Be the change that you want to see in the world
Most of us feel extremely bad when we hear time and again of stories depicting how bruthlessly our politicians have let our country go to dogs. Ask even an illiterate person about the problems of our country and he/she'll immediately bounce back saying, "Our politicians are corrupt. They make a lot of promises before the election and once they are elected, they are busy making money." But, is putting the entire blame on the government for all the problems of the country justified? Is government responsible for the casualties caused due to unavailability of blood in the hospital? Is government responsible for the hardships faced by a large number of patients who are waiting for a donated kidney/lung/eye? There are a number of issues where it is not the government but individual action matters. Infact, merely blaming everything on the government is brushing away our responsibility towards our country and the world. Sure, an individual can't go and announce a scheme like MNREGA for the emancipation of the rural poor from the vicious circle of poverty. It is because legislation is the exclusive domain of the politicians. However, there are many things which an individual can do and should do to make this world a better place to live in.
So, what change I alone can bring about? Will my donating blood ensure that others also come and donate so that the blood bank will always an adequate stock of blood? Will my throwing the garbage in the dustbin ensure that the roads are clean, because anyways, whether I do it or not, others would still throw the garbage on the road? Will my using public transport ensure that others will not use their private vehicles indiscriminately? Will I be able to change the system? These are extremely valid questions and more often than not, are responsible for people turning a blind eye towards the problems of the country. A feeling of helplessness creeps in, leading to total loss of faith in the current system. This is one of the reasons for extremely low voter turnout in elections since people think they don't have a choice – whoever is elected, he/she'll be corrupt. In addition, the question of "How does this matter to me" also is a powerful deterrent from taking an initiative to bring about a positive change in the society.
Let me first try and list those tasks that can be done readily, without facing much inconvenience or investing too much time and energy.
Donate blood
Pledge your bodyparts to be donated after your death
Plant atleast 5 trees
Dispose your garbage judiciously
Follow traffic rules
Waste food minimally
Conserve electricity and water
Shun plastic bags and try to be eco-friendly
Sign online petitions if they reach your inbox
Never give bribes
Keep public places (e.g. Public toilets) clean
Use public transport. Give seats to the aged, women and children.
Don't smoke and don't allow others to smoke in public
Be a genuinely good person
There are many who might not be satisfied by the above list arguing that most of these are merely good manners and are things that need to be done on a personal level. For those enterprising people, I wish to present a list of tasks which would require more time, energy and resources but would be able to bring about a change on a bigger level.
Associate with a local NGO
Contribute by using your skills – if you are a website designer, you can design websites for some NGOs in your locality. You can teach children/adults what you are good at. Help them in learning computers/English/vocational skills so that they become employable and can earn a living. The best example that comes to my mind is Google. Although Google doesn't do charity, Google has made an enormous impact in our lives by asking its employees to go into villages and make maps; which led to the launch of Google Maps. Google Books, Google Earth, Google Docs and Google Translator are other extremely powerful and noble initiatives of Google.
Use RTI – RTI is immensely powerful. If you think that there is anything wrong going around in your society or you need to get information about the roads/pipelines constructed in your area, you can file an RTI. Don't be a silent observer, try to bring about a change.
Take up the cause of marginalized or less empowered people around you. Be accessible to everybody around your locality and at your work. Listen to their grievances and if you feel they are genuine and you can do something about it, do it.
Online Activism – There are lot of things that the Internet has made very easy. If there is anything that you feel is unreasonable, try to spread the message around. Use twitter, facebook, your gtalk status messages, write blogs, network with other like-minded motivated individuals, create online petitions, write letters.
Online volunteering – Go to www.onlinevolunteering.org and find out about this extremely powerful idea of making a meaningful contribution sitting in your home.
Take initiatives to conduct health camps, blood donation drives, tree plantation drives,
Have the guts to challenge archiac social norms (e.g. Dowry, same caste marriages). You don't always have to follow the crowd. One needs to win over the myth that an ordinary person can't bring about a change and you got to be Bill Gates/Narayana Murthy/an IAS officer/politician to bring about a change. Baba Amte, Mother Teresa, Anna Hazare were all very ordinary people to start with. If everybody thought that I can't change the system, will there ever had been wikipedia, a completely philanthropic effort. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Don't try to become a part of the problem, try to think of meaningful ways to solve them. Actively spread the message around and try to do something about it, however small it is.
We must realise that we are living in a democracy and democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The onus of 'by the people' part is on us and we got to play this part in order for smooth functioning of the world's largest democracy. It is not that all of us need to become revolutionaries or become social activists; if all of us can manage to contribute a drop in the ocean, it is commendable. We sometimes feel extremely charged and motivated when we see movies like "Rang De Basanti" or when something bad happens to our near and dear ones. But, these thoughts must be supplemented with action. We need to keep ourselves motivated, be patient and continuously try to bring about a change. It will take time but it surely will come. We don't need to lose our heart. Sometimes, we take a bold initiative and we feel that it was not worth it and it didn't bring about the required change. I think we must reward ourselves in those situations by realising that atleast we did something about it. If we didn't have done something about it, the problem would have stayed as is but atleast a honest try to do something about it was made. Atleast, we tried to come out of the comfort zone. Atleast, you acted and as Gandhiji said, "Almost anything that you do is insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
Friday, September 03, 2010
My first day at RCVPNAA, Bhopal
Today is the 29th of August, the day which I was looking forward to since the last 3 months.
We arrived in Bhopal at around 10 am. The autorickshaw, although cunning enough to charge us 130 Rupees (and we gullible enough to be trapped into his trap) was effortlessly telling us about the situation of Bhopal - the nice places here, the weather here, that the rains were not good this time, that the CM is discriminating between Old Bhopal and New Bhopal, as a result of which old Bhopal's development has been compromised.
We reached the academy and the two ladies at the reception were kind enough to check the file and told me that my room number will be 217. The keys were handed over to me and there was an attendant who helped us (Papa and me) to get the luggage upstairs.
The room was out of bounds of my expectations. It looked like a 3-star hotel room - with 2 ACs (it is a double-occupancy room and my roomie is yet to arrive), neatly arranged beds, a small sofa, a study table, two wardrobes, a tea-table and a clean bathroom. There was a strange feeling of pride saying, "Hey, you deserve it." But, I know that I am not here for luxury. Papa was taking bath and I was putting my clothes into the wardrobe when some of the other trainees came into the room. They were around 5-6 of them and I already knew one of them (I met him at CMC Vellore before). We introduced ourselves (most of them spoke about the states where they were from and the service they were allotted). I deliberately asked them when they had come and the room number they are staying so as to prorogue the formal talk and to talk something which is not a matter of personal pride (like what rank did you get, whether it was your first attempt and other things which might be linked to one's ego).
We then headed for lunch. We met some more trainees there. A guy from Indian Corporate Law Service, who hailed from Bangalore, was giving some fundaes in a typical accent. He seemed to be boastful and to know a lot of things. I was a bit critical because I made these conclusions merely due to his extrovert nature. But, sometimes among strangers, one person should be an extrovert, I thought because it becomes easy for the group to come together and talk. There was another person (he was incidentally from Jammu and was a Sardar) - I am not able to recollect his name. He said that he was 29 years old and was very happy that he had got into IRTS. He said that he had talked to rank-21 person (who is currently an IAS at Uttarakhand) who was very unhappy with his life as an IAS officer. He seemed to be a knowledgeable person and what I liked in him was his sympathetic attitude. This was reinforced when we later had a session on abusing the UPSC and its various ways of not changing with time, delaying the results, asking the preferences before the mains exam, lack of information about the various services. It was a good discussion and I think that there are a lot of people who think and want to change/improve the system - something that I was desperately hoping for, since the last couple of months.
We then headed for a walk towards the Shahpura lake (thanks to the initiative taken by that Bangalorean ICLS guy). We were around 14-15. Naturally, there were around 5-6 groups of 2-3 people each. I was in a 3-member group along with that Bangalorean and my CMC Vellore friend, Dhruva. They were doing most of the talking and I was just listening. Then, the Jammu Sardar also joined our group and a discussion on the Kashmir problem started. I was doing most of the listening since I really wanted to hear something from a localite. But, he couldn't tell something new, most of it was the stuff which I had already listened on the news channels. I caught up with Papa, who was walking alone towards the lake. We walked around 200 m, saw the lake, it was fenced all around and also, it was dirty. We headed back towards the academy.
Now, that we are back to the room and he is sleeping, I am on the sofa with an edition of "The Week" on the tea-table along with a book on Physical Geography. When I was reading about the earthquakes, there were a lot of thoughts going on in my mind and hence I thought that let me pen them down. So, I have started writing this column.
This day, is many days, similar to the first day at college. There is a strange feeling of inferiority complex, the fact that I am not very vocal and do not have much to say. The photo of Mother Teresa on "The Week" reminds me again that anybody can bring about a change, if one desires to. She was not even a university graduate and she started at the age of 40, yet she brought about a change. Here, I am sitting and wondering whether it is worthwhile to join IRS (IT) and bring about improvements in the system or I should study for the next exam and become an IAS officer. This constant dilemma is not leaving me. Let me read for the next 2 months and then see if I can get selected. Otherwise, I have IRS in my hand, I will try my heart out. Salute to you, Mother Teresa...hats off to you.
Today is the 29th of August, the day which I was looking forward to since the last 3 months.
We arrived in Bhopal at around 10 am. The autorickshaw, although cunning enough to charge us 130 Rupees (and we gullible enough to be trapped into his trap) was effortlessly telling us about the situation of Bhopal - the nice places here, the weather here, that the rains were not good this time, that the CM is discriminating between Old Bhopal and New Bhopal, as a result of which old Bhopal's development has been compromised.
We reached the academy and the two ladies at the reception were kind enough to check the file and told me that my room number will be 217. The keys were handed over to me and there was an attendant who helped us (Papa and me) to get the luggage upstairs.
The room was out of bounds of my expectations. It looked like a 3-star hotel room - with 2 ACs (it is a double-occupancy room and my roomie is yet to arrive), neatly arranged beds, a small sofa, a study table, two wardrobes, a tea-table and a clean bathroom. There was a strange feeling of pride saying, "Hey, you deserve it." But, I know that I am not here for luxury. Papa was taking bath and I was putting my clothes into the wardrobe when some of the other trainees came into the room. They were around 5-6 of them and I already knew one of them (I met him at CMC Vellore before). We introduced ourselves (most of them spoke about the states where they were from and the service they were allotted). I deliberately asked them when they had come and the room number they are staying so as to prorogue the formal talk and to talk something which is not a matter of personal pride (like what rank did you get, whether it was your first attempt and other things which might be linked to one's ego).
We then headed for lunch. We met some more trainees there. A guy from Indian Corporate Law Service, who hailed from Bangalore, was giving some fundaes in a typical accent. He seemed to be boastful and to know a lot of things. I was a bit critical because I made these conclusions merely due to his extrovert nature. But, sometimes among strangers, one person should be an extrovert, I thought because it becomes easy for the group to come together and talk. There was another person (he was incidentally from Jammu and was a Sardar) - I am not able to recollect his name. He said that he was 29 years old and was very happy that he had got into IRTS. He said that he had talked to rank-21 person (who is currently an IAS at Uttarakhand) who was very unhappy with his life as an IAS officer. He seemed to be a knowledgeable person and what I liked in him was his sympathetic attitude. This was reinforced when we later had a session on abusing the UPSC and its various ways of not changing with time, delaying the results, asking the preferences before the mains exam, lack of information about the various services. It was a good discussion and I think that there are a lot of people who think and want to change/improve the system - something that I was desperately hoping for, since the last couple of months.
We then headed for a walk towards the Shahpura lake (thanks to the initiative taken by that Bangalorean ICLS guy). We were around 14-15. Naturally, there were around 5-6 groups of 2-3 people each. I was in a 3-member group along with that Bangalorean and my CMC Vellore friend, Dhruva. They were doing most of the talking and I was just listening. Then, the Jammu Sardar also joined our group and a discussion on the Kashmir problem started. I was doing most of the listening since I really wanted to hear something from a localite. But, he couldn't tell something new, most of it was the stuff which I had already listened on the news channels. I caught up with Papa, who was walking alone towards the lake. We walked around 200 m, saw the lake, it was fenced all around and also, it was dirty. We headed back towards the academy.
