110 years of public singing of Jana Gana Mana

About Jana Gana Mana-

• It was originally composed as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
• It  is written in high Bengali Sanskrit and is taken from the first five stanzas of a Brahmo Hymn.
• It was translated into English as ‘Morning Song of India’ and given a tune on February 28, 1919 during Tagore’s brief stay at Madanapalle.
• Then a nondescript town, Madanapalle got a coveted place in history as Tagore chose to stay with Irish poet James H. Cousins, then principal of Besant Theosophical College. 
• Till then, ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was just a lyric. 
• It became a song after the principal’s wife Margaret Cousins gave it a tune. 
• She had carefully studied the meaning of each line and composed the musical notes, which Tagore had happily approved.
• A slightly different version of the song was later adopted by Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army in 1941 as the national anthem, called ‘Shubh Sukh Chain’ which also became popular in India. 
• It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India as the National Anthem(Hindi version) on 24 January 1950.
• The original poem was translated by Abid Ali into Hindi and the original Hindi version of the song was a little different.
• The song defines the nation as the union of all provinces, languages and religion. 
• The same day, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of the assembly and former President of India, had also declared ‘Vande Mataram’ as the National Song. 
• The formal rendition of the national anthem takes approximately 52-seconds
• It is sung in the raga Gaud Sarang. 
• Reverence to the National Anthem is a Fundamental duty in India. 
• According to Article 51A (a) of the constitution, the anthem shall be the duty of every citizen of India to abide by the constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem. 
• It is played or sung at various occasions, from government offices to schools and colleges, the national anthem of India is sung at special occasions or national holidays or even daily as it is also titled as “The Morning Song of India”.