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Compact Oxford English Dictionary

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SOME MINIMAL NOTES ON MINIMALISM

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Important Facts to Know: General studies 1

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Important Facts to Know: General studies A

Â1.The study of bones is called ostelogy

-Total no of bones 206
-Smallest bone-Stapes(ear boe)
-Longest bone-Femus(Thigh bone)
-Strongest bone-Tibia(leg bone)
-Total no of muscles-639
-Largest grand-liver
-Longest gland-thyroid
-Longest nerve-Sciatic
-Hardest bone-Tooth enamal
-Total amount of blood in the body is (1/15 of body weight)
-Normal body Temperature-98.6F(37C)

IMPORTANT DATES IN INDIAN HISTORY

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B. C.
3000-2500	Indus Valley Civilization
563	Birth of Gautam Buddha; Nirvana (483 B.C.)
599	Birth of Mahavir; Nirvana (527 B.C.)
327-326	Alexander�s invasion of India. It opened the land route
	between India and Europe
273-239	Ashoka�s Reign
261	Battle of Kalinga, Ashoka renounced war and violence
58	Beginning of Vikram Era (Calender)
A.D.
78	Beginning of Saka Era; Accession of Kanishka
320	Beginning of Gupta dynasty
405-411	Visit of Fahien (Chinese Traveller) to India
606-647	Harsh Vardhan�s Reign
629-645	Hieun Tsang�s travel in India.
712	Arab Invasion of Sind (by Mohd-bin-Qasim)
1001-1026	Sultan Mahmud Ghazni�s attacks on India
1025-26	Som Nath Temple sacked by Mahmud Ghazni
1191 .	First Battle of Tarain, Mohammed Gori was defeated by
	Prithvi Raj, the Chauhan king of Delhi
1192	Second Battle of Tarain, Mohammed Gori defeated
	Prithvi Raj Chauhan
1336	Vijayanagar Empire founded in South India
1347	Bahmani Kingdom founded in South India
1398	Invasion of India by Taimur Lang; Delhi sacked
1469	Birth of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism
1498	Vasco-de-Gama discovered the sea-route to India via the
	Cape of Good Hope, arrived at Calicut
1526	Babur�s invasion; First Battle of Panipat; foundation of
	Mughal Rule in North India
1556	Second Battle of Panipat; Death of Humayun, Accession
	of Akbar to the throne
1564-65	Battle of Talikota; abolition of Jazia

1576 Battle of Haldighati
1600 East India Company established in India
1605 Death of Akbar and accession of Jahangir
1627 Birth of Shivaji
1680 Death of Shivaji
1707 Death of Aurangzeb; Death of Guru Govind Singh; fall of the
Mughal Empire begins
1739 Nadir Shah invaded India; The Peacock Throne taken away
by him to Iran
1757 Battle of Plassey
1760 Battle of Wandiawash; End of French power in India
1761 Third Battle of Panipat
1764 Battle of Buxar
1793 Permanent Settlement in Bengal
1799 Fourth Mysore War; Death of Tipu Sultan; Partition of Mysore;
Ranjit Singh occupied Lahore and made it capital.
1818 The fourth and the last Anglo Marthatta War.
1833 Death of Raja Ram Mohan Roy 1835 Introduction of English as medium of instruction.
1853 The First Indian Railway line opened from Bombay to Thane; The first telegraph communication
1856 (23rd July), Birth of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
1857 (10th May), First War of Indian Independence
1858 End of East India Company�s Rule; Queen Victoria�s Proclamation
1861 Birth of Rabindranath Tagore 1869 (2nd Oct.) Birth of Mahatma Gandhi
1885 (28th Dec.) Indian National Congress founded by A. O. Hume : First session of Congress in Bombay in 1885 presided by W.C. Bannerji
1889 (14th Nov.) Birth of Jawahar Lai Nehru
1905 First Partition of Bengal
1906 Formation of the All India Muslim League.
1909 Indian Councils Act or Morley Minto Reforms Bill passed
1911 Partition of Bengal revoked; Delhi made capital of British India
1914 (28th July) World War I started
1918 (11th Nov.) End of World War I
1919 Montague Chelmsford Reforms; Tragedy of Jaliyan Wala Bagh at Amritsar (13th April)
1928 Visit of Simon Commission; its boycott by the Congress; Death of Lala Lajpat Rai
1929 Congress resolution passed for complete independence at Lahore Session under the presidentship of Jawahar Lai Nehru
1935 Government of India Act 1935 passed
1937 Inauguration of Provincial Autonomy
1941 Subash Chandra Bose escapes from India, Death of Rabindra Nath Tagore
1942 Quit India Resolution by Indian National Congress (8th Aug.)
1945 Simla Conference and the failure of the Wavell Plan : I.N.A.
Trials at Red Fort, Delhi
1947 (15th Aug.) India achieves independence; Partition of India; Asian Relations Conference (23rd March)
1948 Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (30th Jan.)
1950 India becomes a Sovereign Democratic Republic (26th Jan.),
Death of Sardar Patel (15th Dec.)
1953 Mt. Everest conquered by Sherpa Tenzing and E.P. Hillary on May 29.
1961 Liberation of Goa
1962 Chinese attack on India (Oct. 20)
1965 Indo-Pak War
1966 Tashkent Pact between India and Pakistan
1969 Death of President Zakir Hussain on May 3;
V. V. Giri elected President of India; Split in the Indian National Congress.
1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty signed on 9th Aug;
2nd Indo-Pak War (Dec. 3-17); defeat of Pakistan, liberation of Bangla Desh.

1972 Reorganisation of the North-Eastern region�Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full-fledged States and new Union Territories Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram came into being (Jan. 20, 21);
Indo Bangla Desh Treaty; Indo-Pak Simla Agreement on 3rd July.
1974 India�s nuclear blast; the historic Constitution (Amendment) Bill passed making Sikkim as an associate State of India (Sept. 4); India and Portugal restore diplomatic relations.
1975 Sikkim votes for full-fledged statehood with Indian Union (April 15); Dr. S. Radhakrishnan passes away (April 17); India�s entry into Space age by launching �Aryabhatta� (April 19th); President gives assent to the Constitution (36th Amendment) Bill making Sikkim the 22nd State of the Union; Mrs. Indira Gandhi�s election set aside (June 12); Proclamaton of Emergency to �forestall internal disturbances (June 25).
1976 The four Indian News Agencies merged into a single News Agency known as �Samachar�; INS Udaygiri, India�s Third leander-class frigate commissioned (Feb. 18); India-Sri Lanka boundary pact (signed on March 23) comes into force (May 10); India and Pakistan agree to restore diplomatic ties and reach accord on overflights, road and air-links (May 14); Krishna Waters Dispute Settled; Agreement reached in Delhi on establishment of a Non-Aligned News Pool (July); President�s assent to the 42nd Constitution (Amendment) Bill (Dec. 18).
1977 Defeat of Mrs. Indira Gandhi in the election. Morarji Desai takes oath of office as Prime Minister of India (March 24); Internal and External emergencies withdrawn; freedom of the Press restored; Neelam Sanjiva Reddy sworn in as the sixth President of India (July 25).
1978 Congress (I) recognised as the main opposition party in the Lok Sabha (April 12); Shah Commission holds Mrs. Indira Gandhi responsible for abuse of authority and misuse of power during the internal emergency (May 15); India launches world�s biggest adult literacy Plan (October 2nd).

1979 Constitution Amendment 44th Bill gets President�s assent (April 30th); Hidayatullah sworn in as Vice-President (Aug. 31); Charan Singh quits Janata Party (July 16); President dissolves Sixth Lok Sabha and orders fresh elections (Aug. 22); Lok Dal formed (Sept. 26); Jai Prakash Narain dies in Patna (Oct.
1980 Mrs. Gandhi re-emerges as a dominant force, 22 member cabinet at Centre sworn in (Jan. 14); Bharat Ratna etc. Awards restored, 10 year extension of seat reservation for SCs and STs (Jan. 25); Grand view of solar eclipse (Feb. 16); 42nd Amendment struck down (May 9); Death of Sanjay Gandhi, Death of Ex-President V.V. Giri, India launches first Satellite using its own Satellite Launching Vehicle (July 18).
1981 The 8th International Film Festival concluded in New Delhi (Jan. 17th); National Development Council approved the revised 6th Plan draft (Feb. 14); Launching of Rohini Satellite in Space (May 31st); Rohini burns up (June 9th); Congress (I) declared Indian National Congress (July 23rd).
1982 Rajasahi Air Port Amritsar becomes International Airport (Jan. 3rd); The 21 member Indian scientific expedition headed by Dr. S.Z. Quasim lands on Antarctica (Jan. 9th); Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announces a redefined 20 point programme (Jan. 20); Accord on the purchase of 150 Mirage- 2000 Jets by India from France signed in New Delhi (Feb. 6th); Insat-IA launched (April 10th); Election of President and Gyani Zail Singh elected as seventh President of India (July 12 and 15th); INSAT-IA shut off due to mechanical disorder (Sept. 6th); Former Chief Minister of Jammu- Kashmir Shaikh Abdullah died (Sept. 8th); India and France N-Fuel pact signed (Nov. 26); Ninth Asian Games held in New Delhi.
1983 Rohini 560 rocket with a technological payload successfully launched from the Shri Harikota Range (Jan. 13); The 7th Non-Aligned Summit opens in New Delhi (March 7); India and France sign N. Fuel pact (March 23); Madras Atomic Power Project at Kalpakkam becomes critical (ready for use) (July 2); INS AT-IB launched into space (Aug. 30); India and West Germany conclude an agreement for the Supply of Spare parts for the Tarapur Atomic Power Plant (Nov. 2).

1984 Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi dedicates INSAT-1 System to the nation (Feb. 11); Rakesh Sharma in space (April 2-11); Military action in Punjab (June 2); Assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi (Oct. 31); Rajiv Gandhi, new Prime Minister of India (Oct. 31); Bhopal Gas tragedy (Dec. 2); Fourth Expedition Party reaches Antarctica (Dec. 24-27); Rajiv Gandhi elected leader of the Congress Party and becomes Prime Minister (Dec. 31).
1985 Anti Defection Bill passed by the Parliament unanim�ously, (Jan. 3); Punjab Accord (July 24); Assam Accord (Aug. 15); Akali Chief Sant H.S. Longowal, assassinated (Sep. 8).
1986 Assassins of Smt. Indira Gandhi sentenced to death (Jan. 22); Lok Sabha passed Muslim Women Bill (May 6); Laldenga and Congress (I) sign pact on Mizoram (June 25); Bill making Mizoram State passed by the Parliament (Aug. 6); 2nd SAARC summit at Bangalore (Nov. 16); Arunachal Pradesh Statehood Bill approved by Parliament (Dec. 3); Death of Smita Patil (Dec. 13).
1987 Former P. M. Charan Singh dead (May 29); Venkataraman assumes Presidency (July 25); Dr. S. D. Sharma assumes as Vice President (Sept. 3); Diwrala Sati episode (Sept. 4); Soviet Festival starts in New Delhi (Nov. 21); 3rd South Asian Federation Games in Calcutta (Nov. 21-26).
1988 With the induction of the first Nuclear Sub-marine (INS- Chakra) India joins the N-mariline Club (Feb. 3); India�s first remote sensing satellite (IRS-l-A) launched from Russia (March 17); �Varun� successfully completes its mission (April 15); INSAT-1 C launched into space from French Guiana (July 22); Supreme Court confirms death penalty of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh in Indira Gandhi murder case (Aug. 3); Lok Pal Ayukt Bill taken back (Dec. 6).
1989 Kumbh started at Allahabad after an interval of 12 yrs. France Festival in India inaugurated (Feb. 3); Supreme Court decides the compensation amount for Bhopal gas victims (Feb. 14); Narora nuclear power station starts production (March 12); Thakkar Commission�s Report published (March 14); Death of Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna (March 17); Indo-Nepal Trade
Treaty expired (March 23); Successful test of �Agni� (May 22); Nhava Sheva port dedicated to the nation (May 26); Kudal Commission report published (Aug. 7); Prasar Bharti and Lok Pal Bills introduced in Parliament (Dec. 28).
A members of 9th expedition party to Antarctica died during mission (Jan. 9); Successful launch of INSAT-1D (June 12); V.P. Singh announced 27% reservation to Backward classes on the basis of Mandal Commission Report (Aug. 6); Successful test of �Akash� (Aug. 14); Indian warship �Andman� sank in Bay of Bengal (Aug. 21); Chandra Shekhar takes over as P.M. (Nov. 10).
1991 P.V. Narsimha Rao became Prime Minister (June 21); Shiv Raj Patil of Cong. (I) elected Speaker of 10th Lok Sabha (July
10) ; IRS-IB launched from Baikanoor (Aug. 29); Earthquake in Garhwal of U.P. takes a heavy toll of life (Oct. 20); Karnataka ordinance on Cauvery Water held invalid by the Supreme Court (Nov. 22); Li Feng of China visits India (10- 15 Dec.); Satyajit Ray got special Oscar Award (Dec. 16).
1992 Rajoli Naval Air Station was commissioned in Madras (Mar.
11) ; Eighth Five Year Plan became operative (Apr. 1); R.K. Dorendra Singh was sworn in as Chief Minister of Manipur (Apr. 8), Indo-Turkmenistan trade pact signed (Apr. 20); Satyajit Ray died (Apr. 23); Kannad writer V.K. Gokak died (Apr. 28); �Prithvi� launched (May 5), U.S.A. imposed sanctions on ISRO for 2 years (May 11); ASLV-D-3 launched (May 20); Successful test �Agni� (May 29); INSAT-2A launched (July 9); Dr. S. D. Sharma took oath (July 25); K. R. Narayanan elected Vice President (Aug. 19); Test flights of �Lakshya�, the pilotless aircraft of India (Sept. 16, 17 and 21).
1993 24th International Film Festival concluded (Jan. 10-20); Panchayati Raj Act effective (April 24); INSAT-2B was launched by Arian Rocket from French Guiana (July 23); Digvijay Singh became Chief Minister of M.P. (Dec. 6).

1990

1994 25th International Film Festival in Calcutta (Jan. 10-20); G- 15 Summit meet concluded in New Delhi (March 28-30); Kasturirangan became new ISRO chief (March 30); First heart plantation in the country (Aug. 3).
successfully launched (Oct. 15); Jharkhand Council Act passed (Dec. 20).
1995 NAM and other developing countries Vth Labour conference (Jan. 19-23); J.B. Patnaik became Chief Minister in Orissa (March 15); Punjab C.M. Beant Singh assasinated (Aug. 31); Supreme Court included medical profession within consumer�s forum (Nov. 14); INSAT-2C successfully launched from Koru (French Guiana) (Dec. 7); IPS-IC launched (Dec. 28).
1996 27th International Film Festival (Jan. 10-21); Indo-Bhutan Agreements signed (March 4); P.S.L.V.-D3 successfully launched from Shri Harikota (March 21); A. B. Vajpayee was sworn in 10th Prime Minister of India (May 16); Mr. H.D. Deve Gowda was sworn in New Prime Minister of India, Former President of India Mr. Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy passed away (June 1); Nag missile test successful (Aug. 9); in Gujarat Mehta Ministry dismissed, President�s rule imposed (Sept. 19); Rajindar Kaur Bhattal took over as first woman C.M. of Punjab (Nov. 21); India, Bangladesh sign Ganga Water Pact (Dec. 12), P.V. Narsimha Rao resigned from CPP leadership (Dec. 19).
1997 Tejinder Khanna appointed the new Lieutenant Governor for Delhi (Jan. 1); 28th International film festival of India concluded in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday (Jan. 19); Ms. Mayawati was sworn in as the Chief Minister of U.P. (March 21); Veteran leader and Ex Chief Minister of Orissa Biju Patnaik passed away (April 17); I.K. Gujral was sworn in as Prime Minister (April 21). INSAT-2D placed in orbit (June 4); Sukhoi 30K fighter inducted in Indian Air Force; 4th National Games concluded in Bangalore (June 11); K. R. Narayanan elected the new President of India (July 17); Laloo Prasad Yadav resigns and his wife Rabri Devi became New Chief Minister of Bihar (July 25); Krishan Kant elected Vice President (Aug. 26); Mother Teresa passed away in Calcutta (Sept. 5); Kalyan Singh took oath as U.P. Chief Minister (Sept. 21); Mr. Dilip Parikh was sworn in Chief Minister of Gujarat (Oct. 28); Mr. Bimal Jalan has been appointed the Governor of Reserve Bank of India (Nov. 23).
Rangarajan took oath the Governor of Andhra Pradesh (Nov. 24); Lok Sabha dissolved (Dec. 4); The 17th Indian Antarctic expedition left Marmugao Harbour (Dec. 9); Nipamacha Singh sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Manipur (Dec. 16); Gujarat assembly dissolved (Dec. 25);
1998 29th International Film Festival concluded in New Delhi (10- 20 Jan.); Konkan Railway commissioned (Jan. 26); Death sentence for all 26 person for Rajiv Gandhi assassination (Jan.
28) ; Assam Governor rejects C.B.I, plea to prosecute Chief Minister of P.K. Mahanta (Feb. 5); U.P. Chief Minister Kalyan Singh wins the composite flour test (Feb. 26); Manik Sarkar sworn in Tripura Chief Minister (March 11); Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee sworn in as the Prime Minister (March 19); BJP wins trust vote in Himachal Pradesh (March 31); Kushabhau Thakre elected BJP Chief (April 14); India conducted three underground Nuclear tests (May 11); India conducted two more Nuclear tests (May 13), Rajasthan Governor Darbara Singh died (May 24); About 1000 people killed by cyclone in Gujarat (June 9); Mulayam and Laloo build New Front (June 24); Dr. Najma Haptullah is unanimously re-elected as deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha (July 9); P.M. introduced Lok Pal Bill in Lok Sabha (August 3); Prasar Bharati ordinance promulgated (August
29) ; President returned the recommendation of Union Cabinet to imposed the President rule in Bihar (Sept. 25); Adarsh Sen Anand took oath as the Chief Justice of India (Oct. 10); About 200 people killed in Punjab train accident; Luizhino Faleiro sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Goa (Nov. 26).
1999 30th International Film Festival of India concluded in Hyderabad (Jan. 10-20), India successfully launched its first commercial telecom satellite INSAT-2E from Kouru (April 3), Agni-II test fired successfully (April 11), Operation Vijai makes headway in Kargil (June 28), Sachin Tendulkar appointed captain of Indian Cricket Team (July 28), National Democratic Alliance secures clear majority (Oct. 8), Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee appointed PM (Oct. 11), India & UAE sign extradition treaty (Oct. 25), 11th Children�s Film Festival starts in Hyderabad (Nov. 14), Mumbai girl Yukta Mookhey is Miss World (Dec. 5).

2000 The Kargil Committee submits its report (Jan. 7), 31st Indian International Film Festival (Jan. 10-20), New Population Policy announced (Feb. 15), U.S. President Bill Clinton�s visit to India (Mar. 19-20), India�s INSAT-3B launched from Kouru (Mar. 22), New EXIM-Policy 2000 announced (Mar. 31), India�s beauty Miss Lara Dutta declared �Miss Universe� (May 13), President K.R. Narayan gives his assent to Bills relating to the creation of Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand States (Aug. 28), Chhattisgarh becomes the 26th State of the Indian Union (Nov. 1), Uttaranchal becomes the 27th State (Nov. 9), Jharkhand becomes the 28th State of the Indian Union (Nov. 15).
2001 Indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) successfully test flown (Jan. 4), India�s Agni-II missile successfully test fired (Jan. 17), General budget presented in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister (Feb. 28), Manipur is placed under President�s rule (June 2), India and Russia jointly successfully test fire cruise missile-PJ-10 (June 12), Indo-Pak Summit at Agra (July 15-16), E-Postal Service of the Postal Department inaugurated (Aug. 2), Supreme Court declares the appointment of Jayalalitaa as Chief Minister as unconstitutional, Jayalalitaa resigns (Sept. 21), The three day warships joint exercise of India and France (Varun-01) concludes near Bombay Coast (Nov. 8-10), Terrorist attack on Indian Parliament (Dec. 13), POTO reissued in amended form (Dec. 30).
2002 89th Session of Indian Science Congress in Lucknow (Jan. 3- 7), Indo-US. MOU on environment (Jan. 16), INSAT-3C satellite launched on an Ariane rocket from Korou in French Guyana (Jan. 24), India�s ISRO successfully tests the newly indigenously developed cryogenic engine (Feb. 5), POTO passed in the joint sitting of Parliament (March 26), Manohar Joshi elected new Speaker of the Lok Sabha (May 10), Telugu Desham party�s annual session �Mahanadu� (May 27- 29), LCA test flown successfully (June 6), Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam declared elected as President of India (July 18),

Bhairon Singh Shekhawat sworn in as Vice-President of India (Aug. 19), President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gives his assent to the Electoral Reforms Ordinance (Aug. 24), India launches into space her meteorological satellite (METSAT) by using PSLV-C4 (Sept. 12), Supreme Court upholds national curriculum prepared by NCERT (Sept. 12), Draft Tenth Five Year Plan approved by the Planning Commission (Oct. 5), Militant attack on Raghunath temple in Jammu & Kashmir (Nov. 24), Vajpayee and Putin sign Delhi declaration (Dec. 4), Assembly elections in Gujarat (Dec. 12), Narendra Modi sworn in as Chief Minister of Gujarat (Dec. 22), 32nd National Games held at Hyderabad (Dec. 13-22), Delhi Metro Rail opened (Dec. 24), Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee inaugurates the Rashtriya Rail Vikas Yojana for Golden Quadilateral Network (Dec. 26).
2003 Indian Science Congress meet inaugurated at Bangalore by the Prime Minister (Jan. 2), Central Government announces new Exim Policy for 2003-04 (Mar. 31), The Indian Parliament deplores USA�s unilateral attack on Iraq (April 8), Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee�s China visit (Jui^e 22-27), National Conference breaks off with NDA (July 12); L.C.A. (Light Combat Aircraft) goes supersonic (Aug. 1), Government of India decides to purchase Advanced Jet Trainer Aircrafts Hawks from Britain (Sept. 3), India successfully launches into space its communication satellite INSAT-3E (Sept. 28), India�s 34th International Film Festival (IFFI-2003) held in New Delhi (Oct. 9-19), India organises first Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad (Oct. 24-Nov. 1), India�s 23rd International Trade Fair in New Delhi (Nov. 14- 27), Ceasefire on India-Pak border (Nov. 25), India and Brazil sign pact on defence ties (Dec. 1), Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2003 paving the way for double citizenship to the NRIs passed by Parliament (Dec. 22).
2004 �Bhisma� the first indigenously assembled T-90 main battle tank handed over to the army (Jan. 7), India and Brazil sign space cooperation agreement (Jan. 25), India and Brazil agree.
Minister, Mr. Natwar Singh gives privilege notice against P.M. for leaking Pathak Committee report before it being presented in Parliament (Aug. 6), The Doordarshan starts Urdu channel (Aug. 15), India celebrates 100 years of adoption of �Vandemataram� as National Song (Sept. 7), Nirupama Rao is named for next envoy of China (Sept. 27), India�s 37th International Film Festival comes to a close (Dec. 3), Uttaranchal to be renamed Uttarakhand, the Bill passed by Parliament (Dec. 7), Railway Minister Lalu Yadav and his wife and former Chief Minister, Mrs. Rabri Devi acquitted by Patna Court in disproportionate wealth case (Dec. 18).
2007 India launches Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) majestically took off at 9-23 a.m. on 10th January, 2007 from its beachside launch pad at Shriharikota and injects four satellites (Jan. 10), Foundation laid in Raebareilly for the manufacture of passenger rail coaches (Feb. 13), Rail Budget presented in the Lok Sabha by Railway Minister Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav (Feb. 26), General Budget presented in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram (Feb. 28), Environment Minister A. Raja is made the new communica�tion and Information Technology Minister in place of Dayanidhi Maran (May 15), S. Gopalakrishnan takes over as CEO of Infosys Technologies Ltd. (June 22), President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam launches E-courts project for computeri�sation of courts for improvement of justice delivery system (July 9), Pratibha Patil is sworn-in as the President of India (July 25), Mohammad Hamid Ansari is sworn-in as Vice- President of India (Aug. 11), Union Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni inaugurates the Travel and Tourism Fair at Kolkata (Aug. 18), India launches its biggest rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04 carrying communication satellite INSAT-4CR (Sept. 2), Indian Cricket Team wins ICC Twenty-20 World Cup (Sept. 24), Former U.P. Chief Secretary Akhand Pratap Singh arrested in a disproportionate assets case four years .
retirement in 2003 (Sept. 25), The Information Act will not apply to judicial proceedings, says the Central Information Commission (Sept. 26), B. S. Yeddyurappa is sworn as new Chief Minister of Karnataka (Nov. 12), Karnataka put under President�s Rule again (Nov. 20), The Second Administrative Reforms Commission Chairman, M. Veerappa Moily presents its 6th report to the Prime Minister (Nov. 27), Narendra Modi is sworn in as Chief Minister of Gujarat for the third time (Dec. 25).
2008 India, Pakistan exchange lists of nuclear facilities (Jan. 1), ISRO launched Israeli satellite Polaris by a core-alone configuration of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) (Jan. 21), Union Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram presents Central Budget 2008-2009 in Lok Sabha (Feb. 29), India beats Australia in a thriller to claim cricket tri-series (March 4), NPF-led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland wins majority in Nagaland Assembly polls, Congress emerges as the single largest party in Meghalaya (March 8), Muslim Women Board unveils new Nikahnama (March 16), The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has been extended to all 604 districts of the country (April 1), The Taiwan cabinet resigned ahead of President elect Maying-Jeais (May 14), A thirty member BJP ministry in Karnataka headed by Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa was sworn by Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur (May 30), The Govt, of India drafts a guidelines asking manufacturers and services provi�des to avoid ads showing children and pregnant women using cell phones (June 16), To ensure that girls belonging to Scheduled Casts (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) continue their education after class VHIth, the centre has launched on incentive scheme from his academic year (2008-09) (July 16), M. S. Dhoni to get Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for the year 2007 (Aug. 4), Actress Asha Parekh received the "Solitaire for Life Award" (Aug. 9), South Africa Land Reform Bill shelved (Aug. 27).

INDIAN HISTORY TIMELINE

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	2500 BC	Dravidian civilization
	1500 BC	Aryans invade India and conquered the Dravidians
	1400 BC	The Vedas, the Hindu scripture, was written
	800 BC	800-600 BC The sacred scripture, the Upanishads written
	518 BC	Persians conquered Pakistan
	500 BC	Buddhism was founded in India by Siddhartha Gautama
	500 BC	Jainism was founded in India by Mahavira Jains
	326 BC	Alexander the Great moved into India
	324 BC	The Mauryan Empire was established by Chandragupta Maurya including Afghanistan and parts of central Asia
	272 BC	Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, becomes the emperor of India
	185 BC	The Maurya Empire ended
	50 AD	The Kushans established an empire in northern India
	320	The Gupta Indian dynasty reunited northern India initiating the "golden Age" of India
	700s	Muslim armies from Arabia invade India
	1206	Qutb ub-din Aybak establishes the Delhi Sultanate
	1398	Timur conquered India resulting in the decline of the Delhi Sultanate
	1498	Vasco da Gama becomes the first European explorer to reach India
	1500's	Christianity was introduced to India by the Europeans and in the early 1500s Sikhism was founded by Nana
	1526	Babur established the Mughal Empire
	1600	Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the East India Company established trading posts in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras
	1628	Shah Jahan, the ruler of the Mughal Empire, builds the Taj Mahal
	1658	The Strict Muslim, Aurangzeb, ruled India and tried to force Hindus to convert to Islam
	1757	The Battle of Plassey: Robert Clive, an agent of the East India Company, leads forces which defeated the Mughal governor of Bengal
	1774	Warren Hastings appointed the first governor general of India by the East India Company
	1857	The Sepoy Rebellion
	1858	The British government ruled India via an Indian Viceroy- called the British Raj
	1876	Queen Victoria was given the title Empress of India by the British Parliament
	1885	Burma became an Indian province The Indian National Congress was formed
	1905	The British government divided Bengal into separate Hindu and Muslim sections
	1914	1914 - 1918 First World War
	1919	13 April: The Amritsar Massacre
	1920	Mohandas Gandhi became the leader of the Indian independence movement and the Indian National Congress
	1935	The Government of India Act and the creation of a new constitution
	1939	3 September: The United Kingdom declared war on Germany and World War II began
	1940	Muhammad Ali Jinnah demanded that a new country be formed from India for the Muslims, which would be called Pakistan
	1945	August: World War II ended when United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
	1946	The British government agreed to grant India independence
	1946	16 August: Indian Muslims held nation-wide demonstrations calling for the establishment of Pakistan
	1947	British and Indian leaders agreed to divide the country into India and Pakistan 15 August 1947 India became independent
	1948	30 January: Gandhi was assassinated
	1950	26 January: A new Indian Constitution was ratified and Jawaharlal Nehru became the Indian first prime minister

2011-09-17T22:54:00.000+05:30

THE BEGINNING OF INDIAN HISTORY

1. According to modern historical research, the first phase of the dawn of our national life dates back almost from five to ten thousand years ago^{1. Like that of China, Babylon, Greece and other ancient nations our ancient history, too, is clothed in the poetical garb of mythology. It is replete with anecdotes, folk-lore, and deification of national heroes and heroines, and resorts to supernatural and symbolic description. Yet these ancient mythologies (Puranas) of ours are the pillars supporting the edifice of our ancient history2. Just as these extensive Puranic texts of ours are a magnificent treasure of our ancient literature, our knowledge, our glorious deeds and our grandeur and wealth, in a similar way they are a vast store-house of the accounts of our past, desultory, chaotic, even at times, ambiguous though it may be.}

2. Our Puranas, however, are not 'history' pure and unadulterated3.

3. Hence, I propose to set aside the consideration of the 'Pauranic times' in the present context. For the 'Glorious Epochs', that I am going to refer to, and dilate upon, belong not so much to the Pauranic times, as to the historic periods of our national life.

4. The main criterion of history is that the dates and places and descriptions of events referred to therein must necessarily bear the stamp of authenticity, and they should be corroborated, as far as possible, by foreign as well as indigenous evidence.

5. The account of our past which fairly stands this test begins approximately from the time of Lord Buddha. Hence many Indian and Western Orientalists have accepted the Buddhist period as the beginning of Indian history^{4. The incessant and indefatigable labours of these Orientalists may in future include some of the so-called 'Pauranic period' into the historical one if some new evidence were to come to light. Till then at least we have to regard the Buddhistic period as the starting point of our history.} What should be the criterion for determining the Glorious Epochs, I am going to discuss here. For that matter there are hundreds of glorious epochs in the history of our nation which stand the tests of poetic exuberance, music, prowess, affluence, the height of philosophy and depth of theology and many other criteria. But by the 'Glorious Epoch' I mean the one from the history of that warlike generation and the brave leaders and successful warriors who inspire and lead it on to a war of liberation in order to free their nation from the shackles of foreign domination, whenever it has the misfortune to fall a prey to such powerful fatal aggression and to grovel abjectly under it, and who ultimately drive away the enemy making it an absolutely free and sovereign nation. Every nation extols such epochs of the wars of independence which inflict crushing defeats on the enemy. Take for instance, the American War of Independence. The day on which America wrenched her independence from England, vanquishing her completely on the battlefield, is a red-letter day in the history of America and is celebrated like a festival all over the country. The moment recording this successful struggle for freedom is acknowledged as a glorious epoch in the history of America.

6. Again, in respect of establishing the authentic history of nation beyond doubt, the convincing references in the contemporary literature of other nations are really invaluable. The ancient period of our history which can be supported by the now available, unimpeachable evidence in the historical records of countries other than India is the one which begins round about the times of Emperor Chandragupta Mourya5. For, since the date of Alexander's so-called invasion of India n ccounts of the Greek writers and the description of their travels by the Chinese travellers.

