Rabindranath Tgore, the great poet, patriot and social reformer was the first Asian to receive Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 . Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose :

He was a fierce and popular freedom fighter in pre-independent India. He was the president of the Indian National Congress in 1937 and 1939.Netaji founded a nationalist force called the Indian National Army. He started a mass movement using Indian resources and men for the great war. To him, it had no sense to further bleed the poor Indians for the sake of colonial and imperial nations. There was a tremendous response to his call and the British immediately imprisoned him. He went for a hunger strike. His health detoriorated and on the 11th day of fasting he was freed and placed under house arrest. But he disappeared from his house in early 1941.In November 1941 ,his broadcast from german radio sent shock waves to the british and electrified the Indians who realized their leader was working in a master plan to free their motherland. Bose allied with Germany and Japan to fight against The British. In the beginning of 1943, a most hazardous journey was undertaken by him. He traversed under water, covering thousands of miles, crossing enemy territories. He was in the Atlantic, the Middle East, Madagascar and the Indian ocean. Battles were being fought over land, in the air and there Battles were being fought over land, in the air and there were mines in the sea. At one stage he traveled 400 miles in a rubber dingy to reach a Japanese submarine, which took him to Tokyo. He was warmly received in Japan and was declared the head of the Indian army, which consisted of about 40,000 soldiers from Singapore and other eastern regions. Bose called it the Indian National Army (INA) and a government by the name "Azad Hind Government" was declared on the 21st of October 1943.INA freed the Andaman and Nicobar islands from the British and were renamed as Swaraj and Shaheed islands. The Government started functioning.Bose wanted to free India from the Eastern front. He had taken care that Japanese interference was not present from any angle. Army leadership, administration and communications were managed by Indians only. Subhash Brigade, Azad Brigade and Gandhi Brigade were formed. INA marched through Burma and occupied Coxtown on the Indian Border. A touching scene ensued when the solders entered their 'free' motherland. Some lay down and kissed, some placed pieces of mother earth on their heads, others wept. They were now inside of India and were determined to drive out the British! Delhi Chalo (Let's march to Delhi) was the war cry. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed the history of mankind. Japan had to surrender. Bose was in Singapore at that time and decided to go to Tokyo for his next course of action. Unfortunately, there was no trace of him from that point. He was just 48 and his death or disappearance is still a mystery. The Indian people were so much enamored of Bose's leadership qualities, fearlessness and mysterious adventures, that he had become a legend.
Sri Aurobindo : Sri Aurobindo, the great patriot participated immensely in freedom struggle. He became a leader of the Nationalist Party and his editorials in the Bande Mataram at once made him an all-India figure. In 1810, Sri Aurobindo withdrew from the political field and sailed for Pondicherry, to devote himself entirely to his evolving spiritual mission.

Khudiram Bose :

Khudiram Bose, a true martyr of India was involved with a secret extremist group called Yugantar along with Aurobindo Ghosh, Barin Ghosh, Raja Subodh Mallik. Yugantar planned Kingsford's (the notorious Chief Presidency Magistrate ) death and Khudiram Prafulla Chaki were chosen for the job. He was hanged to death on 11th aug, 1908.
Satyendra Nath Bose : S.N.Bose, an Indian mathematician and theoretical physicist, is known for his contributions in the fields of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics particularly in regard to photons. He wrote a paper on the statistics of photons now named as 'Bose Statistics'. Fundamental particles that obeyed his statistical rules were later named 'bosons' One of his important publication is “Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta".

Jagadish Chandra Bose : Jagdish Chandra Bose had put India on the scientific world map with his ingenuity and scientific flair. He conducted bold experiments in Physics, Botany and Physiology. JC Bose demonstrated the existence and propaganda of wireless waves in 1885. His work on devices for receiving the polarization of electric waves was later exploited by Marconi who designed a long distance radio signalling device. He was able to show the similarity in response of the living and non-living to various types of stress and strains. Having discovered this similarity to electric response in animal tissue and inorganic substances Bose now started exploring the response in plants to external stimuli. He was able to establish this similarity in plants too .One of Bose's amazing achievements was his invention of the 'crescograph'. The crescograph was an electrical instrument that could measure the growth of a plant accurately.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy :

Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the maker of modern India fought to abolish SATI(the horrible c ustom of burning the living wife with the dead husband) and put an end to it. William Bentinck administration passed a law in 1829 banning the practice of Sati .Roy first realised that an understanding of "modern" subjects like physics,chemistry,biology,mathematics,English would give Indians a better standing in the world.He also founded the Bramho Samaj.

Pundit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar :

He was a great Sanskrit pundit, educator, reformer, writer, philanthropist. He fought against polygamy and child marriage. He took initiative to legalize widow re-marriage and encouraged it a lot. He also helped the distressed people. Vidyasagar was the founder of several schools, many of which were for girls.
Swami Vivekananda : Swami Vivekananda was the leading disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. His lectures and books provide the best explanation of the Upanishads in modern literature. The Upanishads are the original source of Vedanta.Swami Vivekananda visited the West at the end of the 19th century, and his influence is felt to this day. His message of uncompromising strength, devotion to the truth, unity of all creeds, and dedication to the higher pursuits of life, re-invigorated the spiritual landscape of America and Europe. His work in India provided a genuine alternative to the sweeping materialism that resulted from the scientific achievements of his century.

Nobel laureates

All Nobel laureates of India have been associated with Calcutta at some point of time. The city has produced five Nobel Prize laureates so far . They are (as chronologically awarded):
Sir Ronald Ross (1902 Medicine),
Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Literature),
Sir C.V. Raman (1930 Physics),
Mother Teresa (1977 Peace) and lastly
Amartya Sen (1998 Economics)

Scientists

Scientific greats of Calcutta include, in approximately chronogical order, the multifaceted geniuses W.B. O'Slaughnessy, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray, the physicists Meghnad Saha, Satyendra Nath Bose, statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, and genetic scientist Ananda Mohan Chakraborty. The first in-vitro fertilization (to produce test tube baby "Durga") in India (and second in the world) was performed by city doctor Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay on October 3, 1978.