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John Sidney McCain III, born on August 29, 1936 in at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election. His Father was a naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. and Roberta (Wright) McCain. At that time, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control.

In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria. He excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954.

McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981, moved to Arizona, and entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily in 1992, 1998, and 2004.

He completed flight school in 1960, and became a naval pilot of ground-attack aircraft, assigned to A-1 Skyraider squadrons[15] aboard the aircraft carriers USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas.

On July 3, 1965, McCain married Carol Shepp, a model originally from Philadelphia. McCain adopted her two young children Douglas and Andrew. He and Carol then had a daughter named Sidney.

In April 1979, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, whose father had founded a large beer distributorship. They began dating, and he urged his wife Carol to grant him a divorce, which she did in February 1980, with the uncontested divorce taking effect in April 1980.

In 1984 McCain and his wife Cindy had their first child together, daughter Meghan. She was followed two years later by son John Sidney McCain IV (known as Jack), and in 1988 by son James (Jimmy). In 1991, Cindy McCain brought an abandoned three-month old girl needing medical treatment to the U.S. from a Bangladeshi orphanage run by Mother Teresa. The McCains decided to adopt her, and named her Bridget.

  

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David Alexander Paterson, born on May 20, 1954 in Brooklyn to Basil Paterson and his wife Portia, is the 55th and current Governor of New York. He is the first governor of New York of African American heritage and also the second legally blind[2] governor of any U.S. state after Bob C. Riley, who was Acting Governor of Arkansas for eleven days in January 1975.

After graduating from Hofstra Law School, Paterson worked in the District Attorney’s office of Queens County, New York, and on the staff of Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins. In 1985, he was elected to the New York State Senate to a seat that was once held by his father, former New York Secretary of State Basil Paterson. In 2003, he rose to the position of Senate Minority Leader. Paterson was selected as running mate by then-New York Attorney General and Democratic Party nominee Eliot Spitzer in the 2006 New York gubernatorial election. Spitzer and Paterson were elected in November 2006 with 69 percent of the vote, and Paterson took office as Lieutenant Governor on January 1, 2007.

When Spitzer resigned in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Paterson was sworn in as governor of New York on March 17, 2008. As Governor of New York, Paterson has reportedly received lower approval ratings than any other New York governor has received.

At the age of three months, Paterson contracted an ear infection which spread to his optic nerve, leaving him with no sight in his left eye and severely limited vision in his right. Since New York City public schools would not guarantee him an education without placing him in special education classes, his family bought a home in the Long Island suburb of South Hempstead so that he could attend mainstream classes there. Paterson was the first disabled student in the Hempstead public schools, and graduated from Hempstead High School in 1971.

Paterson’s staff reads documents to him over voice mail.

One day after Paterson’s inauguration as the Governor of New York, both he and his wife acknowledged having had extramarital affairs, one with a state employee. Paterson’s self-admissions are in contravention to what the press has dubbed the “Bear Mountain Compact,” a practice by lawmakers that their transgressions north of the Bear Mountain Bridge will not be reported south of it.

In May 2008, Governor Paterson informed New York State agencies that they were required to recognize same-sex marriage licenses from other jurisdictions for purposes of employee benefits.

Paterson and his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, live in New York City. They have two children.

  

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Ehud Olmert was born on 30 September 1945 in Born near Binyamina in the British Mandate of Palestine, is an Israeli political figure, and former Prime Minister of Israel having served from 2006 to 2009.

According to Olmert, his parents, Bella and Mordechai escaped “persecution in Ukraine and Russia and found sanctuary in Harbin, China. They emigrated to Israel to fulfill their dream of building a Jewish and democratic state living in peace in the land of our ancestors.” His father later became a member of the Knesset for Herut. Olmert’s childhood included membership in the Beitar Youth Organization and dealing with the fact that his parents were often blacklisted and alienated due to their affiliation with the Jewish militia group the Irgun.

Olmert was the mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003. In 2003 he was elected to the Knesset and became a minister and Acting Prime Minister in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. On 4 January 2006, after Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke, Olmert began exercising the powers of the office of Prime Minister. Olmert led Kadima to a victory in the March 2006 elections (just two months after Sharon had suffered his stroke) and continued on as Acting Prime Minister. On 14 April, two weeks after the election, Sharon was declared permanently incapacitated, allowing Olmert to legally become Interim Prime Minister. Less than a month later, on 4 May, Olmert and his new, post-election government were approved by the Knesset, thus Olmert officially became Prime Minister of Israel.

Olmert served with the Israel Defense Forces in the Golani combat brigade. While in service he was injured and temporarily released. He underwent many treatments, and later completed his military duties as a journalist for the IDF magazine BaMahane. During the Yom Kippur War he joined the headquarters of Ariel Sharon as a military correspondent. Already a member of the Knesset, he decided to go through an officer’s course in 1980 at the age of 35.

On 4 May 2006 Olmert presented his new government to the Knesset. Olmert became Prime Minister and Minister for Welfare. The control over Welfare Ministry was expected to be given to United Torah Judaism if it would join the government. The post was later given to Labor’s Isaac Herzog.

On 16 January 2007, a criminal investigation was initiated against Olmert. The investigation focused on suspicions that during his tenure as Finance Minister, Olmert tried to steer the tender for the sale of Bank Leumi in order to help Slovak-born Australian real estate baron Frank Lowy, a close personal associate. Israeli Police who investigated the case eventually concluded that the evidence that was collected was insufficient for indictment and no recommendations to press charges were made.

Olmert’s wife, Aliza, is a writer of novels and theater plays, as well as an artist. Some people believe that Aliza is more left-leaning in her politics than her husband. She claimed to have voted for him for the first time in 2006.

In October 2007, Olmert announced that he had prostate cancer. His doctors declared it to be a minor risk. In April 2009, Olmert’s spokesman issued a statement indicating that Olmert’s cancer had deteriorated.

  

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Jairam Ramesh was born on 9 April 1954 at his grandfather’s coffee plantation in Chikmagalur, adjacent to Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and Project Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. He is the son of Late Prof. C.K. Ramesh,former Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay and Shrimati Sridevi Rameshat, daughter of former IAS officer K.V. Ramanathan. His mother tongue is Telugu.

Jairam Ramesh has been an elected member of the Indian Parliament representing Andhra Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha since June 2004. He has been the Indian Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests since May, 2009. He is also a member of the National Advisory Council. From January 2006 to February, 2009, he was the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry and from April 2008 to February, 2009 was also the Minister of State for Power in the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

His acquaintance with the natural world began when he was nine and was gifted Edward Pritchard Gee’s book The Wildlife of India. The book is a classic with a beautiful foreword by Jawaharlal Nehru that has stayed with him all these years. He was raised in Bombay. His widowed mother now lives in Bangalore.

He married a Tamilian lady, K. R. Jayashree, on 26 January 1981. They have two sons, Anirudh and Pradyumna, both studying law, one at Oxford, one at Hyderabad. He and his wife currently reside at Lodi Gardens, Rajesh Pilot Marg, in New Delhi. Their permanent residence is at Khairatabad, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

He attended St. Xavier’s School, Ranchi in 1961-1963 in classes 3 to 5. He entered the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), Mumbai in 1970. He initially hated it, but in his second year, he discovered the American economist Paul Samuelson, wrote to Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and hero-worshipped the Indian physicist and rocket scientist Vikram Sarabhai for marrying science to a larger social calling. It was all mentally elevating. He graduated with B. tech. in mechanical engineering from IIT-B in 1975. In 2001, IIT-B presented him with their Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Between 1975-77 he studied at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College and received a Master of Science in Management and public policy. In 1977-78, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he studied technology policy, economics, engineering, and management as part of the newly-established inter-disciplinary technology policy programme. He has not mentioned any degree earned there.

He is a founding member of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and is a member of the International Council of the New York-based Asia Society. Ramesh has a special interest in China and has been an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi since 2002. He considers himself a student of Buddhism. He enjoys Carnatic music and Bharatnatyam dancing.

  

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James Gordon Brown, born on 20 February 1951 in Giffnock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.

Brown was educated first at Kirkcaldy West Primary School where he was selected for an experimental fast stream education programme, which took him two years early to Kirkcaldy High School for an academic hothouse education taught in separate classes. At age 16 he wrote that he loathed and resented this “ludicrous” experiment on young lives.

As a teenager Gordon had a great interest in football, supporting Raith Rovers. He used to sell programmes at Raith Rovers to earn money; he has remained a loyal supporter ever since. At school, he shone, as a bright, intelligent and likeable student. He passed his O levels and then A levels before going to Edinburgh university at the very young age of 15. He later emerged with a first class degree, and other prizes. He became the youngest rector of Edinburgh University. Perhaps ironically, Gordon Brown took a great interest in the early founders of the Labour party and their ideology. He wrote a book about James Maxton, one of the early founders of the Labour Party. His book “Values, visions and Voices” was an in depth look at the Socialist ideology of the first Labour MPs.

Gordon Brown was elected to parliament in 1983, for his constituency Dunfermline East. He had an gordon brown11,000 majority. This was in the same election that Tony Blair was elected in Newcastle. At the time the Labour party’s manifesto made a commitment to nuclear disarmament, nationalisation and higher taxes for the rich. Under, Michael Foot, it was an undoubtedly Socialist agenda; but, electorally Labour suffered. They gained only 24% of the vote and lost out as the Conservative party, under Mrs Thatcher was re-elected. The next 10 years saw a real decade of turbulence in the Labour Party. Firstly, hard left factions like Militant, tried to steer the party to an ideologically socialist agenda. However, the new leader Neil Kinnock, saw that this would be electoral suicide and he tried valiantly to steer the party more to the centre, ditching some of the socialist rhetoric of the past.

In 2006, Tony Blair, finally announced he would be standing down as Prime Minister before the end of the next election. This created intense interest in when he would go and who would succeed him. Initially, Tony Blair, expressed much reluctance to announce a date for his departure. (Much to the probable annoyance of Gordon Brown, who was kept waiting on tenterhooks) Finally, after intense media speculation, Tony Blair did announce his departure and in the summer of 2007 Gordon Brown was finally able to assume leadership of the Labour Party, becoming the Prime Minister of the UK. No candidate could command sufficient support to force an internal election.

  

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Nitin Jayaram Gadkari, born on 27 May 1957, is an Indian industrialist, agriculturist, politician and the current President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is best known for the works during his tenure as a Public Works Department Minister in the state of Maharashtra when he constructed a series of roads, highways and flyovers across the state including the Mumbai–Pune Expressway.

Nitin Gadkari was born in Nagpur, India to a middle class family hailing from Nagpur district. During his teens, he worked for Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and student union wing of ABVP.

He started his political career as a grass root worker who laid down red carpets prior to party programmes. He prefers to maintains a low profile in the media. He did his M.Com, L.L.B., D.B.M. from Maharashtra, India.

Gadkari was elected unanimously as the President of BJP by its members. The induction ceremony was held on 19 December 2009 and resumed work on 25 December 2009.

Nitin Gadkari is married to Kanchan Gadkari and they have three children, Nikhil, Sarang and Ketki. He currently resides in Nagpur close to the head office of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Mr. Gadkari began as a grass root level worker and has successfully led from the front, several agitations and other programmes of the BJP . He has worked in different capacities and has held varied positions within the party, before taking up the post of Maharashtra BJP President in 2004. As a true party soldier, he has all along accepted whatever responsibility the party wanted him to shoulder and has carried it out to the best of his abilities.

After taking over as Maharashtra BJP President in November 2004, Mr. Gadkari visited almost every tehsil and knows countless party workers by name. Due to his dynamism, development-oriented approach and openness, the BJP has been able to bring various new sections of society in its fold.

Gadkari firmly believes in the concepts of Antyodaya, Integral Humanism and trusteeship. More importantly, he has established that he can walk the talk and make his commitment to the cause of people’s welfare reflect through his governance. It was under his leadership that Maharashtra BJP contributed in the Annadata Sukhi Bhava Yojana of a Voluntary Organisation and reached out to the widows of those farmers who have committed suicides. Mr. Gadkari gave top priority to constructing roads to tackle the problem of tribal malnutrition in Melghat – Dharni belt of Amaravati district and provided all- weather connectivity to the 91 remote villages of the belt. This connectivity has changed the socio-economic profile of this belt with the incidence of malnutrition coming down dramatically. It is his conviction that each position and authority must have only one objective: welfare of the public.

  

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Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Tandja Mamadou, born in 1938) is a Nigerien politician who has been the sixth President of Niger since 1999, until he was deposed in February 2010. He was President of the National Movement of the Development Society (MNSD) from 1991 to 1999 and unsuccessfully ran as the MNSD’s presidential candidate in 1993 and 1996 before being elected to his first term in 1999. While serving as President of Niger, he was also Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States from 2005 to 2007.

n 1991, Tandja emerged as the head of one of two powerful factions in the ruling National Movement of the Development Society (Mouvement National pour la Societé de Développement, MNSD), and at a party congress held in November 1991, he was elected as MNSD President. Tandja’s obtaining of the party leadership over rival faction leader Moumouni Adamou Djermakoye marked a departure from the traditional dominance of the party by Djermakoye’s Zarma (Djerma) ethnic group.

On 18th February 2010, during a government meeting at the presidential palace, rebel soldiers attacked and deposed Tandja in a coup d’état, establishing a military junta called the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD). Tandja is believed to be held at a military barracks on the outskirts of Niamey.

  

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Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, born on January 17, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois, USA to Fraser Robinson, is the wife of the forty-fourth President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first First Lady of the United States of African-American heritage. Her father was a city water plant employee and Democratic precinct captain, and Marian Shields Robinson, a secretary at Spiegel’s catalog store. Her mother was a full-time homemaker until Michelle entered high school.

She worked as part of the staff of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center. Throughout 2007 and 2008, she helped campaign for her husband’s presidential bid and delivered a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She is the mother of two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and is the sister of Craig Robinson, men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University.

After completing her formal education, she returned to Chicago and accepted a position with the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband. After two years of dating, Barack proposed. “We were at a restaurant having dinner to celebrate the fact that he had finished the bar,” Michelle remembers. “Then the waiter came over with the dessert and a tray. And there was the ring. And I was completely shocked.” The couple married at Trinity United Church of Christ on October 18, 1992.

As the 44th First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama has focused her attention on issues such as the support of military families, helping working women balance career and family, and encouraging national service. During the first year of the Obama presidency, Michelle and her husband have volunteered at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in the Washington, D.C. area. Michelle also has made appearances at public schools, stressing the importance of education and volunteer work.

Both Michelle and Barack Obama have stated their personal priority is their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. The parents realize that the move from Chicago to Washington, D.C., would be a major adjustment for any family. Living in the White House, having Secret Service protection, and always being in the wake of their parents’ public lives has dramatically transformed their lives. Both parents try to make their daughters’ lives as “normal” as possible with set times for study, bed, and getting up. “My first priority will always be to make sure that our girls are healthy and grounded,” Michelle said. “Then I want to help other families get the support they need, not just to survive, but to thrive.”

  

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Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, born on 12 April 1942 in Inkandla, South Africa, is the President of South Africa, elected by parliament following his party’s victory in the 2009 general election. Zuma engaged in politics at an early age and joined the African National Congress in 1959. He became an active member of Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1962, following the banning of the ANC in 1961.