Now, that we are back to the room and he is sleeping, I am on the sofa with an edition of "The Week" on the tea-table along with a book on Physical Geography. When I was reading about the earthquakes, there were a lot of thoughts going on in my mind and hence I thought that let me pen them down. So, I have started writing this column.
This day, is many days, similar to the first day at college. There is a strange feeling of inferiority complex, the fact that I am not very vocal and do not have much to say. The photo of Mother Teresa on "The Week" reminds me again that anybody can bring about a change, if one desires to. She was not even a university graduate and she started at the age of 40, yet she brought about a change. Here, I am sitting and wondering whether it is worthwhile to join IRS (IT) and bring about improvements in the system or I should study for the next exam and become an IAS officer. This constant dilemma is not leaving me. Let me read for the next 2 months and then see if I can get selected. Otherwise, I have IRS in my hand, I will try my heart out. Salute to you, Mother Teresa...hats off to you.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A big myth - Writing skills a mandatory requirement for clearing UPSC exams
There has been a belief that one has to have very good writing skills so as to clear UPSC exams. Many coaching institutes are leveraging on this rumor since it is easy money for them. They conduct test series and try to lend help by giving 'feedback' on the answers that one writes. However, I believe strongly that rather than writing skills, knowledge is imperative for success in the UPSC exams i.e. One should know first what to write rather than knowing how to write. No flowery language is desired by the UPSC, except otherwise your optional is English literature. One just needs to express whatever one knows in a manner that if one reads your answer, he is able to assimilate what you wish to say.
So, the question comes, “What should be a good style to write the answers?”, “Should I underline the important points?”, “Should I write in paragraphs or in bullets or number the points?”, “Is handwriting important?”. I think all these questions and many more are logical questions in any person looking for clearing this exam. But, the point that I wish to make here is that “It doesn't matter as long as you've written what you wished and explained it well”. There is no need of a specialized training on how to write answers. Everybody has its own style and you should follow that.
The only guideline that I wish to give you is that before answering any question, think for a couple of minutes and jot down on the last page (you can use it as a rough page) the key points that you wish to cover in the answer i.e. Try and give a structure to your answer. I can illustrate this by an example. Suppose the question is ''Elaborate the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in light of India-Pakistan relations?”. When you read this question, you've some idea of what is expected. Now, you try to think of whatever you know about the J&K problem. Just jot the points on the rough page (you may recollect something about the history of the problem, Raja Hari Singh's gesture to India for protecting J&K, some dates you might recollect e.g. The 1948 war, 1965 war, 1999 Kargil war, peace agreements like Tashkent Agreement, Shimla Agreement, Gen Mussharaff's visit to India, UN view on J&K, what India wants, what Pakistan wants, what US wants, what the international community wants, what the people of J&K wants, current problems in J&K, the social angle, possible solutions, conclusion). Now that you've written whatever you know about the J&K issue, try and put these points in order keeping in mind chronology as well as continuity e.g. Before discussing the history of the problem, there is no point in discussing what India wants and what Pakistan wants. Also, one needs to enumerate what India wants and what Pakistan wants before writing about what the US/UN/the international community wants. If I had to write the answer, I would have written as:-
a) A short history of the J&K problem – post-independence scenario, Raja Hari Singh, India and Pak involvement, special status given to J&K under the Indian constitution, a brief war, UN intervention in 1948, UN resolution, 1965 war, Tashkent agreeement, Shimla agreement, 1999 war, efforts at reconciliation.
b) current situation of J&K – the problems there, local lives affected, seperatists' movement, Indian army, infiltration, terrorism
c)What India wants – considering LOC as the international border, no chance of mediation, worried about close relations between India and China,
d) What Pak wants – considers it as a freedom struggle, wants the entire J&K, supporting infiltrators, wants a referendum in J&K.
e) What the people of J&K wants – lot of local parties like the Hurriyat, National Conference, PDP, worried about Indian army's wrong doings with general public.
f) What the UN wants – wants the situation to be solved bilaterally, still the UN resolution of 1948 needs to be implemented, doesn't have teeth to implement
g) What the US wants – not very worried, giving aid to Pak to solve its own problem of Afghanistan, good relations with India as well on the economic front.
h) Problems – local life affected adversely, tourism disrupted, huge drain of money on the part of India and Pak who are struggling to wipe out poverty
i) Possible solutions – LOC as an international border, status quo, India gives up, Pak gives up, 'Aman ki asha' – friendly relations between India and Pak, bilateral diplomacy
j) Conclusion – All in all, a very complex issue but it is high time that leaders who have the political will step in to solve this crisis otherwise the people are affected.
There has been a belief that one has to have very good writing skills so as to clear UPSC exams. Many coaching institutes are leveraging on this rumor since it is easy money for them. They conduct test series and try to lend help by giving 'feedback' on the answers that one writes. However, I believe strongly that rather than writing skills, knowledge is imperative for success in the UPSC exams i.e. One should know first what to write rather than knowing how to write. No flowery language is desired by the UPSC, except otherwise your optional is English literature. One just needs to express whatever one knows in a manner that if one reads your answer, he is able to assimilate what you wish to say.
So, the question comes, “What should be a good style to write the answers?”, “Should I underline the important points?”, “Should I write in paragraphs or in bullets or number the points?”, “Is handwriting important?”. I think all these questions and many more are logical questions in any person looking for clearing this exam. But, the point that I wish to make here is that “It doesn't matter as long as you've written what you wished and explained it well”. There is no need of a specialized training on how to write answers. Everybody has its own style and you should follow that.
The only guideline that I wish to give you is that before answering any question, think for a couple of minutes and jot down on the last page (you can use it as a rough page) the key points that you wish to cover in the answer i.e. Try and give a structure to your answer. I can illustrate this by an example. Suppose the question is ''Elaborate the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in light of India-Pakistan relations?”. When you read this question, you've some idea of what is expected. Now, you try to think of whatever you know about the J&K problem. Just jot the points on the rough page (you may recollect something about the history of the problem, Raja Hari Singh's gesture to India for protecting J&K, some dates you might recollect e.g. The 1948 war, 1965 war, 1999 Kargil war, peace agreements like Tashkent Agreement, Shimla Agreement, Gen Mussharaff's visit to India, UN view on J&K, what India wants, what Pakistan wants, what US wants, what the international community wants, what the people of J&K wants, current problems in J&K, the social angle, possible solutions, conclusion). Now that you've written whatever you know about the J&K issue, try and put these points in order keeping in mind chronology as well as continuity e.g. Before discussing the history of the problem, there is no point in discussing what India wants and what Pakistan wants. Also, one needs to enumerate what India wants and what Pakistan wants before writing about what the US/UN/the international community wants. If I had to write the answer, I would have written as:-
a) A short history of the J&K problem – post-independence scenario, Raja Hari Singh, India and Pak involvement, special status given to J&K under the Indian constitution, a brief war, UN intervention in 1948, UN resolution, 1965 war, Tashkent agreeement, Shimla agreement, 1999 war, efforts at reconciliation.
b) current situation of J&K – the problems there, local lives affected, seperatists' movement, Indian army, infiltration, terrorism
c)What India wants – considering LOC as the international border, no chance of mediation, worried about close relations between India and China,
d) What Pak wants – considers it as a freedom struggle, wants the entire J&K, supporting infiltrators, wants a referendum in J&K.
e) What the people of J&K wants – lot of local parties like the Hurriyat, National Conference, PDP, worried about Indian army's wrong doings with general public.
f) What the UN wants – wants the situation to be solved bilaterally, still the UN resolution of 1948 needs to be implemented, doesn't have teeth to implement
g) What the US wants – not very worried, giving aid to Pak to solve its own problem of Afghanistan, good relations with India as well on the economic front.
h) Problems – local life affected adversely, tourism disrupted, huge drain of money on the part of India and Pak who are struggling to wipe out poverty
i) Possible solutions – LOC as an international border, status quo, India gives up, Pak gives up, 'Aman ki asha' – friendly relations between India and Pak, bilateral diplomacy
j) Conclusion – All in all, a very complex issue but it is high time that leaders who have the political will step in to solve this crisis otherwise the people are affected.
Preparing for Geography as an optional for UPSC exam
Geography is a popular optional for UPSC exams particularly because of its objective nature – if you know it, you get the marks unlike other subjects like sociology/political science which seem to be extremely subjective. Geography also has some subjectivity particularly the 'human geography' part but still I feel is a good choice for science & technology graduates. If you liked geography during your school days, I think you should have a look at the syllabus and previous question papers (available on www.civilserviceindia.com) and then decide. Since the syllabus is vast, you need to allocate a considerable amount of time for this subject.
I want to put a disclaimer here that although I took Geography as one of my mains optional, I couldn't do full justice to this subject due to lack of time. I could only read the NCERTs and was not able to read any other standard books like Majid Hussain, Rupa's 'Geography Made Simple' and other suggested references. So, I am a sort of novice to this vast subject and so would advice to take everything I write down with a pinch of salt. Inspite of this, I am writing this article because I managed to pass through the exam studying very little since I focused on the basics. I've not been successful to receive my marksheet for this year's exam although they've been up on the website but it seems that it doesn't consider my e-mail id (vikrampg@gmail.com) a valid e-mail id. So, as and when I get my marksheet, I'll post it on the blog. My roll number is 383943 and my birth date is Dec 15,1986. If you know somebody who has the marksheet or can find out my marks, please let me know.
1. Start with NCERTs: Start with NCERTs (recent – freely available for download from ncert's website or you can do a google search for the same) from Class 6. Underline/highlight and/or keep noting the important points. Pay specific attention to the three NCERTs of Class 11 and 12. These three textbooks are extremely informative and cover almost 50% of the course. I would suggest you to go through these three textbooks twice or thrice and learn the facts therein by heart. When you read other reference books/notes, you should try and assimilate the extra information. For example, the NCERT book will contain the locations of iron and steel industry in the country. Learn these locations and the basic information given in the NCERT (e.g. Durgapur steel plant set up with British support, Bhilai steel plant set up with Russian support). Now, when you read a specific reference or some notes from a coaching institute, try and build on the existing knowledge that you had from the ncert (e.g. What are the turnovers of this industry, which is the biggest steel plant, what grade of steel does India manufacture, what are the problems, how does India compare to the international scene etc.). Thus, other things that you read will help you build up on what you already know from the NCERTs. Essentially, what I am suggesting is that build up your basics and get a broad overview from the NCERTs and then try to deepen your knowledge from reading other things. I am stressing the point over and over again primarily because I think the syllabus is huge and one has to manage it somehow. Thus, cover the breadth first and then the depth.
2. Use internet if you can: Don't leave any portion of the syllabus. Atleast, know the basics. Take the syllabus in your hand and do a google search for any entry that you wish to know about e.g. I did this for the different theories (rank-rule hierarchy, central place theory) and atleast got an idea of what the theory is. Internet will help you also for phsyical geography e.g. The mechanism of monsoons, the different winds, El Nino and La Nina effect. Numerous animations are available. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. Search about different places in the news or places that you've heard of but you are not sure as to where exactly they are (e.g. Casablanca, Timbaktu, Tashkent, Kyoto, Montreal, Miami).
3. Also, learn to make a rough map of India (world is optional) so that you can quickly make it while answering questions for paper 2. e.g. On the question of location of the iron and steel industry, you can quickly make a rough map and mark the different locations. This will fetch you a lot of marks. A picture is worth a thousand words, really...
4. Map entries: Locating given places on the map or identifying marked places on the map has been the standard question (worth 60 marks) in both Paper 1 and Paper 2. Thus, maps comprise 120 marks out of 600 marks i.e. 20% which is huge by any standards. So, how should we maximize our chances of marking the correct entries on the map. The first obvious thing is references – atlases in this case. The Oxford Atlas is very good particularly in regard to Indian entries while the Orient Longman Atlas is a good choice for the international entries. I studied mostly from the Orient Longman but later also got the Oxford Atlas xeroxed. I'll also suggest you to get some unlabeled maps of India and the world (preferably without any state or country boundaries) so that you can practice on it or put important places on it for later revision or as a reference
1. Make/get a list of important rivers/seas/deserts/mountains of India as well as the world – The idea here is to do it one by one. Get a list of important rivers of the world (from wikipedia or any other resource) and label it on one of your unlabeled map. If the list is very big e.g rivers, you can do it continent by continent otherwise e.g. If you are marking seas, then you can do it once and for all. You'll find that doing this will give you a confidence that “atleast, now I know all the seas of the world.” Moving piece by piece will further boost your confidence. You can follow the same strategy for India.
