Biography of John F. Kennedy

NAME: JOHN F. KENNEDY

Date of Birth: May 29, 1917

Father Name: Joseph Kennedy - head of the SEC and Ambassador to Great Britain.

Mother Name: Rose Fitzgerald - Boston socialite.

Wife: Jacqueline Bouvier - Wealthy socialite and photographer.

Children: Caroline and John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Siblings: Robert Kennedy - US Attorney General who was assassinated in 1968, and Edward Kennedy - Senator from Massachusetts since 1962.

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

The first president born in the 20th century, Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Massachusetts. He grew up in a wealthy family. He was sickly as a child and continued to have health problem the rest of his life. He attended private schools his whole life including the famous prep school, Choate. He then attended Harvard (1936-40) majoring in Political Science. He was an active undergraduate and graduated cum laude. Educated at Harvard University he graduated in 1940. Following naval service in the Pacific in World War II, he entered politics in 1946, spurred on by his ambitious father Joseph, and won election as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives. In 1952, he was elected to the Senate.

KENNEDY'S MILITARY CAREER (1941-1945).

Kennedy served in the Navy during World War II ending his time as a lieutenant. He was given command of PT-109. When the boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, he and his crew were thrown into the water. He was able to swim four hours saving himself and crewman, but aggravated his back. He received the Purple Heart and Navy and Marine Corps Medal and was hailed for his heroism.

BEFORE THE PRESIDENCY

Kennedy worked for a time as a journalist before running for the House of Representatives. He won and was reelected twice. Kennedy showed himself to be an independent thinker, not always following party line. Kennedy was then elected Senator (1953-61). Again, he did not always follow the Democratic majority. Critics were upset that he would not stand up to Senator Joe McCarthy. He also authored Profiles in Courage which won a Pulitzer Prize although there was some question about its true authorship.

1960's ELECTION

In 1960 Kennedy was nominated to run for the presidency against Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's Vice President. During Kennedy's nominating speech, he set forward his ideas of a New Frontier. Nixon made the mistake of meeting Kennedy is televised debates where Kennedy came off as young and vital. He won by the smallest margin of popular votes since 1888, winning by only 118574 votes. However, he received 303 electoral votes.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

He was important more for his iconic reputation than his legislative actions. His many inspiring speeches are often quoted. His youthful vigor and fashionable First Lady were hailed as American royalty; his time in office was termed Camelot. His elimination has taken on a mythic quality, leading many to posit about possible conspiracies involving everyone from Lyndon Johnson to the Mafia. His moral leadership of Civil Rights was an important part of the movement's eventual success.

DOMESTIC POLICY

He had a tough time getting many of his domestic programs through Congress. However, he did get an increased minimum wage, better Social Security benefits, and an urban renewal package passed. Kennedy created the Peace Corps, and his goal to get to the moon by the end of the 60's found overwhelming support.

On the Civil Rights front, He initially did not challenge Southern Democrats. Martin Luther King. Jr. believed that only by breaking unjust laws and accepting the consequences could African Americans show the true nature of their treatment. The press reported daily on the atrocities occurring due to nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. He used executive orders and personal appeals to aid the movement. His legislative programs, however, would not pass until after his death.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

He foreign policy began in failure with the Bay of Pigs debacle (1961). A small force of Cuban exiles were to lead a revolt in Cuba but were captured instead. US reputation was seriously harmed. He confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev in June 1961 led to the construction of the Berlin Wall. Further, Khrushchev began building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. He ordered a quarantine  of Cuba in response. He warned that any attack from Cuba would be seen as an act of war by the USSR. This stand off led to the dismantling of the missile silos in exchange for promises that the US would not invade Cuba. He also agreed to a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963 with Britain and the USSR.

Two other important events during his term were the Alliance for Progress (the US provided aid to Latin America) and the problems in Southeast Asia. North Vietnam was sending troops through Laos to fight in South Vietnam. The South's leader, Diem, was ineffective. America increased its "military advisors" from 2000 to 16000 during this time. Diem was overthrown but new leadership was no better. When Kennedy was killed, Vietnam was approaching a boiling point.

