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[Strategy] How to prepareCurrent Affairs fromNewspapers in Less than one hour for UPSC IASIPS CSAT Exam

Study-Plans

RBI (Prelims)RBI(Written)KAS(Kashmir)ACIOCAT(IIM)CPF (Asst .Commandant)SPIPA

(Gujarat Only)

CSAT (IASPrelims)

This art icle is in response to many panicmails that I receive

help! It takes more than 4 hours just toread The Hindu.

1. Why is it important to read thenewspaper?

2. Cant I just use Chronicle, CivilService Times or PratiyogitaDarpan?

3. What are prof ile-based interviewquestions?

Location-based questions

Academic backgroundbased questions.

Hobby

Firefighting

4. Which newspapers should I read

5. Should I read more than onenewspaper?

6. What are the important items in anewspaper?

Administration/ Polity

National News

International NewsEconomy

FrontPage

Columns / Editorials

What to prepare fromColumns/ Editorials?

Sports / music / life-style/Bollywood

7. How to read the newspaper in less
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than 1 hour?

The beginning

The front-page andsecond page

Third, fourth and fifth page

The 6 to 9 Page

Page 10-11 (Columns andEditorials)

Page 12-13 (International)

Page 14 (TV, Astrology,Cartoon strips)

Page 15-16 (Business andeconomy)

Page 17-20 (Bollywood,Lifestyle, Sports)

8. The Review

Whether you are preparing fo r UPSC,GPSC, KPSC, MPPSC, MPSC, UPPSC,IBPS, CAT or any other exam thatinvolves interview and heavycompetition, you have to readnewspapers.

Why is it important to

read the newspaper?Because in the government job

exams, at all three stages(preliminary, Mains and interview) .They ask questions related tocurrent affairs.

To write a decent essay, youneed facts and viewpoints. For t hisyou need Fodder, andnewspapers are best sources for

the fodder material.

Cant I just useChronicle, Civil ServiceTimes or PratiyogitaDarpan?

Such magazines only serve assupplement and not assubstitute of the newspapers.
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Why? Because the magazineshave the page limit, t hey cannotgive justice to every single topic,even if they wish to. (and becauseon every second page, theyve toput big advertisement of coachingclasses, to cover the cost.)

Same goes for t he readymade

blogs/ websites dealing withcurrent-affairs, theyre onlysupplements but not thesubstitutes of a newspaper.

Secondly, such magazines orwebsites fo r competitive examsdo not help you in the prof ile-based interview questions or role-playing questions.

What are profile-based interviewquestions?

In t he UPSC IAS, IPS or CAT/IIM,Bank or any other job interviews,they ask you questions based onyour prof ile.

Your prof ile is made up of : YourLocation + Academic Background+ hobbies and Extra-curricularactivities.

Location-basedquestions

Socio, political, administrativeand economic problems of yourcity, district and state.

And (Somet imes) the role-playing questions about how willyou tackle them, if youre aninspector, tehsildaar, Collector,DSP, Secretary, etc.

Academic backgroundbased questions.

For example, if you are an MBBSor Pharmacist, the current af fairsrelate to TB/HIV/Malaria/Delhi
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Superbug related research, etc.

If youre a B.A (English): Whatsthe latest trend in Englishliterature? What was thecontroversy in the Jaipur literaturefestival? And so on.

HobbyTennis, Cricket, Chess,

Computer: then you are supposedto know the current af fairs relatedto that f ield.

Firefighting

Most of the people, whetherUPSC, Stat e PSC aspirants or

MBA aspirants: they dont preparefor profile-based questions or

current af fairs until the 11thhour.(i.e. When the interview or group-discussion (GD) is barely 20-30days away).

Then They start googlesearching for GK related to theirprofile.

In such a short time, you cannot

cover all satisfacto rily. Therefore,daily reading of newspaper isessential.

Which newspapersshould I read

Even if youre going to writeyour Mains exam in Hindi/ Gujarati/Tamil / Telugu medium, still youshould refer to English

newspapers because the localnewspapers only serve themasala news of polit ics, cricketand Bollywood.

