General Studies, Essay and Comprehension
Write essays on any four of the following in about 300 words each: 20×4=80
- (a)Urbanisation and the rise of mega-cities in India
- (b)The role of Civil Society in strengthening democracy
- (c)Gender justice and legal reforms in India
- (d)Role of startups and entrepreneurship in fostering economy
- (e)Reviewing India's defence strategy in the light of evolving external threat
- (f)India's maritime strategy and growing importance in the Indian Ocean World
Model answer outline
Pick the four topics you know best. Use a short opening, three or four body points and a close. The outlines below show the main points for each.
(a) Urbanisation and the rise of mega-cities in India
- Introduce: Census 2011 put the urban share at about 31 per cent. It keeps rising as people leave farms for jobs.
- Causes: better jobs, schools and hospitals in cities. Farm distress also pushes people out.
- Mega-cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad draw the largest flows.
- Problems: slums, traffic, air and water stress, and weak local finances.
- Policy: Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT (both 2015), metro rail, and the 74th Amendment for city governments.
- Way forward: grow mid-sized towns, plan transport with land use, and give city councils real money and power.
(b) The role of Civil Society in strengthening democracy
- Define: civil society means NGOs, unions, media and citizen groups outside the state and market.
- Rights base: Article 19(1)(c) protects the right to form associations.
- Examples: the MKSS campaign led to the Right to Information Act, 2005. Citizen groups also pushed the Lokpal law of 2013.
- Roles: they watch the government, give voice to the poor and run voter awareness drives.
- Limits: foreign funding rules, lack of transparency in some groups and capture by political interests.
- Way forward: clear and fair rules, plus open accounts, so trust grows on both sides.
(c) Gender justice and legal reforms in India
- Constitution: Articles 14, 15 and 21 promise equality. Article 15(3) allows special laws for women.
- Court-led change: Vishaka (1997) set rules on workplace harassment. Joseph Shine (2018) struck down the adultery law.
- Laws: the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the POSH Act, 2013 and the criminal law changes of 2013.
- Recent steps: the 2019 law on triple talaq and the Women’s Reservation Act, 2023 for one-third seats in legislatures.
- Gaps: low conviction rates, slow courts, and social pressure against reporting.
- Way forward: gender-sensitive police training, fast-track courts and legal aid.
(d) Role of startups and entrepreneurship in fostering economy
- Introduce: startups create jobs, new products and new competition.
- Policy: Startup India (2016) offered easier rules, tax benefits and a Fund of Funds. DPIIT recognises eligible firms.
- Gains: India now has one of the world’s largest startup systems, with many unicorns in fintech, e-commerce and software.
- Spread: startups are growing in smaller cities and in farming, health and clean energy.
- Challenges: funding slumps, complex compliance, weak research links and few exits.
- Way forward: patient capital, simpler rules, support for deep-tech and college incubators.
(e) Reviewing India’s defence strategy in the light of evolving external threat
- Threats: unsettled borders with China and Pakistan, cross-border terrorism, and new risks in cyber, space and drones.
- Recent tests: the Galwan clash (2020) and the conflict with Pakistan in May 2025 (Operation Sindoor).
- Reforms: the post of Chief of Defence Staff (2019), a Department of Military Affairs, and work on theatre commands.
- Self-reliance: positive indigenisation lists and growing defence exports.
- Gaps: ageing equipment, import reliance and slow procurement.
- Way forward: joint planning, faster buying, steady budgets, and partners such as the Quad.
(f) India’s maritime strategy and growing importance in the Indian Ocean World
- Why it matters: India has a long coastline and island territories. Most of its trade by volume moves by sea.
- Doctrine: SAGAR (2015) was the vision for security and growth for all in the region. MAHASAGAR was announced in 2025 to widen it.
- Capacity: the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (2022), submarines, and the Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region.
- Partners: Malabar naval exercise, the Quad and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative.
- Challenges: Chinese ports and research ships in the region, piracy and illegal fishing.
