Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

Fifth President of India

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed : (13 May 1905 – 11 February 1977) was the Fifth President of India from 1974 to 1977. 

Early life and background

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was born on 13 May 1905, at the Hauz Qazi area of Old Delhi, India. His father was Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed was the first Assamese person to have an M.D. (Master of Doctor) degree and also the first one from North-East India. His mother was a daughter of the Nawab of Loharu. Ahmed's grandfather, Khaliluddin Ali Ahmed, was from Kacharighat near Golaghat, Assam and hailed from a well known Assamese Muslim family. 

Ahmed was educated at the Government High School in Gonda district, Uttar Pradesh and matriculated from the Delhi Government High School. He attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple of London and began legal practice in the Lahore High Court in 1928. 

Political years 

He met Jawaharlal Nehru in England in 1925. He joined the Indian National Congress and actively participated in the Indian freedom movement. In 1942 he was arrested in the Quit India movement and sentenced to 3 1/2 years' imprisonment. He was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee from 1936 and of AICC from 1947 to 74, and remained the Minister of Finance, Revenue and labour in the 1938 Gopinath BordoloiMinistry.

After Independence he was elected to the Rajya Sabha (1952–1953) and thereafter became Advocate-General of the Government of Assam. He was elected on Congress ticket to the Assam Legislative Assembly on two terms (1957–1962) and (1962–1967).

Subsequently, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Barpeta constituency, Assam in 1967 and again in 1971. In the Central Cabinet he was given important portfolios relating to Food and Agriculture, Cooperation, Education, Industrial Development and Company Laws.

Picked for the presidency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1974, and on 20 August 1974, he became the second Muslim to be elected President. He is known to have issued the proclamation of emergency by signing the papers at midnight after a meeting with Indira Gandhi the same day. He used his constitutional authority as head of state to allow her to rule by decree once Emergency in India was proclaimed in 1975. He is well known among Indian diplomats for his visit to Sudan in 1975 where the whole town showed up to see him. He was the second Indian president to die in office, on 11 February 1977. Today his grave lies right across Parliament of India, next to Sunhari Masjid, at Sansas chowk, in New Delhi.

Honors

He was Awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Pristina, in Kosovo in 1975, during his visit to Yugoslavia.

He was elected President of the Assam Football Association and the Assam Cricket Association for several terms; he was also the Vice-President of the Assam Sports Council.

In April 1967, he was elected President of the All India Cricket Association. He was a member of the Delhi Golf Club and the Delhi Gymkhana Club from 1961. In 1942 he was arrested in the Quit India movement and sentenced to 3 1/2 years' imprisonment. He was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee from 1936 and of AICC from 1947 to 74, and remained the Minister of Finance, Revenue and labour in the 1938 Gopinath Bordoloi Ministr.

Pratibha Devisingh Patil

Twelfth President of India

Pratibha Devisingh Patil : (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician who served as the 12th President of India from 2007 to 2012; she was the First Woman to hold the office. She was sworn in as President on 25 July 2007, succeeding Abdul Kalam, after defeating her rival Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. She retired from the office in July 2012. She was succeeded as President by Pranab Mukherjee.

Patil is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) and was nominated for the presidency by the governing United Progressive Alliance and Indian Left.

Early life

Pratibha Devisingh Patil is the daughter of Narayan Rao Patil. She was born on 19 December 1934 in the village of Nadgaon, in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, India. She was educated initially at RR Vidyalaya, Jalgaon and subsequently was awarded a Masters degree in Political Science and Economics by Mooljee Jetha College, Jalgaon, and then a Bachelor of Law degree by Government Law College, Mumbai. Patil then began to practice law at the Jalgaon District Court, while also taking interest in social issues such as improving the conditions faced by Indian women.

Patil married Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat on 7 July 1965. The couple have a son and a daughter.

Political career

The BBC has described Patil's political career prior to assuming Presidential office as "long and largely low-key". In 1962, at the age of 27, she was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for the Jalgaon constituency. Thereafter she won in the Muktainagar (formerly Edlabad) constituency on four consecutive occasions between 1967 and 1985, before becoming a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha between 1985 and 1990. In the 1991 elections for the 10th Lok Sabha, she was elected as a Member of Parliament representing the Amravati constituency. A period of retirement from politics followed later in that decade.

Patil had held various Cabinet portfolios during her period in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and she had also held official positions while in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. In addition, she had been for some years the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and also held office as Director of the National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks and Credit Societies and as a Member of the Governing Council of the National Co-operative Union of India.

On 8 November 2004 she was appointed as the 24th Governor of Rajasthan and she was the first woman to hold that office, and, according to the BBC, was "a low-profile" incumbent.

