Civil Services Exam Details To Be Announced In February.

Source – ndtv.com

NEW DELHI: 

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) would release the exam details of the Civil Services recruitment 2020 in February. The exam would be held on May 31. This is for the first time in six years UPSC is conducting civil services preliminary exam in May. The last time it was held in May was in 2013. Civil Services exam is held annually for selection to Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service and other services and posts.

More than 10 lakh candidates register for the exam every year.

Selection to Civil Services is through a preliminary test and main exam (written test and interview). Candidates who qualify the preliminary test are eligible to appear for the main exam. In the main exam, the written test will carry a total of 1750 marks and the interview will be of 275 marks in total.

The scores obtained in the preliminary test will not be included while deciding the final merit list.

Graduates are allowed to sit for the Civil Services exam six times. The restriction limit is different for candidates belonging to reserved categories. Candidates belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribe category have no restriction on the number of attempts. Candidates belonging to other backward class category are permitted nine attempts at the exam. Candidates under persons with benchmark disability category will get as many attempts as available to their respective categories.

UPSC Civil Services: Modi Government May Bundle Indian Bureaucracy Into Just 3-4 Divisions, Says Report

Source: swarajyamag.com

In a bid to rationalise the civil services in the country, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is likely to reduce the more than 60 civil services in the country to about three or four, reports The Print.

According to the report, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has prepared a five year vision document in which it has been emphasised that the government will try to drastically reduce the number of services to ensure harmonious functioning of the state machinery.

“Rationalising the services essentially means reducing the number down from the existing 60-plus civil services to about three-four,” an official from DoPT was quoted in the report as saying.

“The idea was proposed last year by NITI Aayog and the government will now seek to implement it,” the official added.

The civil services in India comprises of more tha 60 specialised services classified into Group A and Group B. The Group A include the IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS among 25 other services.

As per the report, no decision regarding how to undertake the rationalsation has been done by the government. However, a possible solution could be to classify the civil services into three groups.

“One way of doing it is dividing the services into Indian Administrative Service, which would include all non-technical services; the Indian Police Service that would include all security-related services and the Indian Technical Services, which would include all technical services,” the official said.

“This is just one idea doing the rounds…the services could be rationalised in other ways too,” the official added.

UPSC Civil Services Toppers: Gopala Krishna Ronanki overcame poverty, social apathy and cracked IAS 3rd Rank

Source: timesnownews.com

UPSC Civil Services is without doubt one of the toughest examinations to crack in this country. While lakhs aspire, it is only a few hundred who can make it through. And some stories leave an impression. Story of Shri Gopala Krishna Ronanki, a school teacher by profession, of overcoming poverty, difficulties in learning, social exclusion and then cracking UPSC Civil Services exam is one such story. No only did he fight the odds, he stood for his dreams and cracked the IAS or Civil Services Exam in 2016 and secured AIR Rank 3rd.

Hailing from a small village of Andhra Pradesh,  Gopala Krishna Ronanki had to face a lot of hardship to taste success. Gopal’s parents Apparav and Rukminamma were farmers in Parasamba village of Palasa Mandal, 70 km away from Srikakulam city. At a very early age, his parents were socially boycotted for 25 years due to their involvement in a Dalit family marriage. This caused a lot of hurdles in their lives, financially and mentally.

At one point of time, some wealthy people of the village wanted to grab the land that was owned by Gopala’s parents. They had to fight a long battle to save their piece of land. In midst of all these hardships, Ronanki completed his studies in Telegu medium from distance learning. After his Class 10, he completed his 12th studies from Palasa Junior College. Soon after plus two, Gopal took a teacher training course and started to work as a teacher in a government school.

While working as a teacher, Gopala completed his graduation and went on to prepare for UPSC Civil Services. He was discouraged by many of his friends who said that cracking UPSC Civil Services by studying in Telegu Medium is impossible.

Keeping all these negativity at bay Gopala attempted for UPSC Civil Services exam for the first time in 2015.  He was unable to crack the preliminary exam of it back then. It was in his second attempt when he cleared the UPSC Civil Services exam and secured AIR 3rd rank.

According to Gopala, all the problems that he had faced made him stronger and his determination harder. He aspires to help the Dalit section of the society in the near future.

UPSC: Pattern change over the years

Source: telanganatoday.com

Sriram, an aspirant for the Civil Services who successfully qualified for selection to the Indian Police Service (IPS) by securing the 150th rank in the merit list, was shocked when he did not find his number in the list of qualified aspirants at the prelims in the following year. After having prepared for the examination for three years he had cleared all the hurdles and secured a position in the IPS. He had appeared at the examination again to improve his rank and join the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). However, he could not clear even the first hurdle.

