New Study published in journal Nature Sustainability warns about Invasive Alien Species

• Invasive alien species (IAS) are those plants, animals, or microorganisms that do not naturally belong to a region but, once introduced, spread quickly and disturb the local balance.

Key highlights of the study

• Expansion of IAS: Annually, approx.15,500 km² natural areas in India are invaded by at least one new IAS.
• Invasive alien plants have already doubled their range in ecologically sensitive regions eg. Western Ghats(WGs), Himalayas and north-east.
• Impacting Natural Ecosystem: Almost 2/3rd of India’s natural ecosystems now contain at least 11 major IASs, eg. Lantana camara, Chromolaena odorata, Prosopis juliflora etc.
• Climate Change-Driven Spread: Wet-biome invaders eg. Ageratina adenophora, Mikania micrantha expanded with rising temperatures and declining soil moisture
• Conversely, dry biomes invasions e.g., Xanthium strumarium increased with increasing rainfall.

Impacts of Invasive alien species

• Threatening Livelihood: eg. Prosopis juliflora often block access to pasture, firewood and water and can cause respiratory illness.
• Threat to Wildlife: eg. By 2022, invasions had impacted more than 1 lakh sq km of tiger habitat.
• Threat to Biodiversity: eg. Lantana camara suppressed native vegetation in India''s Western Ghats.
• Economic: India’s economic losses from IASs (1960 -2020) is $127.3 billion.

Way Ahead

• Need for a National mission - for better co-ordination and integration and  to counter the lack of dedicated national institutional mechanism or database
• Prevention: Stop new invasive species from entering through stricter checks on trade, travel, and shipping (like ballast water management).
• Empowerment: communities suffering the impacts must be involved in the process of recovery and monitoring.
• Following best practices  eg. Mandatory Pest Risk Analysis of New Zealand   for all new or imported products to predict the possibility of Invasions.

National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC)

• The NCBC has recommended excluding 35 communities, mostly Muslim from West Bengal’s Central OBC list, following its scrutiny of OBC inclusions made in 2014.

National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC):

• A constitutional body under Article 338B, mandated to safeguard the rights and ensure the welfare of Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs).

Established in:

• Originally created under the NCBC Act, 1993, it gained constitutional status in 2018 through the 102nd Constitutional Amendment, which inserted Articles 338B and 342A.
• Aim: To advise, monitor, investigate, and recommend matters related to SEBC inclusion/exclusion, welfare safeguards, socio-economic advancement, and violations of rights.

Composition:

• 5 members: Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, and three Members.
• Appointed by the President of India by warrant under his hand and seal.
• Members hold rank and pay equivalent to Secretary, Government of India.

Functions:

• Investigate and monitor implementation of Constitutional safeguards for SEBCs.
• Inquire into complaints of rights violations or misuse of reservation benefits.
• Evaluate socio-economic development programs for backward classes and advise governments.
• Ensure mandatory consultation by Union & States on policy matters affecting SEBCs.
• Submit annual and special reports to the President, which are tabled in Parliament and State Legislatures.

Powers:

• Has civil court powers: summoning witnesses, examining on oath, demanding documents, receiving evidence.
• Advises Union Government on inclusion/exclusion in the Central OBC List and final amendments must be enacted by Parliament under Article 342A.

The 26th Hornbill Festival

The 26th Hornbill Festival (2025) in Nagaland is underway, with day three showcasing vibrant cultural performances by 18 Naga tribal troupes at Kisama Heritage Village.

Hornbill Festival:

A premier cultural festival of Nagaland, known as the “Festival of Festivals,” celebrating the heritage, traditions, and artistic expressions of all major Naga tribes.

History:

• Started in 2000 by the Government of Nagaland to promote inter-tribal unity, preserve indigenous culture, and boost tourism.
• Named after the Hornbill, a revered bird in Naga folklore symbolising valour, beauty, and tradition.

