UPSC Key: PM-POSHAN Scheme, Aravalli definition row, and

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national importance, Indian Polity.

Mains Examination: General Studies-II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

What’s the ongoing story: After seven states and UTs asked the Centre earlier this year to consider providing breakfast under the PM-POSHAN or midday meal scheme, government sources say the matter is back on the Government’s table.

— What is the ‘Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman’ scheme (PM-POSHAN Scheme)?

— What is the history of the scheme?

(Thought Process: Read about the midday meal scheme and its renaming.)

— What is the significance of the PM-POSHAN Scheme? — What are the associated issues and challenges?

— What can be the benefits of providing breakfast under the PM-POSHAN?

— Read about the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. — Know about the Right to Education and the Right to Food.

— What initiative has been taken by the government with regard to improving the education system in India?

— What steps can be taken to operationalise nutrition awareness among schoolchildren across India?

— Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Kerala, Sikkim, Gujarat and Lakshadweep had, in communications to the Education Ministry in September-October, suggested that breakfast be included under the PM-POSHAN scheme.

— These were in response to a request from the Education Ministry in September that states/ UTs send suggestions for improvements and modifications in the scheme so that the Ministry can prepare a note for the expenditure finance committee (EFC) for the scheme’s continuation beyond 2025-26. An option before the Ministry is to propose to the EFC that breakfast be included as part of the scheme. This is being deliberated, a government source said.

— Another aspect of the PM-POSHAN scheme that is being deliberated is its extension beyond Class 8, and if this can also be proposed when the scheme is considered for continuation, the source said. “The states have asked for it… since a student who goes from Class 8 to Class 9 stops getting midday meals. The idea is that nutritional food should be available to all students,” the source said.

— Eleven states/ UTs had suggested that the scheme, which provides midday meals to students in government and government-aided schools from pre-primary classes to Class 8, be extended to students up till Class 12. This was communicated to the Ministry by states/ UTs, including Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Goa, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Chandigarh.

— The last time the Education Ministry raised the matter with the Finance Ministry at the EFC stage, the latter had not agreed to it. In September 2021, the Cabinet had approved the continuation of the PM-POSHAN scheme from 2021-22 to 2025-26. The proposal to include breakfast is in line with the NEP.

Meals fortified with iron, folic acid, and essential vitamins

— As part of the Right to Life under Article 21, the Constitution recognises the Right to Food – access to adequate food and nutrition for every citizen. Article 47 of the Directive Principles of State Policy also places a duty on the state to raise the level of nutrition and public health.

— The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, launched in 1975, was the first holistic initiative aimed at improving child nutrition, maternal health, and early childhood development. This was followed by the National Nutrition Policy (NNP) in 1993 and the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) in 2018. The midday meal scheme was yet another effort to deal with child malnutrition.

— The midday meal scheme, renamed PM Poshan Shakti Nirman or PM Poshan in 2021, traces its roots to 1995; it was launched as a centrally sponsored scheme on August 15 that year across 2,408 blocks for students up to Class 5. In 2007, the UPA government expanded it to Class 8.

— However, the first initiative to provide meals to children had been taken by the erstwhile Madras Municipal Corporation around 1920. In post-Independence India, Tamil Nadu was again the pioneer, with Chief Minister K Kamaraj rolling out a school feeding scheme in 1956.

— Under the PM-POSHAN scheme, the Centre provides foodgrains, shares the material cost with the States (and the UTs of Delhi and Puducherry, which have legislatures) in a 60:40 ratio; for the States in the northeastern and Himalayan region, the ratio is 90:10. It pushes for fortification of staples with iron, folic acid, and vitamins.

— It is not just a scheme, but a legal entitlement of all school-going children in primary and upper primary classes, through the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, as well as the Supreme Court’s ruling in People’s Union of Civil Liberties vs Union of India and Others (2001).

— The educational and health benefits of a breakfast scheme are well established. The National Education Policy 2020 notes that “the morning hours after a nutritious breakfast can be particularly productive for the study of cognitively more demanding subjects”. Studies show that a morning meal boosts continuity of nutrition while lifting attendance, attention and equity in classrooms.

— Tamil Nadu’s example is instructive: Its breakfast programme, launched in 2022, expanded to reach about 24 lakh students, with commensurate improvements in attendance and health outcomes. The logic is simple: Nourished children learn better.

