Current Affairs

  Current affairs are arguably the most important aspect of the UPSC Civil Services examinations as they are integral to each and every stage of the examination. Thus, in order to be successful in the exam, a candidate must be aware of the current events of national and international importance. 

A common question in the minds of aspirants is regarding the duration of current affairs one must follow. For prelims, one must follow the current affairs of the preceding year. For example, if one's attempt is in June 2021, follow current affairs from June 2020 to May 2021. One must do the same for the mains examination as well. For the interview stage, focus on current affairs of the preceding 3-4 months. 

The next question is regarding the newspaper, daily, monthly and yearly current affairs compilations to be followed. I would read The Hindu daily, followed by InsightsIAS and Vajiram daily current affairs. Then, I would make my notes on Evernote. In choosing what current affairs to make notes of, look at the syllabus. If an issue is related to any topic of the syllabus, jot it down. My notes would be divided topic wise like so - 

As you can see, I divided current affairs into various sub topics such as polity and governance, defence and security, environment, international relations etc. that enabled me to easily search a particular keyword, revise quickly and interlink them to the static part of the syllabus. I would often simply copy-paste the current affairs from the various websites. If there was something that the websites missed, I would type it out from the newspaper itself. All this would take me about 1.5 hours daily. If your speed is slow in the beginning, don't worry, you will become faster with time. 

I would revise these current affairs weekly. At the end of the month, I read the Vision and Vajiram current affairs compilations (I only followed Vision after my prelims). About six months to my prelims, I began revising current affairs from the beginning of my preparation. Closer to my exams (1-2 months before), I revised current affairs from Vision's PT-365 and Mains 365. 

Besides enabling one to answer questions directly in the prelims, current affairs are important to substantiate one's answers in the mains exams as well. In the interview stage, one can be asked direct questions from the current happenings. For instance, I was asked about President Trump's visit to India. 

Thus, clearly, one cannot stop reading the newspaper and keeping up with current affairs till the result is out. Even after that, as an administrator, one should keep abreast of the daily happening to be an efficient civil servant.

Watch this space for my notes, that I shall be uploading pretty soon!