Indian Social Problems: Causes, Effects, Legislation and Remedies
What this domain tests
This domain examines conditions widely regarded as harmful and remediable - poverty, unemployment, population, illiteracy, crime, corruption, communalism, casteism, addiction, child labour and gender violence - and the laws and schemes addressing them. Answers must be structured as cause, effect and remedy, with the correct Act and year.
Core rules and concepts
- A social problem affects a significant number of people, involves a value judgement, and is considered remediable.
- Poverty: absolute versus relative; the Tendulkar Committee (2009) and Rangarajan Committee (2014) poverty lines; remedies - MGNREGA 2005, Public Distribution System, National Food Security Act 2013.
- Unemployment: structural, frictional, seasonal, disguised and educated unemployment.
- Population: Census 2011 recorded about 1.21 billion, a sex ratio of 943 and literacy of 74.04 per cent; demographic transition explains growth stages.
- Crime and deviance: juvenile delinquency handled by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015; cyber crime under the IT Act 2000.
- Corruption: Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, Right to Information Act 2005, Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013.
- Gender violence and inequality: Dowry Prohibition Act 1961; Section 304B IPC on dowry death; Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005; PCPNDT Act 1994; Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013; the 2019 Act banning triple talaq.
- Child labour: Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, amended in 2016 to ban employment below age 14 except in family enterprises.
Worked example
'Child labour persists despite legislation - explain.' Reasoning: causes are poverty, adult unemployment, school dropout and demand for cheap labour; the legal remedy is the 1986 Act amended in 2016; supporting remedies are the RTE Act 2009, mid-day meals and MGNREGA raising household income. Each paragraph links one cause to one specific remedy.
Traps that cost marks
- Listing only causes when the question says 'suggest remedies'.
- Naming a law without its year, or inventing sections.
- Reducing poverty to 'lack of money' and ignoring capability deprivation.
- Writing about child labour without noticing that the 2016 amendment permits help in family enterprises.