Jamshedpur, JHARKHAND:

Nusrat Noor from Jamshedpur not only cleared the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) examination but also secured the highest rank in the list of successful candidates

Ranchi:

Nusrat Noor has become the first Muslim woman to top the Jharkhand Public Service Commission examination 2022 securing the first rank. She not only cleared the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) examination but also secured the highest rank in the list of successful candidates who cleared the coveted examination the result of which was declared two days ago.

Nusrat Noor, 27, applied for the examination a year ago under the medical category soon after application forms were made available on the website. She prepared for the exams with due diligence, appeared for an interview last month, performed brilliantly in the exam and eventually came out with flying colours to become the first Muslim woman to ever top the JPSC examination.

On the empowerment of Muslim women, Nusrat Noor said, “Participation and initiative are key to increasing women’s representation. It doesn’t matter what the result might be, Muslim women should come forward to get into civil services. This is how we can increase our representation and benefit our community and the nation at large.”

The Jharkhand Public Service Commission conducts the state-level civil services examinations to make recruitment for top governmental posts in various departments, including teaching, medical, and healthcare, in the state. It is also responsible to conduct written and verbal examinations to appoint candidates for these prestigious government positions.

On being asked what motivated her to go for civil services, she said, “I noticed that the representation of Muslim women in the government workforce is negligible. It’s high time Muslims got highly educated. Especially our women should be in the forefront when it comes to grabbing the opportunities that come our way from every sector.”

Born and brought up in the Jamshedpur city of Jharkhand, Noor, a mother of one is a medical practitioner with a specialisation in neurology.

After completing her primary education at Sacred Heart Convent School in Jamshedpur, she moved to Ranchi to pursue her degree in medical sciences from the Rajendra Institute of Medical Science.

She completed her degree of MBBS in the year 2020, and consequent to this, she was posted in the same medical college to practice what she refers to as a junior residentship.

During her residentship, she got married. But her marriage has not come in the way of her studies and her dedication to pursue her goals. She lives in a joint family where, she says, everyone is very supportive. Her in-laws never discouraged her from pursuing her dream and goals.

She says, “My husband and in-laws are very encouraging and supportive, I am lucky in a way, but this is how it should be in every household. I would say my family is a role model for every other family which treats its daughter-in-law as someone who is no more than a person whose job it is to do all the household chores.”

She looks at her family of more than 10 members as her strength and backbone. “I have a very big family, but it never has been a setback in doing whatever I wanted to do”.

Her husband, Mohammad Umar, is also a doctor and a consultant surgeon. He has always been by her side during her entire journey.

“My husband has always motivated me; he switched roles and helped me in my household chores. He did everything possible to make me achieve my goal, from setting up the timetable for me to study to taking care of our two-year-old child,” she recounts with a sense of gratitude.

Noor’s father, Md. Noor Alam, is in a managerial post at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur while mother Seerat Fatima is a homemaker. She is the youngest in her family. The news of her becoming the first Muslim woman in the entire state to top the JPSC examination makes them proud.

Her elder brother, Mohammad Faisal Noor, is pursuing his research in industrial engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.

He says, “We were quite confident about her selection, but the news of that she got the first rank was, Alhamdulillah, a pleasant surprise.”

The one thing that she will never forget about in her entire journey, right from her school days to becoming a doctor to now cracking the JPSC, is that people and society even in the 21st century don’t consider a woman’s approach to her career as a personal achievement. Society still believes that a woman’s well-being lies in her traditional role as a homemaker.

She recalled the moment she got married, she was told by a friend that getting married ‘on time is an achievement in life and she has achieved it.

She said, “Personal life can be an aspect to achieve the ‘progress’, but there is much more to it. For me, apart from my personal life, achieving goals set by myself counts as progress. Society still needs to evolve to address the needs of today’s generation. My husband’s family, which is mine too, present an example of a ‘just’ and ‘progressive’ society which looks at the woman more than someone whose responsibility is confined to looking after the household.”

Nusrat now aims to start preparing for her post-graduation while taking charge as a medical officer in one of the government hospitals as appointed by the administration. She also looks forward to encouraging and facilitating other women to take up professional and administrative positions.

“Women should participate more to come into the mainstream. I also make an appeal to families to encourage their daughters to educate themselves as much as possible, as this is the only way to make them economically independent and socially self-sufficient.”

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home / by Ghazala Ahmad, Clarion India / December 11th, 2022