UPSC Key: Obesity Map, Bandung Conference and Mother Tongue

Indian Express

30-05-2025

Important topics and their relevance in UPSC CSE exam for May 30, 2025. If you missed the May 29, 2025 UPSC CSE exam key from the Indian Express, read it here
FRONT PAGE
Rising obesity, hypertension among students, more in pvt schools: Study
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development
Main Examination: General Studies II: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
What's the ongoing story: Red-flagging the rising rates of obesity and hypertension among school-going children, a new study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has found that the prevalence of obesity was as high as 24.02 per cent in private schools, more than five times the number for public schools.
Key Points to Ponder:
• What new study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has found?
• What's the obesity map?
• What's the nature of obesity?
• What is the thin fat syndrome?
• Why are the findings significant?
• What's behind the abnormal readings of students?
• Why we need changes in diet and exercise?
Key Takeaways:
• This is particularly concerning since both of these could be risk factors for diabetes and heart disease in their adult years.
• According to the study, which looked at 3,888 students of Delhi schools aged 6-19 years, an average of 13.4 per cent students were found to be generally obese while 9.2 per cent had belly fat-related (central) obesity. This is a sharp rise from the findings of a similar study in 2006, which had pegged the prevalence of obesity at 5 per cent.
• The prevalence of obesity was much higher in private schools, which reported 24.02 per cent general obesity and 16.77 per cent central obesity, as compared to 4.48 per cent general obesity and 1.83 per cent central obesity in public schools.
• Both private and public schools, however, reported similar figures for hypertension at 7.4 per cent. But it found that private school students were twice as likely to have high blood sugar and three times as likely to have metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions that precedes diabetes and heart disease), as compared to their other counterparts.
• What is alarming is the presence of dyslipidemia (abnormal levels of fats in the blood) in children, at approximately 34 per cent. The condition indicates abnormal readings of cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) or the bad cholesterol.
• Private school students had 2.37 times higher prevalence of impaired fasting plasma glucose and 3.51 times higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome than public school students.
Do You Know:
• Dr M Kalaivani, assistant professor of Biostatistics at AIIMS-Delhi and the principal investigator of the study, explains that metabolic syndrome is identified based on five key factors: blood pressure, waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, HDL or high density lipoprotein (good cholesterol), and triglycerides. If any three of these are abnormal, a child is considered to have metabolic syndrome.
• Of the 2,160 adolescents, about 68 per cent reported a normal body mass index (indicator of total body fat). However, about 43 per cent of them were still found to be unhealthy — a condition known as metabolically obese normal weight. This does not mean that the children look fat. In fact, they may look skinny but have a high body fat percentage and low muscle mass.
This was more common in public schools (46 per cent) than in private schools (35 per cent). The most common health issue in this group was low levels of good cholesterol or HDL, affecting more public school students (62 per cent) than private school students (53 per cent).
The overall prevalence of underweight children was 4.95 per cent, with a significantly higher prevalence in public schools than private schools
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍New Lancet study shows India sitting on obesity curve: What's causing it?
THE IDEAS PAGE
Drifting far from Bandung
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Main Examination: General Studies II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests.
What's the ongoing story: Manoj Kumar Jha Writes: India can and must reclaim the distinctive voice that once commanded attention in global forums, not through volume or verbosity, but through the moral clarity and consistency of its positions
Key Points to Ponder:
• The Bandung Conference of 1955 is associated with the birth of which movement?
• India's current foreign policy priorities show lesser emphasis on what?
• Know the historical importance of the Bandung Conference of 1955 and its impact on India's foreign policy during the Cold War era.
• What does the fading memory of the Bandung Conference in India's foreign policy discourse indicate about the country's current strategic posture?
• Do you agree that India's current foreign policy has drifted away from its roots in post-colonial solidarity and South-South cooperation?
• Know the relevance of the Bandung principles in contemporary global diplomacy.
