UPSC Daily News Summaries: Essential Current Affairs, Key Issues and Important Updates for Civil Services
Scan through simple, relatable summaries that help you make sense of the day’s news.
Daily News Capsules
1. Court junks ED charge sheet against Gandhis
A Delhi court on Tuesday declined to take cognisance of a charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the National Herald case, which names senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The court said that it was impermissible in law to take judicial note of the charge sheet and summon the Gandhis. The court also detailed in its 117-page order that the ED’s case reflected a unilateral overreach of the other law enforcement agency viz. the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on one hand and “an ill-advised out-pacing of the scheme of the PMLA itself”. “Since the present prosecution complaint pertaining to the offence of money laundering is founded on cognizance and summoning order upon a complainant under section 200 CrPC filed by a public person namely Dr. Subramanian Swamy and not upon a FIR, cognizance of the present complaint is impermissible in law,” said special judge Vishal Gogne of Rouse Avenue court. The judge added that cognisance of the present complaint was liable to be declined on the question of law, and other arguments relating to the merits of the allegations were not required to be adjudicated. The court, however, said that ED was at a liberty to further argue its case on the next date of hearing. The federal financial crimes probe agency will challenge the order, officials familiar with the development said, adding that the Delhi Police’s economic offences wing (EOW), in October, already registered a first information report (FIR) in ED’s complaint and the cops are likely to conclude their investigation “quickly”, which will give the central agency a predicate offence case. In its charge sheet in April, ED had alleged that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi illegally obtained the underlying assets of Associates Journals Limited, which ran the ‘National Herald’ newspaper, and acquired crores as direct proceeds of crime.
Possible Question
What is a “predicate offence” under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002? Examine why the existence of a valid predicate offence is legally essential before initiating money-laundering proceedings.
2. 4 minor thalassemia patients get HIV after transfusion in Satna
Four children suffering from thalassemia were infected with HIV allegedly after receiving blood transfusions at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel district hospital in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna, an official aware of the matter said. The children, aged between 8 and 14 years, underwent transfusions at the hospital a few months ago which reportedly led to HIV infection. The matter was reported four months ago but came to light on Tuesday when parents of some of the children demanded action against the hospital administration. “Four months ago, tests conducted at the ICTC (Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre) revealed that all the children were initially HIV-negative, but subsequent tests showed positive results. The matter was flagged to district hospital administration and they started tracking the blood donors,” a senior health officer said. Deputy chief minister and health minister Rajendra Shukla ordered an inquiry into the matter and sought a detailed report from the district collector. A panel headed by principal secretary (health) has been formed to probe the matter. Satna district hospital blood bank in charge Devendra Patel raised concerns about the testing kits used for screening HIV and other diseases in blood donors. “These children with thalassemia have received 70 to 100 transfusions. In such cases, the risk of HIV infection is higher. They received blood from different sources. We can’t deny that the testing kit might have failed to detect the infection,” Patel added. To be sure, in the four months, district hospital administration has managed to track only 50% donors as most of the donors shared the wrong mobile number and address.
Possible Question
Blood transfusion safety is a critical component of public health governance. Examine the regulatory, institutional, and ethical gaps revealed by such incidents, and assess the adequacy of India’s blood safety and disease-screening framework.
3. SC flags flaw in bid to remove justice Varma
The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed a major flaw in the ongoing removal proceedings in Parliament against justice Yashwant Varma of the Allahabad high court , who is at the centre of a controversy following the recovery of cash from his official residence in Delhi. Justice Varma, who identified himself as “X” in the petition filed through advocate Vaibhav Niti last week, submitted that the proviso to section 3(2) of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 requires that when the motion for removal of a judge is moved simultaneously before both the Houses of Parliament, no committee can be constituted till the motion is admitted in both Houses. Further, it provides that once the motion is admitted by both Houses, the inquiry committee should be jointly constituted by the Speaker and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. In the present case, the motion for removal of justice Varma was moved in both Houses on July 21. However, the Speaker admitted the motion on August 12 and formed a committee while the motion in the Rajya Sabha is still pending. “Our Parliament has several legal experts. Then how does this happen? Did the members of Parliament not notice that this cannot be done,” observed a bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih, as it issued notice on the judge’s petition and posted the matter for further hearing on January 7. The court sought responses from the office of the Lok Sabha Speaker and the secretary generals of the two Houses of Parliament on the legal challenge presented by justice Varma. The development comes in the wake of proceedings initiated by the three-member committee constituted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on August 12. The committee constituted under section 3 of the 1968 Act comprises Supreme Court’s justice Aravind Kumar, chief justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava of the Madras high court, and senior advocate BV Acharya. This committee has already issued notice to justice Varma and asked him to submit his statement in defence of the charges by January 12, 2026 and to physically appear on January 24.
Possible Question
Explain the constitutional and statutory procedure for the removal of a High Court judge in India. Why did the Supreme Court flag procedural infirmities in the present case, and what does this reveal about the doctrine of separation of powers?
4. TCS’s $1 billion mega deal ends two-year dry spell
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India’s largest software services company, has won a mega deal valued at over $1 billion in revenues over 10 years from Telefónica UK, ending a nearly two-year drought in bagging such large contracts. The British arm of Spanish telecom giant Telefónica runs the O2 brand of mobile phone services in the UK. The Mumbai-based TCS will offer application and infrastructure work as part of this contract, much of which is new work for the company, said two executives privy to the development requesting that they remain unidentified. A formal announcement is expected in the coming weeks. This is the fourth $1-billion deal, all in the UK, under managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) K Krithivasan, who took office in June 2023. That same month, TCS signed a $1.1 billion contract with UK National Employment Savings Trust, which is the UK’s largest workplace pension scheme. Three months later, it won a $1 billion digital transformation contract with Jaguar Land Rover; both the automaker and TCS are part of the Tata Group. In January last year, TCS bagged its largest deal—a $2.5-billion, 15-year administration contract with British insurer Aviva. The UK is the second-largest market after the US for TCS making up about 17% of its full-year revenue of $30.18 billion. Both the executives cited earlier pointed to the muted profitability in the Telefónica UK deal, claiming it is lower than TCS’s 24.2% operating margin. This marks a shift in strategy as the IT outsourcer has traditionally refrained from signing deals lower than the company’s overall profitability.