Philanthropy

Along with her husband, she set up Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, an educational institute which runs a chain of schools and colleges in Amravati, Jalgaon and Mumbai. She also set up Shram Sadhana Trust, which runs hostels for working women in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune; and an engineering college in Jalgaon. She also founded a cooperative sugar factory known as Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana at Muktainagar[citation needed] and an eponymous cooperative bank, Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank, that ceased trading in February 2003.

Controversies

Pratibha Patil's term as the President of India has seen various controversies.

During her term as president, Patil has commuted the death sentences of 35 petitioners to life, a record — among them are those convicted of mass murder, kidnapping, rape and killing of children. Presidential office, however, defended this by saying that the President had granted clemency to the petitioners after due consideration and examining the advice of the Home Ministry.

Positions held

Patil has held various official offices during her career. These are:

Pratibha Patil in Northeast India.

Period	Position
1991–1996	Chairman, House Committee, Lok Sabha
8 November 2004 – 23 June 2007	Governor of Rajasthan
25 July 2007 – 25 July 2012	President of India

Dr. Rajendra Prasad

First President of India,

Rajendra Prasad :- (3 December 1884 – 28 February 1963) was an Indian political leader who served as the first President of the Republic of India from 1950 to 1962. A lawyer by training, Prasad joined the Indian National Congress during the Indian independence movement and became a major leader from the region of Bihar. A supporter of Mahatma Gandhi, Prasad was imprisoned by British authorities during the Salt Satyagraha of 1931 and the Quit India movement of 1942. Prasad served one term as President of the Indian National Congress from 1934 to 1935. After the 1946 elections, Prasad served as minister of food and agriculture in the central government. Upon independence in 1947, Prasad was elected president of the Constituent Assembly of India, which prepared the Constitution of India and served as its provisional parliament.

When India became a Republic in 1950, Prasad was elected its first President by the Constituent Assembly. Following the general election of 1951, he was elected President by the electoral college of the first Parliament of India and its state legislatures. As President, Prasad established a tradition of non-partisanship and independence for the office-bearer, and retired from Congress party politics. Although a ceremonial head of state, Prasad encouraged the development of education in India and advised the Nehru government on several occasions. In 1957, Prasad was re-elected to the presidency, becoming the only president to have been elected twice for the office. 

Early life

Rajendra Prasad was a Kayastha and born in Zeradei, in the Siwan district of Bihar near Chappra. His father Mahadev Sahai, was a scholar of both the Persian and Sanskrit languages, while his mother, Kamleshwari Devi, was a religious woman who would tell stories from the Ramayana to her son. 

Student life 

When Prasad was 5 years old, his parents placed him under the tutelage of a Moulavi, an accomplished Muslim scholar, to learn the Persian language, Hindi and arithmetic. After the completion of traditional elementary education, he was sent to the Chapra District School and at a small age of 12, he was married to Rajavanshi Devi (Wife). He, along with his elder brother Mahendra Prasad, then went to study at T.K. Ghosh's Academy in Patna for a period of two years. He secured first in the entrance examination to the University of Calcutta and was awarded Rs.30 per month as a scholarship. He joined the Presidency College, Kolkata in 1902, initially as a science student. He passed Intermediate level classes then called as F. A. under the University of Calcutta in March 1904. He was a great scholar. It can be proved from the comment of an examiner who wrote on his answer sheet "examinee is better than examiner". Later he decided to focus on the arts and did his M.A. in Economics with first division from the University of Calcutta in December 1907. There he lived with his brother in the Eden Hindu Hostel. A devoted student as well as a public activist, he was an active member of The Dawn Society. It was due to his sense of duty towards his family and education that he refused to join Servants of India Society. Rajendra Prasad was instrumental in the formation of the Bihari Students Conference in 1906 in the hall of the Patna College. It was the first organization of its kind in India and produced some of the eminent leader of Bihar like Dr. Anugrah Narayan Sinha and.

Career : As a teacher

Rajendra Prasad served in various educational institutions as a teacher. After completing his M.A in economics, he became a professor of English at the Langat Singh College of Muzaffarpur in (Bihar) and went on to become the principal. However later on he left the college for his legal studies. In 1909, while pursuing his law studies in Kolkata he also worked as Professor of Economics at Calcutta City College. In 1915, Prasad appeared in the examination of Masters in Law, passed the examination and won a gold medal. He completed his Doctorate in Law from Allahabad University in 1937. 

Career : As a lawyer 

In the year 1916, he joined the High Court of Bihar and Odisha. Later in the year 1917, he was appointed as one of the first members of the Senate and Syndicate of the Patna University. He also used to practice law at Bhagalpur, the famous silk-town of Bihar.

