I Came Across: November 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Leila Seth

Born: 20th October, 1930, Lucknow, India.
Leila Seth joined the Bar in 1959.
She was the first woman to top the London Bar exams in 1958.
She was the first woman judge on the Delhi High Court 1978 and the first woman to become Chief Justice of a state High Court, Himachal Pradesh in 1991.
She served on the Law Commission of India till 2000 and was responsible for the amendments to the Hindu Succession Act which gave equal rights to daughters in joint family property.

V. R. Krishna Iyer

Mr. Justice Vaidyanathapura Rama Krishna Iyer was born on 1, November, 1915 at Palakad, Kerala, India.
In 1952, he was elected as Member of Madras Legislative Assembly.
He became the Minister for Law, Home, Irrigation & Power, Kerala State (1957-59) in the first Communist government in Kerala.
He became the Judge of Kerala High Court (1968-71); Member of Law Commission (1971-73);
In 1973, he was appointed as Judge of the Supreme Court of India (July 17 to Nov 14, 1980).
He was the founder Director of Kerala Law Academy.
The Report of the Expert Committee on Legal Aid commissioned by the Indian Government under his Chairmanship is the foundation of all legal aid developments in the country.
In 1987, he contested in the Presidential election against R Venkataraman.
He was conferred with Padma Vibhushan in 1999.
His autobiography is 'Wandering in Many Worlds'.
As per Malayalam calendar, he will be turning 100 on Thursday, November 13, 2014.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Salim Ali

Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was born on November 12, 1896, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
He is one of the greatest ornithologists and naturalists of all time, known as the “birdman of India”.
He is also credited with the creation and recognition of biodiversity hubs, the Keoladeo National park in Rajasthan and the Silent Valley National park in Kerala.
In 1930, he published a research paper discussing the nature and activities of the weaver bird.
In 1941, he published “The Book of Indian Birds in 1941″ in which he discussed the kinds and habits of Indian birds.
In 1948, his book ‘Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan’ (10 Volume Set) along with S. Dillon Ripley, a world-famous ornithologist, describes the birds of the subcontinent, their appearance, habitat, breeding habits, migration.
He received the Padma Shri in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1976.
He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1985.
In his autobiography ‘The Fall of a sparrow’ in 1985, Dr. Salim Ali wrote that his interest was in the "living bird in its natural environment."
He died on June 20, 1987.
In 1990, the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) was established at Coimbatore by the Government of India.
One of the world's rarest bats (Latidens salimalii), the subspecies of the Rock Bush Quail (Perdicula argoondah salimalii) and the eastern population of Finn's Weaver (Ploceus megarhynchus salimalii) was named after him. A subspecies of the Black-rumped Flameback Woodpecker (Dinopium benghalense tehminae) was named after his wife, Tehmina.
November 12th is celebrated as National Bird Watching Day in India.
www.sacon.in
www.salimalifoundation.org

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Bhimsen Joshi

Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi (4 February 1922 – 24 January 2011) was an Indian vocalist in the Hindustani classical tradition.
He was born in Gadag, Karnataka, India. As a child, he was deeply moved by a recording of Abdul Karim Khan, the founder father of the ' Kirana gharana'.
He was considered as the leading light of the Kirana gharana. He is renowned for his unique style and mastery over ragas, khayal form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music (bhajans and abhangs).
He is the recipient of Padma Shri (1972), Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1976), Padma Bhushan (1985), Padma Vibhushan (1999).
In 1998, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama.
He received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 2008.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Jasraj

Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj, born 28 January 1930, is an Indian classical vocalist. He belongs to the Mewati gharana of Hindustani classical music.
He was born in a family of outstanding musicians over four generations. He was initiated into music by his revered father, Pandit Motiram, until the age of three, when his father passed away. Thereafter he underwent intensive tutelage under his elder brother and Guru Pandit Maniram. Later, along his turbulent path of hard-earned maturity, he was guided by his spiritual Guru Maharaja Jaiwant Singh.
He is the recipient of Padma Vibhushan (2000), Surer Guru , Sangeet Martand , Sangeet Kala Ratna, Sangeet Natak Academy Award etc.
www.panditjasraj.com

