Neo Quiz Spot: Know More Series

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Sunday, August 1, 2010

Best Ad of the Month: Neo's Pick

Two Teen Aged Kids, A Bus Stop, A Mithai and Soul soothing Music together created one of Fabulous Ads seen in the past few years. At the face of it, the concept might appear to be not revolutionary and infact an Ad Analyst even went on to criticize the ad as as a right successor to the Pay Day Adverts by Cadbury. But the response to the ad has been good and it did end up creating the required buzz among the audience.

It also goes well with the Tag Line of the brand "Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye"

All the professional stuff aside, we have loved the ad for the innocence and immaturity in the actors.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Biography of Lenin

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870 - 1924)

Early Life

Born on April 10, 1870 this son of a Russian nobleman was to have a profound effect on the future of Russia and, indeed, the world. His father had been the son of a serf who had risen to post of inspector of schools in Simbirsk. While his mother was the daughter of land owning physician.

In school he proved himself to be very bright though he suffered alienation because of it. However, he excelled in his studies. He also enjoyed reading and writings of Goethe and Turgenev would affect him for the rest of his life.

Two major tragedies occurred which had an acute effect on the young Lenin (then Ulyanov). In 1886 his father died from a cerebral haemorrhage, the following year his brother, Alexander, was hung for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Lenin renounced religion and the political system. Added to this he was the brother of dead revolutionary and found many doors closed to him. He finally managed to be accepted in a Kazan University where he studied law. This was to be shortlived as he was expelled for attending a peaceful protest some three months later. He was ostracised from the academic world. He studied the law on his own and passed the exam, coming first in a class of 124 in 1891.

Rise to Power

He moved to St. Petersburg in 1893 where he practised law. While there he began developing a Marxist underground movement. He grouped members into six member cells. By this means industrial conditions were investigated, statistics compiled and pamphlets written. It was also through these groups that he met his future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, who he married in 1898.

He travelled to Switzerland to meet like minded Social Democrats in 1895. While there he talked with Georgi Plekhanov. They argued over the means of bringing about change in Russia. Plekhanov wanted to include the liberal middle class; Lenin favoured the rise of the proletariat. This disagreement led to the eventual split of the Social Democratic party into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

When Lenin returned to Russia he carried with him illegal pamphlets, he wanted to start up a revolutionary paper. On the eve of its publication he and other leaders were arrested. He served fifteen months in prison. After this term he was exiled to Siberia and it was there that he and Krupskaya were married. Having finished their period of exile in 1900 they left for Switzerland where they finally managed to establish their paper, Iskra (Spark). During his years in Switzerland he rose to a position of power in the Social Democratic party. His uncompromising views were a core cause for the split in the party.

The 1905 St. Petersburg Massacre spurred Lenin to advocate violent action. The Massacre itself occurred when Cossacks fired on peaceful protesters led by Father Georgi Gapon. This event led to several uprisings in Russia. Lenin returned to Russia for two years but the promised revolution did not happen as the Tsar made enough concessions to mollify the people. Lenin went abroad again.

1917 was to finally see the revolution in Russia. In fact two revolutions occurred in this year. In March steelworkers in St. Petersburg went on strike. It grew until thousands of people lined the streets. The Tsar’s power collapsed and the Duma, led by Alexander Kerensky, took power. Lenin made a deal with the Germans; if they could get him safely back to Russia, he would take power and pull Russia out of the war. Kerensky was to fall over this same issue. He refused to take Russia out a war in which they were suffering severe losses and causing brutal hardship at home. Lenin came to power in October after a nearly bloodless coup.

Lenin in Power

At age forty seven Vladimir Ilich Lenin was named president of the Society of People’s Commissars (Communist Party). The problems of the new government were enormous. The war with Germany was ended immediately (his battle cry had been “Bread not War”). Though Russia lost the bread basket of the Ukraine to Germany this was soon regained when Germany was ultimately defeated in the war. Land was redistributed, some as collective farms. Factories, mines, banks and utilities were all taken over by the state. The Russian Orthodox Church was disestablished.

There was opposition and this led to a civil war in 1918 between the Mensheviks (Whites) and the Bolsheviks (Reds). Despite being supported by Britain and the U.S.A. the whites were defeated after a bitter struggle.

From 1919 to 1921 famine and typhus ravaged Russia and left over 27 million people dead. To counter these disasters Lenin put into effect the New Economic Plan. This plan embraced some capital ideas (limited private industry) in order to revitalise the flagging economy. However he was never to see the full effect of his measures

Decline and Death

In May 1922 Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes, less than a year later he suffered a second one. In his two remaining years he tried correct some of the excesses of the regime. He saw that it would be necessary to learn coexistence with capitalist countries and eliminate the inefficiency of his bureaucracy. He also tried to ensure that Trotsky and not Stalin succeeded him. In this endeavour he failed. Stalin was far too clever and astute even for Lenin. 1923 saw him decline further as he had another stroke which left him paralysed and speechless. He never fully recovered and died of a cerebral haemorrhage on January 21, 1924.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Abraham Lincoln Biography

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, guided his country through the most devastating experience in its national history--the CIVIL WAR. He is considered by many historians to have been the greatest American president.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party's nomination for President, he sketched his life:

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

"I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with you, is the question, "Shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generation?"
--From the February 11, 1861 Speech to Gov. Morton in Indianapolis

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Biography of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is undoubltedly the most influntial scientist of the century. His principles on relativity and subsequent findings in the pure science together created what we call now the Golden Era of Physics. Together with the great physiciscts of his era like S.Bose Einstein created theories that lie light years ahead of us. He got Nobel Prize in the year 1921 for his work on the 'Photo Electric Effect.

