What to Read in The Hindu Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

Editorial 1: ​​Dangerous turn

Context

Trump must uphold a diplomatic course to bring a lasting resolution to the Ukraine conflict.

Introduction

The ongoing conflict between the United States and Russia has taken a dangerous turn, marked by nuclear posturing and sharp rhetoric. President Donald Trump’s aggressive moves, coupled with frustration over the Ukraine war, reflect a shift from diplomacy to escalation. With global peace at stake, there is an urgent need to prioritize dialogue over confrontation and nuclear brinkmanship.

Rising Tensions Between U.S. and Russia

• President Donald Trump announced that two nuclear submarines have been repositionedin response to provocative remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council.
• Medvedev had called Trump’s tariff threats “a step towards war”.
• Trump did not clarify whether the submarines were nuclear-armed or conventionally equipped.
• The move marks a significant departure from Trump’s earlier promises to repair U.S.-Russia tiesduring his election campaign.

Frustration Over Ukraine Conflict

• Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with President Vladimir Putin’s stanceon the Ukraine war.
• Initially gave Putin a 50-day deadlineto end the war, later reduced to 10–12 days.
• Warned of secondary tariffs on countriestrading with Russia, including India and China.
• Pressured Ukraine to accept a ceasefire, with assurances that it won’t be taken into NATO.
• Despite this, Russia agreed only to a limited Black Sea truceand temporary pause in attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.

Diplomacy Needed, Not Escalation

• Core differences remain:
  • The West demands an immediate ceasefire.
  • Russia wants a comprehensive peace dealaddressing NATO’s expansion.
• Russia sees little reason to de-escalate while it holds the military advantage.
• Ukraine has launched drone strikes but struggles to defend its positions on the ground.
• Trump’s bombing of Iran on behalf of Israelhas likely hardened Russia’s stance.
• Despite setbacks, Trump’s earlier diplomatic approach was constructive.
• He must avoid nuclear brinkmanshipand focus on bridging the East-West divide through dialogue.

Conclusion

The drift toward military escalation between the U.S. and Russia poses severe global risks. While short-term power plays may serve domestic agendas, the long-term cost of abandoning diplomacy is immeasurable. President Trump must return to a constructive dialogue-based approach, recognizing that peaceful negotiation, not nuclear posturing, is the only sustainable path to resolving the Ukraine conflict and East-West tensions.

 

Editorial 2: ​​The technocratic calculus of India’s welfare state

Context

The drive for data-driven welfare delivery may trade off democratic norms and political accountability for efficiency.

Introduction

With over a billion Aadhaar enrollments, 1,206 schemes linked to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, and 36 grievance redressal portals across States and Union Territories, India’s welfare architecture is undergoing a profound shift towards a technocratic model. While the push aims to deliver social welfare at scale, minimise leakages, and eliminate ghost beneficiaries, this transformation risks a subtle yet significant recasting of welfare. The focus on efficiency and coverage, though commendable, may come at the expense of democratic norms, transparency, and political accountability, raising concerns about citizen participation and institutional responsiveness in this new digital welfare regime.

From Rights-Based to Data-Based Welfare

• India is shifting from a rights-based welfare regimeto a technocratic, data-driven system.
• The fundamental question has changed:
  • Then:“Who deserves support and why?”
  • Now:“How do we minimise leakage and maximise coverage?”
• Politicians across party lineshave offloaded ethical and distributional decisions to algorithmic systems, often without questioning constitutional values.

Technocratic Rule: A Depoliticised Logic

• According to game-theoretic research, technocracy thrivesin politically polarised societies.
• Referencing Habermas’s “technocratic consciousness”and Foucault’s “governmentality”, India’s welfare state is now built on:
  • Auditability
  • Measurability
  • Depoliticised rationality
• Schemes like E-SHRAMand PM-KISAN showcase:
  • Unidirectional logic
  • Low tolerance for error
  • Innovation-focused design, but minimal space for local feedback.

