Citizenship: Indian

Address

Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA (until June 1998);
Master, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 lTQ, UK (from 1998).
Education

Presidency College, Calcutta (B. A. 1953)
Trinity College, Cambridge (B. A. 1955, H.A. 1959, Ph.D.1959)
Cambridge University prizes and awards: Adam Smith Prize, 1954, Wrenbury Scholarship 1955, and Stevenson Prize, 1956
Trinity College prizes and awards: Senior Scholarship, 1954, Research Scholarship, 1955, and Prize Fellowship, 1957.
Professional elections and awards

President, The Econometric Society, 1984
President, The International Economic Association, 1986-89
President, The Indian Economic Association, 1989
President, The American Economic Association, 1994.

Fellow of the British Academy
Fellow of the Econometric Society
Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Member of the American Philosophical Association

Honorary D Litt., University of Saskatchewan, Canada, 1979
Honorary D Litt., Visva-Bharati University, India, 1983
Honorary D.U., Essex University, U.K., 1984
Honorary D.Sc., University of Bath, U.K., 1984
Docteur Honoris Causa, University of Caen, France, 1987
Dottore ad Honorem, University of Bologna, Italy, 1988
Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa, Georgetown University, USA, 1989
Docteur Honoris Causa, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, 1989
Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa, Tulane University, USA, 1990
Honorary D Litt., Jadavpur University, India, 1990
Honorary D Litt., Kalyani University, India, 1990
Honorary D. Litt., London Guildhall University, UK, 1991
Honorary Doctorate, Athens University of Economics and Business, 1991
Honorary D. Litt., Williams College, USA, 1991
Honorary D. Litt., New School for Social Research, USA, 1992
Honorary D. Litt., Calcutta University, India, 1993
Honorary D. Litt., Oberlin College, USA, 1993
Honorary Doctor of Law, Queen’s University, Canada, 1993.
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Valencia, Spain, 1994.
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1994.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Syracuse University, USA, 1994.
Doctor Honoris Causa, Antwerp University, Belgium, 1995.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Latters, Wesleyan University, 1995.
Honorary Doctor of Science, Edinbur h University, UK, 1995.
Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa, Oxford University, 1996.
Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa, University of Stockholm, 1996.
Doctor Honoris Causa, Bard College, 1997
Doctor Honoris Causa, Kiel University, 1997

Honorary Fellow, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands
Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics, UK
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK
Honorary Professor, Delhi University, India.

President, The Development Studies Association, 1980-82
Honorary Vice-President, The Royal Economic Society, since 1988
Honorary President, The International Economic Association, since 1989

Mahalanobis Prize 1976
Rank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy 1986
Senator Giovanni Agnelli International Prize in Ethics 1990
Alan Shawn Feinsteen World Hunger’ Award 1990
Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award 1993
Indira Gandhi Gold Medal Award of the Asiatic Society 1994
Edinburgh Medal 1997
9th Catalonia International Prize 1997

Other Professional activities

Member of the editorial borads of Economics and Philosophy, Ethics, Feminist Economics, Gender and Development, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Indian Journal of Quantitative Economics, Journal of Peasant Studies, Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Social Choice and Welfare, Common Knowledge, Critic & Review, Theory and Decision, Business and the Contemporary World.

Past Employment

Drummond Professor of Political Economy, Oxford University, and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1980-88
Professor of Economics, Oxford University, and Fellow of Nuffield College, 1977-80
Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, University of London, 1971-77
Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi 1963-71
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1957-63
Professor of Economics, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 1956-58

Visiting Appointments:

Andrew D. White Professor at Large, Cornell University, 1978-84
Visiting Professor, Harvard University, 1968-69
Visiting Professor, University of California at Berkeley, 1964-65
Visiting Associate Professor, Stanford University, Summer Term, 1961
Visiting Assistant Professor, MIT, 1960-61

Books:

