How to Read Newspaper in 1 Hour and Absorb All Important Details

7/29/2019 How to Read Newspaper in 1 Hour and Absorb All Important Details

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[Strategy] How to prepare Current Affairs from Newspapers in Less

than one hour for UPSC IAS IPS CSAT Exam

1. Why is it important to read the newspaper?

Because in the government job exams, at all three stages (preliminary, Mains

and interview). They ask questions related to current affairs.

To write a decent essay, you need facts and viewpoints. For this you need

Fodder, and newspapers are best sources for the fodder material.

2. Cant I just use Chronicle, Civil Service Times or Pratiyogita Darpan?

Such magazines only serve as supplement and not as substitute of the

newspapers.

Why? Because the magazines have the page limit, they cannot give justice to

every single topic, even if they wish to. (and because on every second page,

theyve to put big advertisement of coaching classes, to cover the cost.)

Same goes for the readymade blogs/ websites dealing with current-affairs,

theyre only supplements but not the substitutes of a newspaper.

Secondly, such magazines or websites for competitive exams do not helpyou in the profile-based interview questions or role-playing questions.

3. What are profile-based interview questions?

In the UPSC IAS, IPS or CAT/IIM, Bank or any other job interviews, they

ask you questions based on your profile.

Your profile is made up of: Your Location + Academic Background +

hobbies and Extra-curricular activities.

a. Location-based questions

Socio, political, administrative and economic problems of your city, district

and state.


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And (Sometimes) the role-playing questions about how will you tackle them,

if youre an inspector, tehsildaar, Collector, DSP, Secretary, etc.

b. Academic background based questions.

For example, if you are an MBBS or Pharmacist, the current affairs relate to

TB/HIV/Malaria/Delhi Superbug related research, etc.

If youre a B.A (English): Whats the latest trend in English literature? What

was the controversy in the Jaipur literature festival? And so on.

c. Hobby

Tennis, Cricket, Chess, Computer: then you are supposed to know thecurrent affairs related to that field.

d. Firefighting

Most of the people, whether UPSC, State PSC aspirants or MBA aspirants:

they dont prepare for profile-based questions or current affairs until the 11th

hour. (i.e. When the interview or group-discussion (GD) is barely 20-30

days away).

Then they start google searching for GK related to their profile. In such a short time, you cannot cover all satisfactorily. Therefore, daily

reading of newspaper is essential.

4. Which newspapers should I read?

Even if youre going to write your Mains exam in Hindi/ Gujarati/ Tamil /

Telugu medium, still you should refer to English newspapers because the

local newspapers only serve the masala news of politics, cricket and

Bollywood.

5. Should I read more than one newspaper?

It depends on your time and energy, otherwise one newspaper is enough.

You might have seen some coaching Sirs advising that you must-read

Hindu and Economic Times (ET). I think, this is an overkill. You dont have


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to become a share market expert. If there is some really good columnist in

ET (for example, example Bibek Debroy), then following him is excellent,

but you dont have to go through two or three Whole newspaper per day.

6. What are the important items in a newspaper? First go through the old question papers of UPSC (at least last three years),

that should give you a rough idea on what questions are asked directly or

indirectly from newspaper. And then read the newspaper keeping that in

mind.

a. Administration/ Polity

1. Press conference of government, where they announce various policies,

administrative reforms etc. (Im talking about the press conference of union

and State government, not the press conference of Congress and BJP.)

2. Various bills, minutes of Cabinet meetings.

3. The big full-page advertisements given by ruling party, about their

achievements. (This usually comes before the election and on the birth

anniversary of Nehru Gandhi Family). It is important because, they list out

the various developmental schemes and provisions in it. Most important part

is who runs the scheme? for example NREGA thing for under the

jurisdiction of rural development Ministry (and not under Labour Ministry)4. Election related items: what will the initiatives taken by the election

commission? Any problems or controversies.

5. You have to prepare these for both Union as well as your own state

Government. (Your state-Government schemes and Administrative reforms

for the profile Based Questions)

What is not important?

1. Press conferences of political parties and civil society.2.No need to do Ph.D on every scam. All you have to do is brief highlight of

what was the scam, how was it committed, what is the presence status in

investigation or court and how to prevent it in future. You dont have to go

in minute details like on 23rd October 2007, Mr XYZ the accountant of

store-dept in Commonwealth games misreported a 50 rupees ball for


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Rs.5000. Learn to skip the garbage sentences while you are reading a news

item.

3. Same goes for elections: The XYZ by-elections were conducted on 23th

October 2004 in which Mrs. XYZ wife of ABC belong with JYZ Political

party defeated

b. National News

1. Maoists kidnap a collector = name of the collector is not important. But now

experts and politicians say we need a comprehensive hostage-crisis guideline

after this incidence= important.

