Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 is the oldest living culture which follow "Dharmo Rakshati Rakshita" Protect Dharma for it will protect you (Hinduism is a religion) . Hindus constitute a population of 950 million around the world. The following is a list of prominent and famous people who are Hindus.

Hindu Cultural Followers

• Adi Shankara
  Adi Shankara
  Adi Shankara Adi Shankara Adi Shankara (IAST: pronounced , (Sanskrit: , ) (788 CE - 820 CE), also known as ' and ' was an Indian philosopher from Kalady of present day Kerala who consolidated the doctrine of advaita vedānta...
  
  : Philosopher Saint, Social reformer
• Abhinavagupta
  Abhinavagupta
  Abhinavagupta was one of India's greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logician - a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture.He was born in the Valley of Kashmir in...
  
  : Exponent of Kashmir Saivism
• Agastyar: Saint, First and foremost person of Siddha
  Siddha
  A Siddha सिद्ध in Sanskrit means "one who is accomplished" and refers to perfected masters who, according to Hindu belief, have transcended the ahamkara , have subdued their minds to be subservient to their Awareness, and have transformed their bodies into a different kind of body dominated by...
  
  
• Aksapada Gautama: author of Nyaya Sutras
  Nyaya Sutras
  The Nyāya Sūtras are an ancient Indian text on of philosophy composed by ' . The sutras contain five chapters, each with two sections...
  
  , the foundation of the Nyaya
  Nyaya
  ' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
  
   school of Hinduism
• Annie Besant
  Annie Besant
  Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
  
  : Theosophist
  Theosophy
  Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
  
   and president of the Congress Party
• Sri Aurobindo
  Sri Aurobindo
  Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...
  
  : Mystic and philosopher
• Auvaiyar
  Auvaiyar
  The Avvaiyars "respectable women" was the title of more than one poet who was active during different periods of Tamil literature. The Avvaiyar were some of the most famous and important female poets of the Tamil canon. Abithana Chintamani states that there were three female poets titled...
  
  : Beloved Tamil female saint
• A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: Founder-acharya
  Acharya
  In Indian religions and society, an acharya is a guide or instructor in religious matters; founder, or leader of a sect; or a highly learned man or a title affixed to the names of learned men...
  
   of ISKCON
• Acharya Koshalendraprasad Pande Acharya of Ahmedabad Gadi of the Swaminarayan Sampraday
  Swaminarayan Sampraday
  Swaminarayan Sampraday , known previously as the Uddhav Sampraday, is a Hindu sect established by Swaminarayan...
  
  
• Acharya Rakeshprasad Pande Acharya of Vadtal Gadi of the Swaminarayan Sampraday
  Swaminarayan Sampraday
  Swaminarayan Sampraday , known previously as the Uddhav Sampraday, is a Hindu sect established by Swaminarayan...
  
  
• Bhagawan Nityananda
  Bhagawan Nityananda
  Bhagawan Nityananda was an Indian guru. His teachings are published in the "Chidakash Gita". Nityananda was born in Quilandy , Kerala, South India.- Early life :...
  
  ,Mystic Yogi
• Bharata
  Bharata (emperor)
  Bharata was a legendary emperor of India, and is referred to in Hindu and Jain mythology. He was son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala and thus a descendant of the Lunar Dynasty of the Kshatriya caste. Bharata conquered all of greater Greater India, uniting it into a single entity which was named...
  
  : Advocated Advaita philosophy, Bharat, the other name for India, is named after him
• Bhartrihari: Author of Vairagya Satakam, hundred verses of renunciation
• Bhaskararaya
  Bhaskararaya
  Bhaskararaya is widely considered an authority on all questions pertaining to the worship of the Mother Goddess in Hinduism. The worship of Shakti involves many hidden meanings of mantras and coded passages. It is said that these meanings were revealed to Bhaskararaya by the Goddess Herself...
  
  : Author of Varivasya Rahasyam
• Bogar: Legendary South Indian Siddhar. Created Lord Murugan statue in Palani.
• Kautilya Chanakya: Philosopher,Social Reformer, Economist, Politician, Administrator, Author of Artha shastra
• Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya
  Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya
  Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya was a philosopher at Calcutta University who studied one of the central questions of Hindu philosophy, which is how mind, life or consciousness creates an apparently material universe....
  
  : Philosopher
• Kanakadasa:Greatest Saint of Bhakti movement.
• Swami Chinmayananda
  Chinmayananda
  Swami Chinmayananda , born Balakrishna Menon , was a Hindu Indian spiritual leader, and teacher, who inspired the formation of Chinmaya Mission in 1953 to spread the message of Vedanta...
  
  : Religious leader
• Deepak Chopra
  Deepak Chopra
  Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...
  
  : Personality Development Author
• Ananda Coomaraswamy
  Ananda Coomaraswamy
  Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was a Ceylonese philosopher and metaphysician, as well as a pioneering historian and philosopher of Indian art, particularly art history and symbolism, and an early interpreter of Indian culture to the West...
  
  : Art historian
• Dattatreya
  Dattatreya
  Dattatreya or Datta is a Hindu deity encompassing the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, collectively known as Trimurti. The name Dattatreya can be divided into two words - "Datta" and "Atreya" referring to the sage Atri, his physical father.Various Hindu sects worship him differently...
  
  : Narrated Jnana Kanda, taught Ashtanga Yoga to Patanjali
• Swami Dayananda: Religious leader
• Shri Madhvacharya: Philosopher Saint
• Narayana Guru
  Narayana Guru
  Sri Nārāyana Guru , also known as Sree Nārāyana Guru Swami, was a Hindu saint, sadhuand social reformer of India. The Guru was born into an Ezhava family, in an era when people from backward communities like the Ezhavas faced much social injustices in the caste-ridden Kerala society...
  
  : Mystic and philosopher
• Nigamananda
  Swami Nigamananda
  Swami Nigamananda Paramahansa . His followers idealized him as their worshiped and beloved thakura.Nigamananda was a sannyasi of the Shankar's cult...
  
  : Yogi,Philosopher Saint
• Nisargadatta Maharaj
  Nisargadatta Maharaj
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , born Maruti Shivrampant Kambli, was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita , and a Guru, belonging to the Inchgiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya....
  
  : Teacher
• Patanjali
  Patañjali
  Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...
  
  : Founder of Patanjali Yoga
• Ram Dass
  Ram Dass
  Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...
  
  : American spiritual leader
• Ramana Maharshi
  Ramana Maharshi
  Sri Ramana Maharshi , born Venkataraman Iyer, was a Hindu spiritual master . He was born to a Tamil-speaking Brahmin family in Tiruchuzhi, Tamil Nadu. After experiencing at age 16 what he later described as liberation , he left home for Arunachala, a mountain considered sacred by Hindus...
  
  : Mystic
• Ram Mohan Roy
  Ram Mohan Roy
  Raja Ram Mohan Roy was an Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated the lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is sometimes called the father of modern India...
  
  : Reformer
• Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa
  Ramakrishna
  Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
  
  : Philosopher Saint, Social reformer
• Ramanuja
  Ramanuja
  Ramanuja ; traditionally 1017–1137, also known as Ramanujacharya, Ethirajar , Emperumannar, Lakshmana Muni, was a theologian, philosopher, and scriptural exegete...
  
  : Philosopher Saint
• Dr. Rajeev Menon, Hindu Rashtrapathy, Hindu Mahasabha spiritual Leader
• Sant Sri Asaramji Bapu
  Sant Sri Asaramji Bapu
  Sant Shri Asharam Ji Bapu , also endearingly called "Bapu", is a self-realized Hindu Spiritual Guru from India. Bapu preaches the existence of One Supreme Conscious in every human being and represents a confluence of Bhakti_yoga, Gnana_yoga and Karma_yoga...
  
  : Saint & Spiritual preceptor
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , OM, FBA was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He was the first Vice President of India and subsequently the second President of India ....
  
  : Vedantic Philosopher
• Shankaracharya of Kanchi, Hindu Seer & Spiritual preceptor
• Shriram Sharma Acharya
  Shriram Sharma Acharya
  Shriram Sharma was an Indian seer, sage, a prominent philosopher, a visionary of the New Golden Era, and the Founder of the All World Gayatri Pariwar, which has its headquarters at Shantikunj, Haridwar....
  
  : Founder of the All World Gayatri Pariwar
  Gayatri
  Gayatri is the feminine form of , a Sanskrit word for a song or a hymn. Gayatri is a consort of Brahma and the goddess of learning. Brahma married her when there was a need for a companion during a yajna. Brahma had to start the yajna along with his wife...
  
  
• Swami Sivananda
  Swami Sivananda
  Swami Sivananda Saraswati was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Sivananda was born Kuppuswami in Pattamadai, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. He studied medicine and served in Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism...
  
  : Yogi
• Sivaya Subramuniyaswami: Modern sage
• Thirumoolar
  Thirumoolar
  Tirumular was a Tamil Shaivite mystic and writer, considered one of the sixty-three Nayanars and one of the 18 Siddhars...
  
  : One of the 18 Siddhars
• Sage Valmiki: Author of the epic Ramayana
• Swami Vivekananda
  Swami Vivekananda
  Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...
  
  : Philosopher Saint, Social reformer
• Swami Sathyananda Saraswathi
  Swami Sathyananda Saraswathi
  Swami Sathyananda Saraswathi also known as Chenkottukonam Swamiji, was a Hindu spiritual teacher, orator, historian and religious scholar. He was the founder of Hindu Aikya Vedi, and remained its chairman until his death....
  
  : Jagadguru,Reckoned as the greatest Karmayogi to uphold Sanatana Dharma since Swami Vivekananda
  Swami Vivekananda
  Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...
  
  
• Vyasa
  Vyasa
  Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa , or Krishna Dvaipayana...
  
  : Author of the epic Mahabharata
• Paramahansa Yogananda
  Paramahansa Yogananda
  Paramahansa Yogananda , born Mukunda Lal Ghosh , was an Indian yogi and guru who introduced many westerners to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his book, Autobiography of a...
  
  : Yogi
• Tibbetibaba
  Tibbetibaba
  Tibbetibaba , Hindi:तिब्बती बाबा, also known as Mahasadhak Tibbetibaba or Paramhamsa Tibbetibaba, alternative spellings Tibbatibaba, Tibbati Baba, Tibbeti Baba,Tibbotibaba or Tibboti Baba originally named Nabin Chattopadhhyaya or Nabin or Nabin Chandra, Tibbetibaba , Hindi:तिब्बती बाबा, also known...
  
  : Philosopher Saint
• Purandara Dasa
  Purandara Dasa
  Purandara Dāsa is one of the most prominent composers of Carnatic music and is widely regarded as the "father of Carnatic Music". Purandara Dasa addressed social issues in addition to worship in his compositions, a practice emulated by his younger contemporary, Kanaka Dasa...
  
  : Father of Carnatic music & philosopher

Monarchs / National leaders / Politicians

Maurya Dynasty (324 BC-184 BC)

• Chandragupta Maurya
  Chandragupta Maurya
  Chandragupta Maurya , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent. Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...
  
   (324 BC-301 BC)
• Bindusara Amitraghata (301 BC-269 BC)
• Ashoka Vardhana
  Ashoka
  Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
  
   (269 BC-232 BC)
• Chanakya
  Chanakya
  Chānakya was a teacher to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta , and the first Indian emperor generally considered to be the architect of his rise to power. Traditionally, Chanakya is also identified by the names Kautilya and VishnuGupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise...
  
  : Prime Minister to the Chandragupta Maurya

Gupta Dynasty (319–543)

• Chandra Gupta I
  Chandragupta I
  The Gupta dynasty first seems to be in eminence with the accession of Chandra Gupta I, son of Ghatotkacha to the throne of the ancestral Gupta kingdom. While his two ancestors were given the title of Maharaja , Chandra Gupta I is described in his inscriptions as Maharajadhiraj signifying a rise in...
  
   (319–335)
• Samudra Gupta
  Samudragupta
  Samudragupta , ruler of the Gupta Empire , and successor to Chandragupta I, is considered to be one of the greatest military geniuses in Indian history according to Historian V. A. Smith. His name is taken to be a title acquired by his conquests...
  
   (335–380)
• Chandra Gupta II
  Chandragupta II
  Chandragupta II the Great, very often referred to as Vikramaditya or Chandragupta Vikramaditya in Sanskrit; was one of the most powerful emperors of the Gupta empire in northern India. His rule spanned c...
  
   (380–415)
• Kumara Gupta I
  Kumara Gupta I
  Kumaragupta I ' was a ruler of the Gupta Empire in 415–455 CE. Like his father and predecessor, Chandragupta II, Kumaragupta was an able ruler. He retained, intact, the vast empire, which extended from Bengal to Kathiawar and from the Himalayas to the Narmada. He ruled efficiently for nearly forty...
  
   (415–455)
• Skanda Gupta
  Skandagupta
  Skandagupta was a Gupta Emperor of northern India. He is generally considered the last of the great Gupta Emperors.-Rule:Skandagupta's antecedents remain unclear. Later official genealogies omit his name, and even the inscriptions of his own age omit the name of his mother...
  
   (455 -467)
• Buddha Gupta
  Buddhagupta
  Budhagupta was a Gupta emperor. He was the successor of Kumaragupta II and the predecessor of Narasimhagupta Baladitya. He was the son of Purugupta...
  
   (467–499)

Pallava Dynasty

Chola Dynasty (1st century to 1279)

• Athiththa Chola (871–907 )
• Uththama Chola
  Uththama Chola
  Uttama Chola ascended the Chola throne c. 970 C.E. succeeding Parantaka Chola II. Uttama was the son of the illustrious Sembiyan Mahadevi and the cousin of Parantaka II.- Controversial ascension :...
  
   (973–985 )
• Rajaraja Chola I
  Rajaraja Chola I
  Raja Raja Chola I born Arunmozhi Thevar , popularly known as Raja Raja the Great, is one of the greatest emperors of the Tamil Chola Empire of India who ruled between 985 and 1014 CE...
  
   (985–1014 )
• Rajendra Chola I
  Rajendra Chola I
  Rajendra Chola I was the son of Rajaraja Chola I and was one of the greatest rulers of Tamil Chola dynasty of India. He succeeded his father in 1014 CE as the Chola emperor...
  
   (1012–1044 )
• Rajadhiraja Chola I (1018–1054 )
• Kulothunga Chola I
  Kulothunga Chola I
  Kō Rājakēsarivarman Abaya Kulōthunga Chōla was one of the greatest kings of the Chola Empire. He was one of the sovereigns who bore the title Kulottunga, literally meaning the exalter of his race.-Early life:...
  
   (1070–1120 )

Rajput Dynesty (700 to 1526)

• Prithvi Raj Chauhan(1149–1192)

Vijayanagar Empire
Hakka Raya
Bukka Raya
Krishna Deva Raya
Aliya Rama Raya

Aliya Rama Raya

Rama Raya , popularly known as "Aliya" Rama Raya, was the progenitor of the "Aravidu" dynasty of Vijayanagar Empire. This dynasty, the fourth and last to hold sway over the Vijayanagara Empire, is often not counted as a ruling dynasty of that empire, for reasons delineated below. Rama Raya...

Maratha Emperors (1674–1818)

• Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj (1674–1680)
• Sambhaji
  Sambhaji
  Sambhaji Raje Bhosle was the eldest son and successor to Emporer Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha empire.- Early life :...
  
   (1680–1688)
• Emperor Rajaram (1688–1700)
• Queen Tarabai
  Tarabai
  Tarabai was a queen of the Maratha Empire in India. Her husband was Chhatrapati Rajaram, son of Shivaji. Tarabai was the daughter of the famed Maratha general Hambirao Mohite...
  
   (1700–1707)
• Chattrapati Shahu Maharaj
  Shahuji
  Shahu Sambhaji Raje Bhosale Chhatrapati Maharaj was the fourth ruler of the Maratha Empire created by his grandfather, Chhatrapati Shivaji, and was officially the Raja of Satara...
  
   (1707–1712)
• Balaji Vishwanath
  Balaji Vishwanath
  Balaji Vishwanath Bhat , better known as Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath, was the first of a series of hereditary Peshwas hailing from the Brahmin family who gained effective control of the Maratha Empire during the 18th century...
  
   (1707–1720)
• Peshwa Bajirao I (1720–1740)
• Balaji Bajirao
  Nanasaheb Peshwa
  Nanasaheb Peshwa , also known as Balaji Bajirao, was the son of Bajirao from his marriage with Kashibai and one of the Peshwas of the Maratha Empire. He contributed heavily to the development of the city of Pune, India. He was appointed as Peshwa by Chattrapati Shahu himself...
  
   (1740–1761)
• Madhavrao Peshwa
  Madhavrao Peshwa
  Thorle Madhavrao Peshwa was fourth Peshwa of the Maratha Empire.-Early life and ascendancy to Peshwa:...
  
   (1761–1772)
• Narayanrao Peshwa
  Narayanrao Peshwa
  Narayanrao Peshwa was fifth Peshwa or ruler of the Maratha Empire from November 1772 till his death by murder in August 1773.-Early life and ascendancy to Peshwa:...
  
   (1772–1773)
• Raghunath Rao (1773–1774)
• Baji Rao II
  Baji Rao II
  Baji Rao II was the last Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy, and governed from 1796 to 1818. His reign was marked by confrontations with the British.-Biography:...
  
