GS Paper 2 practice questions for UPSC Mains 2026.

Introduction: Article 324(2) made CEC and EC appointments 'subject to the provisions of any law' by Parliament. For seventy-three years there was no such law; the executive picked the umpire alone.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) read in an interim collegium of PM, LoP and CJI till Parliament legislated; (ii) the CEC and Other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act 2023 replaced the CJI with a Union Cabinet Minister, giving the government a 2:1 majority — challenged in Jaya Thakur and connected petitions; (iii) structural asymmetry under Article 324(5): the CEC enjoys judge-like protection but ECs can be removed on the CEC's recommendation alone.

Way forward / Conclusion: A genuinely broad-based selection panel (Goswami Committee 1990, NCRWC 2002, 2nd ARC, 255th Law Commission Report), equalised tenure protection, and a statutory secretariat are the reforms that match the constitutional design.

Introduction: Article 200 lists three terminal choices — assent, withhold, reserve — plus a non-terminal return for reconsideration. There is no textual deadline; the phrase 'as soon as possible' is a standard, not a clock.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) constitutional text: Articles 200, 201 and 163 read with Shamsher Singh (1974); the second proviso makes reservation mandatory in some cases; (ii) the State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu (April 2025) verdict that fixed timelines and used Article 142 to declare 'deemed assent', and the November 2025 Presidential Reference that pulled back from court-manufactured assent while affirming judicial review of inaction; (iii) federal politics — Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab episodes show pocket-veto behaviour against opposition-ruled states.

Way forward / Conclusion: Reasonable timelines through a Sarkaria-style convention or parliamentary law, plus reasoned orders — not Article 142 fixes — are the durable answer.

Introduction: BRICS plus partners covers about 4.45 billion people (55.6% of world) and about 44% of global GDP at PPP (IMF, July 2025); a New Delhi foreign ministers' meeting on 14–15 May 2026 ended without a joint statement.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) weight — BRICS members about 35% of world GDP at PPP versus G7 about 30% in 2024 (PPP only, not nominal); ten full members after Indonesia joined January 2025; (ii) cohesion gap — the May 2026 Iran-UAE rupture on West Asia, with India issuing a Chair's Statement instead; (iii) India's stance — Modi's Kazan line (2024) that BRICS must not 'replace global institutions' and Jaishankar's rejection of a BRICS currency.

Way forward / Conclusion: Use BRICS for agenda-setting and UNSC reform, not bloc-building; keep the 'non-Western, not anti-Western' framing; lean on the New Development Bank and rupee internationalisation.

Introduction: The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor was announced as an MoU among eight parties on 9 September 2023 at the G20 New Delhi Summit; BRI, launched in 2013, has invested an estimated USD 1 trillion across about 147 countries.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) design contrast — IMEC is a multilateral club of governments (India, US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, EU, France, Germany, Italy) sharing public capital, while BRI is one-state bilateral credit; Israel and Jordan lie on the route but did not sign the MoU; (ii) the single point of failure — the planned Saudi-Israel rail link presumed an Abraham-Accords-style normalisation that the 7 October 2023 war froze; (iii) India's alternative channels — INSTC through Chabahar and parallel rupee trade, also disrupted by the 2026 West Asia conflict.

Way forward / Conclusion: Front-load IMEC's east-leg digital and port upgrades; harden INSTC; revive I2U2 project pipelines once the West Asia war stabilises.

Introduction: Article 370 was inserted in 1949 as a 'temporary provision' giving Jammu and Kashmir a special constitutional position; on 5 August 2019 Presidential Order C.O. 272 read with C.O. 273 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019 ended that status.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) constitutional architecture — Article 370(1)(d) allowed the President to extend constitutional provisions with the concurrence of the J&K Constituent Assembly; that body had dissolved in 1957, and Parliament was deemed to act in its place; (ii) the In re Article 370 judgment (11 December 2023) by a five-judge bench unanimously upheld the abrogation, held that the President could exercise Article 370(3) without J&K Constituent Assembly concurrence after 1957, and ordered Assembly elections by 30 September 2024; (iii) federal concerns — splitting a State into two Union Territories under Article 3 without consulting the State legislature, and the precedent for downgrading other States.

Way forward / Conclusion: Restore full Statehood at the earliest as the Solicitor General undertook, codify a clear procedure for Article 3 changes involving State consent, and read federalism — already part of the basic structure under S.R. Bommai (1994) — as a check on such use of constituent power.

Introduction: The 101st Constitutional Amendment Act 2016 inserted Article 279A creating the GST Council — Union Finance Minister as Chair, Union Minister of State for Finance and one Minister from each State, with weighted voting (Centre one-third, States two-thirds combined; 75 per cent threshold).

