Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma was born 30 April 1987 ,is an Indian international cricketer. He is right-handed opening batsman and occasional right-arm off break bowler, who plays for Mumbai in domestic cricket. He is the captain of Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League. Having started international career at the age of 20, Sharma quickly came to be pegged by many analysts as a permanent fixture in the Indian cricket team in the next decade.

 In 2013, he started playing as an opening batsman for Indian ODI team, and performed well consistently. He is currently the second highest scorer in ODI scoring 209 in a recently concluded finals of a Bi-lateral series against Australia in India.

Rohit Sharma was born to Gurunath Sharma and Purnima Sharma in a Telugu-speaking family in Nagpur. His family originates from Andhra Pradesh. Rohit Sharma completed his primary education at Our Lady of Vailankanni High School Borivali, Mumbai. He was later enrolled in the Swami Vivekanand International School Borivali on a scholarship, after his talent was noticed by the school's cricket coach Dinesh Lad at a summer camp. He excelled in the Giles and Harris Shield school cricket tournaments, after which he was selected for the Mumbai Under-20

He was later chosen for India's Under-17 and Under-19 teams, and made his mark at the 2006 U-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka, finishing among the top run- takers in the tournament.Sharma was first selected for the limited-overs matches on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He made his One Day International debut against Ireland at Belfast,although he did not bat in the match.

Sharma scored his maiden ODI half-century against Pakistan, at Jaipur on 18 November 2007 and was selected as part of India's 16-man squad for the CB series in Australia. Here, he scored 235 runs at an average of 33.57 with 2 fifties, including his score of 66 in the 1st final at Sydney partnering Sachin Tendulkar for most of India's successful run chase. Sharma eventually made his mark at the international stage on 20 September 2007, when he led India to victory by scoring an unbeaten 50 (which came off 40 deliveries) against South Africa in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20. The win reserved India a berth in the semifinals of the tournament. At one stage India were 61–4, but his partnership of 85 runs with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni helped Indida to post a total of 153–5. He was eventually declared Man of the Match. Sharma then proceeded to score 30 runs off 16 balls in the final against Pakistan.

However, Sharma's ODI performances suffered a downturn after this and his middle-order position was taken over by Suresh Raina, and eventually, Virat Kohli took his position as the reserve batsman.In December 2009, Sharma scored a triple century in the Ranji Trophy and was recalled to the ODI team for the tri-nations tournament in Bangladesh as Tendulkar was being rested. However, Kohli and Raina were selected ahead of him in the playing eleven, and he did not play in any of India's five matches. In the meantime, he missed the Ranji Trophy final.He scored his maiden ODI century (114) against Zimbabwe on 28 May 2010. He followed it up with another century in the next match of the tri-series against Sri Lanka on 30 May 2010 by scoring 101 not out. 

He was dropped from the Indian squad for 2011 World Cup.He was selected for the West Indies tour of 2011 after the IPL in a squad where senior batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and skipper MS Dhoni were rested, and Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir were out to injuries. The side was captained by Suresh Raina with Harbhajan Singh as his deputy. He contributed 26 of 23 balls (2 sixes) in the only T20I at Queen's Park Oval and strung a 71-run partnership with Subramaniam Badrinath leading to an Indian victory.

In the ODI series that followed, he carried on with his form. The first ODI was also played at Queen's Park Oval. Rohit was elected man of the match for his 68 not out of 75 balls (3 fours, 1 six). In the third ODI played at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua; Sharma scored a matching-winning 86 of 91 balls. Rohit along with Harbhajan Singh got India out of trouble to win the match after they were reduced to 92 for 6. He was widely appraised for his calm and matured performance. Sharma won his first Man of the Series award for excellent batting performance throughout the ODI series. His good form continued as he bagged another Man of the series award against West Indies again but this time on Indian soil.

In 2013, he was selected as new opening batsman for India along with the Shikhar Dhawan for the Champions Trophy. The successful starts given by this opening pair helped India win the Champions Trophy and Tri-nation series in the West Indies. His good form continued in the home series against Australia when he scored an 141 not out in Nagpur and 209 runs off 158 balls, in Bangalore. With this innings, he became the third player to score a double hundred in an ODI and with 16 sixes, he broke the world record for most sixes hit in an ODI innings.

