Geography Syllabus

( UPSC Syllabus )
Part B - Main Examination - Optional Subjects
Main Examination Syllabus - Subject : Geography

Paper-I (Principles of Geography)

Section-A (Physical Geography)

 

1. Geomorphology
   Factors controlling landform development; endogenetic and exogenetic forces; origin and evolution of the earth’s crust; physical conditions of the earth’s interior; geosynclines; continental drift; isostasy; sea-floor spreading; plate tectonics; mountain building; volcanicity; earthquakes; concepts of geomorphic cycles; landforms associated with fluvial, arid, glacial, coastal and karst cycle; groundwater; Applied Geomorphology.
   
   
2. Climatology
   Temperature and pressure belts of the world; heat budget of the earth; atmospheric circulation; planetary and local winds; monsoons and jet streams; air masses and fronts; temperate and tropical cyclones; types and distribution of precipitation; Koppen’s and Thornthwaite’s classification of world climate; hydrological cycle; climatic change.
   
   
3. Oceanography
   Bottom topography of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans; temperature and salinity of the oceans; ocean deposits; ocean currents and tides; marine resources–biotic, mineral and energy resources; coral reefs; sea-level changes.
   
   
4. Biogeography
   Genesis of soils; classification and distribution of soils; soil profile; soil erosion and conservation; factors influencing world distribution of plants and animals; problems of deforestation and conservation measures; social forestry, agro-forestry.
   
   
5. Environmental Geography
   Human ecological adaptations; transformation of nature by man; environmental degradation and conservawtin; ecosystems and their management; global ecological imbalances–problems of pollution, global warming, reduction in bio-diversity and depletion of forests.
   
   

Section-B (Human Geography)

 

1. Perspectives in Human Geography
   A real differentiation; regional synthesis; dichotomy and dualism; environmentalism; quantitative revolution and locational analysis; radical, behavioural, human and welfare approaches; cultural regions of the world human and welfare approaches; cultural regions of the world; human development indicators.
   
   
2. Economic Geography
   World economic develpment–measurement and problems; world resources and their distribution; energy crisis; the limits to growth; world agriculture–typology of agricultural regions; agricultural inputs and productivity; food and nutrition problems; famine–causes, effects and remedies; world industries–location patterns and problems; patterns of world trade.
   
   
3. Population and Settlement Geography
   Growth and distribution of world population; demographic atrributes; causes and consequencies of migration; concepts of over–, under– and optimum population; world population problems.
   Types and patterns of rural settlements; hierarchy of urban settlements; concept of primate city and rank-size rule; functional classificatipn of towns; sphere of urban influence; rural-urban fringe; satellite town; problems of urbanisation.
   
   
4. Regional Planning
   Concept of a region; types of regions and methods of regionalisation; growth centres and growth poles; regional imbalances; environmental issues in regional planning; planning for sustainable development.
   
   
5. Models, Theories and Laws in Human Geography
   System analysis in Human Geography; Malthusian, Marxian and Demographic Transition models; Central Place theories of Christaller and Losch; Von Thunen’s model of agricultural location; Weber’s model of industrial location; Rostov’s model of stages of growth. Heart-land and Rimland theories; laws of international boundaries and frontiers.

Note : Candidates will be required to answer one compulsory map question pertinent to subjects covered by this paper.

Paper-II (Geography of India)

Section-A.

 

1. Physical Setting
   Space relationship of India with neighbouring countries; structure and relief; drainage system and watersheds; physiographic regions; mechanism of Indian monsoons; tropical cyclones and western distrubances; floods and droughts; climatic regions; natural vegetation, soil types and their distributions.
   
   
2. Resources
   Land, surface and groundwater, energy, minerals, and biotic resources, their distribution, utilisation and conservation; energy crisis.
   
