Nobel prize winners from India

RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1913)

Nobel Prize for Literature
Popularly known as Gurudev, India's most famous writer and poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his work Geetanjali, a collection of poems, in 1913. Tagore was also involved in teaching. In 1901 he founded the famous Santiniketan which later came to be known as Vishwabharati University.


CHANDRASHEKAR VENKATA RAMAN (1930)
Nobel Prize for Physics
Born at Thiruvanaikkaval in Tamil Nadu, Raman studied at Presidency College, Madras. Later, he served as Professor of Physics at Calcutta University. C.V. Raman won the Nobel Prize for an important research in the field of optics (light). Raman had found that diffused light contained rays of other wavelengths-what is now popularly known as Raman Effect. His theory explains why the frequency of light passing through a transparent medium changes.



HARGOBIND KHORANA (1968)
The Nobel Prize for Medicine
Dr. Khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan). He went abroad to get his doctorate in Chemistry and later settled there. It was his study of the human genetic code and the role it plays in protein synthesis that got him the Nobel Prize.
MOTHER TERESA (1979)
The Nobel Peace Prize
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu at Skopje, now in Yugoslavia. She wanted to become a nun and joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loretto (at Dublin) in 1928. It is as a nun that Agnes came Calcutta in 1929. Here she was extremely touched by the misery of the poor and the sick. She decided to dedicate her life to serving them. She then founded a group of similar minded people called the Missionaries of Charity and set up Nirmal Hriday a center where she took care of the dying, the lepers and other people who had been left alone on the streets of Calcutta to die. Today her group has centers all over the world.




SUBRAMANIAN CHANDRASHEKAR (1983)
The Nobel Prize for Physics
Dr S. Chandrashekar, is an Indian-born astrophysicist (a branch of astronomy or the study of space). After studying at the Presidency College in Madras, Dr. Chandrashekhar went to the United States for work and settled there. He has written many books on his field Astrophysics and
Stellar Dynamics. He developed a theory on white dwarf stars forecasts the limit of mass that dwarf stars can have. This limit is known as the Chandrashekar Limit. His theory also explains the final stages of the evolution of stars.


AMARTYA SEN (1998)
Nobel Prize for Economics
Prof. Amartya Sen is the first Asian to win the Economics Nobel. He is one of the most respected economics thinker in the world. He is also an excellent teacher. He won the Nobel for his work in the area of economic theory. Some of his most important work is in the areas of poverty, democracy, development and social welfare.
Rudyard Kipling (Literature 1907)
Ronald Ross (Medicine 1902)



VENKATRAMAN RAMAKRISHNAN(2009)
Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Professor Venkatraman Ramakrishnan who won the 2009 Nobel Prize recently after Sir C V Raman (Physics, 1983) Har Gobind Khorana, (Medicine, 1968) and Subramaniam Chandrashekhar (Physics, 1983)respectively. His passion for science and research has been so consuming that he gladly took a massive pay cut to move from the all-paid-for lab at the University of Utah to comparatively tiny quarters at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England ,simply so he could pursue his dream.
He was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, to scientist parents C B Ramakrishnan and Rajalakshmi, 'Venki' moved to the United States in the early 1970s to earn a PhD in physics. Since then the scientist, who is a United States citizen, has in a career studded with high honours pushed the frontiers of knowledge back with an almost messianic zeal.

V.S. Naipaul - Nobel Prize for Literature (2001)

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. Born to Indian parents in 1932 in Trinidad & Tobago.Naipaul was recognized for his extensive works in English Literature. He is well known not only for his indomitable command over the use of the English Language but also for his vivid and descriptive stories.