Group Discussion Topics

Points for

• It cuts the rising pension bill, which takes about a quarter of the defence budget, and frees money for modern weapons and equipment.
• It brings younger soldiers into the forces, lowering the average age of jawans from about 32 years and adding energy and tech comfort to units.
• The 25 percent who are retained after four years are battle tested, and those who leave carry discipline and skills into civilian jobs and the police and paramilitary forces.

Points against

• Four years is too short to build the deep regimental bonding and experience that units need in a war, and the 75 percent who leave take their training with them.
• The scheme created uncertainty among aspirants, with protests in 2022 and a fall in the number of young men willing to prepare for the armed forces.
• Retaining only one in four Agniveers makes the selection a fresh competition after four years of service, which hurts morale and long term career planning.

Points for

• Women already fly fighter aircraft in the IAF since 2016 and serve as officers in the Army, Navy and Air Force, so the question is about extending a proven record.
• The Supreme Court granted permanent commission to women officers in 2020, and the services have run mixed units without the breakdown critics predicted.
• Opening all roles widens the talent pool for the Army at a time when it needs technically skilled soldiers for drones, cyber and signals.

Points against

• Infantry and armoured combat place extreme physical demands on soldiers, and average differences in strength and endurance matter in close combat.
• Prisoner of war risk is higher for women in the hands of some adversaries, and the Army would need separate facilities, which complicates field deployment.
• The Army should first stabilise the Agniveer intake of women in support arms and study the results before opening the infantry and artillery.

Points for

• The 2019 creation of the Chief of Defence Staff and the Andaman and Nicobar Command, which has run as a joint command since 2001, show the model already works in India.
• Modern wars in Ukraine and in the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict showed that air, land, sea, cyber and space must be fought as one battle, which separate service commands cannot do well.
• Joint commands cut duplication in logistics, training and procurement, and give the government one military adviser for each theatre instead of three competing voices.

Points against

• The three services still disagree on the structure, with the IAF worried that its limited fighter squadrons, about 31 against a sanctioned 42, would be split across theatres.
• India has no joint doctrine or joint training pipeline yet, and building one before restructuring would avoid a half finished reform.
• Theatre commands need a national security strategy and a clear political direction first, and pushing the structure without that risks confusion in a crisis.

Points for

• India spends about 2 percent of GDP on defence while facing two active borders, and the 2025-26 budget of about Rs 6.8 lakh crore still leaves the forces short of fighters, submarines and artillery.
• China spends far more in absolute terms, with a declared budget over three times India's, and its actual spending is estimated to be higher still.
• Capital spending for new weapons is squeezed because salaries and pensions take a large share of the budget, which slows modernisation.

Points against

• A budget is not a strategy, and India has deterred both adversaries for decades with its current spending, including through the 2025 Operation Sindoor response.
• More money does not fix slow procurement, and the armed forces have returned unspent capital funds in several years because acquisition processes drag on.
• India must also fund health, education and infrastructure, and raising defence spending sharply would mean cutting the development that builds long term national power.

Points for

• India commissioned its first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant in 2022, flies the LCA Tejas, and now exports defence equipment worth over Rs 20,000 crore a year.
• Defence exports have grown more than thirty fold in a decade, and Indian firms now supply parts for global aircraft and missile programmes.
• The AK-203 rifle factory in Amethi and the growing private sector show that manufacturing, not just assembly, is taking root in India.

Points against

• India is still among the world's largest arms importers, and key systems such as fighter engines, submarines and air defence still come from abroad.
• The Tejas programme took over three decades to reach the squadrons, and production rates of about 8 to 16 aircraft a year are far below what the IAF needs.
• Much of the export growth is in small components and ammunition, not in complete weapon platforms that prove full self reliance.

Points for

• A first-use option would strengthen deterrence against Pakistan, which has threatened tactical nuclear weapons, by removing the certainty that India will absorb a first strike.
• China has expanded its arsenal to several hundred warheads, and a rigid No First Use policy limits India's flexibility against a larger nuclear power.
• Deterrence works on uncertainty, and keeping the adversary guessing about India's response is more credible than a public promise never to strike first.

Points against

• No First Use has served India well since 1998, giving it moral standing and keeping the nuclear threshold high in every crisis, including the 2025 conflict.
• A first-use posture would push Pakistan and China to keep their weapons on hair trigger alert, raising the risk of an accidental nuclear war.
• Changing the doctrine would alarm the world, invite sanctions pressure, and damage the civil nuclear cooperation India won through the 2008 NSG waiver.

