Ramachandra Guha

Ramachandra Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian and writer whose research interests include environmental, social, political and cricket history. He is also a columnist for The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. A regular contributor to various academic journals, Guha has also written for The Caravan and Outlook magazines. For the year 2011–2012, he held a visiting position at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs. His newest book is Gandhi Before India (2013), the first part of a planned two-volume biography of M. K. Gandhi. His large body of work, covering a wide range of fields and yielding a number of rational insights has made him a significant figure in Indian historical studies, and Guha is valued as one of the major historians of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.

Early life and education

Guha was born on 29 April 1958 at Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand), where his father Ram Das Guha was a director at the Forest Research Institute. He was brought up in Uttarakhand. Ramachandra Guha studied at The Doon School where he was an editor of The Doon School Weekly. He graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi with a BA in economics in 1977 and completed a Master's from the Delhi School of Economics. He then enrolled at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where he did a fellowship programme (equivalent to a PhD) on the social history of forestry in Uttarakhand, focusing on the Chipko movement. It was later published as The Unquiet Woods.

Guha

Guha is an Indian family name and surname found predominantly amongst Bengali Hindus. It is also another name for the Hindu deity Kartikeya.

Guhas belong to Kayastha caste in Bengal. The Bengali Kayasthas evolved as a caste from a category of officials or scribes, between the 5th/6th century AD and 11th/12th century AD, its component elements being putative Kshatriyas and mostly Brahmins. Guhas are also considered among Bangaja Kayasthas as Kulin along with Boses, Mitras and Ghoshes. Among Dakshin Rahri Kayasthas Guhas belong to Maulika Kayastha community.

Notables

India Today

India Today is an Indian English-language weekly magazine and news television channel. It was established in 1975 by Vidya Vilas Purie (owner of Thompson Press), with his daughter Madhu Trehan as its editor and his son Aroon Purie as its publisher. At present, India Today is also published in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. The India Today news channel was launched on 22 May 2015.

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India

India, officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Rama

Rama (/ˈrɑːmə/;Sanskrit: राम Rāma) is the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, and a king of Ayodhya. Rama is also the protagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana, which narrates his idealistic ideas and his greatness. Rama is one of the many popular figures and deities in Hinduism, specifically Vaishnavism and Vaishnava religious scriptures in South and Southeast Asia. Along with Krishna, Rama is considered to be one of the most important avatars of Vishnu. In a few Rama-centric sects, he is considered the Supreme Being, rather than an avatar.

Born as the eldest son of Kausalya and Dasharatha, king of Ayodhya, Rama is referred to within Hinduism as Maryada Purushottama, literally the Perfect Man or Lord of Self-Control or Lord of Virtue. His wife Sita is considered by Hindus to be an avatar of Lakshmi and the embodiment of perfect womanhood.

Ram and his brothers Lakshman, Bharat, Shatrughna were the chaturvyuha expansions of Vishnu (Vasudev, Sankarshan, Pradyumna, Aniruddha). Rama's life and journey is one of adherence to dharma despite harsh tests and obstacles and many pains of life and time. For the sake of his father's honour, Rama abandons his claim to Ayodhaya's throne to serve an exile of fourteen years in the forest. His wife Sita and brother Lakshmana decide to join him, and all three spend the fourteen years in exile together. While in exile, Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, the Rakshasa monarch of Lanka. After a long and arduous search, Rama fights a colossal war against Ravana's armies. In a war of powerful and magical beings, greatly destructive weaponry and battles, Rama slays Ravana in battle and liberates his wife. Having completed his exile, Rama returns to be crowned king in Ayodhya and eventually becomes emperor, rules with happiness, peace, duty, prosperity and justice—a period known as Ram Rajya.