Daily News Capsules
1. AI a global good, but must guard against misuse: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called for barring the misuse of artificial intelligence for deepfakes, crime, and terrorism, suggesting the need for a global framework built on certain fundamental principles, including human oversight and transparency. “We must all ensure that AI is used for the global good and that its misuse is prevented. For this, we need a global compact on AI, built upon certain fundamental principles. These should include effective human oversight, safety-by-design, transparency, and strict prohibitions on the use of AI for deepfakes, crime, and terrorist activities,” Modi said at the G20 Summit in Johannesburg while speaking on a session on A Fair and a Just Future for All — Critical Minerals; Decent Work; Artificial Intelligence. India’s AI approach, he said, was based on the three pillars of equitable access, population-level skilling, and responsible deployment. AI systems that impact human life, security, or public trust must be responsible and auditable, he said. “And most importantly, while AI may enhance human capabilities, the ultimate responsibility for decision-making must always remain with human beings.” India will be hosting the AI Impact Summit in February 2026 with the theme ‘Sarvajanam Hitaya, Sarvajanam Sukhaya’ (Welfare for all, Happiness for all). Modi invited all G20 countries to attend the Summit.
Possible Question
Critically examine how countries in the Global South can come together to build AI governance frameworks that can meaningfully curb deepfakes and malicious use without constraining innovation.
2. COP30 ends with weak deal; Brazil to launch road maps
World governments reached a compromise climate deal on Saturday after nearly a week of talks that pitted developed against developing countries over who should bear the burden of climate action. Rich nations resisted strong language on delivering climate finance while developing countries refused a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap without guaranteed support for transition. The agreement secured at COP30, which was scheduled to close midweek but dragged on until Saturday afternoon, establishes work programmes and makes aspirational calls for more climate finance but omits any mention of fossil fuels in the formal text and weakens earlier commitments on adaptation funding. In a press briefing after the decision was gavelled, Brazil’s climate envoy André Lago announced he would independently create two roadmaps — one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner. The roadmaps Lago proposes would exist outside the formal UN climate framework, raising questions about their authority and implementation. The agreement, titled “The Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilisation against climate change”, delivered wins for India on three fronts: a two-year work programme on climate finance obligations, softened language on unilateral trade measures, and initiatives to keep the 1.5°C warming goal alive. However, it significantly diluted earlier commitments on adaptation finance.
Possible Question
Discuss how extra-UNFCCC initiatives such as Brazil’s proposed climate transition roadmaps could reshape global climate governance. Do they strengthen ambition or fragment multilateralism?
3. Four new labour codes to reform jobs market
The Union government on Friday announced the implementation of four labour codes (The Code on Wages, 2019; Industrial Relations Code, 2020; Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code, 2020; and the Code on Social Security, 2020) passed by Parliament in 2019-20 meant to replace a welter of complex, British-era legislation, kicking off a set of reforms aimed at attracting investment, spurring job creation, and making it easier for firms to hire and fire employees. The new employment rules mark a continuation of recent regulatory reforms such as the rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax, and the Income Tax Act, 2025, which have simplified the burden of compliance for consumers and businesses. They also mark the beginning of a new labour-market regime that creates a statutory backing for a national minimum wage for the first time, provide social-security benefits to workers across sectors, and allows women to work night shifts. The new laws also define gig workers. The government notified the four laws and rules needed to make them operational effective November 21, Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya said. The announcement closes the loop on years of tense negotiations on the sensitive sociopolitical and electoral issue of labour in a country long hobbled by a web of archaic and complex employment rules. Even though successive governments and most economists agree that labour reforms in the world’s fifth-largest economy were overdue and updated laws are necessary to create employment for the nearly one million job-seekers entering the Indian labour market each month, fears of a political backlash and resistance by major trade unions had kept the government from implementing the codes.
Possible Question
Evaluate whether India’s new labour codes strike an appropriate balance between labour flexibility and worker protection in a rapidly changing job market.
4. Car ratings may soon test pedestrian safety
New car models could in future be assessed on how well they protect pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, according to a draft vehicle safety protocol released by the Centre on Friday, marking a shift from evaluating only occupant protection that is at the heart of the safety star rating mechanism. The proposed Bharat NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) 2.0 assigns a 20% weightage to vulnerable road user (VRU) protection in the overall vehicle safety rating for new passenger vehicles in the M1 category. Under the draft, the VRU vertical will require new car models to undergo rigorous assessments including leg-form impact tests at the bumper and adult and child head-form impacts against the engine bonnet and windscreen areas. In other words, the new standard will assess whether the front design of a car — from bumper height and stiffness to bonnet construction — can absorb impact energy and minimise injuries when it strikes a pedestrian.
Possible Question
How can vehicle safety regulations be designed to protect vulnerable road users in fast-urbanising countries like India? Examine global best practices and India’s challenges
5. Tackling backlog top priority: Justice Kant
Ahead of taking charge as the country’s 53rd Chief Justice, justice Surya Kant identified tackling the Supreme Court’s backlog of nearly 90,000 pending cases and promoting mediation as his key priorities when he assumes office on Monday. “One of my foremost challenges is the arrears in the Supreme Court. Today’s scoreboard shows nearly 90,000 cases pending,” the CJI-designate said in an interview to HT. “My goal is optimum utilisation of force. As CJI, I have to take care of arrears on a pan-India basis.” Justice Kant said thousands of cases remain stuck because related issues are pending before the Supreme Court, preventing high courts and lower courts from taking them up. “I will find those matters, ensure benches are constituted, and have them decided. I will also try to see the oldest matters,” he said, adding that healthy practices of approaching lower courts first need to be revived. On mediation, he said: “We must identify a solution, and one of the easiest solutions, which can be a game changer, is mediation. We will have to persuade government agencies to come forward and pursue mediation.” Justice Kant, who will be sworn in on November 24, underlined that courts “are not merely individual judges but collective bodies whose credibility depends on consistency, discipline and efficiency”, adding that reform “is a continuous process” he intends to carry forward.
