Landslides: How much human-induced, how much natural | UPSC Mains 2025 UPESS

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

A bus on a Himalayan cut waits while the hill sheds a little more of itself. The rain is natural. The cut, the dump, the house on a debris fan — those had a file. The topic is a percentage we cannot fake, and a duty we can still name. Rain is natural. The cut had a file. Respect the slope in the NOC; do not fake a 70–30 split.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

Do not pick 60–40 as if you measured it. Write mechanisms: geology, cloudburst, road geometry, a hydropower muck dump, a warning that arrived. Then NDMA, a building code, a no-build line.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

NDMA

Landslide guidelines — duty as a checklist, not a tweet after the bus.
IPCC cousin

Heavier rain on a loaded slope — climate as a human thumb on ‘natural’.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

Unpack

Natural: slope, lithology, monsoon, a quake, permafrost thaw.
Human: toe-cutting, deforestation, unplanned homestay, a dump downslope.
Climate: the ‘natural’ is already human-loaded.

UP / Himalaya

Hill districts, a pilgrimage road, a hydel project. Joshimath as a name students will reach for — use as caution, not as a fake report.

State

NDMA guidelines, a geo-technical NOC that was skipped, early warning.
Insurance and relocation: the humane after the slide.

The counter

A village that has always lived with a moving hill is not a criminal. Development of a road can be a right. The essay fails if every death is only ‘nature’ or only ‘corruption’.

Slope in the file

Lithology, a cloudburst, a quake — given.
Toe-cutting, a dump, a homestay on a debris fan — human.
Climate already loads the ‘natural’.
NDMA checklist, early warning, relocation after — cheaper than a funeral.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

Toe-cutting / muck The geometry of a road and a dump — human-induced you can point at.
Early warning A siren that is also policy — cheaper than a funeral.
Art. 21 A life on a fan of debris — the right that should have shaped the NOC.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

A bus on a Himalayan cut waits while the hill sheds a little more of itself. The rain is natural. The cut, the dump, the house on a debris fan had a file. Do not fake a percentage as if you measured the mountain. Write mechanisms, then a geo-technical NOC that was not skipped, a warning that arrived, a relocation that was humane. A village that has always lived with a moving hill is not a criminal; a road can still be a right. The essay fails if every death is only ‘nature’ or only ‘corruption’. Close on respect for the slope in the file. That is duty — not a tweet after the bus.

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Landslides: How much human-induced, how much natural.