Detailed Biography

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879.

Six weeks later the family moved to Munich and he began his schooling there at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland.

In 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.

At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life.

He married Mileva Maritsch in 1901 and they had two sons; their marriage was dissolved and in 1917 he married his cousin, Elsa Einstein, who died in 1936.

He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Adolf Hitler Biography

Adolf Hitler, a charismatic, Austrian-born demagogue, rose to power in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s at a time of social, political, and economic upheaval. Failing to take power by force in 1923, he eventually won power by democratic means. Once in power, he eliminated all opposition and launched an ambitious program of world domination and elimination of the Jews.

Detailed Biography:

Childhood:

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, the fourth child of Alois Schickelgruber and Klara Hitler in the Austrian town of Braunau.

Adolf lived for six months across from a large Benedictine monastery. The monastery's coat of arms' most salient feature was a swastika. As a youngster, Adolf's dream was to enter the priesthood. While there is anecdotal evidence that Adolf's father regularly beat him during his childhood, it was not unusual for discipline to be enforced in that way during that period.

By 1900, Hitler's talents as an artist surfaced. He did well enough in school to be eligible for either the university preparatory "gymnasium" or the technical/scientific Realschule. he quit school at the age of 16, partially the result of ill health and partially the result of poor school work.

Hitler spent six years in Vienna, living on a small legacy from his father and an orphan's pension. In May 1913, Hitler, seeking to avoid military service, left Vienna for Munich, the capital of Bavaria In January, the police came to his door bearing a draft notice from the Austrian government. Hitler was arrested on the spot and taken to the Austrian Consulate. Upon reporting to Salzburg for duty, he was found "unfit...too weak...and unable to bear arms."

When World War I was touched off, Hitler submitted a petition to enlist in the Bavarian army. After less than two months of training, Hitler's regiment saw its first combat near Ypres, against the British and Belgians. Hitler narrowly escaped death in battle several times, and was awarded two Iron Crosses for bravery & he rose to the rank of lance corporal.

Nazi Party

The Free Corps was a paramilitary organization who banded together to fight the growing Communist insurgency which was taking over Germany. Its members formed the nucleus of the Nazi "brown-shirts" (S.A.) which served as the Nazi party's army.

Soon after the war, Hitler was recruited to join a military intelligence unit, and was assigned to keep tabs on the German Worker's Party. He saw this party as a vehicle to reach his political ends. His blossoming hatred of the Jews became part of the organization's political platform. Advertising for the party's meetings appeared in anti-Semitic newspapers. The turning point of Hitler's mesmerizing oratorical career occurred at one such meeting held on October 16, 1919.

With the assistance of party staff, Hitler drafted a party program consisting of twenty-five points. This platform was presented at a public meeting on February 24, 1920, with over 2,000 eager participants. Among the 25 points were revoking the Versailles Treaty, confiscating war profits, expropriating land without compensation for use by the state, revoking civil rights for Jews, and expelling those Jews who had emigrated into Germany after the war began.

The name of the party was changed to the National Socialist German Worker's party, and the red flag with the swastika was adopted as the party symbol.

Dark Years

On November 8, 1923, Hitler held a rally at a Munich beer hall and proclaimed a revolution. The following day, he led 2,000 armed "brown-shirts" in an attempt to take over the Bavarian government. but Hitler was arrested, and was imprisoned at Landsberg. He received a five-year sentence. Hitler served only nine months of his five-year term. While in prison, he wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf. A second volume of Mein Kampf was published in 1927. he book sold over five million copies by the start of World War II.

Rise To Power

Once released from prison, Hitler decided to seize power constitutionally rather than by force of arms. Hitler's Nazi party captured 18% of the popular vote in the 1930 elections. In 1932, Hitler ran for President and won 30% of the vote.

By 1937, he was comfortable enough to put his master plan, as outlined in Mein Kampf, into effect. Calling his top military aides together at the "FÅhrer Conference" in November 1937, he outlined his plans for world domination. Those who objected to the plan were dismissed.

Several attempts were made on Hitler's life during the war, but none was successful. As the war appeared to be inevitably lost and his hand-picked lieutenants, seeing the futility, defied his orders, he killed himself on April 30, 1945. His long-term mistress and new bride, Eva Braun, joined him in suicide.

