UPSC Essentials | Mains answer practice — GS 3 : Questions on AI in healthcare and Exchange Traded Funds (Week 143)

QUESTION 2

Discuss how the recent record inflows into gold and silver Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have influenced India’s trade deficit and financial savings pattern.

QUESTION 1: Discuss the importance of the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare systems. What are the challenges that arise when AI begins to influence critical aspects of health service delivery?

Relevance: This topic is significant for the GS-3: Science and Technology – advances and applications in everyday life, as well as technological, ethical, and inclusive growth challenges. AI in healthcare links innovation to public health governance, equity, data security, and regulation. UPSC is more focused on emerging technologies and their socioeconomic repercussions.

Note: This is not a model UPSC answer. It only provides you with a thought process which you may incorporate into the answers.

Introduction:

— New technologies in medicine are often described in terms of innovation—faster diagnoses, smarter predictions, streamlined workflows. India’s recently released national strategy for the use of advanced computational systems in healthcare invites a deeper conversation.

— AI in healthcare transforms medical systems by improving diagnostic accuracy, personalizing treatments, and streamlining operations to boost efficiency and patient outcomes.

Body:

You may incorporate some of the following points in your answer:

Importance of the development and deployment of AI in healthcare systems

— AI enhances accuracy in radiology, pathology, and dermatology by analysing medical pictures, allowing for faster and earlier disease identification.

— Algorithms analyse patient data (genetic, clinical, and lifestyle) to prescribe personalised treatments, particularly in oncology and neurology.

— AI automates administrative tasks such as scheduling, billing, and EHR management while also optimising hospital resources (bed, personnel, and equipment allocation).

— Wearable devices and IoT, paired with AI, enable real-time patient monitoring, preemptive interventions, and chronic disease management.

— AI increases surgical precision and rehabilitation.

Challenges that arise when AI begins to influence critical aspects of health service delivery

— It begins not with algorithms, but with infrastructure—interoperable health records, consent-based data exchange, and nationally aligned standards. In doing so, it acknowledges a simple but often overlooked truth: Computational systems reflect the data and institutions that sustain them. If those foundations are fragmented or inequitable, the technology will reproduce those weaknesses at scale.

— The performance can shift as populations, practices, and contexts change. A model that works in a tertiary urban hospital may falter in a rural clinic.

— In diverse societies, data rarely represent all communities equally. Urban centres, insured populations, and well-resourced facilities generate more complete records than marginalised or rural groups. Without deliberate safeguards, systems trained on such data risk reinforcing structural inequities. By emphasising representativeness and equity impact assessment, the strategy confronts this risk directly.

Conclusion:

— The global medical community is facing a watershed moment. Intelligent technologies might be treated as items to be purchased and patched, or as infrastructure to be managed. The latter requires humility, foresight, and institutional commitment. It requires acknowledging that code has consequences.

— If the future of healthcare will be increasingly mediated by digital systems, then governance must mature alongside innovation.

(Source: Medical AI should be as much about equity as algorithms, healthcare-bulletin.co.uk)

Points to Ponder

Can AI help bridge the rural–urban healthcare divide?

How can India balance innovation in medical AI with ethical safeguards and equity concerns?

Related Previous Year Questions

Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of AI in healthcare? (2023)

What do you understand by nanotechnology and how is it helping in health sector? (2020)

QUESTION 2: Discuss how the recent record inflows into gold and silver Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have influenced India’s trade deficit and financial savings pattern.

Relevance: This question is relevant under GS-3: Indian Economy, particularly topics like mobilisation of resources, savings and investment patterns, balance of payments, and external sector stability. Rising gold and silver ETF inflows affect household financial savings, import bills, and trade deficit dynamics. It links micro-level investment behaviour with macroeconomic stability — a recurring UPSC theme.

Note: This is not a model UPSC answer. It only provides you with a thought process which you may incorporate into the answers.

Introduction:

— The rise in stock market investments, by way of mutual funds, has sparked concerns among bankers about the future of deposit growth.

— In 2022-23, bank deposits made up 35% of households’ financial assets, while mutual fund and equity investments accounted for 7%. In 2024-25, the former had fallen to 33% while the latter more than doubled to 15%.

Body:

You may incorporate some of the following points in your answer:

— Gold as an investment not only illustrates the financialisation and formalisation of household savings but has also become an increasingly bigger driver of the import of the yellow metal: exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

— ETFs are, in essence, mutual funds that invest in gold. For households, it is better to invest in gold ETFs than physical gold: they don’t have to bother with verifying the purity of gold or ensuring its security and can buy it in small amounts; it is the fund that must buy the gold depending on the investments it gets.

— According to data from the World Gold Council, India’s gold ETFs bought a record 15.52 tonne of gold in January, almost equal to the demand seen in the previous three months combined.

(Source: World Gold Council)

— According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), net gold ETF inflows more than doubled from December 2025 to an all-time high of Rs 24,040 crore in January. At the same time, equity mutual fund investments fell 14% to Rs 24,029 crore.

— Gold ETF inflows accounted for 22% of all gold imports (Rs 1.1 lakh crore) in January. The figure was an even larger 52% for silver ETF inflows (Rs 9,463 crore) and silver imports (Rs 18,194 crore).

Conclusion:

— The sharp increase in gold imports in January – driven by rising investments in gold ETFs – helped push up India’s goods trade deficit to nearly $35 billion.

— The world has become rather volatile in recent years, marred by geopolitical conflicts and policy uncertainty. This trend represents a shift in household savings towards safer, physical assets, with less allocation to equities funds and more dependence on precious metals.

(Source: Indians’ gold (and silver) investment craze is weighing on the economy again)

Points to Ponder

Why are Indian households increasingly shifting towards gold and silver ETFs instead of bank deposits or equities?

How do gold and silver imports impact India’s current account deficit (CAD) and overall trade balance?

Related Previous Year Questions

“Investment in infrastructure is essential for more rapid and inclusive economic growth.” Discuss in the light of India’s experience. (2021)

Explain how the Fiscal Health Index (FHI) can be used as a tool for assessing the fiscal performance of states in India. In what way would it encourage the states to adopt prudent and sustainable fiscal policies? (2025)

Previous Mains Answer Practice

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 3 (Week 142)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 3 (Week 141)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 2 (Week 142)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 2 (Week 141)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 1 (Week 142)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 1 (Week 141)

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