CSS Mock Interview By CSPs | Zubaria Zahoor (OMG) Mock Interview

This Interview Panel is comprised of four to five interviewers or panelists who are Retired Civil Servants, professionals, and experienced in conducting such interviews, It is just prepared like cross-questions environment and answer section between candidates and panelists as make it easy for all readers to get and feel them also into the same candidates’ situation, so I am sure this will be helpful for all competitive exams candidates who are getting into it.

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This Mock interview was conducted earlier, so officials and their Posts mentioned during this question-answer session were holding their offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are question-answer session holding any of govt offices are might be changed or retired at the time when you are reading this interview, so cross-check before appearing in any exam next future.

Zubaria Zahoor (OMG) Mock Interview | PMS Preparation

Candidate Welcome by Panelists | CSS Q&A Session

then you can introduce yourself to all

of us

my name is Zubaria Zahoor and i am from

Kalar Syedan  that is a the Tehsil of Rawalpindi district

so i was born in 1996 and since that

time i have been living in my own Tehsil

i got my primary education from there as

well but then after my intermediate for my

University education i had to move to

Texla and from there i did my bsc in computer

Engineering and after my graduation i

joined the corporate sector of Pakistan

and since that time i have been working in the field of IT

so after my graduation my first job was

as a team lead in 90 company and then i

had to leave that job in 2020 because of

my first attempt of civil services and

then right after giving my attempt i

joined another multinational i.t company

and there i’m serving as a manager right

now and that’s it for my educational background

and if you talk about my familial

background we are seven siblings with me

being a number five and  all my elder

siblings are working in their respective

fields primarily in the field of

education my father is a retired government

servant from Pakistan atomic energy commission

and as far as my Interest for civil services is concerned

i have been at different leadership

roles at my university and other

educational institutions as well so that

gave me a motivation to be in a

leadership role and make a difference in

the society and do something

particularly for vulnerable communities

of my country especially minorities

children women and the senior citizens

as well and that’s all for now

you are currently working as a team lead

so currently i’m working as a manager

okay currently you are working as a manager yes sir in

non-tech manager knowledge what is the function

of a manager so manager is actually a

Second one in the hierarchy and

The function of a manager is to manage

all the operations that are going on in

an organization manage all the workings all the

procedures that are going on the scheduling

the qa as well the duties assigning the

duties and then  doing the quality checking as well

tell me how do you make an assessment

about the performance of government

because somebody is managing

what do you think is it managing he’s

managing in a better way or there are some

challenges with the government is facing

in the management

 yes sir i believe that there are some

challenges that the government is facing

and these challenges are inevitable

every government faces these kind of

challenges but and there are some

lacunas in our system what type of

challenges this government is facing and

let’s talk about the political scene

 so if we talk about the political

challenges that this government is

facing there is a lack of consensus

and because of that lack of consensus is

the primary function of the political

system of a country or the primary

function of the legislative branch of

our country which is legislation that

cannot be done because of the

 lack of consensus and that we just

saw when  the governing party

presented the mini budget as well so we

would see that how there is a lack of

consensus between all the political

parties in our political system i read

somewhere that the the president

government has a sort of a

keep on going for confirm confrontation

with the opposition do you think this is

a good policy in this confessional policy  no sir

as for my knowledge of political science

i don’t think this is a good policy

because for making a better political

system all the political parties in a

country they need to work in consensus

for the betterment of the people for the

betterment of the people who are being ruled

so this is not a good policy to be at

confrontation to be at loggerheads all

the time and not going towards the

do you see that this government can

change their policy and to bring sort of more harmony between the proposition and