Points for

• The iDEX programme has already funded hundreds of startups to build drones, AI tools and sensors for the forces, which the DRDO alone was too slow to deliver.
• Private firms work faster and cheaper than public labs, and companies such as L&T and Tata already build hulls, guns and aircraft parts for the services.
• Countries such as the United States build their best weapons through private companies, and India cannot match that pace with government labs alone.

Points against

• Defence R&D needs patient, long term funding without a quick profit, and private firms may abandon strategic projects that do not pay in the short term.
• Giving private firms access to sensitive defence technology creates security and leakage risks that government labs are built to control.
• The DRDO has delivered missiles such as Agni and BrahMos, and weakening it before the private sector is ready would leave a gap in strategic programmes.

Points for

• China has built or funded ports in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Myanmar, and its navy now patrols the Indian Ocean regularly, which threatens India's sea trade.
• About 80 percent of India's oil imports pass through the Indian Ocean, so any hostile presence there is a direct threat to energy security.
• India has answered with its own port projects in Chabahar and Sittwe, and with the Quad partnership, which shows a response is already working.

Points against

• China's port projects are mostly commercial, and treating every Chinese port as a military base pushes neighbours away from India and towards China.
• India cannot match China's spending, and an arms race in the ocean would waste money that should go to the Army and Air Force on the land borders.
• The better answer is diplomacy and trade with island nations, since the Indian Ocean is shared by many countries and cannot be owned by one navy.

Points for

• The April 2025 Pahalgam attack, in which 26 civilians were killed, and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks show that terrorism strikes India again and again.
• Terror groups now use the internet, drones and crypto funding, which makes them harder to track and stop than before.
• No country is safe, as attacks in Europe, the Middle East and Asia show, and terrorism needs a global answer, not a national one.

Points against

• Calling terrorism a global threat is used by big powers to justify wars and surveillance that kill civilians and create more terror.
• Terrorism kills far fewer people than disease, road accidents or poverty, and the fear it creates is out of proportion to the actual risk.
• The real solution is political, since terror grows where people feel excluded and oppressed, and military action alone has never ended it.

Points for

• The number of LWE affected districts has fallen from over 120 in 2013 to under 40 now, which shows the security and development approach is working.
• Top Maoist leaders have been killed or have surrendered in recent years, and the 2025 operations in Chhattisgarh broke the back of the movement.
• Roads, mobile towers and schools are reaching the tribal areas, which removes the isolation that the Maoists exploited.

Points against

• Naxalism grew out of land alienation, mining without benefit to tribals and police excesses, and those root causes have not been fixed.
• Security operations alone have killed civilians and displaced tribals, which creates fresh resentment and new recruits for the Maoists.
• The movement has survived for over 50 years, and declaring victory too early would repeat the mistake of past governments.

Points for

• Countries such as Israel, South Korea and Singapore run compulsory military training, and their citizens are disciplined, fit and ready to defend the nation.
• Training would teach crores of young Indians discipline, first aid, disaster response and national service, which helps in floods, earthquakes and wars.
• The NCC already trains about 14 lakh cadets, and making such training compulsory would spread that benefit to every young Indian.

Points against

• Compulsory training for crores of youth would cost a fortune in instructors, camps and equipment, and India cannot afford it.
• Forcing unwilling youth into military training would create resentment, and the armed forces themselves do not want reluctant recruits.
• India has enough volunteers for the armed forces, and the money is better spent on schools, health and jobs than on training every citizen as a soldier.

Points for

• India has about 170 nuclear warheads and a No First Use policy, but it has no published nuclear doctrine update since 2003, which leaves its thinking unclear.
• India's nuclear arsenal is smaller than China's and Pakistan's combined, and its delivery systems are still catching up in range and numbers.
• The triad is incomplete in practice, and the slow pace of the Arihant class submarines shows a lack of urgency in the sea leg of deterrence.

Points against

• India's doctrine of credible minimum deterrence has kept the peace since 1998, and it deterred both Pakistan and China in every crisis.
• India has built a triad with Agni missiles, Mirage and Rafale aircraft and the INS Arihant submarine, which is a complete deterrent by any standard.
• A quiet, restrained nuclear posture is itself a vision, and shouting about nuclear weapons would only alarm the world and invite an arms race.

