UPSCTREE
Essay : IMportant
Five Essays Worth
Thinking Deeply About
Although these essay topics are not part of our regular Test Series, they are important, contemporary and genuinely thought-provoking. Anybody who wants to write any of these essays and get it reviewed can send it to us. We will review it.
The Five Topics
| 01 |
Wisdom is not knowing all the answers, but knowing which questions to ask. |
| 02 |
Wars are no longer won with armies, but with algorithms. |
| 03 |
Climate justice cannot be separated from social justice. |
| 04 |
In the age of abundance, loneliness is the great epidemic. |
| 05 |
Water will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th. |
“Wisdom is not knowing all the answers, but knowing which questions to ask.”
This topic is about the difference between information and wisdom. Knowledge may give us answers. Wisdom helps us decide what needs to be questioned, which assumptions need examination and what consequences must be considered.
In an age where search engines and AI can provide answers within seconds, the ability to frame the right question becomes even more important.
- Difference between knowledge, intelligence and wisdom.
- Questions expose assumptions hidden behind accepted answers.
- Scientific progress often begins with doubt and curiosity.
- Democracy requires citizens who can question power.
- Good administration begins by identifying the real problem.
- AI makes human judgement even more important.
- World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025:
analytical thinking remains among the most important skills valued by employers. - AI and big data are rapidly growing skills, but creativity,
resilience and analytical ability remain important. - Machines may improve answers while humans must improve questions.
- Science: discoveries often begin when somebody questions an accepted explanation.
- Public policy: asking “Why are children not learning?” may be more useful than merely asking
“How many schools have been built?” - Constitutional democracy: judicial review is an institutional mechanism for questioning power.
- Insight:ask — Why did it happen? Who gains? Who loses? What are the long-term consequences?
- Begin with someone who has plenty of information but still makes a poor decision.
- Distinguish information, knowledge, intelligence and wisdom.
- Show how questioning creates scientific and social progress.
- Move to governance and policy-making.
- Bring in AI and the growing importance of human judgement.
- End with disciplined curiosity rather than absolute certainty.
“Wars are no longer won with armies, but with algorithms.”
This statement should not be taken literally. Armies and soldiers still matter. The deeper argument is that modern warfare increasingly depends on information, software, satellites, drones, sensors, cyber capability and AI-enabled decision-making.
Algorithms have not replaced armies. They are changing what makes an army effective.
- AI-assisted intelligence and target identification.
- Autonomous and semi-autonomous drones.
- Cyber attacks on infrastructure.
- Satellite imagery and surveillance.
- Electronic warfare.
- Deepfakes and information warfare.
- Algorithm-driven logistics.
- SIPRI: military expenditure remains extremely high globally, showing that conventional capability still matters.
- SIPRI research highlights growing military use of AI in targeting, planning and intelligence analysis.
- ICRC: autonomous weapons raise concerns about accountability, predictability and meaningful human control.
- Russia–Ukraine war: drones, satellite intelligence and electronic warfare are major battlefield tools.
- Cyber warfare: critical infrastructure can be attacked without physically crossing a border.
- Satellites: navigation, surveillance and communication are central to precision warfare.
- Insight: technology changes the conduct of war, but political goals, territory and human judgement remain important.
- Trace warfare from physical force to machines, nuclear weapons and data.
- Explain why information and decision-speed matter.
- Discuss drones, AI, satellites and cyber warfare.
- Examine ethical risks and autonomous weapons.
- Challenge the statement by showing that human beings still control territory.
- Conclude that technology, strategy and human judgement must work together.
“Climate justice cannot be separated from social justice.”
Climate change is environmental, but its causes and consequences are deeply social. People most exposed to heat, floods, droughts and displacement often have the least capacity to protect themselves and recover.
Climate risk is unequal. The same cyclone, flood or heatwave can affect rich and poor households very differently.
- International: unequal historical emissions.
- Inter-generational: today’s choices affect future generations.
- Economic: poorer households have fewer resources to adapt.
- Gender: women may face greater post-disaster burdens.
- Labour: energy transition must protect workers.
- Procedural: affected communities should participate in decisions.
- IPCC AR6: communities that contributed least to climate change are often disproportionately affected.
- Vulnerability is closely linked to poverty, marginalisation and climate-sensitive livelihoods.
