Recently, I came around an advertisement in Chronicle year book (Jan'2010 "Geography" issue, Page-65). The advertisement was of Paradigm IAS academy, Pune. I was amazed to see, how the institute faculty "Mr Ambreesh Kumar" have insidiously grown to 5 cities across states of Maharashtra, Gujarat & Goa.
I am a civil service aspirant, who started preparing last year and appeared for mains this year. I was working in an IT company in Pune when I got in touch with this imposter. Now, I am preparing full time for the exam in Delhi itself. So, I don't have any commercial interests in condemning this guy.
Lots of student join coaching hoping for career in civil services, and usually many of them are not aware of the "trap". So, I feel my duty to share my thoughts. If you are about to join this coaching or have joined or looking for such coaching, please read through. Its big but I am sure your next 5 minutes will be worth thousands of rupees for you only.
"Free" Seminar: Mr Ambreesh aka "Sir" (he himself calls so), usually conducts a seminar "free of cost" in his victim city advertised via newspapers or website. The coaching has been "falsely" given 5 star rating in IAS related websites. Students throng his seminar, for it is hard to find any good coaching classes in city like Vadodara & Nashik. His idea is to create a hysteria about UPSC. He talks about 4 stages of preparation of UPSC, uselessness of magazines/books/newspapers (for his notes are more useful), subtopics/dimensions/facets as notes strategy, killing nature of examination, ideal & complementary optionals like "Political Science" and "Philosophy". Students who have little knowledge, fall in trap to play "safe" i.e. join his coaching.
Classes: Classes are held once per week and he promise to cover entire syllabus of GS, Pol Science, Philosophy, Essay via them. Though I joined only for GS but now I say that, I was biggest fool on planet to believe into this, a year back.
Polity: What I have observed, he knows only Part-1, 2 of constitution, FRs, DPSPs, Art 74, 75, Parliament, Governor, Relation between states and center, National Emergency etc. These are not novel topics. These "easy-to-understand" topics are very familiar to students as we have studied them in the schools also. Most of the time, he simply dictates them verbatim from his notes, which he have gathered from his 9-10 years of experience. Moreover, it is the least expected from a political science teacher.
He was a failed teacher in Delhi & have to open shops in new places, claiming himself to be "faculty from Delhi". That is why he chose "Pune", students capital of country, as first prey city. He does not have basic skills & aptitude, expected of a teacher and always fails to explain even crucial concepts.
As time progressed, I realized my mistake. However, I convinced myself that at least notes in form of dimensions & facets provided might be of great help as I was doing a job. However, it was my ill fate, that he cheated me on that part too. I never received notes for prelims despite several requests & reminders. Even, for mains, he went back on his promise & gave pirated xeroxed copy of class notes of Mr Ravindran of Vajiram & Ravi in Delhi. A date inside mentioned the year as 2005. Notes of 2005 given in 2009. Too less, too late & that too irrelevant.
Current Affairs: The current affairs notes provided were xeroxed copy of Vajiram's Current Affairs booklet available only to its students. For mains, he provided me with Wizard's "Current Affair" yearly magazine, Pratiyogita Darpan's Indian Economy. Both of them were provided a month before the exam after my constant pleas.
Geography: No one on earth would believe this. Initially, he promised to give lists of rivers, lakes, biospheres etc, i.e. whatever comes under the subject of Indian Geography. But I went "ga-ga" & "ma-ma", when he handed over vast & exhaustive list of rivers, lakes, geysers, airports, biospheres, tiger reserves, mountains etc "all copied" from Wikipedia site. It contained over 100 rivers, more than 50 lakes and pages & pages of wildlife sanctuaries, national parks etc. I preferred to leave the "entire" portion, for it would be insane on my part to even think about to mug it up. A lame "to-do" list was provided for mains preparation.
History: He deserve credit for this for at least 5-6 questions appeared in prelims. I don't know, which coaching, they were copied from, as they were printed & nicely organised. Notes provided for mains were verbatim copied from Spectrum book.
Test Series: I would pronoun him "Decoit" for this act. He always kept promising to conduct a test-series for the prelims. But, when prelims were 1 to 1.5 months away, he asked me to pay Rs 4000 for 5 tests in the test series. I did not join it but he had proved himself to be the biggest cheater in my life. There was no question of any tests for mains, for I was the sole "lucky" student in his entire coaching to clear the prelims.
National Affairs/Social Issues/India & World/Indian Diaspora/Science: For this he had promised dimensions & facets form of notes. I was falling short of time to prepare notes myself & had to accept the delay that he demanded to prepare the notes. But it was tragedy, when he gave CrackIAS.com notes 3 weeks before the exam. He had got them as sample from the firm to distribute among students. Had he told earlier of such kind of notes, I would have prepared myself. NRI notes were from Wikipedia page.
Essay: For essays, he had promised about 20-25 essays to be given after prelims. But AGAIN, he simply provided me a rough list of 12 "Very-Very Important" essays, that had high probability to appear in the exam. Offcourse, nothing of that sort happened. I was lucky, that I was prepared for such kind of situation.
I can write a book on this faker for his acts of crime. Yes, he is a criminal. He kept not even a single promise, he made in that "fateful" seminar. He promised minimum 90 questions in GS in prelims, to be directly from his notes. His claim after the exam was 65, but I am ready to bet with him, for if he can show maximum of 30 question from his notes. I do not give credit for my selection in prelims to his guidance or his notes. My optional was Maths & it played a decisive role.
I would prefer not to talk about his guidance or help in Mains examination. I would give a hypothetical situation. Suppose, a student is allowed to write UPSC mains GS exam 2009 with Mr Ambreesh's notes in examination hall. I would stop preparing for UPSC, if that student gets selection.
I hope this much information is sufficient to prove my view regarding the coaching. Please think twice before joining any coaching like Paradigm IAS academy, as you know India is paradise for entrepreneurs and hence robbers like Mr Ambreesh kumar. These people are always standing at the corner of the street to rob you of your hard earned money.
If you felt this blog as useful, please give Re. 1 to a beggar on the street or send a "Stop Cheating for God's Sake" SMS to 098225449687/09970714449 on my behalf, rather than paying tens of thousands to Mr Ambreesh. He does not even own a room in Pune to conduct classes. He is a liar, dishonest, fraud & disgusting teacher. He is a white collar decoit & pirate, who teaches & dictates "India Year Book" using LCD projectors, conducts classes in posh hotels wearing affluent dresses, and cheats people with his dumb & hopeless secretary.
0 comments