The UPSC Daily Chronicle

PATTACHITRA SCROLL ART: RAGHURAJPUR HERITAGE VILLAGE, NATURAL PIGMENTOLOGY & ODISHA VS BENGAL TRADITIONS

Context & Analysis: The Ministry of Culture has designated the artisan hamlet of Raghurajpur in Puri district, Odisha, as a national living heritage cluster to preserve classical Pattachitra painting. Derived from Sanskrit patta (cloth/canvas) and chitra (picture), Pattachitra is an ancient cloth-based scroll painting tradition deeply intertwined with the Jagannath cult of Puri. During the ritual Anavasara period (when Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, and Subhadra fall ill for 15 days following the Snana Yatra), traditional Anasara Pattis (Pattachitra paintings) are placed in the sanctum sanctorum for public worship. The canvas is prepared using layers of fine cotton soaked in tamarind seed solution, coated with chalk powder (*khaddi chuna*) and glue, and burnished with sea pebbles. Pigments are 100% natural: white from conch shells (*sankha*), yellow from *harital* stone, red from *hingula* (cinnabar), and black from lamp soot (*kajal*).

V.O. CHIDAMBARAM PILLAI (KAPPALOTTIYA THAMIZHAN): SWADESHI STEAM NAVIGATION CO. & MARITIME ECONOMIC RESISTANCE

Context & Analysis: Commemorative events organized by the V.O. Chidambaranar Port Authority (Tuticorin) are highlighting the pioneering anti-colonial economic resistance led by V.O. Chidambaram Pillai (VOC), revered as Kappalottiya Thamizhan ("The Tamil Helmsman"). In October 1906, in the crucible of the Swadeshi Movement following the Partition of Bengal, VOC challenged the British imperial maritime monopoly by registering the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNCo) in Tuticorin. Mobilizing shares from local merchants and national leaders (including Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal), VOC purchased two steamships, SS Gallia and SS Lavo, operating passenger and cargo services between Tuticorin and Colombo (Ceylon). When the British India Steam Navigation Company (BISNCo) initiated predatory freight rate wars, VOC mobilized Indian merchants to boycott British vessels, connecting economic self-reliance directly with radical political Swadeshi.

THE MALACCA STRAIT & THAILAND'S KRA LAND BRIDGE: CHOKEPOINT DYNAMICS & ANDAMAN SEA LOGISTICS

Context & Analysis: Thailand's advancement of its multi-billion dollar Kra Isthmus Land Bridge Project has triggered strategic recalibrations across the Indo-Pacific maritime theatre. The Strait of Malacca—a narrow, 900-km waterway connecting the Andaman Sea (Indian Ocean) with the South China Sea (Pacific Ocean) between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra—is the world's busiest maritime chokepoint, facilitating over 80,000 vessels and roughly 25% of global maritime commerce and 60% of East Asia's oil imports annually. At its narrowest point in the Singapore Strait (Phillips Channel), the navigable channel contracts to just 2.8 km. Thailand's Land Bridge bypasses the proposed Kra Canal by linking two new deep-sea ports—Ranong on the Andaman Sea and Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand—via a 100-km multi-lane motorway, rail freight network, and oil pipelines, shortening maritime transit by 4 days.

POST-ELECTORAL BONDS REGIME: ELECTORAL TRUSTS SCHEME 2013, SECTION 182 COMPANIES ACT & VOTER RTI

Context & Analysis: Following the Supreme Court’s unanimous constitution bench ruling in Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) v. Union of India (2024)—which struck down the anonymous Electoral Bonds Scheme as unconstitutional and violative of the Right to Information of voters under Article 19(1)(a)—corporate political contributions have shifted back toward the Electoral Trusts Scheme, 2013. Formulated under Section 2(22AAA) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and governed by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) rules, an Electoral Trust is a non-profit company registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013, formed exclusively to collect contributions from voluntary donors and distribute them to registered political parties. To prevent corporate money parking, the scheme statutorily mandates that the Trust must distribute at least 95% of total contributions received in a financial year to parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

TELE-MANAS DIGITAL PLATFORM: 24X7 TOLL-FREE PSYCHIATRIC CARE & MENTAL HEALTHCARE ACT 2017 PROVISIONS

Context & Analysis: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has announced that the national tele-mental health helpline, Tele-MANAS (Tele Mental Health Assistance and Facilitation State), has handled over 15 lakh distress calls across 36 States and UTs. Launched in October 2022 under the National Tele Mental Health Programme (NTMHP), Tele-MANAS operationalizes the rights-based mandate of the Mental Healthcare Act (MHCA), 2017. Operating via a 24x7 toll-free helpline (14416 / 1800-891-4416) in 20 regional languages, the service is structured on a two-tier delivery model: Tier-1 comprises state-level Tele-MANAS cells staffed by trained clinical counsellors providing immediate triage, while Tier-2 connects severe psychiatric cases to specialists at District Mental Health Programmes (DMHP), medical colleges, or NIMHANS for in-person consultation.

