National symbol, flag & anthem

                         FLYING OF NATIONAL FLAG AT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

               

Recent announcement by the Education Minister to daily  hoist the national flag at all the educational institutions in India is a welcome step. The requirement took birth when some anti India activities came to notice at Jawahar Lal University (JNU) where, besides raising various anti national slogans by some students group, our tri-colour was  also torn and insulted.

Apart from the above mentioned incident, I have noticed that, many of us do not care & give proper respect to our national flag and other symbols. Just a few days ago, the national flag at the office of District Magistrate of district Dehradun (Uttarakhand), was hoisted upside down by the police guards. They had put the green colour of the flag on top and the saffron portion  down. It was only corrected when the mistake was pointed out by some people. Such occurrence are not rear. One keeps seeing & reading about such incidents quite frequently.

I have ,therefore taken the opportunity to give some basic details about our National symbols, National flag, National anthem, national song etc .for those who probably  never had an  opportunity to know about these things.

NATIONAL FLAG

Indian National flag is horizontal tricolor of deep saffron (Kesari) at the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom in equal proportion. Ratio of the width of the flag to its length is two to three. In the centre of the white band is a navy blue wheel which represents the Chakra. Its design is that of the wheel which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of King Ashoka (grand son of Samrat Chandragupta Maurya). Its diameter approximates to the width of the white band and it has 24 spokes.

Design of the flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22 July,1947.

The three colours of the flag indicate:-

Deep Saffron  :Valour & courage

White               : Purity & peace

Deep Green    : Prosperity.

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Composed by Ravindra Nath Tagore, the song was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 24 January 1950. It was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. The complete song consists of 5 stanzas. How ever, the first stanza consists full version of the National Anthem. Playing time of this full version is approximately 52 seconds. A short version consisting of first and last lines of the stanza is also played on certain occasions. Playing time for which is approximately 20 seconds.