Important: This initiative is a collaborative work of students/followers of IASbaba. Special mention to Udit (You know him as Draconian) and Abhishek for the contribution.
Below is the plan for HISTORY OPTIONAL which consist the topics from PAPER I (Medieval History of India) and from PAPER II (MODERN HISTORY OF INDIA). Map Practicing will be a regular part of the initiative. In the first Month maps would be given according to the previous pattern of the UPSC like you will be given the name of the site with the reference of the period to which these sites are belong to, so to have an idea about the period and the sites which it belong to. Then, we will move on to the next level of Map-Marking which is based on the latest UPSC trend where you would be given the period and you have to identify the site accordingly.
Materials to be prepared from:
Medieval India : NCERT, SATISH CHANDRA (A MUST READ), SALMA AHMED FAROOQUI (comprehensive and concise) with IGNOU NOTES TO FILL THE GAP
MODERN INDIA: NCERT, BIPIN CHANDRA(ALL TIME FAVOURITE), FROM PLASSEY TO PARTITION BY SEKHAR BANDYOPADHYAY(very good book), B.L.GROVER(A Must Read for History optional), with IGNOU NOTES TO FILL THE GAP
* One book I came across and reading it now a days is A HISTORY OF MODERN INDIA by Ishita banerjee -dube, highly informative,in-depth histrographical analysis in other words an insightful indepth analysis of event occurred during Modern course of India. By far one of the best book I read on Modern Indian History. I am not asking you to buy the book as time is precious here but if you have it then go through this book,it will change your views about the Modern Indian History.
For Maps: Book by Ensemble publications, you can also refer D.N.Jha and R.S.Sharma(very good books for map practicing), Also, you can take help of Upinder Singh(it has very colorful maps) and of course Google Baba.
As, the Schedule is very hectic and we don’t have ample amount of time you guys have to push your self harder to complete the syllabus in given time after all it is UPSC mains. Also,this would help you in GS1 as most of the topic covered here are also the part of GS1.
Remember folks, key to the success in Mains is Answer Writing. We promise you to provide quality questions as much as possible because we are aspirants like you but it’s entirely up to you whether u write or not and keep reviewing each others answer as it would be a great competition booster for all of us.