Key Takeaways:
• Anniversaries serve as powerful moments of reflection in the realm of international diplomacy. Yet, the 70th anniversary of the Bandung Conference – the watershed moment in 1955 when 29 newly-independent Asian and African nations gathered to chart a course distinct from Cold War polarities – passed without ceremony or commemoration in India.
• The Bandung Conference was much more than a diplomatic gathering. Emerging from the shadows of colonialism and devastating wars, it was the collective expression of the aspiration of young nations to define their own destinies unencumbered by the push and pull of superpower politics.
• The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) sprang out of this radical context, and India assumed its moral leadership under Jawaharlal Nehru's visionary stewardship.
• In the decades after Independence, India's foreign policy was based on certain fundamental principles: Anti-colonialism, sovereignty and equality of nations, peaceful coexistence and multilateral engagement. These weren't then, and aren't now, abstract ideas.
• India's leadership within NAM communicated to its peers as well as to the world powers several important lessons. Politically, it demonstrated to the post-colonial countries that pluralism and progress can and should go hand in hand.
• India's historic foreign policy was fundamentally pragmatic. Even if aspects of it may seem idealistic today, the policy recognised that for a developing nation with limited material capabilities, principled and reliable consistency offered strategic advantages.
Do You Know:
Anil Sooklal Writes:
• This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Asia-Africa summit, which took place in Bandung, Indonesia from April 18 to 24, 1955. Twenty-nine newly independent Asian and African countries met in what was a historical gathering of the leaders of the developing south, recently freed from the devastation brought upon their countries by the ravages of colonial rule.
• Bandung was to set in motion a new wave of south-south cooperation and solidarity and served as the precursor of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The conveners of the conference were driven by the common goals of seeking to chart a new course of sovereign, independent and collective action in addressing the most pressing challenges as newly independent, developing nations dissatisfied with being at the margins of the global stage.
• In December 1992, the General Assembly created an open-ended working group to review equitable representation in the UNSC. More than three decades later, despite regular meetings, there are still no tangible results. In October 2008, the UN formally launched intergovernmental negotiations on the question of equitable representation and an increase in the membership of the UNSC. After over 15 years of protracted discussions, no progress has been made, nor is there any serious desire on the part of the UNSC's five permanent members to give up their veto.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍70 years on, principles of Bandung Conference can guide Global South
Early learning needs mother tongue
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development
Main Examination: General Studies II: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
What's the ongoing story: Shambhavi Gupta Writes: Early education in mother tongue lays a strong foundation for later academic achievement.
Key Points to Ponder:
• What is the meaning of mother's tongue?
• Why is it called mothers tongue?
• What is CBSE's new language rule?
• What are the merits and challenges of implementing mother-tongue-based instruction in primary education, especially in linguistically diverse classrooms?
• 'Mother-tongue education is empowering but needs meticulous groundwork'-discuss
• Evaluate the argument that introducing the mother tongue as the medium of instruction will improve learning outcomes among children.
• How can India reconcile its linguistic diversity with the goal of promoting mother-tongue instruction in early education?
Key Takeaways:
Shambhavi Gupta Writes:
• During a class on 'cultural capital', my students and I found ourselves discussing the role of the English language in the Indian context. The conversation turned out to be a comparison with countries like France and China, where people have deep-rooted pride in their language.
• In contrast, many of my students admitted that they barely know their native tongues — some can understand them, but few are able to speak or write with confidence.
• They expressed a quiet sense of loss, even as they acknowledged the prestige and professional opportunities that come with speaking 'good' English in India. It is this sense of confusion that shapes my view on the CBSE's proposal to introduce mother-tongue instruction at the primary level.
• The idea of supporting one's mother tongue comes from many writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Frantz Fanon, and J M Coetzee, who have long written about decolonising the mind and reclaiming identity through native languages.
• Their work highlights how colonial legacies and global hierarchies have privileged English and sidelined local languages, entrenching cultural and cognitive hierarchies.
