My IAS Interview 2009

My interview was in afternoon of 28 ,March 2009.So I have entered the UPSC building at 1:15 PM. I was told to sit near prescribed table in the waiting room of candidates. When I had gone to my table, there were 4 other candidates sat near the table. I understood that we are the five candidates who are going to be interviewed by the same board. Then UPSC staff member came to our table and asked for the original certificates of 10^th and graduation. We submitted the required certificates.Then another person came and asked about the cadre preferences form (in which we need to give preferences of states according to which we would be alloted to that state based on rank when we get IAS/IPS.This is introduced newly this year).After that, I initiated talk with other candidates who are also under tension.In my group there are two girls,one is from MP and other from Karnataka.There were two boys besides me.Coincidentally,all 3 of us are from AP.We discussed about our optionals and number of attempts and the cutoffs.By talking about backgrounds all were relieved of stress/tension engulfed that time. We are waiting for announcement of name of the board.It was almost 2:30PM.

Finally name of our board was announced.Our’s was Parveen Talha’s board.The girl from MP said that she was interviewed by the same board last year and she got 130 marks out of 300.So we started asking the pattern/areas where the board generally focus.But we hardly get from her what we actually required.

Interviews were started and I was the fourth candidate to be interviewed.When the first candidate was interviewing I was bit nervous as it is my first interview.So I asked my fellow candidates about how should I enter the room and the way I should wish board.After the first candidate was out I want to ask questions but she was not allowed to discuss with the rest of the candidates.

For some candidates it was taken 25 minutes and for some it was 40 minutes.Slowly my turn came at 5:00PM. I was called and was summoned to the board and asked to sit in the special chair outside the room.After few minutes bell was rung I went inside.

My interview started from this point:

Me:May I come in sir,

Board:Yes

Me: (I have gone and stand besides chair)Good after noon Mam(Chairman:Parveen Talha) and goodafternoon sirs(members).

Chairman:good afternoon,Please take your seat.

Me:Thank you mam.

Chairman:Mr.Ravi you got pratibha scholarship,Is it presidential scolarship or what?

Me: No mam it is a scholarship given by my state to students who….

Memeber3:It is a scholarship given for excellence and not related to president.

Chairman:ok ok so it is a medal of excellence.

Me: Yes mam.

Chairman:Mr.Ravi,you have been practicing meditation.Tell me about how you meditate?

Me:Mam I meditate by concentrating on my breath.when I focus on my breath my thoughts slowly calm down.Actually, impressions from object goes to our senses and then to brain, and from there impressions goes to mind which is a waves of thoughts and then it goes to soul where perception occurs.Then soul gives orders to senses and organs based on that perception.

Chairman:People say concentration and focus increases with meditation.what is the scientific explanation behind this.

Me:Mam,when we concentrate on breath,our thoughts slowly calm down and it helps me to look into innerbeing and establishes peace…

Chairman:No, I did not ask about peace I asked about concentration and focus

Me:Yes mam,when we are in peaceful state and when our mind is filled with less thoughts we can concentrate better.

Chairman:So your are saying that when we have less thoughts we can focus on particular thing better.

Me:Yes mam.

Chairman:Ok tell me what is the connection between breath and thoughts.Is there any scientific explanation behind this.

Me:Yes mam,When we are annoyed and angry our breath is rapid and when we are calm and peaceful our breath is slow.So there is intricate connection between our breath and thoughts mam.

Chairman: (Passed ball to other member)

Member2:What are the crops that grow in your region?

Me: Sir, as our region falls under rainshadow region of westernghats and easternghats,dry crops grow in my region.So mainly jowar,cotton and tobacco grow in the region.

Member2:Government banned tobacco,why people still grow tobacco in your region?

Me: (Pause...as it is not banned I took few seconds to decide my answer)Sir,we mainly grow tobacco for exporting purposes.

Member2:What value-addition does they do for exporting?

Me:Pardon sir

Chairman: after taking tobacco leaves from its plants what value-addition do they do before exporting.

Me: Sorry sir, I don’t know.

Member2: What is community development program?

Me:Sir,it is about peoples participation in development programs and it encourages spirit of cooperation and sense of community ownership.

Member2: Is it applicable to agriculture?

Me:Sir, as name suggests it can be applicable to any activity including agriculture.

Member2: When was it put forwarded by our government?

Me:Sir, in 1952

Member2:Tell me about government programs in agriculture in 1960s.

Me:Drought prone area programme

Member2:It is in 1970s,tell me programmes in 60s

Me:Desert development programmes

Member2:It is also in 70s.tell me programmes in 60s

Me:thinking……

Member2:Are you aware of IAAP?

