The Hindu Editorial Analysis : 15th July 2026

The Hindu Editorial Analysis

We understand the significance of reading The Hindu newspaper for enhancing reading skills, improving comprehension of passages, staying informed about current events, enhancing essay writing, and more, especially for banking aspirants who need to focus on editorials for vocabulary building. This article will explore today’s editorial points, along with practice questions and key vocabulary.

SC Says Citizenship Decisions Must Be Fair and Lawful

• The Supreme Court on Monday said that deciding whether a person is an Indian citizen or a foreigner must be done through a process that is fair, legal, and based on proper reasons.
• The Court cancelled 27 judgments of the Gauhati High Court that had declared the appellants to be foreigners.
• The cases were sent back to the concerned Foreigners’ Tribunals so that they could be examined again and fresh decisions could be taken.
• A Bench made up of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta heard the matter.
• The Bench said that the government has a genuine interest in making sure that people who are not legally entitled to Indian citizenship do not get it by making false claims.
• However, the Court said that being declared a foreigner has very serious consequences, and therefore the procedure must follow constitutional protections and safeguards.
• Justice Vikram Nath, who wrote the judgment, said that an action by the State cannot become lawful just because it is supported by a law if that action itself is arbitrary.
• The judgment further said that proceedings that may end with a person being declared a foreigner cannot be accepted if the process is mechanical, one-sided, or carried out without proper application of mind.
• The Court said that the Tribunal must check whether the person concerned was given a fair chance to present his or her side of the case.
• It must also see whether the main allegations against the person were clearly made known to him or her.
• The Tribunal should also examine whether the evidence placed before it was enough to support the reference made against the person.
• It must also decide whether the conclusion reached actually follows from the material available on record.
• The Gauhati High Court had earlier rejected appeals filed against the decisions of the Foreigners’ Tribunals.
• The High Court had noted that none of the appellants had appeared before the Tribunals even though notices had been served on them.
• It observed that because the appellants had not filed written statements, documents, or evidence to support their claims, the Tribunals had no option except to accept the references and declare them foreigners.
• The Supreme Court, however, made it clear that sending the cases back for reconsideration should not be seen as accepting the appellants’ claim that they are Indian citizens.
• The Court explained that the purpose of sending the cases back was only to make sure that the serious consequences of being declared a foreigner arise only after a decision that is legally sound and fair.
• Accordingly, the Bench cancelled both the judgments of the Gauhati High Court and the related opinions given by the concerned Foreigners’ Tribunals.
• The Tribunals were told to decide the cases again without being influenced by their earlier findings or by the observations made by the High Court.
• The Supreme Court directed that the fresh proceedings must include an independent examination of the evidence and the claims made by both sides according to law.
• It further directed that, as far as possible, the fresh decisions should be completed within six months.
• The Court also ordered that no coercive action should be taken against the appellants until the Foreigners’ Tribunals give fresh opinions in the cases.
• The appellants were directed to appear before the concerned Tribunals within four weeks.
• Justice Nath accepted that questions related to citizenship and foreigner status involve issues of great constitutional and legal importance.
• He said that declaring a person to be a foreigner has consequences that go far beyond ordinary civil consequences.
• Such a declaration may lead to detention.
• It may also result in deportation from the country.
• A person may be separated from family members and the community in which they live.
• In some cases, it may even lead to a person becoming stateless.
• The Supreme Court further said that Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946 clearly puts the burden on the person facing proceedings to prove that he or she is not a foreigner.
• However, the existence of this burden does not remove the Tribunal’s duty to carry out a lawful and proper decision-making process.
• The Court stressed that Tribunals should not declare a person to be a foreigner in a mechanical manner.
• The Bench also pointed out that the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law under Article 14 applies to foreigners as well.
• It further observed that the protection of life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution is also available to foreigners and is not limited only to Indian citizens.
• The Court said that a person appearing before a Foreigners’ Tribunal may ultimately fail to prove Indian citizenship.
• Even then, the process used to reach that decision must satisfy constitutional requirements and standards of fairness.
• The main issue before the Supreme Court was whether a person can be declared a foreigner through ex parte proceedings only because he or she did not appear before the Tribunal.
• The Court especially examined situations where government records supporting a claim to Indian citizenship were available despite such non-appearance.
• The dispute began with an order dated May 9, 1997, passed by the Illegal Migrants (Determination) Tribunal.
• In that order, the Tribunal declared Sabitri Dey and her husband, Sambhu Dey, to be illegal migrants.
• The declaration was made after they failed to appear before the Tribunal even though summons had been issued to them.
• The petitioners argued before the Court that they had no knowledge of the proceedings against them.
• They also argued that the Tribunal’s decision was mainly based on the hearsay statement of the inquiry officer.
• According to the petitioners, the finding was not supported by reliable and solid evidence.

