Tuesday 14 June 2016

Public Administration: A Blessing in disguise.




Public Administration has been most debated optional in UPSC preparation, as it has a big chunk of students who are either struggling to cope with it or who have given up on pubAd and switched to alternatives in search of their destiny. It is also an irony that it has had comparatively lower marking despite being most relevant to the profile of a bureaucrat, an IAS, for which we all aspire, thus leading to discouragement in minds of many aspirant, who dream to be a district collector yet fear from an optional, which provides insights about that pioneering dream.

Why I chose this optional:

When I filled up form for CSE-2014, I had still not made my mind about preparation and I don't know why but I had filled Public Administration as an optional. when I decided to start preparing seriously since July-2014 onwards, I was confused about choosing an optional for serious preparation and then my friend Anupam Singhal came to my rescue, as he had already started coaching for this and thus advised me to read chapter on District Collector from Arora & Goyal just to check whether I have acumen for the subject or not. I found it interesting and since my time was limited because of my job profile and I had already filled it in CSE-2014, so finally I had to settle with something, Mechanical engineering (My graduation subject) was not an option for me and hence Public Administration turned out to be a candid choice. 

My experience with PubAd in UPSC:

Fortunately, I cleared Prelims 2014 and by that time I had only completed 80% of Paper-1 syllabus and almost blank on paper-2, So I borrowed notes of my friend and read major portions like Union, state, judiciary, civil services, PRI and ULB in that limited time frame along with paper-1. I scored 213 (108+106) in CSE-2014 Mains and It was good with any standard of PubAd, so I understood that PubAd will not disappoint me later and eventually it did not in CSE-2015, where I have scored 247 (132+115) and hence took me to AIR-6.

Coaching and Test series:

Classroom By M.K.Mohanty sir at synergy.
Test series at synergy and Pavan Kumar sir.

Reference books and material topic wise which I referred:

  1. Introduction: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1, Prasad & prasad for administrative thinkers (1st chapter) and Nicholas Henry (only paradigms of PA, which was also taught by mohanty sir in classroom)
  2. Administrative thought: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Prasad & prasad for administrative thinkers, IGNOU material for MA.
  3. Administrative Behaviour: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, synergy classnotes.
  4. Organisations: Synergy classnotes and New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Synergy printed material ( for HQ-field & PPP)
  5. Accountability and control: Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya and IGNOU material for MPA, this part requires extensive use of case study and current events.
  6. Administrative Law: synergy classnotes and printed material.
  7. Comparative public Administration: Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya and Fred Riggs from Prasad & Prasad. (please read critique of Riggsian Model specifically)
  8. Development dynamics: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Social theory by Mohit Bhattacharya, Synergy classnotes, Vajiram classnotes of governance for self-help group movement.
  9. Personnel Administration: Synergy class notes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & fadia (paper-1 and paper-2), 2nd ARC 10th report.
  10. Public Policy:  Synergy classnotes, IGNOU material complete on public policy, extensive use of current events and few examples from foreign countries, particularly with regard to policy evaluation.
  11. Techniques of Administrative Improvement:  Synergy classnotes (less important here), Synergy printed material, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya; honestly any material will do for this topic.
  12. Financial Administration: 14th report of 2nd ARC, Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1 to understand historical underpinnings.