"If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower."
-- Adolf Hitler, Landsberg, 5 November 1925.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Biography of Veerappan

http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/19/images/2004101916450101.jpg

Koose Muniswamy Veerappan Gounder ( January 18, 1952–October 18, 2004) was the most notorious bandit of India. He resided and carried out his activities in the Biligirirangana Betta and Male Mahadeshwara Betta (Hills) and Sathyamangalam and Gundiyal forests, covering 6,000 km² in the states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. He challenged three state governments and the paramilitary force of Indian Border security. He once had a mini army with hundreds of armed members in his gang. He was wanted for killing about 184 people, including senior police and forest officials, poaching about 200 elephants, and smuggling ivory worth US$2,600,000 and sandalwood of about 10,000 tonnes worth US$22,000,000. He had a price of Rs. 50 million (Rs. 5 crore or US$1.1 million) on his head, but evaded arrest for 20 years until he was killed by police in 2004.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

ISB

The Indian School of Business (ISB) located in Hyderabad, India, is an international business school providing postgraduate programmes in Management (Master of Business Administration - MBA), post doctoral programmes, as well as executive education programmes for business executives. It was founded on December 2, 1999 by a group of Fortune 500 entrepreneurs in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh's state government. Rajat Gupta, former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company worldwide and Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh played a key role in establishing the institution.

Indian School of Business's partners include Kellogg School of Management, Wharton Business School and London Business School . The accelerated one-year post graduate programme course is ISB's specialty.

The Indian School of Business is listed as #15 among the top 100 global B-schools by the Financial Times annual MBA 2009 rankings. It was ranked at #20 in 2008. ISB is the first Indian B-School to find place in FT-Global B-School rankings and made it to the top twenty in the very first year of its inclusion in list.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Azim Premji Biography

An alumnus of Stanford University, USA, Mr.Azim H Premji joined Wipro in 1966 at the age of 21. (now he is the Chairman of Wipro Corporation).

Under his leadership, a Rs.70 million company in hydrogenated cooking fats has grown to a $500 million diversified, integrated Corporation in Services, Technology Products and Consumer Products with leadership positions in the businesses it is in.

A role model for young entrepreneurs across the world, Mr.Azim Premji has integrated the country's entrepreneurial tradition with professional management, based on sound values and uncompromising integrity.

Mr.Azim Premji's strength lies in bringing together and building charged teams of high potential-high performing people. His vision and pragmatism have helped Wipro Corporation to become the #2 most competitive and successful company in India as rated by Business Today, a leading business magazine in India Today, Wipro in terms of market capitalization is among the top 10 Corporations in India.

Mr. Premji very strongly believes that the most important contributors to Wipro's success have been the articulations and faithful adherence to core values, a shared vision for the future, identification and development of Wipro leaders through clearly defined Wipro Leaders' Qualities.

A hands-on business leader with standards of excellence in everything that the Corporation does, Mr. Premji is almost fanatical about delivering value to customers and his willingness to sacrifice business and profits to hold on to "Our Promise".

Mr. Premji was the Prime drive behind Wipro's decision to achieve "Six Sigma" status in the next six years. In his address to the top management of Wipro Corporation on May 2. 1997, he said, "The end objective of our 'customer-in' concept is that we want to build the voice of the customer in our products and services. This is opposite to the concept of 'product-out', which is the way the world has been operating for some time." In this journey of achieving the near defect-free products and services, Mr. Premji is very clear that as a world class organisation, what Wipro needs to be concerned about is the process, not merely the results.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Biography of John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American actor from Maryland, who fatally shot President of the United States Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next day from a single gunshot wound to the head, becoming the first American president to be assassinated.

Booth was a successful professional stage actor of his day and a member of the prominent Booth family of actors. He was also a Confederate sympathizer who expressed vehement dissatisfaction with the South's defeat in the Civil War and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to freed slaves.

Booth, and a group of co-conspirators led by him, planned to kill Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in a desperate bid to help the tottering Confederacy's cause. Although Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, Booth felt that the war was not yet over because Confederate General Joseph Johnston's army was still fighting Union Army General Sherman. Of the conspirators, only Booth was successful in carrying out his part of the plot.

Following the shooting, Booth fled by horseback to southern Maryland and eventually to a farm in rural northern Virginia, where he was tracked down and killed by Union soldiers two weeks later. Several of the other conspirators were tried and hanged shortly thereafter.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Bolsheviks

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Mensheviks

At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, two of SDLP's leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists.

Julius Martov based his ideas on the socialist parties that existed in other European countries such as the British Labour Party. Lenin argued that the situation was different in Russia as it was illegal to form socialist political parties under the Tsar's autocratic government. At the end of the debate Martov won the vote 28-23 . Vladimir Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.

Gregory Zinoviev, Anatoli Lunacharsky, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Mikhail Frunze, Alexei Rykov, Yakov Sverdlov, Lev Kamenev, Maxim Litvinov, Vladimir Antonov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Gregory Ordzhonikidze and Alexander Bogdanov joined the Bolsheviks. Whereas George Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Leon Trotsky, Lev Deich, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, Irakli Tsereteli, Vera Zasulich, Moisei Uritsky, Noi Zhordania and Fedor Dan supported Julius Martov.

The SDLP journal, Iskra remained under the control of the Mensheviks so Vladimir Lenin, with the help of Anatoli Lunacharsky, Alexander Bogdanov, Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev, established a Bolshevik newspaper, Vperyod.

The Mensheviks played a leading role in the 1905 Revolution and were particularly active in the the soviets and the emerging trade union movement.