Historical Events In Indian History WITH DATE

2011-09-17T20:01:00.000+05:30

HISTORICAL EVENTS
1311-04-24 – Gen Malik Kafur returns to Delhi after campaign in South India
1329-08-09 – Quilon the first Indian Diocese was erected by Pope John XXII and Jordanus was appointed the first Bishop
1459-05-12 – Sun City India founded by Rao Jodhpur
1497-07-08 – Vasco da Gama departs for trip to India
1498-05-20 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calcutta India
1500-03-09 – Pedro Cabral departs with 13 ships to India
1502-02-12 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal on his second voyage to India.
1509-02-02 – The Battle of Diu takes place near Diu, India, between Portugal and Turkey.
1509-02-03 – The Battle of Diu, between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire takes place in Diu, India.
1542-05-06 – Francis Xavier reaches Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time.
1556-03-28 – Origin of Fasli Era (India)
1565-01-25 – Battle at Talikota India: Moslems destroy Vijayanagar’s army
1575-03-03 – Indian Mughal Emperor Akbar defeats Bengali army at the Battle of Tukaroi.
1597-08-20 – 1st Dutch East India Company ships returned from Far East
1600-12-31 – British East India Company chartered
1601-02-13 – John Lancaster leads 1st East India Company voyage from London
1602-03-20 – United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) forms
1608-08-24 – 1st English convoy lands at Surat India
1609-03-25 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co
1612-08-29 – Battle at Surat India: English fleet beats Portuguese
1614-04-05 – American Indian princess Pocahontas, daughter of chief Powhatan marries English colonist John Rolfe
1621-06-03 – Dutch West India Company receives charter for “New Netherlands” (NY)
1622-03-22 – 1st American Indian (Powhattan) massacre of whites Jamestown Virginia, 347 slain
1633-10-22 – Ming dynasty fight with Dutch East India Company that Battle of southern Fujian sea (1633), Ming dynasty won great victory.
1639-08-22 – Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers.
1641-01-14 – United East Indian Company conquerors city of Malakka, 7,000 killed
1641-08-26 – West India Company conquerors Sao Paulo de Loanda, Angola
1643-12-25 – Christmas Island founded and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
1658-12-09 – Dutch troops occupy harbor city Quilon (Coilan) India
1668-03-26 – England takes control of Bombay India
1668-03-27 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company
1690-02-08 – French & Indian troops set Schenectady settlement NY on fire
1690-08-24 – Job Charnock founds Calcutta India
1692-02-29 – Sarah Good & Tituba, an Indian servant, accused of witchcraft, Salem
1699-04-14 – Khalsa: Birth of Khalsa, the brotherhood of the Sikh religion, in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.
1733-05-29 – The right of Canadians to keep Indian slaves is upheld at Quebec City.
1737-10-07 – 40 foot waves sink 20,000 small craft & kill 300,000 (Bengal, India)
1737-10-11 – Earthquake kills 300,000 and destroys half of Calcutta India
1739-02-24 – Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.
1739-03-20 – Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.
1751-08-31 – English troops under sir Robert Clive occupy Arcot India
1752-06-09 – French army surrenders to the English in Trichinopoly India
1755-04-02 – Commodore William James captures the pirate fortress of Suvarnadurg on west coast of India.
1755-07-09 – Brit Gen E Braddock mortally wounded during French & Indian War
1756-05-17 – Britain declares war on France (7 Years’ or French & Indian War)
1756-06-20 – 146 Brit soldiers imprisoned in India-Black Hole of Calcutta-most die
1756-06-20 – India rebels defeat Calcutta on British army
1756-09-08 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition.
1756-12-06 – British troops under Robert Clive occupy Fulta India
1757-01-02 – British troops occupy Calcutta India
1757-11-05 – Battle at Rossbach (7 year war/French & Indian War)
1758-05-21 – Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War.
1759-04-08 – British troops chase French out of Masulipatam India
1760-01-22 – Battle at Wandewash India: British troops beat French
1761-01-07 – Battle at Panipat India: Afghan army beats Mahratten
1761-01-16 – The British capture Pondicherry, India from the French.
1764-11-09 – Mary Campbell, a captive of the Lenape during the French and Indian War, is turned over to forces commanded by Colonel Henry Bouquet.
1767-09-28 – Gentlemen 17 forbid private slave transport India to Cape of Good Hope
1772-02-12 – Yves de Kerguelen of France discovers Kerguelen Archipelago, India
1773-10-14 – American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom’s East India Company tea ships’ cargo are burned at Annapolis, Maryland.
1783-04-09 – Tippu Sahib drives out English from Bednore India
1786-02-24 – Charles Cornwallis appointed governor-general of India
1795-03-11 – Battle at Kurdla India: Mahratten beat Mogols
1796-04-13 – 1st elephant arrives in US from India
1798-09-01 – England signs treaty with nizam of Hyderabad, India
1800-07-10 – The British Indian Government establishes the Fort William College to promote Urdu, Hindi and other vernaculars of sub continent.
1803-02-27 – Great fire in Bombay, India
1803-09-23 – Battle of Assaye-British-Indian forces beat Maratha Army
1806-07-10 – The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.
1818-06-03 – Maratha Wars between British & Maratha Confederacy in India ends
1829-12-04 – Britain abolished “suttee” in India (widow burning herself to death on her husband’s funeral pyre
1835-02-24 – Siwinowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Sun) is 1st Indian lang monthly mag
1838-11-03 – The Times of India, the world’s largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.
1839-01-10 – Tea from India 1st arrives in UK
1839-01-19 – Aden conquered by British East India Company
1839-11-25 – A cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (never to be entirely rebuilt again). The storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths result from the disaster.
1842-01-06 – 4,500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before India
1846-01-28 – Battle of Allwal, Brits beat Sikhs in Punjab (India)
1846-02-10 – British defeat Sikhs in battle of Sobraon, India
1846-02-16 – Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India
1849-03-29 – Britain formally annexs Punjab after defeat of Sikhs in India
1851-12-22 – The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India.
1853-04-16 – The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.
1857-05-10 – Indian Mutiny begins with revolt of Sepoys of Meerut
1858-07-28 – William Herschel of the Indian Civil Service in India
1858-08-02 – Govt of India transferred from East India Company to Crown
1859-02-10 – Gen Horsford defeats Begum of Oude & Nana Sahib in Indian mutiny
1865-11-11 – Treaty of Sinchula is signed in which Bhutan ceded the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
1866-06-11 – The Allahabad High Court (then Agra High Court) is established in India.
1868-04-13 – Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala.
1870-09-08 – Neth & Engl sign “Koelietraktaat” Br-Indian contract work in Suriname
1876-10-31 – A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 human deaths.
1877-01-01 – England’s Queen Victoria proclaimed empress of India
1879-05-14 – The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji aboard the Leonidas.
1882-06-06 – Cyclone in Arabian Sea (Bombay India) drowns 100,000
1884-09-26 – Suriname army shoots on British-Indian contract workers, 7 killed
1888-04-20 – 246 reported killed by hail in Moradabad, India
1888-12-18 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde.
1889-03-23 – The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian India.
1891-09-18 – Harriet Maxwell Converse is 1st white woman to become an Indian chief
1892-07-06 – Dadabhai Naoroji elected as first Indian Member of Parliament in Britain.
1897-06-12 – Possibly most severe quake in history strikes Assam India, shock waves felt over an area size of Europe (negligible death toll)
1905-04-04 – Earthquake in Kangra India, kills 20,000
1905-10-16 – The Partition of Bengal (India) occurred.
1906-12-30 – The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan.
1907-05-01 – Indian Mine Laws passes (concessions from Neth-Indies)
1911-02-18 – The first official flight with air mail takes place in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 km away.
1911-03-25 – L D Swamikannu publishes “Manual of Indian Chronology” in Bombay
1911-12-12 – Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India.
1913-11-06 – Mohandas K Gandhi arrested for leading Indian miners march in S Afr
1914-06-30 – Mahatma Gandhi’s 1st arrest, campaigning for Indian rights in S Africa
1916-05-13 – 1st observance of Indian (Native American) Day
1916-05-24 – Last British-Indian contract workers arrive in Suriname
1917-03-11 – World War I: Baghdad falls to the Anglo-Indian forces commanded by General Stanley Maude.
1918-05-18 – Neth Indian Volksraad installed in Batavia
1919-04-13 – Amritsar Massacre-British Army fires on nationalist rioters in India
1919-04-13 – British forces kill 100s of Indian Nationalists (Amritsar Massacre)
1919-08-13 – British troops fire on Amritsar India demonstrators; killing 350
1919-09-10 – Indian’s Ray Caldwell no-hits Yankees 3-0
1920-03-23 – Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) political party forms
1920-10-10 – Indian Bill Wambsganns makes 1st unassisted World Series triple play
1920-10-10 – Indian’s Elmer Smith hits 1st World Series grand slam
1922-03-18 – Brit magistrates in India sentence Gandhi to 6 years for disobedience
1925-12-26 – The Communist Party of India is founded.
1926-08-28 – Indian Emil Levsen pitches complete doubleheader victory (Red Sox)
1926-12-28 – Imperial Airways begins England-India mail & passenger service
1928-08-30 – Jawaharlal Nehru requests independence of India
1929-01-06 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin a her work amongst India’s poorest and diseased people.
1929-01-26 – Indian National Congress proclaims goal for India’s independence
1929-04-08 – Indian Independence Movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest.
1929-04-24 – 1st non-stop England to India flight takes-off
1929-04-26 – 1st non-stop England to India flight lands
1930-03-08 – Mahatma Gandhi starts civil disobedience in India
1931-02-10 – New Delhi becomes capital of India
1931-03-23 – Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev embrace the gallows during the Indian struggle for independence. Their request to be shot by a firing squad is refused.
1932-10-08 – The Indian Air Force is established.
1932-10-15 – Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
1933-01-28 – The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.
1933-05-08 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against British oppression in India.
1934-01-15 – 8.4 earthquake in India/Nepal, 10,700 die
1934-04-07 – In India, Mahatma Gandhi suspended his campaign of civil disobedience
1934-08-02 – William Franks twirls an indian club overhead 17,280 times in 1 hour
1936-02-08 – Pandit Jawaharlal follows Gandhi as chairman of India Congress Party
1936-04-01 – Orissa constituted a province of British India
1938-10-02 – Indian Bob Feller strikes out record 18 Tigers (Chester Laabs 5 times)
1938-11-16 – K B Regiment refuses round-table conference in East-India
1939-03-03 – In Mumbai, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in India.
1939-03-10 – 17 villages damaged by hailstones in Hyderabad India
1939-04-13 – In India, the Hindustani Lal Sena (Indian Red Army) is formed and vows to engage in armed struggle against the British.
1939-05-03 – The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
1940-03-23 – All-India-Moslem League calls for a Moslem homeland
1940-03-23 – The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or the then Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All India Muslim League.
1940-07-02 – Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
1941-05-25 – 5,000 drown in a storm at Ganges Delta region in India
1941-11-24 – Indian infantry attacks German tanks at Sidi Omar
1942-08-09 – Mahatma Gandhi & 50 others arrested in Bombay after passing of a “quit India” campaign by the All-India Congress
1942-10-16 – Cyclone in Bay of Bengal kills some 40,000 south of Calcutta India
1943-12-30 – Subhash Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair.
1944-04-01 – Japanese troops conquer Jessami, East-India
1944-04-14 – Freighter “Fort Stikene” explodes in Bombay India, killing 1,376
1944-08-19 – Last Japanese troops driven out of India
1945-11-13 – Australian Services draw 1st Victory Test against India
1946-03-15 – British premier Attlee agrees with India’s right to independence
1946-08-08 – India agrees to give Bhutan 32 sq miles
1946-09-02 – Nehru forms govt in India
1946-12-01 – Australia compile 645 v India at the Gabba (Bradman 187)
1947-02-20 – Lord Mountbatten appointed as last viceroy of India
1947-06-03 – British viceroy of India lord Mountbatten visits Pakistan
1947-07-18 – King George VI signs Indian Independence Bill
1947-08-14 – India granted independence within British Commonwealth
1947-08-15 – India declares independence from UK, Islamic part becomes Pakistan
1947-08-17 – The Radcliffe Line, the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan is revealed.
1947-10-26 – Maharajah of Jammu & Kashmir accedes to India
1948-01-01 – Bradman scores 132 in the 1st innings of the 3rd Test v India
1948-01-01 – Orissa province accedes to India
1948-01-01 – After partition, India declines to pay the agreed share of Rs.550 million in cash balances to Pakistan.
1948-01-03 – Bradman completes dual Test tons (132 & 127*) v India MCG
1948-01-23 – Bradman scores 201 in 272 mins v India, 21 fours 1 six
1948-01-23 – Test debut of Neil Harvey, v India at Adelaide
1948-01-24 – Australia all out 674 v India (Bradman 201, Hassett 198*)
1948-04-15 – Indian territory of Himachal Pradesh created
1948-06-21 – Lord Mountbatten resigns as gov-gen of India
1948-09-12 – Invasion of the State of Hyderabad by the Indian Army on the day after the Pakistani leader Jinnah’s death.
1949-01-14 – Black/Indian race rebellion in Durban, South Africa; 142 die
1949-02-19 – Mass arrests of communists in India
1949-03-05 – The Jharkhand Party is founded in India.
1949-05-12 – 1st foreign woman ambassador received in US (S V L Pandit India)
1949-09-23 – Indian owner Bill Veeck holds funeral services to bury 1948 pennant
1949-10-15 – Administration of territory of Manipur taken over by Indian govt
1949-10-15 – Tripura accedes to Indian union
1949-11-26 – India adopts a constitution as a British Commonwealth Republic
1949-12-30 – India recognizes People’s Republic of China
1950-01-01 – The state of Ajaigarh is ceded to the Government of India.
1950-01-26 – India becomes a republic ceaseing to be a British dominion
1950-07-02 – Indian Bob Feller, wins his 200th game, 5-3 over Detroit
1950-08-15 – 8.6 earthquake in India kills 20,000 to 30,000
1950-08-15 – Srikakulam district is formed in Andhra Pradesh, India.
1950-10-26 – Mother Teresa found her Mission of Charity in Calcutta, India
1950-11-06 – King Tribhuvana of Nepal flees to India
1950-12-05 – Sikkim becomes a protectorate of India
1952-01-21 – Nehru’s Congress party wins general election in India
1952-05-13 – Pandit Nehru becomes premier of India
1952-05-13 – The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, holds its first sitting.
1952-07-19 – Freddie Trueman takes 8-31, India all out 58 at Old Trafford
1952-07-19 – India all out 82 in 2nd innings after making 52 earlier in the day
1952-10-16 – Pakistan’s 1st Test starts, v India at Delhi
1952-10-18 – Vinoo Mankad takes 13 Pakistan wkts to win 1st India-Pak clash
1952-10-25 – Nazar Mohammad scores Pakistan’s 1st Test century 124* v India
1953-04-01 – Walcott Worrell & Weekes all make centuries in innings v India
1953-10-01 – Indian state of Andhra Pradesh partitioned from Madras
1954-11-01 – India takes over administration of 4 French Indian settlements
1955-04-11 – The Air India Kashmir Princess is bombed and crashes in a failed assassination attempt on Zhou Enlai by the Kuomintang.
1955-04-30 – Imperial Bank of India nationalized
1955-05-02 – India poses discrimination “onaanraakbaren” punishable
1955-06-07 – India premier Nehru visit USSR
1956-09-01 – Indian state of Tripura becomes a territory
1956-09-02 – Collapse of a RR bridge under a train kills 120 (India)
1956-11-01 – Delhi becomes a territory of Indian union
1956-11-01 – Indian state of Madhya Pradesh forms
1956-11-01 – Indian states of Punjab, Patiala & PEPSU merge as Punjab protection
1956-11-01 – Formation of Kerala state in India.
1957-01-26 – India annexes Kashmir
1957-03-22 – Republic of India adopts Saka calendar along with Gregorian
1959-01-01 – Rohan Kanhai completes 256 v India at Calcutta
1959-03-17 – Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India
1959-03-31 – Dalai Lama fled China & was granted political asylum in India
1959-07-27 – Abbas Ali Baig scores 112 for India v England on debut
1959-08-24 – England complete 5-0 series drubbing of India
1959-09-21 – 600 Indian Dutch emigrate to US
1959-10-23 – Chinese troops move into India, 17 die
1959-12-20 – Jasu Patel takes 9-69, India v Australia at Kanpur
1960-02-12 – Chinese army kills 12 Indian soldiers
1960-05-01 – India’s Bombay state split into Gujarat & Maharashtra states
1961-11-05 – India’s premier Nehru arrives in NY
1961-12-17 – India seizes Goa & 2 other Portuguese colonies
1961-12-18 – India annexes Portuguese colonies of Goa, Damao & Diu
1962-02-25 – India Congress Party wins elections
1962-05-30 – 69 killed in bus crash (Ahmedabad India)
1962-09-08 – Chinese troops exceed Mac-Mahon-line (Tibet-India boundary)
1962-10-10 – Indies assault up Chinese positions in North-India attack
1962-10-20 – Chinese army lands in India
1962-11-21 – The Chinese People’s Liberation Army declares a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War.
1963-05-28 – Estimated 22,000 die in another cyclone in Bay of Bengal (India)
1963-12-01 – Nagaland becomes a state of Indian union
1964-01-13 – Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out in the Indian city of Calcutta – now Kolkata – resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.
1964-02-09 – Hanumant Singh scores 105 India v England on debut at Delhi
1964-06-02 – Lal Bahadur Sjastri elected premier of India
1964-10-29 – Star of India & other jewels are stolen in NY
1964-12-23 – India & Ceylon hit by cyclone, about 4,850 killed
1965-01-08 – Star of India returned to American Museum of Natural History
1965-04-09 – India & Pakistan engage in border fight
1965-05-11 – 1st of 2 cyclones in less than a month kills 35,000 (India)
1965-05-25 – India & Pakistan border fights
1965-05-28 – Fire & explosion at Dhori mine in Dhanbad India kills 400
1965-06-02 – 2nd of 2 cyclones in less than a month kills 35,000 (Ganges R India)
1965-08-06 – Indian troops invade Pakistan
1965-09-01 – India & Pakistan border fights
1965-09-06 – India invades West Pakistan
1965-09-07 – China announces that it will reinforce its troops in the Indian border.
1965-09-22 – India & Pakistan ceases-fire goes into effect
1966-01-10 – India & Pakistan sign peace accord
1966-01-19 – Indira Gandhi elected India’s 3rd prime minister
1966-04-06 – Mihir Sen swims Palk Strait between Sri Lanka & India
1966-06-24 – Bombay-NY Air India flight crashes into Mont Blanc (Switz), 117 die
1966-11-01 – Indian Haryana state created from Punjab; Chandigarh terr created
1966-12-13 – Test debut of Clive Lloyd, v India Bombay, 82 & 78
1967-05-06 – Zakir Hussain elected 1st Moslem president of India
1967-06-09 – Boycott scores 246* v India, Leeds, 573 minutes, 29 fours 1 six
1967-09-04 – 6.5 earthquake of Kolya Dam India, kills 200
1967-09-11 – Indian/Chinese border fights
1967-12-11 – 6.5 earthquake in West India, 170 killed
1968-01-31 – Bobby Simpson takes 5-59 v India in his last Test for ten years
1968-02-16 – Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon & wives fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1968-12-25 – 42 Dalits are burned alive in Kilavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, India, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit labourers.
1969-12-25 – India all out for 163 at Madras v Aust, Ashley Mallett 5-91
1970-04-02 – Meghalaya becomes autonomous state within India’s Assam state
1971-01-25 – Himachal Pradesh becomes 18th Indian state
1971-03-09 – J M Noreiga takes 9-95 WI v India at Port-of-Spain
1971-08-24 – India beat England by 4 wickets, their win against the Poms
1971-11-21 – Indian troops partly aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas) defeat the Pakistan army in the Battle of Garibpur.
1971-12-03 – Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: India invades West Pakistan and a full scale war begins claiming hundreds of lives.
1971-12-04 – The UN Security Council calls an emergency session to consider the deteriorating situation between India and Pakistan.
1971-12-04 – The Indian Navy attacks the Pakistan Navy and Karachi.
1971-12-16 – India’s army occupies Dacca, West Pakistani troops surrenders
1971-12-17 – Cease fire between India & Pakistan in Kashmir
1972-01-21 – Manipur, Meghalaya & Tripura become separate states of Indian union
1972-01-21 – Mizoram, formerly part of Assam, creates an Indian union territory
1972-01-21 – Tripura becomes a full-fledged state in India.
1972-03-19 – India & Bangladesh sign friendship treaty
1972-07-02 – India & Pakistan sign peace accord
1972-07-10 – Herd of stampeding elephants kills 24, Chandka Forest India
1972-12-17 – New line of control agreed to in Kashmir between India & Pakistan
1972-12-23 – Chandrasekhar takes 8-79 India v England at Delhi
1973-02-09 – Biju Patnaik of the Pragati Legislature Party elected leader of opposition in the state assembly in Orissa, India.
1973-02-27 – American Indian Movement occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota
1973-02-27 – Members of American Indian Movement begin occupation of Wounded Knee
1973-07-07 – 78 drown as flash flood sweeps a bus into a river (India)
1973-08-28 – India & Pakistan sign POW accord
1973-11-01 – The Indian state of Mysore was renamed as Karnataka to represent all the regions within Karunadu .
1974-05-18 – India becomes 6th nation to explode an atomic bomb
1974-07-13 – India’s 1st one-day international (v England, Headingley)
1974-11-07 – 63rd Davis Cup: South Africa beats India in (w/o)
1975-01-29 – W I win Fifth Test against India to take exciting series 3-2
1975-04-19 – India launches 1st satellite with help of USSR
1975-05-16 – India annexes Principality of Sikkim
1975-05-19 – Farm truck packed with wedding party struck by a train, killing 66 in truck, 40 miles south of Poona, India
1975-06-26 – Indian PM Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency
1975-06-26 – Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.
1975-07-20 – India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship.
1975-12-27 – Explosion at Chasnala Colliery collapses drowning 350 (Dhanbad India)
1976-02-17 – Richard Hadlee takes 7-23 v India, his 1st match-winning spell
1976-04-12 – India set 403 to win by WI They get them, 6 wkts 7 overs spare
1976-04-25 – India all out for 97 v West Indies
1977-01-19 – World’s largest crowd-12.7 million-for Indian religious festival
1977-03-20 – Premier Indira Gandhi loses election in India
1977-03-22 – Indira Gandhi resigns as PM of India
1977-03-28 – Morarji Desai forms govt in India
1977-12-17 – Bobby Simpson scores 176 Australia v India at the WACA, aged 41
1978-01-01 – Air India B747 explodes near Bombay killing 213
1978-01-03 – Chandrasekar takes 6-52 & 6-52 at MCG in Indian innings win
1978-02-03 – Australia beat India 3-2 on 6th day of final test
1978-02-03 – India needing 493 to beat Australia at Adelaide, all out 445
1978-10-16 – Test debut of Kapil Dev, India v Pakistan at Faisalabad
1978-12-19 – Indira Gandhi ambushed in India
1978-12-26 – India’s former PM, Indira Gandhi, released from jail
1979-01-02 – Gavaskar gets twin tons for India for the third time (v WI)
1979-02-07 – Faoud Bacchus scores 250 for WI v India at Kanpur
1979-06-01 – Vizianagaram district is formed in Andhra Pradesh, India.
1979-06-07 – Bhaskara 1, Indian Earth resources/meteorology satellite, launched
1979-07-15 – Morarji Desai resigns as premier of India
1979-07-17 – David Gower 200* in England score of 5-633 v India at Edgbaston
1979-08-20 – India premier Charan Singh resigns
1979-09-04 – India need 438 to win v England, game ends at 8-429
1979-09-20 – The Punjab wing of the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) formally splits and constitutes a parallel UCCRI(ML).
1979-10-17 – Mother Teresa of India, awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1980-01-06 – Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party wins elections in India
1980-07-18 – Rohini 1, 1st Indian satellite, launches into orbit
1981-01-03 – Greg Chappell scores 204 v India at the SCG
1981-01-08 – India all out 63 in one-day international v Australia
1981-01-24 – Kim Hughes scores 213 v India at Adelaide
1981-02-11 – Australia all out 83 v India at MCG chasing 143 to win
1981-06-06 – A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.
1981-06-19 – India’s APPLE satellite, 1st to be stabilized on 3 axes, launched
1981-07-16 – India performs nuclear Test
1981-10-14 – Citing official misconduct in the investigation and trial, Amnesty International charges the U.S. government with holding Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement as a political prisoner.
1982-07-09 – Botham scores 208 in 225 balls, England v India at The Oval
1982-07-27 – Indian PM Indira Gandhi 1st visit to US in almost 11 years
1982-12-27 – Imran Khan 8-60 to bring innings victory v India at Karachi
1983-01-15 – Javed Miandad & Mudassar Nazar make 451 stand v India
1983-02-22 – Hindus kill 3000 Moslems in Assam, India
1983-04-17 – India entered space age launching SLV-3 rocket
1983-11-16 – Kapil Dev takes 9-83 v WI at Ahmedabad, but India still lose
1983-11-27 – Desmond Haynes out handled the ball v India
1984-02-01 – Ravindara Mhatrem, Indian diplomat, kidnapped in England (killed 0203)
1984-04-03 – Soyuz T-11 carries 3 cosmonauts (1 Indian-Rakesh Sharma) to Salyut 7
1984-04-15 – Extremist Sikhs plunder 40 stations in Punjab India
1984-06-06 – 1,200 die in Sikh “Golden Temple” uprising India
1984-08-03 – Bomb attack on Madras India airport, 32 killed
1984-09-28 – 1st floodlit ODI outside of Australia (India v Aust, New Delhi)
1984-11-03 – 3,000 die in 3 day anti-Sikh riot in India
1984-11-03 – Body of assassinated Indian PM Indira Gandhi cremated
1984-12-03 – 2,000 die from Union Carbide poison gas emission in Bhopal, India
1984-12-28 – Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress party wins election in India
1984-12-29 – Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parlimetary elections
1984-12-31 – Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India’s 6th PM succeeds his mom, Indira
1985-01-15 – Mike Gatting & Graeme Fowler both scores 200′s v India
1985-04-08 – India files suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster
1985-05-11 – Booby trap bomb kills 86 people in India
1985-06-23 – Bomb destroys Air India Boeing 747 in air near Ireland, 329 die
1985-08-17 – Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India
1985-09-25 – Akali Dal wins Punjab State election in India
1985-12-13 – David Boon’s 1st Test century, 123 v India at Adelaide
1985-12-13 – Test debut of Merv Hughes, Geoff Marsh & Bruce Reid (v India)
1986-01-04 – David Boon’s second Test century, 131 v India at Adelaide
1986-02-02 – Dalai Lama meets Pope John Paul II in India
1986-02-11 – Australia beat India 2-0 to win the World Series Cup
1986-03-28 – Extremist Sikhs kill 13 hindus in Ludhiana India
1986-07-25 – Sikhs extremist kill 16 hindus in Muhktsar India
1986-09-19 – Dean Jones scores 210 v India at Madras
1986-10-02 – Failed assassination attempt on India premier Rajiv Gandhi
1986-10-02 – Sikhs attempt to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
1986-10-19 – Allan Border scores the 1,000,000th run in Tests (v India, Bombay)
1987-07-06 – 1st of 3 massacres by Sikh extremists takes place in India
1987-11-25 – India all out for 75 v West Indies at Delhi, Patterson 5-24
1987-12-11 – Test debut of Carl Hooper, WI v India at Bombay
1987-12-20 – 76th Davis Cup: Sweden beats India in Gothenburg (5-0)
1988-01-11 – Test debut of Phil Simmons, WI v India, Madras
1988-07-21 – ESA’s Ariane-3 launches 2 communications satellites (1 Indian)
1988-08-20 – 6.5 earthquake strikes India/Nepal, 1,000s killed
1988-11-30 – Cyclone lashes Bangladesh, Eastern India; 317 killed
1989-10-20 – Pakistan win Sharjah Trophy over India & WI on round-robin
1989-11-29 – India president Rajiv Gandhi, resigns
1989-12-02 – Vishwanath Pratap Singh sworn in as president of India
1990-02-23 – Ian Smith 173* NZ v India, 136 balls, world record for no 9 bat
1990-03-24 – Indian troops leave Sri Lanka
1990-03-27 – Bus accidentally touches high voltage wire in Karagpur India; 21 die
1990-04-17 – Gas explodes on passenger train in Kumrahar India, 80 die
1990-07-27 – Graham Gooch scores 333 v India at Lord’s
1990-07-30 – Graham Gooch scores 123 v India to follow up 1st innings 333
1990-12-10 – Hindu-Muslim rebellion in Hyderabad-Aligargh India, 140 die
1991-10-16 – Jharkhand Chhatra Yuva Morcha is founded at a conference in Ranchi, India.
1991-10-20 – 6.1-7.1 earthquake in Uttar Kashi, India, about 670 die
1991-10-25 – Aaqib Javed takes 7-37 in 10 overs v India in cric 1-dayer at Sharjah
1991-12-26 – Militant Sikhs kill 55 & wound 70 in India
1992-01-02 – Test debut of Shane Warne, v India at Sydney
1992-01-20 – Australia beat India 2-0 to win the World Series Cup
1992-01-28 – Boon completes twelfth Test century, 135 v India at Adelaide
1992-05-20 – India launches its 1st satellite independently
1992-05-22 – India launches its Agni rocket
1992-06-23 – “Tin Bigha Day” protest in India of corridor opening to Bangladesh
1992-06-26 – India leases Tin Bigha corridor to Bangladesh
1992-10-18 – Start of Zimbabwe’s 1st Test match, v India at Harare
1992-10-20 – David Houghton gets Zimbabwe’s 1st Test ton (121 v India, debut)
1992-12-06 – 300,000 hindus destroy mosque of Babri India, 4 die
1993-01-23 – Indian Airlines B737 crashes art Aurangabad, 61 die
1993-01-29 – Test debut of Vinod Kambli, prolific Indian batsman
1993-02-23 – India complete a 3-0 series drubbing of England
1993-09-30 – 6.4 earthquake at Latur, India, 28,000 killed
1994-01-25 – Mine fire at Asansol India, kills 55
1994-03-15 – Experts from AL certify Indian’s Jacobs Field is properly lit
1994-04-13 – United Arab Emirates’ 1st official ODI, losing to India
1994-05-20 – Miss India (Sushmita Sen) selected Miss Universe
1994-05-21 – Sushmita Sen, 18, of India, crowned 43rd Miss Universe
1994-07-24 – Bodo kills 37 Moslems in Bashbari NE India
1994-07-29 – India army kills 27 Moslem militants
1994-10-29 – National Museum of American Indian opens (NYC)
1994-11-19 – Aishwarya Rai, 21, of India, crowned 44th Miss World
1995-02-25 – Bomb attack on train in Assam India (27 soldiers killed)
1995-03-12 – Congress party loses India national election
1996-03-09 – Javed Miandad’s last international in Pak’s WC QF loss to India
1996-03-13 – Sri Lanka beat India in World Cup semi as riots stop play
1996-08-20 – India defeat Pakistan in Under-15 World Challenge Final at Lord’s
1996-09-16 – 1st one-day international in Canada, India v Pakistan at Toronto
1997-03-13 – India’s Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
1997-07-25 – K.R. Narayanan is sworn-in as India’s 10th president and the first Dalit— formerly called “untouchable”— to hold this office.
1998-03-24 – A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India killing 250 people and injuring 3000 others.
1998-04-06 – Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
1998-05-11 – India conducts three underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including a thermonuclear device.
1998-05-13 – India carries out two nuclear tests at Pokhran, in addition to the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
1998-05-28 – Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
1999-01-22 – Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.
1999-03-11 – Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
1999-04-08 – Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.
1999-08-11 – Total solar eclipse in India-North -France (2m23s)
2000-02-15 – Indian Point II nuclear power plant in New York State vents a small amount of radioactive steam when a steam generator fails.
2000-11-15 – A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people. New Jharkhand state came into existence in India.
2001-01-26 – An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, causing more than 20,000 deaths.
2001-06-18 – Protests occur in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India.
2001-09-21 – University of Roorkee, becomes India’s 7th Indian Institute of Technology, rechristened as IIT Roorkee
2001-12-13 – the Indian Parliament Sansad is attacked by terrorists. 15 people are killed, including all the terrorists.
2002-05-03 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.
2003-06-05 – A severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50°C (122°F) in the region.
2003-10-17 – Eunuchs in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh float the political party Jiti Jitayi Politics.
2003-11-18 – The congress of the Communist Party of Indian Union (Marxist-Leninist) decides to merge the party into Kanu Sanyal’s CPI(ML).
2004-03-23 – Andhra Pradesh Federation of Trade Unions holds its first conference in Hyderabad, India.
2004-06-06 – Tamil is established as a Classical language by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.
2004-09-17 – Tamil is declared the first classical language in India.
2004-09-21 – The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India merge to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
2005-01-25 – A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi in India kills at least 258.
2005-07-26 – Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days.
2006-07-06 – The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
2006-07-11 – 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.
2007-07-25 – Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India’s first woman president
2008-10-22 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
2008-11-26 – Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India: Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 250 people in Mumbai, India.
2010-02-13 – A bombing at the German Bakery in Pune, India, kills 10 and injures 60 more.

