Nandini K.R., a 26-year-old from a small village in Kolar district, has topped the civil services exams, the results of which were announced on Wednesday. A candidate from the State has bagged the first place in the prestigious exams after a gap of several years.
Ms. Nandini is an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) probationer, who is currently undergoing training at Faridabad in Haryana.
She is from Kembodi village. She did her schooling in Chinmaya High School in Kolar before earning a degree in civil engineering from M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bengaluru. She got a job as a junior engineer in the Public Works Department. She took a few months off to prepare for the UPSC exam. She appeared for the exams with Kannada literature as her optional subject.
She cleared the exams in her second attempt and was posted in the revenue service. However, her desire to work at the grassroots level and interact with the public prompted her to appear for the exams again. “I am ready to work in any sector. But I am extremely interested in working in the areas of education and women empowerment,” she says.
She topped the exam in her fourth attempt. Speaking to The Hindu over the phone from Faridabad, she said, “I prepared equally hard every day. Consistency was the main thing."
Between her hectic preparation schedule, she would play volleyball and listen to old Kannada songs.
Her father K. Ramesh is a government high school teacher at Muduvadi in Kolar taluk and her mother Vimala is a homemaker.
R. Prabhakara, professor and head of the civil engineering department in M.S. Ramaiah Institute of technology who taught Nandini, said that unlike many of her peers who wanted to go abroad, she wanted to serve the country.
