NOTE: Please remember that following ‘answers’ are NOT ‘model answers’. They are NOT synopsis too if we go by definition of the term. What we are providing is content that both meets demand of the question and at the same time gives you extra points in the form of background information.
General Studies – 1
Topic: History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries, colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc.— their forms and effect on the society.
Difficulty level: Moderate
Reference: Insights on India
Why the question:
The question is part of the static syllabus of General studies paper – 1.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the French revolution as total revolution and role women in it.
Directive word:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you must debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You must give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Briefly giving a brief about the French Revolution of 1789.
Body:
First, write about the factors that make the French revolution as the total revolution – its overall impact – political, social, economic and cultural etc.
Next, write about the role played by the Frenchwomen in the revolution.
Conclusion:
Conclude by writing about the overall impact of the revolution on the world history.
Introduction
The French Revolution was a time of social and political upheaval in France and its colonies that began in 1789 and ended in 1799. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, its overthrow of the Monarchy influenced the decline of absolute Monarchies in other parts of Europe.
Body
Role played by women in the French Revolution
- Women were active participants from the beginning which brought important changes in the country France. Women from the third estate had to work for a living and they didn’t have access to education or job training.
- The most notable demand of women during the French revolution was the ‘right to vote’ and equal wages.
- In order to discuss and raise voice for their demands, they started many ‘political clubs’ and ‘newspapers’, among which ‘the society of revolutionary’ and ‘Republican women were famous’.
- One of the most well-known French Revolutionary women was Olympe de Gouges. In 1791, she declared: “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights.”
- There were women such as Marie-Jeanne Roland and Germaine de Staël – known as salonnières – who hosted salons where revolutionary ideas were fostered and political power was brokered.
- Women also took up arms in physical revolt.
- In October 1789, as flour shortages and hunger in Paris led to discontent that boiled over into anger, women were at the centre of the maelstrom.
- Women played a pivotal role in an event often known as the October Days, or the October March, that propelled the first stage of the revolution into a new balance of power.
- On the morning of 5 October 1789, many Parisian women were demonstrating over the price of bread in Paris – flour had been scarce and there was a growing feeling that food was being purposely withheld from the poor.
- Women’s struggle for equal political rights continued during the ‘Reign of Terror’. The government banned their clubs and political activities. Many women got arrested but they continued their fight despite the push back on their activities.
Outcome of women’s struggle
- The question of whether the French Revolution furthered women’s rights remains a contentious point among historians today.
- Some social rights were granted to women: new inheritance laws, for example, meant that, irrespective of gender, children could inherit parents’ wealth equally.
- There was another step forward for the legal status of unmarried mothers and their children, while a new law enabling divorce gave equal terms for men and women.
- Though the revolution was undoubtedly a time of great debate concerning the status and rights of women from all social classes, the revolution did not change much in terms of their ability to contribute to a French democracy.
- And though the revolution had long ripples, it cannot be seen as a direct contributor to women’s suffrage in France – a right that they would not receive until 1945.
Conclusion
Women played an active role in French Revolution to bring about a change in the societal mindset regarding the women’s position. They fought for their rights and stood for equality. Though in reality, the right to vote was given only in 1945, just two years earlier than India, the revolution started the conversation regarding women’s rights and equality and is symbolic even today.
Topic: population and associated issues
Difficulty level: Moderate
Reference: Indian Express , Live Mint
Why the question:
The recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) of 2019-2021 shows why. As per the survey, India’s total fertility rate now stands at 2. It was 3.2 at the turn of the century and 2.2 in 2015-2016, when the last such survey was done.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the causes of falling TFR and the challenges it poses. Also, to write about why despite low fertility and high education are not being translated into meaningful jobs.
Directive word:
Evaluate – When you are asked to evaluate, you have to pass a sound judgement about the truth of the given statement in the question or the topic based on evidence. You must appraise the worth of the statement in question. There is scope for forming an opinion here.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Briefly give context of India’s declining TFR.
Body:
First, write about the factors that have contributed to declining TFR are: Higher education, increased mobility, late marriage, financial independence among women and overall prosperity.
Next, possible challenges that the falling TFR may lead to. Write about its various aspects.