Paper-2

  1. Evolution of Indian Administration: Synergy classnotes, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
  2. Philosophical & constitutional framework: Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal, any other book for Indian polity (I would suggest DD Basu selected chapters for this).
  3. Public sector undertakings: SYnergy classnotes and factual data generated from internet, chapter on PSUs in Fourteenth finance commission report. 
  4. Union govt. & Judiciary: Synergy Classnotes, GS-2 Polity notes, Summary of Punchhi Commission report and other recommendations only of various commissions like sarkaria, NCRWC. Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal (for cabinet secretariat, PMO, attached offices, central secretariat)
  5. Plans & Priorities: Synergy classnotes and mainly current events of Indian economy, this topic has lost its relevance largely because of abolition of planning commission.
  6. State Govt & Administration: Synergy classnotes, Punchhi commission report, NCRWC recommandations, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
  7. District Administration since Independence: Synergy classnotes, 2nd ARC 15h report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
  8. Civil Services: This Topic has to be read along with personnel administration and hence booklist is more or less same.Synergy class notes, Fadia & fadia (paper-1 and paper-2), 2nd ARC 10th report; remember recommendations of committees like surendranath, HOTA, Yugandhar, kothari, suresh chandra committee, also recommandations of central pay commissions like 5th, 6th may add value to the answer.
  9. Financial management: This Topic has to be read along with financial administration; 14th report of 2nd ARC, Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1 to understand historical underpinnings and also website of ministry of finance, particularly the departments in MoF and their specific functions. For CAG, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
  10. Administrative reforms since independence: Mainly factual topic, synergy classnotes, synergy printed material and any book that you have for paper-2, this topic requires memorizing key observations of various committees right from 1950s i.e. A.D.Gorwala commission till today; please follow the key theme about which a commission has talked about. for example: Secretariat reforms were talked specifically by Girija shankar Bajpai committee.
  11. Rural Development Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 6th report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal, website of Ministry of Panchayati Raj for case studies, Kurukshetra magazine.
  12. Urban Local Government: Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 6th report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal; Yojana for smart city, various case studies from newspapers.
  13. Law & Order Administration:  Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 5th report, briefly read recommendations of various commissions that are constituted till date, electoral reforms, case studies for good practices in various conutries; the biggest topic here is accountability of police (we can refer 3 tier accountability of london police as a model to be followed in indian police), wole of centre in Law & order administration of a state (particularly debate surrounding article-355), punchhi commission report on this.
  14. Significant issues in Indian Administration: Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal (last few chapters), Synergy printed material, 4th report of 2nd ARC, for disaster management read what you are reading for GS, just remember J.C.Pant committee report, P.K.Mishra committee, CAG observations on NDMA and 2nd ARC recommandations; crowd management is the newest emerging issue in this area.
GENERAL STRATEGY WHICH I WOULD RECOMMEND NOW

  1. Read Indian Administration by Arora & goyal, Almost all the chapters are relevant.
  2. Administrative thinkers by prasad & prasad right from Introduction, read word by word including summary, evaluation, critical evaluation, try to connect & internalize.
  3. All the chapters needs to be read in administrative thinkers, because even if peter drucker is not mentioned in syllabus, he can be quoted anywhere if government organisations are to be criticised (a big time critic of government) also many questions are coming from those thinkers who are not mentioned in the syllabus and hence Prasad & prasad is the best book on which the base is to be built, so read verbatim, make your own notes and you can complement it with classnotes of any coaching, This book is the one base on which we will ride on for paper-1.
  4. Once you are through with Administrative thinkers and Introduction part of Paper-1, now refer to those chapters in New Horizons by Mohit Bhattacharya, establish the links and thus concepts will become crystal clear in mind.
  5. After going through classnotes of all the topics, read New horizons again and again untill all the things do not become clear in your mind.
  6. For paper-2, generally classnotes works fine along with value addition from ARC report, Fadia & Fadia is good for factual information, which will add value to the answers.
  7. Use Constitutional Articles, statements/ observations of 2nd ARC, rather than only using recommendations from these reports.
  8. Use basic examples from daily newspapers to add understanding to your answer.
  9. Use and quote name of various administrative thinkers as and when you can do so, do not hesitate to connect a vague concept with thinker. (for example, in case of policy paralysis/failure, we can refer to single loop/double loop learning i.e. organisational learning of chris argyris, wherein we can say that it is the failure of both policy making and implemantation and both play blame game)
  10. Use Simplest language along with very common examples, complexity is not going to work, to add value quote thinkers/key words of the subject, but please keep the language and vocabulory to the simplest, this is not GRE, dont pull english string much.

Other materials which is relevant:


  • Case studies:

newspapers, website of ministry of panchayti raj 
Other relevant documents like, find any government report on Social Audit and grasp some of the best case studies/success stories of social audit, similarly for other dynamic topics like accountability, transparency any good working example may be used.

Use International best experiences like:
ICAC of hongkong in public service delivery,
False claims act of USA

(2nd ARC reports provide some very good case studies on almost all the governance topic. For example: if e-governance is being referred, most of us will write gyandoot of MP Govt as a successful project, now if we can write gyandoot along with a case study from 2nd ARC (e-Registry in muzzaffarpur district of Bihar, it has minimised corruption, all the processes are online, no exchange of money and hence less corruption), this will give a difference to our answer.

For Police reforms, we can quote south african police act.

