Latest news with #MadrasChristianCollege
India.com
20-05-2025
- Politics
- India.com
Who was Pokhran's hero Raja Ramanna... he rejected Saddam Hussein's huge money offer of..., made India a nuclear power by...
Who was Pokhran's hero Raja Ramanna... he rejected Saddam Hussein's huge money offer of..., made India a nuclear power by... It was in 1978, when Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein invited an Indian scientist to visit his country as a personal guest. As per the schedule, this Indian scientist reached Iraq and was given a tour of the nuclear centre. Everything was going well when something happened which created a very strange situation for this Indian scientist . Actually, Saddam Hussein gave a shocking offer and asked him to head Iraq's nuclear programme. Saddam Hussein said, 'You have done a lot for your country. But, I want you to stay here now. You take over our country's nuclear programme. I am ready to give you whatever amount you want in return.' The Indian scientist was surprised to hear this offer and rejected with great respect. The scientist took a flight to India the next day and returned to his country. The name of this scientist was Dr. Raja Ramanna, who played the biggest role in making India a nuclear power. It was Ramanna who carried out India's first nuclear test Pokhran-I in the desert of Rajasthan. Born on January 28, 1925 in Tumkur, Karnataka, Raja Ramanna studied science at Madras Christian College. After this he went to London. Here he did his PhD in Physics from King's College. He returned to India in 1949. On returning to India, Homi Bhabha called him to join the Indian nuclear program. Raja Ramanna worked twice as the director of Bhabha Atomic Research Center. Ramanna was awarded Padma Vibhushan It was during Raja Ramanna's tenure that India conducted its first nuclear bomb test in 1974. For this work, he was awarded India's second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan. Later, he was also the Minister of State for Defence and a member of the Rajya Sabha. The incident that happened with Raja Ramanna in Iraq is also compared with Pakistan's scientist AQ Khan. On one hand, Ramanna had rejected Iraq's offer. On the other hand, AQ Khan had sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Why was he named Smiling Buddha? In 1972, when Indira Gandhi was visiting the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, she allowed the scientists to build and test a nuclear device. Ramanna was the director of BARC at that time. This device was called a 'peaceful nuclear explosion' and was named 'Smiling Buddha'. This is because the test was done on the day of Buddha Purnima.
Time of India
16-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
MCC waives fees for Class XII topper from Dindigul
Chennai: M S Ooviyanjali from Dindigul , who scored 599 out of 600 in her Class XII exams, enrolled in a BA economics course at Madras Christian College , on Friday. The college announced that it would waive her tuition fees and provide her with free coaching for civil services exams. She scored a centum in accountancy, commerce, economics, computer application, Tamil, and 99 marks in English. She aspires to work for the Reserve Bank of India . "The BA economics course offers a great opportunity as an economics and finance degree will give a better chance to join RBI. I was informed that the MCC would provide better exposure, so I selected the college," Ooviyanjali told TOI. Ooviyanjali's father, Muruganandham, is an accountant at Oddanchatram market, and her mother, Shanthi, works with the rural development department. "Ooviyanjali joining the economics programme will inspire many more to consider a degree in economics. So, we have decided to waive her tuition fee and hostel room rent. We will also raise funds to support her through civil services coaching conducted on campus," said Paul Wilson, principal of MCC. The college also offers a wide range of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities to develop leadership qualities among the stude. She did her schooling from kindergarten to Class XII at BVB Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Palani, Dindigul district.
New Indian Express
09-05-2025
- New Indian Express
Visually impaired student makes history by writing state board exams on computer, scores 486
CHENNAI: M Anand, the first visually impaired student to write the state board exams using a computer, scored an impressive 486 marks (out of 600) in the Class 12 exams, the results of which were declared on Thursday. Anand, a student of Government Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired in Poonamallee, now plans to pursue English literature at Madras Christian College, aspiring to become a professor. Writing the exam on a computer gave him the freedom to express himself better, he said. 'I was initially worried about the economics paper, as it involves several symbols that are hard to type. Thankfully, I was able to skip them by choosing alternative questions. Overall, with practice, using a computer is much easier than relying on a scribe,' Anand, a native of Sirkazhi, added. Before the boards, the School Education Department – based on a government order issued by the Department for the Welfare of the Differently Abled – had announced that Anand would be allowed to write the exams on a computer. The 17-year-old had been training on computers for the past three years for this. While students have previously used computers to take CBSE examinations, this was the first time in the state a visually impaired student had used computer for the Tamil Nadu State Board exams. Anand used NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA), a screen-reading software that enables visually impaired users to navigate and type independently. A scribe assisted him by reading out the questions, while Anand typed the answers himself.