Me:No sir.

Member2:Intensive Agriculture Area Programme.Tell me about this programme.

Me:No sir, iam not aware of that programme.

Member2: ok tell me about green revolution?

Me:Sir,it was started in 1966.It involves promotion of high yielding varieties of seeds,fertilizers,pesticides and promotion of agriculture.Since our agricilture land is limited, in order to increase our food production we need to increase our productivity that is why we have adopted this policy.

Member2: some critics of green revolution say it creates lot of problems.what are those problems associated with that.

Me:Sir, because of heavy use of chemical fertilizers, the soil health may get spoiled and also because of the seepage of this chemicals through soil the groundwater may get contaminated.

Member2: tell me some more

Me: Also economic imbalances and regional imbalances amy occur

Member2:What are the regions that benefitted from green revolution.

Me: Punjab,Haryana and western UP.Also, there are social aspects such as declining of sex ratio associated with this sir.

Member2: How come sex-ratio linked to green revolution?

Me:Sir, because of green revolution and high agricultural productivity land values in punjab and haryana increased.In order to prevent girls from claiming the share in land, female infanticide and foeticide are quite prevalent there.That is why sex ratio problem prevalent in those regions.

Member2: It is a problem in recent years.But I want old problems.

Me: Thinking….

Member2:Tell me about recent government programme in agriculture to which world bank is providing funds.

Me:Sorry sir iam not aware of that

Member2:NAIP.Do you know what is it?

Me:No sir, iam not aware of that.But let me try

Member2:ok try try(with laugh)

Me:National Agriculture Insurance programme

Member2: No no it is not insurance programme.(Then passed ball to other member)

Member3:In which area you are comfortable..whether fertilizer industry,petroleum,pharma…

Me:Paper industry sir

Member3:we are using trees and forests for paper production.Because of which our forests and tree population is declining.tell me alternatives.

Me:Sir, we should regulate forest cutting and industries should grow trees elsewhere and should conserve forests in aggregate sense.

Member3: No tell me alternative raw materials.

Me:thinking…..

Member3:Can we use bagasse…

Me:pause…

Member3:What is bagasse?

Me:it is a sugarcane waste sir.

Member3:can we use wheat husk,rice husk for paper production?

Me:thinking…(actually I don’t know what to say)

Member3: Can we use waste cloth..because lot of waste cloth is available.

Me:Yes sir, if we could use chemicals to loosen fibres of waste cloth then we can use it for paper production.

Member3:ok I will ask questions on petroleum production.What are various components that we get in distillation column while we are extracting petroleum.

Me:Sir, iam not aware of that.

Member3: you would have separate subject in your graduation on petroleum right?

Me:no sir I don’t have.

Member3:What do you have in chemical engg.

Me:sir, we have mainly concerned with designing and maintenance of chemical processes to improve efficiency and to reduce economic cost in the large scale industries.

Member3:What did you design?

Me:we designed boilers…

Member3:designing boilers is a mechanical engg job?

Me:sir, we have also designed boilers

Member3:Because of our problems with domestic coal we have decided to import coal from foreign countries.Can we use same boilers for the imported coal?

Me: (Pause for few seconds) As far as coal is concerned same boilers can be used sir.

Member3:But calorific values will be different for them.How can we use same boilers?What is the calorific value of coal?

Me: no sir,I could not remember the exact numerical value of that?

Member3:What is petrocoke?

Me:No sir iam not aware of that

Member3:what do we get when we extract petroleum?

Me:carbon monoxide sir

Member3:Wherever there is combustion of petroleum produccts,we get CO.Tell me other components.Do we get sulphur?

Me:yes sir, we get sulphur.

Member3: what happens when sulphur gets into environment?what hazard likely to occur?

Me:Sir,Acid rains may occur.

Member3:Acid rains occurs. Ok ok(passed ball to other member)

Member4:Do you watch movies?

Me:Yes sir

Member4:What kind of movies do you watch?

Me:Science fiction and suspense movies especially hollywood

Member4:What is the recent movie you have watched?

Me:The Day the Earth Stood Still

Member4:What is the story of that movie?

Me:Sir,as humans give lopsided emphasis on economic development without giving due emphasis on environment led to the extinction of many species on the planet earth.In order to protect the life on earth and prevent extinction of species,aliens comes to earth to warn humans.Since humans don’t listen to what they say, they decides to exterminate humans and save other species.But in climax,they realise that apart from materialistic component there is a component of love and affection associated with humans.so they left us.

