250th Birth Anniversary of Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Context

Union Culture Ministry will commemorate the 250th Birth Anniversary of Raja Ram Mohan Roy till 22nd of May next year under the aegis of 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav'.

About Raja Ram Mohan Roy

• Raja Ram Mohan Roy was an Indian religious, social, and educational reformer.
• He was born on May 22, 1772, in Radhanagar in Bengal.
• He is famously known as the “Father of Modern India” or “Father of the Bengal Renaissance”.
• He was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reform movement.
• He crusaded against Hindu customs such as sati, polygamy, child marriage and the caste system. 
• He demanded property inheritance rights for women.
• In 1817, in collaboration with David Hare, he set up the Hindu College at Calcutta.
• In 1830, Ram Mohan Roy traveled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire to ensure that Lord William Bentinck's Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829 banning the practice of Sati was not overturned.
• His most popular journal was the Sambad Kaumudi. 
• It covered topics like freedom of the press, induction of Indians into high ranks of service, and separation of the executive and judiciary.
• He was given the title of Raja by Akbar II, the Mughal emperor.