Understand the difficulty level before answering

Hyderabad: Checking previous year’s questions helps aspirants to get some pointers on how to answer similar ones.

In our weekly series of answer writing in Mains exam, we are learning how to write appropriate answers for the questions asked in previous year’s papers of UPSC and State Public Services. The main reason why one has to check the previous year’s questions is for two reasons. Number one, they help you in understanding the difficulty level of questions that can be framed from the given syllabus. Number two, the most important one – aspirants shall get an idea about what the public service commission is expecting from the aspirants, and what are the specific topics/trends and this helps aspirants in preparation level itself to cover the specific important topics and make notes accordingly before hand.

In this article, we shall discuss a question from the Indian Society (General Studies Paper -1 -UPSC).

Topic: Effects of Globalisation on Indian society.

1) Discuss the positive and negative effects of globalisation on women in India? (PYQ – 2015)
Framework:

Introduction: Briefly define globalisation
Body:
i) Positive effects on women by globalisation

ii) Negative effects on women by globalisation.

iii) Conclusion: By mentioning women’s importance in a country like India.
Answer:

Introduction:
Globalisation in simple terms is the interaction between people of various countries, and ideas to make the world a global village. It has an impact on various sections of Indian society, including women.

Body:

Positive effects on women by globalisation:
i) Social benefits:

Decision making: Women now have a greater say in the household and also in choosing their life partner. Men and Women have equal say in the family.
Education: Globalisation spread awareness among the governments and also women. That, in turn, nudged governments to provide better education.
Healthcare: Globalisation also spread awareness about sanitation and menstrual health to women. That helped towards better growth of women.
ii) Economic benefits:
New jobs: Globalisation created a service sector boom in India. That in turn created more jobs by MNCs for people irrespective of gender.

Equality: Change in mentality from traditional treatment to pay equally to men and women based on their work.
Poverty alleviation: Globalisation helped to reduce the poverty across the world. Poverty reduction indirectly benefits women by making them access to nutritious food.
iii) Political benefits:
Legal awareness: Women became aware of their rights and started demanding better treatment. Ex: Sabarimala Case, where women protested for temple entry.

Political participation: The increased presence of women in Assemblies and Parliament — one of the reasons for increased participation is globalisation.

Voice to voiceless: Globalisation and social media platforms provide an opportunity to raise the grievances of voiceless women. Ex: #MeToo movement

Negative effects on women by globalisation:

i) Social challenges:
Double burden: Now women need to balance both household and office work creating more burden on them.

Divorce culture: False and pseudo feminism ingrained in women and less understanding between couple ending up in divorce.

Fertility and mental issues: Late marriages and increased workload leading to issues of mental health in women.

ii) Economic challenges:

Glass ceiling: Although globalisation helped to mobilise women, it created a barrier to women preventing women to top jobs.
Pay inequality: The Oxfam reports suggest that women are paid less than men with a wage gap of 34%.
Conclusion:
Acknowledging the challenges faced by women due to globalisation. Government should take necessary measures to provide a conducive environment for women and act as a facilitator for women empowerment.

To gain maximum marks, one needs to address multiple dimensions for asked question for both positive and negative effects – social, economic, political, etc.
When you explore multiple dimensions, it gives depth to your answer which is the need for the hour.

In this article, besides the most probable answer discussed above, I am going to give a previous year’s question to try and attempt for this week. Try to create a framework — Introduction, Body and Conclusion for the below question and jot down all the relevant points you know about it. We will discuss the answer in the next article, till then try brainstorming on this question.

Question for next week:

Discuss the changes in the trends of labour migration within and outside India in the last four decades. (PYQ -2015)