Official Biography of Shri Pranab Mukherjee

Shri Pranab Mukherjee assumed office as the 13th President of India on July 25, 2012, crowning a political career of over five decades of exemplary service to the nation in Government as well as Parliament. 

Seventy six years old, Shri Mukherjee is a man of unparalleled experience in governance with the rare distinction of having served at different times as Foreign, Defence, Commerce and Finance Minister. 

He was elected to the Upper House of the Parliament (Rajya Sabha) five times from 1969 and twice to the Lower House of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) from 2004. He was a member of the Congress Working Committee, the highest policy making body of the Party for a period of 23 years.

During the period 2004-2012, Shri Mukherjee was instrumental in spearheading critical decisions of the Government on a range of issues such as Administrative reforms, Right to Information, Right to Employment, Food Security, Energy Security, Information Technology and telecommunication, setting up of UIDAI, Metro Rail etc. through Chairmanship of over 95 Groups of Ministers constituted for the purpose. In seventies and eighties, he was instrumental in setting up the Regional Rural Banks (1975) and the EXIM Bank of India as well as National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (1981-82). Shri Mukherjee was also author of a modified formula for resource sharing between the Centre and the States in 1991 which came to be known as the Gadgil - Mukherjee formula. 

A powerful orator and scholar, Shri Mukherjee’s intellectual and political prowess as well as remarkable knowledge of international relations, financial affairs and parliamentary process are widely admired. He has been acclaimed for his role as a consensus builder on difficult national issues through his ability to forge unity amongst the diverse political parties that form part of India’s vibrant multi-party democracy.

A man of humble origins, Shri Mukherjee was born in the small village of Mirati in Birbhum District of West Bengal as son of freedom fighters, Shri Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee and Rajlakshmi on December 11, 1935. Shri Mukherjee’s father was a Congress leader who endured great hardship including being sent to jail several times for his role in India’s struggle for independence. 

Shri Mukherjee acquired a Master’s degree in History and Political Science as well as a degree in Law from the University of Kolkata. He then embarked on his professional life as a college teacher and journalist. Inspired by his father’s contribution to the national movement, Shri Mukherjee in 1969 plunged into full time public life following his election to the Upper House of the Parliament (Rajya Sabha).

Under the careful mentoring of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Shri Mukherjee’s rise in his political career was rapid. He was made Deputy Minister, Industry; Shipping and Transport, Steel and Industry and Minister of State for Finance in the period 1973-74. He assumed office as Finance Minister of India for the first time in 1982 in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was Leader of the House in the Upper House of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from 1980 to 1985. Later , he was Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission from 1991 to 1996, Minister for Commerce from 1993 to 1995, Minister of External Affairs from 1995 to 1996, Minister of Defence from 2004 to 2006 and once again the Minister of External Affairs from 2006 to 2009. He was the Minister of Finance from 2009 to 2012 and Leader of the Lower House of Parliament from 2004 to 2012 till he resigned to contest election to the office of the President. 

Shri Mukherjee has extensive diplomatic experience and has served on the Board of Governors of the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank. He has led the Indian delegations to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ Conferences in 1982, 1983 and 1984; the United Nations General Assembly in 1994, 1995, 2005 and 2006, the Conference of Commonwealth Heads of Government at Auckland in 1995, the Non-Aligned Foreign Minister’s Conference at Cartagena in 1995 and the Conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the Afro –Asian Conference in Bandung in 1995.

A prolific reader, Shri Mukherjee has authored several books on the Indian Economy and on Nation Building. The many awards and honours conferred on him include India’s second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhusan in 2008, the Best Parliamentarian Award in 1997 and Best Administrator in India Award in 2011. He was rated one of the best five Finance Ministers of the world in 1984 according to a survey conducted by “Euro Money” Journal published from New York and was declared ‘Finance Minister of the year’ for Asia in 2010 by “Emerging Markets”, the journal of record for the World Bank and the IMF.

Shri Mukherjee is married to Smt. Suvra Mukherjee, an accomplished singer of Rabindra Sangeet and they are blessed with two sons and a daughter. 

Shri Mukherjee enjoys reading, gardening and music in his spare time. Simple in his tastes, Shri Mukherjee is a dedicated patron of the arts and culture.An avid traveller, there are few parts of India and few countries in the world he has not visited in his illustrious and long public career.