2. Railway accidents, how many killed =not important. Reason for the rail

accident and suggestions to prevent future accidents = important.

3. SP says BSP took 50 crores or vice versa = not important.4. How many killed in floods, landslides or tsunamis on which date= not

important. But the reason behind those geographical phenomenons =

important.

5. ISRO sends an artificial satellite = important. How much does it weigh? =

not important.

6. When and How many men did leopards kill in Maharashtra = not important.

Why is leopard killing men in Maharashtra= important. What is Government

doing to stop the leopard? = important.

c. International News

1. Bilateral visits of prime ministers and presidents. What treaties or trade pacts

did they sign?

2. What is going on in UN, IMF, World Bank?

3. Elections in the big nations : USA, Russia, China, France, UK.

4. Political or military coup (usually in South America and Africa.)

5. Any major event: the democratic uprising in Middle East, Israel palestine,US vs China / Russia missile defence, NATO-Afghanistan and so on.

6. Meetings of organisations such as ASEAN, G20 etc , and particularly what

India did in such conferences and meetings.

7. Climate change, environment related news.


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8. Science and Tech related items for example CERN, Chinas space program,

missle tests by N.Korea, Irans nuke program and so on.

What is not important?

1. Lady Gaga or Justine Timberlakes world tours.

2. How many people are killed in a car bomb blast in Pakistan or Afghanistan?

3. XYZ researchers found out that eating tomato daily helps preventing tooth

ache = not important.

4. Anything small-time, that does not affect future of the World. For example

sex-scandles of Italian PM or marital wooes of Sarkozy.

(More on How to prepare India and World topic for General Studies (Mains) Paper

II, is explained in a separate article. Click Me to read it. )

d. Economy

1. Press conference or press note by Government, SEBI, RBI, Planning

Commission etc.

2. ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM etc. (they usually complaint or suggest

about Government policies that affect the business houses.)

3. Columns and Editorials related to Economy.

4. IIP, GDP, WPI, CPI etc. Not the numbers but the reasons behind that

number and the future because of that number.

5. International: ASEAN, World Bank, EU etc.

6. Those preparing for Bank exams should also note down the names of

Chairmen of various companies and banks.

What is not important in Economy?

1. Daily Ups and downs of share market.

2. Numbers. Because Economy is not about number but the meaning,

history and future related to that number.

a. For example, if IIP was 0.13 on Jan-2012. That itself is not important.

Whether it was 0.13 or 0.128? That is not important.


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b. Important Questions are: is this IIP good or bad? And why is it good or

bad? Whatll be its impact on future of Indian economy and

Government / RBI policies?

e. FrontPage

1. There is a narrow column on the left hand side of the front page, most

of the time, the yearbook related information, government schemes etc.

appear here.

2. The main news item on the frontpage: it is usually not-very-

important. Reason most of the time it is the political news. For

example, Bihar Mahadalit Land Racket. If you are a candidate fromBihar, you should read it, for the others, it is not worth it.

f. Columns / Editorials

Question: What is a column / Editorial?

These are big paragraphs like articles in the centre pages of a

newspaper.

Generally each article has photo of the author and usually the author

gives a 20 years old photo when he/she was in college. If you ever

happen to see them in actual TV Debate, it turns out theyre quite older

than what they look in the newspapers.

Editorial is written by the editor himself. For example Shekhar Gupta

for IndianExpress on Saturday. While Columns are written by experts

(including self-proclaimed experts) on a particular topic of politics,

economy, international events.

g. What to prepare from Columns/ Editorials?

Usually columns are made up of 7-8 paragraphs. But not every

sentence and line is important; there are just 3-4 gemstones in it, which

you can use in your mains / essay / interview answers. So just note

them down.


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o Some people use highlighters to mark important lines and then

file those newspaper cuttings. So do whichever method suits you

(noting down or filing the cuttings).

But Not every column is worth your time and energy. For example in

Indianexpress, there is one guy writes about Nepals political turomil

every week. But in Nepal, the Prime ministers are changed every week

and this guy happens to give ball by ball commentery of everything.

Its not worth the Cost-benefit ratio. So skip him.

Similarly there is one Yogindar Alagh in Indianexpress, who pretends

to write on rural Development but just I did this and that when I was a

minister=Not important.

Maintain the balance: some column writers have a habit of being totallycynical and anti-Government. For example Tavleen Singh of

Indianexpress, while I do admire her for having the guts to openly

write against Sonia, Mohan and Rahul, but in your answers, You must

not admire or criticize a particular individual (minister / politician) in

the mains / interview. And dont prepare a line that is too leftist or

too rightists.

