Pratik Agrawal (AIR 156, UPSC CSE 2021)

All the best everyone who are attempting UPSC CSE prelims tomorrow. Be calm, and confident, prelims has increasingly become a game of presence of mind after you acquire the knowledge base needed.
Both GS 1 and GS 2 paper would bring something new for you, like every year, but remember it is new for everyone. No coaching, no topper, no one person is able to give a full proof answer key to the question with Internet, books and AI, which shows it is getting tougher and unpredictable, among all these uncertainties what is certain is that the answer is right in front of you, remember your methods, recall your facts, rely on your logic and rule. You will go through, trust yourself, you’ve gone through the grind, now it’s time to shine.
Sleep well or not, doesn’t matter, it is merely 8-10 hours, some of you might have experienced much more sleepless nights. Sun or shade, rain or no rain, nothing can move your focus now. The day of relief is tomorrow, just 24 hours from now.

All the best everyone!

https://t.me/AnnapurnaSingh_AIR99/13

Hello everyone,

Sharing the channel of Annapurna Singh Ma’am, who has secured AIR 99 in UPSC 2023. She has gone through multiple attempts and turned the tide in each and every paper and interviews by working hard through and through. She too has geography optional, you can check out her channel for nuanced tips and guidance.

Ending 59 months of journey today. It is IPS Haryana cadre. Never expected it to be this when I started. Like everyone else, have worked very hard in this period. A full circle of UPSC has now happened with 4 attempts, 3 mains, 2 interviews and 1 rank.

Got a success rate of 25% overall, failed thrice, and honestly didn’t know why I qualified or what different did I do when I got the rank. Today I know many people who got a good rank and service after seeing them fail in last 2-3 years.

I have no intention of selling you dreams but just because now my sample size is wider than just me, I can ascertain you that hard-work does gives you return, it may be delayed but it will give you the returns in one form or another.

UPSC for me has remained a myth even after getting in the list. The nature and pattern is such that it remains a surprise. However I have been very lucky to end my struggle with this great service and a great cadre.

Congratulations to everyone who made it, and keep walking to everyone who wants to continue in this marathon. All the best.

A friendly advice:

Kindly make use of conversational AI tools, personality tests revolves around conversation and it would certainly help you open up new horizons.

Issues in the tactics -
1) You may get asked on your Home state, so you'll have to prepare a whole new state! That's huge load.
2) Every year you see someone in 20-40 rank going to Sikkim, because they filled sikkim as first choice in NE zone, thinking it'll get skipped, but one seat came and they got it.
(No offence to Sikkim, I reiterate there are no good or bad cadres, each have their pros and cons)

Giving a perspective on Cadre !
For my first timer interview friends, a lot of people follow few tricks and tactics! And these all are perfectly moral and ethical, I am listing them here just so everyone knows about it and the game becomes a bit fair. I am not endorsing them or recommending them, just for your information. Some of them are as follows -
1. Giving Home state as some other state and keeping the required 'real home state' as 1st preference. So they can get outsider seat, which is mostly more than insider seats!
(Mostly coz in my year, AGMUT outsider finished faster than AGMUT insider)
2. Entering Sikkim as 1st preference in North East zone, logic is that Sikkim has either 0 or 1 seat and someone would have taken it, and their whole zone will skip for one time. Otherwise if you put West Bengal or Assam Meghalaya, they have a lot of seats and if you're not in top 20/30 of your service, chances are that you will get them.
3. Kindly go through Cadre wise vacancies of both IAS and IPS, and put your most preferred choices in that order.

Now coming to my experience!
It was my first interview and I had no exposure to all these at that time, I went through many DAF sessions, and ultimately filled the best I could. Although deep down, I just wanted a rank and was whole heartedly ready to serve in any cadre! Cadre was my least of the worry at that time.

