Dear All,
As you know by now, the MAINS 2016 result is out.
Last night was a sleepless night for us. We have been receiving many calls from our students and have been constantly in conversation with them. Although, we are yet to consolidate the results, nonetheless here are few findings which we managed to infer .
We have not encountered anything as scary as the “PDF file of Results”. It is indeed scary and enervating. We saw students shake and tremble while opening the file. It would be no overstatement to call it the “VAMPIRE PDF”.
It sets the whole course of action for a student for the upcoming days and has profound impact on life and social standing.
Of course, those who could not get through, they and only they know the pain. Because, the society is ruthless-People Judge and give unnecessary comments.Some show sympathy, but empathy is rare to be found, some would have been happy (secretly) because you did not get through.(Yes, the world is full of sadists- people deriving pleasure from others misery)
However, everyone has very limited yet few people in their lives, who believe in you “no-matter-what”. They stand by you, support you and accept you as you are. They are the shining lights in the time of darkness. Don’t loose them ever. Go, speak to them.
Our advise is not to be bogged down by society. Society is society, we can not change that, neither can we explain each and every individual and change their perception of this exam.People judge- and that is what people do.So let them be.
In this hour, we want you not to react, not to explain, not to find excuses. More or less, each individual will be aware where it went wrong, but wait for the marks. Till then, tighten your grip over everything. Your true self is in the test now, showing valor against adversity is what makes you brave. You are brave because, you are trying something bigger than yourself, you are not looking for a job, you are pursuing a dream and that is what civil service is. The battle ground is not everyone’s cup of tea nor it is bed of roses.
In this hour, we stand by you and this years battle we will fight alongside you.Remember :-
How the heck does a 52 yr old, over the hill, milkshake machine salesman, build a fast-food empire with 1600 restaurants in 50 states and 5 foreign countries with an annual revenue in the neighborhood of $700 Million a year and feeding 1% of the globe each day.
One word
PERSISTENCE
Nothing in this world can take the place of good-old persistence.
Talent won’t – there is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent
Genius won’t – Unrecognized genius is practically a cliche
Education won’t – The world is full of educated fools.
Persistence and determination alone are all powerful .
And as for the society, don’t give them the pleasure to play with your “failure”
Don’t make noise,
Work hard in silence Let success make the noise.
The above is the true story of McDonalds Food chain.
When each of us, tried to appear for civil service exam, it was a cause bigger than ourselves. But victory is something different altogether as Gandhi says:-
Full effort is full Victory
If you have given your 100%, you will be satisfied, but if you have not, then tighten your grip, the battle is not over yet until you WIN.
Civil servant aspirants can not afford to be sad, they are the bravest among the lot, and anybody who can withstand the downfall in this exam can withstand life. Civil service is not an exam it is a journey of life. No matter what the result says, you will be much stronger than you have ever been and you will be much better and more humane than you have ever been.
So don’t let your guards down. The battle just begun.
Start again start afresh. When the society thinks you are down-Stand up and fight again. Nothing scares the society more than a fighter who has taken a beat yet standing up to fight again. That’s the true spirit, it is not found in everyone but it is rare quality of every civil service aspirant. Fight until you win.
Speak to us, write to us, share with us, we are here for you and always will be. We may not be your guardian angels or pillar of strength but we can be your friends in need and we are your friends in need.
Lets fight this battle again, together. And yes,the last piece of wisdom – master your optional.
Thank You
UPSCTREE
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.