   (1796–1818)

Wodeyars of Mysore (1399–1950)

• Chamaraja Wodeyar IX
  Chamaraja Wodeyar
  Chamaraja Wadiyar X was the ruling Maharaja of Mysore between 1881 and 1894.-Adoption and accession:Chamaraja was born at the old palace in Mysore on February 22, 1863, as the third son of Sardar Chikka Krishnaraj Urs, of the Bettada-Kote branch of the ruling clan. His father died about a week...
  
   (1868–1894)
• H.H. Vani Vilas Sannidhana
  Maharani Kempa Nanjammani Vani Vilasa Sannidhana
  Maharani Kempa Nanjammani Vani Vilasa Sannidhana was the wife of Maharaja Chamaraja Wodeyar IX and mother of Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV.Maharani Kempananjammanni of Vani Vilasa Sannidhana [in full] occupies as high a place as any in the annals of Mysore history...
  
  , queen of Chamaraja Wodeyar IX served as regent from 1894 to 1902.
• (Nalvadi) Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV (1894–1940)
• Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur
  Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur
  Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur was the 25th and the last Maharaja of the princely state of Mysore from 1940 to 1950. He was a noted philosopher, musicologist, political thinker and philanthropist.-Biography:...
  
   (1940–1950).

Nepal

• Prithvi Narayan Shah
  Prithvi Narayan Shah
  Prithvi Narayan Shah, King of Nepal was the first king of the House of Shahs to rule Nepal. He is credited for starting the campaign for a unified Nepal, which had been divided and weakened under Malla confederacy. He was the ninth generation descendant of Dravya Shah , the founder of the ruling...
  
   (1768–1775) ruler of Gurkha
  Gurkha
  Gurkha are people from Nepal who take their name from the Gorkha District. Gurkhas are best known for their history in the Indian Army's Gorkha regiments, the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas and the Nepalese Army. Gurkha units are closely associated with the kukri, a forward-curving Nepalese knife...
  
   from 1743
• Pratap Singh Shah (1775–1777)
• Rana Bahadur Shah
  Rana Bahadur Shah
  Rana Bahadur Shah, King of Nepal was the third King of greater Nepal. He succeeded to the throne in 1777 on the death of his father, Pratap Singh Shah. He ruled under the regencies of his mother, Queen Rajendra Laxmi and then of his uncle, Bahadur Shah...
  
   (1777–1799)
• Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah Deva
  Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah Deva
  Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah Deva, King of Nepal , also called Girvanyuddha Bikrama Shah, was the King of Nepal from 1799 to 1816....
  
   (1799–1816)
• Surendra Bikram Shah (1847–1881)
• Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah (1881–1911)
• Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah
  Tribhuvan of Nepal
  King Tribhuhvan Bir Bikram Shah , King of Nepal was King of Nepal from 11 December 1911 until his death...
  
   (1911–1955) first time
• Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah
  Mahendra of Nepal
  Possibly no heir for the time period of 1911 through 1920. Previous Crown Prince: Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah, from 1906 to 1911....
  
   (1956–1972)
• Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
  Birendra of Nepal
  Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was a King of Nepal. The son of King Mahendra, whom he succeeded in 1972, he reigned until his death in the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre...
  
   (1972–2001)
• Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
  Dipendra of Nepal
  Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was a member of the Nepalese Royal Family, who briefly reigned in coma as King of Nepal from the 1st of June to the 4th of June, 2001...
  
   (2001)
• Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
  Gyanendra of Nepal
  Gyanendra Shah was the last King of Nepal. During his life, he has held the title of the King twice: first between 1950 and 1951 as a child when his grandfather Tribhuvan was forced into exile in India with the rest of his family; and from 2001 to 2008, following the Nepalese royal massacre.King...
  
   (2001–2008) second time

Cambodia

• Jayavarman I
  Jayavarman I
  Jayavarman I is considered by some to be the first king of the Khmer empire, as it evolved out of the Kamboja kingdom . He ruled from approximately 657 to 681. Over the course of his reign, and that of his predecessor Bhavavarman II, the Khmer kings' power was consolidated in the areas previously...
  
   (7th century)
• Suryavarman I
  Suryavarman I
  Suryavarman I was king of the Khmer Empire from 1010 to 1050. After the reign of Udayadityavarman I, which ended around 1000, there was no clear successor. Two kings, Jayaviravarman and Suryavarman I, both claimed the throne. Suryavarman I was a Buddhist who was said in the Chronicles of Chieng...
  
   (1002–1050)
• Udayadityavarman II
  Udayadityavarman II
  Udayadityavarman II ruled the Angkor Kingdom from 1050 to 1066 A.D. He was the successor of Suryavarman I but not his son; he descended from Yasovarman I's spouse. He built the Baphuon Temple to honor the god Shiva, but some of the sculptures are dedicated to Buddha...
  
   (1050–1066)
• Suryavarman II
  Suryavarman II
  Suryavarman II was king of the Khmer Empire from 1113 AD to 1145-1150 AD and the builder of Angkor Wat, which he dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu...
  
   (1113–1150)
• Dharanindravarman II
  Dharanindravarman II
  Dharanindravarman II was king of the Khmer Empire from 1150 to 1160. His son Jayavarman VII would become known as one of the most ambitious builders of Angkor, the empire's capital.-External links:*...
  
   (1150–1160)

Indonesia

• Gajah Mada
  Gajah Mada
  Gajah Mada was, according to Javanese old manuscripts, poems and mythology, a powerful military leader and mahapatih or prime minister of the Majapahit Empire, credited with bringing the empire to its peak of glory...
  
   Prime Minister of Majapahit,14th century
• Hayam Wuruk
  Hayam Wuruk
  Hayam Wuruk, also called Rajasanagara, , was a Javanese King and the fourth monarch of Majapahit empire. Together with his prime minister Gajah Mada, he reigned the empire at the time of its greatest power. He was preceded by Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi and succeeded by his son in law...
  
   Ruler of Majapahit,14th century
• Sabdapalon
  Sabdapalon
  Sabdapalon was a priest and adviser to Brawijaya V, the last ruler of the Hindu empire Majapahit in Java. He was mentioned in Darmagandhul, a Javanese spiritual story. He was also said to have cursed his king upon the conversion of the latter to Islam in 1478...
  
   Priest, advisor to king of Majapahit, 15th Century
• Jayabaya Ruler of Kediri, 12th Century
• Airlangga
  Airlangga
  Airlangga was the only raja of the Kingdom of Kahuripan, which was built out of the rubble of the Kingdom of Medang after the Srivijaya invasion...
  
   Ruler of Kediri

20th century

• Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray
  Bal Thackeray
  Bal Keshav Thackeray , popularly known as Balasaheb Thackeray, is an Indian politician, founder and chief of the Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, and Marathi ethnocentric party active mainly in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.Born in Pune, Thackeray began his professional career...
  
  , (Founder of Hindu Political Party Shivsena).
• Balgangadhar Tilak: National leader
• Bidhan Chandra Roy
  Bidhan Chandra Roy
  Bidhan Chandra Roy, M.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. was the second Chief Minister of West Bengal in India. He remained in his post for 14 years as a Indian National Congress candidate, from 1948 until his death in 1962. He was a highly respected physician and a renowned freedom fighter...
  
  : Indian politician
• Devan Nair
  Devan Nair
  Devan Nair a/l Chengara Veetil, also known as C. V. Devan Nair , was the third President of Singapore and was elected by Parliament on October 23, 1981. He served as President until his resignation on March 28, 1985.-Youth:Nair was born in Malacca, Malaysia, the son of an Indian immigrant I.V.K...
  
  , Former President, Singapore
• S Jayakumar, Deputy Prime Minister, Singapore
• C. Rajagopalachari
  C. Rajagopalachari
  Chakravarti Rajagopalachari , informally called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, independence activist, politician, writer and statesman. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India...
  
  , Ex-Governor General of India; writer & statesman
• Ramaswamy Venkataraman, Ex-President, India
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , OM, FBA was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He was the first Vice President of India and subsequently the second President of India ....
  
  : Ex-President, India
• Chidambaram Subramaniam, ex-Steel & Mines Minister of India; Bharat Ratna Awardee & 'Father of the Indian Green Revolution'
• Subramanian Swamy
  Subramanian Swamy
  Subramanian Swamy is an Indian politician, academician, and an economist and presently the President of the Janata Party of India.-Early life and education:...
  
  , Politician
• Tharman Shanmugaratnam
  Tharman Shanmugaratnam
  Tharman Shanmugaratnam is a politician from Singapore. A member of the governing People's Action Party , he is currently the country's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance and Minister for Manpower. He previously served as the Minister for Education from 2003 to 2008...
  
  , Minister of Education, Singapore (Sri Lankan Tamil ancestry).
• Atal Behari Vajpayee: Ex. PM of India, Leader of BJP.
• L.K.Advani: Leader BJP
• Kamla Persad-Bissessar
  Kamla Persad-Bissessar
  Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the seventh person to hold this position...
  
  , First Female and Current Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
• Cheddi Jagan
  Cheddi Jagan
  Cheddi Berret Jagan was a Guyanese politician who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964, prior to independence. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997.- Biography :The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan...
  
  , First Hindu President of Guyana.
• Basdeo Panday
  Basdeo Panday
  Basdeo Panday was the 5th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1995 to 2001 and has served as Leader of the Opposition from 1976–1977, 1978–1986, 1989–1995 and 2001–2010. He was first elected to Parliament in 1976 as the Member for Couva North. He is the former...
  
  , First Hindu Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
• Bharrat Jagdeo
  Bharrat Jagdeo
  Bharrat Jagdeo is a Guyanese politician who has been President of Guyana since 11 August 1999. Prior to his presidency he was Minister of Finance and became President after Janet Jagan resigned for health reasons; subsequently he won two elections, in 2001 and 2006.Jagdeo was born in Unity Village...
  
  , Current President of Guyana.
• Sunita Williams
  Sunita Williams
  Sunita Williams is a United States Naval officer and a NASA astronaut. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15...
  
  

Military

• General O.P. Malhotra, Ex-Army Chief, Governor of Punjab, Social Worker
• Rakesh Sharma
  Rakesh Sharma
  Wing commander Rakesh Sharma, AC, is a former Indian Air Force test pilot, and Cosmonaut aboard Soyuz T-11 as part of an Intercosmos Research Team...
  
  , first Indian astronaut
• Shashindra Pal Tyagi
  Shashindra Pal Tyagi
  Air Chief Marshal Shashindra Pal Tyagi , more commonly known as S P Tyagi, is the former Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force. Prior to becoming chief of Indian Air Force, he was commanding the Western Air Command of the Air Force. He was commissioned in the fighter stream of the IAF on...
  
  , chief of Indian Air Force
  Indian Air Force
  The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...
  
  

Business leaders / Top executives

India

• Ajay Piramal, chairman, Piramal Enterprises Limited
• Alfred Ford
  Alfred Ford
  Alfred Ford , also known as Ambarish Das, is an American businessman. He is a great grandson of legendary businessman Henry Ford. He is married to Dr...
  
  , also known as Ambarish Das, is great grandson of legendary Henry Ford
  Henry Ford
  Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
  
  
• Anil Ambani
  Anil Ambani
  Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian-Gujarati business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is worth more than 29 billion dollars, and owns another company called Reliance Industries...
  
   son of Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Inc
• Deepak Parekh
  Deepak Parekh
  Deepak Parekh is the Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, India's leading housing finance company. A pioneer in mortgage finance, he has enabled scores of Indian middle class people to own their houses or apartments through affordable loans...
  
    Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation
• Dewang Mehta
  Dewang Mehta
  Dewang Mehta was the head of NASSCOM from 1991 to 2001. He is credited with a large portion of India's momentous rise as a "software giant".-Biography:...
  
  , ex-chief of NASSCOM
  NASSCOM
  The National Association of Software and Services Companies of IT software and services related activities for use of both the software developers as well as interested companies overseas....
  
  
• GD Birla, Industrialist, Birla
  Aditya Birla Group
  The Aditya Birla Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. It operates in 33 countries with more than 133,000 employees worldwide...
  
   Group
• Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao
  Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao
  Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao is the founder and chairman of GMR Group, a leading infrastructure developer in India. He was ranked 198th in the world's richest list by Forbes, and his wealth was valued at $2.6 billion...
  
  , Founder and chairman of GMR Group
• Jamnalal Bajaj
  Jamnalal Bajaj
  Jamnalal Bajaj was an Indian industrialist, a philanthropist, and Indian independence fighter. He was also a close associate and follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is known to have adopted him as his son. Several institutions in India bears his name, including the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of...
  
  
• Kris Gopalakrishnan
  Kris Gopalakrishnan
  Senapathy Gopalakrishnan , popularly known as Kris Gopalakrishnan is the President of Infosys Technologies a global consulting and IT services company based in India. He is also one of its seven founders.- Early days :...
  
  ,co-founder Infosys
  Infosys
  Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...
  
  
• Kalanidhi Maran
  Kalanidhi Maran
  Kalanithi Maran is the Chairman and Managing Director of Sun Network, which is the most profitable Television network in Asia.In June 2010, he acquired Spice Jet which was the most profitable airlines in India...
  
  , Media Baron
• Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biotechnology entrepreneur
• Kumar Birla, businessman, Birla Group
• K. V. Kamath
  K. V. Kamath
  Kundapur Vaman Kamath is the Chairman of Infosys Limited, the second-largest IT services company in India, and Non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, India's largest private bank. Mr...
  
  , Chairman of ICICI Bank
• M.A. Chidambaram, Industrialist
• Mukesh Ambani
  Mukesh Ambani
  Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
  
   Chairman and CEO of the Largest Company in India (Reliance Industries). The 4th Richest Man in the World.
• Naresh Goyal
  Naresh Goyal
  Naresh Goyal is an Indian businessman and founder Chairman of Jet Airways. He started operating Jet Airways in 1993. Following the 2005 IPO of Jet Airways, Forbes magazine declared him the sixteenth richest person in India with a net worth of $1.9 billion....
  
   Founder Chairman of Jet Airways
  Jet Airways
  Jet Airways is a major Indian airline based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is India's largest airline and the market leader in the domestic sector. It operates over 400 flights daily to 76 destinations worldwide. Its main hub is Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, with secondary hubs at Delhi,...
  
  
• N. Srinivasan
  N. Srinivasan
  Narayanaswami Srinivasan is an Indian industrialist, chemical engineer, sports administrator and socialite who is the Managing-Director of the India Cements Limited and owner of the Chennai Super Kings Indian Premier League cricket team...
  
  , Managing-Director of the India Cements Limited
• N.R.Narayana Murthy,
• Nandan Nilekani
  Nandan Nilekani
  Nandan Nilekani born is an Indian entrepreneur. He currently serves as the Chairman of the new Unique Identification Authority of India , after a successful career at Infosys Technologies Ltd...
  
  , co-founder Infosys
  Infosys
  Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...
  
  
• S. Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services
• Rahul Bajaj
  Rahul Bajaj
  Rahul Bajaj is an Indian businessman, politician and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Indian conglomerate Bajaj Group and member of parliament. Bajaj comes from the business house started by a Rajasthani Marwadi businessman Jamnalal Bajaj. The US$ 1.32 Billion Bajaj Auto is his flagship company...
  
  ,Prominent Indian industrialist
• Ramalinga Raju
  Ramalinga Raju
  Ramalinga Raju founded Satyam Computers in 1987 and was its Chairman until January 7, 2009 when he resigned from the Satyam board after admitting to cheating six million shareholders...
  
  : Satyam Computers
• Shantanu Laxmanrao Kirloskar, Kirloskar Group
• Shiv Nadar
  Shiv Nadar
  Shiv Nadar is an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He is the chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of HCL Technologies. , his personal wealth is US$5.6 billion. Shiv Nadar founded HCL in the mid-1970s and transformed the IT hardware company into an IT Enterprise over the next three decades by...
  
  , Chairman & CEO of HCL & Forbes List of Billionaires
• Subrata Roy
  Subrata Roy
  Subrata Roy Sahara also known as Saharasri is the managing worker and chairman of Sahara India Pariwar.-About:...
  
  , Sahara India Parivar
• Sunil Mittal
  Sunil Mittal
  Sunil Bharti Mittal , Punjabi: ਸੁਨੀਲ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਿੱਤਲ, born 23 October 1957) is an Indian telecom mogul, philanthropist and the founder, chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises...
  
  
• Vijay Mallya
  Vijay Mallya
  Vijay Mallya is an Indian liquor and airline baron. The son of industrialist Vittal Mallya, he is the chairman of the United Breweries Group and Kingfisher Airlines. His United Spirits is world's second largest liquor maker, by volume...
  
  , chairman, UB group of companies

Overseas

Founder / Entrepreneurs / Venture Capitalists

• Amar Bose
  Amar Bose
  Amar Gopal Bose is an Bengali American electrical engineer, sound engineer and billionaire entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of Bose Corporation...
  
  : Founder of Bose Corporation
• Arjun Gupta
  Arjun Gupta
  Arjun Gupta is the Founder and Managing Director of TeleSoft Partners, a special situations venture capital firm founded in 1996. TeleSoft provides value added capital for Technology, Communications companies and companies in the Energy Value Chain...
  
