UPSC, Civil Services and CSAT 2012 - some must have information

The Union Public Service Commission or UPSC is the authorized central government agency to conduct Civil Services examination, Defence Service and National Defence Academy examinations and National Naval Academy Examinations. The UPSC has a number of functions to serve like the recruitment of services or post under the Union through competitive exams or by direct selection, selecting suitable officers for appointment on promotion as well as by transfer on deputation and a number of other responsibilities like advising the government on different recruitment related matters and disciplinary cases related to civil services. The Chairman and all the members of the united Public service Commission are appointed by the president of India and every member is entitled to hold his office for a term of six years or until he attains an age of sixty five years, whichever is earlier.
The Indian Civil Services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for the recruitment in the different civil service positions in the Government of India. It includes Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, and Indian Revenue Service, Indian Police and Defence service and many others. The Civil Services examination has two different phases. The preliminary phase consist two objective type papers and the Main Exam consists of nine papers in nine different subjects with conventional essay type questions. Candidates have to face a personality test or interview round after successfully passing through the written tests in order to be eligible for the appointment in most prestigious Indian Civil Services positions. The entire process from advertisement to the final results takes approximately a year and a half to complete. The Civil Services exam conducted by the UPSC is the toughest exam conducted in the country and it is only more evident through the very low success rate of 0.5%.
The CSAT 2012 or Civil Service Aptitude test for the 2012 will be held on May 20, 2012 and the last date of apply is March 05, 2012. The CSAT exam is conducted to select candidates who are eligible for appearing in the Civil Services Main exam. More than 3, 00,000 candidates are expected to sit for the CSAT 2012 exam and out of them only 11,000 candidates will be selected for an appearance in the main exam. Candidates who successfully qualify the CSAT 2012 and the civil services main exam will face the personal interview round the successful completion of which will make any candidate eligible for the most prestigious jobs in the country. But the very low success rate in these examinations indicates that the best students of the country need to prepare really well to crack the examinations.