Essay Paper Analysis (CSE MAINS 2015)
Section- A
- Lending Hands to someone is better than giving a dole.
- Quick but steady wins the race
- Character of an institution is reflected in its leader
- Education without values . as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man more clever devil
Section – B
- Technology can not replace manpower
- Crisis faced in India-Moral or Economic
- Dreams which should not let India sleep
- Can capitalism bring inclusive growth.
Analysis-
First of all, it was a very pleasant and welcoming , since 2014 , that UPSC is asking 2 essays rather than one.Which gives ample opportunity to amplify the marks.It is difficult to get more than 120 on a single essay and marks depends on connecting with the examiner.If your view point in a single essay , speaks to the mind of the examiner, you will get good marks , if not – only god can save you:).
Moreover , it is rather difficult to write 2500 word on a single topic, one usually runs out of material and digresses.
But now, when one has 2 essays , it gives real latitude to the aspirants and also helps diversify and increase one’s marks.Moreover, it is good for the UPSC too as they get to know more about you.
In general sense , Essays are all about personality and how to interpret and answer them.The essays needs in-depth understanding of a subject and this need critical thinking and one’s continuous effort to learn.
Lets analyse the essays of this year:-
There is a departure from dominance of quote based essays, which are mostly philosophical .And unless, one knows why a particular author made the quote , what is the background of it , one would not able able to answer satisfactorily.
For eg- in 2013 – “Be the change you want to see in this world ” .To answer this essay one needs to understand who said it,why he said it, was he the only one who said, how it was popularized by certain philosophy or person in our culture etc and the multiple angles of it.
Hence, quote based essays are little vague in nature and attempting them either can be very rewarding or very disastrous depending on one’s understanding and connect with the subject.Chance of digression is very high.One of the reason why who scored 140 one year scores 60 in the next year – we have personally endured this.
This year essays like – Lending Hands to someone is better than giving a dole and Quick but steady wins the race may look like quotes, but they are statements . Now how to answer them is important .
1)Lending Hands to someone is better than giving a dole –
This essay is completely relevant and a contemporary issue.If any of you have read economic survey of 2014 , you will know why this statement came. The survey is critical of the non performing , extravagant burden on Indian exchequer – rather known as SUBSIDY.How the subsidies are creating troubles rather than helping the needy.
One might think this as an philosophical essays- but it is not- it is an economic essay.There is little space for philosophy though .
Also we have asked you to read one particular article in one of our Sunday diaries , and if one has read this , he/she would be able to answer this perfectly.
Here is the link –
http://upsctree.com/2015/11/15/sunday-diaries-the-aura-of-simplicity/
and the quote in the article – ““Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” is very apt for this occasion.If you have read the article , you can even cite the example of particular IAS officer, there by making the answer more relevant to contemporary topic.
The core of the essay is however subsidy , but you cannot put figures and numbers per se, they have to be used judiciously and essay is probably checked by English professor, hence, excessive economic terms would make your essay technical and will hamper your marks. Thus it has to be answered by one of our principle philosophy – “Simplicity“.
One might argue that the essay is more philosophical (can cite examples/stories of the past) and no need to put SUBSIDY as the core theme, but remember, to make it relevant you have to use SUBSIDY , because there is a reason why UPSC has asked it this year and connecting it with contemporary issue is the single most important factor.
In conclusion ,this is an economic essay .Now you have to make the English professor understand economics.If you keep that in mind and write , this is a very nice essay to attempt.
2)Quick but steady wins the race:-
Lets understand why this was asked ?
The political development in the last year , the anti-corruption movement, Jan Andolan etc , gave rise political parties and instantaneous decisions led to unproductive log jam.It was quick but it was not steady.The product of the movement – Jan Lokpal bill is yet to do anything substantial on curbing corruption.Though it was a great movement as it generated the necessary social condition for anti-corruption in Indian Psyche.This is a fit case example of – if you are quick and not steady how it is going to to fail.
The theme of the essay is both quick and steady – that means – India is a young country and it is the time to harness India’s demographic dividend, this needs both – quick development and steady development that are sustainable.