  : A Silicon Valley
  Silicon Valley
  Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
  
   venture capitalist
• Ashwin Navin
  Ashwin Navin
  Ashwin Navin was the President and Co-Founder of BitTorrent, Inc. He joined Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, in 2004 and reportedly handled business and company-related matters while Cohen focused on engineering and product development...
  
  : Co-Founder and President of BitTorrent, Inc.
• Bharat Desai
  Bharat Desai
  Bharat Desai is an Indian American entrepreneur and founder of Syntel. He currently serves as Chairman of Syntel headquartered in Troy, Michigan. Desai co-founded Syntel in 1980 with his future wife Neerja Sethi. As of April 16, 2009, it had a market capitalization of $943 million. Desai was...
  
  : Founder of Syntel
  Syntel
  Syntel, Inc. is a global provider of Information Technology and Knowledge Process Outsourcing solutions, with global development centers in India and the United States....
  
  
• Gagan Palrecha
  Gagan Palrecha
  Gagan Palrecha is an Indian-born American entrepreneur, record producer and the founder of The First Time Records and Monsoon Recordings.-Biography:Palrecha was born in the city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, and grew up in Michigan, United States....
  
  : Entrepreneur
• Lakshmi Mittal
  Lakshmi Mittal
  Lakshmi Narayan Mittal is an Indian steel magnate. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaking company....
  
  : Chairman and CEO of Arcelor Mittal. The Richest Man in United Kingdom and the 5th Richest in the World.
• Mukesh Chatter
  Mukesh Chatter
  Mukesh Chatter is the founder of Nexabit, which he sold to Lucent for $900 million in 1999. He is also the founder & CEO of Axiowave, a Boston-based company he founded with Ray Stata, which folded in 2004. He has also since started the company NeoSaej running the website MoneyAisle.com....
  
  : Businessman
• Micky Jagtiani
  Micky Jagtiani
  Micky 'Mukesh' Jagtiani is an Indian businessman who owns the Dubai-based Landmark retail-stores group, with over 600 stores in the Gulf, India, Pakistan, China and Spain.-Early life and education:...
  
  : Founder of the Landmark group, Dubai.
• Murugan Pal
  Murugan Pal
  Murugan Pal is a serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, Bay Area, USA.Murugan is currently the co-founder & President of the CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit organization launched in 2006, that aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide...
  
  : Founder and CTO of SpikeSource
  SpikeSource
  SpikeSource specialized in automated software testing, and tested several business models to monetize that expertise. These included the popular testgen4web tool for scripted web site testing, offering open source software that had undergone regression testing, pre-integrated open-source software...
  
  
• Narendra Patni
  Narendra Patni
  Narendra Patni was the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Patni Computer Systems. He was born to a Marwari jain family....
  
  : Founder of Patni Computer Systems
  Patni Computer Systems
  iGATE Patni , is a provider of Information Technology services and business solutions. The company employs over 15,000 people, and has 23 international offices across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as offshore development centres in eight cities in India...
  
  
• Naveen Jain
  Naveen Jain
  Naveen K. Jain is a business executive and entrepreneur. He is the founder of InfoSpace, Intelius, and Moon Express. In 2000, Forbes ranked Jain 121 on their list of 400 Richest Americans with a net worth of 2.2 billion dollars....
  
  : Founder of InfoSpace
  InfoSpace
  Infospace provides metasearch and private-label Internet search services for consumers and businesses.InfoSpace's flagship metasearch site is Dogpile; its other consumer brands are WebCrawler, Nation, DoGreatGood and MetaCrawler.-History:...
  
   and Intelius
  Intelius
  Intelius, Inc. is a public records business headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, United States. It provides information services to consumers and businesses, including background checks and identity theft protection. A majority of Intelius' revenue comes from selling background reports...
  
  
• Pradeep Sindhu
  Pradeep Sindhu
  Pradeep Sindhu is the Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer/ Vice Chairman of the Board of the Directors of Juniper Networks Inc. He was also the CEO of the company until 1996....
  
  : Co-Founder and CTO of Juniper Networks
  Juniper Networks
  Juniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is head quartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services...
  
  
• Preetish Nijhawan
  Preetish Nijhawan
  Preetish Nijhawan is an entrepreneur known for co-founding internet company Akamai Technologies in 1998.-Early life:Nijhawan received a Bachelors Degree from BITS, Pilani, a Masters Degree from the University of Southern California and an M.B.A...
  
  : Co-Founder of Akamai Technologies
  Akamai Technologies
  Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an Internet content delivery network headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.The company was founded in 1998 by then-MIT graduate student Daniel M. Lewin, and MIT Applied Mathematics professor Tom Leighton...
  
  .
• Ram Shriram
  Ram Shriram
  Kavitark Ram Shriram is the founding board member of Google and one of the first investors in Google. He earlier served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Shriram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of...
  
  : Co-Founder of Junglee.com and board member at Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
  
• Sameer Parekh
  Sameer Parekh
  Sameer Parekh is best known for being the founder of C2Net Software, Inc.While in high school in Libertyville, Illinois, he published an underground newspaper called The Free Journal, promoting free speech and other libertarian ideas....
  
  : Founder of C2Net
  C2Net
  C2Net was an Internet cryptography company founded by Sameer Parekh, which was sold to Red Hat in 2000. It was best known for its Stronghold secure webserver software....
  
  
• Sanjiv Sidhu
  Sanjiv Sidhu
  Sanjiv Sidhu is the founder and chairman of o9 Solutions, a Dallas, Texas based company that offers financially astute business planning and decision making processes and software to multinational corporations. Mr...
  
  : Founder of i2 Technologies
  I2 Technologies
  i2 Technologies was a supply chain management software and services company, founded in 1988 by Sanjiv Sidhu and Ken Sharma in Dallas, Texas...
  
  
• Suhas Patil
  Suhas Patil
  Dr. Suhas S. Patil, born 1944 in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India, is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist. He founded the company Cirrus Logic a fabless semiconductor company....
  
  : Founder of Cirrus Logic
  Cirrus Logic
  Cirrus Logic is a fabless semiconductor supplier specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits . They are presently headquartered in Austin, Texas. Their audio processors and audio converters are found in many professional audio and consumer entertainment products,...
  
  
• Vivek Ranadive
  Vivek Ranadive
  Vivek Ranadivé is the Chairman, CEO and Founder of TIBCO Software, the computer software technology company he founded in 1997 with the vision of bringing real-time technology into the mainstream...
  
  : Founder, Chairman and CEO of TIBCO Software
  TIBCO Software
  TIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. TIBCO manages information, decisions, processes and applications in real-time for over 4,000 customers worldwide...
  
  
• Vinod Gupta
  Vinod Gupta
  Vinod Gupta is the former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of infoGROUP . Mr. Gupta served as CEO of the company from the time of its incorporation in 1972 until September 1997 and from August 1998 to August 2008...
  
  : Founder and Chairman of InfoUSA
  InfoUSA
  Infogroup, Inc., is a data, research and marketing company which offers email marketing and other marketing services. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Papillion, Nebraska. Infogroup employs approximately 3,200 people and operates in 9 countries.- History :Infogroup was formed in...
  
   Inc.
• Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....
  
  : Co-founder of Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
  
  , Venture Capitalist.

Business Executives

• Ajit Jain
  Ajit Jain
  Ajit Jain is a businessman who currently heads several reinsurance businesses for Berkshire Hathaway and has been touted as a possible successor to Warren Buffett.-Early life:...
  
  : Possible successor to Warren Buffett
  Warren Buffett
  Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...
  
  
• Ananda Krishnan
  Ananda Krishnan
  Tatparanandam Ananda Krishnan is a Malaysian businessman and philanthropist of Tamil origin. Nicknamed A-K, he is estimated to have a net worth of US$9.6 billion according to Forbes' latest annual list of wealthiest people, making him the second wealthiest in Southeast Asia behind Robert Kuok,...
  
  : Media Baron. The Richest Man in Malaysia. (ethnic Sri Lankan Tamil)
• Anshu Jain: Global Head and Managing Director of capital markets at Deutsche Bank
  Deutsche Bank
  Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...
  
  .
• Arvind Raghunathan
  Arvind Raghunathan
  Arvind Raghunathan is the CEO of Roc Capital Management LP . On February 25, 2009, it was announced that Raghunathan and his associates would be leaving Deutsche Bank to set up the independent quant trading hedge fund.Raghunathan was the former Managing Director and Head of Global Arbitrage at...
  
  : Managing Director and Head of Global Arbitrage at Deutsche Bank.
• Dinesh Paliwal
  Dinesh Paliwal
  Dinesh C. Paliwal is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Harman International – a leading provider of premium audio and infotainment systems for the automotive, consumer and professional markets....
  
  : Chairman and CEO, Harman International
• Gunjan Bagla: Management Consultant, Managing Director, Amritt
  Amritt
  Amritt Ventures is a global management consulting firm based in the Los Angeles area. The stated purpose of the company is to aid North American and European firms in becoming familiar with routine Asian business practices, specifically in marketing their products to India and China, both of which...
  
  ; Author Doing Business in 21st Century India.
• Gunjan Sinha
  Gunjan Sinha
  Gunjan Sinha in India is an Indian-American entrepreneur. He is currently the chairman of MetricStream, a market leader in Enterprise-wide GRC and Quality Solutions for global corporations...
  
  : Chairman of MetricStream
• Indra Nooyi
  Indra Nooyi
  Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an Indian-born American business executive. She is the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, the second largest food & beverage business in the world ....
  
  : Chairman annd CEO, PepsiCo
  PepsiCo
  PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
  
  
• Pradeep K Jaisingh
  Pradeep K Jaisingh
  Pradeep Kumar Jaisingh, MBA is an alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad and is a successful business professional and an entrepreneur. He was also awarded the prestigious British Chevening scholarship by the Foreign and Commonwealth office of the British High Commission and attended the Advanced management...
  
  : CEO of International Oncology
• Prakash Puram
  Prakash Puram
  Prakash Puram is President and CEO of iXmatch, and a member of President Bush's Export Council.-Education:He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Loyola College, Chennai, India; a Business Management diploma from Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, India; an MBA from the...
  
  : President and CEO of iXmatch.
• Raj Vaswani
  Raj Vaswani
  Raj Vaswani was born in India and moved to the United States at the age of 12. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, and a B.S. in EECS from the University of California, Berkeley.-References:...
  
  : Vice President of Engineering at Epinions.com.
• Rajiv Gupta
  Rajiv Gupta
  Rajiv Gupta is a former General Manager at Hewlett Packard where he reported to Carly Fiorina. He was co-inventor and general manager of Hewlett Packard's E-speak project in 1999, and was one of the developers of the IA-64 architecture.-Early life:...
  
  : General Manager of Hewlett Packard
• Ramani Ayer
  Ramani Ayer
  Ramani Ayer is an American-Indian business executive, and the former the CEO and chairman of The Hartford.-Education:Ayer earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1969 and his master's and doctorate from Drexel University in...
  
  : Chairman and CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group
• Ranji H. Nagaswami
  Ranji H. Nagaswami
  Ranji H. Nagaswami is the Chief Investment Officer for AllianceBernstein Fund Investors. She has held this position since 2004. Nagaswami has responsibility for growth, value, and core stock as well as fixed income investments. She chairs the retail investors investment policy group and has been...
  
  : Chief Investment Officer for AllianceBernstein Fund Investors
• Rono Dutta
  Rono Dutta
  Rono Dutta is the former President of United Airlines from 1999 to 2002.From July 2004 until 2006 he served as Chairman of Air Sahara.In 2007, Mr. Dutta joined US based AAR Corporation as a strategic adviser for the Indian market.-External links:**...
  
  : Former President of United Airlines
  United Airlines
  United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees (which includes the entire holding company United Continental...
  
  ; Chairman of Air Sahara
  Air Sahara
  JetLite, formerly Air Sahara, is an airline based in Mumbai, India. owned by Jet Airways, the airline operates scheduled services connecting metropolitan centres in India, it operates 110 flights daily...
  
  
• Sanjay Jha
  Sanjay Jha
  Sanjay K. Jha is chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobility and previously served as co-chief executive officer of Motorola. from 2008.-Early life:...
  
  : Co-CEO of Motorola
  Motorola
  Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
  
   and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices
  Motorola Mobile Devices
  Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. , formerly the Mobile Devices division of Motorola Inc. until January 2011, is a communications corporation headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Motorola's networks division pioneered the flip phone with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s...
  
  
• Sanjiv Ahuja
  Sanjiv Ahuja
  Sanjiv Ahuja is currently Chairman and CEO of LightSquared a company that is developing a wholesale-only nationwide 4G LTE Long Term Evolution wireless broadband communications network integrated with satellite coverage. The company is the result of Harbinger Capital Partners acquisition in March,...
  
  : CEO of Orange Telecommunications
• Shantanu Narayen
  Shantanu Narayen
  Shantanu Narayen is the current CEO of Adobe Systems. Prior to this post, he held the role as the President and Chief Operating Officer since 2005.-Early life:...
  
  : CEO of Adobe Systems
  Adobe Systems
  Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
  
  .
• Srichanda Hinduja: Hinduja Brothers
• Vikram Pandit
  Vikram Pandit
  Vikram S. Pandit is an Indian-born American business executive. He is the current CEO of Citigroup.-Early life:Vikram Pandit was born in Nagpur, India to an affluent Marathi family . His father, S B Pandit was an executive director at Sarabhai Chemicals in Baroda. He completed his schooling at the...
  
  : Chairman and CEO, Citigroup
  Citigroup
  Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Citigroup was formed from one of the world's largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate...
  
  
• Vyomesh Joshi
  Vyomesh Joshi
  Vyomesh Joshi is the executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard Company's Imaging and Printing Group. He also serves as the executive sponsor for all HP operations and initiatives in India and is a member of HP’s Executive Council....
  
  : Executive Vice President of Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard
  Hewlett-Packard
  Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
  
   Company.

Former Executives

• Arun Sarin
  Arun Sarin
  Arun Sarin was the CEO of Britain's Vodafone Group plc. On June 29, 2008, he announced his resignation as CEO of Vodafone Group. He is a senior adviser at the private equity firm KKR. He serves on the board of directors of Cisco Systems and Safeway, Inc...
  
  : Former CEO of Vodafone
  Vodafone
  Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
  
   Inc.
• Bobby Mehta
  Bobby Mehta
  Siddharth N. "Bobby" Mehta was former CEO and Vice Chairman of HSBC North America. He stepped down as head of the North American unit after the lender raised its forecast for bad loans in the U.S. He is of Indian descent.-References:...
  
  : Former CEO and Vice Chairman of HSBC North America
• Jay Sidhu
  Jay Sidhu
  Jay Sidhu is the Chairman and CEO of Customers Bank, a $1.6 billion asset bank with headquarters in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Customers Bank currently has 11 branches in suburban Philadelphia, Hamilton, NJ and Port Chester, NY...
  
  : Former Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp
• Lakshmi Narayanan
  Lakshmi Narayanan
  Lakshmi Narayanan is the vice chairman and ex-CEO of Cognizant. He was the CEO and president of Cognizant until 2006. [1]Lakshmi has played a leading role in the global information technology industry for more than 25 years, managing divisions and business units in Europe, India and the United...
  
  : Vice Chairman and former CEO of Cognizant Corporation.
• Rajat Gupta
  Rajat Gupta
  Rajat Kumar Gupta was the managing director of management consultancy McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003 and a business leader in India and the United States...
  
  : Former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company
  McKinsey & Company
  McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions...
  
  
• Rakesh Gangwal
  Rakesh Gangwal
  Rakesh Gangwal is a former CEO and Chairman of US Airways Group. From June 2003 to August 2007, Mr. Gangwal was the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Worldspan Technologies, Inc., a provider of travel technology and information services to the travel and transportation industry....
  
  : Former CEO and Chairman of US Airways Group
  US Airways Group
  US Airways Group Inc. is an airline holding company based in Tempe, Arizona. US Airways Group operate US Airways, along with its subsidiaries PSA Airlines, Inc. and Piedmont Airlines, Inc., which are wholly owned but marketed under the branding of US Airways Express...
  
  
• Rana Talwar
  Rana Talwar
  Rana Talwar is the son of a bureaucrat. He began his career in the Bombay branch of Citibank and by the time of his leaving in 1977 he had become head of Citibank's consumer business in the Asia Pacific and Middle-East sectors. He then moved to Standard Chartered Bank as executive director of its...
  
  : Former CEO of Standard Chartered Bank
  Standard Chartered Bank
  Standard Chartered PLC is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom with operations in more than seventy countries...
  
  

Writers / Poets

Ancient times to 19th century

• Paravastu Chinnayya Soori
  Paravastu Chinnayya Soori
  Paravastu Chinnayasuri is a well-known Telugu writer. He was born in 1807 in Perambur of Chengalpattu district and died in 1861. Suri was the son of Venkata Rangayya a Vaishnavite Scholar. He worked as a Telugu teacher at Pachaiyappa's College in Madras. He also worked as a law scholar for the...
  
  , Telugu poet
• Aathreya
  Aathreya
  Aacharya Aathreya born Kilambi Venkata Narasimhacharyulu was a versatile playwright, lyric writer and story writer in Telugu cinema.-Life:...
  
