Chandigarh, May 5 (IANS): Two young women from Haryana and Punjab, the states with one of the worst sex ratios in the country, have secured the top two ranks in the civil services examination.
Shena Aggarwal of Haryana's Yamunanagar town and Rukmani Riar of Punjab's Hoshiarpur town have bagged the top two ranks (No. 1 and 2 respectively), beating male candidates.
Chandigarh's Prince Dhawan secured the third rank in the country and the first among male candidates.
The results of the CSE were declared by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in New Delhi Friday.
While Shena, 25, is a doctor who had cleared the Indian Revenue Services (IRS) examination last year, Rukmani, 24, is a post-graduate in social sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
Yamunanagar town is about 85 km from Chandigarh while Hoshiarpur is nearly 140 km from here in Punjab.
Shena, whose father is a dentist in Yamunangar and mother a homemaker, said she was very happy with the results.
She said she had expected a good rank but was quite surprised to emerge as the topper. She is currently undergoing IRS training in Nagpur.
A medical entrance test topper in 2004, Shena did her internship after her MBBS from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.
"She has made us proud. She has always been a topper," her father C.K. Aggarwal said.
Hoshiarpur girl Rukmani stood second in the country in her very first attempt at the civil services examination. She is a gold medalist from TISS.
Her father, Baljinder Pal Singh Riar, is a lawyer based in Hoshiarpur town.
"She was determined to join the civil services. Her hard work has helped her in achieving this," Rukmani's father said.
Haryana and Punjab are among the states with the worst sex ratio in the country. Haryana has only 877 females per 1,000 males while Punjab's sex ratio is 893 females per 1,000 males.