 Hello. Good afternoon sir. Good afternoon sir. I hope you're doing well. Yes sir. Yes sir. So dear students, we have another guest with us. So like before giving the introduction, I would like to tell you something about like what is IAS actually. So IAS is one of the premier services of the government of the India. IAS was constituted in 1946. Prior to that, Indian Imperial Services, like which was enforced from 1893 to 1946. And IAS is responsible for maintenance of the law and the order, revenue administration and general administration in this particular area. Like there are a few designations which is held by the IAS officer, SDO, SDM, joint collector, chief and development officer, district magistrate, district collector, deputy commissioner, divisional commissioner, member board of revenue and chairman board of revenue. So with this thing, like I would like to invite our guest, our speaker is Sakhetya Krishnan, IAS who did his BTEC in 2012 from College of Engineering, Gunde and he qualified IAS exam in 2013 and he worked as assistant commissioner of income techs and he qualified IAS exam in 2014 and worked as sub collector for 2017. Currently he is mentoring civil services student at Shankar Academy. We welcome you sir and thank you so much sir that you have spared your valuable time for us. Thank you sir. Thank you for the very kind and generous introduction that you have given me. And I would like to just capitalize on the energetic lecture that has been given by the former speaker, ADGP Ravi sir and I would just like to continue with that. And I believe sir has already laid the groundwork for whatever I have to do and so that makes my work much more easier. So let me just, without much ado about this exam process, let me get into the nuances about how do you clear this examination, how do you prepare for this examination. Let me touch upon those aspects of today's webinar. So I believe you've been told that this is one of the common examinations for recruitment of various different kind of services. You have more than 20 different services which participates for the recruitment through this one common examination. We have the Indian Administrative Service, Polar Service, Revenue Service, Foreign Service, Auditant Account Service, Difference Accounts Service account. You have a, it's a big list of services. You can just find out what are the different examinations, what are the different services to which you can actually get entered into by clearing this exam. Just by logging into the UPS website, you have all the list of different services to which you can actually get into. So there is just one common exam and this exam is called as a civil services examination. This examination is conducted early once by a body called as Union Public Services Commission. So this examination process, first we'll have to understand the duration, the length of this examination process, the length of this examination itself is for a period of one year. Because by the time you start giving your first, the exam has three phases to it, prelims, main and personal status. When you give the first phase, prelims, it usually appears, the prelims is usually conducted by the month of May every year. And once the prelims is over, after three months hence forth from then, you will have your main examination. So those people who qualify prelims and who qualify to write the mains, so they will be allotted entry to the mains examination. And mains exam is usually conducted by the month of October every year. So once you come done with mains, two months after that, you will be getting your results in hand. And if you qualify the main stage, then you will be invited to attend the personal test. You will have to make a personal appearance in the Union Public Service Commission in New Delhi. So there you will be interviewed by a panel of five members and based on your performance there you will be allotted marks. And based on the combined marks that you get in mains as well as in personality test. The mark that you get in prelims phase is not going to matter in deciding what rank you will be allotted in the rank list. But the marks that you get in the mains as well as the personality test phase, that plays a role in deciding what is your final rank going to be. And so this process as you see, personality test starts by the month of February every year. And within two months, the entire personality test process is done and the results are out. So before the May of the next year, final results are out, candidates are selected. So the process just goes on. Again, the next May you get your prelims, then three months hence forth mains and four months hence forth personality test. The process just keeps on going year after year. Only in this particular year, 2020 alone, the process has got disrupted because of the COVID problem, corona issue. So the timetable has also actually changed. Otherwise it's a fixed routine by routine for UPSC and for aspirants. May is the month of prelims. October is the month of mains. February is the month of personality test. And April is the month of having the final results out. This is the calendar of UPSC. So before you even give your examination or understand that this examination process itself is going to take one year of your time. And before you appear in problems, how long are you supposed to be in this process of preparation? So let's say when you look at the statistics and average, you come to understand that it is perfectly... See, there are aspirants who have cleared it in their very first attempt itself. There are aspirants who have cleared it in their fifth or sixth or seventh attempt, whatever it might be. So the minimum amount of time period that you should actually invest so as to prepare for this examination is at least a year before you give your first prelims. So what it means is, let's say you people are in your final year of graduation. You're going to just graduate out of college in 2020. Let's say you're going to give your examination in the year 2021. So which means that from 2020 to 2021, that one complete year you should be devoting to preparation and assuming you clear in the very first attempt itself in 2020 when you give your exam. So the examination process goes on for one year. You get the final rank list in your hand in the year 2022. That is the earliest, shortest possible time that you can actually expect. So the minimum amount of time that you should actually invest for preparation for this examination in order to clear this exam in the very first attempt itself is going to be a period of two years. So without two years, nobody can clear this exam. In the minimum period of two years, you should actually mentally prepare so as to devote for preparation for this examination because during this period of two years, you should be having a very single-minded approach. You should only think about UPSC and your mind should not waver towards some other exams, keeping some other examinations as options. No, none of that is allowed for this exam. Just have a single-minded approach, focus on UPSC. The minimum period of two years of preparation guaranteed that with proper preparation with the right answer writing practice and by solving this periodically, if you're able to do the proper preparation in a very systematic manner, I'm sure by second attempt, you will be definitely into the service. So this is something which I'm actually speaking based on my own personal experience because when I was in my college in 2012, so in my final year of my BTEC engineering, I was actually