Q6 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2019 · Essay · 125 marks · 1 min read

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Neglect of primary health care and education in India are reasons for its backwardness.

Topic: Philosophical and ethical quotes. Syllabus: Philosophical and ethical quotes Same official PYQ from year-wise 2019 and Philosophical and ethical quotes.

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

A child with a fever sits out another week of class. The fever was cheap to treat. The missed letters will cost a life. The topic names two neglects as reasons — primary health, primary school — for a country’s remaining backwardness.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

  • Backwardness here is capability: years of life, a sentence read, a woman who can choose. Write Amartya Sen without a lecture. Keep the counter: elite hospitals and English-medium islands do not disprove the line.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

  • Sen / capability

    Development as lives people can actually lead.

  • Gandhi

    The last person — a PHC is closer than a metro speech.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

What the line is asking

  • Primary: the first mile — ASHA, a government school, a mid-day meal that arrives.
  • Neglect: money, teachers, a closed PHC, a private trap.
  • Reasons: not the only ones (caste, gender, a colonial hangover) — but load-bearing.

Health

  • Immunisation, anaemia, TB, a delivery. NFHS as a mirror.
  • Ayushman at the top does not replace the sub-centre.

Education

  • ASER: a class 5 child who cannot read class 2. That is backwardness with a rank in GDP.

Gender / caste

  • The girl pulled out; the Dalit hamlet’s school without a teacher. Neglect is not evenly spread.

Federal purse

  • 15th Finance, a state that under-spends on health. The Union’s flagship vs the last-mile wage.

The counter

East Asia also used land, factories, a trade shock. India is not only two departments. And ‘backward’ can be a slur. Still: without the first clinic and the first book, every other scheme is a poster.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

  • NFHS-5 Anaemia, stunting, a delivery in an institution — the health mirror.
  • ASER Reading and arithmetic in government schools — the education mirror.
  • Art. 21 / 21A / 39 Life, school, health in the Directive Principles’ neighbourhood.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

  • Close: fund the boring mile. Expand — this is only the map.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • Biased media is a real threat to Indian democracy.

    Next question on this syllabus topic (2019 · Q7). 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?

    Empirical, not a ministry brochure. Two numbers, not twenty.

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