 Yeah, come. Morning. Morning sir. Thank you sir. Mr. Ankit, you joined the civil accounts in 2020. Yes sir. And you're currently posted on an assignment or are you on leave or you're in the service at the moment? Sir, I'm undergoing training in NGAF near Hojcast. Okay. Sir, Faridabad phase is over. It was only for six months. Our parent academy is in NGAF. It is located near Hojcast. Near Hojcast? Hojcast. So this is what, how many attempts have you made for the civil services? Sir, this will be my fourth attempt, sir. Your fourth attempt. So you qualified for the ICAS in the third attempt? In the second attempt. Okay. Then for interview? This is my third interview, sir. I see. Okay. Shall we? Promotional prospects, you can become, what is that, direct to the civil accounts or what do you call that, the top map? The control region. The control, CG, CGCA. So why do you want to change? Is it, promotions are almost as quick as close to IAS as possible, you know? Sir, IAS is a career set. It provides a lot of diversity. For example, you have an opportunity to work in the field, to work with the students. It provides you, this also provides you any number of opportunities to getting on deputation of ministries. And you go to civil aviation. I've seen your colleagues going to all kinds of different places. Anyway, so you are stationed in the MP nowadays? I mean, otherwise you are from MP? Yes, sir. Okay. Very good. So what do you think of the latest on Delhi University? There is a central university entrance examination and all that. So what do you think of that? Sir, I think it's a good step towards bringing some uniformity in terms of entrance examination. Many people say that this will give rise to many of these coaching institutes. I would see this system as relatively better than the last system because earlier, for example, DU, it used to consider 12th percentage marks as one of the criteria. And there is very significant difference between CBSE, ICSE and different state votes. So sometimes it's not a fair opportunity for people from state votes which otherwise find it difficult to qualify in some central universities. What is the controversy going on that you owe me? Do you know the manufacturers of the phone? Yes, ED has around 5000 crores worth of money due to violation of FEMA exam. Where is it standing now? Sir, I'm not aware of the exact current developments. Some controversy about the COVID number of deaths in India? WHO has come up with recent estimates and according to WHO, the official death. So what is our number? Sir, our number is around 7 lakhs but how are the WHO numbers around 40? And they have also come about Pakistan. How much have they said they are inflated by? Any idea? Have you heard of Section 124A? Again, there is something proving up on that. Are you aware of that? Yes, quickly. Sir, recently Maharashtra, two of the members of parliament were charged with sedition due to their attempt to recite Hanuman Chalisa. Supreme Court is also hearing the constitutional validaries. On 10th of May, I think the hearing is going to take place in Supreme Court. What is the list and what is the stand of the government of India? Sir, attorney general has said that the law should remain. It's constantly valid. He cited Kedarnath Singh's judgment of 1962 which upheld the constitutional validity of this law. What is the stand that they have taken? The reason? Because there is an issue of misuse also. Thank you. Good morning. You are an economics master in economics. Tell me, what is the Gini Co-efficient? It's a provision which measures the income and wealth inequality in a particular economy. The distribution, right? And what are the recent developments in development economics? How are they doing the variables that affect economic development? What are the theories popular? I am not aware of that. Okay, who is Gini? Not very well. Gini Co-efficient is an Italian statistician who developed this theory in 1920. It's quite popular theory. What is happening in neighbourhood Sri Lanka? It is undergoing a very historically significant economic crisis. Their foreign exchange is almost depleting. The inflation rate is very high. There is shortage of fuel and food supplies there. And there has been a lot of protests from the opposition side and from the public. And what is the latest development in politics? Has the government stepped down? Is it offering to resign? What is happening? No confidence motion has been moved but I think they declared an emergency also on Friday. They declared the emergency. Second time. In the food security index, where does India rank? What is India's rank? Not aware of the exit point. What is food security? What do you mean by food security? It is a major issue, isn't it? It's one of our economic development factors. What is food security? How is India ensuring food security? Food security is a physical ability of good. It should be affordable. It should be accessible to every person in the economy. With respect to ensuring food security, the government has enacted Food