India 2016, better known as INDIA YEAR BOOK (IYB) among the IAS aspirants was released couple of weeks back. The book is considered as holy grail of UPSC preparation. Offline coaching wallahs and book publishers would give you separate notes for IYB.
Online IAS gurus turned coaching wallahs (you know who I am talking about) would post a strategy with page numbers for most important stuff and after the exam, search from IYB for questions asked in the IAS prelims and sometimes even IAS mains and would put them in Yearbook stuff questions category.
New age coaching wallahs (online test series and micro planing wallahs) would assure you that they would include questions from year book in their tests and they would make you read the IYB. Even some toppers would recommend reading IYB especially for first time aspirants (or freshers as they say).
By all accounts IYB seems like a very important book to read for IAS preparation. It’s a very fat book, some 1000+ pages. It has a great cover pic jacket. So question arises, how to read this book effectively?
Well I am not a big fan of this book. Naah, I said it very mildly, this book is pure rubbish. If you have already bought it, aaj hi raddi wale ko de do.
First let me bust the myth of a lot questions being directly asked from the book and strategy of selective reading. Click on hyperlinked texts to read analysis and questions of coaching wallahs.
VVRIAS analysis of IYB and GS score or IAS score analysis of IYB
Copy pasting a few questions directly from there
#1. Consider the following rivers:
1. Barak
2. Lohit
3. Subansiri
Which of the above flows / flow through Arunachal Pradesh?
(a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
(Chapter Land the People: The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet, where it is known as Tsangpo and runs a long distance till it crosses over into India in Arunachal Pradesh under the name of Dihang. Near Passighat, the Debang and Lohit join the river Brahmaputra and the combined river runs all along the Assam in a narrow valley. It crosses into Bangladesh downstream of Dhubri. The principal tributaries of Brahmaputra in India are the Subansiri, Jia Bhareli, Dhansiri, Puthimari, Pagladiya and the Manas….)
- Seriously, they want you to prepare geography from IYB. Are you kidding me?
- It does not tell anything about Barak river, how would I know whether or not Barak river flows from Arunachal or not. I would need to see the map and yessss IYB does not teach you geography through maps.
- It does not tell me whether or not Subansiri also flows through Arunachal.
You decide it for yourself, if that’s not fraud, what is. Would you want to prepare polity from India year book? Okay, let’s see
#2. The power of Supreme Court of India to decide disputes between the Centre and the States falls under its
- advisory jurisdiction
- appellate jurisdiction
- original jurisdiction
- writ jurisdiction
Two questions which made IYB relevant again
- Saka era, 21st March
- Satyamev jayate, mundak upanishad
These are given in the national symbol chapter but they come in news every year on 21st March.
Satyamev jayate? Come onnnn, everyone studies it in 5th standard and if you didn’t remember it, chances are you wouldn’t even after reading this chapter.
And national symbol chapter is also given in history book Grover and Grover, so i can say, questions directly asked from Grover, start reading Grover also for history.
Other questions as you can all see are all far fetched hyperboles!
Let’s come to their selective reading strategy. I read what they recommended. For instance in energy chapter, IAS Score recommended reading e wastes, renewable energy etc. I did and result was waste of 20 previous minutes of my life.
A few facts
- India 2016 is updated only till November 2015, in most cases till June 2015. IAS Mains will be in Dec 2016, won’t be of any use
- There are only facts no analysis making it a very boring read (second to none)!
- Presentation is worse than the worst presented book you would have read. Someone ask them to at least put 10 images in a 1000 page book. In geography, they don’t even present maps. The font size is going to make you want to go for prescription glasses!
- Every economic, commercial and agricultural data is infinite times better presented in economic survey.
Then what explains the popularity and seemingly unwavering faith in the so called India year book?
India year book was meant for the time when IAS paper was more static in nature and Internet was not available (80s, 90s even early noughties). It provided every scheme even if incomplete, non analytical and only factual information in one place.
Internet 1st entered into India on 15th August 1995 and became ubiquitous if I can say so during last decade, more precisely in 2010s only.
- IAS aspirants are budding bureaucrats. They are status quoists and risk averse (even though this exam itself is the biggest gamble). So for instance, when everyone had left Orkut and migrated to Facebook and other social platforms, they continued on Orkut. During its final days, Orkut was sustained by IAS aspirants community alone. You don’t believe me? check out with the ForumIAS admins!
- On top of that fraud payed by coaching wallahs and online gurus help perpetuate the myth that is INDIA YEAR BOOK
Now there are 4 options available with you
- Read the book from cover to cover or as coaching wallah and online gurus suggest, 1st reading only to highlight important stuff and then in 2nd reading highlighted stuff as well as notes making and 3rd reading, only reading notes. May god be with you!
- Buy any substandard summary of book from the market. Well, it will save time compared to option one but you would still get nothing out of that
- Read chapter 2 national symbols, chapter 4 agriculture , global and regional security scenario from chapter 9, defence and last chapter diary of national events. Read chapter 28, welfare if you do not have any idea about schemes for weaker sections
- Not reading the book at all and using that time to read good books, newspapers, magazines. Very decent approach.
You can make out my order of recommendations.
What you should do instead
- Read policy and updates from analytical websites. For policy updates follow PRS Legislative research. This is the best resource you can find out there!
- You can go back in time and read their monthly policy reviews. It’s available from March 2014, I suppose.
- Click here for PRS monthly policy review and here for annual review
- Vikaspedia for govt programmes and policies
Use your time effectively and most efficiently. Good luck mitroooon!
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