[UPSC Interview 2022] – Transcript #287 : Manoj Soni sir Board, Kannada Literature Optional, Karnataka Home State

Date of Interview: 10 APRIL 2023
Board: Shri Manoj Soni sir
Home state: Karnataka
Job profile: Teaching
Optional: Kannada Literature
Approx time: from 1230 to 1. Maybe around 25 mins(not sure)

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Chairman

Pretext- Upsc though is running on minimum number of boards(3), today one more member was absent and they had to manage with 2 boards (soni sir and satyavathy mam). so our group of 5 candidates were made to wait until the other two groups were over and we were distributed (3+2) to soni sir and satyavathy mam board. I was the 7th one in that sequence for soni sir board for the forenoon session

Entered and wished good afternoon to chair, mam and sirs. took seat after asking to so so. soni sir told my name and asked should i call you by your first name, is that fine? i said yes sir

Then usual talk. It is good and advisable to wear the mask although it is not compulsory. i sensed sir wanted me to wear mask so kept wearing it

sir then said Mr. Rumi you have an interesting and diverse area of interests.. Among your hobbies of Pranayama, meditation, strength and conditioning exercise and collecting charity.. which one would you like the most.
I said meditation and raising charity

then sir went on to my career page and said you have worked at a software firm, may be placed by college. then went on to an ashram for a long period. then you have started teaching profession.. you seem to be confused about life

i said sir although it seems so, i wasn’t confused.. i was raised in a religious environment by my mother and while i was working in artificial intelligence firm i got interested in human intelligence… so to explore my spiritual side i went to ashram for 3 months initially. but it got extended to 6 years as i went on probing deeper and deeper

sir asked then why did u join corporate firm in first place.. i said sir bcz i had financial security concern and my family condition was bad at that point of time as we had separated from my father

then why take up spirituality- i said i had lot of questions to be answered.. and it had become overwhelmingly compulsive for me to find answers for them. and by the time i went to ashram our financial condition was stable as my mother was also supporting me..

Member 1

(old gentleman)

whatever the questions u had, did u find answers for them?
i said yes sir. i found answers to most of them

what if you get some more questions in future?
sir i cant be sure of that. but sir i have found service to nation and service to society is the primary goal of my life. so i think civil services is the best platform for me to work towards my goal and try to bring about on ground , grass root level change

you see, all of us do get questions, but we try to find answers within the workspace we are in.. anyways tell me about gender neutrality…
i went on to say, sir in any policy or budget if we have equal provisions for everyone… (sir interrupted, what gender have u filled, i said male.. what is gender then?)
i said sir gender is a social concept and sex is a biological concept. then what is gender neutrality…
i said treating everyone equal is gender neutrality…
do u know that there is a transgender as well.. how are they categorised..
i said sir they are categorised under others column in the application..
sir asked name one and only transgender civil servant in india..
i said sir i will have to look into it..
sir only said.. its a person from odisha.. i said ok thank you sir..
name some famous transgender personalities..
i said manabi bandopadhyay(school principal), gauri sawant, laxmi narayan tripati who are activists.. and said sir there is one more person working in movie industry called ojas rajni as a famous makeup artist

sir then went on to ask tell me some famous personalities from kannada literature.

i said sir kannada literature with more than 1500 years of history has got many great personalities… (sir corrected me as stalwart’s) right from adikavi pampa in ancient period, in medieval period we had basavanna and kumaravyasa and in modern period we have kuvempu, shivaram karanth, da ra bendre, masti venkatesh iyyengar.. and presently.. hampana, kamala hampana and others.

sir asked why India scores less in Global happiness index
I said sir we score 126th rank in GHI because GHI looks at happiness from western perspective not indian perspective.. the parameters are western not taking in indian conditions…
what are these western parameters
i said per capita income, life expectancy, corruption etc

why india scores lesser than pakistan..
i said indias sample size is very high whereas pakistan might be performing better in certain parameters like per capita income or life expectancy
immediate counter question was
is pakistan per capita higher than india??
i said sir i’m not sure of per capita income, i meant to say that Pakistan might have scored well across some of the ghi parameters.. whereas our diversity itself is so huge that even if there is small pocket of poverty doing bad, it can bring down the entire national rank… so its important that we take care of these negative pockets so as to achieve our target of 5 trillion dollar economy…

Member 2

you have worked with election commission.. was it part of your college or your work.. i said it was part of my college mam. during my college i was given an opportunity to monitor polling booths and webcast live proceedings from the polling booth

mam asked how was your experience..
i said it was a great learning experience.. for the first time i got to know the process of elections in detail.. then i was able to learn from the leadership role i was given.. then i was able to get the feeling of a govt officer which also motivated me to civil service and i was able to learn interacting with society in a better way as there was facilities for disabled persons and others to come and vote

mam asked do u know who conducts elections for local bodies. i said mam its the state election commission.. mam asked tell me the difference between state election commission and election commission of india
i said mam election commission of india conducts elections for president, VP, loksabha, rajyasabha and state legislature. whereas state election commission conducts elections for municipalities and panchayats..