Next, write about why despite low fertility and more education still women are not taking up paid jobs – gender barriers, social barriers, skilling barriers etc.
Conclusion:
Conclude by writing a way forward to address the above issues.
Introduction
Recently released data from National Family Health Survey’s fifth round (NFHS-5) reveal that India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has decreased to 2.0 from 2.2 in the previous round. TFR is the number of children born to a heterosexual couple during their reproductive life. Given that 2.1 is the figure at which the population is maintained at a stable level, taking into account the likelihood of some child deaths, the latest number suggests that the spectre of population explosion need no longer haunt India.
Even as the goal of population stabilisation is being achieved, it is imperative that we invest in fostering the health and wellbeing of all our people, throughout their life course. Decline in fertility frees up funds for investment in development of our human resources.
Body
Trends in the declining Total Fertility Rate in India
- NFHS-5 places the total fertility rate (TFR) at 2.0. known as replacement level of fertility. This decline is spread evenly across the country.
- 28 states and UTs have a TFR of 9 or less, with seven below 1.6.
- All southern states have a TFR of 1.7-1.8, similar to that of Sweden.
- Even states that have not reached replacement fertility — Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — seem to be head in that direction.
- Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan that were part of the lagging states have achieved TFRs of 0.
- With falling fertility (currently 2.0), the median age of India has risen from 24 years in 2011 to 29 years now and is expected to be 36 years by 2036.
- With a falling dependency ratio (expected to decrease from 65% to 54% in the coming decade taking 15-59 years as the working age population), India is in the middle of a demographic transition.
TFR and paid jobs for women: correlation
- Higher income: Disposable income is high when households have less children. This emancipates women from working especially in India where the stereotype of women taking care of household is high.
- Unpaid work: Social norms about household work are against women’s mobility and participation in paid work. Childbirth and taking care of elderly parents or in-laws account for the subsequent points where women drop off the employment pipeline.
- Education: Higher Education levels of women also allow them to pursue leisure and other non-work activities, all of which reduce female labour force participation.
- When income increases, men allow Indian women to withdraw from the labour force, thereby avoiding the stigma of working (cultural factors).
- Childcare responsibility solely on women: One big factor is maternity. Many women who join the workforce are unable to re-join after having a child. This is because, childcare is mainly seen as a woman’s job.
- Deep rooted patriarchy: The cultural baggage about women working outside the home is so strong that in most traditional Indian families, quitting work is a necessary precondition to the wedding itself.
Impact of falling fertility rate
- TFR lower than 2.1 children per woman — indicates that a generation is not producing enough children to replace itself, eventually leading to an outright reduction in population.
- Thus, TFR lower than 2 (as it is the case in urban areas in India) has its own set of problems.
- For example, Declining population will lead to an increase in the population of old aged people, as is happening in China.
- The low Fertility Rates in India eventually will lead to a decline in population like in developed countries such as Japan, Germany, and Russia. Hence, the focus on limiting the family size can be reduced.
Way forward
- Better employment opportunities so that the limited working population will be skilled in the future.
- Formulate policies to take care of higher medical costs as the population ages and productivity shrinks.
- Provide an affordable social security system that provides pensions to the elderly and takes care of their daily needs and medical expenses.
- States with higher fertility rates need to keep working on improving schooling, income levels, and reducing infant and neonatal mortality rates.
Conclusion
India is at a stage of demographic transition where mortality rates are declining and fertility rates would decline in the next two to three decades or so. This leads to a scope to cut population growth because India still has a positive growth rate, but our population policy should keep in mind the larger consequences of zero population growth.
General Studies – 2
Topic: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary—Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.
Difficulty level: Moderate
Reference: The Hindu
Why the question:
Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana has once again called for measures to improve the judge-to-population ratio. At present, India has a sanctioned strength of 25,628 judges. This is when over 4.7 crore cases are pending in courts across the country.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the causes for pendency of cases in India, its impact and suggest measures to overcome.
Directive word:
Elaborate – Give a detailed account as to how and why it occurred, or what is the context. You must be defining key terms wherever appropriate and substantiate with relevant associated facts.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Describe the current conditions with few vital statistics to substantiate the pendency of court cases in India.