Jwala Gutta

Jwala Gutta

Jwala Gutta

Jwala Gutta is a left-handed Indian badminton player who has won the National Badminton Championships thirteen times till 2010. She is a doubles badminton player who has partnered with Shruti Kurien and later Ashwini Ponnappa. She was the wife of Chetan Anand, an Arjuna Awardee ; however, the two divorced in 2011.

Jwala was born on 7 September 1983 in  Wardha,  Maharashtra and brought up in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, to a Telugu Indian father and a Chinese mother. Jwala's father, Kranti Gutta, hailed from a family of freedom fighters and Leftists.Her mother, Yelan Gutta, was born in Tianjin, and is a grand daughter of a Gandhian named Tseng. Yelan first came to India in 1977 with her grandfather to visit the Sevagram ashram, where she translated Gandhi's autobiography and other works into Chinese language.

In the doubles event though, her performance has been better as entered the Semi Final round of her second International Doubles tournament, the India Asia Satellite tournament 2002. She also reached the Semi Final round of the Indian Asian Satellite tournament 2004, and finished Runner Up at the LE VOLANT D’OR Tournament, known as TOULOUSE Open in the year 2004. Further, she reached the Final Rounds of the Scottish International tournament 2004 and 40th Portuguese Badminton Championship 2004. In the year 2006 she won the Sri Lanka International Satellite tournament while in the year 2007 she won the Cyprus Badminton International tournament. The same year, she also won at the Pakistan International Challenge tournament and the Indian International Challenge tournament. Apart from these achievements, Jwala won the Nepal International Series tournament 2008 and Yonex Dutch Open Grand Prix 2008 in the Women’s Doubles category. She won a gold medal in the women's doubles at the Commonwealth Games 2010 making history of winning the first gold medal for India in the women's doubles. 

Later on this year they made again history by being the first Indian women's doubles pair to win a bronze medal in a badminton world championship. She played women's doubles as well as mixed doubles ath the 2012 London Olympics. Jwala pairing with Ashwini Ponappa lost there their opening women's double match against the Japanese duo of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa on 28 July 2012.

In the Mixed Doubles category too, Jwala has shown her excellence as she has grabbed the titles in the Jakarta Satellite tournament and Welsh International tournament in the year 2005, Sri Lanka International Satellite tournament, Cyprus Badminton International tournament and Indian International Challenge tournament in the year 2007, and Nepal International Series tournament, Bitburger Open Grand Prix tournament and KLRC Bulgaria Open Grand Prix tournament in the year 2008. But the latest achievement in December 2009 where she and her mixed doubles partner Valiyaveetil Diju reached the World Super Series masters final in Malaysia, where they went down to world championship bronze medalists Christinna Pedersen and Joaquim Nielsen 21-14, 21-18. Pairing V. Diju, Jwala lost her opening match 16-21, 12-21 in just 25 minutes at the Wembley Arena in London Olympics.

During her Badminton career, Jwala Gutta began dating fellow badminton player Chetan Anand, who was the 1999 Junior National Badminton Champion and 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2010 Senior National Badminton Champion and has been honored with an Arjuna Award. The couple married on 17 July 2005 and got divorced on 29 June 2011.

Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was born on 24 April 1973 is an Indian cricketer widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsman in cricket. In 2002, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Don Bradman, and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards. Tendulkar was a part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team in the later part of his career, his first such win in six World Cup appearances for India. He was also the recipient of "Player of the Tournament" award of the 2003 Cricket World Cup held in South Africa.

Tendulkar won the 2010 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards. He has been recommended for the receipt of the Bharat Ratna award, in fact it has been speculated that the criteria for the award of the Bharat Ratna were changed to allow him receive the award. He is also a member of Rajya Sabha of Parliament of India. Tendulkar passed 30,000 runs in international cricket on 20 November 2009. On 5 December 2012, Tendulkar became first batsman in history to cross the 34,000 run aggregate in all formats of the game put together. At 36 years and 306 days, he became the first ever player to score a double-century in the history of ODIs. Two years later he became the first player to score 100 international centuries. As of June 2013, Tendulkar has played 662 matches in international cricket.

