A homage to V. K. Krishna Menon as flashed on the f.b. on November 30,2010.

Bishwa Nath Singh:
Let us not forget that great son of our motherland belonging to our Indian Politics scenario who had delivered till date the longest speech ever in the United Nations Security Council on January 23, 1957 for unprecedented eight hours on defending our country’s stand on Kashmir issue! He was none else than V.K.Krishna Menon .Let us pay our floral tribute to him in his memory and have glimpse of his life in brief!
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(Photo of V.K.Krishna Menon)

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Bishwa Nath Singh :
Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon was a great man having towering personality. He was a true nationalist politician & statesman of repute.. He was born at Panniyankara in Calicut, Kerala, into the powerful Vengalil family of South India. H...e was the grandson of the Raja of Kartanad and the first son of a successful lawyer of the Calicut bar, Komath Krishna Kurup, one of Kerala's richest & affluent men at the time. He had his early education in Tellicherry and he took his B.A. degree from Presidency College, Chennai. While in college, he started taking an active interest in the national movement. While studying in the Law College of Madras, he became involved in Theosophy and actively associated with Annie Besant and the Home Rule Movement. He was a leading member of the 'Brothers of Service', founded by Annie Besant who had helped him travel to England in 1924. In London, Menon pursued further education at the London School of Economics and University College London, and at the same time he became a champion and great follower of India's freedom. In England, he worked hard for Indian independence as a journalist and secretary of the India League from 1929 to 1947.He got associated with fellow Indian nationalist leader Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1934 he was admitted to the English bar, and after joining the Labour Party he was elected Borough Councilor of St. Pancras, London. St. Pancras later conferred on him the Freedom of the Borough, the only other person so honoured being Bernard Shaw. In 1932 he inspired a fact-finding delegation headed by Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson to visit India. Menon served as its Secretary and edited its report entitled 'conditions in India'. During the thirties he founded with Allen Lane the Penguin and Pelican paper back books. He worked as an editor for Bodley Head, Penguin and Pelican Books, and the Twentieth Century Library. After India was granted independence in 1947, V.K.Krishna Menon was appointed high commissioner to the United Kingdom, a post in which he remained until 1952. Subsequently, he led the Indian delegation to the United Nations (1952 - 1962), where he adopted a policy of non-alignment, loudly criticizing the United States and voicing support for the People's Republic of China. Even till date Krishna Menon's speech is the longest ever delivered in the Unites Nations Security Council. On January 23,1957 he delivered an unprecedented eight hour speech on defending our country’s stand on Kashmir issue.. Krishna Menon became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1953. On February 3, 1956, he joined the Union Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio inn Nehru’s cabinet.. In 1957 he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bombay, and in April 1957, he was sworn in as the Union Minister of defense in Nehru’s cabinet.. However, after India's defeat in the Sino-Indian War of 1962, he was removed from office on account of stiff opposition both in the Parliament & outside for lack of military preparedness in our country.. In 1967 he lost his parliamentary seat but was re-elected in 1969.Let us pay our respectful homage to him who had died on October 6, 1974 in New Delhi. In his death, the country had lost a true nationalist and a great statesman though he had lived in the worst of time with full of criticism during his last leg of journey owing to defeat of our country in Sino-Indian War in 1962 V. K. Krishna Menon’s contributions to the country’s freedom struggle and development as a socialist secular and democratic republic must be fully recognized and remembered by all of us that we can’t ignore.
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f.b.
November 30,2010