Inspiring Biography of Tina Dabi

Tina Dabi is a famous IAS officer.

She was the all India topper of the Civil Services Exam in 2015.

Tina Dabi’s story of cracking the Civil Services Exam in her very first attempt at a young age of 22 is very inspiring.

So read on.

Introduction-

Tina Dabi was born on 9 November 1993 into a middle class family.

She hails from Delhi and both her parents are engineers.

Tina Dabi’s mother, Himani Dabi is a former Indian Engineering Service officer.

Her father, Jaswant Dabi works as an Indian Telecom Service officer.

Tina Dabi grew up in various places like Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

Initially, she lived in Madhya Pradesh for a decade and then moved to Delhi.

Ria Dabi-

Tina Dabi has a younger sister, Ria Dabi.

Ria Dabi cracked the Civil Services Exam and secured a rank of 15 in UPSC Civil Services Exam 2020.

A born achiever-

Tina Dabi has been an achiever since her school days.

She did her schooling from Convent of Jesus & Mary, New Delhi and studied in the CBSE board.

Tina Dabi was very strong in academics and received many awards for being the best student in the school.

Good debater-

Tina Dabi is also an excellent debater and debated in Youth Parliaments, Model United Nations and other debating competitions.

She participated as a Deputy Speaker in the Youth Parliament and also won an award here.

Peer pressure–

Tina Dabi succumbed to the peer pressure that bright students should choose science stream and she chose science in her 11^th standard.

But her mother, Himani Dabi observed that she didn’t have any interest in science whereas she was very interested in arts and had good writing, speaking and leadership skills and loved doing social work.

Himani Dabi understood that all these skills would prove very useful for Tina Dabi to become an administrator.

Choosing Humanities-

So, Himani Dabi convinced Tina Dabi to choose humanities.

So, after studying in the science stream for a couple of months, she quit it and chose to study humanities in her intermediate.

Choosing humanities later helped Tina Dabi very much while preparing for the Civil Services Exam.

Preparing early on-

In her class 11^th itself, Tina Dabi decided to prepare for the Civil Services Exam and grow up to become an administrator.

So, she started preparing for the exam and both her parents guided her very well.

In her 12^th standard, Tina Dabi scored 100% in both political science and history.

Joining LSR-

After completing her intermediate, in 2011, Tina Dabi joined Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR) to study political science.

She chose to graduate in political science because she wanted to select political science as an optional in the Civil Services (Main) Examination.

Best student-

Tina Dabi received LSR best student of the year trophy.

She was a bright student in college and was also active in student politics and contested for the student union elections and was also a debater.

In 2014, Tina Dabi graduated from LSR and was the topper of the university and at that time she was 20.

Preparation for Civil Services Exam-

Tina Dabi took Civil Services Exam coaching from Khan Study Group, Delhi.

From 2014, she started preparing for the exam very seriously.

Tina Dabi was lucky to live in Delhi because it offered her many opportunities to prepare for the Civil Services Exam.

Note- It is not compulsory to prepare for the Civil Services Exam in Delhi only.

For example, Srushti Jayant Deshmukh cracked the exam while living in Bhopal and Nagarjun Gowda cracked the exam while doing a full-time job in Mandya, Karnataka.

Rigorous preparation-

Tina Dabi used to study daily for 7-8 hours.

She also attended many mock tests and revised every foundation course book thrice.

Tina Dabi prepared very systematically.

She used to create a timetable for every three months and she used to also allot daily targets and meet them.

A very helpful mother-

Tina Dabi’s mother quit her job so that she could help her to prepare for the Civil Services Exam.

Her mother played an important role in making her a civil servant.

Maintaining her motivation-

As preparing for the Civil Services Exam was tough, Tina Dabi used to lose motivation every third day.

So, she used to motivate herself by reading the quote “Don’t quit. Every difficulty is an opportunity in disguise”.

Also, Tina Dabi’s parents motivated her to continue her preparation by reminding her how good she was in studies.

Syllabus, strengths and weaknesses-

Tina Dabi started her preparation initially by reading the syllabus of the Civil Services Exam.

Then, she identified her strengths, that is, the subjects in which she can score well and her weaknesses, that is, the subjects in which she was weak.

Then, Tina Dabi started working upon her weaknesses while maintaining her strengths.

Her preparation strategy-

Initially, Tina Dabi read the NCERT books to cover all the basics and then moved on to read complex books.

As she was a humanities student, she possessed good writing skills.

But even then, Tina Dabi regularly practiced writing and used to write one essay per week after completing her Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination until her Civil Services (Main) Examination.

She chose Political Science and International Relations as her optional in the Main exam.

Practise made her perfect-

When Tina Dabi attempted her first Main Examination mock test, she was able to write only 14 questions out of 20.

Over the time, she attended many mock tests.

And during her Civil Services (Main) Examination of Ethics, Tina Dabi became the only person in her centre to completely write the Ethics paper.

Becoming the topper-

Tina Dabi attended the Civil Services Examination in 2015.

On 10 May 2016, the results were announced and she secured the first rank.

During that time, Tina Dabi was just 22.

Getting trained at LBSNAA-

Later, Tina Dabi got admitted to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand to receive training for two years.

She was sent for a year-long district training and got trained by Gaurav Goyal, a collector serving in Rajasthan.

Tina Dabi worked hard and secured the President of India Gold Medal First in Order of Merit for 2016 Batch.

Getting married-

At LBSNAA, Tina Dabi met Athar Aamir Khan whom she later married in March 2018.

Athar Aamir Khan was the second ranker of Civil Services Examination 2015.

This couple got divorced in August 2021.

Working in many roles-

After getting trained from LBSNAA, in 2018, Tina Dabi was allocated to the Rajasthan cadre.

She was posted as a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in Bhilwara district in Rajasthan.

In 2019, Tina Dabi was appointed as the Returning officer for the State Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) Elections.

After a couple of months, she was appointed as the Returning officer for Lok Sabha elections.

In 2021, Tina Dabi was a part of the Bhilwara COVID-19 model and she took part in COVID management and lockdown strategy.

Later, she was appointed as a Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Parishad in Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan and here, her tenure lasted for just four months.

Then, Tina Dabi got transferred to Jaipur and is working as Joint Secretary of Finance in the tax division of Government of Rajasthan.

She also served as an Honorary Advisor to BRICS Chamber of Commerce & Industry YLP.

Some interesting facts about Tina Dabi-

• Tina Dabi’s mother liked Tina Ambani as an actress, so she named her daughter Tina Dabi.
• In October 2018, she spoke at TEDx in Hansraj College.
• Tina Dabi is a fan of Shah Rukh Khan.
• Her hobby is drawing Madhubani painting and she draws to relax.
• Tina Dabi got a prize in the National Museum competition.
• Reading is also one of her hobbies. She loves reading both fiction and non fiction novels. She likes reading the works of Palagummi Sainath, Amartya Sen and B. R. Ambedkar.
• While preparing for the exam, Tina Dabi never neglected her sleep.

So, how are you inspired by the biography of Tina Dabi?

Tell me in the comment section below.