  , Telugu poet
• Auvaiyar
  Auvaiyar
  The Avvaiyars "respectable women" was the title of more than one poet who was active during different periods of Tamil literature. The Avvaiyar were some of the most famous and important female poets of the Tamil canon. Abithana Chintamani states that there were three female poets titled...
  
  , Saivite saint and Tamil poet
• Bharathidasan
  Bharathidasan
  Bharathidasan was a twentieth century Tamil poet and rationalist whose literary works handled mostly socio-political issues. His writings served as a catalyst for the growth of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu...
  
  , Tamil poet & rationalist
• Kalidasa
  Kalidasa
  Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
  
  , Sanskrit poet, wrote the play Sakuntala
• Kambar, Tamil poet, translated Ramayana
  Ramayana
  The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
  
   into Tamil
• Subramanya Bharathy
  Subramanya Bharathy
  Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar was a Tamil poet from Tamil Nadu, India, an independence fighter and iconoclastic reformer. Known as Mahakavi Bharathiyar , he is celebrated as one of South India's greatest poets...
  
  , Tamil poet, anti-colonialist writer
• Thiruvalluvar, Tamil author & poet, wrote the ancient Tamil treatise Thirukural
• Tulsidas
  Tulsidas
  Tulsidas , was a Hindu poet-saint, reformer and philosopher renowned for his devotion for the god Rama...
  
  , Hindi poet, translated Ramayana
  Ramayana
  The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
  
   into Hindi
• Kanaka Dasa
  Kanaka Dasa
  Kanaka Dasa was a great poet, philosopher, musician and composer from Karnataka. He is known for his Kirtanes and Ugabhoga compositions in the Kannada language for Carnatic music...
  
  
• Purandara Dasa
  Purandara Dasa
  Purandara Dāsa is one of the most prominent composers of Carnatic music and is widely regarded as the "father of Carnatic Music". Purandara Dasa addressed social issues in addition to worship in his compositions, a practice emulated by his younger contemporary, Kanaka Dasa...
  
  
• Kumara Vyasa
  Kumara Vyasa
  Kumara Vyasa is the pen name of Gadhugina Veera Naranappa , a classical poet of Kannada. His pen name is a tribute to his magnum opus, a rendering of the Mahabharatha in Kannada. Kumara Vyasa literally means Little Vyasa or Son of Vyasa....
  
  
• Akka Mahadevi
  Akka Mahadevi
  Akka Mahadevi was a prominent figure of the Veerashaiva Bhakti movement of the 12th century Karnataka. Her Vachanas in Kannada, a form of didactic poetry are considered her greatest contribution to Kannada Bhakti literature. In all she wrote about 430 Vachanas which is relatively fewer than that...
  
  
• Adikavi Pampa
  Adikavi Pampa
  Pampa , called by the honorific Ādikavi is one of the greatest Kannada poets of all time.He is very famous even today for his philosophical beliefs...
  
  
• Vyasatirtha
  Vyasatirtha
  Vyasatirtha , also called Vyasaraja or Vyasaraya or Vyasraja swamin, was acclaimed as one of the three spiritual lights or munitrayam of dvaita Vedanta, i.e., Sri Madhvacharya, Sri Jayatirtha and Sri Vyasatirtha. He was a scholar of very high order with a judicious defence of the Dvaita Vedanta...
  
  
• Allama Prabhu
  Allama Prabhu
  Allama Prabhu is a mystic-saint and Vachana poet of the Kannada language in the 12th century. Prabhu is the patron saint , the undisputed spiritual authority, and an integral part of the Lingayata movement that decisively shaped society in medieval Karnataka and...
  
  
• Sant Tukaram
• Sant Eknath
• Sant Dnyaneshwar

20th century

• Rabindranath Tagore
  Rabindranath Tagore
  Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
  
  , writer, 1913 Nobel Literature Prize Winner
• V.S. Naipaul, writer, Nobel Literature Prize winner
• Aldous Huxley
  Aldous Huxley
  Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
  
  , novelist, author of Brave New World
  Brave New World
  Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
  
  
• Arun Kolatkar
  Arun Kolatkar
  Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was a poet from Maharashtra, India. Writing in both Marathi and English, his poems found humor in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets...
  
  , poet
• Bharati Mukherjee
  Bharati Mukherjee
  Bharati Mukherjee is an award-winning Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.-Background:...
  
  , US author
• Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program....
  
  
• Christopher Isherwood
  Christopher Isherwood
  Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
  
  , writer
• Eknath Easwaran
  Eknath Easwaran
  Eknath Easwaran was a spiritual teacher, an author of books on meditation and ways to lead a fulfilling life, as well as a translator and interpreter of Indian literature....
  
  , Malayali-American author
• Gopal Baratham
  Gopal Baratham
  Gopal Baratham was a Singaporean author and neurosurgeon. He was known for his frank style and his ability to write about topics that were often considered controversial in the conservative city-state.-Life:...
  
  , Singapore writer (also, leading neurosurgeon)
• Harivanshrai Bachchan, Hindi poet, father of Amitabh Bachchan
• Prof. Karmegha Konar, Tamil poet
• Jayakanthan
  Jayakanthan
  - Biography:Jayakanthan was born in 1934 in a family of agriculturists in Cuddalore, in the South Arcot district of Tamil Nadu. He quit school after completing grade 3 education. He was then considered a problematic child. He was close to his mother and grandfather. He had a rocky relationship with...
  
  , Tamil
  Tamil people
  Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
  
   writer, Jnanpith awardee
• Jhumpa Lahiri
  Jhumpa Lahiri
  Jhumpa Lahiri is a Bengali American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies , won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake , was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna, which she says are both...
  
  , Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
   winner for "Interpreter of Maladies
  Interpreter of Maladies
  Interpreter of Maladies is a book collection of nine short stories by Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri published in 1999. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in the year 2000 and has sold over 15 million copies worldwide...
  
  "
• Kalhana
  Kalhana
  Kalhana , a Kashmiri, was the author of Rajatarangini , an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be deduced from his own writing, a major scholar of which is Mark Aurel Stein...
  
  
• Kamala Markandaya, poet
• Kannadasan
  Kannadasan
  Kannadasan was a Tamil poet and lyricist, heralded as one of the greatest and most important writer in the Tamil language...
  
  , Tamil poet & lyricist, known as kavi arasu (king of poets)
• R.K. Laxman, cartoonist & humorist
• Manil Suri
  Manil Suri
  Manil Suri is an Indian-American mathematician and writer, most notable for his first novel, The Death of Vishnu, which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize, short-listed for the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize that year...
  
   novelist
• Mahadevi Verma, Hindi poet
• Mulk Raj Anand
  Mulk Raj Anand
  Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K...
  
  
• Munshi Premchand
  Munshi Premchand
  Munshi Premchand , was a famous writer of modern Hindi-Urdu literature. He is generally recognized in India as the foremost Hindi-Urdu writer of the early twentieth century...
  
  , Hindi novelist
• Pudhumaipithan
  Pudhumaipithan
  Pudhumaipithan also spelt as Pudumaipithan or Puthumaippiththan, is the pseudonym of C. Viruthachalam , one of the most influential and revolutionary writers of Tamil fiction. His works were characterized by social satire, progressive thinking and outspoken criticism of accepted conventions...
  
  , influential and revolutionary Tamil writer
• R.K. Narayan, English short-story writer, Malgudi
  Malgudi
  Malgudi is a fictitious town in India created by R.K. Narayan in his novels and short stories. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel, Swami and Friends, all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here...
  
   tales
• J.D. Salinger, novelist
• Shashi Tharoor
  Shashi Tharoor
  Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala...
  
  , author of The Great Indian Novel
• Sumitranandan Pant
  Sumitranandan Pant
  Sumitranandan Pant was one of the most famous modern Hindi poets. He is considered one of the major poets of the Chhayavaadi school of Hindi literature. Pant mostly wrote in Sanskritized Hindi. Pant authored twenty eight published works including poetry, verse plays and essays.Pant was born at...
  
  , Hindi poet
• Vikram Seth
  Vikram Seth
  Vikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
  
  , English novelist, poet
• Vayalar Ramavarma
  Vayalar Ramavarma
  Vayalar Ramavarma , often known as Vayalar, was a modern Malayalam poet and lyricist. His famous works include Sargasangeetham, Mulankaadu, Padamudrakal, Aayisha, Oru Judas janikkunnu.-Biography:...
  
   – Malayalam
  Malayalam literature
  The term Malayalam literature refers to Literature written in Malayalam language. Malayalam is the language spoken by around 35 million people, mainly the inhabitants of the state of Kerala and the union territory of Lakshadweep Islands in India. Malayalam is a Dravidian language and thus has close...
  
   poet
• Savitri Devi Mukherji
  Savitri Devi Mukherji
  Savitri Devi Mukherji was the pseudonym of the Greek writer Maximiani Portas, who was a Nazi intelligence operative in India during World War II...
  
   – writer and devotee of Adolf Hitler
  Adolf Hitler
  Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
  
  
• Gopalakrishna Adiga
  Gopalakrishna Adiga
  Mogeri Gopalakrishna Adiga was one of the majors figures in modern Kannada poetry. He is known as the "pioneer of New style" poetry.-Early life:...
  
  
• U. R. Ananthamurthy
  U. R. Ananthamurthy
  Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy is a contemporary writer and critic in the Kannada language and is considered as one of the pioneers of the Navya movement. He is well known among Indian authors. He is the sixth person among eight recipients of the Jnanpith Award for the Kannada language, the...
  
  
• Kappe Arabhatta
  Kappe Arabhatta
  Kappe Arabhatta was a Chalukya warrior of the 8th century who is known from a Kannada verse inscription, dated to c. 700 CE, and carved on a cliff overlooking the northeast end of the artificial lake in Badami, Karnataka, India. The inscription consists of five stanzas written out in ten lines in...
  
  
• Amoghavarsha
  Amoghavarsha
  Amoghavarsha I was a Rashtrakuta emperor, the greatest ruler of the Rashtrakuta dynasty, and one of the great emperors of India. His nominal reign of 64 years is the longest precisely dated monarchical reign on record in India and one of the longest documented reigns of all monarchy since...
  
  
• Basava
  Basava
  Basava was a philosopher and a social reformer. He is also called Vishwa Guru and Bhakti-Bhandari. His teachings and preachings which are universal, go beyond all boundaries of belief systems...
  
  
• Bhavageete
  Bhavageete
  Bhavageethe is a form of expressionist poetry and light music. Most of the poetry sung in this genre pertain to subjects like love, nature, philosophy etc, and the genre itself is not much different from Ghazals, though ghazals are bound to a peculiar metre...
  
  
• D. R. Bendre
  D. R. Bendre
  Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre was amongst the most famous of Kannada poets of the Navodaya Period. Praised as varakavi, literally 'gifted poet', he was the second person among eight recipients of Jnanpith Award for Kannada, the highest literary honour conferred in India...
  
  
• Chamarasa
  Chamarasa
  Chamarasa was an eminent Virashaiva poet unsurpassed in the Kannada literature, during the Vijayanagar Empire, a powerful empire in Southern India of the 13th and 14th centuries...
  
  
• Chikkupadhyaya
  Chikkupadhyaya
  Chikkupadhyaya was born to Sri RangAcharya and Srimathi NAchiyAramma in TerakanAmbi in Mysore district of Karnataka. His actual name at birth was Lakshmipathi....
  
  
• Gangadhar V. Chittal
  Gangadhar V. Chittal
  Gangadhar V. Chittal was a recipient of Karnataka Sahitya Academy award. He held several administrative positions for the Government of India and audited several Indian Embassies and Consulates...
  
  
• Dinakara Desai
  Dinakara Desai
  Dinakara Desai at in Kannada poetry known as chutuka and hence is known as Chutuka Brahma . This format was later adopted by other poets...
  
  
• Manu V. Devadevan
  Manu V. Devadevan
  Manu V. Devadevan is a new poet writing in Kannada. His collection of poems in Kannada, Khandavide Ko Mamsavide Ko was published in 2008 and Suryagayathri in 2009. Devadevan is also a translator...
  
  
• Subbanna Ekkundi
  Subbanna Ekkundi
  Subbanna R. Ekkundi was a recipient of Sahitya Akademi award, Nation award for teacher and Soviet Land award.Ekkundi was born in Ranebennur of Haveri district in the year 1923. At Willingdon college, Sangli, he was a student of literature. At Willingdon, V. K. Gokak and R. S. Mugali were...
  
  
• Gangadevi
  Gangadevi
  Gangadevi, also known as Gangambika, was a poet in the Vijayanagara Empire during the 14th century and chronicled the story of the victory of her husband, Kumara Kampana, son of Bukka Raya I over the Muslims in Madhura in the form of a poem. The title of the eight chapter poem was Madhura...
  
  
• M. Govinda Pai
  M. Govinda Pai
  Manjeshwar Govinda Pai , also known as Rastrakavi Govinda Pai, was a Kannada poet. He was awarded the Rashtrakavi title by the Madras Government...
  
  
• Janna
  Janna
  Janna was one of the well-known Kannada poets of the early 13th century who also served in the capacity of a minister and a builder of temples. He graced the court of Hoysala empire king Veera Ballala II and earned the title Kavichakravarthi...
  
  
• Gourish Kaikini
  Gourish Kaikini
  Gourish Kaikini was a litterateur, teacher and columnist in Kannada language. He was conferred with many prestigious awards including Sahitya Academy award and Rajyotsava Award given by Government of Karnataka. He also wrote in Konkani language.-Early life:Gourish Kaikini was born on October 12,...
  
  
• Chandrashekhara Kambara
  Chandrashekhara Kambara
  Chandrashekhara Kambara is a prominent poet, playwright, folklorist, film director in Kannada language and the founder-vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi. He is known for his effective usage of North Karnataka dialect of Kannada language in his plays and poems and is often compared...
  
  
• Shivarama Karanth
• Kayyar Kinhanna Rai
• Kuvempu
  Kuvempu
  Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa was a Kannada writer and poet, widely regarded as the greatest poet of 20th century Kannada literature. He is the first among eight recipients of Jnanpith Award for Kannada. Puttappa wrote all his literary works using the pen name Kuvempu...
  
  
• S. Manjunath
  S. Manjunath
  Shanmugam Manjunath was a marketing manager for the Indian Oil Corporation who was murdered for sealing a corrupt petrol station in UP...
  
  
• A. N. Murthy Rao
• Nagavarma I
  Nagavarma I
  Nagavarma I was a noted Jain writer and poet in the Kannada language in the late 10th century. His two important works, both of which are available are, Karnataka Kadambari, a champu based romance novel and an adaptation of Bana's Sanskrit Kadambari, and Chandombudhi Nagavarma I (c. 990) was...
  
  
• Nagavarma II
  Nagavarma II
  Nagavarma II was a Kannada language scholar and grammarian of the 11th or 12th century Western Chalukya court centred in Basavakalyan, modern Karnataka state, India. He was the earliest among the three most notable and authoritative grammarians of Old-Kannada language...
  
  
• K. S. Narasimhaswamy
  K. S. Narasimhaswamy
  Dr. K. S. Narasimhaswamy was a prominent poet in Kannada language. His most popular collection of poems Mysooru Mallige has seen more than twenty reprints and sought as an ideal gift at a wedding to the newly married couple in Karnataka...
  
  
• K. S. Nissar Ahmed
  K. S. Nissar Ahmed
  K.S. Nissar Ahmed is a prominent Indian poet and writer in Kannada language. His full name is Kokkare Hosahalli Shekar Nissar Ahmed. His father K.S. Haider was a sanitary inspector and a teacher before joining the Revenue Department in Bangalore...
  
  
• Sri Ponna
  Sri Ponna
  Sri Ponna was a Kannada poet in the court of Rashtrakuta Dynasty king Krishna III . The emperor honoured Ponna with the title "emperor among poets" for his domination of the Kannada literary circles of the time, and the title "imperial poet of two languages" for his command over Sanskrit as well...
  
  
• Rajasekhara
  Rajasekhara
  Rajashekhara was an eminent Sanskrit poet, dramatist and critic. He was court poet of the Gurjara Pratiharas.He wrote Kavyamimamsa between 880 and 920 CE. The work is essentially a practical guide for poets that explains the elements and composition of a good poem. The fame of Rajashekhara...
  
  
• Samethanahalli Rama Rao
  Samethanahalli Rama Rao
  Samethanahalli Rama Rao was a noted Kannada author. He was born in the village of Samethanahalli which is an hour east of Bangalore near Whitefield...
  
  
• Ranna
  Ranna
  Ranna was one of the earliest poets of Kannada language.Ranna, Adikavi Pampa and Sri Ponna together are called "three gems of Kannada literature".-Early days:Ranna was born on 949 C.E. in Muduvolalu Bagalkot district, Karnataka....
  
  
• Rudrabhatta
  Rudrabhatta
  Rudrabhatta was an influential Kannada writer in the court of the Hoysala Empire whose patron was a minister of King Veera Ballala II in the late 12th century. His seminal work is Rasakalika which played an important role in the development of Indian aesthetics. It was the source for Vidyanatha in...
  
