IAS-2015 TOPPERS MARKS :SAMVEG IAS

marks of Tina dabi (rank 1)-ias-2015

Essay: 145/250
GS Paper 1 :119/250
GS Paper 2 :84/250
GS Paper 3 :111/250
GS Paper 4 :110/250
GS Total: 424/ 1000
Political Sci & IR Paper 1 : 128/250
Political Science & IR Paper 2 : 171/250
Optional total :299/ 500
Written total : 868/ 1750
Interview :195/275
Total : 1063 /2025

1st attempt,2015 passout, English medium, David Sir Board, AIR 43
ROLL NO. : 0627208
NAME : KUMAR HARSH

ESSAY (PAPER-I)
145
GENRAL STUDIES -I (PAPER-II)
105
GENRAL STUDIES -II (PAPER-III)
091
GENRAL STUDIES -III (PAPER-IV)
107
GENRAL STUDIES -IV (PAPER-V)
110
OPTIONAL-I (PHILOSOPHY) (PAPER-VI)
115
OPTIONAL-II (PHILOSOPHY) (PAPER-VII)
095
WRITTEN TOTAL
768
PERSONALITY TEST
182
FINAL TOTAL
950

Rank - 70s
Essay 139
GS Paper 1 - 113
GS Paper 2 - 93
GS Paper 3 - 115
GS Paper 4 - 110
GS Total - 431
Pub Ad. 1- 100
Pub ad- 2 - 95
Optional total - 195
total - 765
interview - saxena -171
Rank - 70s
.All I can say for now is that quantity does matter (along with quality)...i.e. Write more and more if you know more..
2.Point format definitely helps esp. in GS
3.Examples boost your marks - highly relevant in GS 4
4. GS 1 and 3 - you can be a little confident about your score if you have prepared these ( I expected even more in GS 1)
5. Ethics paper -
earlier I used to attempt case studies first and also spent more time on part B and then come to partA and I used to score miserably (87 and 86) This year I attempted part A first.
And this was a suggestion given by my senior that we can spend a little extra time on first 3-4 Qs ( to make some good impressions on examiner) - I followed it and it helped.
In case studies also more analysis of the option which you are going to select would be better. In addition, it's better to provide more pragmatic answers which are realitic.

Rank 57

ESSAY (PAPER-I)
118
GENRAL STUDIES -I (PAPER-II)
113
GENRAL STUDIES -II (PAPER-III)
085
GENRAL STUDIES -III (PAPER-IV)
105
GENRAL STUDIES -IV (PAPER-V)
113
OPTIONAL-I (ANTHROPOLOGY) (PAPER-VI)
122
OPTIONAL-II (ANTHROPOLOGY) (PAPER-VII)
133
WRITTEN TOTAL
789
PERSONALITY TEST (D K Dewan board)
154
FINAL TOTAL
943

Ranks 80s

ESSAY (PAPER-I)
117

GENRAL STUDIES -I (PAPER-II)
108
GENRAL STUDIES -II (PAPER-III)
081
GENRAL STUDIES -III (PAPER-IV)
108
GENRAL STUDIES -IV (PAPER-V)
102

GS TOTAL - 399

OPTIONAL-I (PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION) (PAPER-VI)
110
OPTIONAL-II (PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION) (PAPER-VII)
127

OPTIONAL TOTAL PUB AD - 237

PERSONALITY TEST
179

FINAL TOTAL
932

Rank 9 -IAS-2015

ESSAY (PAPER-I)
138
GENRAL STUDIES -I (PAPER-II)
110
GENRAL STUDIES -II (PAPER-III)
095
GENRAL STUDIES -III (PAPER-IV)
114
GENRAL STUDIES -IV (PAPER-V)
095
OPTIONAL-I (POL. SC. & INT.REL.) (PAPER-VI)
125
OPTIONAL-II (POL. SC. & INT.REL.) (PAPER-VII)
099
WRITTEN TOTAL
776
PERSONALITY TEST
206
FINAL TOTAL
982

Cabinet clears national IPR policy, gives innovation a push

Cabinet clears national IPR policy, gives innovation a push

Intellectual Property Rights policy aims to encourage creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in the country

The government on Friday unveiled a National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy to promote the IP regime and to encourage creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

The policy seeks to put in place a legal framework that will encourage the IPR regime and reduce the time taken by the government to approve a trademark to a month by 2017. Currently, the process takes more than a year.