Security Act in 2013. During COVID times, the government came up with Pradhan Mantri, Garib Kalyan and Ojina which gives additional amount of grain to the poor people. There are many schemes in the Pradhan Mantri, Fasal, Bhima, Ojina. Several schemes which relate to many things like oil seeds, very important for distillation. Just learn that. In World Press Freedom Index recently, it came out where India stands. Have we gone up or have we slipped? What do you think? Why? Not aware of the exact reasons. You know it went down. There has been cases in various states that journalists must target it. There has been violence against journalists, especially in the local media. That might be one of the reasons. So now we are 142 out of 180 countries. Not a very good figure, right? Have you heard of Sinpan? I am the Northern Ireland Sinpan. I will go through and I am not aware at this moment. Alright, thank you. Tell me, what have been major amendments in IBC Code 2016 and how it has performed in sorting out the issues for which it was created? Sir, I am not aware of any recent amendments. Not recent. I will just say what all amendments I have taken place to facilitate the proceeding. Sir, now it will recall any amendments. What is its contribution? As far as contribution of this act is concerned, the insolvency time has come down significantly. It used to be more than 2-3 years. Now it has come down to 1 or 1.5 years. That is one of the most important things. And second, it has helped in improving our rank ease of doing business. It is very easy for a company to go for insolvency and the creditors who are not able to recover their dues earlier through with some hair cut in their recovery, but they are able to recover some part. Hair cut. And then RBI has been given some powers. Yes, sir, if in case any corporate entity or any company fails to repay it alone, RBI can recommend it at the same time to the IBC panel. Earlier it used to be- RBI can recommend or RBI can direct that financial company, banking company, to go for IBC for this situation. Sir, RBI can direct the bank to take the company to IBC. Further, suppose the resolution plan is prepared and finalized. Will the shareholders have any say? Sir, the promoters will not have any say. The IBC will appoint an insolvency expert and in the meantime they will manage the company and they will take the proceedings forward. When the plan is finalized, whether the shareholders can have any say under the law? Sir, I am not aware of that. I do not think so, but I am not very sure, sir. Yes, sir. Then suppose after having submitted the proceedings, all the concerned parties want to withdraw. What is the consensus? How much percent of the vote they should have in COC committee of creditors? Sir, I am not aware of the exact percentage. Tell me, then let us come to some other subject. What are the geopolitical, geo-strategic changes going to happen after this Russia-Ukraine war in Europe? Think about it and then- Sir, one of the most significant changes after when the war gets over is Russia will be more aligned towards China and it already is becoming and will become a junior partner to Russia, which was not the case earlier. Second, Europe will be more invested in security. Earlier it was dependent with NATO and America for its security. For example, Germany has started to have a more defence expenditure to ensure this does not happen in Europe. Self-defence. Self-defence. Russia will become even more weak. It was already 1.8 trillion dollar economy earlier and it will not be a very significant power in world affairs if situation goes like this. Very good. Fourth, China might use this as a template to further its agenda with respect to Taiwan. If Russia becomes successful, then it might be a template for China and Taiwan. Very good. And what will happen to Western Europe or NATO or the EU? Sir, NATO is becoming more cohesive because they have a common threat right now. And there are certain Nordic countries, for example Finland and Sweden, they are thinking of joining NATO. Because for the last 70 years they were advocate of neutrality with respect to Russia and NATO, but they are now actively thinking towards joining itself. And their equation with the US, what will happen to Western Europe? Certainly more strength and because to ensure more defence they will have to have a lot of defence procurement from US or in terms of NATO there might be some defence of opinion because US generally dominates NATO. And European power, for example, Germany was not very comfortable with respect to their confrontation with Russia. So there might be some difference of opinion there. They might be more independent. Now, the third subject I want you to discuss is the Taliban in Afghanistan. How, what will happen now in Afghanistan and their relations with Pakistan? After their takeover in August 2021, sir, they have not upheld what they promised the international community. For example, respecting human rights, especially women's rights. Recently they have imposed a ban on women