The Decline of Democratic Deliberation

• Welfare is no longer a site for democratic dialogue.
• Citizens are now seen as auditable beneficiaries, not rights-bearing individuals.
• Referring to Giorgio Agamben’s “homo sacer”, we are witnessing:
  • A life stripped of political agency.
  • Participation and local feedback mechanismslike gram sabhas being sidelined.

Social Sector Spending in Decline

Period	Average Spending on Social Sector (% of total expenditure)
2014–2024	21%
2024–25	17%

• This marks a decade-lowin social sector investment.
• Minority welfare, labour rights, nutrition, and employment schemeshave been disproportionately affected.

Pre-COVID-19 Phase	Post-COVID-19 Phase
11% spending share	3% spending share

The RTI Regime in Crisis

• Commentators have described the Right to Information (RTI)regime as being in an “existential crisis.”
• As of June 30, 2024:
  • 4 lakh+ caseswere pending across 29 Information Commissions.
  • 8 Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) postsremained vacant.
• This signals a breakdown in institutional accountability, weakening citizen oversight.

Need for Reflexive, Contextual Governance

• The Indian welfare statemust recover its ability for:
  • Reflexivity(self-questioning capacity)
  • Situated knowledge(local, contextual decision-making)
• These are inherently present in gram sabhasand frontline bureaucratic discretion, but have been marginalised.
• Drawing from Rancière’s critique, we must ask:

“Whose suffering is made visible and contestable — not just computable?”

A Warning from Aadhaar

• Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s dissent in the 2018 Aadhaar rulingcautioned:
  • Against decontextualised identity systems.
  • Against reducing citizens to machine-readable data.
  • He warned such systems may lack care, context, and constitutional assurance.

Centralised Grievance Portals: Innovation or Illusion?

• The Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)was envisioned as a cutting-edge mechanism to track and resolve complaints across various levels of government.
• Between 2022–2024, the system disposed of lakhs of grievances, indicating a significant administrative effort.
• However, it tends to flatten federal hierarchiesinto a ticket-tracking structure, raising concerns about loss of accountability.
• The system may be centralising visibility, but not distributing responsibility, resulting in what may be termed “algorithmic insulation.”
• This creates a dangerous gap where political accountability becomes harder to trace.

Problem Diagnosis at a Glance

Concern	Implication
Flattening of federal hierarchies	Erodes state-specific responsiveness
High grievance disposal numbers	May obscure the quality or depth of resolutions
Algorithmic insulation	Weakens political accountability and human oversight
Centralised visibility, decentralised burden	States bear responsibilities without adequate decision-making power

Rethinking Welfare Governance: A Call to Action

• This critique does not discount the utilityof digital platforms, but calls for rethinking governance
• We must build “democratic antifragility”, where systems improve under stress rather than collapse (drawing from Nassim Taleb’s conceptof hyper-integrated systems).
• There is a need for context-sensitive federalism, where States innovatewithin their own welfare models.

Strategic Reforms for Democratic Antifragility

Reform Idea	Actionable Step
Empower States	Enable context-driven welfare frameworks
Community-driven audits	Institutionalise via UN Special Rapporteur’s suggestion and local initiatives like Gram Panchayat Development Plans
Platform cooperatives	Learn from Kerala’s Kudumbashree for SHG-based digital governance
Grassroots accountability	Invest in legal aid clinics and civic political education
Offline fallback mechanisms	Embed “right to explanation & appeal” in digital public systems
Bias audits and human safeguards	Establish regular statutory audits and human oversight loops

Conclusion

We, as citizens of India, must recognise that a welfare state without democratic deliberation becomes a system that may function efficiently on paper but fails the very people it is meant to serve. If we truly aspire for a Viksit Bharat, our approach to digitisation must be reoriented with the principles of democracy and anti-fragility at its core. This means ensuring that citizens are not reduced to passive data points or mere entries in a government ledger. Instead, they must be empowered as active participants in governance, with a voice in decision-making processes that affect their lives. Only through such inclusive and resilient frameworks can we build a future that is not just digitally advanced but also socially just and equitably governed.