There are many other aspirants who share the same feelings. The Civil Services examination is conducted in three stages i.e. Preliminary, Main and Interview. The Preliminary examination, which is the first stage, is an objective type paper with multiple choice questions.

Aspirants often underestimate the importance of the Preliminary, and qualifying in it is taken for granted. However, the sheer magnitude of the competition where only 11,000 candidates qualify out of the five lakh who appear indicates the nature of the Preliminary. Also with negative marking in place the difference between success and failure could be a mere 0.33 per cent.

The Preliminary was introduced to `keep non-serious aspirants out and reduce the number of aspirants to a manageable number’ on the recommendations of the Kothari Committee in 1979. When it was introduced, it comprised an optional paper for 300 marks and a General Studies paper for 150 marks. The Satish Chandra Committee of 1989, appointed to review the examination, upheld the pattern but recommended negative marking to reduce the ‘chance element’ negative marking was introduced in 2007. The Alagh Committee of 2000, suggested a revised format for the Preliminary with an optional paper for 300 marks and a CSAT paper for 200 marks. The Second Administrative Reforms committee recommended common papers at the Preliminary. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) appointed the Khanna Committee in 2009, which recommended a revised format of the Preliminary with two papers i.e. CSAT and General Studies Paper. This was implemented from 2011. This pattern of equal weightage to aptitude and general studies gave an unfair advantage to urban students and there were wide spread protests all over India mainly from the Hindi speaking areas.

The government responded to the protests by making the Aptitude paper which had questions on quantitative aptitude and English comprehension as a qualifying paper. Aspirants who had suffered due to the CSAT model were compensated by increasing the age limit and the number of attempts by two years. Also, all aspirants of the year 2011 were given another attempt.

With all these changes, the Preliminary today has two papers i.e. the General Studies paper with 100 questions from various areas and the aptitude paper with 80 questions. While an aspirant has to score minimum qualifying mark of 67/200 in the aptitude paper, his/her success is determined by the marks scored in the General Studies paper.

It is this change that has resulted in a lack of `cause’ and `effect’ relationship. The UPSC has the unenviable task of reducing the number of aspirants out of the marks scored in the General Studies paper which has only 100 questions. Towards this aim it has been making the questions as unpredictable as possible. Such an uncertain exam is grossly unfair and dampens the spirit of the aspirant.

The Preliminary has become a jealous gatekeeper and many prospective aspirants are likely to move away from the examination. Such an exam in the long run is going to affect the quality of administration. Students have been protesting in Delhi for the last five years and demanding compensation in the form of at least an extra attempt. One of the demands has been to change the format of preliminary to reduce the uncertainty.

From 1979 to 2010, there were no protests as the exam had a cause and effect relationship. If you work hard and you were sure you would pass the examination – The uncertainty began with the changes and has reached a peak after 2015.

The UPSC has realised that it is time to make changes. It is reported that the vision document released by UPSC has recommended to the government that the CSAT paper should be deleted from the scheme of examination.

While it is not known whether an alternative paper has been recommended, it would be ideal if another paper on General Studies is introduced with diverse areas and predictability with reference to the number of questions from each area.

This paper could also have 100 questions and could replace CSAT. This will lead to the much needed uncertainty reduction and encourage qualified and meritorious youth to choose a career in the Civil Services, instead of opting for the private sector.

BPSC Civil Services 2018 Mains Exam to begin from July 12; Know Details here

Source: careers360.com

NEW DELHI, JUNE 10: Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has announced the exam dates of Bihar Civil Services 2018 Mains on June 10, 2019. The mains exam will be held on July 12, 13, 14 & 16, 2019 paper-wise. BPSC Civil services mains exam will be conducted in the afternoon session (1 to 4 pm) across the different exam centres in Bihar.

Candidates who have qualified the preliminary exam are only eligible to appear for the mains exam. According to the exam pattern, BPSC Civil services mains exam will be conducted in offline mode for four papers – General Hindi (compulsory paper), General Studies 1, General Studies 2 and an optional paper. General Hindi consists of 100 marks which is qualifying in nature.

General Studies 1 & General Studies 2 carries 300 marks for individually whereas the total marks of optional paper is equivalent to total marks of honours papers in Graduation. Candidates are given 3 hours to answer each paper.

The examination authority BPSC will issue the admit card for the mains exam 7 days before the examination. To download the admit card, candidates will have to enter the user name and password in the login window.

BPSC conducts Civil Services exam for the recruitment of candidates to various posts like Revenue Officer, Block Panchayat Officer, Assistant Registrars in Cooperative Societies, Bihar Police. A total of 1,395 vacancies have been announced for Bihar Civil Services 64th Combined Competitive Exam.