• Ramana Maharshi- his spiritual search was focused on the question `who am?’ he pursued many spiritual practices and also mentioned silence for many years.

*Ramakrishna Paramahamsa – this Bengali saint was an ardent devotee of mother Kali. His famous disciple was swami Vivekananda.

• Sister Nivedita –her real name was Margaret Noble. Swami Vivekananda gave her this name which means the `dedicated one’. She was aghast at the plight of India under foreign (British) rule and worked very hard to inspire Indians to rise against the British.
• Dhirubai Ambani – born in a village in Gujarat, his is a rag –to riches story. He started a small company but soon expanded his business into many areas and made the reliance group into one of the biggest enterprises in the world.

G D Birla- this businessman from Pilani set up many industries and also built magnificent temples. He was a great philanthropist and a friend of Gandhi.

• Mrinal sen- he made films not only in Bengali but also in Hindi, Oriya and Telugu.

Two of his famous films are Bhuvan Shome and Akaler Sandhaney.

*Adoor Gopalakrishna- he produced many plays while in collage. He graduates from the FTII in Pune. Two of his famous films are Kodiyettan and Mukha Mukhan.

• Mario Miranda- this Goan cartoonist started drawing cartoons as a young child. He has drawn cartoons for several newspapers, magazines and other printed material.

*RK Laxman- this cartoonist has been drawing a daily cartoon for the times of India or more tan 40 years. His `common man’ is well known and the problems this character faces are also `commonly’ faced by people in India.

• Ritu Beri- a graduate from NIFT, she has designed clothes for high society, uniforms for hotel and office staff and for the Indian hockey team, and is the first Asian to do a line for a French fashion house.

*Abu Jani – working together with his partner, Abu Jani has sold his designs at the best fashion stores abroad. The clothes have also been worn by award winners at the Oscars.

• NR Narayana Murthy- this software engineer from Karnataka set up infosys, a software company which now one of the best companies in the world.

*Azim Premji- his company, wiper, was originally a Vanaspati manufacturing unit. He led into other areas like consumer goods and IT and is now one of the richest men in the world.

• Tatia Tope- a friend of Lakshmibai and loyal to the Maratha Peshwa, he did whatever he could to make the 1957 mutiny a success. However, luck was not on his side and soon he was a fugitive, without a place to hide. He was betrayed, arrested and hanged by the British.

*Ashfaqulla Khan- this Pathan patriot was associated in the Kakori Holdup case. He was betrayed by a friend, arrested and hanged by the British.

• Andal- a Tamil poet –saint, she refused to marry saying that it was Lord Ranganath who was her real husband. She wrote inspiring and beautiful poetry.

Meera Bai- she was devotee to Lord Krishna even as a young girl. Although married to a Rajputs prince, she had no interest in place life and spent er time composing poems to her Lord and worshiping Him.

• Amrita Pritam- this award winning Punjabi poet and writer published her first work at 16. Since hen she has written many stories, poems and novels.

*Thakaz Sivasankar Pillai- this Malayalam writer stores based on the lives of peasants and the have –nots. He was awarded the Janapeeth award. Two of his famous works are Chemeen and Kayar.