MASTERING CURRENT AFFAIRS
FOR CIVIL SERVICES EXAM
How to Prepare Current
Affairs for Civil Services Exam?
Current
affairs to the civil services exam is what the backbone is to the human body.
Just as without a backbone, our body shall not get the support to stand erect,
without current affairs, civil services preparation shall come crumbling on the
ground.
If
there is one thing that defines civil services exam, it is current affairs. And
if there is one thing that needs top priority, it is again, current affairs.
To
state a simple fact, current affairs accounts for almost sixty percent of the
GS syllabus. If we take an extended view, the current affairs count even in
optional papers such as Political Science, Sociology, Public Administration
Geography etc.
The second paper of these optional are applied aspects of the subject with special
bearing for India. And unless one knows the current developments related to the
topics of these optional papers, it will be impossible to write an effective,
relevant answer.
Thus,
one can safely say that current affairs is an all-pervasive phenomenon in civil
services exam and no one can get away from this reality. Sadly, few understand
the importance of current affairs in this exam.
Even
those who are aware of its importance are at a loss to understand as to how to
handle it. It results in poor preparation, poor marks, and frustration among the
aspirants. Therefore, a true understanding of the value and significance of
current affairs is the key to success in the civil services exam.
This article briefly summarises current affairs in all its aspects to navigate the
path of preparation for the aspirants who lack direction and purpose while
attempting to cover current affairs part.
Why current
affairs in civil services exam?
As
we all know, civil services exam is a process to select generalists and not
specialists in various administrative jobs. It follows from this that a candidate
must demonstrate a good knowledge of the issues and events that have social,
economic, political and administrative implications. For a career in civil
services, knowledge of issues of current relevance is important to make
informed decisions.
Macaulay,
who introduced the merit-based civil services under the Charter Act 1853, said
:" Knowledge is transferrable" By this what he meant was that if a
candidate has a wide knowledge of diverse subjects, it will translate into his
capacity to govern better. In other words, a civil servant, with a wide knowledge base is better equipped to discharge his duties in order to meet
the broader administrative goals as also to act in the larger public interest.
Thus, the goal of wider knowledge as advocated by Macaulay can be achieved by a
good comprehension of current affairs which is made up of a very wide, diverse
range of topics reported in newspapers, journals, websites and electronic
media.
Current affairs: Its interface with prelims and mains
syllabus
Prelims exam
and current affairs: As
it stands today, prelims has emerged as the most difficult part of civil
services exam. Many candidates are not able to clear prelims even in 2-3
attempts. Some even do not qualify it after 5 attempts. This huge failure rate
can be explained in terms of
1). Prelims being a screening test, it is more of
an elimination process rather than a selection process and
2).The
growing weightage of current affairs in prelims. Thus, current affairs have
become a major determinant of success in the prelims exam in its present format. In
GS Paper I of prelims exam, current affairs accounts for 25-30 questions out of
a total of 100 questions. Thus it accounts for one-third of marks in prelims
and sometimes even a little more. A poor performance in current affairs in
prelims, thus, is bound to doom prospects of success
How to command
current affairs for prelims?
It
is a formidable task indeed to command current issues for the prelims because
anything from anywhere can be asked in the exam. But the phrase "anything
from anywhere" can be understood to mean that it encompasses certain broad
areas and certain time periods. In terms of the time period, the current events of the last three years are from where questions are going to be set. But it is going
to be a big challenge to do the last three years of current issues. So what does one
do? Well, the answer to this question is that more focus is to be given to
events of last one year as bulk of questions will be from this segment.
Then,
one should also quickly revise last two years current affairs (i.e. preceding
the current year). To explain it further, it means that if you are going to
appear in 2019 exam being conducted on 2nd June 2019, you should focus on
events between July 1, 2018, to May 15, 2019. In addition, you should also check
out important issues and events which took place in 2016-17 as well as 2017-18.
It will be risky not to consider the last three years' current affairs and just
concentrate on last year.
Areas of
current affairs to be covered for prelims:
I. Political,
constitutional, legal issues: This will include major constitutional
amendments, supreme court judgments, issues in RPA Act etc
II. Economic issues: Under
this, one should focus on issues confronting our agriculture, industry, trade
and commerce, foreign trade, inflation, export, RBI, features of budget etc.
III. Govt programs and
policies: Each year a number of govt schemes are launched. One must know
thoroughly about these schemes and programs which can be accessed directly from
govt websites or are extensively covered in Yojana, Kurukshetra magazines.
IV. Environment: This
section has come alive recently in the prelims exam and a good number of
questions are being asked from this section. It requires both the basic knowledge
of ecology and environment as well as current happenings on this front. For
example, one must know about World Overshoots Day, Earth Hour, Earth Day all of
which were globally celebrated recently. Many reports on climate change have
been published e.g. IPCC report, UN reports on loss of biodiversity etc. One
has to look into the major findings of these reports. Special emphasis should
be given to Indian environmental problems that have been recently reported in
news.
V. Awards: This includes
sports, film, cultural awards and also awards given to Indian personalities.
For example, PM Modi has been accorded highest UAE award " Zayed
Medal" this year. Similarly, an Indian teenager, Amika George was given
"Goal keepers of the world "award for her movement "Free periods"
which is about making sanitary pads accessible to poor women. A documentary on
India called "Periods: The end of Sentence"has won an Oscar award
this year. These are highly likely questions in this year's prelims exam.
VI. Science and Technology:
Latest developments and discoveries in sc./tech, with special reference to
India must be covered with minute details. For example, the first picture of a
black hole has taken by the Event Horizon telescope, the naming of this black hole
as POWEHI, and the computer scientist, Ms, Katie Bouman, who developed the
algorithm for this picture -such details are required to cover these scientific
events. Similarly, the use of the technology known as CRISPR-cas9 for producing twin
babies by a Chinese biotechnologist, He Jiankui and the significance of ASAT's
success to India's space achievements are relevant for this year's prelims exam.
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