Key Features:

• Held annually from December 1–10 at Kisama Heritage Village, near Kohima in Nagaland.
• Daily cultural shows featuring traditional dances, folk songs, war cries, and indigenous sports.
• Display of Naga arts: wood carving, textiles, crafts, paintings, sculptures.
• Food festivals, herbal medicine stalls, flower shows, and traditional archery & wrestling.
• Major events: Hornbill International Rock Festival, Morung exhibitions, fashion shows, and craft bazaars.
• Participation from international partner countries and neighbouring states.

Significance:

• Revives, preserves, and promotes the diverse cultural identity of Nagaland’s 17 major tribes.
• Acts as a platform for cultural assimilation, where village elders and youth interact and exchange traditions.
• Enhances tourism, economic activity, and global cultural ties.

PM-WANI Scheme

• The government has updated Parliament on the rapid expansion of the PM-WANI network, with over 3.9 lakh Wi-Fi hotspots deployed across India as of November 2025.

About PM-WANI Scheme:

• PM-WANI (Prime Minister’s Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) is a national public Wi-Fi framework enabling affordable, widespread broadband access through decentralized Wi-Fi hotspots operated by small entrepreneurs.
• Ministry: Implemented by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Ministry of Communications.
• Launched in: Approved by the Union Cabinet on 9 December 2020.
• Aim: To democratize internet access, promote digital inclusion, and create a nationwide network of public Wi-Fi hotspots—supporting the goals of the National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) 2018.

Key Features of PM-WANI

• No License Required: PM-WANI allows small shops and local businesses to operate Wi-Fi hotspots without needing any licence, fee, or formal registration, making broadband delivery easy and low-cost.
• Four-tier Architecture: The system works through four components—PDOs providing Wi-Fi, PDOAs handling authentication and accounting, App Providers enabling user access, and a Central Registry (C-DoT) that records all entities.
• FTTH Support: PDOs are now permitted to use regular fibre-to-the-home broadband connections, reducing their operational costs and making hotspot deployment more viable.
• Roaming Between PDOAs: Users can seamlessly switch between hotspots operated by different PDO Aggregators, ensuring continuous connectivity similar to mobile network roaming.
• Mobile Data Offload: PDOs can partner with telecom operators to divert mobile data traffic onto Wi-Fi networks, improving network quality and reducing mobile congestion.
• User-Based Promotions: App Providers and PDOAs may send promotional messages or content to users, but only after obtaining explicit user consent to ensure privacy protection.
• Affordable Bandwidth (TRAI Rule): TRAI requires that all retail fibre broadband plans up to 200 Mbps be sold to PDOs at no more than twice the consumer tariff, ensuring that public Wi-Fi remains affordable.

Significance:

• Bridges the digital divide by providing low-cost internet in rural and underserved regions.
• Generates local entrepreneurship, creating lakhs of micro-Wi-Fi operators.
• Enhances digital payments, e-learning, telemedicine, and e-governance reach.

Tensor Processing Unit (TPU)

• Google’s release of the Ironwood TPU comes at a pivotal moment as the global AI boom accelerates demand for faster, specialised compute.

Tensor Processing Unit (TPU):

• A Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) is a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed by Google specifically to accelerate machine learning—especially deep neural networks and matrix-heavy computations.
• TPUs were first deployed internally by Google in 2015 to run TensorFlow workloads and were released for external use via Google Cloud in 2018.

How it Works?

• TPUs use large matrix-multiply units (MXUs) capable of performing tens of thousands of multiply-accumulate operations per clock cycle.
• They process data in matrix form, breaking inputs into vectors, running them in parallel, and feeding results back to AI models.
• High-bandwidth memory and optimized interconnects enable extremely fast data movement for training large neural networks.

Key Features:

• Matrix Multiplication at Scale: 128×128 ALU arrays delivering massive parallelism.
• High Throughput: Designed for large batch sizes and weeks-long training runs.
• SparseCores: Specialized units for embedding-heavy models like recommendation engines.
• Optimized for TensorFlow, JAX, PyTorch through Google Cloud’s AI stack.
• Low Power, High Efficiency: Purpose-built hardware avoids unnecessary general-purpose circuitry.

