INDEPENDENCE DAY....Most important day in the life of a nation...so it is for us today. Nation is almost all the time symbolised by her flag...Indian tricolour...consisting of orange symbolising courage, white symbolising peace and truth, and green symbolising prosperity...

The need to have our own flag was first felt in 1857 and thought started rolling. Later 1st flag was designed by sister Nivedita, then in 1904 Madam Kama , Veer Savarkar and Shyamji Krishna Varma designed a flag which was hoisted by Madam Kama in Germany during 1st world war. this was also known as Berlin committee flag. in the year 1916 Lokmanya Tilak along with Annie Besant designed another flag. Mr Pingali Venkaiya of Andhra designed a flag after researching flags of 30 nations for 5 years came up with a flag with 2 colours orange and green and a charkha. but Gandhiji asked him to add white so this became the tricolour..this was the congress flag... in 1931 a 7 member committee was formed to look into this matter. Then in 1947 another ad hock committee was formed to come up with the task of designing the national flag. stalwarts like Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Ambedkar, Sarojini Naidu, K M Munshi, Rajagopalachari and Maulana Azad formed this committee.This committee replaced the charkha with the Ashok Chakra or Dharma Chakra which symbolizes wheel of law. it also intends to show there is life in movement....and so we got our national flag some 21 days before 15th Aug 1947... first prime minister of independent India Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour from red fort on august 16th 1947....it was the dream of Netaji Subhashchandra Bose to see this happen... so despite the gloom..poverty..lack of accountability..corruption..illiteracy....................JAI HIND..............

Fifth day of this auspicious month of Shravan ...Nagpanchami...there are stories associated with all our festivals so here goes the one for this day...Once upon a time there lived a Brahman with his family. He had four sons who were married, it was a festival day of nagpanchami so the girls decided to visit their parents homes..the youngest girl had no where to go so she prayed to nag devata to be her family. The all knowing "Adishesha " bhagvan came in the guise of a Brahman claiming to be girls mama. Though the father-in-law had some doubts the girl confirmed him as her mama. So the mama took her to his home in the "varula" and instructed his wife to look after the girl. Many months passed like this...time came when naga's wife gave birth to babies..girl was asked to hold the lamp in her hand...the babies started crawling around her legs, she got scared and dropped the lamp burning few baby tails...soon it was time for the girl to go home... again the nag devata as Brahman took the girl home... many years passed thus...when the babies grew up they asked their mother about their burnt tails. The mother told them about the girl...boys got angry and went looking for the girl..when they reached her house it was this day of nag panchami and the girl was praying to the lord for her brother's well being...their happiness...with elaborate poojas and naivedyam of milk and modaks ...seeing this the boys were very pleased and happy , they stayed the night and when they left, they left the "navaratna necklace" for the girl....blessing her with happiness and prosperity...so says the puranas......