- Way forward: a stronger blue economy, port projects like Sagarmala, and shared patrols with neighbours.
Write arguments for and against each of the following statements: 20×2=40
- (a)The concept of work-life balance is a myth.
- (b)Gene editing is a threat to human identity.
Model answer outline
(a) Work-life balance is a myth
- For: phones and remote work blur office and home hours. Many jobs expect constant availability.
- For: competition and fear of job loss push people to overwork. Care work at home is often unseen.
- Against: labour laws set working hours, leave and rest. Many firms now offer flexible hours.
- Against: balance is personal and changes over life. Setting limits and sharing chores can make it real.
- Conclude: perfect balance may not exist, but a workable balance is possible with rules and choices.
(b) Gene editing is a threat to human identity
- For: editing embryos can pass changes to future generations. That may produce "designer babies" and deepen inequality.
- For: it raises questions of consent, safety and who decides what is "normal".
- Against: tools like CRISPR can treat diseases such as sickle cell anaemia. Identity is shaped by upbringing and society too, not genes alone.
- Against: strict rules and ethics boards can limit misuse. Editing body cells, not embryos, is widely accepted.
- Conclude: allow therapy, ban enhancement, and keep public debate open.
Write reports on the following in about 200 words each. Do not mention any name or address in the reports. Use XYZ/ABC, if needed. 10×2=20
- (a)Adoption of electric vehicles and emission control technology.
- (b)Impact of Genetically-Modified Foods on health and environment.
Model answer outline
(a) Electric vehicles and emission control
- Format: heading, date line, introduction, findings, suggestions, and a signature line with XYZ.
- Findings: electric vehicles cut tailpipe smoke. Sales are rising, helped by schemes such as FAME and PM E-DRIVE.
- Related steps: Bharat Stage VI fuel norms apply since April 2020. Catalytic converters and particulate filters cut harmful gases.
- Problems: too few charging points, high battery cost and coal-based power.
- Suggestions: more chargers, battery recycling and green power.
(b) Genetically-modified foods
- Format: same as above, with ABC as the organisation name.
- Findings: GM crops may give higher yield and pest resistance. In India only Bt cotton is approved for farming.
- Health: long-term effects need more study. Allergy risk is a concern.
- Environment: risks include gene flow to wild relatives and harm to non-target insects.
- Rules: the GEAC clears GM crops, and FSSAI regulates GM food.
- Suggestions: independent trials, clear labels and farmer consent.
Attempt a précis of the given passage in one-third of its length. Write, as far as possible, in your own words. The précis should be attempted only on the précis sheets. 15
Life then is the dynamic play of a universal Force, a Force in which mental consciousness and nervous vitality are in some form or at least in their principle always inherent and therefore they appear and organize themselves in our world in the forms of Matter. The life-play of this Force manifests itself as an interchange of stimulation and response to stimulation between the different forms it has built up and in which it keeps up its constant dynamic pulsation; each form is constantly taking into itself and giving out again the breath and energy of the common Force; each form feeds upon that and nourishes itself with it by various means, whether indirectly by taking in other forms in which the energy is stored or directly by absorbing the dynamic discharges it receives from outside. All this is the play of life; but it is chiefly recognizable to us where the organization of it is sufficient for us to perceive its more outward and complex movements and especially where it partakes of the nervous type of vital energy which belongs to our own organization. It is for this reason that we are ready enough to admit life in the plant because obvious phenomena of life are there — and this becomes still easier if it can be shown that it manifests symptoms of nervosity and has a vital system not very different from our own — but are unwilling to recognize it in the metal and the earth and the chemical atom where these phenomenal developments can with difficulty be detected or do not apparently at all exist.