Body: Three dimensions — (i) constitutional architecture — Article 246A concurrent power to tax goods and services, Article 269A on inter-state supplies, IGST mechanism, and a five-year compensation cess until 2022; (ii) Union of India v. Mohit Minerals (19 May 2022) held GST Council recommendations are 'persuasive' not binding, reading the federal trust-based design into Article 279A; (iii) governance friction — delayed compensation payments to States, slab-rationalisation debate (the 4-slab structure plus cess), and 56th GST Council Meeting reforms.

Way forward / Conclusion: A reasoned-decision norm, published voting records, a dispute-resolution mechanism under Article 279A(11), and a sunset on the compensation cess can reconcile pooled sovereignty with State fiscal autonomy.

Introduction: Article 82 requires Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every census; the 42nd Amendment 1976 froze Lok Sabha seat allocation until the 2001 Census, and the 84th Amendment 2001 read with the 87th Amendment 2003 extended this freeze to the first census after 2026.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) constitutional architecture — Articles 81 (composition of Lok Sabha), 82 (delimitation), 170 (Assembly composition); the freeze rewarded States that controlled fertility; (ii) demographic asymmetry — SRS 2022 TFR: South 1.6, Northern Hindi-belt 2.6; a population-based redistribution would shift between 30 and 65 Lok Sabha seats from South and East to North; (iii) federalism concerns — Rajya Sabha as a counterweight, the Tamil Nadu Joint Action Committee 2025 resolution, and the case for a composite formula (population plus governance metrics or capping the North's gain).

Way forward / Conclusion: A constitutional amendment that protects existing State seat shares while expanding the House size, strengthening the Rajya Sabha's federal voice, and aligning with the One Nation One Election timeline would reconcile population equality with federal fairness.

Introduction: Lateral entry refers to direct recruitment of mid-career specialists to Joint Secretary and Director positions outside the All India Services cadre; it was first recommended by the 2nd ARC's Tenth Report (2008) and the Baswan Committee 2016, and operationalised through UPSC advertisements from 2018.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) constitutional and institutional base — Article 311 procedural protections extend to lateral entrants on contract; UPSC conducted recruitment in 2018, 2021 and a 45-post advertisement in August 2024 (later withdrawn after opposition concerns on reservation); (ii) the case for — closing skill deficits in infrastructure, finance, IT, climate; international precedent (US Senior Executive Service, Singapore's Administrative Service); (iii) concerns — bypass of reservation under Articles 16(4) and 16(4A), erosion of generalist morale, conflict of interest where entrants come from regulated sectors, and absence of an independent evaluation since 2018.

Way forward / Conclusion: Bring lateral entry inside the reservation framework under DoPT OM, cap roles to specialist verticals, publish independent performance evaluations of the 2018-25 cohort, and codify post-employment cooling-off norms.

Introduction: States' fiscal space depends on three constitutionally distinct flows — Finance Commission devolution (Articles 270, 275), Centrally Sponsored Schemes funded under Article 282, and own-tax revenue including SGST.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) statutory and constitutional architecture — Article 280 devolution, Article 282 grants 'for public purpose', Article 275 grants-in-aid; 15th FC devolved 41 per cent of divisible pool; (ii) CSS expansion — over 60 CSS schemes consume nearly 10 per cent of Union expenditure, with matching ratios shifting from 90:10 to 60:40 in many cases under Niti Aayog rationalisation 2015 and 2021; State Finance Ministers' Empowered Committee on CSS Rationalisation 2021; (iii) constitutional concern — Article 282's narrow original purpose has been used to direct State action, encroaching on State List subjects; Bhargava Commission 1967 had cautioned against this.

Way forward / Conclusion: A constitutional cap on Article 282 use to State List subjects, sunset clauses on CSS, untied grants doubled, and a Finance Commission-anchored CSS framework would restore the federal balance.

Introduction: Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code 1860, the original sedition offence, was upheld in Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar (1962) but with a narrow construction requiring incitement to violence; the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 has replaced it with Section 152.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) statutory base — IPC Section 124A defined sedition; BNS Section 152 penalises 'acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India' with imprisonment up to life; (ii) constitutional test — Article 19(1)(a) and Article 19(2) reasonable restrictions on 'security of the State'; S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India (11 May 2022) suspended Section 124A IPC pending re-examination, ordering no new FIRs; (iii) reform options — 22nd Law Commission Report (2023) recommended retaining but redrafting sedition; BNS Section 152 is criticised as broader and vaguer than the suspended Section 124A.

Way forward / Conclusion: Read BNS Section 152 down to the Kedar Nath line — incitement to violence or public disorder — through judicial review, and Parliament should add a procedural safeguard requiring prior sanction by a senior officer.