In 1911 the Bolsheviks made plans to capture control of the Social Democratic Labour Party at the conference to be held in Prague in January, 1912. This move was unsuccessful and the party split and after that date the Mensheviks split completely from the Bolsheviks.

Most Mensheviks condemned Russia's involvement in the First World War but a small minority supported Nicholas II and his government.

When Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia on 3rd April, 1917, he announced what became known as the April Theses. Lenin attacked those Bolsheviks who had supported the Provisional Government. Instead, he argued, revolutionaries should be telling the people of Russia that they should take over the control of the country. In his speech, Lenin urged the peasants to take the land from the rich landlords and the industrial workers to seize the factories. Some Mensheviks such as Leon Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai , agreed with this view and now joined the Bolsheviks.

Against the wishes of their leader, Julius Martov, two Mensheviks, Irakli Tsereteli and Fedor Dan joined the Provisional Government in May 1917. Tsereteli, who was the government's Minister of the Interior, gave the order to arrest Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and other revolutionaries in July, 1917.

The Mensheviks dramatically lost the support of the Russian people during the events of 1917. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly in November, 1917, they obtained 1,700,000 votes compared to the Bolsheviks (9,000,000) and the Socialist Revolutionaries (16,500,000).

Julius Martov and the Mensheviks were united in their opposition to the October Revolution. Most of them supported the Red Army against the White Army during the Russian Civil War, however, they continued to denounce the persecution of liberal newspapers, the nobility, the Cadets and the Socialist Revolutionaries. The Mensheviks, along with other opposition parties, were banned after the Kronstadt Rising.

Biography of Turgenev

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Ivan Sergyevitch Turgenev came of an old stock of the Russian nobility. He was born in Orel, in the province of Orel, which lies more than a hundred miles south of Moscow, on October 28, 1818. His education was begun by tutors at home in the great family mansion in the manor of Spasskoe-Lutovinovo, and he studied later at the universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. The influence of the last, and of the compatriots with whom he associated there, was very great; and when he returned to Moscow in 1841, he was ambitious to teach Hegel to the students there. Before this could be arranged, however, he entered the Ministry of the Interior at St. Petersburg. While there his interests turned more and more toward literature. He wrote verses and comedies, read George Sand, and made the acquaintance of Dostoevsky and the critic Bielinski. His mother, a tyrannical woman with an ungovernable temper, was eager that he should make a brilliant official career; so, when he resigned from the Ministry in 1845, she showed her disapproval by cutting down his allowance and thus forcing him to support himself by the profession he had chosen.

Turgenev was an enthusiastic hunter; and it was his experiences in the woods of his native province that supplied the material for “A Sportsman’s Sketches,” the book that first brought him reputation. The first of these papers appeared in 1847, and in the same year he left Russia in the train of Pauline Viardot, a singer and actress, to whom he had been devoted for three or four years and with whom he maintained relations for the rest of his life. For a year or two he lived chiefly in Paris or at a country house at Courtavenel in Brie, which belonged to Madame Viardot; but in 1850 he returned to Russia. His experiences were not such as to induce him to repatriate himself permanently. He found Dostoevsky banished to Siberia and Bielinski dead; and himself under suspicion by the government on account of the popularity of “A Sportsman’s Sketches.” For praising Gogol, who had just died, he was arrested and imprisoned for a short time, and for the next two years kept under police surveillance. Meantime he continued to write, and by the time that the close of the Crimean War made it possible for him again to go to western Europe, he was recognized as standing at the head of living Russian authors. His mother was now dead, the estates were settled, and with an income of about $5,000 a year he became a wanderer. He had, or imagined he had, very bad health, and the eminent specialists he consulted sent him from one resort to another, to Rome, the Isle of Wight, Soden, and the like. When Madame Viardot left the stage in 1864 and took up her residence at Baden-Baden, he followed her and built there a small house for himself. They returned to France after the Franco-Prussian War, and bought a villa at Bougival, near Paris, and this was his home for the rest of his life. Here, on September 3, 1883, he died after a long delirium due to his suffering from cancer of the spinal cord. His body was taken to St. Petersburg and was buried with national honors.

The two works by Turgenev contained in the present volume are characteristic in their concern with social and political questions, and in the prominence in both of them of heroes who fail in action. Turgenev preaches no doctrine in his novels, has no remedy for the universe; but he sees clearly certain weaknesses of the Russian character and exposes these with absolute candor yet without unkindness. Much as he lived abroad, his books are intensely Russian; yet of the great Russian novelists he alone rivals the masters of western Europe in the matter of form. In economy of means, condensation, felicity of language, and excellence of structure he surpasses all his countrymen; and “Fathers and Sons” and “A House of Gentlefolk” represent his great and delicate art at its best.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Biography of Dhirubhai Ambani

born in an impoverished village, at 16 he goes off to Aden to learn business. He returns 10 years later and starts a small company. By canny trading around the textile bazaars of Bombay, he corners the market in imported polyester, starts his own factory, outwits sclerotic bureaucrats in New Delhi who are trying to run the economy by regulation, and ultimately ignites the moribund Indian stock market with his vision of turning Reliance into a petrochemical and oil refining empire—a dream he realized not long before he died.

