UPSC is the abbreviation for Union Public Service Commission. Union Public Service Commission is India's central recruiting agency which is responsible for the appointments and examinations for the All India Services and Group A, and the group B of the Central Services. It is the duty of the Union Public Service Commission of India to conduct examinations to appoint candidates for the service to the Union.

On all the matters relating to the methods of recruitments of civil posts for civil services, to make appointments to the civil services or civil posts, making the promotions of the candidates or transfers from one service to the other, etc. the Union Public Service Commission is consulted.

The Chairman and all the other members of the commission of the organization are appointed by the President of India. This Commission comprises of a total of 9 to 11 members including the chairman of the Commission. The examination for a post in the Commission is carried out on a merit-based selection process.

Every year lakhs of students appear for the UPSC Examinations. The examinations are not a joke. One has to study everything in detail. Not a thing can be left out if you wish to pass this exam.
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The UPSC exam is a competitive exam, which is held every year. The exam is also called as the Civil Services Exam and is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for the recruitment of various posts such as the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Foreign Services (IFS) , Indian Police Services (IPS), etc.

Simply referred to as the UPSC exam, it is generally conducted in three phases. First, there is a preliminary exam which consists of two objective-type papers. And then there is the main examination which has nine papers of essay type.

From these only two papers are qualifying, and the marks of the seven papers are counted, which is followed by the personality test or the interview.

The examination has certain eligibility criteria. One of the most important qualifications one needs is the nationality. For the examination of Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, the candidate must be a citizen of India.

The educational qualifications include a degree from the Central, State, or a Deemed University. One has to be a graduate to appear for the exam. This is the reason why most of the students start preparing for the exam in the first year of their graduation, so that after their graduation, they are ready to appear for the exam, and also eligible. Many students opt for UPSC coaching for better preparation. If anyone has completed a degree from a foreign university, and if he/she wants to appear for the exam, the candidate has to make sure that the degree is recognized by the Association of Indian Universities.

The exam also has an age restriction. It differs according to different castes and categories, but the minimum age limit to appear for the examination is 21 years. A candidate should have completed 21 years of age to appear for the exam. There also are a limited number of attempts for the candidates.

The pattern of the exam is elaborate, and it is usually not possible for the students to crack the exam in a single attempt. As the exam is in three phases, failure in any one of the phase can bring you down, and one has to reappear for the exam. Students though don't stop at a single attempt, and because of the few seats, it gets even harder to crack the exam and get in.

The Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission, Arvind Saxena has said that the Commission has proposed to the government to recruit the candidates from the list of candidates who make it to the interview rounds of the civil services exams but fail to get further.

This would be a huge step, as the candidates will still have some hope to get into the government services. The ones who have failed the interview round would not go back, and will not go back empty-handed.

It was observed that almost 11 lakh students appear for the UPSC examinations every year, and only about half of them get selected to appear for the preliminary examinations. This number of candidates decreases furthermore, as, towards the end, just 600 candidates remain.

So in order to reduce this tension and the suffering, Commission has suggested that the government should consider recruiting students from the list of candidates who appeared for the interview but were unable to get in.
It was also put forth to make the exam and the selection process more candidate-friendly. The Commission is now making changes so as to make the exam procedure and the recruitment process candidate friendly.

This certainly is good news for the candidates appearing for UPSC exams and the ones preparing for the exam. Even though the pattern of the exam would remain the same, but the recruitment process might change.

The day of just sitting around, hoping to get a government job will soon be over. If the new changes are implemented in the recruitment process, then the candidates who have made it to the interview process could still end up getting good government jobs. This will surely reduce the stress on the students who are trying their best to get into the civil services.

Author's Bio: 

Lucy Jones is an experienced blogger who has written articles for several renowned blogs and websites about various uses of social media to engineer more business traffic on business websites