Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography
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Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/1
Amartya Kumar Sen (born 3 November 1933) is an economist and a winner of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences ("Nobel Prize for Economics") in 1998, for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political liberalism. From 1998 to 2004 he was Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, becoming the first Asian academic to head an Oxbridge college. He is currently the Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Amartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He received the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India 1999. The same year, he received honorary citizenship of Bangladesh and the Companion of Honour, UK, in 2000.
Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/2 Megh Nad Saha (October 6, 1893 – February 16, 1956) was a Bengali Indian astrophysicist. He was born in a village named Shaoratoli near Dhaka in current day Bangladesh, initially studied in Dhaka Collegiate School, and later in Dhaka College. He was a student of the Presidency College, Kolkata; a professor of Allahabad University from 1923 to 1938 and thereafter a professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Calcutta until his death in 1956. He became Fellow of the Royal Society in 1927. In his book, The Scientific Edge, the noted physicist Jayant Narlikar says that “Meghnad Saha’s ionization equation (c. 1920), which opened the door to stellar astrophysics” was one of the top ten achievements of 20th century Indian science and “could be considered in the Nobel Prize class.”
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Kadambini Ganguly (1861-1923) was the one of the first female graduates of the British Empire and the first female physician of South Asia to be trained in the European system of medicine. Daughter of Brahmo reformer Braja Kishore Basu, Kadambini started her education at Banga Mahila Vidyalaya and was the first woman to pass the Entrance examination of the University of Calcutta from Bethune School in 1878. It was in part in recognition of her efforts that Bethune College first introduced FA (First Arts) and then graduation courses. Along with her husband, she was actively involved in female emancipation and social movements to improve work conditions of female coal miners in eastern India.
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Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee (Bengali: সুব্রত মুখার্জী) OBE, (5 March 1911 – 8 November 1960) born in Kolkata, was educated in India as well as England. He joined Royal Air Force and later was one of the first recruits of the Indian Air Force. He had an illustrious career and had been awarded with many honours until his untimely accidental death in 1960. He took over as the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Air Force on 1 April 1954, in the rank of Air Marshal. When the Change in Designation Act, 1955, was passed, the title of "Commander-in-Chief" was replaced by Chief of the Air Staff, IAF. Thus Mukerjee became the first Indian Commander-in-Chief as well as Chief of Air Staff of the Indian Air Force. He has been called the "Father of the Indian Air Force".
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Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (b.26 June 1838- d.8 April 1894), ('Chattopadhyay' in the original Bengali; 'Chatterjee' as spelt by the British) was a Bengali Indian poet, novelist, essayist and journalist, most famous as the author of Vande Mataram or Bande Mataram, that inspired the freedom fighters of India, and was later declared the National Song of India.
Chatterjee began his literary career as a writer of verse. He soon realized, however, that his talents lay in other directions, and turned to fiction. His first fiction to appear in print was Rajmohan's Wife. It was written in English. Durgeshnondini, his first Bengali romance and the first ever novel in Bengali, was published in 1865.
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Kamini Roy (12 October-1864 27 September 1933), was a leading Bengali poet, social worker and feminist. A part of the earliest batch of girls to attend school, she was the first woman honours graduate in the country, having passed her bachelor of arts degree with Sanskrit honours from Bethune College of the University of Calcutta in 1886. She was inclined towards literature from a young age and started composing poems at the age of eight. Her father, Chandi Charan Sen, a judge and a writer, was a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj. In 1894 she married Kedarnath Roy. Kamini Roy was a feminist in an age when even women’s education was a taboo. In an address delivered at a girls’ school in Calcutta she declared that the aim of women’s education was to contribute to their all-round development and fulfilment of their potential.
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Satyendra Nath Bose (January 1, 1894 – February 4, 1974) was a Bengali Indian physicist, specializing in mathematical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose-Einstein condensate. The elementary particle boson was named after him.
Although more than one Nobel Prize was awarded for researches related to the concept of the boson, Bose himself was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Among his other talents, Bose knew many languages and also could play Esraj (a musical instrument similar to violin) very well.
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Swami Vivekananda, whose pre-monastic name was Narendranath Dutta, (January 12, 1863 - July 4, 1902) was one of the most famous and influential spiritual leaders of the Vedanta philosophy. He was the chief disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and was the founder of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. Many consider him an icon for his fearless courage, his positive exhortations to the youth, his broad outlook on social problems, and countless lectures and discourses on Vedanta philosophy.
Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/9
Girish Chandra Sen (1836-1910), a Brahmo missionary, was the first person to translate the holy Qur’an into Bengali language in 1886. It was his finest contribution to Bengali literature. He learnt Persian and Sanskrit in early life. In 1869, Keshub Chunder Sen chose from amongst his missionaries, four persons and ordained them as adhyapaks or professors of four old religions of the world. He was selected to study Islam. A firm believer in the basic unity of all religions, he immersed himself in his studies and later went to Lucknow to study Arabic and the Islamic religious texts. After hard labour of six years from 1881-1886, he produced an annotated Bengali version of the holy Qur’an. In all he wrote and published 42 books, mainly related to Islam, in Bengali. Muslim society, in his days, respected him enormously and called him a Maulavi.