Famous Deaths In Indian History

2011-09-17T19:54:00.000+05:30

1351-03-20 – Mohammed ibn-Tughluq, sultan of Delhi India, dies
1510-03-01 – Francisco d’Almeida, viceroy of India, dies in battle at about 59
1539-03-05 – Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese governor in India (b. 1487)
1605-10-15 – Abul-Fath Djalal-ud-Din, Mogol keizer of India (1556-1605), dies at 63
1627-10-28 – Djehangir/Jahangir, great mogol of India, dies
1629-04-19 – Sigismondo d’India, Italian composer
1631-06-07 – Mumtax Mahal, wife of Shah Jahan of India, her tomb (Taj Mahal)
1666-02-01 – Sjihab al-Din Sultan C Shah Djahan, mogol of India (Taj-Mahal), dies
1680-04-03 – Shivaji, founder of the Maratha Empire, India (b. 1630)
1680-04-17 – Kateri Tekakwitha, first American Indian to receive beatification (b. 1656)
1699-06-22 – Josiah Child, English Governor of the East India Company (b. 1630)
1707-02-20 – Aurangzeb, Mogul emperor of India (1658-1707), dies
1707-03-03 – Aurangzeb, Emperor of India (1658-1707), dies at 88
1713-02-11 – Jahandar Shah, Mughal emperor of India (b. 1664)
1754-10-04 – Tanacharison, Catawba Indian chief
1755-07-09 – E Braddock, British Gen, mortally wounded during French & Indian War
1760-04-10 – Gerard George Clifford, head of East-Indian Company, dies at 75
1773-11-22 – Robert Clive, English occupier (India), dies at about 48
1781-05-18 – Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian Indian revolutionary, a descendant of the last Inca ruler, Túpac Amaru (b. 1742)
1799-05-04 – Tipu Sultan, Indian military leader (b. 1750)
1815-09-24 – John Sevier, indian fighter (Gov/Rep-Tn), dies at 70
1818-08-22 – Warren Hastings, 1st governor-general of India (1773-84), dies at 85
1843-12-18 – Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, British Viceroy of India (b. 1748)
1856-09-24 – Henry, 1st viscount Hardinge of Lahore, gov-gen of India, dies
1857-04-08 – Mangal Pandey, Indian soldier (b. 1827)
1858-06-17 – Rani Lakshmibai, queen of Jhansi in North India, one of the leading figures of the Indian rebellion of 1857 (b. 1828)
1860-10-12 – Henry G W Smith, leader of British-Indian forces, dies at 73
1868-05-23 – Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)
1869-02-15 – Mirza Ghalib, Indian poet (b. 1796)
1871-03-18 – Augustus De Morgan, Indian-born British mathematician and logician (b. 1806)
1871-06-08 – Satank, Kiowa indian chief, shot to death
1881-07-17 – Jim Bridger, American mountain man, Indian fighter, and explorer (b. 1804)
1883-02-17 – Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Indian revolutionary (b. 1845)
1890-12-10 – Ludolf AJW Sloet van de Beele, gov-gen (Net India 1861-66), dies at 84
1893-11-07 – Constantly Lievens, Flemish missionaries in India, dies at 37
1898-03-01 – George Bruce Malleson, English officer in India, author (b. 1825)
1898-03-27 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian Muslim intellectual (b. 1817)
1902-07-04 – Swami Vivekananda, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1863)
1905-01-19 – Debendranath Tagore, Indian philosopher (b. 1817)
1908-08-11 – Khudiram Bose, Indian freedom fighter (b. 1889)
1915-02-19 – Gopal Krishna Gokhale, India’s social reformer/politician, dies
1918-07-22 – Indra Lal Roy, Indian pilot (b. 1898)
1918-10-15 – Sai Baba of Shirdi, Indian saint (b. circa 1838)
1919-05-27 – Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Indian social activist (b. 1848)
1920-04-26 – Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (b. 1887)
1920-08-01 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, British-Indian hindu leader, dies
1925-06-16 – Chittaranjan Das, Indian patriot and freedom fighter (b. 1870)
1927-02-05 – Inayat Khan, Indian sufi
1927-06-13 – Henry CK “Clan” Petty-Fitzmaurice, gov of India (1888-94), dies at 82
1928-11-17 – Lala Lajpat Rai, Indian author, politician, & freedom fighter (b. 1865)
1931-03-23 – Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev Indian freedom fighters
1936-09-19 – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, Indian musician (b. 1860)
1937-11-23 – Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist (b. 1858)
1938-04-21 – Allama Iqbal, Indian philosopher and poet (b. 1877)
1940-01-01 – Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao, Indian writer and essayist (b. 1865)
1941-03-28 – Kavasji Jamshedji Petigara, Indian Police Commissioner (b. 1877)
1941-08-07 – Radindranath Tagore, Indian philosopher/poet/writer, dies at 80
1948-01-30 – Mahatma Gandhi, India’s political and spiritual leader, assassinated in New Delhi
1948-01-30 – Mahatma Ghandi, murdered by Hindu extremists in India
1950-04-14 – Sri Ramana Maharshi, Indian philosopher (b. 1879)
1950-08-08 – Ernest F E Douwes Dekker, founder National-India Party, dies
1950-12-05 – Shri Aurobindo, Indian guru (b. 1872)
1950-12-15 – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian political leader, Iron Man of India (b. 1875)
1951-12-05 – Abanindranath Tagore, Indian writer (b. 1871)
1952-01-05 – Victor Alexander John Hope, viceroy of India (1936-43), dies at 64
1952-03-07 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (b. 1893)
1953-12-10 – Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Indian-born scholar and translator (b. 1872)
1955-09-16 – Leopold C M S Amery, Brit minister of Colonies (India), dies at 81
1956-12-06 – Dr. Bhimji Ramji Ambedkar, Indian Minister of Law and architect of The Constitution of India (b. 1891)
1958-06-27 – Robert Greig, actor (Devil Doll, Indian Love Call), dies at 78
1959-12-23 – Edward FLW Halifax, English viscount/viceroy of India, dies at 78
1962-04-12 – Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, Indian politician and engineer (b. 1861)
1963-02-28 – Rajendra Prasad, First President of India (b. 1884)
1964-05-27 – Jawaharial Nehru, Independent India’s 1st PM, dies at 74
1966-01-11 – Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indian premier (1964-66), dies at 61
1966-01-24 – Homi J. Bhabha, Indian physicist (b. 1909)
1966-02-26 – Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Indian freedom fighter and writer (b. 1883)
1967-10-12 – Ram Manohar Lohia, Indian Socialist politician leader
1969-01-31 – Meher Baba, Indian guru (b. 1894)
1969-05-03 – Zakir Hussain, 3rd President of India, (b. 1897)
1969-06-24 – Ted Hecht, actor (Time to Kill, Song of India, Gangster), dies
1970-06-07 – Edward M Forster, Brit writer (Maurice, passage to India), dies at 91
1970-07-24 – Peter de Noronha, Indian businessman (b. 1897)
1970-11-21 – Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Indian physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1888)
1971-12-31 – Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist (b. 1919)
1972-03-31 – Meena Kumari, Indian actress (b. 1932)
1972-05-28 – Edward VIII, King of Gr Brit/N Ireld/emperor (India 1936), dies at 77
1972-07-28 – Charu Majumdar, Indian revolutionary leader (b. 1918)
1972-09-27 – S. R. Ranganathan, Indian mathematician (b. 1892)
1973-09-11 – Neem Karoli Baba, Indian guru
1974-02-04 – Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian physicist (b. 1894)
1975-04-17 – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian philosopher (b. 1888)
1975-10-02 – Kumaraswami Kamaraj, Indian political leader, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (b. 1903)
1975-10-31 – SD Burman, Indian musician (b. 1906)
1976-08-27 – Mukesh, Indian playback singer (b. 1923)
1977-03-22 – A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (b. 1904)
1979-12-03 – Dhyan Chand, Indian field hockey player (b. 1905)
1980-06-23 – Sanjay Gandhi, Indian politician, dies
1980-06-23 – Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Fourth President of India (b. 1894)
1980-07-24 – Uttam Kumar, Indian actor (b. 1926)
1980-07-31 – Mohd. Rafi, Indian playback singer (b. 1924)
1981-02-05 – Kuda Bux, Indian mystic (I’d Like to See), dies at 75
1981-12-26 – Savithri, Indian actress (b. 1937)
1982-02-22 – Josh Malihabadi, Urdu poet of India and Pakistan (b. 1898)
1983-01-11 – Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian industrialist and educator (b. 1894)
1984-02-03 – Ravindara Mhatrem, Indian diplomat, killed in England
1984-02-09 – Balasaraswathi, Indian classical dancer, dies in Madras
1984-10-31 – Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, assassinated by two of her bodyguards at 66
1984-11-27 – Percy Norris, deputy high commissioner of India, shot dead
1985-03-15 – Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and writer (b. 1921)
1986-02-17 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (Kingdom Happiness), dies at 90
1986-06-06 – Bhavana Balachandran, Indian actress
1986-07-06 – Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (b. 1908)
1987-10-09 – Guru Gopinath, Indian classical dancer (b. 1908)
1987-10-13 – Kishore Kumar, Indian Singer (b.1929)
1987-12-11 – G. A. Kulkarni, Indian (Marathi) writer (b. 1923)
1990-01-19 – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, indian guru, dies at 58
1990-05-21 – Moelvi Mohammed Farouk, Indian spiritual leader, murdered
1990-11-07 – Lawrence Durrell, Indian/English author (Alexandria Quartet, Mount Olive), dies at 78
1991-03-23 – Parkash Singh, Indian soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1913)
1991-05-21 – Rajiv Gandhi, Indian Prime Minster (1984-91), assassinated at 46
1991-06-14 – Peggy Ashcroft, British actress (A passage to India), dies at 83
1992-04-23 – Satyajit Ray, Indian director (Distant Thunder/Agantuk), dies at 70
1993-04-06 – Divya Bharati, “Baby Doll” Indian Bollywood actress (Diwana), dies at 19 by mysteriously falling from her husband’s apartment
1993-11-29 – JRD Tata, Indies industrialist (Air-India), dies at 89
1993-11-30 – Sebastian Kappen, Indian theologian (b. 1924)
1994-01-04 – RD Burman, Indian musician (b. 1939)
1994-12-25 – Zail Singh, president of India (1982-87), dies at 78
1995-04-10 – Morarji Desai, PM of India (1977-79), dies
1995-08-31 – Beant Singh, PM of Punjab province of India, assassinated at 73
1996-01-18 – N T Rama Rao, PM of Andhra Pradesh India (1983-84, 84-89, 94-95), dies
1996-01-18 – Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, Indian actor (b. 1923)
1996-04-22 – Hiteshwar Saikia, PM of Indian state of Assam (1991-96), dies
1996-05-20 – Janaki Ramachandran, PM of Indian state of Tamil Nadu (1988), dies
1996-05-31 – Neela Sanjiva Reddy, president of India (1977-82), dies
1996-06-01 – Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, president of India, dies at 83
1998-01-15 – Gulzarilal Nanda, temporary PM of India (1964, 66), dies
1998-08-18 – Persis Khambatta, Indian actress (b. 1950)
1999-07-07 – Captain Vikram Batra, Indian Army officer, awarded Param Vir Chakra (September 9,1974)
1999-08-01 – Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Indian-born writer (b. 1897)
1999-08-10 – Padma Bhushan Acharya Baldev Upadhyaya, Eminent Sanskrit Scholar in India (b. 1899)
1999-12-26 – Shankar Dayal Sharma, President of India (b. 1918)
2000-07-10 – Vakkom Majeed, Indian Freedom fighter, Travancore-Cochin Legislative member (b. 1909)
2000-11-07 – Chidambaram Subramaniam, Indian politician (b. 1910)
2000-12-23 – Noor Jehan, Indian singer and actress (b. 1926)
2001-05-13 – R.K. Narayan, Indian novelist (b. 1906)
2001-07-21 – Sivaji Ganesan, South Indian Tamil actor (b. 1927)
2001-12-01 – Ellis R Dungan, American born Indian film director (b. 1909)
2001-12-10 – Ashok Kumar, Indian actor (b. 1911)
2002-07-06 – Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian businessman (b. 1932)
2002-07-07 – Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian business tycoon (b. 1933)
2002-10-11 – Dina Pathak, Indian Actress (b. 1922)
2003-10-31 – Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Indian singer (b. 1908)
2003-11-09 – Binod Bihari Verma, Indian Maithili literateur (b.1937)
2004-02-23 – Vijay Anand, Indian film director (b. 1934)
2004-02-26 – Shankarrao Chavan, Indian politician (b. 1920)
2004-04-17 – Soundarya, Indian actress (b. 1971)
2004-06-26 – Yash Johar, Indian film producer (b. 1929)
2004-07-23 – Mehmood, Indian actor (b. 1932)
2004-08-15 – Amarsinh Chaudhary, Indian politician (b. 1941)
2004-08-30 – Indian Larry, American motorcycle builder and stuntman (b. 1949)
2004-10-18 – Veerappan, Indian bandit and smuggler (b. 1945)
2004-12-11 – M.S. Subbulakshmi, Indian singer (b. 1916)
2004-12-21 – Autar Singh Paintal, Indian medical scientist (b. 1925)
2004-12-23 – P. V. Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister of India (b. 1921)
2005-01-03 – JN Dixit, Indian government official (b. 1936)
2005-01-12 – Amrish Puri, Indian actor (b. 1932)
2005-01-21 – Parveen Babi, Indian actress (b. 1955)
2005-03-30 – O. V. Vijayan, Indian author and cartoonist (b. 1930)
2005-04-25 – Swami Ranganathananda, Indian monk (b. 1908)
2005-05-25 – Sunil Dutt, Indian actor and politician (b. 1929)
2005-07-27 – Swami Shantanand, Mahasamadhi Day, Indian Saint, Philosopher (b. 1934)
2005-10-30 – Shamsher Singh Sheri, Indian communist leader (b. 1942)
2005-11-09 – K. R. Narayanan, President of India (b. 1921)
2006-02-09 – Nadira, Indian actress (b. 1932)
2006-02-23 – Telmo Zarraonaindía, Spanish footballer (b. 1921)
2006-03-26 – Anil Biswas, Indian politician (b. 1944)
2006-04-12 – Dr. Rajkumar, Kannada language film actor/singer (India)(b. 1929)
2006-04-21 – T.K. Ramakrishnan, Indian politician (b. 1922)
2006-05-03 – Pramod Mahajan, Indian politician (b. 1949)
2006-05-05 – Naushad Ali, Indian composer (b. 1919)
2006-05-27 – Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Indian actor (b. 1944)
2006-08-21 – Ustad Bismillah Khan, Indian musician (b. 1916)
2006-08-27 – Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Indian film director (b. 1922)
2007-02-02 – Vijay Arora, Indian film and television actor (b. 1944)
2007-03-04 – Sunil Kumar Mahato, Indian parliamentarian (b. 1966)
2007-03-22 – Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (b. 1918)
2007-04-16 – G. V. Loganathan, Indian American professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (b. 1954)
2007-06-30 – Sahib Singh Verma, Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Delhi (b. 1943)
2007-10-03 – M.N. Vijayan, Indian writer, orator, and academic
2008-01-01 – Pratap Chandra Chunder, union minister of India (b. 1919)
2008-02-05 – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian guru, founder of Transcendental Meditation (b. ca. 1917)
2008-02-25 – Hans Raj Khanna, Judge of the Supreme Court of India (b. 1912)
2008-03-20 – Shoban Babu, Indian actor (b. 1937)
2008-05-19 – Vijay Tendulkar, Indian playwright, (b. 1928)
2008-06-27 – Sam Manekshaw, Indian Field Marshal (b. 1914)
2008-07-29 – Ishmeet Singh Sodhi, Indian Playback Singer (b. 1989)
2008-08-01 – Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Indian politician (b. 1916)
2008-09-27 – Mahendra Kapoor, Indian singer (b. 1934)
2009-01-27 – R. Venkataraman, 8th President of India (b. 1910)
2009-01-31 – Nagesh, Indian comedian actor in Kollywood (b. 1933)
2009-04-27 – Feroz Khan, Indian actor (b. 1939)
2009-05-03 – Ram Shewalkar, Indian Marathi writer, cardiac arrest.(b.1931)
2009-06-28 – A. K. Lohithadas, Indian screenwriter, director, and producer (b. 1955)
2009-07-29 – Gayatri Devi, Ex-Maharani of Indian state Jaipur. (b. 1919)
2009-09-02 – Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India (b. 1949)
2009-11-11 – Dhanpat Rai Nahar, Indian labour leader (b. 1919)
2010-01-17 – Jyoti Basu, Indian politician (b. 1914)

Famous Birthdays in Indian History

2011-09-17T19:49:00.000+05:30

1483-02-15 – Babur, founder of Mughal dynasty in India (1526-30)
1506-04-07 – Francis Xavier, saint/Jesuit missionary to India, Malaya, & Japan
1542-10-14 – Abul-Fath Djalal-ud-Din, 3rd Mogol emperor of India (1556-1605)
1542-10-15 – Djalalud-Din Mohammed Akbar, emperor of India (1556-1605)
1569-08-31 – Djehangir/Jahangir, great mogol of India
1592-01-05 – Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), built Taj Mahal
1592-01-14 – Sjihab al-Din Sultan Choerram Sjah Djahan, leader of India
1618-11-03 – Aurangzeb, [Alamgir], Emperor of India (1658-1707)
1643-10-14 – Bahadur Shah I, Mughal Emperor of India (d. 1712)
1682-07-10 – Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, German Lutheran missionary to India (d. 1719)
1685-01-07 – Gerard George Clifford, Dutch director of East India Company
1725-09-29 – Robert Clive, English explorer/founder (British empire in India)
1725-09-29 – Robert Clive, founder (British empire in India)
1732-12-06 – Warren Hastings, England, 1st governor-General of India (1773-84)
1750-11-20 – Tipu Sultan, Indian ruler (d. 1799)
1767-05-04 – Tyagaraja, Composer of Indian classical Carnatic music (d. 1847)
1787-06-28 – Henry G W Smith, leader of British-Indian forces
1796-12-27 – Mirza Ghalib, Indian poet (d. 1869)
1809-01-23 – Veer Surendra Sai, Indian Freedom Fighter
1809-12-24 – Christopher “Kit” Carson, KY, Union brig-general/indian fighter
1817-05-15 – Debendranath Tagore, Indian religious reformer (d. 1905)
1817-10-17 – Sajjid Ahmad Chan, Indian moslem leader/co-founder (Pakistan)
1823-06-30 – Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, Indian industrialist (d. 1901)
1824-02-12 – Arya Samaj Maha Rishi Dayanand Sarsvati, Indian hindu leader
1825-05-08 – George Bruce Malleson, Indian officer (d. 1898)
1825-09-04 – Dadabhai Naoroji, 1st Indian in British parliament
1827-07-19 – Mangal Pandey, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1857)
1831-11-08 – Edward R L Bulwer-Lytton, English under king of India
1832-06-10 – Edwin Arnold, English writer (Light of India)
1833-11-02 – Mahendralal Sarkar, Indian doctor (d. 1904)
1835-11-19 – Rani Lakshmi Bai, Indian Queen (d. 1858)
1836-02-18 – Swami Ramakrishna [Gadadhar Chatterji], Indian mystic/hindu leader
1839-03-03 – Jamsetji Tata, Indian industrialist (d. 1904)
1845-11-04 – Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, The First Indian Revolutionary (d. 1883)
1848-04-16 – Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Social Reformer of Andhra Pradesh, India (d. 1919)
1849-09-21 – Maurice Barrymore, Indian-born patriarch of the Barrymore family (d. 1905)
1850-09-09 – Harishchandra, India, poet/dramatist/father of modern Hindi
1853-12-06 – Haraprasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)
1856-04-01 – Acacio Gabriel Viegas, Indian physician (d. 1933)
1856-04-11 – Constantly Lievens, Flemish missionary in India
1856-07-23 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, British-Indian Hindi leader
1858-10-21 – Ramabai Dongre’ Medhavi, India, social reformer
1858-11-07 – Bipin Chandra Pal, Indian freedom fighter, (d. 1932)
1858-11-30 – Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist (d. 1937)
1860-08-10 – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, Indian musician (d. 1936)
1860-09-15 – Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, Indian engineer (d. 1962)
1861-05-06 – Motilal Nehru, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1931)
1861-05-07 – Rabindranath Tagore, First Indian to win Nobel Prize for Liturature. (d. 1941)
1861-12-25 – Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Indian founder of Banaras Hindu University (d. 1946)
1865-01-28 – Lala Lajpat Rai, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1928)
1865-01-31 – Shastriji Maharaj, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1951)
1866-05-09 – Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Leader of Indian Independence Movement (d. 1915)
1867-12-16 – Amy Carmichael, missionary in Dohnavur, India (d. 1951)
1868-08-12 – Frederick JNT lord Chelmsford, viceroy of British-India (1916-21)
1869-10-02 – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Porbandar Kathiawad India, pacifist and spiritual leader
1872-04-14 – Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Indian-born Islamic scholar and translator (d. 1953)
1873-11-22 – Leopold CMS Amery, British minister of Colonies (India)
1875-10-31 – Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian freedom fighter and statesman (d. 1950)
1876-09-15 – Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Indian novelist (d. 1938)
1877-11-24 – Kavasji Jamshedji Petigara, Indian CID Commissioner of Police (d. 1941)
1878-02-21 – The Mother, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1973)
1878-11-27 – Jatindramohan Bagchi, Indian (Bengali) poet (d.1948).
1878-12-10 – Rajaji, India’s freedom fighter and the first Governor General of independent India (d.1972)
1879-02-13 – Sarojini Naidu, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1949)
1879-09-17 – Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Indian Social Reformer (d. 1973)
1880-07-31 – Munshi Premchand, Indian Author (d. 1936)
1880-10-08 – Ernest F E Douwes Dekker, Dutch founder (National-India Party)
1882-07-05 – Inayat Khan, Indian sufi (d. 1927).
1882-12-11 – Subramanya Bharathy, Indian poet (d. 1921)
1883-05-28 – Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Indian activist (d. 1966)
1884-12-03 – Rajendra Prasad, first President of India (d. 1963)
1885-02-14 – Syed Zafarul Hasan, Prominent Muslim Indian/Pakistani philosopher (d. 1949)
1886-05-25 – Rash Behari Bose, leader against the British Raj in India (d. 1945)
1886-11-02 – Philip Merivale, Rehutia India, actor (Nothing But Trouble)
1887-02-26 – Benegal Narsing Rau, India, pres of UN Security Council (1950)
1887-06-07 – William Walraven, Dutch journalist/writer (Indian Daily)
1887-12-22 – Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (d. 1920)
1888-09-05 – Sarvepalli Radhakrishan, president (India)/philosopher
1888-11-07 – Chandrasekhara Raman, India, physicist (Nobel 1930)
1888-11-11 – Maulana Azad, 1st minister of education in independent India
1889-11-14 – Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st Indian PM (1947-64)
1891-04-14 – B. R. Ambedkar, Indian jurist (d.1956)
1893-01-05 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
1894-01-01 – Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian mathematician (d. 1974)
1894-02-25 – Meher Baba, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1969)
1894-04-10 – Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian industrialist (d. 1983)
1894-05-20 – Chandrashekarendra Saraswati, Indian Hindu sage, Jivanmukta (d. 1994)
1894-06-23 – Edward VIII, King of Great Brit/N-Ireland/emperor of India (1936)
1894-08-10 – Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Fourth President of India (d. 1980)
1895-05-12 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, India, philosopher (Songs of Life) [NS=May 22]
1895-05-22 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, India, philosopher (Songs of Life) [OS=May 12]
1895-06-03 – Kavalam Madhava Panikkar, India, diplomat (Asia & Western Dominance)
1895-09-01 – Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Indian musician (d. 1974)
1896-02-29 – Ranchhodji Morarji Desai, premier of India (1977-79)
1896-09-01 – A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Indian theologian (d. 1977)
1896-11-12 – Salim Ali, Indian ornithologist (d. 1987)
1897-01-23 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian politician
1897-04-19 – Peter de Noronha, Indian businessman and philanthropist (d. 1970)
1897-05-03 – V K Krishna Menon, India, minister of defense
1897-11-23 – Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Indian writer (d. 1999)
1898-12-02 – Indra Lal Roy, Indian pilot (d. 1918)
1898-12-05 – Josh Malihabadi, Urdu poet of India and Pakistan (d. 1982)
1902-06-04 – Richard Allen, India, field hockey goal tender (Olympic-gold-1928)
1902-10-11 – Jayaprakash Narayan, Indian freedom fighter and political leader (d. 1979)
1903-07-15 – Kumaraswami Kamaraj, Indian politician (d. 1975)
1904-02-29 – Rukmini Devi Arundale, Indian dancer and founder of Kalakshetra (d. 1986)
1904-03-04 – Chief Tahachee, American-born Old Settler Cherokee Indian stage and film actor (d. 1978)
1904-07-29 – J. R. D. Tata, Indian industrialist (d. 1993)
1904-10-01 – A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (d. 1977)
1904-10-02 – Shi Lal Bahadur Shastri, India premier (1964-66)
1905-09-09 – Hussain Sha – Indian Saint, Philosopher ,Pithapuram
1906-05-05 – Ursula Jeans, Simla India. actress (I Lived With You, Over the Moon)
1906-05-29 – Terence Hanbury White, Bombay India, novelist (England Have My Bones)
1906-07-23 – Chandrasekhar Azad, Indian revolutionary (d. 1931)
1906-10-10 – R.K. Narayan, Indian novelist (d. 2001)
1907-05-15 – Sukhdev Thapar, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1931)
1907-09-27 – Bhagat Singh, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1931)
1907-09-28 – Bhagat Singh, Indian activist (d. 1931)
1908-04-05 – Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (d. 1986)
1908-06-24 – Guru Gopinath, Indian classical dancer (d 1987)
1908-07-25 – Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Indian musician (d. 2003)
1908-10-22 – John Sutton, Rawalpindi India, actor (Tower of London, Return of Fly)
1909-10-30 – Homi J. Bhabha, Indian physicist (d. 1966)
1909-12-20 – Vakkom Majeed, Indian politician (d. 2000)
1910-01-30 – C Subramaniam, Indian politician (d. 2000)
1910-07-03 – Eric Franklin, Indian civil servant
1910-10-19 – Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, India, astrophysicist (Nobel 1983)
1910-12-04 – Ramaswamy Venkataraman, president of India (1987-92)
1911-02-19 – Merle Oberon, Calcutta India, actress (Assignment Foreign Legion)
1911-09-20 – Shriram Sharma Acharya, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1991)
1911-10-13 – Ashok Kumar, Indian actor (d. 2001)
1912-01-27 – Lawrence Durrell, Darjeeling, Indian/British writer (Private Country, Alexandria Quartet)
1912-02-27 – Kusumagraj, Indian writer (d. 1999)
1913-05-13 – Sanjiva Reddy, president (India)
1913-05-19 – Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, president of India
1914-01-01 – Noor Inayat Khan, Indian princess and SOE agent (d. 1944)
1914-07-08 – Jyoti Basu, Indian politician
1916-01-22 – Harilal Upadhyay, Gujarati Author, Poet, Astrologist (Gujarat is a State of India) (d. 1994)
1916-05-05 – Zail Singh, President of India (d. 1994)
1916-05-08 – Swami Chinmayananda, Indian spiritualist (d. 1993)
1916-08-03 – Shakeel Badayuni, Indian poet and lyricist (d. 1970)
1916-09-15 – Margaret Lockwood, Karachi India, actress (Lady Vanishes)
1916-09-16 – M.S. Subbulakshmi, Indian singer (d. 2004)
1917-01-12 – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian spiritualist (d. 2008)
1917-01-17 – Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran, (MGR), Indian film star, politician
1917-02-11 – T. Nagi Reddy, Indian revolutionary (d. 1976)
1917-03-12 – Googie Withers, Karachi India, actress (1 of Our Aircraft is Missing)
1917-11-05 – Banarsi Das Gupta, Indian former Chief Minister of Haryana (d. 2007)
1917-11-19 – Indira Gandhi, Allahabad India, Indian PM (1966-77, 1980-84)
1918-04-16 – Spike Milligan, India, actor/comedian (Digby, 3 Musketeers)
1918-12-14 – B.K.S. Iyengar, Indian yoga advocate
1918-12-23 – Kumar Pallana, Indian-born American actor
1919-01-19 – Dharam Singh, India, field hockey player (Olympic-gold-1964)
1919-08-12 – Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist (d. 1971)
1919-08-31 – Amrita Preetam, Indian poet and author (d. 2005)
1919-11-08 – P. L. Deshpande, Indian author (d. 2000)
1919-12-25 – Naushad Ali, Indian music director (d. 2006)
1920-02-12 – Pran, Indian actor
1920-03-15 – Ranganandhan Francis, India, field hockey (Olympic-gold-1948, 52, 56)
1920-04-05 – Rafique Zakaria, Indian author (d. 2005)
1920-04-07 – Ravi Shankar, Benares India, sitar player (Sounds of India)
1920-10-19 – Pandurang Shastri Athavale, Indian philosopher (d. 2003)
1920-10-27 – K. R. Narayanan, 10th President of India
1920-10-29 – Catholicos Baselios Mar Thoma Didymos I, Indian Catholic
1920-12-04 – Michael Bates, Jhansi India, actor (Clockwork Orange, Patton)
1921-01-20 – Telmo Zarraonaindía, Spanish footballer (d. 2006)
1921-02-15 – Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and writer (d. 1985)
1921-05-02 – Satyajit Ray, Calcutta India, director (Goddess, Adversary)
1921-06-28 – P V Narasimha Rao, premier of India (1991- )
1921-08-08 – Vulimiri Ramalingaswami, Indian medical scientist (d. 2001)
1921-12-07 – Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Indian spiritual leader
1922-01-09 – Har G Khorana, India/Canada bio-chemist (Nobel 1968)
1922-02-04 – Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Indian Classical Singer
1922-12-11 – Dilip Kumar, Indian actor
1923-04-17 – Lindsay Anderson, Bangalore India, director (Thursday’s Children)
1923-05-15 – Johnny Walker, Indian actor (d. 2003)
1923-05-28 – Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, India, film star (Patala Bhairavi)
1923-07-10 – G. A. Kulkarni, Indian (Marathi) writer (d. 1987)
1923-07-22 – Mukesh, Indian singer (d. 1976)
1923-09-26 – Dev Anand, Indian actor and film producer
1924-01-04 – Sebastian Kappen, Indian theologian (d. 1993)
1924-01-27 – Sabu, [Dastagir], India, actor (Elephant Boy, Drum)
1924-12-14 – Raj Kapoor, Indian actor (d. 1988)
1925-08-07 – M. S. Swaminathan, Indian scientist
1925-09-24 – Autar Singh Paintal, Indian medical scientist (d. 2004)
1925-12-24 – Mohd. Rafi, Indian actor and playback singer (d. 1980)
1926-01-08 – Kelucharan Mohapatra, Indian Odissi dancer (d. 2004)
1926-05-19 – Swami Kriyananda, Indian teacher and author
1926-11-23 – Sathya Sai Baba, Indian guru and philosopher
1927-01-18 – Sundaram Balachander, Indian veena player (d. 1990)
1927-01-27 – Michael Craig, Poona India, actor (Escape 2000, Vault of Horror)
1927-03-25 – Leslie Claudius, India, field hockey (Olympic-gold-1948, 52, 56)
1927-05-10 – Nayantara Sahgal, Indian author
1927-07-27 – Sat Mahajan, Indian politician
1927-08-26 – B. V. Doshi, Indian architect
1928-08-04 – Udham Singh, India, field hockey player (Olympic-gold-1952, 56, 64)
1929-01-08 – Saeed Jaffrey, Indian actor
1929-03-29 – Utpal Dutt, Indian actor (d. 1993)
1929-05-20 – Andre Carolus Cirino, Suriname/Indian poet
1929-06-06 – Sunil Dutt, Indian actor and politician (d. 2005)
1929-07-20 – Rajendra Kumar, Indian actor (d. 1999)
1929-07-25 – Somnath Chatterjee, Indian communist leader
1929-08-04 – Kishore Kumar, Indian singer and actor (d. 1987)
1929-09-28 – Lata Mangeshkar, Indian playback singer
1929-10-19 – Balbir Singh, India, field hockey player (Olympic-gold-1948-56)
1930-07-21 – Anand Bakshi, Indian lyricist (d. 2002)
1930-09-17 – Lalgudi Jayaraman, Indian violinist
1931-02-18 – Swraj Paul, Indian/British industrial/multi-millionaire (Caparo)
1931-05-16 – Natwar Singh, Indian politician
1931-06-30 – June Thorburn, Kashmir India, actress (Touch & Go, Children Galore)
1931-08-27 – Sri Chinmoy, Indian guru (d. 2007)
1931-10-14 – Nikhil Banerjee, Indian classical musician (d. 1986)
1931-10-15 – Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, Eleventh President of India
1932-06-22 – Amrish Puri, Indian actor (d. 2005)
1932-08-01 – Meena Kumari, Indian film actress (d. 1972)
1932-09-27 – Yash Chopra, Indian director
1932-09-29 – Mehmood, Indian actor (d. 2004)
1932-10-26 – Chinadorai Deshmutu, India, field hockey player (1952)
1932-10-30 – Barun De, Indian historian
1932-12-28 – Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian businessman (d. 2002)
1933-02-14 – Madhubala, Indian actress (d. 1969)
1933-09-08 – Asha Bhonsle, Indian singer
1933-11-03 – Amartya Sen, Indian economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1933-12-02 – K. Veeramani, Indian anti-caste activist
1934-03-15 – Kanshi Ram, Indian dalit leader
1934-05-19 – Ruskin Bond, Indian author
1934-10-15 – N. Ramani, Indian flutist
1935-12-08 – Dharmendra, Indian actor
1935-12-11 – Pranab Mukherjee, Indian politician
1936-02-09 – Clive Swift, Liverpool, actor (Frenzy, Passage to India)
1936-04-29 – Zubin Mehta, Bombay India, conductor (NY Philharmonic)
1936-05-03 – Engelbert Humperdinck, [Arnolde Dorsey], India, singer (EH Show)
1936-09-25 – Juliet Prowse, Bombay India, actress/dancer (Who Killed Teddy Bear)
1936-12-25 – Ismail Merchant, Bombay India, producer (Householder)
1937-01-14 – Shoban Babu, Indian actor
1937-12-03 – Binod Bihari Verma, Indian linguist
1937-12-28 – Ratan Tata, Indian industrialist
1938-02-07 – S. Ramachandran Pillai, Indian communist leader
1938-03-18 – Shashi Kapoor, Calcutta India, actor (Shalimar, Heat & Dust)
1938-07-19 – Jayant Narlikar, Indian astrophysicist
1939-01-20 – Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, Indian astronomer
1939-06-27 – Rahul Dev Burman, Indian composer and actor (d. 1994)
1939-09-25 – Feroz Khan, Indian actor
1939-11-21 – Mulayam Singh Yadav, Indian politician
1939-11-22 – Mulayam Singh Yadav, Indian politician
1940-01-02 – S. R. S. Varadhan, Indian-American mathematician
1940-01-20 – Krishnam Raju, Indian actor and politician
1940-10-14 – Cliff Richards, [Harry Webb], Lucknow India, rock voclist (Suddenly)
1940-11-01 – Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, Chief Justice of India
1940-12-12 – Sharad Pawar, Indian politician
1941-02-27 – Paddy Ashton, New Delhi India, British MP (Soc/Lib Democrat)
1941-04-14 – Julie Christie, Assam India, actress (Dr Zhivago)
1941-07-31 – Amarsinh Chaudhary, Indian politician
1941-09-04 – Sushilkumar Shinde, Indian politician
1941-11-25 – Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, Indian Muslim Sufi, author, spiritual leader (d. 2001)
1942-04-02 – Roshan Seth, Indian actor
1942-04-07 – Jeetendra, Indian actor
1942-05-23 – K. Raghavendra Rao, Indian film director
1942-12-29 – Rajesh Khanna, Indian actor
1943-01-01 – Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, Indian scientist
1943-01-24 – Subhash Ghai, Indian film director
1943-06-02 – Ilaiyaraaja, Indian composer
1943-12-25 – Ravish Malhotra, India cosmonaut (Soyuz T-11 backup)
1944-01-11 – Shibu Soren, Indian politician
1944-02-13 – Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Indian actor (d. 2006)
1944-05-01 – Suresh Kalmadi, Indian politician
1944-08-20 – Rajiv Gandhi, PM of India (1984-89)
1945-01-17 – Javed Akhtar, Indian lyricist, poet and scriptwriter
1945-02-20 – Annu Kapoor, Indian actor
1945-05-04 – Narasimhan Ram, Indian journalist
1945-05-23 – Padmarajan, Indian film director (d. 1991)
1945-07-24 – Azim Premji, Indian businessman
1945-12-06 – Shekhar Kapur, Indian filmmaker
1946-05-01 – Joanna Lumley, Kashmir India, actress (Abs Fab, OHM’s Secret Service)
1946-05-28 – Satchidanandan, Indian poet
1946-08-20 – N.R. Narayana Murthy, Indian businessman
1946-10-06 – Vinod Khanna, Indian actor
1946-10-15 – Victor Banerjee, Calcutta India, actor (A Passage to India)
1946-12-08 – Sharmila Tagore, Indian Actress
1946-12-09 – Sonia Gandhi, Italian-born Indian politician
1946-12-09 – Shatrughan Sinha, Indian actor
1947-01-07 – Shobha De, Indian writer
1947-02-12 – Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Indian leader of Damdami Taksal (d. 1984)
1947-06-11 – Laloo Prasad Yadav, Indian politician
1947-08-15 – Raakhee Gulzar, Indian actress
1948-02-24 – J. Jayalalithaa, Indian politician
1948-02-25 – Danny Denzongpa, Indian actor
1948-04-09 – Jaya Bachchan, Indian actress
1948-10-16 – Hema Malini, Indian Actress
1949-01-13 – Rakesh Sharma, India, cosmonaut (Soyuz T-11)
1949-03-07 – Ghulam Nabi Azad, Indian politician
1949-04-28 – Indian Larry, American stuntsman (d. 2004)
1949-09-01 – P.A. Sangma, Indian politician
1949-12-18 – Joni Flynn, Assam India, actress (Octopussy)
1950-01-07 – Johnny Lever, Indian actor
1950-04-20 – Chandra Babu Naidu, Indian politician
1950-05-30 – Paresh Rawal, Indian actor
1950-06-15 – Lakshmi Mittal, Indian industrialist
1950-07-20 – Naseeruddin Shah, Indian actor
1950-09-17 – Narendra Modi, Indian politician
1950-09-18 – Shabana Azmi, Indian actress
1950-10-02 – Persis Khambatta, Bombay India, actress (Star Trek, Megaforce)
1950-10-18 – Om Puri, Indian actor
1950-12-12 – Rajnikanth, Indian actor
1951-01-01 – Nana Patekar, Indian film and stage actor
1951-11-19 – Zeenat Aman, Indian actress
1952-03-20 – Anand Armitraj, India, tennis player (Brother of ViJay)
1952-04-13 – Erick Avari, British-Indian actor
1952-06-20 – Vikram Seth, Indian poet
1952-09-04 – Rishi Kapoor, Indian actor
1952-11-05 – Vandana Shiva, Indian physicist
1952-12-28 – Arun Jaitley, Indian Politician
1953-09-27 – Mata Amritanandamayi, Indian religious leader
1953-12-14 – Vijay Amritraj, India, tennis player/actor (Octopussy)
1954-03-19 – Indu Shahani, Indian educationist and Sheriff of Mumbai
1954-07-27 – G. S. Bali, Indian politician
1954-11-07 – Kamal Haasan, Indian actor
1955-05-17 – Bill Paxton, actor (Brain Dead, Next of Kin, Indian Summer, True Lies)
1955-11-05 – Karan Thapar, Foremost Indian Journalist, Political Analyst & Commentator
1955-12-31 – Dawood Ibrahim, Indian crime boss
1956-01-15 – Mayawati, Indian politician
1956-02-01 – Brahmanandam, Indian film actor
1956-03-09 – Shashi Tharoor, Indian author & United Nations Under-Secretary General
1956-04-18 – Poonam Dhillon, Indian actress
1956-06-02 – Mani Ratnam, Indian dire
1956-08-14 – Johnny Lever, Indian actor
1956-10-19 – Sunny Deol, Indian actor
1957-01-07 – Reena Roy, Indian actress
1957-04-19 – Mukesh Ambani, Indian businessman
1957-08-03 – Mani Shankar, Indian film maker
1957-09-23 – Kumar Sanu, Indian playback singer
1957-10-15 – Mira Nair, Indian director
1957-12-10 – Prem Rawat, known also as Guru Maharaj Ji and Maharaji, American Indian spiritual leader and speaker
1958-02-01 – Jackie Shroff, Indian actor
1958-04-03 – Jaya Prada, Indian Actress
1959-05-03 – Uma Bharati, Indian politician
1959-07-29 – Sanjay Dutt, Indian actor
1959-08-26 – Jim Rutledge, Victoria, Canadian Tour golfer (1995 Indian Open)
1959-08-29 – Akkineni Nagarjuna, Indian Telugu actor
1959-12-24 – Anil Kapoor, Indian actor
1960-01-03 – Sandeep Marwah Founder of Film City, Noida, India
1960-05-21 – Mohanlal, Indian actor
1960-06-10 – Balakrishna Nandamuri, Indian actor
1960-12-13 – Daggubati Venkatesh, Indian actor
1961-01-07 – Supriya Pathak, Indian actress
1961-04-18 – Pamella Bordes, New Dehli India, Brit parliament prostitute
1961-05-04 – Ishita Bhaduri, Indian (Bengali) Poet
1961-05-26 – Tarsem Singh, Indian film director
1961-06-05 – Ramesh Krishnan, Indian tennis star
1961-06-27 – Meera Syal, British-Indian comedienne and actress
1961-07-01 – Kalpana Chawla, Karnal India, astronaut (STS 87)
1961-08-13 – Sunil Shetty, Indian Actor, Producer
1961-11-24 – Arundhati Roy, Indian writer
1962-02-14 – Sakina Jaffrey, Indian actress
1962-09-30 – Shaan, Indian singer
1963-08-10 – Phoolan Devi, Indian bandit and revolutionary (d. 2001)
1963-08-13 – Sridevi, Indian actress
1963-08-17 – S. Shankar, Indian film director.
1964-01-31 – Remi Bouchard, Lasalle Que, Canadian Tour golfer (1989 India Open)
1964-02-19 – Sonu Walia, Indian actress
1964-12-25 – Anil Kaul, Amritsar India, Canadian badminton player (Olympics-96)
1965-03-14 – Aamir Khan, Indian actor
1965-06-01 – India Allen, Portsmouth Va, playmate of the year (Dec, 1987)
1965-09-02 – Partho Sen-Gupta, Indian filmmaker
1965-11-02 – Shahrukh Khan, Indian actor
1965-12-27 – Salman Khan, Indian actor
1966-01-06 – A. R. Rahman, Indian composer
1966-03-05 – Aasif Mandvi, Indian-born American actor and comedian
1966-03-20 – Alka Yagnik, Indian singer
1966-04-17 – Vikram, Indian actor
1966-05-03 – Firdous Bamji, Indian-American actor
1966-08-28 – Priya Dutt, Indian social worker and politician
1966-09-28 – Puri Jagannadh, Indian film director
1967-01-26 – Pradip Somasundaran, Indian playback singer
1967-01-27 – Bobby Deol, Indian actor
1967-02-01 – Patle Shishupal Natthu, Indian politician
1967-02-12 – Chitravina N. Ravikiran, Indian composer and musician
1967-05-15 – Madhuri Dixit, Indian actress
1967-08-18 – Daler Mehndi, Indian bhangra/pop singer
1967-09-09 – Akshay Kumar, Indian Actor
1967-11-13 – Juhi Chawla, Indian actress
1968-02-09 – Rahul Roy, Indian actor
1968-03-16 – Ananya Khare, Indian actress and teacher
1968-04-19 – Arshad Warsi, Indian actor
1968-09-29 – Samir Soni, Indian film actor
1968-12-15 – Javid Hussain, Indian film producer
1969-12-11 – Vishwanathan Anand, Indian chess grandmaster
1970-05-30 – Ness Wadia, Indian industrialist
1970-06-01 – R. Madhavan, Indian actor
1970-06-19 – Rahul Gandhi, Indian politician
1970-08-06 – M. Night Shyamalan, Indian/American film director
1970-08-16 – Manisha Koirala, Indian actress
1970-08-16 – Saif Ali Khan, Indian actor
1970-09-01 – Padma Lakshmi, Indian actress
1970-10-26 – Raveena Tandon, Indian actress
1971-04-16 – Natasha Zvereva, Minsk Belarus, tennis ace (finals 1995 Indian Wells)
1971-05-01 – Ajith Kumar, Indian film actor
1971-09-02 – Pawan Kalyan, Indian actor
1971-11-01 – Vikram Chatwal, Indian hotelier
1971-12-18 – Barkha Dutt, Indian journalist
1972-04-16 – Conchita Martinez, Monzon Spain, tennis star (1996 final Indian Wells)
1972-08-27 – Dalip Singh, Indian professional wrestler
1972-11-04 – Tabassum Hashmi, Indian actress
1972-11-09 – Laxmi Poruri, Guntur India, tennis star (1994 Futures-College Park)
1972-11-26 – Arjun Rampal, Indian actor
1972-12-17 – John Abraham, Indian actor
1973-06-17 – Leander Paes, Indian tennis player
1973-07-23 – Himesh Reshammiya, Indian Bollywood composer, singer and actor.
1973-07-30 – Sonu Nigam, Indian singer/actor
1973-08-10 – Lisa Raymond, Norristown Penn, tennis star (1995 Indian Wells doubles)
1973-08-23 – Malaika Arora Khan, Indian actress and model
1973-09-01 – Ram Kapoor, Indian actor
1973-11-01 – Aishwarya Rai, Indian actress
1974-01-09 – Farhan Akhtar, Indian Bollywood Director, Actor, Producer, Singer.
1974-01-10 – Hrithik Roshan, Indian actor
1974-05-15 – Shiney Ahuja, Indian actor
1974-06-07 – Mahesh Bhupathi, India, tennis pro
1974-06-22 – Joseph Vijay, Indian actor
1974-06-25 – Karisma Kapoor, Indian actress
1974-09-09 – Vikram Batra, Officer of the Indian Army
1974-12-25 – Nagma, Indian actress
1975-01-01 – Sonali Bendre, Indian model and actress
1975-01-08 – Harris Jayaraj, Indian music composer
1975-01-31 – Preity Zinta, Indian actress
1975-03-08 – Fardeen Khan, Indian actor
1975-06-08 – Shilpa Shetty, Indian actress
1975-06-22 – Laila Rouass, Moroccan-Indian actress
1975-08-05 – Kajol Mukherjee, Indian actress
1975-10-03 – India.Arie, American singer
1976-02-05 – Abhishek Bachchan, Indian actor
1976-02-20 – Rohan Gavaskar, Left-handed batsman, India ODI 2004 (son of Sunil Gavaskar)
1976-06-29 – Sandhya Chib, Miss Universe-India (1996)
1976-09-03 – Vivek Oberoi, Indian actor
1976-12-15 – Baichung Bhutia, Indian footballer
1977-06-09 – Roopa Mishra, Indian civil servant
1977-06-09 – Amisha Patel, Indian actress
1977-07-17 – Lehmber Hussainpuri, Famous Indian Singer
1977-09-01 – Aamir Ali, Indian television actor
1978-01-01 – Paramahamsa Sri Nithyananda, Indian spiritualist
1978-03-21 – Rani Mukherjee, Indian actress
1978-03-28 – Nafisa Joseph, Miss India Universe (1997)
1978-04-16 – Lara Dutta, Indian actress
1978-06-11 – Ujjwala Raut, Indian supermodel
1978-11-01 – Manju Warrier, Indian actress
1978-12-17 – Riteish Deshmukh, Indian actor
1979-01-07 – Bipasha Basu, Indian model
1979-02-02 – Shamita Shetty, Indian actress
1979-03-23 – Emraan Hashmi, Indian actor
1979-03-24 – Emraan Hashmi, Indian actor
1979-03-31 – Amey Date, Indian playback singer
1979-04-17 – Siddharth Narayan, Indian actor
1979-04-23 – Yana Gupta, Indian actress & model
1980-02-21 – Parthiva Sureshwaren, Indian racing driver
1980-08-18 – Preeti Jhangiani, Indian actress
1980-09-21 – Kareena Kapoor, Indian actress
1980-12-11 – Arya, Indian actor
1981-02-25 – Shahid Kapoor, Indian actor
1981-03-29 – Jlloyd Samuel, WestIndian-born footballer
1981-06-07 – Amrita Rao, Indian model and actress
1981-06-25 – Pooja Umashankar, Indian actress
1981-09-21 – Rimi Sen, Indian actress
1981-10-12 – Sneha, Indian actress
1981-10-24 – Mallika Sherawat, Indian actress
1981-10-29 – Reema Sen, Indian actress
1981-12-09 – Diya Mirza, Indian actress
1982-02-23 – Karan Singh Grover, Indian Television Actor
1982-03-28 – Sonia Agarwal, Indian actress
1982-04-07 – Sonjay Dutt, Indian American professional wrestler
1982-07-03 – Kanika, Indian actress
1982-07-18 – Priyanka Chopra, Indian actress and beauty queen
1982-09-11 – Shriya Saran, South Indian actress
1982-09-28 – Abhinav Bindra, Indian shooter
1982-09-28 – Ranbir Kapoor, Indian Actor
1982-12-10 – Shilpa Anand, Indian film and television actress
1983-02-03 – Silambarasan Rajendar,famous south Indian actor
1983-02-23 – Aziz Ansari, Indian American Comedian
1983-04-08 – Allu Arjun, Indian film actor
1983-05-04 – Trisha Krishnan, Indian actress
1983-05-20 – Jr. NTR, Indian film actor
1983-05-25 – Kunal Khemu, Indian actor
1984-01-19 – Karun Chandhok, Indian racing driver
1984-02-15 – Meera Jasmine, Indian actress
1984-02-29 – Adam Sinclair, Indian field hockey player
1984-03-12 – Shreya Ghoshal, Indian singer
1984-03-19 – Tanushree Dutta, Indian actress
1984-07-16 – Katrina Kaif, Indian Actress
1984-08-03 – Sunil Chetri, Indian Footballer
1985-01-18 – Minnisha Lamba, Indian Actress and Model
1985-01-30 – Aaadietya Pandey, Indian astrologer
1985-06-09 – Sonam Kapoor, Indian actress
1985-10-26 – Asin Thottumkal, Indian actress
1986-01-01 – Vidya Balan, Indian actress
1986-01-05 – Deepika Padukone, Indian model and actress
1986-01-28 – Shruti Haasan, Indian actress
1986-03-27 – Ramani, Indian Girl
1986-04-10 – Ayesha Takia, Indian actress
1986-10-20 – Priyanka Sharma, Indian actress
1986-11-15 – Sania Mirza, Indian tennis player
1987-03-31 – Humpy Koneru, Indian chess grandmaster
1987-08-05 – Genelia D’Souza, Indian actress
1987-08-19 – Ileana D’Cruz, Indian actress
1988-01-04 – Nabila Jamshed, Indian writer
1988-11-22 – Suresh Guptara and Jyoti Guptara, British-Indian novelists
1988-12-02 – Soniya Mehra, Indian Actress
1989-09-02 – Ishmeet Singh Sodhi, Indian Playback Singer (d. 2008)
1991-08-09 – Hansika Motwani, Indian actress
1996-03-09 – Darsheel Safary, Youngest Indian actor to win filmfare award for best performance

