GS Paper I — Q10
Do you think digital technology promotes social empowerment? Explain with examples. (Answer in 150 words)
हिंदी में प्रश्न पढ़ें
क्या आप ऐसा सोचते हैं कि अंकीय (डिजिटल) तकनीकी सामाजिक सशक्तता को बढ़ावा देती है? उदाहरणों के साथ समझाइए। (उत्तर 150 शब्दों में दीजिए)
Model answer
Drafted with AI by UPSC Answer Check against this question's marking rubric, to the 150-word length. UPSC does not publish answers for Mains — this is one way to score well, not an official key. How we build rubrics and answers.
Yes, largely: digital technology promotes social empowerment by removing intermediaries and democratising access to services. The JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity enables Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), curbing leakages and widening financial inclusion, while UPI lets street vendors accept digital payments and build credit histories (e.g., PM SVANidhi). UMANG and DigiLocker simplify access to government services, eSanjeevani telemedicine bridges rural healthcare gaps, and DIKSHA and SWAYAM widen access to learning. Digitised Self-Help Groups and women-run Common Service Centres (CSCs) foster women's micro-entrepreneurship.
Limits: The digital divide persists—only 54% of women use a mobile phone of their own (NFHS-5), with rural-urban and caste gaps as well. Biometric authentication failures in Aadhaar-linked PDS delivery have excluded some of the poorest, and low digital literacy leaves the elderly and marginalised vulnerable.
Digital technology is thus a potent catalyst for social empowerment, but its benefits depend on closing gaps in access, literacy and affordability.
How this answer will be evaluated
Framework: GS1 Society: Continuity, Data, Intersectionality, Solution
What earns full marks: Analytical dimensions with specific, named examples and data.
Evaluation rubric
Each sub-part is marked on its own, against the marks and word limit printed on the paper.
- The answer Give a reasoned view on whether digital technology promotes social empowerment, explaining how it does so with specific examples and noting its limits. 10 marks · 150 words
explain— definition/context → points in order → small example → short close
Must cover
- A clear position on whether digital technology promotes social empowerment
- Mechanisms of empowerment (disintermediation, access to services, information and voice)
- Specific examples across dimensions (financial inclusion—JAM/DBT/UPI; health—eSanjeevani; education—DIKSHA/SWAYAM; women—digitised SHGs)
- Limits: digital divide, exclusion errors, digital literacy gaps
Loses marks
- Only listing schemes without showing how they empower
- One-sided view ignoring the digital divide and exclusion
- Narrating the chronology of technology
Earns more
- Specific schemes (e.g., Digital India, Common Service Centres)
- Intersectionality (gender, rural, caste, elderly)
- One robust statistic
- Balanced conclusion that empowerment is conditional on access and literacy
Extra mark
- NFHS-5 data on women's mobile phone use (54%) or a similar penetration statistic
- Reference to privacy/misinformation risks or the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023
What "Explain" is asking you to do
Make the working of something clear — what sets it off, what follows from what, and what it produces. Explain is the Commission's mechanism word: it dominates the technical papers and the “explain why” stems, where the marks sit in the causal chain and not in the label.
Structure that answers it
State what it is → the initiating condition → the chain of cause, step by step → an instance where it plays out → what the chain produces
Where marks are lost
Describing what something looks like instead of why it works that way. Naming the stages without linking them reads as description too.
Practice this exact question
Write your answer and it is marked point by point against the model answer above — what you covered, what you missed, what you got wrong.
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