National polity & governance

Story hook

15 February 2024, 10:31 AM, Court Room No.1, Supreme Court of India. A 5-judge Constitution Bench led by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud walks in. Within forty minutes, the Electoral Bonds Scheme — the central plank of political-party funding since 2018 — is unanimously declared unconstitutional. The judgment runs to 232 pages. The State Bank of India, custodian of the bonds, is ordered to hand the donor list to the Election Commission within three weeks. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India re-writes how money will move into Indian politics.

Six weeks later, the CEC and ECs (Appointment) Act 2023 operationalises a new selection panel for India's election referee — PM + LoP + Union Cabinet Minister — replacing the court-suggested PM + LoP + CJI formula. Two new Election Commissioners are inducted on 14 March 2024, days before the Lok Sabha 2024 schedule is announced. The same year India elects its 18th Lok Sabha — 642 million voters, the largest democratic exercise in human history — and returns a coalition government for the first time in a decade.

Polity & governance current affairs is the back-and-forth between the Supreme Court, the Parliament, the Election Commission, and the Executive — every UPSC year. To track it you watch four streams: bills, judgments, schemes, and constitutional bodies.

Why this matters for UPSC

Polity-related current affairs anchors at least 4-5 Prelims questions per cycle and two Mains questions in GS-II (governance / polity), plus interview boards probe almost every recent judgment of consequence. The questions are rarely "what happened" — they test the constitutional articles invoked, the precedents cited, and the doctrines clarified. So the 2024-25 cycle has to be memorised by issue, not by date.