For Public Policy chapter: CONEVAL in mexico for policy evaluation, wherein policy evaluation has become mandatory and on the basis of that, they devise new policy, so rather than following incrementalist paradigm, they follow full policy cycle, which we lack in India and bacause of which Progresa of mexico has become most successfull social security plan of the world.

http://www.coneval.org.mx/Paginas/principal_EN.aspx

Please read atleast 4th report of 2nd ARC thoroughly, it will help both in ethics as well as public administration.


  • Observations of various commissions, not recommendations


Find some trivial points in model answers or any other source like:

NCRWC analysed and found that Article-356 was applied on many occasions and there were 13 instances till then, where it was applied despite state govt. having majority in the assembly; it highlights misuse of this article and can be used to supplement our answer. This is not a recommendation rather it is an observation; recommendations everyone may write but not observation and that too a factual one, it will add value and weight to your answer. 

Out of the box sources will help for example: Using 14th finance commission report in quoting PSEs; I am not saying read whole report, if time permits do read but find some unique points about a topic; for example: FFC observed that disinvestment in PSEs needs to be coupled with Reinvestment in few other emerging sectors, very rarely people quote FFC on PSEs but this is where difference will come.


  • Facts on Indian Administration:
Always try to start or end your answer with some facts, which add weight to the answer, various sources are:

Economic survey of India.
PRS website.
Association for democratic reforms (mainly for parliament/ electoral reforms)
14th Finance commission Report.
Budget of Govt. Of India.
few books like Fadia & fadia are good for facts about Indian Administration.

  • Referring judgement of Higher Judiciary:
I think that we all will agree on how important quoting SC/HC judgements are, while writing an answer, particularly in paper-2 of the subject; we all have a good repository of such cases and I think No elaboration is required for this part, but it is the still the time tested method to fetch marks, some things do not change even in turbulence and so are judgements of our hon'able judiciary, please use them as much as you can.


  • Most Important: Linkage between paper-1 and paper-2 and use of names of thinkers while writing an idea.
We all know this and understand that to score in public administration, effective linkage is required between paper-1 and paper-2; it revolves mainly around 3 things viz:

Using thinkers in paper-2.
Using Indian Administration in paper-1.
Using Administrative Thinkers in all the answers you can.

It shows how deep you understand the subject and is absolutely required for fetching marks in this drought hit subject.

  • Try to write key ideas of all the thinkers available in Prasad & prasad and make a gist of key idea everyone has given.
  • Apart from those thinkers, there are few scholors in field of Pubad, whose name can be quoted in that particular topic. (I have made a gist of all this and am attaching herewith, these were made from synergy classnotes and a bit of model answers of various test series).
 For example:
Dwight Waldo for New public administration.
Golembwiski for his goals and anti goals in NPA.
Gordon tullock & ANthony downs in Public choice theory.
We all know that government is different from governance, but if we could use the name of James Rosenau wherever we quote this idea, it will be better.

Fred Riggs is my most admired thinker because his ideas are relevant in any question on Indian Administration, be it corruption, declining standards of Indian Polity, his 4 key works i.e. Hetrogenity, overlapping, Formalism and formation of clect are the ideas which can be used almost anywhere in paper-2; His bazar-canteen model can be used wherever we are quoting corruption or even for that matter decline in performance of PSEs, because crony capitalism may be growing, paving way for private firms and limiting role of PSEs and that is best explained by Riggs that market is dominated by private sector i.e. by those who have more bargaining power extract more from government, from here we can connect Fred riggs in State vs. Market debate.

Few examples on how to do linkages:


  • Motivation: We can use a transparent annual confidential report (ACR) of Govt. Of India, particlualrly after some changes in 2009 to boost motivation in an organisation. (Civil services with administrative behaviour)
  • Employer-employee relations: use JCM, joint consultative mechanism of GoI in paper 1, also quote M.P.Follet wherever there is conflict resolution.
  • Secretariat reforms: we can use Henry Fayol's principle of departmentalization based on 4 Ps and then can conclude that these are not being followed and hence overlapping and repetition is occuring, again bring Riggsian overlapping here, which is resulting in formalism and hence less efficiency in government organisations.
  • Whenever we are talking about effectiveness & relevance of Indian Bureaucracy, we can quote Alvin Toffler, who says its not bureaucracy rather Adhocracy which is successful and then conclude that rather than a mechanistic & rigid bureaucracy, an organic & flexible BC is required.
  • Key theme of Etzioni is Goal Displacement, which can always be used to criticize the excessive rule orientation of BC, wherein means become the end.
  • Haque can always be used in changing standards of accountability, his 3 tier paradigm of Standards, agents and means are most succinct way of answering any question related to accountability, be it social audit or RTI or changing standards of Indian parliament (the apex institution for ensuring accountability)
I Hope a clear pattern is emerging in these examples, every scholar has one key theme with him/her and most of the questions revolve around these themes, all we have to do is jot down that key theme with name of the thinker and the topics in which He/she can be mentioned; believe me friends It will do Wonders, do not hesitate to use the name of a scholar, it is required, for it is not a GS paper.
These linkages will develop only when we have clear understanding of all the topics and the keywords are deeply ingrained in our mind and for these inter linkages and understanding, there can not be a better book than New horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, so make sure NH by MB is read repetitively and is understood word by word.

