The Hindu Gist - 2nd October, 2026
1 .Other than Outrage: Restrictions on Women Cannot Be the Answer to Unsafe Public Spaces
The continuing incidence of violence against women shows that legal provisions and institutional mechanisms alone have not translated into safer public spaces. The response cannot be to restrict women’s mobility; it must address weak implementation, unsafe infrastructure, police responsiveness, judicial delays and deeply entrenched patriarchal traditions.
Continuing Violence Despite Multiple Safeguards
- Rising reported crimes: Crimes against women increased from around 4 lakh in 2012 to 4.4 lakh in 2024. Part of the increase may reflect higher reporting, but the scale nevertheless points to continuing gaps in women’s safety.
- Around 80 crimes every hour: In 2024, around 50 crimes against women were reported every hour, with high rates reported in metropolitan cities such as Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow and Delhi.
Implementation Gap in Women’s Safety
- Multiple mechanisms: Government initiatives include Mission Shakti, women’s helplines, One Stop Centres, fast-track courts and the Nirbhaya Fund. However, the existence of these mechanisms has not by itself ensured safer public spaces.
- Safety audits without follow-up: Safety audits are useful only when identified deficiencies are followed by time-bound corrective action. Merely identifying unsafe locations without fixing them creates a gap between policy and implementation.
- Unsafe urban infrastructure: A city cannot be considered safe if poor lighting, inadequate connectivity and unsafe public spaces continue to expose women to risks.
- Police responsiveness: Police patrols and emergency numbers need to be linked with prompt intervention by trained and sensitised personnel, particularly in vulnerable locations.
- Preventive and outcome-based policing: The focus needs to move from scheme-based policing to preventive, outcome-based policing, with public audits of vulnerable locations and accountability for correcting identified deficiencies.
- Justice delayed: The enormous backlog of cases weakens the deterrent effect of law. The promise of speedy investigation loses meaning when survivors have to wait for years for trial and justice.
From Scheme-Based to Preventive, Outcome-Based Policing
- Preventive policing: There is a need to move from scheme-based policing to preventive, outcome-based policing, rather than measuring safety merely through the existence of schemes and infrastructure.
- Public audits:Public audits of vulnerable locations and clear deadlines for addressing identified deficiencies can make safety interventions more accountable.
- Justice backlog: The justice system must address the enormous backlog of cases. The promise of speedy investigation loses meaning when survivors wait for years for trial and justice.
- Restrictions are not the answer: Unsafe public spaces cannot be addressed by restricting women’s freedom and mobility—asking them not to walk after dark, return home earlier or avoid parks and malls.
- Address male violence and patriarchy: The focus must remain on addressing the possibility of male violence and the deeply entrenched patriarchal traditions that contribute to restrictions on women’s freedom.
2. Season’s End: The IMD Is Conservative When It Comes to Projecting Rainfall Deficit
Monsoon Forecasts and the Actual Rainfall Pattern
- Initial forecast:Initial forecast: IMD initially forecast monsoon rainfall at around 92% of LPA (±5%), later revising it to around 90% of LPA (±4%). Actual rainfall ended at 4% of LPA.
- Actual outcome: The 2026 southwest monsoon ended with 4 mm rainfall, about 87.4% of the LPA of 868.6 mm, making it a deficient monsoon
- Changing rainfall drivers: The monsoon season was influenced by ocean conditions and Western disturbances, while extra-tropical rain-bearing systems brought more rain into India during the monsoon months.
- El Niño: El Niño strengthened during the latter part of the season, influencing rainfall conditions and complicating monsoon forecasting. The IMD expects El Niño conditions to persist/strengthen during October–December.
- Agricultural impact: On July 10, Kharif sowing was 16% behind last year’s level, although by early September the gap had narrowed to under 2%. Karnataka declared drought in over 100 taluks, while Maharashtra declared drought in 265 of 358 taluks.
- Agricultural drought threshold:Although the national rainfall deficit was around 12%, drought conditions were declared in several regions, highlighting how national rainfall averages can conceal severe sub-regional and agricultural distress.
- Post-monsoon outlook: El Niño is expected to strengthen/peak around November 2026. Its persistence may influence post-monsoon rainfall patterns, with implications for soil moisture, reservoir storage and agricultural conditions.
The Indian Express Gist - 2nd October, 2026
1 .For New Energy, Remove Old Bottlenecks
India has more than 300 GW of installed renewable-energy capacity and ranks third globally in renewable-energy deployment, but installed capacity does not always translate into electricity being available when demand is highest.
Transmission Infrastructure and Grid Integration
- Curtailment of renewable power: Transmission constraints and the need to maintain grid security have forced operators to curtail a significant amount of solar-generated electricity, particularly during April–June.
- Green Energy Corridor Phase-III: The scheme aims to strengthen systems to evacuate up to 135 GW of renewable energy and add 50 GWh of battery energy storage, addressing both evacuation constraints and storage requirements.
- Intra-state transmission: Renewable projects are often concentrated in particular regions, while electricity demand is spread across cities, industries and rural areas. Strengthening the network’s last leg is therefore crucial for ensuring that renewable power actually reaches consumers.
- High transmission cost: The scheme has an estimated ₹1,36,378 crore allocation for transmission infrastructure, but implementation involves challenges beyond investment.
- Right-of-way and clearances:Right-of-way compensation, land acquisition and environmental clearances remain major bottlenecks in laying transmission lines, particularly where high-voltage lines pass near habitations.
