Happy Teachers Day

The birth date of the second President of India, Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, 5 September 1888, has been celebrated as Teacher's Day since 1962. On this day, teachers and students report to school as usual but the usual activities and classes are replaced by activities of celebration, thanks and remembrance. In some schools, senior students take the responsibility of teaching in order to show their appreciation for the teachers.

According to Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, "Teachers should be the best minds in the country". 

In 2020, World Teachers' Day will celebrate teachers with the theme “Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future”.

Who was Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan?

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born in the year 1888 in a middle-class Telugu Brahmin family in the Madras Presidency, British India (now in Tamil Nadu, India). He was the second son of Veera Samayya, a tehsildar in a zamindari. He had done his Post Graduation in Philosophy subject from Madras University and he wrote a thesis in M.A namely “The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions”, in which he had told that the Vedanta System has ethics value.
In one of his major works he also showed that Indian philosophy, once translated into standard academic jargon, is worthy of being called philosophy by western standards. And so, he had earned lots of respect in Indian philosophy. He was also nominated to the League of Nations Committee for International Cooperation in 1931. And in 1947 when India became Independent, Dr. Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO and from 1949 to 1952 he was the Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India and later became the first Vice-President and finally the President of India from 1962-67. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954 and in his memory, the University of Oxford instituted the Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholarships and the Radhakrishnan Memorial Award. He had also received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1961.
Amazing thing is that he was a very humble person. When he became the President of India,  Rashtrapati Bhavan was open for everyone and people from all the sections of the society can meet him. Do you know that he had accepted only Rs 2500 out of Rs 10,000 salary and donated the remaining amount to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund every month? Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan passed away on 17 April, 1975.