Zuma is the President of the African National Congress (ANC), the governing political party, and was Deputy President of South Africa from 1999 to 2005. Zuma is also referred to by his initials JZ and his clan name Msholozi. Zuma became the President of the ANC on 18 December 2007 after defeating incumbent Thabo Mbeki at the ANC conference in Polokwane. Zuma is also a lifelong member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), briefly serving on the party’s Politburo until 1990.

Zuma has faced significant legal challenges. He was charged with rape in 2005, but was acquitted. In addition, he fought a long legal battle over allegations of racketeering and corruption, resulting from his financial advisor Schabir Shaik’s conviction for corruption and fraud. On 6 April 2009, the National Prosecuting Authority decided to drop the charges citing political interference.

  

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Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka, known as Sarath Fonseka, born on December 18, 1950, is a former commander and General of the Sri Lanka Army and a former candidate for President of Sri Lanka. As Commander of the Army, he played an instrumental role in ending the 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, defeating the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the process. He later had a public falling out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and unsuccessfully challenged Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election.

Fonseka joined the Sri Lanka Army in 1970 and saw action throughout the 26 year civil war, culminating in a term as commander from December 6, 2005 – July 15, 2009. As commander, he oversaw the the final phase of the civil war which resulted in the defeat of the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organization. Fonseka has been described as Sri Lanka’s most successful army commander, and his run of significant military victories against the LTTE during Eelam War IV led the Indian National Security Advisor Mayankote Kelath Narayanan to describe him as the “best army commander in the world”. On April 25, 2006 Fonseka survived an assassination attempt when an LTTE suicide bomber attacked his motorcade. Following the end of the war he was appointed Chief of Defence Staff, a post from which he retired on November 16th, 2009.

Born to Peter and Piyawathie Fonseka of Ambalangoda, he had his education at Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda (1958-1965) and Ananda College, Colombo (1966-1969). Fonseka is a sportsman who participated in swimming and water polo events, representing defense services and the country.

Sarath Fonseka Officially handed over his resignation to the President through the Secretary of Defence on 12th November 2009. He left the Office on 16th November 2009, as the President had requested him to vacate the office immediately.

At a press conference held in Colombo on 29th November 2009, Generela Sarath Fonseka formally announced his candidacy at the next Presidential election scheduled to be held on 26 January 2010.

  

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Scott Philip Brown, born on September 12, 1959, is the United States Senator-elect from Massachusetts and a member of the Republican Party. On January 19, 2010, he defeated Democratic candidate Martha Coakley by a margin of 52% to 47% in the special election to fill the remainder of the term vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. Brown became the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since 1972.

He graduated from Wakefield High School in 1977. He received a Bachelors of Arts in History, cum laude from Tufts University in 1981 and a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 1985. During his undergraduate career at Tufts, Brown was a member of the Kappa Chapter of Zeta Psi International Fraternity.

Brown has said the rescue efforts of Army National Guard during the Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978 impressed him. He joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard when he was 19, receiving his basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and attending Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) classes at the campus of Northeastern University. He has been active in the Guard for about 30 years and has risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Presently serving as the Army Guard’s head defense attorney in New England, Brown defends Guard members who have disciplinary difficulties such as positive drug tests, and provides estate planning and real estate advice to those who are about to deploy to war zones.

In June 1982, Brown, then a 22-year-old law student at Boston College, won Cosmopolitan magazine’s “America’s Sexiest Man” contest. Brown was featured in the magazine’s centerfold, posing nude but strategically posed so that according to Brown, “You don’t see anything”. In the accompanying interview, he referred to himself as “a patriot” and stated that he had political ambitions. He used his earnings (about $1,000) to help pay for his law school expenses. Brown also worked as an actor in his early career, appearing in a variety of television commercials and university productions.

  

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Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy was born on 8th July 1949 & died on 2 September 2009, popularly known as YSR, was the Chief Minister of state Andhra Pradesh (India).

Y.S.R. is a medical science graduate from the M.R. College of Gulbargaa. He did his House-Surgency in Sri Venkateshwara Medical College, Tirupathi. Upon completion of his MBBS degree, he served as Medical Officer in Church of South India’s Campbell Hospital in Jammalamadugu in the Diocese of Nandyal for a brief period of time. In 1973 he established a 70-bed charitable hospital at Pulivendula in the name of his father, Sri Y. S. Raja Reddy. The hospital continues to serve the poor to date.

A doctor by profession, Reddy made his debut in politics as a Youth Congress Leader. It is interesting to note that he and his present opponent, TDP President Nara Chandrababu Naidu, made their debut at the same time (1978) in the Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly as young legislators of the Congress party. They both worked together as Ministers in Sri. Tanguturi Anjaiah’s cabinet. In fact Sri Chandrababu Naidu acknowledges him as his mentor in politics.

He represented the Indian National Congress party. He was elected to the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Lok Sabha from the Kadapa constituency for four terms and to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly for five terms from the Pulivendula constituency. In 2003 he undertook a three month long paadayaatra, or walking tour, across several districts in Andhra Pradesh. He led his party to victory in the next general and assembly elections held in 2004.

On September 2nd 2009 a helicopter carrying YSR went missing in Nallamala forest area. On the morning of 3rd September, 2009, media agencies reported that the helicopter had been found on top of Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles from Kurnool. This was later confirmed by the Prime Minster’s office and all 5 persons aboard were pronounced dead at the scene.

  

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Lalchand Kishen Advani (Sindhi) known as Lal Krishna Advani was born on 8 November 1927 is a prominent Indian politician and a former president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is currently the major opposition party in the Indian Parliament. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004 and is currently the leader of opposition in the 14th Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Parliament).

Lal Krishna Advani was born in Karachi, Pakistan to Kishanchand D. Advani and Gyani Devi. He studied from Saint Patrick’s High School, Karachi and initially, he joined the D.G. National College in Hyderabad. He later graduated with a degree from the Government Law College, Bombay University

L.K.Advani began his career when he joined the RSS in 1942.India gained independence from the British in 1947. Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was founded in 1950. The party dissolved in 1980, whereupon Advani and his colleague Atal Bihari Vajpayee founded the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1980, after the collapse of the Choudhary Charan Singh Government, Advani became a prominent leader of the newly founded BJP and represented the party in the Rajya Sabha

Advani became the president of the BJP in 1986. He gradually brought in a shift in the party’s policies by advocating Hindutva and subsequently, the party came to power in several Indian states. The period that followed also witnessed a change in Indian politics with the Congress party and especially its Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi getting embroiled in the Bofors scandal. After the elections in 1989, the Congress lost power and the BJP decided to support a coalition headed by V P Singh.

Under Advani, the BJP launched a power grabbing agitation on the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi purely for political purposes. For quite a while it had been the demand of some extreme right wing Hindutva groups that a temple be built at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which they claimed to have been built over the ruins of a Rama temple. The movement gained momentum in the early 1990s, when Advani embarked on a “rath yatra” to mobilize “karsevaks” to converge upon the Babri Masjid to offer prayers. Advani also collected millions of dollars in the name of Ram temple and used the money in power grabbing. However, despite assurances given to the Government and the Supreme Court, the Babri Masjid was demolished by the “karsevaks”. Soon after, Advani was charged with delivering inflammatory speeches to spread communal hatred.

The BJP suffered a surprise and shocking defeat in the general elections held in 2004, and was forced to sit in the opposition. Another coalition, the United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress, came to power, with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. The NDA disintegrated with the Telugu Desam Party, which had supported their government from the outside, deserting the alliance

In an interview with a news channel in December 2006, L.K. Advani stated that as the Leader of the Opposition in a parliamentary democracy, he considered himself as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the general elections,ending on 16 may 2009 . This public revelation irritated some of his colleagues who were not supportive of his candidacy.

A major factor going in favor of Advani was that he had always been the most powerful leader in the BJP with the exception of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who endorsed Advani’s candidacy shortly after the interview was done. On 2 May 2007, BJP President Rajnath Singh, in an interview, stated that: “After Atal there is only Advani. Advani is the natural choice. It is he who should be PM”.

  

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Varun Gandhi (formally Feroze Varun Gandhi), born on March 13, 1980, is a very young politician in India. Varun belongs to the Nehru-Gandhi family, the most prominent political family in India.

Varun Gandhi was born to Sanjay Gandhi and the politically ambitious Maneka Gandhi, the son and daughter-in-law of the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. Varun Gandhi was 3 months old when his father was killed in a plane crash. On October 31, 1984, when Varun was just 4 years old, his grandmother and the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her bodyguards.

Varun’s mother, apart from being a political opponent of the Congress, soon became known for her love of animals and used her famous name to direct attention in the country towards animal welfare.

His great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first Prime Minister of India, and his great-great-grandfather Motilal Nehru was a distinguished leader of the Indian independence movement. He gets his first name Feroze from his grandfather Feroze Gandhi, a parliamentarian and the husband of Indira Gandhi.

Varun Gandhi recently cought into the controversy, A video emerged allegedly showing Varun Gandhi making communal remarks.

  

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Rahul Gandhi born on June 19, 1970)is an Indian politician and member of the Indian National Congress. Rahul is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the most prominent political family in India. He is the son of current Italian-born Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of the late Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, and the great-grandson of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1991, he lost his father, Rajiv Gandhi (also a former prime minister), who was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, took over as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1998 but Rahul stayed away from politics until 2004. He worked in London with the strategy consultancy firm Monitor Group, before returning to India in late 2002 to run an engineering and technology outsourcing firm in Mumbai.

Rahul Gandhi attended Modern School, New Delhi before entering the The Doon School.

He won a seat in the 2004 parliamentary election from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh by a margin of 300,500 votes. Incidentally, he is the same age as his late uncle Sanjay Gandhi was when he won the elections from Amethi years ago. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi, helped supervise his campaign.

  

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Muhammad Ali Jinnah born on 25 of December, 1876 in Karachi and died on 11 September, 1948 was a Muslim Politician and Great leader of the All India Muslim League. He founded the Pakistan and served as its first Governor-General. He is also know in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam (Great Leader) and and Baba-e-Qaum (Father of the Nation). Jinnah birthday is a national holiday in Pakistan.

He studied in Bombay and London, was called to the bar in 1897, and practised in Bombay. He became a member of the Indian National Congress (1906) and the Muslim League (1913), and supported Hindu–Muslim unity until 1930, when he resigned from the Congress in opposition to Gandhi’s policy of civil disobedience. His advocacy of a separate state for Muslims led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, and he became its first governor-general.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah died on September 11, 1948 from a combination of tuberculosis and lung cancer. His funeral was followed by the construction of a massive mausoleum—Mazar-e-Quaid—in Karachi to honour him; official and military ceremonies are hosted there on special occasions.

  

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Vaira Vikis-Freibergs was born on 1 December 1937 in Riga, Latvia. was the 6th President of Latvia and first female President of Latvia. She was elected President of Latvia in 1999 and reelected in 2003. She has been succeeded by Valdis Zatlers, who was elected President of Latvia on 31 May 2007.

At the end of 1944, as Soviet occupation of Latvia begun, Vike’s parents escaped to Germany. There she received her first education in Latvian primary school at refugee camp in Lübeck, Germany. Then her family moved to French Morocco in 1949. In Morocco she attended French primary school at Daourat hydroelectric dam village where she learned French. Vike then went on to attend Collège de jeunes filles de Mers-Sultan in Casablanca. In 1954 her family moved to Toronto, Canada. There she completed Grade 13 and received her high school diploma. In 1958 she was accepted as a student at the University of Toronto. She firstly achieved a BA in psychology in 1958 and followed it with an MA in 1960. while working full time in Canadian Bank of Commerce as a teller. In 1957–1960 she worked part time as a supervisor in Branksome Hall Boarding School for Girls. In 1958, being fluent in English, French, Latvian, Spanish and German, she worked as a Spanish translator and next year went on to work as a Spanish teacher for grades 12 and 13 at Ontario Ladies’ College. Upon leaving the University of Toronto, Vike became a clinical psychologist at the Toronto Psychiatric Hospital in late 1960. She left in 1961 to resume her education at the McGill University in Montreal where she earned her PhD in experimental psychology, leaving the University in 1965.

In 1998, Ms Vike-Freiberga received an invitation she couldn’t refuse – to head the new Latvian Institute, established to raise the profile of Latvia and the Latvians around the world.

She returned to a country facing many problems in its efforts to build a Western-style democracy and market economy. In a meteoric rise in her new career as a politician, Ms Vike-Freiberga was elected president within a year. Vaira Vike-Freiberga was succeeded on 8 July 2007 by Valdis Zatlers, who was elected President of Latvia on 31 May 2007. On 18 July 2007 she founded the company VVF Consulting together with her husband. She is now on her second, four-year term as head of state.

As recently as 2000, there seemed to be little realistic prospect of Latvia’s early entry into either the EU or Nato. Latvia’s progress was uneven. A high level of corruption was causing concern in the West. There were lingering doubts over the country’s commitment to democracy, as well as deep anger among Jewish organisations at the country’s apparent dismissal of the crimes committed by those Latvians who collaborated with the Nazis in the war.

Latvia’s discriminatory policies towards its Russian minority – 30% of the population – seemed vindictive.

Latvia is now a considerably different country. It is politically stable, democratic and enjoying steady economic growth. The country has carried out a wide-ranging programme of economic and military reform.

That has been accompanied by a crackdown on corruption and efforts to bring Latvian legislation up to European standards. Even relations with Russia have begun to emerge from the deep-freeze.

Ms Vike-Freiberga has overcome strong “Eurosceptic” sentiment to make membership of the EU a reality.

  

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Tarja Halonen was born on 24 December 1943 in the district of Kallio, Helsinki, Finland traditionally a working-class area, the daughter of Vieno Olavi Halonen and Lyyli Elina Loimola.

She is the eleventh and current President of Finland. She began her first six-year term of office in 2000 and was re-elected on January 29, 2006. Her current term expires in 2012. She is the first woman to hold the office.

She obtained a Master of Laws degree from the University of Helsinki in 1968. Halonen served as the Social Affairs Secretary and General Secretary of the National Union of Students (SYL) from 1969 to 1970 and, partly due to having held this position, she obtained a post as a lawyer with the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) from 1970 to 1974. She joined the Social Democratic Party in 1971.

Like many young people of the 1960s, Halonen became involved in leftist causes and once counted activist Che Guevara among her heroes. She attended the University of Helsinki and graduated with a master of laws degree in 1968. The following year, Halonen worked as the social affairs and general secretary of the National Union of Finnish Students. In 1970, she became an attorney with the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions.

President Halonen’s interests include art history, the theatre and swimming. She also enjoys drawing and painting, and she has two cats named Miska and Rontti. She speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, German, French, Afrikaans, and Estonian.

On August 26, 2000, President Halonen married her longtime partner, Dr Pentti Arajarvi, in a civil ceremony at her official residence, Mantyniemi, after a relationship of more than fifteen years. Halonen’s adult daughter Anna, and Arajarvi’s adult son, Esko, acted as witnesses. Both children were from previous relationships. While in Finland her relationship was not an issue, the marriage clarified the position of Dr. Arajarvi abroad.

Anna Halonen is the daughter of President Halonen and her former partner, Kari Pekkonen. She is currently studying international politics at the University of Kent in Canterbury, Great Britain.