• Critics argue that such a directive may disadvantage children later, given English's dominance in higher education and the job market. But this policy move is about the primary level, where the focus should be on building core literacy, numeracy, and confidence. The transition to English can still happen, but must take place thoughtfully. What we need is a gradual, well-supported, and pedagogically sound design for that transition.
Do You Know:
• Signalling the Centre's intent to make teaching in the mother tongue mandatory at the primary level in the future, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked all affiliated schools to map students' mother tongues 'at the earliest' and align instructional materials accordingly before the end of the summer break.
• Currently, English is the dominant language of instruction in primary classes in CBSE schools across the country. The CBSE is the largest national school board with over 30,000 schools affiliated to it.
• The CBSE circular states that from pre-primary to Class 2 — called the 'foundational stage' under the National Education Policy 2020 — teaching should be in the child's home language, mother tongue, or a familiar regional language. This language, referred to as 'R1', should ideally be the mother tongue. If that's not practical, it can be the state language, as long as it's familiar to the child, the circular adds.
For classes 3 to 5, the circular says students may continue to learn in R1 (mother tongue/ familiar regional language), or may be given the option of studying in a medium other than R1 (that is, R2).
• Although the circular, dated May 22, states that teaching in the mother tongue may 'commence from July', it leaves room for flexibility for schools that may need more time to transition.
This is the first time the CBSE has indicated it may make mother tongue-based teaching compulsory in its schools. Until now, following the release of the NEP 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023, the Board had only encouraged its use through advisory circulars.
• Both NEP 2020 and NCFSE 2023 recommend using the mother tongue in early education, especially at the foundational stage, up to the age of eight years. 'Since children learn concepts most rapidly and deeply in their home language, the primary medium of instruction would optimally be the child's home language/ mother tongue/ familiar language,' the NCFSE 2023 states.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍English is language of aspiration
EXPRESS NETWORK
Study: Only 24% present-day glaciers will remain if world gets warmer by 2.7°C
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Main Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
What's the ongoing story: If the world gets warmer by 2.7°C due to the current trajectory of climate policies, only 24% of the world's present-day glaciers will remain, said a new study published in Science signalling that glaciers are more sensitive to global warming than had been previously estimated.
Key Points to Ponder:
• According to a recent study, what percentage of present-day glaciers would survive if global temperatures rise by 2.7°C?
• What is the most direct cause of glacier loss?
• Glacial melt contributes to sea-level rise primarily through what?
• 'Glacier retreat is one of the clearest indicators of climate change.'-Discuss
• Discuss the implications of a 2.7°C global temperature rise on glacial ecosystems and downstream human populations.
• Explain the role of glaciers in maintaining water security in South Asia.
Key Takeaways:
• Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C — as adopted in the Paris climate agreement — could preserve up to 54% or twice as much glacier mass, the study said.
• The study comes just a day after a huge portion of a glacier in the Swiss village of Blatten, in the Alps, collapsed into the valley, burying most of a mountain village in the foothills.
• The projected figures in the study were for global scenarios, and skewed by the very large glaciers around Antarctica and Greenland. The study cautioned that even if temperatures stopped rising today, the world's glaciers would still lose 39% of their mass, compared to 2020 levels, and that would lead to a sea level rise of 113 mm.
• Among the most vulnerable regions, as per the study, were glaciers in Scandinavia, Rockies in Western Canada and the US, and European Alps. In Scandinavia, no glacier ice would be left at 2°C warming while Rockies and European Alps would see only 10-15% glaciers left at the same levels of warming.
Do You Know:
• Though Indian glaciers — particularly those in western South Asia — show a lower projected loss of 5% under current warming, the study underscores that these regions are highly sensitive to additional warming. For every extra 0.1°C increase in global temperatures between 1.5°C and 3°C, glacier loss accelerates rapidly — by about 2% globally, with even steeper losses in Indian sub-regions.
