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Daily Current Affairs - 25th & 26th February 2026

Updated: 7 days ago

Comprehensive UPSC Current Affairs Summary | India–France DTAC Amendment & BEPS Provisions, NMP 2.0, AI for Inclusive Rural Development, PRAHAAR National Counter-Terror Policy, Functional Diversity in Himalayas Study, RoDTEP Duty Cut, PM Surya Ghar, C. Rajagopalachari Bust at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Principle of Just Deserts, OCI Bar Council Ruling, Parliamentary Friendship Groups, FSSAI Chicory Labelling Norms, and more.

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  1. India and France amends DTAC

India and France signed a Protocol to amend the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC), which was originally signed in 1992.

  1. DTAC is the formal/legal name used for some Double Tax Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs).

  2. DTAA is an agreement signed between two countries to prevent individuals or businesses from being subject to double taxation on their income.

Key Amendments

  1. Removed the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) clause to eliminate ambiguity in treaty benefits.

  2. Incorporation of Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) Multilateral Instrument (MLI) Provisions to prevent profit shifting.

About the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN)

  1. It is a fundamental principle of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

  2. It ensures that countries do not discriminate between their trading partners. 

    • If a WTO member grants favourable trading terms like lower tariffs to one country, it must extend the same benefits to all other WTO members.

About the BEPS Multilateral Instrument (MLI)

  1. An international treaty that enables countries to modify existing bilateral tax treaties without renegotiating them individually.

  2. The BEPS MLI entered into force in 2018, and its provisions entered into effect in 2019.

  3. Objectives:

    • Implements tax treaty measures developed under the OECD/G20 BEPS Project.

    • Helps prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.

  4. BEPS are tax avoidance strategies used by MNCs to shift profits to low or no-tax jurisdictions by exploiting gaps in tax rules, reducing overall corporate tax liability.

  1. National Monetisation Pipeline 2.0 (NMP 2.0)

The Union Finance Minister has launched the National Monetisation Pipeline 2.0 (NMP 2.0), developed by NITI Aayog, in line with the ‘Asset Monetisation Plan 2025–30’ announced in the Union Budget 2025–26, thereby laying down a structured roadmap for asset monetisation during FY26–FY30.

Concept of Asset Monetisation

  1. Asset Monetisation refers to leveraging existing or under-utilised brownfield infrastructure assets (brownfield assets are already developed and operational projects) to generate revenue without imposing additional fiscal pressure on the Government, meaning no additional borrowing or taxation burden.

  2. It allows the Government to unlock value from public infrastructure while retaining ownership in most cases.

Purpose and Strategic Vision

NMP 2.0 aims to:

  • Provide a medium-term roadmap for public asset owners such as Ministries, Departments, and Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).

  • Offer visibility of potential investment opportunities to the private sector, thereby enhancing transparency and investor participation.

Aggregate Monetisation Potential (FY26–FY30)

The total estimated monetisation potential under NMP 2.0 is ₹16.72 lakh crore, which includes approximately ₹5.8 lakh crore of private sector investment, covering 12 sectors over five years.

Sector-wise Distribution

  • Highways (including Multi-Modal Logistics Parks—MMLPs—and ropeways) – 26%

  • Power – 17%

  • Railways – 16%

  • Ports – 16%

  • Petroleum and Natural Gas

  • Civil Aviation

  • Warehousing and Storage

  • Urban Infrastructure

  • Coal

  • Mines

  • Telecom

  • Tourism

MMLPs (Multi-Modal Logistics Parks) are integrated logistics hubs combining road, rail, and other transport modes to reduce logistics costs and improve efficiency.

Allocation of Proceeds

The proceeds generated under NMP 2.0 are distributed as follows:

  • Largest share to the Consolidated Fund of India (the primary account of the Government of India where all revenues and loans are credited and expenditures are made).

  • Followed by direct private sector investment.

  • Allocation to PSUs or Port Authorities, depending on the implementing agency.

  • Transfers to the State Consolidated Funds, where applicable.

Guiding Principles for Asset Selection

1. Core vs Non-Core Assets:

  • Primary focus remains on core assets (assets central to Government service delivery objectives), continuing the approach of NMP 1.0.

  • Non-core assets (such as land, buildings, and pure-play real estate assets) are included where projects envisage further development and value addition.

2. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Models:

NMP 2.0 promotes structured PPP models such as:

  • Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) – a model where the private entity designs, constructs, finances, operates, and later transfers the asset back to the Government after a concession period, ensuring risk-sharing and efficiency.