  •  Answering the awkward questions:

People always say that it is most difficult to understand the question, it has too complex language and the thinkers which we have not read, I recall only one word which Mohanty sir at synergy used to say---Relax the muscle...think about the question and start writing freely what you know..you may not know philosophy of peter drucker but you can write what has been asked in your words..using all the thinkers that you know...even if you dont know what peter druker has said; So believe in yourself & write. I got 108 last year, when I had not even completed the syllabus of PubAd paper-1, because I wrote what I knew about the topic without bothering for what peter drucker had to say on it.

 
Practice makes a man perfect:


Answer Writing is a thing which unfortunately we can not ignore and hence start practicing, use all the experiments which can be done in mock answers, have a good peer group who like to think out of the box, get your answers evaluated by them, Fortunately I had a very good friend (Sandeep Agrawal), who did few evaluations for me and his suggestions were so honest and precise that it did wonders for me, so make sure you have someone whose tuning fork matches your frequency.


Final Gyan:

My whole blog revolves mainly around doing value addition in our answers, because I have seen many of my friends swinging around that threshold of 200-220 in public administration, while what is required is to jump this threshold and score in the band of 240-270 to ensure IAS and for that few new experiments need to be done, I did few and reached 247 but I hope you will do further innovations in the field of public administration and score beyond 270 someday.
I think you all are smart enough to see that all this experiments and linkages can be developed only after a proper base is built, so initially read the basics prepare the ground for that threshold of 200 marks, it will take 3-4 months to the newcomers, once it is done, do value addition.

Do not fear for the subject, if you have chosen the subject please continue it if you are getting the right pulse for it; if you have understood the question (mostly tricky in PubAd) and have content, no one can stop you from getting selected; Do believe in what you are writing.

I will suggest rather than looking for more books and more content, one should be looking for base source, revise it again and again, but do value addition from multiple sources.

There is No denying the fact that luck is something which is required to clear this examination, specially with public Administration, fortunately it favored me this time and I hope it favors everyone in this subject, so that lost glory of Public administration is restored; I am not a senior player of this arena, yet I guess that monotonicity of the answers of our seniors may have killed the spirit of examiners to award us good marks, so lets change this pattern, do some value additions/innovations on the base provided to us by our seniors and then pray to god, it has worked fine for me, so I believe that it is not a wrong strategy atleast, you can try it if you wish.

This is the reason, My blog revolves mostly around examples, connecting links, developing understanding and using case studies anywhere we can; I had failed only once in my life after not getting an IIT and that was Mains-2014, I too was confused about the future of this optional and one of my friends Mantosh (@liverpool) did market survey and told me just after mains result that only one guy in his public administration circle could clear mains and he says he had used few case studies in his answers, that was the tickle point for me and Since I was still in my basics of public administration, so I tried to mend the path in this direction and it bore fruits to me....almost same thing I have tried to narrate in this awfully narrated story of this idiot, I just hope it works for you too.

I will not say whether you should continue with this optional or leave, I will just say if you have the heart to stay in this arena and are willing to believe in you and your subject, your strengths and maybe willing to use all that I have put in here, cracking CSE with this subject is not going to be an impossible task, it is difficult I agree but not impossible.



Believe yourself please...I would still have attemted CSE-2016 with public administration...even if I had scored poorly in CSE-2015.

All the best for your future endeavors... I hope I have cleared some doubts about how I got 247 this year...I wish it could help as many fellow PubAd students as it can, it is a blessing in disguise as unexpectedly it has put me at a zenith where every aspirant wants to reach, regarding answer writing I have covered in detail in the second post on same URL.