• India's key river basins – Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra – support millions of livelihoods in north India, north east and the Indo-Gangetic plains. In the Hindu Kush Himalayas, only 25% of ice from 2020 levels will be left at 2°C of warming.
To get these results, a team of 21 scientists from 10 countries used eight glacier models to calculate the potential ice loss of the more than 200,000 glaciers worldwide, under a wide range of global temperature scenarios.
• The study used advanced simulations over multi-centennial timescales, revealing that some glacier systems — particularly in the polar regions — might take up to a thousand years to fully respond to today's climate.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍How global warming is affecting the world's mountain ranges
EXPLAINED
Why US trade court struck down many of Trump's tariffs
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Main Examination: General Studies II: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests
What's the ongoing story: A US court held on Wednesday (May 28) that President Donald Trump's April 2 tariffs on countries exceeded any authority granted to him under an emergency powers law, which the government had cited for the move. The court also ruled against the tariffs previously imposed on Canada, Mexico and China.
Key Points to Ponder:
• What is the case?
• What is the US Court of International Trade?
• What did the court rule, and what happens now?
• Discuss the legal and constitutional implications of the US Court of International Trade's ruling against Trump-era steel and aluminium tariffs.
• How national security is being increasingly used as a justification for trade protectionism, citing the US tariff case.
• How does the judicial scrutiny of executive trade decisions in the US reflect the principle of checks and balances?
• Evaluate the use of Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, 1962 in shaping US trade policy.
Key Takeaways:
• However, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit soon allowed Trump to temporarily continue collecting the tariffs under that law, while he appeals the trade court's decision. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, 'The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade is so wrong, and so political! Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY.'
• The Court of International Trade stated that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, on what he called 'Liberation Day'. It was aimed at countering what Trump deemed to be high tariffs on American imports globally.
Do You Know:
• Twelve US states (including New York, New Mexico, Connecticut and Arizona) challenged the tariffs, as did five small businesses. The court combined the two cases.
• States had argued that the burden of paying for tariffs on imports fell on them, and that tariffs also did not specifically target drug cartels, which was cited as one reason for the initial tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China.
The key question under the court's consideration was the extent of the President's emergency powers on economic matters, and if the recent tariffs fell within their scope.
• It is tasked with providing a comprehensive system for judicial review of civil actions, 'arising out of import transactions and federal transactions affecting international trade.' It further ensures national uniformity in judicial decision-making affecting import transactions.
• Its roots can be traced back to 1890, when the US Congress authorised the President to appoint nine general appraisers of merchandise at certain ports to remove appraisers, on grounds such as inefficiency or neglect of duty. Over time, they were given the powers of a court, and their jurisdiction was widened.
• At present, the court can hear and decide cases arising anywhere in the country. Under the Customs Courts Act of 1980, it has a 'residual grant of exclusive jurisdictional authority' to decide any civil action against the United States, its officers, or its agencies, arising out of any law related to international trade.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍India weighs Trump tariff ruling as US trade negotiators head to Delhi on June 5
The nature of escalation
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Main Examination: General Studies II: India and its neighbourhood- relations.
What's the ongoing story: The four-night military confrontation between India and Pakistan that began early on May 7 was the most expansive outbreak of hostilities since the war of 1971.
Key Points to Ponder:
• What you understand by the concept of the 'escalation ladder' in the context of India-Pakistan relations?
• How Operation Sindoor signals a shift in India's traditional posture from strategic restraint to calibrated assertiveness.
• 'Operation Sindoor exemplifies escalation control with clarity'-Evaluate
• Explain the significance of integrating cultural and literary references (e.g., Ramcharitmanas, Rashmirathi) in strategic communication during national security operations.
• Compare and contrast Operation Sindoor with previous responses such as the Balakot airstrike in terms of doctrine, execution, and communication.
• Operation Sindoor introduced 'Red Teams' to map adversarial thinking. How does this reflect an evolution in India's strategic planning framework?
