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The day's papers, read for the exam. Every article here is rewritten and reviewed — we link you to the original, we never reprint it.
Read the week in one go10 August 2026
The Hindu (8)
8 articles in all · 2h 30m to read everything
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6 articles- The HinduGS-2GS-325min
The cost of unconditional cash transfers
Dipa Sinha, Vijay Ram S.
This is an opinion piece by two economists, Dipa Sinha and Vijay Ram S., built around State spending data. Their argument is that as more and more States hand women a fixed sum of money every month with no conditions attached — an unconditional cash transfer, or UCT — that spending is starting to eat into what the same governments spend on schools and hospitals. The background you need is small: Delhi launched such a scheme on 1 August, joining the States and Union Territories that already run one. The authors are careful about one thing, and it shapes the whole piece. They accept that the money is spent sensibly, because studies show it goes on food, health and education. Their worry is about arithmetic, not about how poor households behave.
- 6Key Ideas
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- 3Prelims Drill
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- The HinduGS-325min
A common blueprint for India's industrial heat electrification
Vrinda Gupta, Srinivas Ethiraj
This is an opinion piece by two energy-transition researchers, Vrinda Gupta and Srinivas Ethiraj. Their argument is that India's next big step must be to electrify industrial heat — the heat factories use for dyeing, drying, boiling and distilling, which today mostly comes from burning coal, oil or gas inside the plant. They point to solar power, where tariffs fell by more than 85% over a decade, and say that happened because policy, financing, competitive vendors, mandates and private investment all moved together — so industrial heat will need the same coordinated push rather than a single scheme. They then set out six things India should do, beginning with measuring what a factory actually uses before replacing any equipment. One caution for the reader: all six are the authors' recommendations, not a programme that has been announced or funded.
- 6Key Ideas
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- 3Prelims Drill
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- The HinduGS-2GS-321min
Centre says report on theatre commands under consideration
Saurabh Trivedi
This is a news report, not an opinion piece. It tells us that the final report on setting up theatre commands for the armed forces is now with the government for a decision, and that discussions are still going on. The information comes from the latest report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, which was submitted in Parliament. The committee points out that of the 34 recommendations it made, this is the only one on which a final government reply is still awaited. Nothing has been approved and nothing has been set up — the piece is about a proposal sitting at the decision stage.
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- The HinduGS-2GS-323min
A new security triangle emerges with the Makkah Pact
Mahesh Sachdev
This is an opinion piece, not a news report. It is written by a retired Indian ambassador who spent his career on the Arab world, and he is giving his own reading of a defence agreement signed on 7 August 2026 by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan — the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, or MJDA. His central argument is that the excitement around this pact is overdone: it looks less like the birth of a "Muslim NATO" and more like Saudi Arabia trying several security options at once after the United States-Iran war shook the region. The one hard fact on record is a line in the joint statement — an armed attack on any one of the three will be treated as an attack on all three, which is what is called a collective defence clause, a written promise to treat each other's wars as your own. The treaty text itself has not been made public, so almost everything else in the piece is assessment, and the author says so himself.
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- The HinduGS-1GS-321min
Combined effects of climate and geology caused 2024 Wayanad landslide: study
Sam Paul A.
This is a news report, not an opinion piece. It covers a new study published in Landslides, an international peer-reviewed journal, which means other specialists checked the method and the evidence before it appeared. The study asks why the 2024 landslide in Kerala's Wayanad district became as destructive as it did, and answers that the extraordinary rain was only half the story. The rock beneath the slope, the shape of the valley and the cracks running through the rock decided where the hillside broke and how far the debris travelled. The work was carried out jointly by researchers from the University of Kerala, IISER Mohali and Savitribai Phule Pune University.
- 6Key Ideas
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- The HinduGS-1GS-224min
The stakes in India's delimitation debate
Varghese K. George
This is an explainer, taken from the author's introduction to a book on delimitation published by the paper. Delimitation means redrawing the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies and redistributing Lok Sabha seats among the States. The piece answers a set of practical questions: what triggers the next exercise, how the 2027 Census affects seat allocation, whether it can be finished before the 2029 election, and which States could gain or lose. Its central point is that a fresh delimitation needs no constitutional amendment at all — Articles 81 and 82 already require one once data from the first Census after 2026 is published, and an amendment is needed only to change those existing rules. The article then sets out the real tension underneath the debate: federalism, which represents States as units, against one person one vote one value, which says every citizen's vote should weigh the same.
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Worth knowing
2 articlesshorter — summary and concepts- 6min
MP lists Bill on restricting social media for minors
This is a short In-Brief news item, not an opinion piece. It reports that a private member's Bill on restricting social media use by minors has been listed in the Lok Sabha by Baijayant Panda. The Bill is called the Safeguarding Healthy Internet Environments for Little Digital-Natives (SHIELD) Bill, 2025. It was listed on a Friday but could not be tabled, because the House was adjourned early. The item places it against an ongoing debate over whether children under 13, or under 16, should be barred from social media, and notes that it arrives while the government is in a stand-off with Meta. What the Bill actually proposes is not on the public record.
The HinduGS-2 - 5min
Ladakh set to lead caste enumeration in India
This is a short front-page news item, not an opinion piece. It reports that Ladakh will lead the way in showing how caste is to be recorded in a Census for the first time since Independence. The second phase of the Census — the one that actually counts people — begins there, and in other snowbound areas, on 17 August. The schedule is expected to carry around forty questions, with an open-ended column for caste. Although this is India's first digital Census, paper forms are being printed for Ladakh as an exception. Only this outline is public so far.
Vijaita SinghThe HinduGS-1GS-2