- Rahul Dravid
Rahul Sharad Dravid (born 11 January, 1973 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh) is an Indian cricketer, and the current captain of the Indian national cricket team. He grew up in Bangalore, Karnataka. He started his international cricket career in 1996. He is, at present, ranked among the 10 best Test batsmen by the ICC in world cricket and has the highest Test batting average of any Indian batsman in history.
- Zakir Hussain
Ustad Zakir Hussain, born March 9, 1951, son of tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha, is a well known classical tabla player in India. He has also won awards and recognitions for his contribution to the world of music.
- A. R. Rahman
Allah Rakha Rahman is an internationally renowned musician, best known for composing film scores and soundtracks. In a career spanning over a decade, Rahman has sold more than one hundred million records world-wide, and sold over two hundred million cassettes making him one of the world's top 25 all-time top selling recording artists.
- Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (Hindi (Devnagiri):सुनिल मनोहर गावसकर) (born July 10, 1949 in Mumbai, Maharashtra), nicknamed Sunny, was a cricket player during the 1970s and 1980s for Bombay and India. Widely regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in the Indian Test history, Gavaskar set world records during his career for the most runs and most centuries scored by any batsman.
- Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar सिचन तेंडुलकर; affectionately called 'the little master', born 24 April, 1973, is a current Indian cricketer who was rated by Wisden (2002) as the second greatest Test batsman ever after Sir Don Bradman. Wisden also rated him as the greatest ever ODI batsman. He holds multiple records such as the leading Test century scorer, Leading ODI century scorer and the most career ODI runs.
- Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan (Hindi: IPA: [/mitab btn/], born Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan on October 11, 1942), is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s and has since become one of the most prominent figures in the history of Indian cinema.
- Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan is a four time National Film Award winning Indian film actor. He began his career as a child artist in many films, while also attending a theatre for stage plays, to follow his dream to act. Kamal Haasan gained the Indian cinema's attention in 1960 by playing an Award-winning role in his first blockbuster, "Kalathur Kannamma" and since then he has acted in over two hundred Indian films.
- Dhanraj Pillay
Dhanraj Pillay is a field hockey player and former captain of the Indian hockey team.
- Anil Kumble
Anil Kumble(Kannada:ಅನಿಲ್ ಕುಂಬ್ಳೆ) (born 17 October, 1970 in Bangalore, Karnataka) is an Indian cricketer who has been a member of the Indian cricket team since 1990. He is currently the highest wicket-taker for India in both One-Day International and Test matches, having taken over 545 Test wickets and 330 ODI wickets. He is one of only two bowlers ever to have taken all 10 wickets in a test innings, the other being Jim Laker.
- Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (born January 29, 1970 in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan) is a shooter who won India's first individual silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics. His event was the Men's Double Trap. In 2005 Commonwealth Shooting Championships in Melbourne, he was the member of the winning team in the double trap event. He won the gold in the individual and team events in Men's double trap at the 2005 Asian Clay Shooting championships at Bangkok.
- Shah Rukh Khan
Shah Rukh Khan (Devanagari: शाहरुख़ ख़ान, Naskh: شاہ رخ خان) is a prominent Bollywood actor, producer, and was recently the host of the game show, Kaun Banega Crorepati.
- Sania Mirza
Sania Mirza (born November 15, 1986) is an Indian tennis player. She was born in Mumbai but brought up in Hyderabad. Coached by her father Imran Mirza, she began playing tennis at the age of six, turning professional in 2003. She was the highest ranked female tennis player ever from India, with career high rankings of number 31 in singles and 24 in doubles. She is now ranked 46th in singles and 38th in doubles as of June 21st, 2007.