going out without burqa. That is one thing, sir. And with respect to the relation with Pakistan, I think the Taliban is trying to assert its independent position with respect to international relations. Though they were dependent on Pakistan during insurgency time, but when they are having the government power, they are trying to assert their sovereignty. And there has been a lot of confrontation. For example, there has been a lot of blast with respect to the Pakistan branch of. No, it is not a branch as such. Only name is common. You know the origin of the word Taliban. So it means students, sir. It was originated I think in 1995. What about the northern part of Afghanistan in Mazar-Sarif area? Sir, Taliban as we know that it's assembled a lot of warlords. And in Mazar-Sarif and Panchi area, there is a lot of warlords which were not very comfortable Taliban takeover. And earlier there was a lot of resistance. As well as the vice president of the Afghanistan went there and started resistance. But I am not aware of any current movement which is happening there. What is the status today? There is no movement from the status means their equation with the Mazar-Sarif people. There is no idea. Thank you. Reserve Bank has been in use recently. How and why? Sir, Reserve Bank only few days back came up with change in their important rates. But it was not usual. Generally it was supposed to be in June but they came up and they increased their reported by 0.4 percent. They also increased CRR by 0.5 percent. So that was when it has, RBI has observed that inflation is already reaching the upper bound which was the mandate of MPC Monetary Policy Committee. What was the threshold that they were supposed to achieve at that time? Sir, their mandate was to have inflation between 2 percent and 6 percent, sir. And what has been the inflation in the last two years? Sir, in the last two years it was just below 6 percent but only recently it has reached around 7 percent, sir. Cross 6 percent every time the last issue. Why was it, why has this policy been criticized by certain schools of thought? Sir, the economists who were supply side economists, they proposed that the current inflation is due to supply side. And if there is increase in rate it will not cut the imports much. It will make them costlier because our imports are non-elastic, for example, oil. Secondly, it will make cost of production even higher because when companies have to borrow money to produce the rate of interest, increasing rate of interest, the cost of production will go up. So it will not help much with respect to teeming inflation. Rather government and RBI should look into the supply side of the economy and try to handle those bottlenecks, sir. But this increase in the rates, it was to pop up liquidity, teeming inflation. And the school of thought that I was talking about was that the MPC was late in their decision. Lates, I mean, were high for the last several months, one year in fact. And they have been decided wise or late. And if this is so late, will it really be able to tame inflation in a short while? Wuhan coronavirus originated so-called and this Russian-Ukrainian war. What has it shown to the world in terms of interdependencies? I would say that in some supply chain governments and corporates are looking to a resilience and not only efficiencies, because earlier the focus was extremely focused on efficiency of the production. But excessive dependence on certain countries and risk of possible disruption might hamper. We have seen in COVID, all the supply chains due to lockdown in China got hampered. So government, for example, India also has been proposing Arth Nehru Bharat to reduce the dependency on global value chains. So that is one thing that I can see with respect to Wuhan virus and Ukraine crisis. If you look at Ukraine crisis also, countries, especially African countries are dependent for the grain supplies from Ukraine. India also dependent for sunflower oil supply from Ukraine. So they have been pushed for diversifying their supply chains and over-reducing their dependency on external ones. So how does it relate to the scenario of comparative advantages in international trade? It promotes global supply chain. So it's against free trade. We have seen a lot of the global trade environment has weakened and now governments are more relying on self-dependence. So it's moving away from the idea of competitive advantage. So is that okay or not okay? As a whole, it's not okay, sir. But I would say that in some instance, because for example, critical supplies, countries have to be self-dependent. For example, in pharmaceuticals, government is moving towards indigenization of APIs. So that is one thing we should not depend excessively on other countries. It actually harps on the fact that such reliance is important. Building internal capacities in an economy is also important. But at the same time, you cannot ignore the fact that they are comparative advantages in export and import. Now, talking about industry, you have heard the sustainable