Issued by India

Issued on Nov 14, 2013

Issued for : Department of Posts salutes Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar on being the only cricketer to play the 200 test matches by issuing a set of two stamps, a miniature sheet and a mix sheetlet.

Design : The stamp depicts the journey of his test career from his debut test to recent one.

Credits :
Stamp/Miniature Sheet/Sheetlet/FDC : Kamleshwar Singh
Cancellation : Alka Sharma

Type : Miniature Sheet, Mint Condition and Post Card

Colour : Multi colour

Denomination : 2000 Paise each

Stamps Printed : 3.01 million

Miniature Sheet : 2.41 million

Sheet–let : 1.61 million

Printing Process : Wet-offset

Printer : India Security Press, Nashik

Name : Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

Born on Apr 24, 1973 at Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

About : 

• Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made his Test debut, on India‘s tour of Pakistan on 15^th November, 1989, when he was only 16 years and 205 days old. The teenager scored two fifties in his first series, against bowlers of the calibre of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younus, Abdul Qadir and Imran Khan. He was only 17 years and 112 days old, when he saved India with an unbeaten 119, against England at Manchester, in 1990. The knock made him India‘s youngest centurion in Tests. India‘s tour of Australia in 1991-92, was the turning point of his career. In a series where every Indian batsman struggled, the 18 year-old Tendulkar smashed two hundreds – an unbeaten 148 at Sydney, and 114 at Perth. He occupied the ‘no. 4‘ slot in the batting order, for the first time, on that tour. The rest, as they say, is history.
  
• The bigger the occasion, the better Tendulkar played, throughout his career. Sir Donald Bradman paid him a memorable compliment, when he remarked that ‘Tendulkar reminded him of himself.’ In the new millennium, Tendulkar was the senior most component of a redoubtable batting order, which took India to many a famous win. In 2008, he eclipsed Brian Lara‘s tally of 11,953, to become the highest scorer in Test cricket. He holds the Test records for being the highest century-maker, and the most-capped player. In 2012, he completed a century of international centuries. He also has more than a hundred catches in Tests, to his credit, as well as some key wickets. Tendulkar‘s record in One-Day Internationals is second to none. He was the highest scorer in the 1996 and 2003 World Cups, and was an important member of the Indian team that won the title in 2011.
  
• A legendary cricketer and role model for millions, Tendulkar has played a critical role in India‘s ascent to the summit of cricket, in both Tests and ODIs, in the new millennium. The Government of India honoured him with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1998, and the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award, in 2008. He took oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house in India’s Parliament, in June 2012.
• Text : Materials provided by BCCI.

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Issued by India

Issued on 23 Feb, 2010

Issued for : The Department of Posts honours PC Sorcar and his achievements by issuing a commemorative postage stamp. The FDC shows his sets & performances and the brochure cover is adapted from the Japanese poster of his performance.

Credits :
Stamp & FDC : Sankha Samantha
Cancellation : Alka Sharma

Type : Block of 4 Stamps, Mint condition, First Day Cover with First Day Special Cancellation Postmark, Information Folder (Brochure), Post Card and Special Cover

Colour : Multi colour

Denomination : 500 Paise

Stamps Printed : 0.4 Million

Printing Process : Wet Offset

Printer : India Security Press, Nasik

Name : Protul Chandra Sarkar

Born on Feb 23, 1913 at Ashokpur, Tangail, Bengal, British India [now in Bangladesh]

Died on Jan 6, 1971 at Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan

About : 

• Protul Chandra Sorcar was born on 23 February 1913 in Ashokpur in the Tangail district (now in Bangladesh) in a poor middle class family. He was attracted to magic at an early age. He initially learned magic from Shri Ganapati Chakravarti. After passing the entrance examination in the first division, he graduated with honours in mathematics in the year 1933. He then took up magic as a profession.
• Protul Chandra Sorcar‘s ascent to greatness and his emergence as Jadu Samrat has no parallel. He crafted every bit of magic unaided, almost single handed. While speaking of magic, the name of Protul Chandra Sorcar is inseparable from the contemporary history of the people and the country. The original genius that he was, he tapped the root of all culture and folk arts to draw his unique vision of entertainment based on illusion and transformed the Indian magic into Indrajal – a highly original form of Indian art presented through the full panoply of stage performance with all its opulent splendour. Indrajal became a work of art in his hands.
• He commenced his career as a magician performing in homes, clubs, carnivals, circuses, theatres, public halls and at any place where he knew he could get hold of an audience and thus earned fame as an Indian magician of a different mould, experimenting and innovating along the way.
• His was a creative genius perfecting his spectacular sets, gorgeous costumes including his own celebrated Maharaja robe complete with a plumed turban, magnificent stage illusions, and large scale lighting effects combining years of experimentation, incredible hard labour and above all wide-ranging imaginative insights. He drew upon the ethnic variety of India, tapping the rich Indian lore of magic and conjuring arts. He authored 20 books in Bengali, English and Hindi. In an era when women stage performers and artists were scorned and ostracized, Sorcar had the courage to induct in his troupe women who regularly performed in his often breath-taking stage illusions. Thus quietly but steadily he helped break a social barrier.
• P.C. Sorcar never failed to quietly rise to the occasion at home or abroad whenever he found there was something he could do to aid the struggle for freedom. In 1937 he donated the money he earned in Japan to the cause of Indian freedom movement.
• Doubtless the greatest magician of his time, he is remembered as an iconic cultural ambassador who rose from humble origins to become the “Jadu Samrat” ‘Emperor of Magic‘. He toured all over the world and his performances which enthralled all kinds of audience were often seen on international television. He received many awards at home and abroad. He twice earned the Phoenix award in the United States. He also won the German Goldbar and the Golden Laurel Garland awards and the Dutch Tricks prize. In 1964 the Indian Government honoured him with a Padmashri.
• A number of well-known writers of Europe have written books on him. Arthur Leroy once famously conceded in 1966, “Prince Charming Sorcar has built the biggest, most stupendous illusion show of our times…….a show that at this moment is the only one of its kind in the world“. He was a member of the societies of magicians in France, UK, Germany, Belgium and Japan, of the International Rotary Club & the Royal Asiatic Society in London. He wrote the history of magic with stubborn resolve and unyielding ambition. In almost everything he did, Sorcar displayed inventiveness and a vision he went on developing as long as he was a practicing magician. His full-scale illusion show, “Indrajal” had virtually no peer in the field in terms of opulence, repertoire range and splendour. PC Sorcar died suddenly on 6 January 1971 while performing at a show in Japan.
  
