Rukmini Riar, Who Failed In Class 6, Got AIR 2 In UPSC 2011 On 1st Attempt

One of the most difficult exams in the country is the UPSC civil services exam. Every year, lakhs of candidates appear for the UPSC prelims. Only a few of them are able to advance to the mains and only a select few make it to the interview stage. Many aspirants take coaching to prepare for the exams and many also self-study. Today, we’re going to talk about Rukmani Riar, a resident of Gurdaspur Punjab, who aced all three stages of the 2011 UPSC civil services exam without any help and became an IAS officer.

Rukmani Riar was an average student in school. She even failed in sixth grade. Later, she shifted to Sacred Heart School in Dalhousie and completed her schooling there. After this, Rukmani did her graduation from Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar in social sciences. Then she opted for a master’s and won a gold medal in social sciences at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

After post-graduation, Rukmini interned with NGOs like Ashodya in Mysore and Annapurna Mahila Mandal in Mumbai. While working with an NGO, she got attracted to the civil service and decided to appear for the UPSC exam. After completing the internship, Rukmani diverted herself to the UPSC and started preparing for the civil services exam.

She was so dedicated and hardworking that she cracked the exam on her first attempt. She relied solely on self-study and did not go for any coaching to prepare for the UPSC. In 2011, Rukmani got an All India Rank (AIR) of 2 in UPSC 2011.

In a media interaction, Rukmini was asked about the tips to prepare for the UPSC. She said that she relied on NCERT books from Classes 6 to 12 and used to read magazines and newspapers regularly. She added that if an aspirant does these two things, then UPSC can be easily cracked. Along with this, Rukmini also said that she appeared for several mock tests to minimise mistakes and to have proper time management during the actual exam. She also solved a number of previous year’s question papers.