Bismillah Khan

Bismillah Khan, the Shehnai maestro of India was born on March 21, 1916 at Dumraon, Bihar.
His ancestors were court musicians in the princely state of Dumraon in Bihar. Ustad Bismillah Khan was trained under his uncle, the late Ali Baksh 'Vilayatu', a shehnai player attached to Varanasi's Vishwanath Temple.
He believed in Hindu-Muslim unity and spread the message of brotherhood through his music. He always announced that music has no caste.
He had the rare honor of playing his Shehnai on the eve of India's independence in the year 1947. He performed at the Red Fort in Delhi and since that year he has always played on 15th August right after the Prime Minister gave his speech.
Ustad Bismillah Khan was the recipient of Padma Shri (1961), Padma Bhushan (1968), Padma Vibhushan (1980).
He became the third classical musician to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.
He died on August 21, 2006.
Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, instituted the 'Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar' in 2007, in his honour. It is given to young artists in the field of music, theatre and dance.

Shivkumar Sharma

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, born January 13, 1938 is an Indian Santoor player.
He created a new genre of instrumental music using Santoor, which was used in Soofi music in the valley of Kashmir.
Santoor was not considered as a complete instrument on which one could play classical music. After in-depth research, he made some important modifications on this hundred stringed instrument, like a new chromatic arrangement of notes and increased the range to cover full three octaves. He also created a new technique of playing with which he could sustain notes and maintain sound continuity.
He made Santoor at par with any other classical instrument, well established not just all over India, but across the globe.
He is the recipient of national and international awards, including an honorary citizenship of the city of Baltimore, USA, in 1985, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1986, the Padma Shri in 1991, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2001.
www.santoor.com

Amjad Ali Khan

Amjad Ali Khan born 9 October 1945, is an Indian classical musician who plays the Sarod.
He was born into the illustrious Bangash lineage rooted in the Senia Bangash School of music. He was taught by his father Haafiz Ali Khan and at the age of 6 he gave his first recital of Sarod.
He has performed internationally since the 1960s. He considered his audience to be the soul of his motivation and the world saw the Sarod being given a new and yet timeless interpretation by him.
He is a recipient of the Padma Shri (1975), the Padma Bhushan (1991), Padma Vibhushan (2001), Unicef's National Ambassadorship. Gandhi UNESCO Medal (1995) in Paris for his composition Bapukauns. In 2003, the maestro received “Commander of the Order of Arts and letters” by the French Government.
www.sarod.com

Hariprasad Chaurasia

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia born on July 1^st, 1938 in Allahabad is an internationally acclaimed flautist of India.
He began his musical pursuit at the age of 15, learning classical vocal technique from Pandit Rajaram.
He switched to flute playing, after hearing Pandit Bholanath, a noted flautist from Varanasi. He tutored under Pandit Bholanath for eight years.
In 1957, he became regular staff artiste of All India Radio, Cuttack in Orissa, where he worked as performer as well as a composer.
In 1960, he was transferred by AIR to Mumbai. He received further guidance from Surbahar player Shrimati Annapurna Devi, daughter of late Ustad Allaudin Khan and sister of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Under her guidance his music acquired a new dimension and he left AIR to pursue his performing career.
He has been conferred upon with Padma Bhushan (1992), Padma Vibhushan (2000) and many more national and International honours.

Zakir Hussain

Zakir Hussain (born 9 March 1951) is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.
He was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha.
He was a child prodigy, and was touring by the age of eleven.
He was awarded the Padma Shri (1988), and the Padma Bhushan (2002), by the Government of India. In 1999, he was awarded the United States National Endowment for the Arts's National Heritage Fellowship, the highest award given to traditional artists and musicians.
In 2009, he won the Grammy in the Contemporary World Music Album category for his collaborative album "Global Drum Project" along with Mickey Hart, Sikiru Adepoju & Giovanni Hidalgo.
www.zakirhussain.com

