The Bengal Renaissance, also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," born in 1772. Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement "can be said to have … ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's first Nobel laureate.
Vidyasagar University was established by an Act of the West Bengal legislature which was notified in the Calcutta Gazette on 24 June 1981. It is an affiliating university in Paschim Medinipur district of southern West Bengal, India. It offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
Vidyasagar College is a state government-aided public college, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, located in North Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The college offers both post-graduate and under-graduate courses in a number of subjects of arts and science. Founded in 1872, it was the first private college in India which was purely run, maintained and financed by Indians. Formerly known as Metropolitan Institution, it was named after its founder Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1917.
Hare School is one of the oldest schools in Kolkata, India, teaching grades one to twelve under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. It is a state government-administered boys school and was established by the Scottish watch-maker, David Hare. The establishment date is not agreed upon, but the official year of establishment is 1818. Thus the school is declared as the oldest western type school in Asia. The school is situated opposite the Presidency University, and is also adjacent to the University of Calcutta and Hindu School. The combined campuses of the Hare School and Presidency College is one of the largest in Kolkata.
Sanskrit College and University is a state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It focuses on liberal arts, offering both UG and PG degrees in Ancient Indian and world history, Bengali, English, Sanskrit, Linguistics, and traditional orientation learning except Pali in which only UG degree is being offered.
Fort William College was an academy of oriental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India, located within the Fort William complex in Calcutta. Wellesley started the Fort William College to train the European administrators. He backdated the statute of foundation to 4 May 1800, to commemorate the first anniversary of his victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam. Thousands of books were translated from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English at this institution.
Peary Charan Sircar, was an educationist and textbook writer in nineteenth century Bengal. His series of Reading Books introduced a whole generation of Bengalis to the English language, sold in the millions and were translated into every major Indian language. He was also a pioneer of women's education in Bengal and was called 'Arnold of the East'.
Satish Chandra Mukherjee was a pioneer in establishing a system of national education in India, along with Sri Aurobindo.
Sir Gooroodas Banerjee was an Indian judge of the Calcutta High Court. In 1890, he also became the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of University of Calcutta.
Hara Prasad Shastri, also known as Hara Prasad Bhattacharya, was an Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist, and historian of Bengali literature. He is most known for discovering the Charyapada, the earliest known examples of Bengali literature.
Mahendralal Sarkar CIE was a Bengali medical doctor (MD), the second MD graduated from the Calcutta Medical College, social reformer, and propagator of scientific studies in nineteenth-century India. He was the founder of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science.
Bangabasi College is a Kolkata-based liberal arts, commerce and sciences college. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses of the University of Calcutta. It was founded by Girish Chandra Bose, an educationist, social reformer and agriculturist, in 1887. It was the first nationalist college. It played a major role in the Disobedience Movement of 1930 and sacrifice of Shri Jatindra Nath Das, an undergraduate student of the college. The college celebrated its 125th anniversary from November 2011 to October 2012. It has been accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India (NAAC) with "A" certificate.
The Sanskrit Press and Depository was set up in 1807 by Baburam, who was a teacher at Hariram College, one of the primitive colleges in east Bengal. Later, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Madan Mohan Tarkalankar with a loan of 600 rupees updated it with better machinery and work-environment.
The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856, also Act XV, 1856, passed on 16 July 1856, legalised the remarriage of widows in all jurisdictions of India under East India Company rule.The act was enacted on 26 July 1856. It was drafted by Lord Dalhousie and passed by Lord Canning before the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It was the first major social reform legislation after the abolition of sati pratha in 1829 by Lord William Bentinck.
Anil Kumar Gain FRSS FCPS was an Indian mathematician and statistician best known for his works on the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient in the field of applied statistics, with his colleague Ronald Fisher. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Henry Ellis Daniels, who was the then President of the Royal Statistical Society. He was honoured as a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Kalikrishna Mitra was a Bengali philanthropist, educator and writer. He established the first non-government girls’ school in India.
John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune (1801–1851) was an English educator, mathematician and polyglot known for promoting women's education in India. He was the founder of Calcutta Female School in Calcutta, which is considered the oldest women's college in Asia. He started his professional life as a lawyer in England and came to India by his appointment as a law member of the Governor General's Council of Ministers. His efforts to further women's education were actively supported by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and other members of the Bengali Renaissance.
Barnaparichay is a Bengali primer written by 19th century Indian social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. It was first published in 1855. This is considered as "The Most Influential Primer of Bengal". The primer had two parts. This reflected Vidayasagar's knowledge, expertise and background as a Sanskrit scholar. The success of the first part of the primer inspired Vidyasagar to work on the second part. It remained an important source for teaching Bengali. This standardized the Bengali alphabet.
Madanmohan Tarkalankar is one of the Sanskrit scholars of the Indian subcontinent in the nineteenth century who has made a special contribution to the development of written Bengali language. He is also considered as one of the pioneers of the Bengali renaissance. He was a professor at Fort William College and authored several textbooks on early childhood education.