- Vijay Hazare
Vijay Samuel Hazare (11 March 1915-18 December 2004) was an Indian cricket player from the state of Maharashtra. He captained the Indian cricket team in 14 matches between 1951 and 1953. In India's 25th Test match, nearly 20 years after India achieved Test status, he led India to her first ever Test win (and the only victory under his captaincy) in 1951-52 against England at Madras, …
- Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (first name occasionally spelt Saurav) is an Indian cricketer. Born 8 July 1972, lives at Barisha in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, West Bengal, he made his One Day International debut against Australia in 1992, and a Test debut versus England in 1996. He went on to become the captain of Indian cricket team from 2000 to 2005. He has led India to the World Cup 2003 finals, …
- Sunil Dutt
Sunil Dutt, born as Balraj Dutt was an Indian Bollywood actor, producer, director and politician. He was the cabinet minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the Manmohan Singh government (2004-2005). His son, Sanjay Dutt, is currently also a Bollywood star. In 1984 he joined the Congress (I) party and was elected to Parliament for five terms from the constituency of Mumbai North West.
- Mrinalini Sarabhai
Mrinalini Sarabhai (born 1928) is a celebrated classical dancer of India. She is the founder director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, an institute for imparting training in dance, drama, music and puppetry, in the city of Ahmedabad. She has received many distinguished awards and citations in recognitions of her contribution to art.
- Shobhana Chandrakumar
Shobhana Chandrakumar Pillai (born March 21, 1966?) is an exponent of the Bharatanatyam dance and a leading actress of South Indian motion pictures. She was born into a Malayalam speaking family from Kerala, India. Shobhana is the niece of the Travancore sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, all of whom, who were renowned for their skill in classical Indian dance. She has acted in over 150 movies in 5 languages.
- Sunita Narain
Sunita Narain is an Indian environmentalist and political activist as well as a major proponent of the Green concept of sustainable development. Ms. Narain has been with the India-based Centre for Science and Environment since 1982. She is currently the director of the Centre and the director of the Society for Environmental Communications and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth.
- Bhimsen Joshi
Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi Born February 04, 1922) is a renowned vocalist in India. A descendant of the Kirana Gharana (stream) of Hindustani classical music tradition, he is particularly renowned for "Khayal" form singing.
- Girish Karnad
Girish Karnad (born May 19, 1938), is a contemporary writer, playwright, actor and movie director in Kannada language. He is the latest one among seven recipients of Jnanpith Award for Kannada the highest literary honour conferred in India. For four decades, Karnad has been composing plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary issues. He is also active in the world of Indian cinema working as an actor, …
- Hema Malini
Hema Malini is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer, who starred in several successful Bollywood films in the 1970s, most notably the extremely successful "Sholay". She is the most successful female filmstar of Bollywood. She has starred in a large number of hit films and is considered a living legend. She is remembered as Bollywood's one and only Dream Girl. She is a member of India's Bharatiya Janata Party and represents the party in Rajya Sabha, …
- Laurie Baker
Laurence Wilfred "Laurie" Baker (March 2, 1917 - April 1, 2007) was an award-winning British-born Indian architect, renowned for his initiatives in cost reduction and low-cost housing. He went to India in 1945 in part as a missionary and since then lived and worked in India for over 50 years. He obtained Indian citizenship in 1989 and resided in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala.
- Kapil Dev
Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj (कपिल देव) (born 6 January 1959, Chandigarh), better known as Kapil Dev, is a former Indian cricketer regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders to have played Cricket.
- V C Kulandaiswamy
V C Kulandaiswamy, (born:1929-07-14) is an Indian academician and renowned author. He is currently the Chairman of Tamil Virtual University. He has received the Sahitya Akademi Award for a Tamil literary work, Padma Shri (1992) and Padma Bhushan (2002) for distinguished service in the fields of education and science. He has also received an honorary doctorate from Jaffna University (Sri Lanka) in 1980 in recognition of his contributions to Tamil literature.
- B. V. Doshi
Balkrishna Doshi, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects was born in Pune in 1927. After initial studies at the J. J. School of Architecture, Mumbai, he worked in london and then for four years with Le Corbusier (1951-54) in Paris. Doshi returned to Ahmedabad to supervise Le Corbusier's works in the city(1955-59). His studio, Vastu-Shilpa (environmental design), was established in 1955.
- E. Sreedharan
Bold textDr. Elattuvalapil Sreedharan (b. 12 July, 1932 in Palghat district, Kerala) is an Indian technocrat.
- Javed Akhtar
Javed Akhtar (Urdu: جاوید اختر is an Urdu poet, lyricist and scriptwriter from India. Some of his most successful work was done in the late 1970s and 1980s with Salim Khan as half of the script-writing duo credited as Salim-Javed.
