Management Optional - Books

1.       Managerial Function and Process:

a.       Books by Koontz and Koontz, Drucker, Porter

2.       Organisational Behaviour and Design:

a.       Robbins as the base book

b.      Cover from an Indian book like Aswathappa also, see models etc from Kavita Singh etc

c.       Some other topics from the internet

3.       Human Resource Management:

a.       Any Indian author book as the base

b.      Cover terms from multiple books making brief notes

4.       Accounting for Managers:

a.       Basics from any book

5.       Financial Management:

a.       Khan & Jain as the base book

b.      Prasanna Chandra for other topics

6.       Marketing Management:

a.       Kotler – the Indian edition

7.       Quantitative Techniques in Decision Making:

a.       Levin & Rubin

b.      Any other book covering leftover topics

8.       Production and Operations Management

a.       B. Mahadevan covers theory well

b.      Chase & Jacobs

c.       Numericals from multiple other books(eg Krajewski) as a variety of different numerical are possible and come as compulsory questions sometimes.

9.       Management Information System:

a.       Loudon & Loudon or any other book that covers syllabus.

b.      Internet

10.   Government Business Interface:

a.       Internet

11.   Strategic Management:

a.       Make notes on topics from any book eg: Hitt

b.      See ppts of multiple books

12.   International Business:

a.       Make notes from multiple books and the internet

P.S I had scored 364/600 in 1st attempt and 206/600 in my 2nd attempt...So, i had left management as an optional.

Mechanical Engineering as optional

My friend, Raveesh Gupta , AIR-16, CSE 2011 had cracked the Mechanical engineering optional by scoring 435 marks in it..His views can be read on the link given below..I am re-producing just the list of books here too...

• Mechanics of Rigid Bodies – No particular book – questions are of the same nature as asked in the engineering entrance examinations, and are of much simpler level – may use any XI standard book on Mechanics (Arihant etc.)
• Mechanics of Deformable Bodies – B.C.Punmia (Mechanics of Materials) (many also recommend Sadhu Singh)
• Engineering Materials – Relevant chapters of the book on Manufacturing by E.Paul De Garmo (many recommend V.Raghavan)
• Theory of Machines – S.S.Rattan (Sharma and Aggarwal for Machine Design)
• Manufacturing Processes – E.Paul De Garmo (some inputs from Hazra Chowdhary as well)
• Manufacturing Management – E.Paul De Garmo, various “free view” snippets from Google books*
• Thermodynamics – P.K.Nag
• Gas Dynamics & Turbines – S.M.Yahya
• Heat Transfer – J.P.Holman
• I.C.Engines – Mathur & Sharma (Ganeshan, or Obert might be as useful)
• Steam Engineering – P.K.Nag
• RAC – C.P.Arora

Source: http://raveeshgupta.blogspot.in/2012/10/mechanical-engineering-as-optional.html

Maths for CSE

For Mathematics, the following links provide immense views on how to crack the exam.


Prakash Rajpurohit, AIR-2, CSE 2009, Marks: 427/600

http://prakashrajpurohit.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/mathematics-part-1/

http://prakashrajpurohit.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/mathematics-part-2/

http://prakashrajpurohit.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/mathematics-solutions/


Kashish Mittal, AIR-58, CSE 2010 

http://kashishmittal.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/strategy-for-mathematics/

Electrical Engineering for CSE

For electrical engineering, AIR-2 in CSE 2009 Prakash Rajpurohit's blog provides a booklist. He had scored 418 marks in electrical engineering in CSE 2009.

http://prakashrajpurohit.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/electrical-engg-strategy/

Prince Dhawan, AIR-3, CSE 2011

http://princedhawan.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/strategy-for-electrical-engineering/


Supreet Singh Gulati's blog

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2008/08/electrical-engineering-mains.html

Chemistry optional for CSE

For Chemistry optional, Abhijeet Agarwal's blog should be read as a bible. He is AIR-24 in CSE 2009 exam and had scored 391 marks in Chemistry. The blog not only delineates the chapters of each book to be studied but also has volumes of notes compiled and made by him. It is the most comprehensive blog you can find on Civil Services preparation for Chemistry as well as Physics.

Chemistry Paper- 1

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2010/08/tips-for-chemistry-paper-1.html

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2010/07/strategy-for-chemistry-paper-1.html

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2010/07/strategy-for-chemistry-paper-1_14.html


Chemistry Paper-2

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2010/06/my-strategy-for-chemistry-paper-2.html

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2010/06/chemistry-paper-2-continued.html

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2011/09/chemistry-paper-2-revealed.html

Chemistry Notes

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/2011/09/my-handwritten-notes-of-chemistry-paper.html

Physics optional for Civil Services

I did not have Physics optional myself, but this is an attempt to compile the information available across the internet from various toppers over the years to make it accessible to those who do not know about stalwarts like Supreet Singh Gulati Sir ( AIR-2,CSE 2007), whose notes have become legendary in the Physics community in Delhi. You can also buy the xerox copies of his notes (costs around 700 rupees) from "Jawahar Book Depot" in Ber Sarai, New Delhi.

