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222/365 – Tiruppur Kumaran
Born: Kumaresan, 1904, Chennimalai, Tamil Nadu
Died: 1932 Nationality:
Indian Known for: Indian independence movement
Political party: Indian National Congress
Religion: Hindu
Tiruppur Kumaran (Birth name:OKSR Kumaraswamy Mudaliar) (1904–1932), was an Indian revolutionary who participated in the Indian independence movement.
Kumaran was born in Chennimalai, a small town in the Erode District in Tamil Nadu region of south India.
Kumaran died from injuries sustained from a Police assault during a protest march against the British colonial government on January 11, 1932.
Kumaran died holding the flag of the Indian Nationalists, which had been banned by the British. Kumaran was Tirupur’s contribution to the Congress movement.
He founded Desa Bandhu Youth Association. He gave his life defending the Congress flag. The government has erected his statue in a park by the railway station in Tirupur.
Kumaran is revered as a martyr in Tamil Nadu and is known by the epithet Kodi Kaththa Kumaran – Kumaran who saved the Flag.
204/365 – Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar
Diwan Bahadur Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, KCSI (b. October 14, 1887 – d. July 17, 1976) was an Indian lawyer, politician and statesman who served as a senior leader of the Justice Party and in various administrative and bureaucratic posts in pre-independence and independentIndia.
Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar was born on October 14, 1887 in the town ofKurnool and had his schooling in Kurnool. He graduated from the Madras Christian College and studied law at the Madras Law College.
On completion of his studies, practised as a lawyer before joining the Justice Party and entering politics. Mudaliar was nominated to the Madras Legislative Council in 1920 and served from 1920 to 1926 and as a member of the Madras Legislative Assembly from 1931 to 1934, losing to S. Sathyamurthy in the 1934 elections.
He served as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1939 to 1941 and as a part of Winston Churchill’s war cabinet from 1942 to 1945.
He was India’s delegate to the San Francisco Conference and served as the first President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. He also served as the last Diwan of Mysore kingdom and occupied the seat from 1946 to 1949.
Early life
Ramasamy Mudaliar was born on October 14, 1887 in Kurnool in a Tamil-speaking Tuluva Vellalar family. He was the eldest of a pair of twins, the other being Arcot Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar.
He studied at Municipal High school,Kurnool and graduated in arts from Madras ChristianCollege. On graduation, Mudaliar studied law and was nominated to the Madras Legislative Council.
Justice Party
Ramasamy Mudaliar was a part of the Justice Party ever since its inception in 1917 and served as its General Secretary. In July 1918, Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar went to England along with Dr. T. M. Nair and Kurma Venkata Reddy Naidu as a part of the Justice Party delegation to argue in favor of communal representation and give evidence before the Reforms Committee. The evidence was taken just before Dr. Nair’s death on July 17, 1919.
Ramasamy Mudaliar rose in stature gradually and began to be regarded as the “brain of the Justice Party”. He assisted in coordinating between non-Brahmins in different parts of India and organizing non-Brahmin conferences. Mudaliar was a prominent orator and was known for his inspiring speeches.
Post: Diwan of Mysore
Duration: January 1947 – August 15, 1947
Monarch: Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur
Post: President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council
Duration: January 23, 1946 – January 23, 1947
Post: Member of the Imperial War Cabinet
Duration: 1942–1945
Monarch :George VI of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister: Winston Churchill
Post: Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council
Duration: 1939–1942
Monarch: George VI of the United Kingdom
Governor General: Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcot_Ramaswamy_Mudaliar
201/365 – Rettamalai Srinivasan
Born: July 7, 1859 (1859-07-07), Madras Presidency, India
Died: September 18, 1945 (1945-09-18) (aged 86), Madras Presidency, India
Occupation: lawyer, journalist
Diwan Bahadur R. Srinivasan (1860–1945), also known as Rettamalai Srinivasan was a Dalit activist, politician and freedom fighter from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is a Dalit icon and Mahatma Gandhi’s close associate, remembered today as one of the pioneers of the Dalit movement inIndia.