Stages of Asset Monetisation under NMP 2.0

The estimation of monetisation potential follows a structured five-stage approach:

  1. Identification of Assets: Conducted in consultation with Ministries, Departments, and PSUs to determine asset classes suitable for monetisation.

  2. Determination of Suitable Monetisation Mode: Selection of the most feasible model based on execution capability and expected returns.

  3. Estimation of Monetisation Value: Calculated in two components for each asset class:

    • Revenue share/proceeds

    • Investment from partnership projects

  4. Estimation of ‘Aggregate Monetisation Value’: Includes analysis of the impact of depreciation of underlying assets (depreciation refers to the reduction in asset value over time due to wear and tear or obsolescence).

  5. Allocation of Proceeds: Funds are distributed across relevant accounts depending on the implementing agency and mode of monetisation.

Additionally, NMP 2.0 incorporates further analytical refinements to strengthen valuation accuracy, execution feasibility, and fiscal sustainability.

Comparison with NMP 1.0

  • NMP 1.0 Target (FY22–FY25): ₹6 lakh crore

  • Achievement: Approximately 90% of the target achieved so far.

  • Coverage: 13 sectors

Under NMP 1.0, Highways, Railways, Power, Petroleum and Natural Gas Pipelines, and Telecom together accounted for 72% of the total target, indicating sectoral concentration in core infrastructure.

Overall Significance

NMP 2.0 significantly scales up the asset monetisation framework from ₹6 lakh crore to ₹16.72 lakh crore, broadens sectoral participation, strengthens valuation methodology, deepens private sector involvement through PPP models, and maintains fiscal discipline by generating resources without increasing fiscal pressure on the Government.

  1. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Emerging as a foundational driver of Inclusive Rural Development

India’s dual framework on AI combining national strategy for inclusive growth with robust governance architecture, is particularly suitable for rural and socially sensitive contexts.

How AI helps in Inclusive Rural Development?

  1. Detecting Underserved Villages: By analysing healthcare, education, and sanitation deficits using Mission Antyodaya data.

  2. Predictive Future Planning: Forecasts future development needs based on population growth and economic activity.

  3. Fulfilling Infrastructure Needs: Identifies villages lacking proper roads using Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), etc.

Key Initiatives Promoting AI for Inclusive Rural Development 

  1. Decentralised Rural e-governance: Through tools like SabhaSaar,  AI-enabled tool that generates minutes of Gram Sabha and Panchayat meetings, digital platforms like eGram Swaraj and Gram Manchitra, etc. 

  2. Infrastructure Monitoring: BhuPRAHARI platform for monitoring assets created; Digital Shram Setu Mission dealing with informal sector. 

  3. Sectoral Analysis:

    • Agriculture and Food Security: Kisan e-Mitra, a virtual assistant providing information on government schemes; National Pest Surveillance System, Crop Health Monitoring, Precision Faming, etc.

    • Education: NCERT’s DIKSHA platform; Youth for Unnati and Vikas with AI (YUVAI) for building foundational socio-technical/AI skills among grades 8-12.

    • Healthcare: State-led AI innovations like Madhya Pradesh’s Suman Sakhi WhatsApp Chatbot for rural women, delivers maternal/newborn health information, etc.

  4. Societal Benefits through Multilingual Governance: 

    • BHASHINI: AI-enabled language platform offering translation, speech-to-text, and voice-based interfaces across more than 36 Indian languages. 

    • BharatGen: India’s first government-funded, sovereign, multilingual, and multimodal Large Language Model. 

    • Adi Vaani: Addressing communication barriers faced by tribal communities. 

  1. Parliamentary Friendship Groups

 Lok Sabha Speaker has constituted Parliamentary Friendship Groups with more than 60 countries.

About Parliamentary Friendship Groups

  1. It aims to deepen dialogue and exchanges with legislatures across continents and to complement traditional diplomacy with sustained parliamentary interaction.

  2. It will allow lawmakers to speak directly to their counterparts abroad, share legislative experience, and build trust through regular engagement and exchange best practices.

  3. It will also facilitate conversations on trade, technology, social policy, culture, and global challenges that democracies face today.

  1. India unveils first anti-terror policy-PRAHAAR

The Ministry of Home Affairs has unveiled 'PRAHAAR', India's new National Counter-Terrorism Policy and Strategy.

  • It is driven by a principled policy of 'zero tolerance' against terrorism.

Counter-Terrorism Strategy (The PRAHAAR Framework)

  1. Prevention of Terror Attacks: Employs proactive, intelligence-guided approach via Multi Agency Centre (MAC) and Joint Task Force on Intelligence (JTFI) for real-time sharing. 

  2. Response: Local police as first responders, backed by state/central anti-terror forces and NSG (nodal counter-terror force under MHA).

