Noted environmentalist, philosopher and activist Sundarlal Bahuguna is noted for his role in the Chipko movement against the felling of trees in the Himalayas. He is remembered for his slogan, “ecology is permanent economy”. He met the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which resulted in Mrs.Gandhi banning the felling of trees. He, along with his wife, have been working tirelessly to improve the lot of the people residing in the Himalayas. He has voiced [...]
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the founder of the Brahmo Samaj and is known as the Father of the Bengal Renaissance. Born in Radhanagore, West Bengal on May 22, 1772, he is most well-known for his efforts to abolish the evil practice of sati. He founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 along with Dwarkanath Tagore. He initially worked as a moneylender and from 1803 to 1814 worked with the British East India Company. Ram Mohan [...]
Fondly remembered as “Gurudev”, Rabindranath Tagore was an iconic figure in Bengal’s cultural landscape and had a profound influence in shaping national consciousness during the freedom struggle. When his poetic composition Gitanjali won him the Nobel Prize in Literature (1913), he was the first Indian-in fact, the first non-European-to receive this honour. Born on 7 May 1861, he was the youngest of the thirteen children of Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. Although his early education [...]
Medha Patkar spearheads the Narmada Bachao Andolon (NBA), trying to safeguard the interest of thousands of villagers in the Narmada River Valley, against deforestation and the loss of fertile agricultural land from the Gujarat Government’s ambitious Sardar Sarovar Dam Project. Initially funded by the World Bank, the mega – dam project was intended to build over 3000 dams of different sizes over the river Narmada in an attempt to generate hydroelectricity and provide irrigation water [...]