2. Mark all the countries and their capitals & important cities on the map : This will also help you a lot, you'll know a lot of places. Some of these places are directly asked in the exam.
3. One entry is usually of 6 marks – 3 marks for the entry and 3 marks for its description or 2 marks for the entry and 2 marks for its description (if one entry is worth 4 marks). The point here is that how should we prepare for the description part. I think the answer is not simple. One has to know a lot e.g. About the place where a river rises and where it drains finally or why is a city famous or what are the countries in which a given mountain range is located or some nearby areas; I'll suggest you to prepare yourself atleast for writing one sentence on the location of the entry (e.g. This river flows in the continent X and is situated to the north of mountain/river/sea Y and it flows through these countries). Other things that are expected from us are daunting e.g. Where does the river rise, does the river flow eastwards/westwards/southwards/northwards, where does the river drain itself. I myself couldn't do this but I would like to mention that this is the level of details that the examiner expects. If you write all this correctly e.g.one can write this for the river Ganga, then you get full marks. However, step marking is there and let's try to maximize our marks rather than brood over the difficulty of the task.
4. Anticipate: Most of the times, the entries that are asked in the question paper are not random; these places are important if an international summit has happened there (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio De Jenerio, Montreal, Bali, Doha etc.), an earthquake/tsunami/volcano has struck there (e.g. La Aquilla, Haiti, Chile) or some oil/gas/mineral has been found there (e.g. Sakhalin, KG basin, Mangala). So, any place which is in the news, try and ask in which country the place it is, what is it famous for.
Geography is a popular optional for UPSC exams particularly because of its objective nature – if you know it, you get the marks unlike other subjects like sociology/political science which seem to be extremely subjective. Geography also has some subjectivity particularly the 'human geography' part but still I feel is a good choice for science & technology graduates. If you liked geography during your school days, I think you should have a look at the syllabus and previous question papers (available on www.civilserviceindia.com) and then decide. Since the syllabus is vast, you need to allocate a considerable amount of time for this subject.
I want to put a disclaimer here that although I took Geography as one of my mains optional, I couldn't do full justice to this subject due to lack of time. I could only read the NCERTs and was not able to read any other standard books like Majid Hussain, Rupa's 'Geography Made Simple' and other suggested references. So, I am a sort of novice to this vast subject and so would advice to take everything I write down with a pinch of salt. Inspite of this, I am writing this article because I managed to pass through the exam studying very little since I focused on the basics. I've not been successful to receive my marksheet for this year's exam although they've been up on the website but it seems that it doesn't consider my e-mail id (vikrampg@gmail.com) a valid e-mail id. So, as and when I get my marksheet, I'll post it on the blog. My roll number is 383943 and my birth date is Dec 15,1986. If you know somebody who has the marksheet or can find out my marks, please let me know.
1. Start with NCERTs: Start with NCERTs (recent – freely available for download from ncert's website or you can do a google search for the same) from Class 6. Underline/highlight and/or keep noting the important points. Pay specific attention to the three NCERTs of Class 11 and 12. These three textbooks are extremely informative and cover almost 50% of the course. I would suggest you to go through these three textbooks twice or thrice and learn the facts therein by heart. When you read other reference books/notes, you should try and assimilate the extra information. For example, the NCERT book will contain the locations of iron and steel industry in the country. Learn these locations and the basic information given in the NCERT (e.g. Durgapur steel plant set up with British support, Bhilai steel plant set up with Russian support). Now, when you read a specific reference or some notes from a coaching institute, try and build on the existing knowledge that you had from the ncert (e.g. What are the turnovers of this industry, which is the biggest steel plant, what grade of steel does India manufacture, what are the problems, how does India compare to the international scene etc.). Thus, other things that you read will help you build up on what you already know from the NCERTs. Essentially, what I am suggesting is that build up your basics and get a broad overview from the NCERTs and then try to deepen your knowledge from reading other things. I am stressing the point over and over again primarily because I think the syllabus is huge and one has to manage it somehow. Thus, cover the breadth first and then the depth.
2. Use internet if you can: Don't leave any portion of the syllabus. Atleast, know the basics. Take the syllabus in your hand and do a google search for any entry that you wish to know about e.g. I did this for the different theories (rank-rule hierarchy, central place theory) and atleast got an idea of what the theory is. Internet will help you also for phsyical geography e.g. The mechanism of monsoons, the different winds, El Nino and La Nina effect. Numerous animations are available. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. Search about different places in the news or places that you've heard of but you are not sure as to where exactly they are (e.g. Casablanca, Timbaktu, Tashkent, Kyoto, Montreal, Miami).
3. Also, learn to make a rough map of India (world is optional) so that you can quickly make it while answering questions for paper 2. e.g. On the question of location of the iron and steel industry, you can quickly make a rough map and mark the different locations. This will fetch you a lot of marks. A picture is worth a thousand words, really...
4. Map entries: Locating given places on the map or identifying marked places on the map has been the standard question (worth 60 marks) in both Paper 1 and Paper 2. Thus, maps comprise 120 marks out of 600 marks i.e. 20% which is huge by any standards. So, how should we maximize our chances of marking the correct entries on the map. The first obvious thing is references – atlases in this case. The Oxford Atlas is very good particularly in regard to Indian entries while the Orient Longman Atlas is a good choice for the international entries. I studied mostly from the Orient Longman but later also got the Oxford Atlas xeroxed. I'll also suggest you to get some unlabeled maps of India and the world (preferably without any state or country boundaries) so that you can practice on it or put important places on it for later revision or as a reference
1. Make/get a list of important rivers/seas/deserts/mountains of India as well as the world – The idea here is to do it one by one. Get a list of important rivers of the world (from wikipedia or any other resource) and label it on one of your unlabeled map. If the list is very big e.g rivers, you can do it continent by continent otherwise e.g. If you are marking seas, then you can do it once and for all. You'll find that doing this will give you a confidence that “atleast, now I know all the seas of the world.” Moving piece by piece will further boost your confidence. You can follow the same strategy for India.
2. Mark all the countries and their capitals & important cities on the map : This will also help you a lot, you'll know a lot of places. Some of these places are directly asked in the exam.
3. One entry is usually of 6 marks – 3 marks for the entry and 3 marks for its description or 2 marks for the entry and 2 marks for its description (if one entry is worth 4 marks). The point here is that how should we prepare for the description part. I think the answer is not simple. One has to know a lot e.g. About the place where a river rises and where it drains finally or why is a city famous or what are the countries in which a given mountain range is located or some nearby areas; I'll suggest you to prepare yourself atleast for writing one sentence on the location of the entry (e.g. This river flows in the continent X and is situated to the north of mountain/river/sea Y and it flows through these countries). Other things that are expected from us are daunting e.g. Where does the river rise, does the river flow eastwards/westwards/southwards/northwards, where does the river drain itself. I myself couldn't do this but I would like to mention that this is the level of details that the examiner expects. If you write all this correctly e.g.one can write this for the river Ganga, then you get full marks. However, step marking is there and let's try to maximize our marks rather than brood over the difficulty of the task.
4. Anticipate: Most of the times, the entries that are asked in the question paper are not random; these places are important if an international summit has happened there (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio De Jenerio, Montreal, Bali, Doha etc.), an earthquake/tsunami/volcano has struck there (e.g. La Aquilla, Haiti, Chile) or some oil/gas/mineral has been found there (e.g. Sakhalin, KG basin, Mangala). So, any place which is in the news, try and ask in which country the place it is, what is it famous for.
Preparing for Psychology as an optional for UPSC mains
I think psychology, in addition to being an obvious choice for psychology graduates, is also a very good option for medicos as well as people from science and engineering; particularly because of the scientific nature of the subject. The knowledge of neurosciences will be an edge for aspirants with medical and/or biology background (minimum criteria here is studying biology till class 12). Another good thing about psychology is that the syllabus also is not as vast as geography or public administration. In addition, good reference material is available thereby enabling you to complete the subject reasonably in around one and a half months (in emergency) to three months (almost comfortably).
I had taken psychology as an optional for my mains exam so I've focused on strategies that can help for mains and not prelims. I am not sure about the guidelines for the prelims exam as I myself have not taken it. Thus, this article is meant as a guide only for psychology as a subject for mains exam.
Psychology is on the realm of the boundary between science and social science i.e. It is an 'arts' subject yet it shares many things with science – it is logical, it employs the scientific method of experimentation and rational approach to derive theories of immensely abstract things e.g. Motivation, emotions, values. The abstruce and abstract subject material brings in the features of social science into psychology.
So, if you feel you wish to go ahead with psycho, read the following section on 'how to go about it'.
a. Start with the NCERTs: Class 11 and 12 psychology textbooks (take the recent version) are awesome. They cover almost 60% of the mains syllabus. Start with the NCERTs slowly, underline important things and note down key definitions along with important case-studies/experiments on any topic e.g. Note down the 1$ -20$ experiment as a proof for cognitive dissonance.
b. Mukul Pathak Sir's notes: Mukul Pathak Sir is a teacher in 'Vajiram and Ravi' coaching institute. His notes are phenomenal. They are very well structured and contain a lot of vital information. Another good point is that he has followed verbatim the syllabus as has been given by the UPSC for psychology. His handwritten notes are easily available at almost any stationery shop in Mukherji Nagar/Rajendra Nagar in New Delhi.There are six registers that cover the entire syllabus for paper 1 and 2.
c. A standard reference : There are some concepts which need to be read elaboratively for deep understanding. Additionally, since the NCERTs as well as Mukul Sir's notes are mostly pedagogical, there is a need for a text book which explains psychology in a layman language as well as explains it with pictures, examples and interesting experiments. Two books could be suggested here - “Introduction to Psychology' by Baron or 'Introduction to Pscyhology' by Morgan and King (this book has a yellow cover). If you haven't read Morgan before, then I suggest you to read Baron since it has a summary section at the end of every chapter. The summary is superb and will help you during your revision. You might as well start reading the summary first followed by NCERT and Mukul Sir's notes.
These six registers, along with the NCERTs and one reference (either Baron or Morgan) makes your arsenal complete. Now, you've to read meticulously and complete the things. Note down the definitions in a seperate copy as it will help immensely to reproduce the same definition in the exam. Only one definition is enough (no need to learn multiple definitions as has been given in Mukul Sir's notes; take one definition either from Baron/NCERT/Mukul Sir's notes). Also, keep writing the various experiments/case studies which form the basis of a psychological phenomenon. e.g. Decrease in motivation for solving puzzles when a child is offered chocolates rather than when he used to solve it for personal satisfaction is an example for 'overjustification effect'.
I'll like to give you an additional advice which I benefited a lot from. This advice was written by Shubra Saxena (UPSC 2009 topper) on her blog. She adviced students to summarise every chapter in 2-3 pages so that these pages could be handy while you revise 1-2 days before the exam. These notes could also be helpful during the one or two hours that you've before the exam. Try and summarise each chapter in 2-3 pages, it definitely helped me and I'm sure this piece of advice is very practical.
Writing skills don't matter a lot in psychology. Try and recollect the important points; the task then is to present the recollected points in an organized way. Before writing any answer, think about the structure of the answer that you'll write. For example, if the question is “Should mentally challenged children be taught in special schools or the same schools as normal kids study?” and if it is a 60 mark question; then you need to think before you write. You can give the structure as follows:-
a. Explain who are mentally challenged?
b. Explain their constraints/problems/limitations?
c.Give points on as to why they should be taught in the same school (so that normal kids understand them and appreciate their problems, they don't suffer from inferiority complex, they'll add to the diversity of the class, more humane way of teaching).
d.Give points on as to why they should be taught in a different school (they have special needs which need to be dealt seperately, they'll feel inferiority complex when they go to normal schools, two mentally challenged kids will have higher probability of becoming friends rather than a mentally challenged kid and a normal kid)
e. Some solutions which if taken could help solve the problem (e.g. Ensuring a counseler in the school whose duty is also to look into the special needs of the child will help in diagnosing if anything is going wrong with the kid)
f. Final Conclusion (what do you think -after giving both the pros and cons, what do you feel? Should they be taught in the same school or in different schools?)
