Thursday, December 01, 2005

Great Mathematician...


Dear Friends,
This is a blog with a difference and with a request to all of you. Request is to give some time to read this blog because generally people don't give much attention to such mails. This is just for your awareness to this burning topic.
Being Indian Citizen we have some fundamental rights and some duties towards our country. One of the greatest duty is protecting our heritage. Hertitage does not mean only our Monuments, Culture, Music, Cuisine, and art only. It also consists our great people. I would not like to talk about politicians or our freedom fighters, bcoz that's not my point. I will focus on masterminds of Science and Technology.
  • Dr. C.V. Raman (NOBEL LAUREATE)
  • Dr. Hargoving Khurana (NOBEL LAUREATE)
  • Dr. J.C. Bose (NOBEL LAUREATE)
  • Dr. Vikram Sarabhai
  • Dr H.J. Bhabha
  • Satyendra Nath Bose
  • P.C. Ray
  • Birbal Sahni

But do you know about Dr. Vasistha Narayan Singh. Who is the the greatest Mathematician alive. Who travelled a lot in journey of his life from a typical undevloped villagein Bihar to USA, village primary school to Netarhat, Science College Patna and then University of California, Berkley, the life of name and fame to the life of mental disturbance and poverty. The mathematician who challenged works of Great Scientist Albert Einstien. It was related to his Theory of Relativity(E=MC2).

Yes it's a matter of shame for all Indian's. I'm providing a little amount of information about him because not much informations are available on net about this great Mathematician.

  • His Village - Basantpur,(12 Km. from ARA), Bhojpur, Bihar
  • Family - Poor Family, Father Constable in Bihar Police.
  • Class X - Netarhat Vidyalaya - Gold Medallist in his passing year
  • Class XII - Patna Science College

He is the record holder for Bihar Board in Matriculation Examination and Bihar Intermediate Education Council for Intermediate Exams Sciene College.

In earlymid 1960's Bihar College of Engineering Patna, was in much better shape and world class faculty members used to visit the College. There was some Mathematics Conference in Bihar College of Engineering during mid 60's where Prof John L. Kelley, HOD University of California, Berkley(UCB) as also present.

He had presented a list of 5 most difficult problems in Mathematics or so. Vasistha Narayan Singh solved all of them and that too in different ways.

This Berkley professor got impressed and requested him to come to Berkley for further study. Vasistha Narayan Singh told him that it would be difficult for him to come to US on his own. HOD promised all the help and kept the word. HOD arranged for visa and flight ticket and got him into UCB.

He took good care of Vasistha Narayan Singh at UCB as Vasistha Narayan Singh is a shy person. Vasistha Narayan Singh did not let down HOD and did his PhD with style and went on to work for NASA.

His Ph.D Dissertation Title was : Reproducing Kernels and Operators with a Cyclic Vector.

Following is the link of web page of UCB(Berkley) stating details of his Ph. D in 1969.

http://math.berkeley.edu/index.php?module=mathalumman&MATHALUM_MAN_op=sView&MATHALUM_id=1148

In the meantime, Family was asking him to come to India and get married. Vasistha Narayan Singh had nationalistic dreams and thought of doing his matribhoomi, Bharat, proud; rather that stay on in US as his HOD and NASA wanted him to do.

Please note that 60s was the time of great Social and Student Unrest in USA as Vietnam War and Hippy/LSD Movement was at its peak. UCB was the headquarters of this movement and drugs were commonly used to expand consciousness! (Watch Forest Gump to get some idea) Beetles also a product of this generation though they started in UK but became big in US.

It was rumoured that He had an affair with the daughter of his HOD at UC Berkely and wanted to marry her but parental pressure and idealistic dream of doing India proud took precedence and he came back to India. It is also rumoured, that he had started taking some drugs when he was in Berkley and it continued when he came back to India.

He came back and his parents got him married to an Army Officer's Daughter with some good dowry. This army officer was from Jaipur. Due to reasons unknown, marriage did not work out and his wife left him after sometime to never come back again to him. This left him heartbroken and made his condition worse.

He returned to India and worked at ISI Cal, IIT K and TIFR Bombay. He had a tough time at ISI Cal and was disillusioned at other places also.

