New Delhi: The UPSC 2018 final results were declared on Friday, and the notable absentees were doctors in the top 20 list.
Unlike previous years when doctors such as Shena Aggarwal, Arun Thamburaj and Renu Raj made it to the top 10, none of the toppers this time around, at least, within the top 20 are doctors.
The pole position was taken by IIT Bombay techie Kanishak Kataria. In fact, the top 20 list is dominated by engineers — 11 of them — followed by five candidates from the Humanities. The list includes one each from Science and Commerce and two from other streams.
As many as 13 candidates belong to the 25-30 age group and six candidates within the 20-25 age group.
While three candidates such as Shreyans Kumat, Shruti Jayant Deshmukh and Rishita Gupta cleared the exam in their first attempt, Chitra Mishra, on the other hand, cleared it in her sixth and last attempt.
Most of the candidates have passed out from institutes such as IITs, NIT, NLU, BITS Pilani, DU, Mumbai University, Anna University, Pune University.
Optional subjects of the top 20 candidates in the examination ranged from Anthropology, Chemistry, Commerce & Accountancy, Geography, Law, Maths, History, Political Science & International Relations, Public Administration, Psychology, Sociology, and English Literature.
In a statement, UPSC said that among the selected candidates, 180 have been recommended for appointment to (91 general) Indian Administrative Service, 30 to Indian Foreign Service and 150 to Indian Police Service.
The civil services (preliminary) examination, 2018 was conducted on June 3, 2018. A total of 10,65,552 candidates applied for this examination, out of which 4,93,972 candidates actually appeared.
A total of 10,468 candidates qualified for the written (main) examination which was held in September-October, 2018. A total of 1994 candidates qualified for the personality test conducted in February-March, 2019.
Doctors who made to the topper list in previous years:
Shena Aggarwal
Shena, the daughter of a dentist from Yamunanagar, Haryana, bagged the top position in the 2011 UPSC exams. She was a decorated student throughout and had obtained rank 305 in the UPSC exam of 2010 and was training for IRS when she was preparing for the 2011 exam. Her optional subjects were medical science and psychology.
Renu Raj
While working as a doctor in Kerala, Renu sat for the UPSC exams in 2014 and bagged the second rank. According to Renu, both the medical and the civil services professions bring you close to people. She says her being a doctor will help her in being an efficient civil servant.
Arun Thamburaj
Arun gave up a potentially lucrative career in medicine to become an IAS officer. He was selected for IPS, but he was determined to grab the IAS rank. His resolve paid off and he secured the sixth rank in the 2016 UPSC exams.
(With inputs from The Byju’s)
