Bihar may not be performing well on various social parameters due to misrule from a number of years, capitalism, and uncontrollable corruption. Not to mention the general absence of law and order as well.
However, the state has still managed to give a few of the talented pioneering individuals who have become the credible person of their respective field. Many know the names of great personalities like the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad, the Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and filmmaker Prakash Jha. But there are much lesser known people from Bihar who make an impact in their unique way.
Let’s take a look at these lesser-known people from Bihar who have played a significant role in shaping the Modern India.
HC Verma
Every science student, especially in north India must have read or at least heard of his book Concept of Physics. Harish Chandra Verma is a former professor at IIT Kanpur born and brought up in Patna. After completing his masters from IIT Kanpur he went on to the top in his college with CGPA of 9.9 out of 10.0. He received his doctorate from the same institute.
As a lecturer at Patna Science College, he discovered that students were unable to connect with Physics books like Resnick, Halliday, Walker because of the complex language and references to different cultures. He then went on to write Concept of Physics in a very simple language which was easy to grasp, with numerical examples and Indian culture references. This book gained popularity among the science aspirants and teachers still recommend it for those who want to crack the engineering entrance exams.
Bindeshwar Pathak
Dr. Pathak, for the last 44 years has been working hard for cleanliness and sanitation. Born in Bihar, in 1985, he got his Masters and Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Patna. While he was young, Pathak traveled across the whole of India and was disturbed by the unfortunate situation of manual scavengers.
In the year 1968, Pathak joined the Bhangi-Mukti (Scavenger’s Liberation) Cell of the Bihar Gandhi Centenary Celebrations Committee. After two years he declared an all-out war against manual scavenging and found Sulabh International. He was able to introduce a humanitarian way of maintaining sanitation and hygiene through his organization. Sulabh has become the largest nonprofit organization in India with almost 50, 000 volunteers.
Lakshmi Kant Jha
The eight Governer of Reserve Bank of India, Lakshmi Kant Jha had excellent academic record and completed his education at BHU, Varanasi, Trinity College, Cambridge University later at London School of Economics, UK. He was able to crack Indian Civil services and served as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Supply in British India.
After Independence Jha served in the Ministries of Industries, Commerce, and Finance. Later he became the secretary to the prime ministers, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. During his tenure as the RBI Governor, 14 major commercial banks were nationalized.
Also, the National Credit Council was found and gold controls were brought on a statutory basis. The Agricultural Credit Board was established and deposit insurance in principle was extended to Cooperative banks.
Mirza Faizan
He developed the Ground Reality Information Processing System (GRIPS) that prevents accidents of the runway with 100% accuracy. After Mirza Faizan graduated from Patna University he completed his MCA from Manipal Institute and later pursued Embedded System Design at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
He worked for Satyam Computers, Honeywell, and other US projects. Faizan also found Avembsys Technologies Pvt Ltd which is India’s first aerospace research center and later Avionics & Embedded Systems in Bangalore.
Anil Agarwal
He is the founder and chairman of Vedanta Resouces Plc which is a globally diversified metals and mining company that operates in India, South Africa Australia, Ireland, and the UK. He dropped out of school when he was just 15 to join his father’s business of producing aluminum conductors. He later began scrap metal trading and later was able to acquire a manufacturing company of enameled copper.
He then began investing in the ailing public sector mining firms turning them into a flourishing private entity. And in 2003 he established Vedanta Resources Plc which is the first Indian firm to be on the list of London Stock Exchange.
Manish Mehrotra
He studied hotel management from Insitute of Hotel Management Mumbai and worked as the Kitchen management Trainee for the Taj Group of Hotels. Later he joined Old World Hospitality’s Oriental Octopus and traveled around Asia to train in pan Asian cuisine. After the return, he launched Indian Accent serving Indian food with global ingredients and techniques with Indian flavors and traditions. He has received many awards including HT’s Best Chef of 2010 and American Express Best Chef of the year 2010.
Subhav Sinha
He is known for developing Personalized Mover- Mitra, a personal mobility battery operated vehicle. He invented this vehicle when he was a student at Delhi Technological University. The personalized mover can carry a single person which can be particularly useful in airport corridors, in specialty buildings like hospitals and institutional campus.
(Photo Credit: theweek, thefamouspeople, cloudfront, indiacsr, indianaccent, deccanherald)