preparing for this exam. So prepared for one year and in 2013, I gave this examination. So I can actually say before doing my attempt, I had one and a half to two years of preparation in there. So one and a half to two years of preparation, I gave the attempt in 13 and 13, I cleared. So that's why I say a minimum of two to three years is a very, very required time to crack this examination. So if you're starting a preparation fresh after college at 21 years of age, so in that case, you can expect to be in the service when you are 23 or 24 years of age. That is the shortest time within which you can crack this exam. So this actually concludes a part of our webinar. So the next part of the webinar is about the scale of the competitions. When you write an examination, you should actually know about your competitors. So in this examination also, you have around a million aspirins appearing for this examination every year, which means that around 10 lakh people appear for this exam every year. So they apply for this exam every year and out of the applications, I'm not sure about the current data, but I can just make some approximations and say that out of 10 lakh aspirins, around 5 lakh aspirins don't even appear for this examination. They just apply for the sake of applying. They might have a confusion. They're not confident about themselves cracking this exam this year. So because of various reasons, they don't actually appear in the examination even in spite of having applied for the exam. In fact, even the application thesis was very, very minimal here, it's not like CAT exams where you have to apply for 2,000 rupees or for GMAT exams where you have to spend 3,000, 4,000 rupees for the application itself. QPC is not like that. 300 rupees, I believe. I'm not very sure about what is the current application fees. Premanand, any idea what is the current application fees? I think 300. What sir? Application rupees is only 100 rupees for general categories, sir. Premanand SCST, there is no application fees. Application fees also. So around 5 lakh aspirins don't even appear for this examination in spite of applying. And out of this 5 lakh aspirins, not all 5 lakh are actually symbols of the aspirins. The 5 lakh aspirin, they might be preparing for the state symbols of the examination. They might be preparing for banking examinations. They might be preparing for staff selection commission examinations. So just because they have been preparing for other exams, they would like to try out their luck, whether their luck plays out in this examination or not. They would just like to test it and so they would also appear in this examination. So that way, if you eliminate that crowd also, the serious aspirins who have been properly preparing for 2 years at least, who have already had an experience of having given 1 or 2 attempts properly, who already have an experience of given means. So that competition size is around 1 to 1.5 lakh aspirins every week. Out of this 1.5 lakh aspirins, that's the real competition. Let's say, so the real competition in the prelim stage is 1.5 lakh aspirins and how many of them qualify prelims and make it to the mains? 10 percentage of this group, which is around 15,000 to 18,000 aspirins every year make it to the mains stage. And after mains, how many of them out of this 15,000 to 18,000 make it to the final stage? Around 2,000 to 2,500 aspirins make it to it. And out of 2,000 to 2,500 aspirins who appear in personality test, how many of them finally make it to the rank list? This year it's around 850, I believe. So these are the average numbers. So 1.5 lakh people appearing in prelims translates it into 15,000 people in mains. That gets converted to 2,000 people, 2,500 in the personality test. 2,500 people at the final rank list, it's around 850 ranks at the end of all this process. So this is the scale of the competition. And so let's get into the scheme of this examination. What is this examination all about? So as I said, this has three phases. The first phase, prelims is completely objective in nature. You will be just given a question, four options. You have to just choose one among the four options. You get the option correct, you get two marks, you get a question wrong, you get minus 0.66 marks. For each correct answer, you get two marks, for each wrong answer, you get minus 0.66 marks. So at the end of it, what is the total mark? That is what is going to be designed. And in prelims, you have two papers. The first paper is called as the general space paper. Second paper is called as the CSAT paper, Civil Services Attitude Test. So first, let me touch upon the second paper, which is called as Civil Services Attitude Test. This paper has a total of 80 questions. Each question is for 2.5 marks. So 2.5 into 80 questions is 200 marks. Out of 200, how much marks are you supposed to get? You're supposed to get only one third of 200 marks, which is basically 66.66 marks. You get 67 marks. It means that you have qualified CSAT paper. It doesn't matter whether you get 199 marks or whether you get only 68 marks. Because this marks that you get in CSAT paper has no meaning to it. It's only a qualifying paper. You just have to pass beyond that barrier of 66.66 marks. Once you clear your CSAT paper, the first paper, the general studies paper will be taken up for evaluation. And this general studies paper, how much marks are you supposed to get? Just today we have a cut-off mark which has been released by UPSC for the last year's candidates. Going by the cut-offs which has been released by UPSC, we understand that last year, for general category students, the cut-off was 98 marks. The general studies paper is for 100 questions. Each question is for 200 marks. Out of 200 marks in general studies paper, if you are a general candidate, how much marks are you supposed to have got? Only 98 marks. It's not even 50% marks. You get 49% marks. It means that you have qualified in prelims if you are a general candidate. Okay? So how do you get 98 marks? What subjects are you supposed to prepare for this examination? UPSC provides a syllabus sheet. See, one common misconception and myth about this examination is you have to just prepare anything and everything in this world to clear this examination which is actually not the case. There is a very proper prescribed syllabus sheet which has been released by UPSC. All you need to do is just go through the syllabus of UPSC because for both the phases, for prylums as well as for mains, you have a proper prescribed syllabus. UPSC doesn't ask anything out of the syllabus. Okay? There is a syllabus. Within the syllabus, there are a lot of ways in which UPSC can ask these questions. So if you look at the syllabus sheet, what do we understand? We understand that in prelim stage, you have to prepare at least six subjects. Six subjects have to be focused upon during your prylums preparation. What are they? One is Indian constitution. You have to understand about the framework structure and the various political organizations in this country functions. Various political institutions function. Who is the prime minister? Who is the president? What is my fundamental fight? I cannot be just arbitrarily arrested by a policeman. He cannot just come and drag me out from my home and I make an arrest. Why? Because I have been given certain protection about all such legal matters. We don't go into the specifics of the laws but rather we study about the broader framework in which the entire political setup functions. Okay? That is one subject matter of our focus which is called as the