mam said tell me the condition of karnataka panchayat raj system
i said mam karnataka has got a robust panchayat system with 33%reservation for women(mam made surprising face here, but my answer is corrected), reservation for sc, st and socially backward groups(this one is wrong, a chota galati about socially backward groups, it seemed they dint notice at that point) with elections being conducted at regular intervals.. whereas in the municipalities there is a problem where the elections are not frequent as seen in the bbmp elections…

mam said u have done organ donation also.. where was it.. how was it..?
i said mam this was in the ashram along with some civil society we used to encourage the inmates to get registered and issued donor cards to them for both cadaver and normal organ donation..
mam asked how many organs were donated by those u got registered?
i said mam i got more than 200 people to register and thankfully all of them are alive( some smiles in the board)

Member 3

sir asked about since u have a spiritual and meditation background and we see lot of conflicts are going on like ukraine russia war how would u use your background to advise in one line to both zelensky and putin
i said sir its a tough assignment. and said that.. i would advice both of the them to be in Non Doing… and went on to explain that like.. the conflicts are because of excessive activity by both actors.. if both the parties exercise restraint and remain in not doing anything, then the war would come to an end..

sir asked how would india with its credentials of peace can bring about an end to this conflict.. we have seen sri sri ravishankar.. sadhguru who are doing lot of good work.. how can this message of peace be worked upon
i said sir india has been votary of peace from buddha to mahatma gandhiji.. and the same credentials can be used to bring about a resolution of this conflict.. in this direction our foreign ministry has made it stand clear that both the parties should sir across the table and have a peaceful dialogue.. i think both the parties should give away their sticking to ideologies and ideas and be flexible and talk across the table to solve the issue.. our very concept of vasudaiva kutumbakan from mahopanishad speaks about this..

sir then asked you have appeared before jpc on land acquisition bill.. given that land acquisition is so tedious even today what would be the changes you would like to bring in?
sir the changes suggested in the 2015 amendment act was good enough but that dint go through.. the changes i would like to bring in sir is..
for the projects involving national interest like rural infrastructure, defence corridors, industrial corridors, if we can remove difficult procedures like social impact assessment and taking the consent of everyone.. it will be easier for acquiring land for national purposes…

Member 4

sir then passed on to last old member (male) who was quite cheerful..
sir asked since u have done computer science engineering.. and there is 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g, 6g.. among 2g and 3g which is better for india…
i said sir.. since 2g is less speed and more latency and 3g is more speed and less latency i would say 3g is better

sir said – 2g is indigenous technology.. 3g we have to import.. isn’t 2g better in that perspective..
i said sir except for the national security reasons like borrowing technology from china, 3g,4g or 5g is better suited as they are the modern technologies which people prefer.. coming to indigenous technology our honourable prime minister has launched 6g test bed and 6g in future is going to be an indigenous technology…
sir repeated so 6g is going to be indigenous in future.. i said yes sir..

then manoj soni sir took over and said the usual lines with a slight smile
“please take good care of yourself while you are in delhi and look after yourself well”

i gently stood up.. folded my hands and said “sir, thank you for this opportunity”
sir folded hands in return
i said thank u mam
thank u sirs to other members
(they seemed uninterested and dint look up – same has happened with other candidates as well!- may be its their SOP)
and left the room…

had mixed feelings right after coming out of the room. in between the interview i had a drop of sweat also from head coming down. but i dint wipe it since it would give an impression that i’m nervous. i dont think the board would have noticed the a small drop of sweat.. but i was actually nervous given that my last interview with manoj soni sir board in 2021 was devastated.. as soon as the clerk said chairman’s board, i felt uncomfortable.. but said to myself that its going to be good and ill answer well no matter what.. that actually worked and though i was nervous i was able to handle most questions.. but yes, some questions regarding my career could have been better defended, some questions better answered.. but thats okay, life isn’t perfect.. for a unique background like mine, an unique personality like soni sir with immense spiritual expertise would be the best suited. couldn’t ask for better questions and better board and better interview..

emotions – not completely satisfied.. but emotions are not proportional to marks in upsc interview! hope my hard work along with my spiritual quest pays off in the form of a good service..

signing off with these lines from Gita… जो हुआ वह अच्छा हुआ, जो हो रहा है वह अच्छा हो रहा है, जो होगा वो भी अच्छा ही होगा..

O2O with Kaptaan:
Most of the predictions went  true..
my entire interview was daf based except few questions
universe communicated to me via kaptaans voice