Mohandas Gandhi and Dhirubhai Ambani were the two most famous scions of the Modh Bania, a Hindu commercial caste based in the arid Saurashtra peninsula of India's western Gujarat state.

Each changed India. Ambani's public wore his textiles as durable suits and glittery saris. Indians invested by the millions in his Bombay-listed Reliance Industries, a sprawling conglomerate with $12.3 billion in annual sales that recently became India's first privately owned entrant to the Fortune 500. When Ambani died on July 6 at age 69 after nearly two weeks in a stroke-induced coma, the country's media recounted his rags-to-riches life as an Indian morality play.

Ambani's his great achievement was that he showed Indians what was possible. With no Oxford or Yale degree and no family capital, he achieved what the Elite "brown sahibs" of New Delhi could not: he built an ultramodern, profitable, global enterprise in India itself. What's more, he enlisted four million Indians, a generation weaned on nanny-state socialism, in an adventure in can-do capitalism, convincing them to load up on Reliance stock.

Still, Ambani seems destined to be remembered as a folk hero—an example of what a man from one of India's poor villages can accomplish with non-shrink ambition.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Biography of Lal Bahadur Shastri

Lal Bahadur Shastri (October 2, 1904 - January 11, 1966) was the second permanent Prime Minister of independent India and a significant figure in the struggle for independence.

Shashtriji was born in Mughalsarai (also spelt as Moghalsarai), in United Province (now Uttar Pradesh). To take part in the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi in 1921, he began studying at the nationalist, Kashi Vidyapeeth in Kashi, and upon completion, he was given the title Shastri, or Scholar, Doctor at Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. He spent almost nine years in jail in total, mostly after the start of the Satyagraha movement in 1940, he was imprisoned until 1946.

Following India's independence, he was Home Minister under Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant of Uttar Pradesh. In 1951, he was appointed General Secretary of the Lok Sabha before re-gaining a ministerial post as Railways Minister. He resigned as Minister following a rail disaster near Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. He returned to the Cabinet following the General Elections, first as Minister for Transport, in 1961, he became Home Minister.

Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on May 27, 1964 and left a vacuum. The major figures of the Congress Party were unable to find enough support which allowed the lesser regarded Shastri to come through as the compromise candidate, becoming Prime Minister on June 9. Shastri, though mild-mannered and soft-spoken, was a Nehruvian socialist and thus held appeal to those wishing to prevent the ascent of conservative right-winger Morarji Desai.

Shastri worked by his natural characteristics to obtain compromises between opposing viewpoints, but in his short tenure was ineffectual in dealing with the economic crisis and food shortage in the nation. However, he commanded a great deal of respect in the Indian populace, and he used it to advantage in pushing the Green Revolution in India; which directly led to India becoming a food-surplus nation, although he did not live to see it. His administration began on a rocky turf.

The chief problem was Pakistan. Laying claim to half of the Kutch peninsula, Pakistan sent incursion forces in August 1965, who skirmished with Indian tanks. Under a scheme proposed by the British PM, Pakistan obtained 10% of their original claim of 50%. But Pakistan's main aggressive intentions were upon Kashmir. Just in September 1965, major incursions of militants and Pakistani soldiers began, hoping not only to break-down the government but incite a sympathetic revolt. The revolt did not happen, and an angry India sent its forces across the Line of Control, and the war broke out on a general scale. Massive tank battles occurred in the Punjab, and while Pakistani forces made some gains, Indian forces captured the key post at Haji Pir, in Kashmir, and brought the Pakistani city of Lahore under artillery and mortar fire.

A ceasefire was declared, and the soft-spoken, mild-mannered Shastri, once butt of jokes was now a national hero. In January 1966 Shastri and Pakistani President Muhammad Ayub Khan attended a summit in Tashkent (former USSR, now in modern Uzbekistan), organised by Kosygin. Shastri signed a treaty with Pakistan on January 10, the Tashkent Declaration, but the next day he was dead of a heart attack. He is the only Indian Prime Minister to have died in office overseas, and indeed probably one of the few heads of government in history to do so. All his lifetime, he was known for his honesty and humility.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Biography of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most widely recognized artist of the 20th century, was born to Don José Ruiz Blasco and Doña Maria Picasso y Lopez in Malaga, Spain on October 25, 1881. Ultimately, he would adopt his mother’s more prestigious maiden name, Picasso. Pablo Picasso’s father was a trained artist and art teacher, and was an early influence in Picasso’s art training. By the time Pablo Picasso was 13, his painting was so accomplished that his father handed him his palette and declared he would never paint again.

Early Work and Instruction (1893-1900)

Picasso’s talent was quickly recognized as a young teen and he was enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona, Spain where his father was a professor. He was admitted to the advanced classes at the academy after he completed an entrance examination in a single day – an accomplishment that typically took seasoned students a month. Within a couple of years, he left for Madrid to study at the Madrid Academy, but returned unsatisfied with the training. It is reported that his early years resulted in over 2,200 works that are still saved and shown at the Barcelona Museu Picasso.

