Chandran Gramin Vikas Sansthan (CGVS)
CGVS is a non-profit society registered in India under Societies Registration Act of 1860 (registration number V/11690). CGVS is also a tax-exempt organization as per U/S 80 G of Income Tax Act (1961, India).
The name "Chandran Gramin Vikas Sansthan" translates as "Chandran Rural Development Society." The goal of CGVS is rural development in India with special emphasis on agricultural production, education, health, income enhancement, sanitation, drinking water and empowerment of women. The parents of Chandran (Jagadish and Anastasia Shukla) have made a long term commitment to support CGVS. Gandhi Mahavidyalaya was established in 2000 under the sponsorship of CGVS.
Chandran J. Shukla: Chandran was born on 22 April 1981 in Maryland, USA. He went to Garrett Park Elementary School, Walter Johnson High School, University of Utah, and University of Maryland. He was a child prodigy, and a brilliant innovator. While in high school, where he was an honor roll student, he taught himself several computer languages, built his own computers, repaired and modified his cars. His hobbies included rocket launching, photography, poker, travels to Italy, and racing. He successfully and proudly completed the US Marines boot camp, and after graduation from the University of Maryland he was preparing himself to be a jet fighter pilot and an officer in the US Marine Corp. He was serious, contemplative and reserved with his parents and relatives, and a jocular and fun-loving companion with his bar-hopping friends from college and motor bike group.
Chandran died suddenly on 14 March 2004 when he lost control of his motorcycle while he and his friends were riding their sports motorbikes in the winding mountain roads of the Shenandoah National Park in the Rappahannock County of the state of Virginia, about two hours away from his home in Rockville, Maryland.
Friends of Chandran and his sister and his parents have made generous donations to establish a scholarship in his name in the Gandhi Mahavidyalaya. Parents of Chandran and Dr. Kenneth A. Mooney from Reston, Virginia USA have made generous contributions to build a community hall named CHANDRAN MEMORIAL HALL to help children of village Mirdha and the surrounding villages. Chandran's uncles Shri Mahendra Shukla and Shriram Shukla had established in 1989 a non-profit society called Chandran Gramin Vikas Sansthan to help the poor people of rural India.
Jagadish and Anastasia S. Shukla, Chandran and Sonia
J. Shukla was born in 1944 in village Mirdha in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This village had no electricity, no roads or transportation, and no primary school. Most of his primary education was received under a large banyan tree until his father established a primary school in the village. He passed high school from the S.R.S. High School, Sheopur, in 1958 with distinction in Mathematics and Sanskrit. He was unable to study science in high school because none of the schools near his village included science education. His father, the late Shri Chandra Shekhar Shukla who was headmaster of a middle school in a nearby village (Sukhpura), insisted that he begin to study science from the eleventh grade. After passing the twelfth grade from the S.C.College, Ballia, he went to Banaras Hindu University (B.H.U.) where, in 1962, he passed B.Sc. (honors) with Physics, Mathematics, and Geology, and in 1964 M.Sc. in Geophysics. He received Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Geophysics from BHU (1971) and Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) in Meteorology from MIT (1976). He is Professor and chairman of Climate Dynamics in the School of Computational Sciences, George Mason University (GMU), and President of the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES). He is author/co-author of about 200 scientific papers and reports. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, Indian Meteorological Society, and Associate Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He has received the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal of NASA, the Walker Gold Medal of the Indian Meteorological Society, and the Rossby Medal of the American Meteorological Society.
J. Shukla has three brothers (Mahendra, Kanhaiya and Shriram Shukla), and two sisters (Bimla Pandey and Subhadra Upadhyay). It was one of the last wishes of his mother, the late Shrimati Sita Devi, who could barely read and write her name, that a college for the education of rural girls be established in the village.
Anastasia S. Shukla (Anne) was born in Sheridan, Wyoming (USA) and later moved to Denver, Colorado. She passed her B.S. from the University of Colorado, and M.S. in Financial Management from the Benjamin Franklin University, Washington DC. She has one brother George Booras, and one sister Elaine Harvey. She is the Business manager at the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES).
J. Shukla and Anne were married on 4 October 1979 in Rockville, Maryland. They have been blessed with two extraordinary children, Chandran (1981-2004), and Sonia (born 5 April, 1983) who received her Bachelorβs degree from the University of California, Irvine, USA. Anne and J. Shukla are devoted to IGES, Gandhi Mahavidyalaya, and village development.