India has been steady but not quick , hence we have lost 2 decades of opportunity as compared to China.
This essay can also be answered from citing examples from past . Once can cite examples such as Jadev Payeng (Forest man of India) – who single handedly brought a large number of area under forest through his actions. He was quick to realize that the Majuli Island can sink and only way to save it – is to grow forest cover , which can stop soil erosion and absorb excessive rainwater and he was steady in his action to plant the trees- day in – day out .We know that flood happens when forest covers on the banks were lost as forests act as sponge – they capture the water and release it slowly- hence stooping the flood.Many more such examples can be cited.One can cite historical examples – related to administration as well.
It is usually said that slow and steady wins the race , however the essay is quick and steady- that means UPSC is asking on the contemporary theme not on the age old idea of perseverance.
The relevance is , as pointed before how our governance structure should change from Slow and steady to quick and steady.
This essay has to be answered – If you are quick and not steady how it is going to fail and if you are slow but steady then how it is going to fail.
Another example can be environment – how it needs quick but steady action to succeed across globe.How we are on the verge of climatic catastrophe and how only fast and steady action can save it.
So , this is a question related mostly to – administration/policy – “designing action- taking decision-implementing it and sustaining it ” is the core.
The question mocks the rabbit and tortoise story of the past- slow and steady wins the race.
Various examples can be cited for this essay and can be both person centric/example centric or administration/policy centric .If one uses the larger objective such as administration and policy issues then it will connect with the reader , however one can use both – as one may see fit.
3)Character of an institution is reflected in its leader:-
This is a far too direct statement . If one has ample name of leaders and the institutions they led and how they changed and strengthened/weakened it – one can answer this.
This is a simple theme – the essay should delve in to – how a good man can lead a bad institution is a better way and how a bad man finds loophole in a good institution and makes it worse.
One fodder material for this can be the different Governor- Generals of India in British period. How the good one tried to do better while the bad ones tried to make it worse , even though they all were part of same institution and how their character changed the perception of their institution in the public psyche , thus painting a good/bad character of the institution altogether.
There can be multiple ways to answer this, however one should list down all the names institutions before hand and then answer the question.
Overall, this is a good essay for Public administration students , for others it is usually less attractive.
4)Education without values . as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man more clever devil
This is a quote by C.S. Lewis , however unlike past , this quote does not need greater understanding of the background of the quote and one can comfortably answer this .
It is essentially an Ethics question related mostly to Sociology. Because, we have seen , in recent times how educated ones are leaning towards extremism .
How absence of value based education has led to moral denigration in contemporary times.
How only technical education is only creating a man of skill who are devoid of ethics and take the garb of their education to justify their means.
How we are creating younger generations , who are only chasing money , becoming self-centered and disconnected from the society.
How education is creating a clever ones , yet the devil ones.
How our education is designed to teach skills to humans and not humanity .
This is a very broad topic and many examples can be cited for it , it is worth the attempt , moreover this lets one to show their understanding by ending it with a positive note and giving the necessary way forward.
Out of the 4 topics :-
- Lending Hands to someone is better than giving a dole -ECONOMIC- Worth the attempt- One can gather enough to write about it- topic is not digressive in nature-once can end with a very good conclusion
- Quick but steady wins the race:- ADMINISTRATIVE/POLICY- Worth the attempt – One can gather 1300 word easily – topic is not digressive in nature- one can end with a good conclusion , but it will be not as appealing as the previous one (we might be wrong though :))
- Character of an institution is reflected in its leader:-PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION- Good for the optional people
- Education without values . as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man more clever devil– SOCIOLOGY – worth the attempt- topic is very appealing yet can be dangerous if you digress, one needs Gandhi’s Idea of Education to get good marks on this- Many would have attempted this one- theme is bound to be critical , little scope for optimism as this is a critical topic.
As you have seen above , each topic has a specific core area – Sociology /Pub Ad/Economy.
The analysis for SECTION B will follow.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.