National Anthem ?Jana Gana Mana? was adopted on this day
Written and composed by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, 'Jana Gana Mana' was officially declared as India?s National Anthem on January 24, 1950. It was first sung on December 27, 1911, in Calcutta (now Kolkata) during a convention of the Indian National Congress. A formal rendition of 'Jana Gana Mana', which is written in Bengali Sanskrit, takes 52 seconds.
All of us have sung the national anthem and since school, stood up every time we heard it . But do we know enough about our anthem other than that it was written and composed by Nobel laureate and mystic poet Ravindranath Tagore? Here are some interesting facts about our anthem which you probably were not aware of:1.    The false myth that Jana Gana Mana was written and composed by Tagore to praise George the Fourth, who visited India in 1911.2.    A hoax message spread like wild fire across e-mail, Whatsapp and social media, that UNESCO announced our anthem as the 'Best National Anthem' in the world. UNESCO intervened and denied any such declaration from their end.     3.    The first rendition of the song was during a convention of the Indian National Congress on December 16th, 1911. 'Jana Gana Mana' was performed for the first time in Hamburg on 11th September, 1942. It was only on 24th January 1950 that this song was officially declared as India's national anthem.4.    The musical notations for the English translation of our national anthem were set by Margaret, wife of poet James H. Cousins, who was the principal of Besant Theosophical College. 5.    Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose commissioned a free translation of the national anthem from Sanskritized Bengali to Urdu-Hindi. The translation was written by Captain Abid Ali, composed by Captain Ram Singh Thakur and was called Subah Sukh Chain.6.    There is no provision of law which compels anyone to sing the national anthem. It is not considered disrespectful to the nation or to the anthem if a person chooses only to stand up in respectful silence.  7.    Formal rendition of the anthem should take 52 seconds by law, and not 54 seconds. 