Compiled by

S.Rengasamy

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 Contents
Ramon Magsaysay Award.................................................................................................................................... 9
Asian Nobel Prize ............................................................................................................................................... 10
Magsaysay Award Categories ............................................................................................................................... 11
Award Winners Asia ............................................................................................................................................. 11
Government Service ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Public Service ................................................................................................................................................... 12
Community Leadership..................................................................................................................................... 13
Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts ........................................................................... 14
Peace and International Understanding ............................................................................................................ 15
Emergent Leadership ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Indian Award Winners ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Community Leadership..................................................................................................................................... 17
Indian Award Winners - Public Service .............................................................................................................. 18
Indian Award Winners – Emergent Leadership.................................................................................................. 18
Indian Award Winners – Peace & International Understanding ......................................................................... 19
Indian Award Winners - Journalism, literature and creative communication arts............................................... 20
Ramon Magsaysay Award – Alphabetical list of Indian Awardees ...................................................................... 21
1. SIR CHINTĀMAN DWĀRAKĀNĀTH DESHMUKH .................................................................. 22
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 22
Civil service career ........................................................................................................................................... 22
Bretton Woods Conference............................................................................................................................... 22
Post partition .................................................................................................................................................... 22
Union Finance Minister .................................................................................................................................... 22
Resignation ...................................................................................................................................................... 22
Awards ............................................................................................................................................................ 23
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 23
2. JAMES MICHAEL LYNGDOH ......................................................................................................... 23
Contents .......................................................................................................................................................... 23
Early life ........................................................................................................................................................... 23
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 23
Work as Election commissioner ........................................................................................................................ 24
Awards............................................................................................................................................................. 24
3. KIRAN BEDI ...................................................................................................................................... 25
Contents .......................................................................................................................................................... 25
Early life ........................................................................................................................................................... 25
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 25
Contributions ................................................................................................................................................... 26
Personal life ..................................................................................................................................................... 26
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................................... 27
Awards............................................................................................................................................................. 27
Books on Kiran Bedi.......................................................................................................................................... 27
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 27
External links.................................................................................................................................................... 27
4. TIRUNELLAI NARAYANA IYER SESHAN.................................................................................. 28
Early life .......................................................................................................................................................... 28
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 28
Chief Election Commissioners of India .............................................................................................................. 28
5. JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN............................................................................................................. 29
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 29

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 Early life .......................................................................................................................................................... 29
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 29
Sarvodaya ........................................................................................................................................................ 30
Bihar Movement and Total Revolution ............................................................................................................. 31
Emergency ....................................................................................................................................................... 31
Trivia ............................................................................................................................................................... 32
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 32
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 32
6. MADURAI SHANMUKHAVADIVU SUBBULAKSHMI ........................................................... 33
Contents .......................................................................................................................................................... 33
Biography......................................................................................................................................................... 33
Early years ....................................................................................................................................................... 33
Move to Madras............................................................................................................................................... 33
Musical style and performance......................................................................................................................... 33
Films ................................................................................................................................................................ 34
Awards and honours ........................................................................................................................................ 34
Bharat Ratna laureates ..................................................................................................................................... 35
7. MANIBHAI BHIMBHAI DESAI ................................................................................................... 35
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 35
Manibhai Bhimbhai Desai Biography........................................................................................ 36
8. LAKSHMI CHAND JAIN ................................................................................................................. 50
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 51
Publications ..................................................................................................................................................... 51
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 51
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 51
Lakshmi Chand Jain –Biography .................................................................................................. 51
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 52
Publications ..................................................................................................................................................... 52
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 52
9. BANOO JEHANGIR COYAJI ......................................................................................................... 53
Further reading ................................................................................................................................................ 53
External links.................................................................................................................................................... 53
Banoo Jehangir Coyaji Citation.................................................................................................... 53
CITATION for Banoo Jehangir Coyaji ............................................................................................. 53
10. MAHESH CHANDRA MEHTA ........................................................................................................ 54
11. Dr.V. Shanta .................................................................................................................................... 55
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 55
Early life .......................................................................................................................................................... 55
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 56
Awards ............................................................................................................................................................ 56
Quotes ............................................................................................................................................................. 56
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 56
12. Deep Joshi .......................................................................................................................................... 57
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 57
Early life and education .................................................................................................................................... 57
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 57
Quotes ............................................................................................................................................................. 57
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 58
13. Vinoba Bhave .................................................................................................................................. 58
Contents .......................................................................................................................................................... 58
Early life and background ................................................................................................................................. 58

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 Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 58
Freedom struggle ............................................................................................................................................. 58
Religious and social work.................................................................................................................................. 59
Literary career.................................................................................................................................................. 59
Later life and death .......................................................................................................................................... 59
Criticism ........................................................................................................................................................... 59
Awards............................................................................................................................................................. 60
Quotes ............................................................................................................................................................. 60
14. Verghese Kurien ............................................................................................................................. 60
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 61
Education ......................................................................................................................................................... 61
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 61
Personal life ..................................................................................................................................................... 61
The White Revolution ...................................................................................................................................... 61
Awards ............................................................................................................................................................ 62
See also............................................................................................................................................................ 62
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 62
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 62
15. Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel ............................................................................................... 63
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 63
Biography ........................................................................................................................................................ 63
Awards and honours......................................................................................................................................... 63
Personal life ..................................................................................................................................................... 63
Further reading................................................................................................................................................. 64
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 64
16. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay ................................................................................................... 64
Contents .......................................................................................................................................................... 64
Biography......................................................................................................................................................... 65
Early life ........................................................................................................................................................... 65
First Marriage and widowhood ......................................................................................................................... 65
Marriage to Harin ............................................................................................................................................. 65
Move to London............................................................................................................................................... 66
Call of the Freedom Movement ........................................................................................................................ 66
The All-India Women's Conference ................................................................................................................... 66
1930s ............................................................................................................................................................... 67
First Indian woman to be arrested .................................................................................................................... 67
1940s ............................................................................................................................................................... 67
Post-Independence work.................................................................................................................................. 67
1950s and beyond ............................................................................................................................................ 67
Legacy.............................................................................................................................................................. 68
Books by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay ............................................................................................................... 68
Book on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya ............................................................................................................... 69
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 69
17. Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan ............................................................................. 69
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 70
Education and Personal Life ............................................................................................................................. 70
Professional achievements ................................................................................................................................ 71
Controversy ..................................................................................................................................................... 73
Publications ..................................................................................................................................................... 73
Research reports .............................................................................................................................................. 74
Environmental articles...................................................................................................................................... 75
Awards and recognition .................................................................................................................................... 75

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 National Awards............................................................................................................................................... 76
International Awards........................................................................................................................................ 77
Critics .............................................................................................................................................................. 78
Current Work ................................................................................................................................................... 79
Further reading................................................................................................................................................. 79
18. Ela Ramesh Bhatt ......................................................................................................................... 80
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 80
Early life .......................................................................................................................................................... 80
Current Life ..................................................................................................................................................... 80
TLA and SEWA............................................................................................................................................... 80
Other work and awards..................................................................................................................................... 81
The Elders........................................................................................................................................................ 81
Writings ........................................................................................................................................................... 81
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 81
Further reading................................................................................................................................................. 81
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 82
19. Pramod Karan Sethi.................................................................................................................... 82
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 82
Personal life and career .................................................................................................................................... 82
Jaipur foot ........................................................................................................................................................ 82
Awards ............................................................................................................................................................ 82
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 83
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 83
20. Chandi Prasad Bhatt.................................................................................................................. 83
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 83
Early life .......................................................................................................................................................... 83
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 84
Awards and recognition .................................................................................................................................... 85
Works .............................................................................................................................................................. 85
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 85
External links ................................................................................................................................................... 85
21. Pandurang Shastri Vaijnath Athavale ............................................................................. 85
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 86
Early life ........................................................................................................................................................... 86
Swadhyay Pariwar ............................................................................................................................................ 86
His Passing ....................................................................................................................................................... 87
Awards............................................................................................................................................................. 87
Legacy.............................................................................................................................................................. 87
In popular culture............................................................................................................................................. 87
Works .............................................................................................................................................................. 87
Further reading ................................................................................................................................................ 87
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 88
External links.................................................................................................................................................... 88
20. Aruna Roy......................................................................................................................................... 88
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 89
Early life and education .................................................................................................................................... 89
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 89
Personal life ..................................................................................................................................................... 91
Works .............................................................................................................................................................. 91
Further reading ................................................................................................................................................ 91
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 91
External links.................................................................................................................................................... 92

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21. Rajendra Singh.............................................................................................................................. 92
Qualifications: .................................................................................................................................................. 92
Nature of Activities & the Work Done by Rajendra Singh: ................................................................................. 92
Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth ........................................................................................................................................ 93
Film.................................................................................................................................................................. 95
22. Prof. Shantha Sinha .................................................................................................................... 99
Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 99
Early life and background ................................................................................................................................. 99
Career .............................................................................................................................................................. 99
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 99
External links.................................................................................................................................................... 99
23. Satyajit Ray .................................................................................................................................... 100
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 100
Early life and background ............................................................................................................................... 100
The Apu Years (1950–1959) ............................................................................................................................ 101
From Devi to Charulata (1959–1964) .............................................................................................................. 103
New directions (1965–1982)........................................................................................................................... 104
The last phase (1983–1992) ............................................................................................................................ 105
Film craft........................................................................................................................................................ 106
Literary works ................................................................................................................................................ 106
Critical and popular response ......................................................................................................................... 107
Legacy............................................................................................................................................................ 108
Awards, honours and recognitions ................................................................................................................. 109
Notes ............................................................................................................................................................. 109
24. Sombhu Mitra ............................................................................................................................... 110
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 110
Early life and education .................................................................................................................................. 110
Career ............................................................................................................................................................ 110
The Bohurupee productions ........................................................................................................................... 111
Filmography ................................................................................................................................................... 111
Major works................................................................................................................................................... 111
Honours and awards ...................................................................................................................................... 112
25. Gour Kishore Ghosh..................................................................................................................... 112
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 112
Early life ......................................................................................................................................................... 112
Journalistic and Literary Career ...................................................................................................................... 112
Awards .......................................................................................................................................................... 113
List of Major Works ........................................................................................................................................ 113
Personal life ................................................................................................................................................... 113
Trivia.............................................................................................................................................................. 114
26. Arun Shourie ................................................................................................................................. 114
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 114
Early life ......................................................................................................................................................... 114
Career ............................................................................................................................................................ 114
Personal life ................................................................................................................................................... 116
Publications ................................................................................................................................................... 116
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 117
27. Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman ......................................................................... 118
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 118
Early years ..................................................................................................................................................... 118
Birth and childhood ........................................................................................................................................ 118
Career ............................................................................................................................................................ 119

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 Beginning ....................................................................................................................................................... 119
Other creations .............................................................................................................................................. 119
Personal life ................................................................................................................................................... 120
Awards........................................................................................................................................................... 120
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 120
Multi-media ................................................................................................................................................... 120
Quotation ...................................................................................................................................................... 120
Trivia.............................................................................................................................................................. 120
28. Kuntagodu Vibhuthi Subbanna.......................................................................................... 121
Awards and recognition .................................................................................................................................. 121
External links ................................................................................................................................................. 121
29. Ravi Shankar ................................................................................................................................ 121
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 122
Early life ......................................................................................................................................................... 122
Career ............................................................................................................................................................ 122
Training and work in India .............................................................................................................................. 122
International career 1956–1969 ..................................................................................................................... 123
International career 1970–present ................................................................................................................. 124
Style and contributions .................................................................................................................................. 125
Recognition .................................................................................................................................................... 125
Personal life and family .................................................................................................................................. 125
30. Mahasweta Devi ........................................................................................................................... 126
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 126
Biography....................................................................................................................................................... 126
Career ............................................................................................................................................................ 126
Recent Activism.............................................................................................................................................. 127
31. Palagummi Sainath ................................................................................................................. 127
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 127
Early life ......................................................................................................................................................... 128
As a development journalist ........................................................................................................................... 128
Opinions ........................................................................................................................................................ 130
Honours and awards ...................................................................................................................................... 131
Books ............................................................................................................................................................. 132
32. Mother Teresa ................................................................................................................................ 132
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 132
Early life ......................................................................................................................................................... 133
Missionaries of Charity ................................................................................................................................... 133
International charity....................................................................................................................................... 135
Declining health and death ............................................................................................................................. 136
Recognition and reception ............................................................................................................................. 136
Reception in India .......................................................................................................................................... 136
Reception in the rest of the world .................................................................................................................. 137
Spiritual life .................................................................................................................................................. 139
Women Nobel Laureates ............................................................................................................................... 140
Commemoration ............................................................................................................................................ 141
References ..................................................................................................................................................... 141
33. Henning Holck-Larsen ............................................................................................................. 141
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 141
Biography....................................................................................................................................................... 141
Awards and recognitions ................................................................................................................................ 142
Quotations ..................................................................................................................................................... 143
34. Jockin Arputham......................................................................................................................... 143

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 Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 143
Biography....................................................................................................................................................... 143
35. Laxminarayan Ramdas .......................................................................................................... 143
36. Sandeep Pandey........................................................................................................................... 144
37. Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal ................................................................................................ 145
Contents......................................................................................................................................................... 145
Biography....................................................................................................................................................... 145
Awards........................................................................................................................................................... 145
See also.......................................................................................................................................................... 146
External links.................................................................................................................................................. 146

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 Ramon Magsaysay Award

Ramon Magsaysay Award was conceived

to honor "greatness of spirit shown in
service to the people."

The Ramon Magsaysay Award was created in 1957, the year the Philippines lost in a plane crash a
President who was well-loved for his simplicity and humility, his passion for justice, particularly for the
poor, and his advancement of human dignity. Among the many friends and admirers of the late
President around the world were the Rockefeller brothers. With the concurrence of the Philippine
government, the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) established the Award to honor his
memory and perpetuate his example of integrity in public service and pragmatic idealism within a
democratic society.
Supported with a generous endowment from the RBF, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation
(RMAF) was organized in Manila in May 1957. The first Ramon Magsaysay Awards were given on
August 31, 1958 to five outstanding individuals working in India, Indonesia, Philippines, Republic of
China (Taiwan) and Sri Lanka, and a Philippine-based organization.
Presentation Ceremonies are held annually in Manila on 31 August, the birth anniversary of the late
President.
The Award is given in six categories: government service; public service; community
leadership; journalism, literature and creative communication arts; peace and
international understanding; and emergent leadership. The Magsaysay Award for Emergent
Leadership seeks to inspire young people to apply their talents and energies to selfless and innovative
service in Asia; this award category was created in 2000 with support from a Ford Foundation grant,
and honors greatness of spirit among men and women forty years old and below.
Collectively, the Awardees' stories paint a portrait of remarkable change and achievement in areas as
diverse as rural and urban development, poverty alleviation, public health, the environment,
governance, education, business, human rights, culture, and the arts. In the five decades of the
Ramon Magsaysay Award's existence, Asia has made great progress, some nations more than others.
Yet the region continues to grapple with problems of poverty, malnutrition, disease, and violence - as
well as with newer problems that have come with economic progress itself.

In continuing to recognize individuals and organizations who address these issues with extraordinary
vigor, integrity and selflessness, the RMAF seeks to honor the legacy of President Ramon Magsaysay
and to place living examples of inspiring leadership and service before the public. From them, present
and future generations may draw courage, challenge, and hope.

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 Asian Nobel Prize

RAMON MAGSAYSAY AWARD - ASIAN NOBEL PRIZE - INSPIRING ASIANS

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Ramon Magsaysay Award
The following is a complete list of the awardees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Awardees
individual nationality are mentioned or country of origin and citizenship.
Magsaysay Award Categories
 1 Government Service
 2 Public Service
 3 Community Leadership
 4 Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts
 5 Peace and International Understanding
 6 Emergent Leadership
Award Winners Asia
Government Service
 1958 Jiang Menglin - Taiwan
 1959 C D Deshmukh - India, Jose Aguilar - Philippines
 1961 Raden Kodijat - Indonesia
 1962 Francesca Reyes-Aquino - Philippines
 1963 Akhtar Hameed Khan - Pakistan
 1964 Yukiharu Miki - Japan
 1965 Puey Ungpakorn - Thailand
 1966 Fon Saengsingkaew - Thailand
 1967 Keo Viphakone - Laos
 1968 Lee Kwoh-ting - Taiwan
 1969 Hsu Shih-chu - Taiwan
 1971 Ali Sadikin - Indonesia
 1972 Goh Keng Swee - Singapore
 1973 Balachandra Sekhar - Malaysia
 1974 Hiroshi Kuroki - Japan
 1975 Mohammed Sufian - Malaysia
 1976 Elsie Tu - British in Hong Kong
 1977 Bejamin Galstaun - Indonesia
 1978 Dato Shahrum bin Yub - Malaysia
 1979 Raden Wasito - Indonesia
 1980 Muhammed Alias - Malaysia
 1981 Prawes Wasi - Thailand
 1982 Arturo Alcaraz - Philippines
 1983 Su Nan-cheng - Taiwan
 1984 Ta-You Wu - Taiwan
 1985 Tan Sri Noordin - Malaysia
 1986 Aloysius Mboi, Nafsiah Mboi - Indonesia
 1987 Haji Hanafiah - Malaysia
 1988 Miriam Santiago - Philippines
 1989 Zakiah Hanum - Malaysia
 1991 Alfredo R.A. Bengzon - Philippines
 1992 Chamlong Srimuang - Thailand
 1993 Vo-Tong Xuan - Vietnam

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 1994 Kiran Bedi - India
 1995 Morihiko Hiramatsu - Japan
 1996 T N Seshan - India
 1997 Anand Panyarachun - Thailand
 1998 Syed Abidul Rizvi - Pakistan
 1999 Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqui - Pakistan
 2000 Jesse Robredo - Philippines
 2001 Yuan Longping - China
 2002 Hilario G. Davide, Jr. - Philippines
 2003 James Michael Lyngdoh - India
 2004 Haydee Yorac - Philippines
 2005 Jon Ungphakorn - Thailand
 2006 Ek Sonn Chan - Cambodia
 2007 Jovito R. Salonga - Philippines
 2008 Grace Padaca - Philippines
Public Service
 1959 Joaquin Vilallonga - Philippines, Tee Tee Luce - Burma
 1960 Henry Holland, Ronald Holland - British in Pakistan
 1961 Nilawan Pintong - Thailand
 1962 Horace Kadoorie and Lawrence Kadoorie - British in Hong Kong
 1963 Helen Kim - Korea
 1964 Augustine Nguyen Lac Hoa - South Vietnam
 1965 Jayaprakash Narayan - India
 1966 Kim Yong-ki - Korea
 1967 Sithiporn Kridakara - Thailand
 1968 Seiichi Tobata - Japan
 1969 Kim Hyung-Seo - Korea
 1971 Pedro Orata - Philippines
 1972 Cecile Guidote, Gilopez Kabayao - Philippines
 1973 Antonio Fortich, Benjamin Gaston - Philippines
 1974 M.S. Subbulakshmi - India
 1975 Phra Parnchand - Thailand
 1976 Hermenegild Fernandez - French in Sri Lanka
 1977 Fe del Mundo - Philippines
 1978 Prateep Hata - Thailand
[1]
 1979 Chang Kee-ryo - Korea
 1980 Ohm Dae-sup - Korea
 1981 Johanna Nasution - Indonesia
 1982 Manibhai Desai - India
 1983 Fua Hariphitak - Thailand
 1984 Thongbai Thongpao - Thailand
 1985 Baba Amte - India
 1986 Abdul Sattar Edhi, Bilquis Edhi - Pakistan
 1987 Hans Jassin - Indonesia
 1988 Masanobu Fukuoka - Japan
 1989 Laksmhi Chand Jain - India

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 1991 Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn - Thailand
 1992 Angel Alcala - Philippines
 1993 Banoo Jehangir Coyaji - India
 1994 Mechai Viravaidya - Thailand
 1995 Asma Jahangir - Pakistan
 1996 John Woong-Jin Oh - Korea
 1997 Mahesh Chandra Mehta - India
 1998 Sophon Suphapong - Thailand
 1999 Rosa Rosal - Philippines
 2000 Liang Congjie - China
 2001 Wu Qing - China
 2002 Ruth Pfau - Pakistan
 2003 Gao Yajolie - China
 2004 Jiang Yanyong - China
 2005 Teten Masduki - Indonesia, V Shanta - India
 2006 Park Won Soon - Korea
 2007 Kim Sun-tae - Korea
 2008 Aris Alip - Philippines,
 2008 Therdchai Jivacate - Thailand
 2009 Deep Joshi - India
Community Leadership
 1958 Vinoba Bhave - India
 1959 Dalai Lama - Tibet
 1960 Rahman, Abdul - Malaysia
 1961 Gus Borgeest - British in Hong Kong
 1962 Palayil Narayanan - Malaysia, Koesna Poeradiredja - Indonesia
 1963 Verghese Kurien, Dara Khurodi, Tribhuvandas Patel - India
 1964 Pablo Tapia - Philippines
 1965 Lim Kim San - Singapore
 1966 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay - India
 1967 Razak Abdul - Malaysia
 1968 Rosario Encarnacion, Silvino Encarnacion - Philippines
 1969 Ahangamage Ariyaratne - Sri Lanka
 1971 M.S. Swaminathan - India
 1972 Hans Westenberg - Indonesia
 1973 Krasae Chanawongse - Thailand
 1974 Fusaye Ichikawa - Japan
 1975 Lee Tai-Young - Korea
 1976 Toshikazu Wakatsuki - Japan
 1977 Ela Bhatt - India
 1978 Tahrunessa Abdullah - Bangladesh
 1979 Mabelle Arole, Rajanikant Arole - India
 1980 Fazle Hasan Abed - Bangladesh
 1981 Pramod Karan Sethi - India
 1982 Chandi Prasad Bhatt - India
 1983 Anton Soedjarwo - Indonesia

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 1984 Muhammad Yunus - Bangladesh
 1985 Zafrullah Chowdhury - Bangladesh
 1986 John Vincent Daly - American in Korea, Paul Jeong Gu Jei - Korea
 1987 Aree Valyasevi - Thailand
 1988 Mohammed Yeasin - Bangladesh
 1989 Kim Im-soon - Korea
 1991 Ven. Cheng Yen - Taiwan
 1992 Shoaib Sultan Khan - Pakistan
 1993 Abdurrahman Wadir - Indonesia
 1994 Sima Samar - Afghan in Pakistan, Fei Xiaotong - China
 1995 Ho Ming-Teh - Taiwan
 1996 Pandurang Shastri Athavale - India
 1997 Eva Fidela Maamo - Philippines
 1998 Nuon Phaly - Cambodia
 1999 Angela Gomes - Bangladesh
 2000 Aruna Roy - India
 2001 Rajendra Singh - India
 2002 Cynthia Maung - Burma
 2003 Shantha Sinha - India
 2004 Prayong Ronnarong - Thailand
 2005 Sombath Somphone - Lao
 2006 Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation - Philippines based, Antonio
Meloto - Philippines
 2007 Mahabir Pun - Nepal
 2008 Dr. Prakash Amte and Dr. Mandakini Amte - India for their work with the Lok Biradari
Prakalp
 2009 Deep Joshi - India, Ka Hsaw Wa - Burma
Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts
 1958 Robert Dick - United Kingdom based in Philippines, Mochtar Lubis - Indonesia
 1959 Tarzie Vittachi - Sri Lanka, Edward Michael Law-Yone - Burma
 1961 Amitabha Chowdhury - India
 1962 Chang Chun-ha - Korea
 1964 Richard Wilson - British in Hong Kong, Kayser Sung - Chinese in Hong Kong
 1965 Akira Kurosawa - Japan
 1967 Satyajit Ray - India
 1968 Ton That Thien - Vietnam
 1969 Mitoji Nishimoto - Japan
 1971 Prayoon Chanyavongs - Thailand
 1972 Yasuji Hanamori - Japan
 1973 Michiko Ishimure - Japan
 1974 Zacarias Sarian - Philippines
 1975 Boobli George Verghese - India
 1976 Sombhu Mitra - India
 1977 Mahesh Chandra Regmi - Nepal
 1978 Yoon Suk-joong - Korea
 1979 Lokukamkanamge Manjusri - Sri Lanka

14
 1980 F. Sionil Jose - Philippines
 1981 Gour Kishore Ghosh - India
 1982 Arun Shourie - India
 1983 Marcelline Jayakody - Sri Lanka
 1984 R. K. Laxman - India
 1985 Lino Brocka - Philippines
 1986 Radio Veritas - Philippines based
 1987 Diane Ying - Taiwan
 1988 Ediriweera Sarachchandra - Sri Lanka
 1989 James Reuter - Philippines based
 1991 K.V. Subbanna - India
 1992 Ravi Shankar - India
 1993 Bienvenido Lumbera - Philippines
 1994 Abdul Samad Ismail - Malaysia
 1995 Pramoedya Ananta Toer - Indonesia
 1996 Nick Joaquin - Philippines
 1997 Mahasweta Devi - India
 1998 Ruocheng Ying - China
 1999 Raul Locsin - Philippines, Lin Hwai-Min - Taiwan
 2000 Atmakusumah Astraatmadja - Indonesia
 2001 Wannakuwatta Amaradeva - Sri Lanka
 2002 Bharat Koirala - Nepal
 2003 Sheila Coronel - Philippines
 2004 Abdullah Abu Sayeed - Bangladesh
 2005 Matiur Rahman - Bangladesh
 2006 Eugenia Duran Apostol - Philippines
 2007 P. Sainath - India
 2008 - Akio Ishii - Japan
Peace and International Understanding
 1958 Operation Brotherhood - Philippines
 1960 Y. C. James Yen - Taiwan
 1961 Genevieve Caulfield - USA/Thailand
 1962 Mother Teresa - India
 1963 U.S. Peace Corps in Asia
 1964 Welthy Fisher - American in India
 1965 Bayanihan Folk Arts Center and its Supporting Entities - Philippines based
 1966 Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin and
Cooperating Entities - Kampuchea, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam with international support
 1967 Shiroshi Nasu - Japan
 1968 Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE) - Philippines based
 1969 International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) - American based in Philippines
 1971 Saburo Okita - Japan
 1973 Summer Institute of Linguistics - based in Philippines
 1974 William Masterson - Philippines
 1975 Patrick James McGlinchey - Irish in Korea
 1976 Henning Holck-Larsen - Danish in India

15
 1977 College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB) -
Philippines
 1978 Soedjatmoko - Indonesia
 1979 Association of Southeast Asian Nations
 1980 Shigeharu Matsumoto - Japan
 1981 Augustine Joung Kang - Korea
 1983 Aloysius Schwartz - American in Korea
 1984 Jiro Kawakita - Japan
 1985 Harold Ray Watson - Philippines based
 1986 International Institute of Rural Reconstruction - Philippines based
 1987 Richard William Timm - Bangladesh/United States
 1988 The Royal Project - Thailand
 1989 Asian Institute of Technology - Thailand based
 1991 Press Foundation of Asia - Philippines based
 1992 Washington SyCip - Philippines/United States
 1993 Noboru Iwamura - Japan
 1994 Eduardo Jorge Anzorena - Argentinian in Japan
 1995 Asian Institute of Management - Philippines based
 1996 Toshihiro Takami - Japan
 1997 Sadako Ogata - Japan
 1998 Corazon Aquino - Philippines
 2000 Jockin Arputham - India
 2001 Ikuo Hirayama - Japan
 2002 Pomnyun Sunim - Korea
 2003 Tetsu Nakamura - Japan, Seiei Toyoma - Japan
 2004 Laxminarayan Ramdas - India, Ibn Abdur Rehman - Pakistan
 2006 Dr. Sanduk Ruit - Nepal
 2007 Tang Xiyang - China
 2008 Ahmad Syafi'i Maarif - Indonesia
Emergent Leadership
 2001 Oung Chanthol - Cambodia, Dita Indah Sari - Indonesia
 2002 Sandeep Pandey - India
 2003 Aniceto Guterres Lopes - East Timor
 2004 Benjamin Abadiano - Philippines
 2005 Yoon Hye-Ran - South Korea
 2006 Arvind Kejriwal - India
 2007 Chen Guangcheng - China, Chung To - China
 2008 - Ananda Galappatti - Sri Lanka

16
 Indian Award Winners
Community Leadership
Vinoba Bhave 1958 Verghese Kurien Dara N. Khurody Tribhuvandas K. Patel
1963 1963 1963

Kamaladevi M.S.Swaminathan
Chattopadhyay 1966 Community Leadership 1971
Bhave, Vinoba 1958
Khurody, Dara 1963
Kurien, Verghese 1963
Patel, Tribhuvandas 1963
Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi 1966
Dr.M.S.Swaminathan 1971
Bhatt, Ela Ramesh 1977
Arole, Mabelle 1979
Arole, Rajanikant 1979
Sethi, Pramod Karan 1981
Ela Ramesh Bhatt Rajanikant
1977 Bhatt, Chandi Prasad 1982
Shankarrao Arole
Athavale, Pandurang 1996
1979
Roy, Aruna 2000
Singh, Rajendra 2001
Sinha, Shantha 2003
Amte, Mandakini 2008
Amte, Prakash 2008
Deep Joshi 2009

Mabelle Rajanikant Pramod Karan Sethi Chandi Prasad Bhatt Athavale, Pandurang Aruna Roy 2000
Arole 1981 1982 1996

Rajendra Singh Shantha Sinha 2003 Prakash Amte & Mandakini Amte 2008 Deep Joshi 2009
2001

17
Indian Award Winners - Public Service
Jayaprakash M.S. Subbulakshmi Manibhai B. Desai Murlidhar Devidas Lakshmi Chand Jain
Narayan 1965 1974 1982 Amte 1985 1989

Public Service
Narayan, Jayaprakash 1965
Subbulakshmi, M. S. 1974
Desai, Manibhai 1982
Amte, Murlidhar 1985
Jain, Lakshmi Chand 1989
Coyaji, Banoo Jehangir 1993
Mehta, Mahesh Chander 1997
Shanta, V. 2005

Banoo Jehangir Mahesh Chander V. Shanta 2005

Coyaji 1993 Mehta 1997

Indian Award Winners – Emergent Leadership

Sandeep Pandey Kejriwal, Arvind 2007

2002

Emergent leadership
Pandey, Sandeep 2002
Kejriwal, Arvind 2006

18
Indian Award Winners – Peace & International Understanding

Chintaman Mother Teresa 1962 Welthy Honsinger Henning Holck-Larsen Kiran Bedi 1994
Deshmukh with Fisher 1964 1976
Aguilar 1959

Tirunellai N. Seshan Peace & International Understanding Arputham, Jockin

1996 Deshmukh, Chintaman 1959 2000
Mother Teresa 1962
Fisher, Welthy 1964
Holck-Larsen, Henning 1976
Bedi, Kiran 1994
Seshan, Tirunellai 1996
Arputham, Jockin 2000
Lyngdoh, James Michael 2003
Ramdas, Laxminarayan 2004

Lyngdoh, James Laxminarayan Ibn Abdur Rehman

Michael 2003 Ramdas 2004

19
Indian Award Winners - Journalism, literature and creative communication arts

Chowdhury, Amitabha Ray Satyajit Verghese, Boobli George Gour Kishore Ghosh
1961 1967 1975 1981

Journalism, literature and creative

Arun Shourie R.K. Laxman 1984
communication arts
1982
Chowdhury, Amitabha 1961
Ray, Satyajit 1967
Verghese, Boobli George 1975
Mitra, Sombhu 1976
Ghosh, Gour Kishore 1981
Shourie, Arun 1982
Laxman, Rasipuram 1984
Subbanna, K. V. 1991
Shankar, Ravi 1992
Devi, Mahasweta 1997
Sainath, Palagummi 2007

K. V. Subbanna 1991 Ravi Shankar 1992 Mahasweta Devi Sainath, Palagummi

1997 2007

20
Ramon Magsaysay Award – Alphabetical list of Indian Awardees

Community Leadership Alphabetical list of Awardees

Bhave, Vinoba 1958 1 Amte, Mandakini 2008 CL
Khurody, Dara 1963 2 Amte, Murlidhar 1985 PS
Kurien, Verghese 1963 3 Amte, Prakash 2008 CL
Patel, Tribhuvandas 1963 4 Arole, Mabelle 1979 CL
Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi 1966 5 Arole, Rajanikant 1979 CL
Dr.M.S.Swaminathan 1971 6 Arputham, Jockin 2000 PIU
Bhatt, Ela Ramesh 1977
7 Athavale, Pandurang 1996 CL
Arole, Mabelle 1979
8 Bedi, Kiran 1994 GS
Arole, Rajanikant 1979
Sethi, Pramod Karan 1981 9 Bhatt, Chandi Prasad 1982 CL
Bhatt, Chandi Prasad 1982 10 Bhatt, Ela Ramesh 1977 CL
Athavale, Pandurang 1996 11 Bhave, Vinoba 1958 CL
Roy, Aruna 2000 12 Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi 1966 CL
Singh, Rajendra 2001 13 Chowdhury, Amitabha 1961 JLCCA
Sinha, Shantha 2003 14 Coyaji, Banoo Jehangir 1993 PS
Amte, Mandakini 2008 15 Desai, Manibhai 1982 PS
Amte, Prakash 2008 16 Deshmukh, Chintaman 1959 GS
Public Service 17 Devi, Mahasweta 1997 JLCCA
Narayan, Jayaprakash 1965 18 Fisher, Welthy 1964 PIU
Subbulakshmi, M. S. 1974 19 Ghosh, Gour Kishore 1981 JLCCA
Desai, Manibhai 1982 20 Holck-Larsen, Henning 1976 PIU
Amte, Murlidhar 1985 21 Jain, Lakshmi Chand 1989 PS
Jain, Lakshmi Chand 1989 22 Kejriwal, Arvind 2006 EL
Coyaji, Banoo Jehangir 1993 23 Khurody, Dara 1963 CL
Mehta, Mahesh Chander 1997 24 Kurien, Verghese 1963 CL
Shanta, V. 2005 25 Laxman, Rasipuram 1984 JLCCA
Peace & International Understanding 26 Lyngdoh, James Michael 2003 GS
Deshmukh, Chintaman 1959 27 Mehta, Mahesh Chander 1997 PS
Mother Teresa 1962 28 Mitra, Sombhu 1976 JLCCA
Fisher, Welthy 1964 29 Mother Teresa 1962 PIU
Holck-Larsen, Henning 1976 30 Narayan, Jayaprakash 1965 PS
Bedi, Kiran 1994 31 Pandey, Sandeep 2002 EL
Seshan, Tirunellai 1996 32 Patel, Tribhuvandas 1963 CL
Arputham, Jockin 2000 33 Ramdas, Laxminarayan 2004 PIU
Lyngdoh, James Michael 2003 34 Ray, Satyajit 1967 JLCCA
Ramdas, Laxminarayan 2004 35 Roy, Aruna 2000 CL
Journalism, literature and creative 36 Sainath, Palagummi 2007 JLCCA
communication arts 37 Seshan, Tirunellai 1996 GS
Chowdhury, Amitabha 1961 38 Sethi, Pramod Karan 1981 CL
Ray, Satyajit 1967 39 Shankar, Ravi 1992 JLCCA
Verghese, Boobli George 1975 40 Shanta, V. 2005 PS
Mitra, Sombhu 1976 41 Shourie, Arun 1982 JLCCA
Ghosh, Gour Kishore 1981 42 Singh, Rajendra 2001 CL
Shourie, Arun 1982 43 Sinha, Shantha 2003 CL
Laxman, Rasipuram 1984 44 Subbanna, K. V. 1991 JLCCA
Subbanna, K. V. 1991 45 Subbulakshmi, M. S. 1974 PS
Shankar, Ravi 1992 46 Swaminathan, M.S. 1971 CL
Devi, Mahasweta 1997 47 Verghese, Boobli George 1975 JLCCA
Sainath, Palagummi 2007
Emergent leadership
Pandey, Sandeep 2002
Kejriwal, Arvind 2006
21
 1. SIR CHINTĀMAN DWĀRAKĀNĀTH DESHMUKH

Sir Chintāman Dwārakānāth Deshmukh, (14 January 1896 - October 2, 1982), better known
as C. D. Deshmukh, was the first Indian to be appointed as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of
India in 1943 by the British Raj authorities. He subsequently served as the Finance Minister in
the Union Cabinet (1950 -1956).
Deshmukh received his education at Jesus College, Cambridge, England in the field of Natural
Sciences. He was married to freedom fighter and activist, Durgabai Deshmukh
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durgabai_Deshmukh)
Contents
 1 Civil service career
 2 Bretton Woods Conference
 3 Post partition
 4 Union Finance Minister
 5 Resignation
 6 Awards
 7 References
Civil service career
Deshmukh joined the Indian Civil Services, and became associated with the Reserve Bank of
India since 1939 as its liaison officer to the Government. He then consecutively served as the
Bank's Secretary, Deputy Governor (1941 - 43), and Governor (1943 - 50).
Bretton Woods Conference
Deshmukh represented India at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1 - July 22, 1944. The
conference led to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). He was a member of the Board of Governors
of both of these institutions for the next ten years. In 1950, at the Paris conference of these
institutions, he served as the Chairman of the Joint Annual Meeting.
Post partition
When British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan in 1947, Deshmukh oversaw the post-
partition division of the assets and liabilities of the Reserve Bank between India and Pakistan.
The Indian Government nationalized the Reserve Bank on January 1, 1949. Deshmukh saw
through the smooth transition of the Bank from a shareholder‘s institution to a national
institution.
Union Finance Minister
Deshmukh held the office of Union Finance Minister from 1950 until his resignation in protest in
1956.
Resignation
The following is the background of Deshmukh's resignation in protest.
In 1956, the Central Government reorganized the states in India on linguistic basis. The Central
Government with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister made, however, an exception by
newly forming the State of Bombay which comprised the neighbouring overwhelmingly Gujarati
and overwhelmingly Marathi regions, the City of Bombay, the nation's prime economic centre,
being made the new state's capital.
This exception was done even though the city was a natural part of the overwhelmingly Marathi
region and should have logically been made a part of a separate Marathi-speaking state to be

22
called Maharashtra, the overwhelmingly Gujarati region also being organized as a separate
Gujarati speaking state to be called Gujarat. The genesis of the exception was that the Gujarati-
speaking community wanted to have a stake in the governance of the City of Bombay, and the
Central Government under Mr. Nehru's leadership had gone along with the above desire of the
influential Gujarati-speaking community.
After the Central Government announced the above scheme, Deshmukh, who belonged to the
Marathi-speaking community, resigned from the office of Union Finance Minister to register his
protest against the idea of not letting the City of Bombay be a part of a separate Marathi-
speaking State of Maharashtra.
After the Marathi-speaking community's long, four-year struggle under the Samyukta
Maharashtra Samiti, the Central Government finally partitioned in 1960, the bilingual State of
Bombay into the Marathi speaking State of Maharashtra with the City of Bombay as its part, and
the Gujarati speaking State of Gujarat [2]. In 1995, the City of Bombay was renamed as Mumbai.
Awards
In 1937, Deshmukh was appointed a CIE (Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire).
In 1944, the British Government bestowed a knighthood upon Deshmukh.
In 1959, Deshmukh was a co-recipient (along with Jose Aguilar of the Philippines) of the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for distinguished Government Service. Jesus College, Cambridge,
Deshmukh's alma mater, elected him its Honorary Fellow in 1952 in recognition of his
distinguished contribution in the areas of Indian and international finance and administration.
In 1975, the Government of India honored Deshmukh with a Padma Vibhushan award.
References
 Chintaman Deshmukh Memorial Lectures
http://www.rbi.org.in/Content/Annual_CDMemorial.aspx
 "The Ramon Magsaysay Awardees by Name". The Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/name.htm

2. JAMES MICHAEL LYNGDOH

James Michael Lyngdoh is an Indian civil servant and was Chief Election Commissioner of
India from June 14, 2001 to February 7, 2004. He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award
for Government Service in 2003[2].
Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 2.1 Work as Election commissioner
 3 Awards
Early life
Born in Khasi tribal origin, Lyngdoh hails from the northeastern state of Meghalaya. Lyngdoh,
son of a district judge.
He completed his education in Delhi.
Career

23
Lyngdoh entered the IAS, when he was twenty-two. He quickly became known for probity and
toughness and for favoring the underdog against politicians and the local rich, In one early post,
his principled execution of mandated land reforms so enraged landlords that he was transferred
before the year was out. Similar clashes with the powers-that-be marked his rise in the Service.
But rise he did, eventually serving as Secretary, Coordination and Public Grievances, Cabinet
Secretariat, Government of India.
Work as Election commissioner
In 1997, the president named Lyngdoh one of India‘s three election commissioners. By 2001 he
was chief election officer.Lyngdoh soon faced crises in two of India‘s most troubled states. In
Jammu-Kashmir, where India was locked in a potentially explosive standoff with Pakistan and
local secessionists, state elections fell due in 2002. Many people doubted that they could be
conducted credibly. Lyngdoh thought otherwise. Pushing ahead despite a vicious cross-border
assassination campaign, and a boycott, the Election Commission updated and verified the
election rolls, introduced voter identity cards, and added a thousand new voting sites. The
Commission recruited nonpartisan poll officers for every polling station.
He heightened election security by mobilizing the local police and paramilitary forces from
outside the state. Then he urged the people "to vote fearlessly." Forty-four percent did so. Even
Lyngdoh‘s critics. acknowledged that the polling had been fair, causing many in India to seize
this triumph of "ballots over bullets" as a sign that the long-festering crisis of Jammu-Kashmir
might yet be resolved peacefully.
After the Godhra riots the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dissolved the state government and
called for elections amid the sectarian carnage, Lyngdoh used his authority to say no. Citing the
large number of displaced persons and the pervasive atmosphere of fear in Gujarat, he postponed
the elections. Although vilified for doing so, he stood his ground and carefully prepared for the
delayed polls. He insisted, for example, that local officials and police who had supposedly been
complicit in the riots be transferred (though allegations of complicity were disproved by G.T.
Nanavati).
Awards
 Ramon Magsaysay Award http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Magsaysay_Award
 Karmaveer Puraskaar Noble Laureates, March, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmaveer_Puraskaar
Chief Election Commissioners of India
Sukumar Sen · K. V. K. Sundaram · S. P. Sen Verma · Nagendra Singh · T. Swaminathan · S. L. Shakdhar · R.
K. Trivedi · R. V. S. Peri Sastri · V. S. Ramadevi · T. N. Seshan · M. S. Gill · James Michael Lyngdoh · T. S.
Krishnamurthy · B. B. Tandon · N. Gopalaswami · Navin Chawla

24
 3. KIRAN BEDI
Kiran Bedi (Hindi: किरण बेदी ) (9 June 1949) is a Indian social activist and a retired Indian
Police Service (IPS) officer. She became the first woman to join the IPS in 1972, and was last
posted as Director General, BPR&D (Bureau of Police Research and Development), Ministry of
Home Affairs. She retired from IPS in December, 2007, after taking voluntary retirement. She is
the Host/Presiding TV judge of the popular TV series "Aap Ki Kachehri" (Hindi, literally
meaning "Your Court"). This TV program is broadcast on the Indian TV channel, Star Plus. In
this program Indian families approach her TV court and explain their problems to her. She then
offers legal advice and sometimes monetary help to solve the problem. This program is classified
as an EDUtainment program because it attempts to simplify and explain legal procedures and
Indian law to the viewers.
Subsequently, she founded two NGOs in India: Navjyoti for welfare and preventive policing in
1987 and India Vision Foundation for prison reforms, drug abuse prevention and child welfare in
1994.
In 2007, she applied for seeking voluntary retirement from service, and the application was
accepted by the government.
Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 2.1 Career
 3 Contributions
 4 Personal life
 5 Bibliography
 6 Awards
 7 Books on Kiran Bedi
 8 References
 9 External links
Early life
Kiran Bedi was born in Amritsar, Punjab state, India. She is the second of the four daughters of
her parents, Prakash Lal Peshawaria and Prem Lata Peshawaria.
She did her schooling from the Sacred Heart Convent School, Amritsar, where she joined the
National Cadet Corps (NCC). She also took up tennis, a passion she inherited from her father, a
tennis player. Later, she obtained her B.A. in English (Hons.) (1964-68) from the Government
College for Women, Amritsar. She then earned a Master‘s degree (1968-70) in Political Science
from Punjab University, Chandigarh, topping the University.
Career
Even while in active service in the Indian Police, she continued her educational pursuits, and
obtained a Law degree (LLB) in 1988 from Delhi University, Delhi. In 1993, she obtained a
Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Department of Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
New Delhi,[6] where the topic of her thesis was 'Drug Abuse and Domestic Violence'.
Kiran Bedi is a keen tennis player. She won the Junior National Lawn Tennis Championship in
1966, the Asian Lawn Tennis Championship in 1972, and the All-India Interstate Women's Lawn
Tennis Championship in 1976, besides this she also won the all-Asian tennis champion, and had
won the Asian Ladies Title at the age of 22.

