Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul KalamBR was an Indian aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the 11th president of India from 2002 to 2007. He was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu and studied physics and aerospace engineering. He spent the next four decades as a scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and was intimately involved in India's civilian space programme and military missile development efforts. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. He also played a pivotal organisational, technical, and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution. Contributors to the Tamil literature are mainly from Tamil people from south India, including the land now comprising Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Eelam Tamils from Sri Lanka, as well as the Tamil diaspora.
Christian Frederick Schwarz was a German Lutheran missionary to India. He was known for his linguistic skills, with knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu, Persian, Marathi, and Telugu and even used by the British to serve as an emissary of peace and sent to the court of Haider Ali in Mysore. He worked alongside the Indian royal families, tutoring the Raja Serfoji of Tanjore, and was influential in establishing Protestant Christianity in southern India.
Wings of Fire (1999), is the autobiography of the Missile Man of India and President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. It was written by him and Arun Tiwari.
Swadesamitran was a Tamil language newspaper that was published from the then Madras city from 1882 to 1985. One of the earliest Tamil newspapers and the longest in print, Swadesamitran was founded by Indian nationalist G. Subramania Iyer four years after he had started The Hindu. The newspaper was sold to A. Rangaswami Iyengar of the Kasturi family in 1915 and the newspaper remained with them until its liquidation in 1985.
S. M. Natesa Sastri (1859–1906) was a polyglot, scholar in eighteen languages and authored many books in Tamil, Sanskrit and English. His scholarliness over Tamil and Sanskrit languages got him the title "Pandit'.
Chennai Book Fair is an annual book fair organized in Chennai, India by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI). The fair typically lasts for about two weeks during the New Year-Pongal season, that is between the last week of December and the third week of January. It is the second largest book fair in the country after the Kolkata Book Fair. All major Tamil and English publishing houses participate in this fair. It is considered as an important event in the Chennai cultural calendar along with the Chennai music season.
Thodur Madabusi Krishna is an Indian Carnatic vocalist, writer, activist, author and Ramon Magsaysay awardee.
Swami Vipulananda, also known as Vipulananda Adigal, was a Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu social reformer, literary critic, author, poet, teacher and ascetic from the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Vipulananda was an early pioneer associated with the Indian-based Ramakrishna Mission in Sri Lanka. Along with other reformers, Vipulananda was instrumental in the revival of the Hindu religion and native traditions in Sri Lanka after a long period of dormancy and decline during the previous 500 years of colonial rule by various European powers.
Diwan Bahadur Rettamalai Srinivasan, commonly known as R. Srinivasan, was a Scheduled Caste activist and politician from then Madras Presidency of British India. He is a Paraiyar icon and was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and was also an associate of B. R. Ambedkar. He is remembered today as one of the pioneers of the Scheduled caste movement in India. He founded the Adi dravida mahajana sabha in 1893.
Santhini Govindan is an author of children's literature in English. Her works include poetry, picture books, and short stories for children of all ages and have been translated into many Indian languages. She has also written articles, stories and features for children that have been published in children's magazines and national dailies in India and overseas. Govindan has also conducted workshops for children at schools across Mumbai and in other Indian cities, and has taught creative writing at the under-graduate level at Mumbai University.
Karadi Tales is an independent children's publishing house based in Chennai, India focusing primarily on picture books and audiobooks. It was started in 1996 with an intent to create a space for Indian culture in the world of children's publishing, by a group of writers, educators and musicians. Since its launch, Karadi Tales titles have been consistently one of the largest selling publications in India. Many titles have sold more than 100,000 copies and most titles have crossed 20,000 copies. The audiobooks are narrated by a roster of celebrities and set to classical Indian ragas which are performed by trained musicians.
The introduction and early development of printing in South India is attributed to missionary propaganda and the endeavours of the British East India Company. Among the pioneers in this arena, maximum attention is claimed by the Jesuit missionaries, followed by the Protestant Fathers and Hindu Pandits. Once the immigrants realized the importance of the local language, they began to disseminate their religious teachings through that medium, in effect ushering in the vernacular print culture in India. The first Tamil booklet was printed in 1554 in Lisbon - Cartilha em lingoa Tamul e Portugues in Romanized Tamil script by Vincente de Nazareth, Jorge Carvalho and Thoma da Cruz, all from the Paravar community of Tuticorin. it is also the first non-European language to find space in the modern printing culture in the world.
N. Srinivasan is an Indian digital artist in the fields of art and architecture. He uses technology and traditional subject matter for most of his artwork.
Chezhiyan is an Indian filmmaker and director of photography who works primarily in the Tamil film industry. He received critical acclaim for his work in Kalloori (2007), Paradesi (2013) and To Let (2017).
Natesan Srinivasan (1919–1965) was a pioneer of aircraft design and aeronautics education in India. He made key contributions to aeronautics education and aviation development just as India emerged as an independent nation in 1947. He served as the Director of the Madras Institute of Technology from 1954 to 1959, where the future President of India, Abdul Kalam, was one of his students. His ideas, highlighted in his book, helped set up the vision for national aviation development in India. At the time of his untimely death, he was the project director for the AVRO project in Kanpur, India.
Chinnaswami Rajam was a visionary entrepreneur, eminent industrialist, and the founder of the present Madras Institute of Technology of the Anna University, Chennai. The late Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Iyer called him a "pioneer in the industrial field".
Tirukkural, also known as the Kural, an ancient Indian treatise on the ethics and morality of the commoner, is one of the most widely translated non-religious works in the world. Authored by the ancient Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar, it has been translated into at least 42 world languages, with about 57 different renderings in the English language alone.
Sushrut Badhe is an Indian author, researcher on Sanskrit scripture and manufacturer of Ayurvedic products. He has rewritten the Sanskrit scriptures Bhagavad Gita and three Upanishads, Isha, Kena and Mandukya in rhymed English.
Krishnaswamy Swaminathan was an Indian literary scholar and the Chief Editor of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