Early life
Rettamalai Srinivasan was born in 1860 in a poor Dalit (Paraiyar) family in Madras Presidency. He was a brother-in-law of the famous Dalit activist Iyothee Thass. He worked as a translator in a South African court when Gandhi was practicing there as an advocate; he was instrumental in the father of the nation putting his signature in Tamil as ‘Mo.Ka. Gandhi’ (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Tamil).
Srinivasan established and led the Paraiyar Mahajana Sabha in 1891 which later became the Adi-Dravida Mahajana Sabha. He founded a Tamil newspaper called Paraiyan in October 1893 which started selling as a monthly with four pages for the price of four annas. However, Paraiyan experienced great difficulties in its early days.
Srinivasan was a participant in the freedom movement and an arrest warrant was issued against him claiming that he was fleeing the nation. In 1896, a case was filed against the newspaper and Srinivasan was dragged to the court citing a letter to the editor. The editor Srinivasan was fined Rs. 100 for his writings.
Round Table Conference
In 1930, Rettamalai Srinivasan represented the Dalits at the Second Round Table Conference in London along with Dalit leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. In 1932, Ambedkar, M. C. Rajah and Rettamalai Srinivasan joined the board of the Servants of Untouchables Society established by Mahatma Gandhi.
However, shortly afterwards, the three of them withdrew from the Board. In 1939, with Ambedkar’s support, he established the Madras Province Scheduled Castes’ Federation.
Memorials
Commemorative stamps have been issued in memory of Rettamalai Srinivasan by the Department of Posts of the Government of India. Cadres of the Viduthalai Siruthaigal party claimed to have discovered the remains of the Dalit leader in Otteri and constructed a memorial over his mortal remains and named it Urimai Kalam.
On July 6, 2011, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had directed that his birth anniversary on July 7 be observed as a government function and ministers to honour him by garlanding his statue located inside Gandhi Mandapam, Chennai.
Chief Minister Jayalailthaa has given a direction to this effect, according to an official release stated, The birth anniversary of Dalit leader Rettamalai Srinivasan (1859-1945) will be observed every year on July 7 by the State government.
His grandson B. Parameswaran became a minister in the Government of Tamil Nadu and a member of the Indian parliament.
199/365 – Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur, General (AD 1296–1316), or Chand Ram as he was originally known, was a slave who became a head general in the army of Alauddin Khilji, ruler of the Delhi sultanate from 1296 to 1316 AD.
He was originally seized by Alauddin’s army after the army conquered the city of Khambhat. Kafur was also called “Thousand Dinar Kafur“or Hazar Dinari, probably the amount paid by sultan for his possession. Kafur rose quickly in the army.
Between 1309 and 1311, Malik Kafur led two campaigns in southIndia. The first against Warangal and other against Dwar Samudra, Mabar and Madurai.
He was made malik naib, the senior commander of the army after his southern campaigns. In 1294 he led the sultan’s army against the capital city of the Yadava kingdom, Devagiri.
He led further invasions southward into the Kakatiya dynasty, winning immense riches for the sultanate and sacking many Hindu temples.
The booty from Warangal included the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond. During the course of the attack he sacked and plundered many Hindu temples including the famous Hoyasaleshwara temple in Halebidu.
According to Muslim historian Ziauddin Barani, Kafur came back to Delhi with 241 tonnes of gold, 20,000 horses and 612 elephants laden with the looted treasure.
193/365 – Sathyavani Muthu
Sathyavani Muthu (15 February 1923 – 11 November 1999) was an Indian politician and an influential dalit leader. She was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu, Rajya Sabha member and Union Minister.
She began her political career as a member of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, began her own party, Thazhthapattor Munnetra Kazhagam and later joined the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Member of Legislative assembly
She was a member of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) since its beginning in 1949. In 1953, she was arrested for leading the DMK’s protests against the Kula Kalvi Thittam. During 1959-58, she was the propaganda secretary of the party.