development goals. What is it and what do you understand by it? Sustainable development goals are set of goals prescribed which were decided in UN and they are to be achieved by 2030. And there are several goals which include elimination of absolute poverty, elimination of hunger, availability of drinking water to all. These are some of the goals which the world has to attain in order to sustain human population in a dignified way, sir. How will it be monitored? I am not aware of the exact terminologies, but UN has a committee which regularly monitors the status of countries with respect to their targets in SDG. In India, Niti Aayog has a platform through which they compare states in terms of their status towards achieving SDG goals. So they are basically targets that have to be defined nationally and they are monitored by institutions like Niti Aayog and other departments. What do you understand by population stabilization? So when the population, not only in terms of rate of birth which is, it should be at replacement level, but in terms of demography, it should be, percentage rate should be constant. It should not be inverted pyramid, it should not be vertical pyramid. The percentage of people in every age group should be similar and the replacement, birth rate should be around replacement rate which should be around 2.1. That is population stabilization. What is India's rate nowadays? Sir, overall, I think in the National Family Health Survey has gone down the replacement rate, but in certain age states such as Bihar and Manipur, it is little higher than that. It is wrong to understand it. Without replacement levels, we have variations across the world. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. You had political science in international relations. Did you study the constitutions of other countries also apart from India, the US for example? No, sir. It was not covered in the UPCC. Now, which political, western political thinker impressed you the most? I would say Aristotle, sir. Because he was a person who, suppose, prescribed golden mean. He was not a philosopher of extremes. In terms of, he believed in constitutionalism also. For example, Plato believed in the theory of philosopher king. The philosopher king should have all the powers and he or she cannot be questioned because he knows all the things. He has all the wisdom in the world. However, Aristotle differed from Plato, who was his teacher. And he provided constitution as the best way to guide any society and economy. And Plato also in his later life, he also moved away from the theory of philosopher king and supported constitutionalism. Great. Now, you heard of the organization for Islamic cooperation. They met in, their foreign ministers met in Pakistan in March. And as they want, they once again made a reference to Jammu and Kashmir. What did they say about that? Sir, not of the exact observation made by OICs. What do they normally say about Kashmir? OIC every meeting. What do they say? Respecting human rights. Yeah, human rights violations. Self-determination of people in the immigration. When the new Pakistan prime minister took over, he was welcomed by our prime minister. So his response was that, yes, we should normalize relations, but that can only happen once the JNK situation is resolved. And he added that UN resolutions should be implemented. What is India stand so far as the UN resolutions are concerned? Sir, India respects resolution by UNSC and UNSC resolution itself says that first Pakistan should vacate all the illegally occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir as a precondition towards any normalization in the, in the erstwhile state. So, and secondly, India has rejected call for plebiscite, which was called in UNSC resolution. Yeah, because it's become outdated now. That's okay. Now, every day you read in the papers about terror attacks in the valley. Which groups are involved in this? It's mentioned in the newspapers every day. Sir, one of the most prominent group is Lashkar-e-Taywa, then Hezboil-Mujahideen. And there's been a lot of local groups also, sir, which I'm not aware of the exact name. But these are the two important terror groups which has, which has been operated both in Pakistan and India. Who is the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taywa? Hafiz Said, sir. Hafiz Said. Was, which was their most major attack of the LET in India? It was 2008 Mumbai attack. Mumbai attack. And of the Jaish-e-Mohammad? Sir, I think parliamentary attack of 2001, sir. In which one person was ultimately convicted and hanged? Who was that? Sir, Afzal Guru. Afzal Guru. Okay. You know, when in 2019 the government decided to withdraw Article 370 and Article 35A. What was the significance of withdrawing Article 35A? In terms of internal issue with respect to India, sir, it was, it was in the election manifest of the ruling party, which was... That is true. But what did it, what did Article 35A provide, which was against a very large segment of the population? That's why it was