Letter from Civil Service aspirants to Media on possible discrimination in Prelims

Dear All,

A copy of the letter received from Civil Service aspirants, addressed to Media on possible discrimination in Prelims is herewith enclosed for academic debate and comments..For any clarification/information/help please contact the persons mentioned below...Let us wish for a more transparent system of recruitment...

To,

Media

Sir / Madam,

We, the civil service aspirants, are the victims of THE UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION with its opaque and biased system of recruitment.

 We would like to bring two major issues to your notice.

1. Undue advantage to aspirants with Hindi as mother tongue at the cost of Non-Hindi aspirants especially with rural back drop which invalidates fair competition, equity, representativeness, merit.

2. Mistakes in the key for Civil services preliminary examination, 2011 provided by UPSC via RTI. 

Issue 1: UPSC provides civil services Preliminary paper in two languages, English and Hindi. With its changed preliminary pattern from 2011, Hindi speaking students are getting undue advantage. 

Earlier pattern up to 2010 used to have Paper I (Optional) and Paper II (General Studies). Even in that pattern Hindi speaking students used to have some advantage. But one requires having prior knowledge in selected optional subjects (public administration, geography, psychology, etc) and GS (History, Geography, Economics, General Science, etc) to answer questions. 

This year (2012 prelims like last year) question paper has given much more advantage to Hindi speaking students violating Right to Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment(Article16) which can be observed in paper II with question numbers 1-15, 28-38, 51-56 (please refer to enclosed 2012 paper II question paper) i.e. in total 32 questions with weightage of 80 marks (32*2.5 mark) need not require any prior knowledge to answer as they were just reading comprehension questions and only Hindi translation is given to these questions which made things easier to Hindi belt aspirants than Non-Hindi aspirants as comprehending things is easy in one's mother tongue.

There are two kinds of comprehensive questions in paper II:

1. Comprehension (given in English and Hindi)

2. English language comprehensive skills (given only in English)

If one observes the trend of last two years papers the difficulty level of comprehension questions (serial numbers 1-15, 28-38, 51-56) is high compared to English language comprehensive skills questions (serial numbers 66-73). By this Non-Hindi aspirants are forced to answer difficult comprehension questions in English, where as Hindi aspirants have the option of answering them in Hindi. Since, English language comprehensive skills questions (given only in English) are easier, Hindi students didn't feel much difficulty to answer. By this UPSC is expecting too much English language skills from Non-Hindi aspirants and too little from Hindi medium students defeating the principles of Equity, Justice, Fair Play, MERIT and the purpose for which English comprehension was introduced.

In this kind of examination with huge competition, each and every mark makes huge difference. Clear cut advantage of 80 odd marks for Hindi belt aspirants left only few non-Hindi students to see success. This year many aspirants (many of them were successful in their earlier attempts) from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odissa, West Bengal, North East states, etc are not able to clear preliminary exam. As per our sample size many aspirants based in Hyderabad who performed well in exam failed to clear and few of them have exhausted their attempts. 

Moreover rural back ground aspirants (with non-Hindi mother tongue) failed miserably to score well. Also, there are many inference based reasoning questions and it is the same case with these questions too. 

Issue 2:  UPSC is releasing the Prelims key through RTI only after the completion of final selections provides no benefit to anybody either for the Candidates or for the UPSC as UPSC cannot rectify its mistakes retrospectively. 

For example for question number 11 in Paper-1 of Preliminary exam-2011, the answer was given by UPSC was D (please refer to enclosed 2011 paper I question paper and answer key by UPSC as  response to RTI application) where as the correct answer was option C (Source to prove answer given by UPSC was wrong is http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend74.htm Article 243ZD). This question alone might have affected result of examination as it might have denied the opportunity to write mains for deserved as he/she might have awarded -0.66 marks instead of +2 marks, i.e. it might have reflected difference of 2.66 marks

But the UPSC has been declining the RTI request for the Answer KEY immediately after the preliminary exam saying "the exam process is not yet complete and section 8(1)(j) is invoked".

