Laxmi Mittal:

Lakshmi Narayan Mittal (or Lakshmi Niwas Mittal) (born June 15, 1950) is a London-based Indian billionaire industrialist, born in Sadulpur village, in the Churu district of Rajasthan, India, and resides in Kensington, London. He is the richest man in the UK and the fifth richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of US$51.0 billion according to Forbes magazine.

The Financial Times named Mittal its 2006 Person of the Year. In May 2007, he was named one of the "100 most influential people" by Time magazine.

Lakshmi spent his first years in India , living with his extended family on bare floors and rope beds in a house built by his grandfather. His family was from humble roots; his grandfather worked for the Tarachand Ghanshyamdas Poddar firm, one of the leading industrial firms of pre-independence India. They eventually moved to Calcutta where his father, Mohan, became a partner in a steel company and made a fortune. He graduated from St. Xavier's College in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Business and Accounting in 1969.

AWARDS:

2008: Padma Vibhushan

2007: Bessemer Gold Medal

2006: Person of the Year - Financial Times

2004: European Businessman of the Year - Fortune magazine

N.R.Narayana Murthy

Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy(Born August 20, 1946) is an Indian industrialist, software engineer and one of the seven founders of Infosys Technologies, a global consulting and IT services company based in India. Born into a Kannada Madhva Brahmin family in Mysore, India on August 20, 1946, Murthy graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Engineering, University of Mysore in 1967 after attending government school, and received his master's degree from IIT Kanpur in 1969.

His first position was at IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer where he worked on a time-sharing system and designed and implemented a BASIC interpreter for ECIL (Electronics Corporation of India Limited).

After IIM Ahmedabad, he then joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune. Before moving to Mumbai, Murthy met his wife Sudha Murthy in Pune who at the time was an engineer working at Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co. Ltd. (Telco, now known as Tata Motors) in Pune. In 1981, he founded Infosys with six other software professionals. He served as president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, India from 1992 to 1994. Mr. Murthy is the brother-in-law of serial entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande and the uncle of former NASSCOM Chairman and MphasiS chief Jerry Rao.

Murthy served as the founder CEO of Infosys for twenty years, and was succeeded by co-founder Nandan Nilekani in March 2002. He is the chairman of the governing body of the International Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore, and was the Chairman of the Governing Body of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan are the awards won by Narayana Murthy.

Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja!

Ilaiyaraaja(born June 2, 1943 as Gnanadesikan) is an Indian film composer, singer, and lyricist. He has composed over 4,000 songs and provided background music for more than 800 Indian films in various languages in a career spanning 30 years. He is based in Chennai, India. Ilaiyaraaja was the most prominent composer of film music in South Indian cinema during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. His work integrated Tamil folk lyricism and introduced broader Western musical sensibilities into the South Indian musical mainstream. He has thrice won the Indian National Film Award for best film scoring. He is married to Jeeva, and the couple's two sons (Karthik Raja and Yuvan Shankar Raja) and daughter (Bhavatharini) are film composers and singers.

Ilaiyaraaja was born into a poor rural family in Pannaipuram, Theni district, Tamil Nadu, India. He was the third son of Ramaswamy and Chinnathayammal. Growing up in a farming area, Ilaiyaraaja was exposed to Tamil folk music, such as the songs sung by farmers working in the fields. His formative contact with music-making and performance came at the age of 14, when he joined a travelling musical troupe headed by his elder step-brother, Pavalar Varadarajan, who was a propaganda musician for the Communist Party of India

In Chennai, Ilaiyaraaja worked in a band for hire involved in performing music for various stage shows and formal occasions. Ilaiyaraaja also worked as a session guitarist and keyboardist/organist for film music composers and directors such as Salil Chowdhury from West Bengal, who often recorded music in Madras.

Ilaiyaraaja has won the Gold Remi Award for Best Music Score jointly with film composer M. S. Viswanathan at the WorldFest-Houston Film Festival for the film Vishwa Thulasi (2005).He was conferred the title Isaignani ('savant of music') in 1988 by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and received the Kalaimamani Award, an annual award for excellence in the field of arts from the Government of the State of Tamil Nadu, India. He also received State Government Awards from the governments of Kerala (1995), Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (The Lata Mangeshkar Award) (1998) for excellence in music.

Manorama, The Guinness Record Holder!....

Manorama (26 May 1943, Pallathur, Tamil Nadu, India), fondly called Aachi, is a Tamil actress who has acted in more than 1500 films, 100 stage performances, and a few television serials.
She has started her acting career as a drama artist, which was more popular those days. She slowly migrated from dramas to cinemas just as most actors did those days. During her initial days in the cine field, she concentrated more on comedy. She was given equally challenging roles alongside the well known comedian Nagesh. They made an excellent pair and gave many praiseworthy comedies.
Her role in Thillana Mohanambal was much appreciated and noticed even with the presence of great stalwarts like Sivaji Ganesan and Natiya Peroli (Danseuse) Padmini in the movie. Ever since, she was provided with more scope in varied roles in addition to comedy. She took each responsibility with such an ease which made the Tamil industry recognize her immense talent.
She has the distinction of having acted with five chief ministers of South India. She was the female lead in the stage plays written, directed and acted by Mr C. N. Annadurai, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. She has also acted in stage plays with another Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr M Karunanidhi. She has acted in films with Dr M G Ramachandran and Dr Jayalalitha Jayaram who both became Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu later. She has also acted in Telugu films with Dr N T Rama Rao, who became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
She has also obtained the Guinness World Record for acting in the maximum number of movies [More than 1500]. And she got the Indian National award for the best supporting actress for the film Puthiya Pathai – 1988.

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, was the eleventh President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007. A notable engineer, he is often referred to as the “Missile Man of India” for his work and is considered a progressive mentor, innovator and visionary in India. He is also popularly known as the People's President. His term as president ended on July 25, 2007.

Kalam is an alumnus of King's College London. He has received honorary doctorates from as many as thirty universities. The Government of India has honored him with the nation's highest civilian honors: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997.

Dr. Abdul Kalam graduated from Madras Institute of Technology majoring in Aeronautical Engineering. He, as the Project Director, made significant contributions to the development of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III). He, as Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), also played major part in developing many missiles of India including Agni and Prithvi. He was the Chief Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999. Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during this period, led by him.

Shiv Nadar is an Indian businessman and educationalist. He is the current Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of HCL Technologies. Nadar, known as Magnus (Wizard in Persian) amongst his friends, founded HCL in 1976 along with Ajai choudary and three more colleagues. Today, HCL is an IT Enterprise consisting of HCL Technologies, which focuses on Software and IT Solutions and HCL Infosystems, which focuses on Hardware manufacturing and product reselling.A native of Moolaipozhi village in Tuticorin District (Tamil Nadu) he graduated from PSG College of Technology. Nadar started an engineering college - SSN College of Engineering in 1996.Forbes has been listing him in the Top 500 Richest people in the World and Top 40 Richest Indians since 2000. In 2007 he is ranked 214 in the world at Forbes list of billionaires.