The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : “There is no substitute for hard work”

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

“There is no substitute for hard work”

Staff Reporter

Kumutha of Naduvapatti is ranked 126 in UPSC

VIRUDHUNAGAR: For D. Kumutha, who has ranked 126 in the Union Public Service Commission Examination, it was “strategic and persistent hard work” that had paid.

Daughter of a retired Army Captain in a small village, Naduvapatti near Sattur here, Ms. Kumutha who hopes to get into the Indian Administrative Service, says that she wants to make use of the opportunity to work for uplift of the poor.

It was a childhood dream for this postgraduate in Agriculture, who is due to get her Doctorate in Plant Physiology, to become a Collector. She was attracted to this profession when she watched a woman IAS officer who visited her village when she was too young.

“My mother says that I had then wanted to become a Collector,” she says.

Encouragement from parents and guidance from his seniors at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi have helped her to pursue her dream career. “The environment at the Pusa Campus (at New Delhi) really helped me to plan it better,” she says.

Though it was her fourth attempt in the UPSC examination, Ms. Kumutha however, was able to clear the main examination and the interview on the very first attempt.

Stating that choosing the subjects for main papers made a vast difference for her, she says that Agriculture and its allied subject of Botany was easier for her to simultaneously pursue both for her research work and UPSC examination as well. She underwent coaching classes too for preparing for the exams.

Students from rural background too could achieve at the national level, provided they work strategically hard and work hard persistently, she says.

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