An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Kanishak Kataria has become a social media favourite since he topped the civil services final exam. After getting AIR 1, he said he was both surprised and overwhelmed. “I never expected to get the first rank. I thank my parents, sister and my girlfriend for the help and moral support. People will expect me to be a good administrator and that’s exactly my intention,” he said to the news agency PTI.

Kanishak Kataria was a B.Tech student at IIT Bombay and now has topped Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) 2018 exam. Approximately 5 lakh aspirants sat in exam held in June last year, out of which only 759 have managed to get recommendations for highly coveted positions in Indian Administrative Services(IAS), Indian Foreign Services(IFS), and Indian Police Services(IPS).  

The chief minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot congratulated him and the second topper on their success. “Heartiest congratulations to Rajasthan’s Kanishak Kataria who has topped the UPSC civil services examination and Akshat Jain who has secured second position. It’s a great achievement and a chance to give your best to society,” read a tweet of Gehlot. Kanishak had also worked with multi-national firms with lucrative packages in South Korea and Bengaluru but a sense of doing something for nation urged him to resign in 2017. He began preparing for civil services since then. He told PTI that he studied for 8 to 10 hours each day which increased to 14 to 15 hours in last two months before the exam.