Anna hazare

Anna Hazare was born as Kisan Baburao Hazare on January 15, 1940 in Bhingar, Ahmednagar  district in Maharashtra. This well-known social worker hails from a modest background. His father was an unskilled laborer and they owned 5 acres of cultivable land. Adverse farming conditions pushed their family into the grip of poverty and in 1952 Hazare moved into his ancestral home in Ralegan Siddhi. He was brought up by a childless aunt who financed his education in Mumbai but financial instability pushed him into selling flowers for a living and he had to quit studies after class VII. Soon after he was recruited in the Indian Army and trained as a truck driver and was given a posting in Punjab. His days in the Army were spent in reading books by great philosophers like Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave. Their thoughts inspired him to devote his life to social work. Two near-fatal mishaps in the 1965 war with Pakistan changed his outlook towards life and seeking voluntary retirement from the army he returned to his ancestral village in 1975. Ralegan Siddhi, his ancestral village, was then in the grip of drought and poverty.

Back to Relegan Siddhi

For the betterment of the condition of the village he began to work independently. He used his entire savings for the developmental work of the village. He motivated the villagers into voluntary labor by his Gandhian philosophy. Canals and bunds were built to hold rainwater which solved the water scarcity problem and also increased irrigational possibilities in the village. Solar panels were fitted all over the village to provide electricity, biogas plants met the people’s need for household fuel and wind pumps too were set-up.

Change — He Believed In

The village no longer suffered from water scarcity and it has its own grain bank, milk bank and a school. Poverty no longer existed in the village and Hazare himself has successfully motivated the villagers to give up vices like alcohol. Great emphasis is also laid on education, removal of untouchability and collective marriage and the setting up of the Gram Sabha.

Anna Hazare has truly emerged as the “anna” or elder brother of his village and his stature today is no less than that of a saint. His immense appeal was proved when he was once arrested in connection with a defamation case in 1998. Following mass public protests, he was immediately released. His achievements have won him many awards like the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra award,the Krishi Bhushana award, the Padmashree.

Awards

• Padmashree award by government of India in the year 1990
• Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra award, by government of India on November 19, 1986 from the hands of Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi.
• Krishi Bhushana award by Maharashtra government in 1989.
• Felicitation by Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation 15 January 1987
• Felicitation by Pune Municipal Corporation.
• On April 15, 2008, Kisan Baburao Hazare received the World Bank’s 2008 Jit Gill Memorial Award for Outstanding Public Service: “Hazare created a thriving model village in Ralegan Siddhi, in the impoverished Ahmednagar region of Maharashtra state, and championed the right to information and the fight against corruption.”

A P J Abdul Kalam

Bharat Ratna Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, was the eleventh President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007. During his term as The President, he was popularly known as the People's President. Before his term as India's president, he worked as an engineer with DRDO and ISRO and was awarded India's highest civilian honor Bharat Ratna in 1997 for his work with ISRO and DRDO and his role as a scientific advisor to the Indian government. He is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on development of ballistic missile and space rocket technology. In India he is highly respected as a Statist and as an Engineer.

Kalam played a pivotal organizational, technical and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear test in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974. He is a professor at Anna University (Chennai) and adjunct/visiting faculty at many other academic and research institutions across India. Although he is an engineer he has received many honorary doctorate degrees.

With the death of R. Venkataraman on January 27, 2009, Kalam became the only surviving former President of India.

Kalam's father was a devout Muslim, who owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul Kalam mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of Abdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street in Rameshwaram, and his brother's curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was thirty three. That was in 1964 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalam's native village, Dhanushkodi.

Kalam observes strict personal discipline, vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy. Kalam is a scholar of Thirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books, Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. He has written poems in Tamil as well. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him.

Dr. Kalam received an honorary doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University.