Meet the IRS Toppers (Part-I) : A few tips for the Civil Services aspirants.

As per the recent trends, about 10 lakh people apply to write for the Civil Services Examination conducted by the UPSC each year. Almost half of them fail to write the preliminary examination, after receiving the admit cards, mostly due to lack of preparation. Out of about 5 lakh people who write the examination, around 15000 persons clear the preliminary examination. After the main examinations, around 3000 people make it to the personality test cum interview. Only less than half of them get listed in the final rank sheet.  

There are many successful candidates who prefer to join the IRS (if they miss the IAS for a few marks or if they don't get the preferred state in IAS) ) instead of joining the IPS and other services. I could devote some time at the National Academy of Direct Taxes, Nagpur, India  a few days back. IRS officers undergo their training in this world class training center for the tax administrators. I was invited as a panelist for their annual literary festival to speak about my books to the trainees. I utilized my spare time to interact with the young officers. 

IRS Trainees with the President of India

Let me introduce to you three successful persons from the recent batch and who are undergoing training: Mr Satish Reddy, Mr Rakesh Chintagumpula and  Ms Pryati  Sharma. 

In this blogpost, let us hear from  Mr Satish Reddy, who secured 97th Rank in the Civil Services examination. In the next blog post (Part-II), we will know about Mr Rakesh and Ms Pryati. 

Conversation with Satish Reddy IRS

Satish Reddy wanted to go to the United States after his engineering from NIT, Warangal. All his cousins worked there and led a vey comfortable life. He also dreamt a cosy life in that land of opportunities. But a few weeks of stay in the remote villages in India as a volunteer of National Innovation Foundation changed his perspective and vision about career and life. He walked through the villages in the weekends. When he taught students in the night at a school with the help of kerosine lamp in a naxal affected area, he realized the need to lift the new generation who have aspirations to excel. 

He decided: Either get into politics or be in the civil services. He pondered over his goals to select the right career path. He discussed his interest to work in India and for India with his lawyer father and the mother who is a home maker. They blessed him as he told that by being a civil servant, he can do much more for the country than being an employee in a multinational company. Politics can be an option at a later stage, he thought. 

He prepared hard for the Civil Services Examination. In the second chance, he got 97th rank and chose IRS. (He lost IAS by one rank!). 

I invited Satish to the room allotted to me in the Academy for a chat (The facilities in the guest room are much better than a top rated hotel! Additional facility is a latest model PC). 

Me: How can you pursue your mission, by being in IRS?

How much ever you talk about development or poverty alleviation, nothing can work, without resources. So, the first step and the most important step is to gather resources effectively and efficiently. The second step is the efficient application of the resources. The most difficult task is to generate resources from the right sources intelligently, fairly and transparently. One of the largest sources of revenue is from direct taxation. In a country where only microscopic minority pay taxes, we need intelligent tax administrators who can formulate new rules, simplify procedures, successfully investigate and lead a large team. IRS, thus offers a very challenging career in the civil services, that can radically transform the nation. I find that IRS officers excel in all their roles within the department and outside viz. senior election functionaries, Special secretaries and Joint secretaries in various departments, chief vigilance officers, director generals and advisors in statutory authorities, and senior officers in the ministries and in various regulatory organizations in India and abroad. 

How did you prepare for your Civil Services Examination? 

First I will tell you, how I prepared for my first attempt and NOT cleared.

-I studied for about 14 hours a day

-Read 3 Newspapers

-No other activity other than studies. No games. No exercise

-I gathered too many study materials from all available sources and studied 

-I thought the focus is on current affairs in the examinations and spent more time for that.

-Didn’t practice writing the answers

-Prepared by staying at Delhi in a very tense environment where thousands studied hard

-I got good marks in current affairs. But less marks for other areas.

Now, I will tell you, how I prepared and got selected. 

