Tina Dabi, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of 2016 batch, on Friday said she has joined as the joint secretary (finance) of the government of Rajasthan. “Joined as Joint Secretary Finance (Tax) to Govt of Rajasthan today,” Dabi posted on Twitter.
Dabi, who topped the Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC’s) civil service examination, is the first-ever Dalit woman to top the prestigious examinations. Dabi, who belongs to Bhopal, was allocated the Rajasthan cadre. The 26-year-old, a political science graduate from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, was posted to Sri Ganganagar as the chief executive officer of the zila parishad, after her training.
Recently, Dabi was in the news as she and her husband IAS Athar Khan filed for divorce with mutual consent in a family court in Jaipur, two years after their wedding. Their relationship apparently started at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Administration in Mussoorie and subsequent wedding grabbed the attention of the nation. Dabi ranked first in the UPSC examinations, Khan ranked second.
Their wedding was hailed as a symbol of communal harmony. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had congratulated the IAS couple and had tweeted, “May your love grow from strength to strength and may you be an inspiration to all Indians in this age of growing intolerance and communal hatred. God bless you.”
Vice president M Venkaiah Naidu, former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad were among those who had attended their wedding reception in Delhi. There were three wedding receptions — the first in Jaipur which was a simple court ceremony, the second in Pahalgam and the third in Delhi.
