UPSC Weekly Concepts Snapshot | BGP Hijacking, Friendshoring and Omega Block: Beyond the headlines

Here are three important topics from Science, Economy, and Environment decoded focusing on concepts and clarity. (Image: AI generated)

UPSC doesn’t stop at ‘what happened’—it asks ‘why’ and ‘how’. Building conceptual clarity is what transforms current affairs into scoring answers in both Prelims and Mains.That is especially true in the most dynamic areas of the syllabus: Science, Economy and Environment.

The UPSC Weekly Concepts Snapshot, every Wednesday, simplifies three important current themes from these subjects through an exam-oriented lens, focusing on concepts and clarity.

If you missed the previous UPSC Weekly Concepts Snapshot | From solar-powered highways to coral reefs from the Indian Express, read it here.

SCIENCE

Border Gateway Protocol

Core Concept:

— The Border Gateway Protocol is the internet’s routing system. It tells networks across the world how to reach specific IP addresses. If a network falsely announces that it is the preferred route to a destination, traffic can be diverted, intercepted or blackholed. This is known as BGP hijacking.

— Every major telecom operator, cloud provider, content delivery network and internet service provider runs an Autonomous System (AS), a large network identified by a unique number. BGP is the protocol these networks use to tell each how traffic through these networks should reach a specific IP address.

— For a rough analogy, imagine the internet as a major highway, and BGP announcements as connecting streets, where each street corresponds to a particular service. If one connecting street falsely advertises its location as someone else’s, then some of the traffic on the highway could believe the false flag and join that particular street instead.

Story continues below this ad

How BGP works. (Graphic: AI-generated)

— BGP hacking is a technique in which internet traffic is misdirected by falsely advertising the route to a website or online service.

📍UPSC Twist Points: Phishing and Vishing

— Phishing is a common type of cyber-attack that targets individuals through email, text messages, phone calls, and other forms of communication.

— A phishing attack aims to trick the recipient into falling for the attacker’s desired action, such as revealing financial information, system login credentials, or other sensitive information.

— Vishing (short for voice phishing) consists of phone calls from fraudsters pretending to be officials, such as bank representatives, trick victims into revealing OTPs or account details.

Story continues below this ad

ECONOMY

Friendshoring

Core Concept:

— While words such as ‘onshoring,’ ‘reshoring,’ and ‘nearshoring’ have been in standard use for some time in global trade, ‘friendshoring’ emerged out of economic crises and strains on global supply chains caused by various shocks to the global economy, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

— Friendshoring refers to the rerouting of supply chains to countries perceived as politically and economically safe or low-risk to avoid disruption to the flow of business.

— According to the World Economic Forum, friendshoring’ is a growing trade practice where supply chain networks are focused on countries regarded as political and economic allies. However, there are fears the move towards friendshoring risks furthering geopolitical fragmentation and what’s been described as ‘deglobalisation’.

Friendshoring: The New Buzzword Reshaping Global Trade

What is friendshoring? The shoring spectrum Fragmentation fear

DEFINITION

Rerouting trade towards political allies

Friendshoring refers to rerouting supply chains to countries seen as politically and economically safe, to avoid disruption. The term gained traction after COVID-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine exposed the fragility of global supply networks.

"Friendshoring means we have a group of countries that have strong adherence to a set of norms and values... and we need to deepen our ties with those partners."

— Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary

THE FOUR TERMS

Four ways companies relocate supply chains

Each strategy answers "where" differently — ally nations, neighbouring countries, back home, or anywhere cost-effective.

Friendshoring

To politically allied, "safe" nations

Nearshoring

To a nearby/bordering country

Reshoring

Back to the home country

Offshoring

Abroad, for lower costs/skills

$1.2T

US trade with Canada & Mexico (2021) — top nearshoring example

72%

Organisations looking to reshore/nearshore (Capgemini)

THE RISK

A push towards deglobalization?

Critics warn friendshoring could deepen geopolitical fragmentation — the decline of interdependence between nations, institutions and enterprises that has driven global growth for decades.

⚠

WEF's fragmentation warning

Davos 2023's theme, "Cooperation in a Fragmented World," flagged trade tensions as a threat to growth and trust built over three decades of globalization.

"A friend today may not be a friend tomorrow."

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, WTO

📍UPSC Twist Points: Reshoring, Nearshoring and Offshoring

— Also known as in-shoring or onshoring, reshoring is when a business transfers operations back to its home country. By reshoring, companies can reduce their exposure to outside risk.

Story continues below this ad

— Nearshoring describes the process of a company relocating business operations to a nearby country, often with a shared border. With the global supply chain crisis, increasing numbers of companies are investing in the location of plants nearer their target markets.

— Moving business operations to another country is commonly known as offshoring. It can reduce labour costs and ensure the ready provision of certain skills. Notably, offshoring is not the same thing as outsourcing, where work is contracted out to an external organization. It is when a company relocates some of its existing operations abroad.

ENVIRONMENT

Omega Block

Core Concept:

— According to the UK Met office, “The developing heatwave is being driven by a strong area of high pressure building over continental Europe. This high pressure is promoting widespread sinking air, which suppresses cloud formation, allows for prolonged sunshine and leads to increasing temperatures through compressional heating.” This phenomenon is also called the Omega Block.

Story continues below this ad

— An Omega Block, so named because it is shaped like the Greek letter Ω, is basically an area of high pressure between two zones of lower pressure. Because of this high pressure zone, warm air rising from the ground is not able to escape into the atmosphere and is trapped close to the surface, further heating up the surroundings.

— Generally, winds known as jet streams blow from the west to east over Europe, moving weather systems. In the present scenario, this steady flow has become disrupted, leading to the omega-shape of air flow.

(Graphic: AI-generated)

— This specific weather pattern aside, Europe has in general been warming up very fast, thanks to the effects of climate change.

📍UPSC Twist Points: Heatwave and Urban heat island

— A heatwave is a condition of higher temperatures than the average normal temperature of any place. For any place, ‘heatwave’ conditions are declared according to the historical temperature average of that place.

Story continues below this ad

— An urban heat island is a temperature-induced phenomenon where a city or parts of a city experience much higher temperatures than nearby or surrounding areas. This is more pronounced at night when trapped heat during the daytime is released.

— There are several factors behind the urban heat island effect, including urban architecture, density, construction material used in building, roads, waste heat from vehicles and air conditioners, less open and green spaces, etc. As cities are expanding rapidly, in most cases through unplanned growth, the risk of urban heat islands will further increase.

Prelims Practice MCQ

Let’s see how much can you recall

Consider the following statements:

1. Friendshoring is the relocation of supply chains primarily to geographically neighbouring countries to reduce transportation costs.

Story continues below this ad

2. In Border Gateway Protocol hijacking, internet traffic is diverted by falsely advertising the route to a particular IP address.

3. An Omega Block is characterised by a persistent high-pressure system sandwiched between two low-pressure systems.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 1 and 3 only

(c) 2 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2 and 3

ANSWER KEY

(c)

🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for June 2026. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at [email protected]🚨

Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – Indian Express UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X