Indian constitution. So out of 100 questions, around 12 questions to 15 questions are asked from this particular area called as Indian constitution. The next area of study is what you call as the Indian economy. You try to understand the entire economic aspects of our society. Okay? Like what is the banking system? What is money supply in the economy? And what kind of production happens in the society? What kind of raw materials are we producing? Where are we exporting? How much money are we earning from the trade that we have to do with foreign countries? These are the aspects that you will be actually preparing as a part of your Indian economy preparation and again another 12 to 15 questions are asked from Indian economy part of preparation. The other subject that you will have to prepare is history. Okay? Indian history. And Indian history. It doesn't mean that you have to start all the way from the time when human beings start ever evolved on this earth. No. You have to just start from 2500 BC onwards. That is the time when we have some kind of an evidences, some kind of historical evidences to actually understand our past. What is the 2500 BC corresponding to? It's the Harappan civilization. So that was the time when for the first time we have some evidence of a civilized way of life found in the traces of that found in Indian subcontinent. It's exactly in the state in which the university is actually located Haryana, Punjab and those areas. So we start our study of history from 2500 BC and we conclude until the present day. Okay? So that is a subject matter of study in Indian history. There are various standard books that you will have to refer to. One of the most important sources of preparation is actually your NCERP books. National Council for Education, Research and Training. So that is the body which actually prescribes the curriculum and designs the textbooks, study materials and resources for CBC school students. I'm sure many of you would have been already exposed to NCERP books. During your school days you would have retro NCERP books and you already have an idea of the subject matter of NCERP books. So it's the NCERP books of all the subjects that are mandatory to be prepared for the purpose of this examination. And the link of this NCERP books will be actually shared by academy people with you in the chat box. Okay? You can just refer that link and you can actually find a link to all the NCERPs which are available for online for free downloads. So the next matter of interest, the next subject of interest is history. 2500 BC to the present day history. You'll have to master them from various sources. NCERPs are one primary source. Apart from that, there are some other reading materials which you're supposed to require, which I believe will be shared in that link also. You can just look into that link and get to know about them. So out of 100 questions 15 from quality, 15 from economy, 15 from history. These are some of the thumb rule that you actually follow UPSC follows every year when it comes to question allocation. The next important subject of preparation has to be geography. In geography, you have different kinds of geography. Physical geography is there, then economic geography, human geography, all these are there. So around 12 to 15 questions are again asked from geography. So if you see cumulatively for just from these four subjects, subjects, history, economy, quality and geography, every year around 50 to 60 questions are asked just from these four subjects. These are the core subjects of UPSC preparation. You may skip anything else, but you cannot actually skip these four subjects when it comes to UPSC preparation. Okay. And what are the remaining questions? So we have covered around 50 to 60 questions out of the 100 questions in general studies paper one. What about the remaining questions? Where are those questions asked for? So those questions are commonly called as the current affairs related questions. So when you are, when you actually talk to any aspirant who has cleared this examination or anybody who is currently in the process of preparation, one thing all of them commonly would say is that they would attest to is the importance of Hindu newspaper when it comes to civil services preparation. Hindu newspaper is the, is the, you can say it's the best friend of any UPSC aspirant. Okay. There is nothing that you can learn out of Hindu newspaper. Everything that you are supposed to learn for this examination is actually there in Hindu newspaper. So two years of proper reading of Hindu newspaper, understanding the issues around you, trying to look at a social problem. If there is a Kapp Panchayat and its influence in Haryana is actually, it's very strong. Right. So to understand what are the recent days, how does the institution of Kapp Panchayat, how is it actually is it correct or not? Is it actually what social role does it actually play in the present day society to understand all that? How can, how do you actually understand that? It's only whenever there's a news that actually comes in Hindu newspaper, you tend to make sense of it. Right. So you have to have an eye for all the current schemes which are released by the government. Say for example, you have a lot of migrant labourers from Bihar, UP, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal. So it's the eastern part of India which provides the labour force to other parts of India. Okay. A lot of migrants from these states, they just move to Ahmedabad, Rajkot and they work in Gujarat. Similarly, a lot of people have started migrating to Delhi and to Surat, to Bombay to southern states in search of jobs. So because of this corona issue, now all the migrants have returned back home. Once they return back home, they have to be provided with livelihood. Right. Otherwise there will be a lot of problem in the rural area. These people will start starving, they will not get food supplies. So that is why the government has actually come up with a scheme which is called as the Pradhan Mantri, Garib, Kalyan, Rosgarh, Yojana. Okay. So what is the purpose of that scheme? It is to actually provide livelihood options to all the returning migrants because of the COVID issues. So where do you actually study about all these things? Only from Hindu newspaper. Okay. Recently there was the bombing which has happened in Beirut in Lebanon. Okay. So what was the reason behind the bombing? So where is Lebanon located? So what kind of culture is there in Lebanon? To understand all of these, these are what is called as the current affairs. Current affairs is whatever happens around you inside India as well as in the outside world. All that becomes a subject matter of our interest when it comes to UPSC preparation and when we prepare for all of that, it is from Hindu newspaper. That is why reading Hindu assumes a lot of importance in clearing this examination especially in all phases of exam. Okay. So we are done with prylums and let's say you have scored 98 marks in prylums. It means that you are now eligible to attend the main examination. Main examination, what is it all about? It is not an objective test like prylums. In prylums, it is only about four options. One, but in mains, it is a descriptive paper. It means that you have to write answers, you have to write essays. Okay. You have to write essays for two two pages. Two to each answer should be for at least for two to three pages. So you have a total of nine papers in mains. Okay. Unlike prylums, prylums is just a single one-day process. You just go sit in the examination hall in