(1) The Mid-Day Meal scheme comes under the purview of which ministry? (AFCAT 2022)

(2) Which of the following provisions of the Constitution of India have a bearing on Education? (UPSC CSE 2012)

1. Directive Principles of State Policy 2. Rural and Urban Local Bodies

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialisation.

Mains Examination: General Studies-II, III: Government policies and interventions, Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

What’s the ongoing story: Amid the row over the threat to the Aravallis following the Supreme Court-approved definition that limits legal recognition of the hills to landforms rising 100 metres or more above local relief, the top court Saturday initiated suo motu proceedings on the definition question and fixed it for hearing on December 29.

— Know about the Aravali Hills. — What is the significance of the Aravalli Hills?

— What is the ‘Aravalli Green Wall’ project? — What are the threats to the Aravalli Hills?

— How does mining impact the Aravalli ecosystem? — What is the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA)?

— What steps should be taken to protect the Aravalli Hills?

— A three-judge bench, presided by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, will hear the matter. The bench will also comprise Justices J K Maheshwari and A G Masih.

— On November 27, a week after the Supreme Court accepted the recommendations of a Union Environment Ministry panel on the definition of Aravalli Hills limiting it to landforms at an elevation of 100 m or more above local relief, a report in The Indian Express, based on an internal FSI assessment, flagged what the panel did not mention: that by this definition, more than 90% of the Aravalli Hills would be potentially open to mining and construction with severe environmental ramifications, including the quality of air in the National Capital Region.

— Earlier, the Supreme Court, while hearing a matter concerning illegal mining in the Aravalli region, had said that one of the main reasons for such illegal activity was the different definitions of “Aravalli Hills/Ranges”, as adopted by the different states. Consequently, it directed the constitution of a committee comprising the Union Environment Secretary and others to provide a “uniform definition of the Aravalli Hills and Ranges”.

— The committee recommended that “any landform located in the Aravalli districts, having an elevation of 100 metres or more from the local relief, shall be termed as Aravalli Hills”. Senior Advocate K Parameshwar, who was amicus curiae in the matter, had opposed accepting the definition saying “if…accepted, all the hills below the height of 100 metres would be opened up for mining and as a result the Aravalli Hills and Ranges would lose their continuity and integrity” and “would totally endanger the environment and ecology of the mountains.”

— The Centre, however, said that the “Committee itself has recommended that except in case of critical, strategic and atomic minerals, the mining activities would be prohibited in the core/inviolate areas” and also “made various recommendations in order to prevent rampant mining and permit only sustainable mining.”

— At over a billion years old, the Aravallis are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, formed during the Precambrian Era due to the collision of tectonic plates of the earth’s crust. The 700-odd-km range stretches across four states (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi) and 37 districts, with 560 km lying in Rajasthan.

— The highest peak of the Aravalli mountain range is Guru Shikhar, located in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan.

— The present-day range, however, is much eroded compared to what the Aravallis were at their birth. Their degradation is due to both natural factors and human activities. Yet, the Aravallis provide priceless ecological services. If the Western Ghats are considered the water tower and climate regulator of peninsular India, the Aravalli range is an ecological shield for the plains of Northwest and North India.

— The range acts as a shield for the northern plains against the incursion of sand from the Thar desert in the west. This also protects air quality in the North. Any rising incursion of sand would be disastrous for the Delhi-NCR Region, which is already struggling to contain local sources of pollution.

— Moreover, the hills also bring in a healthy amount of rainfall, which is essential for agriculture and drinking water needs of settlements that are located around them. As per studies, deforestation, quarrying and erosion has already led to 12 major gaps in the Aravallis. These gaps extend from Magra hills in Ajmer district to Khetri-Madhogarh hills in Jhunjhunu district and northern most hillocks in Mahendragarh district of Haryana.

— The Aravallis are already under immense pressure, and have faced degradation over the years due to urbanisation, industrial clusters, and mining, both legal and illegal. The Union government has itself accepted the large-scale degradation in its action plan under the ‘Aravalli Green Wall’ project.

