Reservation In India

Indian Law now provides a quota system whereby a percentage of posts are reserved in employment in Government and in the public sector units, and in all public and private educational institutions, except in the religious/ linguistic minority educational institutions, in order to mitigate backwardness of the socially and educationally backward communities and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who do not have adequate representation in these services and institutions. The reservation policy is also extended to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for representation in the Parliament of India. The central government of India reserves 27% of higher education, and individual states may legislate further reservations. Reservation cannot be exceeded 50%, as per the rulings given by the supreme court, but certain Indian states like Rajasthan have proposed a 68 % reservation which includes a 14% reservation for forward castes.

Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in campuses and workplaces by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups that are grossly under-represented in proportion to their numbers in the general population. Caste is the most used criteria to identify under-represented groups. However there are other identifiable criteria for under-representation—gender (women are under represented), state of domicile (North Eastern States, as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are under-represented), rural people, etc. -- as revealed by the Government of India sponsored National Family Health and National Sample surveys.

The underlying theory is that the under-representation of the identifiable groups is a legacy of the Indian caste system. After India gained independence, the Constitution of India listed some erstwhile groups as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes(ST). The framers of the Constitution believed that, due to the caste system, SCs and the STs were historically oppressed and denied respect and equal opportunity in Indian society and were thus under-represented in nation-building activities. The Constitution laid down 15% and 7.5% of vacancies to government aided educational institutes and for jobs in the government/public sector, as reserved quota for the SC and ST candidates respectively for a period of five years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. This period was routinely extended by the succeeding governments.

Later, reservations were introduced for other sections as well. The Supreme Court ruling that reservations cannot exceed 50% (which it judged would violate equal access guaranteed by the Constitution) has put a cap on reservations. However, there are state laws that exceed this 50% limit and these are under litigation in the Supreme Court.

D.B.Cooper

D. B. Cooper is the name popularly used to refer an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, USA on November 24, 1971, extorted USD $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and an exhaustive (and ongoing) FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or positively identified. To date, the case remains the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation history.

The suspect purchased his airline ticket under the alias Dan Cooper, but due to a press miscommunication, he became known in popular lore as "D.B. Cooper." Hundreds of leads have been pursued in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts, and the bulk of the ransom money has never been recovered. Numerous theories, of widely-varying plausibility, have been proposed by experts, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts.

Published reports indicate that from the beginning, FBI investigators considered it unlikely that Cooper survived his risky and ill-advised jump. “Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his 'chute open,” said Special Agent Larry Carr, a long-time member of the investigation team who became its leader in 2006.

Nevertheless, the case remains active; and while the agency is reluctant to commit substantial resources to a four-decade-old investigation, it continues to solicit creative ideas and new leads from the public. “Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream", Carr suggested. "Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle.”

State Bank of India

State Bank of India is the largest bank in India. The bank traces its ancestry to British India, through the Imperial Bank of India, to the founding in 1806 of the Bank of Calcutta, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian Subcontinent. The Government of India nationalized the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with the Reserve Bank of India taking a 60% stake, and renamed it the State Bank of India. In 2008, the Government took over the stake held by the Reserve Bank of India.

SBI provides a range of banking products through its vast network in India and overseas, including products aimed at NRIs. The State Bank Group, with over 16000 branches, has the largest branch network in India. With an asset base of $250 billion and $195 billion in deposits, it is a regional banking behemoth. It has a market share among Indian commercial banks of about 20% in deposits and advances, and SBI accounts for almost one-fifth of the nation’s loans.

SBI has tried to reduce over-staffing by computerizing operations and Golden handshake schemes that led to a flight of its best and brightest managers. These managers took the retirement allowances and then went on to become senior managers in new private sector banks.

The State bank of India is the 29th most reputed company in the world according to Forbes.

