Current Affairs: 10th Sept 2025

• Radhakrishnan elected Vice-President of India

Context: Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan was elected the 17^th Vice-President of India by a margin of 152 votes. The Opposition fell short of its own expected tally, even as 98.2% of the total electorate cast their ballot.

• Mr. Radhakrishnan — the ruling National Democratic Alliance’s nominee — got 452 first preferential votes against the joint Opposition candidate Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, who got 300 votes. Fifteen votes were found to be invalid and 14 MPs abstained.
• Including the strength of both Houses, the full electoral college comprises 788 electors. With six vacancies in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha, this tally was reduced to 781 for the election.

Cross-voting

• Out of this, 767 electors cast their vote before the polling closed at 5 p.m. Rajya Sabha Secretary-General P.C. Mody, the Returning Officer for the election, announced the results.

• Karnataka houses more than 50% of mid-market GCC units in India: Report

Context: Karnataka houses more than 50% of the mid-market GCCs in India, employing over 74,000 professionals, finds a new report released by the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), in collaboration with global management consulting firm Zinnov.

• According to the report titled “Karnataka Mid-Market GCC Report 2025: Lean, Local, and Globally Impactful,” the State hosts more than 230 of the 480+ mid-market GCCs in the country. These centres are not just expanding faster; they are maturing 1.4 times quicker than larger peers, embracing product ownership, CXO-level leadership, and embedding AI-first strategies, the report notes.
• Mid-market GCCs are Global Capability Centres established by mid-sized enterprises with annual global revenues ranging between $100 million and $1 billion.

• According to the report, these firms scale faster and with greater control in Karnataka, enabled by plug-and-play infrastructure, payroll incentives, and simplicity of the government policies. Karnataka was the first in the country to roll out a GCC policy in 2024.
• The report also notes that the State captured a disproportionately high share of new mid-market GCCs over the past two years. Around 65% of all new mid-market GCCs in India since 2023 have been set up in Karnataka.
• “Higher talent quality in the State allows mid-market GCCs to operate with leaner teams – driving more productivity per employee and reducing overall cost of operations,” reads the report. While mid-market GCCs in India operate at 40% the size of non-mid-market peers, in Karnataka, the trend is amplified with the mid-market GCCs running at 35% the size of the larger peers. This, according to the report, is a reflection of ‘high-trust and high-quality talent.’ The State is currently home to 50% of India’s AI/ML talent and 38% digital workforce, and its capital city, the fourth largest technology and innovation cluster in the world, it notes.

Katalyst handbook

• The report was launched in the presence of Minister of Electronics, Information Technology & Biotechnology Priyank Kharge and officials from the IT-BT department and KDEM. The event saw the release of the KATALYST GCC Handbook, a comprehensive guide for companies that wish to set up GCCs in Karnataka. KATALYST is a dedicated Ease of Doing Business cell formed by the Department of Electronics, IT & BT in August to support GCCs in Karnataka.
• Noting that 65% of all the new mid-market GCCs in India since 2023 established in their offices in Karnataka, Mr. Kharge hoped that the release of the handbook would help the ecosystem to ensure that more software is coming to India.
• Addressing the industry representatives gathered at the event, he said, “If the government participates closely with the industry, we will be able to ensure that we deliver faster for you.”

• China digs in on ‘rare earth’, commands global market

Context: Last month, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology introduced interim measures to tighten controls on ‘rare earth’ mining and processing. The rules are the latest in Beijing’s efforts to centralise oversight of extraction, exports, and refining.