Choice of Techniaues, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960, 1962, 1968; Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1962, 1968. Spanish translation, Mexico City, 1969.
Collective Choice and Social Welfare, San Francisco: Holden Day, 1970; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd 1971; Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1979. Swedish translation: Bokforlaget Thales, 1988.
Growth Economics, Editor, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960.
Guidelines for Project Evaluation, UNIDO, United Nations, New York, 1972. Jointly with P. Dasgupta and S.A. Marglin.
On Economic Ineauality, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973; New York: Norton, 1975. German translation: Campus, 1975; Japanese translation: 1977; Spanish translation: Editorial Critica, 1979; Yugoslav translation: Cekade, 1984. Extended edition, 1997.
Employment, Technology and Development, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1975; New York: O.U.P., 1975; New Delhi: O.U.P. 1976.
Povertv and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981; New York: O.U.P. 1981; New Delhi: O.U.P., 1982; Italian translation: Mondadori, 1997.
Utilitarianism and Beyond, jointly edited with Bernard Williams, Cambridge University Press, 1982; New York: C.U.P., 1982; Italian translation: Il Saggiatore, 1984.
Choice. Welfare and Measurement, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997; New Delhi: O.U.P., 1983; Italian translation: Il Mulino, 1986; Japanese translation: Iwanami, 1988.
Resources. Values and Develonment, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; 1984; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984; New Delhi: O.U.P., 1985; Italian translation: Bollati Boringhieri, 1992.
Commodities; and Capabilities, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1985; New Delhi: O.U.P., 1987; Italian translation: Giuffre Editore, 1988; Japaneke translation: Iwansmi, 1988.
The Standard of Living, Tanner Lectures with rejoinders by Bernard Williams and othirs edited by G. Hawthorne, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1587; Italian translation: Marsilio, 1993.
On Ethics and Economics, Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Italian translation: Editori Laterza 1988; Spanish translation, Alianza Editorial, 1987; Indian edition: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1990; French translation (with other selected essays), Presses Universitaires de France, 1993.
Hunger and Public Action, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989 (with Jean Dreze).
The Political Economy of Hunger, in 3 volumes (jointly edited with Jean Drbze), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990 and 1991.
Ineauality Reexamined, Oxford: Clarendon Press, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, and Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press, 1992; Italian translation: Il Mulino, 1994.
The Quality of Life, (jointly edited with Martha Nussbaum), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993; Italian translation, Feltrinelli, 1997.
India: Economic Development and Social Oppurtunity, (with Jean Dreze) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995 .
Indian Development: Selected Regional Persoectives, (jointly edited with Jean Dreze) Oxford University Press, 1997 .
On Economic Inequality, Extended Edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997 (annexe with James Foster).
profile as extracted from harvard records

Chandrashekhar’s uncle, Sir Chandrashekhar Venkata Raman, had won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. So being an outstanding physicist came naturally to Chandrashekhar. A brilliant product of the Presidency College and the University of Madras, Chandrashekhar furthered his academic pursuits at the Trinity College, Cambridge. He also held a position at Trinity from 1933 to 1937.

Upto the early 1930′s, it was common scientific belief that stars lose all their energy after exhausting their hydrogen reserves. Once all the hydrogen is converted to helium, they contract under their own gravity to become white dwarf Stars. These white dwarfs are about the size of the planet Earth and their constituting atoms and nuclei are compressed to an extremely high dense state. The Chandrashekhar limit, expounded by Chandrashekhar, established that stars having more than 1.44 times the mass of the sun do not become white dwarfs. Instead they continue to collapse under their own gravity and after a supernova explosion, become neutron stars. Even bigger stars continue to collapse and become Black Holes – a star so constricted under its gravitational pull that it doesn’t even let light pass through. Chandrashekhar’s theory provided a deeper understanding of Supernova explosions, Neutron stars and Black Holes.

Chandrashekhar became the Morton D Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Astrophysics in 1952 at the University of Chicago where he had joined as an Assistant Professor of Astrophysics in 1938. He became an American citizen in 1953.

He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1953 and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1962. He also authored a number of books, chief among which are ‘An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure’ (1939), ‘Principles of Stellar Dynamics’ (1942), ‘Radiative Transfer’ (1950), ‘Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability’ (1961) and ‘Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science’ (1987).