the government it is the function of the

prairie benches i go yes sir do you think they can do it

sir um i think that  everything is

achievable if you have the motivation if

you have the dedication to do that but

as far as the track record of this

comment is concerned as for now  we

haven’t seen any landmark event where

the government has been in harmony with

the opposition but i think there are

some sane voices from both the

both the sides that can work together to

create a harmony between the two parties tell us

about national security policy which the

government has formulated

what are the sailing features

 sir the national security policy of

the government was formulated some days

ago and the salient features are

actually  to improve the security or

to actually look for the economic

security of the country so its main

focus was to move from the military

security to the economic security as our

stakeholders also talk about it that how

we can  play a better role in the

region and in the global dynamics by

working on our economic policies the

mass media  talking about  there was

a clause about literature as well so

there are that’s  like  an umbrella

term for all the changes that they are

trying to adopt and it’s a long-term

policy it’s going to  be there for

five years and there can be

modifications that that could be made by

the upcoming government

there are a certain parallel parallels

going on between the government of

Pakistan and the imf what is the update status

so i’m not sure about the update status

 but as  but the previous one they

were talking about making some

structural adjustments in our

economic system and they were asking for

more autonomy for state bank as well and

 for that what is your understanding

of this more autonomy of state bank what

statement is there it is a product of

legislation it is functioning what do

you think what do you mean by more

autonomy sir as

far as the economic policies of the

country are concerned  the government

is having major share in defining them

in making them and it’s having it’s

playing major role in this regard but

imf is actually asking for giving more

autonomy you’re giving more authority to

state banks so that it can be a decisive

factor or it can play a major role in

the formulation of policies rather than

the government

state banks should have more autonomy

over the government you are a student of

 public policy yes sir and  who is

what at what level policies are made

state bank is one of the organization of

the government yes sir so but the policy

making is with the parliament you know

yes sir policy making is primarily the

task of budget budget the finance bill

is passed by the parliament probably yes

sir i think the

one do you think state bank has limited

role yes sir i believe that what

what autonomy they are looking for

 sir actually there is a conspiracy

there have been talks in Pakistan about

how how imf is trying to  influence

the economy of Pakistan you have seen

the have you seen the ordinance or the

law of the state bank of Pakistan  no

sir i’m not have you seen what are the

proposed changes they are looking for

 no sir how you can speak

so that’s what i know as for my reading

what is the difference between

governance and good governance

 sir governance  is actually the

whole a whole term that is  used for

all the parameters that is being between

the rulers and the ruled one for the

rulers or for the  politicians for the

ruling government  they are trying to

control the affairs of the state for the

public that is known as governance and

good governance is a kind of governance

we have good governance and we have bad

governance where do the characters take

up good coverage so good governance has

a different characteristic but i’m going

to talk about the primary ones the

important ones in good governance  the

public should be  given with all the

services that have been promised to them

in the constitution of a state

so number one there should be rule of

law number two there should be quality

of citizens number three there should be

accountability number four there should

be complete political participation of

all the  all the population and

number five there should be a

independent judiciary

and there should be complete  parties

electoral participation of people in the

social political dynamic of the country

in which year Pakistan resolution was

passed it was passed in

1940.

when congress was established in the

subcontinent as a congress to congress

was established in 1885 by aou and when

muslim all india muslim league was

established all india muslim league was

established in 1906.

when Pakistan got independence Pakistan

got its independence on 14th of august 1947.

who are the secretary of the 73

constitution can you name one two three

persons are the writers

the signatory of the 73 constitution Pakistan ?

