How To Read Newspaper for IAS Exam

Civil Services Exam, conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruitment to higher Civil Services of the Government of India, is the most prestigious exam in India that is taken up by lakhs of aspirants from every part of India every year. The two main reasons behind this motivation is the penchant desire to join the elite class of bureaucracy and service of the nation. However, the honour and respect that is given to a bureaucrat may also be the reason behind this. The journey to the civil services is not the easier one as it requires patience, perseverance and strong will to clear the exam as it is regarded as the most difficult exam in India. The exam is conducted in three phases and every phase holds immense importance. The dedication and hard work remain the key tactics to clear the UPSC exam, however, there is often a confusion among the aspirants over the strategy and planning that should be followed to clear the exam.

The UPSC has changed the pattern of the civil services exam drastically giving more emphasis to dynamic or current affairs. Even the optional subjects are now being interlinked with the current section. Current affairs is most vibrant and dynamic in nature in the whole UPSC syllabus and there is no single source or textbook to cover this. However the NEWSPAPER is one of the most trustworthy, reliable and authentic sources to cover the current affairs for any competitive exam. However, there is no dearth of newspapers in the market that are flooded with loads of information. The two most authentic and genuine newspapers among civil services aspirants are The Hindu and The Indian Express, however, these two are not the only one to be relied upon and aspirants can feel free to choose among other newspapers of their liking. The aspirants remain fairly ambiguous over the portions that need to be covered and emphasized upon. While reading the newspaper from a civil services point of view, there are certain portions in the newspaper that should be discarded at one go like: the sections pertaining to political parties, entertainment, and Election coverage etc.

There are sections in the newspaper that an aspirant should target and focus upon like: there should be great focus on the areas related to the news or editorial discussing any scheme or program, any crisis involving India and its schemes in different countries specially neighbouring countries, articles pertaining to climate change, biodiversity, conservation, etc., any geographical problem, discussing any policy initiative by RBI etc. There is often a debate over the time that needs to be given to newspapers over other subjects as spending more time on newspapers may leave other portions of the syllabus untouched. Normally 2-2.5 hours of time for a newspaper is more than sufficient. But, it is quite difficult to cover an entire newspaper in that amount of time.

To help cover the newspaper in short amount of time, here are certain areas that should be covered on priority basis:

• News pertaining to India’s social and economic indicators like GDP, Inflation, and Poverty, economic reforms around the world and their effects on India, etc.
• Government policies and programmes such as Atma Nirbhar Bharat, JAM, KISAN, Digital India, Make in India, Skill India, IPR policy, policies relate to Health, Women and child welfare, etc.
• Disasters, Pandemics and geographical crises like flood, Drought, Monsoon, Corona and the reforms taken in the past therein, etc.
• Any news related to electoral reforms, Judicial reform, executive reform or Political reform.
• Intellectual Property Rights and other related issues
• Interlinking of rivers, Water sharing disputes and Interstate dispute over sharing of resources etc.
• Science and Technology, Ecology and Environment related news like GI tagging, National Parks and tiger conservation, climate change conventions and their repercussions, India’s Nuclear Policy etc.
• News related to Art and Culture such as paintings, certain excavations, particular dance form, martial art and fairs and festivals.
• News covering Indian Diaspora, International Relations and World Affairs.
• News on Constitutional and Statutory organizations such as CAG, SEBI, etc.
• The sports page is not at all relevant and can be completely left alone unless something very big is not happening like Olympics etc.

The dimensions mentioned above may certainly act as a set of guidelines for aspirants while going through a newspaper in very short time. However, aspirants can feel free to fashion their own strategy regarding newspaper reading adding few more points to this list.

If the above mentioned instructions are followed, the time taken to read the newspaper would reduce to 1 hour 45 minutes and finally 15 minutes should be given for preparing the notes. Preparing notes from the newspaper is the most important exercise because not preparing the notes would cause you to do the same exercise again during the time of revision. So it is highly recommended that you to prepare the notes.