His father Seth Morarjee Goculdas was
a pioneering textile magnate. He studied at Elphinstone College. He
started managing two mills- Morarjee Goculdas Mill of Bombay and Solapur Mill
of Solapur while studying.
Narottam Morarjee later came into close
contact with Mahatma Gandhi, Dr, Annie Besant, Dadabhai Naoroji, Rabindranath
Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Motilal Nehru.
Narottam Morarjee joined hands with
other Gujarati businessmen, Walchand Hirachand and Kilachand Devchand to finance
and establish The Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd., which was founded on
27 March 1919. On 5 April 1919, Scindia's first ship s.s. LOYALTY sailed from
Bombay to the United Kingdom and unfurled the flag of Indian shipping in
international waters.
Narottam Morarjee died on 5 November 1929.
Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan,
born on 2 April 1902, in Kasur, of the erstwhile Punjab Province, British India, was
an Indian
vocalist, from the Kasur-Patialia Gharana and hailed from a family of
musicians. Following partition of India in 1947, Kasur Tehsil was allocated
to Pakistan.
He received his early training in vocals from his uncle Kale Khan — who had been a court singer in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. He also familiarised himself with the sarangi. Subsequently, he was trained by his father Ali Baksh Khan.
His musical might first became evident when he
found an audience for his “all-night riyaaz” in Kasur. His brothers Ustad
Mubarak Ali Khan, Ustad Bharat Ali Khan and Ustad Amanat Ali Khan were also
well-known contributors to the Kasur-Patiala gharana.
The most common epithet used to describe Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan is ‘Tansen of the 20th century’. Often referred to as Bade (older) Ghulam Ali Khan to differentiate him from other maestros of the same name, the genius musician was one of the most legendary thumri vocalists of all time, who took the Patiala Gharana, one of the schools of Hindustani classical music, to new heights.
Born in undivided Punjab, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan found his home in India many years after Partition — he lived in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad, where he eventually passed away.
St.
John Paul II, passed away on 2 April, 2005, Vatican
City, aged 84. He was beatified on 1 May 2011; canonized 27 April 27 2014; and
has his feast day on 22 October, a date chosen to remember the anniversary of
the liturgical inauguration of his Papacy in 1978.
Of
Polish nationality, and born, Karol Józef Wojtyła, he
was the third longest serving pope and the first non-Italian for 455 years he
held office from 1978 to his death in 2005. As part of his effort to promote greater understanding
between nations and between religions, he undertook numerous trips abroad, traveling far greater
distances than had all other popes combined, and he extended his influence beyond the church by
campaigning against political oppression and criticizing the materialism of the
West. He also issued several unprecedented apologies to groups that
historically had been wronged by Catholics, most notably Jews and Muslims. His
unabashed Polish nationalism and his emphasis on nonviolent political activism
aided the Solidarity movement in communist Poland in the 1980s and
ultimately contributed to the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
More generally, John Paul used his influence among Catholics and
throughout the world to advance the recognition of human dignity and to deter
the use of violence. His
centralized style of church governance, however, dismayed some members of the clergy, who found
it autocratic and stifling. He failed to reverse an overall decline in the
numbers of priests and nuns, and his traditional interpretations of church
teachings on personal and sexual morality alienated some segments of the laity.
Samuel
F.B. Morse, who passed away on 2 April 1872, New
York, aged 80, was an American painter and inventor who is best remembered today for his invention of single-wire
telegraph system and the co-inventor of the Morse code - method of transmitting textual information as a
series of on and off tones. His discovery soon changed the way the messages are
sent and received in the entire world, and even today Morse code is still in
use in various areas of radio communications. Although he was considered to be
poor during the majority of his life, he managed to live as an accomplished
painter until he focused his interests on electromagnetism and electric
communication.
Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji, Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, who passed away on 2 April 1933, Jamnagar,
aged 60, was one of the world’s greatest cricket players and, later, a ruler of
his native state in India.
After attending
Trinity College, Cambridge (1890–93), he played for the Sussex cricket team in
first-class county competition (1895–97, 1899–1904, 1908, 1912) and served as
team captain (1899–1903). An unorthodox but graceful batsman, he scored the
high total of 3,000 runs in 1899 and again in 1900. In 15
England-versus-Australia test matches, he scored 985 runs.
As maharaja of
Nawanagar from March 1907, he was a progressive ruler and statesman and set an
example by the simplicity of his personal life. He modernized his capital
of Jamnagar, developed the seaport of Nawanagar, and built roads,
railways, and irrigation facilities. During World War I he was a British
army staff officer in France, attaining the rank of colonel. In 1920 he
represented the Indian states at the League of Nations Assembly, Geneva, and in
1932 he became chancellor of the Indian Chamber of Princes. He was knighted in
1917, 1919, and 1923.
Tristão
de Bragança Cunha, alternatively spelled as Tristao de
Braganza Cunha, born on 2 April 1891, in Chandor village, Goa, was a prominent
Indian nationalist and anti-colonial activist from Goa (then part of Portuguese
India). He is popularly known as the ‘Father of Goan nationalism’ and was the
organizer of the first independence movement to liberate Goa from Portuguese
rule.
He
completed his school education in Panaji and then went to Pondicherry to the
French College for pursuing B.A. and thereafter he went to Paris. There he
studied at Sorbonne University and obtained a degree in electrical engineering.
In Paris, Cunha entered the circle of Romain Rolland and helped publicize the
Indian independence Movement generally, and the case of Portuguese India in
particular, in the French-language press. Cunha returned to Goa in the year
1926 and set up the Comissão do Congresso de Goa (Goa Congress Committee) in
1928 to organize the Goan intelligentsia against Portuguese colonial rule.
Pressured by Portuguese authorities, Cunha transferred operations to Bombay and
in 1938, affiliated his organization with the Indian National Congress. He
continued publicizing the Goan case in a stream of articles and books,
denouncing Portuguese rule. Among his publications were booklets such as ‘Four
Hundred Years of Foreign Rule’ and ‘The Denationalization of Goans’ (1944).
Cunha was an advocate of Goan identification, political as well as cultural,
with greater India. In 1946, Cunha helped organize the famous assembly in
Margão, inviting Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia to address what was arguably the first
and largest mass gathering, setting the Goa Liberation Movement in motion.
Along with other organizers, Cunha was arrested by Portuguese authorities in
1946. He was kept in a dark damp cell at Fort Aguada. He was the first civilian
to be tried by a military tribunal. He was court-martialed and sentenced to eight
years imprisonment. He was deported to Peniche prison in Portugal. After
his release from Portugal in 1954, Cunha returned to Bombay. Cunha formed and
headed the Goa Action Committee, to help coordinate the numerous Goan
liberation organizations that had emerged by this time. He published a
newspaper called ‘Free Goa’. Tristao de Braganza Cunha died on 28 September
1958; Loknayak Jaiprakash Narayan was one of the pallbearers. The Government of
India issued a postage stamp in his honour. At the time of his death, in a
condolence resolution, the Indian National Congress described him as ‘The
Father of Goa Liberation Movement’. On that Occasion Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru said,
“what is worth remembering is that a small territory has produced a relatively
large number of men and women who have sacrificed much for the struggle. Among
them, the name that stands out is that of Dr. T. B. Cunha”.
Sir Garfield St Auburn Sobers, born on 28 July 1936, in Bridgetown, Barbados, was widely considered the greatest all-rounder in cricket ...
