Students aspiring for Indian Civil Services can now look forward to getting structured coaching for the prelims and mains examination immediately after passing their 10 + 2 examination, while simultaneously pursuing their college studies. The largest civil services coaching academy in the country, Chanakya IAS Academy, on Sunday announced the launch of its first batch of three-year integrated course at Rs 2.2 lakh plus taxes from July 20, 2018 as it steps into its silver jubilee year.
ADVERTISEMENT (Tap to run video and unmute Sound)
Briefing media persons after conducting a free seminar for aspiring civil servants at the Chandigarh centre of the academy, where five students from the last batch of the academy who cleared the civil services examination 2017 were also felicitated, Founder of the academy A.K. Mishra said 355 of the 990 candidates who cleared the examinations 2017 were students of the academy, which has 20 branches across the country and institutional tie-ups with a host of colleges and universities. Out of these, five students got into the top 10 positions, 11 in the top 20 and 42 students in the top 100 positions, he claimed, adding that the academy was making arrangements to extend its coaching to smaller towns through live video streaming of classroom lectures from bigger centres.
Photos By : Life In Chandigarh
Presenting two of the toppers before the media persons – Ayush Sinha (Rank 7) and Abhilash Barnwal (Rank 44) – Mishra informed that though Uttar Pradesh continued to throw up the highest number of successful aspirants in the civil services exam, the selections were witnessing much more “democratisation” in recent years from the time when candidates from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar used to hold sway. Among the smaller states, Haryana is doing very well. Out of the 53 successful candidates from among Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Haryana alone accounted for 27, while Punjab’s share was 17, Himachal Pradesh (3) and Chandigarh (6), he added.
Mishra’s ‘Art of Success’ system is claimed to be based on a trademark model ‘Human Software Development Programme’, a blend of clinical psychology, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), physiological study, etc. “Through Art of Success Programme we aspire to empower, inspire and programme human mind to achieve success in every sphere of life,” Mishra maintained.
Asked for his take on maintaining a professional line of duty in the wake of increasing political interference in the day to day functioning of the bureaucracy in the country, the 7th ranker, Ayush Sinha said he considered political pressure per say as legitimate since the politicians were under pressure from their electorates to perform and they were in turn justified to transfer this pressure onto the bureaucracy, the executing arm of the government. “But any sense of corruption or nepotism in their actions needs to be opposed by all means. One needs to strike a balance between executing directions issued by the political leadership and maintaining one’s value system and integrity,” he asserted.
Advertisement
On ways to de-stress during the gruelling preparations for the civil services examination, Ayush said there cannot be a single way of de-stressing for all. Everyone has his own way of letting out the steam. “For me it was sharing tea and chatting up with family members and friends,” he added. Seconding Ayush’s observation, 44th ranker Abhilash Barnwal said some of the aspirants he knew pursued various hobbies as a way to de-stress, like playing a guitar, learning different languages, etc.
Others who were feted on the occasion were Megha Arora (Rank 108), who by choice had opted for IFS, and Agam Singh Bedi (Rank 332), who has decided to give any try to make it to the IAS. The cut-off rank for IAS 2017 was 95.