She also served as the editor of the magazine Annai (lit. mother) She contested assembly elections from Perambur and Ulundurpet constituencies in all assembly elections between 1957 and 1977 and 1984.
She won three times from Perambur constituency as an Independent candidate in 1957 election, as a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate in 1967, and 1971 elections. She lost the 1962 election from Perambur and 1977 election from Ulundurpet constituency.
Tamil Nadu minister
She served as a minister for Harijan welfare and Information during C. N. Annadurai administration in Tamil Nadu from 1967 to 1969. She again served as a Harijan welfare minister in M. Karunanidhi administration till 1974.
Thazhthapattor Munnetra Kazhagam
She resigned her ministerial position in 1974 and left Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. She claimed that Harijans are not treated well by DMK since the death of C. N. Annadurai and the new leader M. Karunanidhi was prejudiced against harijans.
She formed Thazhthapattor Munnetra Kazhagam. The party was merged with Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after it came to power winning the 1977 election.
Union minister
She served as a Rajya Sabha member as an Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam representative between 3 April 1978 till 2 April 1984. She served as a Central Minister in Charan Singh administration in 1979 and she along with Bala Pazhanoor were the first two non-Congress Dravidian parties Tamil Nadu politicians to serve in Union ministry.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyavani_Muthu
187/365 – Facts about Bill Gates
William Henry Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington.
His SAT score was 1590. The top score for the test is 1600.
By the age of 17, Gates had sold his first computer program, a time-tabling system for his high school, for $4,200.
Gates told his university teachers he would be a millionaire by age 30. He became a billionaire at age 31.
While at Harvard, Gates co-wrote Altair BASIC, which became Microsoft’s first product.
He met his wife, Melinda French, in 1987 at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan while she was a worker for the company. They would go on to get married on New Years Day in 1994.
In 2002, Bill Gates was considered more idolized than Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tungin a poll of teenagers in Hong Kong and China. The survey was conducted by the City University of Hong Kong.
He is currently having a building named after him at Carnegie Mellon University, called the Gates Building of Computer Science.
Bill Gates earns $250 every second; that’s about $20 million a day and $7.8 billion a year!
If he drops a thousand-dollar bill, he needn’t even bother to pick it up because in the four seconds it would take him to pick it up, he would’ve already earned it back.
175/365 – C Rangarajan
C. Rangarajan or Chakravarthy Rangarajan (born 1932) is an Indian economist and a distinguished former Member of Parliament and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
Currently, he is the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. He is also the Chairman of the Madras School of Economics, and the Founding Chairman of the CR Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science.
Early life
Rangarajan graduated from the prestigious Loyola College of the University of Madras in the commerce stream. He later took Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964; the subject of his doctoral thesis is not presently available in the public domain.
Career
Rangarajan taught at several institutions including the University of Pennsylvania and the IIM-A where he also served as the Director. He was awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of IIM-A in 1997.
In 2002, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award.
He served as a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1991, after which he served as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between December 22, 1992 and December 21, 1997. He also served as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh from 24 November 1997 to 3 January 2003. After demitting that office, he took charge as the Chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission.
From 2005 onwards, he was the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. In August 2008, he resigned as the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and was nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
He resigned from the Rajya Sabha in August 2009 and was re-appointed the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council.
While serving as the governor of Andhra Pradesh, he also received additional charges as governor of Orissa from 1998 to 1999 and as governor of Tamil Nadu from 2001 to 2002.
163/365 – Sadayavarman Sundara Pandyan I
Sadayavarman Sundara Pandyan I was king and Lord Emperor of the Pandyan dynasty, ruling regions of Tamilakkam (present day South India) between 1250–1268 CE.
Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan I is remembered for his patronage of the arts and Dravidian architecture, paying attention to the refurbishment and decoration of Kovils in the Tamil continent.