Thus, it can be seen that writing is not particularly difficult if you have knowledge (here, the definition of mentally challenged, types of mentally challenged, their psychological as well as medical limitations/barriers) as well as some analysis (which i think is very easy and nobody should be afraid of).
So, just get going with the NCERTs and Mukul Sir's notes along with occasional help from one reference (Barons or Morgan)
I think psychology, in addition to being an obvious choice for psychology graduates, is also a very good option for medicos as well as people from science and engineering; particularly because of the scientific nature of the subject. The knowledge of neurosciences will be an edge for aspirants with medical and/or biology background (minimum criteria here is studying biology till class 12). Another good thing about psychology is that the syllabus also is not as vast as geography or public administration. In addition, good reference material is available thereby enabling you to complete the subject reasonably in around one and a half months (in emergency) to three months (almost comfortably).
I had taken psychology as an optional for my mains exam so I've focused on strategies that can help for mains and not prelims. I am not sure about the guidelines for the prelims exam as I myself have not taken it. Thus, this article is meant as a guide only for psychology as a subject for mains exam.
Psychology is on the realm of the boundary between science and social science i.e. It is an 'arts' subject yet it shares many things with science – it is logical, it employs the scientific method of experimentation and rational approach to derive theories of immensely abstract things e.g. Motivation, emotions, values. The abstruce and abstract subject material brings in the features of social science into psychology.
So, if you feel you wish to go ahead with psycho, read the following section on 'how to go about it'.
a. Start with the NCERTs: Class 11 and 12 psychology textbooks (take the recent version) are awesome. They cover almost 60% of the mains syllabus. Start with the NCERTs slowly, underline important things and note down key definitions along with important case-studies/experiments on any topic e.g. Note down the 1$ -20$ experiment as a proof for cognitive dissonance.
b. Mukul Pathak Sir's notes: Mukul Pathak Sir is a teacher in 'Vajiram and Ravi' coaching institute. His notes are phenomenal. They are very well structured and contain a lot of vital information. Another good point is that he has followed verbatim the syllabus as has been given by the UPSC for psychology. His handwritten notes are easily available at almost any stationery shop in Mukherji Nagar/Rajendra Nagar in New Delhi.There are six registers that cover the entire syllabus for paper 1 and 2.
c. A standard reference : There are some concepts which need to be read elaboratively for deep understanding. Additionally, since the NCERTs as well as Mukul Sir's notes are mostly pedagogical, there is a need for a text book which explains psychology in a layman language as well as explains it with pictures, examples and interesting experiments. Two books could be suggested here - “Introduction to Psychology' by Baron or 'Introduction to Pscyhology' by Morgan and King (this book has a yellow cover). If you haven't read Morgan before, then I suggest you to read Baron since it has a summary section at the end of every chapter. The summary is superb and will help you during your revision. You might as well start reading the summary first followed by NCERT and Mukul Sir's notes.
These six registers, along with the NCERTs and one reference (either Baron or Morgan) makes your arsenal complete. Now, you've to read meticulously and complete the things. Note down the definitions in a seperate copy as it will help immensely to reproduce the same definition in the exam. Only one definition is enough (no need to learn multiple definitions as has been given in Mukul Sir's notes; take one definition either from Baron/NCERT/Mukul Sir's notes). Also, keep writing the various experiments/case studies which form the basis of a psychological phenomenon. e.g. Decrease in motivation for solving puzzles when a child is offered chocolates rather than when he used to solve it for personal satisfaction is an example for 'overjustification effect'.
I'll like to give you an additional advice which I benefited a lot from. This advice was written by Shubra Saxena (UPSC 2009 topper) on her blog. She adviced students to summarise every chapter in 2-3 pages so that these pages could be handy while you revise 1-2 days before the exam. These notes could also be helpful during the one or two hours that you've before the exam. Try and summarise each chapter in 2-3 pages, it definitely helped me and I'm sure this piece of advice is very practical.
Writing skills don't matter a lot in psychology. Try and recollect the important points; the task then is to present the recollected points in an organized way. Before writing any answer, think about the structure of the answer that you'll write. For example, if the question is “Should mentally challenged children be taught in special schools or the same schools as normal kids study?” and if it is a 60 mark question; then you need to think before you write. You can give the structure as follows:-
a. Explain who are mentally challenged?
b. Explain their constraints/problems/limitations?
c.Give points on as to why they should be taught in the same school (so that normal kids understand them and appreciate their problems, they don't suffer from inferiority complex, they'll add to the diversity of the class, more humane way of teaching).
d.Give points on as to why they should be taught in a different school (they have special needs which need to be dealt seperately, they'll feel inferiority complex when they go to normal schools, two mentally challenged kids will have higher probability of becoming friends rather than a mentally challenged kid and a normal kid)
e. Some solutions which if taken could help solve the problem (e.g. Ensuring a counseler in the school whose duty is also to look into the special needs of the child will help in diagnosing if anything is going wrong with the kid)
f. Final Conclusion (what do you think -after giving both the pros and cons, what do you feel? Should they be taught in the same school or in different schools?)
Thus, it can be seen that writing is not particularly difficult if you have knowledge (here, the definition of mentally challenged, types of mentally challenged, their psychological as well as medical limitations/barriers) as well as some analysis (which i think is very easy and nobody should be afraid of).
So, just get going with the NCERTs and Mukul Sir's notes along with occasional help from one reference (Barons or Morgan)
Monday, June 14, 2010
A detailed study plan for GENERAL STUDIES, UPSC Civil Services Exam
Remember the numbers : Be it economics or history or current events or for that matter, anything; try and collect important numbers related to that. For example, one should know the GDP, GNP, foreign reserves, fiscal deficit, public spending in key areas (education, health, defence, subsidies, national highways, bharat nirman, nrega), percentage of population in different age groups etc. In this context, a thorough study of the “Economic Survey” will help you a lot, particularly the first chapter (which gives a glimpse of the Indian economy) and the last chapter (which contains a beautiful summary of the different social programs run by the Indian Government).
Start with NCERTs: NCERTs cover beautifully the basics of history, geography, economics, civics/political administration. I'll advice you to start from class 6 onwards but I only read from class 9 due to paucity of time. These books, available for free download from the ncert and even otherwise (on other blogs) are much better than the previous versions in terms of the quality as well as the visual appeal of the textbooks. NCERTs make up the base and you'll have to build up on that. This building up can be done by internet, notes of coaching institutes (vajiram's notes are good), other references.
Current affairs form the base of your understanding of the world. They are also a fundamental part of GS and the interview. So, an indepth reading of newspapers, magazines, blogs, tv news, coaching institutes' material etc. is expected. But, the question again comes how do we manage to keep ourselves abreast of all the current affairs in a fairly indepth manner. To me, managing current affairs was an arduous task. I think the strategy which could help is to try and put things into context. What i mean by putting things into context is to analyze the current affair into the already existing perspective. For example, if you read that israel is starting heavy bombarding on the gaza strip, then simply memorizing the number of persons killed or the immediate reason of the bombarding will not help much. Instead, trying to put this event into already existing perspective of Israel-Palestine relationships and some critical appreciation of the current event will help. Hence, our first task should be to read Israel-Palestine relationship. What has been the history? What has been the role of international community on this? What is India's perspective on this issue? Using this strategy might take a huge amount of time initially but as you move on, the number of issues on which you would have to read indepth would decrease for the simple reason that you already know about a lot of events now. Be judicious in devoting time for current affairs as they drain a lot of time. Simply skim through magazines by reading the key point(if it is bold or separately mentioned as a paragraph, for example, in frontline). Simply reading the titles of all the magazines will also help. I am an ardent fan of Yojna and Kurukshetra. Frontline is good but drains away a lot of time but make it a point to go through the headings once or twice a month. This magazine also is freely available for download on Hindu's website.
Important References: The following is a list of things that you should try and get access to, if possible. If not, then there is not much to worry because already there is a lot to study and not reading one or two things will not matter because they might anways be overlapping/could take too much of your time. Some of these are available online as well as in print while some of them are on TV.
1. Vajiram Notes on Indian Polity and Indian Economy: These notes are very well structured and are very informative. You can call them up for asking the correspondance charges if you are not in Delhi.
2. Gurcharan Das blogs (also published in the Times of India) : Gurcharan Das is the author of the famous book, “India Unbound”. He writes mostly on economic issues and the need for effective governance in the country. His writings on comparison between India and China are full of insights. His articles also contain correlations of present circumstances with the Mahabharata, which also form the subject material of his another book, “The Difficulty of being good”.
3. Swaminomics (also published in the Times of India): This section is also on economics. The most wonderful part of his articles are that they are full of information and numbers. He explains current economic affairs as if he is wrting the article for ncert textbooks. In one sentence, “easy to understand, remember and retrieve”.
4. www.indiatogether.org
This website is an archive of articles from eminent journalists and writers on social issues, ranging from environment to poverty. Authors like P.Sainath, Harsh Mander, Kalpana Sharma contribute to this blog.
5. www.en.wikipedia.org
This well known website is a brilliant resource for understanding almost anything – abstract to real, from economics to biology, from literature to quantum physics – it has it all. Written in superbly layman language, this is a wonderful place to get your concepts clarified. Any phenomena that you do not understand, just do a search here; you'll get your desired entry almost 90% of the times. It will serve you not only for your General Studies but also for your optionals. In addition, read the article India and follow the links in that article. Also, it has arranged articles on India in a gorgeous way e.g. Military artillery of India, different satellite programs.
6. www.news.bbc.co.uk
This website is a beautiful resource for preparting the international affairs section of the GS paper as well as issues of global affect and/or which are tackled at global level e.g. Climate change, terrorism, United Nations, issues related to United States (yes, issues related to US have become global issues !!). The 'special reports' section in this website is also very informative and should be read to assimilate global events in detail. e.g. I read the section on Copenhagen Climate Summit for the interview and it was very informative
7. Economic Survey : As has been mentioned before also, this document is phenomenal. Although the Hindu criticizes this document a lot for it being pro-governmental and extremely optimistic, I would suggest you to compulsorily read the first and the last chapters. Other chapters are optional for you. The Economic Survey is available for free download on the website of Ministry of Finance although its hard copy (although a bit too costly) is also available for sale at book stalls, particularly those having books for UPSC exam preparation.
8. Articles by P.Sainath : P.Sainath writes on issues related to agriculture. His book “Everybody loves a drought” has been acclaimed a lot. He spends almost 300 days in a year in rural areas and his insights on the plight of Indian agriculture has no parallels.
9. Articles by Harsh Mander: Harsh Mander became a journalist after his experiences as an IAS officer in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. He writes a lot on communal violence and has been pressing for a bill on communal violence to be passed in India. But, his immense knowledge and rich experience makes him adept at almost any issue that he picks up, which are almost always social. He writes regularly in 'The Hindu'
10. Articles by Kalpana Sharma: Kalpana Sharma writes regularly in 'The Hindu'. She writes particularly a lot on women issues.
11. Articles by Dr. K S Jacob: Dr. K S Jacob is a professor in the Department of Pscyhiatry at Christian Medical College, Vellore. His insights on public health as well as medical health and contemporary medical practices & healthcare are phenomenal. You'll love it when he mixes political concepts of communism/capitalism/governance with medicine/health and comes out with an interesting insight.
12. www.time.com This website is phenomenal. This is a website of the Time Magazine. Although there are no sections which I can directly point it to you for the fact that this magazine is written for people who read for leisure. However, the lists of 100 most powerful men of the year, 100 most powerful women of the year, 100 most powerful thinkers, 100 persons of the century are worth looking at. Similarly, Forbes list of richest persons could also be seen as knowing about eminent personalities help a lot in the exam. In addition, some of the articles in the website www.time.com, particularly on health or other social issues might help you a lot. There are articles by Barack Obama also on this website.
