Phulrenu Guha

Guha, born on 13 August 1911 in Calcutta, was educated at Calcutta University in graduate studies of philosophy under Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, London University and the Sorbonne in Paris. Having joined the Jugantar Party at the age of fifteen in 1926 which was a radical organisation aimed at acquiring freedom for India, she met her future husband Dr. Biresh Chandra Guha, who had joined the Jugantar Party even younger, and who had completed his M.Sc. in organic chemistry in 1925 and begun working under the famed chemist-entrepreneur Prafulla Chandra Ray. In 1928, while Biresh left for England, Guha joined the Sorbonne in Paris. They returned to India only in 1932. Biresh was working with Sir Jack Drummond and Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins in London and Cambridge and helping to discover vitamins. On their arrival to India, the Guhas were gotten up to speed in the Non-Cooperation Movement, and Biresh Chandra was imprisoned, leaving Phulrenu, resolute, to battle alone. Phulrenu was a piece of the push to assuage the upset during the Bengal Famine in 1941-43 and she additionally endeavoured to reestablish shared congruity at Noakhali. From 1943 to 1944 she was Secretary of the Women's Section of the Azad Hind Relief Committee. Like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (q.v.) she comprehended that the primary need after Partition must be the recovery and aid of the dislodged, particularly ladies and kids. Phulrenu and Biresh Chandra Guha were hitched on 17 July 1945, numerous years after they had initially met. After Independence Phulrenu devoted herself completely to the country building. She served different State and Central Government associations in various limits. She was Chairperson of the Task Force on Child Welfare Committee of Planning Commission, Government of India, from 1971 to 1972 and of the Committee on Status of Women in India from 1972 to 1975. She was likewise leader of the Indian Council of Child Welfare from 1970 to 1973. In 1977 she was granted the Padma Bhushan. She was a Member of the Lok Sabha from 1964 to 1970. She filled in as Minister of State for Social Welfare from March 1967 to February 1969 and Law from February 1969 to June 1970. She died 95 years old in 2006, in a maturity home she had established herself, and furthermore openly gave her assets to Calcutta University to set up the B.C. Guha Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.

• Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website