7 ms·

India’s civil servant exam

61 points by kareemm 11y ago

simula67 11y ago
The author does not pose the most important question. Do we need the brightest minds in India doing foreign affairs ? Or should they be entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and politicians ?
- EliRivers 11y ago
  The brightest minds developing fart apps does seem like a waste.
- free 11y ago
  With a population of more than a billion I think India has enough bright minds available for all of them. Also, with India trying to increase its influence and assertiveness in global affairs having bright people in foreign affairs seems a good thing to happen.
  - witty_username 11y ago
    > With a population of more than a billion I think India has enough bright minds available for all of them. Nope, most people aren't educated fully.
    - free 11y ago
      India has a literacy rate of 90% as of 2015[1], so I think the point holds. 1. http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=IND&regioncode=40535 http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.a...
      - notahacker 11y ago
        There's a bit more to being well educated than basic literacy though, and it's only among the young that literacy almost reaches 90% Your link also notes that there are 255 million illiterate people in India, which is around the total population of the world's fourth most populous country.
      - witty_username 11y ago
        Googling India literacy rate finds a source which says 75%. Maybe my gut experience is wrong because I live in an urban city in India, but I would be pretty impressed by 90%.
  - known 11y ago
    "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2480424/VISUAL-EDIT-India-little-better-Ethiopia.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-24804...
- jpatokal 11y ago
  Yes, or at least some of them. India, pop. 1.25 billion, has around nine hundred (900) diplomats total in its foreign service (that is, diplomats overseas and in the country combined), and it's in a bad neighborhood with two nuclear-armed neighbors who are either not particularly friendly (China) or downright hostile (Pakistan). Compare with Singapore, pop. 5 million, which also has about 900 diplomats!
- jigen 11y ago
  Definitely better than what the US is doing with its foreign policy towards the Indian subcontinet. The state department's south asian wing is full of ignorant and incompetent idiots.
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    Can you expand on this? I know Robin Raphel almost got packed off to jail...
    - Brig303 11y ago
      One source: http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/how-pakistan-beguiles-the-americans-a-guide-for-foreign-officials/ http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/how-pakistan-beguiles-the-a... C Christine Fair is a Professor at Georgetown and at one time was offered the role of Asstt Secy for South Asia. It's a comedy that the lack of a dedicated South Asia cadre can have near disastrous consequences for US foreign policy.
    - notfoss 11y ago
      Well, one I can point out is Nancy Powell (former US ambassador to India). She failed to assess the popularity of India's current prime minister on time, for instance. You can search for it on the net.
      - smcl 11y ago
        I don't understand this. I googled for a few things but only got some stories about her meeting Modi when he was in charge of Gujarat but nothing particularly interesting or related to what you said
        notfoss 11y ago
        Nancy Powell was known for her proximity with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton on the other hand was very much against Modi getting to power. See for reference: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-hillarys-get-modi-policy http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-h...
- brudgers 11y ago
  The American historian Joeseph Ellis has an interesting take on greatness. At the time of the American revolution, Virginia had about the same population as present day Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, yet it produced Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and Marshall. This suggests that there are many many latent bright minds at the scale of contemporary populations. It also suggests that any shortage May be a resource allocation issue.
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  > doing foreign affairs This isn't about diplomats, it's all government jobs.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
thewarrior 11y ago
This exam is possibly one of the most difficult in the world. You need an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of history, geography, economics and everything in between and the ability to marshal all those facts to answer a question like : "The internet is a manifestation of Max Weber's iron cage of rationality. Discuss" In just 10-15 minutes. Here's a question paper : http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.pdf http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.... And http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.pdf http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.... And this is just one of the subjects. You have papers on English, an Indian language and also a paper on your subject of specialization and more .. Some people question the merits of choosing civil servants based on such an exam but getting through a pretty impressive feat. I'd compare it to being a polymath Jeopardy champion or something. I'm pretty sure Indian Civil Servants are among the sharpest in the world. In terms of effectiveness however , our bureaucracy is amongst the worst. Quite the paradox.
- Jacqued 11y ago