  
• Mamta Sagar
  Mamta Sagar
  Mamta Sagar was born in 1966 in Bangalore. India. She is a contemporary Kannada poet and playwright living in Bangalore, in Karnataka, India...
  
  
• Sarvajna
  Sarvajna
  Sarvajña was a poet in the Kannada language. He is famous for his pithy three-lined poems which are called tripadis, "with three padas, three-liners", a form of Vachanas. He is also referred as Sarvagna in modern translation.The period of Sarvajña's life has not been determined accurately, and...
  
  
• Shishunala Sharif
  Shishunala Sharif
  Shishunala Sharif was a saint poet, philosopher and social reformer from the state of Karnataka in India. His compositions of tatvapada are in Kannada language...
  
  
• Shivakotiacharya
  Shivakotiacharya
  Shivakotiacharya , a writer of the 9th-10th century, is considered the author of didactic Kannada language Jain text Vaddaradhane . A prose narrative written in pre-Old-Kannada , Vaddaradhane is considered the earliest extant work in the prose genre in the Kannada language...
  
  
• G. S. Shivarudrappa
  G. S. Shivarudrappa
  Dr. G.S. Shivarudrappa is a Kannada poet, writer and researcher who was awarded the title of Rashtrakavi by the Government of Karnataka on November 1, 2006.-Early life:...
  
  
• B. M. Srikantaiah
  B. M. Srikantaiah
  B M Srikanthaiah was one of the most influential authors, writers and translators of Kannada literature.-Early life and education:He was born in Sampige village, Tumkur District Gubbi taluk...
  
  
• T. N. Srikantaiah
  T. N. Srikantaiah
  Aacharya Tirthapura Nanjundaiah Shrikantaiah , also known as ThiNamShree, was a Kannada literary poet, scholar, and teacher....
  
  
• Tirumalamba
  Tirumalamba
  Tirumalamba, a poet of the Vijayanagara Empire , wrote "Varadambica Parinayam", the story of marriage of King Achyuta Deva Raya, in Sanskrit....
  
  
• Manoj Das
  Manoj Das
  Manoj Das is an Indian award-winning author who writes in Oriya and English.Manoj Das, a profilic author,he is India's foremost short story writers. He writes both in Oriya and english and is a proffesor of English at the Sri Aurobindo International University, Pondicherry.Manoj Das was born in a...
  
  , Oriya Poet
• Brajanath Ratha
  Brajanath Ratha
  Brajanath Ratha born on January 12, 1936, at Sunhat in Baleswar is an Indian award-winning author who writes in Oriya. Brajanath Ratha is internationally recognized and is the recipient of many prestigious awards like the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, Vishuba Award, Gokarnika Award, First...
  
  , Oriya Poet

Scholar

• Baldev Upadhyaya
  Baldev Upadhyaya
  Pandit Baldev Upadhyaya was a renowned Hindi, Sanskrit scholar, literary historian, essayist and critic. He penned numerous books, collections of essays and a historical outline of Sanskrit literature. He is noted for discussing Sanskrit literature in the Hindi language...
  
  , renowned Hindi, Sanskrit scholar, literary historian, essayist and critic.
• Govinda Dikshitar

Scientists / Inventors / Engineers / Doctors

Ancient times to 19th century

• Madhav
  Madhav
  Madhav was an 8th century Indian physician who wrote the Nidāna, which soon assumed a position of authority. In the 79 chapters of this book, he lists diseases along with their causes, symptoms, and complications. He also included a special chapter on smallpox .Ayurveda used a system of inoculation...
  
   (8th century A.D.), medical text author and systematizer
• Abhay Ashtekar
  Abhay Ashtekar
  Abhay Vasant Ashtekar is an Indian theoretical physicist. He is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University. As the creator of Ashtekar variables, he is one of the founders of loop quantum gravity and its...
  
  , loop quantum gravity researcher
• Amartya Sen
  Amartya Sen
  Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
  
  , economist, Nobel Prize winner
• Anil Kakodkar
  Anil Kakodkar
  Anil Kakodkar is an eminent Indian nuclear scientist and mechanical engineer. He was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India and the Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy. Before leading India's Nuclear Programme, he was the Director of the Bhabha Atomic...
  
  , nuclear scientist, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission
• Kalpana Chawla
  Kalpana Chawla
  Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut with NASA. She was one of seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.-Early life:...
  
  , astronaut
• Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, 1930 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
• R. Chidambaram, Scientific Adviser to Prime Minister; ex-Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission
• Ganapathi Thanikaimoni
  Ganapathi Thanikaimoni
  Ganapathi Thanikaimoni , often referred to as Thani was widely known for his manifold contributions to the science of palynology...
  
  , palynologist, French Institute of Pondicherry, awarded the Fyson Prize in Natural Science
• Jagadish Chandra Bose, father of radio
  Radio
  Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
  
   science
• Marti Subrahmanyam, finance expert, professor at NYU
• C.K. Prahalad, management expert at University of Michigan Business School
• V.S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist, Director Professor at UC San Diego
• S.S. Ratnam
  Shan Ratnam
  Emeritus Professor Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam was the professor and head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the National University Hospital of Singapore specializing in human reproduction research. His work on contraception contributed to Singapore's success in population control...
  
  , pioneer in Singapore in-vitro fertilisation
• S.R. Ranganathan, devised the five laws of library science
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, FRS ) was an Indian origin American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars...
  
  , 1983 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics

Information Technology

• Ajay Bhatt
  Ajay Bhatt
  Ajay V. Bhatt is an Indian-American computer architect who helped define and develop several widely used technologies, including USB , AGP , PCI Express, Platform Power management architecture and various chipset improvements.Ajay Bhatt rose to global celebrity as the co-inventor of USB through an...
  
  , co-inventor of USB
• Sabeer Bhatia
  Sabeer Bhatia
  Sabeer Bhatia is an Indian American entrepreneur who co-founded the Hotmail email service and Jaxtr.- Background :...
  
  , co-founder of Hotmail
  Hotmail
  Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
  
  
• Vinod Dham
  Vinod Dham
  Vinod Dham is an Inventor, Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist. He is popularly known as the Father of the Pentium chip. for his contribution to the development of highly successful Pentium Processors from Intel...
  
  , designed Intel's Pentium processor
• Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....
  
  , Co-founder of Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
  
  , venture capitalist & an influential personality in Silicon Valley.
• N. R. Narayana Murthy
  N. R. Narayana Murthy
  Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy , better known as N. R. Narayana Murthy, is an Indian industrialist and software engineer. He and six other engineers founded Infosys in 1981. Mr. Murthy served as CEO from 1981 to 2002. From 2002 to 2011, he served as Chairman...
  
  , Software engineer & Indian industrialist. He is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Infosys Technologies Limited.

Mathematicians

• Yajnavalkya
  Yajnavalkya
  Yajnavalkya of Mithila was a legendary sage of Vedic India, credited with the authorship of the Shatapatha Brahmana , besides Yogayajnavalkya Samhita and the Yājñavalkya Smṛti...
  
   1800 BC, author of the altar mathematics of the Shatapatha Brahmana
• Lagadha, author of a 1350 BC text on Vedic astronomy
• Baudhayana
  Baudhayana
  Baudhāyana, was an Indian mathematician, whowas most likely also a priest. He is noted as the author of the earliest Sulba Sūtra—appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars—called the , which contained several important mathematical results. He is older than the other...
  
   800 BC
• Manava
  Manava
  Manava is an author of the Indian geometric text of Sulba Sutras.The Manava Sulbasutra is not the oldest , nor is it one of the most important, there being at least three Sulbasutras which are considered more important...
  
   750 BC
• Apastamba
  Apastamba
  The Dharmasutra of Āpastamba forms a part of the larger Kalpasūtra of Āpastamba. It contains thirty praśnas, which literally means ‘questions’ or books. The subjects of this Dharmasūtra are well organized and preserved in good condition...
  
   700 BC
• Aksapada Gautama 550 BC, logician
• Katyayana
  Katyayana
  Kātyāyana was a Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India.-Works:He is known for two works:...
  
   400 BC
• Pāṇini 5th century BC
• Pingala
  Pingala
  Pingala is the traditional name of the author of the ' , the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on prosody.Nothing is known about Piṅgala himself...
  
   5th century BC
• Bharata Muni
  Bharata Muni
  Bharata was an ancient Indian musicologist who authored the Natya Shastra, a theoretical treatise on ancient Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, dated to between roughly 400 BC and 200 BC. Indian dance and music find their root in the Natyashastra...
  
   450 BC
• Aryabhata
  Aryabhata
  Aryabhata was the first in the line of great mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy...
  
  , astronomer who gave very accurate calculations for astronomical constants,discovered zero,decimal and value of pie.
• Varahamihira
  Varahamihira
  Varāhamihira , also called Varaha or Mihira, was an Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who lived in Ujjain...
  
  
• Bhāskara I
  Bhaskara I
  Bhāskara was a 7th century Indian mathematician, who was apparently the first to write numbers in the Hindu-Arabic decimal system with a circle for the zero, and who gave a unique and remarkable rational approximation of the sine function in his commentary on Aryabhata's work...
  
   620
• Brahmagupta
  Brahmagupta
  Brahmagupta was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who wrote many important works on mathematics and astronomy. His best known work is the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta , written in 628 in Bhinmal...
  
   – Helped bring the concept of zero into arithmetic
• Virahanka
  Virahanka
  Virahanka was an Indian prosodist who is also known for his work on mathematics. He possibly lived in the 6th century, but it is also possible that this date may be as late as 8th century.His work on prosody builds on the Chhanda-sutras of...
  
   (8th century) – Gave explicit rules for the Fibonacci series
• Shridhara (between 650–850) – Gave a good rule for finding the volume of a sphere
• Lalla
  Lalla
  Lalla was an Indian mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer who belonged to a family of astronomers. His most famous work was titled Śiṣya-dhī-vṛddhida-tantra, or "Treatise which expands the intellect of students." He is also known for having published the earliest known description of a...
  
   720–790
• Govindsvamin
  Govindsvamin
  Govindasvamin was a 9th century Indian mathematician who gave the fractional parts of the Aryabhata's tabular sines.Govindaswamin who wrote commentary on mahabhaskariya of BHASKARA 1 belonged to Kerala in mahodayapuram. His work govindakriti was a sequel to Aryabhatiya and is lost...
  
   (9th century)
• Virasena
  Virasena
  Āchārya Virasena was an 8th century Indian mathematician and Jain philosopher and scholar. He was a student of the Jain sage Elāchārya. He is also known to be a famous orator and an accomplished poet. His most reputed work is the Jain treatise Dhavala. Late Dr. Hiralal Jain places the completion of...
  
  
• Mahavira
  Mahavira
  Mahāvīra is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamāna who established what are today considered to be the central tenets of Jainism. According to Jain tradition, he was the 24th and the last Tirthankara. In Tamil, he is referred to as Arukaṉ or Arukadevan...
  
   (9th century)
• Jayadeva
  Jayadeva
  Jayadeva was a Sanskrit poet circa 1200 AD. He is most known for his composition, the epic poem Gita Govinda, which depicts the divine love of Krishna-an avatar of Vishnu and his consort, Radha, and it is mentioned that Radha is greater than Hari, and is considered an important text in the...
  
  (9th century)
• Prithudaka
  Prithudaka
  Prithudaka was a 9th century Indian mathematician who wrote an important commentary on Brahmagupta's work and also made important contributions to mathematical series....
  
   9th century
• Halayudha
  Halayudha
  Halayudha was a 10th century Indian mathematician who wrote the ', a commentary on Pingala's Chandah-shastra, containing a clear description of Pascal's triangle ....
  
  10th century
• Aryabhata II
  Aryabhata II
  Āryabhaṭa II was an Indian mathematician and astronomer, and the author of the Maha-Siddhanta. The numeral II is given to him to distinguish him from the earlier and more influential Āryabhaṭa I.-Mahasidhanta:...
  
   920–1000
• Vateshvara
  Vateshvara
  Vaṭeśvara , a tenth century Indian mathematician who presented several trigonometric identities. He was the author of Vaṭeśvara-siddhānta written in 904 AD, a treatise focusing on astronomy and applied mathematics.- References :...
  
  (10th century)
• Brahmadeva
  Brahmadeva
  Brahmadeva was an Indian mathematician. He was the author of Karanaprakasa, which is a commentary on Aryabhata's Aryabhatiya. Its contents deal partly with trigonometry and its applications to astronomy.He was well known and intelligent scientist.-External links:...
  
   1060–1130
• Sripati
  Sripati
  Śrīpati was an Indian astronomer and mathematician, the author of Dhikotidakarana , a work of twenty verses on solar and lunar eclipses; Dhruvamanasa , a work of 105 verses on calculating planetary longitudes, eclipses and planetary transits; Siddhantasekhara a major work on astronomy in 19...
  
   1019–1066
• Gopala – Studied Fibonacci numbers
• Hemachandra – Also studied Fibonacci numbers
• Bhāskara II- Developed the Chakravala method
  Chakravala method
  The chakravala method is a cyclic algorithm to solve indeterminate quadratic equations, including Pell's equation. It is commonly attributed to Bhāskara II, although some attribute it to Jayadeva...
  
   and concepts of mathematical analysis
  Mathematical analysis
  Mathematical analysis, which mathematicians refer to simply as analysis, has its beginnings in the rigorous formulation of infinitesimal calculus. It is a branch of pure mathematics that includes the theories of differentiation, integration and measure, limits, infinite series, and analytic functions...
  
  
• Gangesha Upadhyaya
  Gangesha Upadhyaya
  Gangesha Upadhyaya was an Indian mathematician and philosopher from the kingdom of Mithila. He established the Navya-Nyāya school. His Tattvacintāmaṇi also known as Pramāṇacintāmaṇi is the basic text for all later developments...
  
   13th century, Logician, Mithila school
• Narayana Pandit
  Narayana Pandit
  Narayana Pandita was a major mathematician of India. Plofker writes that his texts were the most significant Sanskrit mathematics treatises after those of Bhaskara II, other than the Kerala school. He wrote the Ganita Kaumudi in 1356 about mathematical operations. The work anticipated many...
  
  
• Madhava
  Madhava of Sangamagrama
  Mādhava of Sañgamāgrama was a prominent Kerala mathematician-astronomer from the town of Irińńālakkuţa near Cochin, Kerala, India. He is considered the founder of the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics...
  
  - considered the father of mathematical analysis
• Parameshvara
  Parameshvara
  Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri was a major Indian mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama. He was also an astrologer...
  
   (1360–1455)
• Nilakantha Somayaji
  Nilakantha Somayaji
  Kelallur Nilakantha Somayaji was a major mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. One of his most influential works was the comprehensive astronomical treatise Tantrasamgraha completed in 1501...
  
  , mathematician and astronomer
• Mahendra Suri
  Mahendra Suri
  Mahendra Sūri is the 14th century Jain astronomer who wrote the Yantraraja, the first Indian treatise on the astrolabe. He was a pupil of Madana Suri.-See also:*Indian mathematicians...
  
   (14th century)
• Shankara Variyar (c. 1530)
• Jyesthadeva
• Munishvara
  Munishvara
  Munishvara was a 17th century Indian mathematician who produced accurate sine tables....
  
   (17th century)
• Kamalakara
  Kamalakara
  Kamalakara , an Indian astronomer and mathematician, came from a learned family of scholars from Golagrāma, a village on the northern bank of the river Godāvarī. His father was Nrsimha who was born in 1586. Two of Kamalakara's three brothers were also astronomer and mathematicians: Divakara, who...
  
   (1657)
• Jagannatha(1730)
• Jagdish Chandra Bose
  Jagdish Chandra Bose
  Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS was a Bengali polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction...
  
   (1858–1937)
• Srinivasa Ramanujan
  Srinivasa Ramanujan
  Srīnivāsa Aiyangār Rāmānujan FRS, better known as Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan was a Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions...
  
   (1887–1920)
• A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar
  A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar
  A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar was a mathematician from India. He also wrote many papers on Vedic mathematics.-External links:*-References:...
  
   (1892–1953)
• Meghnad Saha
  Meghnad Saha
  Meghnad Saha FRS was an Indian astrophysicist best known for his development of the Saha equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars.-Early life:...
  
   (1893–1956)
• Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis
  Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis
  Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis FRS was an Indian scientist and applied statistician. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance, a statistical measure. He made pioneering studies in anthropometry in India...
  
   (1893–1972
• Satyendra Nath Bose
  Satyendra Nath Bose
  Satyendra Nath Bose FRS was an Indian mathematician and physicist noted for his collaboration with Albert Einstein in developing a theory regarding the gaslike qualities of electromagnetic radiation. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation...
  
   (1894–1974) mathematical physicist, famous for Bose-Einstein statistics
• Raj Chandra Bose
  Raj Chandra Bose
  Raj Chandra Bose was an Indian mathematician and statistician best known for his work in design theory and the theory of error-correcting codes in which the class of BCH codes is partly named after him. He was notable for his work along with S. S. Shrikhande and E. T...
  
   (1901–1987)
• D.K. Ray-Chaudhuri
• Harish-Chandra
  Harish-Chandra
  Harish-Chandra was an Indian mathematician, who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially Harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups. -Life:...
  
