India’s Top 70 Indians – 8th to 10th. #IndiaAt70

  1. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar – The Dalit Icon

R. Ambedkar popularly known as Baba Saheb was the only person from Dalit Community in those days to have completed graduation. He was a very intelligent person and is the 14th child of his parents. He went on to do his post-graduation in Columbia university and London School of Economics as well to earn big name for Dalit Community. His intellect was very high that he went to become the first law minister of Republic India under PM Nehru. His economics bent of mind made him to think about the problems faced due to untouchability and campaigned against it for long time. Not to forget his continuous efforts on brining the reservations system the backward caste people who were ill treated in the early days. Finally, the biggest achievement of him being the chairman of Drafting Committee.

In personal life, he converted himself into Buddhism after all the work towards society. He was later conferred with India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1990.

  1. Sardar Valla Bhai Patel – The Iron Man

From Law Minister to the First Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and a part of the Ministers of Republic of India. He played a major role in the country’s struggle for independence. Now coming to why is he called as the Iron Man of India?

Though India was set free by Britisher’s in 1947 we still had many internal problems with respect to partition of the country. The two big chunks were India and Pakistan. But the India right after before Independence is very different from what it was after Independence. Because we had almost 561 kingdoms which were present in India. To turn all those 561 to join Indian Union was a big task taken by Sardar Patel. The integration was very tough that he had do lot of strategic understanding. He was speed enough to get the 558 kingdoms under India but the three that had problems were Kashmir, Junagadh and Nizam. He had to use lot of his tactical powers to convert these three also into Indian Kingdom.

Kashmir is the only problem that remains unresolved today. Junagadh was a kingdom which has temples like Somnath which is very critical for India and the Hindus living here. The Nawab of Junagadh wanted to unify Junagadh to Pakistan, while the majority of population were Hindus. He used his tact to conduct a plebiscite in Junagadh where people voted for India and finally Junagadh was unified with India.

Next problem to tackle was Hyderabad. Hyderabad that time comprised of entire Telangana, southern parts of Maharashtra and North Karnataka. Nizam of Hyderabad wanted to keep it independent. Sardar Patel tried his best to convince Nizam but nizam stuck to his ground. Nizam has an army of “Razakars” to protect his territory. Seeing Junagadh acceding to India, Nizam initiated secret discusions with Pakistani Govt. Knowing this, Patel ordered the Indian troops to march into Hyderabad to fight the Razakars. That time Nehru was touring Europe. The Indian army defeated Razakars and annexed Hyderabad into Indian Union.

If not for Sardar Patel’s quick and intelligent decisions we would not have been such big and diverse country.

  1. Homi Jehangir Bhabha: “The Father of Indian Nuclear Programme”

Famous for his study on Nuclear physics, Bhabha did a lot to the field of Nuclear for India. He being a person born in a wealthy family had all the facilities to Study and went on to become a Mechanical Engineer. But what was more intriguing was his interest towards mathematics and physics which led to do take up Nuclear physics as topic for his PhD. In the year 1939 he was the person who is the reason for India taking up the tough Nuclear programme. He was more known for his discover of Nuclear creation using ‘thorium’ which is much cheaper than what World was doing. World was using Uranium which was very costly and rare. This discovery of him changed the Nuclear Creation style and helped India in producing Nuclear energy at economical price. His close connection with Dorabji Tata gave him window to start the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, an institute which brings out Scientists for the Nation. For his complete dedication in the field of Nuclear and his discoveries keep him at 8th in my list.

  1. Dhirubhai Ambani: ‘The Business Tycoon that World won’t forget’

Dhirubhai Ambani as we all know was the reason for the birth of Reliance Industries. But the story dates back to many years, as a child Dhirubhai Ambani was a different person and wanted to do something different. But he would’ve never expected that his work life in Yemen in an Oil and Petrol Company had changed his life. Being a Gujrati, place famous for textile, he started his textile business with 50,000 rupees. That 50,000 with his risk taking abilities had given him continuous success and huge profits. In the year 1977 Reliance Industries had gone public and raised funds which is still a historical mark. It’s the vision of him made things easier and better for India. He got into rivalry with Bombay Dyieng and Bear Cartel in his life, but he won over the opponents and built the empire of Reliance. In the year 2002 Reliance reached the 6 billion dollars but unfortunately Dhirubhai Ambani suffered stroke which lost his life. Finally it’s the lamp of Business that got lit by Dhirubhai Ambani in India and his vision is now being carried forward by his sons, Mukesh and Anil. If you are experiencing free outgoing calls today, go back to Dhirubhai Ambani days where even incoming calls were also charged 3 rupees per minute. Its Dhirubhai’s dream of “a mobile phone in every Indian’s hand” that we are in this position today.

  1. Mother Teresa: ‘Saint Teresa of Calcutta’

Mother Teresa originally Angus is an Albanian born. She in her early age itself had decided to become a Nun and serve the people. She was born in Albania, moved to Ireland and settled in India. She first moved to India as part of her service but then she felt more close in India and settled here. She first took up Indian Citizenship while in Patna. She then moved to Kolkata and started working in a school. Here came the biggest move of hers where she along with her group started Missionaries of Charity. Missionaries of Charity became the home for the poorest of poor. Her biggest service though is the way she dealt with the people who were suffering from the deadly disease ‘Leprosy’. When no other person even went close to those affected by Leprosy, she went to them and took complete care of all the affected ones. Her lifestyle is something to remember and where she was totally involved in the service to humanity. Missionaries of Charity started by her gained lot of strength and moved to as high as 132 countries. She was known all over world for her selfless work for the mankind. She received numerous honours, biggest of them is Noble Peace Prize in the year 1979 for her work towards people living under poverty. Bottomline, she risked her life only for others! I put her at 6th place.

Published by Sriram

A Teacher trying to Learn new things and explore the world each day! Believe in Happiness by the virtue of sacrifice and forgiveness.

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