25
She began her career as a Lecturer in Political Science (1970-72) at Khalsa College for Women,
Amritsar, India. In July 1972, she joined the Indian Police Service. On her web site, she states
that she joined the police service "because of my urge to be standing".
She served in a number of tough assignments ranging from Traffic of New Delhi, Deputy
Inspector General of Police in insurgency prone Mizoram, Advisor to the Lieutanent Governor of
Chandigarh, Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau and also on a United Nations
deputation, where she became the Civilian Police Advisor in the United Nations peacekeeping
department, and for which she was awarded with the UN medal. She is popularly referred to as
Crane Bedi for towing the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's car for a parking violation (the PM
was on tour of United States then).
Kiran Bedi influenced several decisions of the Indian Police Service, particularly in the areas of
control over narcotics, traffic management, and VIP security. During her stint as the Inspector
General of Prisons, Tihar Jail (Delhi) (1993-1995), she instituted a number of reforms in the
management the prison, and initiated a number of measures such as detoxification programs,
yoga, vipassana meditation, redressing of complaints by prisoners and literacy programs. For this
she not only won the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award, but was also awarded the 'Jawaharlal
Nehru Fellowship', to write about the work done at Tihar Jail.
She was last appointed as Director General of India's Bureau of Police Research and
Development.
In May 2005, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law In recognition of her
―humanitarian approach to prison reforms and policing‖.
On 27 November 2007, she had expressed her wish to take Voluntary Retirement from job to
take up new challenges in life.On 25 December 2007, Government of India decided to relieve
Bedi, who was holding the post of the director general of Bureau of Police Research and
Development, from her duties immediately.
"Yes Madam, Sir" a documentary of Kiran Bedi's life, directed by Australian Megan Doneman,
premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival September 5, 2008.
After retirement Kiran Bedi launched a new website, www.saferindia.com, on January 3, 2007.
The motto of this website is to help people whose complaints are not accepted by the local
police. This project is undertaken by the non-profit, voluntary and non-government organisaton,
India Vision Foundation.
Kiran Bedi now hosts the TV show Aap Ki Kachehri Kiran Ke Saath on Star Plus. she has done a
lot of help to so many people through this show.
Contributions
Navajyoti (which literally means New Enlightenment), set up in 1987, and India Vision
Foundation, set up in 1994, are the two major voluntary organizations established by her with
the objectives of improving the condition of the drug addicts and the poor people. Her efforts
have won national and international recognition, and her organizations was awarded the Serge
Soitiroff Memorial Award for drug abuse prevention by the United Nations.
She also started one site named http://www.saferindia.com to log complaint regarding any crime
if the police at the concerned area denies to accept complaint. Then the NGO behind this site
mails complaint to the DGP of concerned area.This mail can also be used as the legal document
in case of filing a case in the court of judgement.
She has written her autobiography, 'I Dare. It's Always Possible', which was released in 1998.
Personal life

26
Kiran Bedi married Brij Bedi in 1972, the year she started her career in the Indian Police Service
(IPS), and three years later, in 1975, they had daughter Saina. Among her other three siblings,
Shashi is an artist settled in Canada, Reeta is a clinical psyhcologist and writer, and Anu is a
lawyer.
Bibliography
 Its Always Possible: Kiran Bedi. Oct 1999, Indra Publishing. ISBN 0958580537.
 "What Went Wrong?", collection of The fortnightly column written by Kiran Bedi.
 The Motivating Bedi by Kiran Bedi.
Awards
Kiran Bedi has received a number of Awards, including the following:
 President’s Gallantry Award (1979)
 Women of the Year Award (1980)
 Asia Region Award for Drug Prevention and Control (1991)
 Magsaysay Award (1994) for Government Service
 Mahila Shiromani Award (1995)
 Father Machismo Humanitarian Award (1995)
 Lion of the Year (1995)
 Joseph Beuys Award (1997)
 Pride of India (1999)
 Mother Teresa Memorial National Award for Social Justice (2005)
Books on Kiran Bedi
 Kiran Bedi — The Kindly Baton, by Dr Meenakshi Saksena,
 "Government@net" by Sandeep Srivastava and Parminder Jeet Singh.
 "I Dare!" - Kiran Bedi A Biography by Paramesh Dangwal
References
1. Official website Navjyoti
2. India Vision Foundation Official website
3. CNN-IBN, Kiran Bedi quits police force, takes voluntary retirement
4. Kiran Bedi Biography 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee at rmaf.
External links
 Kiran Bedi Official Website http://www.kiranbedi.com/
 Kiran Bedi Blog http://www.kiran-bedi.blogspot.com/
 Navjyoti India Foundation website http://www.navjyoti.org.in/kiranbedi/

27
 4. TIRUNELLAI NARAYANA IYER SESHAN

Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan (born in Thirunellai in Palakkad district, Kerala) was the 10th
Chief Election Commissioner of India, serving from December 12, 1990 to December 11, 1996.
Seshan graduated from the prestigious Madras Christian College were he was also a lecturer for
quite sometime . His firebrand leadership qualities earned him very creative sobriquets like
'Alsatian' (rhyming on his last name), by the Indian press.

Early life
He studied at the Govt. Victoria College, Palakkad, Kerala and was a classmate of E. Sreedharan.

Career
An officer of the Indian Administrative Service, he also held the posts of director, Ministry of
Atomic Energy; joint secretary, Ministry of Space; secretary, Department of Agriculture;
Government of Tamil Nadu; Member (Personnel), Oil & Natural Gas Commission, Additional
Secretary, Ministry of Space, Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Defence, and
secretary, Internal Security.
He went on to occupy the post of Cabinet Secretary - the senior most position in the Indian Civil
Service hierarchy, and member, Planning Commission of India, before being appointed the Chief
Election Commissioner.
As the Chief Election Commissioner of India he made history by introducing innovative
electoral reforms and making the Election Commission a powerful body. He may be rightfully
termed as the most visible public figure who redefined the status and visibility of a CEC in India.
His name became synonymous with transparency, efficiency and forward vision during his
tenure as the CEC. He used this to hone his political ambitions by contesting for the post of
President of India in 1997 (though he lost it to K.R. Narayanan). He came up with the vision of
an election-card for every rightful voter in India, something that is being regarded as the Indian
equivalent of the US Social Security card.
He is often known for his crisp one-liners, be it during his service to his superiors and ministers
or while handling the media. He won the prestigious Magsaysay Award for Government Service
in 1996.[2]
He was not without controversy, however. In January 1994, he used a Reliance aircraft to attend
a religious function in Kancheepuram (The Last rites of Sri La Sri Kanchi Kamakoti
Peetadhipadhi when attained bliss). This was the time when Mr. Seshan had cast himself in the
role of a man out to clean the corrupt stables of Indian politics. Caught in the glare of unhelpful
public attention, he demonstratively wrote out a cheque for Rs. 95,000. [3]
After retirement he founded the Deshbhakt Trust, an NGO forum for like minded citizens
concerned with social reforms in India. He was awarded the Magsaysay Award for Government
Service in 1996.
In January 2008 he joined as permanent faculty at Great Lakes Institute of Management,
Chennai. He teaches courses on Leadership, Influence and Managing power and Business,
Government and Society.
Chief Election Commissioners of India
Sukumar Sen K. V. K. Sundaram S. P. Sen Verma Nagendra Singh T. Swaminathan S. L. Shakdhar R. K. Trivedi R. V. S.
Peri Sastri V. S. Ramadevi T. N. Seshan M. S. Gill James Michael Lyngdoh T. S. Krishnamurthy B. B. Tandon N.
Gopalaswami Navin Chawla

28
 5. JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

Jayaprakash Narayan (Devanāgarī: जयप्रिाश नारायण ; October 11, 1902 - October 8, 1979),
widely known as JP, was an Indian independence activist and political leader, remembered
especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for
peaceful Total Revolution. His biography, Jayaprakash, was written by his nationalist friend and
an eminent writer of Hindi literature, Ramavriksha Benipuri. In 1998, he was posthumously
awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social work. Other
awards include the Magsaysay award for Public Service in 1965. The airport of Patna is also
named after him.

Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
3 Sarvodaya
4 Bihar Movement and Total Revolution
5 Emergency
6 Trivia
7 References
8 Bibliography
9 External links

Early life
Narayan was born in Sitabadiara village in Ballia District of Uttar Pradesh. When he was a child,
he had many pets. One day, his pigeon died and he did not eat food till two days later. His father
Harsudayal was a junior official in the canal department of the State government and was often
touring the region. Jayaprakash, called Baul affectionately, was left with his grandmother to
study in Sitabdiara. There was no high school in the village, so Jayaprakash was sent to Patna to
study in the Collegiate School. He excelled in school. His essay, "The present state of Hindi in
Bihar", won a best essay award. He entered the Patna College on a Government scholarship.

Career
Jayaprakash Narayan joined Bihar Vidyapeeth founded by Dr. Rajendra Prasad for motivating
young meritorious youths and was among the first students of eminent Gandhian Dr. Anugrah
Narayan Sinha , a close colleague of M. K. Gandhi who later became[ first Deputy Chief
Minister cum Finance Minister of Bihar. In October, 1920 Jayaprakash married Prabhavati Devi,
a independence activist in her own right and a staunch disciple of Kasturba Gandhi. Prabhavati
was the daughter of lawyer and nationalist Brij Kishore Prasad, one of the first Gandhians in
Bihar and one who played a major role in Gandhi's campaign in Champaran. She often held
opinions which were not in agreement with JP's views, but Narayan respected her independence.
On Gandhiji's invitation, she stayed at his Sabarmati Ashram while Jayaprakash continued his
studies.

In 1922, Narayan went to the United States, where he worked to support his studies in political
science, sociology and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Iowa,
University of Wisconsin–Madison and Ohio State University. He adopted Marxism while

29
studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under sociologist Edward A. Ross; he was also
deeply influenced by the writings of M. N. Roy. Financial constraints and his mother's health
forced him to abandon his wish of earning a PhD. He became acquainted with Rajani Palme Dutt
and other revolutionaries in London on his way back to India.

After returning to India, Narayan joined the Indian National Congress on the invitation of
Jawaharlal Nehru in 1929; M. K. Gandhi became his mentor in the Congress. He shared the same
house at kadam kuan in Patna with his close friend and nationalist Ganga Sharan Singh
(Sinha).[10] with whom he shared the most cordial and lasting friendship. During the Indian
independence movement he was arrested, jailed, and tortured several times by the British. He
won particular fame during the Quit India movement.

After being jailed in 1932 for civil disobedience against British rule, Narayan was imprisoned in
Nasik Jail, where he met Ram Manohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Ashok
Mehta, Yusuf Desai and other national leaders. After his release, the Congress Socialist Party, or
(CSP), a left-wing group within the Congress, was formed with Acharya Narendra Deva as
President and Narayan as General secretary.

During the Quit India Movement of 1942, when senior Congress leaders were arrested in the
early stages, JP, Lohia and Basawon Singh (Sinha) were at the forefront of the agitations.
Leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali were described as "the political
children of Gandhi but recent students of Karl Marx." He was also a great advocate of co.relation
"SAHJEEVAN"

Initially a defender of physical force, Narayan was won over to Gandhi's position on nonviolence
and advocated the use of satyagrahas to achieve the ideals of democratic socialism. Furthermore,
he became deeply disillusioned with the practical experience of socialism in Nehru's India.
After independence and the death of Mahatma Gandhi, Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and
Basawon Singh (Sinha) led the CSP out of Congress to become the opposition Socialist Party,
which later took the name Praja Socialist Party. Basawon Singh (Sinha) became the first leader
of the opposition in the state and assembly of Bihar and Acharya Narendra Deva became the first
leader of opposition in the state and assembly of U.P. His party is the first national party who
distributed tickets on caste line.

Sarvodaya
Narayan with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-
Gurion in Tel Aviv, 1958
On April 19, 1954, Narayan announced in Gaya that
he was dedicating his life (Jeevandan) to Vinoba
Bhave's Sarvodaya movement and its Bhoodan
campaign, which promoted distributing land to
Harijans (untouchables). He gave up his land, set up
an ashram in Hazaribagh, and worked towards
uplifting the village.

30
In 1957, Narayan formally broke with the Praja Socialist Party in order to pursue lokniti [Polity
of the people], as opposed to rajniti [Polity of the state]. By this time, Narayan had become
convinced that lokniti should be non-partisan in order to build a consensus-based, classless,
participatory democracy which he termed Sarvodaya. Narayan became an important figure in the
India-wide network of Gandhian Sarvodaya workers.

In 1964, Narayan was vilified across the political spectrum for arguing in an article in the
Hindustan Times that India had a responsibility to keep its promise to allow self-determination to
the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He hit back at critics in a second article, dismissing the Indian
version of the "domino theory" which held that the rest of India's states would disintegrate if
Kashmir were allowed its promised freedom. In his graceful if old-fashioned style, Narayan
ridiculed the premise that "the states of India are held together by force and not by the sentiment
of a common nationality. It is an assumption that makes a mockery of the Indian Nation and a
tyrant of the Indian State".
Bihar Movement and Total Revolution
JP called for Sampurna Kranti - total revolution - at a
historic rally of students at Patna's Gandhi Maidan on the
5th of June, 1975

Narayan returned to prominence in State politics in the

late 1960s. In 1974, he led the student's movement in the
state of Bihar which gradually developed into a popular
people's movement known as the Bihar movement. It was
during this movement that JP gave a call for peaceful Total Revolution Together with V. M.
Tarkunde, he founded the Citizens for Democracy in 1974 and the People's Union for Civil
Liberties in 1976, both NGOs, to uphold and defend civil liberties.

Emergency
When Indira Gandhi was found guilty of violating electoral laws by the Allahabad High Court,
Narayan called for Indira to resign, and advocated a program of social transformation which he
termed Sampoorna kraanti [Total Revolution]. Instead she proclaimed a national Emergency on
the midnight of June 25, 1975, immediately after Narayan had called for the PM's resignation
and had asked the military and the police to disregard unconstitutional and immoral orders; JP,
opposition leaders, and dissenting members of her own party (the 'Young Turks') were arrested
on that day.
Jayaprakash Narayan attracted a gathering of 100,000 people at the Ramlila Grounds and
thunderously recited Rashtrakavi Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar''s wonderfully evocative poetry:

Narayan was kept as detenu at Chandigarh even after he had asked for a month's parole for
mobilising relief in areas of Bihar gravely affected by flood. His health suddenly deteriorated on
October 24, and he was released on November 12; diagnosis at Jaslok Hospital, Bombay,
revealed kidney failure; he would be on dialysis for the rest of his life.

After Indira revoked the emergency on January 18, 1977 and announced elections, it was under
JP's guidance that the Janata Party (a vehicle for the broad spectrum of the anti-Indira Gandhi
opposition) was formed. The Janata Party was voted into power, and became the first non-

31
Congress party to form a government at the Centre. On the call of Narayan many youngesters
joined the J P movement.

Trivia
He died in October 1979; but a few months before that, in March 1979, his death was
erroneously announced by the Indian prime minister to the parliament as he lay fighting for his
life in Jaslok Hospital, causing a brief wave of national mourning, including the suspension of
parliament and regular radio broadcasting, and closure of schools and shops. When he was told
about the gaffe a few weeks later, he smiled.

References
 Inconvenient Prophet http://indiatodaygroup.com/itoday/millennium/100people/narayan.html
 Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan
Biography of Jayaprakash Narayan http://www.bookrags.com/biography-jayaprakash-
narayan/index.html
 Bimal Prasad (editor). 1980. A Revolutionary's Quest: Selected Writings of Jayaprakash
Narayan. Oxford University Press, Delhi
 Jai Prakash Narain, Jayaprakash Narayan, Essential Writings, 1929-1979: A Centenary
Volume, 1902-2002, Konark Publishers (2002)
 Dr. Kawaljeet, J.P.'s Total Revolution and Humanism (Patna: Buddhiwadi Foundation, 2002).
 Dr. Ramendra (editor), Jayaprakash Vichar Sankalan [Hindi] (Patna: Rajendra Prakashan,
1986).

External links
 Total revolution http://www.mkgandhi.org/jpnarayan/total_revolution.htm

32
 6. MADURAI SHANMUKHAVADIVU SUBBULAKSHMI
Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi (Tamil: மதுரை சண்முகவடிவு சுப்புலட்சுமி,
16 September, 1916 – 11 December, 2004), also known as M.S., was a renowned Carnatic
vocalist. She was the first musician ever to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian
honor. She is the first Indian musician to receive Asia's highest civilian award, the Ramon
Magsaysay award in 1974 with citation 'Exacting purists acknowledge Srimati M. S.
Subbulakshmi as the leading exponent of classical and semi-classical songs in the Carnatic
tradition of South India.'

Contents
 1 Biography
 1.1 Early years
 1.2 Move to Madras
 2 Musical style and performance
 2.1 Singing career
 2.2 Films
 3 Awards and honours

Biography
Early years
Subbulakshmi (Kunjamma to her family) was born in Madurai, Madras Presidency, British India
to veena player Shanmukavadiver Ammal and Subramania Iyer. Her grandmother Akkammal
was a violinist.
She started learning Carnatic music at an early age and trained in Carnatic music under the
tutelage of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and subsequently in Hindustani music under Pandit
Narayanrao Vyas. She also learned Sanskrit and telugu under Dr. Nedunuri Krishnamurthy.
Her mother was a music exponent and a regular stage performer, and Subbulakshmi grew up in
an environment very conducive to musical learning. Her musical interests were also shaped by
regular interactions with Karaikudi Sambasiva Iyer, Mazhavarayanendal Subbarama Bhavathar
and Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Subbulakshmi gave her first
public performance in 1929 when she was 13 years old at the
prestigious Madras Music Academy. The performance consisted
of singing bhajans (Hindu hymns). The academy was known for
its discriminating selection process, and they broke tradition by
inviting a young girl as a key performer. Her performance was
described as spellbinding and earned her many admirers and the
moniker of musical genius from critics. Soon after her debut
performance Subbulakshmi became one the leading Carnatic
vocalists.

Move to Madras
In 1936 Subbulakshmi moved to Madras (now Chennai). She
also made her film debut in Sevasadan in 1938,

Musical style and performance

Singing career

33
Subbulakshmi first recording was released when she was 10 years old. She gave her first public
performance during the Mahamaham festival at Kumbakonam at the age of sixteen. She began
her Carnatic classical music training under her mother Shanmugavadivu and then Hindustani
classical training under Pandit Narayan Rao Vyas. By the age of 17, Subbulakshmi was giving
concerts on her own, including major performances at the Madras Music Academy, a prestigious
centre for the study and promotion of Carnatic music. Performance in Carnatic music concerts,
was until then, a domain, traditionally reserved for men. She performed a vast variety of
devotional musical forms in different languages including Tamil, Kannada, Sanskrit, Panjabi,
Hindi, Malayalam,Telugu , Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi.

When the governor of Madras wanted the famous spiritual leader, Mata Sri Anandamayi Ma, to
reside in his residence, Anandamayi Ma replied, "I will stay in the house of Subbulakshmi. She
is Meera to me." Within two days, Sadasivam had special quarters built in their garden for Mata
to give darshan and arranged for a new well to be dug nearby for fresh drinking water. Every
evening thousands of people gathered there.

She traveled to London, New York, Canada, the Far East, and other places as India's cultural
ambassador. Her concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York; the UN General Assembly on UN day in
1966; the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1982; and at the Festival of India in Moscow in 1987
were significant landmarks in her career. In 1969 she was accompanied by Indian Railways
Advisor SN Venkata Rao to Rameshwaram, where she famously sang several songs in front of
each idol in the Rameshwaram temple.
After the death of her husband Sadasivam in 1997, she stopped all her public performances.

Films
M.S. also acted in a few Tamil films in her youth. Her first movie "Sevasadanam" was released
in 1938. MS Subbulakshmi also played the male role of Narada in "Savitri" (1941) to raise
money for launching Kalki, her husband's nationalist Tamil weekly. Her title role of the
Rajasthani saint-poetess Meera in the eponymous film (1945) gave her national prominence.
This movie was re-made in Hindi in 1947. The movie had M.S Subbulakshmi. sing the famous
Meera bhajans, with Dilipkumar Roy as the music director. Later, she quit films and turned
wholly to concert music.

Awards and honours

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had this to say about MS.Subbulakshmi- "Who am I , a mere Prime
Minister before a Queen, a Queen of Music ". While Lata Mangeshkar called her Tapaswini (the
Renunciate), Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan termed her Suswaralakshmi (the goddess of the
perfect note), and Kishori Amonkar labeled her the ultimate eighth note or Aathuvaan Sur, which
is above the seven notes basic to all music. The great national leader and poet Sarojini Naidu
called her "Nightingale of India". Her many famous renditions of bhajans include the chanting of
Bhaja Govindam, Vishnu sahasranama (1000 names of Vishnu) and the Venkateswara
Suprabhatam (musical hymns to awaken Lord Balaji early in the morning).

She was widely honored, praised and awarded. Some of them more popular ones include Padma
Bhushan in 1954, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1956, Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 1968
(literally, Treasure Chest of Music. She was the first woman recipient of the title), Ramon
Magsaysay award( often considered Asia's Nobel Prize) in 1974, the Padma Vibhushan in 1975,
34
the Kalidas Samman in 1988, the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 1990, and the
Bharat Ratna in 1998. She was also honored as the court-singer of Tirumala Tirupati
Devasthanams. Tirupati Urban Development Authority (TUDA) has installed a bronze statue of
M.S. Subbulakshmi at the Poornakumbham circle in the temple town. It was unveiled by Andhra
Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy on 28 May 2006.

The most famous Kancheepuram Saree shade known as MS Blue was created for her by the well
known Congress party member and philanthropist, Sri Muthu Chettiyar when they met at the
residence of Sri R. Aiyadurai and Smt. Thangam Aiyadurai at Lady Desikachari Road, Madras
who were close friends of MS and Sadasivam.

She was bestowed with enormous prize moneys with these awards, she donated most of them to
charity. She has given more than 200 charity concerts and raised well over Rs. 10,000,000.
She was awarded honorary degree degrees from several Universities.

She was an ardent devotee of Kanchi Mahaswamigal and she rendered his composition
Maithreem Bhajatha (O World! Cultivate peace) in her concert at the UN in 1966. She donated
many of the royalties on several best sold records to many charity organizations.

Bharat Ratna laureates

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1954) C. Rajagopalachari (1954) C. V. Raman (1954) Bhagwan Das (1955)
Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya (1955) Jawaharlal Nehru (1955) Govind Ballabh Pant (1957) Dhondo
Keshav Karve (1958) Bidhan Chandra Roy (1961) Purushottam Das Tandon (1961) Dr. Rajendra
Prasad (1962) Dr. Zakir Hussain (1963) Pandurang Vaman Kane (1963) Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966)
Indira Gandhi (1971) V. V. Giri (1975) K. Kamaraj (1976) Mother Teresa (1980) Acharya Vinoba
Bhave (1983) Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) M. G. Ramachandran (1988) B. R. Ambedkar (1990)
Nelson Mandela (1990) Rajiv Gandhi (1991) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1991) Morarji Desai (1991)
Abul Kalam Azad (1992) J. R. D. Tata (1992) · Satyajit Ray (1992) A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1997)
Gulzarilal Nanda (1997) Aruna Asaf Ali (1997) M. S. Subbulakshmi (1998) Chidambaram
Subramaniam (1998) Jayaprakash Narayan (1998) Ravi Shankar (1999) Amartya Sen (1999) Gopinath
Bordoloi (1999) Lata Mangeshkar (2001) Bismillah Khan (2001) Bhimsen Joshi (2008)

7. MANIBHAI BHIMBHAI DESAI

Manibhai Bhimbhai Desai (April 27, 1920 – 1993) was an Indian social activist and pioneer of
rural development.
Under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi he settled in 1947 in the backward village of Uruli
Kanchan near Pune, Maharashtra to begin a programme of rural development. He later founded
the Bharatiya Agro-Industries Foundation (BAIF) in 1967.
He received the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, sometimes called Asia's
Nobel Prize.
External links
 Citation for 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationDesaiMan.htm
 Biography at Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/BiographyDesaiMan.htm

35
 Manibhai Bhimbhai Desai Biography

Youngest son of a well-to-do Brahmin family, Manibhai Bhimbhai Desai was born on April 27,
1920 in the village of Kosmada, Surat District, Gujarat, India. As owner of 68 acres (27.5
hectares) of ancestral lands, Manibhai‘s father, Bhimbhai Fakhirbhai Desai, was a respected
leader among the farmers of the 10 or 15 villages in the area. From their father the Desais' five
children—one daughter and four sons—inherited excellent managerial talent which they carried
to their respective careers. Their mother, Ramibahen Desai, passed on to them her "very strong
common sense."

When their father died in 1927, the eldest son took charge of the ancestral farm while the next
two sons pursued careers in the textile industry, one becoming a gold medal spinner and the
other an expert weaver and the general manager of one of India‘s largest textile units.

At the time of his father‘s death Manibhai Desai was in first grade at the elementary school in his
native village. For the five years he attended that school (1927-1931) he ranked first in his class;
he was also good in sports and a leader in the Boy Scouts. India in these years was being shaken
by Mahatma Gandhi‘s hartals (abstension from work) and satyagrahas (literally "insistence on
truth," but in fact calls for civil disobedience) against British rule. Desai vividly recalls an
incident that happened when he was ten that influenced his future life. A young man from the
village, Narottambhai Patel, joined Gandhi on his march from Ahmadabad to Dandi where the
demonstrators raided the salt stocks as a protest against the imposition of a salt tax. It was Patel‘s
duty on his return to the village, to see that a pinch of salt, which had become a symbol of the
struggle for independence, was distributed to each household. He chose young Desai to carry out
the task. Deeply moved by the sight of villagers bowing down as they ate the salt, Desai felt at
age 10 the call of Mahatma Gandhi.

Normally if a child wished to go on to higher education in British India he would begin middle
school in fifth grade in order to learn English, but Ramibahen was reluctant to let her youngest
son leave home. Eventually the older brothers, all well-educated, prevailed upon her to let him
go and in 1931 Desai entered fifth grade for a second time in T. and T.V. Sarvajanik Middle
School in the town of Katargam near Surat.

Anxious lest her son be spoiled by living in a hostel, Ramibahen arranged for him to stay with
her married niece for the first two years. This niece, with five or six children of her own and not
as well off as Desai‘s family, did not hesitate to assign her young cousin—who had never
worked in his life—a wide variety of household chores, from making beds and babysitting to
fetching water from the well and cleaning latrines. In addition he had to care for the cow which
his mother had sent along because she did not want him to be deprived of the milk he had
enjoyed at home. Thus it was the young man‘s task to milk, feed and take the cow to the village
pond to drink. When his work was finished, however, he still found time to study and play
cricket with his friends.

Desai found nothing oppressive in this strict regimen. Instead he recalls doing his tasks naturally
and "with pleasure," and thinks of those years as having had a positive influence on his character.
His mother did not agree. During a visit to Katargam in 1932 she found her son absorbed in

36
cleaning the household‘s kerosene lanterns. Shocked, she saw that he transferred to a hostel
when he entered the high school section of the school in Surat the next school year. The
following year she took him out of the ordinary hostel and placed him in the Anavil Ashram
where he remained until completing high school in April 1938.

An ashram in India is an institution where the residents pursue their work (shram) guided by a
particular philosophical approach. The Anavil Ashram had been founded by Dayaljibhai Desai, a
philosopher who was very close to Mahatma Gandhi. In the late 1920s, when Gandhi instigated
his second movement against the British, the main base of the freedom fighters was the Anavil
Ashram. The British seized the ashram in 1930, arrested all its residents and incarcerated
Dayaljibhai Desai for about three years. Manibhai Desai joined the ashram when it was reopened
in 1934.

Desai‘s contact with the leaders of the "Quit India" movement increased after he moved to the
ashram. He saw and heard Gandhi in 1937 when the All-India Congress met near Surat; the boys
in the ashram volunteered to help with menial tasks during the sessions, including cleaning
latrines. (In India‘s caste system that task was normally assigned to the casteless Untouchables;
except in poor families it was never one for Brahmins. Gandhi believed, however, that all men
are equal and he required his followers to forget caste differences and take on any job that
needed to be done regardless of their position in society.) He also became very close to
Dayaljibhai Desai, having been asked to give him a daily massage in order to ease his pain
caused by mistreatment in prison. During the hour of treatment, Dayaljibhai told the boy stories
of saints and philosophers and gave him the works and biography of Swami Vivekananda
(founder of the Ram Krishna order and service mission) to read. He was also influenced by
Brahmanand Swami, a philosopher who visited the ashram and imparted a number of
instructions designed to promote mental and physical self discipline. These included living a
celibate life, rising before 4:00 a.m. and never sleeping on one‘s back. For several years
thereafter Desai rose at 3:45 each morning and kept a stick in his bed to prevent himself from
rolling over on his back during his sleep. He was also to opt, in the future, for the celibate life.

In June 1938 Desai entered M.T.B. Sarvajanik College in Surat, which belonged to the
Sarvajanik group of schools and was an affiliate of Bombay University, the institution issuing its
final degrees. Since his brothers wanted him to become an engineer, Desai majored in physics
and mathematics. He passed his Junior Bachelor of Science in April 1942 and had entered his
final year of college when the British suppression of Gandhi‘s movement reached its peak. On
August 9, 1942, the day all the leaders of the movement were arrested, Desai decided, without
informing his family, to leave college and join the resistance.

He met initially with Thakorbhai Manibhai Desai, leader of a group of socialists under the
Jayaprakash Narayan (Ramon Magsaysay Awardee in 1965 for Public Service for his
"constructive articulation of a public conscience for modern India") branch of the Congress
Party. To test him, T. M. Desai told him to deliver an anti-British speech to a group of farmers,
warning him that he would surely be arrested. Desai duly delivered an inflammatory address, but
in view of his young age, the police did not detain him. Nonetheless, T. M. Desai agreed that he
had done what was required and accepted him into the underground, where he spent the next 19
months derailing freight trains and blowing up bridges in an effort to disrupt British

37
communications. Although the group avoided hurting people in their attacks, their tactics greatly
disturbed Gandhi who in 1943 sent a message from prison: "Why behave like cowards? Come
out in the open and do whatever you want to do and die."

The group quickly obeyed. Desai openly addressed a number of villages and was immediately
arrested. Abused by the Surat Indian police, he only smiled and exhorted them to cease behaving
like slaves and join the movement. When his family learned he was in jail for anti-British
activities, rather than still at the university, his uncle began a fast—a favored Indian form of
protest—and informed his family that he would not stop until the boy was released. Thereupon a
group of village elders went to the jail and were told that Desai would be permitted to leave if he
would sign a letter repenting his misdeeds and repudiating Gandhi. Desai tore up the letter,
adding that if his uncle died, "independence will come closer with his death and sacrifice."
Understanding that Desai had said, "Let him die!" the old man immediately asked for food.

When he was sent to serve his sentence in the main jail in Sabarmati, Desai was placed, not with
the political prisoners, but with the common criminals. Far from allowing his spirit to be broken,
he made friends with his fellow inmates, many of whom had become bandits as a result of
injustices suffered at the hands of the wealthy. Later when the political prisoners demanded a
new manager in their kitchen Desai was given the job. He acquitted himself so well that on his
last day in confinement he was given a send-off party by the appreciative inmates.

During his year in prison Desai read a great deal of radical political literature, including the
works of Karl Marx and Mao Tse-tung. From Mao he learned that to effect social progress one
should 1) eliminate the exploiting members of society, 2) move fast and 3) involve the people.
These views were modified by the Gandhian approach advocated by his fellow inmates,
particularly Ravishankar Maharaj. Maharaj pointed out that Mao accepted the fact that the men
for whom one is presumably fighting are often not willing participants in the fight. Gandhi, on
the other hand, insisted that willing participation of the people is an essential element of any
movement. The goal of both men was maximum employment of the people in a non-mechanized
society, but Gandhi believed this goal could be achieved without violence, through love and
good organization.

By the time he left prison in April 1944 Desai had decided to give up the idea of being an
engineer and to devote himself instead to rural development. However, since a fellow inmate
cautioned him that Gandhi had directed that no political prisoner should make any major
decision about his life while in the abnormal atmosphere of a jail, he resumed to college to finish
his final year. While there he again began organizing students, this time for social work and for
the fight against social justice.

Despite his extracurricular activities, he was a merit scholar and completed his B.Sc. with a first
in Physics and Mathematics in April 1945. His resolve to take up rural development never
weakened, and scant hours after finishing his last paper he was on the night train for Bombay to
meet Mahatma Gandhi. As part of his decision he renounced any claim to his ancestral lands
realizing, as he later said, that people have greater confidence in you if you have nothing of your
own—no distractions or private interests—and that in India, if you have sacrificed, "you can
penetrate the minds and hearts of the people very easily."

38
Gandhi accepted Desai as a disciple in principle, but told him he must first return to his village
and forget everything he had learned. "Bapuji," asked the new graduate in dismay, using the
affectionate term for father, "are you against education?" Gandhi replied that it was not
mathematics and physics he had in mind, but the elitist attitudes taught in college which assigned
to the exploiter the highest status in society and to the man who toils for his labor the lowest.

Desai therefore returned to Kosmada where he began organizing the village for development.
Four months later he received a letter from Gandhi stating simply, "Come immediately to
Sevagram. Join me." The news came as a great shock to the village and to his family, since he
had told no one of his meeting with Gandhi, but he pointed out to the distraught villagers who
had responded to his leadership that Gandhi‘s sending for him "is an honor not to me but to the
village where I was born. . . .It‘s a great honor to you."

On the morning of August 18, 1945 Desai was in Gandhi‘s Sevagram Ashram in Wardha
District, Maharashtra State. Sevagram was the headquarters for all the institutions established by
Gandhi, from education and cattle development to hospitals and associations of spinners and
weavers. For the few months that he stayed there, Desai worked primarily with Naraharibhai
Parikh, a prominent Gandhian economist, while Gandhi himself was called away to Pune.

At this time Wardha District was hit by a violent outbreak of cholera. When the news reached
Gandhi he wrote a letter to Sevagram stating bluntly that if the ashram were not able to control
the epidemic within 10 days, its existence was futile. The situation in the cholera-stricken region
was exceedingly dangerous, with about 300 people dying each day, and the ashram‘s residents
were understandably reluctant to go out into the villages. Nonetheless Desai volunteered for the
job and was accompanied by a group of about 50 boys and two doctors.

The volunteers treated patients with saline solution to prevent dehydration, carried dead bodies to
the funeral ground, and gave well villagers tablets and vaccinations, teaching them also to clean
the village, boil their water and cook their food well. The techniques were successful, and Dr.
Shushila Nayer, who came to the area to investigate their progress, wrote a long letter to Gandhi
recommending Desai as a young man who could be entrusted with important tasks.