Researchers report user data exposure due to flaws in the UMANG portal

• Security researchers Akshay C.S. and Viral Vaghela found several security problems in the UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) portal and shared what they found with The Hindu.
• UMANG is a platform that brings together hundreds of government services provided by both the Central and State governments.
• According to the researchers, these security flaws are exposing the data of possibly millions of Indians across many databases, including those of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
• The researchers said that these security problems may have been present for several years.
• The problems affected several services that were tested on the UMANG portal.
• UMANG currently gives access to more than 2,400 services.
• The researchers said that the main reason for the problem was the way the portal itself was designed and built.
• Viral Vaghela said that “almost everything is broken by design.”
• The exposed information included Unique Account Numbers (UANs) connected to EPFO accounts.
• The security flaws also exposed LPG cylinder booking details linked with at least one major oil marketing company.
• Aadhaar numbers were also exposed in several services where users’ identity information had been saved.
• The researchers found that Aadhaar numbers were being stored in plain text in many services.
• Keeping Aadhaar numbers in plain text is not allowed under the Aadhaar Act, 2016.
• However, the Aadhaar section inside UMANG itself was not found to have any security problem.
• The EPFO section is the most used service available on UMANG.
• During the previous three months, the EPFO section had recorded more than 40 crore transactions.
• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology accepted that these security flaws existed in a statement given to The Hindu.
• The Ministry said that its development and security teams had carefully checked the observations shared by the researchers.
• The Ministry also said that the teams were putting in place the necessary corrective and preventive measures.
• The Ministry further said that the plain-text information present in the affected APIs had been properly encrypted.
• The Ministry also said that it had checked API transaction logs from the previous three months.
• According to the Ministry, the number of transactions during this period looked normal and showed no unusual activity.
• The Ministry said that it continued to keep watch on activities taking place on the UMANG portal.
• The Hindu chose not to publish the exact technical details of the security flaws because they were still active even after the actions already taken.
• Akshay C.S. said that the encryption method mentioned by the IT Ministry was weak and not good enough.
• He added that there was a simple way to get around the protection system and break it anyway.
• At the request of The Hindu, the researchers shared their findings with independent security researcher Karan Saini.
• Karan Saini described the security flaws as “significant.”
• Saini said that rate limiting had been added to the platform.
• He also pointed out that EPFO UAN numbers exist within a very large number range.
• Because of these reasons, he said it was unlikely that attackers could have used the flaw to make a complete copy of the entire EPFO database.
• However, he warned that cybercriminals who already had UAN numbers could still misuse the flaw on a large scale.
• According to him, the security flaw could have allowed attackers to change the bank account details connected to EPFO accounts.
• It could also have allowed them to start payouts.
• Saini said that possibilities like these made the issue very serious and worrying.
• He further said that the fixes first introduced after the security flaws were reported did not actually make the system secure.
• According to Saini, those fixes only created a false feeling of security by depending on secrecy instead of real protection.
• He added that those fixes themselves created another security flaw in the system.
• Akshay C.S. and Viral Vaghela reported both security flaws to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
• They also reported the issues to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
• CERT-In is responsible for issuing warnings and helping organisations across the country find and fix security problems.
• Soon after the researchers submitted their reports, EPFO shut down its online portal for what it called a “migration.”
• Some EPFO services were still unavailable during the week when the report was published.
• The researchers said they believed that the shutdown and migration work happened because of the warnings they had sent.
• They had also shared their findings directly with EPFO.
• The Ministry of Labour and Employment did not respond to requests for comments about the issue.
• Karan Saini said that it was important to check whether the fixes made on the UMANG portal had also been applied to the original services for which UMANG acts as a middle platform.