If you have any doubt, you can write to me at--

tiwarivicky.1989@gmail.com

You can also view my answer writing strategy/ethics case study approach/essay writing on youtube, if you wish, by searching: 

Toppers' talk by Ashish Tiwari AIR-6 on vision IAS platform

In the end my sincerest apologies for bringing this blog so late..I understand that I had promised it by end of this month...but laziness and busy schedule on my part had put me away from writing this blog...better late than never is the keyword I guess....

Success is a matter of timing if you are dedicated to the path which will take you there.


Ashish Tiwari 

Some of my answer scripts are as below:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfVXVkUXl4VTZxYlUtRDhIRUVZRGVQSW5fZE9J

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfUnp0eWZnZXF4d28

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfUlpxU3c5ZzI3X3c

Thursday 26 May 2016

Brief Introduction and general strategy about CSE.




This Blog is about My journey from a Hindi medium Government school student in class 8th to AIR-6 in UPSC civil services examination-2015, it may be helpful to motivate those who do not belong to big cities and yet believe that a grand school is required to build a foundation on which a successful career is formed. this may also be helpful to those hundreds of aspirants who have been calling me continuously and really want to demolish CSE in a smart way and achieve a destiny they truly value.



Little About myself:



I was born in a very small town of Palera, Distt. Tikamgarh (MP), started my schooling from another small town of shahgarh, distt. Sagar (MP), continued from class 2nd to 6th in Badamalehra, Distt. Chhatarpur (MP), shifted to a district place for the first time in class 7th and continued my whole education up to class 8th in Hindi Medium in very small towns. In 2002, MP Govt. Brought a scheme to modernize school education by creating islands of excellence by way of creating Govt. Excellence school in each district of MP, fortunately I was admitted there and here My medium of instruction was switched to English medium for the first time.


After Completing My school education with decent marks in 2006, I went to Kota along with the herd to prepare for JEE, unfortunately forget JEE, I did not even score decent in AIEEE (AIR-12270) and got enrolled in National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur as an student of Mechanical engineering. After completing B.Tech (Hons.), I was placed at Indian Oil Corporation Limited through campus placement, a place where I still belong to.

Experience at NIT Jamshedpur:


When I was admitted to NIT JSR, I was a normal small town student, who came in contact of a diversity of students from various backgrounds and across a wide spectrum of Indian culture and regions. this was the first time, when I understood what diversity of India really is, I had read it before but never experienced it before. I had never seen a guy eating chicken in front of me before, had never been in company of so many unknown faces and had never uttered a single word of English from my tongue before and my friends were my first teachers in NIT JSR in helping me transform myself. hence, it was a strange experience, which modified my inward looking orientation for the first time and I started to open up and learnt newer things. At the same time, power outages in our campus provided us with a lot of leisure time and hence peer group started to form and I for the first time came out of my comfort zone and had a wonderful company there, which I carry along with me even till date.


Teachers, syllabus and hostel life started to shape my life and my image turned to be a lazy yet good & bright student, considering all this, My batch mates made me student coordinator of Training & placement cell of NITJSR, where I think I have worked decently, my faculties recognized this and I was given enough freedom to plan and manage placement procedure in collaboration with my fellow coordinators. The kind of respect and faith that whole batch of 2007 placed in me is a landmark in shaping my future, for that wonderful experience provided an impetus to my confidence level, because of which I could take upon a challenge to try for CSE four years down the line and it was during that time only, my peer group started advising me to prepare for CSE but I was too busy living the moment.

Life At IOCL:

I have been working with Pipelines Division of IOCL, Posted at Chaksu, Jaipur Distt.; IOCL provided me excellent opportunities to work across variety of maintenance jobs, a kind of diversity everyone envies in here, I was fortunate enough to have best possible colleagues in whole of Western Region Pipelines and thus my grooming as a professional started here.


I learnt in here group dynamics, employer-employee relations and type of managerial styles different bosses used, All of which I could connect with Administrative theories and Personnel management of my syllabus in Public Administration, when my friends used to wander about PRP, ACRs, I could visualize my own experience of IOCL to these very concepts. I loved working here in IOCL and therefore I was an outstanding employee for 3 consecutive years here and probably that is the reason I did not even try to prepare for any examination, while few of my friends were busy with CAT, IES and CSE.