the morning you have one paper, general studies paper, afternoon you have a c-set paper. Once you're done with that, prylums is completely over. But when it comes to mains, it's not a single day process. The mains examination itself is conducted over a period of ten days. Okay. Because you have to write nine papers. And what are those nine papers? First, let me touch upon the two papers in mains which are called as the language papers. One is the English language paper. The other one is your regional language paper. So probably you'll be many of you might be opting for Hindi as your regional language paper. So these two papers are compulsory and but they are just qualifying in nature. All you need to get is just 33 percent of the marks. And you get 33 percent of the marks. It means that you have qualified the language papers. So once you qualify language papers, the remaining seven papers will be taken up for evaluation. What are those remaining seven papers? One of the papers is what is called as essay paper. Okay. Let me first give a list of all the seven papers. One essay paper, four general studies paper and two optional subject papers. Okay. So one essay, four general studies paper, two optional subject papers. These are the seven papers that you'll have to prepare for in mains examination. And what is this optional subject? Optional subject is one subject that each one of you has the discretion to choose from, from a list of subjects which are going to be provided by UPS. UPSC gives you a list of around 30 plus subjects. Many subjects are there from humanities as well as from sciences, maths, physics, chemistry, economics, agriculture, psychology, sociology, public administration, history, geography, anthropology. The list is just very long. So all you need to do is just choose one subject which you really have an attachment to or which you really feel that you can develop a curiosity and interest in that particular subject. So choose one such subject like that and I'm sure you can really prepare well for optional subject within a time span of six to eight months. Six to eight months of time is the time that is actually required. Every day if you're going to invest four hours of studies on optional subject, any subject can be mastered within a period of six to eight months. So once you're done with the optional subject, you have to attempt UPSC and there two papers will be asked. Each optional subject also has its own syllabus. Examination syllabus is also there in UPSC website. You can find out, say for example, you're taking history as an optional subject. You have optional paper one, optional paper two. On the day of exam, in optional paper one, let's say my option was actually history. Though I am an engineer, but I thought history is an area where I'm actually comfortable with and I went for history. So on the day of the exam, you're supposed to write two optional papers. Paper one, paper two, both are same from the same subjects. So let's say history is actually divided into four areas when it comes to main examination. In history, optional paper one, you have to study about ancient India and medieval India. In history, optional paper two, you have to study about modern India and world history. So there is a proper prescribed syllabus for each and every subject options. So this, so we are done with two optional papers. One advice which I would like to give you people here is, choose an optional subject based on your subject interest. I think I don't want to go further into that because the last speaker ADGP sir had actually told you some valuable advice about you should just go for the subject where you really genuinely have an interest and not just because last year a particular subject had given some spectacular marks, that should not be a guiding formula. So I think sir has touched upon all that. So let me just get into the general studies paper and the nine papers in mains one, two language papers. Let's just forget about them. We are just assuming that everybody will just clear that language paper. Seven more papers to go out of seven more papers. Two papers are optional subject papers. We are just done with that. We have another five more papers to cover. One of the papers is what is called as the essay paper. You have to write two essays each essay is for 125 marks. When you write two essays, it's for 250 marks. So what are you supposed to prepare? Is there some separate preparation that you are supposed to do for essay paper? I don't think so because you have already been reading for two years from Hindu newspaper as a part of the preparation for this exam. So when you read Hindu newspaper, you get and you assimilate a lot of ideas about so many different themes from the Hindu newspaper and so whatever you pick from newspaper that is what is going to be the substance for your essay paper. Just that you have to have some proper presentation skills. You have to just have some very good writing skills with that give a proper structure to the essay, give a proper introduction, take your essay forward, discuss about it, bring out all aspects of the essay, make an analysis of the positives and negatives of the particular topic, present it, conclude it very beautifully. You will definitely get good marks in essay paper. So that is it about essay and we have four more papers to go, general studies paper. The subject matter of three general studies paper. General studies paper one, paper two, paper three, they are the same problems also, history, geography, quality, economy and some other subjects. One or two subjects here and there and also I had say for example certain agricultural issues and also we have to be studied for mains. Certain aspects of governance in India also has to be studied for mains. So there are few subjects which in addition has to be studied prepared for mains purpose and each paper mains is for 250 marks okay. So seven papers, each paper is for 250 marks a total of 1750 marks in mains. So three papers, GS one, general studies two, general studies three, all these three papers the syllabus is the same as what you have already studied in the problems. Just that in problems the way of answering is different, objective one, right option among four options. Here you have to translate those ideas and knowledge that you have in the form of two page to three page answers. Answer writing ability is something that you will have to necessarily develop for the purpose of this examination. That is a practice that has to be done regularly consistently on a daily basis developing a very good answer writing ability is not an overnight process it's not going to just be learnt on a single day but it should be done in a very gradual phase manner. Within two years if you are doing it on a regular basis definitely you will be able to develop the right skill of answer writing for this examination. Let's move on to the general studies paper four and this paper alone is slightly different from other papers. This is a very new paper that you will actually only be preparing for mains space because you would not have studied this particular paper in the preloops. What is this paper? It is about ethical issues. It is about what is right and wrong, what is morality can you just say whatever society does is right sometimes society seems to even accept bribery also if work is getting done society seems to somehow actually accept bribery also but does it mean that then bribe is actually right? Sometimes society even accepts murder also let's say if rape case like what happened in Hyderabad when the girl