Gandhi had such a task in mind. He wanted to develop a center in Maharashtra for total rural
development, beginning with a nature cure health program which would treat poor patients,
using natural means rather than expensive medical methods they could ill afford. Before making
his decision, however, Gandhi tested Desai once more, assigning him the task of cleaning
latrines and teaching him to make compost from night soil and trash. Only after a month and a
half, when he was assured of his disciple‘s equanimity, did he invite him to join his personal
staff, working on accounts.

On January 26, 1946, the day Jawaharlal Nehru declared premature independence from Britain,
Desai took a vow of celibacy so that he could devote himself entirely to the development of his
nation.

39
During this period Desai became very close to Gandhi who was then an old man fifty years his
senior. One day Gandhi told Desai that there were very few people who would work for the
program of rural development he considered so essential to the success of an independent India,
but "among these very few," he said, "you are one." He then asked him to establish a nature cure
ashram and development program in a village in Maharashtra, to be selected by him. Although
Desai was anxious to begin rural development in his native Gujarat he agreed to work in
Maharashtra for two years.

Balkoba Bhave, younger brother of land reformer Vinoba Bhave (1958 Ramon Magsaysay
Awardee for Community Leadership for "his furtherance of the cause of arousing his
countrymen toward voluntary action in relieving social injustice and economic inequalities"),
suggested the village of Uruli-Kanchan to which he had retired because of advanced
tuberculosis. Gandhi and Desai first came to the village on March 22, 1946. Gandhi felt it was
suitable and acquired 25 acres of land—through donations in cash and kind—for the proposed
ashram. Then each morning for the next few days the two men walked through the village as
Gandhi showed Desai what should be done. A strong advocate of clean living habits as the best
preventive medicine, Gandhi was so disturbed when they came upon a ropemaker‘s shack made
of old rotten tins that he told Desai to burn it to the ground. Remembering the sociology he had
learned in prison, Desai answered, "Bapuji, before we put this hut to fire, we will have to erect a
new one where the fellow can shift." This, Desai feels, has remained one of his guiding
principles: build before you destroy.

On March 30 Lord Wavell, then viceroy of India, sent a special train to fetch Gandhi for
negotiations on the transfer of power prior to independence. Although the matter was urgent,
Gandhi refused to leave until after the evening prayers he had promised to hold with the
villagers. His activity in Uruli-Kanchan, he told the perturbed emissary, had the same importance
as the next day‘s negotiations with Wavell. If after the British leave "you don't build up rural
India" he said, turning to young Desai, "your power in Delhi will have hardly any meaning."

Before proceeding north, Gandhi gave Desai some general guidelines to follow. First, he told
him, the program he designed should be labor intensive; a capital intensive program will surely
produce development, but may also create disparities in income. Second, make use of all rural
resources, even those that look at first glance like liabilities. For example, the farmer‘s misspent
time—underutilized or unutilized manpower—is a resource; in that case the goal must be to
create maximum year-round gainful employment for the farmer and his family. It is as important,
Gandhi insisted, to cure the farmer‘s socioeconomic ills as his physical ones.

On April 1, 1946 Desai started the Goshala Ashram in the cottage that had been given to Gandhi
when he arrived; the first project he planned was the nature cure hospital. With Desai were
Balkoba Bhave, who would recover his health in these surroundings, an allopathic doctor, a
social worker, and two or three women who stayed only briefly after Gandhi left.

Desai began his program by sweeping the streets for several hours each day—encouraging others
to do likewise—while he learned about village conditions. What he found shocked him. The
village was plagued not only by chronic drought, but by a colony of robbers whose sole
occupation was preying on the hapless villagers, and by a Pathan moneylender who charged 300

40
percent interest per year and whipped farmers who failed to pay. In idleness, the village boys
spent their nights enjoying vulgar entertainment provided by dancing girls and slept the days
away.

Reinforced by a letter from Gandhi who agreed that these social ills would have to be cured
before development could take place, Desai began to attack them one by one by presenting
viable alternatives.

When the Pathan moneylender realized that Desai would cause him trouble, he sent him a letter
threatening his life. Desai was at his door the next morning, asking where it would be most
convenient to meet so that the moneylender could kill him. Unnerved, the Pathan left him alone,
while Desai introduced cooperative banking and blocked his trade network. A year and a half
later the Pathan had departed the village.

Desai spent quite a bit of time those first few years with youth, since through this relatively
uncorrupted age group he hoped to build a development program. A good athlete himself, he
encouraged wrestling and volleyball matches, and organized a sanskar pathak (youth culture
organization). To counter vulgar professional entertainment, he persuaded the young men to
stage a dramatic performance in which he himself took part. During the intermission he asked the
audience, which eventually totalled 10,000, which type of entertainment they wanted—
traditional religious drama, or the coarse entertainments to which they had become accustomed.
The traditional plays were enthusiastically endorsed and the dancing girls left.

Gandhi had also suggested that Desai take up cattle development, initially for the purpose of
ensuring a good supply of milk for Bhave and the nature cure patients. When Desai protested
that his field was mathematics, not veterinary medicine, Gandhi told him to learn by getting a
book on the subject and to start dismembering dead cows. He did, dissecting around 400
carcasses, and becoming in the process an authority on cattle physiology.

As the scope of the work increased, Bhave suggested to Desai that he should stay in the village
not two years, but at least the length of one tapa, a 12-year period by which Indian philosophers
often measure their work or meditation. Desai agreed and took an oath before the villagers on
Gandhi‘s birthday, October 2, 1946, to remain in Uruli-Kanchan for 12 years.

Desai last saw Gandhi in April 1947 when he met him to discuss the program and its problems.
He informed the old man of his oath, but instead of praise, Gandhi told him that 12 years would
pass in a flash—he should make a lifetime commitment to stay. Gandhi explained that Uruli-
Kanchan was a "very important program" and he himself planned to spend six months a year
there as soon as independence was won. Desai still had plans for returning to work in Gujarat
and could not come to a decision. The following day, with a premonition of his death, Gandhi
remarked that perhaps he would not come in person to Uruli-Kanchan, but "my soul will come. .
.and if my soul sees you working for rural development my soul will be very happy." At this
Desai wept, and Gandhi brusquely responded, "Your tears will not satisfy me. I want your life-
committed perspiration."

41
Finally on April 13, the anniversary of the "Amritsar Massacre" when 379 protesters were killed
and 1,208 wounded by British troops and which was regarded by many Indians as a day of
sacrifice, Desai went to Gandhi and bowed his head and vowed to "lay my ashes in Uruli-
Kanchan."

Desai returned to Maharashtra with 100,000 rupees Gandhi ordered the headquarters at
Sevagram to give him to carry on his development work. On January 30, 1948 Mahatma Gandhi
was assassinated.

One of Desai‘s priorities was to organize the young people who were not yet spoiled by
indolence or anti-social activities. The cultural center was one way of doing this; a secondary
school was another. He began the latter in 1950 by teaching 30 boys in his own cottage.

Meanwhile he tried to find out what the villagers felt was their most pressing need, sensing that
he could use it to bring them to work together, and that this experience of cooperation could be
carried over into development efforts. By sitting hidden near the village well and eavesdropping
on the conversations of the women as they did their laundry, he learned that the one thing uniting
the villagers was their desire to repair the temple. Accordingly he called a meeting and organized
a committee to begin raising money for a new structure. When the group was preparing to go to
Bombay to collect funds, he convinced them that if they added a school to the temple project
they would be more likely to get donations.

By 1954 the new temple and the new secondary school, Mahatma Gandhi Vidyalaya, had been
built. Rated nationally as one of the best schools in a rural area, it has today 90 well-qualified
teachers to instruct 2,900 students in its three categories of study—academic, agricultural and
industrial, and a hostel has been built to accommodate boys from distant villages. From the
beginning it was recognized by the central government and therefore enjoyed financial support;
in 1980 the state of Maharashtra gave the institution a grant of Rs.10,000, acknowledging its
efficiency and performance.

In 1948 Desai started a herd of dairy cattle at the ashram using the local Gir breed. He chose to
develop cattle, as opposed to chickens or pigs, because the latter, having simple stomachs, eat
what humans eat, and in a land of scarcity compete with men for food. Cattle, on the other hand,
are able to eat products which man finds inedible, such as agricultural wastes. Goats and sheep
who forage like cattle, graze closer to the ground, pulling up roots when hungry, and are
therefore more damaging to pasturelands than cows.

Although India in 1948 had the largest cattle population in the world (186 million head), it had
one of the lowest milk yields (about 350 liters per lactation), so that from an economic point of
view the average Indian cow has been a liability to its owner. Desai was determined to change
that situation. The ashram‘s Gir herd made such excellent progress that in 1953 the government
of the state of Saurashtra (now part of Gujarat) donated 10 top quality animals—eight heifers,
one bull calf and one adult bull—for its further improvement. From 1957 through 1962 the
Goshala Ashram‘s cows captured first and second prizes for highest milk yield in the country.

42
With the herd of cattle growing, Desai began to look around for pasturelands, which were very
scarce in a region receiving only 8 to 10 inches of rain a year. They found an area about four or
five miles away in the village of Bhavarapur on the bank of the Mula Mutha river where some
grass was growing under a sparse cover of acacia, a thorny tree that provided little of value. The
25 families who owned the land charged only Rs. 280 for use of the land during the two to three
month grazing season.

As Desai became better acquainted with these villagers he started to think of ways the land could
become more productive. This would be possible if the trees were cut down and the land plowed,
but the villagers were adamant that since the trees had been planted by their ancestors they must
never be felled. Desai did not raise the matter again for another 10 years. Then after two years of
gentle persuasion, one young man who worked on the ashram‘s farm agreed to cut down his
acacia. When other villagers saw the money he made from selling the wood for fuel, they too
began removing the trees, thereby allowing the grass to increase. By 1965 the entire plot of about
90 acres was clear. Desai then suggested the group of families form a Joint Farming Society to
be named the Bhagyodaya Cooperative, but they refused unless he himself joined. Since he did
not own any of the land, he was not legally eligible, but the chief minister of Maharashtra
pointed out that the law provided for 10 percent membership by landless laborers. In that
capacity he became a member and was elected the group‘s chairman.

Desai arranged for the area to be plowed by tractors and irrigated from the river by means of a
jack well (holding tank), all of which was financed by a Rs.100,000 bank loan. He persuaded the
villagers to dig the well only by starting to dig himself. These people, he said, having lived in
such extreme poverty for generations, had lost their motivation to work or even to better their
lives. They had to be shown, personally, what could be done before they would do it.

When the land had been plowed and irrigated the soil was tested and found to be extremely
alkaline, with a Ph factor of 9.4. A visiting team of American experts advised him to forget about
this land and find another plot to work, but Desai pointed out that these farmers had no other
land; they had to work with what was available. The Joint Farming Society drew a loan from the
cooperative bank to buy wagonloads of gypsum, which was poured into the soil at about two
tons per acre. For their planting in the initial stages Desai chose brinjal (eggplant) which could
grow in soil replete with alkaline salts. After the salt content was brought down, other
remunerative crops were introduced; in recent years brinjal has been grown on a very small area.
Today the land produces crops of sugarcane, wheat, grapes and other fruit worth more than
Rs.300,000 annually.

During this entire period Desai continued farming experiments on the ashram‘s own land, which
had increased to 80 acres by 1958. Since agriculture was generally uneconomical in the region
around Uruli-Kanchan due to the scant rainfall, Desai experimented with horticulture to make the
ashram self-sufficient and to find suitable cash crops for the farmers of adjacent villages. His
researches indicated that the dry climate and light soil offered prospects for grape cultivation. In
1960 he started planting local varieties of grapes, particularly Selection 7 and Bangalore Purple,
and an imported variety which seemed best suited for raisin production, Thompson‘s Seedless
(known in India as Madras Kismis), although a professional horticulturist advised him it was a
shy bearer, producing only 2,000 to 3,000 kilograms per acre.

43
Desai obtained 10,000 cuttings of Thompson‘s Seedless from a small group of families in Tamil
Nadu who had themselves been given cuttings by Christian missionaries. Three acres in Uruli-
Kanchan were planted to the new variety. Desai, who says his contribution was "to master the
physiology of the vine," spent 14 to 15 hours a day seeing to the proper cutting, training and
manuring of the vines which were spaced and trellised to let sunlight through to the ground and
thus reduce Downy and powdery mildew, common blights in Indian vineyards. The plants were
irrigated with the minimum amount of water for good fruiting. The crop that year yielded 15,700
kg. per acre, or more than the record California yield for the same variety. At first local farmers
speculated that the plants had exhausted themselves with the first crop, but the next year Desai‘s
yield was even higher, and the farmers accepted workshops in viticulture. Today Thompson
grapes are the most popular cash crop in the area, with average yields running between 8,000 and
10,000 kg. per acre.

In 1960 two dams on the river which irrigated Uruli-Kanchan broke. The government proposed
repairing the newer of the dams, the Panshet, and building another structure on the site of the
older Khadakwasala dam. With a long legal inquiry pending on the Panshet dam and a 12-year
completion date proposed for the new dam, Desai successfully argued that the region would
become desert if the Khadakwasala was not repaired immediately. This was accomplished over
vehement government objections, and the dam is still standing 20 years later.

When the repair of the smaller Panshet dam was also imminent some local entrepreneurs
proposed establishing the Yeshwant Cooperative Sugar Factory to take advantage of the renewed
water supply. Since many of the wealthier local farmers were unwilling to risk investing in the
venture the businessmen asked Desai to persuade them of its advantages. He agreed on the
condition that small farmers would also be allowed to join if money could be raised to cover
their shares. These funds, amounting to Rs.5.3 million were raised in 1964 from the Bank of
India, then a private bank with its main branch in Bombay. The loan was entirely repaid by the
more than 500 smallholders after the Panshet water became available in 1969. The Yeshwant
Cooperative Sugar Factory soon developed numerous branches and became actively engaged in
other community socioeconomic developments, e.g. schools, hospitals, water resources.

In the mid-1960s it became apparent to Desai that if the fruits of his 20 years of work were to
reach the rest of rural India, a more sophisticated professional organization, utilizing top-level
managerial skills, would be required. Accordingly he founded the Bharatiya Agro-Industries
Foundation (BAIF), which was registered in Bombay on August 22, 1967 as a public trust with
headquarters in Uruli-Kanchan. Two days later it was formally inaugurated by the President of
India in front of a marble plaque in Pune, where central finance and administrative offices would
later be located and from where the field programs would be coordinated. However for the next
two years BAIF existed only in concept.

In 1969 Uruli-Kanchan was visited by an English agricultural economist, Tristram Beresford,

who was chairman of Britain‘s Agricultural Society. Although Beresford has come only for a
brief look at the dairy herd, he found time to visit the rehabilitated farmland at Bhavarapur and
the rest of the ashram‘s projects. Deeply impressed with what he saw he offered his services to
raise contributions for the ashram. Even more importantly, he procured, through the British Milk

44
Marketing Board, the ashram‘s first consignment of 7,000 doses of frozen semen from top
quality Jersey and Holstein-Friesian bulls, as well as two containers for the liquid nitrogen to
preserve them.

With the acquisition of the frozen semen BAIF ceased being merely an idea and became a
functioning organization. Desai recruited six veterinarians and placed them in small local centers
established and supported by the Sugar Cooperative as a service for the entire area. Local cows
belonging to individual farmers were inseminated in order to produce high quality crossbred
animals. From mothers who could not give 200 liters of milk in a lactation, cows were bred that
produced 2,500 liters. In this way poor cows which were a liability were converted into
economic assets. The new crossbreeds are called kamdhenu, meaning cows that bring what is
desired.

The veterinarians also trained the farmers in the care of these animals. This approach of bringing
modern technology to the door of the farmer instead of having the farmer come to a regional
center is an essential component of Desai‘s concept of development. His concern is always to
humanize the process; "meeting the farmer," he says, "is more important than meeting the cow."

BAIF subsequently received another 2,000 doses of Holstein-Friesian frozen semen through the
Church of Scotland, and prepared a project outline for a larger program of Rs.3.5 million to
present to the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), as a binational agreement,
in 1970. When the project was approved according to the usual procedures by the government of
India, Desai took it to Copenhagen to plead his case in person. DANIDA told him that it would
approve the request under two conditions: 1) if BAIF actively advocated the slaughter of cows in
India and 2) if Desai advocated the eating of beef. Although the slaughter and consumption of
cows is strictly forbidden by the Hindu religion and it would therefore spell disaster for any
organization advocating it, Desai readily agreed. "As soon as I return to India," he told the
astonished board, "I will start slaughtering cows myself, and I will send them to you. But for
every dead cow I send, you must send me in return one uterus [capable of producing a live calf]
." This, of course, was an impossible request, and Desai gently chided the board, saying
"Gentlemen, why are you asking me to slaughter what you cannot replace?" In consequence the
project was approved unconditionally and over the next four years Desai was able to obtain 200
prize Jersey and Holstein-Friesian heifers.

As Desai began soliciting money from major industrialists to finance BAIF‘s programs, he
realized that contributions would be limited unless the foundation qualified as a research
institution eligible for tax-deductible donations. When he approached the Indian Council for
Agricultural Research (ICAR) for certification he was told that in order to qualify, a research
institution must handle at least 6,000 head of cattle. Frustrated, Desai was returning to Uruli-
Kanchan when he met with an accident and broke both legs. During his three-month confinement
he thought of a method for circumventing the ICAR restrictions: he would get permission from
the thousands of farmers in his region to use their cows for research purposes, giving the owners
any benefits that might accrue from the project. A few months later, armed with a list of 11,000
cows, Desai returned to ICAR and obtained recognition of BAIF as a research body.

45
Two subsidiary research centers were established under the BAIF umbrella in 1971. The first
was the BAIF Research Institute for Cattle and Agricultural Development, started on 100 acres
of land donated by the government of Maharashtra, and now operating on a total of 300 acres.
Supporting the development institute is the BAIF Research Institute for Animal Health which
began producing vaccine against foot and mouth disease in 1974 with a donation of equipment
from DANIDA.

In 1977 the Ministry of Agriculture approved a recommendation by the Planning Commission to

entrust to BAIF the production of 100,000 crossbred cows in blocks or areas designated eligible
for the Drought Prone Area Program. National and state governments shared the operating
expenditures of the centers, each of which was responsible for registering at least 2,000
conceptions of local cows during a five-year crossbreeding program. The infrastructure for
chilling, collecting and marketing the milk from the new breed of cows had already been
established in most of the states. Although the cost of operating each center seems high at
Rs.60,000 a year, the expense is covered by the guaranteed output in terms of pregnant cows.
The income generated by the milk produced by the new cows is more than 10 times the expense
incurred by the farmers for the foundation‘s services.

Meanwhile in 1972 Desai began to experiment with growing trees in dry soil. He planted 10,000
shade trees, of the sort that normally grow along Indian roadsides, on the 142 acre barren plot
given him by the government. Realizing that the tender roots of a young plant are not capable of
drawing more water than they need, Desai devised a system by which maximum use would be
made of a very small amount of water. He covered the area around each seedling with black
plastic to prevent evaporation and moistened the soil under it with only one small glass of water
every tenth day, and later every fourteenth. Six drums of water daily, taken from a nearby
farmer‘s well, sufficed to irrigate all 10,000 plants in this way. As the trees grew, the dribble-
circumference was extended, thus only the root tips continued to be watered. Ten years later
these trees average 30 feet in height.

Following his rural development strategy of optimizing his resources, Desai started looking for a
fodder plant that would not only grow with scanty water in extremely poor soil, but could, as a
legume, enrich that soil by drawing nitrogen from the air. In the Philippines and Australia he
learned of a variety of Leucaena leucocephala which had these characteristics, but which grew
slowly—and Desai had learned that if a program to eradicate poverty doesn't have fast results,
the man who is the target of that program will lose confidence in it.

Finally in 1974 he received an ounce of seeds of the Hawaiian Giant (K-8) variety of Leucaena
leucocephala from Professor James L. Brewbaker of the University of Hawaii. This tree had all
the desired characteristics of the other varieties as well as rapid growth. Subabul, as it is now
known in India, has proven to be an easily renewable source of fuel, wooden poles for building
materials, and fodder.

For its valuable nitrogen-fixing action in the soil to take place it is necessary for certain rhizobia
(a bacteria) to be active in the nodules of the plant‘s roots. The laboratories on BAIF‘s campus
have produced very effective rhizobia cultures for use in both acidic and alkaline soils and the
rhizobia is supplied to farmers along with the Leucaena seeds In addition the BAIF researchers

46
have found that sulfa phosphate is a critical requirement of the plant and it too is supplied when
seedlings are sold. The foundation now has a 400-acre plantation of Hawaiian Giant at Uruli-
Kanchan and a 200-acre farm in northern Gujarat. The latter is irrigated with extremely brackish
water, having 5,500 parts of salt per million (normally tolerable brackishness is only 1,200 ppm),
yet thesubabul is growing well.

Through experimentation BAIF has standardized the Hawaiian Giant planting-cutting systems,
according to intended use. If fodder alone is desired, the seeds are planted close together, with
only 12 inches between rows, and the branches are cut every 40 days. Animals are not allowed to
graze the plants because the mimosine (a toxic amino acid) content of the tip leaves is very high
and animals which eat them sicken and/or abort. But BAIF researchers have discovered that
when the whole branch is chopped up as fodder, the mimosine content per feeding is reduced to
the point that BAIF has been maintaining six healthy animals exclusively on 40 kg. of Hawaiian
Giant a day for the last two and a half years—although it normally recommends mixing the
Leucaena with other fodder.

If the tree is to be used for building materials it is planted at least three meters from its neighbors
and allowed to grow for approximately three years before cutting. In a biomass plantation, where
trees will be used for fuel, two meters between rows is optimal, with half a meter between the
plants. The tree is cut every three years, so if three plots are prepared in rotation, one-third of the
crop can be harvested annually. The wood can be used as sticks, made into an excellent charcoal,
or converted into steam to run a turbine or boiler. An Indian farm family can fulfill its fuel needs
from a small biomass plot.

Hawaiian Giant is very good for afforestation programs. In areas where it has been growing for a
long time the soil, which was previously rocky and barren, has been converted into humus and
can now be used to plant corn or other food crops. BAIF is promoting permanent agroforestry
arrangements of intercropping rows of Hawaiian Giant, planted about five meters apart and
pruned to a suitable height, with a normal grain crop. As of May 1982 BAIF had distributed 5
tons of Hawaiian Giant seed to the 6,000 villages under its centers, and another 25 tons to
thousands of other villages through their state governments.

In 1980 BAIF started experimenting with sericulture (raising silkworms) as an income-producing

activity to complement the established dairy program. In this project mulberry trees, to provide
food for silkworms, are planted in conjunction with subabul, to feed the cattle. The mulberry
plants grow to a height of about one meter in six months, when the leaves can be plucked for
feeding the silkworms. Subabul grows faster than mulberry, particularly after the first year of its
establishment. The combined projects provide employment for the farmer‘s entire family. Desai
is planning to develop cooperative units for processing the cocoons.

In connection with BAIF, Desai has traveled extensively for both research and fundraising. His
first trip in 1968 was to Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan. He was particularly impressed
with Taiwan‘s irrigation system, its decentralized hydraulic generation of power and the
involvement of schools in planting programs. He visited Denmark five times beginning in 1970
in connection with the cattle breeding program and participated in a study tour in Israel in 1971.
During his two visits to the United States he established close contacts with breeders'

47
associations and American agricultural universities such as Cornell, Pennsylvania State, the
University of Wisconsin, St. Paul Agricultural University and the University of California at
Davis. In Washington D.C. he studied the administrative set-up of worldwide churches, seeking
models for expanding BAIF across the entire subcontinent of India. In this connection he was
invited in 1972 to view the work of the United Church of Christ in Canada, and in 1975 he
returned to that country to get approval for a project from the Canadian Freedom from Hunger
foundation and to meet members of major cattle breeders' associations in the Toronto area.

Desai stayed in Japan for a week, observing cattle in Hokkaido, and examined an excellent hill
planting system in Hong Kong. He visited the Netherlands three times and Germany once in
connection with cattle breeding and semenology. During his five visits to France he studied the
manufacture of vaccines and succeeded in establishing a collaboration with the Institut National
de Recherches Agronomiques. Trips to Australia and New Zealand also produced valuable
contacts among scientists in the various fields of BAIF‘s interests and enabled BAIF to continue
receiving assistance from Australia‘s Community Aid Abroad. Similarly Desai‘s travel to
England enabled BAIF to continue receiving assistance from the Milk Marketing Board and a
number of aid organizations such as OXFAM and Christian Aid.

Aside from being director of the various organizations he founded in the area around Uruli-
Kanchan, Desai was director of the Maharashtra State Irrigation Development Corporation
(1970-1977) and of the Marathwada Development Corporation (1975-1979). He has been
director of the Gujarat State Rural Development Corporation in Ghandinagar since 1978, board
member of the All-India People‘s Action for Development in New Delhi since 1969, and
member of its Maharashtra branch since 1975. Since 1971 he has been on the governing board of
Mahatma Phule Krishi Agricultural University, from which he received an honorary doctorate in
1977. He is presently a member of a number of other organizations, including the Consultative
Committee of the Indian Dairy Corporation (since 1972); the Committee on Research on
Education Sciences (1976); and the International Collaboration Agreement Screening (1972) and
Standing (1973) committees of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research. The President of
India recognized his services in 1968 by honoring him with the Padma Shree Award.

In 1980 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi combined all rural development programs into the
Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) on a nationwide basis. This means that BAIF is
no longer confined to Drought Prone areas, but can operate anywhere in the country. It has 400
centers operating under the IRDP in several states—Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya
Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan—which service some 800,000 cows. All these centers are
presently managed from Uruli-Kanchan, but the plan is to decentralize the system by establishing
10 separate organizations, each responsible for 50 centers. Desai already has a training program
underway to supply appropriate administrators.

Such a system will require very strong coordination from foundation headquarters. This will be
possible since from its inception BAIF was a pioneer among voluntary non-profit,
nongovernmental organizations in India in its emphasis on professional management and on
financial control systems. The man most responsible for this professionalism is Madhukar P.
Marathe, chief finance manager and secretary of the BAIF trust who, having been associated

48
with Desai since 1946, gave up his flourishing private practice to join BAIF full time in the early
1970s when the scope of its operations became apparent.

BAIF is set up in a three-tiered operational system. The operating agency is BAIF itself, which
works at the grassroots level. At the next level is a sponsoring agency, usually one of India‘s
main industrial houses such as the Mafatlal and Kirloskar groups, Asian Paints and Parle
Products. After any given project—e.g. cattle development, sericulture, subabul research—is
approved by the government, BAIF approaches an industrial firm to underwrite the project on a
tax-deductible basis. In general the money solicited is for a specific period of time and is
designated for the establishment of infrastructure. At the end of the designated period the project
is expected to be self-sufficient with regard to day-to-day expenditures.

The third level consists of a monitoring agency, made up of experts in the field appropriate to a
particular project. These outside consultants are called in on a voluntary basis to evaluate the
progress and effectiveness of the various programs. Although most of the consultants are
technical experts, recently BAIF has acquired the service of a group of sociologists, financed by
the Agriculture Refinance Development Corporation. This group is trying to define and measure
socioeconomic growth in regions where BAIF is working—a project made all the more complex
by the sheer number of development activities operating in the same locations.

Despite the size and ever-increasing sophistication of BAIF, Desai never ceases to remind his
highly educated staff that the focus of their work is not research, but the man who is to benefit
from it. "We in BAIF," he wrote in the 1982 BAIF Journal, "have never looked down on the
rural people as either pitiable or contemptible creatures. India‘s rural people represent perhaps
the finest specimen of hardy manhood. They have withstood generations of exploitation and
tyranny and yet retain love of the land, love of the animals and, above all, zest for life and the
capacity to adapt to changing times. As such, we recognize the rural people as men richly worthy
and deserving of being given an opportunity, as their right, to work for their own betterment. . .
.the realization that we have the opportunity to work as partners, nay brothers, with the rural
people, can certainly be our richest and most satisfying reward."

Desai, a practical genius as one observer has noted, represents the finest expression of Gandhian
principles, western practicality and just Indian pride. At peace with himself and the world, he is
constantly open to new ideas, seeking to explore them in depth, but he remains Indian to the
core, wearing the traditional dress of his region and the white cap popularized by Gandhi as a
symbol of Indian independence, and proud of his people.

 October 1982 Manila

 References:
 Beresford, Tristram. "The Case of Uruli-Kanchan: A Study in Development," Journal of
Agricultural Economics. Kent, England: Agricultural Economics Society. Vol. 24, no. 1, 1973.
 Chopra, Pran. "Afforestation: A Success Story," Indian Express. Bangalore. September 19,
1980.
 "Regenerating the Rural Economy,"Indian Express. Bombay. October 6, 1980.
 Desai, Manibhai Bhimbhai "Exclushely for You from the Director‘s Cell," BAIF Journal.
Pune, India. Vol. 2. no. 1 October 2,1981.

49
 "Helping the Man on the Land." Presentation to Group Discussion. Ramon Magsaysay Award
Foundation, Manila. September 1, 1982.
 "Growing Scarcity of Fodder and Fuel," Commerce. Bombay. Vol. 143, no. 3670, October 17,
1981.
 "Background Story of BAIF." Lecture delivered at Government of India workshop on
Integrated Rural Development through Cross-breeding of Cattle under DPAP Program. Pune
India. August 1,1977.
 Kubabul, the Miracle Plant. Brochure. Pune: BAIF. (N.d.)
 Marulkar, R.P. "Gandhiji‘s Unique Rural Scheme," Indian Express. Bombay. August 25, 1980.
 Relwani, L.L. "Subabul, the Superb Fuelwood Tree," Science Today. Bombay, Vol. 15, no. 10,
October 1981.
 Relwani, L.L. and D.V. Rangnekar. "The Second Green Revolution," Ibid. Bombay, Bennett
Coleman & Co. Vol. 15, no. 10, October 1981.
 Rural Liabilities Become Productive Assets the BAIF Way. Pamphlet. Uruli-Kanchan, Pune:
BAIF. 1981.
 Interview with Manibhai Bhimbhai Desai and letters from and interviews with persons
acquainted with him and his work: visit to Uruli-Kanchan.

8. LAKSHMI CHAND JAIN

Lakshmi Chand Jain was born in 1925. As a young graduate at the time of independence from
Britain and partition of the subcontinent, he worked to organize relief for destitute refugees
created by the partition. He helped introduce cooperative societies for farming and cottage
industries into rehabilitation camps, instilling self-reliance and hope.

Jain later helped Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay organize the Indian Cooperative Union and applied
its principles to the handicrafts industry. As secretary of the All-India Handicrafts Board, he
fostered decentralized production and directed training, technical services, and loans to India's
struggling self-employed spinners, weavers, carpenters, and metalsmiths. He applied modern
marketing techniques to promote handicrafts sales abroad and organized the Central Cottage
Industries Emporium to expand the market at home. He championed artisans against
mechanization and mass production, helping millions of independent craftsmen carry on
traditional livelihoods in security and pride and assured the survival of precious arts and skills.

Jain became an expert on development, applying unique organizational skills to wed theory to
practice. In 1966 he led the establishment of a chain of consumer cooperative stores where those
living in cities could buy food, clothing, and tools at a fair price. In 1968 he co-founded a
service-oriented consulting firm. By seeking the advice of farmers and workers, Jain and his like-
minded colleagues helped government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
design modernization projects that were relevant and effective.

Jain worked with and on a number of development agencies as well as government committees
and boards, such as the United Nations' World Dam Commission [1]

50
Jain's wife is the economist Devaki Jain; the couple have two sons. In 1989, Jain received the

Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, for "his informed and selfless commitment to
attack India's poverty at the grass-roots level".
Contents
 1 Publications
 2 References
 3 External links
 4 Further reading

Publications
 "Development of Decentralized Industries in India—Progress and Perspectives." Gandhi
Marg. 2, no. 6 (September 1980): 307-29.
 "Obituary: Kamaladevi." Economic and Political Weekly, 26 November 1988, 2520-21.
 "Poverty, Environment, Development: A View from Gandhi's Window." Economic and
Political Weekly, 13 February 1988, 311-20.
 Power to the People: Decentralization Is a Necessity. Policy Issue no.1. Hyderabad:
Academy of Gandhian Studies, 1980.
 "A tale of Two Programmes: The Mahatma's and Mrs. Gandhi's." Times of India, 26
November 1983.
 (with B. V. Krishnamurthy and P. M. Tripathi) Grass without Roots: Rural Development
under Government Auspices. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1985.

References
1. World Dam Commission mandate, http://www.dams.org/commission/mandate.htm

External links
 Biography, 1989 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/BiographyJainLak.htm

Lakshmi Chand Jain –Biography

Lakshmi Chand Jain was born in 1925. As a young graduate at the time of independence from
Britain and partition of the subcontinent, he worked to organize relief for destitute refugees
created by the partition. He helped introduce cooperative societies for farming and cottage
industries into rehabilitation camps, instilling self-reliance and hope.

Jain later helped Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay organize the Indian Cooperative Union and applied
its principles to the handicrafts industry. As secretary of the All-India Handicrafts Board, he
fostered decentralized production and directed training, technical services, and loans to India's
struggling self-employed spinners, weavers, carpenters, and metalsmiths. He applied modern
marketing techniques to promote handicrafts sales abroad and organized the Central Cottage
Industries Emporium to expand the market at home. He championed artisans against
mechanization and mass production, helping millions of independent craftsmen carry on
traditional livelihoods in security and pride and assured the survival of precious arts and skills.

51
Jain became an expert on development, applying unique organizational skills to wed theory to
practice. In 1966 he led the establishment of a chain of consumer cooperative stores where those
living in cities could buy food, clothing, and tools at a fair price. In 1968 he co-founded a
service-oriented consulting firm. By seeking the advice of farmers and workers, Jain and his like-
minded colleagues helped government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
design modernization projects that were relevant and effective.

Jain worked with and on a number of development agencies as well as government committees
and boards, such as the United Nations' World Dam Commission [1]

Jain's wife is the economist Devaki Jain; the couple have two sons. In 1989, Jain received the
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, for "his informed and selfless commitment to
attack India's poverty at the grass-roots level".

Contents
 1 Publications
 2 References
 3 External links
 4 Further reading

Publications
 "Development of Decentralized Industries in India—Progress and Perspectives." Gandhi
Marg. 2, no. 6 (September 1980): 307-29.
 "Obituary: Kamaladevi." Economic and Political Weekly, 26 November 1988, 2520-21.
 "Poverty, Environment, Development: A View from Gandhi's Window." Economic and
Political Weekly, 13 February 1988, 311-20.
 Power to the People: Decentralization Is a Necessity. Policy Issue no.1. Hyderabad:
Academy of Gandhian Studies, 1980.
 "A tale of Two Programmes: The Mahatma's and Mrs. Gandhi's." Times of India, 26
November 1983.
 (with B. V. Krishnamurthy and P. M. Tripathi) Grass without Roots: Rural Development
under Government Auspices. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1985.

References
1. World Dam Commission mandate, retrieved November 27, 2007

52
 9. BANOO JEHANGIR COYAJI

Banoo Jehangir Coyaji (August 22, 1918 - July 15, 2004) was an Indian physician and activist
in family planning and population control. She was director of King Edward Memorial Hospital
in Pune, and started programmes of community health workers in rural areas of Maharashtra, the
third largest state in India. She became an advisor to the union government and an internationally
recognised expert.

She received awards including Padma Bhushan in 1989 and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Public Service in 1993.

Further reading
 Indra Gupta, India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women, New Delhi: Icon Publications, 2003, ISBN 81-88086-
03-7

External links
 Obituary Social worker Banoo Coyaji passes away, Times of India, July 15, 2004
 Citation for 1993 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service

Banoo Jehangir Coyaji Citation

CITATION for Banoo Jehangir Coyaji

Even today as we approach the twenty-first century, many rural Asians continue to live and die
well beyond the pale of rudimentary health services, not to mention modern medical technology.
India's rural women are doubly vexed, for they are handicapped both by poverty and physical
isolation as well as by their subordinate position as females in the social order. Dr. BANOO
COYAJI has confronted this cruel state of affairs in Maharashtra State, where the modern city of
Pune lies adjacent to a parched and impoverished hinterland.

Born into a well-to-do Parsi family, Banoo Coyaji was educated in Bombay and earned an MD
degree in Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1944 she embarked upon her medical career at Pune's
King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM), a privately funded maternity hospital of some forty
beds. As its director and chief medical officer, Coyaji guided KEM's growth into a fullservice
hospital of some 550 beds and as a center for teaching and medical research.

Discerning the gap between medical services available to Pune's urbanites and those in rural
areas, Coyaji launched the Vadu Rural Health Project in 1977. In cooperation with the state
government of Maharashtra, she trained a team of community health guides to bring critical
public health education and first aid to villagers. Working primarily through women's groups,
Coyaji's community workers bore basic lessons in sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition to fellow
villagers and promoted acceptance of family planning. They referred people at risk to KEM's
doctor-staffed rural medical center in Vadu or to the main hospital in Pune. At periodic "camps,"
KEM doctors immunized the children and treated ear, nose and throat ailments, and cataracts.
Meanwhile, researchers at KEM probed rural health issues scientifically and monitored the
dramatic decline in infant mortality and other positive trends in the area.

53
Surveying the strengths and weaknesses of her program in the mid-1980s, Coyaji noted that the
needs of pre-adolescent and adolescent girls were almost wholly neglected. Burdened by poverty
and their low status as females, these young women entered upon their adult roles as mothers and
breadwinners with little formal schooling and virtually no instruction in vital matters of family
life. Through the Young Women's Health and Development Project, inaugurated in 1988, she
introduced community welfare workers to eleven villages. Their task is to instruct girls and
young women in new livelihood skills such as sewing and embroidery and in other practical arts.
They also provide essential information about women's health and family life and encourage
frank discussions about caste and gender relations. Songs, games, and holiday festivities
complement the formal classes. Through their ongoing exposure to the program, young women
are gaining confidence to pursue educations and to resist unwanted early marriages. On their
own initiative, several of them now lead village cleanliness and tree planting campaigns and
teach their mothers to read.

Tireless at seventy-five, Coyaji carries on her busy life overseeing the work of Kem and several
other projects. She eagerly works with government, believing that private organizations must do
so in order to spread the benefits of successful micro-projects to citizens at large. Coyaji's
thoughts today are often focused on India's women. Their enlightenment, she believes, is the key
to a more humane society for India, a "better tomorrow" in which women "walk shoulder to
shoulder with men, matching their stride."

In electing Banoo Coyaji to receive the 1993 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the
Board of Trustees recognizes her mobilizing the resources of a modern urban hospital to bring
better health and brighter hopes to Maharashtra's ruralwomen and their families.

10. MAHESH CHANDRA MEHTA

Mahesh Chandra Mehta (born October 12, 1946) is a public interest attorney from India. He was
awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1996[1] for his continuous fights in Indian courts against
polluting industries. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Asia for Public Service in 1997.

In early 1984, M.C. Mehta, a public interest attorney, visited the Taj Mahal for the first time. He
saw that the famed monument's marble had turned yellow and was pitted as a result of pollutants
from nearby industries. This spurred Mehta to file his first environmental case in the Supreme
Court of India. The following year, Mehta learned that the Ganges River, considered to be the
holiest river in India and used by millions of people every day for bathing and drinking water,
caught fire due to industrial effluents in the river. Once again Mehta filed a petition in the
Supreme Court against the polluting factories and the scope of the case was broadened to include
all the industries and municipalities in the river basin.

For years, every Friday, a courtroom has been set aside just for Mehta's cases. In 1993, after a
decade of court battles and threats from factory owners, the Supreme Court ordered 212 small
factories surrounding the Taj Mahal to close because they had not installed pollution control

54
devices. Another 300 factories were put on notice to do the same. While the Ganges cases
continue to be heard every week, 5,000 factories along the river were directed to install pollution
control devices and 300 factories were closed. Approximately 250 towns and cities in the Ganges
Basin have been ordered to set up sewage treatment plants.

