Civil Servant, Former Chief Election Commissioner and Author of an International Bestseller.
Other Articles
- The House not in order-Indian ExpressOct 1 2018
- An alliance of muscle and money- HT 26 Dec,17
- Assembly elections Winnility:-The-Hindustan-Times-16-Dec-17
- साधारण जीवन में असाधारण काम कर गईं मदर
- The lawless lawmaker Election: India Today 17Feb 2017
- ECI: How the giant polling machine pulls it off-Hindustan Time 6Jan 17
- Performance by Special Children of Lepra India Turst
- Sri Lanka Election -Navin Chawla, Member of Observer Group
- Leprosy Must Go
- For the love of God by Navin Chawla
- The youth are no longer apathetic to politics, they want jobs and a better future
- When the nice guys didn't finish last
- The vitality of India's democracy
- The importance of being a Booth Level Officer
- Criminality in the Indian political system
- Like dragons to water
- Vulnerability Mapping
- A LEPROSY TALE for Tehelka, 21st September 2013
- Mother Tersa, The Hindu, 26th August 2013
- Mother Tersa, The Mailtoday, 26th August 2013
- Venezuela Diary
- A change from within, 24 Feb 2013
- Mother Teresa Remembered, 17 Sep 2012
- Kaziranga Diary, 23 Jan 2012
- Umpiring a gigantic exercise, 17 Jan 2012
- Towards a level playing field, 6 Jan 2012
- The Miracle That Was Mother Teresa, 26 Aug 2011
- Tribune Article on Mother Teresa August 26 2011
- Aspen India 5th May 2011 Navin Chawla programme Mother Teresa
- Paris Diary, 08 Nov 2010
- Unesco Paris Birth Centenary Mother Teresa 14 September 2010
- Tribune 26 August 2010
- Mother Teresa a remembrance, Aug 25 2010
- Jyoti Basu Mother Teresa Article January 2010
- The mystery of Mother Teresa, Aug 25 2009
- A Biographer Tribute The Telegraph Aug 25 2009
- Mother Teresa and the joy of giving August 26 2008
- The Miracle of faith, Aug 25 2007
- Special Braille machine for blind voters, Nov 3, 2006
- Memories of Mother Teresa Aug 26 2006
- Saint of the dispossessed Aug 26 2004
- Remembering Mother Teresa Frontline 2000
- The Global Indian, 19 Jul 1999
- Frontline 1997 Article published in Hindu
- Touch the Poor India Today September 1997
Articles on Mother Teresa
PTI Mother Teresa invariably prefixed "my friend" before she took Jyoti Basu's name.
Asked what he, a Communist and atheist, could possibly have in common with Mother Teresa for whom God was everything, Jyoti Basu said with a smile: “We both share a love for the poor.”
The Hindu requested Navin B. Chawla, Chief Election Commissioner of India and Mother Teresa’s biographer, to share his insights into the remarkable friendship between Jyoti Basu and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity:
During the course of writing a biography on Mother Teresa, I asked Chief Minister Jyoti Basu what he, a Communist and atheist, could possibly have in common with Mother Teresa for whom God was everything. With a smile that reached his eyes, he said: “We both share a love for the poor.” For her part, Mother Teresa invariably prefixed the words “My friend” before she took his name.
From the legendary Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. B.C. Roy, who first recognised her work, to the equally legendary Jyoti Basu who was always available to her when she needed him, Mother Teresa’s work in the city that was beloved of her, could not have been possible to the extent it was without their understanding and their support. It is not that the Missionaries of Charity did not spread their wings to almost 600 centres in 123 countries around the world. It is that Kolkata was her epicentre, the city she identified as her home.
On one occasion when Mother Teresa was visiting Delhi, she fell ill and had to be admitted to a city hospital. For a week that she was there, I was at her bedside and also became her link to the besieged hospital switchboard; there were no mobile phones in those days. With unfailing regularity, Jyoti Basu rang each day to enquire after her health. When I once told him that she repetitively said to me, “Let me go back to Kolkata, I will be all right there,” he laughed understandingly.
On another occasion, when she was admitted to the Woodlands Nursing Home in Kolkata, I saw him enter without fuss, meet Doctor Bardhan and the Sisters, make an enquiry and quietly leave. One of Mother Teresa’s senior-most companions, Sister Gertrude, said to me: “He does not miss a single day.”
In turn, whenever he was unwell, she would visit him in the nursing home or at his house, say a prayer and leave. The good wishes of the one and the prayers of the other complemented each other both in sickness and in health.
