Important topics and their relevance in UPSC CSE exam for October 19, 2025. If you missed the October 18, 2025, UPSC CSE exam key from the Indian Express, read it here.
EXPRESS NETWORK
Blackbucks, ‘locally extinct’ for 50 years, make comeback in Chhattisgarh sanctuary
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity.
Mains Examination: General Studies-III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
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What’s the ongoing story: In 2018, officials at Chhattisgarh’s Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary embarked on an ambitious venture: to revive the blackbuck population 50 years after it had become “locally extinct”. It was a gamble: the habitat loss, human encroachment and forest fragmentation that contributed to the animal’s erasure from the state still existed, and officials were unsure if their efforts would pay off. They did – Barnawapara now boasts 190 blackbucks, and officials plan to replicate the conservation model across the state.
Key Points to Ponder:
— Read about the blackbucks.
— What is the conservation status of blackbuck?
— What are the challenges to blackbuck populations in India?
— What steps has the government taken to conserve blackbucks?
— Read about the Bishnoi community.
Key Takeaways:
— Over the last five years, the Chhattisgarh government has successfully reintroduced the blackbuck – a graceful medium-sized antelope that inhabits open grasslands of India and Nepal – back into the state’s forests through its five-year reintroduction plan.
— Once found in Barnawapara in Balodabazar district, the blackbuck is listed among endangered species under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
— As part of the 2021-2026 revival plan, the Chhattisgarh State Wildlife Board translocated 77 blackbucks – 50 from the National Zoological Park in New Delhi and 27 from the Kanan Pendari Zoological Garden, Bilaspur. The move paid off.
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— According to the Raipur Forest Division’s Working Plan – a document outlining forest management activities – blackbucks were found in Balodabazar in the 1970s. But rampant poaching, infrastructure development and encroachment on grassland areas caused their population to crash, leading to their being declared “locally extinct” – that is, disappearing completely from Chhattisgarh.
— That changed after a meeting of the state wildlife board in 2018. Soon, the board brought in 19 males and 50 females into the sanctuary – first keeping the animals in enclosures for up to two years before releasing them into the wild.
— According to officials, the forest department has so far released 100 animals into the wild while 90 remain in enclosures and will eventually be released.
— It wasn’t without setbacks. Officials admit that the first two years were challenging, with eight blackbucks dying in a pneumonia outbreak.
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— After this, the department took measures to steady the course. In the short term, it sand-layered the enclosure to keep it dry, improved drainage and waste disposal, and appointed an on-call veterinary doctor. In the long term, it formed a dedicated conservation team for habitat management, nutrition and monitoring.
— Following the success in Barnawapara, the forest department is now drawing up plans to reintroduce the animal in sanctuaries with open grasslands such as Gomardha Wildlife Sanctuary.
Do You Know:
— Blackbucks are found only in the Indian subcontinent. Males have corkscrew-shaped horns and black-to-dark brown coats, while females are fawn-coloured.
— The animals are mainly seen in three broad clusters across India-northern, southern, and eastern regions.
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— It is listed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Hunting and poaching blackbucks is a non-bailable offence and can invite a jail term of up to six years. It is worshipped by the Bishnoi community.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍UPSC Knowledge Nugget of the day: Bishnoi community
UPSC Prelims Practice Question Covering similar theme:
(1) With reference to the blackbuck, consider the following statements:
1. It is worshipped by the Bishnoi community.
2. It is classified under Schedule II of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
FRONT
GST cuts passed on, spurred consumption, may show in GDP: Govt
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national importance, Economic and social development.
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Mains Examination: General Studies- II, III: Government policies and interventions, Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
What’s the ongoing story: A sharp jump in sales, especially of electronics and consumer goods; reduced prices for key daily-use items; all adding up to a significant push to consumption which may even reflect in the GDP numbers for financial year 2025-26 — these were some of the key gains, highlighted by the government Saturday, attributed to GST 2.0 reforms rolled out September 22.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is Goods and Services Tax (GST), and how does it work?
— What are the key GST 2.0 institutional reforms?
— What is the objective of introducing next-generation reforms?
— What are the implications of GST 2.0 reforms?