Mehta has won additional precedent-setting suits against industries which generate hazardous
waste and succeeded in obtaining a court order to make lead-free gasoline available. He has also
been working to ban intensive shrimp farming and other damaging activities along India's 7,000
kilometer coast. Mehta has succeeded in getting new environmental policies initiated and has
brought environmental protection into India's constitutional framework. He has almost
singlehandedly obtained about 40 landmark judgements and numerous orders from the Supreme
Court against polluters, a record that may be unequaled by any other environmental lawyer in the
world.

11. Dr.V. Shanta

Dr.V. Shanta is a prominent Cancer specialist and the Chairperson of Adyar Cancer Institute,
Chennai. Her career which spans over 50 years has been dedicated to organising care for cancer
patients, and intensive research in the prevention and cure of the disease. Her work has been
widely acknowledged with several awards including the Magsaysay Award, and Padma Shri.

She has been associated with Adyar Cancer Institute since 1955, and has held several key
positions, including its Director between 1980-1997. She is a member of the World Health
Organisation's Advisory Committee on Health and several other national and international
committees on health and medicine.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 3 Awards
 4 Quotes
 5 References

Early life
Dr. V Shanta was born on March 11, 1927 at Mylapore, Chennai. She was born into an
illustrious family of academics and scientists, most eminent among them were Nobel Laureates
C.V. Raman and S. Chandrasekar.

She did her schooling from National Girls High School (now P.S. Sivaswamy Higher Secondary
School) and had always wanted to become a Doctor. She completed her graduation from Madras
Medical College in 1949, and her M.D. in 1955.

She did not have any role models, but was always inspired by her maternal uncle S.
Chandrasekar and her grandfather's brother, Sir C V Raman.

55
Career
When Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy set up the Cancer Institute in 1954, Dr. Shanta then had just
finished her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). She also got through the Public Service Commission
examination and was posted to the Women and Children Hospital. She had to make a crucial
decision and decided to join the Cancer Institute instead, upsetting many people.

The institute began with a single building and a cluster of huts with minimal equipment and two
doctors, Dr. Shanta and Dr. Krishnamurthi. For three years she worked as honorary staff after
which, the Institute offered to pay her Rs.200 per month and residence within the campus. She
moved into the campus on April 13, 1955, and has remained there ever since.

Awards
It was an unexpected, pleasant surprise for the doctor when the president of the Ramon
Magsaysay Award Committee called her from the Philippines to inform her of the award. The
president said, "We have just finished the meeting and you have been chosen." Dr Shanta had no
words to express her feelings. She just said, "I am honoured and privileged." She still has no idea
who suggested her name to the committee. The staff at the hospital are exhilarated; they look at
the award as their own, which makes Dr Shanta even more proud and happy. "The award is
theirs too, as we are one family." Dr. Shanta has dedicated the award to the institute, saying that
there "is a long way to go".

The award citation is worth quoting to describe aptly Shanta's service. It reads:
"In an era when specialised medical care in India has become highly commercialised, Dr. Shanta
strives to ensure that the Institute remains true to its ethos, `Service to all.' Its services are free or
subsidised for some 60 per cent of its 100,000 annual patients; travel allowances make regular
treatments accessible to the poor. And through a volunteer programme called Sanctuary, the
Institute provides hope-giving emotional support and counselling to patients and their families
and to cancer-afflicted children. There are thousands who might say, as leukaemia victim Delli
Rao, a wageworker, has said, `I owe my life to Dr. Shanta.' Seventy-eight-year-old Shanta still
sees patients, still performs surgery, and is still on call twenty-four hours a day."

Quotes
"If we have grown, it is because of the grace of God, and our faith in our mission,".
"The journey has been long. I don't see an end to it, simply because our work is never ending.
What we have done is very little. There is much more to do. The journey has been arduous, with
bricks and stones and occasional flowers strewn in between, but we continue…"
"When the sick approach the gates of the Institute, weak in body and spirit, and full of fear, there
is only one response, you have to become part of them"
"Every obstacle I have overcome, every patient I have cured, every child I have treated who has
grown, got married and come back to see me with his/her children have made my whole life
memorable."

References
 Interview with Dr Shanta - Frontline Volume 22 - Issue 17, Aug 13 - 26, 2005
 The 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service-CITATION for Dr V. Shanta

56
 12. Deep Joshi
Deep Joshi is an Indian social worker and NGO activist and the recipient of 2009 Magsaysay
awards announced. He was recognised for his vision and leadership in bringing professionalism
to the NGO movement in India. He co-founded a non-profit organisation, Professional Assistance
for Development Action (PRADAN) of which he is the Executive Director. He was awarded the
2009 Magsaysay award for Community Leadership for his work for "development of rural
communities".

Contents
 1 Early life and education
 2 Career
 3 Quotes
 4 References
 5 External links

Early life and education

Deep Joshi was born in 1947 in village Puriyag, in a remote area of Pithoragarh district,
Uttarakhand in the Himalayas to Harikrishan Joshi, a farmer and was one of the seven children.

He received his early education at the local primary school, and later he took his engineering
degree from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad and also holds a masters
engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and another on
management from Sloan School, MIT.

Career
Returning to India, Deep Joshi worked with the Systems Research Institute and as a program
officer with Ford Foundation in India. In the coming decades he worked in the field of rural
development and livelihood promotion. In 1983, also co-founded a non-profit organisation,
Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), that recruits college graduates to do
community work. which recruits university-educated youth from campuses across India and
trains them for grassroots work. Pradan was jointly awarded NGO of the Year 2006 at the first
ever India NGO Award event.

He also advises the Government of India on poverty alleviation strategies and also was a member
of Working Group on Rainfed Areas for the Eleventh Five Year Planning Commission, Govt of
India.

In 2006, Deep received the Harmony Silver Award for his contributions to society. Ramon
Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) announced Deep among others as winner of 2009
Magsaysay awards.. And, on the eve of Republic Day (25th January, 2010) he was honoured
with prestigious Padma Shri award, by the Govt of India.

Quotes
 "Civil society needs to have both head and heart. If all you have is bleeding hearts, it
wouldn't work. If you only have heads, then you are going to dictate solutions which do not
touch the human chord."

57
References
1. "Citation for Deep Joshi". Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF).
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationJoshiDee.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-03.

13. Vinoba Bhave

Vinoba Bhave,( विनोबा भािे ) , born Vinayak Narahari Bhave (September 11, 1895 -
November 15 1982) often called Acharya (In Sanskrit means teacher), was an Indian advocate of
Nonviolence and human rights. He is considered as a National Teacher of India and the spiritual
successor of Mahatma Gandhi.

Contents
 1 Early life and background
 2 Career
 2.1 Freedom struggle
 2.2 Religious and social work
 2.3 Literary career
 3 Later life and death
 4 Criticism
 5 Awards
 6 Bibliography
 7 Quotes
 8 See also
 9 Further reading
 10 References
 11 External links

Early life and background

He was born in Gagode, Maharashtra on September 11, 1895
into a pious family of the Chitpavan Brahmin clan. He was
highly inspired after reading the Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharat,
Ramayan at a very early age. His father was a devout Hindu
and his mother, who died in 1918, was a great influence on
him. In his memoir, Bhave states that, "there is nothing to
equal the part my mother played in shaping my mind".
Specifically, his devotion and spirituality.
His two brothers, Balkoba Bhave and Shivaji Bhave, were
also bachelors devoted to social work.

Career
Freedom struggle
Vinobha Kutir at Sabarmati Ashram
He was associated with Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian independence movement. In 1932 he was
sent to jail by the British colonial government because of his fight against British rule. There he
gave a series of talks on the Gita, in his native language Marathi, to his fellow prisoners.

58
These highly inspiring talks were later published as the book "Talks on the Gita", and it has been
translated to many languages both in India and elsewhere. Vinoba felt that the source of these
talks was something above and he believed that its influence will endure even if his other works
were forgotten.

In 1940 he was chosen by Gandhi to be the first Individual Satyagrahi (an Individual standing up
for Truth instead of a collective action) against the British rule. It is said that Gandhi envied and
respected Bhave's celibacy, a vow he made in his adolescence, in fitting with his belief in the
Brahmacharya principle. Bhave also participated in the Quit India Movement.

Religious and social work

Gandhi and Vinoba
Vinoba's religious outlook was very broad and it synthesized
the truths of many religions. This can be seen in one of his
hymns "Om Tat" which contains symbols of many religions.

Vinoba observed the life of the average Indian living in a

village and tried to find solutions for the problems he faced with a firm spiritual foundation. This
formed the core of his Sarvodaya (Awakening of all potentials) movement. Another example of
this is the Bhoodan (land gift) movement. He walked all across India asking people with land to
consider him as one of their sons and so give him a portion of their land which he then
distributed to landless poor. Non-violence and compassion being a hallmark of his philosophy,
he also campaigned against the slaughtering of cows.

Literary career
Vinoba Bhave was a scholar, thinker, writer who produced numerous books, translator who
made Sanskrit texts accessible to common man, orator, linguist who had excellent command of
several languages (Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, English, Sanskrit), and a social reformer. He wrote
brief introductions to, and criticisms of, several religious and philosophical works like the
Bhagavad Gita,works of Adi Shankaracharya, the Bible and Quran. His criticism of
Dnyaneshwar's poetry as also the output by other Marathi saints is quite brilliant and a testimony
to the breadth of his intellect. A university named after him Vinoba Bhave University is still
there in the state of Jharkhand spreading knowledge even after his death.

Later life and death

Vinoba spent the later part of his life at his ashram in Paunar, Maharashtra. He controversially
backed the Indian Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, calling it Anushasana
Parva (Time for Discipline).

He fell ill in November 1982 and decided to end his life. He died on November 15, 1982 after
refusing food and medicine for a few days. Some Indians have identified this as sallekhana. It is
the Jain religious ritual of voluntary death by fasting.

Criticism
V. S. Naipaul has given scathing criticism of Bhave in his collection of essays citing his lack of
connection with rationality and excessive imitation of Gandhi. Even some of his admirers find
59
fault with the extent of his devotion to Gandhiji. Much more controversial was his support,
ranging from covert to open, to Congress Party's Govt under Indira Gandhi which was fast
becoming unpopular.

Awards
In 1958 Vinoba was the first recipient of the international Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Community Leadership.[2] He was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1983.[3]

Quotes
 "All revolutions are spiritual at the source. All my activities have the sole purpose of achieving a
union of hearts."
 "Peace is something mental and spiritual. If there be peace in our (personal) life, it will affect the
whole world"
 "Jai Jagat! — Victory to the world!"
 "It is a curious phenomenon that God has made the hearts of the poor rich, and those of the rich
poor."
 "What we should aim at is the creation of people power, which is opposed to the power of violence
and is different from the coercive power of state."
 "A country should be defended not by arms, but by ethical behavior."
 "We cannot fight new wars with old weapons."
 "When a thing is true, there is no need to use any arguments to substantiate it."
 "There is no need for me to protest against the government’s faults, it is against its good deeds that
my protests are needed."
 "Do not allow yourself to imagine that revolutionary thinking can be propagated by governmental
power."
 "I beg you not to adopt any "go slow" methods of nonviolence. In nonviolence you must go full
steam ahead, if you want the good to come speedily you must go about it with vigor. A merely soft,
spineless ineffective kind of nonviolence will actually encourage the growth of the status quo and all
the forces of a violent system which we deplore."

14. Verghese Kurien

Verghese Kurien (born November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala) is called the father of the
White Revolution in India. He is also known as the Milkman of India.

He was the chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.(GCMMF).
GCMMF is an apex cooperative organization that manages the Amul food brand. He is
recognised as the man behind the success of the Amul brand. Amul had a revenue of $1b USD in
2006-07. In addition to Kurien, people like Shri Dalaya, VH Shah, Madhukar Shah, Dr.AR Seth,
Dr.Shabnis and Shri Tribhuvandas Patel have also played a significant role in the progress and
development of Amul.

He is credited with being the architect of Operation Flood -- the largest dairy development
program in the world. Kurien helped modernise Anand model of cooperative dairy development
and thus engineered the White Revolution in India, and made India the largest milk producer in
the world. Milk co-operatives were already extant when Kurien came to Anand and were

60
managed by Tribhuvandas Patel. His uncle, John Mathai, was an economist who served as
India's first Railway Minister and subsequently as India's Finance Minister.

Contents
 1 Education
 2 Career
 3 Personal life
 4 The White Revolution
 5 Awards
 6 See also
 7 References
 8 External links

Education
Kurien graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and then did B.E. (Mech)
from the University of Madras. After completing his degree, he joined the Tata Steel Technical
Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946. He then went to USA on a government
scholarship to earn his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (with distinction) from
Michigan State University.

Career
When he came back to India, he was posted as a dairy engineer at the government creamery,
Anand, in May 1949. Around the same time, the infant cooperative dairy, Kaira District Co-
operative Milk Producers' Union (KDCMPUL), now famous as Amul -- was fighting a battle
with the Polson Dairy, which was privately owned. Young Kurien, fed up with being at the
government creamery, which held no challenge, volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, the
Chairman of KDCMPUL, to set up a processing plant. This marked the birth of AMUL.

Personal life
Dr. Kurien belonged to Syrian Christian community of India. He married his neighbor's daughter
Molly. Molly was a gracious host and Dr Kurien's house used to serve as a guest house in Anand
for the visiting dignitaries[citation needed]. He has one daughter Nirmala Kurien and a grandson,
Siddharth.

The White Revolution

Kurien has since then built this organization into one of the largest and most successful
institutions in India. The Amul pattern of cooperatives had been so successful, in 1965, then
Prime Minister of India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, created the National Dairy Development
Board (NDDB) (NDDB) to replicate the program on a nationwide basis citing Kurien's
"extraordinary and dynamic leadership" upon naming him chairman.

Kurien also set up GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) in 1973 to sell the
products produced by the dairies. Today GCMMF sells AMUL brand products not only in India
but also overseas. He quit the post of GCMMF Chairman in 2006 following disagreements with
GCMMF management.[1]

61
Kurien, plays a key role in many other organizations, ranging from chairing the Viksit Bharat
Foundation, a body set up by the President of India to chairman of the Institute of Rural
Management, Anand's Board of Governors in India. Dr. Kurien was mentioned by the Ashoka
foundation (www.ashoka.ca) as one of the eminent present Day Social Entrepreneurs.
Kurien's life story is chronicled in his memoirs 'I too had a dream'.

Dr. Kurien and his team were pioneers in inventing the process of making milk powder and
condensed milk from buffalo's milk instead of cow's milk. This was the reason Amul became so
successful and competed well against Nestle who only used cow milk to make powder and
condensed milk. In India buffalo milk was the main raw material unlike Europe where cow milk
is abundant.

India's first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru visited Anand to inaugrate AMUL "factory" and
he embraced Dr. Kurien for his groundbreaking work.

Awards
For his contribution to the dairy industry, Kurien has received top awards not only in India but
also overseas.
 1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.
 1965 Padma Shri
 1966 Padma Bhushan (from president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan)
 1986 Krishi Ratna Award (by the President of India)
 1986 Wateler Peace Prize Award (of Carnegie Foundation )
 1989 World Food Prize Laureate
 1993 International Person of the Year (by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
 1999 Padma Vibhushan
 [not known] [godfrey philips bravery award] 2007,Karmaveer Puraskaar Noble Laureates by
iCONGO- Confederation of NGOs

See also
 White Revolution

References
1. "Kurien quits as GCMMF chairman". 20 March 2006.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/mar/20kurien.htm.
2. "I too had a dream - on Amazon.com". http://www.amazon.com/Too-Had-Dream-Gouri-
Salvi/dp/8174364072.

External links
 amul.com
 THE AMUL SAGA by Verghese Kurien
 Dr. Kurien, 1989 World Food Prize Laureate
 http://www.ashoka.ca/fellows/social_entrepreneur.cfm
Resignations
 "'Milkman' of India quits 'Taste of India'". The Times of India. 21 March 2006.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1457538,prtpage-1.cms.
62
 P.C. Mathew (4 September 2006). "Address the fears Kurien has voiced". The Hindu.
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/op/2006/04/09/stories/2006040900681800.htm.


15. Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel

Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (October 22, 1903 in Anand, Gujarat), was the founder of the
Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union in 1946, and later the Amul co-operative
movement in Anand, Gujarat, India.
Contents
 1 Biography
 2 Awards and honours
 3 Personal life
 4 Further reading
 5 References
 6 External links

Biography
Born on October 22, 1903, in Anand, Gujarat, to Kishibhai Patel, Tribhuvadas became a follower
of Mahatama Gandhi and Vallabhai Patel during the Indian independence movement, and
especially the civil disobedience movements, which led to his repeated imprisonment in 1930,
1935 and 1942.

He is known as the father of the cooperative movement in India and also known as the father of
white revolution in India.

By the late 1940s, he started working with farmers in Kheda district, with the guidance of Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, and after setting it the Union, he hired a young manager named Verghese
Kurien in 1950, who has since become synonymous with Amul, for his leadership of the co-
operative movement, till 2005.

Tribhovandas Patel was awarded the 1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for 'Community
Leadership', together with Dara N. Khurody, and Verghese Kurien.[1], and the Padma Bhushan
from the Govt. of India in 1964.

He remained Secretary/President of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), Indian National

Congress (Congress I), and also a member of Rajya Sabha twice, 1967–1968 and 1968 -1974
from the party.

Awards and honours

 1963:Ramon Magsaysay Award for 'Community Leadership'
 1964:Padma Bhushan

Personal life
He was married to Shrimati Mani Laxmi, and had six sons and a daughter.

63
Further reading
 Response of Tribhuvandas K. Patel on 'The 1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award' for 'Community
Leadership'

References
1. Biography of Tribhuvandas K. Patel Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation Official website.
2. Amul : Evolution of Marketing Strategy Marketing Case Studies.
3. Awards Official listings Govt. of India Portal.

16. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay ( Kannada: ಕಮಲಾ ದ ೇವಿ ) (April 3, 1903 – October 29, 1988) was a
Gandhian, a social reformer, a freedom fighter, and most remembered for her contribution to
Indian independence movement, for being the driving force behind the renaissance of Indian
handicrafts, handlooms, and theatre in post-Independence India, and for upliftment of the socio-
economic standard of Indian women by pioneering the co-operative movement in India.
Numerous cultural institutions in India today are a gift of her vision, starting with National
School of Drama, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Central Cottage Industries Emporium, and The
Crafts Council of India, to name a few.

The doyen of Indian arts and crafts, a person single-handedly responsible for reviving Indian
crafts back from oblivion of 200 years of foreign rule where they went without any patronage, be
it government or public, due lack of awareness of its richness as well as its accessibility to the
common man.

She stressed the significance which handicrafts and cooperative grassroot movements, play in the
social and economic upliftement of the Indian people. To this end she withstood great opposition
both before and after independence from the power centres, but managed to leave behind a rich
and formidable legacy of thriving Indian handicrafts, theatre forms and arts that have now
become an integral of our rural economy, across the nation.

Contents
 1 Biography
 1.1 Early life
 1.2 First Marriage and widowhood
 1.3 1920s
 1.3.1 Marriage to Harin
 1.3.2 Move to London
 1.3.3 Call of the Freedom Movement
 1.3.4 The All-India Women's Conference
 1.4 1930s
 1.4.1 First Indian woman to be arrested
 1.5 1940s
 1.5.1 Post-Independence work
 1.6 1950s and beyond

64
 2 Legacy
 3 Books by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
 3.1 Book on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya
 4 References
 5 External links

Biography
Early life
Born on 3 April 1903, Kamaladevi was the fourth and youngest daughter of a Saraswat Brahmin
couple in Mangalore. Her father, Ananthaya Dhareshwar was the District Collector of
Mangalore, and her mother Girijabai, from whom she inherited an independent streak, belonged
to an aristocratic family from Karnataka. Kamaladevi's grandmother was herself, a scholar of
ancient Indian texts, and her a mother was also well-educated though mostly home-educated.
Together their presence in the household, gave Kamaladevi a firm grounding and provided
benchmarks to respect for her intellect as well as her voice, something that she came to known
for in the coming years, when she stood as the voice of the downtrodden as well as the unheard.

Kamaladevi was an exceptional student and also exhibited qualities of determination and courage
from an early age. Her parents‘ befriended many prominent freedom fighters and intellectuals
such as Mahadev Govind Ranade, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and women leaders like Ramabai
Ranade, and Annie Besant, this made young Kamaladevi an early enthusiast of the swadeshi
nationalist movement.

She studied about ancient Sanskrit drama tradition of Kerala- Kutiyattam, from its greatest Guru
and authority of Abhinaya, Nātyāchārya Padma Shri Māni Mādhava Chākyār by staying at
Guru's home at Killikkurussimangalam.

Tragedy struck early in life, when her elder sister, Saguna, whom she considered a role model,
died in her teens, soon after her early marriage, and when she was just seven years old her father
died as well. To add to her mother, Girijabai's trouble, he died without leaving a will for his vast
property, so according to property laws of the times, the entire property went to her stepson, and
they only got a monthly allowance. Girijabai defiantly refused the allowance and decided to raise
her daughters on her dowry property.

Her rebellious streak was visible even as a child, when young Kamaladevi questioned the
aristocratic division of her mother‘s household, and preferred to mingle with her servants and
their children wanting to understand their life as well.

First Marriage and widowhood

In 1917, when was only fourteen years of age, she was married to Krishna Rao, and within two
years she was widowed, while she was still at school. According to orthodox Hindu rules of the
times, being a widow she was not allowed to continue her education, yet she defiantly moved to
Chennai, and continued her education from St. Mary's School, Chennai and finally completed
her high school in 1918.

Marriage to Harin

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Meanwhile studying at Queen Mary‘s College in Chennai, she came to know with Suhasini
Chattopadhyay, a fellow student and the younger sister of Sarojini Naidu, who later introduced
Kamaladevi to their talented brother, Harin, by then a well-known poet-playwright-actor. It was
their mutual interest in the arts, which brought them together.

Finally when she was twenty years old, Kamaladevi married Harindranath Chattopadhyay, much
to the opposition of the orthodox society of the times, which was still heavily against widow
marriage. Their only son Ramu was born in the following year. Harin and Kamaladevi stayed
together to pursue common dreams, which wouldn‘t have been possible otherwise, and in spite
of many difficulties, they were able to work together, to produce plays and skits.

Later she also acted in a few films, in an era when acting was considered unsuitable for women
from respectable families. In her first stint, she acted in two silent films, including the first silent
film of Kannada film industry, 'Mricchakatika'(Vasantsena) (1931), based on the famous play by
Sudraka, also starring Yenakshi Rama Rao, and directed by pioneering Kannada director, Mohan
Dayaram Bhavnani. In her second stint in films she acted in a 1943 Hindi film, Tansen, also
starring K. L. Saigal and Khursheed, followed by Shankar Parvati (1943), and Dhanna Bhagat
(1945).

Eventually after many years of marriage, they parted ways amicably. Here again, Kamaladevi
broke a tradition by filing for divorce much to the chagrin of the society, rather than stay in a
non-functional marriage.

Move to London
Shortly after their marriage, Harin left for London, on his first trip abroad, and a few months
later Kamaladevi joined him, where she joined Bedford College, University of London, and later
she received a diploma in Sociology.

Call of the Freedom Movement

While still in London, Kamaladevi came to know of Mahatma Gandhi‘s Non-Cooperation
Movement in 1923, and she promptly returned to India, to join the Seva Dal, a Gandhian
organisation set up to promote social upliftment. Soon she was placed in charge of the women's
section of the Dal, where she got involved in recruiting, training and organizing girls and women
of all ages women across India, to become voluntary workers, 'sevikas'.

In 1926, she met the suffragette Margaret E. Cousins, the founder of All India Women's
Conference (AIWC), and was inspired her to run for the Madras Provincial Legislative
Assembly. Thus she became the first woman to run for a Legislative seat in India. Though she
could campaigned for only a few days, she lost only by 200 votes.

The All-India Women's Conference

In the following year, she founded the All-India Women's Conference (AIWC) and became its
first Organizing Secretary. In the following years, AIWC, grew up to become a national
organization of repute, with branches and voluntary programs run throughout the nation, and
work steadfastly for legislative reforms. During her tenure, she travelled extensively to many
66
European nations and was inspired to initiate several social reform and community welfare
programs, and set up educational institutions, run for the woman, and by women. Another
shining example in this series was the formation of Lady Irwin College for Home Sciences, a one
of its kind college for women of its times, in New Delhi.

1930s
Later she was a part of the seven member lead team, announced by Mahatma Gandhi, in the
famous Salt Satyagraha (1930), to prepare Salt at the Bombay beachfront, the only other woman
volunteer of the team was Avantikabai Gokhale. Later in a startling move, Kamaladevi went up
to a nearby High Court, and asked a magistrate present their whether he would interested in
buying the 'Freedom Salt' she has just prepared.

On 26 January 1930 she captured the imagination of the entire nation when in a scuffle, she
clung to the Indian tricolour to protect it.

First Indian woman to be arrested

In the 1930s, she was arrested for entering the Bombay Stock Exchange to sell packets of
contraband salt, and spent almost a year in prison. In 1936, she became president of the Congress
Socialist Party, working alongside Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Minoo
Masani. For her, feminism was inseparable from socialism, and where necessary she opposed her
own colleagues when they ignored or infringed women‘s rights. For instance, when Mahatma
Gandhi opposed the inclusion of women in the Dandi March (claiming that Englishmen would
not hurt women, just as Hindus would not harm cows), Kamaladevi spoke out against this stand.
Some time in the 1920s she and Harindranath separated and divorced by mutual consent; their
marriage had largely been one of convenience and they had followed different paths.

1940s
When World War II broke out Kamaladevi was in England, and she immediately began a world
tour to represent India‘s situation to other countries and drum up support for Independence after
the war.

Post-Independence work
Independence of India, brought Partition in its wake, and she plunged into rehabilitation of the
refugees. Her first task was to set up the Indian Cooperative Union to help with rehabilitation,
and through the Union she made plans for a township on cooperative lines. At length Mahatma
Gandhi reluctantly gave her permission on the condition that she did not ask for state assistance,
and so after much struggle, the township of Faridabad was set up, on the outskirts of Delhi,
rehabilitating over 50,000 refugees from the Northwest Frontier. She worked tirelessly helped
the refugees to establish new homes, and new professions, for this they were trained in new
skills, she also helped setting up health facilities in the new town.

Thus began the second phase of life's work in rehabilitation of people as well their lost crafts, she
is considered single handedly responsible for the great revival of Indian handicrafts and
handloom, in the post-independence era, and is considered her greatest legacy to modern India.

1950s and beyond

67
Around this time she became concerned at the possibility that the introduction of Western
methods of factory-based mass production in India as part of Nehru's vision for Indian's
development would affect traditional artisans, especially women in the unorganised sectors. She
set up a series of crafts museums to hold and archive India's indigenous arts and crafts that
served as a storehouse for indigenous known how. This included the Theatre Crafts Museum in
Delhi.

She equally promoted arts and crafts, and instituted the National Awards for Master Craftsmen,
and a culmination of her enterprising spirit lead to the setting up Central Cottage Industries
Emporia, through out the nation to cater to the tastes of a nation, rising to its ancient glory.

In 1964 she started the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography (NIKC), Bangalore, under
the aegis of Bharatiya Natya Sangh, affiliated to the UNESCO. Its present director is famous
danseuse Smt. Maya Rao.

Kamaladevi was a woman ahead of her times, she was instrumental in setting up the All India
Handicrafts Board, (she was also it's the first chairperson), The Crafts Council of India was also
the first president of the World Crafts Council, Asia Pacific Region.

She also set up the National School of Drama and later headed the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and
also a member of UNESCO.

The Government of India conferred on her the Padma Bhushan (1955) and later the Padma
Vibhushan in 1987, which are among the highest civilian awards of the Republic of India. She
also received the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1966) for Community Leadership. She was
awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, Ratna Sadsya, in 1974.[12] UNESCO honoured
her with an award in 1977 for her contribution towards the promotion of handicrafts.
Shantiniketan honoured her with the Desikottama, its highest award. UNIMA (Union
Internationals de la Marlonette), International Puppetry organization, also made her their
Member of Honour.

Her acclaimed autobiography, Inner Recesses and Outer Spaces: Memoir was published in 1986.

Legacy
In 2007, the Outlook Magazine chose Kamaladevi amongst its list of 60 Great Indians. and she
was India Today's, 100 Millennium People.

Today, the World Crafts Council gives two awards in her memory, the Kamaladevi Awards and
the Kamala Sammaan, for exceptional craft persons or to individual for their outstanding
contribution to the field of Crafts. Apart from that the Crafts Council of Karnataka, also gives the
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Vishwakarma Awards, each year to noteworthy crafts persons. 6]
For over three decades now, Bhartiya Natya Sangha has been awarding the 'Kamaladevi
Chattopadhyaya Award' for the best play of the year.

Books by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

 The Awakening of Indian women, Everyman’s Press, 1939.
 Japan-its weakness and strength, Padma Publications 1943.

68
 Uncle Sam's empire, Padma publications Ltd, 1944.
 In war-torn China, Padma Publications, 1944.
 Towards a National theatre, (All India Women's Conference, Cultural Section. Cultural
books), Aundh Pub. Trust, 1945.
 America,: The land of superlatives, Phoenix Publications, 1946.
 At the Cross Roads, National Information and Publications, 1947.
 Socialism and Society, Chetana, 1950.
 Tribalism in India, Brill Academic Pub, 1978,.
 Handicrafts of India, Indian Council for Cultural Relations & New Age International Pub.
Ltd., New Delhi, India, 1995. .
 Indian Women‘s Battle for Freedom. South Asia Books, 1983..
 Indian Carpets and Floor Coverings, All India Handicrafts Board, 1974.
 Indian embroidery, Wiley Eastern, 1977.
 India's Craft Tradition, Publications Division, Ministry of I & B, Govt. of India, 2000. Indian
Handicrafts, Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd, Bombay India, 1963.
 Traditions of Indian Folk Dance.
 The Glory of Indian Handicrafts, New Delhi, India: Clarion Books, 1985.
 Inner Recesses, Outer Spaces: Memoirs, 1986.

Book on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya

 Sakuntala Narasimhan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. New Dawn Books, 1999..
 S.R. Bakshi, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya : Role for Women‘s Welfare, Om, 2000,
 Reena Nanda, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya: A Biography (Modern Indian Greats), Oxford
University Press, USA, 2002
 Jamila Brij Bhushan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya - Portrait of a Rebel, Abhinav Pub, 2003.
 M.V. Narayana Rao (Ed.), Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: A True Karmayogi. The Crafts
Council of Karnataka: Bangalore. 2003
 Malvika Singh, The Iconic Women of Modern India - Freeing the Spirit. Penguin, 2006,.
 Jasleen Dhamija, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, National Book Trust , 2007.
 Indra Gupta , India‘s 50 Most Illustrious Women..

References
1. Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya at Vedambooks
2. p. 272, Das Bhargavinilayam, Mani Madhaveeyam (biography of Mani Madhava Chakyar),
Department of Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala, 1999,
3. 100 Millennium People, India Today
4. Kamala Awards Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Vishwakarma Awards

17. Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan

Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (Tamil: மான்ககாம்பு சாம்பசிவன் சுவாமிநாதன் ) is an

Indian agriculture scientist, born August 7, 1925, in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu. He was the
second of four sons of a doctor. His ancestral home is the island village of Monkompu, Alleppey
District, Kerala. He is known as the "Father of the Green Revolution in India" , for his

69
leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in
India. He is the founder and Chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation.

His stated vision is to rid the world of hunger and poverty. Dr. Swaminathan is an advocate of
moving India to sustainable development, especially using environmentally sustainable
agriculture, sustainable food security and the preservation of biodiversity, which he calls an
"evergreen revolution"

Contents
 1 Education and Personal Life
 2 Professional achievements
 3 Controversy
 4 Publications
 5 Awards and recognition
 6 Critics
 7 Current Work
 8 Further reading
 9 References
 10 External links

Education and Personal Life

M. S. Swaminathan was born on August 7, 1925. His father died when Swaminathan was 11. His
early schooling was at the Native High School and later at the Little Flower Catholic High
School in Kumbakonam. He went to college at Maharajas College in Ernakulam and earned a
Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc.) in zoology.

Swaminathan was strongly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi‘s belief in ahinsa or non-violence to

achieve Purna swaraj (total freedom) and swadeshi, (self-reliance) on both a personal and
national level. During this time of wartime food shortages he chose a career in agriculture and
enrolled in Coimbatore Agricultural College where he graduated as valedictorian with another
B.Sc, this time in Agricultural Science. In 1947, the year of Indian independence he moved to the
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi as a post-graduate student in genetics
and plant breeding and obtained a post-graduate degree with high distinction in Cytogenetics in
1949.

He received a UNESCO Fellowship to continue his IARI research on potato genetics at the
Wageningen Agricultural University, Institute of Genetics in the Netherlands. Here he succeeded
in standardizing procedures for transferring genes from a wide range of wild species of Solanum
to the cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum. In 1950, he moved to study at the Plant Breeding
Institute of the University of Cambridge School of Agriculture. He earned a Doctor of
Philosophy (Ph.D) degree in 1952, for his thesis, "Species Differentiation, and the Nature of
Polyploidy in certain species of the genus Solanum – section Tuberarium". His work presented a
new concept of the species relationships within the tuber-bearing Solanum.He reside in
Chennai,Tamil Nadu.

70
Swaminathan then accepted a post-doctoral research associateship at the University of
Wisconsin, Department of Genetics to help set up a USDA Potato Research Station. Despite his
strong personal and professional satisfaction with the research work in Wisconsin, he declined
the offer of a full time faculty position, returning to India in early 1954.

M. S. Swaminathan is married to Mina Swaminathan who he met in 1951 while they were both
studying at Cambridge. They have three daughters: Soumya Swaminathan, Madhura
Swaminathan and Nitya Rao. Dr. Swaminathan lives in Chennai, Tamil Nadu with his wife, and
has five grandchildren - Anandi, Shreya, Kalyani,Akshay and Madhav.

Professional achievements
Dr. Swaminathan has worked worldwide in collaboration with colleagues and students on a wide
range of problems in basic and applied plant breeding, agricultural research and development and
the conservation of natural resources.

His professional career began in 1949:

 1949-55 - Research on potato (Solanum tuberosum), wheat (Triticum aestivum), rice (Oryza
sativa), and jute genetics.
 1955–72 - Field research on Mexican dwarf wheat varieties. Teach Cytogenetics, Radiation
Genetics, and Mutation Breeding and build up the wheat and rice germplasm collections at
Indian Agricultural Research Institute IARI.
 1970–80 - Director-General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR),

Established the National Bureau of Plant, Animal, and Fish Genetic Resources of India.
Established the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (changed in 2006 to Bioversity
International).

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, Transformed the Pre-
investment Forest Survey Programme into the Forest Survey of India. [7].
 1981–85 - Independent Chairman, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Council,
Rome, played a significant role in establishing the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources.

Developed the concept of Farmers' Rights and the text of the International Undertaking on Plant
Genetic Resources (IUPGR).
President of the International Congress of Genetics. (1983).
 1982–88 - Director General, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) organized the
International Rice Germplasm Centre, now named International Rice Genebank.
 1984-90 - President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources IUCN, develop the Convention on Biological Diversity CBD.
 1986-99 - Chairman of the editorial advisory board, World Resources Institute, Washington,
D. C., conceived and produced the first "World Resources Report".
 1988-91 - Chairman of the International Steering Committee of the Keystone International
Dialogue on Plant Genetic Resources, regarding the availability, use, exchange and
protection of plant germplasm.

71
 1988-96 - President, World Wide Fund for Nature–India WWF,[12] Organized the Indira
Gandhi Conservation Monitoring Centre.. Organize the Community Biodiversity
Conservation Programme..
 1988-99 - Chairman/Trustee, Commonwealth Secretariat Expert Group, organized the
Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, for the
sustainable and equitable management of tropical rainforests in Guyana. The President of
Guyana wrote in 1994 ―there would have been no Iwokrama without Swaminathan.‖
 1990-93 - Founder/President, International Society for Mangrove Ecosystems (ISME)
 1988-98 - Chaired various committees of the Government of India to prepare draft
legislations relating to biodiversity (Biodiversity Act) and breeders‘ and farmers‘ rights
(Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers‘ Rights Act).
 1994 - Chairman of the Commission on Genetic Diversity of the World Humanity Action
Trust.. Established a Technical Resource Centre at MSSRF for the implementation of equity
provisions of CBD and FAO‘s Farmers‘ Rights.
 1994 onwards - Chairman of the Genetic Resources Policy Committee (GRPC) of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), development of
policies for the management of the ex situ collections of International Agricultural Research
Centers.
 1999 - Introduced the concept of trusteeship management of Biosphere reserves.
Implemented the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust, with financial support from the
Global Environment Facility (GEF).
 2001 - Chairman of the Regional Steering Committee for the India – Bangladesh joint Project
on Biodiversity Management in the Sundarbans World Heritage Site, funded by the UN
Foundation and UNDP.
 2002 - President of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and
World Affairs which work towards reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek
solutions to global security threats.
 2002 - 2005 - Co-chairman with Dr. Pedro Sanchezof the UN Millennium Task Force on
Hunger, a comprehensive global action plan for fighting poverty, disease and environmental
degradation in developing countries.
 Over 68 students have done their Ph.D thesis work under his guidance:

On the occasion of Dr. Norman Borlaug's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, he said of Dr.
Swaminathan: "The green revolution has been a team effort and much of the credit for its
spectacular development must go to Indian officials, Organizations, Scientists and farmers.
However, to you, Dr. Swaminathan, a great deal of the credit must go for first recognizing the
potential value of the Mexican dwarfs. Had this not occurred, it is quite possible that there would
not have been a green revolution in Asia".

On the occasion of the presentation of the First World Food Prize to Dr. Swaminathan in October
1987, Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar - Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote: "Dr.
Swaminathan is a living legend. His contributions to Agricultural Science have made an
indelible mark on food production in India and elsewhere in the developing world. By any
standards, he will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction".

72
Swaminathan has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as "the Father
of Economic Ecology".

He was one of three from India included in TIME Magazine's 1999 list of the "20 most
influential Asian people of the 20th century", the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and
Rabindranath Tagore..

Following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, he advised India to plant new mangrove groves
along the shoreline to minimize damage from future tsunamis.

Dr. Swaminathan was the featured speaker at The 2006 Norman E. Borlaug International
Symposium: in Des Moines, Iowa on, October 19, 2006. He was sponsored by Humanities Iowa,
an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Swaminathan presented The
"Third Annual Governor's Lecture" and spoke on "THE GREEN REVOLUTION REDUX: Can
we replicate the single greatest period of food production in all human history?" Read full text:,
See: Powerpoint Presentation, Hear: about the cultural and social foundations of the Green
Revolution in India and the role of historic leaders in India, such as Mahatma Gandhi, in
inspiring the Green Revolution there by calling for the alleviation of widespread hunger. He also
talked about the links between Gandhi and the great Iowa scientist George Washington Carver.,
Swaminathan is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London the U. S. National Academy of
Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Italian
Academy of Sciences.

Controversy
A scientific paper in which Swaminathan and his team claimed to have produced a mutant breed
of wheat by gamma irradiation of a Mexican variety (Sonora 64) resulting in Sharbati Sonora,
claimed to have a very high lysine content led to a major controversy. The case was discussed as
a classic example of scientific misdemeanor and was claimed to be an error made by the
laboratory assistant. The episode was also compounded by the suicide of an agricultural scientist.
Recent workers have also studied it as part of a systemic problem in Indian agriculture research.

Publications
Dr Swaminathan is a prolific scientific researcher and writer. He published 46 single author
papers between 1950 and 1980. Out of 118 two author papers, he was first author of 80. Out of
63 three author papers he was first author of 15. Out of 21 four author papers he was first author
of 9. In total he had 254 papers to his credit, 155 of which he was the single author or first
author. His scientific papers are in the fields of crop improvement (95), cytogenetics and genetics
(87) and phylogenetics (72). His most frequent publishers were: Indian Journal of Genetics (46),
Current Science (36), Nature (12) and Radiation Botany (12). Some of the papers are listed
below.