Body:
First write the causes for it – The cumulative effect of persisting vacancies, strained budgets, inadequate infrastructure combined with the continuous inflow of cases inevitably impacts mounting pendency and the time taken for cases to resolve.
Next bring out the impact of it – faith in the justice system, under trial prisoners their due of justice, impact on Economic reforms and foreign investors, Judiciary becomes overworked and lose its efficiency.
Suggest measures to overcome the above.
Conclusion:
Conclude with a way forward to ensure speedy delivery of justice.
Introduction
The justice system in any democracy is set up, under the Constitution to serve the public without “fear or favour, affection or ill-will” as far as judges are concerned. The Indian Judiciary plays an increasingly important role in the life and the governance of this country. A measure of the justice delivery system is the pendency of cases in courts across the country. There has been a significant deterioration in this aspect.
Body
Background
- Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana has once again called for measures to improve the judge-to-population ratio. At present, India has a sanctioned strength of 25,628 judges. This is when over 4.7 crore cases are pending in courts across the country.
- The retirements in the topmost rung of the judiciary in 2022 would encompass changes in the powerful Supreme Court Collegium and see two new Chief Justices in a span of months.
- The working judicial strength is 32 against the sanctioned strength of 34.
- The Supreme Court’s statistics show that 70,362 cases are pending with it as on April 1, 2022.
- While 52,110 are admission matters, 18,522 are regular hearing cases.
- The number of Constitution Bench cases (both main and connected matters) total 422.
Extra information: Causes for huge pendency of cases:
- Shifting role of SC:
- The key reason for the mounting of pending cases can be attributed to shifting the role of the Supreme Court from adjudicating cases of constitutional significance into a regular court of appeals.
- According to legal experts, most of the cases that the Supreme Court was handling daily are either appeals from various high courts or cases of gross violation of individual’s fundamental rights. But this role was never meant for the apex court.
- Shortage of judges:
- From 1950 to 1921, the number of Supreme Court judges has increased nearly four times. Even then, case pendency has steadily kept rising.
- Around 5,580 or 25% of posts are lying empty in the subordinate courts, which leads to poor Judges to Population Ratio, as India has only 20 judges per million population. Earlier, Law Commission had recommended 50 judges per million.
- Frequent adjournments:
- The laid down procedure of allowing a maximum of three adjournments per case is not followed in over 50 per cent of the matters being heard by courts, leading to rising pendency of cases.
- Low budgetary allocation leading to poor infrastructure:
- India spends only about 09% of its GDP to maintain the judicial infrastructure.
- Infrastructure status of lower courts of the country is miserably grim due to which they fail to deliver quality judgements.
- A 2016 report published by the Supreme Court showed that existing infrastructure could accommodate only 15,540 judicial officers against the all-India sanctioned strength of 20,558.
- Burden of government cases:
- Statistics provided by LIMBS shows that the Centre and the States were responsible for over 46% of the pending cases in Indian courts.
- Special leave petition:
- cases in the Supreme Court, currently comprises to 40% of the court’s pendency.
- It is because of frivolous PILs and various government policies which are challenged by the people that takes up most of judiciary’s time
- Judges Vacation:
- Supreme Court’s works on average for 188 days a year, while apex court rules specify minimum of 225 days of work.
- Lack of court management systems:
- Courts have created dedicated posts for court managers to help improve court operations, optimize case movement and judicial time.
- However, only few courts have filled up such posts so far.
- Inefficient investigation:
- Police are quite often handicapped in undertaking effective investigation for want of modern and scientific tools to collect evidences.
Measures needed:
- Improving infrastructure for quality justice:
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee which presented its report on Infrastructure Development and Strengthening of Subordinate Courts, suggested:
- States should provide suitable land for construction of court buildings etc. It should undertake vertical construction in light of shortage of land.
- Timeline set out for computerization of all the courts, as a necessary step towards setting up of e- courts.
- Addressing the Issue of Vacancies:
- Ensure the appointments of the judges be done in an efficient way by arriving at an optimal judge strength to handle the cases pending in the system.
