UPSC to divulge Civil Services selection under RTI

The Supreme Court has asked the UPSC to reveal details of civil services selection process for those who seek it under the Right to Information.

UPSC had been resisting demands for divulging the selection process, including scaling system and cut-off marks, despite orders by the Central Information Commission and Delhi high court. The legal battle between UPSC and civil services aspirants finally came to an end in November 2010 when a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha asked UPSC to withdraw its petition and provide information to students.

Students have been fighting for transparency in civil services examination since 2006, when results for UPSC preliminary examinations were declared. Several students, who had not qualified, filed RTI applications with UPSC seeking information on raw marks and cut-off marks in subjects, the scaling procedure and model answers for different questions in subjects.

The main contention of the students was that the level of difficulty of papers in 23 optional subjects did not match. The students also felt that UPSC did not have a fair scaling procedure to match the performance of examinees who had opted for different subjects.

However, UPSC argued that revealing model answers or cut-off marks would benefit private coaching institutes, which would field dummy candidates and crack the system. When aspirants approached CIC, the commission directed UPSC on November 13, 2006, to divulge all information. But UPSC challenged this order in the Delhi high court.

Later it moved the Supreme Court through a special leave petition. The matter came up for final judgment on November 18, 2010. The bench observed that UPSC examination system would change from 2011 and it should not have any reservations about divulging its old selection process. UPSC would now have to divulge details to the students in a month.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan said: "The Supreme Court observed that a new examination system would be in place in 2011 so UPSC's plea that its system would be compromised does not stand. UPSC was asked to withdraw the petition. Now it would have to divulge details to the civil services aspirants."

Previous Year's Question Paper - Civil Services (Main) Exam, 2010

Civil Services (Main) Exam, 2010
Essay
General Studies	Paper I
	Paper II
English Language (Compulsory)
Indian Languages (Compulsory)
Assamese	Bengali
Bodo	Dogri
Gujarati	Hindi
Kannada	Kashmiri
Konkani	Maithili
Malayalam	Manipuri
Marathi	Nepali
Oriya	Punjabi
Sanskrit	Santali
Sindhi (Arabic)	Sindhi (Devnagiri)
Tamil	Telugu
Urdu
Optional Subjects for Main Examination
Agriculture Paper I	Agriculture Paper II
Animal Husbandary & Veterinary Science Paper I	Animal Husbandary & Veterinary Science Paper II
Anthropology Paper I	Anthropology Paper II
Botony Paper I	Botony Paper II
Chemistry Paper I	Chemistry Paper II
Civil Engineering Paper I	Civil Engineering Paper II
Commerce & Accountancy Paper I	Commerce & Accountancy Paper II
Economics Paper I	Economics Paper II
Electrical Engineering Paper I	Electrical Engineering Paper II
Geography Paper I	Geography Paper II
Geology Paper I	Geology Paper II
History Paper I	History Paper II
Law Paper I	Law Paper II
Management Paper I	Management Paper II
Mathematics Paper I	Mathematics Paper II
Mechanical Engineering Paper I	Mechanical Engineering Paper II
Medical Science Paper I	Medical Science Paper II
Philosphy Paper I	Philosphy Paper II
Physics Paper I	Physics Paper II
Political Science & Internation Relations Paper I	Political Science & Internation Relations Paper II
Psychology Paper I	Psychology Paper II
Public Administration Paper I	Public Administration Paper II
Sociology Paper I	Sociology Paper II
Statistics Paper I	Statistics Paper II
Zoology Paper I	Zoology Paper II
Literature Subjects for Main Examination
Arabic Paper I	Arabic Paper II
Assamese Paper I	Assamese Paper II
Bengali Paper I	Bengali Paper II
Bodo Paper I	Bodo Paper II
Dogri Paper I	Dogri Paper II
English Paper I	English Paper II
French Paper I	French Paper II
German Paper I	German Paper II
Gujarati Paper I	Gujarati Paper II
Hindi Paper I	Hindi Paper II
Kannada Paper I	Kannada Paper II
Manipuri Paper I	Manipuri Paper II
Maithili Paper I	Maithili Paper II
Malayalam Paper I	Malayalam Paper II
Marathi Paper I	Marathi Paper II
Oriya Paper I	Oriya Paper II
Pali Paper I	Pali Paper II
Persian Paper I	Persian Paper II
Punjabi Paper I	Punjabi Paper II
Sanskrit Paper I	Sanskrit Paper II
Santali Paper I	Santali Paper II
Sindhi (Arabic) Paper I	Sindhi (Arabic) Paper II
Sindhi (Devanagiri) Paper I	Sindhi (Devanagiri) Paper II
Tamil Paper I	Tamil Paper II
Telugu Paper I	Telugu Paper II
Urdu Paper I	Urdu Paper II

Now, UPSC hopefuls can give interview in mother tongue

In a relief to thousands of civil service aspirants, candidates for the Union Public Service Commission main examination can now give their personality test interview in a language different from the one they choose for the written paper. English will no longer be the mandatory medium for the interview, even if the examination is written in that language.

