuring Equity Amid India’s Educational Progress FAQs

Q1. What is the major challenge facing India’s school education system?
Ans. India’s major challenge is reducing regional and social inequalities in educational access and quality.

Q2. Which factor significantly affects the quality of classroom learning?
Ans. The pupil-teacher ratio significantly affects classroom interaction and individual attention.

Q3. Which groups face greater barriers to education?
Ans. SCs, STs, minorities, economically weaker children and children with disabilities face greater educational barriers.

Q4. Why is targeted investment necessary in education?
Ans. Targeted investment is necessary to address infrastructure, teacher shortages, digital gaps and regional disparities.

Q5. What should be the focus of the next phase of educational reform?
Ans. The next phase should focus on equity, quality, inclusion and learning outcomes rather than access alone.

Source: The Hindu

Unimpeded Trade Needs IPMDA as the Answer 

Context

• The India-U.S. relationship faces sanctions, visa restrictions, trade disagreements and energy-security concerns, yet strategic cooperation remains essential.
• The West Asian crisis has reinforced the need for resilient global supply chains and secure maritime routes.
• The Indo-Pacific has become the critical intersection of geopolitics, global trade, energy security and maritime security, making stronger Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) an urgent priority.
• India and the United States can strengthen maritime security through the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) and the Quad while expanding cooperation with regional partners.

The Indo-Pacific as the Artery of Global Trade

• The Indo-Pacific is a critical artery of the global economy, carrying nearly $7 trillion in annual trade and connecting energy producers, manufacturing centres and consumer markets.
• Major chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca, Strait of Hormuz and Bab-al-Mandeb are essential to the movement of energy and goods.
• Disruptions in these waters can cause higher energy prices, shipping delays and supply-chain instability.
• At the same time, state-sponsored coercion, smuggling, illegal fishing, sanctions evasion and grey-zone activities increasingly threaten freedom of navigation.

The Growing Importance of Maritime Domain Awareness

• MDA provides a comprehensive understanding of activities in the maritime environment by integrating information from multiple technological and institutional sources.
• It strengthens maritime security, economic security, environmental protection, safety and law enforcement.
• A major challenge is the increasing number of vessels that disable Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders to conceal movements, cargo or illicit activities.
• Smaller fishing vessels may also remain outside mandatory AIS requirements, enabling illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that damages marine ecosystems and threatens regional food security.

Grey-Zone Threats and the Surveillance Gap

• State and non-state actors increasingly employ grey-zone operations to intimidate competitors and disrupt regional stability without triggering conventional military responses.
• Such activities are difficult to counter because their origins and intentions may remain ambiguous.
• A continuous maritime picture can help identify suspicious behaviour, establish evidence and enable diplomatic, legal or security responses.
• Transparency therefore becomes an important instrument of deterrence.

IPMDA and the Quad

• The Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) provides a practical framework for improving maritime surveillance through multilateral information-sharing.
• Developed under the Quad, it seeks to provide partners with near-real-time maritime information.
• Its strength lies in integrating commercial satellites, radio-frequency monitoring, radar systems and national sensor networks.
• India's acquisition of SeaVision technology and its maritime information infrastructure create a strong foundation for deeper cooperation.
• India's Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) can complement IPMDA by connecting maritime information across the Indian Ocean and strengthening regional situational awareness.

India-U.S. Cooperation: Strategic Complementarity

• The United States benefits from India's regional capabilities because Washington cannot independently maintain comprehensive maritime surveillance across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
• Cooperation with India can distribute responsibilities while preserving strategic reach.
• For India, partnership with the United States provides access to advanced maritime technologies, intelligence-sharing and wider surveillance networks while supporting strategic autonomy.
• However, bilateral cooperation alone cannot address threats that routinely cross national boundaries.