   (1923–1983)
• C.Radhakrishna Rao
  C. R. Rao
  Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao FRS known as C R Rao is an Indian statistician. He is currently professor emeritus at Penn State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo. Rao has been honored by numerous colloquia, honorary degrees, and festschrifts and was awarded the US...
  
  
• Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran
  Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran
  Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran, or G.N. Ramachandran, was a prominent Indian scientist, best known for his work that led to his creation of the Ramachandran plot for understanding peptide structure. He was the first to propose a triple-helical model for the structure of collagen...
  
   (1922–2001)
• Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar (1930–)
• Shakuntala Devi
  Shakuntala Devi
  Shakuntala Devi is a calculating prodigy who was born on November 4, 1939 in Bangalore, India. Her father worked in a "Brahmin circus" as a trapeze and tightrope performer, and later as a lion tamer and a human cannonball. Her calculating gifts first demonstrated themselves while she was doing...
  
   (1939–)
• Vijay Kumar Patodi
  Vijay Kumar Patodi
  Vijay Kumar Patodi was an Indian mathematician who made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He was the first mathematician to apply heat equation methods to the proof of the Index Theorem for elliptic operators...
  
   (1945–1976)
• Narendra Karmarkar
  Narendra Karmarkar
  Narendra K. Karmarkar is an Indian mathematician, renowned for developing Karmarkar's algorithm. He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.- Biography :...
  
   (1957–)
• M.V. Subbarao
• Rudranath Capildeo
  Rudranath Capildeo
  Dr. Rudranath Capildeo was a Trinidad and Tobago politician and mathematician. He was the Leader of the Democratic Labour Party from 1960–1969 and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament from 1961–1963, succeeding Ashford Sinanan. He was also a faculty member at the University of London, eventually...
  
   (1920–1970)

Musicians / Singers / Dancers

• Abhijeet Sawant
  Abhijeet Sawant
  Abhijeet Sawant is an Indian singer. He is the winner of Indian Idol , a show that follows the extremely popular Idol series format, which began with Pop Idol in the UK...
  
  , singer
• Alka Yagnik
  Alka Yagnik
  Alka Yagnik is an Indian singer who is ranked among the best Hindi playback singers of all time. She is a seven-time winner of the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award as well as a two-time recipient of the prestigious National Film Awards...
  
  , singer
• Asha Bhosle
  Asha Bhosle
  Asha Bhosle is an Indian singer. She is one of the best-known and most highly-regarded Hindi playback singers in India, although she has a wider repertoire. Bhosle's career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over a thousand Bollywood movies...
  
  , singer
• Babul Supriyo
  Babul Supriyo
  Babul Supriyo is an Indian playback singer. He calls himself a clone of Kumar Sanu.He was born Supriya Baral, and spent his early childhood, and even graduated from university with that name. He would change his first name's spelling from Supriya to Supriyo as the former signified a female name,...
  
  
• Balamurali Krishna
• Geeta Dutt
  Geeta Dutt
  Geetā Dutt was a prominent singer in India. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema...
  
  , singer
• George Harrison
  George Harrison
  George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
  
  , musician and member of The Beatles
  The Beatles
  The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
  
  
• Hemant Kumar, composer and singer
• Hridaynath Mangeshkar, composer
• Ilan Chester
  Ilan Chester
  Ilan Chester is a celebrated Venezuelan singer, keyboardist, arranger and composer. Born in Israel in 1952, of European parents, Ilan emigrated to Venezuela in 1953.- Biography :...
  
  , Latin Grammy Winner Venezuelan singer
• Ilayaraja, Famous Tamil Film Songs Composer
• KRS-One
  KRS-One
  Lawrence Krisna Parker , better known by his stage names KRS-One , and Teacha, is an American rapper...
  
  , Jamaican-American rapper
• Kannadasan
  Kannadasan
  Kannadasan was a Tamil poet and lyricist, heralded as one of the greatest and most important writer in the Tamil language...
  
  , Famous Tamil Film Songs lyricist
• Kartik Seshadri
  Kartik Seshadri
  Kartik Seshadri is a leading sitarist, composer and teacher. He was noted as a child prodigy in India. He began studying under Ravi Shankar in 1974...
  
  , sitar
  Sitar
  The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
  
  ist
• Kavita Krishnamurthy
• Kay Kay
  Kay Kay
  Krishnakumar Kunnath , also known as KK, is an Indian playback singer. He is a prominent singer in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films....
  
  , singer
• Kishore Kumar
  Kishore Kumar
  Kishore Kumar , born Abhas Kumar Ganguly, was an Indian film playback singer and an actor who also worked as lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter.Kishore Kumar was one of India's greatest performers of the late 20th century...
  
  , playback singer, actor
• Krishna Das: born Jeffrey Kagel, a singer of kirtan-style devotional music
• Lata Mangeshkar
  Lata Mangeshkar
  Lata Mangeshkar is a singer from India. She is one of the best-known and most respected playback singers in India. Mangeshkar's career started in 1942 and has spanned over six and a half decades. She has recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional...
  
  , singer
• M.I.A.
  M.I.A. (artist)
  Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam , better known by her stage name M.I.A. , is an English singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, painter and director of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her compositions combine elements of hip hop, electronica, dance, alternative and world music. M.I.A...
  
  , singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer
• Mahendra Kapoor
  Mahendra Kapoor
  Mahendra Kapoor was an Indian playback singer.In a career spanning five decades, his repertoire extended to 25,000 songs in various regional languages, including memorable hits like ‘Chalo ek baar phir se Ajnabi ban jayen hum dono’ Gumrah, ‘Neele gagan ke taale’ Hamraaz, and in various...
  
  , singer
• Manna Dey
  Manna Dey
  Prabodh Chandra Dey , better known by his nickname Manna Dey , is a playback singer in Bengali Assamese and Hindi films. Along with Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, he was a part of Indian film playback music from the 1950s to the 1970s. He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of...
  
  , singer
• Machas With Attitude
  Machas With Attitude
  Machas With Attitude [abbreviated as MWA] is a rap/hip hop/trip hop trio from Bangalore / Chennai, India. Formed on June 14, 2008, it consists of Bigg Nikk, Smokey and Brodha V. MWA takes influences from their various backgrounds, and although their songs are primarily in English, they usually...
  
  , Hip Hop Artists
• MS Subbulakshmi, classical (carnatic
  Carnatic music
  Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
  
  ) singer
• Mukesh, singer
• Nitin Sawhney
  Nitin Sawhney
  Nitin Sawhney is an Indian-British musician, producer and composer. His critically acclaimed work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of jazz and electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics and spirituality...
  
  , composer
• O.P. Nayyar, composer
• Ravi Shankar
  Ravi Shankar
  Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
  
  : Sitar virtuoso, multiple Grammy winner, mentor to George Harrison
• Rahul Dev Burman
  Rahul Dev Burman
  Rahul Dev Burman commonly known as R. D. Burman and nicknamed Pancham da or simply Pancham, was an influential Bollywood music composer. He was the only son of singer and Bollywood music composer Sachin Dev Burman and his wife Meera...
  
  , composer
• Ravi
  Ravi (music director)
  Ravi Shankar Sharma , often referred to mononymously as Ravi, is an Indian music director, who has composed music for several Hindi and Malayalam films...
  
  , composer
• S.D. Burman, composer
• Sadhana Sargam
  Sadhana Sargam
  Sadhana Sargam is an acclaimed Indian playback singer. She is a recipient of the prestigious National Film Award and Filmfare Awards.Sargam has sung in many Indian languages for films, television serials and music albums. She is well known for her 90s Hindi songs and recent South Indian songs. She...
  
  
• Salil Chowdhury
  Salil Chowdhury
  Salil Chowdhury was an Indian music composer. He mainly composed for Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam films. He was also a poet and a playwright. He is affectionately called Salilda by all his admirers....
  
  , composer
• Sanjukta Panigrahi
  Sanjukta Panigrahi
  Sanjukta Panigrahi was a dancer of India, who was the foremost exponent of Indian classical dance Odissi...
  
  , classical Odishi Dancer
• Suraiya
  Suraiya
  Suraiya Jamaal Sheikh was a singer and actress of the Indian films in the 40s and 50s, and was popularly known by her first name Suraiya..-Early life:...
  
  , singer
• Tanvi Patel, G4 performing artist
• Trilok Gurtu, percussionist
• Udit Narayan
  Udit Narayan
  -Career:King of melody, Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December, 1955 in a village called Bhardaha in the Saptari district , Nepal. His father was Hare Krishna Jha and his mother was Bhuwaneshwari Devi.Narayan studied at P.B...
  
  , singer

Film Producers / Directors

• Satyajit Ray
  Satyajit Ray
  Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
  
  , film director
• Adoor Gopalakrishnan
  Adoor Gopalakrishnan
  Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...
  
  
• Balachander
• Balu Mahendra
  Balu Mahendra
  Balanathan "Balu" Mahendran is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter, and cinematographer widely regarded as part of the first in a wave of directors and screenwriters from the Chennai film industry who revitalised Tamil cinema...
  
  
• Bimal Roy
  Bimal Roy
  Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...
  
  
• Boney Kapoor
  Boney Kapoor
  Boney Kapoor is an Indian film producer and recently he became director of Sahara One Media and Entertainment Limited of Sahara India Pariwar....
  
  
• David Dhawan
  David Dhawan
  David Dhawan is an Indian film director. He has studied at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.-Career:Dhawan started off as an editor and then took the plunge into directing...
  
  
• Dev Anand
  Dev Anand
  Dharam Dev Anand , better known as Dev Anand , is an Indian Hindi Cinema actor, director and film producer. Dev is the second of three brothers who were active in Hindi Cinema. His brothers are Chetan Anand and Vijay Anand. Their sister, Sheel Kanta Kapur, is the mother of renowned Hindi and...
  
  
• Gemini Ganesan
  Gemini Ganesan
  Ramaswami Ganesan , popularly known as Gemini Ganesan , was an Indian actor. He was nicknamed "Kadhal Mannan" of Tamil cinema for the romantic roles he played in movies....
  
  
• Guru Dutt
  Guru Dutt
  Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...
  
  
• Karan Johar
  Karan Johar
  Karan Johar is an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter and Television host. He is the son of Hiroo Johar and Yash Johar. He is one of the most successful filmmakers in Bollywood. He is most known for directing and producing some of Bollywood's highest grossing films in India and the...
  
  
• Mani Ratnam
  Mani Ratnam
  Mani Ratnam is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He made his directorial debut with the Kannada film Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Anil Kapoor in 1983...
  
  
• Manoj Night Shyamalan
  M. Night Shyamalan
  Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
  
   (born Indian, later American citizen)
• Mira Nair
  Mira Nair
  Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films.She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination...
  
  
• Mrinal Sen
  Mrinal Sen
  Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
  
  
• Navnit Bham
  Navnit Bham
  Navnit Bham was an Indian film director and producer. He directed a number of Hindi and Gujarati films. He was one of the pioneers of Gujarati cinema and set up the first film studio in Gujarat.-References:...
  
  
• Raj Kapoor
  Raj Kapoor
  Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...
  
  
• Ranbir Kapoor
  Ranbir Kapoor
  Ranbir Kapoor is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood movies.Making his acting debut in the 2007 film Saawariya, for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut, Kapoor went on to earn critical praise for his performance in Wake Up Sid...
  
  
• Rajkumar Santoshi
  Rajkumar Santoshi
  Rajkumar Santoshi is a Filmfare award-winning Indian film director and producer of Hindi films. He is the son of producer-director P.L. Santoshi.-Career:...
  
  
• Ram Gopal Varma
  Ram Gopal Varma
  Ram Gopal Varma is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer...
  
  
• Ritwik Ghatak
• Sai Paranjpe
• Satish Kaushik
  Satish Kaushik
  Satish Kaushik is an Indian film director and actor in Hindi films and theatre.As a film actor his most remembered for his role as 'Calendar' in Mr. India, and as 'Chanu Ahmed' in Sarah Gavron's English film Brick Lane...
  
  
• Shankar Nag
  Shankar Nag
  Shankar Nagarkatte , 9 November 1954 - 30 September 1990) popularly known as Shankar Nag was a popular actor and director of Kannada cinema. He also directed and acted in the teleserial, Malgudi days, based on celebrated novelist R.K.Narayan's short stories. Besides these, he was actively involved...
  
  
• Shekhar Kapoor
• Shyam Benegal
  Shyam Benegal
  Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...
  
  
• Subhash Ghai
  Subhash Ghai
  Subhash Ghai is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter. His most notable films include Kalicharan ,Karz , Hero , Meri Jung , Karma ,Ram Lakhan ,Saudagar , Khalnayak , Pardes and Taal...
  
  
• Subodh Mukherjee
  Subodh Mukherjee
  Subodh Mukerji was a renowned movie-maker of Bengali origin. He was the brother of the leading producer director Sashadhar Mukherjee...
  
  
• Shakti Samanta
  Shakti Samanta
  Shakti Samanta was an Indian film director and producer, who founded Shakti Films in 1957, which is most known for films like Howrah Bridge, China Town, Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening in Paris, Kati Patang and Amar Prem.He received Filmfare Awards for Best Film for Aradhana, Anuraag and Amanush,...
  
  
• Vishal Bharadwaj
• Yash Chopra
  Yash Chopra
  Yash Raj Chopra is an Indian filmmaker, film director, screenwriter, and a highly successful Bollywood producer. Waqt, Deewar, Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila, Lamhe, Chandni, Darr, Dil To Pagal Hai, and Veer-Zaara are some of his highly popular movies...
  
  
• Nila Madhab Panda
  Nila Madhab Panda
  Nila Madhab Panda is a film maker and director from Subarnapur district of Orissa. Nila Madhab Panda’s I Am Kalam has won many national and international awards.-Early life:...
  
  

Actors / Actresses

• Dev Anand
  Dev Anand
  Dharam Dev Anand , better known as Dev Anand , is an Indian Hindi Cinema actor, director and film producer. Dev is the second of three brothers who were active in Hindi Cinema. His brothers are Chetan Anand and Vijay Anand. Their sister, Sheel Kanta Kapur, is the mother of renowned Hindi and...
  
  
• Abhishek Bachchan
  Abhishek Bachchan
  Abhishek Bachchan is an Indian actor and producer. He is the son of Indian actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and is married to actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai....
  
  
• Amitabh Bachchan
  Amitabh Bachchan
  Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...
  
  
• Anil Kapoor
  Anil Kapoor
  Anil Kapoor is an Indian actor and producer who mainly appears in Bollywood films. He won a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in Yash Chopra's film Mashaal ....
  
  
• Simran Bagga
  Simran Bagga
  Rishibala Naval , better known by her Industry name Simran, is an Indian actress who has predominantly appeared in Tamil and Telugu films. She debuted in Bollywood and acted in several Hindi films, before starring in her first Tamil film V.I.P and her first Telugu film Abbai Gari Pelli in 1997...
  
  
• Chiranjeevi
  Chiranjeevi
  Chiranjeevi is a Telugu film actor and a politician. He has appeared primarily in Telugu Cinema along with a few Tamil, Kannada and Hindi films. He made his acting debut in Punadhirallu . However, Pranam Khareedu released at the box office earlier...
  
  
• Guru Dutt
  Guru Dutt
  Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...
  
  
• Sanjay Dutt
  Sanjay Dutt
  Sanjay Dutt is an Indian Hindi film actor and politician. Dutt, son of Hindi film actors Sunil and Nargis Dutt, made his acting debut in 1981.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Sunil Dutt
  Sunil Dutt
  Sunil Dutt , born Sunil Balraj Dutt, was an Indian Hindi movie actor , producer, director and politician. He was the cabinet minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the Manmohan Singh government...
  
  
• Sivaji Ganesan
  Sivaji Ganesan
  Viluppuram Chinnaiahpillai Ganesan Manrayar , commonly known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan , was an Indian stage and film actor active during the latter half of the 20th century. He is one of the most respected film actors in India. He is well known for his versatility and acting skills with...
  
  
• Suresh Gopi
  Suresh Gopi
  Suresh Gopinathan Nair , often credited as Suresh Gopi , is an Indian film actor who works mainly in Malayalam cinema; he is famous for his roles in police dramas. He is noted for his leading roles as much as his character roles...
  
  
• Govinda
  Govinda
  ' and ' are names of Krishna, referring to his youthful occupation as a cowherd. He is regarded as the Supreme Godhead in the Vaishnava tradition and also by much of the pan-Hindu tradition...
  
  
• Gulshan Grover
  Gulshan Grover
  Gulshan Grover is an Indian actor, who has acted in over 400 films through a career spanning over 30 years.Gulshan Grover is one of the first Indian actors to have made a successful transition from Bollywood into Hollywood and international Cinema....
  
  
• Sunil Shetty
• Aftab Shivdasani
  Aftab Shivdasani
  Aftab Shivadasani is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films. He started as a child actor in commercials and has performed in over 40 films. He also co-wrote and helped produce the film Aao Wish Karein. He started his career as a child artist in the movie Mr. India. Shivdasani is currently...
  
  
• Akshay Khanna
• Amol Palekar
  Amol Palekar
  Amol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...
  
  
• Kal Penn
  Kal Penn
  Kalpen Suresh Modi , best known by his stage name Kal Penn, is an American film and television actor, producer, and civil servant....
  
