Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Howitis
Howitis
Online note making will also help us in revising our entire syllabus
5-10 times, so that all the stuff is so well placed in our mind that
when we are solving 25 questions in 3 hours in the exam, we dont
take a long time to recollect and arrange stuff.
We should also get into the habit of making notes for anything and
everything we read. This may include the basic books, the advanced
books, newspapers, magazines, reports etc.
These notes must be organized issue-wise (eg. say Coal energy)
irrespective of the sources we may read from. Thus whether we read
from a book, newspaper, internet or wherever, all our notes on coal
energy should be in one place only. To give an example of what I am
talking, uploading here my note on Energy. Click here to see the
note on energy. This will provide a picture of how to organize the
notes (forgive me for some instances of lack of formatting in the
note as they were added when I had grown lazy).
Newspaper and Magazine Reading
News vs Issues
People in the beginning tend to focus on news and make notes
accordingly. UPSC never asks news it asks issues. For example,
MDR-TB is an issue, we need to focus on that and not any individual
news item. While reading any news on MDR-TB, we need to connect
it to the key points of the issue. An issue specific reading thus tries
to:
1. identify key points with the issue in hand. For eg. in MDR-TB, the
key challenges are the challenges it poses to the public health, why
is it different from normal B, why is it more difficult to handle, what
are the institutional factors which are leading to its spread, what
needs to be done to tackle it, what steps is the government taking.
2. Then when we read any news, we need to connect it to the key
points so identified and not bother about facts and figures. For eg. a
news item on MDR-TB may talk about some places, some drugs,
some persons we need to only worry about our key points and
skip all the rest.
PAPER-III
General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity,
Social Justice and International relations.
Indian Constitution- historical underpinnings, evolution,
features, amendments, significant provisions and basic
structure.
Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the
States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal
structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local
levels and challenges therein.
Separation of powers between various organs dispute
redressal mechanisms and institutions.
Comparison of the Indian constitutional scheme with
that of other countries
Parliament and State Legislatures structure,
functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges
and issues arising out of these.
Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive
and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments of the
Government; pressure groups and formal/informal
associations and their role in the Polity.
Salient features of the Representation of Peoples Act.
Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers,
functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional
Bodies.
Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies
Government policies and interventions for development
in various sectors and issues arising out of their design
and implementation.
Development processes and the development industrythe role of NGOs, SHGs, various groups and
associations, donors, charities, institutional and other
stakeholders.
For all the polity, read DD Basu or Laximakanth thoroughly. Read
2nd ARC relevant reports and Puncchi Commission Reports. These
reports directly cover most of the topics.
PAPER-IV
General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development,
Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster
Management.
Economy section has to come from budget, economic
survey, 12th 5 yr plan, newsppr n intnt. Coaching hand
written material may also help in some topics.
Indian Economy and issues relating to planning,
mobilization of resources, growth, development and
employment.
PAPER-V
General Studies- IV: Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude
Basic material has to be 2nd ARC report #4 and also Vajiram and
Insight handwritten notes. For moral thinkers, attitude, emotional
intelligence topics, refer to Sriram printed notes.
Standard
Note: Apart from the below mentioned sources, four things are to
be religiously followed for the GS mains exam. They are as follows:
1. India Year Book
2. Twelfth Five Year Plan document
3. Websites of important ministeries (those related to the syllabus)
4. The Hindu for general news and Economic Times for the economy
section. Apart from your reading of newspapers, please verify that
you have not missed out any important issue by monthly referring
tohttp://www.mrunal.org or the monthly current affair notes of any
coaching institute like Vision IAS/ Vajiram.
Rest sources are mentioned below:
GS Paper 1
1.
2.
3.
7.
DD Basu/ Laxminkant
Vajiram notes on constitutions of different countries
All ARC reports
Report on guide to Citizen Charter
Annual Report of MEA
Newpapers
GS Paper 3
1.