A First for Darul Uloom
Deoband, Cleric Clears UPSC
Wasimur Rehman from Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharth Nagar
could have ended up being an imam, leading prayers
in a mosque.
The 31-year-old certified cleric, however, chose the
road less travelled. And in doing so, he has become
the first cleric from the influential Islamic
seminary Darul Uloom of Deoband to clear the Union
Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam, which selects
officers for the country’s elite administrative
cadre.
Rehman secured the 404th position this year in his
fourth and final shot at the UPSC.
“I always wanted to become a high-ranking government
officer and serve my country. I am happy to become
the first Darul cleric to clear the UPSC,” Rehman
said on Wednesday.
Rehman has three brothers one is a taxi driver,
another works at a shop while the third is a
student.
When he graduated from Darul a few years ago, Rehman
realised that an unrecognised Islamic degree
rendered him ineligible for his dream career the
civil services. So, he went back to his native Latia
village and gave religious discourses for a while.
Then somebody told him a bachelor’s degree in Unani
medicine from Jamia Hamdard University in New Delhi
could make him eligible for civil services. Five
years later, the degree cleared his way for the UPSC
examination.
Rehman, who manages only a smattering of English,
wrote the entire exam in Urdu, with History and
Persian as his main subjects. Far away from Darul in
Gujarat’s Bharuch district, news of Rehman’s feat
has triggered celebrations in Jameah Qasimiya
Arabia, one of India’s most modern madrasas that has
introduced compulsory English and computer classes.
“This is great news. Rehman has made all madaris
(students) proud,” said Maulana Hamzad, a student.
“Madrasas need not produce only clerics. Students
invariably become clerics because most of them do
not get career counselling.”
Rehman himself feels the modernisation of madrasas,
a prickly issue, is a crying need.
The Sachar Committee, which assessed the
socio-economic status of India’s 150 million
Muslims, has called for “recurrent grants and a
mechanism for madrasas to be linked with a higher
secondary board so that students wanting to shift to
regular/mainstream education can do so even after
having graduated from a madrasa.”
Nazima Almas Sayed Topped
HSE Exams with 98.5% Marks
Be alive to the purpose of life: Maharashtra HSE
topper Nazima Almas Sayed
“It feels great!” says Nazima Almas Sayed. And she
has every reason to feel so – she bagged the first
rank in the Maharashtra Higher Secondary
Examination. Her achievements have not stopped
there. She got second place in Vidharbha in the
state Medical Entrance Exams, first in the state
entrance for private colleges ASSOCET and second in
the state Sevagram exams.
Nazima, a student of the Shivaji Science College of
Nagpur, topped the HSE exams with 98.5% marks. Over
11.84 lakh students had attended the exam conducted
in February-March.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, Nazima expressed her
desire to pursue the medical profession,
specializing in cardiology. “Heart is the most
important part of the body. There I will use all my
potential,” she said.
This only daughter of a doctor family had decided to
take up the medical profession long back. Initially
she wanted to become a gynaecologist like her
mother. But later she changed her decision, she
says, after meeting many people.
Nazima Almas Sayed
Nazima’s father is a doctor of general medicine. Her
elder brother is a second year student of MBBS. Her
younger brother studies in eighth standard.
“Teachers and friends had a great role in my
success,” says Nazima. “Teachers taught me how to
learn and answer questions. Multiple choice
questions that I had in my entrance coaching classes
were really helpful in having a deep understanding
of things.”
So, how was her study method?
Nazima used to get up at four in the morning and
study for an hour. Early morning study really
helped, she says. Then she had tuitions before
school time. In school, she used to attend classes
with full concentration. “I depended mainly on my
teachers’ lectures and text books. Notes given came
only after that.” She had the habit of preparing
charts and pasting them on walls where they were
easy to be noted always. So wherever she was at
home, study matters were always in front of her
eyes.
Nazima also had a good company of friends. “We had a
healthy competition among friends. We used to
appreciate each other in success and correct in case
of any mistakes,” Nazima said. And she expressed her
happiness in the success of her friends who have
achieved very good marks in HSE as well as entrance
exams.
Now, what does she want to do for the society and
community?
She says she wants to work against the social evils
of abortion and female foeticide. She had attended
programmes conducted by some NGOs against abortion,
and that triggered in her the urgent need to fight
against this social menace. She hopes her medical
profession will offer her a great opportunity to
serve the society.
Nazima, who has never been outside the country,
loves to go abroad. She likes to go abroad and study
the new and most modern technology in the medical
field. And then she plans to come back home to
implement here what she had learned. When asked
about settling abroad, she said she did not like it.
“I was born and brought up here. I love going out
but don’t want to live there forever.”
“Being a Muslim doesn’t make you inferior in the
society,” says Nazima. “Dare to dream. Have passion
to fulfill that dream. Be persistent in hard work.
Don’t be aimless in life.”
Nazima believes that each human being has been born
and brought to the world for a purpose. One should
realize that purpose and live up to it.
And her message to the Muslim students?
‘Be alive to the purpose of your life.’
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Inventing More Efficient
Artificial Limbs Through Nanotech
Aligarh: Recent findings of
research by an engineering faculty member at the
Aligarh Muslim University have indicated that
artificial biological fibers made through
nanotechnology can play an important role in making
more efficient and cheaper artificial limbs for
patients at the recently conducted international
conference at Goa organized by the Powder
Mettallurgy Association of India (PMAI), Akhtar
Hussain Ansari of the AMU said zinc oxide nano
particles which till now were being synthesized only
at 'high temperature' and 'high pressure' conditions
can now be synthesized even at 'low temperature' and
'atmospheric condition'. Ansari, who presented his
findings at the above conference, said that his
findings 'would help in a substantive reduction of
cost in the manufacture of nano size zinc oxide
particles which will be used not only for making
artificial limbs but also for the production of
ultra violet radiation protective glasses and other
similar items.
HER FIRST brush with stardom began when she had
barely reached her house in Amroha on a night last
month, her first visit after the success of
Chandrayaan- I. She was confronted by a reporter and
his photographer who had been outside the house of
the Mirzas to photograph Kushboo for the paper’s
edition the next day. That was only to preempt the
numerous visits and accolades from well-wishers and
invitations for the aeronautical engineer to address
and “inspire” students in the town’s schools and
colleges.
Asked why she thinks the floodgates of commemoration
and recognition have opened, she says, “I am a
Muslim girl from a small town and yet I have
contributed to Indian science.” She is quick to
clarify that education and religion are independent
of each other. “Times haves changed and the attitude
of people towards Muslim girls also needs to change.
Our families do educate us,” she says. At 23,
Khushboo is proud of the fact that unlike other
women her age, she chose a modest government job
over a lucrative one for a foreign software firm.
The need she perceived, of contributing to research
in pure sciences in the country, has led the way.
Chandrayaan- 1 is the result of many such individual
compromises.
...READ FULL NEWS
Sameena Shah Wins Google
India Engineering Award
New Delhi: Sameena Shah has won the 2009 Google
India Women in Engineering Award. Google India
selected 9 top students for the 22 finalists this
year. Full time student in a recognized institution
and pursuing Computer Science, Computer Engineering,
or related majors were eligible for this award.
...READ FULL NEWS
