Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan[5th September 1888-17th April 1975]

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan great philosopher of India and first vice president and second president of India.

He was born on 5^th September 1888 at a village near Thiruttani, [60 kms apart from tirupathi] into a Telugu Brahmin family.

He did his schooling at thiruttani, in 1896 he moved to Hermansburg Evangelical School in tirupathi. He graduated from madras Christian college in 1906 with master’s degree in philosophy.

Radhakrishnan wrote a thesis for the M.A degree on “The ethics of Vedanta and its metaphysical presuppositions”. Radhakrishnans thesis was published when he was 20.

Radhakrishnan was married to Sivakamu at the age 16.They had five daughters and a son Sarvepalli Gopal [23 April 1923- 20 April 2002]

Career:

In April 1909, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was appointed to the Department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore, where h

 e taught at its Maharaja's College, Mysore. By that time he had written many articles for journals of repute like The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Ethics. He also completed his first book, The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. He believed Tagore's philosophy to be the "genuine manifestation of the Indian spirit". His second book, The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy was published in 1920.In1929 Radhakrishnan was invited to take the post vacated by Principal J. Estlin Carpenter at Harris Manchester College. This gave him the opportunity to lecture to the students of the University of Oxford on Comparative Religion. For his services to education he was knighted by George V in the June 1931 Birthday Honours and formally invested with his honour by the Governor-General of India, the Earl of Willingdon, in April 1932. However, he ceased to use the title after Indian independence, preferring instead his academic title of 'Doctor'.

He was the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. In 1936 Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. In 1939 Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya invited him to succeed him as the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He served as its Vice-Chancellor till January 1948.

Career in Politics:

His career in politics was started rather late. After his successful academic career in 1931 he was nominated to the League of Nations Committee for International Cooperation, where after "in Western eyes he was the recognized Hindu authority on Indian ideas and a persuasive interpreter of the role of Eastern institutions in contemporary society. When India became independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO (1946–52) and was later Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union, from 1949 to 1952. He was also elected to the Constituent Assembly of India. Radhakrishnan was elected as the first Vice President of India in 1952, and elected as the second President of India (1962–1967).

After he became president of India some of his students and friends requested him to allow, them to celebrate his birthday i.e.; 5^th September for that he replied “instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5^th is observed as a Teachers Day.

From then onwards his birthday had been celebrated as Teachers day in India

His Quote:

“When we think we know we cease to learn.”

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So my dear friends and blog readers keep learning new things…

Sri Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya [15 September 1860 – 14 April 1962]

Father of INDIAN engineering…The great legend Visvesvaraya is again from south INDIA.

Sri Visvesvaraya was born in the state of Karnataka and is popularly known as Sir MV. He is a notable Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore during 1912 to 1918. He was a recipient of the Indian Republic's highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1955. He was knighted as a Commander of the British Indian Empire by King George V for his myriad contributions to the public good. Every year, 15 September is celebrated as Engineer's Day in India in his memory. He is held in high regard pre-eminent engineer of India. He was the chief designer of the flood protection system for the city of Hyderabad, as well as the chief engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mysore.

        Visvesvaraya was born on September 15th 1860,in a Telugu brahmin family to Mokshagundam Srinivasa Shastry and Venkatalakshmamma in Muddenahalli village, 40 miles from Bangalore, Mysore State (now Karnataka), India.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Central College, Bangalore and later studied civil engineering at the prestigious College of Engineering, Pune.

After his graduation, Visvesvaraya took up a job with the Public Works Department (PWD) of Mumbai and was later invited to join the Indian Irrigation Commission. He also designed and patented a system of automatic weir water floodgates that were first installed in 1903 at the Khadakvasla Reservoir near pune. These gates were employed to raise the flood supply level of storage in the reservoir to the highest level likely to be attained by a flood without causing any damage to the dam. Based on the success of these gates, the same system was installed at the Tigra Dam in Gwalior and the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) Dam in Mandya/ Mysore, Karnataka.

Career :

• Joined service as Assistant Engineer in Bombay, 1884; served in Nasik, Khandesh and Poona;
• Services lent to Municipality of Sukkur in Sind, 1894: designed and carried out the water works of that Municipality, 1895.
•  Executive Engineer, Surat, 1896;
• Assistant Superintending Engineer, Poona, 1897–99; visited China and Japan, 1898;
• Executive Engineer for Irrigation, Poona, 1899;
•  Sanitary Engineer, Bombay, and Member, Sanitary Board, 1901; gave evidence before the Indian Irrigation Commission, 1901;
• designed and constructed Automatic Gates patented by him at Lake Fife Storage Reservoir; introduced a new system of irrigation known as the "Block System", 1903; represented the Bombay Government at the Simla Irrigation Commission, 1904; on special duty, 1905;
•  Superintending Engineer, 1907; visited Egypt, Canada. United States of America and Russia, 1908;
• Services lent as Special Consulting Engineer, Hyderabad, to supervise and carry out engineering works in connection with the Musi floods, 1909;
• Chief Engineer and Secretary to the Government of Mysore, 1909;
• Dewan of Mysore, P. W. and Railway Department, 1913.

After taking a voluntary retirement in 1908, he took up a foreign tour to study industrialized nations and then after for a short period he worked for Nizams of Hyderabad

He had received many awards and recognition's for his contributions.

E. Sreedharan [The Metro Man]

 E. Sreedharan ( 12^th June 1932)

Elattuvalapil Sreedharan  born on 12^th June 1932 at Palakkad district,Kerala.

No doubt  he is an South Indian…

Many of us don’t even heard about him or even don’t know who he is and his great achievements.

Actually, now a days  The METRO word is heard commonly in prime cities, and we are dreaming for Metro train in few cities so that we can majorly overcome the problems of traffic.

We even know first metro project,that is Kolkata Metro,but we don’t know the name of the chief Engineer who worked behind the first Metro train in India…

Yes he is none other than the great Mr  E. SREEDHARAN, the METRO MAN..

E. Sreedharan is from Palakkad district ,kerala,India. After completion of his secondary school he did his Civil engineering from government engineering college,Kakinada,Andhra Pradesh.

At the beginning of his career he worked as a lecturer,then after he joined Indian Engineering Service(IES) after clearing ESE-1953 conducted by the UPSC.

In December 1964, a cyclone washed away parts of Pamban bridge, that connected Rameswaram to mainland Tamilnadu. The Railways set a target of six months for the bridge to be repaired while Sreedharan's boss, under whose jurisdiction the bridge came, reduced it to three months. Sreedharan was put in-charge of the execution and he restored the bridge in just 46 days. The Railway minister's Award was given to him in recognition of this achievement..

•         In 1970 acted as a deputy chief engineer taking in charge of implementation, planning and design of Kolkata metro,first ever metro train of India.

•         Cochin Shipyard launched MV Rani Padmini, the first ship it built, when he was its Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), in 1981.

 After his retirement also government needed his service and appointed as chairman and managing director of Konkan Railways in 1990.

This Konkan railways project has many respects like the first major project in India to be undertaken on build operate transfer ( BOT) basis and the organization structure was also different from typical Indian railway set up.

The project had 93 tunnels along a length of 82 km and involved tunneling through soft soil. 

The project had 93 tunnels along a length of 82 km and involved tunneling through soft soil.

The total project covered 760 km and had over 150 bridges. 

Then after he was made as a managing director of Delhi Metro .

He was given the name The METRO man by media.

He had received many awards for his services.

And still after his retirement also his service continuing as principal advisor of Kochi  Metro Rail project and chief advisor for proposed Lucknow Metro Rail project.