These are my tips for the Civil Services aspirants:

1. Read, Write, Revise and Write

Instead of gathering and reading too many study materials on the same topic, I focussed on topics as per the syllabus and the old question papers. I made my own short notes for all topics in the syllabus and for all the questions in the past papers. I read them again and again, wrote them, revised the notes by adding new points and practiced writing again. So, when similar questions came in the examination, the answers were flowing to the paper without any delay. 

2. Coaching

I decided not to go to Delhi this time. Every resource is available across india through online sources. Why to waste money by being in Delhi in a highly competitive, tense environment? one has to relax to  grasp the subject and to learn quickly. For that, one needs to be in an environment where one is most comfortable. 

www.insightsonindia. com helped me a lot in my preparation. They run offline tests in cities like Bangalore. I stayed in Vijayanagar in Bangalore for five months attempting the tests. Every three days I did one test along with a group of aspirants. 

3. Be relaxed, when you learn

I did my mediation every morning. Played badminton everyday. Chatted with sincere and committed aspirants. All these helped me in my preparation. 

4. The tricks and strategies one should know

Be positive in your answers. Don’t go on a critical mode to lash out at the the system and the government. Your criticism should be constructive. When you write about an issue or problem, give both positive and negative dimensions. Then give your creative suggestion. 

Substantiate your arguments with facts, figures and references to articles. Give illustrations of what happened recently. All these require regular reading of newspapers and periodicals. Even when you write answers to purely theoretical questions, make it a point to give real life examples. 

Come to the point directly rather than bluffing with a long introduction. This is very much  necessary in the interview. 

Various subjects

All subjects are actually interconnected. Paper-I is about past India. Paper-II  touches present India. Paper-III is mostly about future India. Paper-IV is on ethics of past and present action. There are other papers as well.

Interview

• Interview is not to measure your knowledge; but your comprehension, attitude and response
• Confidence level should not go down after you answered a few questions wrongly. This will be rated adversely. 
• Give decisive, clear answers. Don’t sit on the fence.
• Take just three-four seconds to understand the question before answering. 
• First give the answer and then give reasoning. If you start giving the background first, there is a chance that they will quickly move to another question before you give the answer. 
• Be frank and honest. Please speak from the heart. Don't ever be artificial. They will catch you. 
• Don’t try to get into complexities. Don't be theoretical. Don't use jargons. Don’t argue.
• You should be thorough about your background and what you wrote in your CV. 
• There will be questions on International relations and recent social issues, irrespective of your optional. Members are specialists in various subjects. 

Advice to school students 

Those school students who aspire for a career in civil services should make it a habit to read newspapers everyday. They should participate in debates and quiz programs. They should also visit government offices and understand the functioning. This can help them to make a better career choice. 

What are your views on the corruption in the civil services?

As a young professional I feel that the civil servants should be adequately compensated, much more than the pay package in the private sector. The civil servants take very crucial decisions. When they are compensated well for the challenging decisions they take, they will not get corrupted and they will not bother much about a career threat because of bold decisions. Many times, bureaucrats are worried about the future and they become reluctant to disobey the bosses who want them to deviate from rules. Corrupt officials should be severely punished. 

IRS Trainees with Prime Minister of India

P T Usha giving medals on Sports Day

In the current batch of IRS trainees, around 62% are engineers. The batch also includes 25 doctors. 30% of trainees are post graduates.  

Read Part-II of the article: Click here: Meet the IRS Toppers (Part-II) 

(c) Sibichen K Mathew     Views are personal

Teachers for the out-of-school children

When someone mentions the word ‘Teacher’, we know that the person is referring to a school or college teacher or a person who takes tuition!

We forget about those dedicated persons who teach but are not ‘teachers’!

When someone mentions the word ‘student’, we often conclude that the person is referring to someone who is trying to learn something to earn a degree/qualification and is part of an institutional structure. 

We forget about thousands of underprivileged kids who are outside the formal educational system but yearn for knowledge for a living.