“Our intellectual property laws are WTO (World Trade Organization)-compliant. So there is no immediate plan to amend any Act,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said at a media briefing, adding that the policy will focus on commercialization of IPRs as well as their enforcement.

The policy, approved by the cabinet on Thursday, makes the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) the nodal agency for regulating IP rights in the country.

Objectives of the policy include strengthening the legal and legislative framework of IPRs, their commercialization; and reinforcing the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for IPR infringements.

India’s first IPR policy comes at a time when developed economies are trying to put in place even stronger IPR frameworks through mega-regional trade agreements.

India’s IPR regime is already in sync with WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), said Jaitley. “...as and when global trends move forward, a continuous evolution of these laws will always be required,” he added.

India’s strained patent and IP administration has failed to keep pace with growing technological advances. Global pharmaceuticals firms have often complained about India’s price controls and marketing restrictions.

Nirmala Sitharaman, commerce and industry minister, told lawmakers last month that over 237,000 applications were pending in the country’s four patent offices.

The new policy will try to safeguard the interests of rights owners keeping in mind the wider public interest while combating infringements of IPRs.

Jaitley said India would retain the right to issue so-called compulsory licences to its drug firms, under “emergency” conditions, and would not immediately need to change patent laws that were already fully WTO-compliant.

“Compulsory licences are already provided in our patent law. That existing provision will continue,” Jaitley said.

Compulsory licences allow a domestic drug manufacturer to produce patented drugs that are not available to the public at a reasonable price.

Last month, the US Trade Representative kept India, China and Russia on its “Priority Watch List” for inadequate improvement in IPR protection.

In 2015, India ranked 29 out of 30 countries in the International IP Index released by the Global Intellectual Property Center of the US Chamber of Commerce. This ranking measures the overall IP environment in a country, and China was ranked 19 in the same list.

The policy document says: “India shall remain committed to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health.”

The Doha Declaration is a 2001 WTO text which recognized that IP and patent regimes have to be looked at in the context of burning health issues such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases.

Policy analyst Shalini Bhutani said the policy failed to address a few points of pressure on the IPR front.

“The policy doesn’t secure us against the seed industry and the new generation free trade agreements/bilateral investment treaties which demand higher WTO-plus standards,” she said.

Experts welcomed the move to make DIPP the nodal agency on IPRs.

“The most important change that this policy seeks to bring all the patent offices under one roof, that is DIPP, to promote efficient and effective working between various offices,” said Yashawant Dev Panwar of the Patent Facilitating Centre at the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council. “The next major thing is that on an international forum, we want to create system to protect traditional knowledge. This has been referred on several occasions in the policy.”

The Income Declaration Scheme 2016 to open from 1st June 2016.

The Income Declaration Scheme 2016 to open from 1st June 2016.

The Income Declaration Scheme, 2016 incorporated as Chapter IX of the Finance Act 2016 provides an opportunity to all persons who have not declared income correctly in earlier years to come forward and declare such undisclosed income(s).

Under the Scheme, such income as declared by the eligible persons, would be taxed at the rate of 30% plus a ‘Krishi Kalyan Cess’ of 25% on the taxes payable and a penalty at the rate of 25% of the taxes payable, thereby totalling to 45% of the income declared under the scheme.

The scheme shall remain in force for a period of 4 months from 1st June, 2016 to 30th September, 2016 for filing of declarations and payments towards taxes, surcharge & penalty must be made latest by 30th November, 2016. Declarations can be filed online or with the jurisdictional Pr. Commissioners of Income-tax across the country.

· The scheme shall apply to undisclosed income whether in the form of investment in assets or otherwise, pertaining to Financial Year 2015-16 or earlier.

· Where the declaration is in the form of investment in assets, the Fair Market Value of such asset as on 1st June 2016 shall be deemed to be the undisclosed income under the Scheme. However, foreign assets or income to which the Black Money Act 2015 applies are not eligible for declaration under this scheme.

· Assets specified in the declaration shall be exempt from Wealth tax.

