World Famous Speeches #2

World Famous Speeches #1

One Voice Can Change a Room - Obama

Special Message #2

LOVE AND REVOLUTION

   ---Che Guevara

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he or she must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, of the most sacred causes, and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the level where ordinary people put their love into practice.

The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to say “daddy”; their wives, too, must be part of the general sacrifice of their lives in order to take the revolution to its destiny. The circle of their friends is limited to the circle of comrades in the revolution. There is no life outside it.

In these circumstances one must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth in order to avoid dogmatic extremes, cold scholasticism, or an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force”

“THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTS WITH LOVE FOR HUMAN BEINGS AND FOR LIFE, NOT HATE.”

Special Message #1

Abraham Lincoln's Letter to His Son's Teacher

He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true.

But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish Politician, there is a dedicated leader…Teach him for every enemy there is a friend,

Steer him away from envy, if you can, teach him the secret of quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick… Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books…But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside.

In the school teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat…

Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong…

Teach him to be gentle with gentle people, and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the band wagon…Teach him to listen to all men… but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him if you can, how to laugh when he is sad…

Teach him there is no shame in tears, Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness…Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders but never to put a price-tag on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob and to stand and fight if he thinks he’s right.

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage to be impatient… let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have sublime faith in mankind. This is a big order, but see what you can do… He is such a fine fellow, my son!   

Special Person #5

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.

Born: July 30, 1863, Greenfield Township, Wayne County, Michigan

Died: April 7, 1947, Fair Lane, Dearborn, Michigan, United States

Education: Detroit Business Institute

Occupation: Founder of Ford Motors, business magnate, engineering

Religion: Episcopalian

Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed and manufactured the first automobile that many middle class Americans could afford to buy. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. As owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism": mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers.

Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. His intense commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put dealerships throughout most of North America and in major cities on six continents. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation and arranged for his family to control the company permanently.

Special Person #4

J. R. D. Tata

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was a French-born Indian aviator and business magnate. He became India's first licensed pilot. In 1983, he was awarded the French Legion of Honour and, in 1992, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. 

Born: July 29, 1904, Paris, France

Died: November 29, 1993, Geneva, Switzerland

Full name: Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata

Parents: Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata

Ethnicity: Parsi

Occupation: Former Chairman of Tata Group

Known for: Founder  of TCS, Tata Motors, Titan Industries, Tata tea, Voltas.

Religion: Zoroastrianism

Children: None

Awards: Bharat Ratna

J. R. D. Tata was inspired early by aviation pioneer Louis Blériot, and took to flying. On February 10, 1929 Tata obtained the first pilot licence issued in India. He later came to be known as the father of Indian civil aviation. He founded India's first commercial airline, Tata Airlines in 1932, which became Air India in 1946, now India's national airline.  His father was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer industrialist in India.

In 1968, he founded Tata Consultancy Services. In 1979, Tata Steel instituted a new practice: a worker being deemed to be "at work" from the moment he leaves home for work till he returns home from work. This made the company financially liable to the worker for any mishap on the way to and from work. In 1987, he founded Titan Industries. Tata Steel Township was also selected as a UN Global Compact City because of the quality of life, conditions of sanitation, roads and welfare that were offered by Tata Steel.

Awards and honors

JRD Tata received a number of awards. He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1957 on the eve of the silver jubilee of Air India. He also received the Guggenheim Medal for aviation in 1988. In 1992, because of his selfless humanitarian endeavors, JRD Tata was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna. In the same year, JRD Tata was also bestowed with the United Nations Population Award for his crusading endeavors towards initiating and successfully implementing the family planning movement in India, much before it became an official government policy.

Death

JRD Tata died in Geneva, Switzerland on November 29, 1993 at the age of 89. On his death, the Indian Parliament was adjourned in his memory—an honor not usually given to persons who are not Members of Parliament. He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Special person #3

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. He was also an essayist, novelist and short story writer. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Issues which engaged Shaw's attention included education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

Born: July 26, 1856, Dublin, Ireland

Died: November 2, 1950

Education: Wesley College, Dublin

Books: The Black Girl in Search of God, The Perfect Wagnerite, More

Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1925), Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (1938- Pygmalion), Academy Award for Screenplay

Ocuupation: Playwright, critic, political activist

Genres: Satire, black comedy

Literary movement: Ibsenism, naturalism

He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his play of the same name), respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honours, but accepted it at his wife's behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of fellow playwright August Strindberg's works from Swedish to English.

