The syllabus of the Civil Services Exam has been designed to accommodate various subjects to test your knowledge, and prepare you to be a civil servant. If you look at the previous year’s question papers, you can see the presence of current affairs, which is often combined with the static content to produce a hybrid type question, and there are rarely any questions without the influence of current affairs. What it means by regular updation is that some subjects tend to be tied with the latest events that are needed to be assimilated into your preparation, for both prelims and mains. By far, there is no single subject that should not be left out in this process. I will explain how an aspirant must streamline their knowledge of these subjects one by one.

1. International Relations- This subject has a strong static area that must be complemented with regular current affairs incorporation. Once you are thorough with the basics of this subject, then keep following the major events through newspapers and a current affairs magazine. This would ensure that you are up to date with the latest events, and help you with the prelims/mains questions that arise out of it.
2. Polity- Here, the questions can be answered once you have an extremely clear conceptual clarity regarding the basics. I would strongly advise you to make use of the bare act of the constitution, along with the academy material to get the said level of clarity. Post this stage, an aspirant must focus on what the government is doing in the field of polity and governance, For example, the latest schemes, introduction of new laws, major constitutional amendments, etc. are some of the areas of focus.
   These are some of the areas where current affairs related questions are centered around. Focus on the objectives of the schemes and implementing authority, whereas, for laws/constitutional amendments, effort must be put on the features.
3. Economy- Comparatively easier than polity when it comes to grasping the basics, Economics presents itself as an opportunity for many aspirants as UPSC usually does not ask complicated type questions. Apart from the basics, the focus must be on any new government schemes related to banking/agriculture/Indian economy, etc. Keep an eye out for any substantive news related to Economics, such as cryptocoin, DeFi( Decentralised Finance), NFT(Non-Fungible Tokens), etc. Hence, those related to economics, that is prominently featured must be studied as well.
   Apart from this, one must also focus on the Budget and Economic Survey for this subject. These two are vital for prelims, as well as mains. And this acts as fodder material for other subjects as well.
4. History/ Art & Culture- One might wonder why these subjects require updation as they are pure static areas. Even though they tell stories of the past, an extra reading has to be done for those topics that have been on news. Hence, there are only minimal current affairs involved, but the focus must be given to those topics that were in news. For example, excavated remains from the Stupas of Kahu Jo Daro have been on display at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum. If an aspirant reads about it, they can understand that this is not an Indus Valley Site, and avoid the usual mistake (due to the verbal similarity to Mohenjo-daro).
5. Geography- Similar to that of History/ Art &Culture, Geography too is heavily static, but there are always discoveries made in this subject. Hence, this is a theme that requires updation, especially when it comes to phenomena that affect India, take, for example, patterns of El Nino/ La Nina (related to monsoon). Also, focus on the static areas that are often coming in news. For example, there has been an increased formation of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal region. Hence, you may put your focus on understanding the basics of cyclones for acing any question coming out of this topic.

For any topic that you take, there will be an influence of current affairs as that is how the exam has been designed. Instead of finding what the latest updations are for each topic, it is better to make use of a current affairs magazine that covers all the latest and important changes concerning the different subjects in your syllabus. Perform continuous revisions of these magazines and once you do that go back to the source material/static portion to connect the current affairs into the static areas for interlinking and long-term memory retention. This would ensure that you are prepared for all the stages of your exam. Before I conclude, I would like to remind my fellow aspirants that if you feel disconnected with the topic whilst going back to the static areas, then kindly revise the static areas/basics again as you need to keep a balance between the static and current affairs preparation. Do not let your ego get the better of you, as many aspirants often underestimate the need for revisions. I wish you the very best in your upcoming prelims