well

so

may i make a guess okay do you tell me

what are the salient feature of Pakistan

consecution 1973

 talking about the salient features of

1973 constitution number one it is  it

promises a bicameral legislature

consisting of  senate and national

assembly number two it talks about the

principle of federalism where there will

be a federation and there will be

some autonomous units known as provinces

in our constitution number three talks

about  islamic province as well

number four he talks about  making

local government in Pakistan number five

it grants us with the principles of

policy and the fundamental rights

number six there is objective resolution

as well and  number seven  it talks

about the appointment of judges

appointment of armed officers

appointment of   the formation of

the legislature as well and  it talks

about appointment of executives

that’s what i can recall as for now how

you compare Pakistan relations with the

usa

and then usa relation with india what

are your views

sir as far as history is concerned and

if  we look at  india’s relation

with u.s so india has been  more

inclined towards russia in the past but

right now we can see for the containment

of china primarily in the indo-pacific

india is

inclining more towards  the u.s is

inclining more towards india and we can

see the examples of

a quad and the exercises that have been

going on in malabar but if you talk

about Pakistan Pakistan has been with us

for a very long time but still

despite that long journey since the time

of situ center from the time of lyakat

ali khan and then talking about afghan

war then talking about war on terror and

the current scenario i think still

throughout this journey there is some

kind of mistrust

between us and Pakistan that we have not

been able to overcome

thank you

thank you

so pass is your first preference yes sir

what is the hierarchy of pass in a

district

 sir in a district we have at the top

we have deputy commissioner

we have assistant commissioner and then

we have with assistant commissioner they

are working  i’m not sure about the

official   positions but there are

the sildars and there are gadawers and

bhatwaris who are working for land

revenues basically

compare the

pass which was formerly known as dmg

in the 90s and with the

pass which is in 21st century what are

the salient differences

 self as far as dmg group is concerned

district management  group  i think

that i believe that had more powers than

the current past that is Pakistan

administrative services and in most of

the parts we would see they have

magistracy powers as well that

our public administrative servants today

don’t have especially in the areas of

punjab and  kp

except for the tribal areas that’s one

difference i know and  again it’s

about having more authority

and i think that authority has now been

limited

so

i just faced the executive magistracy

were withdrawn by whom

i said sorry i don’t know about

yesterday wasn’t sure thank you do you

think that

administration magistrate power should

rest with acs

or they shouldn’t rest with the acs

sir as we

learned that as we have read that

absolute power  should not be given to

a particular position holder so i think

this decian was right if you look at the

 previous records of  dmg services i

think this is right and registrative

power it should not rest with the aces

until and unless like it’s it is granted

in some situations where it is needed

for example where there is a

situation of  rule of law is in

jeopardy in that case registration power

is granted to them but generally i think

it’s not a good practice

yes sir what is the current status of

gilgamesh

was actually

in the politics as per the political map

of Pakistan gilgit baltistan was

being considered as a province but the

problems with that is

that gilgit baltistan is considered part

of kashmir and  constitutionally is it

is it Pakistan’s province no sir

constitutionally it is not why not  so

there are two primary reasons for that

number one if we consider it a province

then the de facto arrangement of india

like india is having control over indian

occupied kashmir Pakistan is having

control over the azad kashmir and gilgit

baltistan is on our side as well so they

would think that we have actually

accepted the defective arrangement of

kashmir number one is this issue and

number two is that if there is a

referendum as per you and resolution if

a referendum takes place for the

autonomy of kashmiris then  we will

have to include the gb’s population with

azad kashmir as well okay so there is a

what’s bad in it

so i think that is a good strategy

adopted by Pakistan is pressing hard due

to cpec to declare gb as a province

if you are prime minister of Pakistan

what would be your answer or strategy

 sorry if i would be prime minister of

Pakistan i would like to deal with it

diplomatically china knows china is very

well aware of our rivalry with india

over the issue of kashmir and china has

been with us in unsc as well so i think

we should take our friend in confidence

and we should tell them that these are

the factors that we are considering and

you should also

you are not in favor of  making

a province

how much territorial percentage is with

india and how much territorial

percentage of jammu and kashmir is in

Pakistan i’m sorry sir i’m not aware of

that

so what about AJK why we have a

president in agk and we don’t have a

president in

gilgit Pakistan what is the

constitutional

status difference between gb and AJK

 sir AJK is an autonomous unit that

has been granted in the constitution of

Pakistan and as far AJK is concerned

AJK is defined as an autonomous

territory that Pakistan is going to rule

until and unless there is a decision

about