- The 120th Law Commission of India report for the first time, suggested a judge strength fixation formula.
- Supreme Court and High Courts should appoint efficient and experienced judges as Ad-hoc judges in accordance with the Constitution.
- All India Judicial Service, which would benefit the subordinate judiciary by increasing quality of judges and help reduce the pendency.
- Timeframe to dispose of cases:
- Having a definite time frame to dispose the cases by setting annual targets and action plans for the subordinate judiciary and the High Courts. The judicial officers could be issued a strict code of conduct, to ensure that the duties are adequately performed by the officials.
- Strict regulation of adjournments and imposition of exemplary costs for seeking it on flimsy grounds especially at the trial stage and not permitting dilution of time frames specified in Civil Procedure Code.
- Better Court Management System & Reliable Data Collection:
- For this categorization of cases on the basis of urgency and priority along with bunching of cases should be done.
- Use of Information technology (IT) solutions:
- The use of technology for tracking and monitoring cases and in providing relevant information to make justice litigant friendly.
- All the courts in the country must switch to a hybrid virtual mode immediately and start disposing cases.
- Process reengineering:
- Involves redesigning of core business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity and quality by incorporating the use of technology in court rules. It will include:
- Electronic filing of cases: e-Courts are a welcome step in this direction, as they give case status and case history of all the pending cases across High courts and Subordinate courts bringing ease of access to information.
- Revamping of National Judicial Data Grid by introducing a new type of search known as elastic search, which is closer to the artificial intelligence.
- Alternate dispute resolution (ADR):
- As stated in the Conference on National Initiative to Reduce Pendency and Delay in Judicial System- Legal Services Authorities should undertake pre-litigation mediation so that the inflow of cases into courts can be regulated.
- The Lok Adalat should be organized regularly for settling civil and family matters.
- Gram Nyayalayas, as an effective way to manage small claim disputes from rural areas which will help in decreasing the workload of the judicial institution.
- Village Legal Care & Support Centre can also be established by the High Courts to work at grass root level to make the State litigation friendly.
Conclusion
The fundamental requirement of a good judicial administration is accessibility, affordability and speedy justice, which will not be realized until and unless the justice delivery system is made within the reach of the individual in a time bound manner and within a reasonable cost. Therefore, continuous formative assessment is the key to strengthen and reinforce the justice delivery system in India.
General Studies – 3
Topic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.
Difficulty level: Moderate
Reference: The Hindu
Why the question:
The recent action of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to raise the repo rate by 40 basis points and cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 basis points is a recognition of the serious situation with respect to inflation in our country and the resolve to tackle inflation.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the differences between demand pull and cost push inflation and the factors causing inflation in India off late and measures needed to keep it under control.
Directive word:
Examine – When asked to ‘Examine’, we must investigate 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:
Begin by defining inflation.
Body:
First, in detail bring the comparison between demand pull and cost push inflation. Nature, factors causing it, effects etc.
Next, write about the reasons for increasing trends of inflation in India off late and its impact.
Next, suggest steps to overcome the same.
Conclusion:
Conclude by writing a way forward.
Introduction
Inflation refers to the rise in the prices of most goods and services of daily or common use, such as food, clothing, housing, recreation, transport, consumer staples, etc. Inflation measures the average price change in a basket of commodities and services over time. The opposite and rare fall in the price index of this basket of items is called ‘deflation’. Inflation is indicative of the decrease in the purchasing power of a unit of a country’s currency. This is measured in percentage.
The recent action of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to raise the repo rate by 40 basis points and cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 basis points is a recognition of the serious situation with respect to inflation in our country and the resolve to tackle inflation.
Body
Differences between Demand pull and cost push inflation
- Demand-pull inflation occurs when there is an increase in aggregate demand, categorized by the four sections of the macroeconomy: households, businesses, governments, and foreign buyers.
- Cost-push inflation means prices have been “pushed up” by increases in the costs of any of the four factors of production—labor, capital, land, or entrepreneurship—when companies are already running at full production capacity.
- The demand-pull inflation is when the aggregate demand is more than the aggregate supply in an economy, whereas cost push inflation is when the aggregate demand is same and the fall in aggregate supply due to external factors will result in increased price level.
