Ranjit Singh was the founder and first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, ruling from 1801 until his death in 1839. He ruled as the chief of the Sukerchakia Misl from 1792 to 1801 when he unified the Punjabi states, drove the Afghans out and was proclaimed the "Maharaja of Punjab". He survived smallpox in infancy but lost sight in his left eye. He fought his first battle alongside his father at age 10.
The Zafarnāma was a spiritual victory letter sent by Guru Gobind Singh in 1705 to the Mughal Emperor of India, Aurangzeb, after the Battle of Chamkaur.
Kunwar Natwar Singh, IFS was an Indian diplomat and politician who served as the Minister of External Affairs from May 2004 to December 2005. Having been suspended by the Congress in 2006, he joined Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2008 but was removed from the party within four months.
Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, GCSI, also spelled Dalip Singh, and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire", was the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son, the only child of Maharani Jind Kaur.
Jyotindra Nath Dixit was an Indian diplomat, who served as Foreign Secretary (1991–1994), the top bureaucrat in the Ministry of External Affairs. At the time of his death, he was the National Security Adviser (India) to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and is mostly remembered for his role as a negotiator in disputes with Pakistan and China.
Batala is the eighth largest city in the state of Punjab, India in terms of population after Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Bathinda, Mohali and Hoshiarpur. Batala ranks as the second-oldest city after Bathinda. It is a municipal corporation in Gurdaspur district in the Majha region of the state of Punjab. It is located about 32 km from Gurdaspur, the headquarters of the district. It is also a Police district. Batala holds the status of the most populated town of the district with 31% of the district's total population. It is the biggest industrial town in the district.
Kavalam Madhava Panikkar, popularly known as Sardar K. M. Panikkar, was an Indian statesman and diplomat. He was also a professor, newspaper editor, historian and novelist. He was born in Travancore, then a princely state in the British Indian Empire and was educated in Madras and at the University of Oxford.
Bakshi Mohinder Singh Sarna, known professionally as S. Mohinder, was an Indian music composer.
Moti Bagh Palace is a palace in Patiala, also known as Pearl Garden Palace. The word "Moti" means "pearl", and "Bagh" means "garden". The palace was built by Maharaja Narinder Singh, the great-grandfather of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, in 1847, at a cost of half a million rupees. The Old Moti Bagh Palace and New Moti Bagh Palace were built respectively by Maharaja Narinder Singh and Maharaja Yadavindra Singh.
Kahn Singh Nabha was a Punjabi Sikh scholar, writer, anthologist, lexicographer, and encyclopedist. His most influential work, Mahan Kosh, inspired generations of scholars after him. He also played a role in the Singh Sabha movement.
Gulzar is an Indian Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this era. He started his career with music director S.D. Burman as a lyricist in the 1963 film Bandini and worked with many music directors including R. D. Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Vishal Bhardwaj and A. R. Rahman. Gulzar also writes poetry, dialogues and scripts. He directed films such as Aandhi and Mausam during the 1970s and the TV series Mirza Ghalib in the 1980s. He also directed Kirdaar in 1993.
Roopinder Singh is an Indian journalist and author. He retired as Senior Associate Editor with the English daily newspaper, The Tribune, published from Chandigarh, India. in 2020. His specialization is Sikh history and culture, information technology, and education. He is the author of six major books in English, including a critically acclaimed volume on the founder of Sikh religion, Guru Nanak Dev, and a volume on Sikh heritage. He lives in Chandigarh, Punjab.
Aditya Narayan Dhairyasheel Haksar is a well known translator of Sanskrit classics into English. Born in Gwalior, central India, he is a graduate of The Doon School, Allahabad University and Oxford University. He was a career diplomat, serving as Indian High Commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, Minister in the United States, Ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia, and he also served as Dean of India's Foreign Service Institute and President of the U.N. Environment Programme's Governing Council.
Kanwal Sibal is a career diplomat who retired as Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. In 2017, The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri award for his distinguished services in the field of Public Affairs.
Arun Kumar Singh or commonly Arun Singh is a former Indian diplomat. He was the Indian Ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2016. He is now a senior fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Before taking charge as ambassador in the United States, he served as Ambassador of India to France in Paris. On 8 March 2015, Ministry of External Affairs of India announced its decision to appoint Singh as the next Ambassador of India to the United States.
Navdeep Suri is a retired Indian diplomat completing 36 years in the Indian Foreign Service, having served in India's diplomatic missions in Cairo, Damascus, Washington, Dar es Salaam and London and as India's Consul General in Johannesburg. He has also headed the West Africa and Public Diplomacy departments at the Ministry of External Affairs. He was India's High Commissioner to Australia and Ambassador to Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Sarna is an Indian surname of Punjabi Khatri community.
Mohinder Singh Sarna was an Indian civil servant and novelist who wrote in the Punjabi language. He won the 1994 Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection Nawen Yug De Waris. He served as an officer of Indian Audit and Accounts Service from the 1950 batch and is the father of diplomat Navtej Sarna.
Manjeev Singh Puri is a retired Indian civil servant of the Indian Foreign Service cadre and the former Ambassador of India to Nepal.
Taranjit Singh Sandhu is a retired Indian diplomat who served as High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka and 28th Ambassador of India to the United States.