Indian Express
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Opinion M G S Narayanan, the historian who dug out the pre-colonial history of Kerala
Not often does the demise of an academician make every scholar of the discipline in a region feel that he or she has lost a teacher. When M G S Narayanan departed on April 26, historians in Kerala, cutting across the political divide, felt that their mentor was gone. The contributions of MGS, as he was affectionately known, were not limited to advances in historiography. He left a deep mark on the thinking of three generations of Kerala historians, especially concerning critical engagement with sources. Born in Parappanangadi on August 20, 1932, Narayanan's major inheritance from his family was the rationally-grounded approach to life that he learnt from his father, a physician. He was only seven when he lost his mother. In his younger days, language and literature were his primary interests. During his secondary school years in Ponnani, he met K Kelappan and interacted widely with members of an informal collective of writers, artists, and activists called Ponnani Kalari, including influential public figures such as V T Bhattathiripad and N P Damodaran, novelists Uroob and N P Mohammad, critics M Govindan and Kuttikrishna Marar, and poets Edasseri Govinda Menon and Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri. Under Edasseri's influence, he also tried his hand at poetry. During his undergraduate days in Kozhikode, his dislike for history — developed during school days — turned into a love for the discipline, largely due to his conversations with the doyen of history writing in the city: K V Krishna Iyer. M G S went to the Madras Christian College for his master's degree in history. In his Madras days, K A Nilakanta Sastri and S K Nair became his major intellectual influences. When he commenced his career as a lecturer at the Guruvayurappan College in Kozhikode, he was a sworn Marxist, a position he distanced himself from in the early 1990s to become one of Marxism's most vehement critics in Kerala. His urge to know the precolonial history of Kerala was partially due to an absence of historical work on this period. He recalled that the mainstream textbooks of Indian history he read as a student never discussed Kerala, barring the mention that Shankaracharya was born in Kalady and that Vasco da Gama had landed in Kozhikode. His decision to go on study leave under a UGC scheme to pursue doctoral research was met with hurdles because the only university in Kerala at the time — the University of Kerala — did not have a history department. A retired professor of history at the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, where there was a history department, agreed to be the de jure thesis supervisor. However, V Narayana Pillai insisted that M G S should seek actual guidance from Elamkulam P N Kunjan Pillai, professor of Malayalam, whose knowledge of Kerala history was deeper than most history professors. M G S's doctoral work studied the Chera state of Mahodayapuram between the ninth and the 12th century with an enviable attention to facts. In the thesis, he did for the Cheras what Nilakanta Sastri had done for the Cholas four decades earlier. It was soon recognised as a classic, read and discussed widely, with enthusiasts declaring at times that it brought about a paradigm shift in the region's historiography. Few PhD theses written in India have so pervasively stimulated scholarship in the region. And yet, the thesis was read only in its manuscript form for forty years before it was formally published in 2013. Only in 1996 did M G S print a few dozen copies for private circulation. M G S was also one of Kerala's greatest history teachers. With no reliable textbook to fall back upon, he engaged students of Kerala history with primary sources such as inscriptions, registering major advances in pedagogy. Students recall his enviable understanding of Kant, Hegel and Marx, whose works he taught in his course on modern European intellectual history. M G S was also a great institution builder. Associated with the University of Calicut from the time of its inception in 1968, he developed the department of history with a fine syllabus and a wonderful library, museum and manuscript collection. He also encouraged the publication of unpublished manuscripts. He himself edited the Vanjeri Granthavari, a collection of palm-leaf land documents. He served as a member secretary of the Indian Council for Historical Research (1990-1992) and as chairman between 2001-2003. He also accepted research assignments at various times in London, Moscow and Tokyo. Though M G S wrote several books in English, he was prolific in Malayalam. He was among India's earliest historians to use the now-hackneyed theory of legitimation. In a groundbreaking paper that he wrote jointly