Prime Minister of India

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru
Born : November 14, 1889
Died : May 27, 1964
Birth Place : Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Congress
In office : August 15, 1947 - May 27, 1964






Gulzarilal Nanda
Born : July 4, 1898
Died : January 15, 1998
Birth Place : Sialkot in the Undivided Punjab, now in Punjab, Pakistan
Political party : Congress
In office : May 27, 1964 - June 9, 1964






Lal Bahadur Shastri
Born : October 2, 1904
Died : January 11, 1966
Birth Place : Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Congress
In office : June 9, 1964 - January 11, 1966






Gulzarilal Nanda
Born : July 4, 1898
Died : January 15, 1998
Birth Place : Sialkot in the Undivided Punjab, now in Punjab, Pakistan
Political party : Congress
In office : January 11, 1966 - January 24, 1966






Indira Priyadarsini Gandhi
Born : November 19, 1917
Died : October 31, 1984
Birth Place : Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Congress
In office : January 24, 1966 - March 24, 1977







Morarji Ranchhodji Desai
Born : February 29, 1896
Died : April 10, 1995
Birth Place : Bhadeli, Gujarat
Political party : Janata Party
In office : March 24, 1977 - July 28, 1979






Choudhary Charan Singh
Born : 23 December 1902
Died : 29 May 1987
Birth Place : Noorpur, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Janata Party
In office : July 28, 1979 - January 14, 1980






Indira Priyadarsini Gandhi
Born : November 19, 1917
Died : October 31, 1984
Birth Place : Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Congress (I)
In office : January 14, 1980 - October 31, 1984






Rajiv Ratna Gandhi
Born : August 20, 1944
Died : May 21, 1991
Birth Place : Bombay, Maharashtra
Political party : Congress (I)
In office : October 31, 1984 - December 2, 1989






Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Born : 25 June 1931
Birth Place : Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Janata Dal
In office : December 2, 1989 - November 10, 1990







Chandra Shekhar Singh
Born : 1 July 1927
Birth Place : Ibrahimpatti, Uttar Pradesh
Political party : Janata Dal (S)
In office : November 10, 1990 - June 21, 1991







Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao
Born : 28 June 1921
Died : 23 December 2004
Birth Place : Karimnagar, Andra Pradesh
Political party : Congress (I)
In office : June 21, 1991- May 16, 1996






Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Born : December 25, 1924
Birth Place : Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh
Political party : Bharatiya Janata Party
In office : May 16, 1996 - June 1, 1996







Haradanahalli Dodde Deve Gowda
Born : 18 May 1933
Birth Place : Haradanahalli, Karnataka
Political party : Janata Dal
In office : June 1, 1996 - April 21, 1997









Inder Kumar Gujral
Born : 4 December 1919
Birth Place : Jhelum in Western Punjab, now in Pakistan

Political party : Janata Dal
In office : April 21, 1997 - March 19, 1998








Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Born : December 25, 1924
Birth Place : Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh
Political party : Bharatiya Janata Party
In office : March 19, 1998 - May 22, 2004

Dr. Manmohan Singh
Born : 26 September 1932
Birth Place : Gah, West Punjab, Now in Pakistan
Political party : Congress (I)
In office : May 22, 2004 - till date

Noor Inayat Khan

Noor Inayat Khan was one of the most romantic of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents and one whose suitability to be sent into the field has often been questioned.

Noor was the eldest of four children. Her father Hazrat Inayat Khan came from a princely Muslim Indian family (he was a great-grandson of Tipu Sultan, the famous eighteenth century ruler of Mysore) and lived in Europe as a musician and a teacher of Sufism; her mother Ora Meena Ray Baker Noor was an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who had met Inayat Khan during his travels in the United States.

Inayat Khan, Noor's father, took his family to pre-revolutionary Russia, where they were taken up by members of the Imperial Court and where a daughter was born in the Kremlin on New Year's Day, 1914.

She was given the name Noor, meaning 'light of womanhood', and would be known by her father's name, the patronymic Inayat, and the title Khan, an honorific denoting aristocratic birth.

When Noor was 13 her father died, leaving her, as the oldest child, the mainstay of her grieving mother and younger siblings. On leaving school Noor studied music for six years, composing for the harp and piano, and little by little becoming more European and less oriental in her habits and dress. She moved about more independently than the veiled women of the tradition out of which she had come. She wore make-up that made her skin lighter.

She took a degree at the Sorbonne in child psychology, studied several modern languages, travelled on the Continent with her brother Vilayat, and began a career as a freelance writer. She became a frequent contributor of articles and stories to newspapers and magazines and her children's fairy tales were broadcast by Radiodiffusion Francaise. A book of her stories was published in England in 1939 and she was about to bring out a childrens newspaper in Paris when war broke out.