Picasso would visit Paris in October, 1900, and would move back and forth between Spain and France until 1904, when he finally settled in France. He started to experiment with a wide variety of modern art styles, influenced by the French nightlife and artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He painted café scenes, landscapes and still lifes of friends.

Picasso Blue Period (1901-1903)

The years of 1901-1903 defined the Picasso Blue Period, a clear break from his more formal art instruction. Unlike his earlier artwork, the themes in Picasso’s paintings turned very dark and depressed. Although it is unknown when or why the Blue Period began, certainly the suicide of his friend Casagemas impacted Picasso greatly.

Artwork during the Blue Period was typically painted in a monochromatic use of blue shading, greys and whites. Unlike previous paintings, subjects were portrayed as sad, poor and underprivaledged.
The Picasso Blue Period is highlighted by some of Picasso’s most recognized pieces of art - Child with a Dove, The Blue Nude and The Old Guitarist were all completed during this time period. It will become the first of many distinct genres that Picasso will ultimately define.

Rose Period (1904-1905)

The Picasso Rose Period, sometimes referred to as the circus period, marked a distinct style shift in his art. His focus was mainly on a different group of social outcasts – circus performers. The color in his paintings also shifted – now featuring warmer, reddish and pink colors. The thick outlines of the Blue Period also disappeared.

Similar to themes in his earlier Blue Period artwork, Picasso felt empathy for his new subjects – circus performers. They were paid to entertain, but really had no relevance or significance in society. The sad clown would become an important figure in his paintings, and would continue to appear as a theme in future pieces. Clowns appeared happy on the outside, but were unable to show their true feelings.

This period also marked Picasso’s first of many romantic relationships. Fernande Olivier provided a subject for Picasso’s artwork and her features could be found in many of his paintings.

Cubism (1908-1917)

Cubism was developed as a collaborative effort by Pablo Picasso and George Braque. Although its roots are not positively known, many believe it has influence from African Tribal Art and Paul Cezanne. Cubism was considered the most radical change in art in the 20th century. The Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso
The movement was divided into two periods - Analytical Cubism and Synthetic Cubism. Analytical Cubism concentrated on using geometric forms, often using strait lines and right angles. Subdued colors such as tans, browns, grays, blues and greens were preferred. Overall, it showed a structured "analysis" of form. Synthetic Cubism, the second period, used more decorative shapes, stencilling, collage, and brighter colors. Pieces of cut-up newspaper and tobacco wrappers could now be found in Picasso and Braque’s paintings. This collage technique was posed the question of what was reality vs. illusion.

Picasso also meets Olga Koklova, a russian dancer who he ultimately marries in 1918. Olga becomes the mother of his son, Pualo and is the centerpiece of many of Picasso's paintings.

Many art historians believe Picasso's greatest Cubist masterpiece was The Three Musicians, completed in 1921.

Classical Period (1920 - 1925)

Post World War I marked a noted return to a more conservative art form. During the time period, Picasso focused on more classical themes - bathers, centaurs and women in classical drapery. Many of these subjects were shown as massive, heavy and dense. He also used a strong contrast of light and dark to help strengthen the theme of his images.

Cubism and Surrealism (1925-1936)

The period of 1925 – 1936 was a time where Picasso featured a variety of styles. Some paintings were composed of tightly structured geometric shapes, limited to the primary colors of red, blue and yellow. He also started painting women as contorted, whose open mouths and teeth reveal a very emotional attitude.

Picasso also focused on a series of paintings of mostly nude women, tranquilly asleep. The model for the paintings, Marie-Therese (at the time Picasso's mistress), eventually became the mother of Picasso's daughter Maia in 1935.

In the early 1930s Picasso had increasing contact with the members of the surrealist movement. He became fascinated with the idea of metamorphosis. The Minotaur – a creature which has the head of a man and the body of a bull, was the subject of many paintings and writings. The Minotaur has numerous incarnations in Picasso's work, both as an aggressor and a victim, as a violent character and a friendly one. It may represent the artist himself and frequently appears in the context of a bullfight, a typically Spanish scene close to Picasso's heart.

In 1936, Picasso met a new mistress in a cafe in Paris. Dora Maar, born Markovitch to a Yugoslav mother and father, was raised in Argentina. Picasso often called Dora Maar “the Weeping Woman”, which many of his paintings depict at the time.

Overall, the time period produced several Picasso masterpieces, including The Dream, Still Life with Pedestal Table, and Dora Maar.

Guernica (1937)

Guernica, painted by Pablo Picasso, was created to be the mural centerpiece of the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair in Spain. The piece is a striking protest of a fascist coup led by Francisco Franco, the driving force behind a massive Civil War between Franco and Spain's Republican forces.

On a dark day in April, 1937, on behalf of Franco against the Spanish population, Nazi armed forces chose a small Basque town in northern Spain for massive bomb tests for over three hours. It is estimated that over 1,600 people are killed in Guernica and the town burns for three days. As photographs and news of the bombing of Guernica reach his home in Paris, Picasso finds immediate inspiration for his mural.

Picasso delivered Guernica just three months later on a large canvas. Key elements include a woman holding her dead child, a large eye of God, a bull and a wounded horse. Clearly, it depicts struggle and the horrors of war and fighting.

