IES ISS 2019 General English Question Paper PDF | UPSC Exam

Q1. Write an essay on any one of the following topics in about 800 words:

(a) Can the Reservation Policy ensure social justice?

(b) Responsibility of news media in India

(c) Free speech as a democratic right

(d) Hazards of pollution and possible solutions

(e) Representation of women in Indian cinema

Q2. Make a précis of the following passage in about one-third of the original length, using your own words :

(passage) Indians are known for jealously preserving their cultural identity. They continue to cling to their norms of endogamy, marital stability and family solidarity, kin orientation, religion and mother tongue. They are always nostalgic about Indian food and their women tend to stick to their lovely saris.
As for the mechanisms of their cultural preservation, mention must be made of temples and gurdwaras, practice of keertan and akhand path, audio cassettes of devotional songs, video cassettes of Ramayan and Mahabharat, festivals and functions, and ethnic associations and organisations. What is more, even picnics provide occasions to reinforce old cultural practices. For instance, I was truly astonished to see antakshari (a verbal game in which the last letter of the verse recited by one participant has to be used as the starting letter of the verse by another participant) played in Sanskrit hymns in a picnic of Indians in Salt Lake City in USA.
Overseas Indians adhere to their traditional culture so ostensibly that at times it appears that they are more Indian in their cultural orientations and practices than resident Indians in India. Take, for instance, the Sikhs who are quick to take to modern ways in India but they tend to be rather orthodox abroad. Even those Indians who couldn't care less for their culture in India become quite observant of it in foreign lands.
Why do Indians get so faithful to their culture in foreign lands while at home they seem to favour Western culture? Several explanations come to mind. One, that they find in their culture a defence mechanism against a sense of insecurity in alien settings. Two, that they might be banking on their culture as a compensatory mechanism for the loss of status in foreign lands. Three, maybe there is something in the Indian culture — perhaps its adhesive quality — that accounts for it. Four, maybe it is a sense of pride of belonging to one of the oldest cultures of the world that makes them so reverent to it. Fifth, it may well be so because the immigrants get stuck to their conception of Indian culture of the time when they had left India and remain blissfully unaware of the changes it has undergone since then.