Chandrashekhar conducted invaluable research on the transfer of energy by radiation in stellar atmospheres and convection on the solar surface. In his book ‘The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes’, he tried to apply this theory to the analysis of the origin and nature of Black Holes.

The country lost this brilliant gem on 21 August 1995 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Known for his Raman Discovery.
Raman was born on Nov 7, 1888, in Tiruvanaikkaval, Madras. He attended the A.V.N. College and then the Presidency College of the University of Madras, from where he received his B.A. degree. In 1906, at the age of eighteen, he published his first paper in the Philosophical Magazine. He received his M.A. degree in 1907 with top honours. Higher studies in England were ruled out on medical grounds and opportunities for a research career in India were nil. so he decided to join the coveted Indian Civil Services (ICS). To join the ICS, one had to appear for an examination in England, so he took the next best bet, the Financial Civil Service (FCS). In 1907, he married Loksundari and that very year was posted as Assistant Accountant-General in Calcutta. He worked for ten years in the Indian Finance Department, and even there continued his research and published no fewer than 30 papers.

In 1917, Raman was offered the Palit Chair for Physics by Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, the Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University. Even thouhgh it meant a huge pay cut (from Rs 1100 to Rs 600), Raman resigned from his Goernment job and joined the University of Calcutta.

In 1921, Raman represented the University of Calcutta at the British Universities Congress at Oxford and delievered a lecture before the Royal Society of London on the theory of stringed instruments. In 1924, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, London and was knighted by the British Government in India in 1929

While at Calcutta, he made significant contributions to the field of vibration and sound, musical intruments, ultrasonics, diffraction, meterological and colloid optics, photoelectricity, x-ray diffraction, magnetism, dielectrics and Raman effect.

In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the Raman effect thus becoming the first Asian to receive a Nobel Prize in Science.

In 1932, following personal clashes with Saha, Raman resigned from the University of Calcutta and assumed the Directorship of the Tata Institute of Sciences (now known as the Indian Institute of Science), Bangalore.

In 1947, Raman founded an institution of his own, near the offices of the Indian Academy of Science, which he had also founded in 1935.

Raman died on Nov. 21, 1970, at the age of 82, and was cremated in his rose garden.

He obtained his M.Sc. Honours in Organic Chemistry from the Punjab University in 1945 and later received his Ph. D. from the University of Liverpool in England.

The most fruitful and creative decade of Dr. Khorana’s career began in 1960 when he joined the University of Wisconsin as Professor and co-Director of the Institute of Enzyme Research and Professor of Biochemistry (1962-70). In 1970 he was appointed Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.

He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1971 he became a foreign member of USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1974 an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society.

He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968 sharing it with M.W. Nuremberg and R.W. Holley for interpreting the genetic code and analysing its function in protein synthesis.

The other awards conferred on him include Distinguished Service Awards. Watumull Foundation, Honolulu, Hawaii (1968); American Academy of Achievement Award, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1971); Padma Vibushan, Presidential Award, India (1972); J.C.Bose Medal, Bose Institute, Calcutta (1972) and Willard Gibbs medal of the Chicago Section of American Chemical Society (1973-74).

His researches embrace many fields and have gone a long way in answering one of the most critical and controversial issues of biology, i.e., the role of heredity and environment. His work, which is an important scientific landmark of the twentieth century, has brought closer the day when synthetic DNA may be introduced into the defective human tissues to bring about their repair or treat mentally retarded people and change them into more intelligent and healthy human beings. His synthesis of RNA, capable of replication in laboratory, is a step towards the creation of life artificially.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born august 26, 1910; baptized august 27 in Skopje, in Macedonia. Her family belongs to the Albanian community. They are catholic, though the majority of the Albanians are muslim there. The Turkish Empire is ruling the country. Her father is a businessman. He owns a building company and is connected to a food shop. He travelled a lot, was multi-lingual and very interested in politics. He was member of the community council. He, Kolë, thought Agnes her first lessons in charity, together with Drana, his wife and Agnes’ mother.
Totally unexpected, when Agnes was 9, her father died. It was 1919 and Drana had to raise her three children, Aga (1904), Lazar (1907) and Gonxha (1910) alone. To foresee in their needs she sew wedding dresses, made embroidery and worked hard. In spite of all this, she made time for the education of her children. They prayed every evening, went to church every day, prayed the rosary every day in may and assisted the service for the Holy Virgin. A great and warm attention went also to the poor and needy who came to knock at the door. During the holidays a stay in the pilgrimage place of Letnice, where Our Lady was venerated, was a custom for the family.