was actually raped by three people and she was actually burned to death in that case those three accused who were caught by the policemen they were actually killed in cold blood in a very cold blooded way. They were actually murdered in a what you call commonly as the police encounter so in those kind of instances society does not seem to get very angry at such kind of instances. Society seems to accept such kind of violences but does it mean that then violence is correct? Everybody can start doing violence at work. So these are the kind of questions and issues which forms the subject matter of study in general studies paper four. This is what you're supposed to be preparing as a part of your mains preparation for general studies paper four. So this is all about mains so you attend mains and you get good marks clear the cutoff finally you get into the personality test phase personality test phase very easy process I feel among the three stages personality test is the most easiest of the three phases so it's just a 20 minutes process you'll have four or five people probably the age of your professors or your vice chancellors, retired vice chancellors will be a part of the panel retired professors will be a part of panel academicians plus retired bureaucrats will be IIS officers, cabinet secretaries armed for forces personal, former general of army all those people will be sitting in the panel it's a very mixed panel okay five members will be there each of them will be asking around four to five questions will be asked by each person so you just have to have a very normal friendly conversation with them all that you need to do is whatever you know just speak with confidence just speak with a lot of clarity and precision about what you are just talking to them don't just beat around the bush or don't just exhibit signs of lack of confidence so if you are able to manage the time in a very normal way okay you don't have to get stressed they are just a group of people who are just so curious to know more and more about you they are not there to push you down or to pull you down or to reduce your marks no that's not the case all that they need to know is who are you what kind of person are you are you interesting enough for them or not that is the that is all about personal details the questions in personal details are about your profile if you are from Haryana they ask about the problems of Haryana if you are posted as a collector in a say for example in probably in Sonpat district I think Sonpat is in Haryana so so if you are posted as a collector in Sonpat then if so and so problem happens then what kind of steps will you actually take so as to solve these problems solve these problems so these kind of case studies will be given to you and your response will be actually observed by them whether you are thinking twice before you answer before you take a decision or thought decision making process is it actually good enough to suit an administrator or not so that is what is actually getting tested on the day of your personality test very simple process there are two personality test both the interviews I have got good marks that is why I actually feel that in fact I always manage to clear problems in a very narrow cut off very border marks I have clear problems but I always felt personality test is the area where you can actually capitalize on it and make the best use of it and score the highest of the marks in the exam it will come automatically to you once you start the process of preparation just that as a person you need to develop your skills of writing skills as well as in terms of oral communication skills if you are able to improvise it gradually within a bit of two years of preparation definitely I think this is an exam which does not require in fact I don't even say that this requires a B level of skills even with a 12 standard level of skills with answer writing skills and everything you are good enough to crack this examination this is not a tough exam as such just that the competition makes the exam tougher the questions are never tough when it comes to this examination just that the people who compete with you from IIT's, IIM's, from distinguished colleges who have always thrived in a competitive environment so when you are going to fight it out with those kind of people so hence naturally the competition level tends to be pushed to a much higher levels but otherwise I wouldn't say the questions of this examination are actually difficult so I think with this I can conclude my session and I would be happy to take and try to answer your doubts if you have any so that I can give you more clarity about this particular examination process so many of you have typed in the question and answer box I will digit for you sir there is a question from a student called Dharashankar most of the background aspirants think as taking engineering subject as the main paper is very difficult sorry can you come again he is asking about taking engineering subjects as the main in fact the number of aspirants who take engineering subjects has actually increased in the last 2 years recently the UPSC has given its annual report and we find that the number of civil engineering aspirants it has actually increased by 3 times into 3 is a factor because when I used to give my examination we used to find very minuscule amount of engineers writing this examination in engineering as their optional subject then it was 70 civil engineers all over India only 60 to 70 aspirants chose civil engineering as their subject but this year I think it is around 70 or 180 so I believe the number of people who are taking technical subjects has actually increased tremendously in the last few years yes you can definitely take your engineering subject and clear this examination provided you have a real interest in civil engineering if you have not even cleared all the papers in all the semesters properly you have had 2-3 years backlogs and then you have studied and then you have cleared then it means that civil engineering you should not take so be clear enough that whether you really like the subject of civil engineering or not then go for engineering subjects the next question is from the student called Savita asking like sir some people used to say first to prepare something and then go for problem syllabus where should I start whether I start with the subjects of the mains or the problems that is a great question because that is the same advice which I also give to the students first start from mains once you are done with mains preparation problem preparation is already done starting with mains syllabus sheet in your hand trying to find out what all I have to study from mains syllabus sheet is the right way to go start from mains once you are done with mains preparation problem preparation is already over all you need to do is just take tests and increase your accuracy of scoring more and more this is Dr. Sanjay Kumar Sardana from MVN University I would like to ask you a question which is normally is in the minds of the students that IAS is supposed to be IAS or these exams are supposed to be the toughest exams so how would they keep their motivation levels high so that ultimately they come out successful well you just need to make sure you don't get demotivated so let's analyze why do students first of all get demotivated only when they start fearing that they are not capable enough unlike their competitors why does such a mindset of lower opinion about one's capability why does it even arise it's only when you don't study when you don't study