In addition he has written a few books around the general theme of his life's work, biodiversity
and sustainable agriculture for alleviation of hunger.
Dr. Swaminathan's books include
 "An Evergreen Revolution", 2006.
 "I Predict: A Century of Hope Towards an Era of Harmony with Nature and Freedom from
Hunger", (1999)
73
 "Gender Dimensions in Biodiversity Management", (ed.) (1998)
 "Implementing the Benefit Sharing Provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity:
Challenges and opportunities" (1997)
 "Agrobiodiversity and Farmers' Rights", 1996
 "Sustainable Agriculture: Towards Food Security"
 "Farmers’ Rights and Plant Genetic Resources: A dialogue." (ed.) (1995)
 "Wheat Revolution: a Dialogue" (ed) (1993)

Research reports
He has published laboratory research results in several scientific journals and increasingly writes
for a wider audience in environmental journals. Some of his publications are available online in
abstract or full text. and.
 First author: Swaminathan MS.
 "Chopra Vl, Bhaskaran, Cytological aberrations observed in barley embryos cultured in
irradiated potato mash.", Radiat Res. 1962 Feb;16:182-8.
 "Murty BR., Aspects of Asynapsis in Plants. I. Random and Non Random Chromosome
Associations.", Genetics. 1959 Nov;44(6):1271-80.
 "Ninan T, Magoon Ml. Effects of virus infection on microsporogenesis and seed fertility in
Capsicum.", Genetica. 1959;30:63-9.
 "Murty Br., Effect of x-radiation on pollen tube growth and seed setting in crosses between
Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica.", Z Vererbungsl., 1959;90:393-9.
 "Ganesan At., Kinetics of mitosis in yeasts.", Nature. 1958 August 30;182(4635):610-1.
 "Nature of Polyploidy in Some 48-Chromosome Species of the Genus Solanum, Section,
Tuberarium.", Genetics. 1954 Jan;39(1):59-76.
 Second author
 Ganesan At, Swaminathan Ms., "Staining the nucleus in yeasts.", Stain Technol. 1958
May;33(3):115-21.
 Natarajan At, Swaminathan Ms., "Chromosome spreading induced by vegetable oils.", Stain
Technol. 1957 Jan;32(1):43-5.
 Howard Hw, Swaminathan Ms., "The cytology of haploid plants of Solanum demissum.",
Genetica. 1953;26(5-6):381-91.
 Prakken R, Swaminathan Ms., "Cytological behaviour of some inter-specific hybrids in the
genus Solanum, sect. Tuberarium.", Genetica. 1952;26(1):77-101.
 Third author
 Chopra Vl, Kapoor Ml, Swaminathan Ms., "Effects Of Pre- & Post-Treatments With S-2-
Aminoethylisothiouronium Bromide Hydrobromide On The Frequency Of Chromosome
Aberrations & Chlorophyll Mutations Induced By X-Rays In Barley.", Indian J Exp Biol.
1965 Apr;3:123-5.
 Nirula S, Bhaskaran S, Swaminathan Ms., "Effect of linear differentiation of chromosomes
on the proportionality between chromosome length and DNA content.", Exp Cell Res. 1961
Jun;24:160-2.
 Fourth author
 Latha R, Rubia L, Bennett J, Swaminathan MS., "Allele mining for stress tolerance genes in
Oryza species and related germplasm.", Mol Biotechnol. 2004 Jun;27(2):101-8.
 Pai Ra, Upadhya Md, Bhaskaran S, Swaminathan Ms., "Chromosome diminution and
evolution of polyploid species in Triticum. Chromosoma.", 1961;12:398-409.

74
 Siddiq EA, Kaul AK, Puri RP, Singh VP, Swaminathan MS., "Mutagen-induced variability
in protein characters in Oryza sativa.", Mutat Res. 1970 Jul;10(1):81-4.

Environmental articles
 First author: Swaminathan MS.mssrf
 "Nutrition in the third millennium: countries in transition.", Forum Nutr. 2003;56:18-24.
 "Bio-diversity: an effective safety net against environmental pollution.", Environ Pollut.
2003;126(3):287-91.
 "CGIAR statement on UN treaty.", Nat Biotechnol. 2002 Jun;20(6):547.
 "Ecology and equity: key determinants of sustainable water security.", Water Sci Technol.
2001;43(4):35-44.
 "An evergreen revolution.",Biologist (London). 2000 Apr; 47(2):85-9.
 "Science in response to basic human needs.", Science. 2000 January 21; 287(5452):425.
 "The ecology of hope.", People Planet. 1999;8(4):6-9.
 "Convocation address.", IIPS News. 1998 Jul; 39(2 3):2-8.
 ""Farmers' Rights and Plant Genetic Resources."", 1998.
 "Forward: Regional Workshop on the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Coral
Reefs", 1997
 "Perspectives for crop protection in sustainable agriculture.", Ciba Found Symp.
1993;177:257-67; discussion 267-72.
 "DNA in medicine. Agricultural production.", Lancet. 1984 December 8;2(8415):1329-32.
 "Nutrition and agricultural development: new frontiers.", Food Nutr (Roma). 1984;10(1):33-
41.
 "The age of algeny, genetic destruction of yield barriers and agricultural transformation.",
(1968).
 Second author
 Kesavan PC, Swaminathan MS., "Managing extreme natural disasters in coastal areas.",
Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2006 August 15;364(1845):2191-216.
 Sanchez PA, Swaminathan MS., "Hunger in Africa: the link between unhealthy people and
unhealthy soils.", Lancet. 2005 January 29-February 4;365(9457):442-4. 5: Sanchez PA,
Swaminathan MS., Public health. Cutting world hunger in half.", Science. 2005 January
21;307(5708):357-9.
 Third author
 Raven P, Fauquet C, Swaminathan MS, Borlaug N, Samper C., "Where next for genome
sequencing?", Science. 2006 January 27;311(5760):468.

Awards and recognition

Dr. Swaminathan has received several outstanding awards and prizes. These prizes include large
sums of money, which has helped sustain and expand his work.
 H.K. Firodia award for excellence in Science & Technology
 Four Freedoms Award for demonstrating achievement of the principles of Freedom of
speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from want and Freedom from fear, 2000
 Planet and Humanity Medal of the International Geographical Union awarded "in recognition
of hisunique success in outstanding scientific research and its application, leading to Asia‘s
Green Revolution. His endeavors to combat hunger and food shortages by promoting new
seed varieties and applying these with ecologically sound principles and sustainable

75
 agriculture are all part of his profound humanitarian ethos, which reminds scientists and
politicians worldwide of their responsibilities for stewardship of nature and humanity on our
common Planet Earth." 2000
 UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize Laureate for outstanding contributions to the
protection and management of the environment. Co - winner with Paul and Anne Ehrlich
1994, $200,000 prize.
 The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement "in recognition of life-long contributions to
increasing biological productivity on an ecologically sustainable basis, and to promoting the
conservation of biological diversity‖1991
 Honda Prize, for achieving outstanding results in the field of ecotechnology, 1991
 Padma Vibhushan 1989
 World Food Prize for advancing human development through increased quantity, guality or
accessibility of food, 1987
 Golden Heart Presidential Award of the Philippines, conferred by President Corazon Aquino
"in recognition of his contribution in resolving a wide range of problems in basic and applied
genetics and agricultural research and development in the Philippines, for his
accomplishments in the area of agricultural science and research highly beneficial to Filipino
farmers, and for having expanded considerably the International Rice Research Institute‘s
capacity for upstream research to bring the fruits of recent advances in science and
technology to Asian rice farmers."1987
 Albert Einstein World Science Award by the World Cultural Council for research which has
brought true benefit and well being to mankind. 1986
Ramon Magsaysay Award
 Borlaug Award, given by Coromandel Fertilizers in profound appreciation of his catalytic
role in providing deep insights and inspiring fellow scientists to set goals ... for evolving a
strategy for agriculture rooted in science, but tempered by a concern for ecology and human
values 1979
 Padma Bhushan 1972
 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership 1971
 Padma Shri 1967
 Foreign Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
He holds 58 honorary Doctorate degrees from universities around the world.

National Awards
He has been honored with several awards in India for his work to benefit the country.
 Karmaveer Puraskaar Noble Laureates, March,2007 by iCONGO- Confederation of NGOs.
[53]
 Dupont-Solae Award for his contribution to the field of food and nutrition security 2004
[54]
 Life Time Achievement Award from BioSpectrum 2003
 Indira Gandhi Gold Plaque by the Asiatic Society for his significant contribution towards
human progress. 2002
 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development "for his outstanding
contribution in the domain of plant genetics and ensuring food security to hundreds of
millions of citizens in the developing world." This prestigious award honors those outstanding
global citizens who have made a significant contribution to humanity‘s material and cultural
progress. 2000

76
 The Indian National Science Academy awarded him Millennium Scientist Award 2001,
Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Award for 1999-2000, Shatabdi Puraskar award in the field of
Agricultural Sciences 1999, Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award 1992, B.P. Pal
Memorial Award of the 1998, Meghnad Saha Medal 1981, Silver Jubilee Commemoration
Medal for contributions to genetics and agricultural research 1971.
 Lokmanya Tilak Award by the Tilak Smarak Trust, in recognition of his contribution to the
green revolution in India and for his outstanding scientific and environmental works. 2001 [55]
 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in recognition of creative
efforts toward promoting international peace, development and a new international economic
order; ensuring that scientific discoveries are used for the larger good of humanity, and
enlarging the scope of freedom. 2000
 Millennium Alumnus Award by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University 2000
 Prof P N Mehra Memorial Award 1999
 Legend in his Lifetime Award by the World Wilderness Trust- India 1999[56]
 Dr. B.P. Pal Medal for unique contributions to agricultural research and development of the
National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India 1997
 V. Gangadharan Award for outstanding contributions to National Development 1997
 Dr. B.P. Pal Medal for unique contributions to agricultural research and development of the
National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India 1997
 V. Gangadharan Award for outstanding contributions to National Development 1997
 Lal Bahadur Shastri Deshgaurav Samman 1992
 Dr. J.C. Bose Medal, Bose Institute 1989
 Krishi Ratna Award for ―devotion to the cause of agroscience, and for being the benefactor
of the farming community,‖ instituted by the Bharat Krishak Samaj (Indian Farmer's
Society)/World Agriculture Fair Memorial Trust Society, and presented by President Giani
Zail Singh of India 1986
 Rathindranath Tagore Prize of Visva Bharati University 1981
 R.D. Misra Medal of the Indian Environmental Society 1981
 Barclay Medal of the Asiatic Society for contributions to genetics 1978
 Moudgil Prize of the Bureau of Indian Standards for contributions to standardisation 1978
 Birbal Sahni Medal of the Indian Botanical Society for contributions to Applied Botany
1965.[59]
 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for contributions to Biological Sciences 1961

International Awards
He has been honored with recognition from several international organizations for spreading the
benefits of his work to other countries.
Mahatma Gandhi studying with microscope, 1940
 UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Gold Medal for his outstanding work in extending the benefits
of biotechnology to marginalized and poverty-stricken populations in developing countries
and in securing a sound basis for sustainable agricultural, environmental and rural
development 1999
 Henry Shaw Medal awarded by the Board of Trustees of the Missouri Botanical Garden in
consideration of important service to humanity through emphasis on sustainability in
agriculture - USA 1998

77
 Ordre du Merite Agricole, Govt of France to honour services of the highest quality rendered
to the cause of agriculture 1997
 Highest award for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, Govt of
China for outstanding contributions to the lofty cause of environmental protection and
development, and for his signal accomplishments in the field of international cooperation
1997
 Global Environmental Leadership Award ―for encouraging village-level responses to
environmental issues‖ by the Climate Institute 1995
 World Academy of Art and Science 1994
 Asian Regional Award by the Asian Productivity Organization APO 1994
 Charles Darwin International Science and Environment Medal 1993
 Commandeur of the Order of the Golden Ark of the Netherlands 1990
 The VOLVO Environment Prize for his outstanding research and devoted work in turning
Indian food production from a deficit to a much increased supply. 1990.
 Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) international award for significant
contributions to promoting the knowledge, skill, and technological empowerment of women
in agriculture and for his pioneering role in mainstreaming gender considerations in
agriculture and rural development 1985.
 Bicentenary Medal of the University of Georgia, U.S.A. 1985
 Bennett Commonwealth Prize of the Royal Society of Arts for significant contributions to
Household Nutrition Security 1984
 Mendel Memorial Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences for contributions to
Plant Genetics 1965

Critics
Despite these awards and honors, the credibility of Swaminathan and his promotion of
biotechnology remains open to question by some. His record retains some controversy. There are
cases of scientific fraud and scandals involving the suicide of a fellow scientist at the (ICAR).

The first among those who came to expose many of the claims made by MS Swaminathan was
Claude Alvares. In his article The Great Gene Robbery 23 March 1986 The Illustrated Weekly.
Alvares provided enough evidences to show that most of the research that were initiated by him
and International Rice Research Institute were not original.

In the recent years Shiv Vishwanathan in an EPW article writes he is a sociological

phenomenon.He is paradigm, exemplar, dissenter, critic and alternative. .....Swaminathan
always assimilates the new. Earlier Claude Alvares had given a better picture as follows

Strangely, he has become more and more akin to HYV of the seeds he sells. Like them, he is
capable of high-yielding varieties of phrase and word. At a Gandhi seminar, he will speak of the
relevance of Gandhi. At a meeting in Madras on the necessity of combine harvesters. At another
meeting on appropriate technology, he will plump for organic manures. At a talk in London, he
will speak on the necessity of chemical fertilizers. He will label slum dwellers ‗ecological
refugees‘, and advertise his career as a quest for ‗imparting an ecological basis to productivity
improvement.‘ This, after presiding over, and indiscriminately furthering, one of the ecologically
most devastating technologies of modern times – the HYV package of the Green revolution.

78
Current Work
 He currently holds the UNESCO -Cousteau Chair in Ecotechnology at the M. S.
Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India.
 He is the chairman of the National Commission on Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security
of India (National Commission on Farmers)..
 He is currently spearheading a movement to bridge the Digital divide called, "Mission 2007:
Every Village a Knowledge Centre".
 Bruce Alberts, President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said of Dr. Swaminathan:
"At 80, M.S. retains all the energy and idealism of his youth, and he continues to inspire
good behavior and more idealism from millions of his fellow human beings on this Earth.
For that, we can all be thankful".

Further reading
 "Biodiversity and Poverty – Natural Resources and the Millennium Goals", M.S.
Swaminathan speech and a discussion, University of Berne, Auditorium Maximum,
Wednesday, 8/24/2005.
 An insightful biography, "M.S. Swaminathan - One Man’s Quest for a Hunger-Free World"
was written in 2002 by Gita Gopalkrishnanhas, Education Development Center Inc., Sri
Venkatesa Printing House, Chennai, pp. 132.
 To learn the most about M. S. Swaminathan, the book to read is: "Scientist and Humanist:
M.S. Swaminathan" by R.D. Iyer,
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 2002. pp. 245
 "The Man Who Harvests Sunshine – The Modern Gandhi: M. S. Swaminathan." Andréi
Erdélyi. Tertia Kiadó, H-1158, Budapest, Kubelsberg Kunóu36, 2002, 167 pp.
 "Toward a Hunger-Free World: Life and Work of M. S. Swaminathan." Anwar Dil (ed.).
Intercultural Forum, Dar-ul-Afia, 13756 Via Tres Vistas, San Diego, 2004. pp. 640
 "Science and Agriculture: M. S. Swaminathan and the Movement for Self- Reliance." S.
Ramanujam et al. (eds). Venus Printers and Publishers, B-62/8 Naraina Industrial Estate,
Phase II, New Delhi 110 028. 2002. pp402.
 The last 4 books are reviewed in Current Science vol. 89, NO. 2, 8/25/2005 by T. N.
Anathakrishnan
 To understand the influences that have shaped Dr. Swaminathan, Read these classics:
 Jawaharlal Nehru. "The Discovery of India" First published in 1946 by Signet Press,
Calcutta. Reprint, Oxford University Press, 1985.
 Louis Fischer. "The Life of Mahatma Gandhi", First published in 1951 by Jonathan Cape.
Reprint, Granada Publishing, 1982.
 Paul Brunton, "A Search in Secret India", First published in 1934. Reprint, B.I. Publications,
Bombay, 1970. Especially Chapter IX, ―The Hill of the Holy Beacon.‖

79
 18. Ela Ramesh Bhatt

Ela Ramesh Bhatt (born on 7 September 1933 in the city of Ahmedabad in India) is the founder
of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA). A lawyer by training, Bhatt is a
respected leader of the international labour, cooperative, women, and micro-finance movements
who has won several national and international awards.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Current Life
 3 TLA and SEWA
 4 Other work and awards
 5 The Elders
 6 Writings
 7 References
 8 Further reading
 9 External links

Early life
Ela Bhatt's childhood was spent in the city of Surat. Her father, Sumantrai Bhatt, had a
successful law practice. Her mother, Vanalila Vyas, was active in the women's movement. Bhatt
attended the Sarvajanik Girls High School in Surat from 1940 to 1948. She received her
Bachelor of Arts degree from the M.T.B. College in Surat in 1952. Following graduation Ela
entered the Sir L. A. Shah Law College in Ahmedabad. In 1954 she received her degree in law
and a Gold Medal for her work on Hindu Law. She then taught English for a short time at SNDT
Women's University, better known as SNDT, in Mumbai. But in 1955 she joined the legal
department of the Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad.

Current Life
 Ela Bhatt is currently living in Ahmedabad with her family, which includes her son,
daughter-in-law and two grandsons. Ela Bhatt's daughter is settled in USA in the town of
New Haven with husband and son and a daughter.

TLA and SEWA

In 1956, Ela Bhatt married Ramesh Bhatt (now deceased). After working for sometime with the
Gujarat government, Ela was asked by the TLA to head its women's wing in 1968. In this
connection she went to Israel where she studied at the Afro-Asian Institute of Labor and
Cooperatives in Tel Aviv for three months, receiving the International Diploma of Labor and
Cooperatives in 1971. She was very much influenced by the fact that thousands of women
related to textile worker worked elsewhere to supplement the family income, but there were state
laws protecting only the industrial workers and not these self-employed women. So with the co-
operation of Arvind Buch, the then president of TLA, Ela Bhatt undertook to organize these self-
employed women into a union under the auspices of the Women's Wing of the TLA. Then in
1972 the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) was established with Buch as president
and she herself as the general-secretary,

80
Other work and awards
She was one of the founders of Women's World Banking in 1979 with Esther Ocloo and
Michaela Walsh, and served as its chair from 1980 to 1998. She currently serves as the Chair of
the SEWA Cooperative Bank, of HomeNet, of the International Alliance of Street Vendors, and
of WIEGO.

She is also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.

She was granted an honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters by Harvard University in June
2001.

Ela Bhatt was also awarded the civilian honour of Padma Shri by the Government of India in
1985, and the Padma Bhushan in 1986. She was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Community Leadership in 1977 and the Right Livelihood Award in 1984.

The Elders
On 18 July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond
Tutu convened a group of world leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and
integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. Nelson Mandela announced the
formation of this new group, The Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th
birthday.

Archbishop Tutu will serve as the Chair of The Elders. The founding members of this group also
include Graça Machel, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li
Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus.

―This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on
whatever actions need to be taken,‖ Mandela commented. ―Together we will work to support
courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where
there is despair.‖

The Elders will be independently funded by a group of Founders, including Sir Richard Branson,
Peter Gabriel, Ray Chambers; Michael Chambers; Bridgeway Foundation; Pam Omidyar,
Humanity United; Amy Robbins; Shashi Ruia, Dick Tarlow; and The United Nations
Foundation.

Writings
 Bhatt, E. R. (2006). We are poor but so many: the story of self-employed women in India.
Oxford, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195169840
Ela Bhatt's book has been translated in Gujarati, Urdu, Hindi and is currently being translated in
French and Tamil.

References
1. Women in Rajasthan set up bank to fund business ventures. DNA India. 15 Nov. 2009.

Further reading
 India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women (ISBN 81-88086-19-3) by Indra Gupta

81
External links
 Biography, National Resource Centre for Women, Government of India
 Biography of Ela Bhatt on the official site of the Magsaysay award
 Ela Bhatt's biography on The Elder's website


19. Pramod Karan Sethi

Pramod Karan Sethi (28 November 1927 – 6 January 2008) was an Indian orthopaedic
surgeon. With Ram Chandra Sharma, he co-invented the "Jaipur foot", an inexpensive and
flexible artificial limb, in 1969.

Contents
 1 Personal life and career
 2 Jaipur foot
 3 Awards
 4 References
 5 External links

Personal life and career

Sethi was born at Varanasi (then Benares), where his father Nihal Karan Sethi, himself a
renowned scientist, was a physics professor at Benares Hindu University. Sethi trained as a
general surgeon at Agra under G. N. Vyas. In 1958, he specialised in orthopaedics, when the
Sawai Man Singh Hospital in Jaipur where he worked needed an orthopaedics department
because of a Medical Council of India inspection. He later cited his lack of qualifications in
orthopaedics as an advantage in developing the Jaipur foot. Much of his practice was in
physiotherapy, including the rehabilitation of amputees.[ He retired in 1981. He was married to
Sulochana, and the couple had a son and three daughters. Sethi died of cardiac arrest in Jaipur,
India.

Jaipur foot
The Jaipur foot is made of rubber and wood and is probably the lowest cost prosthetic limb
available in the world. The International Red Cross Committee has used it extensively in
Afghanistan and other places to help amputees. Several injured soldiers in the Kargil war were
benefited due to the Jaipur foot. Sethi was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records
for helping a large number of amputees in obtaining mobility again. The Indian dancer and actor
Sudha Chandran was one of his patients.

Ram Chandra Sharma, an illiterate craftsman, is the co-inventor of the foot. The original idea
of the Jaipur foot is supposed to have come to him serendipitiously while he was riding a bicycle
and had a flat tire.

Awards

82
Sethi was awarded the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1981. He was a Padma
Shri awardee[citation needed] and he also won a major Rotary International award. He was elected a
fellow of the British Royal College of Surgeons.

References
1. Oransky I. (2008) Obituary: Pramod Karan Sethi. Lancet 371: 298
2. Singhal D, Nundy S. (2004) No mean feet. BMJ 328: 789 (accessed 28 January 2008)
3. McGirk T. (1997) The $28 Foot. Time (Heroes of Medicine Special Issue) (accessed 28
January 2008)
4. The 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership: Citation for Pramod Karan
Sethi (accessed 28 January 2008)

External links
 Jaipurfoot
 Time Magazine article on PK Sethi and Jaipur Foot
 The 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership: Biography of Pramod
Karan Sethi
 New York Times: P. K. Sethi, Inventor of the Low-Tech Limb, Is Dead at 80
 News item about Dr. Sethi's death

20. Chandi Prasad Bhatt

Chandi Prasad Bhatt (चंडी प्रसाद भट्ट) (born 1934) is an Indian Gandhian environmentalist and
social activist, who founded Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh (DGSS) in Gopeshwar in 1964,
which later became a mother-organization to the Chipko Movement, in which he was one of the
pioneers, and for which he has been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community
Leadership in 1982, followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2005. Today he is known for his work
on subaltern social ecology, and considered one of India's first modern environmentalist.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 3 Awards and recognition
 4 Works
 5 References
 6 External links

Early life
Chandi Prasad Bhatt was born on June 23, 1934, as the second child of Ganga Ram Bhatt and
Maheshi Devi Thapliyal, in a family of priests to the Rudranath Temple in Gopeshwar, one of
the "Panch Kedar", the five Himalayan temples dedicated to Shiva, the most venerated amongst
them being the Kedarnath Temple.. His father who was a farmer, and a priest at a Famous shiva
temple at Gopeshwar and the Rudranath Temple, died when Chandi Prasad was still an infant,

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there after he was raised by his mother, in Gopeshwar, Chamoli District of Uttarakhand in India,
which was still a very small village. He did his schooling in Rudraprayag and Pauri, but stopped
before he could take a degree.

Career
Farmland was scarce in the overpopulated mountains, and so were jobs. Like most men of the
mountain villages, Chandi Prasad taught art to children for a year to support his mother, before
eventually forced to work in the plains. He joined the Garhwal Motor Owners Union (GMOU) as
a booking clerk, posted at various places including, Rishikesh, Pipalkoti and Karnaprayag.

Bhatt felt deeply concerned over the plight of the mountain people as a whole, and he often
walked through the mountains to talk to the villagers about their problems. Among the most
important, of course, were the shortages in farmland and jobs. But added to these were
oppressive government policies concerning the forests.

The villagers depended on the forests for firewood, fodder for their cattle, and wood for their
houses and farm tools. But the government restricted huge areas of forest from their use, and
then auctioned off the trees to lumber companies and industries from the plains—a practice
inherited with little change from the British colonialists. Because of these restrictions and an
ever-growing population, the mountain women found themselves walking hours each day just to
gather firewood and fodder.

In 1956, Bhatt found hope when he heard a speech by the Gandhian leader Jayaprakash Narayan,
who was on a tour of the area. Bhatt and other young people launched themselves into the
Sarvodaya movement and Gandhian campaigns, of Bhoodan and Gramdan and organizing
villages for economic development and fighting liquor abuse throughout the Uttarakhand..

In 1960, he left his job at GMOU, to commit full time to his Sarvodaya activities, and by 1964,
Bhatt had instituted the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal (Society for Village Self-Rule) to
organize fellow villagers in Gopeshwar for employment near their homes in forest-based
industries, making wooden implements from ash trees and gathering and marketing herbs for
aryuvedic medicine-and to combat vice and exploitation.

Curtailment of the villagers' legitimate rights to trees and forest products in favor of outside
commercial interests enabled Bhatt, in 1973, to mobilize the forest-wise society members and
villagers into the collective Chipko Andolan (Hug the Trees Movement) to force revision of
forest policies dating from 1917. Women, who regularly walk three to five miles to the forest to
gather and carry home fuel and fodder on their backs, took the lead. True to the movement's non-
violent philosophy, these women embraced the trees to restrict their felling. Establishment of
"eco-development camps" brought villagers together to discuss their needs within the context of
the ecological balance of the forest. Stabilizing slopes by building rock retaining walls, the
campers planted trees started in their own village nurseries. While less than one-third of the trees
set out by government foresters survived, up to 88 percent of the villager-planted trees grew.

Bhatt and his society colleagues have been helped by sympathetic scientists, officials and college
students. Yet theirs is essentially an indigenous movement of mountain villagers, and Chipko

84
Andolan has become an instrument of action and education for members, officials and outsiders,
in the realities of effective resource conservation.

Although Bhatt has attended meetings in lowland India and abroad as a spokesman for Chipko,
he has remained a man of his community. He, his wife and five children continue to live the
simple life of their Himalayan neighbors. In the process he has become knowledgeable and
productive in helping ensure his peoples' hard won living. In 2003, he was appointed a member
of the 'National Forest Commission', which reviewed all existing policies and legal frameworks
relating to forest management, and submitted its report to the Government in 2005.

Awards and recognition

 In 1982, in recognition of "his inspiration and guidance of Chipko Andolan, a unique,
predominantly women's environmental movement, to safeguard wise use of the forest" he
was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.
 In 1983, he was awarded the Padma Shri award by the Government of India.
 In 2005, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan award by the Government of India.
 In 2008, he was conferred Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Govind Ballabh Pant
University of Agriculture and Tecnology, Pantnagar, India.

Works
 The Future Of Large Projects In The Himalaya, by PAHAR, 1997.

References
1. A Gandhian in Garhwal The Hindu, Sunday, June 2, 2002.
2. A clutch of crusaders across India are ready to stake their reputations and devote their lives to
saving the environment.. The Times of India, September 22, 2002.
3. ..the first modern Indian environmentalist, and also to being the greatest... Ramchandra
Guha, The Telegraph, September 4, 2004.
4. BIOGRAPHY of Chandi Prasad Bhatt The 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community
Leadership.
5. Chandi Prasad Bhatt Gandhi today: a report on Mahatma Gandhi's successors, by Mark
Shepard. Published by Shepard Publications, 1987. Page 65.
6. Justice Kirpal to head National Forest Commission The Times of India, February 21, 2003.
 Citation for the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

External links
 "A Gandhian in Garhwal" by Ramachandra Guha, The Hindu, 02 June 2002
 Hug the Trees! by Mark Shepard
 Citation for the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and response
 Website of the Nanda Devi Campaign, the successor to the Chipko Movement
 The Chipko Movement

21. Pandurang Shastri Vaijnath Athavale

Pandurang Shastri Vaijnath Athavale (Gujarati: પાંડુરંગ શાસ્ત્રી આઠવલે, Marathi: पांडुरं ग शास्त्री आठिऱे )

(October 19, 1920–October 25, 2003), also known as Dada-ji (Gujarati: દાદા, Marathi: दादा), which literally

85
translates as elder brother in Marathi, was a Indian philosopher, spiritual leader, social reformer
and Hinduism reformist, who founded the Swadhyay Movement and the Swadhyay Parivar
organization (Swadhyay Family) in 1954, a self-knowledge movement based on the Bhagavad
Gita, which has spread across nearly 100,000 villages in India, with over 5 million members. He
was also noted for his discourses or "pravachans" on Srimad Bhagawad Gita and Upanishads.
He was awarded the 'Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion' in 1997 and the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and India's second highest civilian honour, the
Padma Vibhushan in 1999.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Swadhyay Pariwar
 3 His Passing
 4 Awards
 5 Legacy
 6 In popular culture
 7 Works
 8 Further reading
 9 References
 10 External links

Early life
Pandurang Shastri Vaijnath Athavale was born on October 19, 1920 in the village of Roha in
Maharashra (konkan) India. He was one of five children of Sanskrit teacher Vaijanath Athavale
and Parvati Athavale.

When Athavale was twelve years old, his grandfather set up an independent course of study for
the young boy with individual tuition. Thus, Athavale was taught in a system very similar to that
of the Tapovan system of ancient India. In 1942, he started to give discourses at the Srimad
Bhagavad Gita Pathshala, a centre set up by his father in 1920.

In 1954, he attended the Second World Philosophers Conference, held in Japan. There, Athavale
presented the concepts of Vedic ideals and the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. However, many
people rejected his ideas and wanted evidence of such ideals being put into practice in towns
across India. A Dr. Wilson Compton was impressed with Athavale's ideas and offered him a post
in the US, where he could spread his ideas. Athavale politely declined, saying that he had work
to accomplish if he wanted to show the world a model community peacefully practicing and
spreading the divine Vedic thoughts and the message of the Bhagavad Gita.

Swadhyay Pariwar
Pandurang Shastri Athavale receiving the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, from HRH
Prince Philip at a public ceremony held in Westminster Abbey, May 6, 1997

Swadhyay Movement is a philosophy found all over the world. "Swadhyayees", as the divine
family members of the Swadhyay Pariwar are called, is made up of people from both the lower
86
or poor classes and the upper classes. Many Swadhyayees who continue Athavale's work in
spreading his ideas throughout India and to other parts of the world are known as "krutisheels" or
people of action. Over the years, his followers (Swadhyayees), have taken his message of love
for God and God's love for all to people across caste, social and economic lines to about 100,000
Indian villages, and started various cooperative farming, fishing and tree-planting projects.

His Passing
Athavale died at 12:30 pm on October 25, 2003, in at Khetwadi in south Mumbai, India. He aged
83 years and was cremated on the evening of October 26 at Tatvadnyaan Vidyapeeth,

Ghodbunder in Thane district, where around 10,000 people were present.[ Subsequently his ashes
were immersed at Ujjain, Pushkar, Haridwar, Kurukshetra, Gaya, Jagannath Puri, and lastly at
Rameswaram.

Awards
Some of the awards given to Athavale were:
 Ramon Magsaysay Award, in Community Leadership, in year 1996.
 Templeton Prize in year 1997.
 Padma Vibhushan in 1999 in recognition of his efforts toward social reform.
 Recognized as one of the Top Ten Most Important Indian People of the 20th Century.

Legacy
Tatvagnyaan Vidhyapeeth is an institution in which Athavale, himself, often gave discourses to
the many youths that studied there. The youths study a broad variety of religious and spiritual
subjects and live as they would have done in a "tapovan" thousands of years ago.

In popular culture
In 1991, noted film director, Shyam Benegal, directed a film, Antarnaad (The Inner Voice),
based on the Swadhyay Movement of the Swadhyay Parivar, with Shabana Azmi and
Kulbhushan Kharbanda in lead roles. In 2004, director, Abir Bazaz made a documentary,
Swadhyaya, on the life and works of Pandurang Shastri Athavale.

Works
 The Systems: The Way and the Work (Swadhyaya: The Unique Philosophy of Life), by Rev.
Shri Pandurang Vaijnath Athavale Shastri (Rev. Dada). Vallabhdas J. Jhaveri, Bombay,
1992.

Further reading
 Vital Connections: Self, Society, God : Perspectives on Swadhyaya, by Raj Krishan
Srivastava. 1998; Weatherhill,
 Self-Development and Social Transformations?: The Vision and Practice of the Self-Study
Mobilization of Swadhyaya, by Ananta Kumar Giri. Lexington Books. 2008.
 Role of the swadhyaya parivar in socioeconomic changes among the tribals of Khedasan: A
case study, by Vimal P Shah. Gujarat Institute of Development Research, 1998.
 Swadhyay Movement Living Religions: An Encyclopaedia of the World's Faiths, by Mary
Pat Fisher. Published by I.B.Tauris, 1996. Page 109.

87
 Swadhyaya: A Movement Experience in India - August 2003 Visions of Development: Faith-
based Initiatives, by Wendy Tyndale. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006. Page 1.

References
1. Followers of Param Pujya Dadaji.. The Hindu, June 13, 2006.
2. Tributes paid to founder of Swadhyaya movement Times of India, Nov 12, 2003.
3. Pandurang Shastri Athavale - Obituary
4. Spiritualist from India is honored with religion's Templeton Prize The Seattle Times, March
5, 1997.
5. Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice, by Robin Rinehart. Published by
ABC-CLIO, 2004. ISBN 1576079058. Page 375
6. Year in Review - 2003 - Passages The Seattle Times, December 29, 2003.
7. Indian Spiritualist Honored New York Times, March 6, 1997.
8. Padma Vibhushan Official listings Govt. of India website.
9. Biography Ramon Magsaysay Award website.
10. Leader of Spiritual Movement Wins $1.2 Million Religion Prize New York Times, March 6,
1997.
11. Social reformer Pandurang Shastri Athavale dead Rediff, October 25, 2003
12. Pandurang Sahstri Athavale cremated Times of India, Oct 26, 2003.
13. Self-respect as key to universal brotherhood The Hindu, Jun 29, 2006.
14. 1996 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership - Rev. Pandurang Shastri
Athavale
15. Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities
16. Top Ten Most Important Indian People of the 20th Century by WatchMojo.com
17. Antarnaad at the Internet Movie Database
18. A week-long festival of documentaries in New Delhi The Tribune, September 5, 2004.
19. Documentary about Swadhyaya

External links
 The Official web portal of Pandurang Shastri Athavale : www.dadaji.net
 The Official web portal of the Swadhyay Parivar : www.swadhyay.org
 Ramon magsaysay site introduction of Pandurang Shastri Athavale
 Templeton award web-site referencing Pandurang Shastri Athavale's work
 Templeton award web-site referencing News of Award to Pandurang Shastri Athavale
 Pandurang Shastri Athavale on factbites.com
 An article by a well known writer Suma Varughese
 by Waveney Ann Moore, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times, published June 29,
2002
 In rural India, quiet introspection has outward effects By Chhavi Sachdev in Science &
Theology News, July 2004
 Pandurang Shastri Athvale Quotations

20. Aruna Roy

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Aruna Roy (born 26 May 1946) is an Indian political and social activist. She served as a civil
servant in the Indian Administrative Service from 1968-1974, before resigning to become social
activist and working to empower villagers in Rajasthan.

She is best-known for her campaigns to better the lives of the rural poor in Rajasthan, and as the
head of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana, which she founded in 1990, and which worked
towards the successful enactment of 'Rajasthan Right to Information Act'.

In 2000, she was awarded with the Ramon Magsaysay Award in Community Leadership. She
was also one of the prominent leaders of the Right to Information movement, which eventually
led to the enactment of Right to Information Act in 2005. In 2005, she was amongst the 1000
peacewomen from 150 countries, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Contents
 1 Early life and education
 2 Career
 3 Personal life
 4 Works
 5 Further reading
 6 References
 7 External links

Early life and education

Aruna Roy was born in Chennai in her grandparents' home in 1946. Her father ED (Elupai
Doraiswami) Jayaram, was a lawyer who hailed from a family of lawyers, while her mother
Hema, belong to an illustrious family. Starting as a librarian in the law department of the
Government of India, her father joined civil services, and eventually retired as legal adviser to
the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The couple had four children, three girls and
one boy.

She spent much of her childhood in New Delhi, where she received her primary education at
Convent of Jesus and Mary, thereafter she was sent to Kalakshetra cultural academy in Adyar,
Chennai, where she learned art, Bharata Natyam and Carnatic classical music for the next two
years. After this, she spent her next year at a school at Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, though
she transferred to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi, where completed her schooling.

She graduated in English from 'Indraprastha College for Women' in 1965, and joined University
of Delhi for her post graduation, it was here that she met Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy her classmate, who
she was later marry in 1970. Finally while teaching for a year at Indraprastha College, she
appeared for Indian Administrative Services (IAS) examinations in 1967, at the age of twenty-
one.

Career
After a years training Aruna served as a civil servant in the Indian Administrative Service from
1968-1974. Thereafter she resigned from the Indian Civil Service to devote her time to

89
campaigns, social work and social reform. She joined the Social Work and Research Center in
Tilonia, Rajasthan, which was set up by her husband, Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy.

Roy worked at the SWRC until 1983, then moved to Devdungri, a village in the Rajsamand
district of Rajasthan in 1987 along with Shanker Singh and Nikhil Dey. The three along with Lal
Singh, Chunni Singh, Narayan, Mohan Ram and several others set up Mazdoor Kisan Shakti
Sangathan (Workers'-Farmers' Unity Union) in 1990, which they described as a "non-party
people's organisation".

The MKSS is a peasant and workers organisation and is a group which is a working example of a
transparent organization. Roy has worked with peoples politics, looking at ways in which
equality and justice can be claimed by the people as their right. The MKSS was successful in
building a broad based demand for the Right to Information by linking it to survival and
livelihood issues and defining a paradigm for transparency and openess in government
functioning, specific to the Indian context. The fight for the right to information, which began in
the early 1990‘s culminated with the passage of what is considered as one of the most robust
transparency legislation in the world – the Right to Information Act 2005. Prior to its enactment,
in 2004, she was inducted into the National Advisory Committee (NAC) to formulate the Act
itself.

The MKSS struggle helped form the movement for the Right to Information, and along with the
National Campaign for Peoples Right to Information (NCPRI- www.righttoinformation.info)
worked for the national acceptance for the legislation from 1996. The MKSS succeeded in
getting the Rajasthan Right to Information Bill passed in 2000. They also participated in the
National Campaign to get the Central Right to Information Act passed in 2005. MKSS has
played an important role in the campaigns for formulation and passage of the employment
guarantee (NREGA-2006) Act. They are also working actively on issues of implementation of
both the laws, particularly through the mode of public hearings and social audits.

The MKSS built a grassroots movement that has triggered broad debate and a nationwide
demand for the public's right to scrutinize official records - a crucial check against arbitrary
governance. In 2000, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community

Leadership. She however wanted the award to the MKSS, in recognition of the many people
involved with her, eventually she accepted the award herself, as it is only given to individuals,
and decided to use the award money of US $ 50,000 to set up a trust to support the process of
democratic struggles.