Agnes liked to be in church, she liked to read and to pray and to sing. Here mother also took care of an alcoholistic women in the neighbourhood. She went to wash and feed her twice a day and she also took care of a widow with 6 children. When Drana could not go, Agnes went to do this charitable work. And when the widow died, the children were raised in the house as if they were family. Lazar won a scholarship in Austria, Aga followed commercial school and Agnes went to the Lyceum. She studied well. Together with Aga she was in the Choir, she was a soprano, Aga second voice. She also played the mandolin.

The Call

A great part of their time also went to the Legion of Mary. She helped a father, who had difficulties with the language, to teach catechism and read a lot about Slovenian and Croatian missionaries in India. At twelve she felt for the first time the desire to spend her life for Gods’ work, to give it to Him and to let Him decide. But how could she be sure?

She prayed a lot over it and talked about it with her sister and her mother. And also the father to whom she confessed she asked: “How can I be sure?” He answered: “through your JOY. If you feel really happy by the idea that God might call you to serve Him, Him and your neighbour, then this is the evidence that you have a call.” And he added: “the deep inner joy that you feel is the compass that indicates your direction in life”.

At 18 it is the day! The decision was made. The last two years she assisted several religious retreats in Letnice and it was clear to her that she would be a missionary for India. On Assumption day in 1928 she went to Letnice to pray for Our Lady’s blessing before leaving. She was going to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, who were very active in India.

September 25 she leaves, accompanied to the station by the whole community: friends, schoolmates, neighbours, young and old and of course her mother and her sister Aga (who will be later a translator and a radio speakerin). And everybody weeps. (Mainly from the book: “A life: Mother Teresa, Lush Gjergi, Albania).

She travels over Zagreb, to Austria, Switzerland, France to London and then to the abbey close to Dublin where the mother house of the Loreto Sisters is. Gonxha learns to speak English and is trained in religious life. She receives the clothes of a sister and chooses the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of the Little Teresa of Lisieux, where they stopped on the way to London. In the mean time her papers get ready and 1928 on december the 1st the crossing to India starts: the country of her dreams. It is a long and tiring journey. Some more sisters are on board but the main group is anglican. For weeks they cannot attend mass or receive communion. Not on Christmas either. But they make a crib, pray the rosary and sing Christmas songs.

In the beginning of 1929 they reach Colombo, then Madras and finally Calcutta. The journey continues to Darjeeling, at the feet of the Himalayas, where the young sister will accomplish her training. On may 23, 1929 she is accepted as a novice and two years later she makes her first vows. Immediately after that she is send to Bengali to help the sisters in the little hospital with the care for sick, starving and helpless mothers. She is touched by the endless misery which is there.

Sister and Teacher

She is send to Calcutta to study to become a teacher. Whenever she can she helps in the care for the sick. When her study is finished, she is named to be teacher and has to cross the city every day. The first work was to clean the classroom. Quickly the children learned to love her for her enthusiasm and her tenderness and their number raised to three hundred. In another part of the city there were one hundred little students. She saw where they lived and what they ate. For her care and her love, they soon called her “ma”. Sundays, whenever there was time, she went to visit this family’s.

On may 24 in 1937 she makes her final vows in Darjeeling. She is named headmaster of a secondary school for middle class Bengali girls in the centre of Calcutta. She was there teacher for history and geography for some time. Close to the institute is one of the great slums of Calcutta. Sister Teresa cannot close her eyes: who cares for this poor living in the streets? The great charity that speaks through her mothers letters, reminds her of the basic call: to care for the poor.