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Ram Mohan Roy, also written as Rammohun Roy, or Raja Ram Mohun Roy (May 22, 1772 – September 27, 1833) was the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the first Indian socio-religious reform movements. His remarkable influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration and education as well as religion. He is most known for his efforts to abolish the practice of sati, a Hindu funeral custom in which the widow sacrifices herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.
In 1828, prior to his departure to England, Rammohan founded, with Dwarkanath Tagore, the Brahmo Samaj, which came to be an important spiritual and refirmist religion movement that has borne a number of stalwarts of the Bengalee social and intellectual reforms. For these contributions to the society, Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Bengal Renaissance.
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Subhash Chandra Bose (January 23, 1897 – presumably August 18, 1945), also known as Netaji, was one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British Raj. Bose was elected president of the Indian National Congress for two consecutive terms. However, he had to resign from the post in the face of a motion of no-confidence, stemming from ideological conflicts with Mahatma Gandhi. Bose formed All India Forward Bloc in 1939. He fled India during the World War II and sought alliance with the Axis Powers to fight the British Rule in India. He formed the Azad Hind Government in exile, and regrouped and led the Indian National Army to battle against the allies in Imphal & Burma during the World War II. His political views and the alliances he made with Nazi and other militarist regimes opposed to the British Empire have been the cause of arguments among historians and politicians, with some accusing him of Fascism and of Quislingist actions. He is believed to have died on 18 August 1945 in a plane crash over Taiwan, however, contradicting evidence exists regarding his death in the accident.
Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/12
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (September 8, 1892 - December 5, 1963) was a politician from Bengal in undivided India, and later in East Pakistan, who served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956 until 1957. He is also known for his controversial role in the Direct Action Day of August 16, 1946. Following riots in Bengal during the last days of India's freedom struggle, he was considered a favourite of Muhammad Ali Jinnah who spoke well of him. He is also considered as the first populist leader in Pakistan's history.He is the founder of Awami League, one of the two major political parties of present day's Bangladesh.
Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/13
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997), Bharat Ratna, OM, was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in India. Born in Uskub, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, in the Republic of Macedonia), at 18 she left home to join the Sisters of Loretto. Her work among the poverty-stricken in Kolkata made her one of the world's most famous people. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2003. She received several awards including the Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding, the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, St. Gabriel Award, and the Templeton Prize. She also was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize, the Bharat Ratna, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal.
Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/14
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (February 18, 1836–August 16, 1886) was a Hindu religious teacher and an influential figure in the Bengal Renaissance of the Nineteenth century. His teachings emphasized God-realization as the highest goal of life, love and devotion for God, the oneness of existence, and the harmony of religions.
He was appointed as the first priest in the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. He profoundly influenced the Bengal Renaissance and the Indian nationalism. The most notable apostle of Ramakrishna was Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda spread the message of Ramakrishna across the world. He also helped introduce Hinduism to the west. Two organisations based on the teachings of Ramakrishna were started. One was Ramakrishna Mission, which is designed to spread the word of Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna Math was created as a monastic order based on Ramakrishna's teachings.
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Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873) is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature and the father of Bangla sonnet and pioneered what came to be called amitrakhor chhondo (unrhyming rhythm, similar to Spenserian sonnet in structure). His famous work Meghnadh Bodh Kabya , is a grand heroic-tragic ballad. From an early age he desired to be an Englishman in form and manner. He converted to Christianity to the ire of his family. However, he was to regret his desire for England and the Occident in later life when he talked ardently of his homeland as is seen in his poems and sonnets from this period. He was an exceptionally gifted student. Ever since his childhood, young Madhusudan was recognized by his teachers and professors as being a precocious child with a gift of literary expression.
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John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune (1801 – 1851) was a pioneer in promoting women's education in 19th-century India. In 1849, Bethune founded an institution for women's education in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of British India. The institute later bore his name and became famous as Bethune College. It was the first such effort in Kolkata and had a major impact on society.
A brilliant student, he first qualified as a wrangler from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and later qualified for the Bar. In 1848, he was sent to India as Law Member of the Governor General’s Council. He prepared a draft to bring the British-born subjects of the crown under the jurisdiction of the courts and laws of the British East India Company.
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Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (November 30, 1858 – November 23, 1937) was a Bengali physicist from undivided India, who pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics. His research in plant stimuli were pioneering, he showed with the help of his newly invented crescograph that plants responded to various stimuli as if they had nervous systems like that of animals. He is also considered as the father of Bengali science fiction. He was the first Indian to get a US patent, in 1904, although Bose was himself critical of patents.
Jagadish Bose studied in Calcutta University, University of Cambridge and University of London. He was the first Indian to join Presidency College to teach science and had to face great difficulty in establishing himself. Commemorating his birth centenary in 1958, the JBNSTS scholarship program was started in West Bengal
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