India

Why Atal Bihari Vajpayee should get Bharat Ratna award ?

1. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924 in Gwalior.

2. As a teenager, Vajpayee was jailed briefly for opposing British colonial rule. He flirted with communism before choosing to support the Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Jan Sangh.

3. Vajpayee dropped out of law school to run an RSS magazine in the early 1950s. Later, he transcended his political roots in the RSS to emerge as the moderate voice of the BJP.

4. His involvement in politics began as a freedom-fighter during the Quit India Movement of 1942-1945. He started out as a communist but shed that for membership in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an organization propounding Hindutva, or Hindu Nationalism and considered Right-Wing in Indian politics.

5. Vajpayee became a close follower and aide to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), BJP's predecessor.

6. Vajpayee was at Mookerjee's side when he went on a fast-unto-death in Kashmir in 1953, to protest against the system of carrying a permit for entering the state and the "inferior" treatment of Indian citizens visiting Kashmir, as also the special treatment accorded to Kashmir because it had a Muslim majority. Mookerjee's fast and protest ended the identity card requirement, and hastened the integration of Kashmir into the Indian Union. But Mookherjee died after weeks of weakness, illness and confinement in jail. These events were a watershed moment for the young Vajpayee.

7. Taking the baton from Mookerjee, Vajpayee won his first election to Parliament in 1957.


8. Vajpayee served the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, for 10 terms that began in 1957 and concluded in 2009.

9. Vajpayee was the first head of government from outside the Congress party to serve a full five-year term.

10. Vajpayee first became Prime Minister in 1996 after four decades in opposition. He lasted only 13 days as prime minister for lack of numbers.

11. The lack of a stable majority ended his second stint in power from 1998 after 13 months. His government collapsed after AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa withdrew her support from the coalition.

12. Vajpayee was reelected in 1999 at the head of a more stable coalition that lasted its full term.

13. An orator par excellence, Vajpayee had earned much fame as India's external affairs minister in Prime Minister Morarji Desai government during which tenure he delivered a widely acclaimed speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi.

14. Undeterred by party hawks who accused him of embarking on a misdirected visit to Pakistan in 1999, Vajpayee rode triumphantly into Lahore aboard a bus, on an initiative that was pursued by his successor Manmohan Singh.

15. A bachelor, Vajpayee is also a poet of some repute and he is often quoted by his party.

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Interesting facts about the Taj Mahal.

You won't believe but the replicas of the Taj Mahal do exist. 

Taj Mahal combines elements from Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles.

It is estimated to have taken more than 22,000 people to build this impressive building including labourers, painters, stonecutters, embroidery artists, and many others

To build the Taj Mahal, about 1000 elephants were employed that transferred the construction material from one place to another.

Taj Mahal took 17 years to be completed.

The four sides of the Taj Mahal are perfectly identical creating an astonishingly mirrored image on each side. It uses the principles of self-replicating geometry and symmetry of architectural elements.

The Taj Mahal is surrounded by significant gardens and a number of other buildings including  a mosque and guest houses which make up the 17 hectares of land within the complex walls.

The full height of the Taj Mahal is 171 metres (561 feet).

Mumtaz Mahal was Shah Jahan's third wife, and was earlier known by the name Arjumand Bano Begum. was born in April 1593 in Agra, India.

Mumtaz Mahal lost her life giving birth to Shah Jahan's 14th child in 17 june 1631 due to blood-loss after a painful labour of thirty hours.

She also asked her husband not to marry anyone else and Shah Jahan went into mourning for 2 year after she died ,the death so crushed the Emperor that all his hair and beard were said to have grown snow white within just a few months.

The Taj Mahal takes on different colouring at different times of the day, from a pinkish hue in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden at night when lit by the moon. They say the changing colour resembles the changing mood of females - in particular the Emperor's queen.

Taj Mahal is adorned with an assortment of 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones, Many precious stones were ripped off from its walls by the British during the Indian rebellion of 1857

While roaming in Taj Mahal complex, you can see different versus of Quran written everywhere.

Mumtaz Mahal's actual tomb contains about 99 different names of Allah featured as calligraphic inscriptions.

According to legend it is believed that Emperor Shah Jahan had planned to construct another Taj Mahal in black marble on the other side of the river but the war with his sons interrupted his plans