Unlike the essay type Mains exam which may have some subjective bias, Prelims is purely objective type exam with only one answer choice, so KEY must be OBJECTIVE without any confusion. Hence Answer choices must be unambiguous established facts. Hence there should not be any harm to the exam process if the key was released immediately after the prelims exam.

Through this mail we request you to consider these issues on war footing scale as the Mains exam is fast approaching from October 5, 2012.

1. Raise issue in parliament as grave injustice of this kind may cause huge damage to non-Hindi students, so UPSC should be forced to suspend 2012 preliminary and should re conduct exam after correcting flaws.

2. Highlight the injustice, discriminatory nature of UPSC for violating basic Fundamental Rights (Article 16 of Indian constitution – Equality of opportunity) which in turn invalidates exam itself.

3. Please share the information with your peer media houses as all non-Hindi students affected.

Please give us an active voice at different forums like Parliament, Media, other eminent groups and contacts of you.

Along with this mail we are enclosing following documents.

1. UPSC Civil Services Preliminary question paper 2 of year 2012 (Civil services prelims 2012 question paper - Paper II - Set A.pdf)

2. UPSC Civil Services Preliminary question paper 1 of 2011 (Civil services prelims 2011 question paper - Paper I - Set A.pdf)

3. Answer key for 2011 paper1 provided by UPSC in response to RTI application (Answer key to 2011 paper I set A.jpeg)

4. RTI reply by UPSC with the file name: UPSC_RTI_rejection_2012_point3_mrunal.gif

We like to declare that all the information provided in this mail is true as per our knowledge.

Yours faithfully

Ram Sudhir K, 08142111315 <ramsudhir.kunchey@gmail.com>

Ramana Akula, 09908815644 < akula.ramana@gmail.com>

                                 Ravindra Reddy G, 0¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-9491550232<ravindra.civils@gmail.com>

A Madhusudhan Reddy  <amreddy25@gmail.com> 

Mallikarjuna Rao Para , 09160161016  <rao.para@gmail.com>

Following is the list of few candidates who are also with us in the true letter and spirit.

NAME <e-mail ID> <Place> (Civil services preliminary 2012 hall ticket number) 

Ramana Akula <akula.ramana@gmail.com> Markapur, Prakasam Dist (220709),

Ravindra Reddy <ravindra.civils@gmail.com> Tadepalli, Guntur Dist(001941), 

Mallikarjuna Para <rao.para@gmail.com>  Ananthavaram, Guntur Dist (004503),

ramsudhir kunchey <ramsudhir.kunchey@gmail.com>, Hyderabad

Yogesh Thandava <Yogesh_Thandava@yahoo.co.in> Giddaluru, Prakasam Dist (002103),

Murali Nalam <Murali.nalam@gmail.com>  (002770),

Ramesh Chava <ch.ramesh896@gmail.com>  (006561), 

Rakesh C <rakeysh123@gmail.com>  Hyderabad (161409),

Narendra <narencse85@gmail.com>  Kanigiri, Prakasam Dist (061012),

Rakesh Reddy <rakeshreddyb4u@gmail.com>, Tirupati

Uday Kumar <udayrai@gmail.com>  Bhadrachalam, Khammam Dist(003025),

Bhaskar Reddy, Warangal,

Dr Ravinder Reddy, <drkarnambbs@yahoo.com>  kanigiri, prakasam Dist, (100287)

Dr Sunil, Warangal,

polireddy palagiri <polireddy.p@gmail.com>,  YSR Kadapa

G Nishita, 058437, Khammam Dist

P.Jhansi, 147874

Sridhar Gayam <sridhar.gayam@gmail.com>, kanigiri, prakasam Dist 

Venu Kesam <venu.kesam@gmail.com>, Vijayawada

Venkata Niyanth < venkatniyanth@gmail.com>, Rajamundry, 

Narasimha Prasad , Nellore, 

Ravi Patro, Srikakulam, 

Nishanth <NISHANTHMECH@gmail.com>, 

Chiranjeevi G Vidyasagar <sagar_withu@yahoo.com>, 

Nikhil <nikhilchvs1@gmail.com>, 

ChandraKanth <chandrakanth1038@gmail.com>, 

Siva Prasad <Siva.965@gmail.com>