  

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Isabel Peron was born María Estela Martinez Cartas on February 4, 1931, in La Rioja, a provincial capital in the impoverished mountainous region of northwestern Argentina, became the first female president in Latin America when she assumed the Argentine presidency from 1974 to 1976 upon the death of her husband, Juan Peron. Her term in office was characterized by political violence and economic instability until she was finally overthrown by the military.

Her father, a local bank manager, died when she was still a young child. By the time of her father’s death, the family had moved to Buenos Aires, where she studied piano, dance, and French, although she was not able to finish her formal education.

After leaving school she became a dancer, performing in folk music groups, night clubs, and finally the ballet corps of two leading theaters in Buenos Aires. She acquired the name Isabel on her confirmation in the Catholic Church and later adopted it as her professional name when she began her dancing career.

In 1956, while on tour with a dance troupe through Latin America, she met Juan Peron, who had recently been ousted from the Argentine presidency after roughly ten years in power. Giving up her career as a dancer, she became Peron’s personal secretary and accompanied him into exile in Madrid, where the two were married in 1961.

In 2007 an Argentine judge ordered the arrest of Isabel Peron over the forced disappearance of an activist in February 1976, on the grounds that the disappearance was authorised by her signing of three decrees allowing Argentina’s armed forces to take action against “subversives.”

  

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Golda Meir born as Goldie Mabovitch on May 3, 1898 was the fourth prime minister of the State of Israel.

After serving as the Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister, Golda Meir became Prime Minister of Israel on March 17, 1969. She was described as the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics years before the epithet became associated with British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Golda Meir moved from Kiev to Milwaukee in 1906 with her family. In Milwaukee, she became a teacher and an active Zionist, and from there she moved to Palestine with her husband, Morris Myerson, where they lived on a kibbutz, taking part in the creation of a Jewish homeland. Golda Meir became an officer of the Histadrut Trade Union and was active in politics.

In 1948, Golda Meir was appointed a member of the Provisional Government. After independence, she became the Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and in 1949 was elected to the Knesset and served as Minister of Labor 1949-1956 and Foreign Minister 1956-1966. Golda Meir was the Secretary General of the new Labor Party and on the sudden death of Levi Eshkol in 1969, she became Premier at age 70.

The Yom Kippur War was fought during her term as prime minister, beginning with the Egyptian and Syrian assaults of October 6, 1973. After the end of the war, Golda Meir resigned (1974) and Yitzhak Rabin assumed the office of prime minister.

On December 8, 1978, Golda Meir died of cancer in Jerusalem at the age of 80. She was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on December 12, 1978.

  

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Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) prime minister (1960-5, 1970-77, 1994-2000), born in Ratnapura, S Sri Lanka. Following the assassination of her husband, S W R D Bandaranaike, in 1959, she became leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, won the Ceylon general election (1960), and became the world’s first woman prime minister.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike (born 1916) became the first woman prime minister in the world when she was chosen to head the Sri Lankan Freedom Party government in 1960, following the assassination of her husband. She pursued policies of nonalignment abroad and democratic socialism at home.

She held the position for a second time following independence, and again in 1994. Her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunge became president of Sri Lanka, having previously been prime minister for a few months.

  

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Smriti Irani was born, the eldest of three sisters to a Delhi based family. Her father owned a courier business and her mother is a Bengali, related to Tripti Mitra a well known Bengali actress of yesteryears.

Smriti Malhotra is one of the most popular stars of the Indian Television Screen. Her television bonding with the Ekta Kapoor produced soap opera ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ has brought her so much stardom as to give her the opportunity of contesting Chandni Chowk constituency of the Indian capital city New Delhi. Although she lost the election her ability to combine her work with social issues by prominently featuring in talk shows brings her in media limelight once and often.

She married her childhood best friend Zubin Irani. She is the mother of little Zohr Irani and Zoish Irani, and step mother to Shanelle Irani who is Zubin’s daughter from an earlier marriage with model coordinator Mona Irani. In a interview Smriti said she was happy marry to Zubin and had a good friendship with his ex-wife Mona Irani.

Smriti began her career at the age of 16, participating in small plays. She gave up her full-time college education and switched to correspondence education in order to be able to do what was close to her heart: acting.

At 18, she told her father that she wanted to come to Mumbai to work. In 1998, she entered the Miss India contest without the knowledge of anyone in her family and was surprised to be short-listed and came to Mumbai to participate in the finals. Her father was astounded at her decision to enter the contest. No one believed she could make it to the finals. She borrowed Rs 2 lakh from her father on the condition that she would return it. She came to Mumbai and began preparations to enter the final of the contest with earnestness. She had her contest outfit designed and made by Manish Malhotra. She made it to the final round becoming one of the final five contestants.

Desperate to pay her loan back, she appeared for the Jet Airways hostess interview. Her sister, who also applied, got the job but Smriti was rejected. She then took a counter job at McDonalds, serving burgers and swabbing the floors and cleaning tables. Throughout these months of desperation, she kept visiting various agencies, doing auditions and portfolios and leaving her pictures at every TV production company. She was present in the Famous Studio in Mumbai for auditions every day but no one took her seriously.

Finally, lady luck began to shine on her. She was chosen to do the black and white commercial for Whisper. Next, she anchored a show called Filmi Batein for In Mumbai and Etc. channels. Shrey Guleri of Prime Channel saw these appearances on television and called her. As a result, she did some episodes of the show called Bakeman’s Oh La La. Shobha Kapoor in turn saw these and she asked her to meet Ekta at Balaji Telefilms. Smriti met Ekta and as time passed, thought nothing was coming through. But one day, she was asked to come over to audition for Tulsi’s role in KSBKBT she was chosen for this role and the rest, as they say, is history.

After KSBKBT became the top soap in India, her career was made. Recently she quit playing Tulsi in in KSBKBT due to reports that her and Ekta Kapoor had fallen out but in a recent interview Ekta Kapoor had said that Smriti is taking three month’s off KSBKBT to rest after a miscarriage and also stated that Smriti will be returing as Tulsi when she feels happy enough. When asked about Gautima Kapoor replacing Smriti as Tulsi, she said she has spoken to Gautima and she will give her a good exit when Smriti returns.

  

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Vilasrao Dadoji Deshmukh (born May 26, 1945) is an Indian politician from the economically backward Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra. He is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra (Term: October 2004 – October 2009). He is from the Congress party. He is the father of Bollywood actor Ritesh Deshmukh.

He graduated in Science (B.Sc) from M.E.S Abasaheb Garware College (Pune University), Arts ( B.A) and Law ( L.LB.) from the ILS Law College (Pune University) and started social activities in his early youth. He took a keen interest in drought relief work. He was elected as Director on Osmanabad District Central Cooperative Bank and also on Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank in 1979.his family members are;wife-Vaishalitai Deshmukh and three son i.e. Amit, Ritiesh & Dhiraj.

He has been a minister in various governments in Maharashtra from 1982 to 1995 holding portfolios of revenue, cooperation, agriculture, home, industries and education.

From April 1995 to October 17, 1999, when he was not in Government, he kept himself engaged in expansion of the Manjara Co-op.Sugar Mill. The Mill is computerised and well equipped with a wireless system. It established a world record in 1994-95 and in 1997-98 by crushing the highest quantity of sugarcane. It has won 34 awards on national and international level for excellence in production and management.

He became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in 1999 but had to step down in January 2003 and make way for Sushilkumar Shinde, a prominent Dalit face of Congress, following factionalism in the state unit of the party.

  

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Colin Luther Powell, US Army General was born in Harlem on April 5, 1937. His parents were Jamaican immigrants who stressed the importance of education and personal achievement, Powell was raised in the South Bronx and where he graduated from high school without having formed any definite ambition or direction in life. A member of ROTC, he took an army commission after graduation and later served in Vietnam. Powell also earned his Masters of Business Administration from George Washington University.

Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding a series of senior commands and rising to the rank of 4-star General before being appointed Head of the National Security Council by President Reagan in 1987. Two years later, he took over the Army Forces Command, and was made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Bush. The post is the the highest military position in the Department of Defense and Powell is the first African-American officer to receive this distinction. He oversaw 28 crises, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Powell served a second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968-69. During this second tour he was injured in a helicopter crash. Despite his own injuries, he managed to rescue his comrades from the burning helicopter and was awarded the Soldier’s Medal. In all, he has received 11 decorations, including the Legion of Merit.

Powell retired from the army in 1993 and published a best-selling autobiography, My American Journey, in 1995. From 1997 to 2000, he was chairman of America’s Promise, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering character and competence in young people.

In 2000, President George W. Bush appointed Powell Secretary of State, and he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During his tenure, Powell came under fire for his role in building the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His chief role before and after the invasion was to garner international support for a multi-national coalition. In 2004, after acknowledging that it was unlikely that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, Powell announced his resignation as Secretary of State. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was his successor.

Since his retirement, Powell has remained vocal on political topics, openly criticizing the Bush Administration on a number of issues. In 2006, he was a speaker at a special series called Get Motivated, along with former New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani. Powell also joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as a “strategic limited partner.”

Powell is married to Alma Vivian Johnson; they have three children and two grandchildren.

  

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Politician, Senator, lawyer, educator. Born Carol Elizabeth Moseley on August 16, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. A leading African American political figure, Moseley Braun’s career has been marked by great successes and missteps.

She graduated from University of Illinois in 1969 with a degree in political science and then went on to the university’s law school. Moseley Braun earned her law degree in 1972 and began working as assistant United States attorney in Chicago the next year.

Moseley Braun held her first political post as a Democratic representative to Illinois House of Representatives, beginning in 1978. As a representative, she was known as an advocate for social change, working for reforms in education, government, and healthcare. In 1988, she took another challenge. She was elected recorder of deeds for Cook County, Illinois and oversaw hundreds of employees and the public agency’s multimillion budget.

In 1992, Moseley Braun made the leap to the national political arena. She ran for the U.S. Senate, looking to unseat incumbent Democratic senator Alan Dixon in the Democratic primary. Up against a seasoned politician who had spent decades in office, Moseley Braun appeared to be the underdog. But many responded to Moseley Braun as a chance for political change. She won the primary, but faced another tough opponent in Republican Richard Williamson. Williamson tried to capitalize on Moseley Braun’s mishandling of a tax situation. Although the scandal marred her campaign, she won the election. Moseley Braun became the first African American woman to be elected to the Senate.

As a senator, Moseley Braun tackled many issues, including women’s rights and civil rights. She served on several committees, including the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Moseley Braun continued to support educational reforms and called for more restrictive gun control laws. Her time in office, however, was affected by claims that she misused funds from her 1992 campaign, spending the money on personal expenses. While no charges were ever filed, this allegation clung to Moseley Braun as she sought re-election in 1998.

Her re-election campaign was also hindered by her Republican opponent Peter Fitzgerald. A self-financed candidate, Fitzgerald didn’t have restrictions on how much he could spend during his campaign. He won the election by a close margin. After leaving office, Moseley Braun was appointed U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa by President Bill Clinton in 1999. She left the post at the end of the Clinton administration. A career-long advocate for education, Moseley Braun then taught at Morris Brown College.

In 2003, she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. Moseley Braun opposed the war in Iraq and spoke out about the country’s economic situation, but she dropped out of the race in early 2004 after failing to garner enough support. She asked her supporters to vote for Howard Dean.

Since then, Moseley Braun has been working as a business consultant and started an organic foods company called Good Foods Organics. She has one child-a son named Michael from her marriage to Michael Braun, which ended in divorce.

  

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Original Name of Dilip Kumar was Yusuf Khan. His nickname is Sri Dilip Kumar. People commonly call him tragedy king. He was born on December 11, 1922 in Peshawar (Pakistan). His father had relocated to Mumbai. A filmmaker had spotted him and helped him to enter the Hindi film industry. He owned India’s greatest award for his excellence in cinema. His zodiac sign is Sagittarius. He has also been a Member of Parliament.

He has starred in some of the biggest commercially successful films from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1980s. His performances have been regarded as the epitome of emoting in Indian Cinema. He holds the record for most number of Filmfare Awards won for Best Actor. Though he has done all kinds of films – he balanced a wide variety of roles such as the intense Andaz (1949) with the swashbuckling Aan (1952), the dramatic Devdas (1955) with the comical Azaad (1955) and the historical romance Mughal E Azam (1960) with the social Ganga Jamuna (1961).

He was born as Muhammad Yusuf Khan, in Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar, capital of NWFP, British India now in Pakistan , in a Pashtun family of twelve children. His father was based in Devlali in Maharashtra near Mumbai during 1930s. His father later relocated to Bombay (now Mumbai) after the Partition of India. Yusuf Khan moved to Pune and started off with his canteen business and supplying dry fruits. There he was spotted by a leading actress of those years, Devika Rani, who was also the wife of the founder of Bombay Talkies, Himanshu Rai and helped his entry into the Bollywood film industry. He changed his real name, Muhammad Yusuf Khan, to Dilip Kumar on her suggestion.

After a period of box office flops in the mid 1960s, he bounced back when he played a dual role of twin brothers separated at birth in the film “Ram Aur Shyam”(1967) which was one of the biggest box office hits of the year. The success of “Ram Aur Shyam” spawned a number of remakes and imitators.

In the 1970s Kumar acted in fewer films as newer actors such as Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan had began to take the spotlight. Many of Kumar’s films failed at the box office during this period and after the release of his 1976 film Bairaag in which he played triple roles, he took a five year break from acting.

He made a comeback in 1981 with the multi-starrer box office hit “Kranti” which was the biggest hit of the year.He went onto play character roles as an elderly family patriarch or a police officer in a string of box office hits including “Shakti” (1982), “Vidhaata” (1982) and “Karma” (1986). In his last major successful film, “Saudagar” (1991) he appeared alongside another legendary actor Raaj Kumar after three decades since they last appeared together in “Paigham” (1959).

In 1992 he won the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the Hindi film industry for over four decades. After four years hiatus, in 1996 he was back in the limelight after he was attached to make his directorial debut with a film titled “Kalinga” but the film was shelved soon after. He made his last film appearance in the box office flop “Qila”(1998) and has since retired from the film industry although he has continued to receive film offers in recent years but refused them. In 2004 he was attached to star in a film titled “Asar – The Impact” which was eventually shelved due to his indifferent health.

Some of his older films have been shown over and over again on television or cherished on videotape and DVD. A few of them, such as “Devdas” and “Ram Aur Shyam”" have been re-made several times. His 1960 film “Mughal-e-Azam”, which was originally released in black-and-white with some color scenes in the latter half of the film, was fully colorized in 2004 and re-released. Even in 2004, it did well at the box office.Another one of his classic films “Naya Daur” was colourized and released on August 2007.

He has been active in efforts to bring the people of India and Pakistan closer together. He has been a member of the upper house of Parliament since 2000 and is known for his extensive charity work..

He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994. In 1998 he was awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the highest civilian award conferred by the government of Pakistan. He is the second Indian to receive the award; the first was former Indian prime minister Morarji Desai. At the time of Kargil War Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray urged Dilip Kumar to return Nishan-e-Pakistan . Mr Thackeray said Dilip Kumar must give back the award as a mark of protest for Pakistan’s intrusion into Indian soil in May. “He must return Nishan-e-Pakistan following that country’s blatant aggression on Indian soil.”, but Mr. Kumar held his ground. He refused, saying:

“We need to look at this a little rationally. This award is not more important to me than our national interest. If it affects national interest, why would I want to hang on to it? But what does the award’s citation say? Does it say that this has been given to Dilip Kumar for his achievements in films? No, films are just a vocation for me. I do the best I can. This award was given to me for the humane activities to which I have dedicated myself. I have worked for the poor, I have worked for many years to bridge the cultural and communal gaps between India and Pakistan. Politics and religion have created these boundaries. I have striven to bring the two people together in whatever way I could. Tell me, what does any of this have to do with the Kargil conflict?”

