Rani Avantibai 1988 India Stamp

Rani (Queen) of Ramgarh State in central India, is remembered for her valiant fight against the British during the 1857 War of Independence, when she made the supreme sacrifice of her life for the freedom of motherland.

The blatant annexations of estates by British officials antagonised the local rulers and as the events of the Revolt of 1857 unfolded, they became the most dangerous opponents of the British. Avantibai Lodhi was the queen of King Vikramaditya Singh of Ramgarh.

When Vikramaditya Singh became incapable of handling the affairs of the State due to ill health, Avantibai Lodhi rose to the occasion and took charge of the administration.  In 1851, Avantibai Lodhi felt humiliated by the appointment of an English Tehsildar for Ramgarh.

When the Revolt of 1857 broke out, Rani Avantibai Lodhi raised an army of four thousand and led it herself. In the first encounter which took place in a village named Kheri, she routed the British troops. However, stung by the defeat the British came back with vengeance and launched an attack on Ramgarh.

Avantibai Lodhi's courage and fighting spirit was not enough to match their mighty military machine with all its brutal strength.

The Rani was forced to leave Ramgarh and move to the dense forests on the hill of Devharigarh. Surrounded and faced with the prospect of defeat Avantibai Lodhi thought it better to sacrifice her life rather than to surrender. On 20th March 1858, Rani Avantibai Lodhi became a martyr.

Narmada Valley Development Authority named the dam in Jabalpur district in the honour of freedom fighter Rani Avantibai Lodhi. The Rani Avanti Bai Lodhi Sagar (Bargi) project is major multipurpose project across river Narmada in Madhya Pradesh. The main dam is located at a distance of about 45 km from Jabalpur city. The project has a composite earthen and masonry dam with a canal system on the left bank to provide annual irrigation of 2,19,000 hectare (CCA – 1,57,000 hectare) in Jabalpur and Narsinghpur district. It also provide water supply of 54 Mcum to Jabalpur city. The project has also hydro power generation capacity of 100 MW.

Department of Posts issued the stamp in honour of Rani Avantibai.

Issued Date : 20.03.1988
Denomination : 60 Paise

Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant 1988 India Stamp

Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant (10 September 1887 – 7 March 1961) was an Indian freedom fighter and one of the architects of modern India. Alongside Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabh Bhai Patel, Pant was a key figure in the movement for India's Independence and later a pivotal figure in the Indian Government. He was one of the foremost political leaders of Uttar Pradesh (then known as United Provinces) and a key player in the movement to establish Hindi as the official language of India.

Today, as a mark of tribute, several Indian hospitals, educational institutions and foundations bear his name. To honour his exemplary services to the nation, Pant received India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1957.

Govind Ballabh Pant was born on 10 September 1887 in Khoont village on the slopes of Shyahi Devi hill near Almora, in a Brahmin family having their roots in Maharashtra. His mother's name was Govindi Bai. His father Manorath Pant a government official, was constantly on the move, and hence Govind was brought up by his maternal grandfather, Badri Dutt Joshi, an important government official locally, who played a significant part in moulding his personality and political views.He was honoured with "Proud Past Alumni" in the list of 42 members, from "Allahabad University Alumni Association", Allahabad University.

As a young lawyer in Kashipur, Pandit Pant began active work against the British Raj in 1914, when he helped a local parishad, or village council, in their successful challenge of a law requiring locals to provide free transportation of the luggage of travelling British officials, then called "coolie begar". In 1921, he entered politics and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

In 1960, he suffered a heart attack. He was treated by top doctors in India, including his friend Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal. His health started deteriorating and he died on 7 March 1961 at the age of 74, from a cerebral stroke. At that time he was still in office as the Home Minister of India.

Mourning him, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the then President of India was quoted as saying,“I had known Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant since 1922 and in this long period of association it had been my privilege to receive from him not only consideration but also affection. This is no time to assess his labour and his achievements. The grief is too intense for words. I can only pray for peace to his soul and strength to those who loved and admired him”.

