Personalities  

Why in News?  

Details  

Ahilyabai Holkar  

Madhya Pradesh is celebrating 18th-century queen Ahilyabai Holkar with a nine-month campaign highlighting her cultural legacy and temple restoration efforts.  

• Devi Ahilyabai Holkar (1725–1795), queen of the Maratha Malwa kingdom, brought peace, prosperity, and stability to Malwa, turning Maheshwar into a cultural and industrial hub.  
• Trained in military leadership, she personally led armies and administered justice impartially, famously sentencing her own son to death for a capital crime.  
• She abolished oppressive laws like property confiscation from childless widows and established the renowned Maheshwari textile industry.  
• A patron of poets and scholars, she built and renovated hundreds of Hindu temples across India, including the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, earning the title “The Philosopher Queen.”  

Vinayak Damodar Savarka  

The Supreme Court dismissed a plea to safeguard Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s name under the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950.  

• Born in 1883 near Nasik, Maharashtra, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, known as Veer Savarkar, was a freedom fighter who called the 1857 revolt the first war of independence.  
• He founded the Abhinav Bharat Society and Free India Society, was part of India House, and served as president of the Hindu Mahasabha (though not its founder).  
• Savarkar promoted the idea of India as a Hindu Rashtra and developed the Hindu nationalist ideology, Hindutva; he opposed the 1942 Quit India movement.  
• He authored “Joseph Mazzini - Biography and Politics” and “The Indian War of Independence”; Port Blair’s airport is named Veer Savarkar International Airport.  

Shri N.T. Rama Rao

Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, paid homage to Shri N. T. Rama Rao on his birth anniversary.  

• N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) was a renowned Indian actor, director, politician, and government official born on May 28, 1923, in Nimmakuru, India, and passed away on January 18, 1996, in Hyderabad.  
• He founded the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1982 and served as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for three terms between 1983 and 1995.  

Gulveer Singh

Gulveer Singh won gold in the men’s 10,000m at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.  

Hailing from a farming family, Gulveer joined the Indian Army through the sports quota at the age of 17.