Mother Teresa Biography - The Saint Of The Gutter

Bharat Ratna Mother Teresa the saint gutter, had conquered the hearts of people by her selfless service and dedication. Quite early in her life, she had vowed to service the humanity and it is a matter of joy that she could fulfill her vow. till the last moment of her life she was fully devoted to selfless service.

Mother Teresa, an Angel of Mercy was born on 26th August. 1910 as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu into a middle class Albanian family in Skopje, Yugoslavia. From her very childhood, she had great humanthe community council, died when she was only nine years old. Her mother, Drana, raised Agnes and her siblings, Aga and Lazer alone and was much conscientious about the religious education of her children.

 The family attended the Church daily and prayed every evening. The children were taught to treat the poor and needy, who came to knock at their door, with respect and to practice charitable works. On holidays, the family visited the Holy Virgin at Letnice.

"I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order. I was to leave convent and help the poor while living among them". She was just 18 when she got the order and vowed to the Church to begin work at several religious retreats in Letnice. in 1928 she joined the Sisters of Our lady of Loreto to work in India and moved to an abbey close to Dublin, the Loreto sister's headquarter. She learned English there and began her formal religious training. She renamed herself as Teresa after the name of Sister Teresa de Lisieux, a 19th centre French nun and advocated of 'the little way'

Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta in 1929 and continued on to Darjeeling, where she was further trained in religious life On 23rd May that year she was accepted as a novice and two years later made her first vow. She spent her next 17 year teaching at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, an elite school for the privileged, eventually serving as its Principal. She felt ill in 1946 and while going to Darjeeling in the train she got the call, "It was in the train I heard the call to give up all and follow Him to the slums to serve Him among the poorest and poor".

In 1948, she got the permission from Pope Pius XII to leaver her order and she stared teaching children in the Calcutta slums. Then she found a women in 1952, who was half-eaten up by maggots and rats. She sat beside her in the street in front of a hospital until she died. Thus, Mother Teresa appealed to the authorizes for a building, where the poor could die with dignity. Here she started a charitable association, Mission of Charity which has devoted itself to bringing people dying on the streets to the home. Mother soon extended her work helping lepers in Calcutta. Now the Mission of Charity has spread to various countries and it has five thousand five hundred volunteers working selflessly for those who need their help.

In the later years Mother Teresa was present there wherever people needed her help, it might be the hungry people of Ethiopia, radiation victims of Chernobyl or poor in the squalid township of South Africa. In 1982, at the height of the siege of Beirut, she persuaded the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas to stop shooting long enough for her to rescue 37 children trapped in a front line hospital. She established a global network of homes from Calcutta to New York for the poor including one of the first homes for AIDS victims.

Mother Teresa raided her powerful voice against the conservative values, arguing passionately against abortion, contraception and divorce. her fame was so that she traveled as Pope John Paul II's envoy to preach devotion to life. her great works for humanity had won her many a good numbers of award. in 1962, she got Padmashree from the Government of India. In 1971, she was selected for the Pope John XXIII Peace price. In 1979, as a recognition of her work worldwide, she got the Nobel Peace Prize. Accepting the Nobel Prize she said, "I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive it in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone. Government of India bestowed Bhrat Ratna on her in 1980.

Mother Teresa had received criticism despite her good works. Feminist Germaine Greer had attacked her on her unwavering anti-abortion stance. When Mother Teresa accepted Haiti's Legion d' Honor from Haitian dictator Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier and alter laid flowers on the grave of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, many faulted her for pandering to tyrants who caused innocent people to suffer.

She wrote in 1992 to the U.S. Judge who was presiding over of trail of Chales Keating, who was accused for donating $1.25 million to her order Mission of Charity, asking for his mercy, telling him the accused has always been kind and generous to God's poor. She requested Judge, "No matter who said what, accept it with a smile and do your own work.

Mother suffered her first heart attack in 1983 while meeting Pope John Paul II in Rome and second in 1989, after which she had to receive a pacemaker. her health become worse in September 1996 and she was admitted to Woodlands Nursing Home in Calcutta for Malaria as well as heart and lung complications. Eventually she died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87 having lived a life that inspired people all over the world.

In October, 2003, the Mother who was popularly know as the Saint of the Gutter has been declared beatified by Pope John Paul II before hundred of thousand of people gathered in St. Peter's Square and a number of people in the crowd, including some Indian residents of Rome had greatly admired the nun.

Service to humanity was the only motto and mission of the Mother and her contribution for the world peace, happiness and harmony in matchless.