CBSE Issues New Circular on Assessment of the Third Language

• The third language (R3) will not be a part of the Class 10 Board examination for students who enter Class 10 from the academic session 2027-28.
• However, according to the new circular issued by CBSE, students must pass the school-level assessment of the third language (R3) in Class 10 to get the Secondary School Examination pass certificate.
• This means that if a student fails in the internal assessment of the third language in Class 10, the school will have to conduct another assessment before the final Board results are declared.
• This instruction was given in the CBSE circular dated July 10.
• The circular also says that if a student studying in Class 9 does not pass the school-based R3 assessment, the student will still be promoted to Class 10 in the academic year 2027-28.
• However, such students will have to clear the remaining Class 9 third-language assessment while they are studying in Class 10.
• The July 10 circular came after an earlier CBSE circular issued on June 29.
• The June 29 circular stated that the three-language formula will be introduced from Class 6 onwards starting from the academic session 2026-27.
• Under this policy, students will have to study three languages, and at least two of those languages must be Indian languages.
• Students studying in Classes 7, 8 and 9 who had already chosen an extra foreign language along with English will be allowed to continue studying that foreign language.
• Along with that foreign language and English, these students will also have to study a third language that is native to India.
• Earlier, students in Class 9 were allowed to stop studying the third language.
• However, the CBSE guidelines issued on June 29 and later on July 10 made the third language compulsory for Class 9 students from the academic session 2026-27.
• The same rule will also apply to Class 10 students from the academic session 2027-28.
• These circulars will not apply to the current batch of Class 10 students studying in the academic session 2026-27.
• Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has submitted its reply in a writ petition that challenges the CBSE circulars related to the three-language policy.
• The petitioners have asked CBSE to bring back its earlier position mentioned in the April 9 circular.
• According to that earlier position, making the third language compulsory in Class 9 had effectively been delayed until the academic session 2029-30.
• The Ministry defended the policy through a nine-page counter-affidavit filed on July 13.
• The counter-affidavit was accessed by the newspaper The Hindu.
• The government’s response was filed after the Supreme Court issued a notice on May 27, 2026.
• The response was submitted by Subhash Chand, who is the Undersecretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy.
• The Central Government stated that education comes under the Concurrent List of the Constitution.
• This means that both the Union Government and the State Governments share the responsibility of implementing the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.
• The Centre further stated that implementing the three-language formula serves several important public purposes.
• These purposes include encouraging students to become comfortable with multiple languages.
• The policy also aims to protect and promote Indian languages.
• Another purpose is to support the mental and learning development of students.
• The Centre also stated that the policy encourages constitutional values such as national unity and cultural diversity.

Important Questions

1. Why did the Supreme Court cancel the judgments of the Gauhati High Court and send the citizenship cases back to the concerned Foreigners’ Tribunals for fresh decisions?
2. According to the Supreme Court judgment, why cannot the Foreigners’ Tribunals declare a person to be a foreigner through a mechanical or one-sided decision-making process?
3. What kinds of personal information were exposed because of the security flaws found in the UMANG portal services?
4. Why did independent security researcher Karan Saini consider the UMANG portal security flaws to be significant and serious?
5. Why must Class 10 students pass the school-level assessment of the third language to receive the CBSE Secondary School Examination pass certificate?
6. According to the Central Government counter-affidavit, what public purposes are served by implementing the three-language formula under the National Education Policy, 2020?

Important Vocabulary

1. arbitrary — based on personal choice instead of fairness or reason.
2. deportation — the act of forcing a foreigner to leave a country.
3. stateless — not legally recognised as a citizen of any country.
4. constitutional — related to the Constitution and its principles.
5. exposure — the state of information becoming visible or accessible.
6. encrypted — converted into coded form to protect information.
7. transactions — activities involving the exchange or processing of data or money.
8. migration — the process of moving a system or data to another setup.
9. assessment — a process of testing or evaluating performance.
10. academic — related to education or studies.
11. counter-affidavit — a written reply submitted in court against a claim.
12. Concurrent — shared jointly by two authorities or governments.

Download Online Mock Test Mobile APP

• Join Official Telegram Channel
• Join Official Whatsapp Group

Get FREE Study Materials & PDFs for IBPS , RBI, SBI, LIC AAO , LIC Assistant, NIACL & Other Exams Over the mail and Whatsapp