IAEA SAFEGUARDS & INDIA'S CIVIL-MILITARY SEPARATION: ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL (INFCIRC/754) & NSG WAIVER

Context & Analysis: High-level bilateral atomic energy consultations between India and international nuclear partners have reviewed the operational compliance of India's civilian nuclear reactor fleet under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards. Emerging from the historic 2005 India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement (123 Agreement), India executed a landmark voluntary Civil-Military Nuclear Separation Plan. Under this architecture, India placed designated civilian nuclear power facilities (such as Kudankulam, Tarapur 1 & 2, Rajasthan, and Kakrapar units) under comprehensive IAEA item-specific safeguards (INFCIRC/731) and ratified an India-specific Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/754) in 2014. In return, the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) granted India a clean, historic waiver in September 2008, integrating India into global civil nuclear commerce despite being a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

STRESSED ASSET RESOLUTION: SPECIAL MENTION ACCOUNTS (SMA), 90-DAY NPA NORMS & IBC TRIGGERS

Context & Analysis: In its latest Financial Stability Report (FSR), the Reserve Bank of India has underscored the health of commercial bank balance sheets, with Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPA) falling to a multi-year low of below 2.8%. This structural turnaround is anchored in the RBI’s Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets (June 7, 2019 Circular), which established an institutional early warning detection grid. To prevent lenders from evergreen defaulting loans, the framework mandates that commercial banks, all-India financial institutions, and small finance banks recognize incipient stress immediately by classifying accounts into Special Mention Accounts (SMA) based on overdue duration. Once a borrower defaults, lenders enter a mandatory 30-day review period to formulate a Resolution Plan (RP), executing an Inter-Creditor Agreement (ICA) or initiating insolvency under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016.

NANO UREA & NANO DAP: FOLIAR STOMATAL ABSORPTION, NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCY & PM-PRANAM SCHEME

Context & Analysis: Under the PM-PRANAM (Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth) scheme, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has scaled the distribution of indigenous Nano Urea (Liquid) and Nano DAP to curtail fiscal fertilizer subsidy bills and arrest soil acidification. Conventional granular urea has a dismal Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) of merely 30% to 50%; over half of the applied synthetic nitrogen is lost through ammonia volatilization into the atmosphere and nitrate leaching into subterranean aquifers, triggering widespread groundwater contamination and aquatic eutrophication. Nano Urea, developed by IFFCO's Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) in Kalol, Gujarat, contains nanoscale nitrogen particles (measuring 20 to 50 nanometers) dispersed in water. When sprayed onto crop leaves during critical growth stages, nano-particles penetrate directly through stomatal pores, achieving an extraordinary efficiency exceeding 80%.

DEEPFAKES & SYNTHETIC MEDIA: C2PA CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROVENANCE, DIGITAL WATERMARKING & IT RULES 2021

Context & Analysis: Amid surging proliferation of generative AI deepfakes ahead of state elections, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued statutory directives under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, mandating social media intermediaries to deploy automated watermarking and cryptographic content provenance tools. Traditional deepfakes leverage Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)—comprising a *Generator* that synthesizes synthetic facial/voice clones and a *Discriminator* that evaluates authenticity until outputs become indistinguishable from reality. To combat this, the international technological standard C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) embeds tamper-evident cryptographic metadata (Content Credentials) directly into media files at the hardware sensor or software editing layer, establishing a cryptographically verifiable provenance trail tracing origin, camera serials, and AI edits.

IRRAWADDY DOLPHIN (ORCAELLA BREVIROSTRIS): CHILIKA BRACKISH LAGOON CENSUS, SPITTING BEHAVIOR & ECOTOURISM

Context & Analysis: Annual hydro-acoustic cetacean monitoring conducted by the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) and the Odisha Forest Department has registered a stable population of Irrawaddy Dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in Chilika Lake, Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon. Unlike the strictly riverine Gangetic River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica), the Irrawaddy Dolphin is an euryhaline oceanic dolphin that thrives in shallow, near-shore coastal waters, brackish estuaries, and river mouths across Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal. Chilika hosts the single largest contiguous lagoonal population of Irrawaddy dolphins on Earth (approx. 160–170 individuals). Anatomically, they possess a distinctive blunt, rounded melon forehead with no distinct beak, a small triangular dorsal fin set far back, and the rare ability to spit streams of water from their mouths to herd schools of fish toward shallow mudflats.

NATIONAL DAM SAFETY AUTHORITY (NDSA): STATUTORY OVERSIGHT, COMPREHENSIVE DAM REVIEWS & DAM SAFETY ACT 2021

Context & Analysis: Following structural distress inspections across high-profile barrages and reservoirs, the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) has cracked down on non-compliant dam operators under the Dam Safety Act, 2021. India ranks third globally in the total number of large dams (hosting over 5,300 operational large dams, behind only China and the United States). However, more than 80% of India's large dams are over 25 years old, and over 230 dams exceed 100 years of age, facing chronic structural issues including siltation-induced storage depletion, spillway erosion, and downstream urban encroachment. The Dam Safety Act, 2021, established a robust two-tier institutional architecture: the policy-making National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) at the apex level, and the regulatory National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) as the executive body empowered to enforce uniform dam inspection standards across all specified dams.