· No Scrutiny and enquiry under the Income-tax Act or the Wealth tax Act shall be undertaken in respect of such declarations.

· Immunity from prosecution under the Income-tax Act and Wealth Tax Act is also provided along with immunity from the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 subject to transfer of asset to actual owner within the period specified in the Rules.

· Non-payment of total taxes, surcharge & penalty in time or declaration by misrepresentation or suppression of facts shall render the declaration void.

· The circumstances in which the Scheme shall not apply or where a person is held to be ineligible are specified in section 196 (Chapter IX) of the Finance Act, 2016.

· Non declaration of undisclosed income under the Scheme, will render such undisclosed income liable to tax in the previous year in which it is detected by the Income tax Department. Other penal consequences will also follow accordingly.

Wildlife Institute of India to relocate endangered ‘dancing deer’ of Manipur

Wildlife Institute of India to relocate endangered ‘dancing deer’ of Manipur

The scientists of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) have been assigned the task to provide second home to 110 Sangai , brow-antlered and one of the most endangered species under Centre’s Endangered Species Recovery Project.

Details:

The sangai is an endemic, rare and endangered subspecies of brow-antlered deer. It is also state animal of Manipur.

The Sangai is now restricted to the Keibul Lamjao National Park (KLNP) in the Southeastern fringe of Loktak Lake in Manipur. Phumdis, floating vegetation occupy about two-third of the surface area of the lake. They feed, live and breed on this 9 km area of Phumdis.
It is classified as “Endangered” by the IUCN.

Why it is called “dancing deer”?

While walking on the floating biomass, Sangai often balances itself which looks as if it is dancing on the green grassland and therefore popularly called as “dancing deer” of Manipur

UN Declares APJ Abdul Kalam’s Birthday As ‘World Students Day’

UN Declares APJ Abdul Kalam’s Birthday As ‘World Students Day’

World Students Day: It was year 2010 when United Nations decided to mark the importance of India’s former President and great scientist APJ Abdul Kalam and declared his birthday as ‘World Students Day’.

October 15, which is Dr. Kalam’s birth anniversary, is celebrated as a day for students all around the world. Even Dr. Kalam always expressed his wish to be remembered as a teacher by the people.

दक्षिण कोरिया की लेखिका ‪#‎HanKang‬ ने द वेजेटेरियन के लिए जीता वर्ष 2016 का अंतरराष्ट्रीय ‪#‎ManBookerPrize‬

दक्षिण कोरिया की लेखिका ‪#‎HanKang‬ ने द वेजेटेरियन के लिए जीता वर्ष 2016 का अंतरराष्ट्रीय ‪#‎ManBookerPrize‬

South Korean author, Han Kang, has won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her novel 'The Vegetarian'.
It tells a story of a wife who decides to become a vegetarian. The decision provokes cruelty from her husband, and from her father, and obsession from her sister’s husband, as the woman, Yeong-hye, dreams obsessively about becoming a tree.
Han is the first South Korean to win the prize.
The Vegetarian" is the first of her books to be translated into English. It tells the story of Yeong-hye, a dutiful wife whose decision to forego meat uproots her whole existence.

South Korean author Han Kang won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction on Monday with “The Vegetarian,” an unsettling novel in which a woman’s decision to stop eating meat has devastating consequences.

Literary critic Boyd Tonkin, chair of the panel that chose the winner from 155 entries, said Han’s book combined “tenderness and terror” in a tale of “volcanic, visceral intensity.”

The award is the international counterpart to Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize and is open to books published in any language that have been translated into English.

The prize money will be split evenly between Ms. Han and her 28-year-old translator, Deborah Smith, who only began learning Korean less than seven years ago.

“The Vegetarian” is the first of her books to be translated into English. It tells the story of Yeong-hye, a dutiful wife whose decision to forego meat uproots her whole existence.

The author said she wanted to explore “human violence, and also (ask) a question about human dignity.”

The prize named after its sponsor, financial services firm Man Group PLC was previously a career honour, but changed this year to recognize a single work of fiction.

The change comes amid signs that English-speaking readers are slowly becoming more receptive to translated literature. Research firm Nielsen Book says the British market for translated fiction almost doubled between 2001 and 2015 but still accounts for just 1.5 percent of all fiction sales.