Meet here a team of persons who have devoted their life for schooling the non-school going children. ‘Bal Utsav’, the NGO led by Ramesh Balasundaram and Binu Ramesh is bringing in educational revolution among the children of construction workers, slum dwellers and labourers in the city of Bangalore and elsewhere. 

Padmini, Binu and Ramesh

Let us hear from Mr Ramesh Balasundaram about his unique mission in teaching.

What was your inspiration (incident/person/experience/ or anything else) in taking up the field of teaching non-school going children?

The year was 2010 and there was a lot of celebration about the Right to Education Act (RTE). It was surprising to know that Out of School Children even existed, because everyone we knew was in school. Even our maids’ children were in school and every second road had a school.

When we took a focussed study to understand what the RTE was all about is when we realised that elephant in the room that nobody was talking about - Out of School Children and Children Who Drop Out of schools.

Can you brief us about the nature of different teaching work undertook/ being undertaken by you and team?

We have identified the top contributors to out of school children and built interventions around each of them.

Children from Urban Slums - Museum School, Bangalore 

Children in Construction Sites - Schools working from within Construction Sites

Children From Tribes - Schools set up inside various Tribal communities.

According to you, what is right or wrong with our present formal educational system?

There is a clear demand & supply issue. Resulting in the possibility of seeing parents wait overnight to seek admission in schools for their wards. Since supply is an issue - obviously there is little or no effort to understand quality.

The issue that is plaguing the system though - is for parents, teacher and schools to understand the purpose of education. While learning to read and write is an outcome of schooling it is not the purpose of it. If each parent and teacher could understand the purpose of education the schools today will be a different place.(At all Bal Utsav schools the purposed of education is to facilitate the mental, physical and spiritual growth of the child)

Most of the children fear schooling/syllabus/exams etc. Famous sociologist Ivan Illich went to the extent of arguing for deschooling society. What do you say about the perception that school is an inevitable EVIL for children?

While schools have their own role and are meant to be learning spaces for children, (as homes are not designed for learning in children) the fact that the purpose is not established is exactly like playing a game of football with great facilities, coaches, best of merchandise but no goal post to be seen. This results in children not knowing what they are expected to do, parents ensuring that the children reach the ground wearing the best of merchandise and teachers/schools ensuring that the children are always on the ground and learning to play a game (without understanding the goal) in the absence of a goal post. 

Can you narrate any incident (one or more) that motivated you or deeply touched you or disturbed you or delighted you, while you were teaching children?

The sight of joy in every child when they discover something is worth everything. If the focus is on enabling the child to discover himself/herself - the child is totally interested in the task at hand. Wants to be in school everyday and reaches a stage when they don't want to go home/let go off what they are working upon as they are totally interested in what they do. This  joy that we see in the children's faces that we work with is what helps us and every person in the team to keep going. 

This journey of discovery, even once saw us witness a child who wanted to vein school that day inspire of seeing her own mom being rushed to the ICU after an accident, earlier that day.

What role you see for the educated and employed youth in teaching the non-school going children in India? 

The youth need to understand the critical role that teachers play and choose two of the most critical roles that define our tomorrows - that of Teachers and Politicians. Instead of treating the role of teachers as someone who couldn't get placed because of their inability we need to have hordes of young learners, take to teaching. The only way we are going to have a better tomorrow is if our youth take to teaching both children in schools and those who are pout of schools. To fill this gap, we at Bal Utsav have recently started a Teacher training program that exclusively focusses on churning out High Quality teachers who are inspired to teach and are not here because they didn't have any other job to do.

You can read more about the above initiative in one of my earlier blogs. Click to read: My mid-day break with pearls from the slum

Views are personal                                   © Sibichen K Mathew

Read below related articles in this blog

Student- also a teacher: Meet a few students who have taken the road less traveled

A man who left the commissioner's chair to teach students in his village

The institutional child abuse: What is the panacea?