Soon after that, He lost his mental balance and was admitted to Mental Hospital, Kanke, Ranchi. But, Dr Jagannath Mishra got him out of Kanke as he had to get some other person admitted there, in the VIP ward. He did go to Merutt hospital and after that he ran away. He suffers from Schizonfrania. He has been treated by NIMHANS Bangalore also but not much details are available. His family did not have enough money to support his treatment and Bihar Govt threw him out of Kanke which made his condition worst. It appears that he fled from Merut Mental Hospital and was untraceable for many years until someone from his village saw him as a ragpicker in Chapra in mid 90s and informed his family.

His elder brother and others went to cross check the facts and went to see him. They were happy to see him alive but were sad to see his misery. He was brought back to his village in late 80s or early 1990s. There was a crowd of political bigshots and I think, Laloo was also one of
the leaders to have gone and met him.

He suffers from Schizonfrania. He has been treated by NIMHANS Bangalore also but not much details are available. His family did not have enough money to support his treatment and Bihar Govt threw him out of Kanke which made his condition worst.

Lets us try understand the situation of Dr. Vasistha Narayan Singh. He has been suffering with schizophrenia. To understand this disease and to understand cure of this disease, you must watch the film "Beautiful Mind". Dr. John Nash presently a professor at Princeton Unieversity had the same disease.

Medicational help is not much of help in this diesease. He need a proper environment to come back to normal life. Age is also a factor in recovery. A proper nutrition and life long medication can re-vitalize his life. But he needs a research related assignment and academic environment to be normal; besides having a loving family. Mentally, he is still living in the age of 20-30, though he may be 60 + as of today.

Even he was not in limelight since a long time. We got attention by a News in Dainik Jagran of his felicitation of Bank of India Employees Association(ARA).

For details of his current situation visit this Link.
http://www.bhojpuria.com/people/vnsingh1.htm

Note :- Informations provided in this mail are taken from several sources. main source is my mails in BIHARI Yahoo Group.

Thanks to Saroj Ji(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=sarojbihar@yahoo.co.in), Kundan ji(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=kundan_civil2000@yahoo.com), Mr. Kartik Sahay USA(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ktk@usa.com) and Bihari group(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bihari).

And special thanks to Sudhir ji (http://www.bhojpuria.com/) for his excellent initiative towards this work.

72 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:33 PM

    Shankar, very nice effort indeed. I want to thank you from bottom of my heart. Well done, keep going.

    Thanks,
    Chanchal

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  2. It is very sad to know about the bad condition of Dr. Vasistha Narayan singh. This is really ghor kaliyuga where the inteligent people (like vasistha babu) struggling to survive but millions of money is being spent on Fashion, wine, politics etc.... but not even a single businessman/politician try to help him. shame on us.

    Thanks
    Rakesh

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  3. Anonymous5:09 PM

    Sir,...u've done a great job!!...I salute it...im too small to help him now...but surely wish to do something in future...if its in my fate..Im studying in 10th and was just doing my math’s project on great Indian mathematicians...and suddenly my parents came around honorable vashishth sir...I went very curious to check out. I pray to god (as i don’t believe in him i don’t think he will help)but still...my earnest request to all those reading this...plzz try n help as a responsible citizen of India.
    Aishna

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  4. Sir,...u've done a great job!!...I salute it...im too small to help him now...but surely wish to do something in future...if its in my fate..Im studying in 10th and was just doing my math’s project on great Indian mathematicians...and suddenly my parents came around honorable vashishth sir...I went very curious to check out. I pray to god (as i don’t believe in him i don’t think he will help)but still...my earnest request to all those reading this...plzz try n help as a responsible citizen of India.
    Aishna

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  5. Now, Bihar government has promised to take care of him. We hope this government will do justice with the great mathematician, not as their political promises.

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  6. Anonymous5:41 PM

    good work.. i want to thank you from my bottom of heart for your efforts

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  7. Anonymous4:31 PM

    My Heart is crying like anything after reading this article,to hell with those ministers and politicians who are just taking care of their assets and bank account.No one is bothering about him now when he is alive and after his death these votebankers will inagurate a statue of him and praise his work.

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  8. first of all i would like to appreciate the blog owner for his work n lightning on the great life of the saint which every bihari should be proud of.........
    i would recommend u to open more such blog n i will tell all my fenz to go to yr blog n know who "VASHISHTHA NARAYAN SINGH " WAS WE CAN RUN A COMPAIGN ALSO WHEREIN WE CAN TELL PEOPLE TO DO SOMETHING FOR VASHISTHA BABU........