13. The India Year Book: This book is available for free download as well its hard copy is available for sale. This bulky book has a lot of material but you can read sections what you like. I just browsed all the sections but would have loved to read it completely, if I had time.
14. TOI Blogs : This section is an archive of different articles written by eminent journalists in the TOI. Sometimes, browsing these articles could be very helpful.
15. Hindu Opinion : These contain the articles on the mid page of the Hindu. You'll particularly benefit by the editorial section of Hindu.
16. Files on Hindu website : Another good thing about the newspaper Hindu is that it publishes a lot of original material on its website www.thehinduonnet.com e.g. Jairam Ramesh's letter which contained his decision of issuing a moratorium on Bt brinjal, Ramalingam Raju's letter in which he announced his crime, a copy of Karan Thapar's interview with eminent personalities. These files help you get an independent opinion on various issues rather than listening to/reading the analysis of these original materials by the media.
17. Down to Earth : This website is a very good resource on environmental issues. This magazine is published by the Center for Science and Environment, whose director Sunita Narain is a very dedicated lady championing environmental issues. You'll also benefit a lot from reading her articles.
18. Articles by Vir Sanghvi : Vir Sanghvi is associated with the Hindustan Times. His articles on international affairs as well as India's foreign policies are very informative as well contain deep insights, primarily because he is an extremely knowledgeable and well read person.
19. Resources on Television: TV is a wonderful resource for learning since its audio-visual nature helps us to retain a far greater fraction than we read from the books. Also, since it is not possible to read all throughout the day, taking breaks sometimes can help. Watching something meaningful on the TV can be a lot more meaningful and additionally, you save a lot of time being wasted since you've utilized your time for a good purpose.
1. Lok Sabha TV: Although this is a new channel, some of its programs, I feel are very beneficial. There is a program called 'Conversations' which showcases interviews with eminent personalities discussing contemporary issues. e.g. Sam Pitroda, Nandan Nilekani, Gurcharan Das, C P Chandrashekar. Just try to catch up this channel if anything interesting is coming there once in a while when you are bored.
2. Arnab Banerjee: You might have seen this journalist on Times Now. He is wonderfully inquisitive. He gets hold on to top-notch ministers during his prime time show (i.e the main news at 9 pm) and asks them critical questions.
3. Other journalists to watch are Pranab Roy (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN), Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt (on her program 'We the People' on NDTV), Deepak Chaurasia (Star News)
4. National Geographic, Discovery Channel and History Channel have now been showing a number of documentaries on India e.g. The story of Tsunami that struck India, the Gujarat riots, the IC-814 hijacking etc. Also, their other documentaries are phenomenal.
Remember the numbers : Be it economics or history or current events or for that matter, anything; try and collect important numbers related to that. For example, one should know the GDP, GNP, foreign reserves, fiscal deficit, public spending in key areas (education, health, defence, subsidies, national highways, bharat nirman, nrega), percentage of population in different age groups etc. In this context, a thorough study of the “Economic Survey” will help you a lot, particularly the first chapter (which gives a glimpse of the Indian economy) and the last chapter (which contains a beautiful summary of the different social programs run by the Indian Government).
Start with NCERTs: NCERTs cover beautifully the basics of history, geography, economics, civics/political administration. I'll advice you to start from class 6 onwards but I only read from class 9 due to paucity of time. These books, available for free download from the ncert and even otherwise (on other blogs) are much better than the previous versions in terms of the quality as well as the visual appeal of the textbooks. NCERTs make up the base and you'll have to build up on that. This building up can be done by internet, notes of coaching institutes (vajiram's notes are good), other references.
Current affairs form the base of your understanding of the world. They are also a fundamental part of GS and the interview. So, an indepth reading of newspapers, magazines, blogs, tv news, coaching institutes' material etc. is expected. But, the question again comes how do we manage to keep ourselves abreast of all the current affairs in a fairly indepth manner. To me, managing current affairs was an arduous task. I think the strategy which could help is to try and put things into context. What i mean by putting things into context is to analyze the current affair into the already existing perspective. For example, if you read that israel is starting heavy bombarding on the gaza strip, then simply memorizing the number of persons killed or the immediate reason of the bombarding will not help much. Instead, trying to put this event into already existing perspective of Israel-Palestine relationships and some critical appreciation of the current event will help. Hence, our first task should be to read Israel-Palestine relationship. What has been the history? What has been the role of international community on this? What is India's perspective on this issue? Using this strategy might take a huge amount of time initially but as you move on, the number of issues on which you would have to read indepth would decrease for the simple reason that you already know about a lot of events now. Be judicious in devoting time for current affairs as they drain a lot of time. Simply skim through magazines by reading the key point(if it is bold or separately mentioned as a paragraph, for example, in frontline). Simply reading the titles of all the magazines will also help. I am an ardent fan of Yojna and Kurukshetra. Frontline is good but drains away a lot of time but make it a point to go through the headings once or twice a month. This magazine also is freely available for download on Hindu's website.
Important References: The following is a list of things that you should try and get access to, if possible. If not, then there is not much to worry because already there is a lot to study and not reading one or two things will not matter because they might anways be overlapping/could take too much of your time. Some of these are available online as well as in print while some of them are on TV.
1. Vajiram Notes on Indian Polity and Indian Economy: These notes are very well structured and are very informative. You can call them up for asking the correspondance charges if you are not in Delhi.
2. Gurcharan Das blogs (also published in the Times of India) : Gurcharan Das is the author of the famous book, “India Unbound”. He writes mostly on economic issues and the need for effective governance in the country. His writings on comparison between India and China are full of insights. His articles also contain correlations of present circumstances with the Mahabharata, which also form the subject material of his another book, “The Difficulty of being good”.
3. Swaminomics (also published in the Times of India): This section is also on economics. The most wonderful part of his articles are that they are full of information and numbers. He explains current economic affairs as if he is wrting the article for ncert textbooks. In one sentence, “easy to understand, remember and retrieve”.
4. www.indiatogether.org
This website is an archive of articles from eminent journalists and writers on social issues, ranging from environment to poverty. Authors like P.Sainath, Harsh Mander, Kalpana Sharma contribute to this blog.
5. www.en.wikipedia.org
This well known website is a brilliant resource for understanding almost anything – abstract to real, from economics to biology, from literature to quantum physics – it has it all. Written in superbly layman language, this is a wonderful place to get your concepts clarified. Any phenomena that you do not understand, just do a search here; you'll get your desired entry almost 90% of the times. It will serve you not only for your General Studies but also for your optionals. In addition, read the article India and follow the links in that article. Also, it has arranged articles on India in a gorgeous way e.g. Military artillery of India, different satellite programs.
6. www.news.bbc.co.uk
This website is a beautiful resource for preparting the international affairs section of the GS paper as well as issues of global affect and/or which are tackled at global level e.g. Climate change, terrorism, United Nations, issues related to United States (yes, issues related to US have become global issues !!). The 'special reports' section in this website is also very informative and should be read to assimilate global events in detail. e.g. I read the section on Copenhagen Climate Summit for the interview and it was very informative
7. Economic Survey : As has been mentioned before also, this document is phenomenal. Although the Hindu criticizes this document a lot for it being pro-governmental and extremely optimistic, I would suggest you to compulsorily read the first and the last chapters. Other chapters are optional for you. The Economic Survey is available for free download on the website of Ministry of Finance although its hard copy (although a bit too costly) is also available for sale at book stalls, particularly those having books for UPSC exam preparation.
8. Articles by P.Sainath : P.Sainath writes on issues related to agriculture. His book “Everybody loves a drought” has been acclaimed a lot. He spends almost 300 days in a year in rural areas and his insights on the plight of Indian agriculture has no parallels.
9. Articles by Harsh Mander: Harsh Mander became a journalist after his experiences as an IAS officer in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. He writes a lot on communal violence and has been pressing for a bill on communal violence to be passed in India. But, his immense knowledge and rich experience makes him adept at almost any issue that he picks up, which are almost always social. He writes regularly in 'The Hindu'
10. Articles by Kalpana Sharma: Kalpana Sharma writes regularly in 'The Hindu'. She writes particularly a lot on women issues.
11. Articles by Dr. K S Jacob: Dr. K S Jacob is a professor in the Department of Pscyhiatry at Christian Medical College, Vellore. His insights on public health as well as medical health and contemporary medical practices & healthcare are phenomenal. You'll love it when he mixes political concepts of communism/capitalism/governance with medicine/health and comes out with an interesting insight.
12. www.time.com This website is phenomenal. This is a website of the Time Magazine. Although there are no sections which I can directly point it to you for the fact that this magazine is written for people who read for leisure. However, the lists of 100 most powerful men of the year, 100 most powerful women of the year, 100 most powerful thinkers, 100 persons of the century are worth looking at. Similarly, Forbes list of richest persons could also be seen as knowing about eminent personalities help a lot in the exam. In addition, some of the articles in the website www.time.com, particularly on health or other social issues might help you a lot. There are articles by Barack Obama also on this website.
13. The India Year Book: This book is available for free download as well its hard copy is available for sale. This bulky book has a lot of material but you can read sections what you like. I just browsed all the sections but would have loved to read it completely, if I had time.
14. TOI Blogs : This section is an archive of different articles written by eminent journalists in the TOI. Sometimes, browsing these articles could be very helpful.
15. Hindu Opinion : These contain the articles on the mid page of the Hindu. You'll particularly benefit by the editorial section of Hindu.
16. Files on Hindu website : Another good thing about the newspaper Hindu is that it publishes a lot of original material on its website www.thehinduonnet.com e.g. Jairam Ramesh's letter which contained his decision of issuing a moratorium on Bt brinjal, Ramalingam Raju's letter in which he announced his crime, a copy of Karan Thapar's interview with eminent personalities. These files help you get an independent opinion on various issues rather than listening to/reading the analysis of these original materials by the media.
17. Down to Earth : This website is a very good resource on environmental issues. This magazine is published by the Center for Science and Environment, whose director Sunita Narain is a very dedicated lady championing environmental issues. You'll also benefit a lot from reading her articles.
18. Articles by Vir Sanghvi : Vir Sanghvi is associated with the Hindustan Times. His articles on international affairs as well as India's foreign policies are very informative as well contain deep insights, primarily because he is an extremely knowledgeable and well read person.
19. Resources on Television: TV is a wonderful resource for learning since its audio-visual nature helps us to retain a far greater fraction than we read from the books. Also, since it is not possible to read all throughout the day, taking breaks sometimes can help. Watching something meaningful on the TV can be a lot more meaningful and additionally, you save a lot of time being wasted since you've utilized your time for a good purpose.
1. Lok Sabha TV: Although this is a new channel, some of its programs, I feel are very beneficial. There is a program called 'Conversations' which showcases interviews with eminent personalities discussing contemporary issues. e.g. Sam Pitroda, Nandan Nilekani, Gurcharan Das, C P Chandrashekar. Just try to catch up this channel if anything interesting is coming there once in a while when you are bored.
2. Arnab Banerjee: You might have seen this journalist on Times Now. He is wonderfully inquisitive. He gets hold on to top-notch ministers during his prime time show (i.e the main news at 9 pm) and asks them critical questions.
3. Other journalists to watch are Pranab Roy (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN), Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt (on her program 'We the People' on NDTV), Deepak Chaurasia (Star News)
4. National Geographic, Discovery Channel and History Channel have now been showing a number of documentaries on India e.g. The story of Tsunami that struck India, the Gujarat riots, the IC-814 hijacking etc. Also, their other documentaries are phenomenal.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Suggestions for IAS aspirants based on my experience of UPSC exam preparation
The intended audience for this post are people who are preparing for UPSC civil services examination. This post is a general synopsis of how to prepare ourselves for this unique exam. I'll write more on specific things like GS, Geography and Psychology. So, here it goes:-
UPSC, to be very frank, is a test of your patience and ability to hold your motivation and efforts without being given immediate results of the efforts put in. Unlike IIT JEE and CAT, this is not essentially a test of your aptitude but a test of how much you know. Thus, the amount of information you know plays a crucial role. So, I think that the only way for cracking this exam is hard work.
