Preparing for UPSC civil services examination is a most dynamic task as the aspirants have to keep themselves updated with the latest on-going events in society. They have to prepare a critical analysis of various government initiatives.
Besides they have to understand study different thoughts of various writers for a particular event. Preparing in this way adds value to their answers and fetches them extra marks.
Why Magazines Are Important While Preparing for UPSC?
In the UPSC preparation aspirants can get various benefits of using the Monthly magazines. The magazines are useful in all three stages of the UPSC preparation be it Prelims, Mains, or Interview.
- For Prelims: – It provides the factual details that can be used to eliminate the statements in multiple-choice questions.
- For Mains: – It helps the aspirants to prepare a critical analysis with a balanced conclusion.
- For interview: –It gives the aspirants insights into various national and international issues which can add weightage to the answers in the interview.
Some Of The Benefits of Adding Magazines To The List of UPSC Sources are listed below: –
- 1. The aspirants can add valuable points on various burning issues in their notes.
- 2. Using magazines helps the aspirants to form a balanced conclusion without being biased.
- 3. It gives the aspirants a multidimensional approach.
- 4. The aspirants can get a complete analysis of a topic in one place.
- 5. It also contains articles on motivation and success stories.
- 6. The magazines provide the aspirants with the value- addition material (like quotes, latest phrases, cases studies, real-time examples) on a specific topic which hard to find otherwise.
- 7. In newspapers the issues are covered in a scattered manner as per daily updates while in magazines the issues are covered in a comprehensive manner along with background and a possible way forward.
Dos And Don’ts While Using A Magazine:
Dos: –
- 1. Aspirants should be careful while choosing a magazine and ensure that they keep their resources precise
- 2. It is important to read the original magazine. Reading the full article will give a concise understanding of the issue.
- 3. Be careful of the relevance of the article while reading a magazine. Reading only selected topics conforming To the UPSC syllabus can save time.
- 4. Always read official magazines or which are prepared by various departments of the government, like Yojana or Kurukshetra or new India Samachar which was released recently
Don’ts: –
- 1. Reading only the gist of the magazine may not help always.
- 2. An aspirant should be careful in choosing the magazine and ensure that its content is relevant.
- 3. Focussing more on Political news will not be useful for UPSC preparation.
- 4. Ensure that you don’t rewrite the content of the magazine in your notes. It is advised to make short and crisp notes which makes revision easy.
The Best 5 Monthly Magazines for UPSC Preparation are:
1) Yojana:
Yojana is a monthly journal devoted to socio-economic issues. The magazine is now published in 13 languages viz. English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia. Yojana provides content on one theme every month.
This way it gives content on different topics every month. As it is a government magazine, it gives a balanced opinion -both pros and cons which are essential for Civil Services Examination, especially for Main and Interview preparation. The Yojana is helpful for General Studies Paper-II and Paper III and Essay paper.
Although Yojana is sponsored by the government and is an official venture, it is in no way restricted to expressing the government views alone. It attempts to give praise where praise is due and criticize with constructive purpose.
Yojana gives different shades of opinion and views on any issue and thereby presents a balanced picture. This magazine can be downloaded from the website yojana.gov.in free of cost.
2) Kurukshetra:
Amonthly publication in Hindi and English. The journal is devoted to all aspects of rural reconstruction and village democracy. The journal carries educative and informative articles on rural development and is useful for scholars, academicians, and students preparing for civil services and other competitive examinations.
While Yojana Magazine focuses more on urban developmental issues, Kurukshetra Magazine emphasizes more on social issues including issues relating to rural governance.
This magazine analyses and studies the recent development in rural India and what impact does all government schemes have. Kurukshetra helps in both prelims and main examination as recently UPSC is focusing on the environment and rural development Kurukshetra is a monthly magazine and covers a good portion of the mains syllabus especially for General Studies.
You can also find out information about recently launched government schemes, government initiatives, policy initiatives, etc.
3) The Economic and Political Weekly:
The Economic and Political Weekly, published in Mumbai, is an Indian institution that enjoys a global reputation for excellence in independent scholarship and critical inquiry.
Week after week, EPW publishes a minimum of 70,000 to 80,000 words on a variety of issues. The articles are contributed by leading academics, well-known public commentators, young social scientists, and political activists who seek a platform to publish their views.
EPW is unique in that every week it publishes analysis of contemporary affairs side by side with academic papers in the social sciences is a weekly social science journal. This magazine is mostly helpful to answer an analytical question in the main exam. It is a multidisciplinary publication covering sociology, political science, history, and environmental studies.
4) Down to Earth:
The UPSC has increased its interest in the environmental topic. The environmental issues have gained an important place in the overall weightage of the UPSC Exam pattern. Various environmental issues of Climate change, land degradation plastic pollution in seawater have been discussed on large scale.
A number of international platforms and institutions are working on these issues. The environment topics are allocated with significant marks in the Prelims and Mains examination.
To cover such an important and wide range of environmental topics the best magazine is Down to earth. This magazine helps the aspirants to prepare for topics under the environment with the national interest, including economic security, livelihood, and health. It analyses the environmental topics from multiple aspects.
This magazine is a good source of reports, India’s rank in various indices, and global best practices to solve environmental issues. DTE is a very good magazine about environmental issues and awareness.
So is World Focus for International panorama (GS 2) and EPW for social spectrum and agriculture portion(GS 1 and GS 3).
5) New India Samachar:
In a bid to provide correct information about various initiatives taken by the Government of India for the benefit of the common people, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has brought out a fortnightly titled “New India Samachar”. It would enlighten the readers with cabinet decisions and give insight into topical issues in its unique way.
The magazine exclusively covers various topics relevant to UPSC preparation. Since it is published by the Government of India, it is one of the best sources to rely on and helps build ‘Pro-Governmnet’ opinions which is the focus of UPSC. It is a free publication issued in 13 different Indian languages which easies your choice to read it in the language preferred by an aspirant. Yojana and Kurukshetra magazines being mostly mains oriented, this magazine mainly covers 90% of the prelims syllabus.
It covers a wide range of topics like Foreign policy, Science and Technology, Economy, and so on.
Magazines can play a vital role in the Civil Services Exam (CSE) preparation as they comprehensively cover both current affairs and contemporary issues and helps to build an opinion through analysis and gives a 360-degree approach to an issue.
Following a proper approach and strategy can reduce his/her burden and helps in revising. Aspirants are advised to choose the correct resource based on the above information and make the best use of it.
All the Best!
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