- Demand-pull inflation arises when the aggregate demand increases at a faster rate than aggregate supply. Cost-push Inflation is a result of an increase in the price of inputs due to the shortage of cost of production, leading to decrease in the supply of outputs.
- Demand-pull inflation describes, how price inflation begins. On the other hand, cost-push inflation explains Why inflation is so difficult to stop, once started.
- The reason for demand-pull inflation is the increase in money supply, government spending and foreign exchange rates. Conversely, cost-push inflation is mainly caused by the monopolistic groups of the society.
- The policy recommendation on demand-pull inflation is associated with the monetary and fiscal measure which amounts to the high level of unemployment. Unlike, cost push inflation, where policy recommendation is related to administrative control on price rise and income policy, whose objective is to control inflation without increasing unemployment.
Factors causing inflation in India
- Fuel prices:
- The recent spike in inflation was due to rising prices of crude oil and other commodities due to disruption in the global supply chain in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war.
- Since energy is used for all production, prices of all goods and services tend to rise and push up the rate of inflation.
- Further, this is an indirect tax, it is regressive and impacts the poor disproportionately It also makes the RBI’s task of controlling inflation difficult.
- Supply shortage:
- On the other hand, the retail inflation rose mainly on account of rising prices of essential food items like ‘oils and fats’, vegetables and protein-rich items such as ‘meat and fish’..
- Prices of items of day-to-day consumption also rose.
- Fruits and vegetable prices rose since these items could not reach the urban markets.
- International factors: Most major economies have recovered and demand for inputs has increased while supplies have remained disrupted (like chips for automobiles).
- So, commodity and input prices have risen (like in the case of metals).
- Businesses claim increase in input costs underlies price rise.
- Data collection and methodology: In April and May 2020, data on production and prices could not be collected due to the strict lockdown.
- So, the current data on prices for April to July 2021 are not comparable with the same months of 2020.
- As such, the official inflation figures for these months in 2021 do not reflect the true picture.
- Weak Rupee: The weakening of the rupee also added to inflation.
Measures to keep the inflation under control
- Monetary policy Measures: Maintaining price stability is the foremost objective of the monetary policy committee of RBI. However, during the pandemic, growth has taken centre stage and RBI has rightly cut interest rates.
- Commodity prices: GoI needs to remove supply side bottlenecks. For example, GoI can immediately offload 10-20% of its pulses stock with NAFED in the open market.
- Fuel prices: Bringing them under GST would reduce the prices by at least 30 rupees. GST council must agree to this with haste.
- Policy measures: Navigating out of this will need a fiscal stimulus to shore up consumer spending, an investment revival to increase the productive capacity of the economy, and a careful management of inflationary expectations.
- Concomitantly, the government will also need to pursue redistribution of income to reduce the widening disparity.
- This also calls for fiscal prudence to cut wasteful spending, find new revenue through asset sales, mining and spectrum auctions, and build investor confidence.
Conclusion
With the rise in inflation amidst a second wave, the balancing acumen of the MPC will now be sorely tested. Factors like rising commodity prices, supply chain disruptions are expected to raise overall domestic inflation. Government and RBI need to chalk out a fiscal plan to ensure that the inflation doesn’t burden the common man in the country
General Studies – 4
Topic: challenges of corruption.
Why the question:
The question is part of the static syllabus of General studies paper – 4.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the importance of fighting corruption.
Directive word:
Comment– here we must express our knowledge and understanding of the issue and form an overall opinion thereupon.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Begin by giving importance of having a corruptionless public service delivery.
Body:
Write about the importance of fighting corruption – creates jobs, achieves gender equality, and secures wider access to essential services such as healthcare and education etc. Substantiate with examples.
Conclusion:
Conclude by mentioning various ways to fight corruption in public service.
Introduction
Corruption is dishonest behavior by those in positions of power. It starts with the tendency of using public office for some personal benefit. Moreover, it is unfortunate that corruption has, for many, become a matter of habit. It is so deeply entrenched that corruption is now considered a social norm. Hence, corruption implies the failure of ethics.
Body
Importance of fighting corruption:
- Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines rule of law, leads to violations of human rights and allows organized crime to flourish.
