Deendayal Upadhyaya, who passed away on 11 February
1968, was an Indian politician and thinker of RSS ideology, and former leader
of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of Bharatiya Janata
Party. He became president of the Jana Sangh in December 1967. He died in
mysterious circumstances; his body was found on 11 February 1968 on a railway
track near Mughalsarai Junction railway station. The railway station was later
renamed in his honour in 2018, 50 years after his death.
T.
Balasaraswati, who passed away on 9 February 1984, was a
celebrated Indian dancer, and
singer in the Karnatak (South Indian) tradition, who was one of the
20th century’s foremost exponents of the bharata natyam style of
classical dance. She was instrumental not only in expanding the
performance of this dance form beyond the precincts of the temples where it was
traditionally performed but also in cultivating international appreciation of the art
form.
For her
contributions to Indian arts and culture, Balasaraswati received a Sangeet Natak Akademi (India’s
national academy of music, dance, and drama) award in 1955 and the Padma Vibhushan, one of the
country’s top civilian honours, in 1977. Although she danced extensively
throughout her life, she was seldom filmed. In 1976, however, the acclaimed
Indian film director Satyajit Ray made a short documentary, Bala,
as a tribute to her artistic achievement. In 2006 Aniruddha Knight,
Balasaraswati’s grandson, also produced a short documentary.
Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, who passed away on 8
February 1971, was an Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer
and educationist from Gujarat state. A lawyer by profession, he later turned to
author and politician. He is a well-known name in Gujarati literature. He founded
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an educational trust, in 1938.
Charles Dickens, born on 7
February 1812, was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of
the Victorian era. His many volumes include such works as A Christmas Carol,
David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and
Our Mutual Friend.
Dickens
enjoyed a wider popularity during his lifetime than had any previous author.
Much in his work could appeal to the simple and the sophisticated, to the poor
and to the queen, and technological developments as well as the qualities of
his work enabled his fame to spread worldwide very quickly. His long career saw
fluctuations in the reception and sales of individual novels, but none of them
was negligible or uncharacteristic or disregarded, and, though he is now
admired for aspects and phases of his work that were given less weight by his
contemporaries, his popularity has never ceased. The most abundantly comic of
English authors, he was much more than a great entertainer. The range,
compassion, and intelligence of his apprehension of his society and its
shortcomings enriched his novels and made him both one of the great forces in
19th-century literature and an influential spokesman of the conscience of
his age.
Sayajirao Gaekwad III, who passed away on 6 February
1939, was the Maharaja of Baroda State from 1875 to 1939, and is notably
remembered for reforming much of his state during his rule. He belonged to the
royal Gaekwad dynasty of the Marathas which ruled parts of present-day Gujarat.
Deendayal Upadhyaya, who passed away on 11 February 1968, was an Indian politician and thinker of RSS ideology, and former leader of the ...
