Eternal India Encyclopedia

was back as Prime Minister following the General Elections held in January 1980. In her last years in office she had to contend with an agitation in Punjab for an autonomous Sikh State. This led to the storming of the Sikh holy shrine at Amritsar by Indian army troops. Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31,1984. Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) His father, Sukumar Ray, was a prominent Bengali writer, a painter and a photographer. His grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray, was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore who was a frequent visitor to the Ray home. After his father's death when Satyajit was three, the family underwent a financial crisis. Satyajit grew up in the home of an uncle while his mother taught embroidery and leather work in a home for widows. He got a B. A from the Calcutta University at the age of 19. In 1940 he went to Santiniketan where he stayed till 1942. Satyajit concentrated on the graphic arts. In 1943 he entered the Calcutta branch of D.J.Keymer, a British-owned advertising agency, as an advertising artist, became art director four years later. At the advertising agency Ray also illustrated books and de- signed book jackets. He had designed a new edition of a novel, Pather Panchali (Song of the Road). The idea of filming it formed in his mind. After obtaining the film rights, he began shooting the film with Rs 20,000 of his personal funds since he could not get a dis- tributor to finance the production. Ray ap- proached the Government of West Bengal which put up Rs 200,000 for the completion of the film. It was completed in 1954 and had its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was voted "the best human document" at the Cannes International Film Festival. Ray had put India on the "International film map". Its sequel Aparajito (The Unvanquished) followed in 1957, win- ning the Golden Laurel Award at Venice and the Selznick Golden Laurel Trophy in the United States. Apu Sansar (1959) completed the trilogy. His subsequent films: Jalsaghar (The Music Room) 1958; Nayak (Hero) 1966; Pratidwandi (The Adversary) 1970; Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder) 1973; Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) 1977. etc. His films do not fall into the traditional hero- heroine-villain mould of the commercial Hindi cinema. He explored the world of the zam- indar, businessman and the movie star through the eyes of the peasant, the job seeker, the op- pressed, the peon. He once said, "Villains bore me". (M.P.Y.K)

Mother Teresa (1910 -) Born Agnes Bojaxhiu to an Albanian middle-class family, her work among the diseased and the dying in Calcutta has caused her to be regarded the world over as a living saint. Left the Loreto Convent where she was a teacher to go and work in the Motishil Slum with nothing more than three saris and a five- rupee note. Founded the order of the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. Established Nirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes in Kalighat, Calcutta. A beggar who died in Nirmal Hriday said : "I was living like an animal on the streets, I am dying as an angel". Today there are 456 centres in more than 100 countries. Was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and Bharat Ratna in 1980. Constitution of Stars which he received as an undergraduate essay prize created in him an abiding interest in stars and galaxies. After he obtained his M.A. scoring a record number of marks, the Madras University offered him a research scholarship in Cambridge, England where he joined the company of famous astronomers like Eddington, Milne, Fowler and others. In 1936 he joined the Yerkes Observatory of Chicago University as a Research Associate. He became Associate Professor, Chicago Univ. in 1942, Professor in 1944 and Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1947. He returned home after spending six years in the West to marry Lalitha, a former classmate of his in the Presidency College. He acquired American citizenship in 1953. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for physics for his pioneering studies of the structure and evolution of stars, especially white dwarfs, the last stage in the life of a star such as the sun. Indira Priyadarshini Nehru's first baptism of fire in politics occurred in 1921 in an improvised courtroom'in the Allahabad jail where her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was on trial for participating in a satyagraha. Her formal education began when she entered St. Cecilia's School run by Roman Catholic nuns in Allahabad in 1925. Indira's mother fell ill and had to be taken to Switzerland for Subramanya Chandrasekhar (1910 -) Born on October 19, 1910 in Lahore, he studied in the Presidency College, Madras where his famous uncle, C.V. Raman, had been a student. He obtained his M.A. in 1930. Arthur Eddington's book The Internal Indira Gandhi (1917-1984)

treatment. Indira accompanied her parents who visited several European capitals and were away from India for one year and nine months. After her matriculation from the Pupil's Own School in Poona she joined in 1934 Viswa Bharati, the cultural university Rabindranath Tagore had founded in Santiniketan. Her mother died in 1936 at Lausanne in Switzerland. Indira went to Badminton School in Bristol to prepare for her entry into Oxford. She entered Somerville College but ill-health prevented her from completing the course. Among the Indian students she met in Oxford and London was Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi, whom she later married (in 1942). From 1947 to the time of her father's death in May 1964, Indira played the role of a hostess in her father's household. In 1955 she was named a member of the Congress Working Committee and in 1959 became president of the Indian National Congress, the third member of the Nehru family and the fourth woman to hold this key position. She became Minister for Information and Broadcasting in June 1964 in Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri's Cabinet and in January 1966 became Prime Minister after Shastri's death. The general elections of 1967 saw the Congress returned to power but with its overall majority in Parliament reduced to 40 and losing control of eight of the sixteen States. Although Indira Gandhi continued as Prime Minister she had to contend with opposition from the Syndicate, a group of Congress Party leaders and managers. The sudden death of President Zakir Husain brought her into open conflict with the Syndicate which chose Sanjiva Reddy as its candidate while Indira Gandhi backed Vice- President Giri who ultimately won. The General Elections of 1971 which she called a year ahead of schedule, resulted in a landslide victory for her party and the defeat of the Syndicate managers. The war with Pakistan which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh, saw her at the height of her reputation. But the war caused inflation, stagnation of trade and mounting unemployment. There was rising criticism of corruption. A movement led by Jaya Prakash Narayan gathered momentum. An Allahabad court decision on an election petition against Indira Gandhi went against her. She clamped an internal emergency in the country in June 1975 under which fundamental rights were supended. When she lifted the Emergency in early 1977 and called General Elections she was defeated by the Janata Party formed by the opposition groups coming together. The Janata Party split as a result of defections and Indira Gandhi