Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Friday congratulated Sreedhanya Suresh, the first tribal woman from Kerala to clear the All India civil services exams.

Sreedhanya (22), hailing from Wayanad district, bagged the 410th rank in the Civil Services Examination, 2018.

Other Keralites who got the top ranks in the exam are R Sreelekshmi (rank 29), Ranjana Mary Varghese (rank 49) and Arjun Mohan (rank 66).

"Sreedhanya fought the social backwardness and passed the civil services exam with flying colours. Her achievement will inspire other students in the future," Vijayan said in his Facebook post.

He also congratulated other students from the state who cleared the exam.

A total of 29 Keralites have cleared the exam. "I am from the most backward district in the state. There are no tribal IAS officers from here event though there is a considerably large tribal population. I hope this will be an inspiration and motivation to the future generations to overcome all hurdles," Sreedhanya told media.

Kanishak Kataria, a B. Tech graduate from IIT Bombay has topped the civil services final exam, the UPSC announced this evening as it declared the results. Mr Kataria, who belongs to the SC Category, qualified the examination with Mathematics as his optional subject, Union Public Service Commission or UPSC said.

Srushti Jayant Deshmukh is topper among women. She secured the fifth rank overall. Ms Deshmukh has graduated with B.E.(Chemical Engineering) from Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, a press release said.

Of the top 25 candidates, 15 are men and 10 are women.

759 candidates, comprising 577 men and 182 women, have been recommended for appointment to Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service and Central Services, Group 'A' and Group 'B'.

The top 25 candidates have graduated in subjects like Engineering; Sciences; Economics; Law; Mathematics; History; Political Science; Public administration and Commerce from premier institutions of the country such as IITs, NIT, NLU, BITS Pilani, DU, Mumbai University, Anna University, Pune University.

The Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination was conducted in June. Though over 10 lakh candidates applied for this examination only about 5 lakh candidates appeared for it. Of these, 10,468 candidates qualified for the Written (Main) Examination which was held in September- October, 2018.

A total of 1994 candidates had qualified for the Personality Test, held in February-March this year. Optional subjects of the top 25 candidates in the examination ranged from Anthropology, Chemistry, Commerce & Accountancy, Geography, Law, Maths, History, Political Science and International Relations, Public Administration, Psychology, Sociology, and English Literature, the press statement by UPSC said.

The recommended candidates also include 36 Persons with Benchmark Disability (11 Orthopedically Handicapped; 12 Visually Challenged, 11 Hearing Impaired & 02 Multiple Disability), it added.

Junaid Ahmad became the UPSC third topper. Instead of coaching classes, he gave a lot of credit to the information available on the internet for his success.