Points for

• The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the Ukraine war showed drones destroying tanks and artillery worth billions, changing how battles are fought.
• Drones do surveillance, targeting and strikes without risking a soldier's life, and India used them extensively in the 2025 conflict with Pakistan.
• A drone costs a fraction of a tank or a fighter aircraft, so even a smaller army can hold off a larger one with smart drone tactics.

Points against

• Drones are vulnerable to jamming and air defence, and Ukraine loses thousands of drones a month, which shows they are expendable tools, not a replacement for ground forces.
• Holding ground, winning the trust of local people and fighting in cities still need soldiers, and no drone has ever captured or held territory.
• Drone warfare needs trained operators, secure data links and electronic warfare support, all of which depend on soldiers and technicians behind the screen.

Points for

• Fake news on social media has triggered lynchings and communal tension in India, and platforms cannot claim to be neutral when their algorithms amplify it.
• The IT Rules 2021 already require large platforms to appoint grievance officers and remove illegal content quickly, which is a basic duty of any publisher.
• Children face cyberbullying, addiction and harmful content online, and regulation is needed to protect them where parents and schools cannot.

Points against

• Regulation easily becomes censorship, and the government has used takedown orders against journalists and critics, which the Supreme Court warned against when it struck down Section 66A in 2015.
• Platforms carry billions of posts a day, and no regulator can judge them fairly at that scale without over blocking lawful speech.
• The real fix is digital literacy and transparent platform rules, not government control over what citizens can say online.

Points for

• Every past technology, from the steam engine to the computer, destroyed old jobs and created more new ones, and the World Economic Forum expects new roles in AI, data and green energy to grow.
• AI takes over routine work and lets people do creative, caring and decision making work, which raises productivity and pay.
• India has a large young workforce that can be trained for AI roles, and the IT industry is already shifting towards AI services worth billions.

Points against

• AI is different because it replaces thinking work, not just manual work, and it threatens the coding, support and back office jobs that employ lakhs of Indians.
• The World Economic Forum also warned that 83 million jobs could be displaced by 2027, and new jobs need skills that displaced workers do not have.
• The gains from AI go mostly to capital owners and a small group of skilled workers, which widens inequality instead of creating mass employment.

Points for

• Private startups such as Skyroot and Agnikul have already launched rockets, and opening the sector fully would speed up launches and cut ISRO's workload.
• SpaceX shows what private players can do, with reusable rockets cutting launch costs sharply, and India needs that efficiency to compete.
• A bigger private space sector means more jobs, more exports and cheaper satellite services for farmers, fishermen and disaster management.

Points against

• Space technology is dual use and strategic, and full private access risks sensitive technology leaking to foreign buyers and rivals.
• ISRO built India's space capability over 60 years with public money, and handing the sector to private firms would waste that public investment.
• Space missions need long term funding and can fail, and private firms may avoid risky science missions that have no immediate profit.

Points for

• UPI now handles over 10 billion transactions a month, and direct benefit transfers have sent subsidies straight to bank accounts, cutting middlemen and leaks.
• CoWIN managed over 200 crore vaccine doses, and DigiLocker gives crores of citizens instant access to certificates without queues or bribes.
• Services such as passports, PAN and income tax filing now take days instead of months, which is a real change in how citizens experience the state.

Points against

• Rural India still lacks reliable internet and smartphones, and the digital divide means the poorest citizens are the ones left out of Digital India.
• Many services still need a visit to an office, and the apps often fail, crash or ask for documents that villagers do not have in digital form.
• Digital delivery has also created new exclusions, such as ration and pension denials when biometric authentication fails.

Points for

• Technology rewards a small group of highly skilled workers, while automation takes over routine jobs, which widens the gap between the skilled and the unskilled.
• The gig economy, built on apps and algorithms, pays drivers and delivery workers low wages with no security, while platform owners earn billions.
• The digital divide means the rich get online education, health and banking, while the poor are left out of the digital economy.

Points against

• Technology also creates opportunity, with UPI, smartphones and cheap internet letting a street vendor take digital payments and a farmer check crop prices.
• The IT industry has created lakhs of middle class jobs, and tech enabled services such as telemedicine reach villages that never had a doctor.
• Income gaps come from unequal education and poor policy, not from technology itself, and the same technology can close gaps if access is equal.

