UPSC CSE Main: Political Science & International Relations most preferred additional subject

The Minister also informed that the majority of the candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) exam have been from the engineering stream, which has been a constant trend since 2017, followed by humanities, science and medical science.

Political Science and International Relations have gained popularity as optional subjects in the Civil Services (Main) Examination in the past few years. As per data shared by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr Jitendra Singh, the subject has been the most popular additional subject since 2018.

Singh today shared data on the most popular additional subjects for the Civil Services Main exam, which revealed that while ‘Political Science and International Relations’ was the fourth most popular additional subject in 2017, it quickly rose to the second spot in 2018 and has remained at the top spot since 2019.

Other than ‘Political Science and International Relations’, Sociology has also remained a constant favourite in the past few years. In 2017, a total of 137 recommended candidates had opted for Sociology (putting it at the second spot), which changed to 107 (first spot) in 2018, but has remained constantly at the second spot since 2019.

Geography, Anthropology and Public Administration have remained three other popular choices among recommended candidates since 2017.

The data also revealed that the total number of male candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) examination has decreased from 802 in 2017 to 547 in 2021. A similar trend was observed in female candidates where the number went from 254 in 2017 to 201 in 2021. This has resulted in the reduction of total candidates too, as the number of recommended candidates declined from 1056 in 2017 to 748 in 2021.

Additionally, the data also showed that the majority of the candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) exam have been from the engineering stream, which has been a constant trend since 2017, followed by humanities, science and medical science.

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Singh also shared that the medium of writing of the recommended candidates in the Civil Services (Main) examination during the last five years are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, English, Dogri, and Maithili.

The data was released in response to a query raised by Sushil Kumar Modi in Rajya Sabha.

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