Introduction: The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDP Act), notified on 11 August 2023, is India's first comprehensive data-protection statute; it gives effect to the right to informational privacy recognised in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017).

Body: Three dimensions — (i) statutory architecture — Section 4 (lawful processing), Section 6 (notice and consent), Sections 8-10 (Data Fiduciary duties), Section 11 (rights of Data Principal), and a Data Protection Board of India under Sections 18-26; broad Section 7 exemptions for State processing in 'public interest'; (ii) impact on transparency — Section 44(3) amends Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act 2005, removing the proviso that disclosed personal information that would have been disclosed to Parliament, narrowing the third-party exception; (iii) constitutional concern — Puttaswamy's three-fold test (legality, necessity, proportionality) requires narrow tailoring; the Act's blanket State exemptions and the absence of an independent regulator (Board members appointed by the Central Government) have been challenged in Internet Freedom Foundation v. Union of India (pending).

Way forward / Conclusion: Restore Section 8(1)(j) RTI proviso, make the Data Protection Board statutorily independent on the SEBI-CCI model, and codify a proportionality test for Section 7 exemptions to reconcile the DPDP Act with Puttaswamy.

Introduction: India's tribal architecture rests on two tracks — welfare-saturation schemes (PM-JANMAN, DAJGUA) and rights-recognition laws (FRA 2006, PESA 1996). The first delivers amenities; the second transfers ownership.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Welfare push: PM-JANMAN (November 2023) put Rs 24,104 crore behind 75 PVTGs; DAJGUA (November 2024) added Rs 79,156 crore to saturate nearly 63,843 tribal villages with PMAY-G houses, JJM water and PMGSY roads; (ii) Rights stall: Forest Rights Act review on 1 June 2025 by MoTA found more than 18 lakh of the 51 lakh claims rejected (about 36 percent rejection); Community Forest Resource rights titled to under 5 percent of the potential area; (iii) Constitutional design: Article 244, Fifth and Sixth Schedules, PESA in 10 states, gram sabha as the FRA gatekeeper.

Way forward / Conclusion: Couple PM-JANMAN delivery with FRA title verification, end the deemed-rejection of claims without speaking orders (Niyamgiri principle), and converge MFP MSP and CFR governance under gram sabha control.

Introduction: The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 made the right to mental healthcare statutory and aligned Indian law with the UNCRPD framework that India ratified in 2007.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Rights architecture: right to access mental healthcare under Section 18, advance directives under Section 5, nominated representatives, Mental Health Review Boards, Central and State Mental Health Authorities, Section 115 decriminalising suicide attempts; (ii) Workforce and finance gap: 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 against WHO norm of 3; about 9,000 working psychiatrists with a shortfall of 36,000 per the 2023 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health; mental-health allocation Rs 1,898 crore in 2025-26 (about 1 percent of Union health budget); (iii) Demand-side reality: NMHS 2015-16 — 10.56 percent current and 13.67 percent lifetime prevalence; treatment gap 84.5 percent overall; Tele-MANAS took close to 30 lakh calls since October 2022.

Way forward / Conclusion: Operationalise District Mental Health Programme with task-sharing through ASHAs and counsellors (mhGAP), publish NMHS-2 with state-level data, raise mental-health budget toward WHO's 5 percent benchmark, and integrate Tele-MANAS with ABDM.

Introduction: India runs the world's second-largest higher-education system. NEP 2020 commits to raising the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education to 50 percent by 2035 against 28.4 percent in AISHE 2021-22.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Quantitative progress: female GER 28.5 percent now exceeds male GER 28.3 percent; SC GER at 25.9 percent and ST GER at 21.2 percent below the national average; (ii) Equity gaps: PhD enrolment by SC/ST under-represented; minority enrolment uneven; M.Sukhdeo Thorat Committee (2007) on JNU exclusion still relevant; (iii) Structural reforms: 103rd Amendment EWS quota (2019), Academic Bank of Credits, multiple-entry-and-exit, four-year UG with research, and the proposed Higher Education Commission of India to replace UGC and AICTE.

Way forward / Conclusion: Index post-matric scholarships to inflation, fill backlog SC/ST/OBC faculty vacancies in central universities, scale PM-USHA RUSA infrastructure, and audit private deemed universities to prevent diploma-mill expansion.

Introduction: BRICS expanded in January 2024 (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE) and January 2025 (Indonesia), reaching ten members holding 4.45 billion people and 44 percent of global GDP (PPP) per IMF 2025.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Weight: 35 percent of world PPP GDP overtook the G7 in 2018; New Development Bank lends in member currencies; (ii) Cohesion failure: 14-15 May 2026 New Delhi foreign ministers' meeting ended without a joint statement; Iran sought condemnation of US-Israel, UAE refused; India issued Chair's Statement and Outcome Document; (iii) Multipolarity verdict: BRICS has weight without strategy; India's line is 'non-Western, not anti-Western'; Jaishankar reiterated India 'has never been for de-dollarisation' and there is 'no proposal for a BRICS currency'.

