Q3 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2018 · Essay · 125 marks · 1 min read

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Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere.

Topic: Philosophical and ethical quotes. Syllabus: Philosophical and ethical quotes Same official PYQ from year-wise 2018 and Philosophical and ethical quotes.

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

A gated colony hires a guard from a basti that has no drain. The fever comes over the wall anyway. Prosperity that refuses the basti is already leaking. The topic is that threat: poverty anywhere, prosperity everywhere.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

  • Not a sermon that the rich must feel sad. A material claim: labour, demand, epidemic, legitimacy. Write SDG and Art. 38 without a brochure.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

  • King / UN

    Injustice anywhere — the cousin line; then India.

  • Ambedkar

    Social democracy — prosperity as a structure.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

What the line is asking

  • Poverty: capability, a wage, a stigma — not only a rupee line.
  • Prosperity: health, a street that works, a firm that can hire.
  • Anywhere / everywhere: the spillover.

City

  • A slum next to a mall. TB, a flood, a vote.

Nation

  • A lagging district that sends labour and takes back a crisis.
  • Tax, a GST compensation, a finance commission as the plumbing of ‘everywhere’.

World

  • A pandemic, a refugee, a cheap good made in a fire-trap.

The counter

‘Everywhere’ can become a moral licence to lecture the poor on grit. Ambedkar: a floor first. And some prosperity is extractive; sharing the loot is not the same as ending the loot.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

  • Art. 38 / 41 Welfare as a constitutional ought.
  • SDG 1 / 3 / 10 Poverty, health, inequality — peg once.
  • Finance Commission The file that moves money toward ‘everywhere’.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

  • Close: lower the wall, raise the drain. Expand — this is only the map.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • Management of Indian border disputes - a complex task.

    Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q4). View answer →

  • Is this the full essay?

    No. It is a map. In the exam, each heading becomes a paragraph with one Indian case.

  • Tone?

    Material, not a guilt trip. One Indian street, one world spillover.

Same topic · past papers

UPSC has asked this before

These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.

  1. 2020 · Q6 · Essay · 125 marks

    There can be no social justice without economic prosperity but economic prosperity without social justice is meaningless.

    View answer →

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