Stop this harassment: A cry for deschooling India

An ordeal called school admission

My midday break with the pearls from the slum

Aleph, Paulo Coelho and my Friend: A journey within

My son! Don't watch the news

The 'Queen', the Marriage and the Tears

I read this somewhere; There are three rings in marriage: The engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffering! And here is a French proverb: ‘Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out’. 

Why do men and women who do not get a suitable ‘alliance’ continue to sulk? 

Rani, whose role played by Kangana Raut in the Hindi movie ‘Queen’, was shattered when her fiance Vijay acted by Rajkumar, who won the national award for his role as a lawyer in the movie ‘Shahid’(read my review of Shahid here) suddenly conveyed his decision to backtrack. By the time the wedding celebrations had started at her home and the relatives had already arrived. She cried and pleaded before Vijay.  But the fiancé refused to budge. Rani ‘rescued’ herself from the grief and shame by going ahead alone to Paris for ‘honeymoon’ pre-booked by her father. Vikas Bahl, the director of this beautiful movie has showcased how Rani became a real queen by becoming independent!

Now, let us come out of the reel life to real life. When a busy architect Sunil decided to marry a leading advocate’s daughter, he had a lot of dreams about marriage and family. He sensed something bad just after the engagement. Ramya was too immature. Though he wanted to call off the marriage, he was prevented by his relatives stating that she would be fine after marriage.

After their marriage, there was not a single day without a fight. She was unhappy because he chose a domestic location for honeymoon whereas she dreamt of being at Paris with him. She fought with him during the entire period of honeymoon stating that he was miserly. She harassed him for any call that he received, if that happened to be from a lady. She distanced herself from his family and stayed put in the bedroom and asked the maids to serve the food in the room. Among several incidents Sunil narrated this:  One day after a temple visit she asked him to take her to a particular restaurant in a five star hotel for dinner. He readily agreed and told her that he has not taken the purse containing the debit cards with him, but he has about Rs 5000 in his pocket. He told her this so that she would order food that would cost less than the above mentioned amount. She called for the menu card and ordered a signature dish of the hotel for her, which would cost Rs 5000/- And then she asked him to order whatever he wanted. Sunil didn't order as there would be no money left for him and he knew that she would never open her purse which contained money that she used to take from him. He thought he will have a bit from the dish ordered by her. When the exotic dish arrived, she had nibbled just one or two spoons of the stuff and asked the bearer to take it away as the dish was not to her liking without giving a chance for Sunil to have the food. She quickly left the dining hall without waiting for Sunil. He followed her towards the car after paying the bill. He was used to such behaviour from his partner and regretted being into a relationship with a girl who came into his life to destroy his peace, happiness and enthusiasm.

After hearing Sunil, I felt really sorry for him. How would he spend his life with a person like this? It would be better for such persons to lead a life alone rather than in continuous unhappiness.

Why the hurry?

Sociologists believe that marriage contributes to better mental and physical health of adults. It creates a new generation of individuals with emotional, physical and social well-being. Marriage also contributes to the moral well-being and drive for growth among people. Proponents of the ‘marriage protection hypothesis’ argue that marriage contributes to longevity as people will be more controlled in their activities that could harm their health status otherwise.  

But why do people jump into marriage thinking that it is a mandatory social institution and everyone is eligible for that? Why do parents worry too much about their children when they cross the ‘marriageable age’? Why do most women and many men are desperate when they don’t find a suitable match? Why does society think that everyone (other than those who opt for celibacy for religious or spiritual reasons) should get married after a certain age?

