From starting education at a government school in a village to graduating from IIT-Bombay, Shubham Kumar has seen enough of ups and downs. Perhaps, that fuelled the zeal of Kumar —  the son of a bank cashier from Bihar’s Katihar district — to top the 2020 UPSC civil services exam.

Kumar said that it was the dream of his late grandfather and father Devanand Singh to see him in IAS. Now that a new career beckons him, Kumar is clear about his choice.

“Since I have a strong connect with village, I would like to mitigate the loss of life during flood through flood management and explore the ways as how to empower women also promoting food processing agro initiatives,” he told the media. Kumar, who hails from Katihar in Bihar, is currently undergoing training at the National Academy of Defence Financial Management (NADFM), Pune.

In Bhopal, the media swarmed at the house of  Jagriti Awasthi, who emerged as the woman topper and second overall ranker of UPSC Civil Services Exam, 2020. Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy inspires the young engineer. Jagriti quit her job as an engineer in BHEL in 2019 after failing to clear the UPSC exam  to focus on chasing her dream of becoming a civil servant.  

“I want to replicate the competence and simplicity of Sudha Murthy and usher rural development and empowerment like Bhakti Sharma, the young sarpanch of Bhopal’s Barkheda Abdullah village,” Jagriti said. “I was confident, but to do it with such flying colours is like a fairytale coming true,”  she added.

Elder among the two children, Jagriti cracked the exam in her second attempt. “My aim in life is to script a unique saga of rural development and empowerment as a competent and honest civil servant, who is accountable to people and not to the politicians,” Jagriti said.