UPSC 2022 Geography · 15 marks · 250 words
Examine the causes and consequences of the changing courses of Himalayan rivers, with recent examples.
What “Examine” demands
investigate the issue closely — how it arose, how it works, what it achieves and where it falls short — looking at both sides.
The characteristic failure: description of what the thing is, with no probing of how well it works.
What a top answer must contain
These are the checkable specifics from the marking standard for this question — the actual case, committee, datum or thinker, not an instruction to “give examples”.
- Causes: neotectonics (Himalayan frontal thrust), high sediment yield, avulsion on alluvial fans, glacier-melt regime shifts
- Kosi 2008 avulsion — the canonical case; Teesta post-2023 GLOF changes
- Consequences: floodplain displacement, boundary disputes (charlands), embankment lock-in (Kosi embayment)
- Management: sediment-aware basin management vs pure embankment; NDMA GLOF guidelines 2020
- A sketch of avulsion mechanism earns presentation credit
The band thresholds and the pre-scored sample answers behind this standard stay private — they are the calibration your copy is placed against.
Now write it, and find out what you actually scored
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