Aruna Roy also served as a member of the National Advisory Council of India for about two
years from 2005-2007.

Aruna Roy met Shanker Singh while in the SWRC. Nikhil Dey visited Rajasthan as a young
student and joined them in 1987. MKSS has been located in Shanker‘s cousin sister's house in
Devdungri since 1990, where the three went to live and work for peoples politics.

90
Shanker Singh, born in Lotiyana village, Ajmer District is acknowledged to be one of India's
leading figures in peoples theatre. He has evolved communication methods, mingling the
traditional and the modern to engage powerfully with people. He has combined over two decades
of activism with the power of people‘s communication through street theatre, puppetry, song,
and drama to strengthen the voice of the poor, and give power to their struggles. Through his
uncanny, incisive wit and his keen political insight - he has created a combination of song,
dance, drama and puppetry to state complex issues in an idiom familiar to the people.

Nikhil Dey has qualified as a lawyer and has spent over twenty years working with the rural poor
as an activist. He gave up a lucrative future in the USA and returned to India while still an under
graduate to work for the poor. His astute political understanding and persistence has contributed
to the strengthening of the MKSS . His understanding of the law and of peoples perception of
governance at the grass root , has been a crucial contribution to the campaigns for the RTI and
NREGA, particularly in shaping the two legislations.

Personal life
Aruna resigned from the Indian Civil Service in 1975 to devote her time to campaigns, social
work and social reform. She joined the Social Work and Research Center( Barefoot College) in
Tilonia, Rajasthan, which was set up by her husband, Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy (Bunker Roy). She left
the SWRC in 1983.

Works
 Education of Out-of-school Children: Case Studies of Selected Non-formal Learning Programmes in
South Asia. Published by Commonwealth Secretariat, 1984.

Further reading
 The idea of India by Aruna Roy Mint
 The Rediff Interview/ Aruna Roy Rediff.com

References
1. Women who dared, by Ritu Menon. Published by National Book Trust, India, 2002. Page
169-170.
2. Aruna Roy BusinessWeek, July 8, 2002.
3. Aruna Roy National Resource Center for Women, Govt. of India.
4. Blacked out: government secrecy in the information age, by Alasdair Scott Roberts.
Cambridge University Press, 2006. Page 239.
5. Ramon Magsaysay Award Citation Ramon Magsaysay Award website."..her empowering
Indian villagers to claim what is rightfully theirs by upholding and exercising the people's
right to information. "
6. 1000 Peace Women betterworldheroes.com.
7. 1000 Peacewomen miss out on Nobel Peace Prize
8. Biography of Aruna Roy Ramon Magsaysay Award
9. Visionaries: The 20th Century's 100 Most Important Inspirational Leaders, by Satish
Kumar, Freddie Whitefield. Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007. Page 139.
10. Aruna Roy: Magsaysay Award winner Women & Social Transformation, by M. G. Chitkara.
Published by APH Publishing, 2001. Page 371-372.
11. Aruna Roy page North Carolina State University.

91
12. Aruna Roy shares the Magsaysay Award PUCL Bulletin, Sept., 2000.
 India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women by Indra Gupta

External links
 Biography of Aruna Roy at Ramon Magsaysay Award
 Official Website of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, headed by Aruna Roy
 Right to Information site
 RTI history and growth in India
 NDTV interview

21. Rajendra Singh

Rajendra Singh (born 6 August 1959) is a well known water conservationist from Alwar,
Rajasthan in India. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for
his pioneering work in water management. He is the founder of an NGO called Tarun Bharat
Sangh. The NGO has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy and has helped
villagers take charge of water management in their area, through the use of check dams and other
time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques. This NGO played a vital role in reviving Arvari
River.

Qualifications:
 Post-graduate degree in Hindi Allahabad University
 Ayurvedic physician, Rishikul Ayurvedic Mahavidyalaya

Nature of Activities & the Work Done by Rajendra Singh:

During his student days, Shri Rajendra Singh was associated with the "Sampurna Kranti",
movement led by J.P. from year 1974 to 1982. After finishing his studies, he joined as a National
Service Volunteer at Jaipur under the youth education programme of the Ministry of Education,
Govt. of India till 1984. That was the year twenty-five years old Singh left his job and committed
himself to rural development. With four companions from the small organisation he led, Tarun
Bharat Sangh (TBS), he boarded a bus and travelled to a desolate village at the end of the line.
Upon advice of a local village elder, he began organizing villagers and learning to repair and
deepen old johads.

By this time Alwar had been opened to miners and loggers, who decimated its forests and
damaged its watershed. Its streams and rivers dried up, then its farms. Dangerous floods now
accompanied the monsoon rains. Overwhelmed by these calamities, villagers abandoned their
johads. As men shifted to the cities for work, women spirited frail crops from dry grounds and
walked several kilometers a day to find water. Thus was Alwar when Rajendra Singh first
arrived in 1985. Before that he worked with nomadic tribes and tried to understand issues in
natural resources management in rural areas.

Guided by Gandhi‘s teachings of local autonomy and self-reliance, Singh has introduced
community led institutions to each village, i.e. Gram Sabhas, Mahila Banks, River Parliament
etc. He initiated an awareness campaign for Gram Swawlamban, which is organised every year

92
during the summer months for forty days in different hundreds of villages. In this campaign
discussion on Gram Swawlamban, soil conservation, improved seeds, collection of herbal
medicine and shramdan were the activities undertaken. Singh coordinated all these activities to
mesh with the villager‘s traditional cycle of rituals. Meanwhile, with others he waged a long and
ultimately successful campaign to persuade India‘s Supreme Court to close hundreds of mines
and quarries that were destroying the ecology of Sariska National Park.

With a view to fulfill the needs of the villagers, Shri Rajendra Singh started rural development
and employment generation in 1985 at Gopalpura village by Water Conservation. He played a
catalyzing role in the building of 10000 johads (water harvesting structures) in 1000 villages
spread over 6500 km2. Out of these 3500 were built by TBS and as an after effect of these the
community was motivated to build the remaining 5100 structures. For these 5100 structures only
technical help was provided. The area covers parts of the contiguous districts of Alwar, Dausa,
Sawai Madhopur, Karoli and Jaipur districts. Johads and the other appropriate water structures
have also been built in the districts of Jaisalmer, Ajmer, Udaipur and Bharatpur.

As a result of these efforts five seasonal rivulets in the northeastern Rajasthan area, that had
nearly dried up have now become perennial. These rivers are Ruparel, Arvari, Sarsa, Bhagani
and Jahajwali.

To sustain the unity and the river in future a decentralized power model has been structured
among the 70 villages of Arvari River, i.e., the Arvari Parliament.

The efforts towards water conservation have had numerous positive impacts on the communities
inhabiting the area. Employment opportunities have increased and migration has reduced
substantially. Studies have shown manifold increase in the enrollment of students in school and
output of food grains and milk production.

In 1995 he led a "Nadi Pahaad Bachao Yatra" from Galta in Jaipur to Gangotri in Uttarkashi. The
aim of this yatra, carried out between June 5 (World Environment day] and June 27 was to create
mass awareness to preserve the sanctity and purity of rivers and the green cover of the
mountains. Since 1996, he initiated Jal Bachao Johad Banoa, which is organised from Dev
Uthani Gyaras in the first week of November to December for forty days.

He has also initiated a National Water March (Rashtriya Jal Yatra) on December 23, 2002 from
Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, New Delhi and covered 30 states including northern and southern
states including 144 river basins. He has organized five national water conferences during this
yatra in the different parts of country. The ―Rashtriya Jal Yatra‖ was an attempt to share the
water related concerns and mitigate the pains of citizens of India, the farmers and the poor
people. The yatra stressed the fact that we should strive for linking people to rivers rather than
interlinking rivers. The experiences of the yatra have been now germinated into the form of

Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth

Forest and Wildlife Conservation Starting from 1986, he undertook work in and around the
Sariska National Park to motivate village community to regenerate and protect the forests by
reviving the customary laws of the communities. Under his leadership, Forest Protection

93
Committees have been set up in 90 villages in and around Sariska and another 32 committees
have been set up in Sawai Madhopur, Karoli and Jaipur districts. A people's sanctuary
―Bhairondev Lok-Vanyajeev Abhayarany‖, spread over 12 km2 has been set up by the
community in Bhanvta-Kolyala villages in Alwar. The area, which was completely barren 12
years ago, has now good forest cover and wildlife. Since 1986, he initiated a "Ped Bachao-Ped
Lagao" padyatra, which is organised every year during the monsoons for a forty-day period in
different villages in this region. The yatra ends on Raksha Bandhan day, with the villagers tying
rakhis to the trees as a symbol of their determination to protect the trees.

In his leadership during January to March 1995 a "Jungle-Jeevan Bachao Yatra" was organised
in order to motivate communities to protect forests and wild life. This yatra covered 21 forest
sanctuaries in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi involving numerous voluntary organisations and
thousands of people. Another important initiative he took was the documentation of medicinal
plants and their uses in traditional medicine. This has enabled communities in this region to
become more self sufficient in meeting their health and medicinal needs.

Shri Rajendra Singh also led a campaign and a struggle against the destructive consequences of
mining in the Aravali hills. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, on the basis of a
Supreme Court Order of 1991, issued orders banning mining in the Aravali Hills system. With a
view to ensuring that this order was observed, Shri Rajendra Singh launched a movement to
mobilise people He also organised an Aravali Bachao Yatra from Himmatnagar in Gujarat to
Delhi. Thousands of people participated in this yatra. As a consequence of this mobilisation, the
Rajasthan Govt. closed nearly one thousand mines in the whole of Rajasthan, 470 of which were
in and around Sariska. The workers rendered jobless due to the closure of the mines were
rehabilitated through water and forest conservation activities and rural development, like animal
husbandry, agriculture and through different types of employment generation activities initiated
by Tarun Bharat Sangh.

Shri Rajendra Singh also initiated several activities in association with Government. The Govt of
Rajasthan which has now recognised and acknowledged the work done by TBS in the
conservation of water and forests based on the knowledge and efforts of communities, and as
part of this recognition has sought its co-operation and help. Similarly, the Minor Irrigation Dept
of Govt. of Rajasthan has also sought Shri Rajendra Singh's help.

During the last few years, the State Govts of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Karnataka have sent their forest and watershed officials and community and
Panchyat Raj representatives to TBS for an orientation on community based watershed
development efforts.

Rajendra Singh is dedicated to mother earth and Tarun Bharat Sangh has been one such
voluntary organisation engaged on rural development with environment care and protection for
the last 25 years. Through his determination, vision, hard work and dedication, he has
transformed the life of people in 1058 villages of Aravali hills. He has turned the arid land
cultivable, densely afforested large tracts making a wild life sanctuary by water management,

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made the rivers dry flow throughout year Aquatic life and bird sanctuary has flourished. Animal
life has become lively, with desert beaming with life all around.

Film
Rajendra is featured in Irena Salina's feature documentary Flow: For Love of Water. The water
man of Rajasthan

Rajendra Singh, who has undertaken extensive water conservation efforts in drought-prone
eastern Rajasthan, wins the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.

Rajendra Singh, the man who 'divined' water in the arid regions of eastern Rajasthan by building
water-harvesting structures, is the winner of the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community
Leadership. The non-governmental organisation Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), which Rajendra
Singh leads as its general secretary, has since 1985 built some 4,500 earthen check dams, or
johads, to collect rainwater in some 850 villages in 11 districts in the State. The TBS has also
and helped revive five rivers that had gone dry. The award is not only a recognition of his
conservation efforts but also an acceptance of the traditional wisdom of the people of rural
Rajasthan.

Incidentally, the honour has gone to an NGO working in rural Rajasthan for the second year in a
row. Aruna Roy, whose Rajsamand-based Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)
spearheaded the campaign for the right to information and transparency in development works,
was the recipient of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the same category.

In his reaction to the honour, Rajendra Singh said: "This is recognition of the rural communities.
The village society taught me the value of water. Prior to 1984 I knew nothing about water or its
conservation methods."

Johadwala Baba (bearded man of check dams) to the villagers and Bhai Saheb (elder brother) to
his associates in the TBS, Rajendra Singh said: "This is the triumph of the traditional wisdom of
the people over classroom learning. It is time the governments recognised their deep knowledge
of the land and the environment and made use of it for the uplift of the rural masses."

The draft of the citation for the Award, to be presented to Rajendra Singh in Manila on August
31, reads: "In electing Rajendra Singh to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Community Leadership the Board of Trustees recognises his leading Rajasthani villages in the
steps of their ancestors to rehabilitate their degraded habitat and bring its dormant rivers back to
life."

Not long ago, when a group of five youth from Jaipur, which included Rajendra Singh, landed in
Alwar district's Thanagazi tehsil, the villagers viewed them with suspicion. The backward
Gujjars and the tribal Meenas branded them as child-lifters and terrorists. They were not to
blame, for the villages, nestled in eastern Aravallis, were going through difficult times in the
1980s. Most parts of Alwar district had been declared a "dark zone", which meant that there was
very little ground water left. Rivers and ponds were drying up and most of the menfolk had left
for cities in search of work. Life in the villages had come to a standstill with farming activities

95
getting severely affected and the bovine wealth, the backbone of the rural economy, shrinking in
the absence of fodder and water.

Fifteen years and many johads later, water has restored life and self-respect in Alwar. Of late,
several villages in the neighbouring districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Bharatpur and
Karauli have been revived by the TBS. Neembi in Jamwa Ramgarh tehsil of Jaipur district is one
such village which caught the fancy of planners this summer as the perennially drought-prone
village had water at three feet from ground in the third consecutive drought year. Neembi's
residents, who spent Rs.50,000 in 1994 to construct two earthen dams with the help of the TBS,
now produce vegetables and milk worth Rs.3 crores annually.

Farming activities have resumed in hundreds of drought-prone villages with the rivers Ruparel,
Arvari, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali flowing again after remaining dry for decades. The
villages, which were deserted by its inhabitants, have been populated once again. There is a
sense of belonging among the people as the gram sabhas created by the TBS to facilitate the
management of the johads have a say in the general well-being of the community as well.

The rebirth of the Arvari was something of a miracle. In 1986, the residents of Bhanota-Kolyala
village, with the help of the TBS, constructed a johad at its source. Soon villages around the
catchment area and along the dry river constructed tiny earthen dams. When the number of dams
reached 375, the river began to flow. "We were amazed," says Rajendra Singh, recalling the
revival of the Arvari, which earned him the titles of water diviner and miracle man. "It was not
our intention to re-create the river, for we never had it in our wildest dreams," he remarked. The
villagers who revived the Arvari were felicitated by President K.R. Narayanan with the Down to
Earth Joseph C. John Award in March 2000.

The residents went on to constitute a parliament of their own. Arvari Sansad, inspired by the
Gandhian concept of gram swaraj, is a representative body of 72 villages in the areas served by
the river. The Arvari parliament has framed 11 major rules to fix the cropping pattern and water
use. The rules permit only landless farmers to draw water directly from the river and bans the
cultivation of sugarcane and the raising of buffaloes as these activities would require relatively
large amounts of water.

Rajendra Singh, who was associated with Jayaprakash Narayan's Sampurna Kranti (Total
Revolution) movement in his student days, has mobilised the people to stand up and speak for
themselves and use natural resources in a sustainable manner.

An air of festivity filled Gopalpura on August 1 when Rajendra Singh reached the village where
he introduced his community-based water harvesting method in 1985 by building the first
structure. This was two days after the award was announced, but it was the first thing he did after
accepting felicitations and addressing a media conference in Jaipur. (In fact, one full day had
lapsed after the news was reported, but there was no clue of Rajendra Singh. Journalists eager to
get his reaction after a chase learnt that he was at Shekhawati village looking for new locations
to erect check dams. Rajendra Singh came to know about his Award from the morning's
newspapers.)

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Gopalpura elder Mangu Ram Patel (Meena) was the happiest man, for it was a teaser from him -
thein to kuch karo Rajinder, kal favte gonti ler agyo (do something Rajinder, bring spade and
pick axe tomorrow and start work) - that spurred Rajendra Singh and the bunch of youth who
formed the Tarun Bharat Sangh, or Young India Association into action. The following day the
youth were digging and desilting the Gopalpura johad, which had been neglected after long
periods of disuse. A village resident recalls that the local Station House Officer (SHO) who
reached the village looking for the "outsiders" and with an arrest warrant, found Rajendra Singh
with a basket of mud on his head. He made a silent retreat.

Activities of the TBS are spread over an area of 6,500 km2, which includes also parts of Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

Rajendra Singh, 43, hails from Dola village of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. He says the crusade he
began, unwittingly, against marble miners in the Project Tiger Sanctuary of Sariska in the early
1990s made conservationists take note of his efforts. "The TBS found that even after
constructing johads, the water level did not go up in the ponds and lakes around Sariska. But we
soon found what was wrong. We traced the missing water to the pits left unfilled by the miners
after their operations. Water collected in them, depriving the wells and lakes of water."

Rajendra Singh and his companions at Tarun Ashram, the TBS headquarters in Kishori-
Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil bordering the sanctuary, took up the issue, which eventually led
to the closure of 470 mines operating within the buffer area and periphery of the sanctuary. A
public interest petition was filed in the Supreme Court. In 1991, the court issued an order against
continuing mining in the ecologically fragile Aravallis. This was followed up by a notification by
the Ministry of Environment and Forests in May 1992 banning mining in the Aravalli hill
system.

TBS activists had to face the wrath of the mine owners. Rajendra Singh was threatened and
attacked. The miners carried on a vilification campaign against them.

Vishnu Dutt Sharma, who was the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan at that time, recalls: "He
was pulled out of the jeep inside Sariska by the agents of the mine owners. I saw them beating
him even as the District Collector looked on. Initially my impression was that Rajendra Singh
was a rascal who provoked the local people. After seeing him in this situation, I felt he was doing
what I should have done - protect the forest land from mining activities."

Initially the forest authorities viewed TBS men with suspicion and banned their entry into the
sanctuary. However, things changed dramatically for both Rajendra Singh and the park. The TBS
constructed 115 earthen and concrete structures within the sanctuary and 600 other structures in
the buffer and peripheral zones. These facilitated a rise in the groundwater levels and helped turn
the area into a "white zone". So much so that the Forest Department invited the NGO to take an
active part in the park's management. Rajendra Singh helped reform many poachers. Some of the
reformed poachers have been recruited by the TBS as nahar sevaks (tiger protectors). Rajendra
Singh also agreed to act as an intermediary between the park authorities and the inhabitants of 17
villages inside the park in the matter of their translocation.

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Rajendra Singh has been instrumental in creating a people's sanctuary, Bhairondev Lok
Vanyajeev Abhyaranya, spread over 12 km2 in villages upstream of the Arvari. During a visit to
the wooded sanctuary last year this correspondent spotted the pugmark of a tiger. "We believe
that a tiger in the neighbourhood of the village is a matter of prestige," one of the villagers, Nana
Ram, said proudly.

Rajendra Singh's activities are indeed multifarious. He has set up educational institutions, mahila
sangathans, forest protection committees and now a brotherhood for water conservators - jal
biradiri. The TBS conducts padayatras extensively in order to reach out to the people. It has
either initiated or participated in long marches. These include the Aravalli Bachao Padayatra
(1993), the Gangotri Yatra (July 1994) and the Jangal Jeevan Bachao Yatra (February-March
1995). This summer's Akal Mukti (drought proofing) yatra was led by Rajendra Singh, along
with a few sadhus.

A graduate in Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery and a post-graduate in Hindi literature, Rajendra
Singh initiated the documentation of medicinal plants and their uses. The TBS has an Ayurveda
centre and a laboratory at Bhikampura.

During the past 15 years, the TBS has often fought with governments in power in the State over
the people's right over the natural resources available in their neighbourhood. Ever since 1987
when the Rajasthan Irrigation Department served a notice against the first johad built in
Gopalpura declaring it illegal, the NGO and the Department have been at loggerheads.

The Magsaysay Award has come at a time when Rajendra Singh is battling the Alwar district
administration and the Irrigation Department to retain an earthen dam built at Lava Ka Baas in
Thanagazi on the tributary of the Ruparel. The johad, built at a cost of Rs.9 lakhs three months
ago, was the first of the water-harvesting structures the TBS had planned to construct with the
help of business houses.

"So that everyone gets a chance to contribute towards water conservation and rainwater
harvesting," Rajendra Singh would say in defence of soliciting the support of the rich. Pani ka
kaam punya ka kaam hai (working for water conservation is a pious act), he tells the villagers.

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 22. Prof. Shantha Sinha

Prof. Shantha Sinha is an anti-child labour activist of international reputation. She is the
founder of Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation, popularly known as MV Foundation
(which is named in memory of her grandfather Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiah, and is a Professor
in the Department of Political science in Hyderabad Central University. Currently, she heads the
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights; The National Commission for Protection of
Child Rights (NCPCR) was set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child
Rights Act, 2005, an Act of Parliament (December 2005). Professor Sinha is its first chairman.

Contents
 1 Early life and background
 2 Career
 3 References
 4 External links

Early life and background

Shantha Sinha is an alumnus of St.Anns High School, Secunderabad.[1] She is born to
Mamidipudi Anandam and Seethamma. Sri Anandam was Charted Accountant and twice Rajya
Sabha member.

Career
Shanta Sinha is an academic with Hyderabad Central University. She gained the internationally
renowned 2003 Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership. She has also been awarded
the Padma Shri (1999), and the Albert Shanker International Award (1999) from Education
International. A rights activist, her contribution to a phenomenal reduction in child labour in
nearly 500 villages of Ranga Reddy district in Andhra Pradesh is perhaps unparalleled.
Recognizing her work, the Government of India appointed her as the first chairperson of the
newly formed NCPCR.

References
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources
remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing
more precise citations where appropriate. (January 2008)
1. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2006/06/12/stories/2006061201550400.htm

External links
 Tough action sought against child labour on farms, The Hindu, October 10, 2006
 Interview, Striving for better lives , The Hindu, August 5, 2003
 Citation for 2003 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership
 MV Foundation

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 23. Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray (Bengali: সত্যজিত্ রায় or সত্যজি ৎরায় Shottojit Rae (help·info); 2 May 1921 – 23
April 1992) was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of
20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) into a Bengali family
prominent in the world of arts and letters. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was
drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing the
Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves during a visit to London.

Ray directed thirty-seven films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a
fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, graphic designer and film critic. Ray's first film, Pather
Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Document at the Cannes
film festival. Alongside Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959), the three films form The Apu
Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction, editing and
designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his
career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film
festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Honorary Award in 1992.

Contents
 1 Early life and background
 2 The Apu Years (1950–1959)
 3 From Devi to Charulata (1959–1964)
 4 New directions (1965–1982)
 5 The last phase (1983–1992)
 6 Film craft
 7 Literary works
 8 Critical and popular response
 9 Legacy
 10 Awards, honours and recognitions
 11 Notes
 12 See also
 13 References
 14 External links

Early life and background

Satyajit Ray's ancestry can be traced back for at least ten generations.
Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray was a writer, illustrator,
philosopher, publisher, amateur astronomer and a leader of the Brahmo
Samaj, a religious and social movement in nineteenth century Bengal.
Sukumar Ray, Upendrakishore's son, was a pioneering Bengali writer of
nonsense rhyme and children's literature, an illustrator and a critic. Ray
was born to Sukumar and Suprabha Ray in Kolkata. Sukumar Ray died
when Satyajit was barely three, and the family survived on Suprabha
Ray's meager income. Ray studied at Ballygunge Government High
School, Calcutta, and then completed his B.A. (Hons.) in economics at
Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, though his interest was always in fine arts. In

100
1940, his mother insisted that he study at the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, founded
by Rabindranath Tagore. Ray was reluctant due to his love of Kolkata, and due to the generally
low opinion of the intellectual life at Santiniketan. His mother's persuasion and his respect for
Tagore finally convinced him to try this route. In Santiniketan, Ray came to appreciate oriental
art. He later admitted that he learnt much from the famous painters Nandalal Bose and Benode
Behari Mukherjee on whom Ray later produced a documentary film, "The Inner Eye". With
visits to Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta, Ray developed an admiration for Indian art.

He joined as a "junior visualiser", earning just eighty rupees a month. Although on the one hand,
visual design was something close to Ray's heart and, for the most part, he was treated well,
there was palpable tension between the British and Indian employees of the firm (the former
were much better paid), and Ray felt that "the clients were generally stupid". Around 1943, Ray
became involved with Signet Press, a new publishing house started up by D. K. Gupta. Gupta
asked Ray to create cover designs for books published from Signet Press and gave him complete
artistic freedom. Ray designed covers for many books, including Jim Corbett's Maneaters of
Kumaon, and Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India. He also worked on a children's version of
Pather Panchali, a classic Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, renamed as Am
Antir Bhepu (The mango-seed whistle). Ray was deeply influenced by the work, which became
the subject of his first film. In addition to designing the cover, he illustrated the book; many of
his illustrations ultimately found their place as shots in his groundbreaking film.

Along with Chidananda Dasgupta and others, Ray founded the Calcutta Film Society in 1947,
through which he was exposed to many foreign films. Throughout this time, Ray continued to
watch and study films seriously. He befriended the American GIs stationed in Kolkata during
World War II, who would inform him of the latest American films showing in the city. He came
to know a RAF employee, Norman Clare, who shared Ray's passion of films, chess and western
classical music.

In 1949, Ray married Bijoya Das, his first cousin and longtime sweetheart. The couple had a son,
Sandip, who is now a film director. In the same year, Jean Renoir came to Kolkata to shoot his
film The River. Ray helped him to find locations in the countryside. It was then that Ray told
Renoir about his idea of filming Pather Panchali, which had been on his mind for some time,
and Renoir encouraged him to proceed. In 1950, Ray was sent to London by D.J. Keymer to
work at its head office. During his three months in London, he watched 99 films. Among these
was the neorealist film Ladri di biciclette Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica which had
a profound impact on him. Ray later said that he came out of the theater determined to become a
filmmaker.

The Apu Years (1950–1959)

Ray had now decided that Pather Panchali, the classic bildungsroman of Bengali literature,
published in 1928 by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay, would be the subject matter for his first
film. This semi-autobiographical novel describes the growing up of Apu, a small boy in a Bengal
village.

Ray gathered an inexperienced crew, although both his cameraman Subrata Mitra and art director
Bansi Chandragupta went on to achieve great acclaim. The cast consisted of mostly amateur

101
artists. Shooting started in late 1952, using Ray's personal savings. He had hoped once the initial
shots had been completed, he would be able to obtain funds to support the project; however, such
funding was not forthcoming. Pather Panchali was shot over the unusually long period of three
years, because shooting was possible only from time to time, when Ray or production manager
Anil Chowdhury could arrange further money. With a loan from the West Bengal government,
the film was finally completed and released in 1955 to great critical and popular success,
sweeping up numerous prizes and having long runs in both India and abroad. During the making
of the film, Ray refused funding from sources who demanded a change in script or the
supervision of the producer, and ignored advice from the government (which finally funded the
film anyway) to incorporate a happy ending in having Apu's family join a "development project".

Even greater help than Renoir's encouragement occurred when Ray showed a sequence to John
Huston who was in India scouting locations for The Man Who Would Be King. The sequence is
the remarkable vision Apu and his sister have of the train running through the countryside. It was
the only sequence Ray had filmed due to his small budget. Huston notified Monroe Wheeler at
the New York Museum of Modern Art that a major talent was on the horizon.

In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic, The Times of India wrote that "It is absurd to
compare it with any other Indian cinema [...] Pather Panchali is pure cinema". In the United
Kingdom, Lindsay Anderson wrote a glowing review of the film. [14] However, the reaction was
not uniformly positive. After watching the movie, François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I
don‘t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands." Bosley Crowther, then the most
influential critic of The New York Times, wrote a scathing review of the film that its distributor
Ed Harrison thought would kill off the film when it got released in the United States, but instead
it enjoyed an exceptionally long run.

Ray's international career started in earnest after the success of his next film, Aparajito (The
Unvanquished). This film shows the eternal struggle between the ambitions of a young man,
Apu, and the mother who loves him. Many critics, notably Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, rank it
even higher than the first film. Aparajito won the Golden Lion in Venice. Before the completion
of The Apu Trilogy, Ray completed two other films. The first is the comic Parash Pathar (The
Philosopher's Stone), which was followed by Jalsaghar (The Music Room), a film about the
decadence of the Zamindars, considered one of his most important works.

Ray had not thought about a trilogy while making Aparajito, and it occurred to him only after
being asked about the idea in Venice. The final installation of the series, Apur Sansar (The World
of Apu) was made in 1959. Just like the two previous films, a number of critics find this to be the
supreme achievement of the trilogy (Robin Wood, Aparna Sen). Ray introduced two of his
favourite actors Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore in this film. The film finds Apu living
in a nondescript Kolkata house in near-poverty. He becomes involved in an unusual marriage
with Aparna, the scenes of their life together forming "one of the cinema's classic affirmative
depiction of married life", but tragedy ensues. After Apur Sansar was harshly criticised by a
Bengali critic, Ray wrote an article defending it—a rare event in Ray's film making career (the
other major instance involved the film Charulata, Ray's personal favourite). His success had
little influence on his personal life in the years to come. Ray continued to live with his mother,
uncle and other members of his extended family in a rented house.

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From Devi to Charulata (1959–1964)
During this period, Ray composed films on the British Raj period (such as Devi), a documentary
on Tagore, a comic film (Mahapurush) and his first film from an original screenplay
(Kanchenjungha). He also made a series of films that, taken together, are considered by critics
among the most deeply felt portrayal of Indian women on screen.

Ray followed Apur Sansar with Devi (The Goddess), a film in which are studied the superstitions
in the Hindu society. Sharmila Tagore starred as Doyamoyee, a young wife who is deified by her
father-in-law. Ray was worried that the censor board might block his film, or at least make him
re-cut it, but Devi was spared. In 1961, on the insistence of Prime-minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
Ray was commissioned to make a documentary on Rabindranath Tagore, on the occasion of the
poet's birth centennial, a tribute to the person who probably influenced Ray most. Due to limited
real footage of Tagore available, Ray faced the challenge of making a film out of mainly static
material, and he remarked that it took as much work as three feature films. In the same year,
together with Subhas Mukhopadhyay and others, Ray was able to revive Sandesh, the children's
magazine his grandfather once published. Ray had been saving money for some years now to
make this possible. A duality in the name (Sandesh means both "news" in Bengali and also a
sweet desert popular in Bengal) set the tone of the magazine (both educational and entertaining),
and Ray soon found himself illustrating the magazine, and writing stories and essays for
children. Writing became his major source of income in the years to come.

In 1962, Ray directed Kanchenjungha, which was his first original screenplay and colour film.
The film tells the story of an upper-class family spending an afternoon in Darjeeling, a
picturesque hill town in West Bengal, where the family tries to engage their youngest daughter to
a highly-paid engineer educated in London. The film was first conceived to take place in a large
mansion, but Ray later decided to film it in the famous hill town, using the many shades of light
and mist to reflect the tension in the drama. An amused Ray noted that while his script allowed
shooting to be possible under any lighting conditions, a commercial film contingent present at
the same time in Darjeeling failed to shoot a single shot as they only wanted to do so in sunshine.

In the sixties, Ray visited Japan and took particular pleasure in meeting filmmaker Akira
Kurosawa, for whom he had very high regard. While at home, he would take an occasional break
from the hectic city life by going to places like Darjeeling or Puri to complete a script in
isolation.

In 1964 Ray made Charulata (The Lonely Wife), the culmination of this period of work, and
regarded by many critics as his most accomplished film. Based on Nastanirh, a short story of
Tagore, the film tells the tale of a lonely wife, Charu, in 19th century Bengal, and her growing
feelings for her brother in law, Amal. Often referred to as Ray's Mozartian masterpiece, Ray
himself famously said the film contained least flaws among his work, and his only work, that
given a chance, he would make exactly the same way. Madhabi Mukherjee's performance as
Charu, and the work of both Subrata Mitra and Bansi Chandragupta in the film have been highly
praised. Other films in this period include Mahanagar (The Big City), Teen Kanya (Three
Daughters), Abhijan (The Expedition) and Kapurush o Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy
Man).

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New directions (1965–1982)
In the post-Charulata period, Ray took on projects of increasing variety, ranging from fantasy to
science fiction to detective films to historical drama. Ray also made considerable formal
experimentation during this period, and also took closer notice to the contemporary issues of
Indian life, responding to a perceived lack of these issues in his films. The first major film in this
period is Nayak (The Hero), the story of a screen hero traveling in a train where he meets a
young sympathetic female journalist. Starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore, the film
explores, in the twenty-four hours of the journey, the inner conflict of the apparently highly
successful matinée idol. In spite of receiving a Critics prize in Berlin, the reaction to this film
was generally muted.

In 1967, Ray wrote a script for a film to be called The Alien, based on his short story
Bankubabur Bandhu ("Banku Babu's Friend") which he wrote in 1962 for Sandesh, the Ray
family magazine. The Alien had Columbia Pictures as producer for this planned U.S.-India co-
production, and Peter Sellers and Marlon Brando as the leading actors. However, Ray was
surprised to find that the script he had written had already been copyrighted and the fee
appropriated by Mike Wilson. Wilson had initially approached Ray as an acquaintance of a
mutual friend, Arthur C. Clarke, to represent him in Hollywood. The script Wilson had
copyrighted was credited as Mike Wilson & Satyajit Ray, despite the fact that he only contributed
a single word in it. Ray later stated that he never received a penny for the script. Brando later
dropped out of the project, and though an attempt was made to replace him with James Coburn,
Ray became disillusioned and returned to Kolkata. Columbia expressed interest in reviving the
project several times in the 1970s and 1980s, but nothing came of it. When E.T. was released in
1982, Clarke and Ray saw similarities in the film to the earlier Alien script—Ray discussed the
collapse of the project in a 1980 Sight & Sound feature, with further details revealed by Ray's
biographer Andrew Robinson (in The Inner Eye, 1989). Ray believed that Spielberg's film would
not have been possible without his script of The Alien being available throughout America in
mimeographed copies (a charge Spielberg denies). Besides The Alien, two other unrealized
projects Ray intended to direct were theatrical adaptations of the ancient Indian epic, the
Mahābhārata, and E. M. Forster's 1924 novel A Passage to India.

In 1969, Ray made what would be commercially the most successful of his films. Based on a
children's story written by his grandfather, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (The Adventures of Goopy
and Bagha) is a musical fantasy. Goopy the singer and Bagha the drummer, equipped by three
boons allowed by the King of Ghosts, set out on a fantastic journey in which they try to stop an
impending war between two neighbouring kingdoms. Among his most expensive enterprises, it
turned out to be very hard to finance; Ray abandoned his desire to shoot it in colour, turning
down an offer that would have forced him to cast a certain Bollywood actor as the lead. Ray next
made a film from a novel by the young poet and writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay. Featuring a
musical structure acclaimed as even more complex than Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and
Nights in the Forest) traces four urban young men going to the forests for a vacation, trying to
leave their petty urban existence behind. All but one of them get engaged into revealing
encounters with women, which critics consider a revealing study of the Indian middle class. Ray
cast Bombay-based actress Simi Garewal as a tribal woman, who was pleasantly surprised to
find that Ray could envision someone as urban as her in that role.

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After Aranyer, Ray made a foray into contemporary Bengali reality, which was then in state of
continuous flux due to the leftist Naxalite movement. He completed the so-called Calcutta
trilogy: Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1971), and Jana Aranya (1975), three films which
were conceived separately, but whose thematic connections form a loose trilogy. Pratidwandi
(The Adversary) is about an idealist young graduate; if disillusioned, still uncorrupted at the end
of film, Jana Aranya (The Middleman) about how a young man gives in to the culture of
corruption to make a living, and Seemabaddha (Company Limited) about an already successful
man giving up morals for further gains. Of these, the first, Pratidwandi, uses an elliptical
narrative style previously unseen in Ray films, such as scenes in negative, dream sequences and
abrupt flashbacks.[35] In the 1970s, Ray also adapted two of his popular stories as detective films.
Though mainly targeted towards children and young adults, both Sonar Kella (The Golden
Fortress) and Joy Baba Felunath (The Elephant God) found some critical following.

Ray considered making a film on the Bangladesh Liberation War but later abandoned the idea,
commenting that as a filmmaker he was more interested in the travails and journeys of the
refugees and not politics. In 1977, Ray completed Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players), an
Urdu film based on a story by Munshi Premchand, set in Lucknow in the state of Oudh, a year
before the Indian rebellion of 1857. A commentary on the circumstances that led to the
colonization of India by the British, this was Ray's first feature film in a language other than
Bengali. This is also his most expensive and star-studded film, featuring likes of Sanjeev Kumar,
Saeed Jaffrey, Amjad Khan, Shabana Azmi, Victor Bannerjee and Richard Attenborough. Ray
made a sequel to Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne in 1980, a somewhat overtly political Hirak Rajar
Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds) — where the kingdom of the evil Diamond King or Hirok Raj is
an allusion to India during Indira Gandhi's emergency period. Along with his acclaimed short
film Pikoo (Pikoo's Day) and hour long Hindi film Sadgati this was the culmination of his work
in this period.

The last phase (1983–1992)

Sukumar Ray, on whom Ray made a documentary in 1987
In 1983, while working on Ghare Baire (Home and the World), Ray
suffered a heart attack that would severely limit his output in the
remaining 9 years of his life. Ghare Baire was completed in 1984 with
the help of Ray's son (who would operate the camera from then on)
because of his health condition. He wanted to film this Tagore novel on
the dangers of fervent nationalism for a long time, and even wrote a
(weak, by his own admission) script for it in the 1940s. In spite of rough
patches due to his illness, the film did receive some critical acclaim, and
it contained the first full-blown kiss in Ray's films. In 1987, he made a
documentary on his father, Sukumar Ray.

Ray's last three films, made after his recovery and with medical strictures in place, were shot
mostly indoors, have a distinctive style. They are more verbose than his earlier films and are
often regarded as inferior to his earlier body of work. The first, Ganashatru (An Enemy of the
People) is an adaptation of the famous Ibsen play, and considered the weakest of the three. Ray
recovered some of his form in his 1990 film Shakha Proshakha (Branches of the Tree). In it, an
old man, who has lived a life of honesty, comes to learn of the corruption three of his sons

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indulge in with the final scene shows him finding solace only in the companionship of the fourth,
uncorrupted but mentally ill son. After Shakha Prashakha, Ray's swan song Agantuk (The
Stranger) is lighter in mood, but not in theme. A long lost uncle's sudden visit to his niece's
house in Kolkata raises suspicion as to his motive and far-ranging questions about civilization.

In 1992, Ray's health deteriorated due to heart complications. He was admitted to a hospital, and
would never recover. An honorary Oscar was awarded to him weeks before his death, which he
received in a gravely ill condition. He died on 23 April 1992.

Film craft
Satyajit Ray considered script-writing to be an integral part of direction. This is one reason why
he initially refused to make a film in any language other than Bengali. In his two non-Bengali
feature films, he wrote the script in English, which translators then interpreted in Hindi or Urdu
under Ray's supervision. Ray's own eye for detail was matched by that of his art director Bansi
Chandragupta, whose influence on the early Ray films were so important that Ray would always
write scripts in English before creating a Bengali version, so that the non-Bengali Chandragupta
would be able to read it. Camera work in Ray's early films garnered high regard for the craft of
Subrata Mitra, whose (bitter) departure from Ray's crew, according to a number of critics,
lowered the quality of cinematography in his films. Though Ray openly praised Mitra, his single-
mindedness made him take over operation of the camera since Charulata, causing Mitra to stop
working for Ray after 1966. Pioneering works of Subrata Mitra included development of
"bounce lighting", a technique of bouncing light off cloth to create a diffused realistic light even
on a set. Ray also acknowledged debt to Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut of the French
New Wave for introducing new technical and cinematic innovations.

