ECONOMY booklist and approach for UPSC CSE Prelims
● Economy is the subject which took me the maximum time to find a proper book.
● I started with Ramesh Singh, left it within two months. I felt it was too big and too dry to comprehend. Picked up Sanjeev Verma next. Though the writing was good, I felt the gap in my understanding still remains.
● I spent a lot of time understanding the concepts of basic economics. Once done, rest becomes easy. For anyone who doesn't have a background, please pay special attention to this subject.
1. NCERT Class 12 Macroeconomics
● Quite helpful for building the basics. Ignore the numericals. In six chapters , the major points of the macro issues are discussed.
● Take help of any YouTube lecture if you feel difficulty to understand. Be as specific as you can while searching, e.g. not the budget but terms like revenue deficit, remittances etc.
2. Shankar Ganesh
● A very small but useful book. Read the definition, know the terms and do research. Shankar Ganesh alone won't suffice at all. Just use it to get the terms. Revise 2-3 times.
● Once you get the terms, you have to read thoroughly from monthly magazines/ youtube videos/ ncert etc. Next IAS and Mrunal have some good videos to cover the basics,use as per requirements.
3. Economic Survey and Budget Summary
● I used to watch free lectures and take running notes of B. Sir from Rau's IAS.
● I found his explanation on topics of economy extremely helpful. Same goes with his explanation of economy basics in Rau's DNS daily news analysis.
● Go through the original documents of ES and budget once you have a fair idea about what it overall contains to find useful figures/ quotes/terms for mains perspective e.g. burble strategy, hand holding etc. are useful phrases to use.
~ UPSC CSE Topper.