List of notable people from Kolkata. Kolkata has been regarded as the cultural capital of India.[1]
Philosophers and religious teachers
The most famous religious figure of Kolkata is Mother Teresa. Others are (in order of surname):
Scientists
List in order of surname.
- James Atkinson (1780—1852), surgeon, artist and Persian scholar
- R. D. Banerji, archeologist
- Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858—1937), Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist and archaeologist
- Upendranath Brahmachari
- Asima Chatterjee (1917—2006), chemist
- Debendra Mohan Bose (1875—1975), physicist
- Satyendra Nath Bose (1894—1974), physicist and polymath from Bengal
- Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay (1890—1977), Bengali linguist
- Krishnendu Chaudhury, computer scientist
- Barun De (1932—2013), historian
- Brajendranath De (1852—1932), Indian civil servant and orientalist
- Anil Kumar Gain (1919—1978), mathematician and statistician.
- J.B.S. Haldane (1892—1964), British-Indian scientist, known for his work in the study of physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics
- Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893—1972), Bengali scientist and applied statistician
- R.C. Majumdar (1884—1980), historian
- P. J. Marshall (b. 1933), historian
- Ujjwal Maulik (b. 1965), computer scientist
- Subhash Mukhopadhyay (1931—1981), physician
- Sisir Kumar Mitra (1890—1963), physicist
- Rajat Kanta Ray, historian
- Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (1923—2005), physicist, known for his research in general relativity and cosmology
- Tapan Raychaudhuri (1926—2014), historian
- C. R. Rao (1920–2023), mathematician and statistician
- Prafulla Chandra Roy (1861—1944), Bengali chemist, educationist, historian, industrialist and philanthropist
- Meghnad Saha (1893—1956), astrophysicist
- Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870—1958), historian
- Sumit Sarkar (b. 1939), historian
- Susobhan Sarkar (1900—1982), historian
- Tapan Kumar Sarkar (1948—2021), electrical engineer
- Ashoke Sen (b. 1956), theoretical physicist
- Bikas K Chakrabarti (b. 1952), theoretical physicist & econophysicist
- Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay (b. 1968), computer scientist
- Sukumar Sen (linguist) historian of Bengali literature
Nobel laureates
Six Nobel Prize winners have been associated with Kolkata:
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
The Ramon Magsaysay Award, sometimes called "Asia's Nobel Prize", is given "to perpetuate his example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society." Kolkata winners include:
- Mother Teresa (1910—1997) — Peace and International Understanding, 1962
- Satyajit Ray (1921—1992) — Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1967
- Gour Kishore Ghosh (1923—2000) — Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1981
- Mahasweta Devi (1926—2016) — Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1997