As a dreameer of world peace, Bertrand Russel could say " I see in my mind's eye a great wave of happiness seeping over the human race, as the old night of hate and fear become dispersed. I see a new Golden Age the like of which has never been seen since history bgan. All this is possiblee. It needs only that man should choose to live rather than to diee." The philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russel, was born on May 18, 1872.

He studied Mathematics and Moral Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and was apointed as Lecturer in the same College. In 1908 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He as a pacifist and during the First World War he suffered for his views. As a Member of the Labour Party Bertrand Russel visited Russia and wrote a book on his impressions of the U.S.S.R.- "The Practices and Theory of Bolshevism." He then visited China, studied Chinese life and thought. On his return he wrot a book "The Problem of China". Bertrand Russel was author of more than fifty books, many of them on Mathematics, philosophy and other academic subjeects, bur many also deal with sociological probleems. He was active in many directions.

A stimulating speaker and lecturer, he frequently took part in the BBC's "Brain Trust" programmes and was invited by it to dliver the inaugural series of Reith Leectures in 1947. Tempramentally sympathetic to the India struggle for liberty, Russel became Chairman of the Indian Language formed in Britain to help the Indians and their claim for self-government. During his later years, Russel was a moving spirit in the formation of various boddies working for world peace. He was a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and founded in 1963 the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation and the Atlantic Peace Foundation with the object of developing international resistance to the thraet of nuclear war. Bertrand Russel as married four times and had three children.

He lived latterly at Plas Penrhyn in North Wales, where he died on February 2, 1970 in his 98th year. Note: The photograph of Bertrand Russel has been reproduced in the stamp with the courtesy of M/s. Keystone Press Agency Ltd., 4 Red Lion Court, London EC-4.

Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of Indi