The Legion of Mary is also active in this school. With the girls, Sister Teresa goes regularly to the hospitals, the slums, the poor. They do not only pray. They talk seriously about what they see and what they do. The Belgian Walloon jesuit, Father Henry, who was the spiritual director, was a great inspiration in this work. He will direct Sister Teresa for years. Under his inspiration the desire grows to do more for the poor, but how?

The second call

With all this in her head she leaves for retreat to Darjeeling on the 10th of september. “The most important journey of my life” she said afterwards. It was then that she really heard Gods’ voice. His message was clear: she had to leave the convent to help the poorest of the poor and to live with them. “It was an order, a duty, an absolute certainty. I knew what to do, but I did not know how”. The 10th of september is so important in the Society that this day is called “Inspiration day”.

Sister Teresa prayed, talked with some other sisters, asked her superior, who sent her to see the archbishop of Calcutta, Mgr. Perrier. She explained to him her vocation, but he refused her the permission. He talked it over with father Henry, who knew Sister Teresa well. They considered thoroughly the problems: India was about to be independent and Sister Teresa was a European! What were the political and other dangers? Would Rome approve this decision? The bishop told Sister Teresa to pray over this decision for at least a year or to join the Daughters of Saint Anna, sisters wearing a dark blue sari and working among the the poor. Sister Teresa did not consider this the right response for her. She wanted to live among the poor.

When after a year Sister Teresa renewed her intention, the archbishop wanted to grant her the permission but decided it would be better to ask the permission from Rome and from the mother general in Dublin. This decision took a long time.

Decision

In august 1948 she received the permission to leave the Loreto community under the condition to keep the vows of poverty, purity and obedience. She is 38 when she says goodbye to her sisters and religious Loreto robe, to change it for a cheap white and blue sari. First she goes to Patna to follow a nursing training with the sisters there. It is obvious to her that she can only help the poor in their dirty, sickening habitation if she herself knows how to prevent and cure. This medical training is indispensable for the fulfilment of her new call.

The superior in Patna, a doctor, gives her good advice when Sister Teresa talks about how she wants to live among the poor and how she wishes to care for them. When Sister Teresa says that she wants to live on rice and salt, like the poor, the superior answers that this would be the best way to hinder herself in following her call: this kind of life demands a strong and good health.

Back in Calcutta, Sister Teresa goes in the slums and the streets, to talk with the poor, to help them. All she has is a piece of soap and five roepies. She helps to wash the babies, to clean the wounds. The poor people are astonished: Who is this european lady in that poor sari? She speaks fluently Bengali! And she helps them wash, clean and care! Soon she starts to teach the poor children how to read and write, how to wash and to have some hygiene. Later it will be possible to hire a small place to make a school.

She herself sleeps with the Sisters of the Poor. God is her great refuge for strength and material support. And He is: always she finds the right medicine, clothes, food and a place to receive the poor to be able to help them. At noon children receive a cup of milk and a piece of soap, when they come regularly, but they also hear about God, who is love and who – contrarily to their obvious reality – loves them, really loves them.

A touching moment

One day a Bengali girl, from a well-off family and former student of Sister Teresa, wants to stay with Sister Teresa and help her. This is a touching moment. But Sister Teresa is realistic: she speaks about the full poverty, about all the disagreeable aspects of the work which is hers. She proposes the girl to wait some time.

The 19th of march 1949 the girl comes back with no jewels and in a poor dress. The decision was made. She was the first to join Sister Teresa and took her girls’ name: Agnes. Other girls follow: in may they were three, in november five, next year seven. And Sister Teresa prayed fervently for more vocations to the Lord and to Our Lady. There was a lot of work. The sisters raised early in the morning, prayed a long time, had adoration and attended mass to find in their spiritual life the strength to do the material work in the service of the poor. Thank God, a certain Mister Gomes offered the top floor of his house to Sister Teresa for her first community. In this year also Sister Teresa takes the Indian nationality.