- Mahesh Bhupathi
Mahesh Shrinivas Bhupathi (born June 7, 1974, Chennai, India) is a professional tennis player from India. He turned professional in 1995. In 2001, he was awarded the Padma Shri. He currently resides in Bangalore and is among the best doubles tennis players in the world with 10 grand slam titles to his credit including mixed doubles. In 1997, he became the first Indian to win a Grand Slam tournament (with Rika Hiraki in Mixed Doubles).
- Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand (born December 11, 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. Anand is one of only four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list and he has been among the top three ranked players in classical time control chess in the world continuously since 1997. In the April 2007 FIDE Elo rating list, Anand was ranked first in the world for the first time, …
- Premchand Dogra
Premchand Degra is an Indian bodybuilder. He won the Mr. Universe title in the short-height 80 kg category in 1988. He was also awarded the "Achievement Medal" by the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) in 2003, for winning its World Middleweight Champion title in 1988. Mr. Degra lives in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) and trains budding body builders in his own gym. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
- Charles Correa
Charles Correa (born in Hyderabad, India on September 1 1930) is an Indian architect, planner, activist, theoretician and a fundamental figure in the world-wide panorama of contemporary architecture. He studied architecture at the University of Michigan and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology after which he established a private practice in Bombay in 1958, after a stint with B.V.Doshi at Ahmedabad. His work in India shows a careful development, …
- A. K. Ramanujan
Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan (1929-1993) was an author who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as an author: he was a playwright, folklorist, philologist, translator, and poet. In his academic work as a scholar of literature he drew on his skills as a producer of literature. His academic research ranged across four Indian languages: Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Sanskrit.
- Verghese Kurien
Verghese Kurien (born November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala) is called the "father of the White Revolution" in India. He is also known as the "Milkman of India". He was the chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.(GCMMF). GCMMF is an apex cooperative organization that manages the Amul food brand. He is recognised as the man behind the success of the Amul brand.
- M. S. Swaminathan
Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is an Indian agriculture scientist, born August 7, 1925, in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu, The second of four sons of a surgeon. His ancestral home is the island village of Monkompu, Alleppey District, Kerala. He is known as "Father of the Green Revolution" in India, for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high yielding varieties of wheat in India.
- Sivaji Ganesan
Sivaji Ganesan (October 1, 1927 - July 21, 2001) was a famous Indian actor and politician. His real name was Villupuram Chinnaiahpillai Ganesan
- Anil Agarwal
Anil Agarwal (1947 - January 2, 2002) was an Indian journalist and environmentalist who founded the Centre for Science and Environment in 1980. Agarwal trained as a mechanical engineer at IIT Kanpur, and he worked as a science correspondent for the Hindustan Times. He was the editor of "Down To Earth", a science and environment magazine, and wrote widely for international publications. He wrote numerous books on science and environment in India.
- Raja Ramanna
Raja Ramanna (1925 - September 23, 2004) born in Tumkur, Karnataka, was an Indian nuclear scientist and was associated with the country's first nuclear test in 1974. He died in Mumbai in 2004. Beginning his studies at Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, Raja Ramanna obtained Ph.D. and L.R.S.M. from London. He specialised in nuclear physics, reactor physics and design, European music and philosophy. Dr. Ramanna was also a noted pianist. Dr.
- Shabana Azmi
Ms Azmi is a noted activist who has been involved in the rights of women, development, reproductive health, housing for the economically weaker sections, public health and HIV AIDS. In 1992, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund and, in 2006, she was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for her work with the slum dwellers of Mumbai.
- Leander Paes
Leander Adrian Paes is an Indian male tennis professional who currently features in the doubles events in the ATP tour and the Davis Cup tournament. He is as one of the most successful professional Indian tennis players. He has won various doubles and mixed doubles events at the Tennis Grand Slam events. He is also the recipient of India’s highest sporting honour, …
- Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam (born June 2, 1956) is a critically acclaimed Tamil Indian film director, writer and producer. Mani Ratnam revolutionised the Tamil filmindustry and is one of the best directors in India.