Should I Read Frontline Magazine for Civil Services Preparation?

First of all, based on my experience of reading Frontline for the past 6 months, I have realised how great of a magazine Frontline is. It is power packed with information on current affairs along with other important aspects like history, personalities, heritage, wildlife and science.

To read or not to read?

In spite of the fact that how great I have found Frontline to be, it is completely okay to skip it from the list of study material for civil services. Why is that so? The reason is if you read The Hindu newspaper daily, you have covered the entire or most part of Frontline already. So, there is no reason to redo it. Although, if you have skipped The Hindu for say a month, it will be very difficult to read all the editions you missed in a single go. So, Frontline being a bi-weekly magazine will help you cover what you missed in The Hindu to a great extent. Remember if you skipped The Hindu newspaper for say Jan 2016, you should grab 2nd January edition and 1st Feb edition of the magazine and not the 2 January editions because the early month edition will have material for Dec 2015 which you have already covered in The Hindu.

Conclusion
Frontline is a great magazine but is not required for civil services preparation. You can read it under following 2 conditions:

1. You have spare time to accommodate another material in your daily schedule of IAS preparation.
2. You didn't read The Hindu newspaper for a specific time period and need to cover the current affairs for the same period.