Storage and Institutional Bottlenecks
- Storage as a functioning grid component: The 50 GWh storage component must become a functioning part of the grid rather than merely a procurement target, particularly because renewable generation is variable and demand may peak when solar generation is unavailable.
- Viable storage ecosystem: Battery projects require viable business models and incentives, especially because the sector depends on overseas suppliers for critical raw materials.
- Need for clear rules:Recycling arrangements and clear rules on who can use and pay for storage are necessary for the storage system to become commercially viable.
- Fragmented decision-making: Renewable resources, transmission corridors and electricity demand do not follow administrative boundaries. Fragmented decision-making often delays projects, requiring greater coordination among the concerned authorities.
- Integrated monitoring and decision-making: A proposed portal bringing all approving authorities together for real-time monitoring and faster decision-making could help address these coordination bottlenecks.
- Learning from past experience: The next phase of the Green Energy Corridor needs to address not merely the creation of renewable capacity but the bottlenecks in transmission, storage, clearances and coordination that determine whether this capacity can actually be utilised.
2. Industry Is Growing, but Isn’t Creating Jobs
India’s formal manufacturing sector continues to grow, but the expansion is not translating into employment at the same pace. Output and employment have both increased, yet wages, labour productivity and the shift towards organised manufacturing remain uneven, leaving the country with a persistent employment challenge.
Manufacturing Growth and Employment
- Output–employment gap: In 2024-25, manufacturing output grew by 8%, while employment grew by 7.2%. Thus, employment increased but grew slightly slower than industrial output.
- Wages lagging productivity: Wages per worker have grown at a slower pace than net profit and output per worker, indicating that the gains from manufacturing growth are not being equally reflected in worker earnings.
- Capital-intensive growth: The pattern suggests that manufacturing expansion is not necessarily generating employment in proportion to its increase in output, raising concerns about the labour-absorbing capacity of industrial growth.
Informal and Organised Manufacturing
- Large informal workforce: In 2023-24, around 9 crore persons were employed in organised manufacturing, while about 3.3 crore were employed in the unorganised manufacturing segment, highlighting the large informal employment base.
- Small-firm dominance: Small firms dominate organised manufacturing numerically, but factories employing more than 100 workers account for a larger share of employment, while also recording higher wages and labour productivity.
- Productivity versus employment: Manufacturing needs to generate not merely higher output but also productive and better-paid employment, particularly for workers currently concentrated in informal and small-scale establishments.
- Employment challenge: Without stronger expansion of labour-intensive manufacturing and greater movement of workers into organised enterprises, India may continue to face the paradox of industrial growth without sufficient job creation.
3. We Have a Model Investment Treaty. And Are Losing Billions Because of It
India’s 2016 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) was intended to protect India from problematic investor–State disputes, but its restrictive provisions may also be discouraging foreign investment and exposing India to costly disputes.
Restrictive Investment Treaty Framework
- 2016 Model BIT: The treaty was framed after India faced several investment disputes and sought to protect the State from expansive interpretations of investor rights.
- Narrower investor protection: The 2016 model restricts the scope of protections available to foreign investors and requires them to pursue domestic remedies before approaching international arbitration.
- Longer dispute resolution: The domestic-remedy requirement can substantially delay access to international arbitration, with the UAE agreement cited as requiring five years of domestic proceedings before arbitration.
- Limited treaty network: Since the 2016 Model BIT, India has concluded only six new investment treaties, while the number of BITs in force fell sharply from 73 in 2015 to 29 in 2017 and eight by 2021. None of the eight remaining treaties covered a significant source of foreign capital.
- Recent treaties: The newer treaties with the UAE (2024) and Israel (2025) reduced the domestic-remedy requirement from the earlier five-year period to three years, indicating some movement towards greater investor access while retaining several restrictive features of the 2016 Model BIT.
Investment and the Cost of Restrictive Protection
- Gross versus net FDI: Gross FDI inflows reached a record $94.5 billion in 2025-26, but after accounting for repatriation/disinvestment and India’s outward direct investment, net FDI was only about $7.65 billion.
- Reinvested earnings: Reinvested earnings of foreign firms stood at around $25.6 billion in 2025-26, exceeding India’s net FDI by more than three times and highlighting their importance in sustaining foreign investment.
- India’s position: India has moved from being among the countries receiving the most foreign investment to recording a decline in direct investment inflows, raising concerns about the investment climate.
- Foreign investors’ concerns: The restrictive treaty framework may affect the predictability and attractiveness of India’s investment environment, particularly when investors compare the protection available across competing jurisdictions.
- Treaty protection versus investment: The central concern is that a treaty designed primarily to prevent abusive investor claims may also discourage genuine investment if foreign investors perceive available protections as inadequate.
Need for Reconsideration
- Balance protection and attraction: India needs to balance protection of State regulatory space with sufficient assurance to foreign investors against arbitrary or unfair treatment.
- Bilateral investment treaties: The newer treaties indicate some movement away from the earlier five-year domestic-remedy requirement, but the broader treaty framework remains more restrictive than India’s earlier approach.
- Investment climate: The larger issue is whether India’s investment treaties are helping attract and retain capital or becoming an additional factor affecting investment decisions and the attractiveness of the Indian market.
- Policy choice: The challenge is to create an investment treaty framework that protects India’s interests while ensuring that foreign investors find India sufficiently predictable and attractive.
