UPSC Daily Current Affairs for 10 October 2025

Official Visit of the UK Prime Minister to India

In News

The Prime Ministers of India and the UK have reaffirmed the India-UK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during the recent official UK PM visit to India, announcing significant progress across multiple sectors.

Key Outcomes

Economic & Trade: Strengthening of the UK-India Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), expected to boost market access, reduce tariffs, and generate jobs.

64 Indian investment projects worth £1.3 billion, creating 6,900 UK jobs across engineering, tech, and creative sectors.

Climate & Energy: Establishment of advanced R&D centres in AI and climate change, and launch of Phase 2 of the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Observatory, including a new campus at IIT-ISM Dhanbad.

Agreed to cooperate on Offshore Wind and through the Global Clean Power Alliance (GCPA).

Supreme Court on Retrospective Application of Surrogacy Act

In News

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that the age restrictions under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, cannot be applied retrospectively to couples who had frozen embryos and initiated the surrogacy process before the Act came into force.

SC Observations

Doctrine of Fairness: Retrospective laws that impair vested rights or impose new burdens violate the principle of fairness and legal certainty.

Right to Privacy and Bodily Autonomy: Derived from K.S. Puttaswamy (2017), reproductive decisions fall within the private domain of individuals as reproductive autonomy is a part of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21

Gender and Equality Lens: Restrictive interpretation disproportionately affects women, who already face biological and social constraints in reproductive choices.

World Mental Health Day

Context

On October 10, every year, World Mental Health Day highlights the extent of mental illness in the world.

About

Global Mental Health Issue (as per WHO): More than a billion people are living with mental health disorders.

An estimated 727,000 people across all ages lost their lives to suicide in 2021, with one suicide death happening in over 20 suicide attempts.

Suicide accounts for one in every 100 deaths globally.

Unemployment of the Educated Indian

In Context

India faces a surge in educated unemployment, with degree holders applying for low-skilled jobs, revealing deep labor market distress and the issue reflects mismatch between education and job market needs.

Current Trends

Mass overqualification: Degree-holders applying for sanitation and peon roles indicate scarcity of dignified entry-level formal work.

Campus placement stress: A substantial share of graduates at elite institutes remain unplaced, reflecting weak high-skill absorption across sectors.

Wage stagnation: Fresher pay clustered near ₹3–4 lakh per annum for years amid higher inflation, compressing real earnings.

Human costs: Reported suicides among unemployed highlight mental health externalities and social fragility.

Solar Dimming in India

Context

A recent joint study published in Nature’s Scientific Reports shows India’s sunlight hours are shrinking due to pollution and cloud buildup threatening the country’s solar energy ambitions.

Key Findings of the Study on India

Decline in Sunshine Hours: The North Indian plains experienced the steepest reduction, losing about 13.1 hours of sunshine per year on average over the last three decades.

Twomey Effect: The study highlighted the Twomey effect, where increased anthropogenic aerosol emissions (from factories, vehicles, biomass burning) lead to a higher number of smaller cloud droplets.

Major Factor of Decline: The primary cause of long-term solar dimming is the rise in aerosol concentrations largely due to industrial outputs, vehicular emissions, and biomass burning.

News in Short – 10 October, 2025

In News

A rare burst of winter rains has triggered the “desierto florido” phenomenon in Chile’s Atacama Desert, turning one of Earth’s driest landscapes into sweeping carpets of fuchsia wildflowers visible from space.

About the Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is the world’s driest non-polar desert, located in northern Chile, stretching approximately 1,000–1,100 km between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains.

The Atacama is used by NASA and ESA as an Earth analog for Martian terrain due to its extreme aridity, hyper-arid soils, and high ultraviolet radiation.