Tendulkar has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian award, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour. He was also the first sportsperson and the first one without aviation background to be awarded the honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force. Tendulkar has received honorary doctorates from University of Mysore and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. Sachin holds the 19th rank in ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen as of 17 March 2013. On 1 August 2012, Sachin Tendulkar was nominated for the ICC People's Choice award for the third time. In 2012, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.Sachin tendulkar was ranked 78th richest sportsman in the world according to the Forbes' list of world's highest-paid athletes for the year 2012.In June 2013 list, Forbes ranked Sachin at 51st position in highest paid athletes list, with his total earnings were estimated to be USD 22 million.

Sachin Tendulkar was named as an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia in 2012. On 23 December 2012, Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs. Tendulkar has already stated that he will not be playing T20 Internationals.In May, 2013, Tendulkar revealed his retirement from IPL

Tendulkar is an ardent devotee of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. He has visited Puttaparthi on several occasions to seek Baba's blessings. In 1997, Tendulkar captained the Indian National side, playing against a World Eleven team, in the Unity Cup which was held at the hill view stadium in Puttaparthi, in Baba's presence. After Sai Baba's death, Tendulkar broke into tears when he saw the body of Baba in Puttaparthi, and cancelled his birthday celebrations. The cricketer is also known to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at home and frequently visits temples during night when it is calm and quiet. The cricketer has also offered his prayers at several other Hindu temples across the country.

Salman Khan

Salman Khan

Salman Khan

Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan was born  on 27 December 1965, is an Indian film actor, producer, television presenter, and philanthropist. The son of actor and screenwriter Salim Khan, Khan began his acting career with Biwi Ho To Aisi but it was his second film Maine Pyar Kiya in which he acted in a lead role that garnered him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. Khan has starred in several commercially successful films, such as Saajan (1991), Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), Karan Arjun (1995), Judwaa (1997), Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998), Biwi No.1 (1999), and Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), having appeared in the highest grossing film nine separate years during his career, a record that remains unbroken.

In 1999, Khan won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his extended guest appearance in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). In 2011, he won the Screen Award for Best Actor for his performance in Dabangg and in 2013, he won the Best Actor Popular Choice for his performances in Ek Tha Tiger and Dabangg 2. Eight of the films he has acted in, have accumulated gross earnings of over 1 billion (US$15 million) worldwide. He played leading roles in five consecutive blockbusters namely Dabangg, Ready, Bodyguard, Ek Tha Tiger, and Dabangg 2. He has starred in more than 80 Hindi films and thus far has established himself as a leading actor of Hindi cinema.

Khan is the eldest son of screenwriter Salim Khan and his first wife Sushila Charak. His paternal grandfather was a Muslim from Afghanistan who immigrated to India and settled in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Charak is a surname of Dogra Rajput clan. Khan belongs to Pathan Muslim family through his father while Khan's mother is reported to be a Dogra Hindu. His family celebrate Islamic and Hindu festivals such as Maha Shivaratri and Ganesh Chaturthi. In 2010 Khan said that he is "half Muslim and half Hindu". His stepmother is Helen, a former actress, who has co-starred with him in a few films. He has two brothers, Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan, and two sisters, Alvira and Arpita. Alvira is married to actor/director Atul Agnihotri. Khan finished his schooling at St. Stanislaus High School in Bandra, Mumbai, as did his younger brothers Arbaaz and Sohail. Earlier, he studied at The Scindia School, Gwalior for a few years along with younger brother Arbaaz.