Special Person #2

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Born: July 25, 1920, Notting Hill, United Kingdom

Full name: Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Education: University of Cambridge (1945)

Fields: X-ray Crystallography

Known for: Fine structure of coal and graphite, Structure of DNA, Structure of viruses

Her DNA work achieved the most fame because DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) plays an essential role in cell metabolism and genetics, and the discovery of its structure helped her co-workers understand how genetic information is passed from parents to children.

Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. Her data, according to Francis Crick, were "the data we actually used” to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA.

After finishing her portion of the work on DNA, Franklin led pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. She died in 1958 at the age of 37 of ovarian cancer.

Nobel Prize

Franklin was never nominated for a Nobel Prize. She had died in 1958 and was ineligible for nomination to the Nobel Prize in 1962 which was subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins in 1962. The award was for their body of work on nucleic acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Special Person #1

Azim Premji

Azim Hashim Premji is an Indian business tycoon and philanthropist who is the chairman of Wipro Limited, guiding the company through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry.  According to Forbes, he is currently the third wealthiest Indian, and the 41st richest in the world, with a personal wealth of $12.2 billion in 2012.

Born: July 24, 1945 (age 67), Bombay Presidency

Education: St. Mary's School, Mumbai, Stanford University

Occupation: Chairman of Wipro

When Azhim Premji took over as its chairman, Wipro dealt in hydrogenated cooking fats and later diversified to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products, and hereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software.In the 80s Wipro diversified into IT.

In 2005 the Government of India honoured him with the title of Padma Bhushan for his outstanding work in trade and commerce. In 2011, he has been awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award by the Government of India.

Azim Premji Foundation and University

In 2001, he founded Azim Premji Foundation, a non-profit organisation, with a vision to significantly contribute to achieving quality universal education that facilitates a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. The Foundation works in the area of elementary education to pilot and develop 'proofs of concept' that have a potential for systemic change in India's 1.3 million government-run schools. A specific focus is on working in rural areas where the majority of these schools exist. This choice to work with elementary education (Class I to VIII) in rural government-run is a response to evidence of educational attainment in India.

The Giving Pledge

Azim Premji has become the first Indian to sign up for the Giving Pledge, a campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to encourage the wealthiest people to make a commitment to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He is the third non-American after Richard Branson and David Sainsbury to join this philanthropy club.

"I strongly believe that those of us, who are privileged to have wealth, should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are far less privileged"--- Azim Premji

In April 2013 he said that he has already given more than 25 per cent of his personal wealth to charity. 

Operation Bluestar and Ghallughara

#5

"Operation Bluestar" and "Ghallughara". Two different terms for the same episode - the Army action on the Golden Temple in June 1984. Two different meanings give to the same unprecedented event. "Operation Bluestar" in the Government's term, connoting a necessary military operation to flush out terrorists and recover arms from the Golden Temple, the implication being that it was an unavoidable cleansing act of purification. Where as "Ghallughara" is how the Sikhs of Punjab remember the episode, connoting aggression, massacre and religious persecution. The unmistakable allusion is to the killing in Punjab of tens of thousands of Sikhs by the Afgan raider, Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1762, after which the word "Ghallughara" was coined to become an integral part of the Punjabi folklore.

The contrast between "Operation Bluestar" and "Ghallughara" as two different perceptions of the same reality is symptomatic of the wide gap between the official version and the people's recollections of what really happened at the Golden Temple when the army attacked it in June 1984. 

**TWO LIONS AWAKEN**

Bhai Beant Singh Malowan went to see some of his relatives. Kehar Singh was his uncle. Beant Singh was in a state of shame, mixed with anger and depression. He asked, "Uncle ji, will Waheguru send a Sukha Singh and Mehtab Singh to avenge this sin of desecration of Sri Darbar Sahib?"