  I don't think it's much of a paradox that people who excel at memorization and taking tests (and choose to pursue such a demanding test and work on it for years) are not that good at doing actual meaningful work afterwards. I'd venture that a lot of effective, hard-working, achieving people would simply not spend so much time and energy on such a test. Given the amount of memorization involved, it probably discriminates for people with a faith and trust in the established system, more like ineffective bureaucrats than reformers.
- balladeer 11y ago
  As someone with quite some civil servants (IAS (admin), IFS (foreign), and IPS (police)) in close circles (mostly acquaintances and alumni) I would beg to differ, not much, but would differ nonetheless. It's not that much about sharpness as much it's about rot learning. As a matter of fact civil services is one of those important Indian institutions that has retained the idea of rot learning as a measure of one's ability in all rounds of life. So the bureaucracy being worst is not at all a paradox. It's a result of a failed method of recruitment coupled with other institutional and social handicaps like systematic corruption and general greed (in most cases barring rare exceptions) as the solve motive of these candidates. Go to Delhi's Mukherji Nagar area (centred around Batra Cinema) and you'll see thousands of youth (some already past their youth) toiling the midnight oil mugging volumes with no interest in any of those subjects whatsoever and many of these midnight oil toilers would be declared "crème de la crème" of our country around the middle of every year and with that result would come a lifetime of power, its abuse, and other largesses in life that mere mortals of this large country can't even dream of. Actually some of those luxuries would be unattainable to even the moneybags of India. If you go to them as an interviewer from a newspaper (either before or after their success/failure) you'll get all the grandiose ideas they have for the mother nation and why they are going towards this path of being a civil servant "sacrificing" their lives. On the other hand if you are a friend or family, you'll hear on dinner tables, during smoke breaks "Aah, I should have taken IRS (revenue) and not waited for IPS/IAS last year; there's enough money right there" and right then maybe the father intercepts, "that's what I was saying. Look at Sharma Ji, he recently bought 3 flats in <insert a posh locality in India>". Needless to say Sharma Ji is an IRS officer. You get the drift. As a side note, I would like to add that I have seen honest ones "turn" just for survival. I am not giving them any brawny points for at least trying before corrupting, but I can't blame them either seeing the precedences[1]. [1] http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/7-Civil-Servants-Who-Paid-Heavily-for-Being-Honest-nid-180346-cid-1.html http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/7-Civil-Servants-Wh... "indian civil servants killed" gets a lot more results on google.
vshan 11y ago
On similar lines is the Joint Entrance Exam (or JEE), the entrance test for admission into the Indian Institutes of Technology (and a toned-down version for admission into less selective institutes). This year over 13 lakhs, or 1.3 million students appeared for the exam. Being an applicant in the past year, I can state for a fact that the last pre-Uni year is one of the most stressful years for an Indian student aspiring to go into tech. Sample JEE question paper: http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p1.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p1.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p2.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p2.pdf Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/jee-main-2015-number-of-aspirants-appearing-for-the-exam/1/413277.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/jee-main-2015-n...
darkhorn 11y ago
The inventor of 0 is from India but Gypsies too.
al2o3cr 11y ago
It's like the F2P/IAP dynamic but in real life - "here's an incredibly difficult grind to get where you want to go. Or, you can slip me a few bucks and make this all go away..."
brudgers 11y ago
This makes getting funded by YC look relatively less daunting and positively straight to the point.
trextrex 11y ago
One hypothesis that I have to explain why India is doing reasonably well in terms of economic growth in spite of the pervasive corruption is that the civil services, full of really really smart and driven people, are getting things done, and done right, in spite of the incompetence and disinterest of politicians. Or maybe I've been watching one too many episodes of "Yes Minister".
chki 11y ago
Isn't it an enormous task to correct all these tests? If there are actually 500k+ applicants that write a three hour test with up to 5k words, that would probably take a staggering amount of man hours.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  The 500,000 initial applicants take a preliminary test that consists solely of multiple choice questions. [0] This year only 15,000 applicants passed on to the second round of testing. [1] [0] http://www.webcitation.org/604rj8vNB http://www.webcitation.org/604rj8vNB [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/07/are-you-smart-enough-to-pass-indias-civil-servant-exam-no.html https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/07/are-you-smart-...
  - chki 11y ago
    ok, thanks.
known 11y ago
I'm told that UPSC discriminates BC/SC/ST aspirants for 300 marks in Personal Interview; Govt must ban personal interviews in all its recruitment;

61 points by kareemm 11y ago

The author does not pose the most important question. Do we need the brightest minds in India doing foreign affairs ? Or should they be entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and politicians ?