Mohammad Rafi

Mohammad Rafi

Mohammad Rafi was born on 24th December 1924 (24 December 1924– 31 July 1980), was an Indian recording artist who is considered by many to be one of the greatest Indian playback singers of the Hindi film industry. In his lifetime, he was awarded the National Film Award, Best National Singer Award and six Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India. His singing career spanned about 35 years. Rafi is noted for his ability to sing songs of different moods and varieties: They ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans. He is best known for romantic and duet songs and, as a playback singer, his ability to mould his voice to the persona of the actor lip-synching the song.

Rafi is primarily noted for his songs in Hindustani, over which he had a strong command. He sang in other Indian languages including  Assamese , Konkani,Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati , Telugu, Maghi, Maithili and Urdu. He also recorded a few songs in English, Persian, Spanishand Dutch. From available figures, Rafi sang 4,516 Hindi film songs, 112 non-Hindi film songs, and 328 private (non-film) songs from 1945 to 1980.

Mohammed Rafi was the youngest of six brothers. His father was Hajji Ali Mohammad. The family lived in Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near present-day Amritsarin Punjab, India. Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, began singing by imitating the chants of a fakir in his village. Rafi's father moved to Lahore in the 1920s where he ran a men's salon in Noor Mohalla in Bhatti Gate. His elder brother, Mohammad Deen, had a friend, Abdul Hameed, (future brother-in-law), who spotted the talent in Rafi in Lahore and encouraged him to sing. Abdul Hameed later convinced the family elders to let Rafi move to Mumbai; he accompanied him in 1944.

Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwan Lal Mattoo and Firoze Nizami. His first public performance came at the age of 13, when he sang in Lahore featuring K. L. Saigal. In 1941, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut in Lahore as a playback singer in the duet "Soniye Nee, Heeriye Nee" with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch(released in 1944). In that same year, Rafi was invited by All India Radio Lahore station to sing for them.

He made his professional debut in the Shyam Sunder-directed 1941 Punjabi film Gul Baloch and the earliest debut in a Hindi film was Gaon Ki Gori in 1945.

Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on 28th December 1932  better known as 'Dhirubhai Ambani' Indian business tycoon who founded Reliance Industries in Mumbai with his cousin. Dhirubhai has figured in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia. Ambani took Reliance Industries public in 1977, and by 2007 the combined fortune of the family was $60 billion, making the Ambani's the second richest family in the world. Ambani died on July 6, 2002.

Dhirubhai Ambani started, of by working with a firm in Yemen in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened a mill in Naroda industrial area of Ahmedabad. He founded Reliance Industries in 1966, and as of 2012, the company has over 85,000 employees and provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue. As of 2012, Reliance Industries was listed among top 100 firms in Fortune 500 list of world's biggest companies by revenues.

Dhirubhai Ambani returned from Yemen to India and started "Majin" in partnership with Champaklal Damani his second cousin who lived with him in Aden,Yemen. Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder. It was a 350 sq ft (33 m²) room with a telephone, one table and three chairs. Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their business. During this period, Ambani and his family stayed in a two-bedroom apartment at the Jai Hind Estate in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai. In 1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Ambani started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperaments and a different take on how to conduct business. While Damani was a cautious trader and did not believe in building yarn inventories, Ambani was a known risk-taker and believed in building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making profits.

Extensive marketing of the brand "Vimal" in the interiors of India made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they used to sell "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a Technical team from the World Bank visited the Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit.

In 1982, Reliance Industries came up against a rights issue regarding partly convertible debentures. It was rumored that the company was making all efforts to ensure that their stock prices did not slide an inch. Sensing an opportunity, The Bear Cartel, a group of stock brokers from Calcutta, started to short sell the shares of Reliance. To counter this, a group of stock brokers until recently referred to as "Friends of Reliance" started to buy the short sold shares of Reliance Industries on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Bear Cartel was acting on the belief that the Bulls would be short of cash to complete the transactions and would be ready for settlement under the "Badla" trading system operative in the Bombay Stock Exchange. The bulls kept buying and a price of  152 per share was maintained until the day of settlement. On the day of settlement, the Bear Cartel was taken aback when the Bulls demanded a physical delivery of shares. To complete the transaction, the much money was provided to the stock brokers who had bought shares of Reliance, by Dhirubhai Ambani. In the case of non-settlement, the Bulls demanded an Unbadla, or penalty sum, of  35 per share. With this, the demand increased and the shares of Reliance shot above  180 in minutes. The settlement caused an enormous uproar in the market.