the fate of kashmiris why can’t we do

the same with the gb

i’m not sure about that

what do you have to say about the recent

constitutional

amendment and the law passed regarding

electronic voting machine how do you see

it

 sir being a student of computer being

a computer engineer and being in the

field of i.t i think

evm is not a good practice in Pakistan

now there are certain factors for that

number one it is prone to manipulation

it is prone to maneuverance and

a lot of hacking and a lot of

machinations can be used to actually

change the electoral results especially

in Pakistan  we are lack we are

lacking capacity right now so i think to

build up that capacity even  election

commission it sent 37 points  

reservations  to the parliament

for the

for this purpose yes yes for this

representative exactly secure all the

problems that have been with evs why the

president regime is bent upon

implementing it what do you see

sir  the present political party that

is pti they might be having their own

objectives and we can see that

opposition is not at par with them for

this particular issue if you talk about

all these work first

yes because of the majority of the

government and their coalition parties

that was passed but still there are a

lot of loopholes and we can see certain

developed countries as well they did not

 they adopted it and then they took it

back pass in a joint session

yes sir why there was a need to

summon the joint session

so that is still unknown to me as well

there was an urgency to adopt this bill

and to get it passed from the joint

session but

i don’t think that it is going to help

in Pakistan okay last question

since fund service is also your option

what is the difference between an

embassy and consulate

okay so embassy is actually a

representative of sovereign it’s

actually a representative office of the

sovereign offer state for example if we

have Pakistan embassy in u.s that is

representative of the Pakistani state

but if you talk about consulate that is

actually an embassy is only one for one

country in a particular region but if

you talk about consulate then there can

be more than one consulate and they are

actually there to provide services to

provide specially counsellor services to

all the citizens of that particular

country they don’t represent the

sovereign state

so they do represent the sovereign state

but if we talk about the principles like

diplomatic immunity that is granted to

 that is

granted in more proportion to the

ambassadors as compared to the

councillors of the state

yes

i would like to seek your comment that

you said that this evm can be

manipulated yes sir why so we are ready

to trust this

technology

when it comes to financial transaction

we do millions of billions of rupees

transactions who are

like they do

these mobile applications but we are not

ready to trust this evm machines why so

there’s why there’s a contradiction

 sir first of all as i already

mentioned there is a capacity lack of

capacity especially within the state of

Pakistan we might not be able to adopt

it especially at this particular stage

because of the

because we are already in shambles so if

we talk about trust on technology then

your point is valid that we keep saying

that all the banking should be online

all the banking should be through

websites applications but as far as evm

is concerned it actually  talks about

the electoral process and i think as far

as electoral process is concerned

our

population is not that much aware and it

does not have that much awareness about

id tools specifically so even though to

maneuver their mind their

psychologically that is also  they are

also very vulnerable in that regard and

if you talk about the electoral machines

as well i think the election commission

the organization that actually deals

with this process even  that itself is

not comfortable build this capacity if

you don’t take a step in this direction

yes so we should take a step in this way

that means we should wait for first to

build a capacity then to introduce a

system yes so it can be introduced i.t

going with eager abundance going with it

that is always a better option but i

think for that we need first of all to

build the capacity to build the system

that everybody can trust how can you

build that

so i think it going to it’s going to

take a long time  but we should take a

start and for that first of all the

people should be trained  specifically

the electoral   people who are

involved in the election commission i

believe that you have studied political

science constitutional law yes sir as

things evolved with the passage of time

yes so so you don’t say that we will

introduce democracy after 200 years when

people will have the ideas and they have

a capacity to choose their elected

representative wisely but because these

are the systems which eventually evolve

with the passage of time don’t you think

we will go for the policy the

implementation of evm and then say okay

start building the capacity over the

next five twenty thirty years we will

have a evm system which will  like

address the concerns of all why don’t

you see

things in that way

so if you talk about democracy if you’re

talking about political systems and i

think these political systems have also

evolved after such a long time and there

have been different loopholes that have

been addressed addressed in the upcoming

tell me you’re a student of

constitutional law yes sir there are

certain segments in Pakistan who claim

that the constitution is just is nothing

more than a

piece of a paper but there are other

people who claim it’s a secret document

what makes constitution a secret

document

sir i think

for a state to be a state constitution