Bringing ASEAN, Pacific Island States and Europe into the Framework

• The effectiveness of IPMDA depends on wider participation by ASEAN countries, Pacific Island nations and European partners.
• Smaller states such as Bangladesh, Maldives, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Fiji often possess surveillance capabilities but face financial, technological and jurisdictional limitations.
• Regional information-sharing can strengthen these existing systems without replacing national sovereignty.
• European participation can further reinforce the framework because European economies depend heavily on secure maritime trade and energy supplies.

Transparency as Deterrence

• The strategic environment has weakened the assumption that freedom of navigation and open trade can sustain themselves automatically.
• Unchallenged coercive behaviour can gradually become normalised and establish dangerous precedents.
• An integrated maritime-information system can make illicit activities more difficult by ensuring that suspicious movements are detected, documented and rapidly shared.
• Technology must therefore be combined with common standards, legal cooperation, institutional coordination and capacity-building.

Challenges and the Way Forward

• Key challenges include data sovereignty, intelligence-sharing, technological disparities, legal differences and institutional coordination. Addressing them requires:
  • strengthening India-U.S. maritime information-sharing;
  • integrating IPMDA with IFC-IOR and partner systems;
  • expanding participation among ASEAN and Pacific Island states;
  • improving satellite, radar and AIS-based surveillance;
  • providing smaller states with technology and training;
  • developing common protocols for suspicious maritime activity;
  • combating illegal fishing, smuggling and sanctions evasion; and
  • ensuring cooperation remains consistent with sovereignty and international law.

Conclusion

• The future of the Indo-Pacific depends on protecting the maritime foundations of global commerce.
• India-U.S. cooperation must therefore extend beyond trade, energy and diplomatic concerns to include collective maritime security.
• Through IPMDA, the Quad, IFC-IOR and wider regional partnerships, India and the United States can promote a more transparent and resilient maritime order.
• Freedom of navigation requires continuous awareness, information-sharing and collective action.
• In an era of grey-zone competition, transparency can serve as a powerful deterrent and help secure the Indo-Pacific as a foundation of global economic stability.

Unimpeded Trade Needs IPMDA as the Answer FAQs

Q1. Why is the Indo-Pacific important to global trade?
Ans. The Indo-Pacific carries nearly $7 trillion in annual trade and connects major energy, manufacturing and consumer markets.

Q2. What is Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA)?
Ans. MDA provides a comprehensive understanding of activities and threats in the maritime domain.

Q3. What is the purpose of IPMDA?
Ans. IPMDA enables near-real-time maritime information-sharing among partner countries to improve maritime security.

Q4. How does India contribute to maritime security?
Ans. India contributes through the IFC-IOR and its growing maritime surveillance and information-sharing capabilities.

Q5. Why is transparency important in the Indo-Pacific?
Ans. Transparency helps detect, document and deter coercive and illegal maritime activities.

Source: The Hindu

Keep UPI Free - Fund It from the Savings It Generates

Context

• There is the need to examine the proposed change to Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, through the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
• The amendment replaces the existing prohibition on charges for BHIM-UPI and RuPay with an enabling provision under which the government may notify modes of payment on which charges can be imposed.
• While no charge has been introduced yet, opening this door could undermine the foundational principle of free and universal digital payments.

UPI - From Payment Innovation to Public Digital Infrastructure:

• When Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was introduced (by NPCI), the objective was to reduce dependence on cash by providing a simple, interoperable and low-cost payment system.
• UPI has since become the backbone of India's digital payments ecosystem. For example, it processed over 24,000 crore transactions in 2025-26, roughly 66 crore transactions a day, worth about ₹314 lakh crore.
• It accounted for around 85% of India's digital retail payments and nearly half of the world's real-time payments.
• A large proportion of transactions are small-value payments—around ₹1,300 on average, with 86% of merchant payments below ₹500.
• These include everyday payments to vegetable vendors, autorickshaw drivers, small shops and street businesses.
• Thus, UPI's significance lies not merely in transaction volumes but in its ability to formalise small-value economic activity and make digital payments accessible to ordinary citizens.

