DIVAN SINGH MAFTOON (1890-1974) was in his day the most talked about editor in Urdu journalism. Born in the Punjab he migrated to Delhi in the early twenties. His sole asset was a smattering of Urdu. Gradually, he grew in his command of the language and became known for

HAR KRISHAN, GURU (1656-1664), the eighth Guru or prophet teacher of the Sikh faith, was the younger son of Guru Har Rai (1630-61) and Mata Sulakkham. He was born on 7 July 1656 at Kiratpur, in the Sivalik hills, in present day Ropar district of the Punjab. As his time

JAN MUHAMMAD CHATTHA (d. 1798), son of Ghulam Muhammad Chattha, fled to Kabul on the eve of the conquest of the tort of Manchar in 1790 by Mahari Singh Sukkarchakkia. He accompanied Shah Zaman to India in 1797 and recovered his possessions on the River Chenab in Gujranwala district

KOHINUR ("Mountain of Light"), the peerless diamond which today lakes the pride of place among the British crown jewels, once belonged to Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab. Duleep Singh was made to surrender it to the British after the annexation of

MATT DAS, BHAI (d. 1675), the martyr, was the son of Bhai Hira Mal, also called Hiranand, a Chhibbar Brahman of Kariala, now in Pakistan. His grandfather, Bhai Paraga, had embraced the Sikh faith in the time of Guru Hargobind and had taken part in battles with the Mughal forces.

PRITHI CHAND, BABA (1558-1618). the eldest son of Guru Ram Das (1534-81), and Mata Bhani, was born in 1558 at Goindval, in present day Amritsar district of the Punjab. He was by nature ambitious and haughty. Guru Ram Das chose his youngest son Arjan (1563-1606) as his successor to

SARDUL SINGH CAVEESHAR (1886-1963), politician, newspaper editor and author, was born at Amritsar in 1886, the son of Sardar Kirpal Singh. He studied up to M.A. level, but left college in 1909 without taking the degree. In 1913 he launched an English journal, Sikh Review, from Delhi. He came

Sarna, Mohinder Singh born in 1923 at Rawalpindi, he joined the Indian Audits and Accounts Service after his B.A. (Hons.) and retired as Accountant General (Central Revenues) in 1981. He started writing at the age of twenty, and his first collection of short stories Father de Admi (Men of

Starting his career as lecturer in Punjabi at Doaba College, Jalandhar, Professor Pritam Singh shifted to Sikh National College, Lahore the next year where he served as a teacher in Punjabi until 1947. Joining the Punjab Education Service after Partition he rose to be Principal, Government College, Ludhiana and

Tiwana, Dalip Kaur is a foremost novelist and short-story writer of contemporary Punjabi literature. She has mostly written about the mind scape of the downtrodden women and her secondary position in society. Even if some of the women in her novels are educated and economically independent, they are unable

AURANGZIB, MUHI UDDIN MUHAMMAD ALAMGIR (1618-1707), the last of the great Mughal emperors of India, ascended the throne of Delhi on 21 July 1658 after he had gained a decisive victory in the war of succession at Samugarh, near Agra, on 29 May 1658. Aurangzib`s appointment in 1636 as

Baba Bolda Hai (The Old Man Speaks Out) of Gursham Singh is a play dealing with the 1984 riots in Delhi. Gursharan Singh points to the people responsible for this ghastly act and criticises main the political leaders who, in his view, were the real culprits. The common man is