UPSC Prelims
2 Topics
Prelims Pinpointer
Prelims Pinpointer — October 29, 2026
Today’s high-yield Prelims facts — gene-edited rice and apomixis, and the Kartarpur corridor
🌾
Gene-Edited Rice, Apomixis and India’s Staple Crops
Why in News?
New breeding tools such as gene editing and apomixis can help India lead in rice and wheat technology, if it revives fundamental research in plant science.
It points to gene-edited rice released in 2025 as proof of what public institutions can do.
Key Points
- DRR Dhan-100 (Kamala): It matures in 130 days against 150 for its parent variety, gives about 20% more rice (around 5.4 tonnes per hectare) and uses less water and labour.
- Pusa DST Rice-1: Made for salty and alkaline soils, with a yield 10 to 30% higher than its parent strains in such soils. In trials, over 65% of edited plants survived salt stress, against 20% of unedited ones.
- Method: Both used CRISPR-Cas9. The editing tools left no residue in the final strains, so the result is like conventional mutagenesis, only faster and more accurate.
- Public control: Public institutions developed them, and the seeds are not tied to restrictive patents or licences.
- Apomixis: Plants are engineered to skip sexual reproduction, so hybrid vigour is kept and farmers can save and replant seed. It was first shown in rice in 2018, with success rates of about 90%, and is being tried in maize and sorghum. It adds no foreign genes, so it may follow simpler rules, but a gap remains between lab and field.
- Wheat: No gene-edited wheat has been released yet. 184 new varieties of 25 crops were recently introduced, including climate-resilient wheat expected within about three years. HB4 wheat, with a sunflower gene for drought tolerance, grows commercially in Argentina and was approved in the US in August 2024.
- Seed sector: Public institutions dominate certified wheat seed (private firms about 5%, growing about 8% a year). Private companies dominate hybrid rice, maize and cotton.
Background
- Release: Kamala (ICAR-IIRR, Hyderabad, from Samba Mahsuri) and Pusa DST Rice 1 (ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, from MTU 1010) were released on 4 May 2025.
- Rules: A March 2022 memorandum exempts SDN-1 and SDN-2 edits, which add no foreign DNA, from GM regulation. SDN-3 stays regulated.
- Cytokinin: A plant hormone that drives grain formation. The Kamala edit partly reduces an enzyme that breaks it down, so more grains form.
- Seed system: National Seeds Corporation (1963). Seed moves from breeder to foundation to certified seed, with ICAR and State Agricultural Universities supplying breeder seed.
Source: The Hindu
🛕
Kartarpur Corridor and the Call to Reopen It
Why in News?
A Rajya Sabha member has said he has urged the Union government to reopen the Kartarpur corridor before Guru Nanak Jayanti next month.
The corridor has been suspended since May 2025, after the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, and the decision rests with the government.
Key Points
- The corridor: A 4.7 km, visa-free route from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur, Punjab, to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Narowal district, Pakistan.
- Opening: Inaugurated on 9 November 2019, the year of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.
- Rules: Up to 5,000 pilgrims a day, dawn to dusk with no overnight stay, with a passport but no visa.
- Fee: Pakistan charges $20 per pilgrim per visit, and India has urged it to remove it.
- Agreement: Signed on 24 October 2019 for five years and extended in October 2024 for another five years, to 2029.
- Suspension: India suspended the corridor on 7 May 2025 because of the security situation, and it has remained closed since.
Background
- The shrine: Gurdwara Darbar Sahib is the final resting place of Guru Nanak, about 4 km from the international border. It fell in Pakistan after Partition in 1947.
- Geography: The shrine lies across the Ravi river from Dera Baba Nanak.
- Guru Nanak Jayanti: The birth anniversary of the first Sikh Guru, celebrated on Kartik Purnima.
Source: The Hindu
