There is a silent revolution of sorts taking place among the youth of the state. And its proof is that ten candidates have cracked the All India Civil Services examination, the highest ever in the history of the state. The trend has caught on in the past few years with its high point being the success of Dr Shah Faesal who topped the examination in 2010. What is more, this is a remarkably ascending trend. And as our report on Saturday bears out, JK is already the third state with highest number of civil services passouts in the country. This is an amazing achievement for a state where youth until a few years ago weren’t even sufficiently aware of the civil services examination. Valley,on the other hand, was obsessed with medical and engineering courses, with youth not even interested in Kashmir Administrative Services. This was because the parents in Valley brought up their children dreaming to become a doctor or engineer. But things are changing now. This new IAS success is about a spectacularly symbolic release from the stranglehold of the fourth class employee culture and a collective fancy for the medical and engineering careers. More so,in a state where the majority community traditionally cribs about the fast declining representation in the upper echelons of bureaucracy,police and judiciary.
However, some quarters in Valley look at the success in IAS with a degree of unease. The problem, as has been highlighted in this paper before, is grounded in the perennial binary of the state's political system founded on two political narratives plowing in exactly opposite directions. While mainstream hail the success,separatists think growing IAS participation sits somehow uneasily with their struggle. But we would urge everybody to look at the development beyond politics, as a pursuit of youth for excellence in life, a game-changing shift in their career priorities. We can collectively take pride in the fact that our youth are up to any challenge which in itself bodes well for the future of the stat

Lastupdate on : Sun, 6 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
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