• While China’s trading partners such as India and the U.S. are seeking alternative sources to reduce dependency, data shows that China’s dominance in rare earths stems not only from resource availability but more so from its longstanding strength in mining and research capacity.
• Rare earth elements (REEs), despite the name, are not particularly scarce. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), they comprise 17 metals, typically grouped into light rare earths (LREEs) — including lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium and europium — and heavy rare earths (HREEs) such as gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. Promethium is not included in the list as it is radioactive and does not occur in mineable quantities.
• They are critical components in clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as in defence applications. Rare earths are also essential for high-tech devices including smartphones and hard drives.
• Although rare earth deposits exist in countries such as Brazil, Australia, and India, China holds nearly half of global reserves (Chart 1). It is also the world’s largest producer, contributing over 60% of global production in the last five years (Chart 2). Beyond extraction, China dominates the value chain with around 92% of global refining capacity, according to the IEA. Moreover, in the last five years, China has been the largest exporter, supplying close to 30% of global demand (Chart 3).
• Charts 1, 2 and 3 establish China’s dominance across reserves, production, and exports.
• In April, amid escalating U.S.-China trade tensions, Beijing imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements. The move targeted elements used in neodymium–iron–boron (NdFeB) magnets — essential for clean energy technologies — as well as those critical to ceramics, phosphors, steel, optical glass, fibres, and aerospace applications (Chart 4).
• China’s decision to curb rare earth exports, amid tit-for-tat tariffs, dealt a significant blow to the U.S., which remains heavily dependent on Chinese supply. The U.S. is the second-largest importer of Chinese rare earths, after Japan (Chart 5). India, too, is heavily dependent on China for its rare earth imports. Since 2021, more than 75% have come from China.
• Under China’s interim measures announced last month, Chinese companies must now operate within government-set quotas for various minerals and obtain approval to trade in rare earths. This is not the first time China has tightened its rare earth trade. It has already prohibited export of tools and methods used to extract and separate rare earths, and in December 2023, it banned the export of processing technology.
• China’s monopoly over rare earths is also reinforced by its strong research base. A study found that China leads the field of rare-earth research, contributing nearly 30% of all published papers. The U.S. and Japan followed with shares of 10% or less, while India accounted for about 6%.
• In parallel, China has increased funding for mineral exploration, allocating about $14 billion annually since 2022, according to the IEA. The agency notes that this marks the highest three-year stretch of investment in the past decade.

• Governors must act as true guides and philosophers to States, says CJI Gavai

Context: Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, heading a five-judge Presidential Reference Bench, observed that Governors must act as “true guides and philosophers” to State governments. He agreed with the Kerala government that the working relationship between the two constitutional authorities must be “collaborative”.

• Senior advocate K.K. Venugopal, representing Kerala, suggested that the Governors of States ruled by non-NDA parties, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and West Bengal, learn from their counterparts in States ruled by the BJP and its allies, where Bills are granted assent without delay.
• “Governors must deal with Bills ‘as soon as possible’ and not ‘as soon as convenient’,” Mr. Venugopal, assisted by advocate C.K. Sasi for the State, submitted.
• In its written submissions, Kerala said that eight Bills presented to its Governor had remained pending for periods between seven and 23 months.
• “There are as many as 28 States and three Union Territories with Legislative Assemblies. Except for five States, i.e. Punjab, Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, 26 of the State governments or Union Territories had not gone to court complaining about the withholding of assent for long periods. This would mean that the legislatures and the Governors are ad idem [in agreement] in regard to the Bills becoming law. Hence, any approach to the functioning of the Governor cannot be on the basis that the Governor is an adversary of the legislature, but, on the other hand, the example set by the other 26 Governors should be treated as the norm,” Mr. Venugopal submitted.

‘Will create dyarchy’

• Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, for Karnataka, said that giving Governors expansive powers would create a dyarchy — a government with two independent authorities — in a State. “The repository of real power in a parliamentary democracy is the legislature in its role as the representatives of the people… Allowing Governors power to exercise his discretion in all his functions would render national elections a numerical exercise in expensive futility,” Mr. Subramanium submitted.
• Mr. Venugopal argued that the Governor must not act as an adversary. He is, in an actual sense, intimately a part of the State Legislature. “He is as much interested in the success of State Bills, which are for the welfare of the people,” he submitted.

Specific deadlines

• The Bench is hearing a Presidential Reference on whether timelines to deal with State Bills can be imposed on Governors and the President. The Reference followed the Supreme Court’s judgment in a case against the Tamil Nadu Governor on April 8, which declared three-month deadlines for Governors and the President to decide the fate of the Bills placed before them for assent or consideration, respectively, under Articles 200 and 201.
• Senior advocate Arvind Datar questioned why the court must be content with requesting the Governors to act on Bills within a “reasonable time”.
• “Why should Your Lordships keep the timelines vague by saying ‘do this within a reasonable time’? The Supreme Court must specify — three months, six months. By fixing specific timelines, the court gives complete clarity and certainty,” Mr. Datar submitted.