Points for

• Article 44 of the Constitution directs the state to work towards a uniform civil code, and equal laws for all citizens are a basic demand of equality.
• Different personal laws leave women with unequal rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance, and a common code would give every woman the same protection.
• Uttarakhand passed a UCC in 2024 and Goa has lived under a common civil code for decades, which shows the idea can work in practice.

Points against

• India is a deeply diverse country, and one code imposed from above would be seen as an attack on minority identity and could deepen communal tension.
• Personal laws are tied to faith and custom, and reform should come through debate within each community rather than through a single law.
• The real need is reform of discriminatory practices in every community, and a UCC debate distracts from that practical work.

Points for

• The creamy layer income limit of Rs 8 lakh a year has not been revised since 2017, and inflation has pushed many genuinely needy families above it.
• Benefits are cornered by the better off within reserved categories, while the poorest in the same communities still miss out on education and jobs.
• The Supreme Court itself allowed sub-classification within reserved categories in 2024, which shows the system must be refined to reach the truly disadvantaged.

Points against

• Reservation is about representation and historical exclusion, not poverty, so an income test misses the point of why it exists.
• Raising the creamy layer limit would shrink the pool of beneficiaries and hand a political weapon to those who want to end reservation altogether.
• The problem is not the limit but the lack of data, and the pending caste census should come first before any change in the criteria.

Points for

• The death penalty has not been shown to deter murder or terror better than life imprisonment, and most countries have now abolished it.
• Indian courts take years to decide mercy petitions, leaving prisoners in solitary uncertainty for a decade or more, which is itself cruel.
• Wrongful convictions happen, and a death sentence cannot be undone, while a life sentence can be corrected if new evidence appears.

Points against

• Crimes such as the 2012 Delhi gang rape and child rape demand the strongest punishment, and abolition would feel like the state abandoning the victims.
• Terror cases and the rarest of rare doctrine already limit the death penalty to exceptional cases, so the system is not used loosely.
• Public faith in justice depends on punishment matching the crime, and removing the death penalty could push victims' families towards private revenge.

Points for

• The Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality in 2018, and marriage rights on adoption, inheritance and hospital access are the practical next step for equal citizenship.
• More than 30 countries have legalised same-sex marriage, and their experience shows no harm to the institution of marriage.
• Denying marriage rights forces same-sex couples to live without legal protection in emergencies, which is a question of dignity, not of culture.

Points against

• The Supreme Court itself said in 2023 that this is a matter for Parliament, not the courts, because marriage law in India is tied to personal laws and social norms.
• Indian society is not ready for such a change, and a law passed without social acceptance would be ignored in practice and could trigger a backlash.
• The priority should be practical protections such as hospital visitation and inheritance rights, which can be given without redefining marriage.

Points for

• India is now the world's most populous country with over 1.4 billion people, and that young population can power growth if it is educated and skilled.
• A large population means a large market and a large workforce, which is why global companies want to manufacture and sell in India.
• Population growth is already slowing, with the fertility rate below replacement level at about 2.0, which shows the problem is easing on its own.

Points against

• India adds about 14 million people a year, which puts pressure on water, land, jobs and cities that are already overcrowded.
• The demographic dividend only works if there are jobs, and with unemployment high among the youth, a large population becomes a burden instead of an asset.
• Overpopulation strains food, health and education, and states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh show what happens when growth outruns services.

Points for

• India ranked 96th of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, which shows the problem is still serious.
• Corruption hits ordinary people daily, from bribes for certificates and land records to scams in recruitment and welfare schemes.
• Big scams in banking, mining and defence show that corruption reaches the top, and the slow pace of trials lets the guilty escape punishment for years.

Points against

• Digital payments, direct benefit transfers and online services have cut the middlemen who once took bribes, and leakages in welfare have fallen sharply.
• Institutions such as the CAG, the CVC and the courts have exposed and punished major scams, which shows the system can correct itself.
• Calling all of India corrupt is unfair to the lakhs of honest officials and the crores of citizens who now use faceless, online government services.

Points for

• The Women's Reservation Act of 2023 reserves one third of seats in Parliament and state assemblies for women, which will change Indian politics.
• Women now fly fighter jets, lead companies and run panchayats, and schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao have improved the sex ratio at birth.
• Educating a girl raises the income of the whole family, and women's self help groups have brought crores of rural women into banking and business.