I always believed in doing what you love and thus was my career at IOCL for 3 years, Always Do what you value and Job at IOCL is one of the best thing that could happen to me, I valued it and devoted my full time to Job, If you are happy with a Job, continue it, for it can provide a life worth living. I only appeared before two interview panels in my life, one which made my entry into IOCL and second which took me out of here.(UPSC)

The Knick Point:

Uni dimensional Job profile is the key word, Job profile became saturated, being in engineering or any specialized domain, after a time, particularly in PSEs, repetition starts and that is the point my mind started turning. Unfortunately or now fortunately, I had a back injury and I was advised bed rest. Being at home, I got the time to think about my future and thus that nascent idea of college life turned into a dream; a dream which I found worth trying for.


Many of my colleague, family members, friends always used to say that you are the one who can do this, if possible try. I also thought that 10 years down the line I do not want to sit at one of the locations of IOCL and grief that I could have done it, still I did not try. I wanted to give it a try to avoid that pain in future. Hence, for sake of my future satisfaction, I entered into this field, without fearing for failure, under wide canvas of hope, this journey started.

As I had never appeared for any examination since AIEEE in 2007, So it was hard to come out of inertia but that hope of better future and no regrets kept my spirits high. Got enrolled in a coaching, started from basics, shuttling between Jaipur and Delhi was never easy but a working professional did not have much choice and So it Began.

Preparation Strategy:

1. Coachings & Test series:
Vajiram & Ravi For GS

Synergy for Public Administration classroom and Public Admin Test series.
Vision IAS for GS mains test series.
Pavan Kumar's IAS for PubAd Mains Test series.
Vajiram & Ravi for Essay.

2. Books & Other Material referred:

Prelims:

Indian Polity By M. Laxmikanth
Modern Indian History by spectrum Publication.
Indian Economy By Ramesh Singh.
Environment By Shankar IAS
Class 6th old NCERT by Sharma for Ancient India.
Class 7th old NCERT by Romila Thapar for medieval India.
Art & culture notes by Nitin Singhania.
NCERT selective chapters for science (Prelims)
G.C. Leong for Geography.
NCERT New class 11th and 12th for geography.
TheHindu
Unacademy videos for environment and biodiversity.
Vision IAS monthly current events.
Mrunal.org for Indian economy, specially videos on economic survey of India

Mains:

TheHindu for all.

Vision IAS monthly current events.

GS1:

Modern Indian History by spectrum Publication.
Art & culture notes by Nitin Singhania.
G.C. Leong for Geography.
NCERT New class 11th and 12th for geography.
World History by Arjun Dev and Ojha Sir classnotes for world history and post independence.
Shankar IAS Sociology material for IAS.
InsightsonIndia special articles on communalism, Regionalism, Secularism.

GS2:

Vajiram class notes. ( for those who are not attending any coaching please refer to M.Puri's Class notes for Indian Polity)

NCERT: Indian Constitution at Work.
Indian Polity By M. Laxmikanth.
For poverty and hunger issues, governance, civil services, VISION IAS printed material can be referred otherwise newspapers are the key here.

GS3:

Shriram IAS class notes for Indian Economy

NCERT: Indian Economic development.
NCERT: Introductory Macroeconomics.
Environment By Shankar IAS
Any Book on internal security, I referred M.Puri's printed material for same but not of much use.
class notes of vajiram for science & Tech. part.
Economic Survey of India, selected chapters ( Vajiram brings out list of pages to be referred, go blindly for it and if interested go thorugh whole ESI)

GS4:

Ethics Class notes of Synergy IAS or S.K.Mishra ( I referred synergy)
Lexicon by chronicle publication for ethics.
Case studies on insightsonindia website.

3. Magazines 

For Value addition

Yojana.
Kurukshetra. ( Kurukshetra has best case studies possible for GS as well as Public Administration, we must use them in mains answer writing)
Any other magazine which suits your taste.( Not absolutely necessary)

4. Websites

Insightsonindia.com for daily current events, daily secure questions.

Indianexpress.com for opinion column.
idsa.in
pib.nic.in
ccrtindia.gov.in
livemint newsletter by email for Indian Economy.
Mrunal.org for Indian economy.
Rajya Sabha TV Videos.
Unacademy videos for environment/world history.
prsindia.org

Test Series:

InsightsonIndia for prelims.
VisionIAS for Mains.

Interview:

I had very limited time (only 10 days to prepare for it), so not much strategic planning could be done, however few points I have found worth sharing.

