Editorial & Content Policy

Who writes this site

BharatNotes is written and edited by Bharat Choudhary, a serving Lecturer with the Department of Education, Government of Rajasthan, and founder of Ujiyari.com (daily current affairs). It is a solo, independent editorial operation — no ghost writers, no outsourced content farms, no scraped material from other UPSC sites.

Our editorial standard, in one line

Every factual claim on BharatNotes is verified via primary-source research before being written — no exceptions.

This is not a slogan. It is the working protocol our internal AI-assisted writing system is configured to enforce on every page. If we cannot confirm a fact from at least two authoritative sources, we either flag the uncertainty in the page or do not publish the claim.

What we verify

Before a page goes live, every item in these categories is independently checked:

Our sourcing hierarchy

For every fact, we work top-down through this hierarchy and stop at the first authoritative source that confirms the claim. Lower-tier sources are used only for context, never as the sole authority for a factual claim.

Tier 1 — Official Government of India sources (always preferred)

• legislative.gov.in — authoritative Constitution text, amendments, central Acts
• PIB (Press Information Bureau) — government press releases, scheme launches, Cabinet decisions
• india.gov.in — National Portal
• indiabudget.gov.in — Union Budget, Economic Survey
• RBI — monetary policy, banking sector, financial-stability reports
• MEA — foreign policy, treaties, joint statements
• ECI — elections, electoral law
• Ministry-specific portals (MoEFCC, MoHFW, MoSPI, MoF, MoPR, MEITY, etc.)
• Census of India, NFHS, NSSO reports
• Supreme Court of India judgments (verbatim or via Indian Kanoon)

Tier 2 — Reputable independent research

• PRS Legislative Research — Bill summaries, legislative briefs
• NITI Aayog reports and policy papers
• RBI Bulletin and Working Papers
• Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) reports

Tier 3 — Standard UPSC reference texts

• M. Laxmikanth — Indian Polity (latest edition)
• Ramesh Singh — Indian Economy (latest edition)
• Bipan Chandra et al. — India's Struggle for Independence, India Since Independence
• NCERT textbooks (Class 6–12, both the latest revised and the 1987–2006 set where still relevant)
• G.C. Leong — Certificate Physical and Human Geography
• Shankar IAS — Environment (for IUCN/biodiversity data)

Tier 4 — Reputable news media (used only for breaking developments)

• The Hindu
• Indian Express (Explained)
• Live Mint / Business Standard (economic data)
• Down To Earth (environment)

What we never rely on as a primary source

• Coaching-institute websites or PDFs — used at most for cross-reference, never as the source of a factual claim
• Unofficial Wikipedia summaries for current statistics (we use Wikipedia citations only to locate the underlying primary source)
• Aggregator news sites or social-media posts

How we use AI

We are transparent: BharatNotes is written with the help of large language models (LLMs), specifically as a drafting and structuring assistant. The role of AI is bounded:

• AI does NOT generate facts. No constitutional article, date, number, scheme detail, or quotation is written from the model's training data. Every claim must come from a live primary-source check.
• AI assists with structure, tone, and editing. Re-organising a topic for the UPSC syllabus, drafting tables, suggesting mnemonics, smoothing prose.
• Human review is required on every page. Bharat reviews and edits before publication.
• Data freshness is enforced. The AI workflow is explicitly configured to use the latest Budget, Economic Survey, and government data via live web search — not stale training data.

This is documented in our internal authoring protocol (see CLAUDE.md in the public source repository).

Corrections policy

Despite this rigour, errors happen — UPSC schemes are renamed, statistics are revised, and human reviewers miss things. When we find or are told about an error:

1. Verify the correction against the same primary-source hierarchy above.
2. Fix the page within 48 hours of confirmation (faster for high-traffic pages).
3. Note the correction visibly on the page when the change is material (e.g., a wrong year, a misattributed scheme).
4. Update the "Last updated" date at the top of the page.

Spotted an error? Please email [email protected] with the page URL and the issue. We genuinely want to know.

What we do NOT cover

BharatNotes is focused on UPSC General Studies (Prelims + Mains GS1–GS4 + Essay + Interview). We do not cover:

• Optional subjects (Anthropology, PSIR, Sociology etc.) — these need subject-specialist depth we don't offer.
• State PSC syllabi (except where they overlap with UPSC GS).
• CSAT mathematical reasoning beyond our annual answer-key analysis.
• Coaching-institute mock test reviews or coaching recommendations.

Advertising & sponsorship

BharatNotes runs Google AdSense ads to keep the site free. Ad placement is automated by Google — we do not select advertisers and we do not let advertisers influence editorial content. We do not run sponsored posts, paid mentions, affiliate links to coaching institutes, or "best coaching" lists.

See Privacy Policy for how AdSense handles your data.

Editorial independence

BharatNotes' editorial decisions are independent of:

• The Department of Education, Government of Rajasthan (Bharat's day job is unrelated to BharatNotes; the views on this site are his own as an independent educator).
• The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) — we are not affiliated with or endorsed by UPSC.
• Any coaching institute, publisher, or political party.
• Advertisers shown on the site (placement is fully automated by Google).

Contact

Questions about our editorial policy, correction requests, or source-citation queries — we read every message.

• Email: [email protected]
• Contact form: bharatnotes.com/contact
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/epicbharat