List of Civil Service Posts filled by UPSC through CSAT

Below is the list and descriptions of the list of services available through the civil service exams.

All India Services
• Indian Administrative Service
• India Foreign Service
• Indian Police Service
  
  Group A Services
• Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service
• Indian Audit and Accounts Service
• Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise)
• Indian Defence Accounts Service
• Indian Revenue Service (I.T.)
• Indian Ordnance Factories Service (Assistant Works Manager, Administration)
• Indian Postal Service
• Indian Civil Accounts Service
• Indian Railway Traffic Service
• Indian Railway Accounts Service
• Indian Railway Personnel Service
• Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force
• Indian Defence Estates Service
• Indian Information Service (Junior Grade)
• Indian Trade Service, Group 'A' (Gr. III)
• Indian Corporate Law Service
  
  Group - B Services
• Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service (Section Officer's Grade)
• Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Civil Service
• Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Police Service
• Pondicherry Civil Service
• Pondicherry Police Service

The number of vacancies to be filled on the result of the examination of 2012 is expected to be approximately 1037. The number of vacancies may undergo change. Reservation will be made for candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes. Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Physically Disabled Categories in respect of vacancies as may be fixed by the Government.

Courtesy : http://www.civilserviceindia.com/civil-services-list.html

By,
Kranthi

Five minds for the future

I happened to see in the book stall, "Five Minds for the Future" written by Howard Gardner. Let us remember, this book is being published, 25 centuries after Lord Buddha?s enlightenment. My curiosity and desire increased to go into the details of this book; particularly in the today?s world environment of social conflicts, political violence and impact of globalization and above all the youth of the world have a question where their lives? are heading. I am convinced with the multi-religious background of our nation, the future definitely needs these capacities to be built in the minds of the youth. I studied the five minds of the future, let me describe based on my understanding:

1. Disciplinary mind: Disciplinary minds require the mastery of major schools of thought that may include science, mathematics, history and religion. Apart from this the disciplinary mind has to be enriched with expertise in at least one professional field. Research confirms that it takes up to 10 years to master a discipline. This mind also knows how to work steadily overtime to improve skill and understand.

2.Synthesizing mind: What is needed is the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into an integrated system and communicate the synthesized thoughts. With the increasing volume of information in the present day world, capacity to synthesize assumes great importance.

3. Creating mind: It is essential to build capacity to uncover and create solutions to new problems, questions and phenomena. For examples on creativity, in general we look for leaders, rather than managers.

It puts forth new ideas, poses, familiar questions and arrives at unprecedented answers. The creating mind seeks to remain at least one step ahead of even the most sophisticated computers and robots. I understand that most of the computers of the future and accessories will be micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communication with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about a billion calculations per second today will be able to perform about a trillion calculations per second within next 10 years. It is predicted that by 2019, the computational ability of an ordinary PC would exceed the capability of human brain. By 2029, the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times that of the human brain. My view is that definitely the creating mind of the human being will always be superior to the most powerful computers in the horizon.

4.Respectful mind: It is a uniquely developed mind, a mature mind that has awareness and appreciation for differences among human beings. The capacity built in the respectful mind, leads to understand other persons on their own terms with mutual trust. In the world where we are, all interlinked and need to maintain working relationship, intolerance is no longer a viable option.

5. Ethical mind: It is indeed a built-in-capacity for fulfilling once responsibility as a worker and as a citizen simultaneously, It will essentially lead to "work with integrity and succeed with integrity". The mind conceptualizes how workers can serve purpose beyond self interest and how citizens can work unselfishly to improve the lot of all. The ethical mind then acts on the basis of these analyses. In the present scenario, the need for respecting mind and ethical mind is very important, because many of the societal problems today are arising out of lack of consideration for others and overwhelming selfishness of the individual. The education system has to cultivate these minds among the youth, so that they learn to respect others, are tolerant and perseverant for realizing their goals in life.