  1. Start building an overall personality from today itself.
  2. Give 5-6 mocks to boost confidence & judge your caliber.
  3. Be well prepared with your DAF, in fact fill DAF very seriously.
  4. Utter only what you believe in.
  5. avoid long answers, as questions flow from what you speak.
  6. Right postures, right facts and be humble to accept your mistakes.
  7. Confidence is the key, if you are confident then its not an interview anymore, it becomes a conversation then and clearing mains provides a good repository of knowledge, which can be used to impress the board.

An Evaluation:

Obviously, strategy for clearing this examination has to be an integrated one, piecemeal approach wont do much, as time between prelims result and mains exam is too less to respond to demands of UPSC Mains,

Thus For beginners, I will suggest:

Go for all the books mentioned in prelims column and have atleast 2-3 readings, read Hindu newspaper daily and column of indianexpress daily, if possible try to make summary of opinion and editorial in your own words, that will help you improve writing skill as well as internalize the concepts.

Read the syllabus daily at least for a week or so and whenever any news reporting is read, please link it with the portion of the mains syllabus, so that it can be used to quote in a mains answer, which will give you an extra edge in mains scoring.

For Example: Delhi police installed around 1.5 Lakh CCTV cameras under project Nigheban in Delhi. (reported in Hindu on 27 sept. 2015); most of us ignore such news, but this can be used in at least 3 areas to show linkage of theory with practical application, as a case study to add value to your answer. ( PPP, Citizen participation in administration and community policing); such linkage may give you an edge over others and secure your success.

I generally followed 4 step strategy during my preparation i.e. Read----> Internalize & Understand----> write----> Revise..

10 (sorry later it became 11) things to be kept in mind:
  1. My strategy may not work for you, so try and err, devise your own strategy.
  2. Do not be confused about your Goal, start preparation only if your heart says, if not wait for right time and then start. do not jump because someone else says so.
  3. There are 2 ways to prepare for this exam, either you mug up and clear, chances are that you will clear it, provided you have a sharp memory or you read and understand, believe in it, because in my opinion if you do not believe in an argument, you cant reproduce it in strict 7 minutes of mains examination. I chose second.
  4. Stick to the sources, rather than buying newer books every time, limited book list with repeated revisions reward better than a plethora of material.
  5. If you have seen the facts 2-3 times then don't worry about mugging them up, if they are connected with mains syllabus in your subconscious mind, they will automatically be reproduced when you are writing an answer.
  6. Relax, don't buckle your confidence under pretext of someone who has read 3-4 books on a subject or who seems to be more knowledgeable than you on a topic, there is a difference, they may know very well but you may present it in perfect manner, which will award you good marks while they may be left behind flaunting their knowledge in streets of Old Rajendar Nagar.
  7. Do not ask anyone how many hours are required for study, some clear it in 14 hours a day while some achieve it in 6 hours a day. one need to identify what is threshold as well as optimum for him/her, reading more than what you can accept may be demotivating, at the same time reading less may be disastrous, So identify how much is optimum for you and make sure you clock that much in a day, do not follow others about how much they are studying, derive your own path; for example mine was 6-7 hours a day.
  8. Do not set unrealistic goals viz. I will finish Laxmikanth in 5 days...you cant...so set realistic goals to avoid demotivation, which comes when you do not achieve that goal.
  9. Write..write and write...there is an inertia associated with writing, even I had..I was lucky that only 2 months of writing sailed me through...everyone will not be...so Start writing and Insightsonindia secure questions are the best ones to start, if cant write in begining, observe the answers written by others there...there are some exceptional writers on that platform...learn from their skills then fire your own pistons and fire daily atleast for an hour. UPSC can be cracked only by mains and that requires writing, so you must start writing ASAP and improve, get it evaluated by friends, teachers or compare it with synopsis of insight.
  10. Patience & Diligence seems to be right combo for success in this arena, make sure you have both and also have a fraternity that supports you in times of despair.
  11. If possible believe in one divine power, not because you need to worship, but just to have a faith, a sense of completion, because relationships generally do not support in this endeavour, so lets make one divine power as your friend/companion. Hardwork needs to be complemented by some luck, wishes...I think nobody believes that their name is going to figure in top-10 or so, because they do not know how much luck has favored them.

