Arunachal Pradesh copies Pakistan civil services paper

In all matters Arunachal Pradesh, worries pertaining to intrusion of any kind emanate from the neighbouring China. An intrusion of a different kind, however, has been reported from our other contentious neighbour, Pakistan.

In the recently concluded civil services exam, conducted by the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), several questions were lifted from a forum for aspirants of the Pakistan civil services examination.

Aspirants in Arunachal Pradesh alleged that majority of the questions were lifted from the site 'www.cssforum.com.pk'. To add to their woes, in the public administration question paper, 50 questions were a repeat of the Union Public Services Exam's (UPSC) 2008 question paper. Also, stickers for the form numbers were manually written and papers were handed out unsealed in some cases.

Nearly 90 per cent of the sociology questions were lifted from an article on the Mandal Commission judgment, written by Shelly Shan in the early 1990s, listed on the website 'www.sociologydiscussion.com'. Besides, there were so many spelling mistakes and errors in the veterinary sciences paper that the Arunachal Veterinary Doctors' Unemployed Association was prompted to write a letter to APPSC secretary Madhu K Garg.

"The papers were peppered with hundreds of errors — letters were missing, words were misspelled, and several papers had questions that were outside the syllabus prescribed on the APPSC website," aspirant Bengia Taja said.
She added that students have now informally come together to protest against the slip-ups.

"This is a complete disregard to the hard work that so many of us put in year after year. The BJP government has always spoken against Pakistan. Why is it quiet on this matter now?" asked Taja.

"Pakistan is not a part of our syllabus. In our syllabus of public administration, we study about the US, USSR, UK, and France," he added.

The state's ruling People's Party is in alliance with the BJP currently.

Dr Nani Bath, professor at the political science department of the Rajiv Gandhi University at Rono Hills, a few kilometres away from state capital Itanagar, said the mistakes in this year's question papers had not happened for the first time. "This has happened earlier as well. To make light of the fates of so many hard-working aspirants is nothing short of criminal. The state officials must take responsibility," he said. Prof Bath added that the state has now constituted a committee and has set a deadline for the APPSC to conduct the preliminary exams again within the next three months.

Meanwhile, calls and messages to the secretary went unanswered.

In 2015, the APPSC's papers for the preliminary exams were leaked, leading to the dismissal of four employees. The fiasco came barely a month after the leak of an Assam Public Service Commission paper, in exchange for cash, which led to the ouster of 25 officials, including chairperson Rakesh Kumar Paul.

Lifted & copied

Aspirants alleged that majority of the questions were lifted from the site ‘www.cssforum.com.pk’. 
Additionally, 50 questions were a repeat of the UPSC 2008 question paper