S.S. Vasan Birth Anniversary

Subramaniam Srinivasan, born on 4 January 1904, popularly known by his screen name S. S. Vasan, was an Indian journalist, writer, advertiser, film producer, director and business tycoon. He is the founder of the Tamil-language magazine Ananda Vikatan and the film production company Gemini Studios, Gemini Film Laboratories and Gemini Picture Circuit. He was a member of parliament (Rajya Sabha) from 1964 and served his term till his death. Vasan entered the Tamil film industry in 1936 when his novel Sathi Leelavathi was made into a film.

Govardhanram Tripathi Death Anniversary

Govardhanram Madhavram Tripathi, who passed away on 4 January 1907, was a towering figure in Gujarati literature, such that most Gujarati writers claim to have been influenced by him. The period of 1885-1915 was known as the ‘Pandit/Govardhan Yug’ of writing. It can be said that the modern Indian novel and the creation of the ‘national’ were in no small way influenced by his work.

Tripathi is the author of the classic novel quartet, Sarasvatichandra (1887-1901), known as the first Indian social novel. His other books include Snehmudra (1889) and The Classical Poets of Gujarat and Their Influence on Society and Morals (1894). Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali debuted in television in 2013 with a serial based on the Sarasvatichandra.

Rahul Dev Burman Death Anniversary

Rahul Dev Burman, who passed away on 4 January 1994, was an Indian music director and actor, who is considered to be one of the greatest and most successful music directors of the Hindi Film Music Industry. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Burman composed musical scores for 331 films, bringing a new level of music ensemble with his compositions. Burman did his major work with legendary singers Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, and Kishore Kumar. He also worked extensively with lyricist Gulzar, with whom he has some of the most memorable numbers in his career. Nicknamed Pancham, he was the only son of the composer Sachin Dev Burman. R.D. Burman is regarded as the Father of Bollywood (Hindi) Film Music Revolution.

He was mainly active in the Hindi film industry as a composer, and also provided vocals for a few compositions. He served as an influence to the next generation of Indian music directors, and his songs continue to be popular in India and overseas.

T.S. Eliot Death Anniversary

T.S. Eliot who passed away on 4 January 1965, was an American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, a leader of the Modernist movement in poetry, in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late in the century. His experiments in diction, style, and versification revitalized English poetry, and in a series of critical essays he shattered old orthodoxies and erected new ones. The publication of Four Quartets led to his recognition as the greatest living English poet and man of letters, and in 1948 he was awarded both the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Isaac Newton Birth Anniversary

Isaac Newton, born on 4 January 1643, was a English physicist and mathematician who was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the phenomena of colours into the science of light and laid the foundation for modern physical optics. In mechanics, his three laws of motion, the basic principles of modern physics, resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the original discoverer of the infinitesimal calculus. Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosopy, 1687) was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science.

Louis Braille Birth Anniversary

Louis Braille is the inventor of the braille code. He was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France. At the age of 3, while playing in his father's shop, Louis injured his eye on a sharp tool. Despite the best care available at the time, infection set in and soon spread to the other eye, leaving him completely blind.

Barely 16, Braille, then a student at the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris in 1825, spent every waking moment outside class poking holes in paper, trying to come up with a more efficient way to represent print letters and numbers tactually. Until then, he and his fellow blind students read by tracing raised print letters with their fingers. It was painfully slow and few blind students mastered the technique. Writing required memorization of the shapes of letters and then an attempt to reproduce them on paper, without being able to see or read the results.

Louis got his inspiration to use embossed dots to represent letters after he watched Charles Barbier, a retired artillery officer in Napoleon's army, demonstrate a note-taking system he invented of embossed dots to represent sounds (most of the soldiers were illiterate) that would allow notes to be passed among the ranks without striking a light, which might alert the enemy to their position. The army was not impressed, so Barbier brought his system to the school for the blind. Louis immediately recognized its merits and spent the next three years improving upon Barbier's idea.

By 1824, Louis had in place the code that bears his name and is used today in almost every country in the world, adapted to almost every known language from Albanian to Zulu. Louis Braille died on January 6, 1852 at the age of 43, having lived a successful life as teacher, musician, researcher, and inventor. In 2009, the world celebrated Braille's Bicentennial.

Image above: The Institute in Paris where Louis was a student and teacher, courtesy Maison Natale de Louis Braille, France

World Braille Day

World Braille Day

In remembrance of the birth of Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille, January 4 is marked as World Braille Day. The day also recognizes that people with visual impairments should have the same access to human rights as everyone else.

The UN General Assembly proclaimed January 4 to be World Braille Day in November 2018. The following year, the first-ever World Braille Day was commemorated and recognized as a global holiday.

The UN mentions: "In November 2018 (Resolution A/RES/73/161), the General Assembly decided to proclaim 4 January as World Braille Day, recognizing that the full realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms relies on an inclusive written promotion."

Interesting Facts on Braille

• Developed in 1819 by the French army, soldiers used Braille to communicate at night without speaking or using candles.
• In 1999, NASA’s Deep Space 1 flew past an asteroid on its way to photograph Borrelly’s Comet and named it ‘9969 Braille’ in acknowledgement of Louis Braille.
• Braille is an alphabet that can be used to write almost any language and versions are available in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Spanish, and more.
• Uncontracted Braille spells out every word, whereas contracted Braille is a shorthand version that abbreviates familiar words.
• There’s a unique version of Braille specifically for mathematics and science, called the Nemeth Code.
• Family classics, such as Uno, Monopoly, and LEGO are available in Braille versions.
• An annual competition for students who are blind, the Braille Institute hosts more than 1,400 students from the U.S. and Canada to test their braille skills. 
• While a sighted person can read 300 words per minute, some fast braille readers can whip through a book at a speed of 400 words per minute.
• According to the Vision Foundation Organisation, "Braille takes up more space in literature."