Important Essay Topics for UPSC Mains Exam

With every passing day, the democratic setup of India is strengthening, so are its administrative wings where transparency and accountability are evident. Well, it gives credibility to the fact that there are top administrative officers whose brilliant performance is at par excellence. Amid rigorous competition, UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) gets efficient candidates on-board who crack this toughest exam in India to serve the nation. This competitive examination includes 3 steps, Prelims, Mains and Personal Interview. Nevertheless, it’s a daunting task to crack such exam without meticulous preparation and strategies. In this blog, we have collated information related to the UPSC essay writing topics and their related components. It is paramount to have a tap on all those important UPSC Essay Topics which have been widely asked in previous years question papers.

Let’s take a look at important UPSC essay writing topics, you need to start practicing:

Social Topics

1. Literacy and education.
2. Modernization and Westernization in India
3. Gender Equality-problems and perspectives
4. Information Revolution and its increasing effects
5. Consumerist culture and its effects.
6. Reservation: Need, problems and solutions
7. The issue of child labour: what to do?
8. The mentality of misusing freedom
9. Composite culture of India
10. Rewriting of History
11. The problem of conversion and its solution
12. Uniform Civil Code: Need and perspective
13. Sustainable Development
14. Population Explosion:  Problem and solution
15. Indian nationalism: Nature and perspectives
16. The freedom of expression and its limitations.
17. Socialism: An irrelevant ideology
18. The responsibilities of Journalism
19. Human Rights: Need of every human being        
20. Corruption: A part of our way of life
21. The problem of language and its solution             
22. Need of saving childhood
23. Youth unrest: Causes and solutions
24. The problem of vulgarity
25. Need for a youth and culture policy
26. Indian culture: Unity in Diversity.

Like above questions Mirant Parikh, IAS(AIR 67, CSE 2016) has written Essay on one of above questions:

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Political Topics

1. India as a soft state
2. The Constitutional Review: need and perspective
3. The need of interaction between administration and public
4. Every right is attached with a duty.
5. The criminalization of politics
6. Political instability: A hurdle in national development
7. Achievements and failures of Democracy in India
8. Is India really a secular state?
9. Parliamentary Democracy: situation, problems and solutions
10. Corruption in politics
11. Judicial Activism
12. The need of sensible administration
13. National Security: Challenges and hopes
14. Democracy: A way of life
15. Kashmir problem: Need of a proper solution
16. Coalition politics: past, present and future
17. The gifts of Democracy: Casteism, Regionalism and Communalism.

Economic Topics

1. India in the age of privatization, liberalization and globalization.
2. New economic policies and the ideal of Democratic Socialism
3. Poverty and socialism: the Indian contradiction
4. New economic policies: oceans of poverty and islands of wealth
5. Regional imbalance in development
6. Human resource development and management.

International Topics

1. The problems of third world countries
2. The problem of international terrorism
3. India's contribution to the world
4. United Nations: Evaluation
5. Human Rights: A universal propaganda
6. Indian foreign policy: Need of restructuring
7. India and its neighboring countries
8. Idealism and pragmatism in foreign policy.

Mock answer by Mirant Parikh, IAS (AIR 67, CSE 2016)

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Philosophical/Imaginative topics

1. God is a subject of belief, not of reason
2. The philosophy of post-modernism in context of India
3. India's basic philosophy and its effect on our society
4. Religion and Politics: the professions without capital
5. 'Who cares’: the basic of youth culture.

Other topics

1. New concepts of alternative medicine: Realities about them
2. Natural disasters: the management of rescue
3. Need of a sport policy for India
4. Environment Protection: problem and solution.

Essay Preparation Strategy By: Mirant Parikh (AIR 67, CSE 2016)

Apart from these topics, candidates should browse through articles, columns, features of newspapers, magazines, journals for the preparation of good essays. Regular clippings and jotting down of important points on the side of clipped topics will ease your time and tension while giving a cursory look during the UPSC IAS examination period.