Sister Teresa sees the community grow and knows she can think seriously about starting a congregation. For the first constitutions she asks the advice of two from her first helpers: Father Julien Henry s.j. and Father Celest Van Exem s.j. The last reading was done by father P. De Gheldere. The “Constitutions of the Society of the Missionaries of Charity” could be presented to the archbishop, who would send them for approval to Rome.

Early in autumn the papal approval arrived and 7th of October 1950, feast of the Holy Rosary, the foundation was celebrated in the chapel of the sisters. The archbishop celebrated mass and father Van Exem read the foundation papers. That moment there were 12 sisters. Every year hundreds of sisters over the world celebrate on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary the foundation of the Congregation. Not even five years after this day the congregation became papal, this means that they depend straight from the pope.

It is basic in the Rule of the Society that the sisters, out of love for Jesus, devote themselves out of their free will, to the service of the poorest of the poor and this is as a fact, their fourth vow. This is their way to live and spread the gospel and work for the salvation and the sanctification of the poor.

The mission

While the number of poor and sick that asked for help was increasing, the admiration for the free devotion of the sisters was growing as well. Find a suitable house to accept the increasing number of sisters was a real necessity. After a novena to Saint Cecilia the solution came: a muslim leaving town to Pakistan sold his big house for a cheap price and this became the famous Mother house, Lower Circular Road 54A.

The postulants first came from Bengaly, then from all over India and finally from all over the world. The foundress herself was novice mistress. For the spiritual training she asked one of the fathers, but for the matters of the house and the Community, it was clear, this was not his responsibility. She did not want an interference from outside in the inside matters.

The first confession father was father Edward Le Joly s.j. Like the other jesuits he was from Belgian origin. He had a good contact and a good co-working and wrote some of the first and most respected books about Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity.

The succession

While the society grew in work and number Mother kept praying for vocations and the work kept growing. Houses were opening and some closing down from one day to another for one or another political, social or security reason. The society is very much alive and moving. Mother Teresa went all over the world to help people, rescue children, advise her sisters; to organize and to talk. More and more she was asked to address words to a group of sometimes ‘ordinary’ sometimes very exquisite crowds. In spite of the fact that her message is often the same, can be captured in few sentences and that she certainly has many times a quite “traditional” point of view, she is listened to carefully. In spite of her age she continues to search means to help the poor people all over the world and she helps with the means she has. In every continent, even in Russia her sisters are present in their service to the lost, for the love of Jesus. In 1992 by the election of the New Superior general, she is prepared to hand over the responsibility. But she is re-elected. When in 1996 her health starts to fail seriously, due to her heart getting worn out by love and action she expresses the wish not to continue. On march 13th 1997 the assembly of sisters elect Sister Nirmala to continue the beautiful work, for the love of Jesus.

On september 5th 1997, late in the evening around 9.30 h, Mother Teresa goes to Heaven in the Mother house in Calcutta. Totally finished and worn out, as she had given herself totally, wholeheartedly, freely and unconditionally to the service of the poorest of the poor, for the love of Jesus.

Nirmal Hriday

One of the first foundations of Mother Teresa is the Home for the Dying in Calcutta. In an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge (Something beautiful for God – Ed. Van Spijk) sister Teresa tells how, for the first time she picked up a woman from the street.
The woman was half eaten up by rats and aunts. I took her to the hospital, but they could do nothing for her. They only took her because I refused to go home unless something was done for her. After they cared for her, I went straight to the town hall and asked for a place where I could take this people, because that day I found more people dying in the street.

The employee of health services brought me to the temple of Kali and showed me the “dormashalah” where the pilgrims used to rest after they worshipped the goddess Kali. The building was empty and he asked me if I wanted it. I was very glad with the offer for many reasons, but especially because it was the centre of prayer for Hindus. Within 24 hours we brought our sick and suffering and started the Home for the Dying Destitutes.
Ever since thousands of men, women and children (more that 40 000) were taken from the street in Calcutta and transported to the home. Half of them died in a kind surrounding. In their last hours they met the human and divine love, they could feel that they also were children of God. For those who didn’t die the sisters tried to find a job or they were sent to homes where they could live happily some more years in homely surrounding.
The Home for the Dying Destitutes became more and more known and finally it was an evidence to pick up dying from the street and bring them to this house when there was nowhere else place for them. They were washed, freshly dressed and put into bed with the proper medical care. With tender and patient attention.