  
• Amrish Puri
  Amrish Puri
  Amrish Singh Puri , ; 22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005 was an iconic theater and film actor from India, who was a key player in the Indian theater movement that picked up steam in the 1960s. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad...
  
  
• Annu Kapoor
  Annu Kapoor
  Annu Kapoor is an Indian film actor and television presenter, best remembered for hosting the singing reality show Antakshari.-Career:Annu Kapoor made his debut in the film Mandi directed by Shyam Benegal in 1979. His career has spanned nearly 31 years including a distinctive presence in...
  
  
• Aman Verma
  Aman Verma
  Aman Yatan Verma is a TV show anchor and an actor. He co-hosted with Mini Mathur in the first season of Indian Idol on Sony Entertainment Television and hosted Zee TV's Zee Cinestars.-Career:...
  
  
• Anupam Kher
  Anupam Kher
  Anupam Kher is an Indian actor who has appeared in nearly 400 films and 100 plays. Though mainly appearing in Bollywood films, he has had roles in some films from other nations as well...
  
  
• Ashok Kumar
  Ashok Kumar
  Ashok Kumar also fondly called Dadamoni was an Indian film actor. Born Kumudlal Ganguly in Bhagalpur, Bengal Presidency he attained iconic status in Indian cinema...
  
  
• Asha Parekh
  Asha Parekh
  Asha Parekh is a Bollywood actress, director, and producer. She was one of the top stars in Hindi films from 1959 to 1973.-Early life:...
  
  
• Aishwarya Rai
  Aishwarya Rai
  Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an Indian film actress. She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994...
  
  
• Balraj Sahni
  Balraj Sahni
  Balraj Sahni , born Yudhishthir Sahni , was a famous Hindi film actor. He belonged to a Punjabi Khatri family from Bhera now in Punjab, Pakistan...
  
  
• Bipasha Basu
  Bipasha Basu
  Bipasha Basu is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Bollywood films. A former model, she was the winner of the Ford's Godrej Cinthol Supermodel contest in 1996.-Early life:...
  
  
• Hrithik Roshan
  Hrithik Roshan
  Hrithik Roshan is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films.After having appeared in films as a child actor in the 1980s, Roshan made his film debut in a leading role in Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai for which Roshan earned his Filmfare Awards for Best Actor and Best Male Debut...
  
  
• Julia Roberts
  Julia Roberts
  Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
  
  
• Jackie Shroff
  Jackie Shroff
  Jackie Shroff is an Indian actor. He has been in the industry for more than 28 years and has appeared in over 150 films.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Jeetendra
  Jeetendra
  Jeetendra born Ravi Kapoor is an Indian actor and television producer...
  
  
• Kamal Haasan
  Kamal Haasan
  Kamal Haasan is an Indian film actor, screenwriter and director, considered to be one of the leading method actors of Indian cinema. He is widely acclaimed as an actor and is well known for his versatility in acting...
  
  
• Karan Kapoor
  Karan Kapoor
  Karan Kapoor, Indian actor and model of the 1980s, is a member of the famous Kapoor family, an influential film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema.-Career:...
  
   – Shashi Kapoor's son
• Kareena Kapoor
  Kareena Kapoor
  Kareena Kapoor , often informally referred to as Bebo, is an Indian actress who appears in Bollywood films. During her career, Kapoor has received six Filmfare Awards, among nine nominations, and has been noted for her performances in a range of film genres; these include her work from contemporary...
  
  
• Karthik Sivakumar
  Karthik Sivakumar
  Karthi is an Indian film actor, who works in the Tamil film industry. His father is Sivakumar, also a film actor. Karthi gained a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering in the United States. Since he had always wanted to become a film director,...
  
  
• Koena Mitra
  Koena Mitra
  Koena Mitra is an Indian actress and model who appears in Bollywood films.-Early life:Mitra was born in Kolkata, West Bengal to a Bengali Hindu family. She attended South Point High School and Lady Brabourne College of the University of Calcutta. She has a major in psychology. Mitra was trained...
  
  
• O. Madhavan
  O. Madhavan
  O. Madhavan was an Indian theatre director and actor. He was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India in Kerala. He is considered as one of the great masters of the theatre, he has made major contributions for the evolution of theatre in Kerala...
  
  
• Madhuri Dixit
  Madhuri Dixit
  Madhuri Dixit is an Indian film actress who has appeared in Hindi films. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, she established herself as one of Hindi cinema's leading actresses and most accomplished dancers. She appeared in numerous commercially successful films and was recognised for several of...
  
  
• Manoj Bajpai
  Manoj Bajpai
  Manoj Bajpai , also credited as Manoj Bajpayee, is an Indian film actor, known for playing offbeat and unconventional roles. He first shot into fame with his breakthrough role in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 film Satya.-Early life:...
  
  
• Manoj Kumar
  Manoj Kumar
  Manoj Kumar is an award-winning Indian actor and director in the Bollywood film industry. He is known for acting in and directing films with patriotic themes, and has been given the nickname "Mr Bharat"...
  
  
• Mithun Chakraborty
  Mithun Chakraborty
  Mithun Chakraborty is an Indian film actor, social activist, and entrepreneur, who has won three National Film Awards. He made his acting debut with the arthouse drama Mrigaya , for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Actor....
  
  
• Mohanlal
  Mohanlal
  Mohanlal Vishwanathan Nair , known mononymously as Mohanlal , is a National Award-winning Indian actor, producer, singer and writer who is well known for his versatile and natural acting in Indian cinema & hence widely known as the Universal Star...
  
  
• Prithviraj Sukumaran Nair
• Navin Nischol
  Navin Nischol
  Navin Nischol was an Indian actor. He made his debut with the Hindi film Sawan Bhadon in 1970.-Early life:...
  
  
• Om Prakash
  Om Prakash
  Om Prakash was an Indian character actor. He was born in Jammu as Om Prakash Chibber. He used to play the role of Kamla in the stage play by the famous Dewan Mandir Natak Samaj Koliwada. Starting his career in 1942, he was a popular supporting actor from the 1950s until the 1980s. He was one of...
  
  
• Om Puri
  Om Puri
  Om Puri is an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films. He has received an honorary OBE.-Early life:...
  
  
• Padma Lakshmi
  Padma Lakshmi
  Padma Parvati Lakshmi also Padma, Lady Rushdie is an American cookbook author, actress, model and television host. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for...
  
  
• Prabhu
  Prabhu
  Prabhu means master or the supreme lord in Sanskrit and many of the Indian languages; it is a name sometimes applied to God.The term is also used by male devotees of the hindu deity Lord Krishna/Vishnu as a title and form of address. If a man sees another male devotee whom he does not know, he will...
  
  
• Pran
• Preity Zinta
  Preity Zinta
  Preity Zinta is an Indian film actress. She has appeared in Hindi films of Bollywood, as well as Telugu, Punjabi and English language films. After graduating with a degree in criminal psychology, Zinta made her acting debut in Dil Se in 1998 followed by a role in Soldier the same year...
  
  
• Rajini Kanth
• Raj Kapoor
  Raj Kapoor
  Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...
  
  , actor and director
• Rajendra Kumar
  Rajendra Kumar
  Rajendra Kumar was one of the most successful Indian Bollywood actors in the 1960s and 1970s. He also produced several films in the 1980s starring his son Kumar Gaurav....
  
  
• Rajkumar
  Rajkumar
  Rajkumar , born as Singanalluru Puttaswamayya Muthuraju was a popular actor and singer in the Kannada film industry...
  
   (Natasarvabhouma)
• Raaj Kumar
  Raaj Kumar
  Raaj Kumar , born Kulbushan Pandit was an Indian actor in Hindi movies. Raaj Kumar started out as sub-inspector of Mumbai police in the late 1940s before he turned to acting with the 1952 film Rangili...
  
  
• Rajiv Kapoor
  Rajiv Kapoor
  Rajiv Kapoor is an Indian film actor, producer, director and a member of the famous Kapoor Family.-Career:He had a short stint in the Hindi film industry, acting in only 13 films. His first film was Ek jaan hain hum , with Divya Rana, Shammi Kapoor, Pran, and Gulshan Grover...
  
  
• Rajesh Khanna
  Rajesh Khanna
  Rajesh Khanna is an Indian actor of from Hindi films, and has been Hindi film producer and an Indian politician....
  
  
• Rakesh Roshan
  Rakesh Roshan
  Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan (Hindi: राकेश रोशन (born Rakesh Roshan Lal Nagrath on 6 September 1949 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India) is a producer, director and former actor in Bollywood films who was born in a Punjabi Hindu Kayastha family...
  
  
• Randhir Kapoor
  Randhir Kapoor
  Randhir Kapoor is a Bollywood actor, producer and director. His nickname is Daboo.-Early life:Randhir Kapoor hails from the legendary Kapoor family. He is the eldest son of Raj Kapoor. He is a fourth generation Kapoor and comes from a distinguished Punjabi Hindu family who have been part of the...
  
  
• Rishi Kapoor
  Rishi Kapoor
  Rishi Kapoor is an Indian Bollywood actor, film producer and director.-Early life:Born in Chembur Mumbai, Kapoor is the second son of film director and star Raj Kapoor. He did his schooling with his brothers at Campion School,Mumbai. His brothers are well-known actors: Randhir Kapoor and Rajiv...
  
  
• Roshan Seth
  Roshan Seth
  Roshan Seth is an Indian-born British actor, who appears mainly in British and American films. He is known for his critically acclaimed performances in the films Gandhi, Mississippi Masala, Not Without My Daughter, My Beautiful Laundrette, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Such a Long...
  
  
• Russell Peters
  Russell Peters
  Russell Dominic Peters is an Indo-Canadian comedian, actor and disc jockey. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and has been nominated for four Gemini Awards.-Early life :...
  
  , actor & comedian.
• Sanjay Kapoor
  Sanjay Kapoor
  Sanjay Kapoor is a Bollywood actor and producer.Son of film producer, Surinder Kapoor, he is the younger brother of actor Anil Kapoor and producer Boney Kapoor and brother-in-law of actress Sridevi...
  
  
• Sanjeev Kumar
  Sanjeev Kumar (actor)
  Sanjeev Kumar was one of the most prominent Indian actors in Bollywood.-Personal life and background:Sanjeev Kumar was born as Jariwala in Gujarat to a Gujarati family. His first home was in Surat and family based in Mumbai. A stint in the film school took him to Bollywood, where he eventually...
  
  
• Shahid Kapoor
  Shahid Kapoor
  Shahid Kapoor is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films. He is also a trained dancer.Starting off his career by working in music videos and advertisements, Kapoor made his Bollywood debut as a background dancer in Subhash Ghai's Taal . Four years later, he made his acting debut in Ishq...
  
  
• Shankar Nag
  Shankar Nag
  Shankar Nagarkatte , 9 November 1954 - 30 September 1990) popularly known as Shankar Nag was a popular actor and director of Kannada cinema. He also directed and acted in the teleserial, Malgudi days, based on celebrated novelist R.K.Narayan's short stories. Besides these, he was actively involved...
  
  
• Shakti Kapoor
  Shakti Kapoor
  Shakti Kapoor is an Indian Bollywood actor. He is notably known for playing vulgar comic and villainous roles. He is known for acting alongside comedian Kader Khan as his sidekick along with Asrani in over 100 films.-Early life:...
  
  
• Shammi Kapoor
  Shammi Kapoor
  Shammi Kapoor was an Indian film actor and director. He was a prominent lead actor in Hindi cinema from the late 1950s until the early 1970s....
  
  
• Shashi Kapoor
  Shashi Kapoor
  Shashi Kapoor , born Balbir-Raj Prithviraj Kapoor on 18 March 1938 in Calcutta , is an award-winning Indian film actor and film producer. He has also been film director and assistant director in Hindi Films. He is a member of the Kapoor family, a film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema...
  
  
• Satish Kaushik
  Satish Kaushik
  Satish Kaushik is an Indian film director and actor in Hindi films and theatre.As a film actor his most remembered for his role as 'Calendar' in Mr. India, and as 'Chanu Ahmed' in Sarah Gavron's English film Brick Lane...
  
  
• Shatrughan Sinha
  Shatrughan Sinha
  Shatrughan Sinha is an Indian film actor and politician. Apart from being member of Rajya Sabha twice he was also Union Cabinet Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Shipping...
  
  
• Silambarasan Rajendar
• Surya Sivakumar
• Tamannaah Bhatia
• Tusshar Kapoor
  Tusshar Kapoor
  Tusshar Kapoor is an Indian actor. He is the son of Bollywood actor Jeetendra and Shobha Kapoor and brother of Ekta Kapoor. He studied at the University of Michigan and graduated with a BBA from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business.Tushar made his debut with Mujhe kuch kehna hai alongside...
  
  
• Utpal Dutt
  Utpal Dutt
  Utpal Dutt was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali Theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the 'Little Theater Group' in 1947, which enacted many English, Shakespearean and Brecht plays, in a period...
  
  
• Uttam Kumar
  Uttam Kumar
  Uttam Kumar is one of the most famous names of Indian Bengali Cinema.Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee in 1926 at Ahiritola, North Calcutta he is widely known as Uttam Kumar and Mahanayak . He remains as much of a cultural icon as he had been in his lifetime...
  
  
• Vinod Khanna
  Vinod Khanna
  -Early life:Khanna was born to Kamla and Kishanchand Khanna, a textiles, dyes and chemicals businessman of Hindu Punjabi Khatri origin, on 6 October 1946, in Peshawar, British India . He has three sisters and one brother...
  
  
• Vinod Mehra
  Vinod Mehra
  Vinod Mehra was an Indian actor in Bollywood films. He started out as a child actor in a few films in the late 1950s and early 1960s before starting his adult film career in 1971 acting in over 100 films throughout the 1970s through to the 1990s...
  
  
• Radha Mitchell
  Radha Mitchell
  Radha Rani Amber Indigo Anunda Mitchell is an Australian actress. Her film roles include Finding Neverland, Phone Booth, Man on Fire, Silent Hill, and the The Crazies-Early life:...
  
  
• Vivek Oberoi
  Vivek Oberoi
  Vivek Oberoi is an Indian actor. He is the son of Bollywood actor Suresh Oberoi and Yashodhara Oberoi.- Early life :Vivek attended Mayo college in Ajmer. At an actors' workshop in London he was spotted by the director of New York University who took Vivek off to New York, where he completed his...
  
  
• Vishnuvardhan
• Ganesh
  Ganesh (actor)
  Ganesh is a Kannada language film actor from India. He shot to popularity with the 2006 blockbuster film Mungaru Male, which became one of the biggest hits in Kannada cinema.- Television career :...
  
  
• Anant Nag
  Anant Nag
  Anant Nagarkatte popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with...
  
  
• Upendra
  Upendra
  Upendra is a cine actor, director, script writer and singer. Born in a middle class family at Koteshwara near Kundapura, he belongs to Kannada speaking Kota Brahmin community. Upendra started his career off with famous director Kashinath as a writer and an assistant director...
  
  
• Shivrajkumar
  Shivrajkumar
  Shivaraj Kumar is a Kannada film actor. He is the son of Kannada thespian Dr. Rajkumar. After graduating in B.Sc...
  
  
• Kelli Williams
  Kelli Williams
  Kelli Renee Williams is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Lindsay Dole on the Legal drama The Practice and as psychologist and deception expert Dr. Gillian Foster on Lie to Me....
  
  

Sports figures

Chess

• Viswanathan Anand
  Viswanathan Anand
  V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
  
  
• P Harikrishna
• Krishnan Sasikiran
  Krishnan Sasikiran
  Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian chess Grandmaster. Among Indians, he is second, after Viswanathan Anand, No. 6 in Asia & ranked 56th in the world in FIDE rating as on September 2011....
  
  
• Murugan Thiruchelvam
  Murugan Thiruchelvam
  Murugan Thirumurugan Thiruchelvam is an English chess player. He was England's youngest player ever to gain an international chess rating . Less than a week after his 10th birthday, he played against the then world champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition...
  
  
• Pravin Thipsay
• Ramachandran Ramesh
  Ramachandran Ramesh
  Ramachandran Ramesh is an Indian chess grandmaster from Chennai who won the 2002 British Championship and 2007 Commonwealth Championship.He is married to WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy. They are India's first Grandmaster...
  
  

Tennis

• Ramesh Krishnan
  Ramesh Krishnan
  Ramesh Krishnan is a tennis coach and former professional tennis player from India. As a junior player in the late-1970s, he won the boy's singles titles at both Wimbledon and the French Open. He went on to reach three Grand Slam quarter-finals in the 1980s, and was part of the Indian team which...
  
  
• Karan Rastogi
  Karan Rastogi
  Karan Rastogi is an Indian tennis player. He started playing tennis at the age of 3. In 2003, he turned professional. He reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open Junior Championship in 2004...
  
  
• Somdev Devvarman
  Somdev Devvarman
  Somdev Devvarman , is a professional Indian tennis player. Three of Devvarman's college conquests, John Isner, Kevin Anderson, and Jesse Levine have successful pro careers. He hit the headlines for being the only collegiate player to have made three consecutive finals at the NCAA, winning...
  