In 1980, he was appointed Sheriff of Mumbai, an honorary position.

Dilip Kumar’s younger brother Nasir Khan was also an actor and appeared opposite him in “Ganga Jamuna” (1961) and “Bairaag”(1976) as well as some other films in the late 1940s and 1950s. His career was not as successful however. He died in 1974. Nasir Khan’s son Ayub Khan is also currently an actor in the industry. Nasir Khan’s wife was 1950s actress Begum Para who is making a comeback to films after 50 years in the film “Saawariya” in 2007.

Dilip Kumar’s siblings who are still alive include brothers Ehsan Khan and Aslam Khan who live in Mumbai, a sister Farida who lives in Fresno, California.

Dilip Kumar’s first romantic interest was rumored to be the already married Kamini Kaushal. Then Kumar was said to be romantically linked to the actress Madhubala. It is claimed that Madhubala’s family would not allow the couple to marry; some conjecture that this was because Madhubala was the main source of income for her family.

Kumar and Madhubala were to appear together in “Naya Daur”, but Madhubala’s father refused to allow his daughter to act with Kumar. The producer B.R. Chopra took Madhubala to court and Dilip Kumar testified against her. The former sweethearts were now on extremely bad terms. This complicated work on the film “Mughal-E-Azam”, which had started filming before the court case. It is said that Kumar and Madhubala, who were supposed to portray persecuted lovers, resisted filming any more love scenes.

Dilip Kumar married actress and “beauty queen” Saira Banu in 1966 when he was aged 44 and she was 22. At the time, gossip columnists predicted doom for the high-profile couple, but the union has been one of the longest lasting marriages in Bollywood. The marriage was briefly under threat when Kumar married a woman called Asma in 1980 but the marriage was quickly dissolved.

Dilip Kumar has been nominated for 19 Filmfare Best Actor awards in all and he won eight awards for Best Actor.

  

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President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete (born October 7, 1950) is a Tanzanian politician and current President of the United Republic of Tanzania. Kikwete was born in Msoga, Bagamoyo District, Tanzania or as it was then known, Tanganyika.

He received his primary education at Msoga Primary School between 1958 and 1961 and his middle school education at Lugoba School from 1962 to 1965. He then moved from Lugoba School to Kibaha Secondary School for O-level education between 1966 to 1969. The following year he joined Tanga Secondary School for advanced level education. Kikwete attended the University of Dar es Salaam from 1972 to 1975, where he earned a degree in Economics.

Kikwete grew up witnessing the exercise of leadership by his grandfather Mrisho Kikwete as a local chief and father as a District Commissioner in colonial Tanganyika and Regional Administrative Secretary and an Ombudsman in post-colonial Tanganyika and the United Republic of Tanzania. He spent part of his childhood moving from one area of country to another as his father was transferred to different outposts. He also spent a better part of his childhood in the village under the guidance of his grandfather. Kikwete became a natural choice for leadership in school and later in the party (TANU and CCM) youth movements.

His leadership talents emerged at early stages in life. He was a student leader both in middle and secondary schools and at the University of Dar es Salaam. He was elected Chairman of the Students Council at Kibaha Secondary School and Deputy Head Prefect at Tanga Secondary School. He became very active in student politics at University. He was eventually elected Vice President of the Dar es Salaam University Students Organisation and de-facto President of the student government at the Main Campus in 1973/74. As a student leader, he spearheaded efforts to fight for student’s rights and welfare. He was in the forefront in bringing about awareness and activism in liberation and anti-apartheid politics in the campus and the University community at large. He represented the Dar es Salaam University students and the students and youths of the African continent in several international conferences. Among such meetings were the International Youth Population Conference in 1974 in Bucharest, Romania.

Graduating with a degree in economics in 1975, he opted for a low-paying job as an executive functionary/officer of the ruling Party (TANU later CCM). This gave him the opportunity to work at the grassroots in rural regions and districts of Tanzania.

Kikwete sharpened his leadership acumen in the military. He first had basic military training at Ruvu National Service Camp (1972) and later underwent a basic officers course at the famous Tanzania Military Academy at Monduli, Arusha. This is Tanzania’s top military training institution. On successful completion of the course, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1976. He also undertook Company Commander’s Course in 1983 at the same academy. In his military career, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. From 1984 to 1986, Kikwete was Chief Political Instructor and Political Commissar at the Military Academy. He retired from the military as a lieutenant-colonel when political pluralism was reintroduced to Tanzania in 1992 when he chose to become a full time politician. Prior to that, he was permitted to be both in the military and political leadership.

In elective Party politics, Kikwete started shining in 1982 when he was overwhelmingly elected by the party (CCM) national congress to be a Member of the National Executive Committee. This is the highest policy and decision-making body of the party. He has won re-elections to the body every five years since then. Also, in 1997, he was elected a member of the party’s powerful 31-member Central Committee (CC). He is still a member of the Central Committee since he was reelected in 2002 for another term of 5 years.

As a party cadre, Kikwete moved from one position to another in the party ranks and from one location to another in the service of the party. When TANU and the Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) merged to form CCM in 1977, Kikwete was moved to Zanzibar and assigned the task of setting-up the new party’s organisation and administration in the Islands. In 1980, he was moved to the Party’s Headquarters as Administrator of the Dar es Salaam Head Office and Head of the Defence and Security Department before moving again up-country – to regional and district party offices in Tabora Region (1981-84) and Nachingwea (1986-88) and Masasi District (1988) in the country’s southern regions of Lindi and Mtwara respectively. President Kikwete throve in the military and grassroots party political organisation, mobilisation and administration until 1988 when he was appointed to join the Central Government. The then President Ally Hassan Mwinyi appointed him Member of Parliament and, simultaneously, Deputy Minister for Energy and Minerals on November 7, 1988. In 1990 he was promoted to full Minister responsible for the Ministry of Water, Energy and Minerals. Later the same year he successfully contested for a parliamentary seat in his home constituency of Bagamoyo. He was reappointed Minister for Water, Energy and Minerals in the government formed after the elections.

In 1994, at 44, he became one of the youngest Finance Ministers in the history of Tanzania. At the Treasury, he established discipline in public finance management and accountability and, until today, he is still remembered for establishing cash budget system and revamping of revenue collection structures, methods and institutions, including preparations for the formation and eventual establishment of the Tanzania Revenue Authority.

In December 1995, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, being appointed by President Benjamin William Mkapa of the third phase government. He held this post for ten years, until he was elected President of the United Republic of Tanzania in December 2005, hence becoming the country’s longest serving foreign minister. During his tenure in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tanzania played a significant role in bringing about peace in the Great Lakes region, particularly in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kikwete was also deeply involved in the process of rebuilding regional integration in East Africa. Specifically, several times, he was involved in a delicate process of establishing a Customs Union between the three countries of the East Africa Community (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania), where, for quite some time, he was a Chairman of East Africa Community’s Council of Ministers. Introducing candidate Kikwete at a campaign rally in Dar es Salaam on 21 August 2005, former President Mkapa described him as a super-diplomat, in recognition of his role in the search for peace in neighboring Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kikwete also participated in the initiation, and became a Co-Chair, of the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy.

On May 4th, 2005, Kikwete emerged victorious among 11 CCM members who had sought the party’s nomination for Presidential candidacy in the general election. After a 14th December 2005 multiparty general election, he was declared a winner by the Electoral Commission on December 17th, 2005 and was sworn-in as the Fourth President of the United Republic of Tanzania on 21st December 2005.

President Kikwete’s governing philosophy and political views are influenced by those of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere whom the President was privileged to be close to. So far Kikwete’s government has received accolades across the country and in the donor community for fighting corruption, investing in people, particularly in education, and push for new investiments. In the past two years of Kikwete’s presidency, a remarkable 1,500 new secondary schools have been built, and a new 40,000-student science university is being built in Dodoma, central Tanzania. These successes have led the United States government to grant Tanzania US $698 million under the the Millenium Challenge Account assistance program, the UK government US $500 million for education, and the New York based Africa-America Institute (AAI) to award Tanzania the Africa National Achievement Award in September 2007 in New York.

President Kikwete recently launched a national campaign for voluntary HIV/AIDS testing in Dar es Salaam. He and his wife were the first to be tested.[1]

President Kikwete is a keen sportsman having played basketball competitively in school. He has been a patron of the Tanzania Basketball Federation for the past 10 years. He is married to Mama Salma Kikwete, and together they have eight children.

  

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Fidel Castro has been the leader of Cuba since 1959, and he became the leader by overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista, and then transformed Cuba into the Western Hemispheres first communist state. Growing up he attended Catholic schools and studied law at the University of Havana. It was during his school years that he became politically active, he used violence and student activism as his means to attract attention. He was fiercely Nationalistic and was an outspoken critic of the US’s influence over Cuba, and he easily found a receptive audience. He joined forces with many individuals including Che Guevara and together they overthrew the government and took leadership of the country.

He has stayed a highly controversial leader, where some praise him as a legitimate and popular leader, and others view him as a ruthless dictator. He has always had strained relations with the United States, with the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962. There is a trade embargo between the US and Cuba and Americans cannot travel there. Since he has been in power, he has outlasted American Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerry Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton.

  

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Pratibha Devisingh Patil (born December 19, Jalgaon, 1934) is an Indian Congress politician who is the frontrunner to become the next President of India on 19 July 2007. A lawyer by training, she is the 16th Governor of Rajasthan and its first woman governor. She is a former deputy chairperson of the upper house of Parliament, Rajya Sabha (1986-88).

Earlier, from 1962 to 1985 Pratibha Patil was elected continuously to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, representing several constituencies from Jalgaon District. From 1991-96, she was Member of Parliament from Amravati. Notably, she has never lost an election that she had contested in.

Early life

Pratibha Patil was born into a Rajput family to Narayan Rao in Nadgaon, Maharashtra. She completed her M.A. from M.J. College, Jalgaon, and obtained a Law Degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai. During her college days, she excelled in table tennis, winning shields in inter-college tournaments.In 1962, Pratibha Patil was voted “College Queen” of Mooljee Jaitha (MJ) College in Jalgaon. The same year, she got the Indian National Congress ticket to the Assembly election from Jalgaon constituency and went on to win the election with a huge margin.

She married educator Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat on July 7, 1965. The couple has a son and a daughter. Together with her husband, she set up an educational institute, Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, which runs a chain of schools and colleges in Jalgaon and Mumbai. She has also set up hostels for working women in New Delhi and Mumbai, an engineering college for rural youths in Jalgaon. She also founded and is the chairperson of a sugar factory in Jalgaon.She was also involved in setting up an Industrial Training School for the blind in Jalgaon and running a school for poor children of Vimukta Jamatis & Nomadic Tribes.

Political career

Pratibha Patil joined politics at an early age, and won her first elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Jalgaon in 1962. At the age of 27, she was among the youngest[citation needed MLAs at the time. Under the mentorship of senior Congress leader and ex-Chief Minister Yashwantrao Chavan, she became a deputy minister for education after re-election in 1967 (in the Vasantrao Naik ministry). In her next terms (1972-78) she was a full cabinet minister for the state. In successive congress governments, she handled the portfolios of tourism, social welfare and housing under several chief ministers, Vasantdada Patil, Babasaheb Bhosle, S. B. Chavan and Sharad Pawar, gaining a reputation for competence. She was continually re-elected to the assembly, either from Jalgaon or the nearby Edlabad constituencies, until 1985, when she was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a congress candidate.

Post-Emergency Indira loyalist

In 1977, the Congress party split up after Indira Gandhi’s defeat following the Emergency. Many senior leaders of state Congress(I) , including Pratibha’s mentor Chavan and his protege Sharad Pawar, as well as much of the rank and file joined the Congress (Urs) party floated by Devraj Urs. However, Pratibha preferred to remain with Indira Gandhi, though it verged on inviting political ridicule. This act of loyalty to the Gandhi family would be remembered later by Rajiv Gandhi and subsequently, Sonia Gandhi. In 1978, when the Congress(Urs) (later National Congress Party) came to power in Maharashtra, she became Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly.

In 1980, the Congress(I) swept back into power, and her name was considered a front-runner for the Chief Ministership. However, the post went to Sanjay Gandhi’s confidant A. R. Antulay., who was forced to resign shortly on corruption charges. Subsequently, she became a minister again in the Vasantdada Patil ministry. Following differences between Patil and the-then Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Prabha Rau, Rajiv Gandhi appointed her as MPCC chief (1988-90).

Tenure at Centre

In 1985, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, and was elected deputy chairperson from November 1986 to November 1988. Her term expired in April 1990. The following year, in the elections when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, she won from the seat at Amravati, her husband’s city, where he had once been mayor, thus joining the national parliament in the 10th Lok Sabha.

She has also served as Director of National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks & Credit Societies and the Member of Governing Council, National Co-operative, Union of India.

Governor of Rajasthan

In November 2004, eight years after she had completed her term in the 10th Lok Sabha, Pratibha Patil was recalled from political hibernation to become the first woman Governor of Rajasthan. She was the second politician from Maharashtra in this post, the first being Vasantdada Patil. With Pratibha Patil as Governor, Rajasthan had women in three significant positions of power in the state, including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Assembly Speaker Sumitra Singh.

In April 2006, the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly passed the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill 2006 (originally titled as “Rajasthan Dharma Swatantrya Bill, 2006″). The objective of the bill was to control “unlawful conversion from one religion to another by allurement or by fraudulent means or forcibly.” However, some Christian organizations opposed the bill alleging that the bill was an outcome of the rightist policies of Sangh Parivar.. However, Pratibha Patil returned the bill unsigned, stating certain clauses in the Bill infringed on “the fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of conscience and freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion.”

The Government of Rajasthan re-sent the bill to her in May 2006 noting that similar anti-conversion laws enacted by Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa over 40 years ago were upheld by the Supreme Court of India and that the head of the Constituent Assembly, Dr B R Ambedkar, while drafting Article 25 of the Constitution had said that it would be best to leave it to the state legislatures to make laws to regulate conversions.. Pratibha then sent it to the President APJ Abdul Kalam for his opinion, and the bill is yet to be signed.

Nomination for Presidential Election 2007

On 14th June, United Progressive Alliance(UPA), the ruling alliance of political parties in India headed by Congress (I), and the Indian left nominated her as their candidate for the Presidential Election to be held on 19 July 2007.. She emerged as a compromise candidate after the Left parties would not agree to the nomination of present Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who is widely viewed as bordering on incompetence in this important post. At that point, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil’s name.

This makes her most likely to become the first female President of India. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi described her nomination as a “historic occasion” in India’a 60th year of independence. Although NDA parties are yet to voice their support for Pratibha Patil, barring extremely unexpected events, it is fairly certain that she will go on to become India’s first woman president.

Before leaving Jaipur for New Delhi, she thanked Sonia Gandhi for choosing her and said that her first job as president would be to make National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) started by UPA a success.

  

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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (January 5, 1928-April 4, 1070) was a Pakistani politician who served as President, from 1971 to 1973, and as Prime Minister, from 1973 to 1977, of Pakistan. He has the rare distinction of being a civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator.