Way forward / Conclusion: Use BRICS for agenda-setting (UNSC reform, IMF quotas, DPI export, food security), not bloc-building; deepen New Development Bank local-currency lending; resist enlargement that buys breadth at cohesion's cost.

Introduction: India's strategic autonomy was stress-tested when the US imposed a 25 percent reciprocal tariff plus a 25 percent penalty on Indian goods in August 2025, tied to a July 2025 executive order monitoring Russian-oil buyers.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Pressure metrics: India-US goods trade $129.2 billion (2024); US trade deficit with India $45.7 billion; tariffs landed because the US is India's largest goods export market at 18 percent of exports; (ii) Indian counterplay: Russian crude share rose from 2 percent (2021) to 35.9 percent (FY24); after Rosneft-Lukoil sanctions (21 November 2025), share fell to 21.2 percent by January 2026; (iii) 6 February 2026 framework rolled tariffs back to 18 percent without India officially conceding on Russian oil; Jaishankar reiterated strategic autonomy at Munich 14 February 2026.

Way forward / Conclusion: Diversify oil basket beyond Russia (now from 40 countries), conclude India-US trade pact, push rupee internationalisation rather than de-dollarisation, and harden CAATSA waiver clarity through legislation.

Introduction: China controls about 60 percent of world rare-earth mining but 91 percent of separation and refining and 94 percent of permanent magnets, turning a midstream chokepoint into geopolitical leverage.

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Export-control timeline: gallium-germanium (July 2023), graphite-antimony (2024), seven rare earths (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium) on 4 April 2025, foreign-origin extension 1 December 2025; (ii) India's exposure: 100 percent import-dependent for lithium, cobalt, nickel; China supplies 30.8 percent of India's industrial-goods requirements (GTRI); India-China FY25 trade deficit $99.2 billion; (iii) Response: National Critical Mineral Mission (January 2025, Rs 16,300 crore for 7 years), Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) acquisitions in Argentina and Australia, Critical Minerals Initiative under Quad and Mineral Security Partnership.

Way forward / Conclusion: Domestic processing capacity via PLI, strategic stockpiling via NCMM, deep-sea mining licences from International Seabed Authority for Carlsberg Ridge polymetallic nodules, and rare-earth recycling under Battery Waste Management Rules 2022.

Introduction: The 21 October 2024 patrolling arrangement at Depsang and Demchok closed the last two friction points from the 2020 Galwan stand-off. Modi-Xi held the first bilateral in five years at BRICS Kazan (23 October 2024).

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Vocabulary: 'disengagement on patrolling' is not 'de-escalation' (force-thinning) or 'normalisation' (boundary resolution); (ii) Friction points cleared — Galwan, Pangong Tso, Gogra-Hot Springs (PP15/17A), Depsang Bulge, Demchok; (iii) Outstanding: WMCC (Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs) on confidence-building; LAC infrastructure asymmetry (Bharatmala-LAC roads now match China side); India-China trade deficit $99.2 billion FY25; visa relaxation for journalists and direct flights restored (2025).

Way forward / Conclusion: Sequence disengagement to de-escalation to normalisation per Special Representatives mechanism (33rd round 18 December 2024), resume Mansarovar Yatra under bilateral consular protocols, and maintain LAC infrastructure plus Mountain Strike Corps as deterrents.

Introduction: India imports about 88-89 percent of its crude oil, burning about 5.5 million b/d (2026). The Strait of Hormuz, only 33 km wide at its narrowest, carries about 20 million b/d (20 percent of world's petroleum-liquids trade).

Body: Three dimensions — (i) Hormuz exposure: India took 30-40 percent of crude via Hormuz in Feb-March 2026; by March 2026 about 70 percent of crude was arriving outside Hormuz from 40 countries, up from 55 percent a year earlier; (ii) Diversification levers: Russia top supplier (about 30-35 percent), US imports up 31 percent YoY (December 2025), West African and Latin American expansion; (iii) Strategic reserves and infrastructure: 5.33 MMT Strategic Petroleum Reserve at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur (Phase I); Phase II at Chandikhol and Padur expansion; LNG import terminals; PM Surya Ghar (rooftop solar) and 500 GW non-fossil 2030 target.

Way forward / Conclusion: Expand SPR to 90-day IEA cover, accelerate biofuels (E20 by 2025), operationalise National Green Hydrogen Mission, and treat critical-mineral access as energy-security adjacency.