(3) Which one of the following is the correct order of formation of geological systems in India in terms of their age? (Starting with the oldest) (UPSC CAPF 2016)

(4) With reference to the Aravalli ranges, consider the following statements: 1. These are one of the world’s oldest ranges.

2. It lies in western and northwestern India. 3. It acts as a natural barrier against desertification.

4. The highest peak of the Aravalli mountain range is Arma Konda.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national importance, Economic and Social Development.

Mains Examination: General Studies-II, III: Government Policies and interventions, Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

What’s the ongoing story: The Statistics Ministry will make public the weights of each item that will be part of the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket before the first retail inflation data is released on February 12.

— What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)? — What are the components of CPI?

— How is CPI different from the Wholesale Price Index (WPI)?

— Why is the revision of the CPI basket required? — What is inflation? Is inflation good for the economy?

— What is the difference between headline and core inflation?

— The weights of various items in the CPI basket are key to how the headline inflation rate moves as that is the weighted average of the year-on-year change in price of each item. For instance, ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ together account for just 1.19 per cent of the CPI at present, but even this small weight has been more than enough for the rising prices of precious metals to comfortably drive inflation higher on their own.

— If one were to exclude gold and silver, CPI inflation in November — when it edged up to 0.71 per cent from October’s record low of 0.25 per cent — would have been (-)0.19 per cent.

— The current CPI inflation series, based on the 2011-12 household consumption basket, contains 299 items, ranging from house and garage rent — which accounts for 9.51042 per cent of the CPI basket — to stove and gas burners, which has a weight of 0.00001 per cent.

— The new CPI series, based on the results of the 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), will see the number of items rise by 65 to 364.

— However, the number of new goods and services whose prices will determine the inflation rate will likely be greater than 65 as some items from the current CPI series are expected to be eliminated as they have become obsolete and aren’t really purchased by households anymore, such as the likes of VCD and DVD rentals and audio cassettes.

— The new inflation series will likely see a marked reduction in the weight of food items, which currently make up almost 46 per cent of the CPI basket. As per the latest HCES, rural households spent 47.04 per cent of their monthly per capita consumption expenditure on food in 2023-24, down from 52.9 per cent in 2011-12. For urban households, the share of food had fallen to 39.68 per cent from 42.62 per cent over the same time period. Reduction in the weight of food should reduce some volatility in the headline retail inflation rate.

— Before the item weights are disclosed in early February 2026, the statistics ministry in January will release the classification structure of the various items and item categories. This structure, called Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose — or COICOP — is the international reference framework and is endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission. In the new series, MoSPI will move to the latest version of the framework, or COICOP 2018.

— The current CPI series has six groups — ‘food and beverages’, ‘pan, tobacco and intoxicants’, ‘clothing and footwear’, ‘housing’, ‘fuel and light’, and ‘miscellaneous’ — and 23 sub-groups. This classification will undergo a change in the new series, which will have 12 divisions, under which there will be 43 groups.

—The two most-often used inflation rates in the country are the wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation rate and the consumer price index (CPI) based inflation rate. The former is called the wholesale inflation rate and the latter is called the retail inflation rate.

— Both WPI and CPI are price indices. In other words, these are two different baskets of goods and services. The government assigns different weights to different goods and services based on what is relevant for those two types of consumers.

1. The weightage of food in Consumer Price Index (CPI) is higher than that in Wholesale Price Index (WPI).

2. The WPI does not capture changes in the prices of services, which CPI does.

3. The Reserve Bank of India has now adopted WPI as its key measure of inflation and to decide on changing the key policy rates.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies-II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

What’s the ongoing story: Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement on Saturday to end weeks of fighting along their border over competing territorial claims.

— What is the status of India’s bilateral relations with Cambodia and Thailand.

— Know the history of the Thailand-Cambodia conflict.

— What is India’s diplomatic response to the Thailand-Cambodia clashes?

— What is India’s Act East Policy? — What is the history of colonialism in Southeast Asia?

— How do border disputes in Southeast Asia impact India’s Act East Policy?

— What is the historical and cultural connection between India and Thailand?

— Read about the Preah Vihear temple.

— The agreement took effect at noon and calls for a halt in military movements and airspace violation for military purposes.

— Only Thailand has carried out airstrikes, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, according to the Cambodian Defense Ministry.