Active Role

Prasad acted independently of politics, following the expected role of the president as per the constitution. Following the tussle over the enactment of the Hindu Code Bill, he took a more active role in state affairs. In 1962, after serving twelve years as the president, he announced his decision to retire. After relinquishing the office of the President of India on May 1962, he returned to Patna on 14 May 1962 and preferred to stay in the campus of Bihar Vidyapeeth. He was subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation's highest civilian award.

Death

He died on 28 February 1963. Sadakat Ashram memorial in Patna is dedicated to him.

Varahagiri Venkata Giri

Fourth President of the Republic of India

Varahagiri Venkata Giri : (10 August 1894 – 23 June 1980), commonly known as V. V. Giri, was the fourth President of the Republic of India from 24 August 1969 to 23 August 1974. He served as Acting President of India from 3 May 1969 to 20 July 1969, before getting elected.


Early life
He was born to Varahagiri Venkata Jogaiah in a Niyogi Telugu Brahmin family, residing in Brahmapur (Berhampur) in the Ganjam district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The town and district are now part of the state of Odisha. His father was an eminent lawyer and migrated to Brahmapur from Chintalapalli village, now part of East Godavari District -Andhra Pradesh State.

In 1913, he went to University College Dublin to study law, but was expelled from Ireland in 1916 after becoming involved with the Sinn Féin movement.[citation needed] Involvement which brought him into close contact with Éamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Patrick Pearse, Desmond FitzGerald, Eoin MacNeill, James Connolly and others.

Career

Upon returning to India, he became heavily involved in the labour movement, becoming general secretary and then president of the All-India Railwaymen's Federation and twice serving as president of the All-India Trade Union Congress.

Giri became a member of the Imperial Legislative Assembly in 1934.

In the 1936 General Election in Madras, Giri was put up as the Congress candidate in Bobbili against the Raja of Bobbili and he won that election. He became minister of labour and industries in 1937 for the Congress Party government formed by C. Rajagopalachari in the Madras Presidency. When the Congress governments resigned in 1942, he returned to the labour movement as part of the quit India movement and was imprisoned by the British. He was lodged in Rajahmundry jail.

After India gained independence, he was first appointed high commissioner to Ceylon and then successfully ran for parliament in 1952. He was elected for 1st Lok Sabha from Pathapatnam Lok Sabha Constituency and served as minister of labour until resigning in 1954.

The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) was founded in 1957 by a distinguished group of academicians and public men engaged in promoting the study of labour and industrial relations. The team was headed by Shri Giri.

He served successfully as governor of Uttar Pradesh (1956–1960), Kerala (1960–1965) andMysore (1965–1967).

He was elected as the third Vice President of India in 1967. Giri became Acting President of India in May 1969 upon the death in office of President Zakir Hussain. The official Congress candidate for the presidential election of 1969 was Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. However, Giri filed his papers as an independent candidate and enjoyed the tacit support of the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. A third candidate in that election was C D Deshmukh who was supported by right wing opposition parties. In a closely contested election, none of the candidates won an outright majority of the preferential votes. On counting the second preferential votes, Giri emerged the winner. He was sworn in on 28 August 1969 and held office till 28 August, 1974.

He received India's highest civilian decoration, the Bharat Ratna, in 1975.

He was a prolific writer and a good orator. He has written books on 'Industrial Relations' and 'Labour problems in Indian Industry'.

Our Baapu

Mahatma Gandhi

 

Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, Mahatma Gandhi studied law and came to advocate for the rights of Indians, both at home and in South Africa. Gandhi became a leader of India's independence movement, organizing boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.

Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Kathiawar, India. He studied law in London, England, but in 1893 went to South Africa, where he spent 20 years opposing discriminatory legislation against Indians. As a pioneer of Satyagraha, or resistance through mass non-violent civil disobedience, he became one of the major political and spiritual leaders of his time. Satyagraha remains one of the most potent philosophies in freedom struggles throughout the world today.

In 1914, Gandhi returned to India, where he supported the Home Rule movement, and became leader of the Indian National Congress, advocating a policy of non-violent non-co-operation to achieve independence. His goal was to help poor farmers and laborers protest oppressive taxation and discrimination. He struggled to alleviate poverty, liberate women and put an end to caste discrimination, with the ultimate objective being self-rule for India.

Following his civil disobedience campaign (1919-22), he was jailed for conspiracy (1922-24). In 1930, he led a landmark 320 km/200 mi march to the sea to collect salt in symbolic defiance of the government monopoly. On his release from prison (1931), he attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform. In 1946, he negotiated with the Cabinet Mission which recommended the new constitutional structure. After independence (1947), he tried to stop the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal, a policy which led to his assassination in Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic.

Death and Legacy

Even after his death, Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and his belief in simple living--making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet, and using fasts for self-purification as well as a means of protest -- have been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world.