Regarding the approach to study for this exam, I think that it should be exploratory and one should endevor to connect the dots. An exploratory approach essentially means that one tries to ask questions based on what one reads. For example, if you read an article on 'The population policy of India', try to 'THINK ABOUT IT' and ask questions like 'What is the population policy of china?', 'What is the population policy of japan, or the US or Europe?', 'How have these countries performed?', 'Is it ethical to force citizens to not have more than two kids?','How do we go about supporting such a large old age population'?. Being exploratory is thus thinking logically and trying to amass knowledge by extending from the existing knowledge. If you have internet availabililty, try and find the answers. Even if you do not have access to internet, it will help if you write the questions in a copy made specific for this purpose and ask some of your friends/teachers for the answers. You might also get these answers when you subsequently read other references/textbooks. Logical thinking is trying to ask 'How?', 'What?', 'When?', 'Why?', 'Is it always true?', 'What is the data to support the given argument?', 'What if we vary one of the conditions, will the conclusion still hold true?', 'If the same thing happens in the US/Europe/China/Japan, will it hold true in Indian context?' For example, most of us know that chlorination is used to purify water but do we know the mechanism as to how chlorine purifies water? Probably not. Why? I feel because we never asked anybody who taught us or ourselves when we ourselves read. So, let us not take things for granted. It will help surely to develop the attitude of questioning.
Thus, the exam is also a journey of exploration where we can appreciate the things going around us and develop a better understanding of the world that we live in. Ofcourse, there is no limit to what we should know. Hence, time management is also crucial. How do we about managing such a big syllabus? How much time should be devoted per day? How does one distribute his/her time among the three subjects? The answer is surely not simple and might vary from person to person. Rather than imitating somebody (the toppers, i mean) or following the premise that the number of study hours is directly proportional to the quality of study, might not always help. Hence, i feel that each one of us should be in coherence with what one is rather than forcing ourselves very hard. It is because this exam is a marathon race and running fast only bears fruits during the last phase. My personal experience has been mixed. Since i was working, i wasn't able to study regularly so it was around 5-6 hours on the weekends while one hour on the weekdays. Inspite of the fact that i managed to get through, i will still suggest you to develop the habit of studying on a regular basis rather than studying too hard one day and not studying anything subsequently. When you study on a regular basis, take an approximate count of the number of hours that you study. Try and maintain this strike rate for atleast a week. I don't think increasing the number of hours abruptly will help because a slow change will help. Studying should be in intervals. inspite of all the above advice, i would like you to develop your own style rather than blindly following anybody. The premise is hard work so whether you work hard in early morning or late night, in intervals or a continuous session is of little relevance. Work hard as much as you can, as long as you can. Motivate yourself on a regular basis. You can refresh yourself by watching news on tv or listening to news on radio. I also benefited a lot from music.
Another thing which gave me strength was that you've to score only fifty percent to get selected, be it prelims or the mains exam. Many a times, we are bogged down by the huge number of people taking the exam. But, if we think about it, our competition is with ourselves. Nobody is stopping you from working hard albeit others are also working hard but we need not worry about others. We just have to work hard to reach the fifty percent mark and then you are there - you've cracked the exams. I was extremely happy when i analyzed this from the marksheet of candidates selected in the year 2009 . Hope you would also be encouraged to devote yourself to hard worK and put in your level best effort. But, if you are still not convinced, then send me a mail at vikrampg@gmail.com . I'll send you the marksheet.
Another problem is that we tend to forget a lot. Since there is so much to remember, forgetting is natural. One can thus only minimize the amount of information that one forgets. I used to make notes of almost whatever i read, be it an article in a newspaper or a blog article or a chapter of the textbook. Making notes helps in two ways - when you first understand and write it in a copy, you are less likely to forget it. Secondly, instead of reading the entire book again, you just need to go through your notes at the eleventh hour.
Pnemonics - making formulas/easy ways for remembering a lot of things, also help a lot. Since there is so much to remember, one needs to devise clever ways of learning. For example, 'BHAJ' might mean babar, humayun, akbar, jehangir; 'My big elephants have no chronic problems' means mexico, belize, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua, costa rica and panama (in the order from north to south). Sometimes, they can be very funny and personal as well :). Cultivate a habit to learn things by linking places/sentences/words. Slowly and slowly, you'll do it. One can also discuss this among his/her friends.
I am also working on a more specific post for General Studies preparation, Psychology and Geography. If you have any comments in this regard, please feel free. When I was preparing, I wanted to talk to somebody who got through the exam so that I can ask what should I do and how should I manage. At the end of the day, I found nobody. I consoled myself that the only way out is hard work and that there is no magic formula for success. I still have an ardent belief in this philosophy of the supremacy of hard work, however if you still want to ask something, please feel free.
The intended audience for this post are people who are preparing for UPSC civil services examination. This post is a general synopsis of how to prepare ourselves for this unique exam. I'll write more on specific things like GS, Geography and Psychology. So, here it goes:-
UPSC, to be very frank, is a test of your patience and ability to hold your motivation and efforts without being given immediate results of the efforts put in. Unlike IIT JEE and CAT, this is not essentially a test of your aptitude but a test of how much you know. Thus, the amount of information you know plays a crucial role. So, I think that the only way for cracking this exam is hard work.
Regarding the approach to study for this exam, I think that it should be exploratory and one should endevor to connect the dots. An exploratory approach essentially means that one tries to ask questions based on what one reads. For example, if you read an article on 'The population policy of India', try to 'THINK ABOUT IT' and ask questions like 'What is the population policy of china?', 'What is the population policy of japan, or the US or Europe?', 'How have these countries performed?', 'Is it ethical to force citizens to not have more than two kids?','How do we go about supporting such a large old age population'?. Being exploratory is thus thinking logically and trying to amass knowledge by extending from the existing knowledge. If you have internet availabililty, try and find the answers. Even if you do not have access to internet, it will help if you write the questions in a copy made specific for this purpose and ask some of your friends/teachers for the answers. You might also get these answers when you subsequently read other references/textbooks. Logical thinking is trying to ask 'How?', 'What?', 'When?', 'Why?', 'Is it always true?', 'What is the data to support the given argument?', 'What if we vary one of the conditions, will the conclusion still hold true?', 'If the same thing happens in the US/Europe/China/Japan, will it hold true in Indian context?' For example, most of us know that chlorination is used to purify water but do we know the mechanism as to how chlorine purifies water? Probably not. Why? I feel because we never asked anybody who taught us or ourselves when we ourselves read. So, let us not take things for granted. It will help surely to develop the attitude of questioning.
Thus, the exam is also a journey of exploration where we can appreciate the things going around us and develop a better understanding of the world that we live in. Ofcourse, there is no limit to what we should know. Hence, time management is also crucial. How do we about managing such a big syllabus? How much time should be devoted per day? How does one distribute his/her time among the three subjects? The answer is surely not simple and might vary from person to person. Rather than imitating somebody (the toppers, i mean) or following the premise that the number of study hours is directly proportional to the quality of study, might not always help. Hence, i feel that each one of us should be in coherence with what one is rather than forcing ourselves very hard. It is because this exam is a marathon race and running fast only bears fruits during the last phase. My personal experience has been mixed. Since i was working, i wasn't able to study regularly so it was around 5-6 hours on the weekends while one hour on the weekdays. Inspite of the fact that i managed to get through, i will still suggest you to develop the habit of studying on a regular basis rather than studying too hard one day and not studying anything subsequently. When you study on a regular basis, take an approximate count of the number of hours that you study. Try and maintain this strike rate for atleast a week. I don't think increasing the number of hours abruptly will help because a slow change will help. Studying should be in intervals. inspite of all the above advice, i would like you to develop your own style rather than blindly following anybody. The premise is hard work so whether you work hard in early morning or late night, in intervals or a continuous session is of little relevance. Work hard as much as you can, as long as you can. Motivate yourself on a regular basis. You can refresh yourself by watching news on tv or listening to news on radio. I also benefited a lot from music.
Another thing which gave me strength was that you've to score only fifty percent to get selected, be it prelims or the mains exam. Many a times, we are bogged down by the huge number of people taking the exam. But, if we think about it, our competition is with ourselves. Nobody is stopping you from working hard albeit others are also working hard but we need not worry about others. We just have to work hard to reach the fifty percent mark and then you are there - you've cracked the exams. I was extremely happy when i analyzed this from the marksheet of candidates selected in the year 2009 . Hope you would also be encouraged to devote yourself to hard worK and put in your level best effort. But, if you are still not convinced, then send me a mail at vikrampg@gmail.com . I'll send you the marksheet.
Another problem is that we tend to forget a lot. Since there is so much to remember, forgetting is natural. One can thus only minimize the amount of information that one forgets. I used to make notes of almost whatever i read, be it an article in a newspaper or a blog article or a chapter of the textbook. Making notes helps in two ways - when you first understand and write it in a copy, you are less likely to forget it. Secondly, instead of reading the entire book again, you just need to go through your notes at the eleventh hour.
Pnemonics - making formulas/easy ways for remembering a lot of things, also help a lot. Since there is so much to remember, one needs to devise clever ways of learning. For example, 'BHAJ' might mean babar, humayun, akbar, jehangir; 'My big elephants have no chronic problems' means mexico, belize, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua, costa rica and panama (in the order from north to south). Sometimes, they can be very funny and personal as well :). Cultivate a habit to learn things by linking places/sentences/words. Slowly and slowly, you'll do it. One can also discuss this among his/her friends.
I am also working on a more specific post for General Studies preparation, Psychology and Geography. If you have any comments in this regard, please feel free. When I was preparing, I wanted to talk to somebody who got through the exam so that I can ask what should I do and how should I manage. At the end of the day, I found nobody. I consoled myself that the only way out is hard work and that there is no magic formula for success. I still have an ardent belief in this philosophy of the supremacy of hard work, however if you still want to ask something, please feel free.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Do as you wish because you think no one is watching
This year IIMC selected only 8.5% OBC students for the PGDM program as opposed to the declaration of 27% announced post discussion with MHRD couple of years back (detailed out in http://www.iimcal.ac.in/iimc-cat-inf.pdf). Many deserving candidates, falling under this category, anticipating call from IIMC were left disappointed. One of the candidates filed an RTI against IIMC seeking explanation as to why quota of 27% for OBC was not reached. The RTI response can be seen on
Rohit's blog
As the RTI response points out there were total of 408 seats (241 general seats i.e 59% , 74 OBC seats i.e 18 % , 62 SC seats i.e 15 %and 31 ST seats i.e 7.6 %) in the previous year, while this time there were 375 seats (232 general seats i.e 62 %, 48 OBC seats i.e 12.8 %, 56 SC seats i.e 15 % and 28 ST seats i.e 7.5 %). In response, IIMC replied that due to lack of adequate infrastructure these decisions were made. Even if the reason is to be believed, no document stating why only OBC selection was reduced to 8.5%. The number of general seats were unchanged since there is a SC directive for the same. As per the SC's order, the number of general seats shall not decrease when compared to the base year (which I think was 2008-2009), is what the directive was.
Another issue is regarding the correctness of the RTI response. As per the response, they have admitted 48 OBC candidates while the actual number of OBC candidates admitted are only 39. We can ourselves check if the number 39 is correct by checking these urls - 29 OBC students admitted to the PGDM and 10 OBC candidates admitted to the PGDCM program on IIM Calcutta's website.
Even if there were internal concerns in expanding the infrastructure, Who is responsible for the delay in setting up the infrastructure? Why was the number of seats reduced this year as compared to last year? At least they were on the path to full implementation of OBC seats (3 % in the base year, 18 % in the last year but now 8.5 %). Why did take a step back? Additionally, no such information was shared with the candidates prior to their interview. Such ignorance on the part of premier management institute demands logical explanation and measures which shall be taken to avoid such confusion.
Another issue is that they have called 409 OBC students for GDPI and selected only 48. Albeit the number of OBC candidates selected including both the programs is 29+10 = 39 (another big inconsistency in RTI!! ) which dilutes case of people with high percentile and shows that they were more "selective" about OBC guys.
If you have any suggestions on how should this issue be pursued, please let us know by your comments here on this blog or on Rohit's blog or mail us at vikrampg@gmail.com or rohitesh.gupta@gmail.com. We are looking for a lawyer, a journalist or an RTI activist who could assist us in following up on this issue. Please let us know if you know one of them. Additionally, we were thinking if this issue can be filed as a PIL. If you know more about PILs and related procedures, please let us know.