— The deal also calls for Thailand, after the ceasefire has held for 72 hours, to repatriate 18 Cambodian soldiers it has held as prisoners since earlier fighting in July. Their release has been a major demand of the Cambodian side.

— Within hours of the signing, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry protested to Cambodia that a Thai soldier sustained a permanent disability when he stepped on an anti-personnel land mine it charged had been laid by Cambodian forces.

— The agreement was signed by the countries’ defense ministers, Cambodia’s Tea Seiha and Thailand’s Nattaphon Narkphanit, at a border checkpoint. It followed three-day lower-level talks by military officials. It declares that the sides are committed to an earlier ceasefire that ended five days of fighting in July and follow-up agreements.

— The original July ceasefire was brokered by Malaysia and pushed through by pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed.

— Thailand and Cambodia have disputed their land border ever since it was drawn in 1907 by France, then the colonial administrator in Cambodia. Despite their shared ethnic and linguistic ties, social norms, culinary traditions, and cultural activities, nationalism drove this dispute in part.

— At the centre of the border dispute is the Preah Vihear temple, known in Thai as Phra Viharn. The temple was built in the 11th and 12th centuries during the golden age of the Khmer Empire, which then governed much of South Asia, including Siam. As the empire declined, Siam made inroads into Cambodian territory.

— In 1867, Cambodia officially handed the area around Preah Vihear to Siam. However, France colonised Laos and Cambodia around this period, sending the Siamese kingdom from a position of relative strength in its neighbourhood to weakness.

— In 1904, Siam and France signed a border treaty that placed Cambodia’s northern frontier along the watershed line of the Dangrek Mountains. By this principle, most of the Preah Vihear complex should have been located in Siam.

— However, the official map, drawn by the French in 1907, placed the temple in Cambodia. Siam offered weak resistance to this move at the time, but in 1941, its alliance with Japan empowered it to seize control of Preah Vihear. It returned control to France after World War II ended.

— Both Thailand and Cambodia have disputed the temple’s ownership since the latter’s independence from France. Thai troops occupied Preah Vihear in 1954, prompting Cambodia to take the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 1962, it upheld its claim over Preah Vihear.

— In 2008, tensions arose after Cambodia sought to list the Preah Vihear temple as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

(6) The Preah Vihear temple, recently seen in news is dedicated to which Hindu God/Goddess?

What problems are germane to the decolonization process in the Malay Peninsula? (UPSC CSE 2017)

What’s the ongoing story: Ajit Ranade writes- “Long before the language of “rights”, “safety nets” or “social protection” entered policy discourse, Indian rulers confronted a stark and recurring reality: droughts meant destitution and unrest. A response to this challenge was the use of public works as famine relief — not charity, but work that preserved dignity while sustaining livelihoods.”

— How is the idea of employment guarantee linked to Article 41 of the Constitution?

— Who was Vitthal Sakharam Page and what was his contribution to the employment guarantee scheme?

— How did the experience of EGS influence the enactment of MGNREGS?

— Know the key provisions of Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act).

— What is the significance of this scheme?

— What are the major changes proposed under the VB-G RAM G Bill compared to MNREGA?

— What are the benefits and challenges of an employment guarantee scheme?

— “A striking early example is the construction of the Bara Imambara in Lucknow in the 1780s. Built during a devastating famine under Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, the project stretched over several years and was consciously designed to generate employment for thousands who otherwise would have starved. Legend and record both suggest that labourers worked during the day, while the nobility discreetly dismantled portions of the structure at night so that work could continue the next morning. The underlying principle was that in times of distress, the state must provide work, not alms.”

— “This idea resurfaced repeatedly in colonial India through relief works, canals and roads, though with mixed motives. In independent India this old insight was eventually codified into law — first, at the state level in Maharashtra, and decades later at the national level.”

— “Today, as parties spar over the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act) replacing the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), it is important to look back at how the latter, in effect, nationalised a Maharashtrian idea refined over four decades.”

— “The intellectual architect of this transformation was Vitthal Sakharam Page, a modest, deeply Gandhian public figure and a freedom fighter, who was also a scholar, poet and a trained lawyer. He served as the chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council for a record 18 years from 1960 to 1978. Page was neither a technocrat nor a theoretician. He was, above all, a practitioner of public affairs who believed in learning from the ground. At the dawn of India’s constitution in 1949 he wrote an article in Marathi magazine Mauli, passionately arguing for codifying a right to employment, which became a reality years later.”

