Dear family,

Every year in mains there are 1-2 questions with terms you may have not heard. You are not the only one, these questions are hard for everybody.

Hope you aren't letting such questions bring you down.

Mains is not a sprint but a marathon, keep your eye on the target and just rest and recover to perform tomorrow.

Do well in GS 3 and GS 4. Remember to use graphs, data and diagrams and keywords for GS 3

For ethics, make sure you don't take too long for any question or any section. Start strong, start quick and don't fixate over any one question/ case study/ section. Finishing your paper is key here. Include the keywords, diagrams and thinkers in your ethics answers.

Apologies again for being missing here during such an important period for us. I've immersed myself in training and am striving to do justice to my duties here as a trainee.

Hopefully we'll connect soon

For now, wishing you all the best and praying for your resilience.

most importantly do not torture yourself with mains analyses or with losing sleep over any question- focus on the target lying ahead

Like I said for Prelims: you've sent your mains answers to the universe and the universe will take care of you.

You'll do great

My GS 1 diagrams file is attached above

2024 students: use as Last Minute value addition. Can also make last minute revision Diagrams only notes. Ensure you practice actually making such diagrams in your answer- that is more important than simply reading someone else's notes

2025 students: use this file as reference and be alert to your reading material for such diagrams
Practice making these diagrams actively in your daily answer writing

Types of diagrams that can usually be made for GS 1 :

A. Maps: eg. Geography eg (disaster vulnerability maps etc., history (Ashoka pillars map, revolts maps)

B. Graphs: Society/population/ urban affairs

C. Diagrams: twin Cyclones, Fujiwhara effect etc.

(I won't get the time to forward so feel free to forward the diagrams file on other communities/ groups where students might benefit)

All the best!

UPDATE: request closed: we have 2 students from low income bkg who need the books Thank you for helping me find them ? ---------- Public Administration students of low income backgrounds (only) who needs the books can still DM We also have our student…

UPDATE: request closed: we have 2 students from low income bkg who need the books

Thank you for helping me find them ?

----------

Public Administration students of low income backgrounds (only) who needs the books can still DM

We also have our student Ankit who is also looking to send his books since he changed his optional.

You can let us know in reply of this post if you need public administration books

Request closed

All the GS books will be going to a student who needed them.

Thank you for helping the books find a home.

Hopefully they'll be of some help

Thanks

For my dearest future public servants: On perception, bias and decision making

(In preparation of our training, we have to complete some courses from home in a given deadline. These courses are truly helpful- I thought I'll share an incredible insight from one course on Decision making, which I think might benefit all of you).

This course on DECISION MAKING goes on to say:

"Our beliefs, understanding, opinions, and perceptions of everything are achieved via cognitive processes that operate on PERCEPTION"

So these cognitive processes have underlying BIAS which makes us view the world in a certain way.

The problem is that we assign objectivity to our experience- we strongly BELIEVE that our opinions are NOT Biased.

Social psychologist Lee Ross called this the "Illusion of objectivity" or "Naive realism"

An important lesson here is to be aware that most often our opinions do have BIAS

Simply speaking, just this awareness can prevent so much conflict and make this world a much better place.

What do you think?