— What are the challenges in the path of achieving the objectives of GST 2.0 reforms?
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— What are the various tax slabs before and after the reform?
Key Takeaways:
— At a joint conference named “GST Bachat Utsav,” held by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, and Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the government’s message was that the benefits of GST rate cuts are reaching the end-consumers and these cuts have resulted in consumers increasing their purchases, which in turn, is going to be a driving force for investment.
— Sitharaman said the tax reduction isn’t limited to this season and the consumption story will continue. When asked whether the rise in consumption is due to pent-up demand or revenge purchases, she said: “It is important for us to understand that these tax reductions are required from the point of view of making the system a lot more nimble. Better collections mean you have greater fiscal room to give back something. So, now that the collections have improved…and we are touching close to Rs 2 lakh crore gross collections per month, there is a reason for us to cut the rate also and pass on the benefit to the consumers,” she said.
— The Finance Minister said that the central GST (Goods and Services Tax) formations across the country are monitoring prices of 54 daily-use items since the GST 2.0 rollout on September 22 and the tax benefit has been passed for all items except some varieties of cement.
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— Under the next-generation GST reforms, multiple slabs — 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent — were replaced with a broad two-slab structure: a merit rate of 5 per cent and a standard rate of 18 per cent, in addition to a special demerit rate of 40 per cent for sin and demerit goods.
— The reforms were announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech, following which the GST Council, having representatives from the states and Centre, met in the capital on September 3 to give its nod to GST 2.0 that became effective September 22.
Do You Know:
— The GST came into effect in 2017 and was billed as an attempt to simplify the existing tax structure in India, where both the Centre and states levied multiple taxes, and to make it uniform.
— The President set up the GST Council as a joint forum of the Centre and the states, under Article 279A (1) of the amended Constitution. It said that members of the Council include the Union Finance Minister (chairperson), and the Union Minister of State (Finance) from the Centre. Each state can nominate a minister in charge, of finance or taxation or any other minister, as a member.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
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📍Knowledge Nugget: What is GST Council, and what were key decisions taken during its 56th meeting? Here’s everything you need to know for UPSC exam
Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(2) What is/are the most likely advantages of implementing ‘Goods and Services Tax (GST)’? (UPSC CSE 2017)
1. It will replace multiple taxes collected by multiple authorities and will thus create a single market in India.
2. It will drastically reduce the ‘Current Account Deficit’ of India and will enable it to increase its foreign exchange reserves.
3. It will enormously increase the growth and size of the economy of India and will enable it to overtake China in the near future.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:
Enumerate the indirect taxes which have been subsumed in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India. Also, comment on the revenue implications of the GST introduced in India since July 2017. (UPSC CSE 2019)
ECONOMY
Rangarajan Line:15 years on, how poverty is measured today in India
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.
Mains Examination: General Studies-I, II, III: Poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies, Issues relating to poverty and hunger, Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.
What’s the ongoing story: Almost 15 years ago, the erstwhile Planning Commission set up a committee headed by C Rangarajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to review the methodology for measurement of poverty in the country.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What is poverty? How has poverty measurement evolved in India?
— How do different international institutions define poverty?
— Classifications of poverty – Know in Detail.
— Poverty estimation in India – How is poverty defined in India?
— Alagh Committee, Lakdawala Committee, Tendulkar Committee, Rangarajan Committee, and their poverty estimation.
— What do you understand by the term ‘headcount ratio’?
— What is Multidimensional poverty?
— What is the poverty line?
— Why is measuring poverty important?
— What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)?
Key Takeaways:
— The committee, which submitted its report in June 2014, caused a stir when it estimated the national poverty line at Rs 1,407 in terms of monthly per capita expenditure for urban areas and Rs 972 for rural areas.
— What this meant was that anyone spending more than Rs 47 per day in urban areas and Rs 32 per day in rural areas was not ‘poor’. These thresholds led to the number of poor in India being pegged at 29.5 per cent of the population. Since then, no new poverty line, at least one backed by the government, has been created.
— Last week, economists from the RBI’s Department of Economic and Policy Research published a paper in which they ‘updated’ the Rangarajan line for 20 major states of India using the government’s Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) for 2022-23.