Though Ray had a regular editor in Dulal Datta, he usually dictated the editing while Datta did
the actual work. In fact, because of financial reasons and Ray's meticulous planning, his films
were mostly cut "on the camera" (apart from Pather Panchali). At the beginning of his career,
Ray worked with Indian classical musicians, including Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Ali
Akbar Khan. However, the experience was painful for him as he found that their first loyalty was
to musical traditions, and not to his film; also, his greater grasp of western classical forms, which
he regarded as essential, especially for his films set in an urban milieu, stood in the way. This led
him to compose his own scores starting from Teen Kanya. Ray used actors of diverse
backgrounds, from famous film stars to people who have never seen a film (such as in
Aparajito). Robin Wood and others have lauded him as the best director of children, pointing out
memorable performances including Apu and Durga (Pather Panchali), Ratan (Postmaster) and
Mukul (Sonar Kella). Depending on the talent or experience of the actor Ray's direction would
vary from virtually nothing (actors like Utpal Dutt) to using the actor as "a puppet" (Subir
Banerjee as young Apu or Sharmila Tagore as Aparna). According to actors working for Ray, his
customary trust in the actors would occasionally be tempered by his ability to treat incompetence
with "total contempt".

Literary works
Ray created two very popular characters in Bengali children's literature—Feluda, a sleuth, and
Professor Shonku, a scientist. He was a prominent writer of science fiction in Bengali or any
Indian language for that matter. He also wrote short stories which were published as volumes of
12 stories, always with names playing on the word twelve (for example Aker pitthe dui, or
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literally "Two on top of one"). Ray's interest in puzzles and puns is reflected in his stories,
Feluda often has to solve a puzzle to get to the bottom of a case. The Feluda stories are narrated
by Topshe, his cousin, something of a Watson to Feluda's Holmes. The science fictions of
Shonku are presented as a diary discovered after the scientist himself had mysteriously
disappeared. Ray's short stories give full reign to his interest in the macabre, in suspense and
other aspects that he avoided in film, making for an interesting psychological study. Most of his
writings have now been translated into English, and are finding a new group of readers.

Most of his screenplays have also been published in Bengali in the literary journal Eksan. Ray
wrote his autobiography encompassing his childhood years, Jakhan Choto Chilam (1982) and
essays on film: Our Films, Their Films (1976), along with Bishoy Chalachchitra (1976), Ekei
Bole Shooting (1979). During the mid-1990s, Ray's film essays and an anthology of short stories
were also published in the West. Our Films, Their Films is an anthology of film criticism by
Ray. The book contains articles and personal journal excerpts. The book is presented in two
sections—Ray first discusses Indian film, before turning his attention towards Hollywood and
specific international filmmakers (Charlie Chaplin, Akira Kurosawa) and movements like Italian
neorealism. His book Bishoy Chalachchitra was translated in 2006 as Speaking of Films, and
contains a compact description of his philosophy of different aspects of the cinema. Ray also
wrote a collection of nonsense verse named Today Bandha Ghorar Dim, which includes a
translation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". He also authored a collection of humorous stories
of Mullah Nasiruddin in Bengali.

Satyajit Ray designed four typefaces for roman script named Ray Roman, Ray Bizarre, Daphnis,
and Holiday Script, apart from numerous Bengali ones for the Sandesh magazine. Ray Roman
and Ray Biazarre won an international competition in 1971. In certain circles of Kolkata, Ray
continued to be known as an eminent graphic designer, well into his film career. Ray illustrated
all his books and designed covers for them, as well as creating all publicity material for his films.
He also designed covers of several books by other authors.

Critical and popular response

Ray's work has been described as reverberating with humanism and universality, and of
deceptive simplicity with deep underlying complexity. Praise has often been heaped on his work
by many, including Akira Kurosawa, who declared, "Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means
existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon." But his detractors find his films
glacially slow, moving like a "majestic snail." Some find his humanism simple-minded, and his
work anti-modern and claim that they lack new modes of expression or experimentation found in
works of Ray's contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard. As Stanley Kauffman wrote, some critics
believe that Ray "assumes [viewers] can be interested in a film that simply dwells in its
characters, rather than one that imposes dramatic patterns on their lives." Ray himself
commented that this slowness is something he can do nothing about. Kurosawa defended him by
saying that Ray's films were not slow at all, "His work can be described as flowing composedly,
like a big river".

Critics have often compared Ray to artists in the cinema and other media, such as Anton
Chekhov, Renoir, De Sica, Howard Hawks or Mozart. Shakespeare has also been invoked, for
example by the writer V. S. Naipaul, who compared a scene in Shatranj Ki Khiladi to a

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Shakespearian play, as "only three hundred words are spoken but goodness! – terrific things
happen." It is generally acknowledged, even by those who were not impressed by the aesthetics
of Ray's films, that he was virtually peerless in that his films encompass a whole culture with all
its nuances, a sentiment expressed in Ray's obituary in The Independent, which exclaimed, "Who
else can compete?"

Early in 1980, Ray was openly criticized by an Indian M.P. and former actress Nargis Dutt, who
accused Ray of "exporting poverty," demanding he make films to represent "Modern India." On
the other hand, a common accusation levelled against him by advocates of socialism across India
was that he was not "committed" to the cause of the nation's downtrodden classes, with some
commentators accusing Ray of glorifying poverty in Pather Panchali and Asani Sanket through
lyricism and aesthetics. They also accused him of providing no solution to conflicts in the
stories, and being unable to overcome his bourgeoisie background. Agitations during the naxalite
movements in the 1970s once came close to causing physical harm to his son, Sandip. In a public
debate during the 1960s, Ray and the openly Marxist filmmaker Mrinal Sen engaged in an
argument. Sen criticized him for casting a matinée idol like Uttam Kumar, which he considered a
compromise, while Ray shot back by saying that Sen only attacks "easy targets", i.e. the Bengali
middle-classes. His private life was never a subject of media scrutiny.

Legacy
Satyajit Ray is a cultural icon in India and in Bengali communities worldwide. Following his
death, the city of Kolkata came to a virtual standstill, as hundreds of thousands of people
gathered around his house to pay him their last respects. Satyajit Ray's influence has been
widespread and deep in Bengali cinema; a number of Bengali directors including Aparna Sen,
Rituparno Ghosh and Gautam Ghose in India, Tareq Masud and Tanvir Mokammel in
Bangladesh, and Aneel Ahmad in England, have been influenced by his film craft. Across the
spectrum, filmmakers such as Budhdhadeb Dasgupta, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan
have acknowledged his seminal contribution to Indian cinema. Beyond India, filmmakers such as
Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Carlos Saura,
Isao Takahata and Danny Boyle have been influenced by his cinematic style, with many others
such as Akira Kurosawa praising his work. Ira Sachs's 2005 work Forty Shades of Blue was a
loose remake of Charulata, and in Gregory Nava's 1995 film My Family, the final scene is
duplicated from the final scene of Apur Sansar. Similar references to Ray films are found, for
example, in recent works such as Sacred Evil, the Elements trilogy of Deepa Mehta and even in
films of Jean-Luc Godard. According to Michael Sragow of The Atlantic Monthly, the "youthful
coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt
to the Apu trilogy".

The character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in the American animated television series The
Simpsons was named in homage to Ray's popular character from The Apu Trilogy. Ray along
with Madhabi Mukherjee, was the first Indian film personality to feature in a foreign stamp
(Dominica). Many literary works include references to Ray or his work, including Saul Bellow's
Herzog and J. M. Coetzee's Youth. Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories contains fish
characters named Goopy and Bagha, a tribute to Ray's fantasy film. In 1993, UC Santa Cruz
established the Satyajit Ray Film and Study collection, and in 1995, the Government of India set
up Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute for studies related to film. In 2007, British

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Broadcasting Corporation declared that two Feluda stories would be made into radio programs.
During the London Film Festival, a regular "Satyajit Ray Award" is given to first-time feature
director whose film best captures "the artistry, compassion and humanity of Ray's vision". Wes
Anderson has claimed Ray as an influence on his work; his most recent live-action film, The
Darjeeling Limited, set in India, is dedicated to Ray.

Awards, honours and recognitions

Numerous awards were bestowed on Ray throughout his lifetime, including 32 National Film
Awards by the Government of India, in addition to awards at international film festivals. At the
Berlin Film Festival, he was one of only three filmmakers to win the Silver Bear for Best
Director more than once and holds the record for the most number of Golden Bear nominations,
with seven. At the Venice Film Festival, where he had previously won a Golden Lion for
Aparajito (1956), he was awarded the Golden Lion Honorary Award in 1982. That same year, he
received an honorary "Hommage à Satyajit Ray" award at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

Ray is the second film personality after Chaplin to have been awarded honorary doctorates by
Oxford University. He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1985 and the Legion of
Honor by the President of France in 1987. The Government of India awarded him the highest
civilian honour, Bharat Ratna shortly before his death.[84] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences awarded Ray an honorary Oscar in 1992 for Lifetime Achievement. It was one of
his favourite actresses, Audrey Hepburn, who represented the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences on that day in Calcutta. In 1992 he was posthumously awarded the Akira Kurosawa
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco International Film Festival; it
was accepted on his behalf by actress Sharmila Tagore.

In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll ranked Ray at #7 in its list of "Top 10
Directors" of all time, making him the highest-ranking Asian filmmaker in the poll. In 2002, the
Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll ranked Ray at #22 in its list of all-time greatest
directors, thus making him the fourth highest-ranking Asian filmmaker in the poll. In 1996,
Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked Ray at #25 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. In 2007,
Total Film magazine included Ray in its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.

Notes
"Satyajit Ray had an unconventional marriage. He married Bijoya (born 1917), youngest daughter of his
eldest maternal uncle, Charuchandra Das, in 1948 in a secret ceremony in Bombay after a long romantic
relationship that had begun around the time he left college in 1940. The marriage was reconfirmed in
Calcutta the next year at a traditional religious ceremony.", "Ties that Bind" by Arup Kr De, The
Statesman, Kolkata, 27th.April.2008

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 24. Sombhu Mitra

Sombhu Mitra (22 August 1915 – 19 May 1997) was an Indian film and stage actor, director,
playwright and one of the pre-eminent Indian theatre personalities, especially Bengali theatre,
where he is considered a pioneer. He remained associated with Indian People‘s Theatre
Association (IPTA) for a few years before founding Bohurupree (1948), theatre group in Kolkata
in 1948. He is most noted for his films like, Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Jagte Raho (1956), and his
production of Rakta Karabi based on Rabindranath Tagore play in 1954 and Chand Baniker Pala
his most noted play as a playwright

In 1966, the Sangeet Natak Akademi awarded him with its highest award, the Sangeet Natak
Akademi Fellowship for lifetime contribution, then in 1970, he was awarded the Padma
Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, and in 1976 the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Contents
 1 Early life and education
 2 Career
 3 The Bohurupee productions
 4 Filmography
 5 Major works
 6 Honours and awards
 7 See also
 8 Notes
 9 External links

Early life and education

Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, on 22 August 1915, Sombhu Mitra was the sixth child of
three sons and four daughters born of Sarat Kumar Mitra, an employee of the Geological Survey
of India, and Satadalbasini Mitra. His mother died when he was 12 years old..
He started his schooling in Chakraberia Middle English School, Calcutta and later continued in
the Ballygunge Government School, where he developed interest reading Bengali plays and
became active in school dramatics. He joined St. Xavier's College, Calcutta in 1931, and soon
started attending the local theater.

Career
His first appearance in Bengali theatre was in Rangmahal Theatre in north Kolkata in 1939,
thereafter he moved to the Minerva, Natyaniketan and Srirangam theaters.

In 1943, he joined Indian People‘s Theatre Association (IPTA). In 1944, several old theatrical
conventions were broken when the play Navanna written by Bijon Bhattacharya and co-directed
by Sombhu Mitra for IPTA was staged. In 1948, Sombhu Mitra formed a new theatre group,
Bohurupee in Kolkata, which ushered the group-theatre movement in West Bengal.

He married Tripti, who was also a celebrated personality in the Bengali theatre. Their daughter,
Shaoli is a noted actress, director and playwright..

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The Bohurupee productions
Under Sombhu Mitra‘s direction, the Bohurupee staged several successful productions. In
December 1950, the Bohurupee presented three plays in the New Empire theatre - Tulsi Lahiri‘s
Pathik and Chenda Tar and Sombhu Mitra‘s own creation, Ulukhagra. In 1954, Rabindranath
Tagore‘s Rakta Karabi was staged by the Bohurupee, followed by his Bisarjan, Raja and Char
Adhyay. Other notable productions include Bidhyak Bhattacharya‘s Tahar Namti Ranjana and
Kanchanranga. Under his direction, this group also presented the Bengali adaptations of several
well-known dramas from the world stage. Henrik Ibsen‘s Putul Khela (Doll‘s House),
Dashachakra (An Enemy of the People) and Sophocles' Raja Oidipaus (Oedipus Rex) are
notable amongst them.

In these productions he performed as Rahimuddin in Chenda Tar, Atin in Char Adhyay, Binod in
Ulukhagra, Tapan in Putul Khela, Dr. Purnendu Guha in Dashachakra, Oidipaus in Raja
Oidipaus.

He died in Kolkata.

Filmography
Sombhu Mitra performed in several movies in Bengali and Hindi. The notable amongst them are:
 Dharti Ke Lal (1946) (Hindi)
 Abhiyatri (1947) (Bengali)
 Dhatri Debata (1948) (Bengali)
 Abarta (1949) (Bengali)
 ’42 (1949) (Bengali)
 Hindustan Hamara (1950) (Hindi)
 Pathik (1953) (Bengali)
 Bau Thakuranir Hat (1953) (Bengali)
 Maharaj Nandakumar (1953) (Bengali)
 Maraner Pare (1954) (Bengali)
 Shivashakti (1954) (Bengali)
 Durlabh Janma (1955) (Bengali)
 Manik (1961) (Bengali)
 Suryasnan (1962) (Bengali)
 Panna (1967) (Bengali)
 Natun Pata (1969) (Bengali)
 Nishachar (1971) (Bengali)
He wrote the story and screenplay of Jagte Raho (1956) and also co-directed it along with Amit
Maitra. He also directed a Bengali movie, Shubha Bibaha in 1959.

Major works
 Abhinay Natak Mancha (in Bengali) (1957)
 Sanmarga-Saparya (in Bengali)
 Natak Raktakarabi (in Bengali)
 Chandbaniker Pala (in Bengali)
 Prarambhik (in Bengali)

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Honours and awards
Sombhu Mitra received many national and international awards, which include the Crystal Globe
for Jagte Raho at the 1957 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Desikottama from
Visva Bharati University in 1989[9], an honorary D. Litt from both Rabindra Bharati University
and Jadavpur University of Kolkata, the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1976[10] for journalism,
literature and creative communication arts and the Padmabhushan in the same year. He received
the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1966. For his contribution in the movies, he won the
Grand-Prix Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Madhya Pradesh
Government honored him with Kalidas Samman (1982-83)[11].

25. Gour Kishore Ghosh

Gour Kishore Ghosh (Bengali: গ ৌরজিশ ার গ াষ ), (June 22, 1923 – December 15, 2000) was
a celebrated Bengali writer and journalist.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Journalistic and Literary Career
 3 Awards
 4 List of Major Works
 5 Personal life
 6 Trivia
 7 References

Early life
Gour Kishore Ghosh was born in Hat Gopalpur village in the Jessore district in undivided
bengal, (presently Bangladesh), on the 22nd of June 1923. He completed his schooling in
Nabadwip, and completed his intermediate science (I.Sc.) examinations in 1945.

Due to extreme poverty, Ghosh could not continue his education further and had to become a
professional soon after.

He continually changed his professions between 1941 and 1953. Amongst others, he worked as
private tutor, electrician and fitter, sailor, waiter at restaurants, trade union organizer, school
teacher, manager of a touring dance troupe, land customs clearing clerk, proof reader and others,
until from an interim job as a border customs clerk he joined a new daily newspaper,
Satyayuga[2] where his distinctive writing style earned him promotion to editor of two feature
sections. Thus, he settled at his chosen profession, that of a reporter / journalist.

Journalistic and Literary Career

Ghosh went on to author popular columns in the literary weekly Desh and in Calcutta's largest
vernacular daily, Ananda Bazar Patrika, of which he also became senior editor. He portrayed the
agony of West Bengal during the Naxalite movement from 1969 to 1971, in sharp satire, in his
"News Commentary by Rupadarshi". He often wrote under his pen-name, Rupadarshi.

112
After the emergency was imposed upon India in 1975, Ghosh shaved his head and wrote a
symbolic letter to his 13 year old son explaining his act of "bereavement" over the loss of his
freedom to write. Published in Kolkata, a Bengali monthly, this letter caused his arrest, was
widely circulated through the underground and became a classic of protest. Ghosh smuggled
from prison two other letters on abuses of authoritarian rule before, in his cell, he suffered a third
heart attack.

He did not write much fiction, but what he wrote was highly appreciated and successful. In his
fiction, he has illuminated the underlying human dilemma of West Bengal—of a talented,
emotional people sorely affected by deep-seated religious and political differences.
Although reinstated as a senior editor of Ananda Bazar Patrika after the emergency ended and he
had recovered from his illness, Ghosh started Aajkaal (This Time), in collaboration with a few
associates.

After a short stint with Aajkal, he wrote for Ananda Bazar Patrika till the end.
His weekly satirical column was famous, as also a series of humorous stories. His mature work
chose the rather neglected field of interaction between Hindu and Muslim societies.
Among his lighter works, Brojoda, although not as popular as Ghanada and Tenida, has left his
distinct mark in the so called dada-literature of Bengal.

Awards
This humanitarian wroter-journalist was presented with many awards during his lifetime.
Notable among them were:
1. Ananda Puraskar for Literature (1970)
2. Ko Joy Uk Memorial award (1976), from the South Korean Government.
3. Ramon Magsaysay Award (1981) for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication
Arts[6].
4. Maharashtra Government Award (1981).
5. Bankim Puraskar (1982).
6. Hardayal Harmony Award (1993).
7. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Award (1993).

List of Major Works

Short Story Collections:
1. Ei Kolkatay (1952)
2. Mon Maney Na (1955)
3. Sagina Mahato (1969)
4. Poschimbongo Ek Promod Toroni, Ha ha! (1969)
5. Aamra Jekhaney (June, 1970)

Personal life
He had two daughters and a son. He was known for his spartan living.
His early political inspiration came from MN Roy's Radical Humanism, but in his later years he
veered towards the ideals of Gandhi.

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Trivia
He was arrested in 1975, as per the controversial MISA Act.
A vocal supporter and advocate of journalistic rights and right to expression, he had been in
many instances in opposition to the prevailing conditions, and had to bear censure of the
prevailing authorities for his struggles.

Sagina Mahato, a story written by him in remembrance of a colleague of his in his political
activist past, was successfully adopted into movies in Hindi (Sagina) and Bengali (Sagina
Mahato) by Tapan Sinha, with the famous thespian Dilip Kumar playing the part of the
protagonist Sagina Mahato in both instances.

26. Arun Shourie

Arun Shourie (अरूण शौरी) ( born November 2, 1941) is an Indian journalist, author,
intellectual and politician. He has been an economist with the World Bank (1968-72 and 1975-
77), a consultant to the Planning Commission, India, editor of the Indian Express and Times of
India and a minister in the government of India (1998-2004).

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 3 Personal life
 4 Publications
 5 Bibliography
 6 References
 7 External links

Early life
Born in Jalandar, India to Hari Dev Shourie, a civil officer (IAS), who later became a consumer
rights activist. His father was a magistrate at Lahore during partition of India and the family
moved to India. Arun studied at Modern School, Barakhamba and St. Stephen's in Delhi. He
obtained his doctorate in Economics from Syracuse University in the United States. His sister
Nalini Singh is a journalist.

Career
In a series of exposés, many of which he wrote himself, Shourie and the Indian Express, where
he became Executive Editor in January 1979, uncovered corruption in the highest echelons of the
government and exposed several major scandals, including what has been dubbed ―India‘s
Watergate.‖ Shourie started a one-man crusade in 1981 against Abdul Rehman Antulay, the then
Chief Minister of Maharashtra State, who allegedly extorted millions of dollars from businesses
dependent on state resources and put the money in a private trust named after Indira Gandhi. The
story caused the eventual resignation of the chief minister , the highest-ranking official in India
ever forced from office by newspaper reporting, and great embarrassment to Gandhi and her
ruling Congress Party.

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Shourie's exposés resulted in a prolonged labour dispute at the Mumbai offices of the Indian
Express, where a labour organizer with ties to Antulay encouraged workers to strike for a
minimum wage double than what was paid at any other newspaper in India. It also resulted in a
government crackdown that included a host of legal cases launched against the Indian Express by
various agencies. In 1982, the paper's owner Ramnath Goenka fired Shourie as a result of
continued government pressure.

Between 1982 and 1986, Shourie wrote for various newspapers and magazines, at the same time
as being General Secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties. He was appointed executive
editor of the Times of India in 1986 but was lured back to the Indian Express by Goenka in 1987.
Shourie launched an attack on then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi over the Bofors howitzer gun
purchase scandal. This contributed to Rajiv Gandhi's defeat in the subsequent parliamentary
elections.

Among the many battles Shourie fought for press freedom, perhaps the most famous was his
crusade against the government‘s proposal in 1988 to introduce a defamation bill. It was widely
perceived that the bill had been introduced with unusual speed in the Parliament in an attempt to
muzzle the Indian Express, and the entire media community joined Shourie and the Indian
Express in condemning the move.

At one stage, there were 300 cases filed by the government against the Indian Express, and credit
supply from banks was cut off. Shourie, however, continued his battle against government
corruption until 1990, when differences on editorial policy forced him to resign from the Indian
Express. The differences involved Shourie's opposition to the implementation of the Mandal
Commission Report, that sought reservations in government jobs for Other Backward Classes
(OBC), which were initiated by then Prime Minister V.P. Singh's government. After that, he
devoted his energy to writing books and regular columns, which appeared in different languages
in 30 newspapers across India.

Shourie is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has been a member of the Rajya
Sabha and also held the office of the Minister of Disinvestment, Communication and Information
Technology in the Government of India under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's prime ministership. As
Disinvestment Minister, he led the sale of Maruti, VSNL, Hindustan Zinc among others. His
position as Minister was a controversial one, but he and his secretary Pradip Baijal are much
respected for kick-starting what people believe was a best-in-class process. In a poll of India‘s
top 100 CEOs in February 2004, he was ranked the most outstanding minister of Mr.Vajpayee‘s
government.

In the year 2000, Shourie pledged the entire amount (Rs. 11.90 crore) of discretionary spending
available to him under Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) to
setting up of Bio-Sciences & Bio-engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur. In 2005, he displayed his commitment to the cause by again pledging Rs. 11 crore for
developing a separate and well-equipped building for Environmental Sciences and
Environmental Engineering at the institute.

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Shourie was one of the voracious voices opposing the nomination of Pratibha Patil as the
President of India in 2007. Arun Shourie authored two articles published as a booklet titled 'Does
This Tainted Person Deserve to Become President of India?' in which he discussed the highly
questionable past of the Congress candidate. In a detailed interview with Karan Thapar, Shourie
gave voluminous proofs accusing Pratibha Patil and her kin of embezzling funds from Pratibha
Mahila Sahakari Bank,a bank which she had founded and was incharge of. Reserve Bank of
India (RBI), revoked the licence of the bank in 2003 after it was found out that the bank had
illegally waived interest on loans given to many of Pratibha Patil‘s family members . Shourie
also accused her of obstruction of justice and in a murder case against her brother G.N.Patil.

After the defeat of BJP in 2009 General Elections, Arun Shourie was one of the voices, besides
Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh, within the BJP demading introspection and accountability.
Matters came to a flashpoint after the expulsion of senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh because of
his book praising Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Shourie defended Jaswant Singh in his articles in the
Indian Express and accused the BJP Party President Rajnath Singh of high handedness using
such choice phrases as Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Blunderland.

Personal life
Shourie is married to Anita Shourie, and they have one son.

Publications
His writings have gained him a considerable following around the country, as well as several
national and international honours. Among these are the Padma Bhushan, the Magsaysay Award,
the Dadabhai Naoroji Award, the Astor Award, the K.S. Hegde Award and the International
Editor of the Year Award and The Freedom to Publish Award.
 In his book Worshipping False Gods, Shourie criticized B.R. Ambedkar, the leader of Dalits
for alleged complicity with the British and lust for power and wealth.
 In A Secular Agenda (1997, ISBN 81-900199-3-7), Shourie discusses various problems
faced by India due to minority appeasement and pseudo-secularism practiced by the Indian
politicians. The book starts with a discourse on the definition of a nation. He cites examples
of other nations in Europe to counter the arguments of people who do not consider India as
one nation due to its different lanuguages and religions. He argues for a Uniform Civil Code
in the book and the abolition of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. He also discusses the
problem related to infiltration from Bangladesh and the inability of the Indian government to
solve it.
 Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998, ISBN 81-900199-
8-8) discusses the NCERT controversy in Indian politics and attacks Marxist historiography.
Arun Shourie asserts that Marxist historians have controlled and misused important
institutions like the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the National Council of
Educational Research Training (NCERT) and a large part of academia and the media. He
criticizes well-known historians like Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib. Shourie argues that
Marxist historians have white-washed the records of rulers like Mahmud of Ghazni and
Aurangzeb. Shourie presents examples to further his argument of how many of these text
books describe in great detail foreign personalities like Karl Marx or Stalin, while they often
barely mention important figures of India or of the Indian states. Shourie writes that this is in
contrast to Russian Marxist text books. The standard Soviet work "A History of India" (1973)

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 is according to Shourie much more objective and truthful than the history books written by
the Indian Marxists.
 Falling Over Backwards: An essay against Reservations and against Judicial populism:
Shourie examines the history of reservations as to why they were originally introduced, the
relevant sections in the Indian Constitution and the reasoning behind the exact words used.
He then cites the rulings of courts to emphasise on the degeneration of judiciary from an
upholder of the original values to openly flouting them. He examines how the Constitution
was generously interpreted by consecutive court rulings to arrive at conclusions completely
opposite to what the Constitution makers originally intended. He cites exact rulings and
judgements to make his point. He then proceeds to discuss the introduction of reservations in
promotions, the Rooster System, the arrival at the 50% limit and the subsequent flouting of it.
Next, he proceeds to the logic behind the Mandal recommendations and the basis on which
the same were made. He then examines the base of the commissions rulings,i.e. the 1931
census(the last time caste based census was held in India), and showcases how the findings,
ambiguous to begin with by the census takers' own admissions, was conveniently used by the
commission. In the final part of the book, Shourie examines the effects of reservations in
bureaucracy and elsewhere, citing specific examples and cases to highlight the absurdness
that has set in and its adverse effect on the institutions. He discusses the future that the trend
portends, and makes ominous predictions if the slide is not stopped. Shourie ends by quoting
Nehru's remarks on reservations 'This way lies not folly, but disaster.'
 Governance and the sclerosis that has set in: Arun Shourie discusses the rot prelevant in the
bureaucracy and the inordinate delay that acccompains every task. Various cases are cited
along with their timeline and their motion through the various channels bringing home the
inefficiency of the structure. Shourie also discusses certain incidents involving his stint as the
Disinvestment minister in the Vajpayee Government. Lack of efficacy of various state
governments, PSU's and departments is also discussed. Shourie suggests doing away with the
obsolete legislations and simplyfing the processes.

Bibliography
 Are We Deceiving Ourselves Again
 Where Will All This Take Us
 The Parliamentary System
 Courts and their Judgements: Premises, Prerequisites, Consequences
 Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud
 Falling Over Backwards: An essay against Reservations and against Judicial populism
 Governance and the sclerosis that has set in
 Harvesting Our Souls
 Hinduism: Essence and Consequence
 Indian Controversies
 Individuals, Institutions, Processes : How One may Strengthen the Other in India Today
 Institutions in the Janata Phase
 Missionaries in India
 Mrs Gandhi's Second Reign
 Only Fatherland : Communists, 'Quit India,' and the Soviet Union
 Religion in Politics
 A Secular Agenda

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 Symptoms of Fascism
 These Lethal, Inexorable Laws: Rajiv, His Men and His Regime
 The State As Charade: V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar and the Rest
 Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites?
 Worshiping False Gods
 The World of Fatwas
co-author:
 with Sita Ram Goel, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi and Ram Swarup, Hindu Temples - What
Happened to Them Vol. I, (A Preliminary Survey) (1990)
 with Sita Ram Goel, Koenraad Elst, Ram Swarup, Freedom of expression - Secular
Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy, Voice of India (1998).

27. Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman ( Kannada: ಆರ್. ಕ . ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮ್ ಣ್), (born 23 October 1924) is
an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He is widely regarded as India's greatest-ever
cartoonist[1] and is best known for his creation The Common Man.

Contents
 1 Early years
 1.1 Birth and childhood
 2 Career
 2.1 Beginning
 2.2 Other creations
 3 Personal life
 4 Awards
 5 Bibliography
 6 Multi-media
 7 Quotation
 8 Trivia
 9 Notes
 10 References

Early years
Birth and childhood
R. K. Laxman was born in Mysore. His father was a headmaster and Laxman is the youngest of
six boys. One of his elder brothers, R.K. Narayan, went on to become one of India's best known
English language novelists.

Laxman was engrossed by the illustrations in magazines such as Strand Magazine, Punch,
Bystander, Wide World and Tit-Bits, even before he could read. Soon he was drawing on his
own, on the floors, walls and doors of his house and doodling chafhSVHres of his teachers at
school; praised by a teacher for his drawing of a peepal leaf, he began to think of himself as an
artist in the making. Another early influence on Laxman were the cartoons of the world-

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renowned British cartoonist, Sir David Low (whose signature he misread as "cow" for a long
time) that appeared now and then in The Hindu. Laxman notes in his autobiography, The Tunnel
of Time:
“ I drew objects that caught my eye outside the window of my room - the dry twigs,
leaves and lizard-like creatures crawling about, the servant chopping firewood and, of
course, and number of crows in various postures on the rooftops of the buildings opposite ”

Laxman was the captain of his local "Rough and Tough and Jolly" cricket team and his antics
inspired the stories "Dodu the money maker" and "The Regal Cricket Club" written by his
brother, Narayan. Laxman's idyllic childhood was shaken for a while when his father suffered a
paralytic stroke and died around a year later, but the elders
at home bore most of the increased responsibility, while
Laxman continued with his schooling.

After high school, Laxman applied to the JJ School of

Arts, Bombay hoping to concentrate on his lifelong
interests of drawing and painting, but the dean of the
school wrote to him that his drawings lacked, "the kind of
talent to qualify for enrollment in our institution as a
student", and refused admission. He finally graduated with
a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Mysore. In the
meantime he continued his freelance artistic activities and
contributed cartoons to Swarajya and an animated film
based on the mythological character, Narada.

Career
Beginning
Laxman's earliest work was for newspapers & magazines such as Swarajya and Blitz. Whilst still
at the Maharaja's College, Mysore, he began to illustrate his elder brother R K Narayan's stories
in The Hindu, and he drew political cartoons for the local newspapers and for the Swatantra.
Laxman also drew cartoons, for the Kannada humour magazine, Koravanji. Incidentally,
Koravanji was founded in 1942 by Dr M Shivaram. He was a MBBS doctor, who had a clinic
around Majestic area in Bangalore. he started this monthly magazine, dedicating to
hilarious/sattiric articles and cartoons. Dr Shivaram himself was an eminent humourist in
Kannada. He encouraged Laxman quite a lot. He held a summer job at the Gemini Studios,
Madras. His first full-time job was as a political cartoonist for the Free Press Journal. Prominent
Shiv Sena politician Bal Thackeray, was also an employee at the newspaper at that time. Laxman
later joined The Times of India, beginning a career that has spanned for over fifty years.

Other creations
Among his other works, Laxman is known for his distinctive illustrations in several books, most
notably for the Malgudi stories written by his elder brother R.K. Narayan. He also created a
popular mascot for the Asian Paints group called Gattu. Laxman has also penned a few novels.
His cartoons have appeared in Hindi films such as Mr. and Mrs. 55.

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Personal life
He is married to author Kamala Laxman. He lives in both Mumbai and Pune.
In September 2003, Laxman was affected by a stroke, which left him paralysed on his left side.
He has partly recovered from its effects.

Awards
 B.D. Goenka Award - Indian Express
 Durga Ratan Gold Medal - Hindustan Times
 Padma Bhushan - Govt. of India
 Padma Vibhushan - Govt. of India
 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts - 1984
 Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism - CNN IBN TV18, 29 January 2008.

Bibliography
 The Eloquent Brush: A Selection of Cartoons from Nehru to Rajiv
 50 Years of Independence through the eyes of R.K.Laxman
 The Best of Laxman series
 Hotel Riviera
 The Messenger
 Servants of India
 The Tunnel of Time (autobiography)
 His autobiography Lakshmanrekha is published in Marathi.
 The Reel World [cartoons]published by Marwah Studios
 Brushing Up The Years- A Cartoonist's History of India- 1947 to the Present- Penguin Books

Multi-media
 India Through The Eyes of R. K. Laxman - Then To Now (CD-ROM).
 Laxman Rekhas-A TOI Publication

Quotation
When the American cartoonist Ranan Lurie asked him who the best Indian cartoonist was,
Laxman flashed back, "I am." The second, third, fourth, fifth best man on the job? Laxman
continued to repeat, "I am."

Trivia
Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into
appropriate sections or articles. (February 2008)
 He has never kept a diary nor worn a wrist watch in his entire life
 The Common Man in his cartoons never speaks anything.[Contradicts the fourth point]
 The Common Man has even travelled to Antarctica once in a cartoon.
 The Common Man speaks once in an early cartoon about Nehru. He tells Nehru even as he doesn't
recognize him, "...Don't know all that Sir, but I'm voting for that man...!", pointing to Nehru's statue.
(from the book 'Brushing Up the Years')

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 28. Kuntagodu Vibhuthi Subbanna
Kuntagodu Vibhuthi Subbanna (Kannada: ಕುಂತಗ ೂೇಡು ವಿಭೂತಿ ಸುಬ್ಬಣ್ಣ ) (1932-16 July 2005) was an
acclaimed dramatist and writer in Kannada. He was the founder of the world famous NINASAM
(Neelanakantheshwara Natya Sangha) drama institute.. Founded in 1949 in Heggodu, Shimoga,
Ninasam, under the guidance of K.V. Subbanna, made significant contribution to Kannada
theatre and other performing arts. He was awarded, in 1991, the Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, in recognition of his contribution to
enrich rural Karnataka with the world's best films and the delight and wonder of the living stage.
He was awarded the Padma Shri during 2004-05.

Under the influence of Shantaveri Gopala Gowda, a senior leader of the socialist movement in
Karnataka, Subbanna espoused socialist ideology, to which he was committed throughout his
life.. To promote Kannada dramas Subbanna set up training centres in various parts of
Karnataka. He also established Akshara Prakashana, a publishing house, to publish literature in
Kannada related to theatre, which included translations of plays from other languages.

Awards and recognition

 Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1991
 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1994
 Sahitya Akademi Award in 2003
 Padma Shree in 2004

External links
 Sudhanva Deshpande, 'The World was his Stage',
 Remembering Subbanna at kamat.com

29. Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রজি ংির ; born 7 April 1920), often referred to by the title Pandit, is an
Indian sitarist and composer. He has been described as the most well known contemporary
Indian musician by Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group
of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court
musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer,
creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India
Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.

In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its
popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist
Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by
writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986
to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India.
Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received
three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.

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Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Career
 2.1 Training and work in India
 2.2 International career 1956–1969
 2.3 International career 1970–present
 3 Style and contributions
 3.1 Recognition
 4 Personal life and family
 5 Discography
 6 Bibliography
 7 References

Early life
Shankar was born 7 April 1920 in Varanasi to a wealthy and conservative Brahmin family of
cultured Bengalis as the youngest of seven brothers, of whom four lived when he was born.
Shankar's Bengali birth name was Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury.
His father, Shyam Shankar, an administrator for the Maharaja of
Jhalawar, used the Sanskrit spelling of the family name and
removed its last part. Shyam was married to Shankar's mother
Hemangini Devi, but later worked as a lawyer in London. There he
married a second time while Devi raised Shankar in Varanasi, and
did not meet his son until he was eight years old. Shankar
shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi,
for "sun".

At the age of ten, after spending his first decade in Varanasi,

Shankar went to Paris with the dance group of his brother,
choreographer Uday Shankar. By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group,
accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments.
Uday's dance group toured Europe and America in the early to mid-1930s and Shankar learned
French, discovered Western classical music, jazz, and cinema, and became acquainted with
Western customs. Shankar heard the lead musician for the Maihar court, Allauddin Khan, in
December 1934 at a music conference in Kolkata and Uday convinced the Maharaja of Maihar in
1935 to allow Khan to become his group's soloist for a tour of Europe. Shankar was sporadically
trained by Khan on tour, and Khan offered Shankar training to become a serious musician under
the condition that he abandoned touring and came to Maihar.

Career
Training and work in India
Shankar's parents had died by the time he returned from the European tour, and touring the West
had become difficult due to political conflicts that would lead to World War II. Shankar gave up
his dancing career in 1938 to go to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khan's pupil,
living with his family in the traditional gurukul system. Khan was a rigorous teacher and Shankar
had training on sitar and surbahar, learned ragas and the musical styles dhrupad, dhamar, and
khyal, and was taught the techniques of rudra veena, rubab, and sursingar. He often studied with
Khan's children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi. Shankar began to perform publicly on

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sitar in December 1939 and his debut performance was a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan,
who played sarod.

Shankar completed his training in 1944. Following his training, he moved to Mumbai and joined
the Indian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and
1946. Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of
25. He began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio
(AIR), New Delhi, from February 1949 to January 1956. Shankar composed for the Indian
National Orchestra and his compositions experimented with a combination of Western
instruments and classical Indian instrumentation. Beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the
music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed.

International career 1956–1969

V. K. Narayana Menon, director of AIR Delhi, introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin
to Shankar during Menuhin's first visit to India in 1952. Shankar had performed as part of a
cultural delegation in the Soviet Union in 1954 and Menuhin invited Shankar in 1955 to perform
in New York City for a demonstration of Indian classical music, sponsored by the Ford
Foundation. Shankar declined to attend due to problems in his marriage, but recommended Ali
Akbar Khan to play instead. Khan reluctantly accepted and performed with tabla player Chatur
Lal in the Museum of Modern Art, and he later became the first Indian classical musician to
perform on American television and record a full raga performance, for Angel Records. Shankar
heard about the positive response Khan received and resigned from AIR in 1956 to tour the
United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. He played for smaller audiences and educated
them about Indian music, incorporating ragas from the South Indian Carnatic music in his
performances, and recorded his first LP album Three Ragas in London, released in 1956. In
1958, Shankar participated in the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations and
UNESCO music festival in Paris. Since 1961, he toured Europe, the United States, and Australia,
and became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films. Chatur Lal accompanied
Shankar on tabla until 1962, when Alla Rakha assumed the role.

Shankar befriended Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American tour
and recorded most of his albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label. The Byrds recorded at
the same studio and heard Shankar's music, which led them to incorporate some of its elements
in theirs, introducing the genre to their friend George Harrison of The Beatles. Harrison became
interested in Indian classical music, bought a sitar and used it to record the song "Norwegian
Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This led to Indian music being used by other musicians and
created the raga rock trend. Harrison met Shankar in London in 1966 and visited India for six
weeks to study sitar under Shankar in Srinagar. During the visit, a documentary film about
Shankar named Raga was shot by Howard Worth, and released in 1971. Shankar's association
with Harrison greatly increased Shankar's popularity and Ken Hunt of Allmusic would state that
Shankar had become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" by 1966. In 1967, he
performed at the Monterey Pop Festival and won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music
Performance for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin. The same year, the
Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band which included "Within You Without You" by Harrison, a song that was influenced by
Indian classical music. Shankar opened the Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles, California,

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in May 1967, and published a best-selling autobiography, My Music, My Life, in 1969. He
performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, and found he disliked the venue. In the
1970s Shankar distanced himself from the hippie movement.