is actually the primary document that

that is actually a promise if you talk

about the social contract the theory of

social contact that was given by thomas

hobbs j.j rosso and then

lockheed they all talked about the

social contract so why do we have to

develop this social contact so that

people are

sure and people are promised all the

services for which they are actually

surrendering their free will and they

are succumbing to this general bill so

this constitution as per jg also is our

general will that all the people have

agreed to with respect to our state what

which one of  these

whether governance issue or economic

issues which one of these in one of the

most important and pressing issues in

Pakistan in your opinion

 sir i think the most important issues

are the governance and the political

issues because if we are able to

transform our political system then our

economic system that will that itself

will  get better with time so if you

talk about political system i think the

most important   point here is that

 our political parties they need to be

in consensus secondly the legislation

the primary  principle of the primary

objective of the legislature that needs

to be done and for example we have seen

different ordinances have been drawn in

the reign of this government so i think

that is not a good practice if we talk

about a democratic country so

legislation should be done and that too

for the  problems of the Pakistani

people this is an issue

and then for that you study sociology

what is a conflict perspective so the

conflict perspective talks about the

evolution of society from a conflict

from a conflicting point of view it was

given by karl marx and  he says that

there has always been a competition

there has always been a disassociative

relationship between different

stratas of a society and that’s how it

has evolved okay we have seen that we

are facing an issue of  climate change

 do you think the climate change issue

has a capacity to fuel conflict in the

society

 yes sir i’m very much sure about this

and how is it so because climate change

is actually a phenomenon which is going

to affect more conflict perspective talk

talks about inequality and even climate

change we can have the we can apply the

principle of inequality as well there

are some regions for example if we take

example of east Pakistan and west

Pakistan east Pakistan was more inclined

to the climatic changes as compared to

west Pakistan we could see the examples

of bola cyclone and different storms

there as well so even that creates an

inequality and hence conflict in our

society one last question

why Pakistan administrative services

first preference

so as i mentioned already that i have

been in different leadership roles in my

academic institutions as well

and right now even since the time i

started my job i have been into

leadership positions and

i have been dealing with different

situations of crisis management and i

think i’m good to deal with people and

i’m a good leader and i have a team

building capacity and

i have

good managerial skills as well and that

makes me a good administrator sir

thanks

this is very young

okay tell me your political views are

more closer to restaurant or platter

so i would go with the aristotle that’s

total

so it means you are idealist

yes sir he was a realist he was

realistic

so i said i was you made me

mistrust my concepts okay okay

take it easy now

let’s  tell can you name me  the

political philosophers of roman empire

so

i i’ve just studied about one political

philosopher of roman empire and he

was sent augustine saint augustine it’s

august time

saint augustine have you not read about

thomas equinos no sir okay what was the

political philosophy of saint thomas

saint of this time  sir saint

augustine was actually some one of the

pioneer of roman empire and

one of the pioneer of roman empire he

was there in the very beginning of the

roman empire as per my knowledge as for

my knowledge i don’t remember the year

can you tell me

who is considered as the modern

political thinker after the dark ages

sir there have been different modern

political thinkers after the dark ages

if you talk about  17th century

there have been  political thinkers

like

as i have mentioned jj rosso  we have

thomas hobbs who gave their philosophies

you didn’t say about mccabe yes sir they

call this machiavelli carl was new in

the backyard

so machiavelli actually talked about

the sovereign in his book the prince he

was actually talking about

we are going to look at the philosophers

with respect to the time and space in

which they were ruling so during the

time of machiavelli there was a lot of

political instability and  the rulers

of medicaid medici and he was an italian

philosopher basically and  during his

reign the  ruler of that empire they

were expelled the medic he was from

medici family

medici family so he wrote the prince for

that particular perspective like the

prince is considered to be written as a

letter from him to that so he actually

told them that that these are the

attributes that need to be there in a

prince for achieving political stability

in history who is the author of spirit

of loss

sir i have read about it but it skipped

my mind

okay montesquieu was the author of

spirit of laws okay tell me what was the

crux of political theory of montesquiou

 someone tesco actually came up with

this idea of separation of power so

he said the separation of powers that we

could see in different developed nations

right now the legislature executive and

judiciary so his crux first was his

political arrangement yes sir what was

his basic purpose of his political

philosophy

yes sir sir the basic purpose for this

political arrangement was to have checks