Is there any justification for elevating this distinction into an essential difference ? What, for instance, is the difference between life in ourselves and life in the plant? We see that they differ, first in our possession of the power of locomotion which has evidently nothing to do with the essence of vitality, and, secondly, in our possession of conscious sensation which is, so far as we know, not yet evolved in the plant. Our nervous responses are largely, though by no means always or in their entirety, attended with the mental response of conscious sensation, they have a value to the mind as well as to the nerve-system and the body agitated by the nervous action. In the plant it would seem that there are symptoms of nervous sensation, including those which would be in us rendered as pleasure and pain, waking and sleep, exhilaration, dullness and fatigue, and the body is inwardly agitated by the nervous action, but there is no sign of the actual presence of mentally conscious sensation. But sensation is sensation whether mentally conscious or vitally sensitive, and sensation is a form of consciousness. (456 words)
Model answer outline
Target: about 150 words. A sample précis:
Life is the play of one universal Force. Mind and nerve energy are present in it, at least in principle, and they show up in the forms of matter. Every form takes in energy from the Force and gives it back, either by eating other forms or by absorbing energy from outside. We see this most easily where the system is complex and close to our own nervous type. That is why we accept life in plants but not in metal, earth or atoms, where its signs are hard to find. Yet the gap is not basic. Humans differ from plants in two ways only: we can move, and we have conscious sensation. Movement has nothing to do with the essence of life. Plants also show nervous reactions such as pleasure, pain, sleep and fatigue, but no clear sign of conscious sensation. Still, sensation is sensation, whether conscious or merely vital, and it is a form of consciousness.
Tips: keep the order of ideas, drop examples, use the past or present tense throughout, and add a title.
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow: 4×5=20
Hargobind Khorana was an Indian-American biochemist. While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that showed the order of Nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell and control the cell’s synthesis of proteins. Hargobind Khorana was born in a Hindu family in a little village called Raipur in Punjab in British India. The village is now part of West Pakistan. The correct date of his birth is not known. Official documents show it as January 9th, 1922. He is the youngest of a family consisting of one daughter and four sons. His father was a ‘patwari’. ‘Patwari’ was a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian system of government. Although poor, his father was determined to educate his children and they were actually the only literate family in their village inhabited by about 100 people. Hargobind Khorana went to the D.A.V. High School in Multan (now in Pakistan). Ratan Lal, who was one of his teachers, influenced him greatly during that period. Later, Hargobind studied at the Punjab University in Lahore where he obtained a M.Sc. degree. Here one Mr. Mahan Singh, a great teacher and accurate experimentalist, was his supervisor. He also influenced Hargobind immensely.
Khorana lived in India until 1945, when the award of a Government of India Fellowship threw an opportunity and made it possible for him to go to England. In England, he studied for a Ph.D. degree at the University of Liverpool. Roger J. S.
Beer not only supervised his research but also, looked after him sincerely and affectionately. This was a major introduction to Western civilization and culture for Hargobind. Later Khorana spent a year (1948-1949) at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich with Professor Vladimir Prelog for doing postdoctoral work. This association with Professor Prelog further moulded profoundly his thought and philosophy towards science, work and effort.
After a brief period in India in the winter of 1949, Khorana returned to England where he obtained a fellowship to work with Dr. G. W. Kenner and Professor A. R. Todd. He stayed in Cambridge from 1950 till 1952. He began research on nucleic === PAGE 5 === acids during this fellowship at the University of Cambridge under Sir Alexander Todd. Again, this stay proved to be of decisive value to Khorana. His interest in both proteins and nucleic acids got strengthened at that time. Later Hargobind went to Vancouver after Dr. Gordon M. Shrum of British Columbia offered him a job in 1952. The British Columbia Research Council offered at that time very little in the form of facilities, but there was a great amount of freedom to do whatever the particular researcher liked to do. During the subsequent years, with Dr. Shrum’s inspiration, encouragement and frequent help, scientific counsel from Dr. Jack Campbell, a group began to work in the field of biologically interesting phosphate esters and nucleic acids. Among the many devoted and loyal colleagues of this period, there was one Dr. Gordon M. Tener, who contributed positively to the spiritual and intellectual make up of the group.
