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General Studies – 1
Topic: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
Reference: Times of India
Why the question:
The article argues that India is a great civilisation. But no government makes institutional investment protecting its heritage.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss in detail the challenges in preserving Indian cultural heritage.
Directive:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you have to debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You have to give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with brief on India’s rich cultural heritage.
Body:
The answer body must explain in what way modern India has failed to reclaim that legacy of its culture.
Challenges in preserving Indian cultural heritage – Inadequate budget: The ministry of culture (MoC) is inadequately budgeted, and even the meager amount allocated is not fully spent.
Parliament’s Standing Committee on Culture pointed out that in 2010-11, the actual expenditure by the MoC as a percentage of the GDP was as low as 0.017%. These pathetically low spend reduced to 0.012% in 2019-20. The allocation for the MoC in 2021 was Rs 461 crore less than the previous year, a 15% reduction. Institutional neglect: The new Cabinet has no full-time minister of culture. G Kishan Reddy is the minister of tourism, development of the Northeast region, and culture.
It is overrun by bureaucrats who rarely know anything about the culture, and most consider it a punishment posting.
State other reasons too and suggest what needs to be done.
Conclusion:
Conclude that while there is no dearth of tributes to India’s great cultural heritage, the blunt truth is that modern India has failed to reclaim that legacy.
General Studies – 2
Topic: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
2. Account for India’s future role and policy in Afghanistan, in light of American exit. (250 words)
Reference: Indian Express
Why the question:
The article explains the future course of action for India when it comes to recent events in Afghanistan.
Key Demand of the question:
One is expected to talk about India’s future role and policy in Afghanistan, in light of American exit.
Directive:
Account – Weigh up to what extent something is true. Persuade the reader of your argument by citing relevant research but also remember to point out any flaws and counter- arguments as well. Conclude by stating clearly how far you are in agreement with the original proposition.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with current context – with US and NATO completing their pull-out from Bagram air base and other key locations, the Taliban are making huge advances across the country, capturing districts, seizing key border crossings, and encircling provincial capitals.
Body:
The answer body must have the following aspects covered:
Give a brief background of the issue at hand.
Explain what the concerns before India are; the worries are about the violence at the frontiers and the resultant refugee influx, extremism, and support to transnational groups such as al Qaeda, LeT, JeM, ETIM and IMU, as it happened earlier under Taliban rule.
Discuss what should be the policy of India with respect to Afghanistan; Legitimizing Taliban: India must hold on and not rush into any policy action that establishes the Taliban as a legitimate force. Influencing Pakistan’s security establishment and others.
Conclusion:
Conclude that India must be prepared to defend its interests at all costs. This, in turn, needs strategic patience that will help resist the temptation to normalize the Taliban.
Topic: GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
GS-3: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.
Reference: Live Mint
Why the question:
Draft drone rules released recently are being hailed as progressive. Thus the question.
Key Demand of the question:
One must explain the advantages offered by drones and how a liberal drone rules regime can help India get ahead in this sector.
Directive:
Debate – Weigh up to what extent something is true. Persuade the reader of your argument by citing relevant research but also remember to point out any flaws and counter- arguments as well. Conclude by stating clearly how far you agree with the original proposition.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with what Drones are, and also comment upon the recently released Draft rules to regulate the same in the country.
Body:
Discuss the benefits and challenges of using Drones.
Explain in what way rules can be seen as progressive.
Drones can serve a wide range of uses across sectors, from farming and mining to e-commerce and vaccine drop-offs. Monitoring of hazardous sites: It is far safer to have a drone monitor a hazardous site, for example, than expose humans to it.
For transporting vital supplies to places that are hard to access.
Utility for state initiatives: Their utility for state initiatives is also very high, like cartographic exercises or for farm surveys and police surveillance.
Conclusion:
While highly sensitive areas must stay off-limits to drones, we should not complicate matters for operators beyond what’s necessary. Yet, we should be ready to adapt our drone rules in response to new learnings and advancements.
Topic: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money laundering and its prevention.
Reference: The Hindu
Why the question:
The editorial explains that the proposed legislation related to the personal data protection of citizens fails to consider surveillance.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss the need for strengthening data laws to reassure the right to privacy of the individual.