Alla Rakha Khan

Born: April 29, 1919, Jammu.
Died: February 3, 2000, Mumbai.
Ustad Qureshi Alla Rakha Khan popularly known as Alla Rakha was an Indian tabla player. He was a frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar.
He ran away from house and became a disciple of Mian Qader Baksh of the Punjab Gharana, who initiated him into the world of music. He learnt 'Raag Vidya' (melody aspect) from Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan of Patiala Gharana.
He started his musical career as an accompanist in Lahore and then as an All India Radio staffer in Mumbai in 1940. He has also composed music for a couple of Hindi films from 1943-48.
www.allarakhafoundation.org

Ravi Shankar

Pandit Ravi Shankar (7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) is an Indian musician and composer best known for his success in popularizing the sitar.
He was born in Varanasi, India and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar.
He worked for All India Radio, New Delhi as music director from 1949 to 1956.
He began to tour India and the United States, winning three Grammy Awards and collaborating with many notable American musicians, including George Harrison and Philip Glass.
He served as a Rajya Sabha MP from 1986 to 1992.
He is the recipient of Padma Bhushan (1967), Padma Vibhushan (1981), Bharat Ratna (1999), Ramon Magsaysay Award (1992), lifetime achievement Grammy (2012; posthumous).
He died in California on December 11, 2012, at age 92.
www.ravishankar.org

R.K. Laxman

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman (born 24 October 1921, Mysore, India) is an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist.
He is best known for his creation 'The Common Man', for his daily cartoon strip, "You Said It" in The Times of India, which started in 1951.
His older brother is the famous novelist R. K. Narayan.
He suffered a stroke in 2003 that rendered him paralyzed on the left side of his body.
He was awarded Padma Vibhushan by the Govt. of India in 2005 and Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in 1984.

R.K. Narayan

Born: 10 October 1906, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Dead: 13 May 2001, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
R. K. Narayan is among the best known and most widely read Indian novelists writing in English.
His first novel, Swami and Friends and its successor, The Bachelor of Arts, are both set in the enchanting fictional territory of Malgudi and are only two out of the twelve novels he based there.
In 1958 Narayan's work The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, India's highest literary honor.
In 1980 he was awarded the A.C. Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature and in 1982.
He was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He wrote fourteen novels, five volumes of short stories, a number of travelogues and collections of non-fiction, condensed versions of Indian epics in English, and the memoir My Days.
He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times but has not yet won the honor.

B.G. Verghese

Boobli George Verghese (born 21 June 1927), is a senior Indian journalist, columnist and author.
He was the editor of the leading papers Hindustan Times(1969–75) and Indian Express (1982–86).
Since 1986, he has been associated with the social sciences think-tank Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
Educated in St. Stephen's College, Delhi and Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined Times of India in 1949.
He was Information Adviser to former prime minister Indira Gandhi (1966-68), Member National Security Advisory Board (1998-2000).
He was the Gandhi Peace Foundation Fellow, 1977-82 and received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for outstanding contribution to journalism in 1975.
He is also the author of “First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India” (Tranquebar-Westland, September 2010); “Waters of Hope”, “India’s Northeast Resurgent”, Reorienting India (on Asian geo-politics), “Warrior of the Fourth Estate” (on Ramnath Goenka), “Tomorrow’s India “(Ed) “A J&K Primer: From Myth to Reality”, “Rage, Reconciliation, Security: Managing India’s Diversities”, 2008, etc.

Amitabha Chowdhury

Amitabha Chowdhury was an Indian Investigative Journalist.
His career in journalism began with a Bengali daily, Jugantar in 1948.
He became Director of the International Press Institute, an umbrella organization for editors and publishers of the world (1965-68).
He is credited with setting up Asian's first databank offering an on line distribution system catering to financial news and data called Dataline Asian Pacific Ltd.
He founded and ran Asia’s pioneering association: Press Foundation of Asia meant for the same set of professionals working in the Asian region.
He acted as a consultant on media and economic affairs for UN Projects in Asia and the Middle East.
In 1975, he launched his own group of magazines, annual directories and a news service with a Hong Kong based publishing house named Asian Finance Publications Ltd. (1975-93), wrote columns and edit-page pieces and reported for a dozen Asian regional newspapers and magazines, including his own.
He was awarded Ramon Magsaysay Award in Journalism (1961) for his scrupulous and probing investigative reporting in protection of individual rights and community interests.

