In News:

India’s agricultural solar programme, PM-KUSUM, has installed over 2.5 million solar pumps in five years. As the government prepares PM-KUSUM 2.0, the key challenge is to expand clean-energy irrigation without worsening India’s groundwater crisis.

Solar Irrigation–Groundwater Link

Solar irrigation is not inherently harmful to groundwater. Its impact depends on the design of the solar model, ownership, pricing incentives, local hydrogeology and cropping pattern.

• Grid-connected solar: Farmers can sell surplus electricity to the grid, creating an incentive to reduce pumping. Under Gujarat’s Suryashakti Kisan Yojana (SKY), farmers received around ?7/unit and earned about ?21,900 annually on average. Solar farmers showed slower growth in energy consumption and irrigation than non-solar farmers.
• Fee-for-service model: In Bangladesh, solar pump operators supplied water to multiple farmers within a fixed command area. Despite solar irrigation being 20–30% cheaper than diesel, farmers did not apply more water because excessive use by one farmer reduced the operator’s ability to serve others.
• Standalone pumps: Outcomes vary according to pump capacity, groundwater depth and operating experience.

Regional Approach is Essential

Groundwater impacts differ with aquifer characteristics, soil, cropping patterns and returns from irrigation.

• Punjab–Haryana: Irrigation is already widespread and dominated by rice and wheat; therefore, solarisation can primarily reduce energy subsidies and emissions rather than significantly expand irrigation.
• Eastern India: Large rainfed areas suffer from unreliable electricity and high diesel costs. Here, solar pumps can expand irrigation access, productivity and climate resilience.

Water–Energy–Food Nexus

Groundwater irrigation generates an estimated 45–62 million tonnes of CO? annually, while agricultural electricity subsidies exceed ?1 lakh crore/year. Solar irrigation can reduce both.

In Gujarat, a grid-connected solar farmer offsets about 12.3 tonnes of CO? annually, while subsidy savings reportedly covered nearly one-fourth of government investment within two years.

PM-KUSUM: Way Forward

Under PM-KUSUM 2.0, policy should be region-specific:

• Expand grid-connected solar in water-stressed regions with incentives for water conservation.
• Improve feed-in tariffs/buyback prices and simplify grid connectivity.
• Combine feeder solarisation with micro-irrigation and direct incentives for reduced pumping.
• Use models such as Punjab’s Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao and Haryana’s Mera Pani Meri Virasat.
• Retain standalone pumps in irrigation-deficit, poorly electrified and low-groundwater-risk areas.
• Promote Water User Associations, farmer cooperatives and water-selling entrepreneurs rather than only individual pump ownership.

In News:

Scientists from the U.K. have identified how the proteins Sld3–Sld7 help initiate DNA replication by detecting the activated MCM2–7 helicase and recruiting Cdc45, an essential component for starting replication.

What is Helicase?

Helicase is an ATP-dependent motor enzyme/protein that unwinds double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) into two single strands. This is essential for DNA replication, repair and tranion, as the separated strands provide templates for synthesis or other molecular processes.

Role in DNA Replication

During replication, helicase attaches to DNA and moves along it using energy derived from ATP hydrolysis. It changes its conformation and separates the hydrogen-bonded DNA strands, creating a Y-shaped replication fork.

The exposed strands then serve as templates for the synthesis of complementary DNA. However, unwinding generates increasing torsional stress and twisting ahead of the replication fork. Topoisomerases resolve this problem by relieving the tension and preventing DNA from becoming excessively tangled or damaged.

Recent Finding: Sld3–Sld7 and Cdc45

The study highlights an important step in the initiation of eukaryotic DNA replication:

• MCM2–7 acts as the core replicative helicase.
• Once activated, it becomes capable of unwinding DNA.
• Sld3–Sld7 proteins detect the activated MCM2–7 helicase.
• They help recruit Cdc45 to the replication machinery.
• Cdc45, together with MCM2–7 and other factors, contributes to formation of the active CMG helicase complex, which drives DNA unwinding during replication.

Thus, the finding provides greater understanding of how cells control the precise initiation of DNA replication, an important process for accurate genome duplication.

