Q6 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2016 · Essay · 125 marks · 1 min read

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Cyberspace and internet: Blessing or curse to the human civilization in the long run.

Topic: Philosophical and ethical quotes. Syllabus: Philosophical and ethical quotes Same official PYQ from year-wise 2016 and Philosophical and ethical quotes.

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

A student in a small town reads a paper that used to live only in a Delhi library. The same week a rumour kills a man two districts away. Cyberspace is both rooms. The topic wants the long run — blessing or curse — with a spine, not a shrug.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

  • Blessing: access, a voice, a science. Curse: a lie at light-speed, a surveillance, an addiction. Long run: institutions we build now. Write both, then a public-net stand.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

  • Tagore

    A world not broken into fragments — the net as a possible hall.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

What the line is asking

  • Cyberspace and internet: infrastructure plus culture.
  • Blessing or curse: a false binary — write the fork.
  • Civilisation in the long run: memory, a trust, a war.

Knowledge / market

  • A MOOC, a UPI, a language that may die in thin data.

Crime / conflict

  • A cyber attack, a deepfake, a riot.

Mind / child

  • Attention as a mined ore.

The counter

Going off-grid is a privilege. The poor’s first net is often a cheap phone and a rumour. The task is not nostalgia for a pre-net village; it is a public digital that includes a library and a brake. Law is a tool, not the whole civilisation.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

  • Art. 19 / 21 Speech and dignity — the constitutional fork.
  • IT Act / DPDP A legal brake — peg once.
  • UPI / India Stack Blessing as a public rail.
  • CERT-In The curse as a file that needs a team.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

  • Close: keep the library; put a brake on the rumour mill. Expand — this is only the map.

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