Arun Shourie

Arun Shourie (born 2 November 1941, Jullundur, Punjab) is an Indian journalist, writer, a former Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP, former Union minister for communications, information technology and disinvestment.
He is known for introducing a new style of aggressive, independent investigative journalism to India.
He has previously served as an economist with the World Bank between 1967-78, and as a consultant to The Indian Planning Commission from 1972-74. He was also the Editor of The Indian Express.
He was educated in Delhi at Modern School and St. Stephens, he went on to earn his Doctorate in Economics from Syracuse University.
He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1982.
He is the only Indian journalist listed as a World Press Freedom hero in 2000.
He has written several articles and books including Worshipping False Gods and The World of Fatwas.
www.arunshouri.blogspot.in

P Sainath

Palagummi Sainath is an Indian journalist, teacher of journalism.
He focuses on social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermaths of globalization in India.
He was the former Rural Editor of the Hindu.
He is the winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award (2007), for Journalism Literature and Creative Communications Arts.
He was the first reporter in the world to win Amnesty International’s Global Human Rights Journalism Prize in its inaugural year in 2000. He was also the first Indian reporter to win the European Commission’s Lorenzo Natali Prize for human rights journalism in 1995.
He has launched an online archive – the People’s Archive of Rural India that aims at capturing the 'everyday lives of everyday people'.
www.psainath.org
www.ruralindiaonline.org

Gourkishore Ghosh

Gourkishore Ghosh (22 June 1923 – 15 December 2000) was an journalist, activist, author and above all an Humanist.
He was born in Hat Gopalpur village in Jessore district in undivided Bengal, (presently Bangladesh).
He has worked in Satyayug magazine, Anandabazar Patrika (ABP)(1952) as a journalist.
He was one of the founding editor of Aajkaal (1980-1982), later he returned to Anandabazar Patrika in 1982 and remained attached to the organization till the end.
In 1975, during the state emergency he began a symbolic protest with a traditional Hindu act of bereavement, by shaving off his curly black hair, but to achieve maximum propaganda effect he kept his full moustache and walked through the streets drawing passersby into his loss.
He was presented Ramon Magsaysay Award (1981) for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.
www.gourkishoreghosh.org

Friday, November 7, 2014

Nambi Narayanan

S. Nambi Narayanan is an former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist. He was in-charge of the cryogenics division.
In 1994, he was falsely implicated in the ISRO spy case for selling secret documents on India's space programme to two Maldivian women. He was one among seven others who were accused. Others included two Maldivian women, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan, senior scientist D. Sasikumaran, trade representative of a Russian space agency K. Chandrasekharan, his friend a Bangalore-based contractor S.K. Sharma, and the IPS officer Raman Srivastva.
He alleged that he was illegally detained and tortured in custody by officials of the Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau (IB).
In 1994, Centre Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the investigation.
In 1996, CBI concluded that the allegation of espionage was false. CBI had sent a report to the Centre and State government's recommending "necessary action" against State investigation officers and senior IB officials.
In 1998, Supreme Court exonerated them of all charges and passed strictures against the Kerala Government.
In 2001, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ordered the Kerala State Government to pay him a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh for implicating the scientists in a phony case.
In 2012, On an appeal the Kerala High Court ordered the government to pay Rs. 10 lakh compensation for 15 years of nightmare.
In June 29, 2011, the State government had issued an order dropping all further proceedings against the police officers.
In 2014, The Kerala High Court quashed a government decision not to take any action against the State Chief Information Commissioner and former Additional Director General of Police Siby Mathews and former police officers, including the then circle inspector (Special Branch) S. Vijayan and the then Superintendent of Police K.K. Joshua, who had conducted the initial investigation into the ISRO espionage case.

ISRO spy case is also known for the suspected role of former PM P. V. Narasimha Rao, CIA, Kerala Congress factions, Kerala Police factions and journalists. The case also had political overtones as veteran Congress leader Karunakaran who had to resign from the post of Chief Minister of Kerala in the wake of the case after a section of party leaders came out against him and accused him of shielding an officer allegedly involved in the case.

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