Relevant Links:-
http://www.indiaedunews.net/IIM/IIM-Calcutta_hikes_fees_by_50_percent,_intake_reduced_11171/
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/OBC-reservation-in-institutions-to-spread-over-six-years/articleshow/5654132.cms
This year IIMC selected only 8.5% OBC students for the PGDM program as opposed to the declaration of 27% announced post discussion with MHRD couple of years back (detailed out in http://www.iimcal.ac.in/iimc-cat-inf.pdf). Many deserving candidates, falling under this category, anticipating call from IIMC were left disappointed. One of the candidates filed an RTI against IIMC seeking explanation as to why quota of 27% for OBC was not reached. The RTI response can be seen on
Rohit's blog
As the RTI response points out there were total of 408 seats (241 general seats i.e 59% , 74 OBC seats i.e 18 % , 62 SC seats i.e 15 %and 31 ST seats i.e 7.6 %) in the previous year, while this time there were 375 seats (232 general seats i.e 62 %, 48 OBC seats i.e 12.8 %, 56 SC seats i.e 15 % and 28 ST seats i.e 7.5 %). In response, IIMC replied that due to lack of adequate infrastructure these decisions were made. Even if the reason is to be believed, no document stating why only OBC selection was reduced to 8.5%. The number of general seats were unchanged since there is a SC directive for the same. As per the SC's order, the number of general seats shall not decrease when compared to the base year (which I think was 2008-2009), is what the directive was.
Another issue is regarding the correctness of the RTI response. As per the response, they have admitted 48 OBC candidates while the actual number of OBC candidates admitted are only 39. We can ourselves check if the number 39 is correct by checking these urls - 29 OBC students admitted to the PGDM and 10 OBC candidates admitted to the PGDCM program on IIM Calcutta's website.
Even if there were internal concerns in expanding the infrastructure, Who is responsible for the delay in setting up the infrastructure? Why was the number of seats reduced this year as compared to last year? At least they were on the path to full implementation of OBC seats (3 % in the base year, 18 % in the last year but now 8.5 %). Why did take a step back? Additionally, no such information was shared with the candidates prior to their interview. Such ignorance on the part of premier management institute demands logical explanation and measures which shall be taken to avoid such confusion.
Another issue is that they have called 409 OBC students for GDPI and selected only 48. Albeit the number of OBC candidates selected including both the programs is 29+10 = 39 (another big inconsistency in RTI!! ) which dilutes case of people with high percentile and shows that they were more "selective" about OBC guys.
If you have any suggestions on how should this issue be pursued, please let us know by your comments here on this blog or on Rohit's blog or mail us at vikrampg@gmail.com or rohitesh.gupta@gmail.com. We are looking for a lawyer, a journalist or an RTI activist who could assist us in following up on this issue. Please let us know if you know one of them. Additionally, we were thinking if this issue can be filed as a PIL. If you know more about PILs and related procedures, please let us know.
Relevant Links:-
http://www.indiaedunews.net/IIM/IIM-Calcutta_hikes_fees_by_50_percent,_intake_reduced_11171/
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/OBC-reservation-in-institutions-to-spread-over-six-years/articleshow/5654132.cms
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Information Dissemination Challenge
Rohit and I were discussing about a situation where information dissemination is critical. The idea is to have a counseling service in general (the broad theme) and to disseminate health information in particular. Let me narrate to you the exact situation which we faced. At 11 pm in the night, I got a call asking about an hospital in Lucknow (or a private doctor) for emergency care of a student (she studies in Kanpur in a school run by the NGO Jagriti) who was diagnosed to have a stone in her pancreas. The doctor in Kanpur (of Abhishekh Hospital) concluded that the case is critical and expressed his inability to treat further (after he had been prescribed saline and glucose drips + general antibiotics + pain killers for two days. The immediate thing we did was to think about any acquaintances in Lucknow and to call them and ask for information about doctors/timings/who is good or who is bad.
After this incident, it came to my mind that in this world, most of our time is spent in acquiring information and information really is power. There could be a case where the girl & her family would not be knowing anybody who could tell about the doctors in Lucknow. What about a situation where in we wish to know that which is the nearest hospital in our locality and what are the timings? Also, there could be cases where in we need quantitative information e.g which hospital in Bangalore is the best in Gastroenterology? Which doctor would be good for a bone marrow transplant? Which is a good as well as an affordable hospital?
Another thing that disturbs me is the lack of a streamlined way of accessing information e.g there are far too many websites for blood donation in emergencies but just because of the sheer number of players, one doesn't know who to contact when exactly one is in need. If we put ourselves in somebody's shoes who has to look for medical care of his family members, it appears that there are lot of avenues where people can be assisted. Mostly, they need information rather than anything else. How do we provide the information to them is a challenge. Additionally, if we can somehow use technology for streamlining organ donation, we can really make a change. There are lakhs of people wanting kidneys, corneas, lungs, bone marrows. How to do this is a challenge to me. I wrote all this because if you have any idea regarding how all this can be done, please tell.
Can we do anything about it is the fundamental question.
Rohit and I were discussing about a situation where information dissemination is critical. The idea is to have a counseling service in general (the broad theme) and to disseminate health information in particular. Let me narrate to you the exact situation which we faced. At 11 pm in the night, I got a call asking about an hospital in Lucknow (or a private doctor) for emergency care of a student (she studies in Kanpur in a school run by the NGO Jagriti) who was diagnosed to have a stone in her pancreas. The doctor in Kanpur (of Abhishekh Hospital) concluded that the case is critical and expressed his inability to treat further (after he had been prescribed saline and glucose drips + general antibiotics + pain killers for two days. The immediate thing we did was to think about any acquaintances in Lucknow and to call them and ask for information about doctors/timings/who is good or who is bad.
After this incident, it came to my mind that in this world, most of our time is spent in acquiring information and information really is power. There could be a case where the girl & her family would not be knowing anybody who could tell about the doctors in Lucknow. What about a situation where in we wish to know that which is the nearest hospital in our locality and what are the timings? Also, there could be cases where in we need quantitative information e.g which hospital in Bangalore is the best in Gastroenterology? Which doctor would be good for a bone marrow transplant? Which is a good as well as an affordable hospital?
Another thing that disturbs me is the lack of a streamlined way of accessing information e.g there are far too many websites for blood donation in emergencies but just because of the sheer number of players, one doesn't know who to contact when exactly one is in need. If we put ourselves in somebody's shoes who has to look for medical care of his family members, it appears that there are lot of avenues where people can be assisted. Mostly, they need information rather than anything else. How do we provide the information to them is a challenge. Additionally, if we can somehow use technology for streamlining organ donation, we can really make a change. There are lakhs of people wanting kidneys, corneas, lungs, bone marrows. How to do this is a challenge to me. I wrote all this because if you have any idea regarding how all this can be done, please tell.
Can we do anything about it is the fundamental question.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
UPSC interview 2010
Board : Shri P K Mishra
General Background: My name is Vikram Pagaria. I am a B.Tech in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering (IIT Kanpur). My birth place is Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh). This was my first attempt and my mains optionals were Geography and Psychology.
If you wish to read this in a pdf, then send me a mail. I'm facing trouble in linking the pdf on this blog. If you can help, it will be great.
Chairman - What are your service preferences? Why? Why did you choose irs above ifs?
Me - Sir, my first preference is ias followed by irs, followed by ifs. My intention of choosing ias as the top service is because of the diversity of the job, one can work at the village, state as well as the center. My experience with the ngos that i worked with has been phenomenal. I look forward to working at the grassroots.
The reason behind choosing irs over ifs is primarily in the instruments that you've only one instrument of action i.e diplomacy. I do not consider myself good at being very diplomatic. When i filled the form, i could not imagine myself as an ifs officer. However, if i become an irs officer, i can contribute by using my technical background and may be, we could help streamline the taxation system better.
Chairman - so, status doesn't mean much to you? IFS is a higly respectable and lucrative job.
Me - Not much (to the question if status means much to me).I thought that if i am not good for a particular job, i should leave it for others to contribute.
Chairman - what is cyber crime?
Me - It is a multitude of malicious and illegal activities on the internet.
Chairman - Go on..
Me - Sir, for exmple, hacking into government websites, leaking confidential information, hacking banking passwords and stealing money.
Chairman - what is email bombarding?
Me - It is also a case for email spamming. In this case, your inbox is flooded with a large number of irrelevant/spam messages that you are not able to figure out which mail is important.
Chairman - Also, the speed becomes low.
Me - Yes, the speed as well as storage becomes an issue in such a case.
Chairman - what is morphing?
Me - Sir, i am not sure.
Chairman - Morphing is putting the head of one person and body of another.
Chairman - is there any law related to cyber security in india? What is the full name of the act?
Me - Yes, i am sure that there is a law, something called information security act or cyber security act.
Chairman - Do you know the exact name of the law?
Me - No sir
Chairman - It is cyber security act 2002 .
Chairman - what is salami attack?
Me - Pardon sir. Can u say that again?
Chairman - Salami?
Me - You mean S A L A M I
Chairman - yes.
Me - Sorry sir, i've not heard that before.
Chairman - It is also a cyber crime where the bank account information is appropriated in such a manner that is inperceptible to the user.
Me - Yes sir, the similar thing happened in a bank where the missapprorpriation was of the order of 1 billion dollar. It happened when a bank employee transferred a miniscule amount from each bank account into his own account. E.g. If we see our account balance as Rs. 3600.63 , we don't worry about the 63 paisa. Sometimes, hackers appropriate this information and transfer some/all of the 63 paisa into some other account. So, the next time when you check your balance, it would be Rs. 3600.55 paisa and you think everything is fine inspite of the fact that a big scandal has happened.
Member 1 - what is the relation between a hardware & software? How does the hardware interact with software?
Me - Madam, the interaction is via an operating system.
Member 1 - So vikram, what is an operating system? Can you explain how does this relation work when we type something on the computer and this is printed? How does the bits sequence recognized again by the printer? How does the computer manage with 0 & 1?
Me - Madam, when we type a word, say 'abcdef' on a word processor, which is a software that converts 'abcdef' into a binary sequence which the computer understands. This binary sequence is then trasmitted to the printer which is then again decoded while printing. (i explained this on a sheet of paper kept there using general concepts and she seemed to be convinced. The chairman passed the questions to the second member)
Member 2 - Do you read newspapers? Which ones?
Me - Yes sir. I read ''the hindu'' and the mint (published in bangalore).
Member 2 - Nehru ji once remarked about this newspaper, ''Everything is good about the newspaper except the name''.
Me - Yes sir, i agree with that.
Member 2 - No, i am not asking about your opinion. I am just making a general comment. In the newspapers, there is a lot of mention about 'tightening of monetary policy''? What is it?
Me - Sir, this is an instrument that is exercised by the rbi to control the money supply in the market. We are amdist high inflation circumstances. So, rbi is trying to reduce the money supply in the market. The instruments that rbi uses are the repo rates, reverse repo rates and the crr.
Member 2 - What is crr?
Me - Crr stands for 'cash reserve ratio'. This is the ratio of the total money (of the commercial banks) that the banks have to keep with the rbi. Altering the crr would affect the total money available to commercial banks for credit.
Member 2 - what is the difference between monetary and fiscal policy?
Me - Monetary policy is the policy that the rbi uses to control the money supply in the market while fiscal policy is the policy used by government to control its expenditure, receipts and deficit.
Member 2: Why should there be fiscal regulation?
Me: Government handles it finances by regulating its borrowings and expenditure. Recently, the fiscal deficit of our country grew up to 6.5 % which is not good for the economy and the country. So, government tries to controls its expenses and increase its receipts.
Member 2 - which is the tallest building in New Delhi?
Me – Sorry sir, I am not sure
Chairman – Vikram, it was inaugrated only two days back
Me – Is it the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre.
(The chairman passed me to the third member)
Member 3 - what is morphine?
Me – (I thought that just now, the chairman had asked me about 'morphing' and when i couldn't reply, the chairman told me the answer too. So, I thought that this member is trying to check whether i still remember it or not.) Hence, I answered, “Sir, morphing is the “head of one person and body of another”.
