BIOGRAPHY OF T.S.ELIOT

                                                     T.S. ELIOT

                                                         (1888-1965) 

INTRODUCTION

T.S. Eliot, the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the giants of modern literature, highly distinguished as a poet, literary critic, dramatist, and editor and publisher.

FAMILY

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri as a member of the third generation of a New England family that had come to St. Louis in 1834. Eliot's grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, Unitarian minister and founder of schools, a university, and charities. His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was a prosperous businessman and served the schools and charities his father had helped found. Eliot’s mother, Charlotte Champ was a teacher and a poet. After having six children, she focused her energy on writing.

EDUCATION 

Eliot lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his life. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and then the Milton Academy in Massachusetts. In 1906 he went to Harvard University, majored in literature, earning a B.A. and an M.A. After graduating, Eliot served as a philosophy assistant at Harvard for a year, and then left for France and the Sorbonne to study philosophy. After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but went to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and worked as a schoolmaster, a bank clerk, and eventually a literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director.

CONTRIBUTIONS

It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of magazines, most notably "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Poetry in 1915. His first book, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917, and except for the poem the title alludes to, the book contained little upon which Eliot’s reputation is now based. In 1919, Eliot published Poems and The Wasteland in 1922. It is considered the most influential poetic work of the 20th century.He edited the journal Criterion throughout the span of its publication (1922-1939). Ash-Wednesday is the first long poem written by Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism and was published in 1930. In 1932 he published Selected Essays 1917-1932, a collection of his literary criticism through the 1920s. Eliot regarded Four Quartets as his masterpiece, and it is the work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It consists of four long poems, each first published separately: Burnt Norton (1936), East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941) and Little Gidding (1942).

 CRITIC

Eliot was almost as renowned a literary critic as he was a poet. From 1916 through 1921 he contributed approximately one hundred reviews and articles to various periodicals. Beginning in the late 1920s, Eliot’s literary criticism was supplemented by religious and social criticism. In 1919 two of his most influential pieces appeared. "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems." Some of his early critical essays were The Sacred Wood (1920), Homage to John Dryden (1924), Selected Essays: 1917–1932 (1932), The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) After Strange Gods (1934) and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1940). Eliot served as literary editor of the Egoist, a feminist magazine, from 1917 to 1919. He was also writing anonymous reviews and essays for the London Times. 

His critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" was an important influence over the New Criticism by introducing the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works. His essay "Hamlet and His Problems" introduced the term "objective correlative", that suggests there can be a non-subjective judgment based on different readers' different interpretations of a work. Late in his career, Eliot focused much of his creative energy on writing for the theatre; some of his earlier critical writing, in essays such as "Poetry and Drama", "Hamlet and his Problems", and "The Possibility of a Poetic Drama", focused on the aesthetics of writing drama in verse.

For his vast influence in poetry, criticism and drama T.S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.He was a recipient of Hanseatic Goethe Prize (1955) Dante Medal (1959) and Thirteen Honorary Doctorates (from various universities).He had received Tony Award for Best Play in 1950, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score  in 1983.

 After a notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot separated from his first wife in 1933, and remarried Valerie Fletcher in 1956. He died in London on January 4, 1965.

Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Collected Poems (1962)   The Complete Poems and Plays (1952)   Four Quartets (1943) Burnt Norton (1941)     The Dry Salvages (1941)    Ash Wednesday (1930)    Poems, 1909–1925 (1925)     Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)     Poems (1919)    The Waste Land (1922)    Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)   East Coker (1940)        

                     

Prose

Religious Drama: Mediaeval and Modern (1954)    Poetry and Drama (1951)    The Three Voices of Poetry (1954)     Thoughts After Lambeth (1931)   Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1949)     Elizabethan Essays (1934)    The Classics and The Man of Letters (1942)    John Dryden (1932)    The Idea of a Christian Society (1940)    Essays Ancient and Modern (1936)    The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933)      After Strange Gods (1933)    Dante (1929)    For Lancelot Andrews (1928)   Andrew Marvell (1922)   The Sacred Wood (1920)   Tradition and Experimentation in Present-Day Literature (1929)

Drama

The Elder Statesman     The Confidential Clerk (1953)    The Rock (1934)      
The Cocktail Party (1950)      The Family Reunion (1939)
Murder in the Cathedral (1935)     Sweeney Agonistes (1932)

BIOGRAPHY OF DR. V. SHANTA

    BIOGRAPHY OF DR. V. SHANTA

Dr. V. Shanta is an Indian oncologist who is best known for her efforts towards making quality and affordable cancer treatment accessible to all patients in the country. She dedicated her life to the research on the prevention and care of cancer and organizing care for cancer patients.

Dr. V. Shanta was born on 11th March 1927 at Mylapore, Chennai. She did her schooling from National Girls High School (now P. S Sivswamy Higher Secondary School). Despite the fact that she comes from a family of scientists and Nobel laureates - S. Chandrasekhar (her maternal uncle) and Dr. C. V. Raman (her grand uncle ) - Dr. Shanta decided to become a doctor, inspired by Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, the first woman medical graduate in the country.

