Daily Current Affairs – 3 October 2025

Explore the Daily Current Affairs 3 October 2025, relevant for UPSC exam. Also download quick REVISION NOTES.

Key developments:

• Shift from coordination to command through proposed Integrated Theatre Commands.
• Establishment of tri-service agencies for cyber, space, and special operations.
• Creation of modular Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) like Rudra and Bhairav.
• Procurement of platforms like MQ-9B drones, Rafale-M, and systems like Akashteer to enable joint operations.
• Emphasis on Professional Military Education (PME) to develop technologist-commanders.
• Call for stronger civil-military fusion involving DRDO, private sector, and academia to support rapid prototyping and innovation.
• Need for joint doctrines, data interoperability, and operational testing to ensure reforms translate into combat readiness.

What is Integrated Theatre Commands?

An Integrated Theatre Command is a unified military formation that brings personnel and assets of the Army, Navy, and Air Force under one operational commander for a specific geographic area or theatre of war.

Instead of each service operating separately in a region, an ITC ensures joint planning, coordination, and execution of operations across all domains like land, air, sea, cyber and space, under a single command structure.

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Localized measures include:

1. Construction and maintenance of embankments, levees, and flood walls tailored to the topography.
2. Improved urban drainage systems to reduce waterlogging in cities.
3. Restoration of natural water bodies like wetlands and ponds that absorb excess water.
4. Early warning systems specific to local river basins.

Soil Conservation to Prevent Landslides and Land Degradation:

In hilly areas, deforestation, unplanned construction, and road cutting exacerbate soil erosion and landslide risks.

Soil conservation techniques such as:

• Contour bunding
• Afforestation and reforestation
• Terracing on slopes
• Controlled grazing
• Check dams to slow runoff
• help stabilize soil and reduce disaster risks.

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Key highlights:

1. Cybercriminals exploit human behavior (fear, trust, greed) using social engineering, rather than just hacking skills. Vulnerable groups including elderly, rural citizens, low digital literacy, are prime targets. Examples: OTP frauds, phishing, “digital arrests” (fake police calls).
2. Systemic and Institutional Failures: Weak KYC norms allow mule accounts for laundering stolen money. Cyber police are ill-equipped, understaffed, and lack rapid-response capabilities. Lack of inter-agency and inter-bank communication weakens detection.
3. Technological Solutions and AI’s Role:

• AI & Machine Learning can build personalized transaction profiles to detect abnormal patterns and flag suspicious activities.
• Cross-institutional platforms for real-time fraud intelligence sharing can close gaps between banks, telecom, and enforcement agencies.
• Blockchain can secure customer data, ensuring tamper-proof records.
• Cyber police need 24/7 rapid-response units equipped with AI tools for timely intervention.

What is Social engineering?

Social Engineering is a technique used by cybercriminals to manipulate or trick people into divulging confidential information like passwords, bank details or personal data, or into performing actions that compromise security. Unlike traditional hacking, which targets computer systems directly, social engineering exploits human psychology such as fear, trust, curiosity, or urgency, to bypass technical defenses.

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Major Concerns:

1. The burden is highly urban-centric, with over 60% of e-waste concentrated in just 65 cities including hotspots like Seelampur (Delhi), Moradabad (UP), and Bhiwandi (Maharashtra).
2. Despite having 322 formal recycling units capable of processing over 2.2 million tonnes annually, more than half of India’s e-waste is still handled informally or dumped, highlighting the gap between infrastructure and actual practice.
3. Informal sector workers, often poor, marginalized, including children, manually dismantle electronics using hazardous methods: open-air burning, acid leaching, and dumping. These practices release toxic substances including heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium), persistent organic pollutants, and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10).
4. Particulate matter concentrations in e-waste recycling areas exceed WHO safety limits by over 12 times, posing severe air quality and health risks.
5. Respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, and persistent coughing are widespread among informal workers.
6. Neurological damage, especially in children, from exposure to neurotoxins like lead and mercury, causes cognitive impairment, developmental delays, reduced IQ, and behavioral disorders.

Way Forward: Multi-Pronged Strategy Required:

• Formalising the informal sector by integrating workers with skill certification, protective gear, safe workplaces, healthcare, and social security.
• Strengthening regulatory enforcement through empowered pollution control boards, digital tracking of e-waste, and mandatory environmental audits.
• Expanding medical surveillance and research, particularly focusing on children and vulnerable populations in hotspots.
• Encouraging innovation in affordable, local recycling technologies and decentralised treatment to improve safety and efficiency.
• Launching widespread awareness campaigns and incorporating e-waste education in school curricula to build a culture of responsibility.

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Daily Current Affairs 3 October 2025

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