In a nation where joining the civil services is still considered a big deal, more than 4.8 lakh students appeared for the preliminary UPSC examination this year. The results are expected around August after which the main examination is likely to be held at the year end, in which the candidates' list is expected to be whittled down to approximately 13,000. The list of vacancies would be a fraction at about 1,000 going by the 2010 figures where only the most deserving will get selected. But starting next year, the personality test interviews will be much easier and a relaxed affair. They can even give the test in their mother tongue, if it figures in one of the languages in the eighth schedule.

UPSC under secretary M Mukhopadhyay on Thursday informed the Bombay High Court of the far-reaching recommendations made by an expert committee and accepted by the commission. Accordingly, candidates who opt for an Indian language (other than Hindi) for the written part of the exam will be allowed to choose the same language or English or Hindi as the medium for the interview. Similarly, the UPSC affidavit submitted by its counsel, Rui Rodrigues, also said that from now on, "candidates opting to write the civil services (main) paper in English may be given the option to be interviewed either in English or Hindi or any other Indian language opted by them for the compulsory Indian language paper in the written part".

However, those candidates who are exempt from the compulsory Indian language paper will have to appear for the interview in English or Hindi only. The decision is a step in ruling out injustice and towards creating a level playing field for scores of candidates across India since English is not a native language and regional languages are the primary medium of instruction in scores of schools.

The expert committee headed by professor B B Bhattacharya, ex-vice chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehry University, was set up after Chittranjan Kumar, a 2008 candidate, had filed a public interest litigaton last year questioning what he said was an "existing draconian" rule that required a person writing the UPSC exam in English to also take the interview in the same language.

On Thursday, after taking the commission's affidavit on record and approving its action, the HC bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice G S Godbole disposed of the PIL. The department of personal training of the Indian government has been informed of the changes and soon the detailed application form for the civil services (main) examination will be appropriately modified to ease things for candidates who come from a cross-section of India's varied socio-economic sector determined to crack the civil services code.

The PIL had questioned the fairness of continuing with English as the language for the interview when what was being tested was his or her personality not language skills.

Calendar for Examinations - 2011

S.No.	Name of Examination	Date of Notification	Last Date to Apply	Date of Exam	Download
1.	Madhya Pradesh (MPPSC)	11.10.2010	25.11.2010	20.02.2011 (Sunday)	pdf, Admit Card
2.	Tamil Nadu (TNPSC)	29.12.2010	28.01.2011	22.05.2011 (Sunday)	pdf
3.	Uttar Pradesh (UPPSC)	01.01.2011	28.01.2011	26.06.2011 (Sunday)	pdf
4.	Maharashtra (MPSC)	13.12.2010	12.01.2011	13.02.2011 (Sunday)	Notice
5.	UPSC Preliminary 2011	19.02.2011	21.03.2011	12.06.2011 (Sunday)	Notification

For PDF file right click on hyperlinks and select 'Save Target As' option to download file.

UPSC Prelims 2010 - General Knowledge

History of India

1.      There are only two known examples of cave paintings of the Gupta period in ancient India. One of these is paintings of Ajanta caves. Where is the other surviving example of Gupta paintings?
(a) Bagh caves
(b) Ellora caves
(c) Lomas Rishi cave
(d) Nasik caves

Answer: (a)

Explanation:

Ajanta Caves are located just outside the village of Ajinṭhā in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra. There are 28-30 rock-cut cave monuments created during the first century BCE and 5th century AD, containing paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art. Since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Bagh Caves are a group of nine rock-cut monuments, situated among the southern slopes of the Vindhyas in Kukshi tehsil of Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh. These are renowned for mural paintings by master painters of ancient India. The Bagh Caves, like those at Ajanta, were excavated by master craftmen on perpendicular sandstone rock face of a hill on the far bank of a seasonal stream, the Baghani. Buddhist in inspiration, of the nine caves, only five have survived. All of them are 'viharas' or monasteries having quadrangular plan.  A copperplate inscription of Maharaja Subandhu, recording his donation for the repair of the vihara was found at the site of Cave 2. Though, the date of the Bagh inscription is missing, his Badwani copperplate inscription is dated in the year (Gupta era) 167 (487). So the repair of Cave 2 took place in the late 5th century.

The Lomash Rishi cave in the Barabar Caves belongs to Mauryan period. The Barabar Caves are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India, mostly dating from the Mauryan period (322–185 BCE), and some with Ashokan inscriptions, located in the Jehanabad District of Bihar.

The Nasik Caves belong to Satvahana period. The Nasik cave inscription of Gautami Balashri claims that her son Gautamiputra Satakarni's dominion included Anupa.

Source: Multiple sources.