UPSC Mains Answer Writing Practice – Insights SECURE: 29 May 2025

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General Studies – 1

Topic: Population and associated issues.

Q1. Why does child sexual abuse remain alarmingly persistent across three decades despite legal safeguards? Examine India’s structural and social failures. (10 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: DTE

Why the question:
The 2025 Lancet study revealing alarming prevalence of child sexual abuse in India despite laws like POCSO, highlighting systemic failures over decades.

Key demand of the question:
The answer must explain why child sexual abuse continues at high levels despite existing legal safeguards and examine both structural and social-level failures in India’s institutional and cultural response.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Mention recent Lancet data and underline how persistence of CSA reflects deeper societal and systemic failures.

Body

• Structural failures: Weak law enforcement, delayed justice, inadequate child-friendly systems, data and coordination gaps.
• Social failures: Stigma, patriarchal silence, gender bias, institutional cover-ups, and lack of awareness education.

Conclusion
Suggest that CSA is not just a legal issue but a moral and institutional crisis needing systemic cultural reform and decentralised child protection governance.

Topic: Salient features of world’s physical geography

Q2. What is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)? Explain its phases and global movement. How did MJO’s strong amplitude recently influenced early rainfall over India? (15 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: IE

Why the question:
Early monsoon onset linked to an active MJO phase; highlights the growing importance of intra-seasonal climatic oscillations in influencing India’s monsoon system.

Key Demand of the question:
The answer must define MJO clearly, explain how its phases and movement influence weather globally, and analyse how the recent high-amplitude MJO led to early monsoonal rainfall in India.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Mention MJO as a key intra-seasonal phenomenon influencing tropical convection and monsoon dynamics, with specific reference to May 2025.

Body

• What is MJO – Explain it as a slow-moving equatorial disturbance of cloud, wind, and pressure with significant weather impacts.
• Phases and global movement – Describe the 8-phase model and eastward movement across the tropics with periodic global impact.
• Impact on India (2025 case) – Show how Phase 4 with strong amplitude triggered early monsoon onset in Kerala and Mumbai through enhanced convection and cyclogenesis.

Conclusion
Emphasise the need to integrate MJO indicators into India’s climate risk preparedness and forecasting systems.

General Studies – 2

Topic: Indian Constitution- historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.

Q3. Criminalising criticism corrodes constitutional democracy. Comment. How can Indian laws strike a balance between state interest and civil liberties? (10 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: IE

Why the question:
Pune student arrest case and debates around Section 152 of BNS, this issue revives concerns over misuse of state power to suppress free speech, especially criticism of the government.

Key Demand of the question:
The answer must comment on how criminalising criticism undermines constitutional democracy and suggest how Indian laws can balance legitimate state concerns with the right to dissent.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Start by highlighting the role of dissent as a democratic necessity and reference recent events showing misuse of sedition-like laws.

Body

• Criticising the government vs criminal conduct: Explain how current laws are being used to blur this line and the impact on civil liberties.
• Balancing mechanism in Indian law: Suggest reforms including legal safeguards, judicial standards, drafting clarity, and institutional oversight.

Conclusion
Call for a rights-based, constitutional approach that ensures dissent is protected while national security is genuinely upheld.

Topic: Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.

Q4. In recent years, constitutional posts have become battlegrounds of political partisanship. Evaluate how the politicisation of high constitutional authorities affects India’s federal balance and democratic ethos. Suggest institutional mechanisms to restore neutrality and public trust. (15 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: InsightsIAS

Why the question:
There has been rising political interference in the functioning of high constitutional offices, leading to concerns over federal strain and democratic decline, as seen in recent appointments, legislative impasses, and delayed decisions.

Key demand of the question:
The question requires analysing how the politicisation of high constitutional posts disrupts India’s federal structure and democratic values, and suggesting concrete institutional mechanisms to ensure impartiality and restore citizen trust.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Highlight the original intent of the Constitution to place high offices above politics as guardians of institutional balance and federal integrity.