To find a solution to this situation, the Bombay Stock Exchange was closed for three business days. Authorities from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) intervened in the matter and brought down the "Unbadla" rate to  2 with a stipulation that the Bear Cartel had to deliver the shares within the next few days. The Bear Cartel bought shares of Reliance from the market at higher price levels and it was also learnt that Dhirubhai Ambani himself supplied those shares to the Bear Cartel and earned a healthy profit out of The Bear Cartel's adventure.

After this incident, many questions were raised by his detractors and the press. Not many people were able to understand as to how a yarn trader until a few years ago was able to get in such a huge amount of cash flow during a crisis period. The answer to this was provided by the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee in the Parliament. He informed the house that a Non-Resident Indian had invested up to 220 million in Reliance during 1982-83. These investments were routed through many companies like Crocodile, Lota and Fiasco. These companies were primarily registered in Isle of Man. The interesting factor was that all the promoters or owners of these companies had a common surname Shah. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India in the incident did not find any unethical or illegal acts or transactions committed by Reliance or its promoters.

Dhirubhai Ambani was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai on June 24, 2002 after he suffered a major stroke. It was his second stroke, the first one had occurred in February 1986 and had paralyzed his right hand. He was in a coma for more than a week and a number of doctors were consulted. He died on July 6,2002.

Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid was born on 11th January 1973. He  is a former Indian cricketer, who captained the national Test and One Day International (ODI) teams. Born in a Marathi family, he started playing cricket at the age of 12 and later represented the state team at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 levels. Hailed as The Wall, Dravid has been described as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He was named one of the best five cricketers of the year by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2000 and received the Player of the Year and the Test Player of the Year awards at the inaugural ICC awards ceremony in 2004. In December 2011, he became the first non-Australian cricketer to address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra.

As of October 2012, Dravid is the third-highest run scorer in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, and is only the second Indian cricketer, after Tendulkar to score 10,000 runs both in Tests and in ODIs. Wisden ranked him the third greatest Test batsman of all time, after Don Bradman and Tendulkar. In April 2009, he became the only player to score a century in all the ten Test-playing countries. As of October 2012, he holds the record for the most number of catches taken by a player (non-wicket-keeper) in Test cricket, with 210.

In August 2011, after receiving a surprise call in the ODI series against England, Dravid declared his retirement from ODIs as well as Twenty20 International (T20I), and in March 2012, he announced his retirement from international and first-class cricket. He appeared in the 2012 Indian Premier League as captain of the Rajasthan Royals.

Rahul Dravid, along with Glenn McGrath were honoured during the seventh annual Bradman Awards function in Sydney on 1 November 2012. Dravid has also been honoured with the Padma Bhushan award, India's third highest civilian award.

Dravid was born in a Maharashtrian Deshastha Brahmin family in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His family later moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, where he was raised. Dravid's father worked for a company that makes jams and preserves, giving rise to the later nickname Jammy. His mother, Pushpa, was a professor of Architecture at the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bangalore. Dravid has a younger brother named Vijay. He did his schooling at St. Joseph's Boys High School, Bangalore and earned a degree in commerce from St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore.

Dravid started playing cricket at the age of 12, and represented Karnataka at the under-15, the under-17 and the under-19 levels. Former cricketer Keki Tarapore first noticed Dravid's talent while coaching at a summer camp in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Dravid scored a century for his school team. He also played as wicket-keeper, but later stopped keeping wicket on the advice of former Test players Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny,Brijesh Patel and Tarapore.

Dravid made his Ranji Trophy debut in February 1991, while he was still attending college. Playing alongside future Indian teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath against Maharashtra in Pune, he scored 82 runs in the match, which ended in a draw. His first full season was in 1991–92, when he scored two centuries and finished up with 380 runs at an average of 63.3, getting selected for the South Zone cricket team in the Duleep Trophy.