Bhuttl was born in Larkana (in what is now Pakistan) the only son of Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto. He completed his early education in Bombay. After completing his initial education, he went to the United States in 1947 to study at the University of Southern California and later transferred to the University of California, Berkeley. He applied to Harvard and accepted but chose to stay at Berkley. While at Berkeley he was the first Asian student to be elected to the Berkeley Student Council. From Berkeley he earned a degree in political science, after which he went to Oxford and studied at Christ Church College from where he graduated with honours.

Following his time at Oxford, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1953 (which had also been attended by allama Iqbal and Muhammed ali Jinnah). The same year, his first child was born, a daughter Benazir, who would later become prime minister herself. In 1958 he joined the cabined of Iskander Mirza. From there, he was active in the Pakistani government working at various posts.

In 1966 he resigned from the cabinet, after serving as Foreign Minister. In 1967 Bhutto formed the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to oppose Ayub Khan’s regime. He was arrested in November 1968 and detained for three months. The movement he helped unleash in West Pakistan in conjunction with agitation for greater autonomy taking place in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), forced the resignation of Ayub Khan in March 1969.

Ayub Khan handed power over to the army commander in chief, Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who assumed the presidency and reimposed martial law. The issue of an autonomous East Pakistan continued to plague Yahya’s administration. In elections held in 1970, the pro-autonomy Awami League won by a landslide in East Pakistan, capturing enough parliamentary seats to control any government that might be formed. Bhutto’s PPP captured the majority of seats in West Pakistan. When Yahya and the PPP delayed the transfer of power to the mewly elected representatives in March 1971, public unrest erupted in East Pakistan. East Pakistani leaders demanded the establishment of an independent nation of Bangladesh, and the Pakistani army cracked down brutally on civilians as well as on armed revolutionaries in East Pakistan. When India intervened in the civil war in December, the Pakistani army was swiftly defeated, and East pakistan emerged as the state of Bangladesh. Yahya Khan resigned, and Bhutto was inaugurated as president and chief martial law administrator on December 20, 1971.

Bhutto introduced socialist economic reforms while working to prevent any further division of the country. He nationalized Pakistan’s mijor industries, life insurance companies, and private schools and colleges. Bhuto enacted tax relief for the country’s coorest agricultural workers and placed ceilings on land ownership. He countered secessionist movements in all of Pakistan’s provinces, lifted martial law in 1972, and pushed through a new constitution in 1973 that recognized Islam as the national religion. Under the parliamentary system established by the new constitution, Bhutto became prime minister.

During elections held in March 1977, nine opposition parties, united as the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), ran a popular campaign against Bhutto’s PPP. When the PPP won a decisive victory in the parliamentary round of the elections, the PNA accused Bhutto’s party of rigging the vote and withdrew in protest from upcoming provincial elections. Widespread street fighting broke out, and opposition politicians were arrested. On July 5 the military, led by General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, staged a coup. Zia relieved Bhutto of power, holding him in detention for a month.

Upon his release, Bhutto travelled the country amid adulatory crowds of PPP supporters. In September the army arrested Bhutto again on charges of authorizing the murder of a political opponent in 1974. Bhutto insisted that the allegations were false, but the high court in Lahore, packed with Zia’s supporters, convicted Bhutto and imposed the death sentence. The Supreme Court approved the judgment by a 4-3 vote, and despite international protests, Bhutto was hanged in April 1979. He is buried in his ancestral village of Larkana next to his father.

  

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Dr. Zakir Hussain (February 8, 1897-May 3, 1969) was the third President of India from May 13, 1967 until his death.

Hussain was born in Hyderbad, India, where his father had migrated from Uttar Pradesh. He went for higher education to Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University). He was know even in those days for his love of knowledge, his wit and eloquence and his readiness to help his fellow students.

Zakir Hussain, then only 23 and a student of the M.A. class, was among the small group of students and teachers who decided to establish a National Muslim University by the name of Jamia Millia Islamia. Recounting, years later, the impact of Mahatma Gandhi, he said: “I began my public career at the feet of Gandhiji, and he has been my guide and inspirer.”

Zakir Hussain’s unceasing quest for knowledge also took him to Germany in the 1920’s. During his three year stay there, he acquired a deep love for European art and literature on music and he also got a Doctorate from the University of Berlin in Economics.

In 1963, he was awarded the highest honour of the land, the Bharat Ratna for his great service to the nation. After serving as the governor of Bihar from 1957 to 1962, and as the Vice President of India for a term of five years, from 1962 to 1967, Dr. Zakir Hussain was elected President of India on May 13, 1967. He died in office.

  

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Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat (December 25, 1918-October 6, 1981) was an Egyptian politician and President from 1970 to 1981.

He was born in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt. Anwar Sadat was 1 of 13 brothers and sisters. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo and joined an officers’ group committed to free Egypt from British control.

During World War II he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling occupying British forces. He participated in the 1952 coup which dethroned King Garouk I. In 1969, after holding many positions in the Egyptian government, he was chosen to be Vice-President by President Gamal Abdal Nasser. When Nasser died the following year, Sadat became President.

In 1973, Sadat, together with Syria, led Egypt into the Yom Kippur War with Israel, trying to reclaim parts of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been conquered by Israel during the Six-Day War. While Israel eventually prevailed in this conflict, Sadat’s initial victories managed to restore the Egyptian morale, laying the ground for a peace settlement several years later. For many years after Sadat was known as the ‘Hero of the Crossing’.

On November 19, 1977 Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem. He made the visit after receiving an invitation from Begin and he sought a permanent peace settlement (much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit). In 1978, this resulted in the Camp David Peace Agreement, for which Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the action was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and especially amongst Muslim fundamentalists. Many believed that only a threat of force would make Israel negotiate over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Camp David accords removed the possibility of Egypt, the major Arab military power, from providing such a threat. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula in phases, returning the entire area to Egypt by 1983.

Meanwhile internal support for Sadat dissappeared due to his arrogant style of government, economic crisis and suppression of dissidents. Even worse, Sasat’s economic policies only accentuated the gap between the rich and the poor in Egypt.

On October 6, 1981, Sadat was assassinated during a parade in Cairo by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, who opposed his negotiations with Israel as well as his brutal use of force in the September crackdown. He was succeeded by the vice president Hosni Mubarak.

  

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Badshah Khan (1890-20 Jan, 1988), as Abdul Gaffar Khan was well known, was the founder of a party called Khudai Khidmatgar in 1929 – a great flower of Mahatma Gandhi. Badshah Khan was the President of All India Congress committee in 1934.

For all his austerity and simplicity, Gaffar Khan embraced the modern world and acknowledged the progress that Europe and America had made in some crucial areas. He enlisted unarmed recruits from the countryside and hoped to supersede the culture of the gun. His practice of Islam and non-violence were shaped by two longings – to rid the Pakhtoons of revenge and save them from destruction that violence would invite from the British who were the colonial power.

Badshah Khan was the ‘Peacemaker from the Pashtun Past’ who sought to replace revenge with justice and reconciliation. His daily life demonstrated his belief in the unity of humanity. He was also a rock. He was the recipient of ‘Nehru World Peace’ award and Bharat Ratna (1987), India’s highest civilian award.

Badshah Khan was buried in the garden of his Jalalabad home in the heart of the Pakhtoon, according to his wishes. Though the Afghan struggle was not yet over, the Kabul government and the mujahideen both announced a ceasefire for the event and his last rites were attended by Pakistan’s ruler Zial-ul-Haq and India’s prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi – a sea of humanity greeting the dead had few parallels in history.

The naturalness of Badshah Khan’s belief is Islam, his directness, his rejection of violence and revenge, and his readiness to co-operate with non-Muslims add up to a valuable legacy for our times – a task of overcoming divides between Islam and the West and Afghanistan and the rest of the world. His bridge-building life is a refutation of the clash of civilization theory.

  

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Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan was born at Thalayolaparambu, near Vaikom, in Kottayam, Kerala, on 12 May 1945 known as K. G. Balakrishnan, is the thirty-seventh Chief Justice of India. He is the only Dalit and the only Malayali to become the Chief Justice of India.

Judge Balakrishnan was born in a poor family. He belongs to the Pulaya caste, which was considered to be one of the lower castes in Kerala.

In 1985, he was appointed as a judge of the Kerala High Court, and was transferred to the Gujarat High Court in 1997.

He became the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court in 1998, and in 1999, he assumed charge as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Madras. On the 8 June 2000 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. He was sworn in as the Chief Justice of India on 14 January 2007 by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

According to Judge Balakrishnan his parents were the only source of inspiration for him: “Though my father was only a matriculate and my mother had her schooling up to the seventh standard, they wanted to give their children the best education.”

After completing his primary education at the Government School in his village, which he had to walk 5 Km. to reach, he joined the Maharaja’s College at Ernakulam, where he studied Science. He took his B. L. degree from the Maharaja’s Law College and enrolled as an advocate in the Kerala Bar Council in 1968. He then completed his Ll. M. in 1971.

  

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Somnath Chatterjee was born July 25, 1929 in Tezpur, Assam is a politician in India. He is currently the Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha

The father of Somnath Chatterjee, Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, was the president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, an organization that championed Hindu causes and a forerunner of today’s BJP. Later he left Hindu Mahasabha to join left politics and was elected to the Parliament with CPI support.

Chatterjee was educated at Mitra Institution School (Calcutta), Presidency College and then the University of Calcutta in Calcutta. He also attended Cambridge University and has been awarded an honorary fellowship of Jesus College. He was called to the bar in England and was a litigating barrister at the Calcutta High Court before joining active politics.

Chatterjee is a member of the Communist Party of India – Marxist. He joined the party in 1968. In 1971, he was given a ticket to contest an interim election caused by the death of his father who was elected from that constituency. He became a Member of the Lok Sabha in 1971 and was elected the first time as an independent candidate supported by the CPI (M).

Somnath Chatterjee began his career as a lawyer and joined active politics in 1968, when he became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He has been one of the party’s leading spokesmen.

His association with national politics began when he contested the elections to the Lok Sabha in 1971 and was elected the very first time. Since then, he has served as a member in all successive Lok Sabhas, except in 1984 when he lost to Mamata Banerjee , getting elected for the tenth time in 2004 as a member of the present 14th Lok Sabha.

  

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Jaya was born on April 10,1948 in a Bengali Kulin Brahmin family to Indira and Taroon Kumar Bhaduri, writer, journalist and stage artist. She studied in St. Joseph’s Convent School, Bhopal. She started her career with a small role in Satyajit Ray’s Bengali film, Mahanagar at the age of 15 . She is an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India,

After initial success in her native West Bengal, she became a success after Guddi in which she played a schoolgirl obsessed with film star Dharmendra after which she moved to Mumbai and starred in many Hindi hit films, such as Jawani Diwani, Koshish, Anamika and Bawarchi. She helped her husband become a star by acting with him in the hit films Zanjeer (1973), Abhimaan (1973), Chupke Chupke (1975) and Sholay (1975).

On June 3, 1973, she married actor Amitabh Bachchan. The couple have two children: Shweta Bachchan-Nanda and Abhishek Bachchan, Her son Abhishek Bachchan recently got married to Indian actress Aishwarya Rai on April 20, 2007. Jaya has two grandchildren from her daughter Shweta; Navya Naveli and Agastya Nanda. Her son-in law is Nikhil Nanda.

Her forthcoming film is Chudiyan where she will appear opposite her son Abhishek Bachchan for the first time alongside Rani Mukerjee and Konkona Sen Sharma.

Jaya Bachchan became active in politics, notably with the Samajwadi Party and has been a Member of Parliament, representing Rajya Sabha till lately.

  

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Dharmendra was born as on December 8, 1935 in Phagwara, Punjab. His original name is Dharam Singh Deol. He is famous by his nickname as Dharam and Dharminder. During his childhood, he used to do hosiery work in Ludhiana city. He had married twice. First, he married Prakash and then Hema Malini. They are said to have fallen in love on the sets of Sholay (1975) although they have made many films together before and after Sholay. His two sons by his first wife, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol, are also successful actors. He has two daughters, starlet Esha Deol and Ahana Deol, by Hema Malini. His nephew Abhay Deol is also an actor.

At the start of his career he was usually cast as a romantic hero against actresses such as Mala Sinha and Meena Kumari. His first major hit film was Phool Aur Paththar. As action movies became more popular, he took on action hero roles. Perhaps the most memorable of these was his role in the 1975 Sholay, where he was teamed with Amitabh Bachchan.

He has recently entered into politics. He became the Member of Parliament in the 2004 general elections from Bikaner, Rajasthan. His zodiac sign is Sagittarius

He had the looks of a real gentle man, the masculine body of a he-man and when it came to his films, he had a very humorous touch in his dialog-delivery and the timing, especially. The heroics in his films – Phool Aur Patthar (1966), Jugnu (1973), Raja Jani (1972) and Loafer (1973) – are all quite remarkable and unforgettable. Let’s not forget that all these films were big blockbusters in India. And not to forget his quite unbelievable performance he’d shown in the role he played as “Veeru” in Sholay (1975). And who can forget his dialog delivery in this movie, whether it was with Basanti or his famous “suicide” dialog.

Though he and his films got nominated for Filmfare awards and though he couldn’t get one for his films, he, in the end, has got the best award in his life – “The Life Time Achievement” award in 1997 from Filmfare for his achievements, splendid performance during his times and wonderful career in Bollywood.

  

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Vijay Mallya is the Chairman of the United Beverages (UB) Group. He recently launched a new domestic airline called Kingfisher Airline which is making great waves. Vijay Mallya is famous for his flamboyant and flashy lifestyle.

Vijay Mallya is the son of a famous industrialist Vittal Mallya. He assumed the Chairman of the UB Group in 1983 and took the company to great heights. Under his dynamic leadership the group has grown into a multi-national conglomerate of over sixty companies. During this process United Beverages acquired several companies abroad. The UB Group has diversified business interests ranging from alcoholic beverages to life sciences, engineering, agriculture, chemicals, information technology and leisure.

In 2005, Vijay Mallya established Kingfisher Airlines. In a short span of time Kingfisher Airline has carved a niche for itself. It was the first airline in India to operate with all new aircrafts. Kingfisher Airlines is also the first Indian airline to order the Airbus A380.

Vijay Mallya has other interests too apart from business. He has won trophies in professional car racing circuits and is a keen yachtsman and aviator. Vijay Mallya has also won numerous trophies in horse racing including several prestigious Derbies.

In 2000, Vijay Mallya entered politics superceded Subramaniam Swamy as the president of Janata Party. Presently, he is a Rajya Sabha M.P.

  

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Rahul Bajaj is a prominent Indian businessman and chairman of the Bajaj Group, which ranks among the top 10 business houses in India. The Bajaj Group has diversified interests ranging from automobiles, home appliances, lighting, iron and steel, insurance, travel and finance. Rahul Bajaj is one of India’s most distinguished business leaders and internationally respected for his business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. He comes from the business house started by Jamnalal Bajaj. Bajaj Auto is his flagship company. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2001. He was listed twentieth on the Forbes India’s Richest 40 list of people.

Rahul Bajaj is an alumnus of Harvard, St. Stephen’s and Cathedral. He took over the reins of Bajaj Group in 1965. Under his stewardship, the turnover of the Bajaj Auto the flagship company has risen from Rs.72 million to Rs.46.16 billion. Rahul Bajaj created one of India’s best companies in the difficult days of the licence-permit raj. He established factories at Akurdi and Waluj. In 1980s Bajaj Auto was top scooter producer in India and its Chetak brand had a 10-year waiting period.