and balances

you wanted to establish liberty

yes

okay can you tell me how the political

philosophies of

hobbes

lock muntesque and rosso contributed

toward the making of u.s constitution

okay so if we talk about declaration of

independence  for u.s constitution

that was the beginning document

in that i think

 the role played by these

especially the reign of french

revolution and after that the

consequences i think those

french revolution happened  it took

place in

1789 when american independence

declaration 1776

that happened after that so it was

empire it was inspired by the

philosophies of these because they talk

about again as i mentioned general will

they talk about liberty they talk about

all the promises that a state makes with

the rulers make with the ruled ones

the promises of liberty the promises of

equality of law the promises of rule of

law for all the basic necessities public

service delivery all of these so and no

one is above the law that is actually

the primary focus because before these

people used to believe in divine right

of kings so it was abolished after this

and you lost the right of king in all

european states

no sir not in all european states i’m

not sure about the states but  i’m

sure about the relation between the two

what is the difference between gender

being will actual will and public mind

general will actually

actual will and general win so actual

will is actually free will

and generally so general will is

actually the will that has been adopted

by the society as a whole general that’s

why we call it general and free will is

my will what i want to do but general

will says that what i want to do cannot

be done because that might not be in

harmony with what other people of my own

society want to do

may i say generally is like the contract

yes sir that’s a social contract

social contract what utilitarian says

about the social contract  sir

utilitarians  stuart mill and

jeremy bentham they say that

whatever deeds we are doing whatever

deeds people are doing in a society or

in our state they should be done for a

positive purpose for a good reason and

this should be in favor of the majority

of the public

what is common

se communism is actually a political

system and it talks about

the system where the ultimate power is

held by the government and there is no

private property and the market forces

don’t control anything all the control

is exercised by the government and it’s

an economic system and the political

system as well and its refined version

is socialism that gives us economic

liberty but not the political what is

marxism then

so marxism

has some similarity with communism

but there are some differences

because marx always talks about the

conflict perspective but marx is the

leading contributor to communism as well

so there are some differences between

the two i think marx talks about  

exploitation he talks about that because

of that exploitation the  proletariat

it comes up and takes over the

bourgeoisie of the society and the

communism it talks about the government

they are actually the ruling ones and

they are controlling the people marxist

leninist interpretation of communism

so

marx i’ve explained the marxist

contribution talking about leninism he

talks about imperialism the basis of his

political philosophy is imperialism

because in that time he saw that how the

european powers especially the colonial

era how it was actually exploiting the

third world countries through their

imperial goals or their imperial

objectives come

and now 1892 indian council act can you

tell me the few important things or

features i’m sorry sir i’m not aware of

that

okay

in

1942 crips mission came to india

both the political leading political

parties rejected

that proposal that they brought

what was the take of indian national

congress and all india muslim league why

they reject it

 say kripp’s mission was brought in by

sir stafford grips

who was the secretary of stat state at

that time so the basic features were

that at that time  the english the

britishers they were looking for some

constitutional arrangements in the

subcontinent so  and that came in the

particular era as well and after that we

would see after its rejection there was

a lot of chaos as well in the

subcontinent so the basic objective was

that they were not going to give the

liberty to the dominions of india and

that’s what indian national congress and

muslim league have been  striving for

since the long time so and because of

that because of their

mistrust or because of their unhappiness

with the

particular mission and because of the

reorder and chaos that took place then

cabinet mission plan came and that

actually granted them with the liberty

that they wanted my last question

of india

and viceroy of india okay  sir

previously we used to have governance

governors in india and then came the

voice roy so governors were there for

the first one was governor of bengal and

then came the vice choice so the

governors they used to work in harmony

with the east india company because at

that time  the viceroys were not there

and the viceroys then reported to the

secretary of the state that was

established by the british legislature

for the indian subcontinent that’s what

i’m aware of

good news is that you have been

you have faced our tough tough questions

rather i will say and you will be better

off in the public service commission

they are good people

you have got a good personality your

communication skills are fine you are

full of energy they are the regularity

of thinking

mind is your sharp and you are in a

state of preparedness these are good

things thank you sir

confident

the

to win

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