Man Booker is one of the few literary prizes to recognize translators alongside authors, and marks an extraordinary victory for Smith- “The Vegetarian” is not just the first Korean novel she had translated, but the first she had read.

“For a short novel, it felt like climbing a mountain,” she said.

The other contenders were Yan Lianke’s “The Four Books,” one of the few Chinese novels to tackle the Great Famine of the 1950s and ‘60s; Angolan revolution saga “A General Theory of Oblivion” by Jose Eduardo Agualusa; and the Alpine story “A Whole Life” by Austria’s Robert Seethaler.

ISRO’s Reusable Launch Vehicle to take off next week

ISRO’s Reusable Launch Vehicle to take off next week
The technology demonstrator will take place from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The first technology demonstrator (TD) launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), or the spaceplane in popular parlance, will take place on May 23 at 9.30 a.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, according to ISRO officials.

Visually, the RLV-TD is a rocket-aircraft combination measuring about 17 m, whose first stage is a solid propellant booster rocket and the second stage is a 6.5 m long aircraft-like winged structure sitting atop the rocket.

A misnomer

However, the popular perception of the technology as a marriage between rocket and aircraft is a misnomer.

In RLV-TD that is awaiting launch at SHAR, the first stage, weighing about 9 tonnes, is merely the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3) flown in the 1980s.

The vehicle will take off like a rocket and the RLV will be taken to a height of 70 km and where the booster will release the vehicle to carry out its manoeuvres.

Hypersonic Experiment 1

According to Dr. K. Sivan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvanathapuram, where the RLV was designed, assembled and where it underwent basic electrical, hydraulic and “sign check” tests, the objective is to achieve hypersonic speeds to basically test the hypersonic aero-thermodynamic characterisation of the winged body’s re-entry, its control and guidance systems, autonomous mission management to land at a specific location at sea and testing of “hot structures” that make up the structure of the RLV.

The test is, therefore, termed as Hypersonic Experiment 1 (HEX-1).

Complex technology

A conventional launch vehicle (LV), says Dr. Sivan, spends the lowest time of its flight in the atmosphere, whereas the RLV system spends all the time in the atmosphere. Also, while an aircraft experiences limited flight regime of say Mach 0 to Mach 2 or so, the RLV experiences a much wider range of flight regimes.

Hence the technology of an RLV is much more complex basically arising from the design of the control and guidance systems, he pointed out.

In HEX1, the winged RLV is otherwise a dummy with no powered flight of its own. In this test, the RLV will attain a flight regime of Mach 5 with the help of the booster alone, Dr. Sivan said. At the end of the HEX1 mission, the aircraft will land in sea. The total flight duration of the RLV-TD from launch till splash down will be about 10 mins.

However, the ultimate objective of the RLV programme of ISRO is to enable the vehicle traverse a very wide range of flight regimes from Mach 0 to Mach 25 based on air-breathing propulsion for achieving two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch capability.

The integrated test system (booster plus the RLV-TD) is already at the SDSC (SDSC), Sriharikota. Prior to being moved to Sriharikota, the RLV subsystem underwent acoustic tests at the National Aerospace Laboratories of the CSIR (CSIR-NAL) and the booster went as a separate subsystem directly from VSSC. At SDSC the two were mated together.

Dr. A.S. Kiran Kumar, ISRO Chairman, called the first test launch HEX1 “a very preliminary step” and stressed that “we have to go a long way” before it could be called a re-usable launch system. “But these are very essential steps we have to take,” he said.

Lower cost

Asked whether the Indian reusable launch system was aimed at bringing down the launch cost, the ISRO Chairman said, “It will bring down the cost. Towards that, we will have to work and go through these initial steps,” the Chairman said.

Flying test bed

The present design is basically “a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, namely hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion using a scramjet engine”, according to ISRO website.

The HEX series of experiments will be followed by the landing experiment (LEX), return flight experiment and scramjet propulsion experiment (SPEX).

The basic design of a scramjet has already been evolved.

A test launch of the engine aboard a sounding rocket, which will achieve a flight regime of up to Mach 8, will take place some place in June at SHAR, Dr. Sivan said.