Prominent Personalities of MP

Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma was the ninth President of Indian Republic and served his tenure from 1992 to 1997. Prior to his presidency Dr.Sharma had been the 8th Vice President of India. He was born in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. He was a journalist and wrote on diverse topics, from history to literature, philosophy to comparative religions, and many more articles. He also held the portfolios of Education, Law, Public Works, National Resources, Separate Revenue, Industry and Commerce. Additionally, he was also a renowned freedom fighter who was actively involved in the Indian Freedom Movement and took part in various campaigns. After India’s independence, the Nawab of Bhopal expressed his wish to retain the Bhopal princely state as a separate unit. Dr. Sharma led public agitations against the Nawab in December 1948, leading to his arrest. Under public pressure, the Nawab later released him, and signed the agreement for merger with the Indian Union on 30th April 1949. In 1952, Dr. Sharma became the chief minister of the Bhopal state (1952-56) and served in that position until the state reorganization of 1956, when Bhopal state merged with several other states to form the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee born on 25th December 1924, in Gwalior is an Indian statesman who was the eleventh Prime Minister of India, first for 13 days in 1996 and then again from 1998 to 2004. Vajpayee is still known as an eminent poet, journalist and politician. Being, aA leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he became the first Prime Minister from outside the Indian National Congress party to serve a full five-year term. A parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s Parliament) nine times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha (upper house). Vajpayee was one amongst the founder members of erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which he had also headed. He was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai. When Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee restarted the Jana Sangh as the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980. On 25 December 2014, the office of President of India announced the Bharat Ratna award, India’s highest civilian honour, to Vajpayee. His birthday, 25 December, was declared “Good Governance Day”.

Friends of MP takes pride in speaking about 2014 Nobel Laureate of India – “Kailash Satyarthi” Children’s rights activist born inVidisha, about 50 km from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. He studied engineering at the Government Engineering College, Vidisha. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”. In 1980 Satyarthi founded the Bachpan Bachao Aandolan (Save the Childhood Movement)an NGO to combat child slavery and trafficking rampant in the country. He and his supporters would storm factories employing child labour to liberate underage workers. He was severely beaten during a “raid” he led on a circus to free trafficked teenaged girls. From the very beginning he was determined to eradicate child exploitation and promote child rights issues on a war footing.

Anil Kakodkar born on 11th November, 1943 is an Indian nuclear scientist and mechanical engineer from Barwani princely state (present day Madhya Pradesh). He had done his early education at Barwani and at Khargone, until moving to Mumbai for post-matriculation studies. He is presently the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) of India and the Secretary to the Government of India, he was the Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay from 1996-2000. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, on January 26, 2009. Dr. Kakodkar devotes his time primarily on issues related to energy, education and societal development. Focus of his work has been on self-reliant development of nuclear reactor systems to address the Indian programme requirements. Apart from playing a major role in India’s nuclear tests asserting sovereignty, Kakodkar champions India’s self-reliance on thorium as a fuel for nuclear energy. He has created a roadmap for shaping the third stage of India’s nuclear power programme aimed at tapping vast energy potential of our thorium resources not only as source for electricity production but also as a primary source for other forms of energy use. A number of new technology areas such as accelerator driven systems, high temperature reactors, materials and recycle technology etc. have been nucleated for this purpose. Kakodkar continues to be actively involved in programmes related to augmentation of Thorium utilisation in our nuclear power programme.

Rahul Dravid born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh is one of the finest Indian cricketer from whose bat runs flow incessantly in both Tests and One-day games. Rahul Dravid amassed more than 9000 runs each in Tests and One-day games. He became the backbone of the Indian cricket team and played the role of an anchor sheet on several occasions pulling the Indian team out of strife. He has devastated the best of attacks in the world and rightly earned the nickname, ‘The Wall’. In 2004, Government of India honoured him with a prestigious ‘Padma Shri’ award. That very year he was also awarded the prestigious “Test Player of the year” award by ICC.

Ajai Chowdhry, one of the six founder members of HCL Info systems ltd. had spent his early life and had done his schooling from Christ Church School in Jabalpur. Later he had done his graduation in Electronics & Tele-communications Engineering from Jabalpur Engineering College, in 1971 . He works closely with the Government of India, for various endeavours and initiatives. He has also been part of several Government of India committees. His main focus lies in increasing IT proliferation in India and also towards facilitating the growth of the IT and Electronics industry in India. In 2011, the Hon’ble President of India conferred Mr. Ajai Chowdhry with the prestigious Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honours, as recognition of his consistent contribution in the field of IT. He is also conferred the Honoris Causa Doctorate of Science by IIT Roorkee, one of India’s most prestigious technology institutes.

Vasu (Dave) Chanchlani an Indo-Canadian serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and trans-nations builder was born in Bhopal has done his high school education from the city. Mr.Chanchalani co-founded the Sigma Group of Companies and he was a founding member of the Canada India Foundation. As an investor, he helped dozens of small companies globally to grow their businesses and achieve their visions. Dave was an inspiration for his many accomplishments as well as his extraordinary vision and philanthropic contributions. He is best known for his efforts towards improving Canada-India relations through his philanthropic activities and engagement with Indian Diaspora to serve bilateral interests of both Canada and India. Most recently, Vasu was awarded the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants award by the Canadian Immigrant magazine (a Toronto Star Publication). On January 9, 2014, his excellency Shri Pranab Mukherjee, President of the Republic of India, conferred the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA), the highest honour bestowed on non-resident Indians, by the Government of India. In addition to his professional achievements, his philanthropic activities and engagements were widely recognized. Chanchlani’s philanthropic efforts are guided by the motto to “inspire people and reward global excellence”. He established his private Canadian charitable foundation, the Chanchlani Foundation, in early 2000s to support ground-breaking health and public policy research and to nurture entrepreneurship and engagement between business leaders in Canada and India.

Kishore Kumar born Abhas Kumar Ganguly was an Indian film playback singer, actor, lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenplay writer and scriptwriter hails from Madhya Pradesh. He is considered one of the most successful playback singers of the Hindi film industry. He sang in many Indian languages including Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Oriya, and Urdu. He has also sung in private albums in several languages especially in Bengali which are noted as all-time classics. He won 8 Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and holds the record for winning the most Filmfare Awards in that category. He was awarded the “Lata Mangeshkar Award” by the Madhya Pradesh government and from that year onwards, the Madhya Pradesh Government initiated a new award called the “Kishore Kumar Award” for contributions to Hindi cinema.

Chandrasekhar Trimbak Sarwate born in Indore was an Indian cricketer. He was an all-rounder who played nine Test matches for India between 1946 and 1951 without much success. He bowled slow leg breaks However, in first-class cricket, he had a long career, spanning 32 years, during which he represented Central Provinces and Berar, Maharashtra, Hindus, Bombay, Holkar, Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha. His most famous innings was for the Indians against Surrey at The Oval in 1946, when he and Shute Banerjee put on 249 for the last wicket, more than the first nine wickets put together. It is the only time in first-class cricket when the last two batsmen have both scored centuries. Sarwate was a national selector for three years in the early 1980s, and was one of the selectors who picked the Indian team that won the World Cup in England in 1983. Besides being the secretary of Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, he was also the chairman of its selection committee on number of occasions. Sarwate held degrees in arts and law and was a fingerprint expert by profession.