• Text : As per material provided by the proponent.
• The front side of the Special Cover shows 4 different pictures of Mr. P. C. Sorkar as follows (clockwise from the top) –
  • Sorcar with Lord and Lady Mountbatten in London
  • Eluding a Regulation Handcuff before London Police (Photo : Sunday Graphic, London, 1957)
    
  • Hollywood film-star Shirley Maclaine flies to Kolkata in 1965 to book “the Great Sorcar” to inaugurate her Casino in Las Vegas
  • Sorcar cycles blindfolded along place de L’opera and Champs-Elysees, July, 1950

  The back side of the Special Cover shows a write-up on Jadu Samrat P. C. Sorkar (1913-1971) as follows –

  • To think of magic in beauty, grandeur and precision is to think of SORCAR, for Sorcar and magic are inalienable. Sorcar’s fantastic achievement is now a story and a history as well, a true legend. “How can India, the land so deeply ingrained in the ways of the old, produce such a modern giant?” exclaimed the rich Western nations. A grand luminary Sorcar was in the firmament of magic amidst the galaxy of shining stars. Sorcar’s greatness beyond compare has been accepted by the world in epithetising him as The World’s Greatest Magician and the Maharaja of magic.

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Issued by India

Issued on Jul 2, 1979

Issued for : The P & T Department proudly hails the centenary of the Post Card Service with the issue of a commemorative postage stamp of 50 paise denomination.

Type : Stamp, Postal Used

Colour : Multicolour

Denomination : 50 Paise

Overall size : 3.91 X 2.90 cms.

Printing size : 3.55 X 2.54 cms.

Perforation : 13 X 13

Watermark : A. P. watermark

Number printed : 30,00,000

Number per issue sheet : 35

Printing process : Photogravure

Designed and printed at : India Security Press

About : 

• The history of Post Card is inextricably linked with the history of development of postal system. Though in India the evidence of a transmission system for state messages by pigeons goes back to ancient times, the present system of post organised by the East India Company came into existence on 31^st March 1774. By 1837 the Government made carriage and distribution mails State monopoly and also threw open the facility for public use by making it a public utility organisation. The Indian Post Office, as we know it today, came to be recognised as a separate organisation in 1854.
• When the first Indian Postage Stamp was issued on 1^st October 1854, the concept of Post Card was not in existence. Dr. Emanuel Herrmann of Austria conceived of the post card in 1869 as a cheaper means of communication. In India, the first post cards were issued on 1^st July 1879. Their designing and printing was done by Messrs Thomas De La Rue & Co. of London. They were of two denominations, the “Quarter Anna” card was for domestic use and the “1½ Annas” one meant for the countries affiliated to the Universal Postal Union.
• The first post cards were printed upon medium light buff or straw card. The Quarter Anna card had inscription “East India Post Card” with coat-of-arms of Great Britain in between and the stamp with the diademed head of Queen Victoria in the right upper corner printed in red brown. The foreign post card carried the inscription “Universal Postal Union” in English and French at the top. The bilingual inscriptions of “British India” and “Post Card”, below the top line, were separated by the British coat-of-arms with stamp in the right hand tap corner. The stamp and the inscriptions were in blue. Both the cards carried the legend, “the address only to be written on this side” on the obverse.
• During its long history, post card had gone through many changes. In 1899, the word “EAST” was removed and the inscription became ‘INDIA POST CARD’. In 1911, special post cards for official use were issued by the Central and provincial Governments to commemorate the Coronation of King George V Durbar held in Delhi. These carried the printed inscription of POST CARD but did not bear the stamp imprint. They bore the Crown and ‘GRI’ monograms embossed in gold and the word ‘Delhi‘ and the emblem of various provinces embossed in different colours.
• After Independence the first post card with the new stamp design of TRIMURTI in bright green was issued on 7^th December, 1949. In 1950, Local Delivery post card with reduced postage rate (6 pies) were issued carrying a stamp design in chocolate colour based on Konark Horse sculpture. On 2^nd October 1951, a series of three picture post cards showing Gandhiji holding a child, Gandhiji spinning and Gandhiji with Kasturba were released. On 2^nd October, 1969, another series of three post cards showing Gandhiji spinning, Gandhiji at Sabarmati and a bust of Gandhiji were issued to mark the Gandhi Centenary.
• Since its introduction, the post card became the common man’s means of communication. In the rural areas of our country, it continues to enjoy immense popularity. Currently a record number of more than 2100 million post cards crisscross this vast country linking our people in a fraternal bond.

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