Supreet Singh Gulati - AIR-2, CSE 2007 

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2008/08/physics-mains-part-i.html

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2008/08/physics-mains-part-ii.html

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2008/08/physics-mains-part-iii.html

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2008/08/physics-mains-part-iv.html

http://piedhornbill.blogspot.in/2009/07/physics-mains-part-v.html   ( Has solutions to CSE 2007 exam from the topper himself)

[Links to how a topper solves the paper and scores P1 :208/300 +P2: 170/300  :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/156386529/physics-cse-paper-solution-2-by-supreet-singh-gulati-ias-rank-2
http://www.scribd.com/doc/156379034/Physics-paper-solution-by-Supreet-Singh-Gulati
]

Kashish Mittal - AIR 58, CSE 2010

http://kashishmittal.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/strategy-for-physics/

Abhijeet Agarwal, AIR-24, CSE 2009

http://abhijeetagrawal.blogspot.in/search/label/Physics

P.S. If you know of any other blogs which would be useful to other aspirants, please let me know so that this post can be updated.

Book list for Commerce Paper 2

Organization Theory 

• Organizational Theory, Design, and Change, Paperback, Gareth R. Jones
• Organization theory by Daft 

Organizational Behaviour

• Organizational Behaviour by Robbins ( base book)
• Kavita Singh and a few other books were used to make brief notes on various terms

Human Resource Management

• Human Resource Management- C.B.Gupta
• Notes from various books like Aswathappa, Robbins etc for all kinds of terms that can be asked as 12/20 markers

Industrial Relations

• Industrial Relations- T.N. Chabra & R.K.Suri
• Brief notes on various terms from the 2nd Labour commission report of 2002 like Mafia Unionism etc

Used rankers notes available in the market to add to my coverage. Had covered the 1st 3 topics extensively from many sources during the course of my preparation in earlier attempts for Management optional. Made notes on latest examples from the corporate world on various aspects of the syllabus from business dailies like Economic Times, Business standard etc. If I get hold of my examples file, would upload it.

Book List for Commerce Paper -1

Since, i had taken Commerce optional after Prelims there was very little that could be devoted to it. So, i relied generally on 1 book per subject and strengthened some parts in which i was already comfortable because of my MBA and management optional background.

Accounting

• Corporate Accounting – J R Monga
• Accounting Standards- CA notes

Cost Accounting

• Cost Accounting; Theory & Problems- Maheshwari & Mittal 

Auditing

• Surbhi Bansal auditing notes for CA ( Primary source)
• Students’ Guide to Auditing- Aruna Jha 

Taxation

• Income Tax book by- Girish Ahuja
• Service tax and VAT from CA notes

Financial Management

Did it from multiple sources as it was my strength

• Financial Management by M Y Khan
• Financial Management by Prasanna Chandra
• Financial Management notes of CA by Aditya Jain

Financial Institutions and Markets

• Made notes from the internet, used CA notes and rankers notes for this part.

You can also look at the following blog for more info:

http://deepaksingla25.blogspot.in/2012/07/strategy-for-commerce-paper-1.html

Book List for Economics Paper -2

Economics Paper-II 

No book was covered cover to cover but topics seen from all sources and preparation done taking into account old questions asked in CSE and IES exams

Pre-Independence

• Economics history of India by G Kaushal
• DU reading for BA( Eco) Hons. which has chapters from Tirthankar Roy etc
• History books like Sumit Sarkar has some pages on syllabus topics

Post-Independence

• Books by Uma Kapila
• Oxford Companion to Economics in India by Kaushik Basu
• Development Planning ( not sure about name of book) by Sukhamoy Chakraborty
• Data from Rudra Dutt and Sundaram
• DU readings
• Currency reports by RBI
• India's Economic Reforms and Development Essays for Manmohan Singh by Ahluwalia & Little
• Bimal Jalan book on Indian Economy
• India development reports
• Monetary policy linked topics completely from RBI speeches, papers and currency reports
• WTO from RBI research paper

Current

• Economic Times newspaper, EPW, RBI website, Yojana
• World bank, IMF research papers linked to India esp papers by Poonam Gupta, Arvind Virmani, Petia Topalova etc
• Latest books in the market by well renowned economists like Shankar Acharya etc
• PD Economy

Book List for Economics Optional - Paper 1

Economics Paper-I Book list

Microeconomics

• Advanced Microeconomics by Ahuja
• Topics like Arrow and Sen covered from the internet including proof of Arrow's theorem etc

Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics

• Macroeconomics by Froyen
• Macroeconomics by Gardner Ackley
• Macroeconomics by Dornbusch, Fischer
• Couple of Indian books index referred to see some terms in macro like 4-sector model which are only used in Indian books and sometimes are asked in the exam
• Monetary Economics by S B Gupta covers some topics

International Economics

• International Economics by Salvatore
• Study guide to International Economics by Salvatore
• 2 chapters from Modern microeconomics - Part 2 by Kalyanjit Roy Choudhury
• Notes from the internet 
• WTO from RBI document on India’s stand at WTO+ WTO website

Growth and Development

• Thirlwall - HD model, Unbalanced & balanced growth, Lewis model; Myrdal
• Economic Growth chapters from Mankiw Macroecnomics for Solow model
• Todaro, Smith for Agriculture, HDI and sm other trivial topics
• Debraj Ray esp for Human Capital, R&D; Lewis and Migration model; Kuznets empirical etc
• Notes from internet on Environment, HDI and other indices etc

Public Finance

• Musgrave and Musgrave
• H L Bhatia
• Internet