Students pressure forces govt to announce changes in CSAT

Buckling under pressure of street protests, government today announced that English marks in CSAT-II will not be included for gradation or merit in the civil services preliminary examination but the protesters were still not satisfied and demanded scrapping of the aptitude test.
The government announcement in an attempt to mollify those agitating against giving prominence to English and weightage to those with engineering and management background was made in Parliament after opposition parties in both the Houses created an uproar over the issue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who returned after two-day trip to Nepal, met with senior ministers Rajnath Singh (Home), Arun Jaitley (Finance) and Jitendra Singh (MoS, Personnel) and got a briefing on the issue and the latest developments related to it.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will issue a notification to reflect the changes announced by the government which the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) will implement.
"Government is of the opinion that in the civil services preliminary examination, Paper-II, the marks of the question section on 'English Language comprehension skills' should not be included for gradation or merit," Singh said seeking to mollify the agitating candidates.
In a brief statement, Singh said, "Candidates, who appeared in civil services examination 2011, may be given one more attempt in 2015."
Parliament has witnessed repeated uproar and several adjournments in the past few days over the issue.