Possible Question
What does the renewed flow of large IT outsourcing contracts to Indian firms indicate about India’s position in global services trade? Discuss the opportunities and risks associated with margin compression in India’s IT services sector.
5. Meta allowed scams to retain China profits
Last year, Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: They were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide. Though China’s authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta’s advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company’s global revenue. But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money – more than $3 billion – was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters. The documents are part of a cache of previously unreported material generated over the past four years by teams including Meta’s finance, lobbying, engineering and safety divisions. To that end, Meta created an anti-fraud team that went beyond previous efforts to monitor scams and other banned activity from China. Using a variety of stepped-up enforcement tools, it slashed the problematic ads by about half during the second half of 2024 – from 19% to 9% of the total advertising revenue coming from China. Then Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg weighed in. “As a result of Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck,” a late 2024 document notes, the China ads-enforcement team was “asked to pause” its work. After Zuckerberg’s input, the documents show, Meta disbanded its China-focused anti-scam team. It also lifted a freeze it had introduced on granting new Chinese ad agencies access to its platforms. One document shows that Meta shelved anti-scam measures that internal tests showed would be effective.
Possible Question
Discuss the regulatory and ethical challenges posed by global digital platforms operating across jurisdictions with differing legal standards. How should countries like India respond to cross-border digital fraud and platform accountability?
Editorial Snapshots
A. R&D boost to nuclear energy
The new nuclear energy Bill, presented in Parliament on Monday, comes at a time when India needs to deploy low-emission alternatives to coal-based thermal power. Growing power needs must be balanced against long-term climate goals. While renewable energy is very much a part of the arsenal, it faces specific hurdles at present in meeting the demand — riverine hydel projects in the upper reaches are exacting punishing ecological costs and solar generation still wrestles issues such as grind integration, land availability, scale, and lack of adequate storage options. Thus, nuclear energy generation, if managed with utmost care, can be a supplementary source of cleaner electricity. Against this backdrop, the Safe Harnessing of Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill opens up the sector for private participation; it also does away with the supplier’s liability provisions of Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act 2010 and provides for a graded liability structure commensurate to generation capacity. The suppliers’ liability clause in the 2010 Act, industry players have long argued, dissuaded companies from participating in the Indian nuclear energy space. More importantly, the new Bill creates a framework to encourage indigenous research in nuclear energy, by amending the Patents Act 1970, which barred any invention in the nuclear energy space from patent recognition. Inventions may be granted patents if the Union government doesn’t deem these to be related to activities that are of a sensitive nature or have implications for national security. Given India aims to install 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 — a ten-fold-plus growth from the current capacity of close to 9GW — growing local competence in the space is an imperative. Recognising intellectual property created and giving it legislative cover will go a long way in this pursuit. The real challenge for India’s nuclear endeavours, however, will be shaping favourable public perception. Given the country’s experience with industrial accidents, and the scale of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, concerns about nuclear generation and its management can only be answered by convincing the public about the robustness of the safety regime the law proposes.
Q: Assess the role of nuclear energy in India’s clean energy transition. How does the proposed SHANTI Bill seek to address challenges related to private participation, liability, innovation, and public trust?
B. Sustaining export cheer needs FTA support
India’s merchandise exports in November 2025 were the highest in at least a decade. A healthy annualised growth rate of 19.38% for the month indicates resilience despite punishing tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration, given the US remains India’s top export destination. Beyond the role a softer rupee could have played, some experts believe that rising US-bound shipment of products that were spared the high Trump tariffs have also contributed to the export performance. The fact that China has displaced the Netherlands as India’s third-largest export destination suggests nimble diversification by Indian exporters, who may have tapped alternative markets or trans shipment hubs for the tariff-hit segments. This pivot has been reported for segments such as marine products. And any capacity to absorb the tariffs in shipments to the US would also suggest underlying strength in the segments affected, irrespective of how long the levies stay. That said, safety nets are still needed. Trade has been weaponised by the US, and that sets a precedent for other nations to push their interests. With global trade governance now rendered toothless, India will need to actively protect its trade interests. Apart from domestic export promotion schemes, India’s efforts to secure its trade interests with various economies, including the US, through free trade agreements (FTAs) will be central to maintaining healthy export growth. Concerted efforts at further diversification of markets is also an imperative, given Trump’s US could remain a source of uncertainty.
Q: In the context of rising protectionism and weaponisation of trade, evaluate India’s export resilience strategy. How can free trade agreements (FTAs) and market diversification help mitigate external trade shocks?
Fact of the day
Trump designates fentanyl a ‘weapon of mass destruction’: US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order, classifying fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction”. The order was signed in the Oval Office on Monday in the presence of Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Dan Caine, White House border czar Tom Homan and other top military officials. Trump says his administration is “formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it is. No bomb does what this is doing”. It was not immediately clear how the new designation would affect administration policy or what the legal implications would be for those impacted by fentanyl use or drug traffickers. The term weapon of mass destruction has typically referred to nuclear, biological, chemical or kinetic threats capable of causing overwhelming and lasting damage to a population, infrastructure or environment. The term has also been hotly debated in American politics since the US invasion of Iraq.
