Great Personalities

      Ramon Magsaysay was born in Iba, Zambales, on 31 st august, 1907, to Exequiel Magsaysay, a blacksmith, and Perfecta del Fierro. The son of an artist, Magsaysay was a school teacher in the provincial town of Iba on the island town of Luzon. He entered the University of the Philippines in 1927. He worked as a driver to support himself as he studied engineering. Later, he transferred to the Institute of Commerce at Jose Rizal College (1928-1932), where he received a baccalaureate in commerce. He then worked as an automobile mechanic and shop superintendent and become general manager of a Manila transportation company.         Ramon Magsaysay was the third president of Philippines. Credited with restoring peace, law, and order during the Philippine crisis of the 1950s and the Hukbalahap rebellion, he was the first Philippine president from the landless lower middle class – the petit bourgeois (capitalist) stratum of society. He w...

    Aurobindo Ghose was born on August 15, 1872, in a family having a completely western ambience. His parents were Krishnadhan Ghose and Rajnarayan Basu. His father was completely westernised in habits, ideas and ideals and wanted his sons to follow suit. However, he would not know that his son would become one of the leading revolutionary activists of India.     Aurobindo was educated at an elite English school and college in England. He also qualified for the Indian Civil Service, a great honour for an Indian under the British rule. However, he deliberately skipped the mandatory horse riding test and was disqualified. During his stay in England he was educated in English, Latin and French as well as in English and European literature.    In 1983, financial difficulties forced him back to his homeland. He started working at the Baroda state during the reign of Sayaji Rao, the then Gaekwad. He worked in various departments ranging from stamp and r...

                                                 Rajiv Gandhi     No Prime Minister has been as full of ironies as Rajiv Gandhi’s was. Here’s an example: If his government lasted for just two and a half years, that is pretty much the norm these days, he would have been regarded as one of our best Prime Minister ever. By the spring of 1987, accords were in place in Punjab and Mizoram; the foreign policy was looking up, V.P. Singh’s Finance Ministry was being heralded for its honesty liberalising zeal, and the Prime Minister was astonishingly popular. If his government had fallen that March, then Rajiv would have been treated as a world-class statesman. But the problem was: his government lasted only for five years.              Rajiv Gandhi, the leading general secreta ry of India’s Congress ( I ) Party from 1981,...

          Satyajit Ray was often called a renaissance man, for his realistic style and theme. He was a strange man even in the Kolkata of the 1960s. Ray became a national icon, showcased to the world in a way that no Indian art personality ever had been. He lived up to his role with dignity and aesthetic sensibility.        Satyajit Ray was born on 2 nd  May of 1921, in Calcutta. He came of a family which was known for its tradition of art and culture. His grandfather Upendrakishore Ray was a prolific writer of children’s stories and also managed a printing press. His father Sukumar Ray was the author of the famous literary work, Bengali classic, 'Abol Tabol' (Book of Nonsense). His grandfather Upendrakishore Ray, a noted Bengali child  litterateur , edited the first children's magazine in ' Bengal Sandesh'.  Satyajit Ray graduated with a degree in economics, from the University of Calcutta. With the encoura...

                                               Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)   “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning    how to die.”                                                              - Leonardo Da Vinci                                                                     ...

                                                          Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) Charlie Chaplin      Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous personalities in world cinema. His contribution to the development of cinema will be remembered forever. Specially, his creation and portrayal of the vagabond or the tramp, who evokes at once our pity as well as amusement. Chaplin was a British born, American actor and director, who won international fame for his silence films, with ‘the tramp’ as the central character. Within two years of his appearance in motion pictures, in 1914, he had become one of the best known personalities of the nation. He was associated with all the main aspects of film making, like acting, directing, production, etc., and the typical image of Charlie Chaplin won him global popularity as a comic act...