Ok this is an old article. New article on How to prepare India Yearbook 2013 is given on separate page, click ME
This article is originally written by Palak Mathur, I’m merely copy pasting.

1. What is India Yearbook?
2. Four sittings
3. Important Chapters in India Yearbook
4. How important is [Yearbook]?
5. Download Link for India Yearbook 2011

What is India Yearbook?

• India Year Book is published by Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and is considered a “raam-baand aushadhi” for UPSC Preparation. It is actually named as “India” like India 2011, India 2012. India 2011 was published at the end of “year 2010 or at the starting of 2011, so it covered everything that happened in and until 2010. The complete name is India ABCD  – A Reference Annual, where ABCD is the year of publication.
• (Mrunal Note: the same book available in Hindi under title “Bharat 2013
• It has lots of data and it is really hard to read it and the question of remembering anything doesn’t comes up. ;) So how to crack such a tough nut. Here is what I did? It is a very silly way but this is how I did it.

• There is one book available in the market called India ABCD At A Glance (based on India (Pub. Divn’ India mentioned above)) published by New Vishal Publication. It is again one book that you cannot read as it can be termed as notes of India YB. It throws so much data at you without any references that it becomes even hard to read it. So, this cannot be the solution either.
• Here is what I did to read India YB. As New Vishal’s India (henceforth known as NV) is a copy of India YB (Henceforth known as IYB), I tried to mix them both. So, here are the steps that I followed:-

Four sittings

You have to do all this one after another without switching to any other subject or book. This is how I managed to read India Year Book.

Important Chapters in India Yearbook

India Year Book has data, which can overwhelm anyone. So, how to deal with it. Moreover, it has some chapters, which are not relevant, some are relevant for Prelims and Mains, some only for Mains, some only for Prelims, some are for relevant for Interview and some are relevant for Essay. I will try to put in details which chapter to be used for which part of examination and what to read from it –

Table 1:

Table 2:

 End of copy paste. Now input from my side

Apart from New Vishal, Many publication houses also release their own “remix” copy of India Yearbook for example Arihant Publication, Wizard, MnM etc. I call it “remix” copy because they contain some information from original IYB in tabulated and bulleted format.

How important is [Yearbook]?

• IYB is important but not an “end” in itself. Anything directly or indirectly related to Government  schemes, Committees falls under the “Yearbook” category and is important for the “rights issue” under CSAT paper 1 and General Studies Mains Paper 1.
• In 2010’s GS (Mains) paper, Yearbook topic was worth 73 marks and in 2011’s paper it was worth 106 marks (To see the entire analysis of GS Mains Paper 2011, click me)
• IYB 2012 would have been printed somewhere in Dec 2011, and lot (polluted) water will flow through Ganga between Dec 11 to Oct-Nov 2012 when Mains will be conducted. Plenty of new topics, scheems, Committees will come in the mean time
• So along with the India Yearbook, you should also visit the websites of each ministry mentioned in the book and see what latest schemes, acts and Committees are formed. Also keep an eye on the Yojana and Kurukshetra magazines. (to download free issues of those magazines, see the left hand size navigation bar of my website)
• My articles in the [Yearbook] category can be accessed through this link: http://mrunal.org/category/yearbook
• Another important use of IYB is the regulatory bodies and other Advistory and executive agencies (for example Silk Development council, food and nutrition board and so on. Such bodies and their functions are scattered around IYB’s chapters. However, you can find the consolidated information about all these bodies in M.Laxmikanth’s new book “Governance In india (TMH Publication)
  ” Appendix 6 (Page A.55) and Appendix 11 (page 11.1).
• Same book of M.Laxmikanth, also available in Hindi, under the title “Bharatiya Shasan
  “

Download Link for India Yearbook 2011

• Until now, the Government used to upload (legally) free PDF file of India yearbook every year. But they haven’t done for India Yearbook 2012 (They intentionally did not upload the PDF, to force the UPSC aspirants to buy the hardcopy from market and the Revenue thus earned could be used to finance Air India.)
• Whenever you try to google and download IYB, most of the time you get a 3MB file with only 3 pages. But here is a working copy of India Yearbook 2011 (with 1200+ pages) so click me to download it