Directive:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you have to debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You have to give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with the recent incident of Pegasus cyber-attack.
Body:
Pegasus; is a spyware created by NSO Group, an Israeli cybersecurity firm founded in 2010. Pegasus spyware can hack any iOS or Android device and steal a variety of data from the infected device.
Discuss the worrying aspect of Pegasus spyware; how it has evolved from its earlier spear-phishing methods using text links or messages to ‘zero-click attacks.
Discuss how it impacted Journalists; in the absence of privacy, the safety of journalists, especially those whose work criticizes the government, and the personal safety of their sources is jeopardized. Such a lack of privacy, therefore, creates an aura of distrust around these journalists and effectively buries their credibility.
Discuss the need for strengthening data laws to reassure the right to privacy of the individual.
Conclusion:
Conclude with way forward.
Topic: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.
Reference: Indian Express
Why the question:
The article explains to us that the Ministry of Cooperation cannot always guarantee price stabilization and growth.
Key Demand of the question:
Elaborate in what way India’s tryst with the cooperative movement has produced mixed results.
Directive:
Examine – When asked to ‘Examine’, we must look into the topic (content words) in detail, inspect it, investigate it and establish the key facts and issues related to the topic in question. While doing so we should explain why these facts and issues are important and their implications.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with brief background of the context of the question.
Body:
On a broader level the answer body must explain India’s cooperative sector, its journey so far.
Suggest first the background of structural reforms in Indian economy and its impact on cooperative sector.
Highlight the major challenges and expectations from new Ministry of Cooperation at Union level.
One can take hints from the article and illustrate the critical analysis on cooperative model not being that successful in finance and sugar industries.
Conclusion:
Conclude with what needs to be done and what changes can Ministry of cooperation can bring in.
General Studies – 3
Topic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Reference: iucn.org
Why the question:
The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the problem of plastic waste to colossal proportions and these numbers tell the grim tale. With this tidal increase of plastic waste and lack of effective solid waste management systems, plastic pollution poses significant economic and environmental risks across South Asia.
Key Demand of the question:
One must in detail highlight the sources of marine pollution and analyze the impact of marine plastic pollution.
Directive:
Analyze – When asked to analyse, you have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts and present them as a whole in a summary.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with what you understand by marine pollution and give some shocking data related to plastic pollution in the introduction.
Body:
The answer body must have the following aspects covered:
Status of Marine plastics to be explained first; Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year for use in a wide variety of applications. Plastic packaging accounts for more than 62% of all items (including non-plastics) collected in international coastal clean-up initiatives. At least 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and make up 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.
Discuss the sources of Marine plastics pollution in detail.
Present the case of India.
Highlight the impact of Marine Pollution.
Conclusion:
Conclude with what needs to be done.
Topic: Linkages between development and spread of extremism.
Reference: idsa.in
Why the question:
The question is from the static portions of GS paper III.
Key Demand of the question:
One is expected to throw light upon the linkage between development and spread of extremism with suitable illustrations.
Directive:
Illustrate – A similar instruction to ‘explain’ whereby you are asked to show the workings of something, making use of definite examples and statistics if appropriate to add weight to your explanation.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with what you understand by extremism.
Body:
Left Wing Extremism or Naxalism (as it called in India, because of its origin from a village called Naxalbari in West Bengal) is an ideology based on far left radical thoughts. It drives its thoughts from communism and emphasizes advancement of people’s social and economic life by establishing classless society through armed revolution.
Discuss briefly the Genesis and evolution of extremism in India.
Then explain the linkage between development and spread of extremism; underdevelopment often creates the conditions for insurgency and spread of extremist ideologies among the people, who perceive that their needs are not being taken care of by the government. While it has been the policy of governments around the world today to emphasize on “inclusive development”, there are always groups in every state who feel alienated because they perceive that they are left out of the developmental efforts. Such perceptions coupled with inefficient and corrupt governance create an ideal condition for extremism and militancy.
Suggest solutions to address these concerns.
Point at the policies and programmes in this direction.
Conclusion:
Conclude with way forward.
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