Department of post issued a commemorative postage stamp remembering  Shri G. B Pant on his Birth Centenary

Issued  Date : 07.03.1988
Denomination : 60 paise

B. N. Rau 1988 India Stamp

Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, shortly called B. N. Rau was an Indian civil servant, jurist, diplomat and statesman from Bangalore who was active in the pre-independent India. One of the foremost Indian jurists in the 20th century,

he played a key role in drafting the Constitution of India and also the Constitution of Myanmar (then known by the name Burma). For a brief period he served as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state (1944-1945).

This diplomat also served as the country’s representative to the United Nations Security Council from 1950 to 1952. After that he served as a judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice, The Hague till his death in 1953. Regarded as a strong contestant for secretary-general of the United Nations,

Shiva Rao was born into a distinguished family of Mangalore on 26 February 1887. He was born into an intellectual family of doctors and diplomats. 

His father, Benegal Raghavendra Rau was one of the earliest Indian doctors educated in western medicine. His brother B. Shiva Rao was a noted journalist, writer and politician who served as a member of India’s first Lok Sabha. Second brother Sir Benegal Rama Rau was the fourth Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Padma Bhushan winner and the founder president of Family Planning Association of India - Dhanvanthi Rama Rau was his sister-in-law. Thus noted journalist and author of ‘A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur’, Santha Rama Rau was his niece.

An excellent student in academics, he was the University first rank holder of F.A. (Intermediate) examination. He took his Tripos in 1909 from Trinity College, Cambridge. Rau passed the Indian Civil Service Examination in 1909 and returned to India.

He was posted in undivided Bengal. After retirement, he was appointed as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state in the year 1944. He was appointed as the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly for formulating Indian

Constitution. It’s regarded as his best achievement in the diplomatic career, at last is life career came to end when he last is breath in Zurich, Switzerland on 30 November 1953, aged 66.

Issued Date: 26.02.1988
Denomination: 60 Paise

World Philatelic Exhibition DLO and RMS Early Cancellation 1988 India stamps

As a prelude to India-89, World Philatelic Exhibition, the Department of Posts issued a series of stamps. The fourth set issued, carries two cancellations, one of the RMS (Railway Mail Service) and the other of the DLO (Dead Letter Office). The Indian Postal System is one of the largest in the world. In the nineteenth century, the geographical area covered by the system was very much larger. It included undivided India and Burma and also certain out-post of the British Empire like Aden, Singapore and Shangai where Indian Stamps were used. This, along with the multifarious activities undertaken by the system itself, made a study of the Indian postal history interesting as well as instructive for a philatelist specializing in postal history collections. Postal history is the study of routes, rates and markings. The markings are by far the most colorful aspect of such collections. It was, therefore, appropriate that postal cancellations were chosen as the subject for these set of stamps. The first stamp depicts one of the earliest hand stamps of the traveling post office in the 'Allahabad-Cawnpore' railway sector and this postmark was in use from December 1864 to 1869. The traveling sorting offices between these two places used it. The first Traveling Post Office was established on 1st May 1864 under a Superintendent at Allahabad. The TPO operated on the 'Allahabad-Crownpore' and 'Calcutta-Delhi' railway sector. The circular postmark shown on the stamp has a diameter of 25 to 26 ms with 'TRAVELLING' along the upper rim of the circumference and 'POST OFFICE' along the lower rim, with No. 1 of the set, date and 'AC' in three horizontal lines in the space within the circle. This cancellation was used by the 1st set of the experimental TPO on 21st August 1864. The second stamp depicts the type of cancellation used by the Dead Letter Offices in 1886.

Date of Issue: 20.12.1988 
Denomination: 200 Paisa

Dr. S.K.Sinha 1988 India stamp

Sri Krishna Sinha known as Dr. S. K. Sinha, Sri Babu and Bihar Kesari, was the first Chief Minister of the Indian state of Bihar 

Singh was born on 21 October 1887 in Khanwa in Nawada district of Bihar. His paternal village is Maur, near Barbigha in the then Munger District that is now part of Sheikhpura District. His father was a religious, middle-class member of a Bhumihar family. His mother, who was also an unassuming and religious-minded person, died of plague when he was five years old. He was educated in the village school and at Zila School in Munger. In 1906 he joined Patna College, which was then an affiliate of the University of Calcutta.