   
3. Agriculture
   Infrastructure–irrigation, seeds, fertilizers, power; institutional factors–land holdings, land tenure and land reforms; agricultural productivity, agricultural intensity, crop combination, land capability; agro-and social forestry; green revolution and its socio-economic and ecological implications; significance of dry farming; livestock resources and white revolution; blue revolution; agricultural regionalisation; agro-climatic zones.
   
   
4. Industry
   Evolution of industries; locational factors of cotton, jute, iron and steel, fertiliser, paper, drugs and pharmaceutical, automobile and cottage indusries; industrial complexes and industrial regionalisaiton; new industrial policy; multinationals and liberalisation.
   
   
5. Transport, Communication and Trade
   Road, railway, waterway, airway and pipeline networks and their complementary roles in regional development; growing importance of ports on national and foreign trade, trade balance; free trade and export promotion zones; developments in communication technology and its impact on economy and society.

Section-B

 

1. Cultural Setting
   Racial and ethnic diversities; major tribes, tribal areas and their problems; role of langague, religion and tradition in the formation of cultural regions; growth, distribution and density of population; demographic attributes–sex-ratio, age structure, literacy rate, work-force, dependency ratio and longevity; migration (inter-regional, intra-regional and international) and associated problems, population problems and policies.
   
   
2. Settlements
   Types, patterns and morphology of rural settlements; urban development; census definition of urban areas; morphology of Indian cities; functional classification of Indian cities; conurbations and metropolitan regions; urban sprawl; slums and associated problems; town planning; problems of urbanisaiton.
   
   
3. Regional Development and Planning
   Experience of regional planning in India; Five Year Plans; integrated rural development programmes; panchayati raj and decentralised planning; command area development; watershed management; planning for backward area, desert drought-prone, hill and tribal area development; multi-level planning; geography and regional planning.
   
   
4. Political Aspects
   Geographical basis of Indian federalism; state reorganisation; regional consciousness and national integration; international boundary of India and related issues; disputes on sharing of water resources; India and geopolitics of the Indian Ocean.
   
   
5. Contemporary Issues
   Environmental hazards–landslides, earthquakes, floods and droughts, epidemics; issues related to environmental pollution; changes in patterns of land use; principles of environmental impact assessment and environmental management; population explosion and food security; environmental degradation; problems of agrarian and industrial unrest; regional disparities in economic development; concept of sustainable growth and development.

Note : Candidates will be required to answer one compulsory map question pertinent to subjects covered by this paper.

Public Admin Syllabus

( UPSC Syllabus )
Part B - Main Examination - Optional Subjects
Main Examination Syllabus - Subject : Public Administration

Paper-I (Administrative theory)

Section-A

 

• Introduction
  Meaning, scope and significance of Public Administration, Public and Private Administration, Wilson's vision of Public Administration, Evolution of the discipline and its present status. New Public Administration. Public choice approach and New Public Management perspective. Features of Entrepreneurial Government, Good Governance : concept and application.
  
  
• Theories of Administraiton
  Nature and typologies; Scientific Management (Taylor and the Scientific Management Movement), Classical Theory (Fayol, Urwick, Gulick and others), Bureaucratic Theory. (Marxist view, Weber's model and its critique, post-Weberian developments.) Ideas of Mary Parker Follett and (C.I. Barnard) Human Relations School (Elton Mayo and and others). Behavioral Approach to Organizational Analysis. Participative Management; (McGregor, Likert and others). The Systems Approach; Open and closed systems.
  
  
• Structure of public organisations
  Typologies of Political Executive and their functions. Forms of public organizations : Ministries and Departments : Corporations; Companies, Boards and Commissions; Ad hoc and Advisory bodies. Headquarters and field relationships.
  
  
• Administrative Behaviour
  Decision making with special reference to Herbert Simon, Theories of Leadership, Communication, Morale, Motivation (Maslow and Herzberg.)
  
