Today’s Motto: ‘The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you’

This is Your Day-TODAY: Take a Determined Step Forward and Make History!   

On this day, 07 Aug ….

(National  Handloom Day -observed every year to honour the handloom weavers in the country).

1782 – George Washington creates Order of Purple Heart.

1905 – Indian National Congress declares boycott of British goods.

1906 – First Tricoloured National Flag consisting of Green, Yellow and Red, with eight Lotuses on the top, second strip carrying “Vande Mataram” in Devnagri and the third strip having Sun and Cresent Moon, was hoisted at Green Park in Calcutta by Surendranath Banerjee.

1947-The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).

1970 – Ist All-computer Chess Tournament was held in New York and won by CHESS 3.0 (CDC 6400), a programme written by Slate, Atkin and Gorlen at Northwestern University).

1985 – Geet Sethi became the third Indian to become the World’s Armature Billiard’s Champion.

1990 – Govt. of India accepts the Mandal Commission’s recommendations and decides to reserve 27% jobs for the backward classes. Violent protests rock parts of Northern India against Mandal Commission.

1999 – A. B. Vajpayee, Prime Minister, appeals to the United States to name Pakistan as a Terrorist State.

2011 – India exercises a smoking ban in public places.

2018 – Swedish furniture brand Ikea opens its first store in India in Hyderabad.

2021 – Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra makes history by winning his country’s first-ever Olympic track and field Gold with a throw of 87.58 m in Tokyo Olympics.

Born…. 1925 – Monkombu S. Swaminathan, is an Indian agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator and humanitarian. In the green revolution, Swaminathan is regarded as a global leader. For his role in introducing and further developing high-yielding wheat and rice varieties in India, he has been called the principal architect of the green revolution. His leadership as Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was instrumental in his being awarded the first World Food Prize in 1987, recognized as the Nobel or the highest honours in the field of agriculture. He has been referred to as ‘the father of economic ecology’ by the United Nations Environment Programme.

1935 – Rajmohan Gandhi, biographer, historian, and research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US. . He is also a scholar in residence at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. His father Devdas Gandhi was the fourth a son of  Mahatma Gandhi, editor of The Hindustan Times and had married  C Rajagopalachari’s daughter Laksmi.  He opposed Emergency imposed by  PM Indira Gandhi and supported JP Movement. Rajmohan  fought  Lok Sabha elections twice (from  Amethi against Rajiv in 1989 on Janata Dal  and  from East Delhi in 2014  on AAP ticket) but lost both times.  (pic credit-alchetron.com).

1955 – Suresh Ishwar Wadkar, playback singer, who sang Bhajans, films songs  in Hindi,  Marathi films as also in Odia Bhojpuri and Konkani. He was awarded Sangeet Natak Akademy honour in 2018  and Padma Shri in  2020 (pic credit-mid-day.com).

RIP….1941 – Rabindranath  Tagore also called  “Gurudev“,  the great Indian poet, voluminous playwright, Nobel Laureate, social reformer, freedom fighter, painter and philosopher. He will be always remembered for the national song “Jana Gana Mana” and as a founder of Vishwa Bharati, Shantiniketen. He  was awarded Nobel  Prize for Literature in for his poetry collection   Gitanjli in 1913. His stories Chokher Bali, Kabuliwala, Ghare Bahre, Gora etc. were some of the  works  adapted for popular movies.

1957 – Oliver Hardy, iconic  comedian of Laurel & Hardy team which was on top in classical American comedy series, mostly Silent Era. They made films like Saps at Sea, The Flying Deuaces, Day Out West, The Bohemian Girl, Sons of the Desert etc.

2018 – M Karunanidhi, a writer and politician who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for almost two decades over five terms between 1969 and 2011; the longest tenure as Chief Minister with 6,863 days in office. Before entering politics, he worked in the Tamil film industry as a screenwriter. He also made contributions to Tamil literature, having written stories, plays, novels, and a multiple-volume memoir. His son MK Stalin has been Tamil Nadu  CM (2021-26) and his daughter Konimozhi is an MP.

You may have known….As per 2001 census, percentage of Indian population that speaks different languages: Hindi – 41.03%, Bengali – 8.11%, Telugu – 7.19%, Marathi – 6.99%, Tamil – 5.91%, Urdu – 5.01% and other languages.                                                                      {Compiled by Lt. Gen. (R)  Raj Kadyan}