The name Van Mahotsava ( the festival of trees ) originated in July 1947 after a successful tree-planting drive was undertaken in Delhi, in which national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad and Abdul Kalam Azad participated.

It has been noted that this was a key part of the process of the reduction of the Indian economy from sophisticated textile production to a mere supplier of raw materials which occurred under colonial rule, a process described by Nehru and more recent scholars as " de-industrialization.

Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country.

John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard University economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s, an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963, was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard.

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī, née Nehru ; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984 ) was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms ( 1966 – 77 ) and a fourth term ( 1980 – 84 ).

Gandhi was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India.

Indira Nehru was born on 19 November 1917 at the Anand Bhavan in the historically important town of Allahabad, in what was then the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, into the politically influential Nehru family.

Indira Gandhi's father was Jawaharlal Nehru and her mother was Kamla Nehru.

Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader.

Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the independence movement of India.

During her time in Europe, Nehru was plagued with ill-health and was constantly attended by doctors.

Nehru tried to return to England through Portugal but was left stranded for nearly two months.

During her stay in the UK, Nehru frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics.

In 1951, in Taiwan, the Chinese Muslim Kuomintang General Bai Chongxi made a speech broadcast on radio to the entire Muslim world calling for a war against Russia, claiming that the " imperialist ogre " leader Stalin was engineering World War III, and Bai also called upon Muslims to avoid the Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru, accusing him of being blind to Soviet imperialism.

Jawaharlal Nehru (, 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964 ), often referred to as Panditji, was an Indian politician and statesman, a leader in the Indian Independence Movement, and the first Prime Minister of independent India.

Nehru was elected by the Indian National Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister in 1947, and re-elected when the Congress party won India's first general election in 1951.

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India.

Nehru was subsequently initiated into the Theosophical Society at age thirteen by family friend Annie Beasant.

Nehru described his childhood as a " sheltered and uneventful one.

" During the war, Nehru volunteered for the St John Ambulance and worked as one of the provincial secretaries of the organisation in Allahabad.

Nehru was one of the first leaders to demand that the Congress Party should resolve to make a complete and explicit break from all ties with the British Empire.

Nehru was one of the leaders who objected to the time given to the British-he pressed Gandhi to demand immediate actions from the British.

In October 1940, Gandhi and Nehru, abandoning their original stand of supporting Britain, decided to launch a limited civil disobedience campaign in which leading advocates of Indian independence were selected to participate one by one.

Nehru would continue to maintain his commitment to the non-aligned movement despite calls from some to settle down on one permanent ally.

Without Gandhi's unifying personality, the Indian National Congress began to splinter during his years in prison, splitting into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move.

Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also reduced his own call to a one year wait, instead of two.

His father, Feroze, was one of the younger members of the Indian National Congress party, and had befriended the young Indira, and also her mother Kamala Nehru, while working on party affairs at Allahabad.

His cremation in Sonapur in Bombay, was attended by a one million strong crowd including Prime Minister Nehru, Rajagopalachari, President Prasad.

The Indian position, as stated by Prime Minister Nehru, was that the Aksai Chin was " part of the Ladakh region of India for centuries " and that this northern border was a " firm and definite one which was not open to discussion with anybody ".

* An under-construction footbridge at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, one of the main venues for 2010 Commonwealth Games collapsed on September 21, 2010, a few weeks before the opening ceremony, injuring 27 people.

In his meetings with Nehru, Krishnamurti elaborated at length on the teachings, saying in one instance, “ Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things ; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you.

Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action .” Nehru asked, “ How does one start ?” to which Krishnamurti replied, “ Begin where you are.

Laxmi was the daughter of one of his early followers, a wealthy Jain who had been a key supporter of the National Congress Party during the struggle for Indian independence, with close ties to Gandhi, Nehru and Morarji Desai.

:"... one of the most remarkable books ever written .... Nehru makes even H. G.

Nehru was furious and wrote to Rajaji saying " the one thing we must avoid giving is the impression that we stick to office and we want to keep others out at all costs.

In 1955 Goel asked one of his friends, who was supportive of Nehru and who had published in many international and national journals, to write an article critical of Nehru's policies.

They had three performances in Delhi, one for the then Vice president Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, another for Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the third for Army Chief Field Marshal K M Cariappa.

The League rejected the Committee report ( the Nehru Report ), arguing that it gave too little representation ( only one quarter ) to Muslims, established Devanagari as the official language of the colony, and demanded that India turn into a de facto unitary state, with residuary powers resting at the center – the League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature and sizable autonomy for the Muslim provinces.

The couple divorced in 1951 and had one child, Rashid Suhrawardy ( aka Robert Ashby ), who is an actor living in London ( He played Jawaharlal Nehru in film jinnah ( film )).

Nehru Planetarium in Pune was the first one in Asia, established in 1954.

Under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi in 1918, Nehru became one of the first to transform his life to exclude western clothes and material goods, adopting a more native Indian lifestyle.