Reign: 1251–1268
Coronation: 1251
Birthplace: Madurai, Tamil Nadu
Predecessor: Maravarman Sundara Pandyan II
Successor: Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I
Father: Maravarman Sundara Pandyan II
Religious beliefs: Hinduism
Historical background
By the middle of the 13th century, the Chola dynasty which had dominated Southern India over the past three centuries was in its last throes. The last king of the Later Cholas, Rajendra Chola III reigned over a crumbling empire beset with rebellion and increasing external influence from Hoysalas and Kadavas.
Previous rulers of the Pandyan kingdom like Maravarman Sundara Pandyan I had succeeded in overthrowing Chola hegemony. The Hoysala dominance over the Tamil Kingdoms had also waned by the time Sundara Pandyan I took power in 1251 AD.
Conquests
Wars against Cheras and Cholas
Wars against Hoysalas
Wars against Kadavas
Invasion of Sri Lanka
Expedition to the North
Death and Succession
Sundara Pandyan I was succeeded by Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I in 1268 and died in 1271.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatavarman_Sundara_Pandyan
156/365 – Navanethem Pillay
Name: Navanethem Pillay
Born: September 23, 1941
Place: Durban, South Africa
Nationality: South African
Spouse: Gaby Pillay
Residence: Geneva, Switzerland
Alma mater: Natal University, Harvard Law School
Profession: Jurist
Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A South African, she was the first non-white woman on the High Court of South Africa, and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008.
Background
Pillay was born in 1941 in a poor neighborhood of Durban, South Africa. She is of Tamil descent and her father was a bus driver. She married Gaby Pillay, a lawyer, in January 1965.
Supported by her local Indian community with donations, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965. She later attended Harvard Law School, obtaining an LLM in 1982 and a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988. Pillay is the first South African to obtain a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School.
High Commissioner for Human Rights
On 24 July 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nominated Pillay to succeed Louise Arbour as High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United States reportedly resisted her appointment at first, because of her views on abortion and other issues, but eventually dropped its opposition.
At a special meeting on 28 July 2008, the UN General Assembly confirmed the nomination by consensus. Her four-year term began on 1 September 2008. Pillay says the High Commissioner is “the voice of the victim everywhere.”
Awards
In 2003, Pillay received the inaugural Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights. She has been awarded honourary degrees by Durham University, the City University of New York School of Law, the London School of Economics and Rhodes University. In 2009, Forbes ranked her as the 64th most powerful woman in the world.
143/365 – Vardhabhai
Varadarajan Muniswami Mudaliar, also known as Vardhabhai (1926–1988) was a Tamil from Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, who rose to be a mafia don in Mumbai, India.
Most active in the 1970s, he was the link in the underworld history between old time mafia men such as Haji Mastan.
Varadarajan started as a porter in Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus Station in the 1960s. His emergence in the underworld was largely through bootlegging and matka operations.
Later, he diversified into contract killings, smuggling and dock thefts. He ruled the underworld well in to the 1980s. In the 1980s, he almost ran a parallel judiciary system, dispensing justice within his community.
Varadarajan Mudaliar came into light after the reign of Karim Lala. At that time, Karim Lala, Varadarajan and Haji Mastan were the trio that ruled the Mumbai underworld.
Varadarajan was very active in the Matunga and Dharavi areas of Mumbai. He organized the annual Ganesha festival in Matunga. However, after the collapse of the cotton mills in Mumbai in the mid 1980s, their relevance ended.
In the mid 1980s, police officer Y C Pawar targeted Varadarajan. By the end of the 1980s, most of Varadarajan’s gang members had been imprisoned or eliminated by Pawar, and Varadarajan himself had to flee to Chennai.
Varadarajan died in Chennai in 1988, aged 62. In 1987, the Tamil film maker Mani Ratnam made his film Nayakan, loosely based on Varadarajan’s life.
Actor Kamal Hassan played the lead role. The Hindi movie Dayavan, produced and directed by Feroz Khan (released : 21 October 1988) was based loosely on the life of Vardarajan.
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