This is yet another example of hard work and persistence paying off. At the age of 22, the IAS officer by the name of Ankur Garg not only cracked his UPSC exams but also topped them like a boss. To his success, he has been awarded 171 out of 170 marks in the final exam of the macroeconomics course, which is a part of the two-year Master’s programme in Public Administration in International Development that he is pursuing at Harvard University in the USA.
You might be thinking that it is a mistake! No, it’s not! Ankur Garg has indeed scored an extra mark above the total marks, and what’s the best part is that Jeffrey Frankel, a renowned international macroeconomist, signed on this report card, gave a proof of this outstanding result.
“When I was in school, my father used to say—10 out of 10 isn’t good enough in any exam. Always strive for 11 out of 10. I hardly understood how that’s done. In the last phase (possibly!) of student life now, I end up getting this score (171 out of 170) in the final exam of the macroeconomics course. The icing on the cake—it comes at Harvard and is signed by Jeffrey Frankel himself!” he wrote on his Facebook wall.
An IIT-Delhi graduate, Garg set goals in his childhood and he always wanted to become an IAS officer. “Since Class 3 and later during my college days as well, I had been contemplating no career option other than the Civil Services,” he told the Press Reader, adding that, “I recall when I joined the IIT, Delhi, to do electrical engineering in 1998, the faculty coordinator asked my batchmates as to how many of us wanted to join the civil services after graduation. Almost half of them put their hand up.”
Talking about how studying in IIT was a way for him, Garg had said to the Hindustan Times that, “Engineering was only a stepping stone to achieving that goal.”
In his contract as a civil servant, Garg has been phenomenal in initiating a campaign against open defecation. Garg is also an office bearer of the Central IAS Officers’ Association and has been plying his trade to his level best to make sure that ensure initiatives started by IAS officers are in no way put off by the government.
