Paper II

Story hook

On May 29, 2024, the India Meteorological Department's Mungeshpur station in northwest Delhi recorded 52.9°C — the highest temperature ever measured in India's capital and one of the highest official readings ever from any major megacity globally. The same week, Phalodi (Rajasthan) crossed 50°C for the fifth straight day, Nagpur recorded 56°C heat index, and Sundarini in West Bengal had 17 hospitalisations in 6 hours for heat stroke. IMD's seasonal review found that 45 IMD stations crossed 47°C for 7+ days during May-June 2024, and Uttar Pradesh alone reported 100+ heat-related deaths in May 2024. Three months later, on July 30, 2024, Wayanad district of Kerala woke up to landslides at Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Attamala that buried entire villages — 300+ dead, 200+ missing, 8,000 displaced in what became India's worst landslide disaster since Kedarnath 2013. Two months after that, on October 4, 2024, the South Lhonak glacial lake in north Sikkim outburst again — the second GLOF in 12 months — and Sikkim's Teesta hydroelectric chain took another body blow. By the end of 2024, India had experienced — in a single calendar year — the world's most populous country recording its hottest-ever urban temperature, worst monsoon landslide in a decade, second GLOF in 12 months, and the second-deepest urban groundwater crisis in the world.

These are not isolated incidents. They are the visible edges of two superimposed crises that Paper II's contemporary issues unit asks candidates to read together: an environmental crisis (climate, water, biodiversity, pollution) and a regional disparity crisis (South-North income gap, urban- rural divide, EAG states, NE marginalisation). What makes 2026 analytically distinct is that the two crises now reinforce each other — climate change is a regional inequality amplifier. Bihar floods (because of upstream Nepal hydropower mismanagement) deepen Bihar poverty; Western Ghats fragility (because of central refusal to implement Gadgil-Kasturirangan zoning) deepens Kerala-Karnataka inter-state water tensions; groundwater collapse in Punjab-Haryana (because of crop incentivisation) deepens Punjab agricultural distress and migration. Examiners reward candidates who can show this double-helix structure.

Why this matters for UPSC

UPSC Optional Geography Paper II's contemporary issues unit is the sixth and final syllabus module — "**Environmental hazards (landslides, earthquakes, tsunami, floods, droughts), epidemics, environmental pollution, climate change, ** population explosion, food security, ecological issues, women in development, regional disparities in development." This is the unit with the widest scope, the most policy currency, and the most opportunity for high-scoring answers. In the last ten cycles, the unit has been directly tested at least once per year — 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. The 2023 question "Discuss the impacts of climate change on India's water security with examples" was a 20-marker. The 2021 question on "Regional disparities in development with reference to environmental factors" was a 15-marker. Answers that cite specific 2023-25 events, IMD/CGWB/NIDM/NITI Aayog data, Gadgil-Kasturirangan committee reports, IPCC AR6 numbers, score 16-18/20.