Wrangling on timelines

• Justice P.S. Narasimha on the Bench referred to instances in the past when the court had specified timelines, especially in medicaladmission cases, only to end up with more litigation.
• “Time after time, this court has laid down timelines. But such orders only became fodder for more litigation. Take a look at the medical admission cases. We fix timelines for admission every year. The next year, applications are filed to extend the timeline,” Justice Narasimha told Mr. Datar.
• Noting that the Reference Bench was interpreting the Constitution, the senior counsel said that the interpretation must help the Constitution work better.
• The Governor, State legislature, and the Union government are all components of governance, he said, warning that if one component acted truant by delaying assent to Bills, the whole system of governance would crumble.
• Mr. Datar said that if the Supreme Court could weave the principle of substantive due process (protection of fundamental rights from government abuse) into the Constitution, it could very well read timelines into Articles 200 and 201.
• The State of Telangana, represented by senior advocate S. Niranjan Reddy, submitted that the advisory jurisdiction of the top court under Article 143 was not restricted by the separation of powers.
• “Acting under the advisory jurisdiction, the Supreme Court, which is answering the President’s questions, can give a collective opinion that the President/Governor must follow a three-month timeline. Though only an opinion of the Supreme Court under Article 143, it still has great persuasive value,” Mr. Reddy submitted.

• EC directs Bihar CEO to accept Aadhaar for SIR  

Context: The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday directed Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to issue instructions for accepting Aadhaar as a proof of identity for the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State. The directive came a day after the Supreme Court ordered the commission to include Aadhaar as a document that voters can submit to include or exclude names on the rolls.

• In its June 24 SIR order, the EC had given an indicative list of 11 documents to be given as proof of birth and residence along with the enumeration forms.
• The Supreme Court, during a hearing on a petition filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms on Monday, directed the EC to include Aadhaar as the 12th on the list of “indicative” documents.
• The EC communique to the Bihar CEO on Tuesday said that Aadhaar should be accepted as a proof of identity and not as a proof of citizenship in terms of Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016.
• It also noted that under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, Aadhaar is already one of the documents listed for the purpose of establishing the identity of a person.
• The draft electoral rolls of Bihar published on August 1 have excluded 65 lakh people who were present on the earlier voter lists, citing deaths, migration and duplication among other reasons.
• After the last SC order on accepting Aadhaar in cases where no other documents were available, the EC had said that all voters challenging the deletion of their names on the draft rolls could file claims along with a copy of their Aadhaar card in the absence of any of the indicative documents.
• The poll body said such applications would get a hearing from the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) who would then take a call on the inclusion or exclusion of the names from the final list.

• Centre grants licences to five firms to manufacture its first indigenous malaria vaccine

Context: The Union government has given licences to five firms for manufacturing and commercialisation of its first indigenous multi-stage malaria vaccine developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and its partners.

• Indian Immunologicals Ltd., Techinvention Lifecare Private Ltd., Panacea Biotec Ltd., Biological E Ltd., and Zydus Lifesciences will make the vaccine targeting the parasite before it enters the bloodstream to prevent transmission.
• The council said it was an affordable, stable, and scalable solution.It remains effective for more than nine months at room temperature, it said.
• The ICMR had invited expression of interest from eligible organisations, companies, and manufacturers for transfer of technology for commercialisation of “a recombinant chimeric multi-stage malaria vaccine (AdFalciVax) against Plasmodium falciparum useful in preventing infection in humans and minimising community transmission”.
• The goal is to facilitate the commercialisation of the vaccine to prevent and minimise malaria transmission.
• “The pre-clinical validation of this technology was conducted in collaboration with ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research, another constituent institute of ICMR, and National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, an autonomous research institute of the Department of Biotechnology,” the council said.
• Malaria remains one of the major public health problems in India. The country carries 1.4% of the global malaria case burden, and accounted for 66% of cases in the Southeast Asia region.