He studied law and started practicing in Munger from 1915. In the meantime, he married and had two sons, Shivshankar Sinha and Bandishankar Singh (more commonly known as Swaraj Babu) who later held various posts in the state government.

led the Dalit entry into the Baidyanath Dham temple (Vaidyanath Temple, Deoghar), reflecting his commitment to the upliftment and social empowerment of dalits. He was the first Chief Minister in the country to abolish the zamindari system. He underwent different terms of imprisonment for a total of about eight years in British India.

S.K.Sinha's mass meetings brought hordes of people to hear him.He was known as "Bihar Kesari" for his lionlike roars when he rose to address the masses.

The former President of India, Pratibha Patil, released a book on the letters of exchange between Sinha and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru titled Freedom and Beyond. The Nehru-Sinha correspondence touches on subjects such as Indian democracy in the making in early years of Independence, 

Sinha was known for his scholarship and erudition and he had given his personal collection of 17,000 books to the public library in Munger in 1959 which is now named after him as Sri Krishna Seva Sadan.

He served  as chief minister until his death in 1961."Along with the nationalists Rajendra Prasad and Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Singhis regarded among the Architects of Modern Bihar.

Department  of  Posts issued Commemorative postage stamps on Dr.  S.K.Sinha

Issued Date : 04.02.1988
Denomination : 60 Paise

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah 1988

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, by name Lion of Kashmir (born December 5, 1905, Soura, near Srinagar, Kashmir [now in Jammu and Kashmir state], India a prominent figure in India’s struggle for independence from British rule, who fought for the rights of the Kashmir region and won a semiautonomous status for Jammu and Kashmir state within independent India.

Abdullah was educated at the Prince of Wales College (Jammu) and the Islamia College (Lahore; now in Pakistan) and received a master’s degree in physics from Aligarh Muslim University in 1930. He championed the rights of the Muslim majority in the Kashmir region during British rule in India and fought against the discrimination exercised by the Hindu ruling house there. In 1932, after Abdullah served the first of what would be many terms of imprisonment, he founded a political party, the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, which seven years later was renamed the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC). He supported the concept of a secular state, and, when India achieved independence in 1947, he strongly opposed the idea of Kashmir’s joining Muslim Pakistan.

In 1948 Abdullah became prime minister (head of government; from 1965 called chief minister) of Jammu and Kashmir state. Despite his early support for Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru, many Indians believed that Abdullah’s ultimate aim was independence for Kashmir; therefore, in 1953 he was dismissed and imprisoned. During the next 11 years he refused to pledge his loyalty to India and spent most of the time under detention. When he was released by Nehru in 1964, he received an enthusiastic reception from the Kashmiri people. In subsequent talks with the Indian government, he worked out the basis of a possible solution to the Kashmir problem.

Abdullah’s relations with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were sometimes strained, but the 1975 accord he negotiated with her allowed Jammu and Kashmir to continue a form of autonomywithin the Indian union. His government was later accused of corruption, but, though his popularity waned, he was still admired for his outstanding contribution to the cause of Kashmiri national rights.

He was dispatched on a foreign tour to gain the goodwill of Pakistan and Algeria, but India’s relations with Pakistan had by then deteriorated, and Abdullah’s foreign tour came to be seen as seditious by the Indian government. At the same time, his support in Jammu and Kashmir had been eroded by the apparent lack of progress in negotiations with India. Abdullah was again arrested and was not released until 1968. From then until his appointment as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1975 (following the signing of an accord that finalized the status of the state), his Plebiscite Front party (a splinter group of the JKNC) gained some successes, but it lost to the Indian National Congress  (Congress Party) in the 1972 state legislative assemblyelections. He subsequently reunited with the JKNC, and the party won a solid victory in the 1977 assembly elections. Abdullah was again named chief minister and served in that post until his death.

Upon his death, his son, Farooq Abdullah, succeeded him as leader of the JKNC. Farooq was then succeeded as leader by his son, Omar Abdullah, in 2002, but Farooq again took over the party’s leadership in 2009.

Issued  Date :  05.12.1988
Denomination: 60 Paise