Short biography of Dr Meghnad Saha

Meghnad Saha was born on October 6, 1893 in Sheoratali, Dacca District , now in Bangladesh.His father Jagannath Saha was a petty grocer who barely managed to keep his large family from starvation.His mother was Smt.Bhubneshwari Devi . . Meghnad Saha started his education in the primary school of the village. The nearest such school was in another village about 10 kilometers away. . As his family could hardly able to make both ends meet, Meghnad Saha managed to pursue his schooling only due to Dr Ananta Kumar Das, who provided him with boarding and lodging in his house.

In 1905, British Government took the decision of partition of Bengal.  There was great political unrest in Bengal as popular opinion was against the partition. Sir Bampfylde Fuller was governor of East Bengal at that time. One day he came to visit the Collegiate school. Meghnad Saha along with other students boycotted his visit. As a result he was suspended from the school and his scholarship was cancelled. In 1909,Meghnad Saha took admission in the Kishorilal Jubilee School and passed the Entrance examination of the Calcutta University.  In 1911, he ranked third in the ISc exam while the first position went to another great scientist Satyendranath Bose. After that he took admission in Presidency College ,Calcutta. In 1913, he graduated from Presidency College with Mathematics While studying in Presidency College, Meghnad got involved with Anushilan Samiti to take part in freedom fighting movement.

In 1917, He started his professional career and joined as lecturer at the newly opened University College of Science in Calcutta.Meghnad Saha   translated the papers published in German by Einstein and Minkowski on relativity into English versions. He spent time in research at Imperial College, London and at a research laboratory in Germany. In 1927, Meghnad Saha was elected as a fellow of London's Royal Society.

 Meghnad Saha was an Indian astrophysicist who nominated for the ‘Nobel prize’ in physics in 1935-36. In 1952, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for the North-West Calcutta constituency. He died on February 16, 1956 due to a heart attack.