And if you criticise the Government, then you should also offer the

reform suggestions.

h. Sports / music / life-style/ Bollywood

Lifestyle = painting, pottery, music, fashion events etc. most of

which cannot be afforded by middle class people.

The last 3-4 pages of English newspaper are devoted to this. if

your hobby is tennis or chess, then you must follow the related

sport-news.

For others, I say just skip it. Anything historic about Sports will

get published in the competitive magazines and or the free blogs/

current-affairs related websites anyways. So daily following these

sports-pages = not worth the time and energy.


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Bollywood and cricket related news = not important in any case.

Unless something related to administration or polity for example

should BCCI be brought under RTI? And the copyright act vs

Bollywood.

7. How to read the newspaper in less than 1 hour?

Needs certain tools.

1. A study-desk or Table

2. A Red colored 0.7mm ballpoint pen and or a red sketch pen.

3. Loose papers, folders, notebooks

4. And last but not the least a newspaper.

a. The beginning

Keep the red pen handy.

Im taking Gujarat Edition of Indian express as reference; just follow

the same procedure for your City /States edition of Indianexpress/

Hindu.

b. The front-page and second page

Circle down on important lines from the news (which news, that is

already explained above).

c. Third, fourth and fifth page

Is usually Gujarat / Ahmedabad news for example

20 people died in car accident in rajkot

xyz girl eloped with a neighbour A cop was found taking bribes

Stone-pelting and rioting in XYZ part of Ahmedabad after a cricket

match.

Keshubhai Patel said XYZ against Narendra Modi.

Sanjay Joshis men have put posters against Modi in Ahmedabad.


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none of above, is important.

Then what is important?

Navjivan Trust of Abad says no to Gujarati version of Lets kill

Gandhi written by Tushar Gandhi.

Gujarat Maritime Board and pollution board gives clearance to ship-

breaking of Exxon Valdez, but NGO lobby says it contains dangerous

chemicals. (Names are not important, but the important part is the big

environmental issue vs. livelihood of ship-breakers in Alang

Gujarat State Government launches Girl Child education and School

enrollment drive.

Ahmedabad Municipal corp will give Rs.250/- to all Governmentschool students who live more than 3 kms from the school, apart from

the mid-day meal, Bicycle distribution and Vidhyalaxmi scheme.

We are done with 5 pages

d. The 6 to 9 Page

These are devoted to national news

Only concentrate on important exam oriented news. Underline theimportant lines using your red pen.

e. Page 10-11 (Columns and Editorials)

Highlight the gemstones and move on.

f. Page 12-13 (International)

Highlight the important news lines and move on.

g. Page 14 (TV, Astrology, Cartoon strips)

Highlight the important news lines for example the timing of Balika

Vadhu. Haha just kidding, skip this page.


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h. Page 15-16 (Business and economy)

Most important. Scan through every item, including small box news.

Highlight the gemstones, if there are any important diagrams, cut and

file them.

i. Page 17-20 (Bollywood, Lifestyle, Sports):Skip it.

We are done highlighting the important newslines. Now it is time for review.

8. The Review

Go through those red lines and either write them in the relevantnotebook / cut and file it.

Your can either keep five separate full-scape notebooks. OR you can

write these in loose papers and then file it in five separate folders.

The advantage of loose papers = you can add more pages between,

when the follow up news comes. For example in case of QFIs. Same is

not possible in a notebook.

Folder /Notebook

Sorting

AdministrationAll the polity, administration, Development relateditems should be either written or pasted here.

Economics Same exercise

Your profile

One file or notebook, make three sub-parts in it. Firstpart- write or paste the state/city related news. Secondpart- about your academic backgroundThird part- news related to hobbies.


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S&TAll the science-tech, environment, climate changerelated stuff.

International Same exercise

^ you dont have to write the entire sentences highlighted in red-pen but just

the keywords or phrases thatd help you recall the entire issue.

In the beginning, thisd be time-consuming mental torturing exercise.

But with time, youll develop the expertize of weeding out the unimportant

news and note down the gemstones.

Ive seen Maestros who write the summary note of entire The Hindu

newspaper on just one side of an A4 sized paper, without missing even

a single important item. They dont read every line of a newspaper,

their eyes are trained to scan through the lines and hand automatically

highlights the keywords. Its an art and can be mastered only by

practice Daily writing habit also improves your handwriting speed,

which is again important for the Mains exam.

Like a professional athlete This must be your daily regime as long as

youre a contender. Just because prelims are over or just because mains

are over, doesnt mean you stop this. Youve to do this on daily basis.


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Documents

How to Read Newspaper in 1 Hour and Absorb All Important Details