*Note – We have said earlier that Education essay in the section A is appealing ,however, there is a risk in it – the risk being can we write anything that may impress the examiner given that his/her profession itself is “education”. We will always have lesser understanding about a subject/job , unless we draw our livelihood from that subject or job.Hence the risk.But , nevertheless , if one writes holistically , one will get good marks.
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:-
1)Technology can not replace manpower :-
This a good essay for those who understand technology and how it changed the political and economic set up altogether.
There is a larger perception that technology will kill jobs, but it will kill only the conventional jobs ; and on the same hand it will create more sophisticated jobs.However there is a inherent danger in it- for eg- when you and I took birth – we never knew that there will be a sector called IT or job called Software engineer .By the 2000, it became a reality .Our parents would not have thought of this job and if you work in IT , you will know how difficult it is to make your parents understand the nature of your job – don’t mind if sometime they call you “clerks” (sitting in a desk , working with computer is an equivalent of clerk for them 🙂
In the transition phase though, those who were engaged in conventional job will lose employment.Technology creates a generational drift altogether.
Anyway- one can include – Artificial intelligence and Automation where the machines do cognitive activity can be cited which may kill jobs, but end of the day these are machines and to maintain them we need people, unless machine start repairing themselves.
One has to show the bad and good that technology can offer , one can start with industrial revolution and the impact of technology on jobs and then take it forward to contemporary times.Technology seems to replace manpower , only for a temporary span or time ; nevertheless no one ever thought that there will be a company called google or amazon or flikart who HIRE PEOPLE .So one has to give multiple examples on how technology has created jobs and not replaced manpower.
Moreover, one has to take Indian context too. For examples, if IT sector was not there – then this country would have seen some revolution as many of the engineers from other background would have been jobless- in this regard one can show, how sophisticated technology creates more jobs than conventional technology ( civil/electrical/mechanical etc)- this is an apt example in Indian context.One can show – how a new bunch of services are created out of thin air – from online shopping or online recruiting etc.
One can ask why emphasis on IT – simply because the question is not asking about conventional technology and the examples form this sector makes it relevant and contemporary.One can use mobile revolution too – how it left may STD BOOTH owners jobless for a short time and then again , the owners bounced back with top up services and many other such items to sell.
This is a good essay – one must attempt if he/she has in-depth insight into technology as a sector and can manage to give multitude of examples.
2)Crisis faced in India-Moral or Economic :-
This is a critical essay and it has dualistic nature and one can not conclude properly or stand on strongly any single point of view , hence better is to avoid this one.
The relevance is related to the multitude violence against women and unnecessary politicization of issues etc .
If economy would have been the cause of crisis in India – then we have been surviving as a country way too poor for the past 60 years and more after independence.Many foreigners could not digest the fact that even though their is poverty yet everyone seems contended and relatively happy – one can see a smile on the face of a poor in India and this baffles many foreign authors.
Many foreigners even wrote that poverty is a fit case for communism to survive and autocracy to rule , however India has none- hence India still remains as a mystery in the psyche.
So, as long as economy is concerned – it has never pushed India to crisis (broader sense).Moral crisis in India – is visible in all its ugly manifestations.
There is no correlation between the two either- you don’t rape becasue you are poor- as simple as that.
So , to score good , you have to paint the ugly pictures of moral crisis and be critical about it. End of the essay it will make the examiner sad (more or less) , however, contrary to popular belief it has a high scoring chance becasue , examiner is an elder person and he/she probably holds the same view on why this generation became so immoral , if you can just speak his mind in your writing , you are good to go.
Having said all that , one can still argue how poverty leads to crime etc, hence dualistic in nature and my view may not be similar to your view and both can be right too.
3)Dreams which should not let India sleep:-
This is probably most attempted essay , given the positive tone of the essay, however as we said in earlier essay – an essay is pessimistic does not mean that you will not score good or vice versa.The examiner is at the epicenter of it and dream is just another word for him/her at this age :)( in a general sense)
Anyway ,you have to paint a heavenly adobe called India and how to achieve it – the essay is as simple as that .
Start with Idea of India and proceed from there , the problem with this kind of essay is you will never finish that is no end to a dream and so this essay neither will have an end.
By the time you finish writing this essay , you will always feel you have left something or you could have done it better – as we said , its a dreamy essay and dreams have no ending and even if you end – you will never be satisfied with what you wrote , even though you have written very well.
This essay is vastly diverse, many people can write many ways and competition gets tough.
The difficulty is openness of the essay, however one can score decent marks , if you can take the examiner to see the heavenly adobe called India 🙂
4)Can capitalism bring inclusive growth :-
The straight forward answer to this essay is NO , however there is no alternative which is viable either . It is like democracy – it is not the best form of government , but there is no better alternative either.
The essay is not only about capitalism , it is also about socialism , hence you need to balance your view on how the mix of two can work together and succeed ,but will fail if tried in absolution.
Final view :-
Essay 1-ECONOMIC
Essay 2 -Even the word economic is there it is – ETHICAL
Essay-3 – Dreams can not be confined to any particular subject
Essay-4 – ECONOMIC
We think best essay to attempt is completely dependent on you.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.