AMARTYA SEN (b-1933) : Prof. Amartya Sen is the
recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics for the year 1998,
becoming the first Asian to have been honoured with the award.
The Santiniketan-born economist who is a pioneer in Welfare Economics
has to his credit several books and papers on aspects of welfare
and development.
An economist with a difference, Prof. Sen is a humanist. He has
distinguished himself with his outstanding writings on famine,
poverty, democracy, gender and social issues. The' impossibility
theorem' suggested earlier by Kenneth Arrow states that it was
not possible to aggregate individual choices into a satisfactory
choice for society as a whole. Prof. Sen showed mathematically
that societies could find ways to alleviate such a poor outcome.
SUBRAMANIAN CHANDRASHEKAR(1910-1995) : The Nobel Prize for
Physics in 1983 was awarded to Dr S. Chandrashekar, an Indian-born
astrophysicist. Educated in Presidency College, Chennai, Dr Chandrashekar
happened to be the nephew of his Nobel forbear, Sri C.V Raman.
He later migrated to the United States where he authored several
books on Astrophysics and Stellar Dynamics. He developed a theory
on white dwarf stars which posts a limit of mass of dwarf stars
known also as Chandrashekar Limit. His theory explains the final
stages of stellar evolution.
MOTHER TERESA(1910-1997) :
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Mother Teresa in 1979. Albanian
parentage, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born at Skopje, now in Yogoslavia.
She joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loretto at Dublin
in 1928 and came to Kolkata in 1929 as a missionary, only to find
the misery of the abandoned and the destitute.
Concern for the poor and the sick prompted her to found a new
congregation, Missionaries of Charity. Having become an Indian
citizen, Mother Teresa served the cause of dying destitutes, lepers
and drug addicts, through Nirmal Hriday (meaning Pure heart),
the main center of her activity. Her selfless service and unique
devotion, not only to helpless fellow-Indians but also to the
cause of world peace, earned her and India the first Nobel Peace
Prize.
HARGOBIND KHORANA (b 1922) : Hargobind
Khorana was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968. Of Indian
origin, Dr khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan).
He took his doctoral degree in Chemistry from Liverpool University
and joined the University of Wisconsin as a Faculty Member in
1960. His major breakthrough in the field of Medicine-interpreting
the genetic code and analysing its function in protein synthesis
- fetched him the Nobel Prize.
CHANDRASHEKAR VENKATARAMAN(1888-1970)
: India's first Nobel Prize for Physics was claimed
in 1930 by the renowned physicist Sir C.V Raman. Born at Thiruvanaikkaval
near Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, Raman studied at Presidency
College, Chennai, Later, he served as Professor of Physics at
Calcutta University.
Recipient of many honours and awards, including the title of 'Sir',
Sir C.V Raman received the Nobel Prize for an important optics
research, in which he discovered that diffused light contained
rays of other wavelengths - what is now popularly known as Raman
Effects. His theory discovered in 1928 explains the changes in
the frequency of light passing through a transparent medium.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE(1861-1941) :
Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian ever to receive a Nobel
Prize. Popularly known as Gurudev, India's Poet Laureate Tagore
was born on 7 May 1861 in Kolkata. He was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature in recognition of his work Geetanjali, a collection
of poems, in 1913.
Tagore wrote many love lyrics. Geetanjali and Sadhana are among
his important works. The poet, dramatist and novelist is also
the author of India's National Anthem. In 1901 he founded the
famous Santiniketan which later came to be known as Vishwabharati
University.
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