Tina Dabi is Indian Administrative Officer belonging to the Rajasthan cadre. She topped the UPSC Civil Services exam in 2015. She is from Delhi and has studied at Lady Shri Ram College (University of Delhi). She achieved rank 1 in her first attempt and passed the Civil Services Exam. She became popular when she decided to marry Athar Amir Khan. Athar Amir Khan came second in the same exam. Her love story created a buzz on social media. At present, She is the Joint Secretary in the Department of Finance (Tax) in the Rajasthan Government.

Union Public Service Examination Civil Services Examination is one of the toughest examinations in the world. Millions of candidates prepare for the exam, and only a few can pass the exam. UPSC is unpredictable in nature. Through CSE exams, many posts are filled, and it is one of the elite services in India. The syllabus is very vast and requires a proper strategy to cover it. She passed the exam at the age of 22.

Personal Life

Tina has lived in Delhi and Bhopal. Her mother comes from Maharashtra, and her father comes from Madhya Pradesh. They both were in Government Service: Indian Telecom Service (father) and Indian Economic Service (Mother). Her mother took retirement from the Service. Her retirement was voluntary. She has been to Carmel Convent School in Bhopal, and later she completed her Bachelor's in Political Science. She is very fond of Madhubani paintings, and during her leisure time, she used to do Madhubani Paintings during her UPSC CSE preparation. She has very much interest in reading fiction novels.

UPSC Journey

People say that UPSC is not a journey but a marathon. Candidates have to strategize for every step in detail, and every wrong action can waste an entire year of the candidate. It requires sheer hard work, patience, dedication, and resilience to pass the exam. She first completed her graduation and then started to prepare for the exam. As her graduation subject was Political Science, she developed a keen interest in the newspaper. One should note that Reading newspapers is the key to the UPSC paper. Aspiring Candidates should make a habit of reading newspapers daily. She used to read the newspaper daily, and it made her current affair much stronger. In one of the interviews, she opened up about the family support; she said her mother supported her wholeheartedly, and she was the pillar of strength during her long exhausting journey. She believed that her mother retired from the Service due to Tina; so that Tina could study peacefully without any problem. Various websites on the Internet claim that Tina used to follow this kind of timetable:

These are some of the points that have to stress on while preparing for UPSC. It is an exhaustive journey, and so candidates can modify the timetable according to their needs. They do not need to follow this timetable completely. This is a general timetable that she used to follow while her preparation. She shared the timetable on social media. She has stressed the revision. She favors that before candidates sit in prelims exams, they should revise the topics three times atleast. The division of time to a particular topic could be at Individual Candidate choice and need not be the same as Tina Dabi's schedule. She goes further to emphasize that what you have studied in a week has to be revised next week. Otherwise, you will forget next time. A proper diet should be taken so that you should not fall ill and try to be fit as much possible you can.

She chose Political Science and International Relations as an optional subject in the UPSC exam.

UPSC Marksheet
 

Dabi was a recipient of the President's Gold Medal while she was in training in Lal Bhadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussorie. She had the first rank according to the Order of Merit.

When the Covid-19 crisis was at its peak in Bhilwara District of Rajasthan, then Dabi was posted as Sub- Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of the area. Her team was at the forefront of fighting corona, and the administration took a massive effort to bring down daily cases down. Their hard work paid them off as they were able to successfully manage the First wave in the pandemic. She was applauded by both media and the Government. Her achievement was termed as Bhilwara Model, and states were told to implement a similar model in their respective jurisdiction.

Later she became an honorary member of the BRICS chamber of commerce (2020-2023). Before taking the post as Joint Secretary, Finance, She was Chief Executive Officer, Zila Parishad, SriGangapur.