for one week then naturally you feel that you have forgotten whatever you have studied then you realize that you have to start everything from scratch then you slowly find that somehow you become more and more less interested in this preparation process if this phenomenon is going to continue for one month then finally you just give up on your preparation so all you need to do is you have to make sure you are still running in the race you should just even if you are going slowly you should just keep on running in this space so what I am trying to say is if you are going to study for 8 to 10 hours a day it means that you will always keep yourself motivated but even for a single day if you are so this is something which I observe in hospitals some of them study for 16-18 hours just take one book memorize whatever is there then after for the next two days they will be roaming around here and there with friends playing some games watching some moons so once this kind of inconsistent preparation is done that is the reason why aspirants become less motivated with time all you need to do is just spend 8 to 10 hours of preparation every day if you do for 6 months I am sure that there is no reason to feel demotivated about this preparation why should you feel demotivated you have not even given your first attempt then what is the reason what reason do you even have to be demotivated so I don't think that you have to be demotivated the only way you can keep your motivation levels high is by regularly doing your preparation there is no other external source of motivation nobody is going to come and pat on your shoulders and say that go ahead nobody is going to do that you just remain in the race another question which I would like to ask you is people who aspire to become civil servants and they are aspiring from a very long time they normally take art as a subject, political science economics or these kind of subjects what do you advise whether these art subjects or science or technical subjects which are better to get to the ideas so what I would say is well well if let's say 100 people take history as their option and 100 people take mathematics as their option arts and science so out of 100 people who chose history as an option almost 60 of them will get decent amount of marks better than the average marks when it comes to mains examination but when it comes to the 100 people who have taken mathematics as an option 10 of them will get the best marks whereas 90 of them will get the least marks there is no intermediate marks when it comes to science option either you get the best marks or you get the worst marks but in history geography those kind of option these are considered to be safer options though they will not be pulling your marks to the highest they will also not push you to the lowest amount of marks so it depends upon the aptitude for each and every aspirant if you are ready to take risks I am not even saying taking a science option is risky I am just saying don't just take a science option because somebody has scored really spectacular marks unless you have a real interest in that science subject don't take science as an option if you really like science then I would say only go for that particular subject as your optional don't let anybody convince you to take any other subject as an optional subject I would bother you another question which really comes into your mind most of the students were hearing you because you are giving information as an example so I just wanted to ask you what career path would they have if they joined as a civil servant well you are always seen when you get into the civil service we are talking about the top levels of civil service so at the top most levels of civil service as a class A civil servant your work primarily is about decision making it's about analysing the problems before you and trying to come up with the best kind of decision which is possible in that particular time limit so your entire work let's say you get into IAS starting from the first day in your service as a sub-divisional magistrate, as a sub-collector till the day you become a secretary of a department almost on a daily basis you deal with decisions about government policies let's say parliament makes a law Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act so this is possibly called the 100 day employment act scheme all over India the common man will be knowing it as a 100 day job scheme so the government will actually divert a lot of funds in your hands they will just give you around 20 crores in a particular sub-division to be spent for a lot of projects so your work is to take a decision on what projects are am I going to do so as to spend these 20 crores whether building roads is important or whether building wells and dams and culverts is it going to be important so it's the kind of decision making that's the best way for me to actually define the services define the work that you're going to do as a civil servant because you're not going to you're not going you are the decision makers everybody else under you are just going to look up to you for some decisions to be made so that is why a tough examination process is conducted that is why the best of the manpower are recruited so that the decisions are very sensible very rational and very well thought out okay so I think that is the best way of defining your career your work nature of the work they're going to do apart from that the hierarchy, the rank the designations it just varies from each service IAS you have a different kind of hierarchy IPS you have a different kind of hierarchy so IPS, IRS all these are specialized services you deal with one particular discipline in policy you just deal only with law and order and crime prevention whereas in revenue service you deal only with tax collection when it comes to IAS it's very holistic it's about almost running each and every department in this particular country so IAS is much more varied and much more diverse when you compare it with other service another last question probably I would ask you some words of wisdom to the participant students regarding civil servant as a service as a career option well what I would say civil service as a career option you have a lot of options once you graduate from the college if you're interested in research if you have a very curious bent of mind I would say you should probably go for research and if you really have an interest towards teaching and expressing your ideas so that is all a different way of life but if you would like to actually contribute something to the society in terms of maintaining the systems which actually impact on human lives a healthcare institution or an educational institution run by the government actually touches upon the lives of millions of people in this country so if you want to be a process engineer in these activities if you want to make the implementation of these facilities for the citizens if you want to make some improvement in these service deliveries then I would say come into civil services so definitely this is a career path that you can actually be looking forward so as to touch upon human lives on a larger scale that way if you have the right kind of temperament for that I would say civil services should be the option that you should be looking forward Shakta another question which is really come I just taken your word you said that right kind of temperament right now this right kind of temperament or what extra qualities should a person possess to become a good civil servant so it's the same qualities