National Handloom Day

Context: India celebrated the 11th National Handloom Day on 7 August 2025 with awards, expos, and the launch of the “Haat on Wheels” initiative to empower artisans.

About National Handloom Day

• Introduction: National Handloom Day honours India’s rich weaving heritage, showcasing the skill of artisans and promoting sustainable, locally made products.
• Origin: Declared by the Government of India in 2015, it commemorates the Swadeshi Movement.
• Historical Significance : Launched on 7 August 1905, the Swadeshi Movement encouraged self-reliance by rejecting foreign goods and empowering handloom weavers as symbols of resistance.

Key Highlights of 2025 Celebration

• Theme: Weaving Innovation into Tradition
• Awards: The 2025 event at Bharat Mandapam saw the President confer 5 Sant Kabir Awards and 19 National Awards under the National Handloom Development Programme upon weavers who preserve and promote traditional weaving techniques
• Handloom Hackathon: A design hackathon was introduced to engage youth in innovative approaches for modernising handlooms while preserving traditional techniques.
  • Theme of the Hackathon : “DREAM IT; DO IT”
• 2025 focus:  “My Handloom, My Pride; My Product, My Pride” reflects cultural identity and economic empowerment through indigenous crafts.

Haat on Wheels Initiative

• It is a mobile marketplace bringing 116 weaves directly to urban consumers in Delhi NCR , bridging gaps between artisans and markets while promoting “Vocal for Local.”
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Textiles, in collaboration with the National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC).

Necropolitics

Context: From Gaza bombings to India’s COVID-19 migrant crisis, necropolitics reveals how power decides who lives with dignity and who is left to die.

What is Necropolitics?

• Necropolitics, theorised by Achille Mbembe, examines how power governs death by systematically deciding which lives are valued and which are rendered disposable.
• Unlike biopolitics, which optimises life through health and welfare, necropolitics deliberately produces death through structural abandonment, violence, and indifference.
• It creates “death worlds,” where populations live as the “living dead,” biologically alive but stripped of rights and recognition
• Examples
  • Bengal famine (1943) where policies prioritised empire over Indian lives.
  • HIV/AIDS crisis abandoning queer Black and brown communities.
  • Gaza (2023) where children’s deaths were treated as collateral.

Key Features of Necropolitics

• State and Non-State Violence: Power uses military force, surveillance, and even private militias to suppress dissent and administer death.
• Creation of Enemies: Fear is weaponised through invented threats, sustaining emergency laws and justifying exclusion.
• Slow and Structural Death: Starvation, displacement, and economic neglect kill as effectively as bombs.
• Colonial and Racial Roots: Entire communities, historically enslaved or colonised, remain sites of disposability.

Taiwan’s ‘Great Recall’ Vote

Context: Recently, voters in Taiwan voted on the recall of 24 lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. 

Great Recall Movement

• It is a mass citizen-led campaign in Taiwan seeking the removal of 31 opposition Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers from the legislature through constitutional recall votes. 

About the Great Recall Vote

• Taiwan’s recall mechanism allows voters to remove elected legislators under the Public Officials Election and Recall Act.
• The recall movement was supported by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and civil groups like the Bluebird Movement.

Carbon Sink

Context: A study published in Nature reveals a significant decline in the ability of European forests to act as carbon sinks, primarily due to extreme weather events driven by climate change and intensified by human activities.

What is Carbon Sink ? 

• It refers to any natural or artificial system that absorbs more carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere than it emits, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.  
• Natural carbon sinks:  It includes forests, soils, and oceans, which store carbon through photosynthesis, soil sequestration, and oceanic absorption. 
• Artificial carbon sinks:  It use technologies to capture CO₂ from the air and store it in underground reservoirs or other secure sites.

Key Findings of the Study

• Between 2010–2014 and 2020–2022, carbon sequestration capacity dropped by 27%.
• 2025 data indicates a steeper decline in forest carbon sink ability.

Causes Behind the Decline

• Climate Extremes:
  • Increase in droughts, heatwaves, and compound events reduces photosynthesis and tree growth.
  • Triggers secondary impacts like megafires, pest outbreaks, and windthrow, damaging forest health over multiple years.
• Forest Management Practices: Focus on industrial wood production.
  • 30% of forests comprise a single tree species, one-third of which is spruce.
  • 27% are uneven-aged forests, reducing biodiversity and resilience.
• Land Use Factors:
  • Reduced afforestation.
  • Ageing forests with slower growth.
  • Increased harvesting rates.
  • Disturbed forest soil with high topsoil carbon storage.

Implications for EU Climate Goals

• A decline in carbon sink capacity jeopardizes the EU’s targets of a 55% cut in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

Seismic Micronozation

Context: The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), through the National Centre for Seismology (NCS), has undertaken seismic microzonation of major Indian cities and regions.

Seismic Hazard Microzonation

• Seismic hazard microzonation involves dividing a region into zones with similar levels of earthquake risk based on geological, seismological, and geotechnical factors. 
• It is a key tool for earthquake preparedness and risk mitigation, providing GIS-based, site-specific data to support effective pre- and post-disaster planning.
• The Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment (SHRA) unit of the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) is responsible for generating and disseminating such hazard information.

Data Sharing

• Results are shared with the State and National Disaster Management Authorities and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
• BIS-approved construction guidelines for earthquake-resistant buildings are promoted by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Cities Covered Under Seismic Microzonation

• Covered: Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Guwahati, Jabalpur, Dehradun, Ahmedabad, Gandhidham, and the State of Sikkim.
• Chennai, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, and Mangalore have also been covered.

Bureau of Indian Standards

Context: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) conducted a market surveillance drive for the financial year 2024–25 to examine the compliance of products sold via e-commerce and quick commerce platforms. 

About Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)

• Established under: BIS Act, 2016
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution
• Status: National Standards Body of India
• Objectives: 
  • Promote standardisation, quality assurance, and certification of goods.
  • Ensure consumer protection and facilitate harmonious development of quality infrastructure.
• Represents India in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
• Functions as India’s WTO-TBT Enquiry Point under the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement

Major Certification Types

• ISI Mark – Product certification for industrial and consumer goods
• Hallmark – Certification for purity of gold jewellery
• FMCS – Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme
• Compulsory Registration Scheme (CRS) – For electronics and IT goods (mandated by MeitY)
• Declaration of Conformity – Simplified self-declaration process under CRS

About International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

• Independent, non-governmental body with 167 member countries
• Develops voluntary, consensus-based international standards
• Supports innovation and addresses global challenges

About the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)?

• Global, not-for-profit body with 170+ member countries
• Focuses on electrical and electronic goods
•  It administers 4 Conformity assessment systems whose members certify that devices, systems, installations, services and people work as required.
• The IEC publishes around 10 000 IEC International Standards that form the technical foundation for national quality infrastructure.

Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund

Context: Since the inception of the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF), 402 projects have been approved with a total project cost of ₹14,413.88 crore and term loan of ₹10,095.23 crore.

About Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF)

• Type: Central Sector Scheme
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying
• Objective: Boost infrastructure in the animal husbandry sector and promote wealth creation through private investment.
• Target Beneficiaries: Individual entrepreneurs, private companies, FPOs, MSMEs, Section 8 companies, dairy cooperatives
• Financial Support:
• • Credit Guarantee: Up to 25% of the loan through a ₹750 crore Credit Guarantee Fund for MSMEs and Dairy Cooperatives.
  • Interest Subvention: 3% interest subvention for 8 years (including 2-year moratorium) on up to 90% of loan from scheduled banks, NCDC, NABARD, and NDDB.

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