Chairman – No, he is not asking morphing, he is asking morphine. (There was a big laugh)
Me – Ok. Morphine is a drug which is used as a pain killer. However, it is also used as a drug illegally. Morphine is a steroid.
Member 3 – What is morphine made from?
Me – Sir, I am not sure.
Member 3 – You are from Neemuch (my birth place) and you do not know.
Me – Is it made from opium (I realised that there is large scale farming of opium in Neemuch and he might be giving that as a clue).
Member 3 – Yes, it is made from opium. There are a lot of cement companies in neemuch district. Which cement company was closed recently?
Me – Sir, there was a PSU named CCI (Cement Corporation of India) which was shut down since it became a sick unit.
Member 3 - which is the most efficient cement company among all the companies there?
Me – Sir, I think it is Vikram Cement.
Member 3 – Why do you say that?
Me – Because the turnover of Vikram Cement is the maximum. I've seen CCI, Vikram Cement and J K Cement and the Vikram Cement cement factory is the largest.
Member 3 – The turnover doesn't matter. The installed capacity is what decides the efficiency.
Me – Sorry sir, I don't have those figures in my mind.
Member 3 - if you are a dm of a district, what will be your priorities?
Me – Sir, my fundamental priority will be health because I think that the public sector health system is in shackles. We don't have medicines there, we don't have doctors there.
Member 3 – But, doctors and medicines can be made available if one has funds. So, how will you raise funds for health? Also tell me, how does the government raise funds?
Me – Sir, if the available funds are not sufficient for raising the standards of the public health system in our district, then i will request the concerned minister to allocate funds for this.
The money that the government has comes from :-
a) the borrowings from IMF/World bank
b) money raised by rbi by selling government securities.
Member 3 – What else?
Me – (I was thinking about the other sources. Meanwhile, the chairman said taxes.) I am so sorry, I forgot that.
(The chairman passed me to the next board member)
Member 4 - you have graduated from bio engineering colleges studying in one of the best colleges of the country? Why do you not join research and contribute? Becoming a generalist or a postal/revenue servant could hamper your plans about improvements in public health? You are defeating the purpose of investement in you?
Me – Sir, I've thought about that. If I am not able to become an IAS and contribute to public health system improvement, then I've chalked out a plan. I would join whatever services that are allotted to me and would try my level best to bring about an improvement in that service because I believe that improvement is needed everywhere. I'll work for 10 years and if I feel that inspite of my best efforts, I am not able to bring welfare to the society, then I would leave the services and join research because the main pupose of research as well as civil services is to reduce the number of mortalities. The condition in our country is that half of the people die from hunger, diarrhea, malaria and other perfectly preventable diseases. Hence, I would like to work in this area of implementation
(The fourth member doesn't look satisfied. He passed it over to the chairman again)
Chairman - what comes to your mind when you think about ''vikram''?
Me – Sir, there is Vikram Sarabhai
Chairman – Who was he?
Me – He was a visionary. He designed our space research program.
Chairman – Who else?
Me – Sir, Vikram Seth, he is an author; King Vikramaditya; Vikram Rathore, he is a cricket player.
Chairman - Is there something called ''vikram'' in transport?
Me – (I was thinking)
Member 1 – It is not the name of a person. “vikram” in transport corresponds to a product.
Me – (I was still thinking. Chairman did a gesture of driving an auto.)
Me – Oh, yes sir, i remembered. These are the big “vikram” autos which are very common in Kanpur.
Chairman – Thanks Vikram, your interview is over.
Me – Thanks a lot.
Board : Shri P K Mishra
General Background: My name is Vikram Pagaria. I am a B.Tech in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering (IIT Kanpur). My birth place is Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh). This was my first attempt and my mains optionals were Geography and Psychology.
If you wish to read this in a pdf, then send me a mail. I'm facing trouble in linking the pdf on this blog. If you can help, it will be great.
Chairman - What are your service preferences? Why? Why did you choose irs above ifs?
Me - Sir, my first preference is ias followed by irs, followed by ifs. My intention of choosing ias as the top service is because of the diversity of the job, one can work at the village, state as well as the center. My experience with the ngos that i worked with has been phenomenal. I look forward to working at the grassroots.
The reason behind choosing irs over ifs is primarily in the instruments that you've only one instrument of action i.e diplomacy. I do not consider myself good at being very diplomatic. When i filled the form, i could not imagine myself as an ifs officer. However, if i become an irs officer, i can contribute by using my technical background and may be, we could help streamline the taxation system better.
Chairman - so, status doesn't mean much to you? IFS is a higly respectable and lucrative job.
Me - Not much (to the question if status means much to me).I thought that if i am not good for a particular job, i should leave it for others to contribute.
Chairman - what is cyber crime?
Me - It is a multitude of malicious and illegal activities on the internet.
Chairman - Go on..
Me - Sir, for exmple, hacking into government websites, leaking confidential information, hacking banking passwords and stealing money.
Chairman - what is email bombarding?
Me - It is also a case for email spamming. In this case, your inbox is flooded with a large number of irrelevant/spam messages that you are not able to figure out which mail is important.
Chairman - Also, the speed becomes low.
Me - Yes, the speed as well as storage becomes an issue in such a case.
Chairman - what is morphing?
Me - Sir, i am not sure.
Chairman - Morphing is putting the head of one person and body of another.
Chairman - is there any law related to cyber security in india? What is the full name of the act?
Me - Yes, i am sure that there is a law, something called information security act or cyber security act.
Chairman - Do you know the exact name of the law?
Me - No sir
Chairman - It is cyber security act 2002 .
Chairman - what is salami attack?
Me - Pardon sir. Can u say that again?
Chairman - Salami?
Me - You mean S A L A M I
Chairman - yes.
Me - Sorry sir, i've not heard that before.
Chairman - It is also a cyber crime where the bank account information is appropriated in such a manner that is inperceptible to the user.
Me - Yes sir, the similar thing happened in a bank where the missapprorpriation was of the order of 1 billion dollar. It happened when a bank employee transferred a miniscule amount from each bank account into his own account. E.g. If we see our account balance as Rs. 3600.63 , we don't worry about the 63 paisa. Sometimes, hackers appropriate this information and transfer some/all of the 63 paisa into some other account. So, the next time when you check your balance, it would be Rs. 3600.55 paisa and you think everything is fine inspite of the fact that a big scandal has happened.
Member 1 - what is the relation between a hardware & software? How does the hardware interact with software?
Me - Madam, the interaction is via an operating system.
Member 1 - So vikram, what is an operating system? Can you explain how does this relation work when we type something on the computer and this is printed? How does the bits sequence recognized again by the printer? How does the computer manage with 0 & 1?
Me - Madam, when we type a word, say 'abcdef' on a word processor, which is a software that converts 'abcdef' into a binary sequence which the computer understands. This binary sequence is then trasmitted to the printer which is then again decoded while printing. (i explained this on a sheet of paper kept there using general concepts and she seemed to be convinced. The chairman passed the questions to the second member)
Member 2 - Do you read newspapers? Which ones?
Me - Yes sir. I read ''the hindu'' and the mint (published in bangalore).
Member 2 - Nehru ji once remarked about this newspaper, ''Everything is good about the newspaper except the name''.
Me - Yes sir, i agree with that.
Member 2 - No, i am not asking about your opinion. I am just making a general comment. In the newspapers, there is a lot of mention about 'tightening of monetary policy''? What is it?
Me - Sir, this is an instrument that is exercised by the rbi to control the money supply in the market. We are amdist high inflation circumstances. So, rbi is trying to reduce the money supply in the market. The instruments that rbi uses are the repo rates, reverse repo rates and the crr.
Member 2 - What is crr?
Me - Crr stands for 'cash reserve ratio'. This is the ratio of the total money (of the commercial banks) that the banks have to keep with the rbi. Altering the crr would affect the total money available to commercial banks for credit.
Member 2 - what is the difference between monetary and fiscal policy?
Me - Monetary policy is the policy that the rbi uses to control the money supply in the market while fiscal policy is the policy used by government to control its expenditure, receipts and deficit.
Member 2: Why should there be fiscal regulation?
Me: Government handles it finances by regulating its borrowings and expenditure. Recently, the fiscal deficit of our country grew up to 6.5 % which is not good for the economy and the country. So, government tries to controls its expenses and increase its receipts.
Member 2 - which is the tallest building in New Delhi?
Me – Sorry sir, I am not sure
Chairman – Vikram, it was inaugrated only two days back
Me – Is it the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre.
(The chairman passed me to the third member)
Member 3 - what is morphine?
Me – (I thought that just now, the chairman had asked me about 'morphing' and when i couldn't reply, the chairman told me the answer too. So, I thought that this member is trying to check whether i still remember it or not.) Hence, I answered, “Sir, morphing is the “head of one person and body of another”.
Chairman – No, he is not asking morphing, he is asking morphine. (There was a big laugh)
Me – Ok. Morphine is a drug which is used as a pain killer. However, it is also used as a drug illegally. Morphine is a steroid.
Member 3 – What is morphine made from?
Me – Sir, I am not sure.
Member 3 – You are from Neemuch (my birth place) and you do not know.
Me – Is it made from opium (I realised that there is large scale farming of opium in Neemuch and he might be giving that as a clue).
Member 3 – Yes, it is made from opium. There are a lot of cement companies in neemuch district. Which cement company was closed recently?
Me – Sir, there was a PSU named CCI (Cement Corporation of India) which was shut down since it became a sick unit.
Member 3 - which is the most efficient cement company among all the companies there?
Me – Sir, I think it is Vikram Cement.
Member 3 – Why do you say that?
Me – Because the turnover of Vikram Cement is the maximum. I've seen CCI, Vikram Cement and J K Cement and the Vikram Cement cement factory is the largest.
Member 3 – The turnover doesn't matter. The installed capacity is what decides the efficiency.
Me – Sorry sir, I don't have those figures in my mind.
Member 3 - if you are a dm of a district, what will be your priorities?
Me – Sir, my fundamental priority will be health because I think that the public sector health system is in shackles. We don't have medicines there, we don't have doctors there.
Member 3 – But, doctors and medicines can be made available if one has funds. So, how will you raise funds for health? Also tell me, how does the government raise funds?
Me – Sir, if the available funds are not sufficient for raising the standards of the public health system in our district, then i will request the concerned minister to allocate funds for this.
The money that the government has comes from :-
a) the borrowings from IMF/World bank
b) money raised by rbi by selling government securities.
Member 3 – What else?
Me – (I was thinking about the other sources. Meanwhile, the chairman said taxes.) I am so sorry, I forgot that.
(The chairman passed me to the next board member)
Member 4 - you have graduated from bio engineering colleges studying in one of the best colleges of the country? Why do you not join research and contribute? Becoming a generalist or a postal/revenue servant could hamper your plans about improvements in public health? You are defeating the purpose of investement in you?
Me – Sir, I've thought about that. If I am not able to become an IAS and contribute to public health system improvement, then I've chalked out a plan. I would join whatever services that are allotted to me and would try my level best to bring about an improvement in that service because I believe that improvement is needed everywhere. I'll work for 10 years and if I feel that inspite of my best efforts, I am not able to bring welfare to the society, then I would leave the services and join research because the main pupose of research as well as civil services is to reduce the number of mortalities. The condition in our country is that half of the people die from hunger, diarrhea, malaria and other perfectly preventable diseases. Hence, I would like to work in this area of implementation
(The fourth member doesn't look satisfied. He passed it over to the chairman again)
Chairman - what comes to your mind when you think about ''vikram''?
Me – Sir, there is Vikram Sarabhai
Chairman – Who was he?
Me – He was a visionary. He designed our space research program.
Chairman – Who else?
Me – Sir, Vikram Seth, he is an author; King Vikramaditya; Vikram Rathore, he is a cricket player.
Chairman - Is there something called ''vikram'' in transport?
Me – (I was thinking)
Member 1 – It is not the name of a person. “vikram” in transport corresponds to a product.
Me – (I was still thinking. Chairman did a gesture of driving an auto.)
Me – Oh, yes sir, i remembered. These are the big “vikram” autos which are very common in Kanpur.
Chairman – Thanks Vikram, your interview is over.
Me – Thanks a lot.
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