Should I read morethan one newspaper?

It depends on your t ime andenergy, otherwise one newspaper

is enou h.
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You might have seen somecoaching Sirs advising that youmust-read Hindu and EconomicTimes (ET). I think, this is anoverkill. You dont have to becomea share market expert. If there issome really good columnist in ET(for example, example Bibek

Debroy), then following him isexcellent, but you dont have togo through two or three Wholenewspaper per day.

What are theimportant items in anewspaper?

First go through the old question papers

of UPSC (at least last three years), thatshould give you a rough idea on whatquestions are asked directly or indirectlyfrom newspaper. And then read thenewspaper keeping that in mind.

Administration/ Polity

1. Press conference of government,where they announce variouspolicies, administrative reforms

etc. (I'm talking about the pressconference of union and Stategovernment, not the pressconference of Congress and BJP.)

2. Various bills, minutes of Cabinetmeetings.

3. The big full-page advertisementsgiven by ruling party, about theirachievements. (This usually comesbefore the election and on the

birth anniversary of Nehru GandhiFamily). It is important because,they list out the variousdevelopmental schemes andprovisions in it. Most importantpart is who runs the scheme? fo rexample NREGA thing for underthe jurisdict ion of ruraldevelopment Ministry (and notunder Labour Ministry)

4. Election related items: what will
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the initiatives taken by the elect ioncommission? Any problems orcontroversies.

5. You have to prepare these forboth Union as well as your ownstate Government. (Your state-Government schemes andAdministrative reforms for the

profile Based Questions)

What is not important?

1. Press conferences of politicalparties and civil society.

2. No need to do Ph.D on everyscam. All you have to do is briefhighlight of what was the scam,how was it committed, what is thepresence status in invest igat ion orcourt and how t o prevent it infuture. You dont have to go in

minute details like on 23rdOctober2007, Mr XYZ the accountant o fstore-dept in Commonwealthgames misreported a 50 rupeesball for Rs.5000. Learn to skip thegarbage sentences while you arereading a news item.

3. Same goes for elections: The XYZ

by-elections were conducted on23th October 2004 in which Mrs.XYZ wife of ABC belong with JYZPolitical party defeated

National News

Maoists kidnap a collecto r =name of the collector is notimportant. But now experts andpolit icians say we need a

comprehensive hostage-crisisguideline aft er this incidence=important.

Railway accidents, how manykilled =not important. Reason forthe rail accident and suggestionsto prevent future accidents =important.

SP says BSP took 50 crores orvice versa = not important.
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How many killed in f loods,landslides or tsunamis on whichdate= not important. But t hereason behind those geographicalphenomenons = important.

ISRO sends an art ificial satellite= important. How much does itweigh? = not important .

When and How many men didleopards kill in Maharashtra = notimport ant. Why is leopard killingmen in Maharashtra= important.What is Government doing tostop the leopard? = important.

International News

1. Bilateral visits of prime ministers

and presidents. What treaties ortrade pacts did they sign?

2. What is going on in UN, IMF, WorldBank?

3. Elections in the big nations : USA,Russia, China, France, UK.

4. Polit ical or military coup (usually inSouth America and Af rica.)

5. Any major event: the democrat icuprising in Middle East, Israelpalest ine, US vs China / Russiamissile defence, NATO-Afghanistan and so on.

6. Meetings of organisations such asASEAN, G20 etc , and particularlywhat India did in such conferencesand meetings.

7. Climate change, environmentrelated news.

8. Science and Tech related items forexample CERN, Chinas spaceprogram, missle tests by N.Korea,Irans nuke program and so on.

What is not important?

1. Lady Gaga or Justine Timberlakesworld tours.

2. How many people are killed in a carbomb blast in Pakistan or


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Afghanistan?

3. XYZ researchers found out t hateating tomato daily helpspreventing tooth ache = notimportant.

4. Anything small-t ime, that doesnot affect future of the World. Forexample sex-scandles of ItalianPM or marital wooes of Sarkozy.

More on How to prepare India and Worldtopic fo r General Studies (Mains) PaperII, is explained in a separat e art icle.ClickMe to read it .