— The results showed Odisha and Bihar had posted the biggest decline in poverty levels between 2011-12 and 2022-23, with the proportion of the population below the updated version of the Rangarajan poverty line falling by around 40 percentage points.
— On the other hand, the decline in the percentage of the population below the poverty line was the least in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh.
— On the whole, rural poverty in 2022-23 was lowest in Himachal Pradesh (0.4 per cent) and highest in Chhattisgarh (25.1 per cent). Urban poverty, meanwhile, was lowest in Tamil Nadu (1.9 per cent) and highest, again, in Chhattisgarh (13.3 per cent).
— It is worth pointing out that the all-India rural and urban poverty lines estimated by the Rangarajan committee were not updated by the RBI economists in their study.
— Unlike some others, the RBI staff study chose not to ‘adjust’ the old poverty lines using Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation – because it’s not accurate to do so as the CPI basket and the Rangarajan poverty line basket (PLB) are different: the weight of food in the rural Rangarajan PLB is 57 per cent compared to 54 per cent in rural CPI, while 47 per cent of the urban Rangarajan PLB is food compared to 36 per cent for urban CPI.
— What they instead did was create a new price index – like the CPI – but one whose constituent items have the same weight as the Rangarajan PLB.
— The level of poverty in India has been a matter of intense discussion for years. Earlier this year in January, State Bank of India Research estimated using 2023-24 HCES data that poverty in rural areas was 4.86 per cent and 4.09 per cent in urban areas. These estimates were based on inflation-adjusted 2023-24 poverty lines of Rs 1,632 for rural areas and Rs 1,944 for urban areas.
— As far as the government is concerned, poverty lines are seemingly a thing of the past. What matters now is multidimensional poverty, which goes beyond just money and consumption. — — Based on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), the Indian MPI looks at poverty through three lenses: health, education, and standard of living. These are represented by 12 indicators: nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, housing, electricity, assets, and bank account.
— The global MPI does not take maternal health and bank accounts into consideration while measuring poverty.
Do You Know:
— Poverty can be defined as a condition in which an individual or household lacks the financial resources to afford a basic minimum standard of living.
— Economists and policymakers estimate “absolute” poverty as the shortfall in consumption expenditure from a threshold called the “poverty line”.
— The poverty line is a threshold used to classify people as poor or not based on their income or consumption levels. The poverty line represents the minimum income level necessary to meet basic needs, and varies across countries depending on their overall economic conditions.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍Poverty debates in India
Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(3) In a given year in India, official poverty lines are higher in some States than in others because (UPSC CSE 2019)
(a) poverty rates vary from State to State
(b) price levels vary from State to State
(c) Gross State Product varies from State to State
(d) quality of public distribution varies from State to State
Previous year UPSC mains Question Covering similar theme:
Though there have been several different estimates of poverty in India, all indicate reduction in poverty levels over time. Do you agree? Critically examine with reference to urban and rural poverty indicators (UPSC CSE 2015)
Gold ETF inflows surge over 6X: What is driving investor interest?
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national importance, Economic and Social Development.
Mains Examination: General Studies-III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, Effects of liberalisation on the economy.
What’s the ongoing story: Surging gold prices, escalating geopolitical tensions, increased purchases by global central banks and tariff-related uncertainties have drawn investors towards gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), resulting in a record six-fold jump in inflows into the asset class during September.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What are the exchange-traded funds (ETFs)?
— What are gold exchange-traded funds (Gold ETFs)?
— What could be the reasons for the recent inflow surge in the gold ETFs?
— What are the advantages and disadvantages of gold ETFs?
— What do you understand by the term ‘passive investment’?
Key Takeaways:
— Rising preference for gold as an investment option amid a lacklustre domestic stock market performance is also driving higher flows into gold ETF.
— Inflows into gold ETFs rose 578.28 per cent, or six times to Rs 8,363.13 crore in September 2025, compared with Rs 1,232.99 crore in the same period last year, according to the latest data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). In September, net inflows rose 281.96 per cent on a month-on-month basis from Rs 2,189.51 crore in August.
