UPSC Podcasts

With over 250 episodes in its library, UPSC Podcasts has built one of the largest audio archives for civil services aspirants in India. The show primarily curates and repurposes discussions originally aired on Rajya Sabha TV and All India Radio, which makes it a surprisingly rich source of policy-level conversations you would otherwise have to hunt down on government channels. The format is straightforward -- each episode runs 8 to 15 minutes and typically features interviews with senior bureaucrats, secretaries, and subject matter experts. You will hear the Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology discuss India's biotech roadmap, or a sitting minister break down FDI policy changes, all presented without heavy editing. The production is minimal and sometimes a bit rough around the edges, but that is part of the appeal. You are getting direct access to the voices that shape policy. Topics skew heavily toward governance, international relations, and economic affairs. There are episodes on the US-Taliban peace deal's implications for India, MSME sector challenges, and manufacturing infrastructure during COVID-19. The content maps well to General Studies Paper II and III, especially Indian polity, governance, and international relations. The show was most active between 2019 and 2020, so recent episodes are sparse. But the back catalog remains genuinely useful for building conceptual understanding. If you are the kind of aspirant who learns well through expert discussions rather than textbook summaries, this is worth a deep scroll through the episode list. Pair it with your newspaper reading for a more layered understanding of how policy actually gets made in India.