which will be tested during your two and a half years of preparation so let me lay down what are those qualities the first quality is what you call as resilience every time when you come down you may not clear the attempt in the first time you may not clear the second attempt but are you resilient enough to rise up from your failure and are you going to pursue it forward or not that's one important trait the next important trait is patience because everything is uncertain in this examination you only know that you are preparing a lot of insecurities come in your mind when you see others clear when you see even capable people from your own college your own seniors from IIT when they don't clear when suddenly your heart sinks it says that when those people are not able to clear how will I clear all such self doubts will come but it is your innate nature to just push aside all those self doubts place confidence in your own efforts and to rise about all those kind of suspicions that is another trait that you actually require another important trait what I would say is the capacity to persist the capacity to persist that is also something which is very required you need to slog you need to actually work for 8 to 10 hours without a minimum time of preparation of 10 hours it's not possible to clear this examination so from these from whatever I have said you I'm sure you will be able to understand that you have placed much of emphasis on the intellect because intellect is something which you can actually develop during your 2-3 years of your preparation provided you have these 3 capacities in you and these are the 3 capacities which are going to actually make you as a very good officer also in the next department so I think that sums it right I think Shakti I will not bother you more right yes Ramesh sir you would like to take over sir my Delhi branch head Mr Prem is online he will take over from here sir yes yes yes so that's a question from a student called Shiva he is asking about your experience in the service he is asking to share something about the experience in the service so that he can motivate the people also right see my experience in the service is very short and I would say that in my experience of that span over 3 years probably after my institutional training and everything 3 years I was just posted in 3 districts so it was an annual transfers which I had experienced and all the 3 districts were severely naxal affected, highly communally sensitive one of the most backward regions in this country you can these are commonly called as the infamous KBK districts so if you actually type it in the google you will be able to find out KBK so unfortunately I just had all my 3 career postings in the 3 KBK districts so what I have what I have observed about is that what makes people see I have seen some of the worst things that can actually happen to human beings in the short span of 3 years I would say how sensitive are human societies to just erupt into violence into a state of violence or anarchy so these are some of the realities that you actually encounter having come from even I have never seen the rural side of life during my 21st, 23, 24 years of life completely from a very urban district from Coimbatore district so it's one of the most urbanized districts in the country itself so coming from that kind of a background and once you are exposed to these you really understand the nature of India Gandhiji would have once told that India lives in our villages so you would only be theoretically preparing for it until you go and see it as a part of your IAS job when you are posted there when you see, you realize the importance of rural side even though it might be short on facilities even though it might be short on human talent and everything but the entire urban areas in this country is all actually supported by the activities that are happening in the rural side so when you actually encounter human beings from such close quarters when you sit in this side of the table until you get into the service you are always on the complaining side you always tend to focus on doing this adequately that is not taken care of well by the government we always tend to have that kind of a cynical mindset but the minute you become a part of the system we start understanding the deeper reasons behind why the government is not capable enough what are the weaknesses in the government then we try to set them right so some of us are successful, some of us are not so successful but each of us have made a contribution which will be actually taken care by the next generation of officers who will just come in so many experiences I have in fact I have faced in various law and order situations being stuck in the middle of an accelerated village with no police force around they have just ran away from the situation so there are so many such situations which I can actually think about so I don't think a two minute answer will actually do justice to that question you have touched something which will be motivating the people so thank you for that and the next question will be a generic question a student who is preparing for civil services need to prepare for 8 hours or 10 hours per day so basically you should have some reading habits, you should have a habit of sitting with books so they are in colleges, what kind of books apart from curriculum they can go through so that they can inculcate the habit of reading in them so yes, the habit of reading is definitely going to be helpful in clearing this exam because when you go to personality test at least in that phase if you have a habit of reading you will definitely have to enjoy or other aspirants because you have substance to have a conversation with the board, the board will say what is your hobby then you say that I read books then they will ask you what is the reason book that you have read and if it so happens that one of the book that you have read is also something which the board member has also read then naturally the conversation becomes more advantageous for you to get more marks this is precisely what happened in my case one of the book that I have read was read by another, by the chat person of that board his name is Mr. Chatur Singh so he was also from Haryana actually so that way reading habit is definitely going to be helpful on the day of your personality test in addition to that once you get into the service it's the habit of reading books that can keep a person sane and sensible because you need to have some kind of a refreshment some kind of an intellectually stimulating hobby and I would say the habit of reading will definitely hold you in good stead so what are the reading resources that you should be actually focusing upon to start I would actually say try to develop some interest if you are totally new to this habit of reading so what I would say is just start with some mild fiction start with fiction try to develop some kind of an interest in understanding the characters in a particular novel so what is the human factor that is actually portrayed in those fiction try to get into those aspects so if you already have been doing some light reading if you want to get to the next phase of serious reading I would say go for nonfiction and what nonfiction books are you supposed to read just pick and choose the million copy sellers every year all those books which have sold a million plus copies these are books which will easily appeal to a very common reader these are not technical subjects these are not some specialized subjects so just because it was appealing to