    • NIA and state agencies ensure rigorous investigations and high prosecution rates for deterrence.

  3. Aggregating Capacities: Includes the modernization of law enforcement agencies and the standardization of uniform anti-terrorism structures across states, supported by specialized training from the Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D).

  4. Human Rights and Rule of Law Based Processes: The strategy emphasizes that all anti-terrorism laws must protect fundamental human rights and provide multiple levels of legal redressal from district courts up to the Supreme Court.

  5. Attenuating the conditions conducive to Terrorism: Graded police response for vulnerable youth, engaging community leaders/NGOs/moderate preachers against radicalization. 

  6. Aligning and Shaping the International Efforts: Strengthening multilateral cooperation through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) and Extradition Treaties; deny safe havens and restrict terror funding globally.

  7. Recovery and Resilience through a whole-of-society approach: Advocates for public-private partnerships to ensure rapid recovery post-incident.

Evolving Terrorism Challenges Faced by India

  1. State-Sponsored & Global Terrorism: India faces cross-border state-sponsored threats, plus global groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS establishing sleeper cells.

  2. Crime-Terror Nexus: Growing convergence between terrorists and organized crime/illegal arms syndicates for logistics, funding, and recruitment.

  3. Technological Warfare & Cyber Threats: Extremists use the internet, messaging, dark web for propaganda, radicalization, crypto-financing. 

  4. CBRNED Vulnerabilities: Critical challenge in intercepting access to Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive, and Digital (CBRNED) materials.

  1. India Recorded a Landmark surge in Organ Donation and Transplantation

According to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), number of organ transplants increased nearly fourfold over past decade – from fewer than 5,000 in 2013 to almost 20,000 in 2025. 

  • Around 18% of these involve organs donated by deceased donors, reflecting a rise in cadaveric (deceased donors) donations.

Reasons for Rising Success in Organ Donation/Transplantation

  1. Strengthened Institutional Capacity: Through National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) serving as national coordination authority, along with strengthened capacity for State and Regional OTTOs. 

  2. Promotion of Green Corridors: Special traffic free routes to transport harvested organs quickly reducing logistical barriers. 

  3. Positive Public Attitudes: Since September 17, 2023, over 4.8 lakh citizens have registered for organ and tissue donation through an Aadhaar-based verification system. 

  4. Improved Infrastructure: Improved system for donor identification, retrieval and allocation across hospitals, collaboration between central, state governments and other stakeholders, etc. 

Organ Transplantation Framework in India

  1. Legal Framework: Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 (THOTA) enacted by the MoHFW. 

  2. Regulatory Mechanism: Three tiered structure under THOTA, 1994:

    •  NOTTO: Apex body for coordination, networking, and registry of organ/tissue donation and transplantation. 

    • Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (ROTTO). 

    • State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (SOTTO). 

  3. National Organ Transplant Program (NOTP):  Central Sector Programme to improve access to organ transplantation for needy citizens. 

  1. Functional Diversity

Recently, Study finds Land-use change and elevation are jointly influencing the Functional Diversity of spiders in the north-western Indian Himalayas. 

About Functional Diversity

  • Meaning: It is defined as the subset of biodiversity that encompasses the range and values of organismal traits within an ecosystem, which influence its functioning, dynamics, stability, productivity, and nutrient balance.

    • E.g., A forest with high functional diversity contains birds with different roles: one species might crack hard seeds, another eats insects from tree bark, and a third disperses fruit seeds.

  • Significance: High functional diversity enhances resilience through redundancy, allowing compensation if species are lost.

  1. RoDTEP Scheme

The Government has reduced duty benefits available to exporters under the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme by 50 %.

About RoDTEP Scheme:

  1. Launched in 2021 by amending the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20.

  2. Objective: It provides refunds of taxes, duties and levies incurred during the manufacturing and distribution of exported goods that are not reimbursed under any other central, state or local mechanism.

  3. Administered by the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance.

  1. PM Surya Ghar

 Prime Minister lauds milestone of 30 lakh households adopting rooftop solar under PM Surya Ghar scheme.

It is the world’s largest domestic rooftop solar initiative. 

About PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana (2024)

  1. Objective: Installing Rooftop Solar (RTS) & providing free electricity for up to 300 monthly units for 1 Crore households.

  2. Ministry: Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

  3. Duration: Till FY 2026-27

  4. Subsidy: Up to 40% to households; based on household's average monthly electricity consumption and corresponding suitable rooftop solar plant capacity.

  1. Bust of C. Rajagopalachari Installed at Rashtrapati Bhavan

The President of India unveiled a bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari at Rashtrapati Bhavan, replacing the statue of Edwin Lutyens, as part of ongoing efforts to remove colonial-era symbols from prominent national spaces.