The Subsidiaries of SBI are:

1. State Bank of Indore

2. State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur

3. State Bank of Hyderabad

4. State Bank of Mysore

5. State Bank of Patiala

6. State Bank of Travancore

Punjab National Bank

Punjab National Bank (PNB), was registered on May 19, 1894 under the Indian Companies Act with its office in Anarkali Bazaar Lahore. The Bank is the second largest government-owned commercial bank in India with about 4,500 branches across 764 cities. It serves over 37 million customers. The bank has been ranked 248th biggest bank in the world by Bankers Almanac, London. The bank's total assets for financial year 2007 were about US$60 billion. PNB has a banking subsidiary in the UK, as well as branches in Hong Kong and Kabul, and representative offices in Almaty, Shanghai, and Dubai.

National Flag of India

The National Flag of India is a horizontal rectangular tricolour of saffron, white and green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in blue at its centre. It was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, when it became the official flag of the Dominion of India. The flag was subsequently retained as that of the Republic of India. In India, the term "tricolour" (Hindi: तिरंगा, Tirangā) almost always refers to the Indian national flag. The flag is based on the Swaraj flag, a flag of the Indian National Congress designed by Pingali Venkayya.

The flag, by law, is to be made of khadi, a special type of hand-spun cloth of cotton or silk made popular by Mahatma Gandhi. The manufacturing process and specifications for the flag are laid out by the Bureau of Indian Standards. The right to manufacture the flag is held by the Khadi Development and Village Industries Commission, who allocate it to the regional groups. As of 2009, the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha was the sole manufacturer of the flag.

Usage of the flag is governed by the Flag Code of India and other laws relating to the national emblems. The original code prohibited use of the flag by private citizens except on national days such as the Independence day and the Republic Day. In 2002, on hearing an appeal from a private citizen, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to amend the code to allow flag usage by private citizens. Subsequently, theUnion Cabinet of India amended the code to allow limited usage. The code was amended once more in 2005 to allow some additional use including adaptations on certain forms of clothing. The flag code also governs the protocol of flying the flag and its use in conjunction with other national and non-national flags.

National Anthem

Roman Transcript

Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya He
Bharat Bhagya Vidhata
Punjab Sindh Gujarat Maratha
Dravida Utkala Banga
Vindhya Himachal Yamuna Ganga
Ucchala Jaladhi Taranga
Tab Shubha Name Jage
Tab Shubha Ashish Mange
Gahe Tab Jaya Gata
Jan Gan Mangaldayak Jay He
Bharat Bhagya Vidhata
Jaye He ! Jaye He ! Jaye He !
Jaye,Jaye,Jaye,Jaye He "

देवनागरी लिपि : 

जन गण मन अधिनायक  जय हे 

भारत भाग्य विधाता 

पंजाब सिंध गुजरात मराठा 

द्रविड़ उत्कल बंग 

विन्ध्य हिमाचल यमुना गंगा 

उच्छल जलधि तरंग

तब शुभ नामे जागे  

तब शुभ आशीष मांगे 

गाहे तब जय गाथा 

जन गण मंगलदायक जय हे

भारत भाग्य विधाता  

जय हे! जय हे! जय हे! 

जय जय जय जय हे! 

The Jana Gana Mana was composed by Shri Rabindranath Tagore and first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on December 27th, 1911. It was adopted as the National Anthem of India on 24th January, 1950 by the Constituent Assembly. The first stanza (out of five stanzas) of the song forms the National Anthem.

Ravindra Nath Tagore’s English rendering of the National Anthem

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India’s destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sind,
Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida and Orissa and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India’s destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.

State Emblem

The state emblem is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka. In the

original, there are four lions, standing back to back, mounted on an abacus with a

frieze carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and

a lion separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. Carved out of a

single block of polished sandstone, the Capital is crowned by the Wheel of the Law

(Dharma Chakra).

In the state emblem, adopted by the Government of India on 26 January 1950,

only three lions are visible, the fourth being hidden from view. The wheel appears in

relief in the centre of the abacus with a bull on right and a horse on left and the

outlines of other wheels on extreme right and left. The bell-shaped lotus has been

omitted. The words Satyameva Jayate from Mundaka Upanishad, meaning 'Truth

Alone Triumphs', are inscribed below the abacus in Devanagari script.