KENNEDY'S ELIMINATION

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was mortally wounded while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. His apparent assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed by Jack Ruby before standing trial. The Warren Commission was called to investigate Kennedy's death and found that Oswald had acted alone to kill Kennedy. Many argued, however, that there was more than one gunman, a theory upheld by a 1979 House Committee investigation. The FBI and a 1982 study disagreed. Speculation continues to this day.

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Biography of U.S. President Barack Obama

NAME: BARACK OBAMA

Name at birth: Barack Hussein Obama

Born: 4 August 1961

Birth Place: Honolulu, Hawaii

Best Known as: President of the United states, 2009-present

LIFE ABOUT OBAMA

Barack Hussein Obama was born in the two year old US state of Hawaii to a white American mother and a black Kenyan father. Obama Sr. grew up herding goats in a small Kenyan village where school was a tin-roof shack. Obama Sr. married and had one son. But in 1959, Obama Sr. left his newborn son and his again pregnant wife for a scholarship at the University of Hawaii. This would not be the last time ambition came before family. It was there that the University's first black student met the Kansas born, Ann Dunham. Despite the difference in their personalities, Obama Sr. was an assured intellectual whereas Ann was awkward and shy, the couple married. At the time, Ann was three months pregnant. Obama Sr. lied to her that he'd divorced his African wife and mother of four of his children. Six month later, in Honolulu, on 4 August 1961, Barack Obama was born. But Obama Sr. again put academia before his second family by leaving for a Harvard scholarship. Ann was just 20 when he left Barack was just two. Obama Sr. and Ann soon separated and in 1964, she filed for divorce.

STUDENT OBAMA

He transferred to New York to study political science at Columbia University. In 1982, he received news of his father's death in a car accident in Africa. After over a year in the corporate sector, in 1985, He moved to Chicago and did three years as a community organiser. In a place devastated by steel plant closures, he represented the unemployed and homeless. And every year there, he saw how gun violence cost the lives of scores of children and hundreds of others.

It was there he attended a sermon by the radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It caused him to weep. At the time Obama seriously considered becoming a preacher.

He went to Harvard Law School. Obama hoped it would enable him to achieve the things that grass roots activism couldn't. Before beginning his studies, he went to Kenya to meet his father's family and better understand his African heritage. Back in America, in 1988 he met his future wife Michelle Robinson, at that time an attorney. A descendent of slaves, she was immersed in the issue of race. And as her best friend was the daughter of the civil rights Jesse Jackson, she could introduce Barack to the Democratic political classes.

FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT

In 1990, Obama became President. Albeit the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. For the first time, Obama made the news nationally. In 1992 he ran a voter registration campaign which secured 100000 new voters, mostly from the African American community. It helped elect the first female African American Senator. That same year he married Michelle. They would later have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

In 1994, his mother Ann was diagnosed with cancer. Ann moved back to Hawaii to live near Obama's now widowed grandmother. His grandmother buried her daughter in 1995. Ann's difficulty in paying her medical bills as she died directly informed her son's later attempts to reform the American health care system. That year, on the back of his rising profile, Obama published his first book, 'Dreams from My Father'.

OBAMA RISE AND DEFEAT

In 1996, Obama was elected as State Senator for Illinois from the 13th district, which encompassed mostly impoverished areas of Chicago's south side. In 1999, unlike his father had done, Obama put his family first when his daughter became ill. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In 2003, Obama launched his campaign to be elected to the US Senate. An early opponent of the Iraq war, he impressed potential President John Kerry enough to invited to give the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. In it the 42 year old Obama explicitly rejected the division of America into blue liberal and red conservative states. Instead of an America divided into Democrat and Republican states, he said he believed only that there is the United States of America' Obama went on to win his Senate seat by a landslide of 70 per cent against his Republican rival. Obama was sworn in as senator in 2005.