- UNEP Adaptation Gap Report: developing countries face a major gap between adaptation needs and available finance.
- Heatwaves: outdoor workers cannot simply move into air-conditioned spaces.
- Urban flooding: informal settlements are often located in vulnerable areas.
- Just Transition: closing mines without alternative employment can create another form of injustice.
- Odisha: cyclones can be linked with coastal livelihoods, displacement and unequal recovery capacity.
- Insight: climate justice exists not only between countries, but also between classes, genders, regions and generations.
- Begin with two families facing the same climate disaster.
- Show how inequality affects their ability to recover.
- Move from domestic inequality to historical responsibility between nations.
- Discuss women, workers, farmers and vulnerable communities.
- Bring in climate finance and Just Transition.
- Conclude that sustainability without justice is incomplete.
“In the age of abundance, loneliness is the great epidemic.”
Modern societies have more goods, entertainment, communication technology and digital connectivity than ever before. Yet material abundance does not automatically create friendship, belonging, community or meaning.
We may be digitally connected to hundreds of people while feeling genuinely known by very few.
- Migration away from familiar communities.
- Smaller households and ageing populations.
- Urban anonymity.
- Remote and gig work.
- Consumer culture.
- Online comparison.
- Weakening community institutions.
- WHO Commission on Social Connection, 2025: around one in six people worldwide experience loneliness.
- Loneliness is also significant among adolescents and young adults.
- WHO links social connection with health, education and wider social outcomes.
- Young people: constant online comparison can coexist with insecurity and isolation.
- Elderly: longer life may sometimes mean longer periods of social isolation.
- Migrant workers: employment can separate people from family and familiar communities.
- Urban design: parks, libraries and public spaces can create opportunities for interaction.
- Insight: do not blame smartphones alone. Migration, urbanisation, ageing and work patterns also matter.
- Open with someone receiving many notifications but having nobody to call in a crisis.
- Differentiate isolation from loneliness.
- Discuss technology, migration, urbanisation and work.
- Examine health and social consequences.
- Add balance: technology can also build communities.
- Conclude that prosperity without belonging is incomplete.
“Water will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.”
Oil shaped twentieth-century industry and geopolitics. Water may increasingly shape agriculture, cities,
migration, food security, public health and international relations.
Water is becoming strategically important, but unlike oil it is essential for life and has no substitute.
- Population growth and urbanisation.
- High agricultural demand.
- Groundwater depletion.
- Climate change and irregular rainfall.
- Water pollution.
- Transboundary rivers.
- Industrial and energy demand.
- Food and livelihood security.
- UNESCO / UN-Water: a large share of humanity experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year.
- Agriculture accounts for roughly 70% of global freshwater withdrawals.
- India’s groundwater assessments show that agriculture remains the dominant user of extracted groundwater.
- Cauvery: water can become an issue of federal politics and regional identity.
- Indus Basin: transboundary rivers connect water with geopolitics.
- Chennai: urban water crises show dependence on reservoirs, rainfall and groundwater.
- Cape Town: “Day Zero” became a symbol of urban water insecurity.
- Insight: the strongest essay moves from water conflict to water governance. Scarcity does not automatically create war.
- Begin with the role of oil in twentieth-century power.
- Explain why freshwater is becoming strategically important.
- Connect water with agriculture, cities, health and energy.
- Discuss interstate and international disputes.
- Challenge the oil analogy because water is essential and irreplaceable.
- Conclude with conservation, cooperation and better governance.
Do not turn the essay into five GS answers joined together.
Facts, reports, examples and quotations should support your argument. They should never become the argument itself.
- Interpret the statement before accepting it.
- Identify the hidden tension or paradox.
- Move across dimensions naturally.
- Use examples to prove arguments.
- Introduce counter-arguments.
- Return to the central theme.
- Individual
- Society
- Economy
- Governance
- Technology
- Ethics
- Environment
- National Security
- International Relations
- Future Generations
Whenever you use a fact, report or example, ask:
- What does this prove?
- How does it support my argument?
- Is there another side?
Write them if they make you think.
These topics are outside the formal Test Series, but that should not stop you. If you want to attempt any one of them, write the essay and send it for review.
The purpose is not simply to prepare for a possible examination question. It is to become better at seeing connections, questioning assumptions and building an argument of your own.
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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.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.