Economy

1. Press conf erence or press note by

Government, SEBI, RBI, PlanningCommission etc.

2. ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM etc. (theyusually complaint or suggestabout Government policies thataffect the business houses.)

3. Columns and Editorials related toEconomy.

4. IIP, GDP, WPI, CPI etc. Not thenumbers but the reasons behind

that number and the futurebecause of that number.

5. Internat ional: ASEAN, World Bank,EU etc.

6. Those preparing for Bank exams,should also note down the namesof Chaimen of various companiesand banks.

What is not important

in Economy1. Daily Ups and downs of

sharemarket.

2. Numbers. Because Economy isnot about number but themeaning, history and futurerelated to that number.

1. For example, if IIP was 0.13on Jan-2012. That itself is
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not important. Whether itwas 0.13 or 0.128? that isnot important.

2. Important Questions are : isthis IIP good or bad? Andwhy is it good or bad?Whatll be its impact onfuture of Indian economy

and Government / RBIpolicies?

FrontPage

1. There is a narrow column on theleft hand side of the front page,most of the time, the yearbookrelated information, governmentschemes etc. appear here.

2. The main news item on thefrontpage: it is usually not-very-important. Reason most of thetime it is the political news. Forexample, Bihar Mahadalit LandRacket. If you are a candidatefrom Bihar, you should read it , forthe others, it is not worth it .

Columns / Editorials

Question: What is acolumn / Editorial?

These are big paragraphs likearticles in the centre pages of anewspaper.

Generally each article has photoof the author and usually theauthor gives a 20 years old photowhen he/she was in college. If you

ever happen to see them in actualTV Debate, it turns out theyrequite older than what they look inthe newspapers.

Editorial is writ ten by the editorhimself. For example ShekharGupta f or IndianExpress onSaturday. While Columns arewritten by experts (including self-proclaimed experts) on a particulartopic of politics, economy,


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internat ional events.

What to prepare fromColumns/ Editorials?

Usually columns are made up of7-8 paragraphs. But not everysentence and line is important;

there are just 3-4 gemstones in it ,which you can use in your mains /essay / interview answers. So justnote them down.

Some people usehighlighters to markimportant lines and then f ilethose newspaper cutt ings.So do whichever methodsuits you (noting down orf iling the cutt ings).

But Not every column is worthyour t ime and energy. For examplein Indianexpress, there is one guywrites about Nepals polit icalturomil every week. But in Nepal,the Prime ministers are changedevery week and this guy happensto give ball by ball commentery ofeverything. Its not worth theCost -benefit rat io. So skip him.

Similarly there is one YogindarAlagh in Indianexpress, whopretends to write on ruralDevelopment but just I did thisand that when I was aminister=Not important.

Maintain the balance: somecolumn writers have a habit ofbeing totally cynical and anti-Government. For example

Tavleen Singh of Indianexpress,while I do admire her for havingthe guts to openly write againstSonia, Mohan and Rahul, but inyour answers, You must notadmire or criticize a particularindividual (minister / politician) inthe mains / interview. And dontprepare a line that is too left ist ortoo rightists.

And if you crit icise the


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Government, then you should alsoof fer the reform suggestions.

Sports / music / life-style/ Bollywood

Lifestyle = painting, pottery,music, fashion events etc. most of

which cannot be afforded bymiddle class people.

The last 3-4 pages of Englishnewspaper are devoted to this. ifyour hobby is tennis or chess,then you must follow t he relatedsport-news.

For others, I say just skip it.Anything histo ric about Sports willget published in the competitive

magazines and or t he free blogs/current-affairs related websitesanyways. So daily following thesesports-pages = not worth the t imeand energy.

Bollywood and cricket relatednews = not important in any case.Unless something related toadministration or polity forexample should BCCI be broughtunder RTI? And the copyright act

vs Bollywood.

How to read thenewspaper in lessthan 1 hour?

Needs certain tools.

1. A study-desk or Table

2. A Red colored 0.7mm ballpoint penand or a red sketch pen.

3.

