The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Among UPSC top 10, two DU alumni from Gurgaon and Gorakhpur
AMONG THOSE who made it to the top 10 in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) civil services examination — results of which were announced on Tuesday afternoon — are 28year-old Ruhani from Gurgaon and 24-year-old Nausheen from Gorakhpur, both alumni of Delhi University colleges.
Ruhani bagged an all-india rank of five, on her sixth attempt. Suresh, her father, said: “UPSC is our country’s toughest examination and we are thankful to god that despite... such tough competition, our daughter has cleared it.”
She studied at a private school in Gurgaon and pursued her Bachelor’s in Economics (Honours) from DU’S St Stephen’s College. In 2019, she pursued her Master’s in Economics from IGNOU.
Following this, she worked as an Assistant Director at NITI Ayog for three years after clearing the Indian Economic Service exam. In her fifth attempt at the UPSC exam last year, she cleared the Indian Police Service and was undergoing training in Hyderabad.
“It was my daughter’s dream to become an IAS officer and she got it in the sixth attempt... We spoke to Ruhani briefly after we found out about her selection and congratulated her. She was very happy. But we couldn’t talk for longer as she was doing her training,” Suresh added.
The family originally hails from Punjab’s Jalandhar. Her parents are teachers in the government sector and her younger brother works with a private company. For Nausheen, it was her fourth attempt at cracking the exam — she secured an all-india rank of nine. She studied at Delhi University’s Khalsa College.
She believes it was her response to a question during the personality test that
was probably the reason why she got selected.
“One panellist asked me to name two historical events that I wish never happened. I told them one would be the world wars and the other would be the colonisation of African and Asian countries. The latter is one of my favourite topics and I spoke at length about it,” she said. Nausheen’s father is a director at Prasar Bharti and her mother is a homemaker. Her elder brother and sister work at public sector undertakings. Was that the reason she picked the UPSC?
She replied: “Civil service examinations were somewhere in the back of my mind. However, I was not sure about it. It was my peers at DU who were constantly discussing interesting topics, current affairs etc that helped me make up my mind. I realised my knowledge is nowhere close to theirs... It is the DU culture that inspired me to take this exam.”
After completing her graduation in 2019, Nausheen appeared for the exam in 2020 and 2021 and cleared the prelims and mains. She could not clear the 2022 prelims. “I would have taken a break if I had failed to crack the exam this year too,” she said. Nausheen enrolled at Jamia Millia Islamia’s Residential Coaching Academy, which provides free coaching to civil service aspirants.
“I learned a lot from here. Leave aside cracking it, discussions about ranks are so normal that you feel competitive,” she said. In her initial attempts, she relied on coaching material. This time she decided to prepare with the help of newspapers.
In her free time, she enjoys watching science fiction series. “I liked the OTT series Dark,” she said. What does she think about the Bollywood flick 12th Fail, which shows the hardship of UPSC aspirants? “I don’t watch films that glamourise civil services. It is a serious profession and I do not want to see any fancy portrayal,” she said.