As a senator, Obama served on the Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee. One of the first laws he helps pass allows voters to go online and see where their taxes are spent.

As a candidate in the Democratic Primaries in 2007, Obama went head to with Hillary Clinton. In 2008, he won. The Republican he then had to beat was the elderly war vet John McCain. McCain countered the novelty appeal of Obama by for the first time ever, making the Republican Vice President nominee a woman. But Sarah Palin was even more inexperienced than Obama. And Obama's two years in the Senate wasn't an issue for a young electorate weary of two terms of George W Bush.

AFTER GEORGE W BUSH

On 4 November 2008, He made history. He secured 52.9 per cent of the popular vote. The new President assembled his team making his old adversary, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State.

Within days he ordered the military to start preparing to withdraw from Iraq, a war started by Bush. He also reversed Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments allowing abortion.

He would also later reverse Bush's limitations on funding stem cell research and repeal a two decade old law of "Dont Ask Don't Tell" that banned openly gay people from the military. And in a country where many deny climate change, Obama championed alternative energy. But ever the politician, he saved the troubled car industry, securing jobs: And future votes.

OBAMA VS OSAMA

On May 2, 2011, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. Special Forces during an early morning (approximately mid-afternoon on May 1st in the United States) raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In his first Presidential year, Obama had been named as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. And he did indeed end the American mission in Iraq. This, however, was no pacifist President.

In 2011, he ordered the revenge killing of the architect of 9/11, Osama Bin Laden. And partly through the controversial use of drone attacks, Obama would come close to strategically defeating al-Qaeda.

His intervention in Libya, unlike Bush's had international support, and again unlike Bush, relied on air power rather than "boots on the ground". It directly led to the fall of Gaddafi.

But American elections are largely decided on domestic issues, not foreign. His support of gay marriage won over many of his supporters but further alienated many Republicans. And despite inheriting the worst economic crisis since the 1929 Depression, many thought it would be the stagnating economy that would lose him the 2012 election.

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Biography of Narendra Damadardas Modi

Name: Narendara Damadardas Modi

Age: 63 years

Place of Birth: Vadnagar, Mehsana, Gujarat

Religion: Hindu

Spouse Name: Joshodaben

Education: Did his schooling from Vadnagar. According to his teachers, Modi was an average student but had great interest in debates.

P.M. of India: Since 26th May 2014

Achievements: He is the major force behind Gujarat's position as a global brand and a great industrial destination.

Narendra Damodardas Modi is all set to be India's 15th Prime Minister of India. A four-time Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi has successfully led the NDA to a historic win in the 2014 elections.

ABOUT CHILDHOOD

When he was six years old, the man who could be India's prime minister helped his father sell tea to passengers whenever an odd train came into the small Vadnagar station in Gujarat, says a recently released book titled "The anatomy of Narendra Modi the man and his politics" authored by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.

Narendra Modi was an ordinary boy from a middle class family, the third of four children, and life was literally dark when he was young. The family house was poorly lit and had little natural light; the kerosene lamp added to the smoke and grime.

There was noting remarkable about Modi's childhood except that he got attracted to the RSS - which later helped him grow politically. At 18, he decided to wander in the Himalayas, leaving behind his family and an unconsummated marriage.

According to Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, who has authored a gripping biography of the Gujarat Chief Minister, the years from 1967 to 1971 are somewhat mysterious in Modi's life. He would disappear at times for months at a stretch. The trait remained with him. In 1995-96. Modi went to the Gir forest on his own and slept in an old temple. I actually enjoy loneliness.

It was after the 1971 war with Pakistan that Modi formally joined the RSS and moved into the Hedgewar Bhawan. His early responsibilities included making tea, breakfast and evening snacks for senior colleagues. He also swept and cleaned the building, which then had eight-ten rooms.

Modi proved his mettle while doing risky underground work during the 1975-77 Emergency, often travelling in disguise and on a motorcycle. (Soon after, he completed M.A. as an external student from Gujarat University.) Seniors in RSS soon realized his excellent organisational skills and analytical mind.