International career 1970–present

In October 1970 Shankar became chair of the department of Indian music of the California
Institute of the Arts after previously teaching at the City College of New York, the University of
California, Los Angeles, and being guest lecturer at other colleges and universities, including the
Ali Akbar College of Music. In late 1970, the London Symphony Orchestra invited Shankar to
compose a concerto with sitar; Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra was performed with André
Previn as conductor and Shankar playing the sitar. Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has
criticized the usage of the orchestra in this concert as "amateurish". George Harrison organized
the charity Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, in which Shankar participated. Interest in
Indian music had decreased in the early 1970s, but the album from the Concert for Bangladesh
became one of the best-selling recordings featuring it and won Shankar a second Grammy.

During the 1970s, Shankar and Harrison worked together again, recording Shankar Family and
Friends in 1974 and touring North America to a mixed response after Shankar had toured
Europe. The touring band visited the White House on invitation of John Gardner Ford, son of
U.S. President Gerald Ford. The demanding North America tour weakened Shankar, and he
suffered a heart attack in Chicago in September 1974, causing him to cancel a portion of the tour.
In his absence, Shankar's sister-in-law, singer Lakshmi Shankar, conducted the touring orchestra.
Shankar toured and taught for the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s and released his second
concerto, Raga Mala, conducted by Zubin Mehta, in 1981. Shankar was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his work on the 1982 movie Gandhi, but lost
to John Williams' E.T. He served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the
Parliament of India, from 1986 to 1992, after being nominated by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi. His liberal views on musical cooperation led him to collaboration with contemporary
composer Philip Glass, with whom he released an album, Passages, in 1990.

Shankar underwent an angioplasty in 1992 due to heart problems, after which George Harrison
involved himself in several of Shankar's projects. Because of the positive response to Shankar's
1996 career compilation In Celebration, Shankar wrote a second autobiography, Raga Mala,
with Harrison as editor. He performed in between 25 and 40 concerts every year during the late
1990s. Shankar taught his daughter Anoushka Shankar to play sitar and
in 1997 became a

Regent's Lecturer at University of California, San Diego. In the 2000s,

he won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for Full Circle:
Carnegie Hall 2000 and toured with Anoushka, who released a book
about her father, Bapi: Love of My Life, in 2002. Anoushka performed a
composition by Shankar for the 2002 Harrison memorial Concert for
George and Shankar wrote a third concerto for sitar and orchestra for Anoushka and the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra. He played his last European concert in June 2008.

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Style and contributions
Shankar developed a style distinct from that of his contemporaries and incorporated influences
from rhythm practices of Carnatic music. His performances begin with solo alap, jor, and jhala
(introduction and performances with pulse and rapid pulse) influenced by the slow and serious
dhrupad genre, followed by a section with tabla accompaniment featuring compositions
associated with the prevalent khyal style. Shankar often closes his performances with a piece
inspired by the light-classical thumri genre.

Shankar has been considered one of the top sitarists of the second half of the 20th century.
Shankar popularized performing on the bass octave of the sitar for the alap section, became
known for a distinctive quick playing style in the middle and high registers, and his sound
creation through stops and strikes on the main playing string. Musik in Geschichte und
Gegenwart has argued that Shankar's playing style was not widely adopted and that he was
surpassed by other sitar players in the performance of melodic passages. Shankar's interplay with
Alla Rakha improved appreciation for tabla playing in Hindustani classical music. He promoted
the jugalbandi duet concert style and introduced new ragas, including Tilak Shyam, Nat Bhairav
and Bairagi.

Recognition
Shankar was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1962, and became a fellow of the
academy in 1975. He was awarded the three highest national civil honors of India: Padma
Bhushan, in 1967, Padma Vibhushan, in 1981, and Bharat Ratna, in 1999. Shankar received the
music award of the UNESCO International Music Council in 1975, three Grammy Awards, and
was nominated for an Academy Award. He was awarded honorary degrees from universities in
India and the United States. Shankar received the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 1991, the
Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1992, and the Polar Music Prize in 1998. He is an honorary
member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Praemium Imperiale for
music from the Japan Art Association.

Personal life and family

Shankar married Allauddin Khan's daughter Annapurna Devi in 1941 and a son, Shubhendra
Shankar, was born in 1942. Shankar separated from her in the 1940s and had a relationship with
Kamala Shastri, a dancer, beginning in the late 1940s. An affair with Sue Jones, a New York
concert producer, led to the birth of Norah Jones in 1979. In 1981, Anoushka Shankar was born
to Shankar and Sukanya Rajan, who Shankar had known since the 1970s. After separating from
Kamala Shastri in 1981 Shankar lived with Sue Jones until 1986 and married Sukanya Rajan in
1989.

Shubhendra "Shubho" Shankar often accompanied his father on his tours. He could play the sitar
and surbahar, but elected not to pursue a solo career and died in 1992. Norah Jones became a
highly successful musician on her own in the 2000s, winning multiple Grammys. Anoushka
Shankar was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2003.

Shankar is a Hindu and a vegetarian. He lives with Sukanya in Southern California.

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 30. Mahasweta Devi

Mahasweta Devi (Bengali: মহাশেত্া গেিী Môhashsheta Debi) (born 1926 in Dhaka in what is now
Bangladesh) is an Indian social activist and writer.

Contents
 1 Biography
 2 Career
 3 Recent Activism

Biography
Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her
father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the
pseudonym Jubanashwa. He also happened to be the elder brother of the noted filmmaker Ritwik
Ghatak. Mahasweta's mother Dharitri Devi was also a writer and a social worker whose brothers
were very distinguished in various fields, such as the noted sculptor Sankha Chaudhury and the
founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly of India, Sachin Chaudhury. Her first
schooling was in Dhaka, but after the partition of India she moved to West Bengal in India. She
joined the Rabindranath Tagore founded Vishvabharati University in Santiniketan and completed
a B.A. (Hons) in English, and then finished an M.A. in English at Calcutta University as well.
She later married renowned playwright Bijon Bhattacharya who was deeply involved with the
IPTA.

Career
In 1964, she began teaching at Bijoygarh College (an affiliated college of the University of
Calcutta system). During those days, Bijoygarh College was an institution for working class
women students. Also during that period, she also worked as a journalist and as a creative writer.
Recently, she is more famous for her work related to the study of the Lodhas and Shabars,the
tribal communities of West Bengal, women and dalits. She is also an activist who is dedicated to
the struggles of tribal people in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In her elaborate
Bengali fiction, she often depicts the brutal oppression of tribal peoples and the untouchables by
potent, authoritarian upper-caste landlords, lenders, and venal government officials. She has
written of the source of her inspiration:

I have always believed that the real history is made by ordinary people. I constantly come across
the reappearance, in various forms, of folklore, ballads, myths and legends, carried by ordinary
people across generations....The reason and inspiration for my writing are those people who are
exploited and used, and yet do not accept defeat. For me, the endless source of ingredients for
writing is in these amazingly, noble, suffering human beings. Why should I look for my raw
material elsewhere, once I have started knowing them? Sometimes it seems to me that my
writing is really their doing.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006, when India was the first country to be the Fair's second time
guest nation, she made an impassioned inaugural speech wherein she moved the audience to
tears with her lines taken from the famous film song by Raj Kapoor (the English equivalent is in
brackets):

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This is truly the age where the Joota (shoe) is Japani (Japanese), Patloon (pants) is Englistani
(British), the Topi (hat) is Roosi (Russian), But the Dil... Dil (heart) is always Hindustani
(Indian)... My country, Torn, Tattered, Proud, Beautiful, Hot, Humid, Cold, Sandy, Shining
India. My country.

Recent Activism
Mahasweta Devi has recently been spearheading the movement against the industrial policy of
the government of West Bengal, the state of her domicile. Specifically, she has stridently
criticized confiscation of large tracts of fertile agricultural land from farmers by the government
and ceding the land to industrial houses at throwaway prices. She has connected the policy to the
commercialization of Santiniketan of Rabindranath Tagore, where she spent her formative years.
Her lead resulted in a number of intellectuals, artists, writers and theatre workers join in
protesting the controversial policy and particularly its implementation in Singur and Nandigram.

Recently she praised Gujarat for strides made in development at the grassroots level and
criticised the West Bengal government saying that 30 years of Left rule has achieved "very little"
in that state.

She is also in the long list of Man Booker International Prize with Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul
as a main contender. Along with her is The 14 authors on the list are: Peter Carey (Australia),
Evan S. Connell (USA), Mahasweta Devi (India), E.L. Doctorow (USA), James Kelman (UK),
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia), Alice Munro (Canada), V.S.
Naipaul (Trinidad/India), Joyce Carol Oates (USA), Antonio Tabucchi (Italy), Ngugi Wa
Thiong'O (Kenya), and Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia).--parvez 14:46,
19 March 2009 (UTC)

31. Palagummi Sainath

Palagummi Sainath (born 1957), the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for
journalism, literature, and creative communication arts, is an award winning Indian development
journalist - a term he himself avoids, instead preferring to call himself a 'rural reporter', or simply
a 'reporter' - and photojournalist focusing on social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the
aftermaths of globalization in India. He spends between 270 and 300 days a year in the rural
interior (in 2006, over 300 days) and has done so for the past 14 years. He is the Rural Affairs
Editor for The Hindu, and contributes his columns to India Together, where they are archived.
His work has won praise from the likes of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen who referred him as
"one of the world's great experts on famine and hunger".

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 As a development journalist
 3 Opinions
 4 Honours and awards
 5 Books

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Early life
Sainath was born into a distinguished family in Andhra Pradesh. He is the grandson of former
President of India, V. V. Giri and was educated at Loyola College. His preoccupation with
social problems and commitment to a political perspective began when he was a student in
college. He is a graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi where he was part of an activist
student population. He is now an Executive Council member of the same university. After
receiving a Master's degree in history, he launched his career as a journalist at the United News
of India in 1980 where he received the news agency's highest individual award. He then worked
for the Blitz, then a major South Asian weekly in Mumbai with a circulation of 600,000, first as
foreign affairs editor and then as deputy editor, which he continued for ten years. For the last
fifteen years he has been visiting faculty at Sophia Polytechnic's Social Communications Media
course and also at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai, inspiring a whole generation of
young women journalists.

Sainath then toured ten drought-stricken states in India, about which he ruefully recalled later,
That's when I learned that conventional journalism was above all about the service of power.
You always give the last word to authority. I got a couple of prizes which I didn't pick up
because I was ashamed.

He has also said: "There are two kinds of journalists. One kind are journalists, the other are
stenographers."

As a development journalist
There was little doubt from the beginning that he would make a great voice for development. K
A Abbas described him thus in 1984, "Sainath is incorrigible, irreverent, indefatigable and, at
times, infuriating. To this I shall add one more word: incorruptible. Friends I introduce you to the
most irreverent voice in Indian journalism. I bring to you the man who will go through life being
the boy who said, 'The Emperor has no clothes'..... I do not know another journalist who cuts to
the heart of a matter, past all hypocrisy and camouflage, so clearly and with such humour. I do
not know another journalist who can make compassion so compelling."

The International Monetary Fund-led economic reforms launched in 1991 by Manmohan Singh
constituted a watershed in India's economic history and in Sainath's journalistic career. He felt
that the media's attention was moving from "news" to "entertainment" and consumerism and
lifestyles of the urban elite gained prominence in the newspapers which rarely carried news of
the reality of poverty in India. "I felt that if the Indian press was covering the top 5 per cent, I
should cover the bottom 5 per cent",says Sainath.

He quit Blitz and in 1993 applied for a Times of India fellowship. At the interview he spoke of
his plans to report from rural India. When an editor asked him, "Suppose I tell you my readers
aren't interested in this stuff", Sainath riposted, "When did you last meet your readers to make
any such claims on their behalf?"

He got the fellowship and took to the back roads in the ten poorest districts of five states. It
meant covering close to 100,000 km across India using 16 forms of transportation, including
walking 5,000 km on foot. He credits two sympathetic editors at the Times with much of his

128
success in getting the articles published in their present form, since it is one among the very
newspapers that has been accused of shifting the onus from page one to page three. The paper
ran 84 reports by Sainath across 18 months, many of them subsequently reprinted in his book,
Everybody Loves A Good Drought.

For more than two years, the book remained No.1 amongst non-fiction bestsellers on diverse lists
across the country. Eventually, it entered the ranks of Penguin India‘s all-time best sellers. It is
considered THE handbook for NGO activists, with its direct reporting style and sharp focus on
social and economic cleavages in society. Typically Sainath, he gave all the royalties from this
huge best-seller to fund prizes for young rural journalists.

Canadian documentary film maker Joe Moulins made a film about Sainath titled "A tribe of his
own", and when the jury at the Edmonton Film Festival picked its winner, it decided to include
Sainath in the award along with the maker of the film because this was 'an award about
inspiration.'

His writing has provoked responses that include the revamping of the Drought Management
Programs in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, development of a policy on indigenous medical
systems in Malkangiri in Orissa, and revamping of the Area Development Program for tribal
people in Madhya Pradesh state. The Times of India institutionalized his methods of reporting
and sixty other leading newspapers initiated columns on poverty and rural development. [5] They
made his journalistic name and earned him numerous prizes, both national and international. The
prizes furnished him credibility and also money to go on freelancing.

Through his work on the India's social problems, Sainath changed the nature of the development
debate in his own country and across the world. His best selling book, Everybody Loves a Good
Drought, helped focus public attention on the condition of India's rural poor, increasing public
awareness and support. In the last decade, he has spent on average three-fourths of the year with
village people,reporting extensively on agrarian crises due to the neo-liberal policies like
globalization, privatisation and related government policies and the shift in its priorities, on the
lack of sensitivity and efficiency by the government and the bureaucracy and on farmer suicides
in Wayanad, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and on the plight of dalits, writing articles
for various newspapers.

As a reporter, he proved the power of the Press repeatedly. In one state after another, the
bureaucracy and politicians acted upon his stories, preferring this to confrontation or denial.
Today, more than any other journalist in India, he has been responsible for the attention brought
to the raging farmers' suicides in the country. He was instrumental in the establishment of the
Agriculture Commission in Andhra Pradesh to suggest ways for improving agriculture in that
state.

The crisis states are AP, Rajasthan and Orissa. In the single district of Anantapur, in Andhra
Pradesh, between 1997 and 2000, 1800+ people have committed suicides, but when the state
assembly requested these statistics, only 54 were listed. [see April 29 and May 6 issues of The
Hindu, for more details]. Since suicide is considered a crime in India, the district crime records
bureaus list categories for suicide - unrequited love, exams, husbands' and wives' behavior, etc.;

129
in Anantapur, the total from these categories was less than 5%. The largest number, 1061 people,
were listed as having committed suicide because of "stomach ache". This fatal condition results
from consuming Ciba-Geigy's pesticide, which the government distributes free, and is almost the
only thing the rural poor can readily acquire!!

At the same time, he writes articles on international economics and politics and critiquing the
"corporate-owned" mass media. According to him the shift from hard-hitting, truth-seeking
journalism to innocuous, promotional stenography goes hand in hand with the increase of
globalization. The photographs he has taken in rural India have resulted in several highly
acclaimed photo exhibitions.
He is currently the rural affairs editor of The Hindu.

One of his more recent projects, on dalits, for The Hindu, is nearly complete, and he is planning a
book based on this work. This project covers a gigantic area across 15 states in India. He has
already covered 150,000 km and has five more states to go. When the newspapers were
unwilling to fund beyond a point, Sainath spent from his own resources, his savings, his
provident fund, his gratuity - avoiding corporate sponsors.

His current project is on the agrarian crisis nationwide, particularly those regions where its
effects are most severe. He has filed over 100 reports on the agrarian crisis in recent years. He
has also himself taken all the photographs that go with those reports. And the pictures
documenting the families of the suicide victims makes up the only photo record of its kind in
existence.

Opinions
On the drought in western Orissa,
Over the last several decades, drought in western Orissa, and Kalahandi in particular, has been
repeatedly in the news. beyond the sensationalism of news headlines and the reports of distress
and starvation, is the tragedy of a population that has been consistently deprived of its rights and
entitlements. Be it long term unumployment, drought and crop failure, or displacement and
chronic hunger, everything in one of the poorest yet resource rich, districts in india is a struggle.

On World Trade Organization (WTO) and Capitalism vs Socialism,

The WTO and GATT type of agreements are very undemocratic. Corporate leaders make policy,
not the elected representatives. When people in Geneva draw up regulations, some local
panchayat leader cannot be asked to address the consequences of those decisions, when his/her
input was not sought in making the decision itself. The idea of different systems is superficial,
the most striking aspect of free-market capitalism is that it has benefited the exact same people
who gained from socialism! It isn't unexpected, either. After all, the South Commission report
was signed by Manmohan Singh 90 days before the liberalization process, can he really have
changed his views that much in that time? Political opportunism and media management have
provided the appearance of different choices and systems, without any meaningful changes in
outcomes.

On the condition of law and order maintenance in India,

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"All the judges of the Supreme Court do not have the power of a single police constable. That
constable makes or breaks us. The judges can't re-write the laws and have to listen to learned
lawyers of both sides. A constable here simply makes his own laws. He can do almost anything."
With state and society winking at him, he pretty much can.

On Market Fundamentalism,
Even a call for discussing this amounts to demanding ‗obsolete‘ practices of the interventionist
state. If we hadn‘t mucked around trying to get the state to play God for 50 years, none of this
would have happened. If only we had got it right and let the market play God instead.Based on
the premise that the market is the solution to all the problems of the human race, it is, too, a very
religious fundamentalism. It has its own Gospel: The Gospel of St. Growth, of St.
Choice...Welcome to the world of Market Fundamentalism. To the Final Solution.

On the absence of reporting on the poor in India,

"You see it in the simplest and most direct way: the organisation of beats. Many beats have
become extinct. Take the labour correspondent: when labour issues are covered at all, they come
under the header of Industrial Relations, and they‘re covered by business correspondents. That
means they‘re covered by the guy whose job is to walk in the tracks of corporate leaders, and
who, when he deigns to look at labour, does it through the eyes of corporate leaders. Now find
me the agriculture columnist — in most newspapers, the idea doesn‘t exist any more. If you lack
correspondents on those two beats, you‘re saying 70 per cent of the people in this country don‘t
matter, I don‘t want to talk to them."
He is presently covering the problems faced by the rurals in vidarbha region of maharashtra

Honours and awards

Sainath is one of few Indians to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, which he accepted in
2007 in the category of Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

In January 2009 Sainath was reported to have declined a state award. But he accepted over 30
other national and international journalism awards and fellowships in 26 years as a journalist,
including the Ramon Magsaysay journalism award in 2007, the European Commission's Natali
Prize in 1994 and the Boerma Journalism Prize from the UN FAO in 2001 (along with CNN
International's Jim Clancy), the Amnesty International global award for human rights journalism
in 2000,the PUCL Human Rights Journalism Award, and the B.D. Goenka award for excellence
in journalism in 2000. In June 2006 Sainath won the Judges' prize (newspaper category) in the
2005 Harry Chapin Media Awards. This is for his series in The Hindu on the ongoing agrarian
crisis in Vidharbha and other areas. The Harry Chapin Media Awards honour print and electronic
media for work "that focuses on the causes of hunger and poverty," including "work on
economic inequality and insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, domestic and international
policies and their reform, community empowerment, sustainable development, food production."

In 1984 he was a Distinguished International Scholar at the University of Western Ontario and in
1988 at Moscow University. He has participated in many international initiatives on
communications such as the second and third round table on Global Communications sponsored
by the UNESCO (1990 and 1991) and in the UNHCR sponsored World Information Campaign

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on Human Rights (1991). He was conferred with the prestigious Raja-Lakshmi Award in the
year 1993 from Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai.

Books
 Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts, Penguin Books,

32. Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
(pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒe bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was an Albanian Catholic nun with Indian
citizenship[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950. For
over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the
Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following
her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

By the 1970s she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and
helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm
Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the
Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity
continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries,
including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup
kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.

She has been praised by many individuals, governments and organizations; however, she has
also faced a diverse range of criticism. These include objections by various individuals and
groups, including Christopher Hitchens, Michael Parenti, Aroup Chatterjee, Vishva Hindu
Parishad, against the proselytizing focus of her work including a strong stance against
contraception and abortion, a belief in the spiritual goodness of poverty and alleged baptisms of
the dying. Medical journals also criticised the standard of medical care in her hospices and
concerns were raised about the opaque nature in which donated money was spent.

Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Missionaries of Charity
 3 International charity
 4 Declining health and death
 5 Recognition and reception
 5.1 Reception in India
 5.2 Reception in the rest of the world
 6 Spiritual life
 7 Miracle and beatification
 8 Commemoration
 9 See also
 10 Notes
 11 References

132
 12 Further reading

Early life
Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Gonxhe meaning "rosebud" in Albanian) was born on 26 August
1910, in Üsküb, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia). Although
she was born on August 26, she considered August 27, the day she was baptized, to be her "true
birthday." She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to
Nikollë and Drana Bojaxhiu. Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919
when she was eight years old. After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman
Catholic. According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was
fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service, and by age 12 was convinced
that she should commit herself to a religious life. [10] She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of
Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland to learn English, the language
the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.[12] She arrived in India in 1929, and
began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains.[13] She took her first religious
vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Thérèse de Lisieux,
the patron saint of missionaries. She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a
teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty
surrounding her in Calcutta. The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city;
and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and
horror.

Missionaries of Charity
On 10 September 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call"
while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to
leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would
have been to break the faith." She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing
her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border, adopted
Indian citizenship, and ventured out into the slums. Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon
she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. Her efforts quickly caught the
attention of Indian officials, including the Prime Minister, who expressed his appreciation.
Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and
had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the
temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her
diary:

Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a
good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I
walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and
soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to
tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on
saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be
your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.
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Teresa received Vatican permission on 7 October 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that
would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the
hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel
unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the
society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta;
today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers
worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless,
and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City
of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the
Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of
the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were
afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were
read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites.
"A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and
wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease,
commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The
Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta,
providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt
the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the
Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had
opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the
order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five
sisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order
opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United
States.

Her philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. David Scott wrote that Mother
Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself. She has also
been criticized for her view on suffering: according to an article in the Alberta Report, she felt
that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. The quality of care offered to terminally ill
patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press, notably The Lancet
and the British Medical Journal, which reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living
conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an approach to illness and
suffering that precluded the use of many elements of modern medical care, such as systematic
diagnosis. Dr. Robin Fox, editor of The Lancet, described the medical care as "haphazard", as
volunteers without medical knowledge had to take decisions about patient care, because of the
lack of doctors. He observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable
patients, so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections
and lack of treatment.

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The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the
Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of
Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In
answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi
Movement for Priests, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity
Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the
ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450
brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120
countries.

International charity
In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front
line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian
guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the
devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.

When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts
to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on
dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and
divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own
work."

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at
Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first
time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother
Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor"
in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was
established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments
throughout the country.

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens
and the German magazine Stern have said Mother Teresa did not focus donated money on
alleviating poverty or improving the conditions of her hospices, but on opening new convents
and increasing missionary work.

Additionally, the sources of some donations accepted have been criticized. Mother Teresa
accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in Haiti and openly praised
them. She also accepted 1.4 million dollars from Charles Keating, involved in the fraud and
corruption scheme known as the Keating Five scandal and supported him before and after his
arrest. The Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa
asking her to return the donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was
"a poor carpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a
reply.

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Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for leaving the order in
her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning.
Livermore found what she called Mother Theresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite
being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Theresa instructed her followers on the
importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore
could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives
include unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the nuns at the wrong
time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging nuns from seeking medical training to
deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and
ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punishments, such as being transferred away from friends.
Livermore says that the Missionaries of Charity "infantilized" its nuns by prohibiting the reading
of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and
problem-solving.

Declining health and death

Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a
second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with
pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her
position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted
for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria
and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was
declining. When she fell ill, she made the controversial decision to be treated at a well-equipped
hospital in California instead of one of her own clinics. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry
Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her
permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be
under attack by the devil.

On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5
September 1997.

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an
associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These
included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup
kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools.
The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co-Workers, who numbered over 1 million by
the 1990s.

Recognition and reception

Reception in India
Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century
earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962. She continued to receive major Indian
rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International
Understanding and, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

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Her official biography was authored by an Indian civil servant, Navin Chawla, and published in
1992.

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who
was born and raised in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity
in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of
his home city. Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often
opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits,
but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on
the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary
Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and
accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But, in its
front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed these charges as "patently false"
and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in
Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute
was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be
non-political when doing so. More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph mentioned that
"Rome has been asked to investigate if she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or
just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause."
Mother Teresa lay in state in St Thomas, Kolkata for one week prior to her funeral, in September
1997. She was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for her services to
the poor of all religions in India.

Reception in the rest of the world

President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony,
1985

In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based

Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia.
The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject
poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation". By the early 1970s,
Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to
the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge
and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at
the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions,
particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew.
After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge
claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew
thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film.[ Muggeridge later converted to
Catholicism.

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI
awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor,
display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the Pacem in Terris Award

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(1976). Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood,
currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honoured by both governments and civilian organizations. She was appointed
an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982, "for service to the community of
Australia and humanity at large". The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly
granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the
United States received on 16 November 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her
the Golden Honour of the Nation in 1994. Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by
the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly
from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers and to corrupt businessmen such as
Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking
for clemency to be shown.

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees. Other civilian awards
include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978),
and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle
to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the
conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given
to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the
world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to
promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme
in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the
poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street,
hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger.
But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been
thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very
difficult." She also singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western
media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics. He was
commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for the British
Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee
was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product. Hitchens expanded his
criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to
collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical
coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose
"stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of
gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time
for Change? broadcast in several European countries. Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have
themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

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The German magazine Stern published a critical article on the first anniversary of Mother
Teresa's death. This concerned allegations regarding financial matters and the spending of
donations. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different
outlooks and priorities on patients' needs. Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the
editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal
MacIntyre.

Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the
Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for
higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged
was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity." The former U.N. Secretary-General
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world." During her
lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single
most widely admired person in the US, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of
the 20th century" by a poll in the US. She out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide
margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

Spiritual life
Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the
strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in
prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."
Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which
lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God
whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian
Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her
lack of faith:

Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be
God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting
emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful
is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I
labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are
not true.

Memorial plaque dedicated to Mother Teresa at a building in Wenceslas Square in Olomouc,

Czech Republic.

With reference to the above words, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator (the official
responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) indicated there was a risk that some
might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained
undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not
question his existence. Many other saints had similar experiences of religious doubt, or what
Catholics believe to be spiritual tests, such as Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux,
who called it a "night of nothingness." Contrary to the mistaken belief by some that the doubts
she expressed would be an impediment to canonization, just the opposite is true; it is very
consistent with the experience of canonized mystics.

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Mother Teresa described, after ten years of doubt, a short period of renewed faith. At the time of
the death of Pope Pius XII in the fall of 1958, praying for him at a requiem mass, she said she
had been relieved of "the long darkness: that strange suffering." However, five weeks later, she
described returning to her difficulties in believing.
Women Nobel Laureates
Mother Teresa wrote many letters to her confessors and
Physics
1.1903 -Marie Curie superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters
2.1963 -Maria Goeppert-Mayer be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me—
Chemistry less of Jesus." However, despite this request, the
3.1911 - Marie Curie
4.1935 - Irène Joliot-Curie
correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come
5.1964 - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Be My Light (Doubleday). In one publicly released letter to a
6.2009 - Ada E. Yonath spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote,
Physiology or Medicine "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the
7.1947 - Gerty Cori
8.1977 - Rosalyn Yalow
silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not
9.1983 - Barbara McClintock see,—Listen and do not hear—the tongue moves [in prayer]
10.1986 - Rita Levi-Montalcini but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me—that I let Him
11.1988 - Gertrude B. Elion have [a] free hand."
12.1995 - Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
13.2004 - Linda B. Buck
14.2008 - Françoise Barré-Sinoussi Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as
15.2009 -Elizabeth H. Blackburn an indication of a "crisis of faith." Some critics of Mother
16.2009 - Carol W. Greider Teresa, such as Christopher Hitchens, view her writings as
Literature
17.1909 -Selma Lagerlöf
evidence that her public image was created primarily for
18.1926 - Grazia Deledda publicity despite her personal beliefs and actions. Hitchens
19.1928 - Sigrid Undset writes, "So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should
20.1938 -Pearl Buck bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost
21.1945 - Gabriela Mistral
22.1966 - Nelly Sachs her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on
23.1991 - Nadine Gordimer deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old
24.1993 - Toni Morrison lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to
25.1996 - Wislawa Szymborska believe?" However, others such as Brian Kolodiejchuk, Come
26.2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
27.2007 - Doris Lessing Be My Light's editor, draw comparisons to the 16th century
28.2009 - Herta Müller mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "dark
Peace night of the soul" to describe a particular stage in the growth of
29.1905 - Bertha von Suttner some spiritual masters. The Vatican has indicated that the
30.1931 - Jane Addams
31.1946 - Emily Greene Balch letters would not affect her path to sainthood. In fact, the book
32.1976 - Betty Williams is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator.
33.1976 - Mairead Corrigan
34.1979 - Mother Teresa In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI
35.1982 - Alva Myrdal
36.1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her
37.1992 - Rigoberta Menchú Tum life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the
38.1997 - Jody Williams example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear
39.2003 - Shirin Ebadi
illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not
40.2004 - Wangari Maathai
Economic Sciences only does not detract from effective and loving service to our
41.2009 - Elinor Ostrom neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that
service." Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental
prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."

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Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan
orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi. Accordingly, her influence and
life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of
St. Francis every morning during thanksgiving after Communion and many of the vows and
emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and
submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially
lepers in the area where he lived.

Commemoration
Mother Teresa inspired a variety of commemorations. She has been memorialized through
museums, been named patroness of various churches, and had various structures and roads
named after her. Various tributes have been published in Indian newspapers and magazines
authored by her biographer, Navin Chawla.

References
 Navin Chawla. Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography. Diane Pub Co. (March 1992).
ISBN 978-0756755485. First published by Sinclair-Stevenson, U.K. (1992), since translated
into 14 languages in India and abroad. Indian language editions include Hindi, Bengali,
Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. The foreign language editions include
French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, and Thai. In both Indian and
foreign languages, there have been multiple editions. The bulk of royalty income goes to
charity.
 Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla. Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of Mother Teresa.
Element Books Ltd. (December 1996). ISBN 978-1852309121. Translated also into Dutch
and Spanish.

33. Henning Holck-Larsen

Henning Holck-Larsen (July 4, 1907 Denmark — July 27, 2003 Mumbai) was a Dane who co-
founded the Indian engineering firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T).

Contents
 1 Biography
 2 Awards and recognitions
 3 Quotations
 4 References

Biography
Henning Holck-Larsen was educated at the University of Copenhagen (and what is now the
Technical University of Denmark). He came to India in 1937 as a chemical engineer working for
F. L. Smidth & Co. of Copenhagen. Partnering with his former schoolmate and fellow employee
Søren Kristian Toubro, he set up Larsen & Toubro in 1938. The idea of L&T was conceived
during a holiday in Matheran, a hill station near Bombay (now Mumbai). Holck-Larsen was a

141
risk-taker while Toubro was more conservative. Larsen and Toubro saw opportunities in India at
time, when few Europeans had realized the country's potential for industrial growth.

The first office of L&T, located in Bombay, was so small that only of them could use it a time.
Initially, L&T represented Danish dairy equipment manufacturers. However, the Danish imports
were restricted during the World War II, forcing L&T to start a small workshop that provided
servicing and undertook small jobs. The imports stopped after the German invasion of Denmark,
forcing L&T to start manufacturing dairy equipment indigenously, a move that was successful..

Seeing opporunity in ship repair during wartime, Larsen and Toubro formed a new company
called Hilda Ltd. Around this time, L&T also started two repair and fabrication shops. The
internment of German engineers who were supposed to build a soda ash plant for the Tatas
provided L&T another new opportunity.

In 1944, Larsen and Toubro established Engineering Construction & Contracts (ECC). L&T
started collaborating with international companies around this time. In 1945, it signed an
agreement with the Caterpillar Tractor Company of USA for marketing earthmoving equipment.
L&T also started representing British manufacturers of equipment used to manufacture a variety
of products including biscuits, glass, hydrogenated oils and soaps. At the end of the World War
II, the war-surplus Caterpillar equipment were available in bulk at low prices. However, L&T
lacked the money to purchase them. Therefore, Larsen and Toubro decided to raise additional
equity capital, and as a result, Larsen & Toubro Private Limited was established on 7 February
1946. After India gained independence in 1947, L&T set up offices in Calcutta, Madras and New
Delhi.

Larsen and Toubro gradually transformed L&T into a large business house with diverse interests,
and went on to become one of the most successful Indian companies.

After retirement, Holck-Larsen served as the chairman emeritus of the company. He used to call
India his "adopted homeland" and divided his time between Denmark and India.

He died in 2003 at the Breach Candy hospital, Mumbai after a prolonged illness, having spent
time in intensive care. He is survived by a daughter, Jeannette Arnold, who in turn has two
children, his only grandchildren Lucy and Toby Findlay.

Awards and recognitions

 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding (1976)
 Knighthood from Queen Margarethe II of Denmark (1977)
 Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for Industrial Peace (1980)
 Chemtech Foundation's Chemical Industry Stalwart Award (2000)
 Bombay Management Association's Lifetime Achievement Award (2001)
 Citation from the Indo-European Union Business Summit for promoting business beyond
boundaries (2002)
 Padma Bhushan (2002) for contribution to Indian industry.

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Quotations
 "It is our ability to anticipate the future and react accordingly that will determine our
success".
 "India, my adopted homeland, has a special place in my heart. With the Padma Bhushan, I
am happy to realise that I have a place in her heart too".

34. Jockin Arputham

Jockin Arputham has worked for more than 40 years in ‗slums‘ and shanty towns, building
representative organizations into powerful partners with governments and international agencies
for the betterment of urban living. Arputham is the president of the National Slum Dwellers
Federation which he founded in the 70s and of Slum Dwellers International which networks slum
dwellers from over twenty countries across the world. The National Slum Dwellers Federation
works very closely with Mahila Milan, a collective of women living on pavements and in slums
across India, and with SPARC, a Mumbai-based NGO, and together they have been instrumental
is supporting tens of thousands of the urban poor access housing and sanitation. He is currently
residing in Mumbai. He was the winner of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and
International Understanding. He is well known for his charisma and excellent public speaking.

Contents
 1 Biography
 2 Other important shack/slum dweller leaders
 3 References
 4 External links

Biography
Jockin Arputham was born to Tamilian parents in the Kolar district of Karnataka, India, in 1947.
In 1963 he moved to Mumbai where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. He
quickly became involved in community action within the settlement where he lived and worked,
organising efforts to get the household wastes collected, setting up informal schools for children,
and establishing water connections.

In 1976 the settlement of some 70,000 people in which he lived were made the subject of an
eviction order, however under the leadership of Arputham the eviction order was successfully
fought and the National Slum Dwellers Federation was established to protect slum dwellers and
promote the development of slum areas.
 Citation for Jockin Arputham on Ramon Magsaysay Award website

35. Laxminarayan Ramdas

Admiral (retired) Laxminarayan Ramdas served as Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian navy
taking the reins on November 30, 1990. He was commissioned in the Indian navy on September
1, 1953.

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He was trained as a communication specialist in the Royal Naval Staff College in the United
Kingdom. He then went on to head in the Naval Academy in Kochi, Kerala. One of his major
accomplishments was the reconnaissance and interdiction of enemy vessels and bombing of East
Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. Among the awards he won during his time in the
Indian were: Vir Chakra, Param Vishisht Seva Medal, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and the Vishisht
Seva Medal.

He is also a keen sports person, enjoying cricket, golf and quite naturally yachting. In 2004 he
was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Awards for peace for his efforts in trying to demilitarise and
denuclearize South Asia.

36. Sandeep Pandey

Sandeep Pandey is a social activist from India. He co-founded Asha for Education with Deepak
Gupta and V.J.P Srivatsoy while working on his Ph. D in Mechanical Engineering at the
University of California, Berkeley. After graduating in 1991, he returned to India to teach at the
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and founded a registered organization named Asha Trust
which has several centers/chapters across India. His team has launched a people's group named
Asha Parivar in 2008 that focuses on strengthening democracy at the grassroots.

His work at Asha Parivar is focused on Right to Information and other forms of citizen
participation in removing corruption and improving the efficiency of governance. He leads
National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), the largest network of grassroots people's
movements in India.

Pandey is an alumnus of the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. He was awarded
the Ramon Magsaysay Award (often termed as 'Asian Nobel prize') in 2002 for the emergent
leadership category. Pandey led an Indo-Pakistan peace march from New Delhi to Multan in
2005.

He has served as an adviser to the Indian government's Central Advisory Board for Education
(CABE). His idea of education is based on empowerment by imbibing the spirit of cooperation
instead of competition. Sandeep Pandey presently resides in Indira Nagar, Lucknow, Uttar
Pradesh.

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 37. Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal

Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal (Hindi: अरविंद िेजरीिाऱ) (born: 1968) is an Indian social
activist and crusader for greater transparency in Government. He was awarded Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006, for activating India's Right to Information
movement at grassroots and social activities to empower the poorest citizens to fight corruption
by holding the government answerable to the people.
Contents
 1 Biography
 2 Awards
 3 See also
 4 References
 5 External links

Biography
Arvind Kejriwal was born in Hissar, Haryana in 1968, and graduated from IIT Kharagpur as a
Mechanical engineer in 1989. Later, he joined the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), a part of the
Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1992, and was posted at the Income-tax Commissioner's Office in
Delhi. Soon, he realized that much of the corruption prevalent in government is owing to lack of
transparency in the process. Even while in his official position, he started crusading against the
corrupt practices. Initially, Arvind was instrumental in bringing in a number of changes to
increase transparency in the Income Tax office.
In January 2000, he took a sabbatical from work and founded Parivartan - a Delhi based citizens‘
movement which works on ensuring a just, transparent and accountable governance. Thereafter,
in February 2006, he resigned from the job, to work full-time at 'Parivartan'.
Together with Aruna Roy and others, he campaigned for the Right to Information Act, which
soon became a silent social movement, Delhi Right to Information Act was passed in 2001 [2]
and eventually at the national-level Act the Indian Parliament passed the Right to Information
Act (RTI) in 2005. Thereafter, in July 2006, he spearheaded an awareness campaign for RTI
across India. To motivate others Arvind has now instituted an RTI Award through his
organisation.
The right to information holds as much importance in the lives of the poor as it does for the
general public and professionals. Yet many Indians remain passive spectators in the process of
electing governments. Arvind uses the Right to Information Act to equip individual citizens with
the power to question their government. Through his organization Parivartan he promotes
participation in governance by people. It may be a long way to go before RTI becomes a
powerful tool for the common citizen. Arvind though has shown us that there is indeed a way
possible!
On February 6, 2007, Arvind was named CNN-IBN 'Indian of the Year' in Public Service for the
year 2006.
Arvind made Speech at Google explaining Right to Information Act

Awards
 2004: Ashoka Fellow, Civic Engagement.
 2005: 'Satyendra Dubey Memorial Award', IIT Kanpur for his campaign for bringing
transparency in Government [2].

145
 2006: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership.
 2006: CNN-IBN, 'Indian of the Year' in Public Service [10]
 2009: Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Kharagpur for Emergent Leadership.

See also
 Right to Information Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act
 Public Cause Research Foundation http://www.pcrf.in/
 Lokraj Andolan http://www.lokrajandolan.org/
 National RTI Awards http://www.rtiawards.org/
External links
 'Parivartan' Official website
 'Public Cause Research Foundation' Official website
 Arvind Kejriwal Interview BBC Hindi
 Arvind Kejriwal Interview BBC Hindi - Audio
 An Interview with Arvind Kejriwal
 'Lokraj Andolan'

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