everybody that is why it had already sold a million copies so that those are books which I would say you can actually start with definitely it's going to be very helpful for you so start with two or three million copy sellers let's say I would just suggest you to read a book called as sapiens which is a wonderful book written by a Israeli historian so that would be a start so you can just start with that book and once you start you will also find out new avenues for developing your reading habits can I ask you one question sir yeah yes I would just like to put you a very simple question how challenging is civil service as a carrier and when you compare IES IPS and then of course IFS which is the most challenging and which is the most less or less challenging well the challenges are different for different services for foreign services the challenge is being away from your home it's only two and a half years once you have the opportunity to come back to your home at least two years once you have to come back so the feel of being rooted away out from your soil from the place from where you have actually originated that is something which not everybody will be able to cope with in foreign services so that is a very peculiar challenge of foreign services when it comes to IAS the challenge I would say is being thrown into a totally alien environment IAS and IPS both because it's an all India service I am from Tamil Nadu and if I am posted in Nagaland so you see there is a huge cultural disconnect that you will have to experience and you have been born and brought up and your diet your cuisine your way of celebrating festivals it is all shaped in the first 25 years of life in a particular way everything is up for a toss in the next 30 years of your life in a totally different place but you don't have any other option officers who are posted to other states other cutters they tend to make the other state as their second home that is how life goes on so apart from that the challenges as such foreign services see it's all about I don't think it's very it's very challenging because you have gone through a very vigorous recruitment method and it's only since you have certain traits you have been posted so though it might appear that dealing with the politician who is half educated or uneducated and trying to convince him about the pros and cons of a scheme all that might appear to be a very tough task but you will learn to do it as well so challenges are there in each services so if you want to look at the coolest of the job then I would say those are the jobs where you don't find much of interesting things happening so you always have a trade-off okay you don't get it as a package where you get the interesting job as well as the coolest job you don't do you don't get that so revenue service is a bit more relaxed that way you don't have public interaction you don't have any way to talk to all you have is the balance sheets just look into and do your work and give your orders so that accounting services in service examination they are much more relaxed compared to the services which where you have a lot of public interaction yes so one of the question is that starting from the main interview stage UPC expects to be a centrist so being centrist is very difficult so you will be slightly leaning towards left or right so how to read the newspapers how to read the magazines or something like that and develop a centrist thought in it see I think once you start your preparation you will not have this doubt it will get clarified because you will get into the art of subtly criticizing the government okay you're not going to be very arrogant in your criticism against the government when you write answers you will try to know the knack of how you should criticize the government at the same time while not being vocal about it that's an art which you will actually develop by reading Hindu newspapers okay when you read the Hindu editorials the way it is written so it starts by talking about a particular government schemes then it talks about all criticism about that particular scheme and then ending it with the optimistic this is the way you are going to write after two years of preparation so I'm very sure after two years of preparation your answers will not have tone of accusation against the government but it will be one of very constructive criticism so that is it so the next question is about the interview because like interview is not about knowledge it is about your personality so the students are in the third year or final year of their colleges so what kind of exercises they can do to improve their personality read books watch debates in the news channels watch Rajisabha TV or watch NDTV try to see how people debate what kind of body language do they use and it is by doing this your personality will automatically go okay yes sir I think the book list and everything will be like circulated in the chat okay same question again and the last thing is that the answer writing because people will have lots and lots of idea in their mind but putting in the paper they tend to have lot of troubles so how to start with the process because they are the students in the colleges so how to start with the process of answer writing yeah starting with process of answer writing I did so when I was in the college all I did was read Hindu newspaper read the editorials the two columns that comes on the left side of the newspaper read them try to reproduce them for a page length take a long-sized blank page whatever you read in editorial one of the left columns internalize it understand the essence of that editorial try to reproduce it in your own words for one page length it is this habit of summarizing the editorials which automatically in the long term translates into effective answer writing skill this is the only thing which I would actually suggest for answer writing because if I were to advise you to today take a question of UPSC's last year question and start answer writing you will not be able to do because you don't have the adequate right content based for writing such answers that's why first work on the fundamentals of answer writing the fundamentals of answer writing means you have to stick to a one page length start with a two to three sentence introduction three four sentences of criticisms or analysis and then two sentences of conclusion how do you know about it by referring from Hindu editorials read the editorials internalize it re-produced so that you develop a framework of answer writing with time yes I think we have done with the questions most of the answers so is there any other questions to be answered from MVN side we don't have any other questions to be answered but before we really end this session I would just like to in fact it is our honor and a pleasure that we have a person of the stature of Saktya Krishnan who is a youth icon in himself and let me tell you sir you whatever you have told is because of your experience and because of your zeal to mentor the students so that they join civil service so something which comes from the heart comes like a two thing and of course it has a lot of meaning for our students and participants and we are very honored in fact very grateful to you that you have spared some time to come and of course whatever information you are given I think I would more than justify people who are aspiring to become civil servants to get motivated and of course work for the Muddle Land India and in fact sir we are very grateful to you thank you sir thank you for hosting me here thank you for that