  
• Accountability and Control
  Concepts of Accountability and Control; Legislative Executive and Judicial Control over Administration. Citizen and Administration, Role of civil society, people's participation, Right to information. Administrative corruption, machinery for redressal of citizens' grievances. Citizens Charter.
  
  
• Administrative Law
  Meaning and significance. Delegated Legislation : Types, Advantages, Limitations, Safeguards, Administrative Tribunals : limitations and methods of ensuring effectiveness.
  
  

Section-B

 

• Administrative Reforms
  Meaning, process and obstacles. Techniques of administrative improvement : O and M; Work Study and Work Management, Information Technology.
  
  
• Comparative Public Administration
  Meaning, nature and scope. Models of Comparative Public Administration : Bureaucratic and ecological.
  
  
• Development Administration
  Origin and purpose, Rigg's Prismatic-Sala Model; Bureaucracy and Development; Changing profile of Development Administration; new directions in people's self development and empowerment.
  
  
• Public Policy
  Relevance of Policy making in Public Administration. Model of Policy-making Sectoral policies (e.g. Energy, Industries Education and Transport Policies) Process of Policy formulation, problems of implementation, feed-back and evaluation.
  
  
• Personnel Administration
  Objectives of Personnel Administration. Importance of human resource development. Recruitment, training, career development, position classification, discipline, Performance Appraisal, Promotion, Pay and Service Conditions; employer- employee relations, grievance redressal mechanism integrity and code of conduct.
  
  
• Financial administration
  Monetary and fiscal policies. Resource mobilisation : tax and non-tax sources. Public borrowings and public debt. Concepts and types of budget. Preparation and execution of the budget. Deficit financing Performance budgeting. Legislative control, Accounts and Audit.

Paper-II (Indian Administration)

Section-A

 

• Evolution of Indian Administration Kautilya, Mughal period, British legacy.
• Constitutional framework value premises of the Constitution, Parliamentary democracy, federalism, Planning. Human Rights : National Human Rights Commission.
• Union Government and Administration President Prime Minister, Council of Ministers, Cabinet committees, Cabinet Secretariat, Prime Minister's Office, Central Secretariat, Ministries and Departments, Advisory Bodies, Boards and Commissions, Field Organizations.
• State Government and Administration–Governor, Chief Minsiter, Council of Ministers, Chief Secretary, State Secretariat Directorates.
• District Administration Changing role of the District Collector : Law and Order and Development Management. Relationship with functional departments. District administration and the Panchayati Raj institutions. Role and functions of the Sub-Divisional Officer.
• Local Government : Panchayati Raj and Urban Local Government. Structures, Functions, finances. Main featues of 73rd and 74rd Constitutional Amendements : Problemes of implementation. Major rural and urban development programmes and their management.
• Public Sector : Forms of public undertakings. Their contribution to the economy; problems of autonomy and accountability. Changing role of the Public Sector in the context of liberalisation.

Section-B

 

• Public Services : All India Services Constitutional position , role land functions. Central Services : nature and functions. Union Public Service Commission.State Services and the State Public Service Commissions. Training in the changing context of governance.
• Control of Public Expenditure. Parliamentary control Estimates Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Committee on Public Undertakings, Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Role of the Finance Ministry in monetary and fiscal policy area, co-ordination and economy in expenditure.
• Administrative Reforms : Reforms since independence. Reports of the Administrative Reforms Commission, Problems of implementation.
• Machinery for Planning : Role, composition and review of functions of the Planning Commission; Role of the National Development Council. Process of Plan formulation at Union and State levels. Decentralized planning.
• Administration of Law and Order : Role of Central and State Agencies in maintenance of law and order. Criminalisation of politics and administration.
• Welfare Administration : Machinery for welfare administration at the national and state levels. Central Social Welfare Board and the State, Social Welfare Boards. Special organizations for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Welfare Programmes for women and children. Problems of child labour. Role of civil society.
• Major issues in Indian Administration : problems of Centre-State Relations; Relationship between political and permanent Executives. Values in Public Service and Administrative Culture. Lok Pal and Lok Ayuktas. Development and environmental issues. Impact of information Technology on Public Administration. Indian Administration and Globalisation.