Why MDR is the Wrong Pricing Model

• Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) originated in the card-payment ecosystem, where multiple intermediaries—issuer, acquirer and payment network—share costs and assume risks associated with physical infrastructure and credit.
• UPI operates differently:
  • It is based on interoperability, rather than closed payment networks.
  • Transactions move directly between bank accounts.
  • There is no physical card or terminal.
  • There is no comparable credit-default risk.
  • Settlement is almost instantaneous.
  • UPI is built on an open protocol and common infrastructure.
• Therefore, applying the traditional MDR model to UPI would amount to imposing an inappropriate legacy pricing mechanism on a fundamentally different digital public infrastructure.

The Cost of Zero-MDR UPI

• Banks and payment providers nevertheless incur real costs in operating UPI. The government has attempted to bridge this gap through incentives.
• However, the projected expenditure on these incentives has increased sharply—from about ₹3,631 crore to nearly ₹4,373 crore.
• The solution should not be to recover these costs directly from merchants and consumers through MDR.

Alternative - Fund UPI Through the Savings it Creates

• The state and financial system derive substantial savings from digitisation:
  • The RBI spends ₹5,000–6,400 crore annually merely on printing currency.
  • Digital payments reduce the costs of cash printing, storage, transportation and handling.
  • Banks benefit from the lower-cost digital transaction ecosystem and the ability to retain deposits and lend them.
  • Digitalisation reduces transaction costs across the economy.
• Hence, if UPI generates savings for the government and banks, a portion of these savings can finance the infrastructure that generates them.

Why MDR Could Become Self-Defeating

• India's digital-payment transition remains price-sensitive. Even a small MDR can make digital transactions less attractive than cash.
• For example, a merchant charged 2% may pass the cost to customers as a “digital payment charge” or discourage digital payments altogether.
• Even a 0.3% charge could significantly affect merchants operating on thin margins.
• The result could be a reversal of India's cash-to-digital transition, particularly among small merchants.

Protecting UPI as a Public Good

• UPI has succeeded because it is free, instant, interoperable, universal, and accessible.
• Its expansion has brought millions of people and small businesses into the formal digital economy.
• Therefore, UPI should not be treated simply as a commercial payment product. It is a form of digital public infrastructure, and its benefits extend beyond individual transactions.

Way Forward

• Instead of imposing MDR:
• • Fund UPI through savings generated by reduced cash dependence.
  • Develop transparent, formula-based support for payment infrastructure.
  • Ensure that any support is linked to value delivered, rather than transaction pricing.
  • Preserve affordability for small merchants and consumers.
  • Avoid policies that could encourage a return to cash.
• The debate illustrates the broader challenge of balancing financial sustainability with inclusive digital public infrastructure.
• India's UPI model demonstrates how interoperability, network effects and state-supported digital infrastructure can reduce transaction costs while promoting financial inclusion.

Conclusion

• The central proposition is clear: UPI should remain free at the point of use.
• If digitalisation saves money for the government and banks, those savings should help finance UPI rather than recovering costs through MDR from merchants and consumers.
• Preserving zero-cost UPI is therefore presented not merely as a payment-policy choice, but as a means of protecting India's cash-light, inclusive and digitally enabled economy.

Keep UPI Free FAQs

Q1. Why is Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) considered unsuitable for UPI transactions?

Ans. Unlike card networks, UPI is an interoperable DPI with minimal physical infrastructure and no comparable credit risk.

Q2. How has UPI contributed to India’s digital financial inclusion?

Ans. By enabling instant, interoperable and low-cost payments.

Q3. What are the advantages of financing UPI through savings generated by digitisation?

Ans. Since digital payments reduce government and banking costs, a portion of these can sustainably finance UPI infrastructure.

Q4. What are the potential consequences of imposing MDR on UPI transactions?

Ans. MDR could raise transaction costs, encourage merchants to pass charges to consumers, etc.

Q5. How can India ensure the financial sustainability of UPI while preserving its zero-cost character?

Ans. India can use transparent, formula-based government support funded partly by savings from reduced cash dependence.

Source: IE