Nitish Kumar says UPSC candidates' demands are justified

UPSC aspirants have been protesting vociferously against the CSAT examination demanding that it be made easy for rural students.

Former Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said here on Saturday that the demands of UPSC candidates who have been protesting against CSAT are completely justified. He also said that the Government of India needs to take a decision soon as it can affect the future of the students.

Nitish Kumar said, "The demand of UPSC candidates is completely justified and the central government should have taken the decision in this case at the earliest. I think they are delaying the issue."

"It is unfair for the candidates appearing in the examination through the medium of Hindi and other regional languages. They have complained of translation problems that change the whole meaning. They should be freed from this issue," he added.

Talking about the examination pattern, Kumar said, "Examination should be merit based. The candidates should be judged for their ability and not excellence in literature. They must have the capability to work and manage things. This is a unique kind of problem that has risen. The government should tackle it in a special way and not in the regular manner."

UPSC aspirants have been protesting vociferously against the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) examination, which was introduced in 2011, demanding that it be made easy for rural students.

Earlier today, a protest was staged outside the residence of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh by members of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) over the ongoing UPSC row.

Till 2010, the UPSC had two papers - one on general studies and one on an optional subject, where aspirants could choose one of the 23 listed subjects. Changing the syllabus from 2011, the UPSC replaced the optional subject paper with a paper that tests the aspirants' aptitude-CSAT.

The second paper in the preliminary exam comprises comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability and basic numeracy.

The syllabus also has data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency, etc - Class X level) and English language comprehension skills (Class X level).

Aspirants are having problems with the CSAT syllabus, as they feel it favours those who are from the science stream or, more specifically, from an engineering background.

They have also claimed that CSAT is discriminatory against students from the humanities stream, particularly those who have studied in Hindi.

The protesters believe that the English language comprehension skills, which the second paper tests, are discriminatory against students from a Hindi-medium background.

The protesters have also raised their voice against the use of the Google Translator for translating CSAT questions from English to Hindi, which they termed as a "disastrous experiment.