She completed her graduation (M. B. B. S) from the Madras Medical College in 1949. She specialised in Gynaecology and obstetrics with a diploma in 1952 and a MD in 1955. In 1950, she had interned briefly with the Cancer Unit of the Government General Hospital.

In 1955, Post - MD, she decided the offer of a Post of Asst. Surgeon in the Women and Children's Hospital, Madras, to which she had been selected by the Madras Public Service Commission. In April that year, she joined Adyar Cancer Institute, established in 1954 by the Women's Indian Association Cancer Relief Fund as its Resident Medical Officer. Since then she has lived in an austere flat on the first floor of the Institute. In 1956-57, she trained in oncology in Toronto and in 1968, studied marrow transplantation in UK.

Dr. V. Shanta is at present chairperson of the Cancer Institute, Chennai. She has played an important role in the development of the institute from a cottage hospital of 12 beds to a major comprehensive Cancer Centre of national and international stature. Today, the Institute has 423 beds, of which 297 are free. Generally, 66% of patients get free or subsidised treatment. She is also credited for developing India's first programme for early detection of cancer in rural areas. She shas trained hundreds of village nurses to screen rural women to cervical cancer.

She has been Chairman of the I DO - US Collaborative group on Lymphoid Neoplasias (Indian chapter), member of many ICMR committees, member of the ICMR task force on Registries and president of the Indian Society of Oncology (88 - 90). She was the president of the Asian and Pacific Federation of Organisations for Cancer Control (97 - 99), President of the 15th Asian and Pacific Cancer Conference (1999) and member of the syndicate of the Anna University. She has participated in a number of scientific International Collaborative Programmes.

She was the recipient of major National and International Awards along with the awards from public and official organisations. In 1986, she was awarded with Padmashri and IARC Award - work for Development of Registries in India in 1997 and Dsc from Shri Venkateswara University for the contribution in the field of medicine in 1998. She received Dsc Tamil Nadu from Dr. M.G.R Medical University and Nazli - Gad - El - Mawla Award for cancer control in a resource poor country, Brussels in 2002.

In 2005, she was conferred with the Ramon Magsaysay Award, better known as the Nobel Prize of Asia and in 2006, Indian government feted her with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian awardin in the land. She was honoured with Avvaiyar Award by Government of Tamil Nadu, D. Sc from both Dr. NTR University of Health sciences and Sathyabhama University for Life Time Achievement in 2013. She was conferred Padma Vibhusan in 2016.

She has published over 95 papers in national and international journals, contributed chapters in oncology books, delivered many prestigious orations and participated in many international and national conferences.

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

BINNY BANSAL AND SACHIN BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

 

Binny Bansal is an Indian technology entrepreneur and the co-founder of Flipkart, India’s favourite shopping website. He was born in 1981 in Chandigarh. He currently resides in Bangalore. His father is a retired chief manager at a bank and his mother is in the government sector. He has no siblings and is married to a homemaker. 

He got a graduation in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi where he met his friend Sachin Bansal. After being rejected by Google twice, Binny had worked with Sarnoff Corporation for a year and a half. Later he worked for Amazon and resigned after nine months along with Sachin Bansal to start their own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees. They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

 In 2016, Bansal became the CEO of Flipkart, where he worked on strategic development, direction and business management. In 2018, Walmart acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart group. After the acquisition, Bansal assumed the role of chairman and continued as Group CEO. His 5.5% stake in Flipkart was valued at $1 billion after the acquisition. He resigned from Flipkart in November 2018 on allegations of personal misconduct. He started to invest into new projects like image processing startup Terraview in 2019.

In September 2015 along with Sachin Bansal, he was named the 86th richest person in India with a net worth of $1.3 billion by Forbes India Rich List. India Today ranked them 26th in India's 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list. 

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

SACHIN BANSAL AND BINNY BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

Sachin Bansal is the co-founder of Flipkart that changed India’s shopping style. He is an Indian technology entrepreneur and a passionate gamer.

He was born on 5th August 1981 in Chandigarh. His father was a businessman and mother was a homemaker. He had completed his schooling from Saint Anne’s Convent School. He pursued 49^th rank in All India JEE rankings and got into Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

After graduation, Bansal worked at Techspan for a few months and later in 2006 he joined Amazon Web Services as a Senior Software Engineer. Later, his friend Binny Bansal also started working in Amazon. In 2007, both of them decided to quit their job to start his own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees . They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

From inception until 2016, Bansal held the position of Chief Executive Officer and from 2016 until 2018, he held the position of Executive Chairman. In 2018, he exited Flipkart along with the Walmart deal that acquired  77 percent stakes of the company at $16 billion. The non-compete clause restricted Bansal from starting any business that directly or indirectly competed with Flipkart for 18 months and in making any investments in businesses competing with Flipkart for 36 months from his departure.

Bansal wanted focus on his pending personal projects, gaming and brushing up his coding skills. Later , he founded BAC Acquisitions Private Limited, a venture that focused on building and acquiring technology-driven businesses . In 2019, he had investments in Ola, Grey Orange, Ather Energy, SigTuple, Inshorts, Unacademy , CRIDS and TeamIndus.