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Social issues: UPSC, your door to high scores.
Strategy to score high in Mains GS and Essay with Social issues
What do you do when you have just 100 rupees left to survive three days? You make the most out of it. Go for easy food that also satisfies hunger, such as instant noodles. Your strategy for scoring high in mains is kind of similar. Every aspirant knows pretty well that each and every mark matter. It decides your fate and gives meaning to all your hard work and efforts.
Let’s get right into the action and help you figure out how to score even better in UPSC CSE GS mains.
If you carefully look through the previous year’s papers, a good number of questions have been asked from Indian society and social justice. But these two topics end up being the most neglected by students and coaching institutes, assuming that they are easy to answer.
Talking numbers, questions carrying marks up to 215 marks have been asked in the UPSC mains 2020 examination. You cannot let go of such a huge number even in your dreams. Though it is easy, a well-defined preparation of these subjects is sure to fetch you guaranteed marks. As we can see, social issues is a very important topic for UPSC exams. It has major weightage in GS paper 1 mains and has implications in all the four papers of GS, and sometimes essay as well.
Aspirants who have a strong sociology background would find it even easier to crack this section, but for those not from a sociology background, worry not as we present to you a full proof plan.
Social issues syllabus for UPSC:
- Salient aspects of Diversity of India and Indian Society
- Role of women and women’s organization
- Population and associated issues
- Poverty and developmental issues
- Urbanization – problems and remedies
- Social empowerment
- Communalism, regionalism, and secularism
- Health and Mental Health, Drug abuse
- Unemployment
- Illiteracy
- Globalization
- Education
The social issues present widely throughout India are numerous, and each of them needs to be analytically addressed; only then is it possible to achieve social justice. The civil service examinations aim at evaluating aspirants for their ability to solve such social issues with strong reasoning and a logical approach. For this, we need to get the very basics of it right, and there can be no better source for this than NCERT textbooks.
Specifically, I would like to mention the following books that are a must to obtain a deeper and crystal-clear understanding of this subject.
- Indian society, social change and Development in India from NCERT 12th
- Understanding society from NCERT class 11th
- Social Problems in India by Ram Ahuja
A strong foundation is highly beneficial for framing answers that cover all perspectives in the right direction. The books mentioned above rightly help you with the same. As the names clearly understand, Indian society and social justice are highly interlinked as one addresses the issues while the other figures out ways to tackle such issues.
A strong understanding of Indian society will definitely help you answer questions from Social justice with utmost ease. Not only the topics but also the questions are very much interlinked. It can be clearly seen from previous year’s papers that minimum two questions were asked directly from these topics. In fact, in GS 2 paper, social issues have been covered under governmental schemes pertaining to certain sectors.
To give a clear picture, I have listed down specific topics from which questions are framed and included in the social issues and Indian society UPSC syllabus.
- Poverty
- Sanitation: was a major issue that came into highlight once the pandemic struck the nation.
- Nutrition
- Health
- Welfare schemes
- Human resources
- Population
- Globalization, regionalism, communalism and secularism.
- Development, urbanization/ migration.
- Women-centric issues
- Social backwardness
- Agriculture. (Questions related to Farmer’s bill that has been in the news has a high possibility of occurrence)
- Education (It is highly possible to get a question regarding NEP (National education policy 2020, and how it will help achieve SDG4 (Sustainable development goals).
How to cover these topics easily.
Being the easiest section, they free you from the need to mug up. This section demands you to check your perception, which ideally needs to be focused towards gaining an understanding of the crux of the problems facing society. UPSC fairly looks out for your ability to respond to societal issues and problems faced by people from a specific section of the Indian society.
Such issues need more of a general and analytical approach rather than a technical or precise one. The best way to prepare for such topics is by carrying out a deep analysis of current affairs that are linked with social issues. It is easy to read about such topics through editorials and articles in the newspapers. Also, social issues UPSC notes are easy to obtain.
Coming to execution, the information gathered from these sources needs to be sustained with an all-inclusive approach. Indian society is highly diverse, and the range of this diversity can be witnessed at varying lengths, such as religious, linguistic, economic, etc. This presents as a boon for the nation, but at the same time, it is the root cause of hindrance in growth and development. Due to this diverse nature, there have been many issues relating to development and management of social sector. UPSC expects an unbiased view and is balanced by pros and cons, conveying justice and fairness.
Which source is the best for covering these topics?
1. Newspapers:
Make it a habit to read newspapers daily and pay special attention to information that relates to these topics.
2. Yojana:
For social issues and social justice, this is a must as it provides data on issues as viewed by the government. Reading this will strengthen your skills in essay writing as it covers multiple perspectives presented by people from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, you can easily access details regarding recently launched government schemes, initiatives and policies.
3. PIB:
Press Information Bureau is an authentic and vital source of news that contains all the government’s programs, policies, and planning. Any serious aspirant would not miss this out.
4. Kurukshetra:
This magazine acts as a vital source of information for government’s point of view on multiple issues, mainly rural India and agriculture.
5. Additional sources:
All India radio news, Raj Sabha Tv, Ram Ahuja’s – Social problems in India.
These sources should, along with NCERT, be more than enough to help you win the race steadily and smartly. Make sure you choose the sources keeping in mind the amount of time you have left for your preparations.
Through this article, I’m confident about you gaining access to topics and questions that account for 215 marks. As an aspirant, it is only sensible for you to be greedy for marks and figure out ways to grab every mark out there. Now that we have made you familiar with an easy way to get ahead in the game, make sure you give in your full potential.
For such in-depth and resourceful guidance, connect with Neeharika Reddy IAS academy. We have successfully helped aspirants make their way to success with the right choices and accurate decisions.
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Strategy to score high in Mains GS and Essay with Social issues | Sirisha mam UPSC CSE Mentor
Known for her outstanding case studies guidance in Ethics & Integrity, she has mentored more than 300 students in Sociology and Ethics & Integrity. Graduated with Bachelors in Engineering, and masters in Sociology and Business administration. She has 8 years of experience in mentoring Civil services aspirants