Edwin Lutyens and His Architectural Legacy

Edwin Lutyens was a prominent British architect who designed significant parts of New Delhi during the colonial period.

Major works include:

  • Rashtrapati Bhavan

  • India Gate

  • North Block

  • South Block

He designed Rashtrapati Bhavan in collaboration with Herbert Baker, contributing to the architectural framework of the British imperial capital.

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari

About Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878–1972)

  1. Born on 10th December 1878 in Thorapalli, Tamil Nadu.

  2. A patriot, social reformer, renowned lawyer, and able administrator.

  3. Popularly known as Rajaji.

Key Contributions to India’s Freedom Struggle and Nation-Building

  1. Participated in agitations against the Rowlatt Act, which allowed detention without trial.

  2. Took part in the Non-Cooperation Movement (a mass movement led by Mahatma Gandhi against British rule).

  3. Participated in the Vaikom Satyagraha (a temple-entry movement in Kerala against caste discrimination).

  4. Actively involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement.

  5. Led the Vedaranyam March (1930) to break the British salt law, paralleling Gandhi’s Dandi March.

  6. Proposed the “C.R. Formula”, an attempt to resolve the Hindu–Muslim political deadlock prior to Partition by suggesting conditional acceptance of Pakistan after independence.

  7. Elected to the Constituent Assembly from Madras, contributing to the framing of the Indian Constitution.

Constitutional and Political Roles

  1. Served as Governor of West Bengal (1947–48).

  2. Served as the Governor-General of India (1948–50), becoming the last Governor-General and the only Indian to hold the office, after Lord Mountbatten.

  3. Founded the Swatantra Party, advocating classical liberal principles and opposing excessive state control in the economy.

Core Values

Rajagopalachari was known for his commitment to: Humanism, Integrity and Ethical public life and principled politics.

  1. Principle of Just Deserts

Supreme Court highlighted adherence to the principle of Just Deserts as the primary responsibility of the courts. 

About the Principle of Just Deserts

  1. It refers to a philosophy within criminal justice emphasizing the idea of proportionality in punishment, asserting that individuals should receive consequences commensurate with the crimes committed.

  2. Retribution acts as the primary philosophical foundation for this with the idea that offenders morally deserve punishment for their wrongful acts. 

  3. It acts as a response to perceived leniency in the justice system, advocating for standardized penalties and accountability. 

  1. Overseas citizen of India (OCI)

Supreme Court dismisses OCI request for state bar council membership.

About OCI scheme

  1. Introduced in  2005, by amending the Citizenship Act, 1955

    • OCI is not to be misconstrued as 'dual citizenship'. OCI does not confer political rights to vote.

  2. Benefits for OCI Cardholders 

    • Lifelong multiple-entry visa to visit India.

    • Equality with NRIs in certain financial, economic and educational matters except for acquisition of agricultural or plantation land.

    • Prior special permission is required for certain activities such as research activities, etc. 

  3. Eligibility:

    • All Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) who were citizens of India on 26th January, 1950 or thereafter.

    • Eligible to become a citizen of India on 26th January, 1950 or belonged to a territory that became part of India after 15th August, 1947; etc.

    • Exceptions: No person, who or either of whose parents or grandparents had been a citizen of Pakistan, Bangladesh or such other country as the government may specify.

  1. Chicory

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) mandated the display of chicory content in front of the coffee pack.

About Chicory

  1. It is a blue-flowered perennial plant of the family Asteraceae.

  2. Addition to Coffee: Its root can be roasted and grounded to impart additional colour, and bitterness to coffee, caffeine-free serves as a substitute for coffee, Contains inulin which is a natural sweetener and a probiotic. 

  3. FSAAI regulations (2011) mandate not less than 51% coffee content in coffee-chicory mixture. 

  1. Technologies for Monitoring Quality of National Highways

Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) deploys Mobile Quality Control Vans equipped with various technologies to monitor National Highways. 

Key Technologies

  1. Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity meter: Sends sound waves through concrete, revealing hidden cracks, voids and inconsistencies.

  2. Asphalt density gauges: Allow for fast, on-site testing to ensure proper asphalt compaction and pavement longevity.

    • Asphalt is a mixture of aggregates, binder (bitumen) and filler, used for constructing and maintaining roads. 

  3. Light-Weight Deflectometer: To estimate density of compacted soil and granular sub-base to ensure stable base for long-lasting highways.

  4. Reflectometers: Assesses the visibility of road signs and markings, ensuring they remain clearly readable for motorists. 




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