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In his life of 99 years, this person might have dedicated only 1 or 2 years for INA. For rest of the 97-98 years, he was most probably an ordinary citizen of India.

But that short durarion of extreme dedication to mother India gave meaning to his entire life. Life doesn't give you many such opportunities. Sometime we wait for years and years, preparing ourselves, just in anticipation. And whenever such moments come, we must grab them. Those few moments make rest of life golden.

On this Holi, I hope and pray that you get wisdom to identify the moment when it comes and courage to give full dedication. Keep preparing for it.

Happy Holi.
Nikhil

In the series of sources for history optional, this is a video on Sources for Medieval India.

https://youtu.be/Kp5lQC7XmRo

Tomorrow we are beginning with new DAMP.

A separate Telegram group is being formed. If you are not added to it, please contact the admin.

After a couple of days, on Tuesday evening, we will hold our first live session with students. Apart from the program as announced, we will hold regular live sessions to provide more personalized feedback.

There is one secret I want to share. DAMP is not only beneficial to students, but also to teachers. We as teachers get to read a lot, do more research during this program, every day, question by question. A lot of new updation and value addition takes place becuase two questions a day afford that much of time. Without such an opportunity, even teachers tend to repeat the same thing every year and may get outdated by constantly evolving UPSC. So, our overall intellectual enrichment happens during DAMP.

That is why, in LevelUp IAS, every optional teacher eagerly awaits DAMP months. We both are also excited about this round of DAMP.

Nikhil

https://youtu.be/9RfCtZrt0rA?si=A40Yb5Rd-4q_M4v8

Shekhar Gupta is calling Aurangzeb "the most famous loser in Indian history". This is a very interesting epithet for such a controversial figure.

I think this discussion group is not serving much purpose. People are engaging in discussion which is often beyond History.

We want to strictly ensure the focus of this group which is history optional. For everything else in life and preparation, there are umpteen number of other channels. This place is not created for overall upsc preparation. It is only for History and that too preferably history optional. For all people here, any other random discussions are causing unnecessary, undesirable and unwanted distraction.

As of now, we have decided to aggressively delete all such irrelevant content and parallely restrict/ban people who engage in it.

In future if even such stance doesn't help, we will consider deleting the entire discussion group and keep only the main channel active for purely one-way communication.

Nikhil

Today I met Prof. Irfan Habib. Had a 90 minutes long discussion on various topics. Despite being 95 years old, he spoke almost continously on various topics. Still has a very sharp memory and capacity to crack jokes.

Nikhil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HfTlM6r4CU

This seems to be a very decently made trailer. I hope the movie also turns out to be good. Lets embrace for some more history related discussion in coming weeks...:)

The Dravidian movement, right from its initial phase, found a link between Hindi and North India on the one hand and Sanskrit and Brahminism on the other. In other non-Hindi-speaking states that were formed after linguistic agitations, the anti-Hindi sentiment never took off because this link was not clearly established.

In 1917, long before the anti-Hindi agitations began to break out, Mahatma Gandhi said, “It is not correct to say that in Madras one cannot do without English. I have successfully used Hindi there for all my work. In the trains I have heard Madrasi passengers speaking to other passengers in Hindi. Besides, the Muslims of Madras know enough Hindi to use it sufficiently well.”

The prevalence of Urdu among Tamil Muslims and the basic Hindi skills of communities making a livelihood near pilgrimage sites and in trade centres meant that Hindi could not be an “alien language”. The Dravidian movement seemed to succeed in making it appear alien to most Tamils. That may change with time.

Written by Adithya Reddy

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/hindi-alien-tamil-nadu-9892859/

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From today, RTFQ is starting.

This is a unique program ran by LevelUp IAS every year. Its a mission-mode revision of entire Prelims syllabus through 3000 MCQs on Youtube Live. It is like attempting 30 full length tests with complete discussion.

In it, our expert faculty (and not subject matter experts, the SMEs), covers about 100 MCQs every day for 30 days. We cover entire syllabus very systematically, chapter by chapter, section by section. The schedule is already announced.

It's a high-paced, high-quality revision of the whole syllabus in a very exam-centric manner.

Moreover, if you want to attend it offline you are more than welcome. Everyone who wants to come and sit offline will be allowed. For those who cannot, its available on YT Live.

Today we are starting with Polity. You can find the questions for today here. In our official channel, you can find all the future PDFs for downloading.

https://t.me/levelupias

I just watched this reel (link given in the end). It triggered a chain of thoughts. It might sound somewhat unpleasant for you but I want to express nonetheless.

There was a time when I used to go to a shop to buy music cassettes. And listen to the 12 songs (6 songs each side of tape) on my Panasonic tape recorder again and again. My eclectic possession of 70-80 cassettes was my most cherished treasure. Now, with internet, nobody cares about it.

There was a time before. When I used to go to a video parlour to rent a DVD. Entire society used to gather to watch a movie together on a weekend. Now, with torrent, nobody cares about the producers.

There was a time when books were costly and inaccessible. We used to go to libraries and take long strolls amongst the files of book laden almerahs to locate interesting books. It used to be a fun activity. Dusty bookshelves... Now all books are available online. For everyone, quick and free... Nobody cares for the authors.

There was a time, when leisurely water colour paintings of summery old city buildings used to evoke the feelings of solitude. Now, with chatgpt producing Ghibli style mass produced art, nobody cares about the artists like Miyazaki.

Then I remember... There was also a time before. When access to good quality UPSC teaching in Delhi was costly. Now, with Telegram, it is dirty cheap. It is also celebrated as democratization of knowledge, a la robinhood. Nobody cares about teachers.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DHyIa0VSqkt/?img_index=1&igsh=MW1maGl1d2N4MjA4cg==

Nikhil

Alert

The second issue of History Bulletin is on its way! 📰 Get ready for in-depth analyses, fresh perspectives, and thought-provoking interviews on recently published book reviews.

This time, we have also added a new section on obituaries. In this issue, there will be total of 2 obituaries, and 35 book reviews on 25 books, mostly published in last 3-4 months. ✨

For those who missed the First Issue, here you go: https://www.levelupias.com/upsc-cse-history-optional-bulletin/

Two major articles appeared in TheHindu on Shivaji. These are written by Prathamesh Kher, an assistant editor at TheHindu.

Both the articles give quite detailed, considered and analytical view on Shivaji. Apart from that, there are a lot of interesting facts there which are important for the exam, like Rajyavyavahar Kosh.

Recommended Read.
#maratha #shivaji

Second issue of History Bulletin in out. You can download it from here:

https://www.levelupias.com/upsc-cse-history-optional-bulletin/