With these five types of minds, a person will be well equipped to deal with what is expected as well as what cannot be anticipated. Without these minds, a person will be at the mercy of forces that he or she can?t understand. Our educational, political, managerial and spiritual system should nurture these five kinds of minds for cultivating positive human potentials. Disciplines, syntheses and creativity can be put to all kinds of ends if we do not cultivate the sense of respect and ethical orientation. Hence, the five kinds of minds should be made to work synergistically.

When I visualize these five minds of the future, I have a message for all of you. Nurturing all the five minds is possible, if you build the following five capacities among the youth. What are those five capacities? The five capacities are: research and inquiry, creativity and innovation, use of high technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership are the five capacities required to be built through the education process.

If we develop in all our students these five capacities, we will produce "Autonomous Learner" a self-directed, self controlled, lifelong learner who will have the capacity to both, respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner. These are the leaders who would work together as a "Self-organizing Network" and transform any nation into a prosperous nation. The most important part of the education is to imbibe the confidence among the student is the spirit of "we can do it".

By, Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

Value to Science

I thought of sharing with you an incident about Sir CV Raman ,a Nobel Laureate in Physics for discovering Raman Effect. Raman gives the view that the color of sky is blue due to molecular diffraction, which determines the observed luminosity, and in great measures also its color. This led to the birth of the Raman Effect. Raman was in the first batch of Bharat Ratna Award winners. The award ceremony was to take place in the last week of January, soon after the Republic Day celebrations of 1954. The then President Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Raman inviting him to be the personal guest in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, when Raman came to Delhi for the award ceremony. Sir CV Raman wrote a polite letter, regretting his inability to go. Raman had a noble reason for his inability to attend the investiture ceremony. He explained to the President that he was guiding a Ph.D. student and that thesis was positively due by the last day of January. The student was valiantly trying to wrap it all up and Raman felt, he had to be by the side of the research student, see that the thesis was finished, sign the thesis as the guide and then have it submitted.

Here was a scientist who gave up the pomp of a glittering ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving value to science that builds science.

By,
Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

Science as a Life time mission

Chandrasekhar Subramanyan's most famous discovery was the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit. The limit describes the maximum mass (~1.44 solar masses) of a white dwarf star, or equivalently, the minimum mass for which a star will ultimately collapse into a neutron star or black hole following a supernova. The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar while on a ship from India to Cambridge, England. The Chandrasekhar Limit led to the determination of how long a star of particular mass will shine. In 1983, Chandrasekhar Subramanyan got the Nobel Price for this discovery.

Two of Chandrasekhar's students in 1947 were the doctoral candidates Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang in Particle Physics research. Even though Chandrasekhar Subramanyan maintained his office at the Yerkes Observatory in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, he would regularly drive the one hundred miles to Chicago to guide and teach Lee and Yang and others many a times in difficult weather conditions. In 1957, these two of his students won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in particle physics research. This also brings out Chandrasekhar Subramanyan?s commitment to science and there by to his students. Science indeed is a life time mission for Chandrasekhar. It is this characteristic which makes youth to become passionate towards science.
By,
Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

Inspiration

Prof. Bert Sakmann - a German medical doctor and a research scientist who in 1991, together with German Physicist won the Nobel Prize for medicine for research into basic cell function and for their development of the patch-clamp technique. This technique conclusively established the existence of characteristic set of ion (+ve and ?ve) channels in cell membranes, that in turn established the role it plays in diseases like diabetes, cardiac, epilepsy and certain neuromuscular disorder.