Points against

• Women hold only about 14 percent of Lok Sabha seats even now, and the reservation law will only apply after delimitation, which may take years.
• Female labour force participation in India is still low, and many educated women leave work after marriage because of family pressure and unsafe workplaces.
• Empowerment schemes are often only on paper, and crimes against women, from domestic violence to dowry deaths, continue across the country.

Points for

• Private hospitals have brought world class treatment, modern equipment and short waiting times to India, and medical tourism earns billions in foreign exchange.
• Competition between hospitals improves quality, and private investment built the hospital beds and labs that the public system could not afford.
• Ayushman Bharat now pays private hospitals to treat the poor, which shows the public and private systems can work together.

Points against

• Private hospitals charge huge bills, and families sell land and jewellery to pay for treatment, which pushes crores into poverty every year.
• The profit motive leads to unnecessary tests, surgeries and long ICU stays, and patients cannot judge whether the treatment is needed.
• Commercialization has made doctors into salesmen and medicine into a business, while public hospitals, where the poor go, remain overcrowded and underfunded.

Points for

• India holds elections almost every year, and the Model Code of Conduct freezes government decisions for months at a time, which slows development work.
• Simultaneous elections would save thousands of crores spent on repeated polls and free up teachers and security forces who are pulled into election duty.
• The Kovind committee in 2024 studied the idea in detail, and holding Lok Sabha and assembly polls together was the norm in India till 1967.

Points against

• It needs constitutional amendments and the agreement of states, and forcing assemblies into a common cycle would cut short the mandate voters gave them.
• If all elections happen together, national issues would dominate and regional parties and local issues would lose the attention they deserve.
• A hung Lok Sabha or a government falling mid term would break the cycle, and there is no clean answer for how to handle that.

Points for

• Voter turnout in Indian elections is about 65 percent, which means a third of citizens do not vote, and the government is chosen by a minority of the people.
• Compulsory voting, as in Australia, forces parties to appeal to every citizen instead of only their core supporters, which improves the quality of politics.
• Voting is a duty of citizenship like paying taxes, and a small fine for not voting is a fair price for a right that many fought to win.

Points against

• Forcing people to vote violates their freedom, including the right not to vote, which the Supreme Court recognised with the NOTA option in 2013.
• Compulsory voting would produce random and uninformed votes, since people who do not care would vote for any name on the list.
• India struggles to run free and fair elections as it is, and adding fines and enforcement would create harassment, especially for migrant workers and the poor.

Points for

• The Council was built in 1945 and still reflects the winners of a war that ended 80 years ago, while India, with 1.4 billion people, has no permanent seat.
• The veto has blocked action on Ukraine and Gaza, which shows the Council cannot do the job it was created for.
• India is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping, with over 2 lakh troops served, and its economy is now among the top five in the world, which strengthens its claim.

Points against

• Reform needs the agreement of the five permanent members, and none of them will give up the veto, so the demand, however just, has no practical path.
• Adding more permanent members would make the Council slower and more divided, not more effective, since more vetoes mean more deadlock.
• India should focus on building its own economic and military strength, since power, not speeches, is what wins a permanent seat.

Points for

• India and Pakistan share history, language, culture and families across the border, and peace would open trade worth billions and a better life for Kashmiris.
• The ceasefire of February 2021 held for years, which proves that both armies can keep the border quiet when there is political will.
• Both countries face poverty, climate change and water stress, and those shared problems need cooperation, not a permanent standoff.

Points against

• Pakistan's army and terror groups have launched attacks from Kargil in 1999 to Pahalgam in 2025, and dialogue has been betrayed every time.
• India tried dialogue, trade and cricket diplomacy for decades, and the answer was 26/11, Pulwama and Pahalgam, which shows talks do not work.
• The May 2025 Operation Sindoor strikes showed that firm military action deters Pakistan better than any number of peace talks.

Points for

• China is India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade above 100 billion dollars, and both economies gain from that trade.
• The October 2024 disengagement agreement on the LAC showed that diplomacy can reduce tension, and both countries want stability for growth.
• As the two largest developing nations, India and China share interests in climate talks, BRICS and a multipolar world.