with Kesavan Veluthat in 1978, he argued that the Alwar and Nayanar bhakti of Tamil Nadu was a religious ideology that unfurled as a state-driven initiative meant to fortify power. While many historians today are sceptical of these claims, the argument left a lasting impression on nearly three decades of historiography. In my estimation, his lasting contribution lies not in his doctoral thesis or the bhakti paper, but elsewhere. Pre-colonial Kerala was a deeply militarised region. M G S shed light on the extent to which the state, the brahmana oligarchy, the agrarian associations and even rituals and institutions of learning were militarised. His argument that the militia was modelled after the picture drawn in the Dharmashastras and Kautilya's Arthasastra perhaps stretches things too far. But the martial character of everyday life during the Chera period and the six succeeding centuries is a question we cannot evade anymore. The meetings that I had with M G S regularly at his residence in Malaparamba, Kozhikode, between 2005 and 2011 — when he spoke of Kerala history with fondly recalled autobiographical anecdotes strewn throughout — are vividly etched in my mind. He convened the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu Road Action Committee and campaigned for the road relentlessly, courting arrest and prosecution on one occasion. Decades of struggle for the road ended in February 2025, when the government finally invited tenders. On April 28, the action committee gave a call to name the road after M G S. This is only one of the many ways of commemorating a wonderful life. Whether or not the road is named after him, M G S will continue to live in the hearts of Kerala's history lovers.
The Hindu
26-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
MGS wrote about Kozhikode and had an active life here
Most history textbooks tell us that Portuguese traveller Vasco da Gama landed at Kappad near what was then Calicut on May 20, 1498, heralding the advent of colonial powers on Indian shores. However, historian M.G.S. Narayanan, who passed away here on Saturday (April 26, 2025), often termed it an outright lie. Quoting the chronicles of the courtiers of Portuguese kings, MGS, as the historian was popularly known, used to say that such an incident had never happened. He often ridiculed the Archaeological Survey of India for installing a memorial stone for the traveller at Kappad. According to MGS, though Gama and his team could have anchored their ship off the Kappad coast, they did not land there. He used to say that Gama could have landed at Panthalayini near Kollam in Koyilandy because of a port there. Kappad did not have one. MGS not only discovered such historical nuggets about Kozhikode, but was also a part of the city and wrote about it extensively. Calicut: The City of Truth Revisited and Kozhikodinte Katha are among the notable ones. The late historian's connection with Kozhikode started in 1947 when he joined the Zamorin's Guruvayoorappan College as an intermediate student. MGS developed an interest in history after listening to the lectures of historian K.V. Krishna Ayyar, the author of Zamorins of Calicut. After completing his masters in History from Madras Christian College in 1953, he returned to his alma mater in Kozhikode as a faculty member. From then on, for MGS, a native of Parappanangadi, Kozhikode was home. According to his close associates, MGS shared a deep personal bond with the major writers of the time, such as M.T. Vasudevan Nair, and other cultural activists, as he was also interested in literature and painting. Old timers recall the lively debates and discussions they used to organise in various parts of the city. When the University of Kerala set up a postgraduate centre at Guruvayoorappan College, he was appointed there in 1965. When the centre became part of the University of Calicut in 1968, he joined there as a lecturer. He retired in 1992 as Professor and Head of the Department of History, and also Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences. As modern-day Kozhikode has few historical structures, MGS wrote repeatedly about the need for a proper museum to showcase the city's past. He was among the first to criticise the demolition of the Hajur Kacheri at Mananchira, the administrative headquarters of Malabar and a specimen of the Anglo-Indian style of architecture. He was active in socio-political spheres as well. M. P. Vasudevan, a member of the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu Road Action Committee, recalls that MGS was elected its president when the forum was set up in 2012. 'Without his involvement, the road-widening work would not have reached its present advanced stage. He was part of all the agitations that we took up,' Mr. Vasudevan says. MGS also associated himself with some cultural groups as their patron until recently.