The initiation of liberalization in India posed great challenges for Bajaj Auto. Liberalisation brought the threat of cheap imports and FDI from top companies like Honda. Rahul Bajaj became famous as the head of the Bombay Club, which opposed liberalization. The scooter sails plummeted as people were more interested in motorcycles and the rival Hero Honda was a pioneer in it.

The recession and stock market collapse of 2001 hit the company hard and it was predicted that the days of Bajaj Auto were numbered. However, Bajaj Auto re-invented itself, established a world-class factory in Chakan, invested in R&D and came up with Bajaj Pulsar Motorcycle. Bajaj Pulsar is currently a leader in its segment.

He was recently (June 2006) elected to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, with cross party support from the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP.

  

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Lalit Suri was the ‘uncrowned hotel king’ of India and a member of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of India’s Parliament).

Born on April 15, 1947 in Rawalpindi (Pakistan), Lalit Suri is the Chairman of the Bharat Hotels chain and is the single-largest hotel owner with over 1600 rooms. Bharat Hotels chain comprises seven hotels which include the flagship InterContinental The Grand in Delhi, and six Grand hotels in Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Srinagar, Udaipur and Khajuraho.

Suri was also the owner of the Midday newspaper in Delhi. Lalit Suri is an alumnus of St Columbus and Sri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi. He represented both his school and college in swimming and athletics at the state level. Lalit Suri was trained as an automobile engineer and started his career manufacturing vehicle bodies. He commissioned his first hotel in Delhi in 1988. Since then there has been no looking back.

In the last few years Bharat Hotels has invested Rs 500 crore on its properties in Mumbai and Goa. In addition, the group has spent Rs 42 crore on a 30-year lease on the former Bangalore Ashok, and a further Rs 40 crore on renovations. Lalit Suri is currently on an expansion mode. Sites for hotels have been identified and negotiated in Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, while search is on for the right locations in Chennai and Hyderabad. In the first phase hotels will be constructed in Amritsar, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur adding 400-600 rooms to the Grand chain, while the next phase in Chennai, and Hyderabad) will take the tally up by another 500 five-star deluxe rooms.

Apart from a successful businessman, Lalit Suri is also an avid traveler and an art lover. Presently, he is also a Rajya Sabha MP.

  

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Rahul Mahajan was born in 1974, in a Maharashtrian Deshastha Brahmin family is an Indian politician. Rahul Mahajan is the son of the late Indian politician, Pramod Mahajan. Rahul Mahajan came into the news when his father was shot by his own brother and struggled for his life for twelve days before succumbing. Television footage showed him comforting his sister and mother and maintaining a stoic demeanor. There were rumors that Mahajan would be inducted into the BJP to follow his father’s footsteps.

However, exactly a month after his father’s death on June 3, 2006, Mahajan was hospitalized after an alleged cocaine overdose. His father’s secretary, Bibek Maitra was also rushed to the hospital but was pronounced Dead on arrival. The two had imbibed a cocktail of drugs along with champagne. Mahajan recovered, but on his discharge from hospital on June 6 2006, he was arrested by the Delhi Police on charges of drug possession and consumption.

The case has become more complex due to the fact that there are several different versions of what happened that night, and the fact that Apollo Hospital, where the two were admitted, said in a press conference that Mahajan’s toxin screens were negative for all known drug types. An independent testing of Mahajan’s blood has yielded different results, with high quantities of opiates detected in his blood sample. Apollo hospital has since changed their answer, saying that traces of barbiturates and opiates were found in his bloodstream. The forensics lab, after examining Mahajan’s gastric lavage, has declared that heroin had been consumed, probably after mistaking it to be cocaine, and the Indian press has compared the incident to the movie Pulp Fiction.

In July 2006, he got engaged to Shweta Singh; someone who he has known for 13 years. They were in flying school together in the US, and also flew for the Indian airlines Jet Airways. This engagement is a little controversial in its timing, with people wondering why it was so sudden.

After two weeks of his divorce, on August 17, 2008 Rahul joins Bigg Boss (Season 2), a reality show aired by the Colors (India TV channel). Much has been written about his close friendship with Monica Bedi and Payal Rohatgi on the show.

He is seen getting closer to his friend Payal Rohatgi. Also he escaped from the BigBoss house in the last week of result & thrown out from the Bigg Boss house, few days before announcing the final winner.

After BigBoss, Mahajan also participated in the reality show, is a swayamvar for Rahul Mahajan, where 16 girls are participating as his would-be bride. It is to be shown on NDTV Imagine channel.

  

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The Honorable Ujjal Dosanjh, PC, MP (b. 1947, India) is a Canadian politician and lawyer.

Dosanjh is a member of the Liberal government of Paul Martin, serving as the nineteenth federal Minister of Health. Previously he was the NDP Premier of British Columbia.

Provincial Politics

Dosanjh was elected as a member of the Provincial Legislature of British Columbia in 1992, and was later appointed as the province’s Attorney General by Premier Glen Clark.

After Clark resigned amid scandal, Dosanjh succeeded him to become leader of British Columbia’s New Democratic Party and BC’s 33rd Premier on February 24, 2000. Notably, this made him Canada’s first non-white and first Indo-Canadian Provincial Premier.

When Dosanjh took office, the NDP government was deeply unpopular, due to the lingering controversy around former leader and premier Glen Clark, and Dosanjh proved unable to distance himself from the controversy. Amid criticism from the opposition parties, Dosanjh remained in office for nearly a year before calling a much-wanted election. It was assumed his party would suffer terribly, and as a result Dosanjh attempted to use his remaining days in power to improve the NDP’s standing by implementing several new policies, such as tax cuts.

When the election was eventually called, Dosanjh remained on the defensive for virtually the entire campaign. He attempted to distance himself from the Clark scandals by pointing out that as Attorney-General, he had been the person who announced the criminal investigation against Clark, which forced the Premier’s resignation. The attempts did not work, however and Dosanjh’s attempts to rebuild the party under his personal leadership failed.

The NDP government had become so unpopular under Clark that in Dosanjh’s campaign the party’s name was almost never used on posters and ads, with the focus instead being on Dosanjh himself. Though his personal approval ratings remained high, voters were ultimately unable to separate his leadership from that of his predecessor.

Dosanjh led the NDP to overwhelming defeat in the provincial election of 2001, winning just two of 79 seats. His own seat was lost, and Dosanjh announced his resignation that night. With the accession of Liberal premier Gordon Campbell, Mr. Dosanjh returned to practicing law and Joy MacPhail became interim leader of the NDP on June 16 2001, one month after the election debacle.

Federal Politics

In 2004, Ujjal Dosanjh re-entered politics as a candidate for Paul Martin’s Liberal Party of Canada in the 2004 Canadian election. Controversially, Martin appointed him directly as Liberal candidate in the riding of Vancouver South, bypassing the usual nomination election among resident party members. Dosanjh’s departure from his party also earned him criticism from past NDP supporters. Despite this Dosanjh’s bid was overwhelmingly successful as he won his riding by a 18194 to 10346 margin over his closest rival, Conservative Victor Soo Chan .

In July 2004, he was appointed Minister of Health in the federal Cabinet.

  

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Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (September 3, 1900 – August 31, 1986) was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 1950 to 1956, and as the most long-standing president of Finland from 1956 to 1981. Kekkonen continued the neutrality policy of President Paasikivi, which came to be known as the Paasikivi-Kekkonen line.

Early life

Famous Quotations Urho Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi in the Savo region of Finland, but he lived his childhood in Kainuu. His family were farmers (though not poor tenant farmers, as his supporters claimed). His school years did not go smoothly. During the Finnish Civil War, he fought on the White side and led an execution squad in Hamina.

In independent Finland, Kekkonen worked as a policeman and a journalist. He moved to Helsinki in 1921 to study law, graduating as a Master of Laws in 1926. In 1927, he became a lawyer, but had to resign due to his abrasive comments. Politically, he was a nationalist, and close to right-wing radicalism. He was also an active athlete and columnist.

Early political career

In 1933, Kekkonen joined the Agrarian Party (later Centre Party). He was in Germany from 1932 to 1933. His second try to get elected into parliament succeeded in 1936 and he became Interior Minister. Kekkonen also served as Minister of Justice from 1937 to 1939. He was not a member of the cabinets during the Winter War or the Continuation War. In 1945, he again became Minister of Justice and had to deal with the war-responsibility trials . He also served as Speaker of the Eduskunta from 1948 to 1950.

In 1950, Kekkonen lost the presidential election, but Juho Kusti Paasikivi selected him as a prime minister. In all his four cabinets he emphasized his role to create and maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union. This was called in foreign countries “Finlandization.” He was authoritarian and embarrassed his opponents in public. He was ousted in 1953, although he returned as Prime Minister from 1954 to 1956.
Term as president

In the presidential election of 1956, Kekkonen defeated the Social Democrat Karl-August Fagerholm by two votes in the electoral college and was elected as president. As president, Kekkonen continued the neutrality policy of president Paasikivi, which came to be known as the Paasikivi-Kekkonen line. From the beginning he ruled with the assumption that the Soviet Union accepted only him; the country at the time was some times called Kekkoslovakia.

In 1961, the Soviet Union demanded negotiations based on the military treaty, which helped Kekkonen oust his potential presidential rival Olavi Honka . Kekkonen’s opposition disappeared when he accepted only cooperative cabinets.

Throughout his time as president, Kekkonen did his best to keep political rivals at check. The Center Party’s rival, National Coalition Party (Finland) was kept in opposition despite good performance in elections. In a few occasions, the parliament was dissolved as the political composition did not please Kekkonen. Too prominent Center-partists often found themselves sidelined, as Kekkonen negotiated directly with the lower lever. The “Mill Letters” of Kekkonen were a continuous stream of directives to high officials, politicians, journalists etc.

Kekkonen was re-elected normally in 1968. In 1973, he was re-elected by emergency law. In 1978 there were no serious rivals left.

The authoritarian behaviour of Kekkonen during his presidential term is one of the main reasons for the reforms of the Finnish Constitution in 1984-2003. In these reforms, the power of parliament and prime minister was increased at the expense of president. Several of these changes have been initiated by Kekkonen’s successors.

The terms of president were limited to two
Presidents role in cabinet building was restricted
President is elected directly, not by an electoral college
President may no longer dissolve the Parliament without the support of the Prime Minister
Prime minister’s role in shaping Finland’s foreign policy was enhanced

Such was his impact on the Finnish political scene that his face was on the 500 Markkaa note during his term as president.

Later life

In 1981, Kekkonen begun to suffer from undisclosed disease that seemed to affect his brain functions. In the same year, Mauno Koivisto had already defied Kekkonen, but he still refused to resign. In September, Kekkonen left for sick leave, and in October he resigned. There is no public report about his illness.

Kekkonen died 1986 and was buried with full honors. His heirs restricted access to his diaries. An “authorized” biography was commissioned from Juhani Suomi , who subsequently defended the interpretation of history therein and denigrated most other interpretations.

  

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Vaclav Klaus (born 19 June 1941) is the second President of the Czech Republic and a former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He is indisputably one of the most important Czech politicians of the recent era.

Klaus was born in Prague and graduated from the Prague School of Economics in 1963; he also spent some time at universities in Italy (1966) and the United States (1969).

He pursued a postgraduate scientific career at the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which he left (reportedly, he was ejected for political reasons) for the Czechoslovak State Bank in 1970; he joined the perestroika-minded Prognostics Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 1995 he achieved the degree of Professor of Finance at the Prague School of Economics.

Vaclav Klaus entered full-time politics soon after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. As a member (and later chairman) of Civic Forum he became the federal Minister of Finance. In April 1991 Klaus co-founded Obcanska demokraticka strana (Civic-Democratic Party, ODS), the strongest and most right-wing of the post-Civic Forum splinter parties. He remained its chairman until the autumn of 2002.

In June 1992, ODS won the elections in the Czech Republic with a reform program; however, the winner in Slovakia was Vladimir Meciar’s nationalistic HZDS. It soon became apparent that Slovak demands for increased sovereignty were incompatible with the limited “viable federation” supported in the Czech lands; both leaders assumed premiership in their respective polities and quickly agreed on a smooth division of Czechoslovakia under a caretaker federal government.

Klaus continued as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic after the 1996 election, but ODS’s win was much narrower and his government was plagued by increasing instability and economic problems. He had to resign in the autumn of 1997 after a government crisis caused by an ODS funding scandal.

Vaclav Klaus is a prominent member of the Mont Pelerin Society. His enthusiasm for the free market economy as exemplified by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman and as practised by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush was well known and also often criticised. Others agree with his free-market concepts, but point out that during his premiership he neglected the importance of law and enforcement of property rights.

ODS lost the parliamentary elections in 1998 and Milos Zeman, chairman of the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), succeeded Klaus as prime minister, although his minority government had to be supported by an “opposition agreement” with ODS and personally Klaus, who became the chairman of the Parliament.

ODS was again defeated in the elections of June 2002; after long equivocation, Klaus resigned as party chair in the autumn and was promptly elected the honorary chairman by unanimous vote.

After more than five years spent in opposition, Klaus was elected President of the Czech Republic by joint session of both chambers of parliament on February 28, 2003; he succeeded Vaclav Havel, who has been one of his greatest political opponents since the division of Czechoslovakia. The result surprised many: Klaus was elected at the third vote with just 142 votes out of 281. The governing coalition, buffeted especially by feuds within CSSD, was unable to agree on a common candidate to oppose him. Klaus achieved the quorum thanks to the votes of most Communists (whose parliament club he visited before the election and whose shunning from political meetings he ended). Apparently a faction within CSSD, unsatisfied with Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla, and reportedly even a few right-leaning members of KDU-CSL, supported Klaus.

Vaclav Klaus still has many objectors, and his alleged arrogance is the least among their criticism – they depict him as a narrow-minded pragmatist interested only in technology of power and textbook economic precepts. Beside faults of his governments, the most contested issues are his relation to Communism, both in the country’s past and the strengthening political party today (he’s published articles praising “the grey zone” of the majority of ordinary people and condemning dissidents like Havel for haughtiness; in another article he declared himself a “non-communist” but not anticommunist, which he rejects as cheap and superficial posturing), his Eurosceptic pronouncements, which often border on pandering to the public’s nationalist instincts; and an apparent desire to be liked at the expense of a longer-term, more demanding agenda. On the other hand, his backers claim that among Czech politicians of the last decade, Klaus is one of the few, if not the only one, with the intellectual capacity and dedication necessary for true statesman’s greatness.

Klaus’s popularity in public opinion polls grew rapidly in the first half of 2003, probably fuelled by his public opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, his loudly voiced scepticism on the process of European integration, refusals to grant amnesties, and sometimes populist rhetoric.

Life outside politics

Vaclav Klaus is married to economist Livia Klausova and has five grandchildren and two sons: Vaclav is the headmaster of a private grammar school in Prague and Jan works as a financial analyst.

Vaclav Klaus is also a writer and wrote over 20 books on various social, political, and economics subjects, including a book about the first year of his presidency, Year One.