All over India and the world the Missionaries of Charity have homes for the dying and the very sick people, who have nobody else who care, or who can’t pay any medical help. The sisters have ambulances, doctors, nurses, etc. Many friends and volunteers give a helping hand.

Shishu Bavan

Another early foundation was “Shishu Bavan”, the Home for the babies.

“Many of those children have parents who cannot care for them and thus do not want them. Some we pick up from the street, others are brought to us from hospitals, where they were left behind through their parents. Some come from the prisons and others are brought by policemen. No matter how they come here, we never refused a child till now.”

In India now there are over forty houses for children. But not only there: all over the world the sisters have childrens’ homes. That this are only handicapped children is untrue. Some have studied and got married, have an important social role and became themselves messagers of love, doing good works all over.

Shanti Nagar

In the life story of Mother Teresa lepers are a chapter apart. India has a quite great number of lepers. In the traditional mentality this disease is a punishment sent to someone by God and thus one has to accept and suffer the disease without complaint. The position of a leper is far from enviable in India. They are banned out from society, even when they are very rich or highly educated. They loose their work and their family, fly in the mountains by necessity and beg for their food. They live and die like animals.

When Mother Teresa explained that this was a disease, that in many cases could be cured and not a punishment, she met a wall of cold neglection. But she started to make small villages where the lepers could live and work in peace and be cared for, but she needed to find a proper place.

In his book about Mother Teresa Desmond Doig (Ed. Lannoo) tells how a useless piece of land near the railroad was simply occupied with the intention, along the railroad, but with some distance of it, to start a colony where lepers could build their own bambuhouses and work their own fields. It was not without a risk, because the lepers could not leave the railroad fast enough.
In such a settlement, founded in great difficulty, the sick make their own cloths and medical cloth for their wounds and bags for the medicine.

Most of our sisters are trained especially for the work among the lepers, says Mother to M. Muggeridge, and with the newest medicine from the west we can stop the disease if the sick come in time for help.

Years ago the Albanese sister had the idea to collect money for the lepers among the millions of inhabitants of the city of Calcutta. “Touch the leper with your kindness”. It was a great success and with the money, added to other donations, Shanti Nagar was created: “The city of peace”, where sick and healed lepers are cared for, learn a job, find work. All in a spirit of Christian charity.

When I touch the smelling body I know I touch the body of Christ as I receive Him in the Holy Communion under the sign of bread, says Mother Teresa.

The leader of the City of Joy is an Albanian doctor who became also a sister. She was leper herself as well as some other sisters, but they took the medicine that was given in the centre.

Battle against abortion

Together with all this work Mother Teresa is all over the world known as a big enemy of abortion. When she received the Noble Price for peace in 1979 she said:

This is the worst evil in the world.

With all the moral authority she has earned through her life, she defends the right to a valuable life for every human being and especially for the unborn.

The life of a child that still has to be born or the life of the poor whom we meet in the streets of Calcutta, Rome or anywhere else in the world, the life of children or adults is the same life. It is our life, it is a gift of God.

Countries that allow abortion are poor, says Mother Teresa, because they do not have the courage to accept one more life.

Growth

The work spread fast. The sisters are now active all over India and outside in many countries in the world: from Venezuela to Jordany, from Italy to Tanzania, from the United States to Russia. More and more bishops were asking for sisters and the number of vocations was increasing, especially in India. After deep consideration, prayer and discussion, Mother accepted the expansion.

She opened a house for alcoholics, drug addicts and homeless and destitutes in Rome. The pope asked to open a house also for mothers with unwanted pregnancies. For the vocations from Europe and America, she opened a second noviciate in Rome. In the spirit of the second vatican council she accepted in India non-christian novices, under the condition that they would accept totally the life and engagement of the Missionaries of Charity.
As said, with the changing in the communist countries, she opened houses there, among which Russia, Poland, Croatia, etc. The apostolate there is not mostly a material, but essentially a moral need.