Prof Bert Sakmann who did his elementary education in a rural background had a passion for Physics and Engineering in school days. He got interested in Cybernetics in the final year school, since he realized that living organisms could be understood in engineering terms. Thus, the seed of inter-disciplinary research was firmly rooted in him in a very young age. He enrolled himself for medical education. After foundation courses in bio-chemistry and physiology, he did his doctoral thesis in electro physiology. He attended medical schools in Freiburg, Berlin and Paris. As a doctoral student, he worked on electro-physiological basis of pattern recognition. For this, he closely worked with electrical and computer scientists. He learnt the basic mechanism of vision. Later, he ran his own laboratory in physiology in close collaboration with physio-chemical and bio-chemical departments. In his own words, he enjoyed working with fellow scientists on scientific adventures.

Now, here we can find a doctor and a researcher with the capability of working in multiple laboratories simultaneously and becoming a team scientist, sharing the research, sharing the work and sharing the rewards too. He is the real example for "Science is borderless".

By,
Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

Converting challenges into opportunities

Prof. Paul Crutzen (Chemistry, 1995) got Nobel Price for chemistry for demonstrating that the chemical compounds of Nitrogen Oxide accelerate the destruction of Stratospheric Ozone, which protects the Earth from the Sun?s ultraviolet radiation. From the young age, Paul Crutzen was challenged by war, family conditions, and his atmospheric research interest was shining despite different types of work environment. He is indeed an example of how a strong mind can defeat the problem and succeed.

In his younger days itself, Paul Crutzen was fond of Physics and Mathematics and also he was a good chess player. For many years, Crutzen longed for an academic career and accidentally joined Meteorology Department of Stockholm University as a programmer. There he programmed a model of tropical cyclone. Also, he attended some of the lecture courses and fulfilled the requirement of Master of Science degree taking the combination of Mathematics, Mathematical Statistics and Meteorology. Time constraints did not permit him to pursue Physics or Chemistry which needed large amount laboratory work. With this background, he took up Ph.D. thesis on a meteorological topic using his experience in the development of numerical model of a tropical cyclone. Simultaneously, he was given a task of helping a scientist from US to develop a numerical model of the oxygen allotrope distribution in the stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere. He got interested in this project leading to the study of photochemistry of atmospheric ocean and started an intensive study of the scientific literature which provided him the initial conditions for his scientific career. With this experience, he also changed the research topic to stratospheric chemistry.

It is extraordinary that even though his earlier circumstances did not permit him to take up the pure science studies, his inherent passion enabled him to achieve at the highest level on the pure science related to atmospheric science. Here is a scientist who converted all the challenges into opportunities in pursuit of his life time mission.

By,
Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

Scientific Magnanimity

I would like to narrate an incident which took place during a function conferring Nobel Laureate Prof. Norman E Borlaug, a well known agricultural scientist and a partner in India?s first Green revolution, with Dr. M S Swaminathan Award, at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on the 15th of March 2005. Prof. Borlaug, at the age of 91, was in the midst of all the praise showered on him from everybody gathered there.

When his turn came, he got up and highlighted India?s advancement in the agricultural science and production and said that the political visionary Shri C. Subramaniam and Dr. M S Swaminathan, pioneer in agricultural science were the prime architects of First Green Revolution in India. Even though Prof Norman Borlaug was himself a partner in the first green revolution, he did not make a point on this. He recalled with pride, Dr. Verghese Kurien who ushered White Revolution in India. Then the surprise came. He turned to scientists sitting in the third row, fifth row and eighth row of the audience. He identified Dr. Raja Ram, a wheat specialist, Dr S K Vasal, a maize specialist, Dr. B. R. Barwale, a seed specialist. He said, all these scientists had contributed for India?s and Asia?s agricultural science. Dr. Borlaug introduced them to the audience by asking them to stand and ensured that the audience cheered and greeted the scientists with great enthusiasm. This action of Dr. Norman Borlaug, I call it as "Scientific Magnanimity".

Friends, if we aspire to achieve great things in life, we need Scientific Magnanimity to focus the young achievers. It is my experience that great mind and great heart go together. This Scientific Magnanimity will motivate the scientific community and nurture team spirit.

By,
Dr. APJ Abdulkalam