Also, there's nothing like good cadre or best cadre. All cadres have their pros and cons. It depends on your perspective on life and how important your home state is. In my case, I am from Bihar and I have never really lived in Bihar except childhood, and have a little less State identity.
Some things that I wish I would have changed although it wouldn't have made any difference.
1. I had made an order as if I was getting rank 1, so my first five were - Jharkhand (homestate) - rajasthan - MP - karnataka - Assam meghalaya.
Problem with this order is that, rajasthan MP are very high in demand states, and get finished quickly, karnataka in IPS usually has zero seats, but in 2022 bumper seats came in MP and I got MP, otherwise I was ready to serve in Assam Meghalaya with all my heart.

2. If I wanted Bihar, I should have put Jharkhand as my home state and put Bihar as 1st choice, I definitely would have gotten it, but sadly at that moment I didnt want to put Jharkhand as my last preference, so I filled Jharkhand as 1st only and Bihar became my 6th preference!


Concluding remarks - Fill your cadres carefully considering that you might be getting a lower rank in your service coz now even 1 marks will lower ranks by 4-5 places! Put your most preferred states in first two, then, state that you'd settle for in 3rd and 4th and which have seats as well, then state you won't regret in 5th.

I am uploading my cadre preference as well, but it's not a very well researched or prudent, it's rather novice!

Also, you will waste a lot of time on cadre research and ultimately arrive to conclusion that I'll fill what my heart wants. I apologize I can't solve your confusions and dilemmas individually, it's better done in Pre-CSPT telegram groups.

Hello everyone!

Sharing below the blog of K. Sahithya, IPS 2023 batch. She has shared her approach and strategy for Prelims, Mains and Optional Anthropology.

You can check her approach especially for essays, she has scored around 140+ thrice in 3 mains. You can find the essay strategy here too.

https://sahithyakasiraju.wordpress.com/

That's GS IV other than the Topic 5: Contributions of moral thinkers and philosophers from India and world.

These notes are suggestive and not complete or exhaustive. I would recommend you all to use it only as a reference because for me myself these are far different from my final notes which is more chaotic and understandable to me only.
Also original source: Jayant Nahata Sir's notes

GS- IV

Mains:
Topic 1: Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in-human actions; dimensions of ethics; ethics - in private and public relationships. Human Values - lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators; role of family society and educational institutions in inculcating values.
Topic 2: Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion.
Topic 3: Aptitude and foundational values for Civil Service, integrity, impartiality and non-partisanship, objectivity, dedication to public service, empathy, tolerance and compassion towards the weaker-sections.
Topic 4: Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance.
Topic 6: Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration: Status and problems; ethical concerns and dilemmas in government and private institutions; laws, rules, regulations and conscience as sources of ethical guidance; accountability and ethical governance; strengthening of ethical and moral values in governance; ethical issues in international relations and funding; corporate governance.
Topic 7: Probity in Governance: Concept of public service; Philosophical basis of governance and probity; Information sharing and transparency in government, Right to Information, Codes of Ethics, Codes of Conduct, Citizen’s Charters, Work culture, Quality of service delivery, Utilization of public funds, challenges of corruption.

That completes all of GS-I. These notes are suggestive and not complete or exhaustive. I would recommend you all to use it only as a reference because for me myself these are far different from my final notes which is more chaotic and understandable to me only.

GS-I

Mains:
Topic 10: Salient features of world’s physical geography.
Topic 11: Distribution of key natural resources across the world (including South Asia and the Indian subcontinent); factors responsible for the location of primary, secondary, and tertiary sector industries in various parts of the world (including India).
Topic 12: Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

These topics overlapped with my optional, didn't make separate notes of these topics. Sources are mentioned on this channel above

GS-I and GS-II

Mains:
Topic 6: Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.
Topic 7: Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.
Topic 8: Effects of globalization on Indian society.
Topic 9: Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

Topic 12: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes; mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.
Topic 13: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
Topic 14: Issues relating to poverty and hunger

The pdf contains shorter form of notes with keywords. Some PYQ answers in indicative form. The original source is Vision VAM.

GS-I

Mains:
Topic 5: History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries, colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc.— their forms and effect on the society.

Forwarding the original note as it is.