Hi

To become an IAS/IPS, you need to clear UPSC civil services examination which consists of Prelims exam and mains exam and interview.

* prelims exam :- in prelims you have to qualify 2 papers listed below:-

• -) general studies  1
• -) general studies II ( csat )

You get 2 hours for each paper

* Mains exam . :- There are a total of 9 papers which are listed below:-

• -) compulsory indian language.
• -) english
• -) essay
• -) general studies I
• -) general studies II
• -) general studies III
• -) general studies IV
• -) optional I
• -) optional II

Yes, for optional you can choose English as your subject.

But for compulsory indian language paper, you need to choose any one language from the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution which consists of  22 languages  listed below:-

-) Assamese

-) Bengali

-) Gujarati

-) Hindi

-) Kannada

-) Kashmiri

-) Konkani

-) Malayalam

-) Manipuri

-) Marathi

-) Nepali

-) Odia

-) Punjabi

-) Sanskrit

-) Sindhi

-) Tamil

-) Telugu

-) Urdu

-) Bodo

-) Dogri

-) Maithili

-) Santhali

Top books which you can follow for UPSC examination preparation are listed below subject wise:-

HISTORY

*NCERT XI (Ancient & Medieval)

*NCERT XII (Modern Indian History)

*Facets of Indian Culture Spectrum

*From Plassey to Partition - A History of Modern India

Indian Art & Culture

*Indian Art & Culture - Nitin Singhania

Polity

*NCERT IX-XII

*Indian Polity M Laxmikanth

Geography

*NCERT VI X (Old Syllabus)

*NCERT XI, XII (New Syllabus)

*Certificate Physical Geography G C Leong

World Atlas

Economics

NCERT XI

*The Indian Economy Sanjiv Verma

*Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh

*Economic Development & Policies in India Jain & Ohri

Environment

*Class XII Biology (last 5 chapters)

*Environment by Shankar IAS Academy

International Relations

*NCERT XII (Contemporary World Politics)

*Current Affairs ( read newspaper )

To get the complete list of books go through

https://competition.careers360.com/articles/books-for-upsc-ias

Thank you