UCC - Upsc Cultural Club

Will UPSC Postpone Civil Services Prelims 2021? Check Details

Madhya Pradesh IFS Officers Plant 54,000 Saplings in a Day, Turn Barren Hill Green Divisional Forest Officer Punit Goyal shares how they overcame huge challenges to reforest a hill with saplings in Shahpur Forest Division

“After my father's death, my mother raised my younger brother and I all on her own. She is a very strong woman. Instead of quietly accepting the norm—saving up for a girl’s dowry and marrying her off—she gave me the chance to fulfil my potential,” says IPS officer Ilma Afroz.

Ilma, the daughter of a small farmer from Kundarki town in Moradabad district, Uttar Pradesh, was always destined for a life of public service.
Inducted into the prestigious Indian Police Service in August 2018, the 26-year-old left behind a life of comfort in New York, to assist with the collective realisation of the Indian dream—one of progress, peace and prosperity.

Her journey to the Indian Police Service, however, wasn’t without its fair share of challenges and obstacles. She was only 14, when her father, a dedicated farmer who had helped her understand the delicate intricacies of nature, succumbed to cancer.

With a young daughter and 12-year-old son to take care of, her mother took up the mantle of raising the children.

Read the rest of her story here: https://www.thebetterindia.com/171407/ias-hero-uttar-pradesh-ilma-afroz-oxford-india/

"Jana Gana Mana" (Bengali: [ɟənə gəɳə mənə]) is the national anthem of India, originally composed in Bengali by poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was awarded the in Literature in 1913.

Pictured: An English translation of Jana Gana Mana by Tagore

Frontier Gandhi and his Khudai Khidmatgars : Live History India They chose death, torture and abuse rather than yield to the colonial British. These were the Khudai Khidmatgars of the North West Frontier Province. Catch the story of a movement at the forefront of India’s freedom struggle and its fearless leader, ‘Frontier Gandhi’

Forest Officer Creates Odisha’s First Eco-Village, Helps Residents Earn Rs. 2 Crore With a strict zero-plastic policy, you won’t find a single person litter in this village. Here’s how the magic happened.

A Testament To Ingenuity, Kailasa Temple Is Carved From A Single Rock Some of the most awe-inspiring structures around the world are not wonders of modern technology in architecture and engineering. These structures are the

, "let's celebrate our dances that represent the rich culture of indus valley civilization in all its glory."

"This mesmerizing sculpture, famously known as 'The Dancing Girl, is one of the highest achievements of the artists of Mohenjodaro. The 'Dancing Girl' is a sculpture made of bronze. It belongs to the Indus Valley Civilization and dates back to circa 2500 BCE. It is 10.5 cm in height, 5 cm in width and 2.5 cm in depth. Presently, it is on display in the Indus Valley Civilization gallery in the National Museum, New Delhi."

The article Indus Script and Indus Culture by Mayank Vahia, Rajesh P.N. Rao and Nisha Yadav is a succinct summary of some of the features and nature of the ancient Indus script by three Indian scholars who have spent a great part of their careers investigating it. Presented at the International Conference on Indus Script at Mohenjo Daro in January 2020, points are listed as clear statements that can help others puzzled by the script, or who wish to attempt or consider other approaches to "deciphering" the script. Then there are nice summary paragraphs of where we are today: "The fact that the script is highly homogenised in terms of its grammar and sign use over more than a million square kmsuggests that there must have been a centralised system of educating the writers and readers and a centralised administration – something that is also obvious from other aspects of standardisation such as weights. Other authors have discussed various possibilities about what the writing may be. These include suggestions that the writing may be tokens of payment to possibly a numeric symbolism of entities in the accompanying drawing. Attempts have also been made to fit specific linguistic models such as proto-Dravidian, proto-Sanskrit, or Sumerian. Researchers have even tried to start by assigning meanings to a small number of signs through association with other scripts such as Brahmi, with little success" (p. 134).

As the authors look at the various demonstrated uses of the Indus script, "We therefore conclude that the Indus script had multiple uses and was used to convey fairly sophisticated ideas or information cryptically across vast regions through specialised writers. The script was used for expressing heterogeneous information but using a highly standardised grammar across both space and time" (p. 136).

Read the paper at: https://www.academia.edu/45650723/Indus_Script_and_Indus_Culture_M_N_Vahia_Rajesh_Nisha_Yadav_final_paper

Image: Indus script examples and three square stamp seals from Probabilistic Analysis of an Ancient Undeciphered Script by Rajesh P.N. Rao.

I had no idea!

The Shining History of Gold: From Ancient Treasure to Modern Tech Gold is arguably the human race’s most valued commodity and a lot could be written about the history of this metal.