The syllabus included in GS Paper 4 is

  • Ethics & Integrity
  • Governance & Emotional Intelligence
  • Philosophers & Thinkers, and Case Studies

Ethics and Integrity

Be familiar with the grammar and jargon of ethics and integrity will be helpful. UPSC aspirants read and recommend basic books such as Lexicon for Ethics and Integrity & Aptitude for IAS General Studies Paper IV by Niraj Kumar.

Governance and Emotional Intelligence

Questions related to how ethics is put into practice by civil servants are asked from this area. Hence, make use of your analytical mind while answering questions from this area. Solve previous year's questions to have an idea of what to expect from this paper.

Philosophers & Thinkers & Literature and theories

Try and read theories corresponding to social thinkers/philosophers and leaders such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kautilya (Chanakya), Ashoka, Rousseau, Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, Dayanand Saraswati, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Rabindranath Tagore, M.N Roy, Ram Manohar Lohiya, Narayan Guru, Deen Dyal Upadhyay, Nelson Mandela, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mother Teresa, Swami Vivekanand, Ambedkar, and Sardar Patel. This will allow you to answer the questions in this paper very effectively.

While reading the Case studies on the above-mentioned topics, try to put yourself in the place of an administrator and think about what you would have done. This will strengthen your thought process and crisis management to deal with such situations. Newspaper editorials, articles, and interviews of IAS/IPS officers can also be used as a reference point for strengthening this area.