Key Takeaways:
• The Kargil conflict of 1999 was limited to a small area in Jammu and Kashmir; during Operation Sindoor, India hit targets up to 100 km inside Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), and Pakistan launched aerial attacks against J&K, Punjab, Rajasthan, even Haryana.
• In terms defined by the American military strategist and thinker Herman Kahn's 44-step 'escalation ladder', the situation can be seen as having begun with the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22 — the 'Ostensible Crisis' — and gone up to the stage of 'Dramatic Military Confrontations' before being paused by the ceasefire of May 10.
Do You Know:
• For India, managing the military escalation ladder, knowing when and how to terminate the escalation, leveraging the international community, sharpening the internal contradictions in Pakistan will be the key to its effective use of force against the entrenched terror infrastructure across the border.
• The idea of escalation began to appear in strategic literature in the years after the end of World War II, in part as a reaction to the idea of 'all-out' war.
• Kahn, a futurist and military strategist who co-founded the Washington DC think tank Hudson Institute with the vision of 'thinking about the future in unconventional ways', was the preeminent Western theorist of the 'structure' of escalation.
Kahn's metaphor for escalation was a ladder, each rung of which denoted a rising level of conflict.
In 1962, Kahn proposed a 16-step ladder of escalation from 'Subcrisis Disagreement' to 'Aftermath'. Three years later, he published On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (1965), in which he developed a more detailed, 44-step ladder of escalation — with 'Ostensible Crisis' as Step 1, and 'Spasm/ Insensate War' as Step 44.
• The Pahalgam terror attack can be described as 'Ostensible Crisis' — Step 1, in which 26 civilians including 25 tourists and one local Kashmiri were killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists on April 22.
• This led to Step 2, 'Political, Economic and Diplomatic Gestures' — India's decisions from April 23 onward can be labeled as such. These include the decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, cancelling the visas of Pakistani nationals, stopping trade and postal services, closing India's air space for Pakistan's aircraft, not allowing Pakistan-flagged ships to dock at Indian ports, etc.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍How Operation Sindoor demonstrates capabilities of Made in India defence technology
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Priya Kumari Shukla is a Senior Copy Editor in the Indian Express (digital). She contributes to the UPSC Section of Indian Express (digital) and started niche initiatives such as UPSC Key, UPSC Ethics Simplified, and The 360° UPSC Debate. The UPSC Key aims to assist students and aspirants in their preparation for the Civil Services and other competitive examinations. It provides valuable guidance on effective strategies for reading and comprehending newspaper content. The 360° UPSC Debate tackles a topic from all perspectives after sorting through various publications. The chosen framework for the discussion is structured in a manner that encompasses both the arguments in favour and against the topic, ensuring comprehensive coverage of many perspectives.
Prior to her involvement with the Indian Express, she had affiliations with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) as well as several coaching and edutech enterprises. In her prior professional experience, she was responsible for creating and refining material in various domains, including article composition and voiceover video production. She has written in-house books on many subjects, including modern India, ancient Indian history, internal security, international relations, and the Indian economy. She has more than eight years of expertise in the field of content writing.
Priya holds a Master's degree in Electronic Science from the University of Pune as well as an Executive Programme in Public Policy and Management (EPPPM) from the esteemed Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, widely recognised as one of the most prestigious business schools in India. She is also an alumni of Jamia Milia Islamia University Residential Coaching Academy (RCA).
Priya has made diligent efforts to engage in research endeavours, acquiring the necessary skills to effectively examine and synthesise facts and empirical evidence prior to presenting their perspective. Priya demonstrates a strong passion for reading, particularly in the genres of classical Hindi, English, Maithili, and Marathi novels and novellas. Additionally, she possessed the distinction of being a cricket player at the national level.
Qualification, Degrees / other achievements:
Master's degree in Electronic Science from University of Pune and Executive Programme in Public Policy and Management (EPPPM) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
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