Points against

• China killed 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan in 2020, built villages in disputed areas and claims Arunachal Pradesh, which no trade can excuse.
• China blocks India's entry to the NSG, shields Pakistan based terrorists at the UN, and expands in the Indian Ocean, which shows it wants to contain India.
• Trade with China gives India a deficit of about 99 billion dollars, which means the relationship benefits China far more than India.

Points for

• Article 370 gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status that kept it apart from India for 70 years, and its removal in August 2019 completed national integration.
• After abrogation, central laws on women's rights, child protection and reservation now apply in Jammu and Kashmir, which removed long standing discrimination.
• The Supreme Court upheld the abrogation in December 2023, and the 2024 assembly elections with high turnout showed that democracy is returning to the region.

Points against

• A state was turned into a Union Territory and its elected assembly was suspended, which hurt the federal structure of India.
• The abrogation was done without the consent of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and the communication blackout and detentions that followed damaged trust.
• The promise that abrogation would end terrorism has not fully come true, as attacks continued in Jammu and Kashmir after 2019.

Points for

• India ranked 151st of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, which shows the press faces serious pressure.
• Journalists have been raided, arrested and charged under harsh laws, and many newsrooms now avoid stories that criticise the government.
• Media ownership is concentrated in a few big business houses, which depend on government advertising and are afraid to question power.

Points against

• India has hundreds of TV channels, thousands of newspapers and a free social media space where the government is criticised every day.
• The press in every country faces limits, and India still has an independent Supreme Court and an Election Commission that the press can report on freely.
• Many of the attacks on the press come from political parties and online mobs, not from the state, and the answer is stronger media ethics, not panic.

Points for

• India is the world's most populous nation, the fourth largest economy and the fastest growing major economy, with growth above 6 percent a year.
• India leads the world in digital payments, has the third largest startup ecosystem and landed on the Moon's south pole with Chandrayaan-3 in 2023.
• The world now seeks India's support, from the G20 presidency in 2023 to the Quad and BRICS, which shows global influence, not just size.

Points against

• A superpower needs more than size, and India still has the world's largest number of poor people, low per capita income of about 2,800 dollars and poor human development rankings.
• India depends on imports for oil, weapons and electronics, and it cannot yet project military power far beyond its own region.
• Superpower talk distracts from the real work of jobs, education and health, and the slogan has been repeated since the 1990s without the results to match.

Points for

• Manufacturing creates far more jobs for semi skilled workers than services, and India needs jobs for the millions leaving farming each year.
• China became rich through manufacturing, and the PLI scheme shows India can win in electronics, phones and solar panels when it tries.
• Depending on services alone leaves India exposed, since services are about 55 percent of the economy while manufacturing is only about 17 percent.

Points against

• Services are India's proven strength, with IT exports of about 200 billion dollars a year, and abandoning that lead would waste a world class advantage.
• Manufacturing needs land, power, logistics and labour reform first, and without those, a manufacturing push will repeat the slow progress of Make in India.
• The real answer is both: high value manufacturing plus services, since modern factories themselves need software, design and logistics services.

Points for

• Public sector banks have needed repeated capital from the taxpayer, with the government putting in lakhs of crores to cover bad loans, and private management would lend more carefully.
• Private banks in India grow faster, earn more and serve customers better, which shows that government ownership is not needed for good banking.
• Privatisation would let the government use the sale money for health, education and infrastructure instead of rescuing weak banks.

Points against

• Public sector banks run most of India's branches in villages and small towns, and private banks would close unprofitable branches and cut off the poor.
• Schemes such as Jan Dhan, which opened over 50 crore accounts, succeeded because public banks were ordered to serve everyone, not because it was profitable.
• Banking is a sensitive sector, and a private bank failure would shake public trust, so the government must keep a strong public presence in banking.

Points for

• A ban does not work, since Indians already hold crypto worth thousands of crores, and regulation would bring it into the tax net and protect investors.
• Blockchain technology behind crypto has real uses in payments, supply chains and records, and India should not lose that innovation to other countries.
• India already taxes crypto at 30 percent, which is an admission that it exists, so a clear regulatory framework is more honest than a ban.

Points against

• Crypto has no underlying value, prices swing wildly, and lakhs of small investors have lost money in scams and exchange collapses.
• Crypto is used for money laundering, terror funding and drug trade, and the RBI has warned repeatedly that it threatens financial stability.
• The digital rupee from the RBI already gives India a safe digital currency, so there is no need to allow private crypto at all.