EliRivers 11y ago
The brightest minds developing fart apps does seem like a waste.
free 11y ago
With a population of more than a billion I think India has enough bright minds available for all of them. Also, with India trying to increase its influence and assertiveness in global affairs having bright people in foreign affairs seems a good thing to happen.
- witty_username 11y ago
  > With a population of more than a billion I think India has enough bright minds available for all of them. Nope, most people aren't educated fully.
  - free 11y ago
    India has a literacy rate of 90% as of 2015[1], so I think the point holds. 1. http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=IND&regioncode=40535 http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.a...
    - notahacker 11y ago
      There's a bit more to being well educated than basic literacy though, and it's only among the young that literacy almost reaches 90% Your link also notes that there are 255 million illiterate people in India, which is around the total population of the world's fourth most populous country.
    - witty_username 11y ago
      Googling India literacy rate finds a source which says 75%. Maybe my gut experience is wrong because I live in an urban city in India, but I would be pretty impressed by 90%.
- known 11y ago
  "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2480424/VISUAL-EDIT-India-little-better-Ethiopia.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-24804...
jpatokal 11y ago
Yes, or at least some of them. India, pop. 1.25 billion, has around nine hundred (900) diplomats total in its foreign service (that is, diplomats overseas and in the country combined), and it's in a bad neighborhood with two nuclear-armed neighbors who are either not particularly friendly (China) or downright hostile (Pakistan). Compare with Singapore, pop. 5 million, which also has about 900 diplomats!
jigen 11y ago
Definitely better than what the US is doing with its foreign policy towards the Indian subcontinet. The state department's south asian wing is full of ignorant and incompetent idiots.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  Can you expand on this? I know Robin Raphel almost got packed off to jail...
  - Brig303 11y ago
    One source: http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/how-pakistan-beguiles-the-americans-a-guide-for-foreign-officials/ http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/how-pakistan-beguiles-the-a... C Christine Fair is a Professor at Georgetown and at one time was offered the role of Asstt Secy for South Asia. It's a comedy that the lack of a dedicated South Asia cadre can have near disastrous consequences for US foreign policy.
  - notfoss 11y ago
    Well, one I can point out is Nancy Powell (former US ambassador to India). She failed to assess the popularity of India's current prime minister on time, for instance. You can search for it on the net.
    - smcl 11y ago
      I don't understand this. I googled for a few things but only got some stories about her meeting Modi when he was in charge of Gujarat but nothing particularly interesting or related to what you said
      - notfoss 11y ago
        Nancy Powell was known for her proximity with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton on the other hand was very much against Modi getting to power. See for reference: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-hillarys-get-modi-policy http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-h...
brudgers 11y ago
The American historian Joeseph Ellis has an interesting take on greatness. At the time of the American revolution, Virginia had about the same population as present day Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, yet it produced Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and Marshall. This suggests that there are many many latent bright minds at the scale of contemporary populations. It also suggests that any shortage May be a resource allocation issue.
a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
> doing foreign affairs This isn't about diplomats, it's all government jobs.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

thewarrior 11y ago

This exam is possibly one of the most difficult in the world. You need an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of history, geography, economics and everything in between and the ability to marshal all those facts to answer a question like : "The internet is a manifestation of Max Weber's iron cage of rationality. Discuss" In just 10-15 minutes. Here's a question paper : http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.pdf http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.... And http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.pdf http://www.upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/2013/CSM%202013/GS%20I.... And this is just one of the subjects. You have papers on English, an Indian language and also a paper on your subject of specialization and more .. Some people question the merits of choosing civil servants based on such an exam but getting through a pretty impressive feat. I'd compare it to being a polymath Jeopardy champion or something. I'm pretty sure Indian Civil Servants are among the sharpest in the world. In terms of effectiveness however , our bureaucracy is amongst the worst. Quite the paradox.