The Dutts - Toru, Aru, Abju were very important people in Indo-Anglian poetry

2011-09-17T14:33:00.001+05:30

THE BEGINNING
The renaissance in modern Indian Literature begins
with Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The infiltration of western
culture, the study of English literature, the adoption
of western scientific techniques, gave a jolt to India's
traditional life. It shocked us into a new awareness, a
sense of urgency, and the long dormant intellectual and
critical impulse was quickened into sudden life and the
reawakening Indian spirit went forth to meet the violent
challenge of the values of modern science and the civilization
of the west.
Ram Mohan Roy's interests and inquiries ranged
from the rights of women and the freedom of the press
to English education, the revenue and judicial systems
in India, religious toleration and the plight of the Indian
peasantry. He could be named as the first of the Indian
masters of English prose. He wrote a brief autobiographical
sketch on request. Derozio Kashiprasad Ghose,
M.M.Dutt are the other eminent writers of the time. They
are called the first Indo-Anglian writers of verse and
prose. Derozio's most ambitious work was
Jungheera
Kashiprasad Ghose was one of the first Indians to
publish a regular volume of English verse.
and other poems
level of 'Gorboduc' in English literature. Michael
Madhusudan Dutt was equally a talented writer. His
The Fakir of.The shair(1830) is a great contribution to the
Meghanad Badha
in English
There followed a lot of writers. 'Derozio's men' who
aspired to become eminent in the field. Besides writers,
political leaders, religious men also wrote in their own
way for the enlightenment of the public. Dadabhai
Naoroji was a teacher turned political leader and a good
orator. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, his disciple Swami
Vivekananda were great orators and their speeches carried
the essence of truth. Vivekananda essayed English
verse too
Sanyasin, My play is Done etc.
is a great Bengali epic and he wroteThe captive Ladie.eg : Kali, the mother, The song of the
The Dutts - Toru, Aru, Abju were very important
people in Indo-Anglian poetry. Toru lost her brother
and sister very early. Her father and cousin used to
write poems and poetry ran in her veins. She translated
French renderings into English ; '
French Fields'
consumption. Her Sanskrit translations came posthumously
-
A sheaf gleaned in. She died very young, at the age 21, of"Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan'.
Her translations are marvellous and beyond comparison
for a young sick girl. Her mastery in Sanskrit, French,
English, Bengali were commendable. Romesh Chunder
Dutt her cousin was another talented writer. He wrote
three novels -
Bengali, A history of civilization in Ancient India, India
in the Victorian Age, The Economic history of British
India
Other notable figure was Man Mohan Ghoss,
brother of Sri. Aurobindo
Perseus and Adam, Nollo
Todar Mull, Sivaji, and Pratap Singh inetc., Love Songs and Elegies,are his major works.
r
Modern Indian literature begins with
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy
r
The first of the Indian masters of English Prose
- Ram Mohan Roy
r
First Indo - Anglian writers of verse and prose
- Henry Derozio
- Kashiprasad Ghose
-
Michael Madhusudan Dutt
r
Derozio's most ambitious work
- The Fakir of Jungheera
r
The first Indo-Anglian poet
- Henry Derozio
r
–––– is considered to be the Keats in Indian literature
- H. Derozio
r
of
Sheaf gleaned in French Fields was a famous work
- Toru Dutt
r
in the world
Yeats greeted –––– as one of the most lovely works
- Man Mohan Ghose's 'Songs of
Life and Death'.
INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH
Tagore (1861-1941)
Tagore was a poet, composer,
novelist, short story writer,
playwright philosopher, lecturer,
educator and painter. He
wrote poetry as a child and he
was only fifteen when he published
some of his poems. It
was as a poet and the author of
'Githanjali'
in 1912, and met Rothenstein,
Yeats and others. In 1913, he was awarded the nobel
prize. He is well known as the Founder of Viswa Bharathi
University at Shantiniketan.
In his own language, Tagore was a master - musician
expressing whole world experience in sheer rhythm
of word and phrase. He had written a whole range of
literature works
Senai
largest number of lyrics ever attempted by any poet.
Next only to Gandhiji and Sir Aurobindo, Tagore has
been the supreme inspiration to millions in modern India.
he visited England'Manasi, Chitra, Gitanjali, Smaran,are some of his poems, He wrote probably the
The crescent moon, The Gardener, Fruit gathering,
Lover's Glift, The post office, The cycle of spring,
Red Oleander-his plays, The Home and the world,
Gora, Hungry stones
Sadhana Personality, Creative unity, The Religion of
man and autobiography, (Reminiscences).
etc. are his novels, Philosophy,
His most prestigious work
of 103 lyrics translated from selected lyrics in
his own Bengali works. The term 'Gitanjali' rendered as
'song offerings' by Tagore. The main theme is the relationship
between the human soul and God. It is centred
in life and the Lord is not only within oneself though to
seek whom one has to travel far and knock at everydoor,
but in the very midst of men and women among
'The poor, lowliest and lost'. Nature and man to the
poet are only means of approaching. God and are not
important for their own sake.
He was equally good at his prose writings, poems
and shortstories. His most ambitious work of fiction
was undoubtedly 'Gora'. It is to the Indian fiction', What
Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' is to the Russian. Tagore
holds the prime position among the Indo-Anglian writers
with his end less talent for creativity.
'Gitanjali' is a sequence
r
Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in
- 1913
r
Gitanjali Songs are mainly poems of
- Bhakti
r
Tagore is the founder of ––––– University
- Viswa Bharati at Shantiniketan
r
collection
Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize for his poetic
- 'Gitanjali'
r
Gitanjali contains a sequence of ––––– lyrics
- 103
r
audiences
–––– introduced Tagore's work to English
- W.B.Yeats
r
to ––––––
Tagore dedicated the English version of Gitanjali
- Rothenstein
r
from Gitanjali
'Where the mind is without fear' is the –––– poem
- 35th
r
'Where the mind is without fear' is a
- Prayer of the poet for his country
r
The freedom mentioned in the poem is
- Freedom from fear
Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)
Sri Aurobindo is the one
uncontestably outstanding
figure in Indo-Anglian literature.
Though he came out successful
in the Indian Civil service
examinations, he did not
join the service, but decided
to devote himself to the task
of freeing India from foreign
yoke, making revolutionary
speeches and hinting at armed
rebellion as a means of attaining
it.
Savitri, Bhavani Mandir, The Life Devine, The synthesis
of yoga, Essays on the Gita, The secret of Veda, The
future poetry, The foundations of Indian culture, Renaissance
in India,
works.
Songs to Myrtilla, Urvasie, Love and Death,and Heraclitus are some of his major
Tagore
Sri Aurobindo
To many of his contemporaries, Sir Aurobindo was
a power out of the ordinary, a star that dwelt apart. The
politician, the poet, the philosopher, and the yogi were
all of a piece, and made the sum - the power that was
Rishi Aurobindo. He turned the political movement in
the country towards the right goal. In his philosophy
and yoga, he turned the current of human progress itself
towards the goal of super manhood. His poetry
was meant to bridge the present and the future, self
divided present life and the life Divine that is to be.
Considered merely as a poet and critic of poetry,
he would rank among the supreme masters of our time.
There are five blank verse plays,
Vasavadatta, Rodogune, The viziers of Bassora,
Perseus the Deliverer,and
Eric
work of prose art. In his prophetic treatise.
Poetry,
of the poetry of the supramental age. His
opus,' 'Savitri' ; A Legend and a symbol
parts, divided into 12 Books. Savitri is symbolic of the
true wife's devotion and power - unflinching devotion
and power even to overcome the greatest of evils, Death.
And Satyavan is Truth.
To Aurobindo, poetry is the Mantra of the Real. It
is the breath of Greater Life. He was a great poet, a
mystic, a even greater revolutionary who was the first
to declare openly that complete autonomy, free from
British control should be the aim of the freedom struggle,
got arrested but came out as an even powerful yogi.
He settled in his Ashram at Pondicherry, from there his
voice reached the entire world through his writings till
his death in 5th December 1950.
. The Life Devine is a treatise on metaphysics, andThe Futurehe tried to indicate the possible extended frontiers'magnumis in three
r
philosophy is
Sri Aurobindo's colossal work of mystical
- 'The Life Divine'
r
The Prestigious work of Aurobindo is ––––
- 'Savitri' an epic poem,
containing about 24,000 lines
r
'The future poetry' is a great work of
- Sri Aurobindo
r
Aurobindo's 'Savitri' is
- Symbolic of the true wife's
devotion and power.
Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
Sarojini Naidu whose birth centenary, was celebrated
in 1979, is one of the first exponents of the tradition
of romanticism in Indian poetry.
The Bird of Time, The Broken wing, The Feather
of the Dawn
She began writing from an early age. In all poems,
the emphasis is on song - the music of poetry, seen in
the title and the lilting quality of her verse. Love is a
dominant strain and the love poems in the different
volumes can be studied together with, the themes of
nature death. The range and variety of life find place in
almost every volume. There is an attempt to Indian
themes and English tradition. Politics has no place in
her poems but nationalism is present in it.
Her merits as a poetess is many. Her's is a pan -
Indian vision, breath taking in its range, variety and
colour. Almost all aspects of the Indian ethos are
touched upon which refute the charge of escapism. The
focus is on the keatsian principle of beauty in all things,
be it wandering Beggars, Coin Grinders, or the Budha
seated on a lotus, or the various objects and manifestations
of nature. She is one of the first to see the common
people of India with sympathy and invest their
lowly profession with grace and beauty. eg : Palanquin
Beares, coromandel fishers, Bangle sellers etc.
The single minded devotion to beauty makes her
ignore the pain and boredom of daily labours. We are
taken to a world of exotic music and splendour. True to
her romantic muse, she recreates the past of India in
terms of traditional practices and places of historic interest.
The 'past' with its wondrous charm comes alive
in her evocation of cities like Delhi, and Hyderabad in
her depiction of Indian religious customs. eg : Raksha
Bandhan, Vasant Panchami etc. The colour of the Indian
landscape with its gulmohers, champakes, bulbuls,
Koils, the dances with red roses, gem-tangled hair, glittering
garments etc. splashes through her lyrics, eg : In
a latticed Balcony, In the Bazaars of Hyderabad.
Her vision of Nature with an eye for its loveliness,
colour and charm is aesthetic than spiritual. It is in her
love poems that her lyric impulse reaches its height.
Love is a many stringed instrument in her stands. To
her love is both agony and ecstasy, the emotions being
felt in separation and union.
In her poetry, she has succeeded in recreating the
glory of India with joy and intensity. The cadence and
colour of her poetry predominates over intellectual
musings, because hers is a lyrical genius.
'The Golden threshold',are her poetic works.
r
The last of the Indian romantic writers
- Sarojini Naidu
r
1979 was the birth centenary year of
- Sarojini Naidu
r
Prominent themes of Sarojini Naidu's poetry
- Love, nature, nationalism
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'Coromandel Fishers' is a ––––– song
- Folk
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The poem 'Coromandel, Fishers' is taken from
- The Golden Threshold
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Gandhiji was no writer, nor was he at anytime particularly
interested in the act of writing. The period
between the two world wars is called the 'Gandhian Age'.
The arrival of Gandhiji in the Indian struggle for freedom
was a period of awakening. Life could not be the
same as before, and every segment of our national life,
polities, economics, education, religion, social life, language
and literature acquired a more or less pronounced
Gandhian hue. Several regional languages acquired a
new versality and power and many of the political leaders
of the Gandhian Age - Abul kalam Azad, Rajaji, Rajendra
Prasad, Nehru and Vinoba Bhave - were themselves
thinkers, writers, agitators and social reformers
rolled into one.
The greatness of Gandhi was the greatness of an
ordinary man who through a long process of trial and
error, aspiration and endeavour, achieved a greatness
indubitably his own. The story of his 'Experiments with
Truth' is one of the imperishable classics of our time. In
this autobiographical record, described in candid detail
the events and circumstances of his life from birth to
the launching of the non-coperation movement in India
in 1920. The latter part of his life till his death is the
history of India as well. So he was called as the 'father
of the nation'.
The Gandhian impact on contemporary Indian literature
has brought about results at various levels one
result was ; a general preference for the mother tongue
or regional language or bilingualism. And whatever the
medium chosen, the stress has been more on simplicity
and clarity and immediate effectiveness.
Regarding themes
and characters, there has been
a conscious shift from the city
to the village or a sharp contrast
between the two. The
works of Venkataraman, R.K.
Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand,
Kamala Markandeya are suitable
example.
In some novels, Gandhian
thoughts and feelings
are there and R.K. Narayan made Gandhi a character in
'Waiting for Mahatma'. The important events in the preindependent
period and the freedom beautifully blended
in most of the works of literature. There were a lot of
writers, writing on Mahatma, his biographies, memoirs,
criticial studies and discussions, apart from the immense
mass of Gandhi's, own writings and speeches.
'Mahatma
by D.G. Tendulkar, P.A. Wadia's
'Mahatma Gandhi,'
E.M.S. Namboodiripad's
'the Ism'
60 years Gandhi has been the subject of biographical
and expository studies.
'The Mahatma and theare important studies on Gandhi. For the last
Gandhi as a man of letters
Gandhi had no literary ambitions though he wrote
some verse and a great deal of prose. In fact he was a
journalist. He himself edited south African and Indian
Journals, like the
Harijan
allusiveness or the power to conjure up associations.
But whatever he wrote one could see a transparency
and absolute sincerity and often a profound
aspiration. His twin values of Truth and Non violence
gave him a stand point from which he could speak or
write about even trivialities and it is that which make his
work alive for all time.
His major work the Autobiography is written in
Gujarati. His personality as revealed in his Autobiography
is ethico-religious whether it is operating in the
political, social or domestic sphere.
Indian opinion, Young, India and. His writings had no literary graces, suggestiveness,
r
Regional novels or bilingualism is the result of
- Gandhian impact on Indian
literature
Mahatma Gandhi
r
Gandhiji as a character, is written by
'Waiting for Mahatma' is an important novel with
- R.K. Narayan
r
reflected in
Gandhiji's principles of Truth and non violence is
- His autobiography and writings
r
called
The period between the two world wars in India is
- The Gandhian Age
r
of
'My Experiments with Truth' is the autobiography
- M.K. Gandhi
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964)
The history of Nehru's writings
and speeches merges with his
life, and his life likewise merges
with the life of the nation. He was
a fascinating writer too.
of world history
of India, Autobiography, his
speeches, Letters from a Father
to a Daughter
talent of the great statesman.
He was tutored and given the
best education that money could buy but he used those
powers in his speeches, and literary works. He plunged
into the cauldron of freedom struggle and politics and
his literary pursuits came along with him....... written
when he was in jail. Later his political involvement prevented
him from writing more but was famous for his
great speeches. He rose to the high office as the P.M. of
India. He was an avid reader and appreciated quality in
them. Many eminent writers were his friends and he
used to write to them even in his busy political career.
Glimpses, The Discoverybears the varied
r
'The Discovery of India' is one of the great works of
- Jawaharlal Nehru
r
father and the daughter mentioned
'Letters from a father to a Daughter' - who is the
- Nehru and his daughter Indira
Gandhi
r
Outstanding works of Nehru are
- Glimpses of Word History
- The Discovery of India
- Autobiography
- Letters from a father to a daughter
DRAMA
Drama written in the earlier period of Indian literature
is not, meant for actual stage production.
Madhusudan Dutt's,
Is this called civilization, Tagore's
Chitra, The post office, Sacrifice, Red Oleanders, Chandalika
Muktadhara, Natir Puja
Aurobindo's
Rodogune, The Viziers of Bassora
in English as original dramatic creations. He was a
prophet and a recluse and he stood apart in unique
solitariness and anyhow his plays, were but a small
fraction of his phenomenal literary output.
Harindranath Chattopadhyay's
Sidhartha ; Man of peace, plays and playlets on the
lives of the saints,
are other playwrights too, Lakham Deb, Pratap Sharma,
Nizzim Ezekiel, Gurucharan Das who tried their talents
in plays of realism, comedy, tragi comedy, farce and
historical play.
etc.Perseus the Deliverer, Vasavadatta,and Eric were writtenFive playsare notable plays of the period. There
NOVEL
Development of novel in India
The novel as a literacy phenomenon is new to India.
At first there were the translation of western classics
including novels, as a result of the western impact'
on India's cultural front. It was in Bengal that the 'literary
renaissance' first manifested itself. The first novel
written in Bengali was
son of a rich family). The first novel published in English
was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's
wife
Vishavriksha, Anandamath, Devi Chaudhurani
Alaler Gharer Dula (1858) (spoiltRaj Mohan's(1864), followed by 'Durgesa Nandini, Kapal Kundala,
etc. by the same author.
Tagore was a very considerable novelist too. 'Choker
Bali' (Binodini) is his first success followed by 'Yogayog'.
Another great novelist was Saratchandra Chatterjee.
'Srikanta, Grihadaha, Pather Datri, Bi pradas and
Sesprasna' are his works. Tarashankar Banerjee, Bibhu-
Jawaharlal Nehru
ti Bhushan Banerjee, Manik Banerjee, Naini Bhaumik
were a few of the outstanding performers. Bibhuti Bhushan's
Pather panchali
the children Apu and Durga. The vicissitudes of
the Bengali Novel foreshadow more or less the vicissitudes
of the Novel in India.
Before 1947, the English models were the major
outside influence on the Indian novel. After the independence,
the more serious novelist has shown how
the joy of freedom has been more than neutralized by
the tragedy of partition. Novels whose action is set by
the side of a river are a category by themselves. Nirad
C. Chaudhuri has advanced the theory that, for the
Aryans in India, the 'river cult is a symbol of their pre -
Indian existence eg : R.K. Narayan's novels centred in
Malgudi -on-Sarayu, Raja Rao's Kanthapura , the river
Hemavathy is a person and a presence.
History as the theme of creative fiction seems indeed
to exercise a special fascination for many Indian
novelists. R.C.Dutt's,
Ayyar's
to recapture life in Ancient India. Tagore's Home and
the world, 'four chapters', present the issue between
ends and means in politics in context of the revolutionary
movements of the 20th century. Mulk Raj Anand's
portrays two inforgettable characters,The slave girl of Agra, A.S.P.Baladitya, Chanakya and Chandragupta try
The sword and the sickle,
roughly cover the politics of the twenties. Raja Rao's
K.A. Abbas's Inquilab both
Kanthapura
disobedience movement, in the early thirties.
Novels on the 'partition' horrors are numerous eg :
Kushwant Singh's
is the best novel about the Gandhian civilTrain to Pakistan, Manohar Malgonkar's
Distant Drum
are regional novelists like Tara Shankar (Bengal) K.S.
Karant (South Canara), Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (Kuttanad)
who have tried to immortalise in creative fiction
the genius of particular regions or localities. Munshi
Premchand's
the life of the peasants in the difficult period of
transition from the old feudalism to the new wage economy.
Thakazhi's
life of the sea faring folk on the coast of Alleppey.
'Sanyasi' has often figured Indian fiction. R. K.
Narayan's
Kamala Markandeya' s
the Swamy is a faith healer.
, A bend in the Ganges. ThereGodan, Thakazhi's 'Rantitangozhi', describes'Chemmeen' is a poignant record of the'The Guide,' Raju is a 'Swami' by mistake.A silence of Desire and 'possession,
r
––– is the seat of literary renaissance in India
- Bengal
r
The first novel written in Bengali
- Alaler Gharer Dulal
r
First novel published in English
- Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's
Raj Mohan's Wife
r
'Anandamath' is a popular work of
- Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
r
'Pather Panchali' is an outstanding work of
- Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee
r
which records the life of the sea faring folk on the
coast of Alleppey
'Thakazhi's –––– is an example of regional novel,
- Chemmeen
r
of
'A Train to Pakistan' is a pitiless precise picture
- Indo-Pak Partition
r
K.A. Abbas's 'Inquilab' covers the politics of
- The Twenties
Mulk Raj Anand (1905 - 2004)
Of the Indo-Anglian novelists
Mulk Raj Anand has
shown real talent, stamina and
stern consistency of purpose.
As with Bankim Chandra before
him, political action took the form
of writing novels. He wrote of
the people, for the people, and
as a man of the people. '
coolie, Two leaves
and a Bud, The village, Across
the Black waters
There are short stories too.
His untouchable is the most compact and artistically
satisfying , it is the shortest of the novels. As a
writer of fiction, Anand's notable marks are vitality and
a keen sense of actuality. He is a veritable Dickens for
describing the inequities and idiosyncrasies in the current
human situation with candour as well as accuracy.
The titles of his early novels seem to emphasize the
universal as against the particular. He is a committed
writer.
Untouchable,, are his novels.
Mulk Raj Anand
r
Indian literature
––––– is considered as a veritable Dickens in
- Mulk Raj Anand
r
––– is the shortest of Anand's novels
- Untouchable
r
caste boy Bakha is the theme of Mulk Raj Anand's
novel
The events of a single day in the life of the low
- Untouchable
r
––––– in the contemporary society with accuracy
Mulk Raj Anand's novels describes the ––––– and
- Inequities and idiosyncrasies
r
The famous 'Trio' of Indo - Anglian literature
- Mulk Raj Anand
- R.K. Narayan
- Raja Rao
R.K. Narayan (1906 - 2001)
R.K. Narayan is a man of
letters pure and simple. He is one
of the few writers in India who
take their craft seriously, constantly
striving to improve the
instrument, pursuing with a
sense of dedication for perfection.
Swami and his friends
his first novel,
The Dark Room, The English
Teacher, Mr. Sampath, The financial
Expert, Waiting for the
Mahatma. The Guide
has also collected two volumes of his short stories, '
Astrologer's Day, Lawley Road
into several European and Indian languages.
isBachelor of Arts,, etc. HeAn. He has been translated
Swami and friends
novels. He is a master of comedy who is not unaware of
the tragedy of the human situation. He can present smiles
and tears together. In Narayan's novels, there is generally
a flight, an uprooting, a disturbance of order - followed
by a return, a renewal ,a restoration of normalcy.
The soul of his fiction is the miracle of transcendence
and the renewal of life, love, beauty, peace.
is the most enjoyable of the
r
–––– is R.K. Narayan's 'Caster bridge'
- Malgudi
r
English Teacher are
Swami and friends, Bachelor of Arts, and The
- A trilogy of Malgudi - on - Sarayu
r
R.K. Narayan's 'The Guide' won him
- The Sahitya Academy Award in
1960
r
The mode of narration, Narayan uses in 'The Guide'
- (1) Authorial
- (2) Autobiographical
r
'Malgudi Days' is a –––––of R.K. Narayan
- Short Story Collection
Raja Rao
A novelist and a short
story writer, Rao too is a child
of the Gandhian Age and reveals
in his work his sensitive
awareness of the forces let
loose by the Gandhian Revolution
as also of the thwarting
or steadying pulls of past tradition.
His major works are
'Kanthapura
and the Rope
the Barricades, and a collection of short stories.
His short stories are marvellous. In 'Javni', he portrays
a noble soul, a loyal domestic servant Javni. His
half poetical, half whimsical approach to Gandhian politics
sets the tone of Raja Rao's first novel Kanthapura.
The tremors of Gandhi's impact on a south Indian Village
are recorded here in the chatty language of an elderly
widow, and we see everything through the film of
her memory.
His prose have a poised brevity an in candescent
sufficiency. He turns sensibility itself into glowing
prose. His 'The serpent and the Rope' is an ambitious
and meritorious effort at achieving a total projection of
India in vivid fictional terms and it is the most impressive
novel yet written by an Indian in English.
, The serpent, The cat and Shakespeare, The cow of
r
–––– is a veritable Grammar of the Gandhian Myth
- Kanthapura
r
The locale of action of novel 'Kanthapura'
- Kanthapura
r
Kanthapura is regarded as
- A social and regional novel
R.K. Narayan
Raja Rao
r
rich in
According to Raja Rao, every village in India is
- Sthala - Purana
r
'The cat and Shakespeare' is written by
- Raja Rao
Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906-1988)
His five novels -
Mohini, He who Rides a Tiger, A goddess Named Gold,
Shadow from Ladakh
The Sahitya Academic award to him in 1967 was a
fitting recognition of his out standing achievement in
the field of Indian fiction in English. He gives satirical
and humorous sketches in his novels.
So many Hungers, Music forform rather an impressive achievement.
Manohar Malgonkar (1913-)
'Distant Drum' A Bend in the Ganges, Combat of
Shadows, The princes
is a certain maturity about them, and in plotting as well
as in telling his stories he displays an ability that compels
recognition. In these novels he reveals a sound
historical sense.
after the manner of Ian Fleming.
are his prestigious works. ThereSpy in Amber is his latest novel, a thriller
The women novelists
Toru Dutt's Bianca is considered to be the first
novel written by a woman. It was unfinished. There
followed a lot of women writers but only after the second
world war that women novelists of quality have
begun enriching Indian fiction in English.
Kamala Markandeya is an outstanding novelist.
'Nectar in a sieve, Some Inner Fury, A silence of Desire,
Possession, A Handful of Rice, The coffer Dams
are her popular works. Her marks as a novelist is the
sufficiency and suggestiveness of her prose. Kamala
neither repeats herself, nor turns her fiction into a formula.
In her two novels -
in the city'
the achievement of Indian women writers in English
fiction. The intolerable grapple with thoughts, feelings
and emotions is necessarily reflected in the language,
syntax and imagery of her novels.
Other novelists of repute are G.V. Desani (All about
H. Hatterer) M. Ananthanarayanan, Arun Joshi, Khushwant
Singh, O.V. Vijayan and Salman Rushdie.
Among the critics and historians of literature are
K.R. Sreenivasa Iyengar, C.D. Narasimhaiah and M.K.
Naik. Other big names in Indo-Anglian writing include
Ruskin Bond (The Room on the Roof) Amitav Ghosh
(circle of Reason, Shadow Lines) Upamanyu Chatterjee
(English August), Vikram Chandra (Red Earth and Pouring
Rain), Shobha De, and Ginu Kamani.
There are many other talented writers like Manjula
Padmanabhan (The Harvest) Arundhati Roy (The God
of Small Things), Rajkamal Jha (The Blue Bed Spread).
Pulitzer Prize winning Jhumpa Lahiri (The Interpreter of
Maladies, The Name Sake), Rohinton Mistry (Family
Matters). Anurag Mathur (The Inscrutable Americans)
Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu), Ruchira Mukherjee
(Toad in My Garden), Kavita Deswani (Everything Happens
for a Reason). Recent works include Rushdie's Shalimar
the Clown and Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss.
'Cry, the Peacock, and voicesAnita Desai has added a new dimension to
Arundhati Roy
She is a novelist, activist. She won the Booker
Prize in 1997 for her first novel
Roy was born in Assam to a Keralite Syrian mother, the
women’s rights activist Mary Roy, and a Bengali Hindu
father, a tea planter by profession. She spent her childhood
in Aymanam in Kerala, and went to school in Corpus
Christi. She then studied architecture at the Delhi
School of Architecture.
Roy began writing
1992 and finished it in 1996. She received half a million
pounds as an advance, and rights to the book were
sold in 21 countries. The book is semi-autobiographical
and a major part captures her childhood experiences in
Aymanam.
Contrary to some assumptions, Roy is not one of
twins. This misinformation arose from the assumption
that the character of Rahel is based on herself. We see
this in the physical description of the character in her
adulthood and also by some of this character’s interactions
with her mother, Ammu.
The God of Small Things.The God of Small Things in
Books
The God of Small Things (1997), The Greater Common
Good (1999), The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001),
An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire (2004), The End
of Imagination (1998), The Cost of Living (1999), Power
Politics (2002), War Talk (2003).
Vikram Seth
He is an Indian poet, novelist,
travel writer, librettist, children’s
writer, biographer and memoirist.
An unusually forthcoming
writer whose published material is
replete with un- or thinly-disguised
details as to the personal
lives of himself and his intimates
related in a highly engaging narrative
voice. In each of Seth’s novels and in much of
his poetry, there have been central or peripheral gay
themes and characters. Seth is now best known for his
novels, though he has characterised himself as a poet
first and novelist second. He has published five volumes
of poetry. His first,
privately published.His travel book
Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet
was his first popular success and won the Thomas
Cook award for travel writing.
The first of his novels,
indeed a novel in verse about the lives of a number of
young professionals in San Francisco. The novel is
written entirely in rhyming tetrameter sonnets after the
style of Charles Johnston’s 1977 translation of Aleksandr
Pushkin’s
wide acclaim (Gore Vidal dubbed it “The Great California
Novel”) and achieved healthy sales.
After the success of
up residence in his parents’ house back in Delhi to work
on his second novel,
page novel is a four-family saga set in post-independence,
post-Partition India, and alternatively satirically
and earnestly examines issues of national politics in the
period leading up to the first post-Independence national
election of 1952, inter-sectarian animosity, land
reform and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords,
academic affairs, inter- and intra-family relations
and a range of further issues of importance to the characters.
His most recent book,
family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother,
and published in October, 2005.
Seth’s considerable range is demonstrated by the
meticulous historical accuracy of
the finely nuanced cultivated-Indian English of the narrative
voice and the entirely in-character voices of the
principals of the story. In most of Seth’s writing (apart
from
central character), there is a strong, and always engaging
and attractive, narrative persona.
Mappings (1980), was originallyFrom Heaven(1983)The Golden Gate (1986), isEugene Onegin. The verse novel receivedThe Golden Gate, Seth tookA Suitable Boy (1993). The 1349-Two Lives, is a non-fictionA Suitable Boy, withAn Equal Music, narrated in the first person by its
Kiran Desai
She is a South Asian American
author. Her novel
of Loss
Man Booker Prize. She is the
daughter of the noted author
Anita Desai, who short-listed
for the Booker prize three times.
Her first novel,
in the Guava Orchard
published in 1998 and received
accolades from such notable
figures as Salman Rushdie. It went on to win the Betty
Trask Award, a prize given by the Society of Authors
for the best new novels by citizens of the Commonwealth
of Nations under the age of 35.
Her second book,
has been widely praised by critics throughout Asia,
Europe and the United States and won the 2006 Man
Booker Prize.
The Inheritancewon the 2006Hullabaloo, wasThe Inheritance of Loss, (2006)
The Inheritance of Loss
are migration and living in between two worlds and in
between past and present. Set in the 1980s, the book
tells the story of Jemubhai Popatlal Patel, a judge living
out a disenchanted retirement in Kalimpong, a hill station
in the Himalayan foothills, and his relationship with
his granddaughter Sai. Another element in the novel is
the encroachment on their lives by a band of Nepalese
insurgents. Another concern of the novel is the life of
Biju, the son of Mr. Patel’s cook, an illegal immigrant in
New York.
: Among its main themes
Shashi Tharoor
Born in London in 1956, Shashi Tharoor was educated
in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and the United States.
Since 1978, he has worked for the United Nations. On 1
June 2002, he was confirmed as the Under-Secretary-
General for Communications and Public Information of
the United Nations.
The youngest ever Under Secretary General to be
Vikram Seth
Kiran Desai
appointed in the UN, at the age
of 22 he joined the United Nations-
one of the most prestigious
organizations of the world- and
the world witnessed his meteoric
rise through the years. At the
age of 48, he was a candidate to
succeed Kofi Annan as the next
UN Secretary General.
Tharoor is the author of
numerous articles, short stories
and commentaries in Indian and Western publications,
and the winner of several journalism and literary awards,
including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
His books include
study of Indian foreign policy;
Novel
& Other Stories
Reasons of State (1982), a scholarlyThe Great Indian(1989), a political satire; The Five-Dollar Smile(1990); a second novel, Show Business
(1992), which received a front-page accolade from
New York Times Book Review
motion picture titled
to the Millennium
anniversary of India’s independence. On August 13,
2001 Penguin Books (India) published Tharoor’s latest
novel
Theand was made into aBollywood; and India: From Midnight(1997), published on the 50thRiot.
Salman Rushdie
He was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 19 June
1947. His first novel,
His second novel, the acclaimed
Grimus, was published in 1975.
Midnight’s Children
in 1981. It won the Booker
Prize for Fiction, the James
Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction),
an Arts Council Writers’
Award and the English-Speaking
Union Award, and in 1993
was judged to have been the
‘Booker of Bookers’, the best
novel to have won the Booker
Prize for Fiction in the award’s 25-year history. The
novel narrates key events in the history of India
through the story of pickle-factory worker Saleem Sinai,
one of 1001 children born as India won independence
from Britain in 1947. The critic Malcolm Bradbury
acclaimed the novel’s achievement in
British Novel
late-twentieth-century novel.’
The publication in 1988 of his fourth novel,
Verses
and demonstrations by Islamist groups in India and
Pakistan. The book itself centres on the adventures of
two Indian actors, Gibreel and Saladin, who fall to earth
in Britain when their Air India jet explodes. It won the
Whitbread Novel Award in 1988.
Salman Rushdie continued to write and publish
books, including a children’s book,
Sea of Stories
story-telling that won the Writers’ Guild Award (Best
Children’s Book), and which he adapted for the stage.His
most recent novel,
of the third millennium, was published in 2001. He
is also the author of a travel narrative,
, was publishedThe Modern(Penguin, 1994): ‘a new start for theThe Satanic, lead to accusations of blasphemy against IslamHaroun and the(1990), a warning about the dangers ofFury, set in New York at the beginningThe Jaguar Smile
(1987), an account of a visit to Nicaragua in 1986.
Salman Rushdie is also co-author (with Tim Supple
and Simon Reade) of the stage adaptation of
Children
Company in 2002.
His latest novel is
story of Max Ophuls, his killer and daughter, and a fourth
character who links them all. It was shortlisted for the
2005 Whitbread Novel Award.
Midnight’s, premiered by the Royal ShakespeareShalimar The Clown (2005), the
Prizes and Awards
1981
Arts Council Writers’ Award
1981
Booker Prize for Fiction Midnight’s Children
1981
Children
English-Speaking Union Award Midnight’s
1981
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction)
(joint winner)
Midnight’s Children
1983
Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) Shame
1984
Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (France)Shame
1988
Verses
Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Satanic
1988
Whitbread Novel Award The Satanic Verses
Shashi Tharoor
Salman Rushdie
1989
German Author of the Year The Satanic Verses
1992
Kurt Tucholsky Prize (Sweden)
1992
Writers’ Guild Award (Best Children’s Book)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1993
Austrian State Prize for European Literature
1993
celebrate 25 years of the Booker Prize for Fiction)
Booker of Bookers (special award made to
Midnight’s Children
1993
Prix Colette (Switzerland)
1995
Last Sigh
Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Moor’s
1995
Moor’s Last Sigh
British Book Awards Author of the Year The
1995
Whitbread Novel Award The Moor’s Last Sigh
1996
Aristeion Literary Prize
1997
Mantova Literary Prize (Italy)
1998
Budapest Grand Prize for Literature (Hungary)
1999
(France)
Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
1999
Freedom of the City, Mexico City (Mexico)
2005
Clown
Whitbread Novel Award (shortlist) Shalimar The
2006
Best Book)
Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region,(shortlist) Shalimar The Clown
Shakuntala Shrinagesh, Santha Rao, Mrs. Ruth
Prawer Jhabwala, Nayantara Sehgal, are other prominent
women novelists of the period.
r
Dutt
–––– is the first novel written by a woman, Toru
- 'Bianca'
r
Author of 'A Handful of Rice'
- Kamala Markandeya
r
possession are the major work of
Nectar in a sieve, A silence of Desire and
- Kamala Markandeya
r
––––– is the first woman novelist in India
- Toru Dutt
r
'Cry, the Peakcock' is a novel written by
- Anita Desai
PROSE
Emergence of prose in English in India
The western impact, the infusion of English literature
and European thought and the resulting cross -
fertilisation have been the means of quickening the interplay
and circulation of ideas and the emergence of a
new literature, a new climate of hope and endeavour in
the country, and a bold marching towards new horizons.
From the great Ram Mohan Roy flowed divers
streams of renascent activity - religious awakening,
social reform, the new education, women's emancipation,
literary river,' political consciousness' - each carried
forward by its own dedicated spirits.
India is blessed with many great political personalities,
religious men, ascetics, men of letters and scholars.
R. Mohan Roy, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda,
M.N.Roy Gandhiji etc. and the list goes end
less. Vivekananda's appearance and speech in 1893 at
the Chicago Parliament of Religions is part of history.
Several volumes of his complete works, published by
the Advaita Ashram comprise courses of lectures on
different Yogas, on 'Gita' and numerous other essays.
The great freedom movement brought various Orators
to the front. Rajaji , Ranade, Gokhale, Tilak, Nehru
are only a few of them. Besides orators and journalists,
there are historians, philosophers, the jurists, the biographers,
the auto-biographers, essayists, critics, scientists,
economists and sociologists.
Dr. Radhakrishnan (1888 - 1975)
Dr. Radhakrishnan is a
philosopher - Statesman with
an international reputation, a
scholar with a phenomenal
memory, a resourceful and eloquent
and effective speaker,
and a voluminous writer with
an uncanny flair for lucidity
and epigrammatic strength.
The range of his interests, the
sweep of his mind, the commendable
Catholicity of his
tastes and the temper and quality of his eloquence have
Dr. Radhakrishnan
marked this man of 'words and wisdom' a Guru for his
contemporaries.
'The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, The
Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy, Indian
Philosophy, Eastern Religion and Western thought,
the English renderings of
Pada, the Principal Upanishads, Brahma Sutra
some of his works.
his most valuable contribution to constructive
philosophy. He was indeed the greatest, gift given to
Indians and to the world.
Bhagavad Gita, DhammawereAn Idealist View of Life is unquestionably
Dr. Radhakrishnan's birthday is celebrated
as Teachers' Day (September 5)
r
means,
Tagore's popular play is 'Chandalika', the title
- An untouchable girl
r
Parliament of Religion was in
Vivekananda's historical speech at the Chicago
- 1893
r
about the children born in the midnight hour of
India's tryst with Destiny' on 15 August '47.
Indian born Salman Rushdie's novel ––––– is
- Midnight's Children
r
of
Revolutionary - Rishi - Poet; that sums up the life
- Sri Aurobindo
r
the Indian Philosophy
–––––– is considered as the standard treatises on
- Dr. Radha Krishnan's Indian
Philosophy' (1923, 27)
r
Dr. Radhakrishnan is a rare combination of
- Philosopher - States man - Writer
- Scholar
Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897 - 1999)
Nirad C. Chaudhuri is the 'Grand Solitary' among
Indian writers.
A passage to England, The continent of circe, To
live or not to live'
The Autobiography of an unknown Indian,are some of his works. The Autobiography
made him suddenly famous. It is confessedly,
more of a national than personal
history', the environment being
given precedence over the product.
The continent of circe
as 'an essay on the peoples
of India. Apart from his shortcoming
as a writer - a sort of love
hate relationship with India and
people of India - his great merit as
an intellectual is that he is not
ever too lazy to avoid doing his
own thinking or too timid to hesitate to give outspoken
expression to his own views. He has the supreme faith
of the moral man in an amoral society.
is described
r
eminent work of
The Autobiography of an unknown Indian' is an
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri
r
The 'Grand Solitary' among Indian Writers
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri
r
'A passage to England' is written by
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri
r
on the peoples of India.
Nirad Chauduri's –––––– is described as 'an essay
- The continent of Circe
Indo-Anglian Poetry
Though Indo-Anglian poetry can claim to have a
history of 150 years, the early poetry has often been
criticised for its derivative quality. Only 'echoes' could
be heard and not an authentic 'voice'. The poetry of
post Independent period has won critical recognition.
The poetry of Ezekiel, Ramanujan, Kamala Das and
Parthasarathy proved that Indo-Anglian poetry is no
longer
the Indo Anglian poetry was born under a romantic star
in the early Eighteen hundreds. It was Derozio that lisped
in the manner of Byron followed by Madhusudan Dutt
and others. The last quarter of the 19th century saw the
birth of genuine lyrical poetry in Toru Dutt. The early
decades of 20th century witnessed a rich harvest of
mystical poetry written after the romantic and Victorian
manner.
Indo -Anglian poetry has been strengthened by
'a tongue in English chains'. The tradition of
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
modernist as well as neo symbolist trends. Ezekiel, Kamala
Das, Ramanujan, Lal are some of the neo-symbolists.
Today new poets outnumber the novelists and other
men of letters. It was a trickle in the fifties, a stream
during the sixties and now almost a flood.
The 'new' poets
Since the end of world war II, these has been a
visible stir everywhere. A new generation comes up
with a striking individuality of its own, a sharpness in
its features, an angularity in its gestures, a tone of defiance
in its speech, a gleam of hope in its eyes.
The Indo-Anglian poet also strived for self - expression
in English. Several of the poets in the various
regional languages - Balamani Amma, K.M. Panikkar,
Umashankar Joshi, Sri Sri V.K. Gokak, Ramdhari Singh
Dinkar, Amrita Pritam - are efficiently bilingual. In the
post 1947 period, Indo - Anglian poetry acquired a new
currency and even respectability. One grew familiar with
the names of Nizzim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, Leo Fredricks,
A.K. Ramanujan, Shiv K. Kumar, Arun Kolatkar, Keki
Daruwalla and a few others.
The most successful of the New poets, Dom Moraes
has published five volumes - A Beginning, poems,
John Nobody, The Brass Serpent and poems and excellent
biographical works
Home
Son of My Father and Never at.
Nizzim Ezekiel (1924 - 2004)
Another significant new poet has,
change, Sixty poems, The Third, The unfinished man,
The exact name,
take pains, to cultivate reticence, to pursue the profession
of poetry with a sense of commitment, Ezekiel's
poems are lucid, and are splendidly evocative and satisfyingly
sensuous. The recurring note in Ezekiel's recent
poems is the hurt that urban civilization inflicts on
modern man dehumanizing him, and subjecting his virtues
to population and devaluation.
He is a painstaking craftsman in whose poems we
find form. His poetry is simple, introspective and analytical
. He is highly disciplined and unpretentions, His
skilful use of prosody, his restraint, conversational style,
his mastery of irony, his purity of diction and perfect
control over his 'emotions place him on the top of the
modern, Indo - Anglian poets.
is one of his best poems - A simple narrative poem in
which superstitious practices still out grown one juxtaposed
with the scientific developments.
A Time toto his credit. An artist who is willing toThe night of the Scorpion,
r
as crucial point of departure in the history of
Indo-Anglian poetry
–––––– and ––––– and ––––– may be regarded
- Ezekiel's An Exact Name' (1965)
- Ramanujan's 'The striders'
(1966)
- Kamala Das's 'Summer in
Calcutta' (1995)
r
by
'Night of the Scorpion' is a simple narrative poem
- Nizzim Ezekiel
r
The recurring note in Ezekiel's poem
- The pain that urbanism inflicts
on modern man
r
–––– is an incident from the rustic life
- The theme of the poem 'Night of
the Scorpion'.
r
for the comic
Ezekiel uses ––– genre of poems reveal his flair
- Indian English
A.K. Ramanujan (1929 - 1993)
The dominant theme of Ramanujan's poetry is his
preoccupation with the past, his personal as well as
racial. He is one of the most talented of the new poets.
"The striders'
(poems) are some of his great works. He settled in
Chicago, and his 'exile' there has made him consider 'a
search for one's roots' an integral part of his poetry.
There is an awareness of the presence of the past in the
present, and of the strength of a rich culture and tradition,
informs the poetry of Ramanujan. His poetry is an
attempt to repossess the usable past at personal and
racial levels. 'Snakes, River, conventions of Despair,
Small scale reflection are some of his beautiful poems.
Authentic poetic language is the hallmark of Ramanujan's
poetry. He has an enduring concern with Tamil
classical poetry and medieval Kannada literature, his
poetic technique has absorbed the motifs and stylistic
devices of both. All this results in a forceful, meaningful,
personal voice and Ramanujan has established himself
as one of the most talented of the new Indo-Anglian
poets.
a collection of poems in Tamil and Relations,
R. Parthasarathy (1934-)
Of the poets who cultivate an extreme austerity in
style, Parthasarathy is probably the most successful.
'The first step-poems, 1956-66, is his poetic collection.
His best poems reveal an uncommon talent and a sensibility
that deliberately puts shackles on itself. His most
ambitious effort is
Towards an Understanding of India.
He is a conscientious artist with a scrupulous aesthetic
taste. His poetry is the articulation of his predicament,
of an exile who has alienated himself from his
culture. His poetry is an intense search for identity, a
search for roots in his nature, culture environment and
language. The search is realised by an objective probing
of the personal as well as the historic past. The
inner conflicts that are inherent in such a search provide
the basic tension of his poetry.
r
The dominant theme of Ramanujan's poetry is
- Preoccupation with the past.
r
The striders is a poetic collection of
- A.K.Ramanujan
r
poetry
Authentic poetic language is the hallmark of –––
- A.K.Ramanujan's
r
of ––––– poetry
'A search for one's roots' is an important factor
- Ramanujan's
r
prestigious work of
'Towards an understanding of India' is the
- R. Parthasarathy
Kamala Das (1934 -)
Kamala Das is perhaps the most interesting and
appealing among Indo-English poets. Both her life and
her works are so controversial and unconventional as
to invite comments and criticism from readers and critics.
Kamala occupies a position of considerable importance
in post independent Indian writing in English.
Ever since the publication of
1965, her first volume of poetry
in English, She has wielded
great influence as a leading poet
constituting the modern trend
of Indian poetry in English. She
is a confessional poet speaking
out her intimate private experiences
with astonishing honesty
and brutal frankness.
She began writing under
the pen name Madhavikutty, a
bilingual writer. She has written 30 novels in Malayalam.
Her poetic collections,
Descendants, The old play house and other poems
short story collection
and other stories'
Her skill as an artist perfectly matched with her deep
insight into human predicaments - social and psychological.
She is basically a poet of love, an emancipated
poet, feminist, and an iconoclast.
Summer in Calcutta inSummer in Calcutta, The,A Doll for the child Prostituteand My Story her autobiography.
r
Kamala Das's poems are mainly
- Autobiographical
r
her works
The place which Kamala Das always refers to in
- Malabar
r
poetry are -
The two dominating themes of Kamala Das's
- The Search for identity as a
woman
- Nostalgia for her ancestral home
in Malabar
r
Kamala Das is a –––– poet
- Confessional
r
'My story' is the autobiography of
- Kamala Das
r
Madhavikutty is the pen name of
- Kamala Das
r
Kamala Das is an ––––– poet
- Emancipated
Jayanta Mahapatra
Mahapatra is a very subjective poet, draws his
images from his experiences in life which makes him
difficult to interpret. His four volumes of verse are titled
Kamala Das
Close The sky, Ten by Ten, Swayamvara and other poems,
Counter measures, A rain of Rites
most important concept in Mahapatra's poems. Some
of his poems are the genuine products of his imaginative
apprehension of evil in the Indian society.
Gieve Patel, A.K. Mehrotra , Lal, K Satchidanandan,
Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Marylin Noronha, GJV
Prasad are some of the other notable writers.
'. Silence is the
Shashi Deshpande (1938-)
Shashi Despande's first novel The
Terrors
her mother to become a Doctor, defies her caste to
marry outside, and defies social conventions by using
Boozie to advance her career. Sarita and Manu had
made a love marriage, but something soon went wrong.
He is a failure and she has to earn both bread and butter
for the family, her liaison with Boozie means nothing.
Since he is after all impotent, but it gives a vicous sadistic
twist to Manu's relations with her. She escapes for a
while to her parental home, and her mother's curse echoes
still and the ghosts of the past will not leave her in
peace. She strips herself of her self deceptions, guilt
complexes, and emotive illusions, and Shashi Deshpande's
language itself flickers like a candle, and blobs
of remembrance melt and form icicles of furrowing
thoughts. Sarita cannot forget her children or the sick
needing her expert attention, and so she decides to face
her home again. In this unpredictable world, even total
despair can open up a new spring of elemental self confidence
Sarita says . "If we can't believe in ourselves,
we're sunk".
Shashi Deshpande began her literary career in 1970.
At first, she wrote short stories. She wrote four children's
books.
novel. Her other novels are
Today, Come up and Be Dead
Dark holds nopresents an unusual character, Sarita who defiesThe Dark holds No Terrors is her firstThat Long Silence, If I Dieand Roots and Shadows.
r
Mahapatra
––––– is the most successful poem of
- Man of his nights
r
poems
––––– is an important concept in Mahapatra's
- Silence
r
'The Dark holds No Terrors is a –––– novel
- Memory
r
–––– is the first novel of Shashi Deshpande
- The Dark holds No Terrors
r
Sarita and Manu are the principal Characters of
- The Dark holds no Terrors
r
a –––– by profession
In the novel 'The Dark holds no Terrors Sarita is
- Doctor
r
Terrors'
Manu is a character with ––––– in Dark holds no
- Dual Personality
r
The neo-symbolists in Indo-Anglian poetry are
- Ezekiel, Kamala Das, Ramanujan
and Lal.
r
-
The first Indo-Anglian poetHenry Derozio
r
begins with
-
The history of Indian writing - literature in EnglishRaja Ram Mohan Roy.
r
literature
-
–––––– is considered to be the Keats in IndianDerozio
r
of
-
'Sheaf gleaned in French Fields' was a famous workToru Dutt
r
in the world'
-
and Death'
Yeats greeted ____ as one of the most lovely worksMan Mohan Ghose's Songs of Life
r
-
Tagore was awarded the Nobel prize in1913
r
-
Gitanjali Songs are mainly poems ofBhakti
r
is
-
Sri Aurobindo's colossal work of mystical philosophy'The Life Divine'.
r
-
about 24,000 lines.
The prestigious work of Aurobindo is'Savitri ' an epic poem, containing
r
The last of the Indian romantic writers
- Sarojini Naidu
r
is called
The period between the two World Wars in India
- The Gandhian Age
r
of
'My experiments with Truth' is the autobigraphy
- M.K. Gandhi
r
caste boy Bakha is the theme of M.R.Anand's
novel
The events of a single day in the life of the low
- Untouchable'.
r
-
____ is R.K. Narayan's 'Casterbridge'Malgudi
r
English Teacher are
Swami And Friends, Bachelor of Arts, and The
- A trilogy of Malgudi-on-Saryu
r
____ is a veritable Grammar of the Gandhian Myth
- Kanthapura
r
'A Train to Pakistan' is a pitiless precise picture of
- 'Partition' (Indo-Pak)
r
The locale of action of novel 'Kanthapura'
- Kanthapura
r
Kanthapura is regarded as
- A social and regional novel
r
rich in
According to Raja Rao, every village in India is
- Sthala - Purana
r
R.K.Narayan's 'The Guide' won him
- The Sahitya Academy Award in
1960.
r
Kamala Das poems are mainly
- Autobiographical
r
her works
The place which Kamala Das always refers to in
- Malabar
r
poetry are -
The two dominating themes of Kamala Das's
(1) The search for identity as a woman.
(2) Nostalgia for her ancestral home in
Malabar
ISBN
The ISBN (International Standard Book Number)
is a unique machine-readable identification
number, which marks any book unmistakably. This
number is defined in ISO Standard 2108. The number
has been in use now for 30 years and has revolutionised
the international book-trade. 166 countries
and territories are officially ISBN members. The
ISBN accompanies a publication from its production
onwards.
The number consists of ten digits:
4
Group identifier
4
Publisher identifier
4
Title identifier
4
The ISBN is divided into four parts of variable
length, which must be separated clearly by hyphens
or spaces:
Check digit
ISBN
or
0 571 08989 5
ISBN
The number of digits in the first three parts of
the ISBN (group identifier, publisher prefix, title identifier)
varies. The number of digits in the group number
and in the publisher prefix is determined by the
quantity of titles planned to be produced by the
publisher or publisher group. Publishers or publisher
groups with large title outputs are represented
by fewer digits.
Eg :90-70002-34-5

POEM

Pronunciation exercises

2011-09-17T07:33:00.002+05:30

language

grammar Vocabulary or lexis pronunciation

a) Structures (the patterns that can be seen in these are usually called

the language.

b) Words that convey meaning (vocabulary or lexis).

grammar of

Sound, stress, and intonation patterns, which combine to make "Pronunciation".