Points for

• GST replaced 17 taxes and hundreds of check posts with one tax, and monthly collections now regularly cross Rs 2 lakh crore, which shows it works.
• Trucks move faster without state border delays, and the input tax credit chain has pushed more businesses into the formal economy.
• The GST Council gives states and the Centre a joint table to decide tax rates, which is a model of cooperative federalism.

Points against

• Multiple slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent, plus special rates, mean GST is not the single simple tax it was promised to be.
• Small businesses struggle with monthly filing and compliance costs, and frequent rule changes create confusion for traders.
• States complain of revenue loss and delayed compensation, and items such as petrol and alcohol are still outside GST, which keeps the system incomplete.

Points for

• India has over 100 unicorns and more than a lakh of recognised startups, built by founders and private venture capital, not by government money.
• The funding winter of 2022-23 tested the ecosystem, and the startups that survived did so by cutting costs and finding real revenue, which is a healthy sign.
• Private capital in India is now deep enough, with domestic venture funds and family offices, to support startups without state handouts.

Points against

• Most unicorns are still loss making, and the funding winter showed how quickly money dries up when global interest rates rise.
• Startups depend on government built infrastructure such as UPI, Aadhaar and ONDC, so calling them independent of the state is not honest.
• Deep tech, space and defence startups need patient government funding for years before any private investor will touch them.

Points for

• The youth unemployment rate in urban areas is above 10 percent, which means lakhs of graduates are without work despite degrees.
• India needs to create about 8 million jobs a year for its growing workforce, and the formal sector is not creating them fast enough.
• The spread of gig work and contract jobs shows that even the employed lack security, benefits and a stable income.

Points against

• The overall unemployment rate under the PLFS is about 3.2 percent, which is low, and most Indians work in farming and informal work that surveys count poorly.
• Schemes such as Mudra loans, Startup India and the PLI programme have created self employment and small business jobs that do not show up in formal data.
• The real problem is not unemployment but unemployability, since employers say graduates lack the skills industry needs.

Points for

• India runs a trade deficit of about 99 billion dollars with China, which means Indian money flows out and Chinese goods flood Indian shops.
• Chinese dumping in steel, solar panels and electronics has hurt Indian manufacturers, and many small factories have closed because they cannot match Chinese prices.
• Dependence on China for active pharmaceutical ingredients and electronics parts is a security risk, as the pandemic showed.

Points against

• Cheap Chinese goods keep prices low for Indian consumers, and Chinese inputs make Indian exports such as phones and medicines competitive.
• The deficit is also a result of India's own weak manufacturing, and blaming China avoids the reforms India needs in land, labour and logistics.
• India can compete, as the mobile phone industry shows, where local manufacturing grew sharply under the PLI scheme.

Points for

• Aid creates dependence and rarely reaches the poor, while trade creates jobs, factories and skills that last after the aid money stops.
• Countries such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh grew rich through exports, not through aid, and trade gave them dignity as well as income.
• Aid often comes with conditions set by rich countries, while trade lets developing nations decide for themselves what to make and sell.

Points against

• The poorest countries cannot trade because they lack roads, power and ports, and aid is needed to build that basic infrastructure first.
• Rich countries protect their own farmers and factories with tariffs and subsidies, so free trade is not fair trade for developing nations.
• Aid saves lives in health and food crises, and no amount of trade theory helps a country facing famine or an epidemic today.

Points for

• The world has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, and India faced record heatwaves in 2024 with temperatures crossing 50 degrees in Delhi.
• Himalayan glaciers are retreating, which threatens the rivers that supply water to crores of Indians, and sea level rise threatens Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
• India is among the most climate vulnerable countries, with floods, droughts and cyclones already costing lives and thousands of crores each year.

Points against

• India contributes only about 7 percent of global emissions while the developed world caused most of the warming, so India should not be asked to slow its growth.
• Warming also brings some benefits, such as longer growing seasons in cold regions, and technology will help humans adapt as it always has.
• For a country where crores still lack electricity and clean cooking fuel, cheap energy and development matter more than emission targets set by rich nations.

Points for

• NITI Aayog warned that about 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress, and 21 major cities could run out of groundwater.
• Groundwater is falling by metres a year in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and farming uses about 90 percent of groundwater, which is not sustainable.
• Cities such as Bengaluru faced a severe water crisis in 2024, with tanker prices soaring and residents queuing for water.

