The Hindu Gist - 15th October, 2026
1 . Drugs and Bullets: Punjab Is Seeing a Rise in Narcotrafficking and Targeted Killings
Punjab is facing an interconnected challenge of drug trafficking, organised crime and targeted killings. The alleged murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota and the killing of social media influencer Mad Sandhu point to gaps in public safety, while cross-border smuggling and criminal networks sustain the wider drug economy.
Narcotrafficking and Organised Crime in Punjab
- Drug dependence: The AIIMS Magnitude of Substance Use in India survey estimated that, in 2017–18, 1.28% of Punjab’s population aged 10–75 had opioid dependence, compared with 0.26% nationally.
- Drug-related deaths: NCRB data recorded 106 drug overdose deaths in Punjab in 2024, up from 89 in 2023. These figures may understate the wider toll because attribution depends on medical certification and may exclude long-term complications and unhygienic practices associated with drug use.
- Cross-border networks: Punjab’s geographical location makes it an important entry point and market for narcotics. Smugglers exploit multiple transport routes, while drug trafficking provides illicit funds to interconnected criminal networks.
- Industrial diversion: India’s pharmaceutical and chemical industries can be exploited by criminal actors to divert controlled substances or precursor chemicals for illicit use.
Gaps in Enforcement and the Way Forward
- Limits of enforcement drives: The State’s Yudh Nashian Virudh campaign in 2025 claimed 68,850 arrests and the attachment or confiscation of assets worth ₹319 crore. However, arrests, registered cases, convictions and asset attachment are distinct measures of enforcement outcomes.
- Public support and reporting: The hostile tactics used by Parvinder Singh Jhotta reportedly received public support, highlighting the need to examine whether people are bypassing formal reporting channels and resorting to vigilantism.
- Disrupting drug supply: Punjab needs to reduce the availability of harmful drugs, disrupt wholesale supply chains and identify corrupt facilitators who enable trafficking.
- Rehabilitation: Expanding access to rehabilitative care is necessary alongside enforcement to address drug dependence and its social consequences.
- Investigating targeted killings: Anti-trafficking investigations must also examine the financing and logistics of criminal networks, dismantle institutional collusion and strengthen the protection of threatened individuals.
2. How Has the Supreme Court Strengthened Arrest Safeguards?
In Jaskaran Jeet Singh Deol v. State of Punjab (21 September 2026), the Supreme Court examined an arrest involving violations of both Article 22(1), concerning communication of the grounds of arrest, and Article 22(2), concerning production before a Magistrate within 24 hours. The Court reinforced that an investigating agency seeking fresh custody after release for a constitutional violation must apply to the concerned Magistrate, supply the written grounds of arrest, explain the earlier non-compliance and establish the necessity for re-arrest.
Evolution of Arrest Safeguards
- Constitutional protection: Article 21 protects life and personal liberty, while Article 22(2) requires an arrested person to be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours, excluding necessary journey time.
- Section 47 BNSS: Requires the police to communicate the grounds of arrest to a person arrested without a warrant. However, neither Article 22(2) nor Section 47 specifies the mode of communication.
- Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (2023): The Supreme Court held that written grounds of arrest must be furnished as a standard procedure without exception, rejecting oral communication as a substitute for the written copy.
- Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2024): Reaffirmed the importance of communicating grounds of arrest as a constitutional safeguard enabling the accused to consult legal counsel, challenge the arrest and seek bail.
- Vihaan Kumar v. State of Haryana (2025): The Court observed that although written communication is the ideal mode, no statutory requirement expressly prescribes it in every case.
- Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra (2025): The Court held that written communication of the grounds of arrest is mandatory across offences under all statutes, including the IPC and BNSS. The grounds must be communicated in a language understood by the accused, at least two hours before remand proceedings. Oral communication is permissible only where written communication cannot be provided promptly, with the grounds communicated orally within a reasonable time.
Consequences of Violating Arrest Safeguards
- Illegal arrest and remand: Failure to communicate the grounds of arrest in writing renders the arrest and subsequent remand illegal and entitles the accused to be set at liberty.
- Fresh arrest: If the safeguard is violated, the investigating officer must seek the concerned magistrate’s permission before re-arresting the accused for custodial interrogation.
- Accountability of investigating officers: The court may direct a departmental inquiry and a change of investigating officer for serious lapses in communicating the grounds of arrest.
- Application for custody: The investigating officer must file an application explaining the reasons for non-compliance and obtain the immediate superior authority’s endorsement before the magistrate considers the request.
- Compensation: The High Court may award compensation under public law for violation of Article 22(2), without preventing the accused from pursuing remedies under private civil law.