— “In the mid-1960s, amid famine-like conditions in parts of western Maharashtra, Page initiated a small experiment in Tasgaon taluka of Sangli district. He calculated that Rs 700 could provide 20 days of work to 15 labourers. In a now-famous four-line letter to then Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik, Page asked a question that would change policy history: “If Rs 700 can support 15 people, how many could Rs 100 crore support?”

— “Eleven villages, including Visapur, became the testing ground. Wages were deliberately kept below prevailing market rates — around Rs 3 per day for men, lower for women — not to exploit labour, but to ensure that people came to public works only when no alternative employment was available. That was the Page scheme, meant as a last resort, not a permanent substitute for agriculture. Its principle was summed up in a simple Marathi phrase: magela tyala kama (whoever asks, shall get work). The Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) was launched in Maharashtra in July 1969. Women and men were paid equal wages for works like land levelling, digging wells, percolation tanks and soil conservation.”

— “The results were persuasive. Data showed that distress migration slowed, local assets were created, that it was possible to combat drought and famine, and to also alleviate poverty. Crucially, the programme demonstrated that an open-ended, unconditional employment guarantee was administratively feasible and fiscally manageable, even in a poor, drought-prone economy.”

— “Despite its success, the idea faced resistance, especially from New Delhi. The Planning Commission was initially sceptical of an uncapped employment promise. Yet Page’s credibility, the backing of leaders like Naik, and the quiet support of figures such as D R Gadgil, then vice-chairman of the Planning Commission, ensured that Maharashtra pushed ahead. In July 1969 the scheme was rolled out across the state”

— “In 1978 after a decade of experimentation and political consensus cutting across party lines, Maharashtra enacted the Employment Guarantee Act. Few state laws anywhere in the developing world went so far in recognising employment as a public obligation.”

— “EGS was studied extensively — by administrators, economists and sociologists. It revealed both strengths and tensions. By setting a wage floor, typically below market rates, it reduced labour’s dependence on landlords and altered local power relations, inviting resistance from landed interests.Yet even at its peak, EGS generated only a small fraction of total rural employment — enough to relieve distress, not to distort the labour markets.”

— “Why history matters now EGS showed that public works could be institutionalised as insurance against drought and rural unemployment, and not merely as ad hoc relief. When India enacted the MGNREGS in 2005, it was a proxy for genuine unemployment insurance. Job guarantees as a concept are not recent inventions nor ideological indulgences. They have existed from the pre-colonial era as famine works. The Page scheme, which became EGS, was an implementation of the Directive encoded as Article 41 in the Constitution. The idea of the state as an employer of last resort arose from lived experience of scarcity, not abstract theory.”

— Launched across India’s 200 most backward rural districts in 2006-07, the MGNREGS was extended to an additional 130 districts during 2007-08; and to the entire country from financial year 2008-09. Section 3 (1) of the MGNREG Act provides for “not less than one hundred days” work per rural household in a financial year.

— Guaranteed wage employment days: Section 5(1) of the VB-G Ram G Bill proposes 125 days of guaranteed employment to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. While MGNREGS guarantees employment for 100 days, the number of families exhausting that work quota has been very limited owing to the large base of active workers.

— States to share funding burden: One of the major changes the VB-G RAM G Bill proposes is in the fund-sharing pattern. Unlike MGNREGA, where the Centre pays the entire wage bill, states will have to share the wage payment burden under VB-G RAM G. The Centre has proposed the new funding pattern at a time when the fiscal space for several states has been gradually shrinking.

— Normative allocation’: Top-down approach: The new “normative allocation” formula transforms the method of allocation of resources into a purely top-down process. The Bill defines this as “the allocation of the fund made by the Central Government to the State”.

— Pause in employment guarantee during agriculture season: The VB-G Ram G Bill introduces provisions for pausing the employment guarantee scheme for 60 days during sowing and harvesting to ensure “adequate agricultural labour availability”.

(7) Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”? (UPSC CSE 2011)

(a) Adult members of only the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households.

(b) Adult members of below poverty line (BPL) households.

(d) Adult members of any household.

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