If you communicate only through the written word, you will need only the first two of these

components. If, on the other hand, you want to be able to understand spoken language, and to

be understood, you’ll need all three components.

Communication is a two-way process:

a) Understanding other people when they speak.

b) Conveying what you want to say so that other people can understand you.

If you have no idea, for instance, that there is an important

"s" and "sh" (phonetically written [s] and [ ] and furthermore you can't distinguish

between the two, you won't know how to react if someone asks you to "bring the seat"

- or was it the sheet? This situation doesn't seem very serious, but it could be. There

are hundreds of stories told of misunderstandings caused by mispronunciation.

Sometimes there is laughter, sometimes people walk out in anger, and on at least one

occasion there was nearly an International Incident. Suppose there were two or three

"mistakes" in your pronunciation. The consequences could be

difference in English between

offence to the listener,

misunderstanding by the listener,

trying to say that he gives up and goes and talks to someone else.

Not a very happy prospect! Let’s minimize the dangers!a listener too exhausted by the effort of trying to interpret what it is you’re
trying to say that he gives up and goes and talks to someone else.
Not a very happy prospect! Let’s minimize the dangers!

Language is a means of communication. It has three components:

pitch and frequency ..........

2011-09-15T03:19:00.001+05:30

pitch

Pitch is an auditory sensation: when we hear a regularly vibrating sound such as a note played on a musical instrument, or a vowel produced by the human voice, we hear a high pitch if the rate of vibration is high and a low pitch if the rate of vibration is low. Many speech sounds are voiceless (e.g. [ s ]), and cannot give rise to a sensation of pitch in this way. The pitch sensation that we receive from a voiced sound corresponds quite closely to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds; however, we usually refer to the vibration frequency as fundamental frequency in order to keep the two things distinct. Pitch is used in many languages as an essential component of the pronunciation of a word, so that a change of pitch may cause a change in meaning: these are called tone languages. In most languages (whether or not they are tone languages) pitch plays a central role in intonation.

fundamental frequency

When voicing is produced, the vocal folds vibrate; since vibration is an activity in which a movement happens repeatedly, it is possible in principle to count how many times per second (or other unit of time) one cycle of vibration occurs; if we do this, we can state the frequency of the vibration. In adult female voices the frequency of vibration tends to be around 200 or 250 cycles per second, and in adult males the frequency is about half of this. It is usual to express the number of cycles per second as Hertz (abbreviated Hz), so a frequency of 100 cycles per second is a frequency of 100 Hz.

Why "fundamental"? The answer is that all speech sounds are complex sounds made up of energy at many different component frequencies (unlike a "pure tone" such as an electronic whistling sound); when a sound is voiced, the lowest frequency component is always that of the vocal fold vibration - all other components are higher. So the vocal fold vibration produces the fundamental frequency. See also pitch.

ACCENT IN PHONETICS

2011-09-15T03:11:00.000+05:30

Accent This word is used (rather confusingly) in two different senses: (1) accent may refer to prominence given to a syllable, usually by the use of pitch. For example, in the word 'potato' the middle syllable is the most prominent; if you say the word on its own you will probably produce a fall in pitch on the middle syllable, making that syllable accented. In this sense, accent is distinguished from the more general term stress, which is more often used to refer to all sorts of prominence (including prominence resulting from increased loudness, length or sound quality), or to refer to the effort made by the speaker in producing a stressed syllable. (2) accent also refers to a particular way of pronouncing: for example, you might find a number of English speakers who all share the same grammar and vocabulary, but pronounce what they say with different accents such as Scots, Cockney or Received Pronunciation (BBC accent). The word accent in this sense is distinguished from dialect, which usually refers to a variety of a language that differs from other varieties in grammar and/or vocabulary.

What is Acoustic Phonetics?

2011-09-15T02:50:00.002+05:30

Acoustic phonetics
An important part of phonetics is the study of the physics of the speech signal: when sound travels through the air from the speaker's mouth to the hearer's ear it does so in the form of vibrations in the air. It is possible to measure and analyse these vibrations by mathematical techniques, usually by using specially-developed computer software to produce spectrograms. Acoustic phonetics also studies the relationship between activity in the speaker's vocal tract and the resulting sounds. Analysis of speech by acoustic phonetics is claimed to be more objective and scientific than the traditional auditory method which depends on the reliability of the trained human ear.

Natural Language Processing-INTRODUCTION

2011-09-09T21:19:00.001+05:30

Natural Language Processing

INTRODUCTION

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the computerized approach to analyzing text that

is based on both a set of theories and a set of technologies. And, being a very active area

of research and development, there is not a single agreed-upon definition that would

satisfy everyone, but there are some aspects, which would be part of any knowledgeable

person’s definition. The definition I offer is:

Definition:

computational techniques for analyzing and representing naturally occurring texts

at one or more levels of linguistic analysis for the purpose of achieving human-like

language processing for a range of tasks or applications.

Several elements of this definition can be further detailed. Firstly the imprecise notion of

Natural Language Processing is a theoretically motivated range of

‘range of computational techniques’

techniques from which to choose to accomplish a particular type of language analysis.

is necessary because there are multiple methods or

‘Naturally occurring texts’

oral or written. The only requirement is that they be in a language used by humans to

communicate to one another. Also, the text being analyzed should not be specifically

constructed for the purpose of the analysis, but rather that the text be gathered from actual

usage.

The notion of

the fact that there are multiple types of language processing known to be at work when

humans produce or comprehend language. It is thought that humans normally utilize all

of these levels since each level conveys different types of meaning. But various NLP

systems utilize different levels, or combinations of levels of linguistic analysis, and this is

seen in the differences amongst various NLP applications. This also leads to much

confusion on the part of non-specialists as to what NLP really is, because a system that

uses any subset of these levels of analysis can be said to be an NLP-based system. The

difference between them, therefore, may actually be whether the system uses ‘weak’ NLP

or ‘strong’ NLP.

can be of any language, mode, genre, etc. The texts can be‘levels of linguistic analysis’ (to be further explained in Section 2) refers to

‘Human-like language processing’

Artificial Intelligence (AI). And while the full lineage of NLP does depend on a number

of other disciplines, since NLP strives for human-like performance, it is appropriate to

consider it an AI discipline.

reveals that NLP is considered a discipline within

‘For a range of tasks or applications’

goal in and of itself, except perhaps for AI researchers. For others, NLP is the means for

points out that NLP is not usually considered a Liddy, E. D. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, 2nd Ed. Marcel Decker, Inc.

accomplishing a particular task. Therefore, you have Information Retrieval (IR) systems

that utilize NLP, as well as Machine Translation (MT), Question-Answering, etc.

Goal

The goal of NLP as stated above is “

The choice of the word ‘processing’ is very deliberate, and should not be replaced with

‘understanding’. For although the field of NLP was originally referred to as Natural

Language Understanding (NLU) in the early days of AI, it is well agreed today that while

the goal of NLP is true NLU, that goal has not yet been accomplished. A full NLU

System would be able to:

1. Paraphrase an input text

2. Translate the text into another language

3. Answer questions about the contents of the text

4. Draw inferences from the text

While NLP has made serious inroads into accomplishing goals 1 to 3, the fact that NLP

systems cannot, of themselves, draw inferences from text, NLU still remains the goal of

NLP.

There are more practical goals for NLP, many related to the particular application for

which it is being utilized. For example, an NLP-based IR system has the goal of

providing more precise, complete information in response to a user’s real information

need. The goal of the NLP system here is to represent the true meaning and intent of the

user’s query, which can be expressed as naturally in everyday language as if they were

speaking to a reference librarian. Also, the contents of the documents that are being

searched will be represented at all their levels of meaning so that a true match between

need and response can be found, no matter how either are expressed in their surface form.

Origins

As most modern disciplines, the lineage of NLP is indeed mixed, and still today has

strong emphases by different groups whose backgrounds are more influenced by one or

another of the disciplines. Key among the contributors to the discipline and practice of

NLP are:

discovery of language universals - in fact the field of NLP was originally referred to as

Computational Linguistics; Computer

representations of data and efficient processing of these structures, and; Cognitive

to accomplish human-like language processing”.Linguistics - focuses on formal, structural models of language and theScience - is concerned with developing internal

Psychology

has the goal of modeling the use of language in a psychologically plausible way.

Divisions

While the entire field is referred to as Natural Language Processing, there are in fact two

distinct focuses – language processing and language generation. The first of these refers

to the analysis of language for the purpose of producing a meaningful representation,

while the latter refers to the production of language from a representation. The task of

Natural Language Processing is equivalent to the role of reader/listener, while the task of

Natural Language Generation is that of the writer/speaker. While much of the theory and

technology are shared by these two divisions, Natural Language Generation also requires

a planning capability. That is, the generation system requires a plan or model of the goal

of the interaction in order to decide what the system should generate at each point in an

interaction. We will focus on the task of natural language analysis, as this is most

relevant to Library and Information Science.

Another distinction is traditionally made between language understanding and speech

understanding. Speech understanding starts with, and speech generation ends with, oral

language and therefore rely on the additional fields of acoustics and phonology. Speech

understanding focuses on how the ‘sounds’ of language as picked up by the system in the

form of acoustical waves are transcribed into recognizable morphemes and words. Once

in this form, the same levels of processing which are utilized on written text are utilized.

All of these levels, including the phonology level, will be covered in Section 2; however,

the emphasis throughout will be on language in the written form.

- looks at language usage as a window into human cognitive processes, and

BRIEF HISTORY OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Research in natural language processing has been going on for several decades dating

back to the late 1940s. Machine translation (MT) was the first computer-based

application related to natural language. While Weaver and Booth (1); (2) started one of

the earliest MT projects in 1946 on computer translation based on expertise in breaking

enemy codes during World War II, it was generally agreed that it was Weaver’s

memorandum of 1949 that brought the idea of MT to general notice and inspired many

projects (3). He suggested using ideas from cryptography and information theory for

language translation. Research began at various research institutions in the United States

within a few years.

Early work in MT took the simplistic view that the only differences between languages

resided in their vocabularies and the permitted word orders. Systems developed from this

perspective simply used dictionary-lookup for appropriate words for translation and

reordered the words after translation to fit the word-order rules of the target language,

without taking into account the lexical ambiguity inherent in natural language. This

produced poor results. The apparent failure made researchers realize that the task was a

lot harder than anticipated, and they needed a more adequate theory of language.

However, it was not until 1957 when Chomsky (4) published

Syntactic Structures

introducing the idea of generative grammar, did the field gain better insight into whether

or how mainstream linguistics could help MT.

During this period, other NLP application areas began to emerge, such as speech

recognition. The language processing community and the speech community then was

split into two camps with the language processing community dominated by the

theoretical perspective of generative grammar and hostile to statistical methods, and the

speech community dominated by statistical information theory (5) and hostile to

theoretical linguistics (6).

Due to the developments of the syntactic theory of language and parsing algorithms, there

was over-enthusiasm in the 1950s that people believed that fully automatic high quality

translation systems (2) would be able to produce results indistinguishable from those of

human translators, and such systems should be in operation within a few years. It was not

only unrealistic given the then-available linguistic knowledge and computer systems, but

also impossible in principle (3).

The inadequacies of then-existing systems, and perhaps accompanied by the overenthusiasm,

led to the ALPAC (Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee of

the National Academy of Science - National Research Council) report of 1966. (7) The

report concluded that MT was not immediately achievable and recommended it not be

funded. This had the effect of halting MT and most work in other applications of NLP at

least within the United States.

Although there was a substantial decrease in NLP work during the years after the ALPAC

report, there were some significant developments, both in theoretical issues and in

construction of prototype systems. Theoretical work in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s

focused on the issue of how to represent meaning and developing computationally

tractable solutions that the then-existing theories of grammar were not able to produce. In

1965, Chomsky (8) introduced the transformational model of linguistic competence.

However, the transformational generative grammars were too syntactically oriented to

allow for semantic concerns. They also did not lend themselves easily to computational

implementation. As a reaction to Chomsky’s theories and the work of other

transformational generativists, case grammar of Fillmore, (9), semantic networks of

Quillian, (10), and conceptual dependency theory of Schank, (11) were developed to

explain syntactic anomalies, and provide semantic representations. Augmented transition

networks of Woods, (12) extended the power of phrase-structure grammar by

incorporating mechanisms from programming languages such as LISP. Other

representation formalisms included Wilks’ preference semantics (13), and Kay’s

functional grammar (14).

Alongside theoretical development, many prototype systems were developed to

demonstrate the effectiveness of particular principles. Weizenbaum’s ELIZA (15) was

built to replicate the conversation between a psychologist and a patient, simply by

permuting or echoing the user input. Winograd’s SHRDLU (16) simulated a robot that

manipulated blocks on a tabletop. Despite its limitations, it showed that natural language

understanding was indeed possible for the computer (17). PARRY (18) attempted to

embody a theory of paranoia in a system. Instead of single keywords, it used groups of

keywords, and used synonyms if keywords were not found. LUNAR was developed by

Woods (19) as an interface system to a database that consisted of information about lunar

rock samples using augmented transition network and procedural semantics (20).

In the late 1970’s, attention shifted to semantic issues, discourse phenomena, and

communicative goals and plans (21). Grosz (22) analyzed task-oriented dialogues and

proposed a theory to partition the discourse into units based on her findings about the

relation between the structure of a task and the structure of the task-oriented dialogue.

Mann and Thompson (23) developed Rhetorical Structure Theory, attributing hierarchical

structure to discourse. Other researchers have also made significant contributions,

including Hobbs and Rosenschein (24), Polanyi and Scha (25), and Reichman (26).

This period also saw considerable work on natural language generation. McKeown’s

discourse planner TEXT (27) and McDonald’s response generator MUMMBLE (28) used

rhetorical predicates to produce declarative descriptions in the form of short texts, usually

paragraphs. TEXT’s ability to generate coherent responses online was considered a major

achievement.

In the early 1980s, motivated by the availability of critical computational resources, the

growing awareness within each community of the limitations of isolated solutions to NLP

problems (21), and a general push toward applications that worked with language in a

broad, real-world context (6), researchers started re-examining non-symbolic approaches

that had lost popularity in early days. By the end of 1980s, symbolic approaches had been

used to address many significant problems in NLP and statistical approaches were shown

to be complementary in many respects to symbolic approaches (21).

In the last ten years of the millennium, the field was growing rapidly. This can be

attributed to: a) increased availability of large amounts of electronic text; b) availability

of computers with increased speed and memory; and c) the advent of the Internet.

Statistical approaches succeeded in dealing with many generic problems in computational

linguistics such as part-of-speech identification, word sense disambiguation, etc., and

have become standard throughout NLP (29). NLP researchers are now developing next

generation NLP systems that deal reasonably well with general text and account for a

good portion of the variability and ambiguity of language.

LEVELS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

The most explanatory method for presenting what actually happens within a Natural

Language Processing system is by means of the ‘levels of language’ approach. This is

also referred to as the synchronic model of language and is distinguished from the earlier

sequential model, which hypothesizes that the levels of human language processing

follow one another in a strictly sequential manner. Psycholinguistic research suggests that

language processing is much more dynamic, as the levels can interact in a variety of

orders. Introspection reveals that we frequently use information we gain from what is

typically thought of as a higher level of processing to assist in a lower level of analysis.

For example, the pragmatic knowledge that the document you are reading is about

biology will be used when a particular word that has several possible senses (or

meanings) is encountered, and the word will be interpreted as having the biology sense.

Of necessity, the following description of levels will be presented sequentially. The key

point here is that meaning is conveyed by each and every level of language and that since

humans have been shown to use all levels of language to gain understanding, the more

capable an NLP system is, the more levels of language it will utilize.

(Figure 1: Synchronized Model of Language Processing)

Phonology

This level deals with the interpretation of speech sounds within and across words. There

are, in fact, three types of rules used in phonological analysis: 1) phonetic rules – for

sounds within words; 2) phonemic rules – for variations of pronunciation when words

are spoken together, and; 3) prosodic rules – for fluctuation in stress and intonation

across a sentence. In an NLP system that accepts spoken input, the sound waves are

analyzed and encoded into a digitized signal for interpretation by various rules or by

comparison to the particular language model being utilized.

Morphology

This level deals with the componential nature of words, which are composed of

morphemes – the smallest units of meaning. For example, the word

be morphologically analyzed into three separate morphemes: the prefix

preregistration canpre, the root

registra,

across words, humans can break down an unknown word into its constituent morphemes

in order to understand its meaning. Similarly, an NLP system can recognize the meaning

conveyed by each morpheme in order to gain and represent meaning. For example,

adding the suffix

This is a key piece of meaning, and in fact, is frequently only evidenced in a text by the

use of the

Lexical

At this level, humans, as well as NLP systems, interpret the meaning of individual words.

Several types of processing contribute to word-level understanding – the first of these

being assignment of a single part-of-speech tag to each word. In this processing, words

that can function as more than one part-of-speech are assigned the most probable part-ofspeech

tag based on the context in which they occur.

Additionally at the lexical level, those words that have only one possible sense or

meaning can be replaced by a semantic representation of that meaning. The nature of the

representation varies according to the semantic theory utilized in the NLP system. The

following representation of the meaning of the word

predicates. As can be observed, a single lexical unit is decomposed into its more basic

properties. Given that there is a set of semantic primitives used across all words, these

simplified lexical representations make it possible to unify meaning across words and to

produce complex interpretations, much the same as humans do.

launch (a large boat used for carrying people on rivers, lakes harbors, etc.)

((CLASS BOAT) (PROPERTIES (LARGE)

(PURPOSE (PREDICATION (CLASS CARRY) (OBJECT PEOPLE))))

The lexical level may require a lexicon, and the particular approach taken by an NLP

system will determine whether a lexicon will be utilized, as well as the nature and extent

of information that is encoded in the lexicon. Lexicons may be quite simple, with only

the words and their part(s)-of-speech, or may be increasingly complex and contain

information on the semantic class of the word, what arguments it takes, and the semantic

limitations on these arguments, definitions of the sense(s) in the semantic representation

utilized in the particular system, and even the semantic field in which each sense of a

polysemous word is used.

Syntactic

This level focuses on analyzing the words in a sentence so as to uncover the grammatical

structure of the sentence. This requires both a grammar and a parser. The output of this

level of processing is a (possibly delinearized) representation of the sentence that reveals

the structural dependency relationships between the words. There are various grammars

that can be utilized, and which will, in turn, impact the choice of a parser. Not all NLP

applications require a full parse of sentences, therefore the remaining challenges in

parsing of prepositional phrase attachment and conjunction scoping no longer stymie

those applications for which phrasal and clausal dependencies are sufficient. Syntax

conveys meaning in most languages because order and dependency contribute to

meaning. For example the two sentences:

the dog.’

Semantic

This is the level at which most people think meaning is determined, however, as we can

see in the above defining of the levels, it is all the levels that contribute to meaning.

Semantic processing determines the possible meanings of a sentence by focusing on the

interactions among word-level meanings in the sentence. This level of processing can

include the semantic disambiguation of words with multiple senses; in an analogous way

to how syntactic disambiguation of words that can function as multiple parts-of-speech is

accomplished at the syntactic level. Semantic disambiguation permits one and only one

sense of polysemous words to be selected and included in the semantic representation of

the sentence. For example, amongst other meanings,

folder for storing papers, or a tool to shape one’s fingernails, or a line of individuals in a

queue. If information from the rest of the sentence were required for the disambiguation,

the semantic, not the lexical level, would do the disambiguation. A wide range of

methods can be implemented to accomplish the disambiguation, some which require

information as to the frequency with which each sense occurs in a particular corpus of

interest, or in general usage, some which require consideration of the local context, and

others which utilize pragmatic knowledge of the domain of the document.

Discourse

While syntax and semantics work with sentence-length units, the discourse level of NLP

works with units of text longer than a sentence. That is, it does not interpret multisentence

texts as just concatenated sentences, each of which can be interpreted singly.

Rather, discourse focuses on the properties of the text as a whole that convey meaning by

making connections between component sentences. Several types of discourse processing

can occur at this level, two of the most common being anaphora resolution and

discourse/text structure recognition. Anaphora resolution is the replacing of words such

as pronouns, which are semantically vacant, with the appropriate entity to which they

refer (30). Discourse/text structure recognition determines the functions of sentences in

the text, which, in turn, adds to the meaningful representation of the text. For example,

newspaper articles can be deconstructed into discourse components such as: Lead, Main

Story, Previous Events, Evaluation, Attributed Quotes, and Expectation (31).

Pragmatic

This level is concerned with the purposeful use of language in situations and utilizes

context over and above the contents of the text for understanding The goal is to explain

how extra meaning is

requires much world knowledge, including the understanding of intentions, plans, and

goals. Some NLP applications may utilize knowledge bases and inferencing modules. For

example, the following two sentences require resolution of the anaphoric term ‘they’, but

this resolution requires pragmatic or world knowledge.

and the suffix tion. Since the meaning of each morpheme remains the same–ed to a verb, conveys that the action of the verb took place in the past.-ed morpheme.launch is in the form of logical‘The dog chased the cat.’ and ‘The cat chaseddiffer only in terms of syntax, yet convey quite different meanings.‘file’ as a noun can mean either aread into texts without actually being encoded in them. This

The city councilors refused the demonstrators a permit because

violence.

The city councilors refused the demonstrators a permit because

revolution.

they fearedthey advocated

Summary of Levels

Current NLP systems tend to implement modules to accomplish mainly the lower levels

of processing. This is for several reasons. First, the application may not require

interpretation at the higher levels. Secondly, the lower levels have been more thoroughly

researched and implemented. Thirdly, the lower levels deal with smaller units of analysis,

e.g. morphemes, words, and sentences, which are rule-governed, versus the higher levels

of language processing which deal with texts and world knowledge, and which are only

regularity-governed. As will be seen in the following section on Approaches, the

statistical approaches have, to date, been validated on the lower levels of analysis, while

the symbolic approaches have dealt with all levels, although there are still few working

systems which incorporate the higher levels.

APPROACHES TO NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Natural language processing approaches fall roughly into four categories: symbolic,

statistical, connectionist, and hybrid. Symbolic and statistical approaches have coexisted

since the early days of this field. Connectionist NLP work first appeared in the 1960’s.

For a long time, symbolic approaches dominated the field. In the 1980’s, statistical

approaches regained popularity as a result of the availability of critical computational

resources and the need to deal with broad, real-world contexts. Connectionist approaches

also recovered from earlier criticism by demonstrating the utility of neural networks in

NLP. This section examines each of these approaches in terms of their foundations,

typical techniques, differences in processing and system aspects, and their robustness,

flexibility, and suitability for various tasks.

Symbolic Approach

Symbolic approaches perform deep analysis of linguistic phenomena and are based on

explicit representation of facts about language through well-understood knowledge

representation schemes and associated algorithms (21). In fact, the description of the

levels of language analysis in the preceding section is given from a symbolic perspective.

The primary source of evidence in symbolic systems comes from human-developed rules

and lexicons.

A good example of symbolic approaches is seen in logic or rule-based systems. In logicbased

systems, the symbolic structure is usually in the form of logic propositions.

Manipulations of such structures are defined by inference procedures that are generally

truth preserving. Rule-based systems usually consist of a set of rules, an inference engine,

and a workspace or working memory. Knowledge is represented as facts or rules in the

rule-base. The inference engine repeatedly selects a rule whose condition is satisfied and

executes the rule.

Another example of symbolic approaches is semantic networks. First proposed by

Quillian (10) to model associative memory in psychology, semantic networks represent

knowledge through a set of nodes that represent objects or concepts and the labeled links

that represent relations between nodes. The pattern of connectivity reflects semantic

organization, that is; highly associated concepts are directly linked whereas moderately or

weakly related concepts are linked through intervening concepts. Semantic networks are

widely used to represent structured knowledge and have the most connectionist flavor of

the symbolic models (32).

Symbolic approaches have been used for a few decades in a variety of research areas and

applications such as information extraction, text categorization, ambiguity resolution, and

lexical acquisition. Typical techniques include: explanation-based learning, rule-based

learning, inductive logic programming, decision trees, conceptual clustering, and K

nearest neighbor algorithms (6; 33).

Statistical Approach

Statistical approaches employ various mathematical techniques and often use large text

corpora to develop approximate generalized models of linguistic phenomena based on

actual examples of these phenomena provided by the text corpora without adding

significant linguistic or world knowledge. In contrast to symbolic approaches, statistical

approaches use observable data as the primary source of evidence.

A frequently used statistical model is the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) inherited from

the speech community. HMM is a finite state automaton that has a set of states with

probabilities attached to transitions between states (34). Although outputs are visible,

states themselves are not directly observable, thus “hidden” from external observations.

Each state produces one of the observable outputs with a certain probability.

Statistical approaches have typically been used in tasks such as speech recognition,

lexical acquisition, parsing, part-of-speech tagging, collocations, statistical machine

translation, statistical grammar learning, and so on.

Connectionist Approach

Similar to the statistical approaches, connectionist approaches also develop generalized

models from examples of linguistic phenomena. What separates connectionism from

other statistical methods is that connectionist models combine statistical learning with

various theories of representation - thus the connectionist representations allow

transformation, inference, and manipulation of logic formulae (33). In addition, in

connectionist systems, linguistic models are harder to observe due to the fact that

connectionist architectures are less constrained than statistical ones (35); (21).

Generally speaking, a connectionist model is a network of interconnected simple

processing units with knowledge stored in the weights of the connections between units

(32). Local interactions among units can result in dynamic global behavior, which, in

turn, leads to computation.

Some connectionist models are called localist models, assuming that each unit represents

a particular concept. For example, one unit might represent the concept “mammal” while

another unit might represent the concept “whale”. Relations between concepts are

encoded by the weights of connections between those concepts. Knowledge in such

models is spread across the network, and the connectivity between units reflects their

structural relationship. Localist models are quite similar to semantic networks, but the

links between units are not usually labeled as they are in semantic nets. They perform

well at tasks such as word-sense disambiguation, language generation, and limited

inference (36).

Other connectionist models are called distributed models. Unlike that in localist models, a

concept in distributed models is represented as a function of simultaneous activation of

multiple units. An individual unit only participates in a concept representation. These

models are well suited for natural language processing tasks such as syntactic parsing,

limited domain translation tasks, and associative retrieval.

Comparison Among Approaches

From the above section, we have seen that similarities and differences exist between

approaches in terms of their assumptions, philosophical foundations, and source of

evidence. In addition to that, the similarities and differences can also be reflected in the

processes each approach follows, as well as in system aspects, robustness, flexibility, and

suitable tasks.

Process:

namely, data collection, data analysis/model building, rule/data construction, and

application of rules/data in system. The data collection stage is critical to all three

approaches although statistical and connectionist approaches typically require much more

data than symbolic approaches. In the data analysis/model building stage, symbolic

approaches rely on human analysis of the data in order to form a theory while statistical

approaches manually define a statistical model that is an approximate generalization of

the collected data. Connectionist approaches build a connectionist model from the data.

In the rule / data construction stage, manual efforts are typical for symbolic approaches

and the theory formed in the previous step may evolve when new cases are encountered.

In contrast, statistical and connectionist approaches use the statistical or connectionist

model as guidance and build rules or data items automatically, usually in relatively large

quantity. After building rules or data items, all approaches then automatically apply them

to specific tasks in the system. For instance, connectionist approaches may apply the

rules to train the weights of links between units.

Research using these different approaches follows a general set of steps,

System aspects:

from data analysis, rules, and basis for evaluation.

By system aspects, we mean source of data, theory or model formed

- Data:

are usually not directly observable. Statistical and connectionist approaches are built on

the basis of machine observable facets of data, usually from text corpora.

As mentioned earlier, symbolic approaches use human introspective data, which

- Theory or model based on data analysis:

formed for symbolic approaches whereas a parametric model is formed for statistical

approaches and a connectionist model is formed for connectionist approaches.

As the outcome of data analysis, a theory is

- Rules:

detailed criteria of rule application. For statistical approaches, the criteria of rule

application are usually at the surface level or under-specified. For connectionist

approaches, individual rules typically cannot be recognized.

For symbolic approaches, the rule construction stage usually results in rules with

- Basis for Evaluation:

judgments of unaffiliated subjects and may use system-internal measures of growth such

as the number of new rules. In contrast, the basis for evaluation of statistical and

connectionist systems are usually in the form of scores computed from some evaluation

function. However, if all approaches are utilized for the same task, then the results of the

task can be evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively and compared.

Evaluation of symbolic systems is typically based on intuitive

Robustness:

input. To deal with anomalies, they can anticipate them by making the grammar more

general to accommodate them. Compared to symbolic systems, statistical systems may be

more robust in the face of unexpected input provided that training data is sufficient,

which may be difficult to be assured of. Connectionist systems may also be robust and

fault tolerant because knowledge in such systems is stored across the network. When

presented with noisy input, they degrade gradually.

Symbolic systems may be fragile when presented with unusual, or noisy

Flexibility:

examples, symbolic systems may lack the flexibility to adapt dynamically to experience.

In contrast, statistical systems allow broad coverage, and may be better able to deal with

unrestricted text (21) for more effective handling of the task at hand. Connectionist

systems exhibit flexibility by dynamically acquiring appropriate behavior based on the

given input. For example, the weights of a connectionist network can be adapted in realtime

to improve performance. However, such systems may have difficulty with the

representation of structures needed to handle complex conceptual relationships, thus

limiting their abilities to handle high-level NLP (36).

Since symbolic models are built by human analysis of well-formulated

Suitable tasks:

identifiable linguistic behavior. They can be used to model phenomena at all the various

linguistic levels described in earlier sections. Statistical approaches have proven to be

effective in modeling language phenomena based on frequent use of language as reflected

in text corpora. Linguistic phenomena that are not well understood or do not exhibit clear

regularity are candidates for statistical approaches. Similar to statistical approaches,

connectionist approaches can also deal with linguistic phenomena that are not well

understood. They are useful for low-level NLP tasks that are usually subtasks in a larger

problem.

To summarize, symbolic, statistical, and connectionist approaches have exhibited

different characteristics, thus some problems may be better tackled with one approach

while other problems by another. In some cases, for some specific tasks, one approach

may prove adequate, while in other cases, the tasks can get so complex that it might not

be possible to choose a single best approach. In addition, as Klavans and Resnik (6)

pointed out, there is no such thing as a “purely statistical” method. Every use of statistics

is based upon a symbolic model and statistics alone is not adequate for NLP. Toward this

end, statistical approaches are not at odds with symbolic approaches. In fact, they are

rather complementary. As a result, researchers have begun developing hybrid techniques

that utilize the strengths of each approach in an attempt to address NLP problems more

effectively and in a more flexible manner.

Symbolic approaches seem to be suited for phenomena that exhibit

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING APPLICATIONS

Natural language processing provides both theory and implementations for a range of

applications. In fact, any application that utilizes text is a candidate for NLP. The most

frequent applications utilizing NLP include the following:

surprising that so few implementations utilize NLP. Recently, statistical approaches

for accomplishing NLP have seen more utilization, but few systems other than those

by Liddy (37) and Strzalkowski (38) have developed significant systems based on

NLP

Information Retrieval – given the significant presence of text in this application, it is

recognition, tagging, and extraction into a structured representation, certain key

elements of information, e.g. persons, companies, locations, organizations, from large

collections of text. These extractions can then be utilized for a range of applications

including question-answering, visualization, and data mining.

Information Extraction (IE) – a more recent application area, IE focuses on the

•

potentially relevant documents in response to a user’s query, question-answering

provides the user with either just the text of the answer itself or answer-providing

passages.

Question-Answering – in contrast to Information Retrieval, which provides a list of

•

empower an implementation that reduces a larger text into a shorter, yet richlyconstituted

abbreviated narrative representation of the original document.