Soup kitchen

In many big cities, where the homeless and the lost have no place to go or stay and certainly nobody who cares, the sisters have soup kitchen every day. So this men and women can have a warm meal and a warm place and good food. Many times they become like a small family where care for each other grows. The sisters also cook for them on feast days like Christmas, Easter, etc. helped by volunteers.

AIDS

When in the early 80s the world got shocked by the disease of aids, killing hundreds of young people and very few information about the disease was available, many of this sick were left aside in the hospitals or became unwanted. It is there again that Mother Teresa brought and showed the great Love of the One she devoted her life to: Jesus. She opens homes for aids patients all over the world.

Prisons

Rehabilitation of the prisoners in India. Mother Teresa has given her support to this project. “It is a beautiful gift of God as to take care of men and women in prison” she said at the opening of the second convention of the Ministers in Prisons, a catholic initiative.
50 religious, priests and more than 20 lay volunteers who work on the rehabilitation of the prisoners were present. There are in India 926 prisons and over 200 000 prisoners. Mother Teresa recalled her first encounter with this world, when the government of West-Bengal asked her help for the imprisoned female prostitutes.

Early years of Rabindranath Tagore

Born in Calcutta on May 7, 1861, Rabindranath was the youngest of fourteen children. His father, Debendranath Tagore, was a Sanskrit scholar and a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj. Rabindranath’s early education was imparted at home. In school, while others use to learn their lessons, he would slip into more exciting world of dreams. Inspired by his older nephew, he wrote his first poem when he was hardly seven. At the age of seventeen, his first book of poems was published. In 1878, he went to England for further studies but returned back in just seventeen months as he did not find the studies interesting.

Rabindranath now started devoting most of his time to writing poems, plays, short stories and novels. In 1883, he got married to Mrinalini Devi. He taught his wife Bengali and Sanskrit.

Period of 1891-1900

This period saw Tagore publish a series of works, many based on the traditional village society of contemporary Bengal. In 1891, Rabindranath went to Shileida and Sayadpur to manage his father’s estates. Living among the rural poor, he became acutely sensitive to their hardships. Many of the Tagore’s themes centre around village life, introduction of ‘western’ elements, and their natural surroundings. His 1912 collection Galpa Guccha is based completely on rural Bengal. His other notable works in this period include Sonar tari, Kalpana and Chitra.

Shantiniketan, Gitanjali and the Freedom Movements

Tagore was keenly aware of India’s socio-political condition under British rule. He supported the Swadeshi movement and had been deeply influenced by the religious renaissance of 19th century India. Coming out strongly against orthodox ritualism he wrote, “Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost than worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!” (Vs 11, Gitanjali)

In 1901, Tagore established Shantiniketan, (near Bolpur, Bengal) an institution blending Indian and Western methods of education.

Tragically, between 1902 and 1907, Tagore lost his wife, son ad daughter. But out of his pain emerged some of his most tender work, including “Gitanjali”, published in 1910. This collection of verses, translated into English by the poet himself, non Tagore the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature. Two years later, Tagore was knighted by the British Empire.

But in 1919, the horror of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre stunned Tagore and he renounced his title. In a letter to the Viceroy he wrote, “The disproportionate severity of the punishment inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the method of carrying it out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilized governments and these are the reasons which have painfully compelled me to ask your Excellency to relieve me of my title.. ” Tagore remained a true patriot, supporting the national movement and writing the lyrics of the “Jana Gana Mana”, which is India’s national anthem.

Between 1916 and 1941, Tagore published 21 collections of songs and poems and held lecture tours across Europe, the Americas, China, Japan, Malaya, Indonesia etc … In 1924, he inaugurated the VISVA BHARATI UNIVERSITY at Shantiniketan, an All India Centre for culture. Tagore died in Calcutta on 7th August, 1941.

Tagore’s works are classics, renowned for then lyrical beauty and spiritual poignancy. He is remembered for his literary genius and Shantiniketan remains flourishing institute. In Tagore’s own words, “The world speaks to me in colours, my soul answers in music”.