Utilizing Test Series:

For those who have not joined any coaching, insights test series for prelims is best, read the syllabus of each test, attempt the test, they have given good explanations in the end, it will cover your current events as well as static portion really well; Prepare that part of syllabus, attempt test, read explanations, internalize. If you are a Pro, I will say attempt test first, then read from books according to questions, it will ensure maximum preparation in limited time.

VisionIAS Test series is good for mains, if you could join test series of 15-20 tests, it will cover your syllabus in a holistic manner, their video discussion is as good as classroom coaching of any other coaching, evaluation is good and thus you are groomed for the brutal December.

Choosing an optional:

A subject has to be read for 3 hours a day, 1.5 years atleast and yes you need to score atleast 250 in optional to get IAS, this can not be done if you do not have interest in the subject, an optional must be such which gives you a sense of delight, which you love to read again and again. In my opinion, choosing an optional on the basis of criteria like it has less syllabus, scoring is easy and I have my friends opting this, are not best benchmarks; you cant reproduce in mains if you do not love the subject, have an in-depth knowledge about it and believe in what you write, that can happen only when you are truly attached to your optional.
  1. Zero-in on 2-3 subjects which can be your probable optional.
  2. Read atleast a chapter or two for the most interesting topic on the subject.
  3. Compare and contrast what intrigues you and then bring in secondry parameters like scoring, time required to finish the syllabus to break the tie-in.
I was asked many times, how about choosing technical subject as an optional, first of all let me clarify, I am a graduate in mechanical engineer and still opted for public administration, because ME did not create interest in me, lengthy syllabus and I never studied well in college, so I was weak even in basics, added to that My time was limited, It was not possible for me to memorize 30 formulas just to solve 2 questions of heat and mass transfer, so technical was not an option for me.

Why Public Administration:  

1. Most relevant to an IAS, so it intrigued me.
2. well connected to current events, had lot of scope for value addition.
3. Good material available in the market.
4. effective for GS-2 syllabus, If I have scored 100 marks in GS-2 the credit goes to Public Administration.

So, Finally If you are good in your graduation and have prepared earlier for IES or GATE, you may go for technical subjects, going for Art subjects gives help in GS and above all it verses us with writing skills, which seems to be panacea for clearing Mains. Choose wisely after weighing in all the pros & cons. Optional is they key to success, if you can score 270-280 in optional, half your target is achieved.

Answer Writing:

For GS, the standard format is: decipher the question i.e. introduce the issue raised, present point for and against as per demand of the question, support your answer with a fact, quotation, report or case study and then take the conclusion with which you would agree most. Always attempt those questions first with which you are most comfortable, it helps in overcoming inertia and gives you confidence to address those questions with which you are not well versed and then depending upon time, decide length and content of the those answers.

For Ethics, always attempt case studies first and try to finish in 1.5 hours, so that half the job is done, then attempt first 13 questions and quote as many examples you can and if possible do give personal life examples from your life to support your arguments. ethics can reward good marks. 


Final Gyan:

Some may find it waste of words while some may find it motivating, just bear with me for this column. I always talk about steve jobs and his memorable stanford speech in the end, he recalls many failures of his life and then beautifully recalls how all the failures turned him into a legend. He says, "You can only connect the dots by looking backwards not by looking forwards". If you fear now that my this step may lead into disaster, you will never take yourself forward; take that first step and then see the beautiful fruits of your seeds few years down the line and then look backwards connecting all the dots which made you a person whom you truly value. 

If you ever read ethics (GS4), you may come across Means-end dichotomy, I stand on that part of extreme where if your means are right, dont worry about the end...end is destined to be good. ...Perform...Dream Big and strive harder to achieve it and you will reach a destiny that you deserve. Success is a matter of timing if you are dedicated to the path which will take you there. 

Connect every single step of your life, every dot and try to recall what it provided you, what you learnt from it and then it will turn you into a personality that UPSC desires and which we all aspire. I tried to connect my school life, college life and then job life and it brought fruits to me...Many senior players in this arena may disregard this blog and consider it as unrealistic...but this is how This idiot reached into top-10 of this examination and hence I have named this Post as "Fairy Tale of an Idiot". Had It not been a fairy tale..this idiot may not had seen return of his Dawn...A new beginning that I truly Value.

Hope It will clear all the queries that I was asked, if not, do email me your issue, I will Try to revert ASAP. 

email id: tiwarivicky.1989@gmail.com

All The Best...May you get what you really deserve.