World War II (1939-1945)

Picasso chose to stay in Paris during World War II, despite the threat of the German occupation. Some of his paintings reveal the anxiety of the war years, yet some are more playful and whimsical. After receiving news of the Nazi death camps, Picasso painted, but did not finish, an homage to the victims of the Holocaust. The painting, called the Charnel House, he restricted the color to black and white and depicted an accumulation of distorted, mangled bodies. Picasso actually joined the Communist Party during the war and attended several peace conferences after the war.

Picasso's Late Works (1945-1973)

Picasso remained a prolific artist until late in his life, although this later period has not received universal acclaim from historians or critics. He made variations on motifs that had fascinated him throughout his career, such as the bullfight and the painter and his model, the latter a theme that celebrated creativity. And he continued to paint portraits and landscapes. Picasso also experimented with ceramics, creating figurines, plates, and jugs, and he thereby blurred an existing distinction between fine art and craft.

Because of his many innovations, Picasso is widely considered to be the most influential artist of the 20th century. The cubist movement, which he and Braque inspired, had a number of followers. Its innovations gave rise to a host of other 20th-century art movements, including futurism in Italy, suprematism and constructivism in Russia, de Stijl in the Netherlands, and vorticism in England. Cubism also influenced German expressionism, dada, and other movements as well as early work of the surrealists and abstract expressionists. In addition, collage and construction became key aspects of 20th-century art

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Biography of Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle. Reproduced by permission of AP/Wide World Photos.

The French general and statesman Charles de Gaulle led the Free French forces in their resistance of Germany during World War II (1939–45). A talented writer and spirited public speaker, he served as president of France from 1958 to 1969.

Early life and inspirations

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was born on November 23, 1890, in the northern industrial city of Lille, France. His father, Henri, was a teacher of philosophy and mathematics and a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), in which Prussia (today known as Germany) humiliatingly defeated the French. This loss colored the life of de Gaulle's father, a patriot who vowed he would live to avenge the defeat and win back the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. His attitude deeply influenced the lives of his sons, whom he groomed to aid in France's restoration to the greatest European power.

From his earliest years, both his father and mother immersed de Gaulle in French history. For many centuries de Gaulle's ancestors had played a role in French history, almost always as patriots defending France from invaders. In the fourteenth century, a Chevalier de Gaulle defeated an invading English army in defense of the city of Vire. Jean de Gaulle is cited in the Battle of Agincourt (1415).

Perhaps the major influence on de Gaulle's formation came from his uncle, also named Charles de Gaulle, who wrote a book about the Celts, the ancient people of western Europe. The book called for union of the Breton, Scots, Irish, and Welsh peoples. The young de Gaulle wrote in his copybook a sentence from his uncle's book, which proved to be a prediction of his future life: "In a camp, surprised by enemy attack under cover of night, where each man is fighting alone, in dark confusion, no one asks for the grade or rank of the man who lifts up the standard and makes the first call to rally for resistance."

Military career

De Gaulle's career as defender of France began in the summer of 1909, when he was admitted to the elite military academy of Saint-Cyr. Among his classmates was the future marshal of France, Alphonse Juin (1888–1967), who later recalled de Gaulle's nicknames in school—"The Grand Constable" and "The Big Asparagus" (because of his height).

After graduation, in October 1912, Second Lieutenant de Gaulle reported to Henri Philippe Pétain, who first became his idol and later his most hated enemy. (In World War I [1914–18] Pétain was the hero of Verdun. During World War II [1941–45] he surrendered to German leader Adolf Hitler [1889–1945] and collaborated with the Germans while de Gaulle was leading the French forces of liberation.)

De Gaulle led a frontline company as captain in World War I and was cited three times for valor, or courage. Severely wounded, he was left for dead on the battlefield of Verdun and was later imprisoned by the Germans when he revived in a graveyard cart. After he had escaped and been recaptured several times, the Germans put him in a maximum security prison-fortress.

Between wars

After the war de Gaulle went to general-staff school, where he damaged his career by constantly criticizing his superiors. He criticized the concept of trench warfare and wrote a series of essays calling for a strategy of movement with armored tanks and planes. His superiors ignored his works. The Germans, however, did read him and adapted his theories to develop their triumphant strategy of blitzkrieg, or lightning war, with which they defeated the French in 1940.

When France fell, de Gaulle, then an unknown brigadier general (a military officer above a colonel), refused to surrender. He fled to London, convinced that the British would never surrender and that American power, once committed, would win the war. On June 18, 1940, on British Broadcasting Company (BBC), he insisted that France had only lost a battle, not the war, and called upon patriotic Frenchmen to resist the Germans. This inspiring broadcast won him worldwide honor.

Early political activity

When the Germans were driven back at Normandy in 1944, de Gaulle had no rivals for leadership in France. Therefore, in the fall of that year, all of the members of the French Parliament agreed in their vote and elected him premier. De Gaulle had fiercely opposed the German enemy, and now he vigorously defended France against the influence of his powerful allies Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) of Russia, Winston Churchill (1874–1965) of Great Britain, and Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945) of the United States. De Gaulle once stated that he never feared Hitler, who he knew was doomed to defeat. He did, however, fear that his allies would dominate France and Europe in the postwar period.