3. Why the Debate Between Keynesian and Orthodox Economics Matters
The Keynes-Kalecki (KK) framework argues that aggregate demand, particularly private investment, determines both short-term economic fluctuations and long-term growth. In contrast, orthodox economics emphasises supply-side factors and treats demand deficiencies primarily as a short-term problem. This distinction shapes how economists explain unemployment, business cycles and the role of government intervention.
Two Competing Explanations of Economic Fluctuations
- Orthodox economics and supply-side shocks: Real Business Cycle (RBC) theory, associated with Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott, explains economic fluctuations primarily through real shocks, particularly changes in productivity. In this framework, fluctuations are generally modelled as responses to changes in economic fundamentals rather than as persistent demand deficiencies requiring discretionary monetary intervention.
- Hall and Woodford’s contribution: Their work helped strengthen the microeconomic foundations of modern macroeconomic stabilisation models. Hall’s research examined household consumption and spending decisions, while Woodford developed influential frameworks explaining how expectations, price stickiness and monetary policy interact. These contributions helped shape modern New Keynesian approaches to economic stabilisation.
- Demand and long-term growth: The orthodox approach generally treats demand as important for short-term fluctuations but expects it to adjust to supply over the long run. The KK framework, however, argues that demand influences not only cyclical fluctuations but also the underlying growth trend.
- Conceptual distinction: The Keynes–Kalecki framework gives aggregate demand and private investment a central role in determining both short-term fluctuations and long-term growth. New Keynesian models incorporate microeconomic foundations, expectations and price rigidities to analyse stabilisation, while generally retaining a supply-determined long-run output path.
- Private investment and unemployment: In the Kaleckian framework, economies can remain below capacity because private investment is insufficient to employ all those seeking work. The rigidity of investment, rather than price rigidity alone, becomes central to explaining persistent unemployment.
- Long-run implications: Kalecki viewed long-term growth as the slowly changing component of successive short-term economic situations. If an economy remains underemployed in the short run, it may continue to be so in the long run; changes in short-term equilibrium can also affect trend growth.
Monetary policy, Inflation and the Political Economy Growth
- Different views of money: Orthodox economics traditionally treats money as neutral in the long run: an increase in the money supply raises prices without permanently increasing output. New Keynesian economics accepts long-run neutrality but recognises that sticky prices make money non-neutral in the short run, when increased real balances can raise consumption.
- Inflation targeting: Under the New Keynesian approach, monetary policy primarily seeks to stabilise inflation, reflecting the importance attached to price stability.
- Investment-led policy: The KK framework attributes weak economic activity to inadequate private investment rather than primarily to monetary factors. When private investment fails to materialise, public investment and fiscal intervention can directly support economic activity.
- Historical context: Keynes and Kalecki developed their ideas against the backdrop of the Great Depression, while the recent Nobel laureates’ work emerged in the aftermath of the unprecedented inflation of the 1970s. These different historical experiences shaped their economic frameworks.
- Class politics of inflation: The Keynesian revolution improved workers’ lives overall, while the monetarist counter-revolution shifted the burden of inflation control towards workers. The renewed dominance of orthodox approaches raises questions about how economic theories influence policy choices and the distribution of economic costs and benefits.
The central debate concerns whether economic instability is best addressed by allowing supply-side adjustment and stabilising inflation, or by actively supporting demand and investment to sustain employment and long-term growth. Economic frameworks and their resulting policy prescriptions are not politically neutral.
The Indian Express Gist - 15th October, 2026
1 . Kigali Amendment at 10: The Challenge India Faces as Demand for Cooling Booms
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which entered into force in January 2019, aims to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), widely used in refrigeration and air-conditioning. As India’s demand for cooling rises, the challenge is to meet growing needs while reducing emissions from refrigerants and improving energy efficiency.
Climate Impact and the Cooling Challenge
- Ozone protection to climate mitigation: The Montreal Protocol has eliminated nearly 99% of ozone-depleting substances. However, HFCs introduced as substitutes do not deplete the ozone layer but can have a global warming potential hundreds to thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide.
- Potential climate benefits: Full implementation of the Kigali Amendment could avoid approximately 0.3°C–0.5°C of global warming by 2100, according to the scientific assessment cited by the UN.
- Rising cooling demand: India’s cooling requirements are expected to grow substantially with rising incomes, urbanisation and temperatures. The India Cooling Action Plan projects aggregate cooling demand to increase nearly eightfold by 2037–38 compared with the 2017–18 baseline, underscoring the need for energy-efficient and climate-friendly cooling technologies.
- Energy efficiency: More efficient air-conditioners and refrigerators can reduce electricity consumption over their operating life. Combining refrigerant transition with improved equipment efficiency could roughly double the climate benefits.