Member4:Do you know the recent movie which got many awards.

Me:yes sir,Slumdog Millionaire

Member4:Did you watch that movie?

Me:No sir,I did not get opportunity to watch that movie

Member4:Slumdog millionaire is based on a novel.who is the author of that novel.

Me:sorry sir,Iam not aware of that novel.

Chairman:Are you aware of this movie?

Me:Yes mam,Iam aware of this movie but iam not aware of the novel from which it was adopted.

Member4:Tell me about software piracy?

Me:Sir,today many softwares are available in internet as freeware and shareware.Shareware softwares expire after certain period and there are many hackers in the internet who hack and makes this softwares permanent.

Member4:You have mentioned that you study software piracy.What did you get from this?

Me:Sir I will explain with one example.Once I have seen as ad of an hacker who cracks mail passwords.Then I created an account and send an email to him to crack the new account’s password.Then I got an email to the new account which has some link.

Member4:It must be a trojan

Me:Yes sir,then I clicked on the link.It gives way to new yahoo main page asking for username and password.I thought I was logged out and I entered password again.But this was gone to the hacker.

Member4:What did you get from this?

Me:sir,many iitians also don’t know about these methods.It helps me to help other friends not to fall into these traps and to protect their accounts.

Member4:What is phishing?

Me:Hackers send emails as if these are coming from authenticated servers and ask for our account details.If we provide them unknowingly they will misuse these accounts for their own benefits.

Member3: (other member interrupted me)What is the spelling of phishing?

Member4: Tell him the spelling of phishing?

Me:Sir, P-H-I-S-H-I-N-G

Member4:I think these type of methods are very common and these days even school children also knows this.If iitians don’t know these methods I pity them.

Me:I didn’t say anything.I just smiled.

Member4: I think software piracy is something different.it is about multiplicating.What work did you do in that front.

Me:Sir,today there are many minor softwares almost 5 to 10 different minor softwares available in the internet which makes the trial version softwares permanent.I study these softwares how they work.

Member4:Did you join any white hackers community?Because this knowledge is required to prevent piracy.

Me:Yes sir, I have been planning to join such communities.But due to the preparation for civil services I do not get time to do that.

Member4:There si new research is going on as regards computers.People are planning to make chips based on chemicals and improve parallel processing performance of computers.Tell me about that development.

Me:Sorry sir iam not aware of that development.

Member4:Billgates recently said that.If anything said by billgates it would come within a year.He said there is good role for chemical engg in that.

Me:Sorry sir iam not aware of that.

Member4:What is the difference between normal paper and paper used for rupee notes?

Me:They behave differently in the presence of water.

Member4: No.tell me the chemical differences between them.

Me:Sorry sir,iam not aware of that

Member4:you said you are specialised in paper.

Me:No sir,I said I am aware of that.

Member4:Tell me in what area you have specialised?

Me: i don’t have any specialisation in my mtech sir.My project is mainly on removal of arsenic from groundwater using biological things i.e fungus.

Member4:Removal of arsenic.i think it is problem in many areas.

Me:yes sir,

Member4:What far did you achieve in your results.

Me:I achieved 65 to 70% removal efficency sir

Member4:30% is remaining!i think that is sufficient to harm people.

Me:Sir,I have conducted studies by varying arsenic contentn,fungus content and also studies with variation of time.But this is the maximum I got sir.

Member4: (Then passed ball to other member).

Member5: Tell me the india;s trade relations with neighbouring countries.

Me:Sir,although we have acrimonious relationship with china….

Member4:No.tell me relation with neighbours.

Me:Ok sir.we have significant trade potential with pakistan.Recently we have opened up trade routes which would boost ties.Also we have significant potential with srilanka in the sectors of automobiles and IT.Also in the light of political developments in Bangladesh there is a significant trade potential with that country.Besides,we have much potential in the power sector as regards Bhutan and Nepal.

Member4:Do you know these countries are pursuing FTA’s using SAARC as a platform.

Me:Yes sir,using SAARC as a platform we are trying…

Member4: (Showed hand towards chairman).

Chairman:Its over.

Me:Thank You Mam

I think most of the interview revolved around fact based questions and there is less room for me to show real potential.Chemical engg questions are unexpected blows.Apart from that I think interview is ok.Since I did not answer questions related to chem engg(my graduation and post graduation), iam expecting 150-170 marks out of 300.Moreover I heard this board is liberal in giving marks.Last time this board gave amrks ranging from 110 to 220 with average of 170.Lets c.