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  9. plz every body take note of this n create awareness abt well being of vashishtha babu...................

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  10. Anonymous2:25 PM

    Please write an article about this great man on wikipedia . A search on
    Dr.ASHISHTHA NARAYAN SINGH yielded a no match.

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  11. Anonymous3:06 AM

    Hands down salute to the Blog Owner. He has done a fantastic job.
    I have no words to describe the greatness of Dr. V N Singh.
    It is the responsibilty of all citizens of India to help Dr. VN Singh.

    I really apprechiate the line"One of the greatest duty is protecting our heritage. Hertitage does not mean only our Monuments, Culture, Music, Cuisine, and art only. It also consists our great people".

    21 Gun Salute to you Dr. Singh. No matter what, you are and will be always an inspiration for many generations present and the future.
    Please tell the youth more about Dr. Singh.

    Vande Matram

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  12. Anonymous11:22 AM

    why i remember him,he may be born
    talent but he is no more an indian.
    we fools just pricing great indians
    who prostituted their skill for
    recognization and better life..
    then you will create blogspot for
    kalpanan shawla. these indians are
    nothing to those countries since they feel he is servant for the facility they provided.

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  13. Anonymous11:29 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  14. Anonymous1:26 PM

    Great personality, down in the dumps for nothing.

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  15. Dear Shankar,
    I am coming to main point, If you want, than we can write a book on Dr Vashishtha Narayan Singh and whatever money will come, we will spend on his treatment. As far as Indian Govt. is concern, make sure that they will not do anything, what they can do is " donate Rs200 crore to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. For further clarification you can mail me at
    priyesh225@gmail.com

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  16. I just donated 100 USD from the bhojpuria site.
    Priyesh, before writing a book, i would suggest you and Shankar to write some information on him on wikipedia which links to great mathematicians of India. That is the best way to get more people know about him, now that an indian won Nobel prize for Chemistry, people are searching for more such talented people in india (which is how i found him).

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  17. This is the wiki of VN Singh's professor.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Kelley

    We should write something about VN Singh in that page and have link to his wiki page.

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  18. Hi Priyesh,

    Its really heartwarming to know your views. But honestly speaking, we can't manage writing a book over the great mathematician, because there is very less information available over him on the internet, and we are not even able to get more info about him by other means.

    Whatever, information is given here that is through extensive work of Mr. Sudhir from Bhojpuria.com. He personally visited his native place and tried to extract as much information as possible. So its really a crucial task. Please let me know your views over it.

    My email id is shankar@omsoftware.net and you can call me on 9993038855.

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  19. I think VN Singh is no more. I read it somewhere. RIP

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  20. To Read the letter written by great mathematician Dr. Vashistha Narayan Singh Pl. log on to www.patliputraspeaks.blogspot.com

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  21. Bihar is living is such condition due to complete neglect of such great people. In fight of poor - rich, backward -forward , we understand everything in illness.

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  22. that was a very informtive piece.thanks for writing abt this great man.thanks a lot.

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  23. Great job" ja jhaar ke" !!!

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  24. thanks for this information i listen something about basistnarayan coz my father told me about but ur complete information really wonderful ........!
    i heartily thankful to u....

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  25. Sir, vashist narayan you thought about india.. but indian goverment never took care of you..
    i just wanna say that you took care of our nation but the fukin system of our country has never thought about or not even think about you..
    our political system is really fucked but we will change this fuckin system sir..
    we'll change our system..

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  26. You have done a great job keep doing one day it will change the way that is happening today ...!

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  27. A nice post.
    Would love to read some follow-ups.

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  28. Koti koti pranam,Aaj mai kaphi garb mahsush kar raha hun ki bihar me aise saput hai, bihar ki bhumi aise mahan gayaniyoana ki janani hai.me ek bar phir is mahan saput ke charno me koti koti prnam karta hun,.

    PREM SHANKAR MISHRA(BHOJPUR), SUBHASH MISHRA(MADHUBANI).