Political Science Syllabus

Paper-I

Section-A (Political Theory and Indian Politics)

 

• Approaches to the study of political theory: historical, normative and empirical.
• Theories of state: Social contract, Liberal, Neo-liberal, Marxist, communitarian, post-colonial.
• State Sovereignty: Marxist and pluralistic theories; globalisation and the State.
• Democracy and Human Rights: Democratic theory-classical and contemporary. Theories of Human Rights; Theories of Justice, Equality and Revolution, political obligation; New Social Movements.
• Theories of Political Culture; Culture and politics in Third World countries.
• Theories of Political Economy-Classical and contemporary.
• Political Ideologies: Nature of Ideology; Liberalism, Socialism, Marxism, Fascism, Gandhism and Anarchism.
• Theories of Power and Hegemony: Pareto, Mosca, Mitchels, C. Wright Mills, Weber, Gramsci, Hannah Arendt.
• Indian Political Thought: Manu, Kautilya M.N. Roy Gandhi Ambedkar and E V Ramswami Naicker.
• Political Thought: Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, J S Mill, Hegel and Marx, Lenin, Rosa Luxemberg and Mao Zedong.

Section-B (Indian Government and Politics)

 

• Indian Nationalism: Dadabhai Naoroji, Tilak, Savarkar, Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narain, Nehru, Subhas Bose, Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohia.
• Nature and struggle of Indian freedom struggle : From constitutionalism to Mass Satyagraha, Revolutionary movements Non Co-operation, Civil disobedience and Quit India, Indian Naval uprising, Indian National Army; role of women in freedom struggle.
• Socio- economic dimensions of the nationalist movement: The communal question and the demand for partition; backward caste movements, Trade union and Peasant movements, Civil rights movement.
• Landmarks in Constitutional Development during British Rule: Morley-Minto Reforms; Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms; Simon Commission; Government of India Act, 1935; Cripps Mission : Indian Independence Act, 1947.
• Salient Features of the Indian Constitution: The Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties, Directive Principles; federalism, parliamentary system; amending procedures; judicial review.
• The Executive System in theory and practice: President, Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers; Governor, Chief Minister and the State Council of Ministers. The Bureaucracy.
• Role and function of the Parliament and Parlimentary Committee-Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha; changing socio economic profile.
• The Supreme Court and the High Courts; Judicial Activism; PIL.
• Statutory institutions/commis sions-UPSC, Election Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General, Backward Classes Commission, National Commission for women; National Human Rights Commission; Minorities Commission.
• Party system : ideology and social base of parties; fragmentation and regionalisation. Pressure groups; patterns of coalition politics; trends in electoral behaviour.
• Class, caste, ethnicity and gender in Indian politics; politics of regionalism, communalism, backward class and Dalit movements, Tribal people movements, struggle for gender justice.
• Planning and Economic Development : Role of the Planning Commission; Planning in the era of liberalisation; political dimensions of economic reforms.
• Grassroots democracy : Panchayati Raj and municipal government; significance of 73rd and 74th Amendements. Grass root movement and women's empowerment.

Paper - II (Comparative Politics and International Relations)

Section-A (Comparative Analysis and International Politics)

 