- Corruption in India is not limited to collusive high-level scams.
- Petty corruption, which affects the delivery of basic services and rights to people, is rampant.
- Corruption impacts societies in a multitude of ways. In the worst cases, it costs lives. Short of this, it costs people their freedom, health or money. The cost of corruption can be divided into four main categories: political, economic, social and environmental.
- On the political front, corruption is a major obstacle to democracy and the rule of law. In a democratic system, offices and institutions lose their legitimacy when they’re misused for private advantage. This is harmful in established democracies, but even more so in newly emerging ones. It is extremely challenging to develop accountable political leadership in a corrupt climate.
- Economically, corruption depletes national wealth. Corrupt politicians invest scarce public resources in projects that will line their pockets rather than benefit communities, and prioritise high-profile projects such as dams, power plants, pipelines and refineries over less spectacular but more urgent infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals and roads. Corruption also hinders the development of fair market structures and distorts competition, which in turn deters investment.
- Corruption corrodes the social fabric of society. It undermines people’s trust in the political system, in its institutions and its leadership. A distrustful or apathetic public can then become yet another hurdle to challenging corruption. This especially impacts the poor and marginalized, who are most dependent on public provisioning of rations, pensions, health, and education. Serious cases of several big corruptions have surfaced in the last five years, including banking frauds and the Rafale deal. The popular sentiment that helped the incumbent Government in the 2014 general election was resentment against corruption in public life.
- Environmental degradation is another consequence of corrupt systems. The lack of, or non-enforcement of, environmental regulations and legislation means that precious natural resources are carelessly exploited, and entire ecological systems are ravaged. From mining, to logging, to carbon offsets, companies across the globe continue to pay bribes in return for unrestricted destruction
Measures to curb corruption:
The solution to the problem of corruption has to be more systemic than any other issue of governance. Merely shrinking the economic role of the state by resorting to deregulation, liberalization and privatization is not necessarily the solution to addressing the problem.
- Adopting effective and coordinated policies against corruption
- Developing a coherent anti-corruption policy which identifies the causes of corruption and commits to practical, coordinated and effective measures to address these causes is a prerequisite for success.
- Fair and transparent system of public procurement
- Establishing a procurement system, built on the principles of objectivity, transparency and competition, is important to both saving public money and to ensuring that the policy and developmental objectives of the government are met.
- g.: GeM Government E-market Place is a step in the right directions. With this, Public Finance Management System also helps in tracking the real-time usage of funds.
- Strengthened transparency and public reporting
- An informed society with free access to information is a strong deterrent to corruption.
- This underlines the importance of transparency, public reporting and access to information in preventing corruption.
- Right to Information needs to be strengthened to make the public officials and governments more accountable to the citizens.
- Citizens must be Vigilant: Otherwise, like Plato said “The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in government, is to suffer under the government of bad men”
- Institutional monitoring and legislative reforms
- Prevalent institutional arrangements have to be reviewed and changes made where those vested with power are made accountable, their functioning made more transparent and subjected to social audit with a view to minimize discretionary decisions.
- Napoleon who said, ‘Law should be so succinct that it can be carried in the pocket of the coat and it should be so simple that it can be understood by a peasant’.
- The 2nd ARC recommended that The Prevention of Corruption Act should be amended to ensure that sanctioning authorities are not summoned and instead the documents can be obtained and produced before the courts by the appropriate authority.
- E-governance
- The focus should be on e-governance and systemic change. An honest system of governance will displace dishonest persons.
- Other Reforms
- All procedures, laws and regulations that breed corruption and come in the way of efficient delivery system will have to be eliminated.
- The perverse system of incentives in public life, which makes corruption a high return low risk activity, need to be addressed.
- In this context, public example has to be made out of people convicted on corruption charge
- Establishing a procurement system, built on the principles of objectivity, transparency and competition, is important to both saving public money and to ensuring that the policy and developmental objectives of the government are met.
Second ARC guidelines to prevent corruption
- Vigilance and Corruption:
- Strengthening pro-active vigilance to eliminate corruption and harassment to honest civil servants including, wherever necessary, limiting executive discretion.