For many years during his youth, Vaclav Klaus was an outstanding sportsman, playing basketball and volleyball. He also enjoys skiing and tennis. He was the first to break the Stanley Cup tradition that the only those hockey players who have won it can hold the Cup; on July 26, 2004, a couple of Czech hockey players presented it to him at Prague Castle.

In his spare time, he enjoys fiction and music, especially jazz. Prof. Vaclav Klaus holds a number of international awards and honorary doctorates from universities all over the world.

  

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Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (vyah-cheh-SLAHF mih-KHY-lo-vihch MOL-uh-tawf) (February 25, 1890 (O.S.) (March 9, 1890 (N.S.)) – November 8, 1986) was a Soviet politician and diplomat. Molotov and Stalin himself were the only senior revolutionary Bolsheviks to survive the Great Purges of the 1930s.

He was born in the village of Kukarka (now Sovetsk in Kirov Oblast), Russia, as Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Skryabin(he was a relative of the composer Alexander Scriabin). He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906 and took the pseudonym Molotov (from Russian: hammer). He was, along with Alexander Shlyapnikov, the senior Bolshevik in Petrograd at the time of the February Revolution as figures such as Lenin were still in exile. After what appears to be an odyssey through the landscape of geographic and political Russia including an important role in the October Revolution and editing the newspaper Pravda for a while, he started working under Joseph Stalin in 1922.

From December 19, 1930 to May 9, 1941, he was Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), in which capacity he was the head of government of the USSR, although this position was in practice subordinate to the General Secretary of the Communist Party.

During the drought in the Soviet Union of 1932-1933, which affected most grain-producing territories (Ukraine, Kuban, Volga region, Kazakhstan), Molotov was the head of the Extraordinary commission for grain delivery (khlebosdacha) in Ukraine. Despite the bad harvest and an epidemic of typhoid, he managed to collect 4.2 million tonnes of grain (of planned 4.6 million tonnes).

In May 1939 he became People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister), and he held both positions until Stalin took over the Sovnarkom chair two years later. It is believed that he was made foreign minister because his predecessor, Maxim Litvinov, was Jewish, and might thus have insulted the Germans by his role in negotiations. Molotov negotiated in parallel with both the West and Nazis to secure maximal territorial gain for Soviet Union. After British-French-Soviet talks held in August of 1939 failed, he negotiated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with his German counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop.

In accordance with the pact, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, after it had already been invaded from the west by Germany on September 1, and subsequently annexed the eastern part of the country. For the citizens of eastern Poland, this meant the beginning of mass arrests and deportations of “class enemies” to the eastern part of the Soviet Union. During this period, Molotov publicly expressed his satisfaction at the fall of Poland under both German and Soviet onslaughts, blaming the Polish state and its “landlords’ rule” for the oppression of ethnic minorities.

As a member of the Soviet politburo, Molotov approved of executions. For example, on March 5, 1940, the politburo signed an order of execution (prepared by Lavrenti Beria) of 25,700 members of the Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish prisoners of war. This became known as the Katyn massacre, which was vigorously denied by the Soviet Union.

During the period prior to the outbreak of war between the USSR and Germany in 1941, Molotov consistently annoyed the Germans with his pragmatic tenacity during negotiations, insisting on preserving or advancing Soviet interests in Eastern Europe, and not being deceived by idle German promises of concessions in other faraway parts of the world, such as India.

(According to a story later told by Stalin to Winston Churchill, when Ribbentrop was discussing dividing up the spoils of a soon-to-be-conquered British Empire, Molotov once responded by asking him why, if Britain was doomed, they were holding negotiations in an air raid shelter.) Later on, he also frustrated U.S President Franklin D. Roosevelt with his firm stance on issues during the war.

Hours after the German invasion on June 22, 1941, he gave a speech in which he stated that the attack was an act of unprovoked aggression and declared that the Soviet Union would fight until victory.

Molotov served as foreign minister until 1949, when he was replaced by Andrei Vyshinsky as a mark of falling out of Stalin’s favor’he was removed from the Politburo in 1952. His wife Polina Zhemchuzhina , a staunch Zionist and friend of Golda Meir, was arrested for treason in 1948 during what some have termed an anti-Semitic campaign against “rootless cosmopolitans”, which followed Israel’s siding against the USSR in the Cold War.

For reasons such as these, some have speculated that Molotov could have become a victim of a purge Stalin was suspected of planning in the last weeks of his life. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, he was reinstated in the Politburo (which was now called the Presidium) and served again as foreign minister until 1956, but soon found himself at odds with the reformist policies of Stalin’s eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev, and was strongly opposed to Khrushchev’s 1956 denunciation of Stalin. In 1957, along with other top Stalinists such as Lazar Kaganovich (the so-called Anti-Party Group), he attempted a coup within the party to oust Khrushchev. When this failed, it provided Khrushchev with a pretext to demote Molotov to a series of increasingly irrelevant posts: first as Ambassador to Mongolia (1957-1960) and then as the permanent Soviet delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (1960-1961). By 1964, he had been expelled from the party altogether.

Molotov was allowed to rejoin the party in 1984, but this was a purely symbolic gesture. By the time of his death (at the age of 96) in Moscow on November 8, 1986, he was the last surviving major participant in the events of 1917. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow.

Soldiers of the Finnish Army mockingly named the Molotov cocktail after him, as Molotov served as the Commissar for Foreign Affairs during the time of the Russo-Finnish War (1939-1940).

  

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Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, and the main opposition candidate in the October-November 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

Biography

Yushchenko was born in the village of Khoruzhivka in Sums’ka oblast’, into the family of a teacher. He studied economics in Ternopil’ and afterwards worked as a rural accountant in Ivano-Frankivs’ka oblast’. In 1976, he was hired in Sums’ka oblast’s branch of the USSR State Bank. He was later promoted to the post of deputy chairman of the Ukraine Agro-Industrial Bank in Kiev.

In 1993, he started working in the newly-formed National Bank of Ukraine and became its Head in 1997. As such, he played an important part in the creation of Ukraine’s national currency, the hryvnia, and the establishment of a modern regulating system for commercial banking. He also successfully overcame a debilitating wave of hyper-inflation that hit the country and managed to defend the value of the currency following the 1998 financial crisis in Russia.

In December 1999, Yushchenko was nominated as Prime Minister by President Leonid Kuchma and was ratified in this post by an overwhelming majority of 296-12 in parliament. Significant economic progress was made during Yushchenko’s cabinet service, though critics argue that this was made possible by the general situation of the economy, and was not the result of his actions. Soon, his government (particularly, deputy prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko) became embroiled in a confrontation with influential coal-mining and natural gas industry leaders.

The conflict resulted in a 2001 no-confidence vote by the parliament, which was mainly the work of Communists, who had opposed Yushchenko’s economic policies, and centerist groups associated with the country’s powerful “oligarchs”. The vote was carried by 263 to 69 and resulted in Yushchenko’s removal from office. The fall of his government was viewed with dismay by many Ukrainians; four million votes were gathered in support of a petition supporting him and opposing the parliamentary vote and a 10,000-strong demonstration was held in Kiev.

In 2002, Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the parliamentary election that year. However, the number of seats won wasn’t enough for a majority, and the efforts to form it together with other opposition parties failed. Since then, Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the Our Ukraine group (Ukrainian: fraktsiya “Nasha Ukrayina”). He is widely regarded as the leader of anti-president opposition in the government, since other opposition parties are less influential and have fewer seats in the parliament.

Yushchenko is married to Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko (his second wife). She is a Ukrainian-American born in Chicago and a former official with the U.S. State Department, where she worked as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Opponents of Yushchenko have criticized her for remaining a U.S. citizen. During the recent election campaign, Kateryna was accused of exerting the influence of the U.S. government on her husband’s decisions, as an employee of the U.S. government or even a CIA agent. She had earlier been accused by Russian television journalist Mikhail Leontyev of leading a U.S. project to help Yushchenko seize power in Ukraine; in January 2002, she won a libel case against him. Ukraine’s pro-government Inter television channel repeated Leontyev’s allegations in 2001 but in January 2003 she won a libel case against the channel as well.

The Yushchenkos have five children: three daughters and two sons.

Yushchenko’s main hobbies are Ukrainian traditional culture (including folk ceramics and archeology) and mountaineering.

Political portrait and 2004 presidential election

Since the end of his term as prime minister, Yushchenko has become a charismatic political figure and he is popular among Ukrainians in the western and central regions of the country. As of 2001-2004, his rankings in popularity polls were higher than those of the current president, Leonid Kuchma.[4]

As a politician, Viktor Yushchenko is widely perceived as a mixture of West-oriented and moderate Ukrainian nationalist. He is also an advocate of massive privatization of the economy. His opponents (and allies) sometimes criticize him for indecision and failure to reveal his position, while advocates argue that these are the signs of Yushchenko’s commitment to teamwork, consensus, and negotiation. He is also often accused of being unable to form a united and strong team that is free of inner quarrels. One of his powerful backers is Yulia Timoshenko, who served time in jail for fraud charges related to privatization of gas.

In 2004, as President Kuchma’s term came to an end, Yushchenko announced that he was an independent candidate for president. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since his term as prime minister, Yushchenko has slightly modernized his political platform, adding social partnership and other liberal slogans to older ideas of European integration, including Ukraine joining NATO, and fighting corruption. Supporters of Yushchenko are organized in the “Syla Narodu” (“Power of the People”) electoral coalition, which is led by himself and his political ally Yuliya Tymoshenko, with the Our Ukraine coalition being the main constituent force.

Yushchenko’s campaign was built on face-to-face communication with the voters, since the government prevented most major TV channels from providing equal coverage to the candidates. Meanwhile, his rival, Yanukovych, frequently appeared in the news.

The campaign was often bitter, controversial, and violent, with accusations of “dirty tricks” from both sides. Yushchenko became seriously ill after dining with the head of the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the Russian successor to the Soviet state security service known as the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) in early September 2004, and he was flown to Vienna’s Rodolfinerhaus clinic for treatment. He was diagnosed with “acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes”, said to be due to “a serious viral infection and chemical substances which are not normally found in food products”. In other words, poisoning, which Yushchenko has claimed was the work of agents of the government. However, this accusation has yet to be proven. After the illness, his face became heavily disfigured, bloated, and pockmarked.

According to British toxicologist John Henry, of St. Mary’s Hospital in London, the marks on Yushchenko’s face are chloracne, a characteristic symptom of dioxin poisoning. This claim is disputed by other scientists, who have suggested that it might be the result of rosacea, but this theory cannot explain the severe internal medical problems Yushchenko suffers from. The Yanukovych campaign have claimed that the “poisoning” was caused by eating bad sushi. On 8 December 2004, Dr Nikolai Korpan, who treated Yushchenko in Vienna at the, announced his finding that Yushchenko had been “deliberately” poisoned, and that the specific poison will be identified within days.

The initial vote, held on 31 October 2004, saw Yushchenko obtaining 39.87% in front of Yanukovich with 39.32%. As no candidate reached the 50% margin required for outright victory, a second round of run-off voting was held on 21 November 2004. Although a 75% voter turnout was recorded, observers reported many irregularities and abuses across the country. Judging by the exit poll results, he won voting in western and central provinces of the country.

The alleged electoral fraud, combined with the fact that the exit polls recorded a result (an 11% margin of victory for Yushchenko in one poll) so radically different from the final vote tally (a 3% margin of victory for Yanukovych), has caused Yushchenko and his supporters to refuse to recognize the results. Thus far, they have organized rallies across the nation, including a large, continuous demonstration in Kiev’s Independence Square, and have implemented a large-scale general strike amongst their supporters. Several municipal governments, including those of Kiev and Lviv, Yushchenko’s stronghold, have announced that they will not recognize the authority of a Yanukovych presidency and a massive protest occurred on 23 November 2004 in front of the headquarters of the Verkhovna Rada.

During the rally, tens of thousands of Yushchenko’s supporters filled the streets outside the building, holding orange flags, the color of Yushchenko’s coalition, and chanting his name. Inside the Verkhovna Rada, the opposition leader took a symbolic oath of office in front of legislative supporters shouting, “Bravo, Yushchenko!”

Shortly thereafter, one of Yushchenko’s deputies announced that half of the estimated 200,000 people protesting in Independence Square were asked to march on the building housing the president’s administration, where they were to lay what he called a “peaceful siege”. As thousands of his supporters filled the streets around the building, Yushchenko and a group of his closest aides left the Verkhovna Rada and marched there. Reports indicated that they had entered the building and had begun negotiations with President Kuchma, which were expected to last well into 24 November 2004.

Instead, the talks were cancelled either late at night on 23 November 2004 or early in the morning on 24 November 2004. While it is not clear who cancelled the negotiations, it is clear that Yushchenko has not conceded defeat. That morning, he made a speech in Independence Square in which he called for his supporters across the nation to engage in strikes and sit-ins with the intention of paralyzing the government and forcing Kuchma and Yanukovych to concede defeat. He labelled this move the “Orange Revolution” and announced that a detailed plan for these events would be released by his campaign on 25 November 2004.

Ukraine’s parliament passed a resolution on 27 November 2004 that the presidential run-off vote was invalid and failed to reflect the will of voters. It also passed a resolution of no confidence in the Central Elections Commission based on allegations of irregularities, and finally a vote of no confidence in the government itself. Although the votes were not binding, they may lead to new elections.

  

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William Joyce (April 24, 1906 – January 3, 1946), known as Lord Haw-Haw was a fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during World War II. He was born in New York, to Irish parents who had taken United States nationality.

A few years after his birth, the family returned to Galway, Ireland. He attended St. Ignatius College, Galway, from 1915 to 1921. Though the family were Roman Catholic, they were strongly unionist. William Joyce later claimed to have aided the Black and Tans.

Fearing reprisal attacks, the Joyce family left for London after the establishment of the Irish Free State, where Joyce applied to Birkbeck College of the University of London and to enter the Officer Training Corps. At Birkbeck Joyce developed an interest in fascism, and he joined the British Fascisti of Rotha Lintorn-Orman. While stewarding a Conservative Party meeting, Joyce was involved in a fight and received a deep razor slash to his cheek. Joyce joined the British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Mosley in 1932, and swiftly became a leading speaker, praised for his power of oratory.

He was instrumental in changing the full name of the BUF to British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936. He stood as a BUF candidate in the 1937 elections to the London County Council. However, when Mosley drastically reduced the BUF staff shortly after the elections (sacking Joyce), he left to form a breakaway organization, the National Socialist League ,

In late August 1939, shortly before World War II commenced, he and his wife, Margaret, fled to Germany. He had been tipped off, probably by Maxwell Knight of MI5, that the British authorities intended to detain him under Defence Regulation 18B. Joyce became a naturalized German in 1940.

The name ‘Lord Haw-Haw of Zeesen’ was coined by the pseudonymous Daily Express radio critic Jonah Barrington in 1939, but this referred initially to Wolf Mitler . When Joyce became the best-known propaganda broadcaster the nickname transferred to him. Besides broadcasting, Joyce’s duties included distributing propaganda among British prisoners of war, whom he tried to recruit into the British Free Corps, as a branch of the Waffen SS. He wrote a book, Twilight over England, that was promoted by the German Ministry of Propaganda.