- Long equipment lifetimes: Cooling equipment bought today may remain in use into the 2030s, making early adoption of efficient technologies important to avoid locking in higher emissions.
India’s Transition Under Kigali and the Need for Global Cooperation
- India’s commitment: India ratified the Kigali Amendment in 2021 and must freeze HFC production and consumption in 2028, with subsequent reductions according to the agreed schedule.
- Transition to lower-impact refrigerants: Replacing HFCs with refrigerants having lower global warming potential addresses direct emissions, while improving equipment efficiency reduces indirect emissions from electricity use.
- Support for developing countries: The Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund, established in 1990, supports developing countries in meeting their obligations. Its assistance includes financial contributions to convert factories and train personnel to service cooling equipment.
- Other short-lived climate pollutants: Measures targeting methane, black carbon and tropospheric ozone can complement HFC reductions. In India, reducing black carbon from sources such as diesel engines and household cooking can also benefit air quality and climate mitigation.
- Balancing development and climate action: The transition requires cooperation between countries, financial and technical assistance, and sector-specific obligations that reflect different pollution sources and compliance needs.
2. Citizens’ March to Defend Right to Vote Sends a Message to All Institutions
The march by citizens, Opposition leaders, students and civil society activists to the Supreme Court against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls highlights concerns over potential mass disenfranchisement. The central issue is whether electoral roll revision, conducted through centralised software and modified procedures, is undermining universal adult franchise and the constitutional relationship between citizens and the State.
Electoral Roll Revision and the Right to Vote
- Scale of the exercise: Reports on the SIR have cited the removal of more than 130 million names from electoral rolls, including names classified as deceased, relocated or untraceable. The central concern is whether the revision has also resulted in the wrongful exclusion of eligible voters and whether adequate safeguards exist for their identification, notice and restoration.
- Accuracy versus disenfranchisement: Removing duplicate, deceased and ineligible names is a legitimate administrative requirement. However, eligible citizens must not lose their voting rights because of clerical errors, arbitrary decisions or inadequate verification.
- Universal adult franchise: The right to vote is central to popular sovereignty. Electoral administration must protect eligible citizens rather than shift the burden of proving their eligibility onto them without adequate justification.
- Presumption of eligibility: Electoral procedures should presume the continued eligibility of existing voters. Authorities must justify the removal of a voter’s name instead of forcing citizens to repeatedly establish their citizenship and residence.
Centralisation, Algorithmic Decisions and Weakening of Electoral Governance
- Reduced discretion of EROs: Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), traditionally guided by local knowledge and individual verification, have been increasingly constrained by centralised directives and software-driven decisions.
- Algorithmic exclusion: Modified rules and changes to Forms 6 and 7, combined with centralised software architecture, risk overlooking clerical errors, spelling variations and other discrepancies, resulting in the deletion of legitimate voters.
- Weakening of local accountability: When software overrides the judgement of EROs, electoral administration becomes less responsive to local realities and individual circumstances.
- Opaque decision-making: Centralised systems that do not permit adequate scrutiny make it difficult to establish why a voter was excluded and who is accountable for an incorrect decision.
Procedural Integrity and Transparency in Electoral Roll Revision
- Due process: Electoral roll revision must follow transparent procedures, including adequate notice, an opportunity to respond and individual-level verification before an eligible voter’s name is removed.
- Statutory authority: Software architecture must remain subordinate to the statutory authority of EROs, who are responsible for determining voter eligibility.
- Restoring electoral integrity: The process requires the restoration of the presumption of voter eligibility, with the burden placed on authorities to justify removals rather than on citizens to repeatedly prove their citizenship and residence.
- Need for suspension: The SIR should be suspended until the concerns regarding mass deletions, modified procedures and centralised decision-making are adequately addressed.
Institutional Accountability and the Legitimacy of Electoral Democracy
- Loss of confidence in the CEC: The Chief Election Commissioner has, according to the editorial’s argument, fundamentally lost the confidence of major Opposition parties over the administration of the SIR. It calls for his resignation.
- Judicial scrutiny: The Supreme Court should review the entire process to ensure that electoral procedures and software-driven decisions comply with constitutional principles and do not undermine eligible citizens’ voting rights.
- Public mobilisation: The march reflects growing public concern about the integrity of electoral institutions and demonstrates citizens’ willingness to defend constitutional rights.
- Democratic legitimacy: Elections derive legitimacy not merely from the conduct of polling but from the assurance that every eligible citizen can participate. When administrative convenience takes precedence over constitutional rights, public confidence in the electoral system is weakened.
The central concern is that democracy is not merely a gift bestowed by government decree; it is a right of the people. Protecting universal adult franchise requires transparent electoral administration, accountable institutions and safeguards against the arbitrary exclusion of eligible voters.