withdrawn. Article 35A prescribed for local domicile status. It was... Local domicile status by the state government. So, what happened in that? Any idea? Did they exclude a large number of people? Yes, sir. They excluded, for example, Kashmir, the people who came from Pakistan during... West Pakistan refugees were denied this. And because they were not the... They were not given these resident status, they could not vote in the state assembly elections. Although, Government of India gave them permission to vote in the parliamentary elections, but they couldn't do that. Okay. Right. Now, you must have read in the papers about two Supreme Court judges having been appointed very recently. In fact, it was in 48 hours. What is the procedure for appointment of a Supreme Court judge? Sir, the Collegium of Supreme Court, which is consisting of CGI and four senior most judges, they recommend the name for the judge to be appointed Supreme Court to law and ministry. Okay. You got it. Right. So, Mr. Ankit, we end your mock interview. I'll give you a feedback. Now, you've already gone before a UPSC board on three occasions. Two occasions. Two occasions. And this will be your third occasion. Right. Now, you see, normally questions would emanate either from your DAF or from current affairs. Now, you have political science and international relations as your option subject. So, you should be prepared to answer questions on that. You belong to Madhya Pradesh as your place of birth. Are you... You studied there also or not? Yes, sir. I did my schooling till 10th in Madhya Pradesh. And then you were in Kathak. And then you can't put... That's all right. But, you know, something about your own state. The one thing which comes to mind is the Kain-Bethwa link project, which has been formally sanctioned by the Government of India. What is the significance of that? And things relating to your state generally. You can be asked questions on that. Now, you are a mechanical engineer and you are an economic student. So, you know, the current economic status situation is the stock of coal shortage Is it a fact or is it just politics which is happening? And the budget which came out earlier. You know, what are the major projects of the central government under the budget? What is the status of some of the important ones? That I think you should brush up. Then, of course, you know, you were a member of the NCC. When was it started? What is the objective of the NCC? What is its motto? What did you gain by being a member of the NCC? You are interested in Indian classical music. So, you know, questions relating to that. Who are the great classical musicians? Whom do you like the best? Why? Now, this Bosch Limited, you were working there as an assistant manager. What was your role there? Sir, I was in charge of industrial engineering of certain components and then capital investment planning for the plant. Bosch is a German company, isn't it? So, you know, what does it do? What is its role in the country? How much investment is there of this company in the country? You know, those kind of things. And of course, you were asked as to why do you wish to aspire for the IAS? Because you have now given IAS and IPS and Foreign Service as your thing. So, that of course is your option. You can always say that, I mean, this is not a bad service, but you aspire for these, for whatever reason. You said that they have more, you know, variety and all. Okay, that's all right. That's up to you. That's not an issue. Current affairs, your interview is on the 25th. So, I hope you are reading a newspaper regularly. Are you still under training or have you taken leave? Sir, I am undergoing training, sir. Right now I have taken leave for 15 days. You read newspapers very carefully because, you know, current affairs is something on which you can be asked anything. And there is no parameter on that. You know, it can be from anything can be asked. So, the best thing is to, you know, know something about within the country, what's happening in Jammu and Kashmir. Developments are taking place in the northeast in a very rapid fashion. What is happening there? Internally, you know, various issues are coming up. The Home Minister had gone to Assam, you know, West Bengal, and he said that CAA will be implemented. So, the nitty gritty of the CAA, the nitty gritty of the NRC, these are contentious issues which have been opposed by a large number of political parties. You should be able to, you know, understand all those things, right? Otherwise, you are doing very well. You have been responding very well. So, the first thing would be that, you know, you will be given a gist of this interview which happened in an electronic form. So, go through that. See which are the questions on which you are not very, very sure. Brush up on that. And otherwise, read a newspaper very regularly. And the more you have, more information you have, the better you will do. And we sincerely hope that you will be able to crack the civil service again this time. Okay? Okay, wish you all the best.