In the early months of the war Noor and her sister took a Red Cross nursing course, intending to join the war against the Nazis in the only way that seemed practical. With the Germans approaching Paris, the family joined the exodus from the city. They made their way to Bordeaux and, because Vilayat had been born in England, they managed to get on the last boat evacuating British subjects.
Although Noor Inayat Khan was deeply influenced by the pacifist teachings of her father, she decided to help defeat Nazi tyranny. So on 19 November 1940 she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), to be trained as a wireless operator. Two years later she was recruited to join F (France) Section of the Special Operations Executive and in early February 1943 she was posted to the Air Ministry, Directorate of Air Intelligence, seconded to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and sent to Wanborough Manor, near Guildford in Surrey[2], from there to various other SOE schools for training, including STS 5 Winterfold, STS 36 Boarmans and STS 52 Thame Park. Despite not completing her training and the mixed opinions about the suitability of her temperament for the task, her fluency in French and competency in wireless operation made her the strongest candidate in response to the urgent Parisian request for further help.
On 16/17 June 1943, cryptonymed 'Madeleine'/W/T operator 'Nurse', Assistant Section Officer Inayat Khan was flown to landing ground B/20A 'Indigestion' in Northern France on a night landing double Lysander operation, code named Teacher/Nurse/Chaplain/Monk. She traveled to Paris, and together with two other women (Diana Rowden, code named Paulette/Chaplain, and Cecily Lefort, code named Alice/Teacher) joined the Physician network led by Francis Suttill, code named Prosper. Over the next month and a half, all other Physician network radio operators were arrested by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), but in spite of the danger and rejecting an offer to return to Britain, Noor chose to remain and continue transmitting as the last essential link between London and Paris. Moving from place to place, she tried to escape capture while maintaining wireless communication with London. "She refused to abandon what had become the most important and dangerous post in France and did excellent work." It is mainly attributed to her efforts that the Physician network could be reconstructed.

Finally Inayat Khan was betrayed to the Germans, either by Henri Dericourt or by Renée Gary. Dericourt (code name Gilbert) was a SOE officer and former French Air Force pilot who has been suspected of working as a double agent for the German Abwehr. Renée Garry was the sister of Emile Garry, Inayat Khans organizer in the Physician network. Allegedly she was paid 1,000 Francs, but acted mainly out of jealousy because she had lost the affection of SOE agent France Antelme to Noor. On or around 1 October 1943 Inayat Khan was arrested and interrogated at the SD Headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. There is no evidence of her being tortured, but her interrogation lasted over a month. During that time, she attempted escape twice. Hans Kieffer, the former head of Gestapo in Paris, testified after the war that she didn't give the Gestapo a single piece of information, but lied consistently. Although Inayat Khan did not talk about her activities under interrogation, the SD found her notebooks, in which she had kept, contrary to security regulations, copies of all the messages she had sent as an SOE operative. Although she refused to reveal any secret codes, the Germans gained enough information from it to continue sending false messages imitating her. As London failed to investigate properly anomalies in the transmissions which should have indicated they were sent under enemy control, three more agents sent to France were captured by the Germans at their parachute landing, among them Madeleine Damerment, who was later executed together with Noor Inayat Khan.

After refusing to sign a declaration not to make further flight attempts, Inayat Khan was taken to Germany on 27 November 1943 "for safe custody" and imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement as a so-called Nacht und Nebel-prisoner, i.e. without any contact with the outside world and in complete secrecy. She was classified as 'highly dangerous' and shackled in chains most of the time. As the prison director testified after the war, Inayat Khan remained uncooperative and continued to refuse to give any information on her work or her fellow operatives.

On 11 September 1944, Noor Inayat Khan and three other SOE agents from Karlsruhe prison, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment, were moved to the Dachau Concentration Camp. In the early hours of the morning, 13 September 1944, the four women were executed by a shot to the head. An anonymous Dutch prisoner emerging in 1958 contended that Noor Inayat Khan was cruelly beaten by the sadistic SS guard Wilhelm Ruppert before being shot. Her last word was "Liberté".

Noor Inayat Khan was posthumously awarded a British mention in dispatches and a French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star. Khan was the third of three World War II FANY members to be awarded the George Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry not on the battle field.

(Pictures Courtesy : www.bbc.co.uk)

Nawab Wajid Ali Shah

Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (Born – Lucknow, 19th July, 1823 ; 10th Zeeqat 1238 Hijri) is best known for the thumri "Babul Mora", which has been sung by almost every light Indian classical singer. He was the eldest son of Amjad ali Shah and started his tenure with some promising actions. Realising the need of an army to counter the threat posed by English forces posted in Lucknow, he added some new platoons with fancy names. He in person attended the parade regularly in the mornings and coined persisanised words of commands. To offer justice to the oppressed population he allowed the common man to present his petition verbally or in writing directly to him. For this purpose two peshkars would march in front of his carriage whenever he would choose to go out for a pleasure ride. These activites were not liked by the English and they advised him that such things were beyond the dignity of the King and the resident disapproves them.

In few months Wajid Ali Shah (official name M. Hazrat Khalid, 'Abul Mansur Nasir ud-din, Padshah-i-'Adil, Kaiser-i-Zaman, Arangha Sultan-i-'Alam, Muhammad Wajid 'Ali Shah Bahadur) himself got bored with administration and he came back to his original interests of dance, music and company with fair sex. He acquired deep interest in poetry.