• Approaches to the study of comparative politics : traditional approaches; political economy, political sociology or political system approaches; Nature of political process in the Third World.
• The Modern State : Evolution, the contemporary trends in the advanced industrial countries and the third world.
• Development : Strategies and contemporary discourse.
• Concepts of International politics : Power, national interest, balance of power, national security, collective security and peace.
• Theories of International politics Marxist, Realist, Systems, Decision-making and Game Theory.
• Determinants of foreign policy : Domestic compulsions, geopolitics, geoeconomics and global order.
• Origin and contemporary relevance of the Cold War, nature of the post-cold war global order.
• Major issues of world politics : Cuban Missile Crisis; Vietnam War, Oil Crisis, Afghan Civil War, Gulf War, Collapse of the Soviet Union, Yugoslav Crisis.
• Non-alignment : Concept and movement; Third World Movements for global justice, Non-alignment in the post cold war era.
• The evolution of the international economic system-from Bretton woods to WTO, the North-South dimension.
• International organisations UN and its specialized agencies : International Court of Justice; ILO, UNICEF, WHO UNESCO.
• Regional, organizations such as the ASEAN, APEC, EU, SAARC, NAFTA
• Contemporary Global Concerns : Democracy, Human Rights, Ecology, Gender Justice, Global commons, Communication.

Section-B (India and the World)

 

• Indian Foreign Policy : Historical origins, determinants; the institutions of policy-making; continuity and change.
• India and the Non-Alignment Movement : Evolution and contemporary relevance. Socio- political basis of non-alignment-domestic and global.
• Major issues in Indian foreign policy : Sino-Indian Border War (1962); Indo-Pakistan War (1971) and the liberation of Bangladesh; IPKF in Sri Lanka; India as military nuclear power (1998).
• Conflict and co-operation in South Asia : India's relations with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal. Regional co-operation and SAARC. Kashmir question in India's foreign policy.
• India's relation with Africa and Latin America.
• India and South East Asia; ASEAN.
• India and the major powers : USA, EU, China, Japan and Russia.
• India and the UN System : India's role in UN Peace Keeping and global disarmament.
• India and the emerging international economic order; multilateral agencies-WTO, IMF, IBRD, ADB.
• India and the question of nuclear weapons : NPT and CTBT.

Optional Subjects

Agriculture	Management
Animal Husbandry & Vetinary Science	Mathematics
Anthropology	Mechanical Engineering
Botany	Medical Science
Chemistry	Philosophy
Civil Engineering	Physics
Commerce & Accountancy	Political Science & International Relations
Economics	Psychology
Electrical Engineering	Public Administration
Geography	Sociology
Geology	Statistics
Indian History	Zoology
Law

Arabic	Gujarati	Manipuri	Sanskrit
Assamese	Hindi	Nepali	Sindhi
Bengali	Kannada	Oriya	Tamil
Chinese	Kashmiri	Pali	Telugu
English	Konkani	Persian	Urdu
French	Marathi	Punjabi
German	Malayalam	Russian

Main Paper Scheme

Paper-I	One of the Indian Languages to be selected by the candidate from the 18 languages included in the VIIIth Schedule to the Constitution (Qualifying Paper)	300 Marks
Paper-II	English (Qualifying Paper)	300 Marks
Paper-III	Essay	200 Marks
Papers IV & V	General Studies (300 Marks for each paper)	600 Marks
Papers VI, VII, VIII & IX	Any two subjects (each having 2 papers) to be selected from the prescribed optional subjects (300 marks for each paper)	1200 Marks
Total Marks for Written Examination		2000 Marks
Interview Test		300 Marks
Grand Total		2300 Marks

Prelim Syllabus

(Paper 1) (200 marks) - Duration : Two hrs.

• Current events  of national and international importance
• History of India  and Indian national movement
• Indian and World Geography- physical, social, economic geography of India and the world
• Indian Polity and governance – constitution, political system, panchayati raj, public policy, Rights issues, etc.
• Economic and social development – sustainable development, poverty, inclusion, demographics, social sector initiatives etc.
• General issues on environmental ecology, bio-diversity and climate change-that  donot require subject specialization
• General science.

(Paper II) (200 marks) – Duration : Two hrs

• Comprehension
• Interpersonal skills including communication skills
• Logical reasoning and analytical ability
• Decision making and problem solving
• General mental ability
• Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude etc. (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. –Class X level)
• English language comprehension skills (Class X level)