Professional Documents
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Prologue
The International Relations (IR) topics under new UPSC Mains syllabus (GS2), can be
broadly classified into following groups
1. India’s Relations/agreements:
a. with our neighbors
b. with non-neighbors
c. with associations/regional/global-groups of countries
2. International institutions, agencies: structure, Mandate
3. Diaspora
This article focuses only on the diaspora. We’ll look into remaining IR topics in other
articles, later.
As per the syllabus from official notifications of 2012 vs 2013 we can see that
Diaspora Basics
• For the basics/overview, do a selective reading of IGNOU MA Sociology Course
MSOE-002: Diaspora and Transnational Communities.
• Entire set download link given @bottom. @Hindi medium aspirant, sorry Egaynkosh
hasn’t uploaded it Hindi medium, yet.
Let’s look at the list of high-priority chapters/topics from this MSOE-002 PDF set.
Chapter in
Why important?
MSOE-002
Unit-5 Indian
Emigration
Indirectly important from GS1: World History=> colonialism.
During Colonial
Rule
Unit-14
• immigration policies (because syllabus itself says): Effect of
Immigration
policies and politics of developed and developing countries on
and Emigration
India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
Policies and
• and keep your self-updated with the new immigration policies,
their
from newspaper/internet. (Particularly for US, UK, EU).
Implications
More Focus on
Unit-17 Indian 1. Diaspora finance topic: FDI, remittances, business networks etc.
Diaspora- + from newspapers, keep yourself updated regarding QFI, NRI
Homeland remittance, FCNR etc. things for economy section.
Linkages 2. political connection (indirectly important for NRI voting rights
issue under polity syllabus.)
It doesn’t mean other chapters are not worth reading. They too contain fodder for essay
and interview. (+answers for past mains questions) But whether it’ll be useful for the next
exam or not? Well, that depends on your good/badluck with UPSC.
For the MOIA set, don’t read those pdfs word by word like it some board exam. Just focus
on following areas:
1. Some fodder points that can be used in an essay themed around globalization/
world is village etc. for example Indian contribution in building Silicon Valley.
2. Problems/concerns/issues faced by our diaspora in that country.
3. Any bilateral agreements/schemes on social security, etc.
Yearbook
Page
Ch.No Topic
No.
18 518 Indian diaspora
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas-PBD (The 2013’s summit already discussed in
18 520
earlier article: click me)
18 512 bilateral Social Security agreements.
18 516 consulates, passport, visa service
18 519 overseas citizenship (for polity topic)
18 512 Know India program.
labour: International workers: special provisions in India. (for the
21 685
IR>>bilateral relation topic)
• If you have old edition (India 2012), then just dig google (particularly pib.nic.in and
MOIA websites), and you’ll get those topics.
• But above list is not exhaustive. Because new schemes keep coming up.
• Recall the “interval” in my article on [Economic Survey Ch13] Human Development
(Part 3 of 4). A new scheme was launched for diaspora:
Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojana (MGPSY)
• by Ministry of Overseas Indian
• for the Overseas Indian workers having Emigration Check Required (ECR)
passports.
• feature is similar to Swavalamban: you subscribe to NPS-lite then Government will
make some contribution in your account.
• Free life insurance as long as you work in ECR country.
• Implemented via Bank of Baroda and LIC.
Another scheme (under consideration)
Diaspora bonds
• India is considering introduction of “diaspora bonds”
• It provides long-term investment facility to the diaspora.
• Their money will go in developing infrastructure sector in India.
Diaspora polity
Although there is no such topic called “diaspora polity” in the official syllabus hahaha but
nonetheless following topics should be prepared:
1. NRI vs PIO difference, given in the given in the Citizenship chapter of Indian Polity
by M.Laxmikanth OR Bharat ki Rajyavyavastha by M.Laxmikanth
2. NRI voting rights related issues= pib.nic.in + Hindu/Indianexpress (IE)
3. Bill to protect women deserted by NRI husbands=Hindu/IE (+PRSindia.org if and
when bill is uploaded)
These are the topics predicted/ prepared by people based on their past observation/
hunch. For example,
Diaspora
Year why was it a hot topic?
region
Coup/constitutional crisis. Indian origin PM Mahendra Chaudhry
2000 Fiji was ousted, Mass emigration of Indian diaspora because of
persecutions.