— Gold ETFs are the ETFs with gold as the underlying asset. It gives investors an option of holding gold electronically instead of physical gold. It is a safer option to hold the precious metal since there are no risks of theft or purity.
— The attractive rate of returns on a majority of these ETFs has been a big draw for investors. For investors seeking portfolio diversification, inflation protection, and tax-efficient exposure to gold, ETFs remain a compelling option.
— Global factors like central bank buying, geopolitical tensions, and expectations of US rate cuts have turned gold into a preferred safe-haven asset. This has led to a surge in gold prices to record high levels in the past few months, with prices crossing over Rs 1,25,000 per 10 gram (999 purity) recently.
— All these factors have turned gold ETFs into the flavour of the season as investors prefer parking their funds due to better liquidity, transparency and global price alignment.
— One of the important factors which has played out in favour of gold ETFs is the tax clarity provided in the Union Budget 2025-26. Earlier, gold ETFs were taxed as per individual’s tax slabs. However, this year’s budget clarified that long-term capital gains on gold ETF held for over 12 months will be taxed at 12.5 per cent.
Do You Know:
— An ETF, or exchange traded fund, is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund. Unlike regular mutual funds, an ETF trades like a common stock on a stock exchange.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍Exchange-traded fund
UPSC Prelims Practice Question Covering similar theme:
(4) Consider the following statements about the Gold Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF):
1. These are units representing physical gold present both in paper or dematerialised form.
2. One Gold ETF unit is equal to 100 grams of gold.
3. SEBI regulates the gold exchange-traded funds.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) 1 and 3 only
THE WORLD
Afghan, Pakistani negotiators in Doha for peace talks after clashes at border
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: Afghanistan and Pakistan were holding peace talks in Doha on Saturday, both sides said, after the South Asian neighbours extended a ceasefire following a week of fierce border clashes.
Key Points to Ponder:
— What are the issues in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations?
— How has India’s relationship with Afghanistan evolved in recent years?
— Know about the history of the Taliban group and how they came to power.
— What is the strategic significance of Afghanistan for India?
— Read about the Durand Line.
— Map work: Locate Afghanistan on map.
Key Takeaways:
— They are seeking to find a way forward after the clashes killed dozens and wounded hundreds in the worst violence between the two countries since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021.
— The ground fighting between the one-time allies and Pakistani airstrikes across their contested 2,600-km (1,600-mile) frontier were triggered after Islamabad demanded that Kabul rein in militants who had stepped up attacks in Pakistan, saying they operated from havens in Afghanistan.
— The Taliban denies giving haven to militants to attack Pakistan and accuses the Pakistani military of spreading misinformation about Afghanistan and sheltering Islamic State-linked militants to undermine its stability and sovereignty. Islamabad denies the accusations.
Do You Know:
— The issues that divide Afghanistan and Pakistan range from Afghanistan’s refusal to recognise the Durand Line as the international border, to control over transit and trade, and social contradictions despite the bonds of Islamic faith.
— Afghans governments and peoples have the persistent resentment that Pakistan has insensitively tried to control and exploit them, especially since their monarchical system was overthrown.
— Pakistan continues to consider Afghans ungrateful. For, they hosted millions of Afghan refugees and enabled Afghan insurgencies to defeat two super powers. And, finally, the shadow of India has always loomed large over Afghan-Pakistan bilateral ties.
Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:
📍Pakistan-Afghanistan ties: Past imperfect, present tense, future uncertain
📍Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to immediate ceasefire after border clashes
Previous year UPSC Prelims Question Covering similar theme:
(5) Consider the following countries: (UPSC CSE 2022)
1. Azerbaijan
2. Kyrgyzstan
3. Tajikistan
4. Turkmenistan
5. Uzbekistan
Which of the above have borders with Afghanistan?
(a) 1, 2 and 5 only
(b) 1, 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 3, 4 and 5 only
(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
PRELIMS ANSWER KEY 1. (a) 2. (a) 3. (b) 4. (d) 5. (c)
NOTE: There will be no UPSC key on October 20, 2025, on the eve of Diwali. Wish you all a wonderful Diwali!
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