By the fall of 1945, only a year after assuming power, de Gaulle was at odds with all of the political leaders of France. He saw himself as the unique savior of France, the only champion of French honor, grandeur, and independence. He despised all politicians as corrupt and only out for their self-interests. The politicians then banded against him. In January 1946, disgusted by politics, he resigned and retreated into a silence to ponder the future of France.

In 1947 de Gaulle reemerged as leader of the opposition. He headed what he termed "The Rally of the French People," which he insisted was not a political party but a national movement. The Rally became the largest single political force in France but never achieved majority status. Although de Gaulle continued to disagree with the political system, he refused to lead a coup d'etat, or a sudden overthrow of the government. He retired again in 1955.

Years as president

In May 1958, a combination of French colonials and militarists seized power in Algeria and threatened to invade France. The weakened Fourth Republic collapsed, and the victorious rebels called de Gaulle back to power as president of the Fifth Republic of France. From June 1958 to April 1969 he reigned as the dominant force in France.

As president de Gaulle fought every plan to involve France deeply in alliances. He opposed the formation of a United States of Europe and British entry into the Common Market. He stopped paying part of France's dues to the United Nations, forced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters to leave France, and pulled French forces out of the Atlantic Alliance integrated armies.

De Gaulle had an early success in stimulating (to make excitable) pride in Frenchmen and in increasing French gold reserves and strengthening the economy. By the end of his reign, however, France was almost friendless, and his economic gains had been all but wiped out by the student and workers protest movement in spring 1968.

De Gaulle ruled supreme for eleven years, but his firm hand began to anger many citizens. In April 1969 the French voted against his program for reorganizing the Senate and the regions of France. Immediately afterwards de Gaulle resigned and remained silent on political issues. Charles de Gaulle died at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises on November 9, 1970.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Biography of Auguste Rodin

The most influential sculptor of the late nineteenth century, Rodin was a late starter. Born in Paris, he received an initial art training at the Ecole Spécials de Dessin et de Mathématiques. Failing the entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he worked as a craftsman in porcelain factories and workshops until the early 1880s. Determined to be a sculptor, he supplemented his technical. training by studying in museums and became interested in Puget and Michelangelo. In 1874-5, he visited Italy, where he was strongly affected by the spiritual intensity and the powerful modelling of Michaelangelo's work.

Its impact was demonstrated in his Age of Bronze, which led to his first showing at the Paris Salon in 1877. However, the lifelike quality of his figure provoked accusations of him having used life-casts, and the work received no genuine recognition until it was shown in London in 1884.

In 1880, Rodin began his most ambitious project, The Gate of Hell, which was commissioned as a doorway for the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. At his death in 1917, it was still unfinished, but its numerous figures provided him with a vast stock of ideas, which he would develop separately into independent works, such as The Thinker (1880) and The Kiss (1886).

Wilde was a great admirer of Rodin. He was in a minority in praising Rodin's controversial portrait of Balzac in 1891-8: 'The head is gorgeous, the dressing-gown is an entirely unshaped cone of white plaster. People howl with rage over it'. In the last year of his life, Wilde visited Rodin's pavilion at the Exposition Universelle. Shown round the exhibition by Rodin himself, Wilde was entranced by 'all his great dreams in marble' and described the sculptor as 'the greatest poet in France'.

Rodin had close contacts with the English art world: he was Whistler's friend and was represented by William Rothenstein and Robert Ross's Carfax Gallery in London. His last important monument commission was that for Whistler, which was planned to be erected at the Chelsea Embankment near the former Whistler house. It never materialised as a monument, but a small-scale study shows Rodin's idea of a 'muse' for the Whistler monument. The model was Gwen John, the elder sister of Augustus John's and Rodin's mistress. Briefly, John had also been Whistler's student in Paris.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Cubism

Cubism was a new way of representing reality in art invented by Picasso and Braque from1907–8. A third core Cubist was Juan Gris.

The generally agreed beginning of Cubism was Picasso's celebrated Demoiselles D'Avignon of 1907. The name seems to have derived from the comment of the critic Louis Vauxcelles that some of Braque's paintings exhibited in Paris in 1908 showed everything reduced to 'geometric outlines, to cubes'. Cubism was partly influenced by the late work of Cézanne in which he can be seen to be painting things from slightly different points of view.

Picasso was also influenced by African tribal masks which are highly stylised, or non-naturalistic, but nevertheless present a vivid human image. In their Cubist paintings Braque and Picasso began to bring different views of the object together on the picture surface. 'A head', said Picasso, 'is a matter of eyes, nose, mouth, which can be distributed in any way you like. The head remains a head.' I

n practice however, the object became increasingly fragmented and the paintings became increasingly abstract. They countered this by incorporating words, and then real elements, such as newspapers, to represent themselves. This was Cubist collage, soon extended into three dimensions in Cubist constructions. This was the start of one of the most important ideas in modern art, that you can use real things directly in art.

Cubism was the starting point for much abstract art including Constructivism and Neo-Plasticism. It also however, opened up almost infinite new possibilities for the treatment of reality in art.

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