Date of Interview: 12th April, Afternoon ( Last one – of whole lot of 23)
Board: TCA Anant
Optional: Economics
Background: NIT Jamshedpur (EEE)
Employee: worked in Business Consulting firm (17 months)
Hobbies: Watching Mahabharat, Listening to old songs

Experience in interview – Overall good, questions mostly on my DAF (hobbies mostly) and Economics

Utility of mocks – It depends on person to person, I enjoyed taking mocks and took 6. It boosted confidence overall.

Chairperson

1. What did your firm do?
2. What was your job profile and work ? and few counter questions for more clarity
3. Favorite singer from old songs?
4. Do you think in today’s songs, music dominates?
5. Which Mahabharata do you like to watch ? – I said BR’s Chopra and then counter question why?

Member 1 (most smiling person evert met )

1. Have you heard about Kundan Lal Saigal ?
2. In old movies, actor used to sing a lot with big piano. Why is this missing now ?
3. Comparative analysis on Cricket and movies ?
4. From Electrical and Electronics to Economics is a bold choice, why did you make it ?
5. Pandemic hit us hard , what do you think we could have done better ? – i pointed Migrant suffering and how ONOR could have been upscaled quickly
6. But that is marginal change ? – I pointed how our barbell strategy helped economy to achieve pre pandemic level quickly, so overall steps were taken by govt were good enough.

Member 2

1. Broad learnings from Mahabharata ?
2. Some factual ques -as which international author has written on Mahabharata ? – replied negatively
3. How does RBI target inflation ?
4. Problem of excess liquidity ?
5. How RBI sucks excess liquidity ?
6. Does RBI manage currency also ?
7. Give me one component for boosting Indian economy ? – I said Consumption

Member 3

1. Pension is gone now, why do you want to join govt services ?
2. Asked me about NPS (New Pension Scheme) and OPS in a very fudgy articulation, to which chairperson intervened and clearly articulated . – Honestly, the only question on which I had little knowledge, and thus couldn’t satisfy the person.

Member 4

1. What happened earlier – Ramayana or Mahabharata ? and she tried to confuse me deliberately however I repeated the response
2. Timeline of rise of Buddhism and Jainism ?
3. Which common family connects Islam and Christianity ?
4. What was Bhakti movement ? and asked me to elaborate on it
5. What is the difference between Public and Merit goods ?
6. Should we give Electricity free in Chattisgarh or New Delhi ? – I said, user fee should be levied and pointed out the issue of high tariff differential between consumers and industries
7. She countered by asking why do we give it free in New Delhi ? – I said that we target vulnerable sections and the free limit is upto 200 units only and hardly any welloff family can sustain within it
8. She came with a last blow – Electricity is in which list ? – I wasn’t totally sure and didn’t want to guess .

Interview gets over

So questions on DAF (Hobbies) and Economics

Source: Forum IAS