Few Interviews @ UPSC - 2008 April

One good thing happening over the net is collaboration between civils aspirants. And lot of aspirants are now using blogs to communicate their feelings to rest of the world. Proudly I am one of them. Way to go buddies. Here are the links for the Interviews.

• sachin - Parveen Talha board
• pkagarwal - KKPaul board
• PiyushSkhla - DP.Agarwal Board
• Abhishek - Chalam's Board
• Abhishek1 - Chalam's Board

Articles over E-Governance Initiatives.

Hi Prashant, The links for the articles for E-Governance Initiatives as you asked. I will write the gist of these initiatives when I get some time. For the time being, here is the list.

• Major e-Governance Projects
• E-GOVERNANCE: 20 Hot eGov Projects in India

Hope this helps,

@ Answers for IT questions

What is your opinion on STPI extension ? Here is a small article describing pros and cons. I am for STPI extension . Gist of the reasons for and against this move have been mentinoed here.

For

• Level playing field for domestic companies w.r.t other country competition.
• Tax advantagaes in other countries like china , irelond , chekoslavakia etc still continue. Taking out our tax sops will make us at backfoot at attracting investment in this sector.
• IT industry is not yet matured enough and still have a lot of potential for enlargement worldwide. India can claim much bigger pie in that expansion If you could provide help to the domestic IT industry.
• Recent economic recession in US is going to effect the bottom line of US tech companies adversely. This will result in a lot of cost cuttings in US which implies more BPO at a cost advantageous location. Tax sops in Inida will fasten this process. And help us in acquiring this business opportunities.

Against

• Loss of revenue to good amount.
• Comparitively less employment growth rate compared to the tax money outgoing.

Best way forward is to -- Link the tax sops to employment and export generation potential of the company.

what are the contingency plans of Information Technology industry to overcome the USA slowdown ?

• Geographic diversification to other continents - Europe, mid east, china & APAC especially.
• Project costs linked to $ fluctuations while negotiating .
• Forex currency $ - hedges
• One good thing is 29% growth in domestic sector
• Have a fresh look at emerging markets.

@ Some Interview questions.

I have been discussing with a close friend of mine, who is going to take interview this year. Evolved answers for some questions.

Why civils after you have such a high paying job ?

• social status , job satisfaction , challenging work as well as secure career,you could always brag about you working towards bottom line of india's developmentdirectly .. We can think of innumerable reasons. You will take the same role as an CEO of a medium sized company in 5-6 years of service.

Why civils after doing Engineering from reputed colleges such as IITs?

Why engineering as base line , drag on resources of government ?

Any undergraduation , engineering in reputed college in perticular, will train you for life skills and just not for technical skills. These skills are infact a lot more helpful for administration.

some skills to note -

• we have worked with ppl from different geographical and cultural back drop.
• we are very good at knowledge extraction. - given a task we know how and whereto get information from.
• Talk about skills you learn at these institutions .. they dont teach you only technical skills definitely.

A cursory look at job profile of our peers in IITs , they are doing jobs in different sectors - in different banks, NGOs, studied in computer science and working for Electronic companies - not exactly what they have trained for.

Interview Preperation for UPSC interviews ( esp for IT background)

From IT field, there can be two types of company backgrounds - Product and Services field. The most of questions will depend on the candidate's company background. Nevertheless, we should expect a lot of general questions. Recently , as the rupee is firming up against the dollar , the profits for services company is under strain. And there have been change in the strategy from all the big companies. And one more thing in news these days is the subsidy time period extension for STPI (Software Technology Parks of India). Some of the questions that come to my mind are ?

• General
• Why Civils after you have such a high paying job ? ( Get ready with sixth pay commission recommendations )
• What are super computers ? Where can they be effectively employed ? ( You can drive them to any field like. )
• What is KPO - EPO ?
• Employment issues - Who are getting benefitted. How you can make it more inclusive ?
• How do you bridge the digital devide ? ( Think of a fresh answer - prepare for subsequent questions )
• E-wastes .
• Economics - Competition
• What is the competitive edge for India in getting the Industry here ? (They are looking for a fresh answer - if you want to give one - get ready for consequant questions )
• Why is H/W parks are not coming here ?
• Rupee - Dollar dynamics ?
• How are the software companies are trying to protect their bottom line ?
• The threat of China , Ireland and other EU countries in Services field ? How can you ward off?
• How can you make synergies with China in H/W field ?
• Opinion about STPI - for & against - how can you present your case for Extension.
• E-Governance Initiatives
• How can you use IT to make India a better place ? - ( A lot of E governance techniques )
• Remember each initiative you utter you should have idea about it . You should be able to explain a lay man how it is useful. - Try to make 2 minute synopsis on each one of them.
• NeGP , MCA -21 , e-Choupal , MCX, Bengalore one etc.