Possible Question
Analyse the structural and procedural factors driving pendency in the Supreme Court. Are institutional reforms or behavioural norms more critical for sustainable backlog reduction?
Editorial Snapshots
A. Searching for federal balance
The Supreme Court’s decision that governors and the President cannot be bound by judicially imposed timelines in granting assent to legislation clearly demarcates the powers of the judiciary and executive, but also effectively rolls back a previous judgment that had clamped fetters on gubernatorial powers. This is likely to perpetuate the trend of escalating conflict in several states between the elected government and Raj Bhavans. In response to a presidential reference, a five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court — the current Chief Justice of India, the incoming Chief Justice of India and a future Chief Justice of India among them — said the Constitution envisages a carefully balanced structure for the processing of state legislation and that does not permit courts to impose procedural timelines on constitutional authorities. By ruling that the governor’s discretion cannot be reduced to a purely “perfunctory” role, the apex court has signalled a very limited role for judicial review in such cases and that too possibly not a decisive role. The bench has attempted to strike a balance by saying that courts may issue a limited direction requiring a governor to exercise one of the constitutionally prescribed options in case of “prolonged, deliberate inaction”. But by leaving the terms up for interpretation and underlining that the courts cannot dictate an option for the governor to choose, the court has opened the possibility of protracted litigation by complainant states that might end with no conclusive direction. There is no way to read this verdict except as a victory for the Union government and the Raj Bhavans. The Constitution bench verdict is a blow to federalism.
Possible Question
Does the Supreme Court’s refusal to impose timelines for gubernatorial assent weaken cooperative federalism? Examine whether “dialogue” without enforceable limits can check partisan delays.
B. Sound mind in a sound body
A 16-year-old’s suicide note blaming harassment by teachers at his school in the national capital — and other such recent incidents, including the death of a nine-year-old at a Jaipur school — hold up a mirror to the inadequate attention paid to the mental health needs of students. This is a critical failure, especially when pre-adolescents and adolescents choose the path of suicide and self harm. Student suicide numbers paint an alarming picture — as per the latest data (for 2023) from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), such deaths accounted for 8.1% of all the suicides in the country. Decadal trends (2013 2023) show student suicides rose faster than overall suicides in the country, underscoring the need for urgent intervention. Schools and colleges are increasingly appointing counsellors, and there are several State interventions oriented towards mental health support for adolescents and young adults, including the Manodarpan counselling services and the Tele-MANAS toll-free helpline. But protecting mental health among the young needs more than just counselling services. It needs the staff in the classrooms, play areas, and the corridors to be sensitive, responsive and, most importantly, watchful. Schools and colleges must intensify mapping behaviour, risk monitoring, and sensitivity training among teachers and other staff. The last is particularly important because it is the fulcrum on which all other school-level interventions to protect students are leveraged. To illustrate, in many suicide cases, parents and peers report complaints about bullying at school being met with indifference or even dismissive responses from teachers (as it was in the Jaipur case). There is also an urgent need to review the use of social media by people in this vulnerable (and impressionable) age group. Australia’s pathbreaking ban on social media accounts for those under the age of 16 goes into effect in December. It is aimed to protect children from online risks, and India would do well to take a close look at the rule. Finally, while schools need to become kinder and more considerate spaces, social isolation, especially familial isolation where there seems to be a rising lack of connection between parents and young children, needs correcting as well. Parents also need to be better listeners. An “all hands” approach, led by educational institutions, but backed by parents and the State is the only way to deal with this looming crisis.
Possible Question
Should India adopt a statutory framework for mental-health accountability in schools? Discuss the roles of institutions, families, and regulators in preventing student distress.
Fact of the day
US-licensed satellite to launch on Isro’s LVM-3 rocket next month: The US licensed BlueBird 6 satellite, among the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite designed for Low Earth Orbit (LEO), is scheduled to launch on Isro’s LVM-3 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on December 15, according a statement from telecom company AST SpaceMobile. Manufactured at AST SpaceMobile’s headquarters in Midland, Texas, the 6,500kg satellite is the first of the firm’s next generation satellites. “Our next-generation satellites will soon enable ubiquitous cellular broadband coverage direct to everyday smartphones from space,” said Abel Avellan, founder, chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile in a media statement on Friday. On October 1, a social media post by AST SpaceMobile said that BlueBird 6 has completed final assembly and testing and is ready for flight. “On October 12, it will head to India aboard an Antonov large cargo plane,” it had said. When launched, it will feature the largest commercial phased array in LEO at nearly 2,400 square feet –– a 3.5 times increase in size over previous iterations of BlueBirds and supports 10 times the data capacity, according to AST SpaceMobile. While Isro has yet to make an announcement on the launch, its chairperson V Narayanan had said last month that BlueBird 6 satellite would be launched in the second week of December.