4. Loose papers, folders, notebooks

5. And last but not the least anewspaper.

The beginning
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Keep the red pen handy.Im taking Gujarat Edition of Indianexpress as reference; just follow thesame procedure for your City /Statesedition of Indianexpress/ Hindu etc.

The front-page andsecond page

Circle down on important lines from thenews (which news, that is alreadyexplained above).

Third, fourth and fifthpage

Is usually Gujarat / Ahmedabad news forexample

20 people died in car accident inrajkot

xyz girl eloped with a neighbour

A cop was found taking bribes

Stone-pelting and riot ing in XYZpart of Ahmedabad after a cricketmatch.

Keshubhai Patel said XYZagainst Narendra Modi.

Sanjay Joshis men have putposters against Modi inAhmedabad.

^none of above, is important.

Then what isimportant?

Navjivan Trust of Abad says no

to Gujarati version of Lets killGandhi writt en by Tushar Gandhi.

Gujarat Marit ime Board andpollution board gives clearance toship-breaking of Exxon Valdez,but NGO lobby says it containsdangerous chemicals. (Names arenot important, but the importantpart is the big environmental issuevs. livelihood of ship-breakers inAlang


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Gujarat State Governmentlaunches Girl Child education andSchoo l enrollment drive.

Ahmedabad Municipal corp willgive Rs.250/- to all Governmentschool students who live morethan 3 kms from the school, apartfrom the mid-day meal, Bicycle

distribut ion and Vidhyalaxmischeme.

We are done with 5 pages

The 6 to 9 Page

These are devoted to nationalnews

Only concentrate on important

exam oriented news. Underline theimport ant lines using your red pen.

Page 10-11 (Columnsand Editorials)

Highlight the gemstones andmove on.

Page 12-13

(International)Highlight the important news

lines and move on.

Page 14 (TV,Astrology, Cartoonstrips)

Highlight the important newslines for example the t iming ofBalika Vadhu. Haha just kidding,skip this page.

Page 15-16 (Businessand economy)

Most important. Scan throughevery item, including small boxnews. Highlight the gemstones, ifthere are an im ortant dia rams,
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cut and f ile them.

Page 17-20(Bollywood, Lifestyle,Sports)

Skip it.

We are done highlighting the importantnewslines. Now it is time for review.

The Review

Go through those red lines andeither write them in the relevantnotebook / cut and file it .

Your can either keep fiveseparate full-scape notebooks.

OR you can write these in loosepapers and then file it in fiveseparate f olders.

The advantage of loose papers= you can add more pagesbetween, when the follow up newscomes. For example in case ofQFIs. Same is not possible in anotebook.

Folder /Notebook

Sorting

Administration All the polity,administration,Developmentrelated itemsshould be eitherwrit ten orpasted here.

Economics Same exercise

Your prof ile One f ile or notebook, makethree sub-partsin it. First part -write or pastethe state/cityrelated news.


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Second part-about youracademicbackgroundThird part- newsrelated tohobbies.

S&T All the science-tech,environment,climate changerelated stuf f .

Internat ional Same exercise

^ you dont have to write the ent ire

sentences highlighted in red-pen butjust the keywords or phrases thatd helpyou recall the ent ire issue.In the beginning, thisd be time-consuming mental torturing exercise.But with t ime, youll develop t heexpertize of weeding out theunimportant news and note down thegemstones.

Ive seen Maestros who write t he

summary note of entire The Hindunewspaper on just one side of an A4sized paper, without missing even asingle important item. They dont readevery line of a newspaper, their eyes aretrained to scan through the lines andhand automatically highlights thekeywords. It s an art and can bemastered only by practise. Daily writinghabit also improves your handwritingspeed, which is again important for t he

Mains exam.Like a professional athelete,This mustbe your daily regime as long as youre acont ender. Just because prelims areover or just because mains are over,doesnt mean you stop this. Youve todo t his on daily basis.

June 6th, 2012 | Category:strategy

Co ri ht 2012 Mrunal- All Ri hts Reserved
http://mrunal.org/http://mrunal.org/category/strategy


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