Body

• Effects on federal balance: Politicisation weakens cooperative federalism, leads to selective use of constitutional powers, and enables central overreach into state affairs.
• Impact on democratic ethos: It erodes public trust, disrupts institutional impartiality, and undermines electoral integrity and legislative neutrality.
• Institutional mechanisms to restore trust: Include reforms such as independent appointment bodies, fixed tenure, legislative oversight, enforceable codes of conduct, and financial autonomy for constitutional institutions.

Conclusion
Conclude by stating that democracy thrives not just on constitutional texts but on institutional trust and the moral conduct of its highest offices, which must be preserved through reform and vigilance.

General Studies – 3

Topic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.

Q5. “Expansionary monetary policy, when prolonged, becomes a trap rather than a stimulus”. Discuss. How can India avoid such a path? (10 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: NIE

Why the question:
Japan’s prolonged stagnation and the risks of excessive monetary stimulus have contemporary relevance amid global debt surges and India’s post-pandemic fiscal-monetary strategies.

Key Demand of the question:
The answer must explain how prolonged expansionary policies can create structural economic distortions and suggest specific, forward-looking measures India can adopt to avoid similar pitfalls.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Briefly mention Japan’s lost decades and how stimulus without reform leads to stagnation.

Body

• Explain how prolonged expansionary policy creates asset bubbles, debt overhang, zombie firms, and weak currency.
• Suggest India’s strategy: structural reforms, credit targeting, monetary-fiscal discipline, innovation, and regulatory vigilance.

Conclusion
Summarise with the idea that policy stimulus must be time-bound and reform-oriented to avoid long-term damage.

Topic: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate.

Q6. What were the operational limitations in India’s joint military commands that necessitated a dedicated legal framework? Explain the key provisions of the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act, 2023. Propose mechanisms to ensure inter-service harmony and institutional accountability. (15 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: TH

Why the question:
The government has notified the rules formulated under the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act 2023, which came into effect recently.

Key Demand of the question:
The question seeks an analysis of operational gaps in joint military functioning that necessitated the Act, understanding of its major provisions, and forward-looking suggestions to institutionalise inter-service synergy and accountability.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction
Mention how India’s move toward integrated commands lacked a legal backbone to enable cross-service command and discipline, which the 2023 Act now addresses.

Body

• Operational limitations: Highlight issues such as absence of cross-service disciplinary powers, administrative ambiguity in joint structures, delays in handling misconduct, and duplication of inquiries.
• Key provisions of the ISO Act: Explain the empowerment of ISO commanders, jurisdiction over all three services, declaration of active service, continuity of command, and retention of individual service conditions.
• Mechanisms for harmony and accountability: Suggest creation of joint legal training modules, tri-service grievance cells, annual audits, digital case management platforms, and a unified code of conduct.

Conclusion
Emphasise that the Act lays the legal foundation, but achieving seamless jointness will require ethical alignment, institutional checks, and operational readiness.

General Studies – 4

Q7. “Silence in the face of moral wrong is complicity”. Analyse. What role do moral courage and whistle-blowing play in preventing such acts of injustice? (10 M)

Difficulty Level: Medium

Reference: TH

Why the question:
The police investigation into a mob violence case in Harduaganj has taken a twist after a laboratory report confirmed that the seized meat sample did not belong to a “cow or any cow progeny,” a police officer said.

Key demand of the question:
The question asks for an ethical analysis of how silence sustains injustice and expects an evaluation of the role that moral courage and whistle-blowing play in disrupting such unethical outcomes.

Structure of the Answer:

Introduction:
Briefly explain that ethical inaction enables systemic wrongs, while moral courage and whistle-blowing represent active resistance to injustice.

Body:

• Explain how silence in public and institutional spheres legitimises injustice and weakens democratic values.
• Describe how moral courage enables individuals to stand up against unethical norms, even in adverse conditions.
• Analyse how whistle-blowing acts as a corrective tool by exposing hidden wrongs and demanding accountability.

Conclusion:
Emphasise the need to institutionalise protection and promote ethical consciousness to ensure silence does not become complicity.

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