Jacqued 11y ago
I don't think it's much of a paradox that people who excel at memorization and taking tests (and choose to pursue such a demanding test and work on it for years) are not that good at doing actual meaningful work afterwards. I'd venture that a lot of effective, hard-working, achieving people would simply not spend so much time and energy on such a test. Given the amount of memorization involved, it probably discriminates for people with a faith and trust in the established system, more like ineffective bureaucrats than reformers.
balladeer 11y ago
As someone with quite some civil servants (IAS (admin), IFS (foreign), and IPS (police)) in close circles (mostly acquaintances and alumni) I would beg to differ, not much, but would differ nonetheless. It's not that much about sharpness as much it's about rot learning. As a matter of fact civil services is one of those important Indian institutions that has retained the idea of rot learning as a measure of one's ability in all rounds of life. So the bureaucracy being worst is not at all a paradox. It's a result of a failed method of recruitment coupled with other institutional and social handicaps like systematic corruption and general greed (in most cases barring rare exceptions) as the solve motive of these candidates. Go to Delhi's Mukherji Nagar area (centred around Batra Cinema) and you'll see thousands of youth (some already past their youth) toiling the midnight oil mugging volumes with no interest in any of those subjects whatsoever and many of these midnight oil toilers would be declared "crème de la crème" of our country around the middle of every year and with that result would come a lifetime of power, its abuse, and other largesses in life that mere mortals of this large country can't even dream of. Actually some of those luxuries would be unattainable to even the moneybags of India. If you go to them as an interviewer from a newspaper (either before or after their success/failure) you'll get all the grandiose ideas they have for the mother nation and why they are going towards this path of being a civil servant "sacrificing" their lives. On the other hand if you are a friend or family, you'll hear on dinner tables, during smoke breaks "Aah, I should have taken IRS (revenue) and not waited for IPS/IAS last year; there's enough money right there" and right then maybe the father intercepts, "that's what I was saying. Look at Sharma Ji, he recently bought 3 flats in <insert a posh locality in India>". Needless to say Sharma Ji is an IRS officer. You get the drift. As a side note, I would like to add that I have seen honest ones "turn" just for survival. I am not giving them any brawny points for at least trying before corrupting, but I can't blame them either seeing the precedences[1]. [1] http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/7-Civil-Servants-Who-Paid-Heavily-for-Being-Honest-nid-180346-cid-1.html http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/7-Civil-Servants-Wh... "indian civil servants killed" gets a lot more results on google.

vshan 11y ago

On similar lines is the Joint Entrance Exam (or JEE), the entrance test for admission into the Indian Institutes of Technology (and a toned-down version for admission into less selective institutes). This year over 13 lakhs, or 1.3 million students appeared for the exam. Being an applicant in the past year, I can state for a fact that the last pre-Uni year is one of the most stressful years for an Indian student aspiring to go into tech. Sample JEE question paper: http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p1.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p1.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p2.pdf http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2013p2.pdf Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/jee-main-2015-number-of-aspirants-appearing-for-the-exam/1/413277.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/jee-main-2015-n...

darkhorn 11y ago

The inventor of 0 is from India but Gypsies too.

al2o3cr 11y ago

It's like the F2P/IAP dynamic but in real life - "here's an incredibly difficult grind to get where you want to go. Or, you can slip me a few bucks and make this all go away..."

brudgers 11y ago

This makes getting funded by YC look relatively less daunting and positively straight to the point.

trextrex 11y ago

One hypothesis that I have to explain why India is doing reasonably well in terms of economic growth in spite of the pervasive corruption is that the civil services, full of really really smart and driven people, are getting things done, and done right, in spite of the incompetence and disinterest of politicians. Or maybe I've been watching one too many episodes of "Yes Minister".

chki 11y ago

Isn't it an enormous task to correct all these tests? If there are actually 500k+ applicants that write a three hour test with up to 5k words, that would probably take a staggering amount of man hours.

garrettgrimsley 11y ago
The 500,000 initial applicants take a preliminary test that consists solely of multiple choice questions. [0] This year only 15,000 applicants passed on to the second round of testing. [1] [0] http://www.webcitation.org/604rj8vNB http://www.webcitation.org/604rj8vNB [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/07/are-you-smart-enough-to-pass-indias-civil-servant-exam-no.html https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/07/are-you-smart-...
- chki 11y ago
  ok, thanks.

known 11y ago

I'm told that UPSC discriminates BC/SC/ST aspirants for 300 marks in Personal Interview; Govt must ban personal interviews in all its recruitment;