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Current Affairs 25 December 2025

State Public Service Commission (SPSC)

  • About: The SPSC is a constitutional body established under Articles 315–323 (Part XIV) to ensure merit-based, impartial, and independent recruitment to state civil services. 
  • Like the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) at the Centre, each state has its own SPSC, serving as the constitutional watchdog of the merit system to ensure transparent and merit-based recruitment to state civil services. 
  • Historical Context: The Government of India Act, 1919, provided for the creation of a Central Public Service Commission, which was established in 1926 to recruit civil servants.  
  • The Government of India Act, 1935 further provided for the establishment of a Federal PSC, as well as Provincial PSCs and Joint PSCs for two or more provinces. 
  • Composition: Consists of a Chairman and members appointed by the Governor.  
  • Strength: The Constitution doesn’t specify the number of members. It is left to the Governor’s discretion. 
  • Tenure: Members serve for 6 years or until they reach 62 years of age, whichever is earlier (UPSC members serve until 65 years). 
  • Qualification Requirements: Half the members must have at least 10 years of service under the Government of India or a state government; no other qualifications are prescribed. 
  • Service Conditions: Determined by the Governor, who also sets the terms of employment. The Governor can appoint a member as acting chairman when the position falls vacant or the chairman is unable to perform duties. 
  • Removal: Members can be removed only by the President, not the Governor. Grounds include insolvency, paid employment, infirmity, or misbehaviour. The President can remove them on the same grounds and in the same manner as he can remove a Chairman or a Member of the UPSC. 
  • In cases of misbehaviour, the Supreme Court (SC) inquiry is mandatory, and its advice is binding. The governor can suspend the member during inquiry. 
  • Members can resign anytime by submitting their resignation to the Governor.  

Consumer Commissions

  • About:  Consumer Commissions are quasi-judicial bodies established under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 (now Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 2019) to resolve disputes between consumers and sellers or service providers.  
  • They aim to provide speedy, affordable, and effective justice and protect consumers from unfair trade practices, defective goods, and deficient services. 
  • Types of Consumer Commissions in India: The CPA, 2019 promulgates a three-tier quasi-judicial mechanism for redressal of consumer disputes namely district commissions, state commissions and national commission, each with defined pecuniary jurisdiction. 
  • The District and State Consumer Commissions are set up by State Governments with Central approval, while the National Commission is established by the Central Government.  
  • These bodies offer an alternative dispute-resolution mechanism and do not replace civil courts. 

India’s Consumer Protection Initiatives 

  • Consumer Welfare Fund:  Supports consumer protection and awareness initiatives by providing financial assistance to States and UTs to create a Consumer Welfare Corpus Fund, funded in a 75:25 ratio (90:10 for Special Category States/UTs).  
  • Programme activities are financed through interest from the corpus, and Rs 38.68 crore was released in 2024–25. 
  • e-Jagriti: Launched in 2025, is a unified digital platform for consumer grievance redressal that integrates e-Daakhil, NCDRC CMS, and CONFONET into a single system.  
  • It enables online complaint filing, fee payment, virtual hearings, and case tracking.  
  • With multilingual support, chatbots, voice-to-text features, and secure payment gateways like Bharat Kosh and PayGov, the platform ensures accessibility, inclusivity, faster case disposal, and safe transactions, including for NRIs, senior citizens, and persons with disabilities. 
  • National Consumer Helpline 2.0:  It is an AI-enabled, multilingual grievance redressal platform that allows consumers to register complaints, seek pre-litigation remedies, and access consumer rights information, 
  • NCH now resolves over 12 lakh complaints annually, many within 21 days, reflecting growing consumer trust and faster digital redressal. 

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has recommended the inclusion of Denotified Tribes (DNTs) in the upcoming Census 2027, marking their 1st official enumeration in independent India and the first since the colonial-era 1911 census. 

  • The last enumeration was in the 1911 Census under the colonial category of criminal tribes.  Since then, no official Census has recorded their population. 
  • About Denotified Tribes: Denotified Tribes were communities branded as “criminal tribes” under the repressive Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, which was repealed in 1949. 
  • They were labelled as criminal tribes because they were believed to be “addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences.” 
  • Classification Issues: Many of these communities are not classified as Scheduled Tribes (STs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), or Other Backward Classes (OBCs), leaving them outside the ambit of reservation benefits and targeted welfare schemes.  
  • Findings of Government Committees: The Renke Commission (2008) estimated the population of denotified tribes at around 10–12 crore. 
  • The Idate Commission (2014) identified over 1,200 communities as denotified, nomadic, and semi-nomadic tribes. 
  • Nomadic tribes maintain a mobile lifestyle, moving periodically  without permanent settlements to sustain livelihoods via pastoralism, trade, or services. e.g., Banjara, Rabari. 
  • Semi-nomadic tribes combine seasonal migration with partial settlement, often practicing transhumance (maintaining a base while migrating livestock    seasonally), e.g., Gaddi, Maldharis. 
  • Other Related Committees to DNTs:  
  • Ayyangar Committee (1949): Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 was repealed based on the recommendation of this committee. 
  • Lokur Committee (1965): It recommended treating denotified and nomadic communities as a distinct group for tailored development schemes.

National Mathematics Day is observed on 22nd December to commemorate the birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of India’s greatest mathematicians, often described as the man who seemingly knew infinity. 

  • The Day was instituted in 2011, with 2012 declared as the National Mathematics Year, to promote India’s mathematical heritage. 
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) was born in Erode, Tamil Nadu, and displayed an extraordinary intuitive grasp of mathematics from a very young age. 
  • Began producing original mathematical results as a teenager, recording them in what later became known as Ramanujan’s Frayed Notebooks. 
  • He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society (UK) and, in 1918, the second Indian to be elected to the Royal Society, as well as the first Indian Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.