These are some of the questions that come to my mind. I will try to keep updating it as and when any thing else come to my mind. Thanx. Hope this helps.

Few Babus UPSC interviews

Hi , After a lot of promise to Venkatesh, I am putting the interview narrations and gyan given by previous succesful candidates.

• vivek's Interveiw (IFS 2005 batch )
• Gyan by Vivek
• Sundara Rajan's blog (IAS 2006)
• Anurag's Interveiw (IAS 2006)

You can actually traverse to other succesful candidates interviews and other lists from these blogs. One more popular forum for IAS aspirants.

• Interview prep for IAS

This is it from my side. signing off.

Nice Article on E-govenance initiative

E-Governance initiatives

Few Good Articles in GS-II 2005

Some links which might be useful to solve our GS-II paper.. Economy
(15m) EFTA
(15m) Latin American Reserve Fund
General Science
(30 m) Ionizing and Non-Ionizing Radiations
(30 m) Digital Convergence

Cadre Matters

Dear Friends,

Hey I picked this mail from IAS_2003 Yahoo group .. Mail No: 8355. So The mail after it i.e 8356 also has given an example about how cadre allocation actually hold place.. so refer to it for further clarification.. Once again thanx satish..

You might be remembering that in my previous few mails, I had written about the IPS & then about cadre allocation. Today I am sending last two mails in this series. The Civil Service (Main) examination result is coming soon. Some of you will get through. Therefore, I shall be writing on few topics of National importance, keeping in mind the requirement of interview.

Focus of these topics shall be mainly the security scenario in the country, such as Naxalite Problem, Terrorism in Kashmir, Insurgency in the North East, LTTE, Army & common people, communal riots, disaster management and any topic that will come out of discussion.

Now I shall come to the main topic. First recapitulate what I mailed in past.

Cadre allocation is done as per D. O. no. 13012/5/84- AIS (I) dated 30/31 May 1985 which is available on persmin.nic.in In any cadre sequence of allocation is outsider, outsider, insider, outsider, outsider, insider…… There is reservation for SC/ ST/ OBC/ General categories within this sequence. There are 4 groups of cadres namely.

i. Andhra, Assam+ Meghalaya, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat ii. Haryana, Himachal, J & K, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, MP. iii. Maharashtra, Manipur + Tripura, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim. iv. Tamilnadu, AGMUT, Uttaranchal, UP, West Bengal

Each year allocation begins from next group. For CSE 2002 allocation began from Maharashtra, CSE 2003 began from Tamilnadu. This year it will begin from Andhra Pradesh. That means if the topper does not get his home cadre, he may get AP or Assam – Meghalaya.

The candidates have many a times disputed the allocation of cadre. Some have filed cases in the courts. Mr. Praveen Kumar of 54^th batch (CSE 2000) was allotted the Uttaranchal cadre. He contested that it was he who should have got the UP as insider, and not Mr. Ashutosh. The honourable Supreme Court, in Nov 2004, in “Union of India vs. Praveen Kumar” case has given a verdict in favour of Mr. Praveen Kumar, who is now ASP Allahabad. After this brief recapitulation, let us discuss something more, why cadre matters..

Theoratically speaking all the cadres are important and an All India service officer is liable to serve in anywhere, and he is also called on for the central Govt. Deputation. But factually an AIS officer spends a major part of his career in the cadre allotted to him.

1. The pay scales of the AIS officers are determined by the Centre. But some of the allowances, facilities, depend upon the cadre. 2. All know that the working culture depends upon local socio, economic and political conditions. 3. Some cadres are more deficit than others. It means a There might be more allocation to these cadres. b. Officers may get faster state promotions. For instance in Orissa, 54^th batch Officers (CSE 2000) have become the SPs of the Districts (of course the smaller districts) c. After marriage with another AIS officer the Govt. may allot both a deficit common cadre. (remember one can’t get home cadre even if he/ she marriage an AIS officer, say if wife belongs to Maharashtra cadre and Husband to Nagland cadre, and say the husband belongs to Maharashtra, the wife shall get Nagaland or both may get say Orissa) d. An officer may find difficult to go on Central deputation due to shortage of officers in his/ her cadre.

Some cadres like Nagaland, J & K, Orissa, Kerala are most deficit cadres in IPS. You might be wondering, as to why these are deficit? Reasons might be · Most officers from Northeast, J & K get married with other cadre officers. · Orissa has 32 Police districts; 15 years ago there were only 13 districts. · Orissa and Kerala do not recruit direct Dy. Superintendents of Police.

