Essays

His story has a humble beginning. It is a sordid tale that tells us how a down-to-earth and honest person can hold the world in awe of his personality. Born in 1904, in a family with little means, Lal Bahadur Shastri proved by his mettle that the world should not take short-statured men lightly. A man of sound education with strong principles, he succeeded Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister of India in 1964- Though eclipsed by stalwarts in the Congress tike Kamraj and Morarji Desai (then Finance Minister in Nehru's Government), Shastri emerged as the consensus candidate in the midst of party warfare> He had not been in power for long when he had to attend to the difficult matter of Pakistani aggression along the Ranch of Kutch, Though a ceasefire under the auspices of the United Nations put a temporary halt to the fighting, the scene of conflict more...

"The other day I dreamed that the gates of heaver... and St. Peter said, 'Go back to Earth, there are no slums up here'. These words, once spoken by Mother Teresa, vividly recalls the life of the late Roman Catholic nun and missionary, known as "the Saint of the Gutters". Mother Teresa, originally christened as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. She was the daughter of humble Albanian parents—a grocer and his wife. As a public school student she developed a special interest in overseas missions and, by the age of 12. she felt strongly the call of God. At the age of 18, she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sister of Loreto, an Irish Community who runs of nuns missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, more...

The living legend of the cricket-world, the true heir of Sir Brad man and the batsman par excellence was born on April 24, 1973 in Mumbai in a middle class family. In fact, he was named after the family's favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman. He was sent to Sharadashram Vidhydmandir School where the fever of cricket caught him at the tender age of 11. In a match for Harris Shield, he made a huge partnership of 664 runs with his friend and international team-mate, Vinod Kambli. In 1988, he scored a 100 not out, his first-ever century in a first class. His first international appearance was against Pakistan at Peshawar, in an abandoned one-day match where he crushed Abdul Qadir and Co, He made his international debut at the age of 16 against Pakistan at Karachi where Waqar Younis howled him out at a mere score of 15 runs. more...

“Mr. Jaiprakash is an extraordinary worker. He has command over Socialism."                                           (M.K.Gandhi) Introduction. India is the land which has given birth to the greatest number of saints. Lok Nayak Jaiprakash was one of them. He stands in the rank of Sant Vinoba Bhave. His Birth. Shri Jaiprakash Narayan was born on October 11, 1902 in Sitabdiara Village of Chhapra district in Bihar. He was the son of   Harsood Lal and Smt. Phool Rani. He was born on Vijai Dashmi. His Education. He started his education in his village. He passed Matriculation Examination in 1919. Then he joined a famous college but he had to stop his studies because he joined Freedom struggle. In 1922 he went to San-Francis where he did his graduation with his own efforts. Thus he more...

The family of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was originally known as Banerjees, who were respectfully called Thakurs'. The name Thakur' was later anglicized as Tagore by the Britishers. Rabindranath was the youngest son of Devendranath Thakur. He was born on May 6» 1861 at Calcutta. He lost his mother at an early age and thus he was mostly cared for by the servants. He hated conventional schooling and much to his dislike he was sent to Bengal Academy and to St. Xaviers but finally he was allowed to study at home with the family relenting to his resolute desire. At home, he grew up imbibing the rich discussions held in his father's study, endlessly. He got the first taste of the Upanishads at home under the guidance of his father. At home he extensively read the mystical and the Vaishnav poets of India. He was sent to England to study law more...

He was the amalgamation of Gandhian philosophy and modern western democracy. As an ardent believer in communism, it was not enough for him that (lie nation ha;; got political freedom. 'Freedom' had much greater connotations for him. Freedom to him was negation of hunger poverty rind ignorance. JR or 'Lok Nayak' as he was fondly called, was truly a champion of the masses. Born on October 11, 1902 in Sitabdiara, a village on the border of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, his father worked in the canal department of the State Government. There was no high school in the village, so Jayaprakash was sent to Patna to study in (he Collegiate School. Here, he stayed with relatives at a hostel called Saraswati Bhavan, which was a meeting place for students who normally discused the political scene. The feeling of nationalism was at its peak at this time and young people had more...

An academician, a philosopher and a statesman—these are some of the many hats that Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wore. He is, undoubtedly, one of the most recognized and influential Indian thinkers in academic circles of the 20th century. Radhakrishnan was born on September 5, 1888 into a middle class Brahmin family in a small town of Tamil Nadu. Not much is known about his early education but between 1900 and 1904, he attended the Elizabeth Rodman Voorhees College in Vellore. a school run by the Reformed Church in America. It was here that he was introduced to western thought. In 1921, he was appointed to the most important philosophy chair in India, the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. Later in 1929, Radhakrishnan was invited to take the job of teacher at Manchester college, Oxford. This gave him the opportunity to lecture the students more...

We can choose a good house to live in. But we cannot choose our neighbours. It is a great blessing to have a good neighbour. If the neighbours are otherwise, it In-comes hell. Generally it is found that if the parents are good, the children are good too. Neighbours may be good, bad or indifferent. We live in a busy locality. The streets are narrow and the houses are mostly multistoried. That accounts for the, good number of neighbours. Our next door neighbor in ii workman belonging to lower middle class. He works painstakingly. He is a workaholic and yet cannot make the ends meet. His working hours are from early morning right  up to sunset by which time he calls it a day. His wife is good natured and is busy doing something or the other It is owing to this factor that the neighbours are not able to more...

In 1928, the old dream of an 18 years old boy clashed with the traditional thinking of his father. The father—a lawyer by profession, wanted his son to become an engineer—a traditional dream of every father. But his son wanted to study physics. "But you are not Socrates or Einstein", his father had taunted him without knowing the destiny of his son. The clash of two divergent wills was between H.J. Bhabha, who later became the architect of nuclear India, and his father J.H. Bhabha. Homi Jehangir was born in an aristocratic Parsi family in Bombay in 1909. He passed the senior Cambridge Examination when he was sixteen and went to Cambridge to study mechanical engineering. He was influenced by his Mathematics teacher Paul Dirac, who initiated him into the field of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. He soon decided that his true interest was in nuclear physics, a discipline, then more...

Dr Rajendra Prasad, son of Mahadev Sahai was born in Zeeradei village of Saran district (now, Siwan) in Bihar on December 3,1884, Being the youngest in a large joint family, he was greatly loved and was strongly attached to his mother and elder brother Mahendra. Zeeradei's population was cosmopolitan in nature and the people lived together in happiness and harmony Rajendra Prasad spent his childhood days playing 'Kabaddi' with his Hindu and Muslim friends. He got married when he was barely 12 years old to Rajvanshi Devi A brilliant student throughout school and college, he stood first in the entrance examination of the University of Calcutta and was awarded a $30 per month scholarship. He Joined the Presidency College of Calcutta in 1902.   The partition of Bengal in 1905 fueled the Swadeshi and Boycott movements. The movements had a deep effect on students in Calcutta. One day, residents of more...