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  29. now this shows how bihari's r intelligent but unfortunately he has mental breakdown .i think anyone hardly even knows about him ?
    i think we have have to raise the voice about him .
    jaha sabhi jagah aaj bihar ki thu thu ho rahi hai wohi sir vashist narayan jaise log bihar ka naam roshan kar rahey hai par aaj unko koi dekhn ewala nahi hai

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  30. mai ek bihari hu aur meri padhai lagbhag bihar se dur hi hu hai par aaj thak maine bihari jaisa math's me tez nahi dekha hai aaiye aur aapney hum sab milkar ek awaaz ban jaye aur sir vashist narayan keliye kuch kare taki .
    yeh blog likhna aur internrt par sahaanbhuti aarjit karna bada hi aasan hai par agr hum unke liye kuch asli jindagi me kuch karey tho jagar humara kaarya sarthak hoga

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  31. my father always say r u better then vashistha naraya after listen i thought who is vashistha narayan now i am very happy that my father respect him after reading this i also respect him and i proud to bihari that i born where there was a great man born like vashhistha narayan

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  32. Thanks for this article buddy.Sorry but i do not have any words to say or to write after reading this article .Iam speech less but only wanted to say that if this fellow always be remained in USA and never come to India and would get some international award then we fell proud that an NRI get the award but if this men is in India then what our govt. is doing top make his life better.Its my request to Nitish kumar ji CM Bihar to do some thing for such a noble and intellectual men.

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  33. thats very good work...
    although he dont come more in existance but he has great thought in mathematics..
    he was awesome brilliant ....
    proud of bihar....

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  34. A very nice Post. We are proud on our Respected Dr. V.N. Singh. Dr. Singh is an Icon of our Nation. But there is a very- very bad condition in our state that if some one is not in good situation, then our Govt. doesn’t care. I request to all us for taking a big hand to solve these types of problems.
    Rupesh Ranjan(Madhepura)

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  35. its a mind blowing post....
    salute to Dr.V.N.Singh..............

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  36. my heartiest congrats for the great work accomplished, hats off to Dr.V.N singh..

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  37. what a fantastic attempt made by you sir.....shame on our handicapped gov. britishers have preserved even the house of shakespear and we are losing "the real living legend"

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  38. God Like....!!!!!
    Hatz off...!!!!
    There should be a movie on his life....!!!!
    Thr Real Living Legend.......!!!!!

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  39. Thanku Sir 4 giving information about a legend Mathematician Like Great Dr. Vashiht narayan singh...God bless him n give him long life....I pray 2 god dat he will get well soon....Thanx Once again

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  40. Sir I am requesting You can you tell me, where is he right now..! Is govt. of Bihar taking any sincerity 4 him or just it was a political promise..!

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  41. sir it very shame for us as an indian that we are deprive of a great mathematician who can give to his country too much .i don't want to politicized this issue but politician are destroying our country 's talent .still i am not a estrablished person but i will try my best for such a great mathematician such mathmatician are born scarcely

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  42. From Sanjeev kumar, Patna,
    Really this is a very genuine collection of news. Really the owner of this blog has done a great job. Hands off to Dr. Vashishtha and you too. keep updatting if any furher news is there....
    all the best

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  43. I feel so sad for Dr. Vashishtha & will pray to god that he will come out from that as soon as posible...

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  44. i m so much proud of being a citizen of a nation where people like vishista narayan (the great) live. he is the real soul of eternal heroism.

    DEVENDRA THAKUR
    ARA(BIHAR)
    8437961495

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  45. I BOW IN REVERENCE TO THIS GREAT MATHEMATICIAN AND AT THE SAME TIME TAKE A DIG AT THE APATHY OF THE INDIAN GOVT.. PLEASE TREAT HIM AS KASAB OR AFZAL.. FOR GOD SAKE..

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  46. ARUNA SINGH
    DAUGHTER OF late SHRI SHANKAR DAYAL SINGH
    I feel very proud to be a part of his village and being born in his village.None of u all know that my fathers plays a great role in his studies purpose ,now when i met him I feel sorry for him that we the people of his village and his country can't able to do any thing for the sake of his wellness ..........but he the proud of our country and i feel very proud for this......and remember friends whenever i am going to met him i make u all know about him.......

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  47. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  48. I AM CRYING AFTER READ THIS

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  49. I am so thankful to all of you,,who provided us information about the singh ji,,,,
    can we write some book on him,,,like autobiography,,,,

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  50. hii frnds...thanks a lot 4 this precious imformatiom..m also belong to ara,bhojpur but its my bad luck that m not meet him or doesnt know about him but m really wants to help him..so m trying 2 visit basantpur in next few days...thanxxxxxx

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  51. congrats shankar, i really appriciate ur work on providing such a useful info on vashist narayan....