Superiority Over GPUs and CPUs:

Compared to CPUs-

• CPUs are flexible but slow for ML—processing one instruction at a time with limited parallelism.
• TPUs far outperform CPUs on ML tasks due to specialized matrix math hardware and lower power consumption.

Compared to GPUs-

• GPUs offer parallelism but still carry general-purpose overhead and less efficient matrix specialization.
• TPUs provide even higher throughput, dedicated MXUs, and tighter integration with ML frameworks—ideal for LLMs, vision models, and deep learning pipelines.

Thailand has formally expressed its intention to join BRICS

• Thailand has formally expressed its intention to join BRICS, seeking India’s support ahead of New Delhi’s BRICS chairmanship in 2026.
• Location: Thailand is a Southeast Asian country located in the centre of mainland Southeast Asia, entirely within the tropical zone.
• Capital: Bangkok is the capital and the largest urban and economic centre.
• Neighbouring Nations: Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia.

Geographical Features

• Northern & Western Mountains: Granitic ridges, highest peak: Mount Inthanon (2,585 m).
• Khorat Plateau (Northeast): Tilted tableland with rolling terrain drained by Mekong tributaries.
• Chao Phraya River Basin (Central): Fertile alluvial plains forming the agricultural heartland.
• Southern Peninsula: Narrow peninsula with a mountainous spine and major islands like Phuket.

About BRICS:

• BRICS is a major geopolitical grouping of eleven countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran.

Established in

• Concept coined in 2001, first ministerial meeting held in 2006, first leaders’ summit in 2009 and became BRICS with South Africa’s entry in 2011.
• Second major expansion occurred in 2024–25 with six new members.
• 2026 BRICS Summit Host: India will host the 18th BRICS Summit in 2026, taking over the presidency from Brazil.

Key Features of BRICS

• Promotes reform of global governance institutions (UNSC, IMF, World Bank).
• Focuses on economic resilience, financial cooperation, counterterrorism, energy security, and technology governance.
• Includes the New Development Bank (NDB) as its financial institution.
• Allows flexible participation modes such as Members, Partner Countries, BRICS Outreach and BRICS Plus.

Operation Sagar Bandhu

• India swiftly deployed multiple naval assets under Operation Sagar Bandhu to deliver humanitarian assistance to Cyclone Ditwah struck Sri Lanka.

Operation Sagar Bandhu

• Operation Sagar Bandhu is India’s naval HADR mission in the Indian Ocean Region aimed at providing rapid relief and logistics support to partner nations affected by natural disasters.
• INS Vikrant, INS Udaygiri and INS Sukanya delivered relief materials, deployed helicopters for aerial reconnaissance and coordinated with Sri Lankan authorities for last-mile aid delivery.
• The mission is part of India’s broader SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) maritime vision and Neighbourhood First policy.

Significance of India’s HADR Strategy

• First Responder Advantage: India’s navy reaches affected areas faster than extra-regional powers. e.g. INS Vikrant and Udaygiri were redirected within hours from Colombo during Ditwah.
• Regional Trust-Building: HADR missions enhance diplomatic goodwill and public confidence leading to stable bilateral relationships.
• Strategic Maritime Presence: Frequent HADR deployments improve monitoring, logistics knowledge and access in critical IOR (Indian Ocean Region) chokepoints, including Trincomalee and Palk Strait.
• Soft Power Projection: Relief assistance projects India as a benevolent maritime power, countering China’s debt-driven presence around Sri Lanka’s ports like Hambantota and Colombo.

Indian Navy Day 2025

• PM Modi has extended greetings to Indian Navy personnel on Navy Day, observed annually on 4 December.
• Navy Day celebrates the Indian Navy’s victory in Operation Trident during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War.
• Operation Trident: The operation destroyed Pakistani naval vessels and damaged Karachi’s fuel and shore facilities without any Indian casualties.
• The theme for Navy Day 2025 is “Combat Ready, Cohesive, Credible, and Aatmanirbhar Force.”
• This year’s celebrations feature a significant Operational Demonstration at Shangumugham Beach in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
• The demonstration event emphasises India’s role as the “Preferred Security Partner” in the Indian Ocean Region under the MAHASAGAR vision.