At the end of the war, he was captured by British forces and tried for treason by broadcasting propaganda. It was then that Joyce’s American nationality came to light, and it seemed that he would have to be acquitted, based not upon innocence of the charges of aiding the Nazi war effort but rather a lack of jurisdiction; he could not be convicted of betraying a country that was not his own. However, Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross successfully argued that Joyce’s possession of a British passport, even though he had lied about his nationality in order to get it, entitled him to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the King. It was on this technicality, confirmed by the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, that Joyce was convicted and sentenced to death.

Joyce was executed by famed hangman Albert Pierrepoint on January 3 1946, at Wandsworth Prison. The Crown considered trying his wife, Margaret, as well, but a secret memo recommended clemency for her.

William and Margaret Joyce had two daughters, one of whom is Heather Landolo .

Joyce was reinterred in 1976 at New Cemetery in Bohermore , County Galway, Ireland.

  

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William Ferguson Massey (often known simply as Bill Massey) served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1912 to 1925, and was the founder of the Reform Party. He is widely considered to have been one of the more skilled politicians of his time, and was known for the particular support he showed towards rural interests.

Massey was born into a farming family, and grew up near the city of Derry in Northern Ireland. He was born in 1856. His family moved to New Zealand in 1869, although Bill Massey himself remained in Ireland for a further year to complete his education. After arriving in New Zealand, Massey worked as a farmhand for some years before acquiring his own farm in 1877. Five years later, Massey married his neighbour’s daughter, Christina Allen.

Massey gradually became more prominent in his community. This was partly due to his involvement the school board, the debating society, and freemasonry, but the most important groups he participated in were farming associations. Because of his prominence in these circles, he became involved in political debate, working on behalf of rural conservatives against the Liberal Party government of John Ballance.

In 1893, Massey stood as a candidate in parliamentary elections, but was unsuccessful, losing to the Liberal candidate. Early the following year, however, Massey was invited to contest a by-election in a neighbouring electorate, and was victorious.

Massey joined the ranks of the (mostly conservative) independent MPs opposing the Liberal Party (now led by Richard Seddon). These MPs, however, were poorly organized and dispirited, with little chance of unseating the Liberals. William Russell , official Leader of the Opposition, was able to command only fifteen votes. Massey brought increased vigour to the conservative faction.

While the conservatives did rally for a time, support for the Liberals increased markedly during the Boer War, leaving the conservatives devastated. Massey’s political career, however, survived the period. Despite a challenge by William Herries , Massey remained the most prominent opponent to the Liberal Party.

After Seddon’s death, the Liberals came to be led by Joseph Ward, who proved more vulnerable to Massey’s attacks. In particular, Massey made gains by claiming that alleged corruption and cronyism within the civil service was ignored or abetted by the Liberal government. His conservative politics also benefited him when voters grew concerned about militant unionism and the supposed threat of socialism. In 1909, he announced the creation of the Reform Party, led by himself and backed by his conservative colleagues.

In the 1911 elections, the Reform Party managed to gain more seats than the Liberal Party, but did not gain an absolute majority. The Liberals, relying on support from independents who had not joined Reform, were able to stay in power until the following year, when they lost a vote of no confidence. Massey was sworn in as Prime Minister on 10 July.

As time passed, however, some members of Reform grew increasingly frustrated at Massey’s dominance of the party. He also earned the enmity of many workers with his harsh response to miners’ and waterfront strikes in 1912 and 1913. The use of force to deal with the strikers made Massey an object of hatred for the emerging left-wing. However, conservatives (many of whom believed that the unions were controlled by socialists and communists) generally supported Massey, saying that his methods were necessary.

The outbreak of the First World War, however, diverted attention from these matters. The 1914 election left Massey and his political opponents stalemated in parliament, with neither side possessing enough support to govern effectively. As such, Massey reluctantly invited Joseph Ward of the Liberals to form a war-time coalition (created in 1915). While Massey remained Prime Minister, Ward gained de-facto status as joint leader. Massey and Ward travelled to Britain several times, both during and after the war, to discuss military cooperation and peace settlements. During his first visit, Massey visited New Zealand troops, listening to their complaints sympathetically. This angered some officials, who believed that Massey undermine the military leadership by conceding (in contrast to the official line) that conditions for the troops were indeed unsatisfactory. The war did, however, reinforce Massey’s strong belief in the British Empire and New Zealand’s links with it.

The coalition government, partly because of the difficulty in obtaining enough consensus to implement meaningful policies, had grown increasingly unpopular by the end of the war. Massey was particularly worried by the rise of the Labour Party, which was growing increasingly influential. Massey also found himself fighting off criticism from within his own party, including charges that he was ignoring rural concerns. He dissolved the coalition in 1919, and fought both the Liberals and Labour on a platform of patriotism, stability, support for farmers, and a public works program. He successfully gained a working majority.

Economic problems, however, lessened support for Reform. In the 1922 elections, Massey lost his majority, and was forced to negotiate with independents to keep his government alive. He was also alarmed by the success of Labour, which was now only five seats behind the Liberals. He began to believe that the Liberals would eventually disappear, with their supporters being split between Reform and Labour – the socially liberal wing to Labour and the economically liberal wing to Reform. Massey set about trying to ensure that Reform’s gain would be the greater.

In 1924, however, illness forced Massey to relinquish many of his official duties. The following year, he died of his illness. A memorial to him exists in New Zealand’s capital city. Massey University is also named after him – the name was chosen because the university initially had a focus on agricultural science, matching Massey’s own farming background.

  

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Yuan Shikai (non-simplified Chinese: simplified Chinese:pinyin: Yuan Shikai; Wade-Giles: Yuan Shih-k’ai) (September 16, 1859 – June 6 1916) was a Chinese military official and politician during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. He was infamous for taking advantages of both the Qing imperial court and the Republicans, and for his authoritarian control based on control of the military.

His courtesy name was Weiting sometimes also spelled . His pseudonym was Rong’an.

President Yuan Shikai

Yuan Shikai was born in the village of Zhangying , located in Xiangcheng county , depending from Chenzhou prefecture , Henan province. Xiangcheng county has now become the county-level city of Xiangcheng , depending from the prefecture-level city of Zhoukou . Chenzhou is now called Huaiyang, but it is no more the head of the prefecture, having been replaced by Zhoukou.

The village of Zhangying is located immediately north of downtown Xiangcheng. Shortly after Yuan’s birth, Xiangcheng was threatened by the Nian Rebellion (1853-1868), and the Yuan family moved to a hilly area easier to defend, 16 km./10 miles southeast of downtown Xiangcheng, and there they built a fortified village, the village of Yuanzhai – literally “the fortified village of the Yuan family”). The village of Yuanzhai is now located inside Wangmingkou township, on the territory of the county-level city of Xiangcheng. The large countryside estate of the Yuan family in Yuanzhai was recently opened to tourism by the People’s Republic of China, and people inside China generally assume that Yuan Shikai was born in Yuanzhai.

Yuan Shikai rose to fame by participating in the first Sino-Japanese War as the commander of the Chinese stationary forces in Korea. He fortunately avoided the humiliation of Chinese armies in the war when he was recalled to Beijing several days before the Chinese forces were attacked.

By showing loyalty to Empress Dowager Cixi, he was appointed the commander of the first new army in 1895. Qing’s court relied heavily on his army due to the proximity of its garrision to the capital and its effectiveness. Taking full advantage of this trust, Yuan became increasingly disrespecful to the court and switched sides between different parties only to his benefit. Especially after the coup d’etat ending the Hundred Days’ Reform, he became the mortal enemy of Guangxu Emperor.

He was granted the position of Minister of Beiyang (the modern regions of Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong provinces) on June 25 1902. Gaining the regard of foreigners when he helped to crush the Boxer Rebellion, he successfully obtained numerous loans to expand his Beiyang Army into the most powerful army in China. In January 1909, following the death of Cixi and Guangxu, he was relieved of all his posts by the regent, 2nd Prince Chun, probably under a secret will of Guangxu.

The official reason advanced was that he was returning to his home in the village of Huanshang, located in the suburbs of Zhangde prefecture , now called the prefecture-level city of Anyang, Henan province, in order to treat a foot disease. He remained there for almost three years; however, he still maintained enormous influence in the Beiyang Army even after returning to Henan.

In 1911-1912, Yuan played a critical role in the establishment of the Republic of China. Following the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911 in Hubei province, the southern provinces had declared independence from the Qing, but neither the northern provinces nor the Beiyang Army had any stance for or against the rebellion. Both the Qing court and Yuan fully knew that the Beiyang army was the only modern force powerful enough to quell the revolutionaries. On October 14, he was offered the post of viceroy of Hukwang (i.e. governor-general for the provinces of Hubei and Hunan), but he asked the court for full powers, which was refused by the regent, and so he declared he could not accept the post because “the curing of his foot disease was not completely finished”.

The court renewed offers on October 27, and Yuan eventually left his village on October 30. At last on November 1st the court offered him the post of prime minister. On November 16, his cabinet was finally formed. Hence on the one hand Yuan was demanding the highest political status from the Qing court; on the other hand, his forces captured Hankou and Hanyang in November 1911 in preparation of attacking Wuchang, thus forcing the revolutionaries to negotiate.

Emperor Yuan Shikai

The revolutionaries had elected Sun Yat-Sen, but they were in a militarily weak position, and so they reluctantly compromised with Yuan. Yuan fulfilled his promise to the revolutionaries and arranged for the abdication of the child emperor Puyi in return for being named the President of the Republic. Cao Kun, one of his entrusted subordinate “Beiyang” military commanders, fabricated a coup d’etat in Beijing and Tianjin, apparently under Yuan’s orders, to provide an excuse for Yuan not to leave his sphere of influence in Chih-li (today Hebei province). The revolutionaries compromised again, and the capital of the new republic was established in Beijing.

In February 1913, elections were held for the National Assembly in which the Chinese Nationalist Party or the Kuomintang (KMT) did very well. Sung Chiao-jen, deputy in the KMT to Sun Yat-sen, zealously supported a cabinet system and was widely regarded as a candidate for Prime Minister. Yuan viewed Sung as a threat to his authority and, after Sung’s assassination on March 20 1913, there was speculation in the media that Yuan was responsible.

Tensions between the Kuomintang and Yuan continued to intensify, prompting Yuan to take over the government with his military power and to subsequently dissolve both the national and provincial assemblies. The Kuomintang attempted unsuccessfully to wage a “Second Revolution” against Yuan, but with the support of the army Yuan easily put down the revolt and caused the leaders of the Kuomintang, including Sun Yat-Sen, to flee into exile in Japan.

Yuan then committed a major political blunder. He reinstated the monarchy, proclaiming himself the Emperor of the Chinese Empire under the era name of Hongxian, for a brief period from December 12, 1915 to March 22, 1916. This was opposed not only by the revolutionaries, but far more importantly by Yuan’s subordinate military commanders, who believed that Yuan’s assumption of the monarchy would allow him to rule without depending on the support of the military. Faced with universal opposition, Yuan backed down and died of kidney failure a few months later.

Evaluation and legacy

With Yuan’s death, China was left without any generally recognized central authority and the army quickly fragmented into forces of combatting warlords. For this reason he is usually called the Father of the Warlords. It is not really correct to attribute the other characteristics of warlordism to his preference, since in his career as a military reformer he had attempted to create a modern army on the Japanese model. He demonstrated then that he understood how staff work, military education, and regular transfers of officer personnel fitted together to make a modern military organisation.

After his return to power in 1911, however, he seemed willing to sacrifice everything in his imperial ambitions, and ruled by a combination of violence and bribery that destroyed the idealism of the early Republican movement. Since those who opposed Yuan could do so only from a territorial military base, Yuan’s career as President and Emperor contributed greatly to China’s subsequent political division.

  

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Yukio Mishima , was the public name of Kimitake Hiraoka (Hiraoka Kimitake), (January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a a Japanese author and rightist political activist, notable for both his nihilistic post-war writing and the circumstances of his suicide.

Early life

Mishima’s early childhood was greatly influenced by his grandmother, Natsu. She separated Mishima from his family and raised him virtually as her own until he was 12. She was sick with sciatica yet controlled much of his upbringing and limited his interactions with his siblings and parents. She encouraged his interest in Kabuki theatre and entertained him with fairy tales and other fantastic stories. She also fostered in Mishima a yearning for a familial grandeur that had ostensibly been lost. Mishima spent much of his childhood shut indoors, playing with dolls or making origami creatures with his three female cousins. He cared for his Grandmother more frequently as her health worsened, and developed a precocious interest in books.

Schooling & Early Works

At 12, Mishima began to write his first stories. He read voraciously the works of Wilde, Rilke, and numerous Japanese classics. Mishima did well at the elite Peers School, becoming a member of the editorial board in a literary society at the school. He was invited to write a short story for the prestigious literary magazine, Bungei-Bunka (Art and Culture) and submitted, Hanazakari no mori (A Forest in Full Flower).

The story was published in book form in 1944 to commercial success and critical oblivion in war-torn Japan. He attempted to enlist in the Japanese Army during World War II but was turned down after doctors misdiagnosed him with tuberculosis. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1947 with a degree in jurisprudence, and worked as an official in the government’s Finance Ministry. He resigned his position within a year in order to devote his time to writing.
Postwar Literature

Mishima began his first novel, Tozoku (Thieves), in 1946 and published it in 1948. It was followed up by Kamen no kokuhaku (Confessions of a Mask), an autobiographical work about a young latent homosexual who must hide behind a mask in order to fit into society. The novel was extremely successful and made a celebrity out of Mishima, at the age of 24.

Later works and activities

During the 1960s, Mishima wrote some of his most successful and critically acclaimed novels, acted in films, and was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize. He continued to build his physique, studied martial arts, and swordsmanship. At the end of the decade, he formed the Tatenokai (Shield Society), composed primarily of young rightist students who studied martial principles and physical discipline under Mishima’s tutelage. Mishima’s demeanor and attire reflected his new devotion to hyper masculinity.

His workout regimen of three sessions per week was not disrupted for the final 15 years of his life. His devotion to his physicality perhaps led to his increased productivity as a writer. His writing gained him international celebrity and a sizable following in Europe and America, as many of his most famous works had been translated into English. It was speculated in an article that ran in New York Times Magazine that he was to win the Nobel Prize at last.

Ritual Suicide

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and members of the Tatenokai took over Ichigaya Camp, the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Mishima had written a manifesto and designed plans to articulate its contents. His followers bound the Commandant and barricaded his office. Mishima had written out a list of demands and had them painted on a banner, which he later hung from the balcony leading out of the Commandant’s office. Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the gathered soldiers below. He intended to inspire them to help his troops stage a coup d’etat and restore the Emperor to his rightful place. He succeeded only in irritating them and was mocked and jeered for his efforts. They were unable to hear him and he aborted his planned speech after only a few minutes. He stepped in from the balcony and ritually committed seppuku, finalized by his ritual decapitation by Tatenokai Masayoshi Koga .

Afterword

Much speculation has surfaced regarding Mishima’s seppuku. At the age of 45, he was considered to be at the peak of his literary powers. He had just completed the final book in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy and was recognized as perhaps the most important living Japanese novelist. He wrote 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, and at least 20 books of essays as well as one libretto.

He had also starred in several films, directing himself in his Yukoku (Patriotism). His later political agitation was expressed through his fervent identification with traditional Japanese values as represented by Emperor Hirohito and the symbolism of Feudal Japan. One of Mishima’s most influential essays, Bunka boeiron (A Defense of Culture), argues that the Emperor was the source of Japanese Culture, and to defend the Emperor was to defend the Japanese Culture.