Summarization – the higher levels of NLP, particularly the discourse level, can

•

NLP have been utilized in MT systems, ranging from the ‘word-based’ approach to

applications that include higher levels of analysis.

Machine Translation – perhaps the oldest of all NLP applications, various levels of

•

envisioned by large providers of end-user applications. Dialogue systems, which

usually focus on a narrowly defined application (e.g. your refrigerator or home sound

system), currently utilize the phonetic and lexical levels of language. It is believed

that utilization of all the levels of language processing explained above offer the

potential for truly habitable dialogue systems.

CONCLUSIONS

While NLP is a relatively recent area of research and application, as compared to other

information technology approaches, there have been sufficient successes to date that

suggest that NLP-based information access technologies will continue to be a major area

of research and development in information systems now and far into the future.

Acknowledgement

Grateful appreciation to Xiaoyong Liu who contributed to this entry while she was a

Ph.D. student and a Research Assistant in the Center for Natural Language Processing

in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.Dialogue Systems – perhaps the omnipresent application of the future, in the systems

Linguistic tasks on translation corpora for developing resources for manual and machine translation

2011-09-09T16:45:00.001+05:30

Niladri Sekhar Dash and Pronomita Basu
In this paper we have made an attempt to discuss some of the theoretical
issues related to linguistic tasks to be carried out on translation corpora for
developing varieties of linguistic resources and tools required in machine
translation. Although attempts have been made for developing translation
corpora as well as systems, tools and approaches for machine translation or
machine-aided human translation, attention is hardly paid to some of the
basic linguistic works, which are indispensable for achieving success in these
areas. Even though it is known that generation of translation corpora is an
essential part of machine translation, which can contribute to enhance
robustness of a translation system, we have not yet focussed on how these
translation corpora are going to be used in the work. Keeping this issue open
we have addressed some of the basic linguistic activities related to analysis of
translation corpora, which include extraction of translational equivalents
from corpora; development of bilingual dictionaries; generation of
terminology databank; selection of lexical resources; dissolving lexical
ambiguities; and generation of a network of grammatical mapping with close
reference to lexical mapping, pragmatic and sentential information. In our
argument, a machine translation system will become more efficient and robust
if it is empowered with linguistic resources developed from linguistic activities
carried out on translation corpora.
Keywords:
bilingual dictionary, terminology databank, lexical selection, lexical ambiguity,
grammatical mapping, lexical mapping, corpora, Bengali.
1. Introduction
Translation corpora, after these are systematically compiled and properly aligned (Dash 2008:
77-81) become accessible for several linguistic activities, which are indispensable for
developing linguistic resources required for machine translation. In fact, accurate and
effective execution of the linguistic activities on translation corpora becomes useful for
generating necessary linguistic resources required not only for machine translation but also
for manual translation, since direct utilization of these resources enhances speed, robustness,
and accuracy of both types of translation. In our view, the linguistic activities that need to be
carried out on translation corpora include:
(a) Linguistic analysis of translation corpora developed both in the source language and the
target language
(b) Extraction of translational equivalents from the translation corpora
(c) Development of bilingual dictionaries for source language and target language
(d) Generation of terminology databank for source language and target language
3
(e) Selection of appropriate lexical items for translation
(f) Dissolving the problems of lexical ambiguity, and
(g) Developing grammatical mapping for the sentences of source and target language with
reference to lexical mapping, pragmatic, and sentential information.
In the following sections of this paper we have addressed all the issues with reference to the
Indian language corpora along with a focus on English as the source language and Bengali as
the target language.
2. Linguistic Analysis of Translation Corpora
Within the area of machine translation research, the central point of debate has been the
question about the level of complexity involved in the task of translation corpora analysis.
The general argument is that unless a large number of linguistic phenomena widely occurring
in natural language texts are analysed and overtly represented, a high quality machine
translation output is unattainable (Isabelle et al. 1993). It is also argued that problems like
lexical ambiguity and constituent mapping can be dissolved with the help of abundant
knowledgebase obtained from corpora and this may be stored in lexicon and grammar of each
language involved in translation (Dash 2007: 137-178). This, however, asks for proper
execution of rigorous processes of translation corpora analysis that make explicit some or all
of the translation correspondences that link up segments of source texts with those of their
translations in the target texts.
For the sake of effective linguistic analysis of translation corpora, we argue for using
techniques of part-of-speech (POS) tagging of words and shallow parsing of sentences for
acquiring better translational outputs. In these works a corpus analyser are supported with
standard grammars available in a language or acquired from previously processed corpora.
The main objective is to develop bilingual lexical databases by extracting appropriate words,
terms, phrases, and idiomatic expressions considered appropriate as translation equivalents.
These outputs can be used to increase electronic lexical database of a language as well as for
developing materials for language teaching.
The POS tagging can be executed automatically by comparing texts included in the
source language and the target language corpora following the probabilistic matching
procedure (Chanod and Tapanainen 1995). Although some of the adjectives may be
translated in this manner as nouns in the target language or vice-versa, traditional lexical
categories mentioned in standard grammars and dictionaries available in the source and the
target language can help us to resolve grammatical ambiguities, if they arise. The basic
proposition is, at this particular phase, the traditional grammatical categories of words can
have strong referential impacts on the quality of POS tagging, as a translation system with
fewer grammatical categories of words can have better rate of success than a system with a
list of lexical database having exhaustive grammatical categories.
3. Extraction of Translational Equivalents from Translation Corpora
The search for translational equivalents in translation corpora begins with those lexical items
that express similar meanings or senses in the both languages. This is usually done manually
4
at the early stage of translation corpora analysis. Once these items are found in the corpora,
these need to be stored in alphabetical order in separate lexical list for future utilization.
Usually, translation corpora produce large number of translational equivalent lexical items,
which are potential to be used as alternative forms in translation. The basic factor that
determines the selection of appropriate equivalent forms is measured on the basis of recurrent
patterns of their usage in the corpora. Moreover, equivalent forms are verified with texts of
monolingual corpora from which translation corpora are developed. A general scheme for
extracting a list of translational equivalents from the bilingual translation corpora is presented
below (Figure 1).
PHASE - I PHASE - II
↓ ↓
Source language corpora Target language corpora
↓ ↓
Search in the source language corpora Search in the target language corpora
↓ ↓
Identification of lexical items Identification of similar lexical items
↓ ↓
Recording meanings of lexical items Recording meanings of lexical items
↓ ↓
Storage of lexical items and their
meanings
Storage of lexical items and their
meanings
↓ ↓
Matching of lexical items and their meanings in both corpora
↓
Generation of a List of Translational Equivalents
↓
Storage of translational equivalents in a separate lexical database
Figure 1 Extraction of translational equivalents from source and target language corpora

It should be clearly understood that, even between the two closely related languages,
translational equivalents seldom mean the same senses in all contexts, since these are seldom
distributed in same types of syntactic and grammatical construction. Moreover, semantic
connotation and degree of formality of equivalent forms may vary depending on languagespecific
contexts. Sometimes, a lemma of the target language may fail to be an equivalent to a
lemma of the source language, even though they appear equivalent in sense. Although twoway
translation may be possible with proper names and scientific terms, it hardly succeeds
with ordinary lexical items used in different senses in the corpora (Landau 2001: 319). This
implies that in case of autonomous machine translation system, translation of ordinary texts
will face severe problems due to difference in senses of lexical items. To overcome the
problem, we require manual intervention in selection of translational equivalents to yield
better outputs in translation.
With regard to extraction of translational equivalents from translation corpora will not
only help machine translation workers but also others engaged in compiling bilingual lexical
5
databases. In essence, the extraction of translational equivalents from translation corpora will
include the following activities:
Retrieving appropriate translational equivalents for content words such as nouns,


adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc.

prepositions, postpositions, conjunctions, articles, etc.

collocations, and proverbs.

‘naturalness’ of the target language.

which we have limited access.

stored in translational databases.
The process of extracting translational equivalents from the source language and the target
language and their subsequent verification for authentication with monolingual corpora is
described below (Figure 2). Since finding out equivalent units from translation corpora is not
an easy task, we need to use various searching methods to trace the comparable units similar
in meaning but are often larger and more complex in form than words. Once these are
retrieved and implemented into translation platforms, these can facilitate translations more
effectively than the customary translation memories. We may also integrate findings from
corpora with bilingual dictionaries and term banks to enrich machine translation
knowledgebase for the battles ahead.
Figure 2 Verification and authentication of translational equivalents

Within machine translation research there are great diversities in approaches that use little or
no information of traditional linguistics. Also, there are theoretical works that characterize the
expressiveness and complexities of different formalisms of languages as well as empirical
works that assess modelling and descriptive adequacy across various language pairs.
Following these formalism we can use aligned translation corpora to create better equivalents
for more accurate translational outputs.
Source language corpora Target language corpora
Cross-verification of translational equivalents
Translation in target language Translation is source language
Final authentication of translational equivalents
6

The third impart work of translation corpora analysis is the development of bilingual
dictionary the lack of which has been one of the great bottlenecks in present machine
translation activities (Geyken 1997). The dictionaries available in market are not good
enough to compensate this, since these dictionaries normally do not contain enough
information about lexical sub-categorisation, lexical selection restriction, and domains of
application of lexical items in the lexical information they provide. Since it is possible now to
extract information about sub-categorisation information of lexical items from the POS
tagged, there is hardly any problem to include this information in a bilingual dictionary
(Brown 1999). Even when POS-tagged corpora are not readily available, bilingual
dictionaries can be developed from the untagged corpora available in the source language and
the target language.
Words Bengali words Oriya words
Relational
terms
bābā ‘father’, mā ‘mother’,
māsi ‘aunt’, māmā ‘uncle’,
bapā ‘father’, mā ‘mother’, māusi
‘aunt’, māmu ‘uncle’
Pronouns āmi ‘I’, tumi ‘you (gen.)’, pni ‘you (h)’, tui ‘you (non-h)’

ā
mu ‘I’, tume ‘you (gen.)’,
ā
Nouns lok ‘person’, ghar ‘home’,
hāt ‘hand’, mandir ‘temple’
loka ‘person’, ghara ‘home’,
hāta ‘hand’, mandira ‘temple’
Adjectives bhāla ‘good’, manda ‘bad’,
satya ‘true’, mithyā ‘false’
bhala ‘good’, manda ‘bad’,
satya ‘true’, michā ‘false’
Verbs ýāchhi ‘I/we am/are going’,
khāba ‘I/we shall eat’
ýāuchi ‘I/we am/are going’, khāibā

‘I/we shall eat’
Postpositions mājhe ‘in the middle’,
pāśe ‘beside’, upare ‘above’
majhire ‘in the middle’,
pāśe ‘beside’, upare ‘above’
Indeclinable kintu ‘but’, bā ‘or’ kintu ‘but’, bā ‘or’
Table 1 Translational equivalents from Bengali and Oriya corpora

Development of a bilingual dictionary is best possible within those languages, which are
genealogically linked (e.g., Hindi-Urdu, Bengali-Oriya, and Tamil-Malayalam, etc.), since
genealogically related languages share many common properties (both linguistic and nonlinguistic)
hardly found in non-related languages. Also, there is a large chunk of regular
vocabulary similar to each other not only in their orthographic representation but also in
sense, content, meaning, and connotation. For example, we have presented above a sample
list of similar words, which can be used as suitable translational equivalents for the two
genealogically related languages - Bengali and Oriya (Table 1).
For compiling bilingual dictionary, we can use POS tagged corpora in various ways.
Albeit there are variations in use of POS tagged corpora, in most cases, the goals are the
following:
Retrieval of large comparable syntactic blocks like clauses, phrases and sentences from


bilingual translation corpora.

from the POS tagged corpora.
7

idiomatic expressions, etc. from the corpora.1 Selection of appropriate lexical items as translational equivalents based on their


similarity in form, meaning, and usage in source and target language.
In spite of close linguistic proximities between two genealogically related languages, one
cannot expect hundred percent similarity of lexical stock at morphological, lexical, syntactic,
semantic, and conceptual level. Therefore, with all information extracted from corpora, aCore Grammar is the best solution, which will categorically highlight all kinds of linguistic

similarities across the two languages. Although this kind of grammar is yet to be developed
among the genealogically related Indian languages, present availability of Indian language
corpora recently developed (Dash 2009) can help us to achieve great success in generation of
bilingual dictionary for the task at hand.
5. Generation of Terminology Databank
Selection and use of appropriate technical and scientific terms is an important attribute of a
good translation system, which asks for proper identification of the terms in source and target
language corpora. The primary task of a linguist is to search through the corpora of source
language and the target language and to select the appropriate terms that may be considered
translational equivalents or near-equivalents for scientific ideas, items and concepts. While
doing this, a linguist has to keep in mind various issues regarding the appropriateness,
usability, grammaticality and acceptance of the terms in the source language and the target
language. However, the most crucial issue is lexical generativity of the terms by which many
new words are possible to generate through activation of various word-formation strategies
(Aronoff 1981: 25) used in the languages.2

A linguist has another important role in choice of an appropriate term from a large list
of multiple terms coined by different persons to represent a particular idea, event, item, or
concept. It is observed that recurrent practice of forming new technical terms often goes to
such an extreme that a machine translation system designer is at loss to decide which term to
select over the other suitable terms. Debate also arises whether one should generate new
terms or accept terms of the source language already absorbed in the target language by
regular usage and reference. It has been also observed that some technical terms are absorbed
to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to trace their actual origin. In that case, a
machine translation system designer has no problem, as these terms are already accepted in
the target language. For instance, the Bengali people can have no problem in understanding
several English terms like computer, mobile, calculator, telephone, tram, bus, cycle, taxi,
rickshaw, train, machine, pen, pencil, pant, road, station, platform, etc., since these are
accepted in Bengali along with the respective items. The high frequency of their use in
various texts makes them a part of the Bengali vocabulary. Therefore, there is no need to
replace these terms at the time of developing terminology databank.3

The translation corpora of the target language are good resources for selection of
appropriate technical and scientific terms expressing new concepts and ideas borrowed from
the source language. Since these corpora are made up with varieties of texts full of new
terms, idioms, expressions and phrases, they can provide valuable resources of context-based
8
use of terms to draw sensible conclusions. In sum, reference to translation corpora contributes
in two important ways.
(a) They help to collect all technical terms, expressions and phrases entered into the target
language along with information of dates and fields of their entry and usage.
(b) They provide all possible native coinages of terms, expressions and phrases along with
respective domains and frequency of their usage in the language.
These two factors can help us to determine on relative acceptance or rejection of the scientific
and technical terms. The examination of instances derived from the Bengali text corpus (Dash
2005, Ch. 9) shows how a target language corpus can become highly useful in selection of
appropriate terms ― an essential part for translation.

The selection of the most appropriate lexical items from the target language corpora as
suitable translation equivalents for lexical items of the source language text is another
complex task in translation that requires careful interference of linguists well-versed in both
the source and target language. It implies that a linguist has to select appropriate terms from a
large collection of conceptually similar forms available in target language text, which are
nearest in sense to the terms selected from the source language text. A typical example of this
is the use of verbs depending on the status of the agent (actor). In Bengali, for example, the
use of verb referring ‘act of eating’ is highly restricted in use depending on the honour of the
agent used as the subject of a sentence. Let us consider, for elucidation, the following
examples:
1(a) English: God takes food (Subject: God)
Bengali: bhagabān prasād grahaṇ karen

1(b) English: A great man eats (Subject: great man)
Bengali: mahāpuruṣ bhojan karen

1(c) English: A gentleman eats (Subject: gentleman)
Bengali: bhadralok āhār karen

1(d) English: A common man eats (Subject: common man)
Bengali: sādhāraṇ lok khāy

1(e) English: A layman eats (Subject: laymen)
Bengali: choṭalok gele

If we scrutinise the examples presented above, we can find out that the selection of
appropriate equivalent term in Bengali for English eat is controlled by the status of agent
(i.e., subject) referred to in sentences. If the person in source language text is a divine man,
then the equivalent term is prasād grahaṇ karen (1a), for a great man it is bhojan karen (1b),
for a gentleman it is āhār karen (1c), for a common man it is khāy (1d), and for a layman

9
belonging to the lowest social status marked by the scales of social prestige, it is gele (1e),
although, in all cases, the core meanings of the terms are same: ‘to take or eat food’.
In case of technical and scientific terms, selection of appropriate terms becomes far
more complicated if the contexts of use of the terms in the source language across the fields
of discourse are not considered. For instance, consider the following examples where the
English term deliver can be translated into Bengali with a wide variation of choice depending
on the context of use of the term in the source language (i.e., English).
2(a) English: Mrs. Sen delivered a child in the hospital
Bengali: Mrs. Sen hāspātāle ekṭi santāner janma diyechen

2(b) English: Prof. Basu delivered a lecture on child education
Bengali: adhyāpak Basu śiśuśikṣār upar ekṭi baktṛ tā dilen

2(c) English: The courier boy has delivered the packet
Bengali: kuriyāyer cheleṭi pyākeṭṭi põuche diyeche

2(d) English: The bowler delivered a googly in the last over
Bengali: śeṣ obhāre bolārṭi ekṭi gugli bal karlo

The examples cited above shows that the English term deliver carries four different senses in
the source language, which have to be translated in an appropriate manner into the target
language taking into consideration the context of use of the term. In the field of childbirth, the
most appropriate term in Bengali is janma deoyā, in lecture in the class or at a mass rally it is

baktṛ tā deoyā, in postal distribution or supply of goods it is põuche deoyā, and in the game of
cricket it is bal karā. The most interesting thing is that what it means in the field of childbirth
is not same in supply of goods, lecture in class, and in the game of cricket. This signifies that
by considering the domain of use of terms in the source language, we have to select the
appropriate terms in the target language. In most cases, evidences collected from corpora can
legitimatize the beautility and acceptance of translation outputs.
The primary task of a linguist is to find out the appropriate lexical items considering
various factors latently involved within the two languages considered for translation. The
examples show that lexical selection has to be taken care of for generating sensible
translation outputs. Although the problem is handled elegantly in manual translation, it is a
great hurdle in machine translation. The best way to overcome the problem in machine
translation is to enlist beforehand all semantically similar forms in a separate lexical list
within a machine readable dictionary (MRD) to be accessed in later in translation. Such a
lexical database is easy to extract from translation corpora in both manual and machine
translation activities.
Usually, there are several domains within a MRD ― a resource capable to provide all
relevant information about the selection of lexical items. Therefore, whenever we analyse
translation corpora, we need to identify the subject area to which the text belongs for storing
the list of terms related to this domain. For instance, when we analyse an English text related
to mass media, it makes sense that we select the relevant terms from the English text and
store them in a separate lexical database. Similarly, we can execute the same kind of task on
the target language text to collect and store lexical terms in a lexical database in the subject
area ‘mass media’. However, complexities will arise when a single term of the source
10
language will denoted different senses in the target language. For example, English terminform can have several senses in Bengali depending on the domain of use of term, as the list

(Table 2) shows. The examples imply that a translator has to select the most appropriate
lexical item considering the domain, to which he is going to translate the source language
text. Until this issue is systematically dealt with, appropriate output cannot be achieved in the
target language.
English
word
Bengali equivalents
(Selection is based on domain)
↓ ↓
inform jānāno (Giving general news or information to people)
inform raṭāno (Spreading rumour or false information around)
inform pracār (Canvassing information for one and all)
inform bijñāpan (Advertising an item or product, etc.)
inform sampracār (Broadcast and telecast of news and information)
inform bijñapti (Government circulars or notices for all people)
inform ghoṣaṇā (Declaring an event of public reference and interest)
inform Dhārābhāṣya (Running commentary of games and sports)
inform istehār (Campaign and propaganda of political isms)
inform Pratibedan (Reporting a piece of news in papers)
inform kīrtan (Highlighting someone’s achievement)
Table 2 Selection of lexical items based on the domain of use of items

The selection of appropriate phrases, set expressions, idiomatic expressions, and proverbial
statements is another complex task which demands careful search through bilingual
translation corpora for collection appropriate translational equivalent forms (Geyken 1997).
The best solution is to generate a bilingual database for these resources and store it in MRD
for future usage. For instance, given below is a sample list of idioms and proverbial forms
(Table 3) collected from English corpora with their translational equivalents obtained from
the Bengali text corpus (Dash 2009).
English idioms and phrases Bengali equivalent forms
Apple of one’s eye chokher maṇi
Crocodile’s tear kumīrer kannā

A bedlam narak guljār karā

Blue blood nīl rakta
Bolt from the blue binā meghe bajrapāt
Paddle your own canoe nijer carkāy tel deoyā

On cloud nine saptam svarge
A cock and bull story āsāṛe galpa
A white elephant śvet hastī

By hook or by crook ýena tena prakāreṇa
Horns of a dilemma ubhay saṅkaṭ

To add insult to injury kāṭā ghāye nuṇer chiṭe
To carry coal to New Castle telā māthāy tel deoyā

Once in a blue moon kāle bhadre
11
In the nick of time śeṣ samaye
Pour oil on troubled water agnite ghṛtāhuti deoyā

Raining in cats and dogs muṣaldhāre bṛiṣṭipāt
Black sheep Kulāṅgār
Writing on the wall deoyāler likhan
To cry in wilderness Araṇye rodan
Table 3 Phrases and idioms taken from English and Bengali corpora

Generation of such a list of idioms, phrases and proverbs from the source language and the
target language corpora enhances quality and robustness of machine translation, since this
database can be used to capture the figurative senses of expressions found in the source
language and the target language for stylistic representation as well as for better
comprehension of translational outputs.

In normal situation, a linguistic communication transfers information from the producer to
the receiver by using language as a vehicle. Sometimes, however, this transfer of information
is not free from ambiguity ― one of the most common yet highly complex phenomena of a
natural language (Dash 2005). It is observed that ambiguity may arise due to several factors,
one of which is inadequacy in the internal meaning associated with a lexical item or due to
structure of an utterance used in a particular event of communication. Thus, ambiguity is
classified into three broad types.4

(a) Lexical ambiguity (e.g., They went to the bank),
(b) Referential ambiguity (e.g., He loves his wife), and
(c) Syntactic ambiguity (e.g., Time flies like an arrow).
In case of lexical ambiguity, a speaker uses a single word to refer to more than one sense,
event, idea, or concept. This creates problem for a listener in capturing the actual intended
meaning of a word. The problem intensifies further when the language of the speaker differs
from that of a listener. Since a machine translation system is intended to be developed with
some perceptions of mental representation of a speaker, it is limited by words and sentences
used by the speaker.
To overcome the problem, we need to map the source language lexicon with the
equivalent in the target language lexicon, which will be used as an appropriate frame in
particular contexts of text representation. In some situations, the target language may not
have an equivalent lexical item, which is fit to represent the actual sense of a term used in
source language. In such cases, we have to either depend on multi-word units (such as,
multiword units, compounds, idioms, phrases, and clauses, etc.) or use the explanatory
addendum to deal with such situations.
For dissolving lexical ambiguities, the easier solution is to find out methods for
locating contexts of use of words as well as analyse the contextual profiles of the lexical
items. Recent experiments with translation corpora (Ravin and Leacock 2000, Cuyckens and
Zawada 2001) reveal that lexical ambiguity is mostly resulted from multiple readings of a
12
word, and these readings most often differ in selection of lexical, syntactic and semantic
features of words, such as, tense, aspect, modality, case, number, gender, idiomatic readings,
figurative usage and so on. As avid supporters of the Corpus-Based Machine Translation

system (Dash 2007: Ch. 5), we argue to overcome the problem of lexical ambiguity with
reference to the context of their occurrence in a piece of text collected in corpora. In that case
we need to identify the large number of ambiguous words that usually occur in natural texts
and analyse them properly as well as mark them accordingly to achieve higher accuracy in
translation. If possible, we should analyse the ambiguous words with information gathered
from translated texts and with semantic information stored in the MRD.5

Taking cues from domain-specific translation outputs, we can go for deep semantic
analysis of words which, however, is not always required for translation. For instance,
English head may be translated in Bengali as māthā, no matter in which of the many senses
the word is used in the source language text. Therefore, it is better that we go for a simple
word analysis scheme and use a more direct source language to target language substitution
in place of deep semantic analysis of ambiguous words. At certain contexts, it is possible and
necessary to ignore lexical ambiguities with a hope that the same ambiguity will be carried to
the target language. This is useful in those cases where we aim at dealing with only a pair of
related languages within a highly restricted domain. However, since analysis of lexical
ambiguities is meant to produce non-ambiguous representation in the target language, we
cannot ignore it in case of translation of texts belonging to general domains (Isabelle and
Bourbeau 1985: 21).
The type of transformation we referred to in the following example (3a) is known as

grammatical mapping in translation. Here, words of source language text are ‘mapped’ with
words of target language text to obtain meaningful translation outputs. In machine translation,
there are various ways for mapping of linguistic forms used in a language (e.g.,
morphological, lexical, grammatical, phrasal, clausal, etc.), the most common one of which is
grammatical mapping related to verb forms within the two languages considered for
translation.
The issue of grammatical mapping becomes relevant in machine translation between
the two languages, which are different in lexical ordering in sentence formation. In the
present context, while we talk about machine translation from English to Bengali, this
becomes optimised in proportion, since while English has SVO structure (e.g., He eats rice)
in sentence formation, Bengali has SOV structure (e.g., se bhāt khāy) within the same
framework. Therefore, grammatical mapping and reordering of lexical items is required for
producing the acceptable outputs in Bengali. For example, consider the sentence given below
(3a) as well as the mapping (Figure 3).
3(a) English: All his efforts ended in smoke
Bengali: tār samasta ceṣṭā byārtha hala
13
English All his efforts ended in smoke
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Literal output samasta
(1)
tār
(2)
ceṣṭā
ś
(4)
-te
(5)
dhõyā

(6)
Actual output tār
(2)
samasta
(1)
ceṣṭā

(3)
byārtha
(4-5-
hala
-6)
Bengali (2) (1) (3) (7)
Figure 3 Grammatical mapping between English and Bengali sentences

Figure 3 shows that for achieving accurate output with acceptable word order in the target
language, words used in the sentence of the source language text need to be mapped with
words used in the target language in the following manner:

English [a] = Bengali [1] (word to word mapping)
English [b] = Bengali [2] (word to word mapping)
English [c] = Bengali [3] (word to word mapping)
English [d] = Bengali [4] (group of words for single word)
English [e] = Bengali [5] (use of case marker for preposition)
English [f] = Bengali [6] (word to word mapping)
However, we must understand that lexical mapping is not the only solution by which we can
obtain accurate translation output in the target language. The input sentence of the source
language text (English) also contains an idiomatic expression (i.e., ended in smoke), which
requires some pragmatic knowledge to find a similar idiomatic expression in the target
language (Bengali) to achieve greater accuracy in translation. Therefore, we need to employ
pragmatic knowledgebase to select appropriate equivalent idiomatic expression from the
target language texts in the following manner:

English: [d-e-f] (an idiomatic expression)
Bengali: [7 (<4-5-6)] (similar translation equivalent)
The machine translation system needs the information that ended in smoke in the source
language text has to be translated as byārtha hala in target language text when the expression
is used in idiomatic sense. After the selection of appropriate and equivalent idiomatic
expression from the target language text, we are in a position to claim that the output
sentence is grammatically mapped to such an extent that intended sense of the input sentence
is maximally represented in the output. After this comes the stage of sequential ordering of
words in the sentence of the target language text so that the output sentence becomes
grammatically valid in the target language text. For this, the following information becomes
handy.
14

Sequence in English sentence: [a + b + c + (d + e + f)]
Sequence in Bengali sentence: [2 + 1 + 3 + 7 (<4+5+6)]
What it shows that after proper application of several linguistic strategies like lexical
mapping, selection of appropriate idiomatic expression (if any), and sequential ordering, we
finally get tār samasta ceṣṭ ā byārtha hala as a valid translation output in the target language
(Bengali). Such grammatical mapping from one structure to another is highly useful for
producing appropriate translations which are accepted as ‘normal’ sentences in the target
language.
In the task of analysing sentence structures of the source and target language texts,
translated corpora are particularly useful, which we can use to map the sequence of word
order (at linear level) between the source and target language texts to yield information about
the structure of NPs, APs, VPs, PPs, and other properties used in the languages considered
for translation.
No English Bengali
(a) in hands hāte (< hāt[n] + -e[loc case])
(b) with person loker (< lok[n] + -er[gen case] ) + saṅge[post-p])
(c) by mistake bhulbaśata (< bhul[n] + baśata[Adv])
(d) in house ghare (< ghar[n] + -e[loc case])
(e) in house gharer madhye (< ghar[n] + -er[gen case] + madhye[pp])
(f) at night rāte (< rāt[n] + -e[loc case])
Table 4 Mapping of preposition and postposition between English and Bengali

The grammatical mapping also highlights the lexical interface underlying the surface
structures of sentences and the nature of lexical dependency underlying the surface
constructions in the source and target language texts. For example, in case of translating
prepositions (e.g., at, for, up, by, in, of, with, etc.) used in English, we need to decide whether
we should use postpositions or case markers to have correct outputs in Bengali. For
elucidation, consider the examples given above (Table 4).
The above examples (Table 4) show that in English, prepositions are used before
nouns to evoke case relation (a, d, f), adverbial sense (c) and postpositional sense (b, e).
However, in Bengali, these senses are achieved by using case markers (a, d, and f),
postpositions (b and c), or both case markers and postpositions (e). Also the table provides
information about their position in respect to the content words with which these functional
words are attached to generate the appropriate outputs (Figure 4).
English: It is in his hand
Bengali: eṭā tār hāt- -e (ache)
Figure 4 Position of postposition with respect to content words

15
From the examples and analyses presented above it is almost clear that the task of proper
grammatical mapping is an essential linguistic part of machine translation, which cannot be
ignored if we intend to achieve even marginal success in this area.

Linguistic analysis of translation corpora is an indispensable task that helps to develop
necessary resources to get better translation outputs. It involvers several works such as
analysis of translation corpora, development of bilingual lexical database, extraction of
translational equivalents, generation of terminology database, making appropriate lexical
selection, dissolving lexical ambiguity, and developing suitable grammatical mapping
between the languages. Also we need to determine which linguistic units of the target
language are more likely to correlate with of linguistic units of the source language.
The most sensible method for making these activities feasible is to analyse translation
corpora as training corpora, since analysis will help us to find out all kinds of linguistic
information required in translation. It is, however, not necessary to analyse all sentences used
in translation corpora, as analysis of a set of token sentences will serve and suffice initial
purposes. After analysis of translation corpora, we shall obtain linguistic resources of three
types
(a) Examples of strong matching where linguistic items such as words, terms, phrases,
idioms, and sentences, etc. are similar in form, meaning, and usage both in source and
target languages.
(b) Examples of approximate matching where linguistic items are similar in meaning but
different in form and usage in the two languages.
(c) Examples of weak matching where linguistic items are different in form, meaning and
usage in the two languages.
In case of translating texts from Bengali to Oriya, most of the linguistic items will belong tostrong matching, since the language are genealogical linked and ire originated from the

source mother. But, in case of translating texts from English to Bengali, most of the linguistic
items will belong to weak matching, as languages belong to two different typologies. In such
a situation, if fifty percent similarity is obtained from the translation corpora of the two
languages, one can go for using them in translation. In essence, systematic analysis of
translation corpora, methodical extraction linguistic resources from corpora as well as
judicious application of outputs will make machine translation as realized dream.