When Wajid Ali Shah was a young boy, some astrologers warned his parents that he would become a Yogi, and advised them that the boy should be dressed up as a Yogi on each birthday of his so as to counteract the effect of the evil stars. When he ascended the throne in 1847 at the age of 24, he had a fabulous annual income of more then fifteen lakhs of rupees, most of which he squandered on music, dance and drama. First of all, he established his famous Parikhaana (abode of fairies) in which hundreds of beautiful and talented girls were taught music and dancing by expert-teachers engaged by the royal patron. These girls were known as Parees or fairies with fancy- names such as Sultan pari, Mahrukh pari and so on. On each birthday of his, the Nawab would dress up as a Yogi with saffron robes, ash of pearls smeared on his face and body, necklaces of pearls around his neck, and a rosary in his hand, and walk pompously into the court with two of his Parees dressed up as Jogans. Gradually he made it into a spectacular pageant or Mela known as Jogia Jashan, in which all citizens of Lucknow could participate, dressed as Yogis, irrespective of caste and creed.

Later on, when his favourite venue, the Kaisarbagh Baradari was built, he began to stage his magnificent Rahas, obviously a Persianised name for Rasleela, full of sensuous poetry, his own lyrical compositions under the pen-name "Akhtarpiya" and glamorous Kathak dances. Ranbir Singh gives details of Wajid Ali Shah's book entitled "Bani" in which the author mentions 36 types of Rahas all set in Kathak style (with colourful names like "Mor-Chchatri", "Ghunghat", "Salami", "Mor Pankhi" and "Mujra"), and gives exhaustive notes about the costumes, jewellery, and stage- craft. Rahas, prepared at a fabulous cost of saveral lakhs of rupees, became very popular, and was performed at the Kaisarbagh-Rahas Manzil, most probably, "the first Hindustani Theatre Hall". Many have regarded Wajid Ali Shah as "the first playwright of the Hindustani theatre", because his "Radha Kanhaiya Ka Kissa" staged in the Rahas Manzil was the first play of its kind. It featured Radha, Krishna, several sakhis, and a vidushaka-like character called "Ramchera". Songs, dances, mime, and drama were all delightfully synthesized in these Rahas performances. He dramatized many other poems such as Darya-i-Tashsq, Afsane-i-Isbaq, and Bhahar-i-Ulfat. It is said that Amanat's "Inder Sabha" was inspired by these dance-dramas, written, produced and staged by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.

But all this pomp and splendors were wiped out in less than eight years. In February 1854, Wajid Ali Shah was deposed by the British Resident and exiled into far-off Matiaburj near Calcutta. Even when the shocking ultimatum was given to him, Wajid Ali Shah appealed to his beloved subjects not to offer any resistance, and to maintain peace.

When it ceased, Wajid Ali Shah sat in mute silence for a long while, and then expressed his feelings: "All this time I was in a dreamland as though transported by unknown hands to my Kaisarbagh Baradari. Ah, what I have left behind! Now, only the sweet memories linger."

The loyal citizens as well as their beloved ruler hoped for a long time that the latter would regain the throne of Awadh and "return to bestow a fresh spirit to the lifeless people"; but their dreams were never fulfilled. Wajid Ali Shah died on September 1, 1887 and was buried in Imambara Sibtenabad, in Matiyaburj.

Wajid Ali Shah's most popular Thumri really turned out to be one of the saddest and sweetest of parting songs.

baabul moraa, naihar chhu-to hi jaae
chaar kahaar mil, morii Doliyaa sajaaven
moraa apanaa begaanaa chhu-to jaae
aanganaa to parbat bhayo deharii bhayii bidesh
je baabul ghar aapano, main chali piya ke des

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Mirza Ghalib "One"

dil-e-naadaan tujhe huaa kya haiaa
khir is dard kee dawaa kya hai

hum hain mushtaaq aur woh be-zaar
ya ilaahee ! yeh maajra kya hai

main bhi munh mein zabaan rakhta hoon
kaash ! poocho ki muddaa kya hai

jab ki tujh bin nahi koi maujood
phir ye hangaama, 'ei khuda ! kya hai

hamko unse wafa ki hai ummeed
jo nahi jaante wafa kya hai

haan bhala kar tera bhala hoga
aur darvesh kee sada kya hai

jaan tum par nisaar karta hoon
main nahi jaanata duaa kya hai

maine maana ki kuchch nahi 'ghalib'
muft haath aaye to bura kya hai ..............

Rare Pictures of India

A rare aerial view of parliament (top right) and former imperial civil service buildings in Delhi which now house the Indian government, both designed by architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.

A group of dancing girls. Dancing or nautch girls began performing at courts
around 1830. They were known for their elaborate costumes and jewellery.

The Grand Trunk Road, built by Sher Shah Suri, was the main trade route
from Calcutta to Kabul. Here, transport leaves Ambala for Delhi.




A throwback from the Raj: A British man gets a pedicure from an Indian servant.

The daughter of an Indian maharajah seated on a leopard she shot, sometime during 1920s.