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  52. we have save him
    and produce another narayan

    govt should look this talents
    and make proud ourselfss
    bihariis

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  53. It's nice to hear about him.We have great hope from present CM of Bihar to take care of him and if God willing,he may be made normal and prove to be an icon in the field of science.

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  54. Please tell me where is Mr. Vashishth Narayan Singh right now and how he is. Please, please! Someone tell me about his present status. Great Post! Great! Great! Great!

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  55. hahaha! Do you know who is he? anf Me???

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  56. i have just now sent the following email to CM
    Respected sir,
    I would like to draw your attention towards the poor condiiton of one of the greatest talent world has seen- Dr. Vashisht Narayan. Bihar is known in Indian history about producing some of the most genius minds in Maths. Dr. Vashisht is one of them.
    But today partly due to of negligence of Indian, or for that matter, Bihar Government and partly due to his mental illness, he has completely faded out of the picture of current researchers.
    May I bring to your notice, a similar case of the Nobel Lauret, Prof. John Nash of USA. He too ahs similar psychological problems but finally, with help of a loving wife and proper environment of research, he was able to restore himself back and won the nobel prize.


    I myself am an emerging student in the field of research and am studying in IISER Kolkata now and doing summer research in BARC.
    personally I would also like to go outside India for higher studies but seeing the condition we scientists may have to suffer in India (specially in Bihar) makes me sick.
    I request you to please take some serious steps in this regard and help the genius regain his owner.
    did you knew that he has even worked as a ragpicker after he returned India.
    And please do reply your response towrds my suggestion/complaint.
    beacuse the moment I saw this "write to CM" section on webpage I thought that in view of the great progress Bihar is making under the reign of our honourable CM, it is better to write him directky first tah to contact any newspaper or media. this topic, by the way is very hot on facebook also these days.
    Thank you!

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  57. Drugs aggravate Schizophrenia. 1% of the general population is prone to this life long mental disease, which has no cure. Instead of blaming the government, it is worthwhile to know about Schizophrenia in detail.

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  58. He is a national treasure .....let us do something ....pls

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  59. Nice work:) Best Wishes To Mr.Vashishtha!

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  60. Well why cant we create a movie on him not very costly but it will be very and if we launch it in india then its guaranteed than at least1000- 5000 people will see it then i m sure at least 1 crore to 5 crore rupees will surely be deposited which will help a lot for him.

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  61. My Indian government is not fully kept protected of scientist mind of people like Vasistha Narayan Singh bcoz his kept protected of Abdul kasab and Afazal indian government expand the more money on abdul and afazal.
    Thanku for Indian Gov..


    Saroj Kr Singh
    SASARAM BIHAR.

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  62. sir ..u r john nash 4 me ..i praise u for ur work..bihar 'll always be obeliged to u .but always feel guilt that they dint pay attention towards u..

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  63. I wish u a very happy and properous life...

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  64. मंगलवार 09/04/2012को आपकी यह बेहतरीन पोस्ट http://nayi-purani-halchal.blogspot.in पर लिंक की जा रही हैं ....

    आपके सुझावों का स्वागत है ....
    धन्यवाद .... !!

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  65. एक निवेदन

    कृपया निम्नानुसार कमेंट बॉक्स मे से वर्ड वैरिफिकेशन को हटा लें।

    इससे आपके पाठकों को कमेन्ट देते समय असुविधा नहीं होगी।

    Login-Dashboard-settings-posts and comments-show word verification (NO)

    अधिक जानकारी के लिए कृपया निम्न वीडियो देखें-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPb9XTuompc

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  66. good brother ,any thing if you need to work for vashistnaryan jee,you can contact me.i will help as much as i can.

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  67. At that time only govt. knw that he is coming back, some of his family's lack, He was like India's property, please do not loss our property.....

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  68. Good job....Let this news spread all over the world...

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  69. Dr. Vasistha Narayan Singh's Dissertation details can be found here : http://math.berkeley.edu/people/grad/vashishtha-narayan-singh

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  70. Respect The Real Genius. Thanks for this post

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  71. Really,there is scarcity of scholars in our country and governments attitude is well known to us.We are living in a shameful environment.I too belong to nearby village Bella.Thanks a lot for this valuable information.

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  72. i came to know about him just few hours ago...its so ironic that my uncle's retired professor from patna science college..and yet i've been introduced about him by my one of closest friend from UP.Thanks man,for complete information about him.

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