While handing him a book on Baba Jarnail Singh Bindranwale, his uncle replied, "Do not greive, if you have love of Sikhi, then learn that giving your head, and taking a head for Sikhi are equal. After all, someone has to be the son of Sukha Singh and Mehtab Singh. They took Khande ki Pahul Amrit from Sahib Siri Guru Gobind Singh, went and took the head of Massa Rangar to stop the desecration of Siri Darbar Sahib thus became legends in Sikh History. We need to remember them, and become like them."

These words from his uncle were like a spear in his heart. Now Bhai Beant Singh was looking for a companion who would sacrifice all to avenge the action on Siri Darbar Sahib. Eventually Beant Singh's eye fell on Satwant Singh, who was in Indira Gandhi`s protection force with him. When he carefully approached Satwant Singh, the young Singh responded "Elder brother, for this sacred task, not only this life, but even if I have to sacrifice several lives, I would to kill a brutal murderer like Indira Gandhi!"

**THEY BEGIN THEIR TASK**

Satwant Singh always had the late shift, and Beant Singh the early shift [Indira Gandhi`s protection wing]. They had to work out a way to both be on duty together. On 31st October, Satwant Singh faked a stomach bug, and swapped duties with another guard. Now they had to decide how to do the task. They decided that the best time was when Indira Gandhi was taking her daily walk. On the morning of 31st October, 1984 at 9am, as Indira Gandhi walked from her house to her office at Safardajung Road, Bhai Beant Singh shot her 5 times with his service revolver. Bhai Satwant Singh at the same time lifted his Thompson Stengun and shot 28 bullets. Seeing Indira Gandhi fall, all of her PA`s and ministers ran for their lives. The Indo-Tibetian Border Police commandos, who also guarded the grounds would not come close. Both Singhs shouted "Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!!".

The Singhs shouted, "We have done what we needed to, now you can do what you have to." Then both placed their weapons on the floor. Only then did the other guards come and arrest them. Both Singhs were taken to a room, and waited for a senior officer to interrogate them. While waiting, the commandos started swearing at the Singhs. Not tolerating this, Bhai Satwant Singh slapped the commando and a struggle ensued in which Satwant singh grabbed the commandos handgun. The other commandos started shooting at the Singhs. Bhai Beant Singh died there from gunshot wounds. Bhai Satwant Singh was seriously injured.

On the arrival of a senior officer, Bhai Satwant Singh was taken to the hospital. The officers wanted to know who else was part of the conspiracy. They did not know that these Singhs had acted alone because of the attack on Siri Darbar Sahib, Siri Akal Thakht Sahib, and 40 Gurdwaras, the Sikh genocide of Singhs, singhnians, children and elders, and inspired by the legend of 6th June 1740, when Sukha Singh and Mehtab Singh took revenge on Massa Rangar.

The Government had saved Bhai Satwant Singh's life but intentionally did not remove one bullet which was lodged near his spine which continuously caused him great pain. Despite this and other interrogation tortures, Satwant Singh always maintained that there was no conspiracy, and that the two had acted alone. He said, "This is our Khalsa tradition to avenge those who try to desecrate our holy places. We were happy to take this task. The Sikh Nation will be proud of us."

**THE COURT STATEMENT OF SATWANT SINGH**

Every court in the land, only gave the sentence that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had wanted. Before the Supreme Court, Bhai Satwant Singh made a statement. He said, "Let any part of my body, after my Shaheedi, be removed and donated to anyone in need. However, if you need my eyes, let the authorities tell my parents. I have no hatred for any Hindu, Muslim, Christian, neither hatred for any religion. After my Shaheedi, let no Sikh throw any rock at any Hindu. I am not in favor of any retaliation or bloodshed over my Shaheedi. If we do create bloodshed, then there is no difference between us and Rajiv Gandhi. I am proud of the task that I did! I do ardas in front of Waheguru ! If I am blessed with a human life, then give me a death of the brave when I am hanged. Forget one life, if I could I would give up a thousand lives to kill dushts like Indira Gandhi, and laugh as I become Shaheed by hanging...."