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Newspapers : The Hindu and Indian Express.

Hindu as you all know is mandatory. Many people read only Hindu and secure good ranks. For me it was more of a question of inculcating right attitude and having a balanced view. Indian Express gives a counter argument to that of Hindu's and in an equally convincing way. Both are independent publishing houses and we can expect unbiased views. Unbiased, but not neutral as both have their own definite perspectives. If this does not convince you, there was an analysis by some website showing that this year more than 40% questions in GS were from Hindu while 20% from Indian Express.

I used to read both the newspapers in the morning, and then cut down all the relevant articles and keep. On weekends i used to segregate them in to different topics. Later when I neared mains, my wife pasted all these articles on to rough note books, topic wise, so that it becomes easy to read and finish. Trust me you just want to flip pages during that time.

Current Affairs and GK.

PIB Release : I had subscribed to them. Used to make notes from these daily, or if there any back log on weekends. I cannot say many questions came from this. But certainly helps you feel that you are covering most of the government discussions. GK Today : Wonderful resource base with occasional quizzes to test your level of preparation. India Current Affairs : I did read occasionally from here during the initial stages of my preparation. Daily News Updates from Career launcher : Only for enrolled candidates. But they give the daily news in capsule pdfs. Easy to read. Used to go through once. Never made notes or revised. Yojana and Kurukshetra : Though I have every issue of these two magazines, I have read only one or two articles from each issue. Not more... Now you can also access them online. India Year Book : I had gone through most of the chapters before the prelims. A very cursory reading and never revised. Did not read for mains. Check if you can get this year's online. Wizard Current Affairs - Used to check the topic index and see for any topic of which I had never heard of. Used to read those. Helps. . Current Affairs Q&A by Chronicle - I found this to be a very book as it is written in question answer format and helped me understand the issue. Current Affairs by Unique Publishers. - Used it for selective reading. Vajiram Current Affairs Xerox - A very random reading on the way to Exam Hall. Got one question on Bihar Courts Act :)

Paper I

History of Modern India.

Usually we limit our history books to only one and then read again and again to remember the facts and dates. But by going through previous year question papers, you will realize that their choices of questions have become widely varied, asking the most direct question and also the most indirect question. So I had read history from two three sources and even referred a British author book available at Questia Online Book Store. According to him, only a dozen violent people we

re killed in Jalianwala incident (which itself was a non-incident according to the author) and the subsequent deaths happened due to rioting in Punjab. I also read a lot about Jinnah (no-where to be found in our books even though he dominated the Indian political scene for 3 decades).

History of Modern India by Bipan Chandra: It is the same old NCERT book. I would suggest you at least go through. New NCERT Text : I did not read this, though I had this with me. A Brief History of Modern India by Spectrum : A very good resource. There was a direct question from this book this time. ISC History by Maity and Banerjee : A decent book. Easy to read as it is made for Class XII students. One question in CSE 2010 directly came from this. Made two line notes on freedom fighters from different states who are forgotten in the mainstream history. Especially of North-Eastern States, Jharkhand, Orissa, Southern States etc. As our Mainstream history is dominated by Western and Northern freedom fighters. Also made notes on prominent Women.

I also had other books like India's Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra, India after Independence by Bipan Chandra, Women Pioneers in India's Renaissance by Sushila Nayar etc, which I hope to read in the future ;)

Indian Culture