Personal Affairs

Both Tina Dabi and Athar Amir Khan filed a divorce petition in Family court in Jaipur. The Family court at Jaipur accepted their divorce petition, and they were officially divorced. Her marriage was in the news due to many factors. They were from different religions and were praised as communal harmony. Many dignitaries like Vice-President of India and Former Lok Sabha Chairperson Sumitra Mahajan present at their marriage function. Senior Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi praised the couple for their decision. Athar comes from Jammu and Kashmir, and reports suggest that both fell in love during their Training program in LBSNAA and made their decision public on Social Media. Hindu Mahasabha termed marriage as Love Jihad. Dabi responded that she is not affected by these comments and she is within her right to do it.

Books used by her during UPSC Civil Services Preparation

• Polity: Laxmikanth
• Ancient History: Old NCERT Class 11th
• Medieval History- Old NCERT
• Modern History: Modern Spectrum, a few chapters from Old NCERT class 12 (before 1857)
• Culture: Nitin Sighania+ CCRT/NIOS selectively, Mrunal Videos can also be seen
• Environment: Shankar IAS, Old Biology Class12 Ecology Unit
• Economics- Macroeconomics Class 12 NCERT + Sriram Printed Notes. Mrunal Videos are recommended.
• Geography- Class 11th and 12th NCERT, Class 6 to 10th NCERT selectively. Biomes chapter from G C Leong. Mrunal Videos are recommended
• Science: NCERT 6th to 10th (Mainly 9th and 10th). Some selective chapters from the 11th and 12th, as mentioned by Mrunal. Vajiram Yellow books of PCB are recommended. Science- NCERT 6th to 10th (Mainly 9th and 10th )
• Test Series: InsightsonIndia paper for its questions. Arihant book for question bank.
• Current Affairs: Monthly Magazine+ insightsonIndia+Monthly magazines

Lesser Known Facts about Tina Dabi

• Both mother and father have cracked the UPSC IES exam
• After completing class 12, she had thought of continuing with B.com, but she took B.A. Political Science to begin her preparation.
• She was born a prodigy child, as she has scored 100 in History and Political Science in the class 12 board and has been conferred with "Student of the Year" from Lady Shri Ram College.
• She was admitted to Rau's IAS Study Circle New Delhi when she reached the age of 18.
• She achieved massive success by studying 9-12 hours daily and giving proportionate time to each subject.
• She has been very much interested in a subject like the Constitution of India and Indian Politics since her childhood. It became more evident when she topped in her 1st-year result and became a topper in the Delhi University in Political science discipline.
• She has been a fierce debater from her school days and held the position of Vice Speaker of the Youth Parliament in 2012.
• Her scintillating performance as a Vice Speaker of the Youth Parliament in 2012 impressed everyone.
• She cracked one of the toughest exams in India at the age of 22, and this itself is a testimony of her brilliance.
• She became the woman from a scheduled caste who held Ist rank in th UPSC Civil Services Exam.
• She went on to trip to Rome, Paris, and Netherlands while they were under training at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Administration, Mussorie.
• She aspires to become Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India.
• She had chosen Haryana Cadre as her 1st preference as she wished to work for the empowerment of the women. But there were only 2 vacancies in the Haryana Cadre, and they were already allocated to the Scheduled Tribes (S.T.) category, and her second preference in line was Rajasthan Cadre.
• After divorce from Athar Amir Khan, she recently tied the knot with IAS Pradeep Gawande. Pradeep is 39 years old.
• Pradeep Gawande is a 2013-batch IAS officer and he comes from Latur, Maharashtra. He holds an MBBS degree and is a qualified degree.
• At present, he is the director of Archaeology and Museums, Rajasthan.
• His family resides in Pune, and he secured a 478-rank in the UPSC Civil Services Exam.
• He hit news headlines when Anti-Corruption Bureau when questioned him in a case related to bribery. At that time, he was Managing Director of Rajasthan Skill and Livelihoods Development Corporation (RSLDC) Jaipur.
• Tina Dabi has 367.9k followers on his Twitter account, and she follows 164 people on Twitter. She joined Twitter in December 2016.