Machine translation is an applied field, the impetus for progress of which mostly comes from
elegant handing of linguistic and extralinguistic resources. Since this is highly specialized
domain, it is a test bed for theories and applications related to linguistics, language
technology, and artificial intelligence. While working in this domain we want to verify if
theories of syntax, semantics, and discourse are compatible to it, if standard lexicon and
grammar are fruitfully utilised in it, and if algorithms of text processing, parsing, word sense
16
disambiguation, machine learning, and pragmatic interpretations are applicable to it. Thus,
machine translation turns into an ideal field for comprehensive evaluation of various theories
of language as well as for development and testing a wider range of linguistic phenomena
abundant within natural languages.
Since translation corpora are indispensable resources both in manual and machine
translation, we can focus only on processing, analysis, and access of corpora with an
assumption that analysable translation corpora (properly aligned and readily comparable) are
already compiled and provided to the people involved in the task. The activities we have
proposed here are not only suitable for machine translation from English to Bengali, but also
for any other languages included in the task of machine translation. These are also applicable
for most of the Indian languages, which are interested to develop useful translation corpora
between English and the Indian languages for similar purposes. The utilities of the linguistic
resources generated from analysis of translation corpora can be further attested in language
teaching, electronic dictionary compilation, machine learning, grammar development, and
language cognition.
For Indian languages, translation corpora are basic requirements, which are however,
yet to be developed for any two genealogically related languages. We, therefore, urgently
need to develop translation corpora, which will be accessible for developing machine
translation system for the Indian languages. In fact, availability of translation corpora in
Indian languages will make significant contribution to supplement traditional methods of
translation, because information obtained from analysis of translation corpora will minimises
distance between the Indian languages. The secret motive behind this work is to argue for
development of translation corpora in the Indian languages so that we can take a step forward
towards development of a machine translation system for the Indian languages.
1
etc. in both the corpora such as
There are several identical adverbial and adjectival phrases, idiomatic expressions and set phrases,gatānugatik jībandhārā ‘stereotype life’, biśeṣ bhābe paricita
‘specially known’,
These can be put to a list of ‘lexical collocation’ of a bilingual dictionary for better access and
application in machine translation and other linguistic works.
satata paribartanśīl ‘ever changing’, sāṅ skṛ itik anuṣṭ hān ‘cultural function’, etc.
2
compounding, loan translation, blending, etc.) for generating new lexical items in a language. For
instance, consider the process of word formation in Bengali following English by analogy:
There are several word formation strategies (e.g., derivation, inflection, affixation, analogy,electric =
bidyut
, electrical = baidyutik, electronic = baidyutin, etc.
3
corpus shows that there are more than thousand English terms, which are regularly used by Bengali
people. Surprisingly, none of these terms are allowed to enter in standard Bengali dictionaries. This
shows the lack of proper information about the language use on the part of dictionary makers. We,
therefore, ask for immediate revision of standard Bengali dictionaries with English words and terms
collected from the modern Bengali corpus databases.
From a simple calculation of English terms in Bengali vocabulary obtained from the Bengali text
4
divergence are available in the work of Dorr (1994). Divergence in Hindi texts is addressed in Gupta
and Chatterjee (2003).
In machine translation ambiguities are referred to as examples of divergence. Some discussions on
17
5
realistic nor feasible (Grishman and Kosaka 1992). They also argue that, “it must be kept in mind that
a translation process does not necessarily require full understanding of the texts. Ambiguities may be
preserved during a translation
Rimon and Berry 1988).
The rationalists argue that such a work of information acquisition from translated texts is neither― and they should be presented to the users for resolution” (Ari,
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CUYCKENS, Hubert and ZAWADA, Britta (eds.). 2001.
nd International Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in MachinePittsburgh, pp. 1-11.Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,Proceedings of the MTI-99, Montreal, Canada, pp. 22-32.Proceedings of the EACL SGDAT Workshop on Form Texts to Tags Issues in, Dublin. pp. 58-64.Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001.
DASH, Niladri Sekhar. 2005. Corpus-based machine translation across Indian languages: from theory
to practice. In
DASH, Niladri Sekhar. 2005. Role of context in word sense disambiguation. In
66(1-4): 159-175.
DASH, Niladri Sekhar. 2005.
Indian Languages. New Delhi: Mittal Publication, 2005.
DASH, Niladri Sekhar. 2007.
2007.
DASH, Niladri Sekhar. 2008.
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Germany: Verlag Dr Muller Publications, 2009.
DORR, Bonnie Jean. 1994. Machine translation divergences: a formal description and proposed
solution. In
GEYKEN, Alexander. 1997. Matching corpus translations with dictionary senses: two case studies.In
Language In India. 5(7): 12-35.Indian Linguistics.Corpus Linguistics and Language Technology: With Reference toLanguage Corpora and Applied Linguistics. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad,Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson-Longman,Corpus-based Analysis of the Bengali Language. Saarbrucken,Computational Linguistics. 20(4): 597-633.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics.
2(1): 1-21.
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GRISHMAN, Ralph, KOSAKA, Margaret. 1992. Combining rationalist and empiricist approaches to
machine translation. In
GUPTA, Deepa, CHATTERJEE, Niladri. 2003. Divergence in English to Hindi machine translation:
some studies. In
ISABELLE, Pierre, BOURBEAU, Laurent. 1985. TAUM-AVIATION: its technical features and
some expert mental results. In
ISABELLE, Pierre, DYMETMAN, Marc, FOSTER, George, JUTRAS, Jean-Marc,
MACKLOVITCH, Elliott, PERRAULT, Francois, REN, Xiaobo, SIMARD, Michel. 1993.
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Dr Niladri Sekhar Dash
Linguistic Research Unit
Indian Statistical Institute
203, Barrackpore Trunk Road
Kolkata - 700108, West Bengal, India
niladri@isical.ac.in
Homepage: http://www.isical.ac.in/~niladri
Ms Pronomita Basu
Dept. of Linguistics
University of Calcutta
College Street Campus
Kolkata – 700 073
West Bengal, India
basuprono@gmail.com
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on web page <SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics [online]. 2010, vol. 7, no. 2 [cit. 2010-06-30]. Availablehttp://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTL16/pdf_doc/01.pdf>. ISSN 1339-782X.

Notes

10. Conclusion

9. The System Module

(c) Sentential Information:

(b) Pragmatic Information:

(a) Lexical Mapping:
eṣ hala

(3)

8. Defining the Pattern of Grammatical Mapping

7. Dissolving Lexical Ambiguity

6. Selection of Appropriate Lexical Item
Extraction of frequently used nominal, adverbial and adjectival phrases, set phrases, andExtraction of various subcategorised constituents like subjects, objects, predicates, etc.
pana ‘you (h)’, tu ‘you’ (non-h)’

4. Compilation of Bilingual Dictionary
Generating terminology databases from new texts, which are neither standardised norCreating new translation databases for translating correctly into those languages onLearning how the language corpora help to produce translated texts that displayRetrieving multiword translational equivalents such as idioms, phrases, compounds,Retrieving appropriate translational equivalents for function words like pronouns,
translation corpora, machine translation, translational equivalents,

Linguistic tasks on translation corpora for developing resources for

manual and machine translation

SUPRA-SEGMTAL PHONETICS,PHONEMES

2011-09-09T11:03:00.001+05:30

Phonemic particles that we have so far been considering such as vowels, consonants, diphthongs, etc. are called segmental phonemes. They contribute to the meaning of a speech segment. Apart from this class of segmental phonemes, there is another class of particles that’ play equally important role. These are supra-segmental phonemes.

Features of stress, pitch, intonation and juncture comprise this class, and are said to be ‘overlaid’ on the segmental units. It is difficult to imagine human communication without these features. They invariably accompany our speech and lend the additional dimension which is mote immediately and directly understood. These features convey the speaker’s identity, attitudes, emotional states and his/her evaluation of how he/she is being received. Often, in the totality of communicational situation, a listener doesnot pay so much attention to the wards as he does to the rise and fall of pitch, volume of voice, stress and pauses, and so on. He understands the meaning by simply responding to these extra-linguistic indices.

We will now look at these features or phonemes a little more closely.

Stress

Physiologically, stress means greater articulatory effort. By putting stress on particular segments we give it greater prominence. Various types of meaning are conveyed by distributing stress pattern over speech segments in a controlled manner.

Two types of stress can he established

1. Word stress (or accent)

2. Phrasal (or sentence stress)

Word Stress

In words made up of more than one syllable, some syllable stands out from others. In a word like fable it is the first syllable that receives ‘stress’ or more articulatory energy which results in its’ sounding louder and longer than the other syllable’ the second syllable here. The distribution of stress over the word fable can be shown in this manner – fa-ble.

In monosyllabic words – these words may contain more than one phoneme, but that doesnot matter-stress falls on the only syllable they contain:

l /ai/ (single phoneme word)

see /si:/ (two-phoneme word)

cat /kaet/ (three-phoneme word)

flame /fleim/ (four-phoneme word)

tract /traekt/ (five-phoneme word)

In words made of more than one syllable, the stress is distributed over the syllables; one of the syllables is pronounced with greater syllabic energy or prominence. In words like sector and enable, the first syllable is prominent in sector and the second syllable in enable.

The syllable that is strongly stressed is called a strong syllable and weakly stressed syllable is called weak syllable. In sector, sec is strong syllable and-tor weak syllable. In enable, en is weak syallable and no srong syllable followed a weak –bl. In polysyllabic words the stressed syllable may be more than one, for example these words – understand, appetizing examination. Syllabic division is shown as follows:

Un-der-stand; ap-pe-ti-zing; e-xa-mi-na-tion.

A polysyllabic word is graded in terms of the release of syllabic energy. It can be seen that from the strongest to the less strong to the weak, we can easily perceive different parts carrying these stresses. For example, in a word like consolidation, the strongest stress falls on the fourth syllable /-dei-/, the next prominent syllable is the second one, the other syllables carry weak stresses.

One reason why the fourth syllable is the strongest is that the pitch of the voice changes on this syllable. Therefore, this is also called primary stress or tonic stress. A strong stress accompanied by a pitch-change or pitch movement is known as primary stress. Roger Kingdon says that ‘the prominence of a syllable is also affected by its pitch; high-pitched syllables sound more prominent than low-pitched ones’.

Stress features are thus divided into the following levels:

1. Primary stress

2. Secondary stress

3. Tertiary stress

4. Weak stress

The strongest release of syllabic energy accompanied by a potential change of pitch direction marks the primary stress. The next strong stress is called secondary stress. Primary stress is represented by the half straight bar [‘], and the secondary stress by the bar placed at the bottom before the syllable that is stressed. Thus in apple the primary stress is on the first syllable ‘apple; so with ‘father; but in ga’rage it is on the second syllable. The word understand carries a primary and a secondary stress indicated as /unders’tand. Tertiary stress is weaker than the secondary stress and close to weak or unmarked stress. It is somewhat difficult to define and describe it. The two identically pronounced words nightrate and nitrate, show that the second example has a tertiary stress while in night rate rate carries the secondary stress. A weak stress is always left unmarked. Here the pitch is low and the vowel lax as in to’bacco.

Stress pattern in English has to be learned; there is nothing in a syllable itself which indicates that it may receive stress or not. In some disyllabic words the first syllable is stressed, for example ‘writer, ‘bellow, ‘coral, ‘glimmer, ‘ginger, while other disyllabic words have the second syllable sressed: re’cord, be’low, con’sort (vb), di’sable. Compared to the unstressed syllable, the vowel in a stressed syllable is longer. Similarly, a long vowel becomes reduced in length when it occurs in an unaccented syllable.

Stress Shift

It has been observed that stress shifts in derivative words. The following table shows how different derivative words take stress on different syllables.

Table

1^st syllable 2^nd syllable 3^rd syllable

‘fraternise fra’ternity

‘fragility fra’gile

‘fragment frag’ment fragmen’tation

Or’thographer ortho’graphic

‘syllable sy’llabify syllabifi’cation

‘product pro’duce produc’tivity

‘excavate exca’vation

‘excellence ex’cel

‘photograph pho’tographer photo’graphic

Shift of Primary Stress in Syllables

In derived words also there is no predictability about the placement of stress. However, an interesting aspect of the stress distribution is that for noun/adjective, stress is on the first syllable and for verb it is on the second syllable.

Noun/Adjective Verb

‘produce pro’duce

‘import imp’ort

‘subject sub’ject

‘perfect per’fect

‘record re’cord

‘contract con’tract

Compound Word Stress

Compound word consists of two words, which are written as one word. Mostly the nuclear, tonic or primary stress falls on the first syllable of the first word as in ‘postman, ‘batsman, ‘chairman, etc. Distribution of stress varies greatly according to the syllabic composition of the compound words.

Primary stress on the first syllable

‘Honeymoon, ‘honey suckle, ‘market day, ‘main spring, ‘long shore, ‘live stock, ‘liveryman.

Primary stress on the first, secondary on the third syllable

‘borderline, firebrigade, copyright

Primary stress on the first, secondary on the fourth syllable

National issue, labour exchange, cabinet maker

Primary stress on the third, secondary on the first syllable

Secondhand, country farm, easygoing, seargent major

Phrasal Stress

Although words have more or less fixed stress in connected speech, the intonational and contextual imperatives guide a speaker’s choice of stress. Longer utterances, clauses and segments can show changes in stress pattern. This is accompanied by the rise and fall in the pitch level. For example in a sentence like

Bring those chairs closer

different words can be stressed in the manner shown below:

bring those chairs closer

bring those chairs closer

bring those chairs closer

bring those chairs closer

Each of the above examples conveys a different meaning. Normally, content words receive the primary stress, grammatical words donot As T. Balasubramanian says, ‘The choice of the syllable receiving primary accent depends on the meaning the speaker wants to convey’.

Speech Rhythm

In connected speech certain words receive the primary stress and other words are unstressed. A pattern of alternations between the stressed and unstressed words is formed. If we consider the sentence, see the cat on the roof we will find that the second, the fourth and the fifth syllable are unstressed; the third and the sixth words are stressed. It is the tendency among the English speakers to crowd together the unstressed syllables between the two stressed syllables. The effect is a rhythm which makes English a stress-timed language.

There is another process that produces the characteristic English rhythm, that of weakening of the accent on certain words. In connected speech stress tends to be re-arranged due to elision and assimilation. Syllables that in isolated expressions appear stressed may be unstressed in such instances. Form-words, like articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions and other elements may show this, where consonant and vowel quality of the weak form is affected. Let us look at these sentences.

a. I shall let you have it transcribed as

/ai òl let ju: hæv it/; the verb shall has become weak and is represented as /òi/ instead of /òæl/.

b. Lend me the book, I’d read it transcribed as

/lend me buk, aid ri:d it/; would becomes simply /d/ here.

a. There was a book on the table transcribed as

/ðәwәzә buk nðә teibl/; note the weakening of vowels in there /ðeә/ ® /ðә/ and was /wz/ ® /wәz/.

We can, therefore, say that such words have two forms; a strong form (in isolation) and a weak form (in raid speech). Below are listed a few words with the two forms.

Strong form Weak form

æt әt /t

bai b∂

in tu: intә

tu: tә, tu

iz z,s

kæn k∂n, kn

will l, әl, l

kud kud, kd

jә: ‘selvz jә’selvz

maiself m∂self

tu him tuim

hæd hәd, әd, d

m^st mәst, ms

aend әnd, әn, d

aez әz

eni ni

s^m sm

sәu sә

frәm fr∂m

fә: fә

Intonation

Another significant suprasegmental feature of English language is intonation or variation of pitch from one segment of an utterance to another. A lot of emotional meaning is conveyed by consciously varying intonation level.

Pitch is closely associated with vibration of the vocal cords. In males the vocal cords vibrate at a rate of 70-125 times per second, and in adult females it is between 150-200 times. Increase in the vibration of the vocal cords results in the rise of pitch. In normal conversation, pitch variations are quite an integral part and cannot be completely ignored.

A combination of stress on a syllable and change in pitch-range produces tone, a significant element of intonation. Two types of tone have been identified i) static tone and ii) kinetic tone. A syllable pronounced on a level tone of unvarying pitch is said to have static tone. The kinetic tones show different kinds of change in pitch contour. Physiologically, this is explained by variation in the tension of the vocal cords.

Different levels of kinetic tone have been postulated by different phoneticians, some grade it into fie, some into four. This shows that precise location of a tone contour is not possible – gradations are made only as identification of a range, where correspondence with modulations in the emotional level can also be identified.

In rapid speech pitch contours rapidly alternate but it must be remembered that all pitch movements are not discriminating, and therefore, significant. Only those variations that serve as significant units, discriminating between meanings are phonemic.

Below are presented the signs that are used for indicating itch contours

Rising Tone is symbolized as [‘]

Falling Tone is symbolized as [`]

Falling - Rising Tone is symbolized as [v]

Rising - Falling Tone is symbolized as [^]

Intonation pattern in English can be understood by dividing an utterance into breath-groups. Each breath-group forms a tone group.

In a sentence like She will ‘not` go we can identify the whole utterance as a breath group, a sense group and an information unit. Under normal conditions it is the final syllable /gәu/ that shows the pitch variation. This syllable, therefore, contains tonic prominence. It is known as tonic syllable. Tonic prominence is a stress on the syllable, plus change in pitch level. A speaker can vary the tonic syllable to correspond to the meaning, sense and emphasis he wishes to convey. That means that tonic prominence can shift from final syllable to any other in a sentence.

Thus in the example cited above, she will not go, shifts in tonic prominence can be demonstrated alongwitht he corresponding meaning changes:

i) She will not go = it is she who will not go.

ii) She will not go = come what may, she won’t go.

iii) She will not go = she will do anything but go.

We shall now consider below some examples of all the four tones.

1. Rising Tone:

‘Are you coming? (stress on are)

Is, he at home?

‘Wait, , keep it in place (gentle command)

‘Come, ,here (encouraging, inviting)

‘Really? (surprise)

2. Falling Tone:

When this tone is used, special implication is conveyed which is not verbally expressed, like sympathetic attitude, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, boredom, routine greeting, detached attitude, and so on.

‘Put it on the stool (neutrality)

‘Good ,morning (routine greeting)

‘How ,nice (routine, bored)

,Sit down ,please (polite command)

,Such a ,waste (mildly sarcastic)

3. Falling-Risging Tone:

The pitch registers a fall from about mid to low and then from high to mid.

We are ^vwaiting (= better make haste)

^vCarefully ! (soothing, encouraging)

The ^vfood was nice (=but the hotel awful)

^vWell done (appreciating)

You may ^vre lax (you really need it)

^vCan she do it? (=are you sure?)

4. Rising-Falling Tone:

The pitch changes from low to close to mid and low again. Normally, sarcasm, surprise, interest, enthusiasm are expressed.

Is he^alright? (surprise)

She looked^beautiful (enthusiastic)

Yes, it is^nasty (full agreement)

But,^will that do? (doubt)

Juncture:

In connected speech it is necessary to distinguish within one macrosegment such phonems whose function is to keep utterances apart. We must, for example, convey to the listener whether we mean a part (a+part) or apart when we use these segments, however rapid our speech may be. The accent feature of course plays a significant part in it; but we must also give a brief pause that would separate a from part when we wish to say a part, and remove that pause when we wish to say apart. As Hockett says, ‘Any difference of sound which functions to keep utterances apart is by definition part of the phonological system of the language’. Such transition from one segmental phoneme to another is called juncture and represented by [+] mark. Juncture is thus a type ‘of boundary between two phonemes. Often, juncture helps the listener to distinguish between pairs such as see Mill and seem ill in Did he see Mill? And Did he seem ill?’ (Richards, Platt, Weber). Terminal juncture is represented by the [+] sign as in the following examples.

a + name

an + aim

that + stuff

that’s + tough

Ice + cream

I + scream

Two vowels in close proximity both bearing the primary stress must receive a terminal juncture.

Brief history of Machine translation

2011-09-09T00:51:00.002+05:30

Brief history of MT

The use of mechanical dictionaries to overcome barriers of language was first

suggested in the 17th century. Both Descartes and Leibniz speculated on the

creation of dictionaries based on universal numerical codes. Actual examples

were published in the middle of the century by Cave Beck, Athanasius Kircher

and Johann Becher. The inspiration was the ‘universal language’ movement,

the idea of creating an unambiguous language based on logical principles and

iconic symbols (as the Chinese characters were believed to be), with which all

humanity could communicate without fear of misunderstanding. Most familiar is

the interlingua elaborated by John Wilkins in his ‘Essay towards a Real Character

and a Philosophical Language’ (1668).

In subsequent centuries there were many more proposals for international

languages (with Esperanto as the best known), but few attempts to mechanize

translation until the middle of this century. In 1933 two patents appeared

independently in France and Russia. A French-Armenian, George Artsrouni, had

designed a storage device on paper tape which could be used to find the equivalent

of any word in another language; a prototype was apparently demonstrated in

1937. The proposal by the Russian, Petr Smirnov-Troyanskii, was in retrospect

more significant. He envisaged three stages of mechanical translation: first, an

editor knowing only the source language was to undertake the ‘logical’ analysis

of words into their base forms and syntactic functions; secondly, a machine was

to transform sequences of base forms and functions into equivalent sequences in

the target language; finally, another editor knowing only the target language was

to convert this output into the normal forms of that language. Although his patent

referred only to the machine which would undertake the second stage, Troyanskii

believed that “the process of logical analysis could itself be mechanised”.

Troyanskii was ahead of his time and was unknown outside Russia when,

within a few years of their invention, the possibility of using computers for

translation was first discussed by Warren Weaver of the Rockefeller Foundation

and Andrew D. Booth, a British crystallographer. On his return to Birkbeck College

(London) Booth explored the mechanization of a bilingual dictionary and began

collaboration with Richard H. Richens (Cambridge), who had independently been

using punched cards to produce crude word-for-word translations of scientific

abstracts. However, it was a memorandum from Weaver in July 1949 which
brought the idea of MT to general notice and suggested methods: the use of wartime

cryptography techniques, statistical analysis, Shannon’s information theory,

and exploration of the underlying logic and universal features of language. Within

a few years research had begun at a number of US centres, and in 1951 the first

full-time researcher in MT was appointed: Yehoshua Bar-Hillel at MIT. A year later

he convened the first MT conference, where the outlines of future research were

already becoming clear. There were proposals for dealing with syntax, suggestions

that texts should be written in controlled languages, arguments for the construction

of sublanguage systems, and recognition of the need for human assistance (preand

post-editing) until fully automatic translation could be achieved. For some, the

first requirement was to demonstrate the technical feasibility of MT. Accordingly,

at Georgetown University Leon Dostert collaborated with IBM on a project which

resulted in the first public demonstration of a MT system in January 1954. A

carefully selected sample of Russian sentences was translated into English,

using a very restricted vocabulary of 250 words and just six grammar rules.

Although it had little scientific value, it was sufficiently impressive to stimulate

the large-scale funding of MT research in the United States and to inspire the

initiation of MT projects elsewhere in the world, notably in the Soviet Union.

For the next decade many groups were active: some adopting empirical

trial-and-error approaches, often statistics-based, with immediate working systems

as the goal; others took theoretical approaches, involving fundamental linguistic

research, aiming for long-term solutions. The contrasting methods were usually

described at the time as ‘brute-force’ and ‘perfectionist’ respectively. Examples

of the former were the lexicographic approach at the University of Washington

(Seattle), later continued by IBM in a Russian-English system completed for the

US Air Force, the statistical ‘engineering’ approach at the

and the methods adopted at the Institute of Precision Mechanics in the Soviet

Union, and the National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain. Largest of all was

the group at Georgetown University, whose successful Russian-English system

is now regarded as typical of this ‘first generation’ of MT research. Centres of

theoretical research were at MIT, Harvard University, the University of Texas, the

University of California at Berkeley, at the Institute of Linguistics in Moscow and

the University of Leningrad, at the Cambridge Language Research Unit (CLRU),

and at the universities of Milan and Grenoble. In contrast to the more pragmatically

oriented groups where the ‘direct translation’ approach was the norm, some of the

theoretical projects experimented with early versions of interlingua and transfer

systems (e.g. CLRU and MIT, respectively).

Much of the research of this period was of lasting importance, not only

for MT but also for computational linguistics and artificial intelligence — in

particular, the development of automated dictionaries and of techniques for

syntactic analysis — and many theoretical groups made significant contributions

to linguistic theory. However, the basic objective of building systems capable of

producing good translations was not achieved. Optimism had been high, there

were many predictions of imminent breakthroughs, but disillusionment grew as

the complexity of the linguistic problems became more and more apparent. In

a 1960 review of MT progress, Bar-Hillel criticized the prevailing assumption

that the goal of MT research should be the creation of fully automatic high

history of MT 7

RAND Corporation,Brief

quality translation (FAHQT) systems producing results indistinguishable from

those of human translators. He argued that the ‘semantic barriers’ to MT could

in principle only be overcome by the inclusion of vast amounts of encyclopaedic

knowledge about the ‘real world’. His recommendation was that MT should adopt

less ambitious goals, it should build systems which made cost-effective use of

human-machine interaction.

In 1964 the government sponsors of MT in the United States formed the

Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) to examine the

prospects. In its influential 1966 report it concluded that MT was slower, less

accurate and twice as expensive as human translation and stated that “there is no

immediate or predictable prospect of useful Machine Translation”. It saw no need

for further investment in MT research; instead it recommended the development of

machine aids for translators, such as automatic dictionaries, and continued support

of basic research in computational linguistics. The ALPAC report was widely

condemned as narrow, biased and shortsighted — it was certainly wrong to criticize

MT because output had to be post-edited, and it misjudged the economic factors

— but large-scale financial support of current approaches could not continue. Its

influence was profound, bringing a virtual end to MT research in the United States

for over a decade and damaging the public perception of MT for many years

afterwards.

In the following decade MT research took place largely outside the United

States, in Canada and in Western Europe, and virtually ignored by the scientific

community. American activity had concentrated on English translations of Russian

scientific and technical materials. In Canada and Europe the needs were quite

different: the Canadian bicultural policy created a demand for English-French (and

to a less extent French-English) translation beyond the capacity of the market,

and the European Economic Community (as it was then known) was demanding

translations of scientific, technical, administrative and legal documentation from

and into all the Community languages.

A research group was established at Montreal which, though ultimately

unsuccessful in building a large English-French system for translating aircraft

manuals, is now renowned for the creation in 1976 of the archetypal ‘sublanguage’

system Météo (Chapter 12) for translating weather reports for daily public

broadcasting. In 1976 the Commission of the European Communities decided

to install an English-French system called Systran, which had previously been

developed by Peter Toma (once a member of the Georgetown team) for

Russian-English translation for the US Air Force, and had been in operation since

1970 (see Chapter 10). In subsequent years, further systems for French-English,

English-Italian, English-German and other pairs have been developed for the

Commission. In the late 1970s, it was also decided to fund an ambitious research

project to develop a multilingual system for all the Community languages, based

on the latest advances in MT and in computational linguistics. This is the Eurotra

project, which involves research groups in all member states (see Chapter 14).

For its basic design, Eurotra owes much to research at Grenoble and at

Saarbrücken. During the 1960s the French group had built an ‘interlingua’ system

for Russian-French translation (not purely interlingual as lexical transfer was still
bilingual); however, the results were disappointing and in the 1970s it began to

develop the influential transfer-based Ariane system (Chapter 13). The Saarbrücken

group had also been building its multilingual ‘transfer’ system S

late 1960s (Chapter 11). It was now the general consensus in the MT research

community that the best prospects for significant advances lay in the development

of transfer-based systems. The researchers at the Linguistics Research Center

(LRC) at Austin, Texas (one of the few to continue after ALPAC) had come

to similar conclusions after experimenting with an interlingua system and was

now developing its transfer-based M

had begun at Kyoto University on the Mu transfer system for Japanese-English

translation. The Eurotra group adopted the same basic approach, although it

found subsequently that the demands of large-scale multilinguality led to the

incorporation of many interlingual features.

However, during the 1980s the transfer-based design has been joined by new

approaches to the interlingua idea. Most prominent is the research on knowledgebased

systems, notably at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (see section 18.1),

which are founded on developments of natural language understanding systems

within the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community. The argument is that MT must go

beyond purely linguistic information (syntax and semantics); translation involves

‘understanding’ the content of texts and must refer to knowledge of the ‘real

world’. Such an approach implies translation via intermediate representations based

on (extra-linguistic) ‘universal’ elements. Essentially non-AI-oriented interlingua

approaches have also appeared in two Dutch projects: the DLT system at Utrecht

based on a modification of Esperanto (Chapter 17) and the Rosetta system at

Phillips (Eindhoven) which is experimenting with Montague semantics as the

basis for an interlingua (Chapter 16)

More recently, yet other alternatives have emerged. For many years, automatic

translation of speech was considered Utopian, but advances in speech recognition

and speech production have encouraged the foundation of projects in Great Britain

(British Telecom) and in Japan (Advanced Telecommunications Research, ATR):

see section 18.6. The sophistication of the statistical techniques developed by

speech research has revived interest in the application of such methods in MT

systems; the principal group at present is at the IBM laboratories at Yorktown

Heights, NY (see section 18.3)

The most significant development of the last decade, however, is the

appearance of commercial MT systems. The American products from A

Weidner and Logos were joined by many Japanese systems from computer

companies (Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NEC, Oki, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba), and

in the later 1980s by Globalink, PC-Translator, Tovna and the M

developed by Siemens from earlier research at Austin, Texas. Many of these

systems, particularly those for microcomputers, are fairly crude in the linguistic

quality of their output but are capable of cost-effective operation in appropriate

circumstances (see Chapter 9). As well as these commercial systems, there

have been a number of in-house systems, e.g. the Spanish and English systems

developed at the Pan-American Health Organization (Washington, DC), and the

systems designed by the Smart Corporation for Citicorp, Ford, and the Canadian

Department of Employment and Immigration. Many of the Systran installations

USY since theETAL system (Chapter 15); and in Japan workLPSystems,ETAL system

are tailor-made for particular organisations (Aérospatiale, Dornier, NATO, General

Motors).

Nearly all these operational systems depend heavily on post-editing to produce

acceptable translations. But pre-editing is also widespread: in some systems, for

instance, operators are required, when inputting text, to mark word boundaries or

even indicate the scope of phrases and clauses. At Xerox, texts for translation by

Systran are composed in a controlled English vocabulary and syntax; and a major

feature of the Smart systems is the pre-translation editor of English input.

The revival of MT research in the 1980s and the emergence of MT systems

in the marketplace have led to growing public awareness of the importance of

translation tools. There may still be many misconceptions about what has been

achieved and what may be possible in the future, but the healthy state of MT

is reflected in the multiplicity of system types and of research designs which

are now being explored, many undreamt of when MT was first proposed in the

1940s. Further advances in computer technology, in Artificial Intelligence and in

theoretical linguistics suggest possible future lines of investigation (see Chapter

18), while different MT user profiles (e.g. the writer who wants to compose a

text in an unknown language) lead to new designs. But the most fundamental

problems of computer-based translation are concerned not with technology but

with language, meaning, understanding, and the social and cultural differences of

human communication.

The aims of Machine translation

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The aims of MT

Most translation in the world is not of texts which have high literary and

cultural status. The great majority of professional translators are employed to

satisfy the huge and growing demand for translations of scientific and technical

documents, commercial and business transactions, administrative memoranda, legal

documentation, instruction manuals, agricultural and medical text books, industrial

patents, publicity leaflets, newspaper reports, etc. Some of this work is challenging

and difficult. But much of it is tedious and repetitive, while at the same time

requiring accuracy and consistency. The demand for such translations is increasing

at a rate far beyond the capacity of the translation profession. The assistance of

a computer has clear and immediate attractions. The practical usefulness of an

MT system is determined ultimately by the quality of its output. But what counts

as a ‘good’ translation, whether produced by human or machine, is an extremely

difficult concept to define precisely. Much depends on the particular circumstances

in which it is made and the particular recipient for whom it is intended. Fidelity,

accuracy, intelligibility, appropriate style and register are all criteria which can be

applied, but they remain subjective judgements. What matters in practice, as far as

MT is concerned, is how much has to be changed in order to bring output up to a

standard acceptable to a human translator or reader. With such a slippery concept

as translation, researchers and developers of MT systems can ultimately aspire

only to producing translations which are ‘useful’ in particular situations — which

obliges them to define clear research objectives — or, alternatively, they seek

suitable applications of the ‘translations’ which in fact they are able to produce.

Nevertheless, there remains the higher ideal of equalling the best human

translation. MT is part of a wider sphere of ‘pure research’ in computerbased

natural language processing in Computational Linguistics and Artificial

Intelligence, which explore the basic mechanisms of language and mind by

modelling and simulation in computer programs. Research on MT is closely

related to these efforts, adopting and applying both theoretical perspectives and

operational techniques to translation processes, and in turn offering insights and

solutions from its particular problems. In addition, MT can provide a ‘test-bed’ on

a larger scale for theories and techniques developed by small-scale experiments in

computational linguistics and artificial intelligence.

The major obstacles to translating by computer are, as they have always been,

not computational but linguistic. They are the problems of lexical ambiguity, of

syntactic complexity, of vocabulary differences between languages, of elliptical and

‘ungrammatical’ constructions, of, in brief, extracting the ‘meaning’ of sentences

and texts from analysis of written signs and producing sentences and texts in

another set of linguistic symbols with an equivalent meaning. Consequently, MT

should expect to rely heavily on advances in linguistic research, particularly those

branches exhibiting high degrees of formalization, and indeed it has and will

continue to do so. But MT cannot apply linguistic theories directly: linguists

are concerned with explanations of the underlying ‘mechanisms’ of language

production and comprehension, they concentrate on crucial features and do not

attempt to describe or explain everything. MT systems, by contrast, must deal

with actual texts. They must confront the full range of linguistic phenomena, the

complexities of terminology, misspellings, neologisms, aspects of ‘performance’

which are not always the concern of abstract theoretical linguistics.

In brief, MT is not in itself an independent field of 'pure' research. It takes

from linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, translation theory, any

ideas, methods and techniques which may serve the development of improved

systems. It is essentially ‘applied’ research, but a field which nevertheless has

built up a substantial body of techniques and concepts which can, in turn, be

applied in other areas of computer-based language processing.

General introduction to mechine translation

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The mechanization of translation has been one of humanity’s oldest dreams. In

the twentieth century it has become a reality, in the form of computer programs

capable of translating a wide variety of texts from one natural language into

another. But, as ever, reality is not perfect. There are no ‘translating machines’

which, at the touch of a few buttons, can take any text in any language and

produce a perfect translation in any other language without human intervention

or assistance. That is an ideal for the distant future, if it is even achievable in

principle, which many doubt.

What has been achieved is the development of programs which can produce

‘raw’ translations of texts in relatively well-defined subject domains, which can

be revised to give good-quality translated texts at an economically viable rate or

which in their unedited state can be read and understood by specialists in the

subject for information purposes. In some cases, with appropriate controls on the

language of the input texts, translations can be produced automatically that are of

higher quality needing little or no revision.

These are solid achievements by what is now traditionally called Machine

Translation (henceforth in this book, MT), but they have often been obscured

and misunderstood. The public perception of MT is distorted by two extreme

positions. On the one hand, there are those who are unconvinced that there is

anything difficult about analysing language, since even young children are able to

learn languages so easily; and who are convinced that anyone who knows a foreign

language must be able to translate with ease. Hence, they are unable to appreciate

the difficulties of the task or how much has been achieved. On the other hand,

there are those who believe that because automatic translation of Shakespeare,

Goethe, Tolstoy and lesser literary authors is not feasible there is no role for any

kind of computer-based translation. They are unable to evaluate the contribution

which less than perfect translation could make either in their own work or in the

general improvement of international communication.