Points against

• India receives enough rainfall, about 4,000 billion cubic metres a year, and the problem is storage and management, not absolute shortage.
• Israel and Singapore show that recycling, desalination and drip irrigation can solve water stress with existing technology.
• Missions such as Jal Shakti Abhiyan and Jal Jeevan Mission have already given tap water to crores of rural homes, which shows progress is possible.

Points for

• The Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has run for over a century, and tribunal awards take decades while farmers suffer every summer.
• India has about 30 major inter-state river disputes, and the current tribunal system is slow, with awards delayed by years of legal challenge.
• The Indus Waters Treaty was put in abeyance in 2025 after the Pahalgam attack, which shows water has become a tool of national security as well.

Points against

• Water is a state subject, and a central takeover would hurt federalism, since states know their rivers and farmers best.
• Tribunals have settled many disputes fairly, and the problem is political, since state governments use water as an election issue instead of accepting awards.
• The real fix is better water use, with drip irrigation and crop change, since even a fair award cannot create water that does not exist.

Points for

• India generates about 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste a year, and polythene bags choke drains, kill cattle and pollute rivers and the sea.
• The single-use plastic ban of 2022 shows the government agrees, and cities that enforced bans have cleaner streets and drains.
• Alternatives such as cloth bags, jute bags and paper bags are cheap, reusable and create jobs for small makers.

Points against

• A ban without alternatives hurts small shopkeepers and the poor, who depend on cheap polythene bags for daily shopping.
• Bans are poorly enforced, and the real problem is waste collection, since even banned bags are sold openly in most markets.
• The plastic industry employs lakhs of workers, and a sudden ban would destroy their jobs without a plan for them.

Points for

• The RTE Act of 2009 made free education a fundamental right for children aged 6 to 14, and enrolment is now near universal in primary schools.
• Education is the surest way out of poverty, and every year of schooling raises a person's income and health.
• The ASER reports show learning gaps, but enrolment success proves the state can deliver education when it commits to it.

Points against

• The RTE Act is poorly enforced, with many schools lacking teachers, toilets and classrooms, and learning levels are still low, with many Class 5 children unable to read a Class 2 text.
• The Act covers only ages 6 to 14, which leaves out pre-primary and secondary education, where dropout rates are high.
• Private schools follow the Act only partly, and the 25 percent quota for poor children is often blocked by paperwork and fees.

Points for

• The coaching industry in India is worth tens of thousands of crores, and families spend lakhs on coaching for exams, which only the rich can afford.
• Private schools and colleges charge high fees and capitation, and the collapse of edtech firms such as BYJU'S showed how profit was put before learning.
• Education is now sold like a product, with advertisements promising ranks and packages, while the poor are left with underfunded government schools.

Points against

• Private investment built the colleges, schools and online platforms that the government could not, and competition has raised standards in many places.
• Parents choose private schools because government schools fail, and blaming business avoids the real problem, which is the quality of public education.
• Coaching exists because exams are tough and seats are few, and the business only serves a demand that the education system itself created.

Points for

• The system rewards rote learning and marks, and the ASER reports show children who pass exams but cannot read or do basic maths.
• India has one of the world's largest youth populations, yet employers say graduates lack the skills for the jobs that exist.
• The National Education Policy 2020 itself says the system must change, with less rote, more skills and mother tongue teaching in early years.

Points against

• The system has produced world class doctors, engineers and scientists, and India's IIT and IIM graduates lead global companies.
• Change for the sake of change is risky, and the NEP 2020 is already being implemented, so the question is implementation, not another new system.
• The real problems are teacher shortages and poor school funding, and a new system on paper will not fix empty classrooms.

Points for

• Attendance forces students to attend lectures, meet teachers and learn with classmates, which is the point of college.
• The 75 percent attendance rule exists because students who skip classes fail more often and learn less.
• College is not just about exams, and regular attendance builds discipline, friendships and the habit of showing up that employers want.

Points against

• Forcing attendance wastes the time of students who can learn faster online, and many lectures are outdated or poorly taught.
• Students who work part time, prepare for competitive exams or run a business cannot attend every class, and the rule punishes them unfairly.
• The NEP 2020 promotes flexible learning, and attendance should be replaced by learning outcomes, since what matters is what a student knows, not where they sat.