Hargobind later held fellowships and professorships in Switzerland at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Universities of British Columbia and Wisconsin. In 1960 Khorana joined the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin. In the 1960s Khorana corroborated Nirenberg’s findings that the way the four different types of nucleotides are arranged on the spiral “staircase” of the DNA molecule determines the chemical composition and function of a new cell. The 64 feasible combinations of the nucleotides are read off along a strand of DNA as required to produce the desired amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.
- 5.(a)What kind of a job did Khorana's father hold?
- 5.(b)What was the attitude of his father towards his children's education?
- 5.(c)How did the government of India help Hargobind Khorana in his studies?
- 5.(d)Where and what did Hargobind Khorana study after he received help from the government of India?
- 5.(e)What did Hargobind Khorana achieve in the early 1960s?
Model answer outline
- (a) His father was a "patwari", a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian government.
- (b) Although poor, he was determined to educate his children. They became the only literate family in the village.
- (c) A Government of India Fellowship in 1945 made it possible for him to go to England.
- (d) He studied for a Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool, under Roger J. S. Beer. He then did postdoctoral work in Zurich (1948-49) and at Cambridge (1950-52).
- (e) He backed Nirenberg’s finding that the order of the four nucleotides in DNA decides a cell’s chemistry and function. The 64 combinations are read off to make amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
6.(a) Rewrite the sentences as directed: 1×10=10
- (i)The boss ___ (might/will) ask you to work overtime today. (Choose the correct modal)
- (ii)I tried to persuade him, but he refuses to ___ (listen to / hear) me. (Choose the appropriate verb)
- (iii)Kartik won't be late, ___ ? (Use the appropriate question tag)
- (iv)There is a cinema hall ___ two kilometers of my house. (Insert the correct preposition)
- (v)He said to me, "What are you doing?" (Change into indirect speech)
- (vi)Nobody knows the ___ (actual / factual) situation. (Choose the correct word to fill in the blank)
- (vii)He keeps me waiting. (Change the voice)
- (viii)The ___ (minister's / ministers') decision to postpone the meeting surprised even his party leaders. (Choose the correct word to fill in the blank)
- (ix)Rarely ___ (have we seen / we have seen) such unanimity among the senior staff in a matter of such importance. (Choose the correct option)
- (x)I am not used to do the housework (Use the correct form of the verb)
6.(b) Write one sentence each using the following phrases to bring out their meaning clearly. Do not change the form of the given phrases: 2×5=10
- (i)Come about
- (ii)Look about
- (iii)Take after
- (iv)Hang back
- (v)Come into
6.(c) Correct the following sentences without making any unnecessary changes: 1×5=5
- (i)The management admires for our watchman's bravery.
- (ii)I get up at six in the morning.
- (iii)You are required to sign with ink.
- (iv)Have you come in train or by car?
- (v)I will not go until you do not come back.
Model answer outline
6.(a)
- (i) will for a firm plan, or might for a possibility. Both are grammatical.
- (ii) listen to. (iii) will he? (iv) within.
- (v) He asked me what I was doing.
- (vi) actual. (vii) I am kept waiting by him.
- (viii) minister’s, as one minister is meant. (ix) have we seen, because the negative word comes first.
- (x) I am not used to doing the housework.
6.(b) Sample sentences
- Come about: How did the accident come about?
- Look about: She began to look about for a quiet seat.
- Take after: He takes after his father in his love of music.
- Hang back: The new recruits hung back before the first jump.
- Come into: She will come into a large estate when she turns twenty-five.
6.(c) Corrected
- (i) The management admires our watchman’s bravery.
- (ii) The sentence is already correct. Leave it unchanged.
- (iii) You are required to sign in ink.
- (iv) Have you come by train or by car?
- (v) I will not go until you come back.
Questions transcribed from the official C.A.P.F. (ACs) Examination-2026 question paper on upsc.gov.in (General Studies, Essay and Comprehension, 20 July 2026). Hindi text omitted. Answers are outlines written by MCQquestion.com, not an official key.
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