In News:

Chennai-based Aheesa Digital Innovations, supported under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has achieved first-pass silicon success for VIHAAN, an indigenous broadband networking System-on-Chip (SoC).

What is VIHAAN?

VIHAAN is India’s first domestically designed broadband networking SoC, developed for optical-fibre broadband and customer premises equipment (CPE). It is based on the open-standard RISC-V architecture and incorporates the indigenous 64-bit VEGA processor, developed by C-DAC.

Its primary objective is to provide high-performance, secure and sovereign networking silicon for Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployments and broadband routers, thereby reducing dependence on imported networking chips.

How does it work?

VIHAAN receives internet data through GPON/EPON fibre networks and distributes it through Gigabit Ethernet. Its VEGA core supports functions such as:

• Routing and fast packet processing
• Traffic inspection and Quality of Service (QoS)
• Firewall functions
• Secure boot and hardware root of trust
• Cryptographic/encryption functions

It also supports Aheesa Router OS (AROS), based on OpenWrt, allowing integration with routers, modems and access points.

Key Significance

The “first-pass silicon success” means that the chip functioned successfully in its first fabrication attempt, reducing redesign cycles, development time and costs. It represents progress in India’s indigenous semiconductor design-to-product ecosystem.

VIHAAN is particularly significant because its reference platform and software tools can help domestic manufacturers develop Wi-Fi routers and Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) more rapidly. Indigenous networking silicon can also reduce foreign supply-chain dependence and potential hardware-level security vulnerabilities.

In News:

Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh, conferred the National Anubhav Awards 2026 at the 9th National Anubhav Awards Ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

The Anubhav Awards are annual national honours instituted by the Government of India to recognise outstanding write-ups and case studies by retiring and retired government employees. These submissions capture their institutional knowledge, administrative innovations and field experiences, helping preserve institutional memory and improve future governance.

Key Facts

• Nodal Department: Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
• Platform: Anubhav Portal, launched in 2015.
• Objective: Document governance best practices and operational experience for policy formulation, administrative reforms and good governance.
• Eligible personnel: Retiring/retired employees of:
  • Central Government Ministries/Departments
  • Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)
  • 12 Public Sector Banks
• Employees retiring within the next 8 months and pensioners retired within the previous 3 years can submit write-ups.
• Write-ups published on the portal during the preceding financial year are considered for awards.

How the Scheme Works

The Anubhav Portal serves as a digital repository of institutional knowledge. Employees document experiences relating to areas such as project implementation, public service delivery, process simplification and policy reforms.

Submissions undergo departmental screening followed by assessment by an independent national jury. Outstanding contributions are recognised through Medals, Citations and Jury Certificates. Examples include contributions to Passport Seva Kendras, simplification of administrative rules, energy conservation and automation of public accounting.

The awards are also linked with broader pensioner-welfare initiatives, including pre-retirement counselling, pension-disbursing bank exhibitions and digital initiatives such as Nationwide Digital Life Certificate (DLC) campaigns.

In News:

The Union Government is planning to launch a three-month “Reform Utsav” campaign, likely from 2 October 2026, to systematically collect citizens’ suggestions and convert them into actionable administrative and governance reforms.

What is Reform Utsav?

Reform Utsav is proposed as a citizen-driven governance reform mechanism that seeks to create a continuous link between citizen feedback → deliberation → actionable reform → implementation/roadmap. It aims to institutionalise citizen participation rather than treating feedback as an occasional exercise.

The campaign will be coordinated by a committee headed by Cabinet Secretary T. V. Somanathan, while Chief Secretaries of States/UTs are being consulted to establish State-level mechanisms and designate nodal officers.

Key Features

The campaign is structured around three broad stages:

• Jan Manthan – Discover: Citizens will submit suggestions through a dedicated portal, supported by public meetings, webinars and outreach programmes.
• Vimarsh – Deliberate: Suggestions will be assessed to identify “quick-win” reforms and develop implementation roadmaps for more complex structural reforms.
• Samadhan & Sankalp Siddhi – Resolution: A central coordination mechanism will conduct bi-weekly reviews to track progress and implementation.

Technology-enabled participation:Artificial Intelligence is proposed to help classify and organise large volumes of citizen suggestions. A multilingual call centre may further improve accessibility and participation.