4. Some cadres have less promotee officers compared to direct recruits; hence there might be situation of lesser competition for posts of greater responsibility. Orissa, Kerala, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan have less promotee officers compared to direct recruit officers.

5. The cadres differ in population composition, and the other geographical factors. In Bihar an IPS officer serves 5,64,615 persons. Bihar is followed by Maharashtra, UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat & AP. On the other hand an IPS officer in Sikkim serves 20,802 persons. Similar is the situation of Nagaland, Manipur – Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, and J & K.

At the end of this mail I am enclosing an excel table, which gives interesting figures about what I said above.

Pl also open the next mail, where I have given a practical example of how allocation is done.

Satish Kumar, IPS

Interview A Great March Forward

I have picked this up from IAS_2003 yahoo group.. Where an IPS officer Satish had given us some of the tips for interview preperation .. In few days the results for the Civil Service Main Examination shall be out. As promised I am starting the series of articles on the preparation aspect. My endeavour is to tell you certain things from the perspective of a serving civil servant and a person who has faced the various interview boards, including the UPSC board two times. I shall be eager for your response. Similarly, please tell me about your own experience. Many of the successful candidates in mains join various interview coaching centres. Some coaching institutes are very good. Here candidates know many aspects of preparation including the grooming part. They also help to revise the current affairs. So I need not touch upon these things. I would like to tell you only one thing. In democracy, bureaucracy functions within the set norms of Constitutional Polity. The Constitution of India is the Bible of an administrator. While functioning within these limits, there are several constraints. Administration is not the simple but extremely complex thing. Many those, outside the administration are not able to appreciate these complexities & constraints. The UPSC interview board consists of such persons who have seen ups and downs in their administrative life. They want to recruit the candidate who can function within the limits set by the Constitution for promotion of Constitutional ideals. At the same time Board is interested to know whether the candidate is capable of grasping the complexity of the situation. Hence the interview. But I do not mean that the all those who possess these abilities shall be selected. What I mean that one has to display these abilities. That is more important. Some even fake these…. I shall quote a small example. One person was taking coaching at one of the prestigious coaching institutes in Delhi. He was knowing English and surfing the Internet for the study material. See how he delivers interview in Hindi. Chairman: - Mr. What kind of hobby you have “Padayatra”? Candidate: - I live in a remote village. Depend upon the agriculture for living. My fields are at a distance from my house. There are no transport means to reach there. I have to visit fields many times. Hence I have developed this hobby of Padyatra. Chairman: - Have you seen a city? Candidate: - Yes, I once came to Delhi for purchasing books and this time I am delivering the interview here. Chairman: - How you feel about Delhi? Candidate: - It very- very big place. Many times bigger than my village. Chairman: - Can you speak English? Candidate: - A little bit, I am learning English. Chairman: - and computers? Candidate: - I have seen computer but never got the opportunity to operate. Hope one day I shall learn that too! Believe friends, this professional God of falsehood, was not only selected but got the service he wanted, due to very high interview score. Why? The board chairman was known to give better marks to people from very rural background. Believe! this man had different strategies for different boards. I do not tell you to speak false before the board. His way is not at all appreciable. But his method is! He delivered what board wanted. You also do this. Start now… Step 1. Read this sentence by Karl Marx, “It not the conscience of the man which determines is social being, but it is the social being of Man, which determines his consciousness!” Read! Now Step 2. Go to UPSC site and check the names of UPSC members. Each member heads a board. Now open some good search engine like, yahoo, google and type his/ her name there. These way, collect information about his background, his views, his thinking etc. Take a notebook and divide it into various sections, precisely 9 sections and jot the information there. Meet some old golds, who know about the boards more, i.e. how they ask the question and what is the marking pattern. Step 3. Take out your mains form. Read every word you wrote there very carefully. This begins from your name, date of birth, school, preferences, hobby and anything you have written there. Now think about the possible question from the angle of each board member and think about the possible good answers! Write these questions and answers in different sections of your notebook. Step 4. Now go to some friend. Ask him to conduct your mock interview. You might be a student of economics but don’t get agitated when “no economics background” friend tries to grill you on economics. In interview board also you may face the same situation. And if you get selected; journalists, politicians, common people, NGOs shall bombard you with such questions. Step 5. After you visit so many friends, and write down the questions against each board member. (There are 4 members besides chairman, but chairman has the primacy). Write the answers you shall give. Now you have about 1000 Questions and Answers. Be comfortable. Step 6. Do like others. Read Magazines, newspapers, join coaching etc. I shall keep on giving you tips for the interview. In next few mails I shall deal upon the pressing security & disaster management related problems in India. In next mail I shall discuss the Naxalite Problem. With best wishes Satish Kumar, IPS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I picked up this mail from IAS_2003 Group.. :-) thanx Satish.