  
• Mahesh Bhupati
• Vijay Amritraj
  Vijay Amritraj
  Vijay Amritraj is a former Indian tennis player, sports commentator and actor.Amritraj was born in Chennai, India to Maggie Dhairyam and Robert Amritraj. He and his brothers, Anand Amritraj and Ashok Amritraj, were among the first Indians to play in top-flight international tour tennis...
  
  

Formula One Racing

• Narain Karthikeyan
  Narain Karthikeyan
  Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan , is the first Formula One motor racing driver from India. He has previously competed in A1GP, and the Le Mans Series. He made his Formula One debut in with the Jordan team, and was a WilliamsF1 test driver in and...
  
  

Cricket

• Anil Kumble
  Anil Kumble
  Anil Kumble is a former Indian cricketer and captain of the Indian Test cricket team. He is a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-hand batsman. He is currently the leading wicket-taker for India in both Test and One Day International matches...
  
  
• Chandu Borde
  Chandu Borde
  Chandrakant Gulabrao "Chandu" Borde born 21 July 1934 in Poona In Marathi Christian Family, is a ex-cricketer who was a member of the Indian team between 1958 and 1970. Following his retirement, Borde became a cricket administrator, serving as the Chairman of national selectors...
  
  
• Javagal Srinath
  Javagal Srinath
  Javagal Srinath is a former Indian cricketer. He was a frontline fast bowler for the Indian cricket team until his retirement, being the second Indian pace bowler after Kapil Dev to take 200 Test wickets. One ball that he bowled during the 1996 tour of South Africa measured...
  
  
• Kapil Dev
  Kapil Dev
  Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj , better known as Kapil Dev, is a former Indian cricketer. He captained the Indian cricket team which won the 1983 Cricket World Cup...
  
  
• Lakshmipathy Balaji
  Lakshmipathy Balaji
  Lakshmipathy Balaji is an Indian cricketer. He is a right arm fast medium bowler.-International Cricket:...
  
  
• Mohinder Amarnath
  Mohinder Amarnath
  Mohinder Amarnath Bhardwaj is a former Indian cricketer and current cricket analyst. He is commonly known as "Jimmy". He is the son of Lala Amarnath, the first post-independence captain of India. His brother Surinder Amarnath was a Test player...
  
  
• Rahul Dravid
  Rahul Dravid
  Rahul Sharad Dravid , is a cricketer in the Indian national team, of which he has been a regular member since 1996. He was appointed as the captain of the Indian cricket team in October 2005 and resigned from the post in September 2007. Dravid was honoured as one of the top-five Wisden Cricketers...
  
  
• Sachin Tendulkar
  Sachin Tendulkar
  Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...
  
  
• Saurav Ganguly
• Sunil Gavaskar
  Sunil Gavaskar
  Sunil Manohar "Sunny" Gavaskar is a former cricketer who played during the 1970s and 1980s for Bombay and India. Widely regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in cricket history, Gavaskar set world records during his career for the most Test runs and most Test centuries scored by any...
  
  
• Dilip Vengsarkar
  Dilip Vengsarkar
  Dilip Balwant Vengsarkar is an Indian cricketer and cricket administrator. He was one of the most stylish batsmen of his time, known as one of the foremost exponents of the drive. He was also known by the nickname 'Colonel'....
  
  
• Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
  Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
  Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar is a former Indian cricketer who specialised in leg spin. Considered amongst the top echelon of leg-spinners, Chandrasekhar along with E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi and Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan constituted the Indian spin quartet that dominated...
  
  
• Rohan Kanhai
  Rohan Kanhai
  Rohan Bholalall Kanhai is a former West Indian Cricket player of Indo-Guyanese descent. He is widely considered as one of the best batsmen of the 1960s. Kanhai featured in several great West Indian teams, playing with, among others, Sir Garfield Sobers, Roy Fredericks, Lance Gibbs, and Alvin...
  
  
• Raman Subba Row
  Raman Subba Row
  Raman Subba Row is an English former cricketer who played for England, Cambridge University, Surrey and Northamptonshire.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Vinoo Mankad
• Lala Amarnath
  Lala Amarnath
  Nanik Amarnath Bhardwaj was an Indian Test cricketer. He was the first cricketer to score a Test century for the Indian cricket team, which he achieved on debut...
  
  
• Vijay Merchant
  Vijay Merchant
  Vijaysingh Madhavji Merchant , real name Vijay Madhavji Thakersey was an Indian cricketer. A right-hand batter and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler, Merchant played first class cricket for Mumbai cricket team as well as 10 Test matches for India between 1929 and 1951...
  
  
• CK Nayudu
• Maharajkumar of Vizianagram
  Maharajkumar of Vizianagram
  Lieutenant Colonel Sir Vijayananda Gajapathi Raju , better known as the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram or Vizzy, was an Indian cricketer, cricket administrator and politician.- Childhood :...
  
  
• Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, Ranji Trophy
  Ranji Trophy
  The Ranji Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between different city and state sides, equivalent to the County Championship in England and the Sheffield Shield in Australia...
  
   named in his honour
• Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji
  Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji
  Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji Jadeja was a cricketer who played for England. He was educated at the Rajkumar College, Rajkot, India.-Career:...
  
  , Duleep Trophy
  Duleep Trophy
  The Duleep Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket competition played in India between teams representing geographical zones of India. The competition is named after Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji .-History:...
  
   named in his honour
• V.V.S. Laxman
• Mahendra Singh Dhoni
  Mahendra Singh Dhoni
  Mahendra Singh Dhoni is an Indian cricketer and the current captain of the Indian national cricket team. He made his One Day International debut in December 2004 against Bangladesh, and a year later played his first Test, this time against Sri Lanka.Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC...
  
  
• Gautam Gambhir
  Gautam Gambhir
  Gautam Gambhir is an Indian cricketer, a batsman. He has been a member of the Indian national cricket team since 2003 and 2004...
  
  
• Virendra Sehwag
• Shivnarine Chanderpaul
  Shivnarine Chanderpaul
  Shivnarine "Shiv" Chanderpaul is a cricketer, and former captain of the West Indies cricket team. He is the first Indo-Caribbean in the West Indies team to play 100 Tests for the West Indies and has captained them in 14 Tests and 16 One Day Internationals...
  
  , West Indies
• Danish Kaneria
  Danish Kaneria
  Danish Prabha Shanker Kaneria is a Pakistani cricketer . Danish Kaneria has continued the tradition of great Pakistani leg spin bowlers and possesses a very well disguised googly...
  
  , Pakistan
• Anil Dalpat
  Anil Dalpat
  Anil Dalpat or Anil Dalpat Sonavaria was the first Hindu ever to play Test cricket for Pakistan. Dalpat was a lower-order batsman and wicket keeper, and represented Pakistan for a brief interval in the early 1980s, when Wasim Bari was injured...
  
  , Pakistan
• Ramnaresh Sarwan
  Ramnaresh Sarwan
  Ramnaresh Ronnie Sarwan is a West Indian cricketer of Indo-Guyanese origin and a member of the West Indies cricket team....
  
  , West Indies
• Mahendra Nagamootoo
  Mahendra Nagamootoo
  Mahendra Veeren Nagamootoo is a West Indian cricketer of Indo-Guyanese ethnicity.Nagamootoo is the nephew of both Rohan Kanhai and Alvin Kallicharan; two of the best ever West Indian batsmen of Indian descent. Nagamootoo has a brother Vishal, who plays cricket for Guyana....
  
  , West Indies
• Muttiah Muralitharan
  Muttiah Muralitharan
  Muttiah Muralitharan , often referred to as Murali, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who was rated the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2002...
  
  , Sri Lanka
• Ravi Bopara, England
• Jeetan Patel
  Jeetan Patel
  Jeetan Shashi Patel is a New Zealand cricketer of Indian descent. Patel is a right arm off spin bowler. He plays domestic cricket for the Wellington Firebirds and has represented the New Zealand Black Caps in One Day Internationals, Twenty20 matches, and Test cricket.Patel was earmarked as a...
  
  , New Zealand
• Ajit Agarkar
  Ajit Agarkar
  Ajit Bhalchandra Agarkar is an Indian international cricketer, who has been on the fringes of the Indian side in both tests and one day matches since his debut in 1998...
  
  
• Sunil Narine
  Sunil Narine
  Sunil Philip Narine, born 26 May 1988 in Trinidad, is a West Indian cricketer who played in the 2006 U-19 Cricket World Cup in Sri Lanka. He has since appeared in first-class cricket for Trinidad and Tobago.-References:...
  
  ,Trinidad and Tobago
• Darren Ganga
• Sherwin Ganga
  Sherwin Ganga
  Sherwin Ganga is a cricketer who plays for Trinidad and Tobago. An offspin bowling allrounder, Ganga debuted in 2003/04 and is the brother of Daren Ganga.-External links:*...
  
  
• Amit Jaggernauth
  Amit Jaggernauth
  Amit Sheldon Jaggernauth is a West Indian cricketer who plays for Trinidad and Tobago. He is primarily an off spin bowler. He mainly plays first-class cricket, having made only two List A cricket appearances for Trinidad and Tobago to date...
  
  
• Denesh Ramdin
  Denesh Ramdin
  Denesh Ramdin is a West Indian cricketer of Indian descent. He is a right-handed batsman who generally occupies the position of wicketkeeper.He is seen by selectors and fans as a replacement in terms of playing style for Jeff Dujon...
  
  
• Adrian Barath
  Adrian Barath
  Adrian Boris Barath is a West Indian cricketer. A right-hand batsman for Trinidad and Tobago, Barath made his Test debut in November 2009, becoming the youngest West Indian to score a century.-Career:...
  
  
• Ravi Shastri
  Ravi Shastri
  Ravishankar Jayadritha Shastri is a former Indian cricketer and captain. He was an all–rounder who batted right-handed and bowled left arm spin. His international career started when he was 18 years old and lasted for 12 years...
  
  
• S Venkataraghavan
• Venkatesh Prasad
  Venkatesh Prasad
  Bapu Krishnarao Venkatesh Prasad is a former Indian cricketer. He is the bowling coach for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, having formerly performed the same role for the Indian cricket team from 2007 to 2009. He made his debut in 1996...
  
  
• Sunil Joshi
  Sunil Joshi
  Sunil Bandacharya Joshi is a former Indian cricketer. He is an all-rounder who bowls slow left arm spin and bats left-handed. He used to travel 40 miles to Hubli each morning for practice, and then return to his native town of Gadag in time for school...
  
  
• Gundappa Viswanath
  Gundappa Viswanath
  Gundappa Rangnath Viswanath is a former Indian cricketer. He was one of India's finest batsmen throughout the 1970s. He played Test cricket for India from 1969 to 1983 making 91 appearances and scoring over 6000 runs. He also played in One Day Internationals from 1974 to 1982 including the World...
  
  
• Parthiv Patel
  Parthiv Patel
  Parthiv Ajay Patel is an Indian cricketer, wicketkeeper-batsman, and a member of the Indian national cricket team. He is a left-handed batsman. He got married in 2008 to Avni Zaveri.- ODI career :...
  
  
• Suresh Raina
• Ashish Nehra
  Ashish Nehra
  Ashish Nehra is an Indian cricketer who has represented India at the international level since 1999.Nehra started playing first-class cricket for his hometown, Delhi, in the 1997/1998 season and made his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1999 and his ODI debut against Zimbabwe at Harare...
  
  
• Murali Vijay
  Murali Vijay
  Murali Vijay Krishna is an Indian cricketer. He is a right-handed opening batsman for Tamil Nadu, Chennai Super Kings and India.-Test career:...
  
  
• Praveen Kumar
  Praveen Kumar
  Praveen Kumar is an Indian swing bowler who bowls medium pace. In first class cricket, he plays for Uttar Pradesh. He relies on his ability to swing the ball both ways along with line and length. He is most effective when given the new ball. Kumar is also considered as a pinch hitter with the bat...
  
  

• Virat Kohli
  Virat Kohli
  Virat Kohli ,born 5 November 1988 in Delhi) is an Indian international cricketer. He is a middle order batsman, who can also open the batting. He can also bowl right arm medium pace. Kohli was the captain of the victorious Indian team at the 2008 U/19 Cricket World Cup held in Malaysia...
  
  
• Rohit Sharma
  Rohit Sharma
  Rohit Gurunath Sharma[ Marathi : रोहित गुरुनाथ शर्मा Telugu: రోహిత్ గురునాథ్ శర్మ] is an Indian cricketer. Sharma is a right-handed middle-order batsman and occasional right-arm offbreak bowler. Having started his international playing career at the age of 20, Sharma quickly exhibited his...
  
  
• Ishant Sharma
  Ishant Sharma
  Ishant Sharma is an Indian cricketer. He is a right arm fast medium bowler. He has a high arm delivery action and is not a swinger of the ball but depends a lot on pace and movement off the seam....
  
  
• Amit Mishra
  Amit Mishra
  Amit Mishra is an Indian cricketer. He is a right arm leg break bowler and right-handed lower order batsman. He usually bats number 10 or 11. Mishra is an attacking leg spinner who bowls leg break....
  
  
• Dinesh Karthik
  Dinesh Karthik
  Krishna Kumar Dinesh Karthik is a wicketkeeper-batsman who has made his debut for the Indian cricket team in 2004 and has been a regular member of the team for varying periods since then, including a stint in 2007 as a specialist opening batsman and non-wicket-keeper...
  
  

Hockey

• Dhyan Chand
  Dhyan Chand
  Dhyan Chand ; born August 29, 1905 in Allahabad, United Provinces, British India. – Died:December 3, 1979), was an Indian field hockey player, regarded as one of the greatest field hockey players of all time...
  
  
• K. D. Singh
  K. D. Singh
  Kunwar Digvijay Singh , popularly known as "K.D.Singh 'Babu'", was an Indian field hockey player. He was born in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. Babu's artistry, craftsmanship and creative instincts saw him blossom into one of the finest inside-rights that India has produced...
  
  
• Ashok Kumar
  Ashok Kumar
  Ashok Kumar also fondly called Dadamoni was an Indian film actor. Born Kumudlal Ganguly in Bhagalpur, Bengal Presidency he attained iconic status in Indian cinema...
  
  
• Dhanraj Pillay
  Dhanraj Pillay
  Dhanraj Pillay is a field hockey player and former captain of the Indian hockey team. He is currently the manager of the Indian Hockey team...
  
  

Badminton

• Prakash Padukone
  Prakash Padukone
  Prakash Padukone is a former badminton player from Karnataka, India. Among other championships, he won the All England Championship and became the first Indian to do so. Prakash was awarded the Padma Sri in 1982...
  
  
• Pullela Gopichand
  Pullela Gopichand
  Pullela Gopichand is an Indian Badminton player.He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 defeating Chen Hong of China in the finals by 15-12,15-6. He became the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone, who won it in 1980...
  
  
• Saina Nehwal
  Saina Nehwal
  Saina Nehwal is an Indian Khel Ratna badminton player currently ranked 4 in the world by Badminton World Federation. Saina is the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarterfinals at the Olympics and the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships...
  
  

Shooting

• Gagan Narang
  Gagan Narang
  Gagan Narang is an ace Indian shooter, especially in Air rifle shooting, supported by the Olympic Gold Quest. He is the first Indian to qualify for the London Olympics.-Career:...
  
  

Other sports

• Pankaj Advani
  Pankaj Advani
  Pankaj Arjan Advani is an Indian Billiards and Snooker player. A winner of seven World Titles in Billiards and Snooker, he is considered to be the one of the best Billiards Player India has produced...
  
  , snooker
• Geet Sethi
  Geet Sethi
  Geet Siriram Sethi of India is a professional player of English billiards who dominated the sport throughout much of the 1990s, and a notable amateur snooker player. He is a six-time winner of the professional-level and a three-time winner of the amateur World Championships, and holder of two...
  
  , snooker
• P. T. Usha, Asian Games
  Asian Games
  The Asian Games, officially known as Asiad, is a multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation from the first Games in New Delhi, India, until the 1978 Games. Since the 1982 Games they have been organised by the...
  
   medallist
• Karnam Malleswari
  Karnam Malleswari
  Karnam Malleswari is an Indian Weightlifter. To her first time she participated in the 'National Junior weight lifting championship and stood First. In 1992 she participated in the Asian champion ship which took place in Thailand and stood second and won three silver medals. She also won three...
  
  , weightlifting
• Ricky Williams
  Ricky Williams
  Errick Lynne "Ricky" Williams, Jr. is an American football running back for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints fifth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft...
  
  , football

Activists

• Vandana Shiva
  Vandana Shiva
  Vandana Shiva , is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D...
  
  , environmentalist, critic of globalization
• Medha Patkar
  Medha Patkar
  Medha Patkar is an Indian social activist. She is known for her role in Narmada Bachao Andolan. She has also filed a public interest petition in the Bombay high court against Lavasa along with other members of National Alliance of People's Movements , including Anna Hazare.-Personal life:Medha...
  
  , environmentalist, opponent of Narmada Dam
• Anna Hazare
  Anna Hazare
  Kisan Baburao Hazare , popularly known as Anna Hazare is an Indian social activist and a prominent leader in the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi...
  
  ' Anti Corruption activist
• Dr.Rajeev Menon Hindu Rashtrapathy,Hindu Mahasabha- Ramajanmabhoomi Activist