Newspaper reading is the most cumbersome activity of the preparation and it takes months and too much of efforts to understand what to read and what not to read from them. Below are the tips which will help you to get the most out of reading the newspaper.

1. Do not read news of Political Parties- The newspapers and news channels are full of news about political parties and their mutual bickering. Over the years we develop an instinct towards such news. However, such news is of no use keeping the UPSC syllabus in mind. Such news can be of some use in Interview, however, only famous incidents will be discussed which you will come to know anyway. Instead of Political incidents, the reason behind them, the economic condition and political overtures should be analysed, which are anyway covered in the editorial pages.
2. Do not read local news- The news of the city or district level is not important, unless they have a broader or nationwide effect. The state news is important, but only those which affects the nation or set any precedence for other states. 
3. Sports news – The sports news section needs and intelligent and selective reading, keeping question papers of recent years in mind. One must keep track of the state of each sport in India and major issues involved in it. For eg. 2014 mains paper had an essay on India’s dismal performance in the Olympics. Therefore, issues like organizational structure of BCCI and its effects should be prepared by candidates.  Also one must keep himself updated about the technologies and updates in the sports. For eg. 2013 mains paper asked about the DRS system in Cricket. A candidate must keep track of similar developments like Goal line technology introduced in football.
4. International Affairs- News of international affairs should be read keeping India in mind. All the developments around the globe should be read and analysed by the background of involved parties and most importantly, how the particular event will affect India and the stakes India have in the event.
5. Economics- In economics, only macroeconomics developments should be read. Microeconomic news (about a particular company or organization), which has country wide and fundamental effect on the economy should be read, that too keeping macroeconomic effects in mind.
6. Polity- As discussed above, rarely one need to study any political event. Polity is read keeping Constitution in mind and what affects an event bears on the structure of the administration. Polity here means the study of all three branches of administration, i.e. Judiciary, Legislature and Executive. Their mutual coordination and reactions to each other should be studied, keeping administration of nation in mind, not who is in power and who is not.
7. Science and Technology- The dynamic part of this section remains one of the most difficult to prepare. However, for the last few years the questions asked were of general nature and not very technical. The weekly page of Science and Technology of any renowned newspaper should be read regularly to keep up with the recent developments and the issues involved.

Regularly make notes of the topics you study, as the syllabus is not only large but also reading from newspaper is so haphazard that output received in simply reading it will be too less compared to efforts one will put in (how to make notes will be covered separately in a separate article). Therefore to streamline the information, notes making must be the basic habit of entire process of newspaper reading.