Modi's rise in the RSS was rapid-in part because he was also equally adept at picking his mentors and making use of them for furthering his career. He was among the first two Pracharaks who began working full-time in the BJP.

His role in helping the party win the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation election in 1986 raised appreciative eyebrows. Within two years, he was the organising secretary of the Gujarat BJP. Modi learnt the ropes of party politics by attending BJP public meetings - quietly sitting in the back and listening to speeches.

He also built an extensive network across the state - a move that later helped him to checkmate all his rivals and take control of the BJP in Gujarat.

L.K. Advani's Rath Yatra was Modi's first national-level political assignment. But it was Murli Manohar Joshi's Ekta Yatra to Srinagar where he had a more major role to play. Not everyone in the Gujarat BJP liked him though; Keshubhai Patel, Shankersinh Vaghela and Kanshiram Rana resented Modi's lateral entry into the BJP's top echelons.

But "Over time, Modi used the contradictions and rivalries among these leaders to his own benefit by using one against the other." When Keshubhai Patel was the chief minister, Modi was knows as "super CM". It caused him problems. But after some isolation, he bounced back, in part with Advani's blessings.

In 2001, the boy who once sold tea to train passengers became its chief minister and then presided over one of India's worst communal frenzy.

The Godhra killings gave Modi a distinct identity - "a label which he has displayed brazenly ever since".  According to Mukhopadhyay, Modi strongly believes that if minorities wish to feel safe in the state he governs, they will have to abide by the value systems of the Hindu community. It is this Hindutva politics Modi represents as he prepares to lead the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha battle.

Modi the book says is one of the trendiest male politicians in India. He was among the first to possess a digital diary. He is always well groomed. He goes for made-to-order Modi kurta with hand-tailored button holes. He is at home in Western attire too. He has a weakness for designer fountain pens-Montblanc.

A workaholic, he also never forgives anyone who has wronged him. Those who have known Modi tell the author that he is an authoritarian who won't allow anyone to grow beyond a point. He is ruthless with ruthless efficiency.

Mukhpadhyay is not a fan of the Gujarat success story; he explains why with statistics. This book, on Modi, is political journalism at its best. You have to read it if you want o know why Modi is what he is today.

POLITICAL JOURNEY

• Became the General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party in its Gujarat unit in 1988.
• Recognized as a key strategist by the Bharatiya Janata Party for being instrumental in successfully campaigning for the party in the 1995 and 1998 elections in the state of Gujarat, which led the party to become the ruling party of the state of Gujarat.
• Successfully organized two challenging events on a national level: (I) Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra, a long march by Mr. L.K. Advani and (II) a march from Kanyakumari (southern tip of India) to Kashmir (northern tip of India). These two events are considered to have attributed in bringing Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 1998.
• In 1995 Narendra Modi was appointed Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party at national level.
• Narendra Modi has been credited for having successfully carried out the responsiblity of revamping the party organization in different states.
• In 1998 Narendra Modi was promoted as General Secretary and held the position till October 2001.
• Narendra Modi became the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat for the first time in October 2001 after his predecessor Keshubhai Patel resigned from the post following the defeat of Bharatiya Janata Party in the by-elections.

NARENDRA MODI POLITICAL RESULT

Year	Constituency	State	Status
2014	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh	Won
2014	Vadodara	Gujarat	Won

BOOKS WRITTEN BY NARENDRA MODI

• Jyotipunj
• Adobe of Love
• Premtirth
• Kelve Te Kelavani
• Sakshibhav
• Samajik Samarsata

AWARDS WON

• On the centenary celebration of Shri Poona Gujarati Bandhu Samaj, Narendra Modi was conferred with the Gujarat Ratna award at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch.
• The Computer society of India bestowed him the e-Ratna award
• In 2009, the FDi magazine honoured him as the Asian Winner of the FDi Personality of the year Award.

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