2006 Lebanon Operation Sukoon to rescue Indians during Israel–Hezbollah War.
2007 Malaysia Demolition of Hindu temple, Large-scale protest by Indians.
Trinidad
2010 and Indian origin Kamla Persad-Bissessar became PM.
Tobago’s
2011 Libya Due to Operation Blossom to rescue Indians.
middle-
2011-12 For the ongoing uprisings.
east
But (If I recall correctly), none of the above diaspora questions were asked in the Mains
papers of the respective years, except the Fiji crisis (2000).
A more recent example is SABLA. No matter which coaching material you read, which
magazine you picked up, which website you opened (including mine lolz)….there was
SABLA,SABLA and SABLA, as if there was nothing else to prepare. Still UPSC ignored
SABLA in Prelims 2013. But there could be another reason (/conspiracy theory) for that=
since government forced UPSC to undo some of the changes in Mains 2013 (regarding
medium and Litt.) so, UPSC felt disrespected and wanted to do a tit-for-tat. And what
could be a better show of disrespect to UPA Government, than not asking about a scheme
named after Rajiv Gandhi!
Anyway jokes apart, UPSC seems to follow an unwritten rule that if a topic becomes “too
hot” then don’t ask anything. Although it doesn’t mean we should totally neglect those
hot topics because still you might have to face them during the interviews +/- could use it
as fodder points in the Essay.
So what could be the hot topics under Diaspora for Mains 2013, GS Paper II?
Bloodmoney.
• As per the Sharia law, a family member of the victim can
pardon the accused if the latter pays the blood money.
• Seventeen Indians, who had been on death row in the United
UAE Arab Emirates (UAE) for the murder of a Pakistani national,
have been released after they paid blood money of $1
million.
• This money was collected via charity, Punjab Congress and
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
Pregnant Indian lady dentist died because Ireland’s law did not
Ireland
permit abortion. Led to a lot of uproar.
Norway/
That child abuse and child custody case, where our MEA/Krishna
Scandinavian
tried a lot to fix it.
countries
In Turkey
Because of ongoing uprisings/protests. (Although this line of
Syria
thinking/prediction has proved clichéd and useless for past 3 years!)
middle east
Above list is not exhaustive. If you’ve additional topics, please list in the comment below.
Dig the websites of Hindu and Indianexpress (in terms of both news report articles as well
as columns/editorials). In most of the cases you’ll have sufficient points/content to detail a
12-15 marks worth question. If not, then dig Google further. But Avoid the temptation to
do Ph.D on any diaspora (current affairs) topic. Reasons are following:
• When you do Ph.D on one topic, you are left with less time to prepare other topics.
• When you know 50 points about a topic (because of your Ph.D) but the question
usually asks 12-15 marks worth content, then becomes difficult to prioritize which
points to write and which points to skip during the exam.
• In such a situation, often, candidates end up over crossing the word limit to write
all the points they know, (hoping that it’d fetch more marks), but instead it harms
them because they’re left with less time/energy to write the remaining answers.
when October/November comes, you’ll have 500 other things to read and revise. Then
you’ll not have sufficient time to go through entire PDFs/newspapers again for second
revision. Therefore, whenever you read about diaspora from any PDF/newspaper/book,
simultaneously prepare summeries/notes/mindmaps on the very same day. Because No
revision=low recalling power in the exam hall=low score=#epicfail.
softwares:
1. Majority of these PDF files provides direct copying of text. => That means you can
use Mrunal’s autonotemaker to quickly make notes and mindmaps out of it, just
use mouse cursor to highlight a particular line /phrase and my software will copy its
text in a separate file. for more instructions click me
2. Foxit PDF reader. (necessary prerequisite for using Mrunal’s autonotemaker) click
me