Sumit and Sujata knew each other for three years before they got married. After marriage, Sujata told categorically: ‘I have married only you. So don’t expect me to be in touch with your family members.’ She refused to go with him to meet his parents on weekends or holidays. Sumit didn't project that as an issue to avoid any unpleasantness in their relationship, though he felt hurt by her approach. He looked after her parents as she wished. But later, life became intolerable for him. He found her to be very selfish. Incidents narrated by him might look trivial for outsiders, but he felt hurt by her behaviour. Sujata refused to give her vehicle when Sumit wanted to go for an urgent meeting, when his vehicle was in the workshop for repairs. Many times he found nothing for him to eat when he reached home late from the company. Once he had to go to his relative’s house to sleep as she deliberately bolted the house from inside so that he will not open the house with his key. The reason was an argument over a silly issue that morning! Sumit, who was very patiently tolerating Sujata for long, took a decision to file a divorce petition. At that point of time Sujata realized her mistakes and refused to agree for the divorce. Sumit said: ‘Enough is enough. I don’t mind staying single for the rest of my life. But I can’t stay with her!’.

Though there is no accurate statistics of divorce rates, reports indicate that there is steady increase in divorces in many countries. 

'The seven-year itch'

The phrase ‘The seven-year itch’ is very popular among those who keenly watch the separations and divorces in society. It is said that between 4 and 7 years of marriage couples get affected by this and they either get divorced or get adjusted to each other by the 7^th year. But the scenario is different now. Many divorces happen within a few months of marriage. Patience and toleration limit of the new generation is much less than the older generations! Many in the older generation were scared of the stigma attached to the divorce those days and quietly adjusted to their partners. In the Booker Prize winning novel ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy, she has written that the lady of the house cried when her husband died, not because she loved him but she was used to him!

Marriage is a privilege. Is it for everyone?  

There should be an opportunity for ‘due diligence’ to the couples to get familiarized each other to decide whether the person who he or she is going to get married is the right person for him or her. Premarital cohabitation that prevails in some tribal communities before marriage would not be an appropriate proposition from the point of view of morality or religion. Instead of being in love, two persons can be close friends for a long time with the approval of their families so that they can understand each other’s temperament and attitude much better. The only condition is that they should not become ‘lovers’, as in that case, they may get blinded!

Pre-marital courses are compulsory among a few religious communities in some countries. A comprehensive short duration course should be made mandatory for all persons who wish to enter the institution of marriage.

 

The state should increase the minimum marriageable age for people. (For example, 35 years)as there are many benefits. a) The unrealistic expectations will reduce, b) By that time they will be financially independent, c) They will be emotionally more mature, d) They will get enough time to make the choice, and e) There is a possibility that this would have a positive bearing in highly populated countries.

Once a couple decides to marry, they should not jump into the status of parents without making their marriage stable. Only mutually responsible couples can become responsible parents. Pregnancy spacing needs to be promoted by government through incentives.

The author of the book ‘Sirach’ in the Bible wrote:  ‘I would rather live in the same house with a lion or a dragon than with a bad wife.’ It could be applicable to both husband and wife. Therefore divorce might be a necessary evil in some cases. But the governments need to make divorce rules and procedures gender neutral rendering justice to both.

Though marriage is not a joke, most of the jokes shared and enjoyed by many married adults are related to marriage and spouses. Henry Ward Beecher said, ‘Well-married person has wings, poorly-married has shackles’. Love, trust and selflessness can produce happy relationships. 

Hinduism presents a unique dimension. An interpretation says, 'Marriage is not a social contract temporarily entered into under the influence of romance or dissolved at one’s pleasure. It is the most important religious sacrament, necessary for every individual to realize fully one’s potential and to fulfill the responsibilities which one’s owes to one’s self, one’s family, one’s ancestors and to society at large'. Islam considers marriage as a social necessity and religious obligation and there is no role for celibacy. Marriage is indeed a contract and a sacrament. In a contemporary reading of gospel of St Mathew it is written:  "Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn't for everyone".

“Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn't something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.”(Barbara De Angelis)

(Views are personal. Images given are stills from the movie 'Queen'. I recommend all the girls [guys too] to watch this movie)                                

                                                                    © Sibichen K Mathew