- Addressing systemic deficiencies manifesting in reluctance to punish the corrupt.
- Identify procedures, rules and regulations and factors which lead to corruption.
- Relationship between Political Executive and Permanent Civil Service: Improvements in the institutional arrangements for smooth, efficient and harmonious relationship between civil service and the political executive is needed.
- Code of Conduct for different organs of Government: This includes Political Executive, Civil Services, etc.
Conclusion
“Rivers do not drink their waters themselves, nor do trees eat their fruit, nor do the clouds eat the grains raised by them. The wealth of the noble is used solely for the benefit of others.”
Corruption needs to be rooted out from the very core of our nation, so that there is justiciable distribution of resources in the country leading to inclusive growth and ‘Sabka Vikas.’
General Studies – 4
Topic: challenges of corruption.
Why the question:
The question is part of the static syllabus of General studies paper – 4.
Key Demand of the question:
To write about the importance of fighting corruption.
Directive word:
Comment– here we must express our knowledge and understanding of the issue and form an overall opinion thereupon.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Begin by giving importance of having a corruptionless public service delivery.
Body:
Write about the importance of fighting corruption – creates jobs, achieves gender equality, and secures wider access to essential services such as healthcare and education etc. Substantiate with examples.
Conclusion:
Conclude by mentioning various ways to fight corruption in public service.
Introduction
Empathy is the ability to be aware of, understand, and appreciate the feelings and thoughts of others. Empathy is “tuning in” (being sensitive) to what, how, and why people feel and think the way they do. Being empathic means being able to “emotionally read” other people.
Body
Empathy helps in the following:
- Understands Unspoken content:
- Demonstrates active listening skills (such as asking probing questions, not interrupting)
- Picks up signals when others are not feeling comfortable and displays consideration.
- Ex: The ground level implementation of many welfare programmes are wrought with problems. For instance, in PM Ujjwala Yojana, the lack of last mile delivery of gas cylinders pushes people to go back to firewood or cow dung cakes, thus defeating the programme. In such case, a patient civil servant can listen to woes and help overcome people’s issues.
- Has concern for others:
- Open to diversity of opinion.
- Probes to understand people’s issues, unspoken thoughts, and feelings
- Expresses concern for Others:
- Demonstrates empathy by correctly understanding reactions or emotions of others.
- Builds trust by demonstrating respect for other’s point of view.
- Example: Pati.NO.1 campaign done in Agra to encourage Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, involving both husbands and wives of the district to be a part of the behavioural change after understanding that the inhibitions associated with the use of toilets for women.
- Acts as a Role-model:
- Makes a balanced assessment of a person’s strengths and weaknesses based on a deeper understanding of the individual
- Example: The Secretary of water and sanitation ministry himself demonstrated the usage and cleaning of the twin pit system under Swachh Bharat Mission. This helped allay the fears, doubts of people and also helped overcome the ill-thoughts of untouchability associated with sanitation.
- Creates and provides an environment of Respect:
- Creates a culture of mutual trust and respect.
- Example: In the remote areas of Manipur, with no road, connectivity to the two villages of Tusem and Tamenglong was a huge problem and the locals had to either walk for hours, or swim across the river. Armstrong Pame, an IAS officer collected Rs 40 lakh through social media for the construction of the road and got a 100 km stretch of road constructed in the state.
Importance of Empathy:
- Empathy allows people to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, people are able to respond appropriately in social situations.
- Empathizing with others helps you learn to regulate your own emotions. Emotional regulation is important in that it allows you to manage what you are feeling, even in times of great stress, without becoming overwhelmed.
- Empathy promotes helping behaviours. Not only are you more likely to engage in helpful behaviours when you feel empathy for other people; other people are also more likely to help you when they experience empathy.
- Despite claims that empathy comes naturally, it takes arduous mental effort to get into another person’s mind and then to respond with compassion rather than indifference.
Conclusion
While empathy might fail sometimes, most people are able to empathize with others in a variety of situations. This ability to see things from another person’s perspective and sympathize with another’s emotions plays an important role in our social lives. Empathy allows us to understand others and, quite often, compels us to take action to relieve another person’s suffering.
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