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Khelo India
GENERAL-STUDIES
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revising underlined stu. In fact, with well prepared notes, it may be possible to revise your entire
syllabus some 5-10 times and each successive revision will be faster!
3. Notes are customizable. We can frame our own questions which we think may be asked in UPSC
and prepare our notes accordingly. But we cant do the same for underlined stu.
Notes on Paper vs Notes on Computer
Try to make notes on computer if your typing speed is even half decent.
Making notes on computer has one very very big advantage over making notes on paper. It is editable and can be forma ed easily. We can delete, format, append, insert, do anything with notes on
computer and yet make it one clean nice story. For instance, many stories in current aairs develop
over weeks and months. eg. the question on Maldives. No newspaper story will have a complete picture of it. But the question will only ask the complete story. So in our notes, we will have to edit bit
by bit over time so that by the exam time we have the entire story in one place. The choice is yours
read n number of newspaper cuBings or physical paper notes, each containing partial information or
read one coherent, complete story in one place only on computer. This will help us in quick revisions
as well.
Online note making will also help us in revising our entire syllabus 5-10 times, so that all the stu 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 stu.
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 (hBps://www.evernote.com/pub/crazyphoton/dummy) 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 formaBing 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 specic 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 dierent from normal B, why is it more dicult 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 identied and not bother
about facts and gures. 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.
Other aspects of newspaper/magazine reading
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PAPER-III
General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Indian Constitution- historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, signicant 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 nances 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 industry- the 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.
Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of
these schemes; mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and be erment of
these vulnerable sections.
Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education,
Human Resources.
Issues relating to poverty and hunger.
Vajiram came out with an online pdf on various schemes (Click here (hBp://thesupermanreturns.les.wordpress.com/2013/12/vajiram-developmental_policies__issues.pdf) to download), its
printed copy would be available on photocopy shops in Rajinder Nagar. HandwriBen classnotes by
the same institutions were also helpful. Newspapers, pib etc. will come in handy here. CAG reports
have very good analysis on various schemes as well which can be found on internet.
Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models,
successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and
other measures.
Role of civil services in a democracy.
These topics are well covered in 2nd ARC reports.
India and its neighborhood- relations.
Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or aecting Indias interests
Eect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on Indias interests, Indian diaspora.
Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.
IR has to be newspapers n internet based.
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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 wri en material may also help in some topics.
Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and
employment.
Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.
Government Budgeting.
govt budgeting has to come from 2nd ARC report.
Major crops cropping pa erns in various parts of the country, dierent types of irrigation and irrigation
systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints;
e-technology in the aid of farmers
agriculture there was State of Indian Agriculture report tabled in parliament in March 2012.
Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution
System- objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buer stocks and food security;
Technology missions; economics of animal-rearing.
Food processing and related industries in India- scope and signicance, location, upstream and downstream
requirements, supply chain management.
Land reforms in India.
Eects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their eects on industrial growth.
Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
Investment models.
All the above issues are well covered in newspapers, internet and editorials etc. Just keep an eye for
anything relevant. + I had economics optional, so never really prepared above specically for GS.
Science and Technology- developments and their applications and eects in everyday life
Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new
technology.
Awareness in the elds of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues
relating to intellectual property rights.
Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
S&T: Mostly adhoc preparation. coaching classes material is relied upon in the nal month to boost
condence but it doesnt really help in the exam.
Disaster and disaster management.
Disaster: 2nd ARC report and CAG report on disaster preparedness
Linkages between development and spread of extremism.
2nd ARC report: 5th schedule, PESA, FRA, 6th schedule topics are imp. here
Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.
Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites
in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention
Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism
Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate
Security: coaching material and newspapers etc.
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PAPER-V
General Studies- IV: Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude
Basic material has to be 2nd ARC report #4 and also Vajiram and Insight handwriBen notes. For
moral thinkers, aBitude, emotional intelligence topics, refer to Sriram printed notes.
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