St. Columba's School, Delhi

St. Columba's School, Delhi, India, was established in 1941, one of twelve thousand English Medium schools of its kind conducted by the Indian Province of the Congregation of Christian Brothers which was founded by Edmund Ignatius Rice, a Roman Catholic missionary and educationalist. It has followed the CBSE system of education. The campus of St. Columba's School is located in the heart of Delhi and extends over a couple of acres. St. Columba's School alumni include 2 Rhodes Scholars and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Students are referred to as Columbans. The school admits only boys. Famous celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan and Kunal Nayyar have passed out from St.Columbas.^[1] The school has completed 75 years.

About

History

Officially opened on 31 April 1941, St. Columba's School began with 32 boys in New Delhi next to the Sacred Heart Cathedral, admitting through class 6. It was one of the first schools in India to introduce computer education. The junior school opened in 1942, at the site of what previously had been a rose garden.

The Founding

St. Columba's was founded in 1941, by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a Catholic society from Ireland that has undertaken missionary and educational work worldwide. This group, also informally known as the Christian Brothers, was founded by Edmund Ignatius Rice. St. Columba's School, New Delhi is one of the 19 Christian Brothers Schools in India.

Notable alumni

Academics & Science

• Deepak Chopra, 1963, physician, public speaker, writer and New Age spiritual guru.^[2]
• Nitin Nohria, 1980, 10th and current dean of Harvard Business School, where he was named the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration.^[3]

Shah Rukh Khan, actor is an alumnus of St. Columba's School

Rahul Gandhi, politician and member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, is an alumnus of St. Columba's School

• Siddhartha Mukherjee, Rhodes Scholar, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer; he is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University.^[4]
• Rajeev Motwani, Gödel Prize winner, former Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.
• Mahesh Rangarajan, Rhodes Scholar and Professor of History at Ashoka University.
• Mohak Bhardwaj, RA, Air Lab and founder, Auto Park for Social Robots, a spinoff from CMU.

Arts & Entertainment

• Shah Rukh Khan, 1984, Indian actor, named "the world's biggest movie star" by the Los Angeles Times, was also a winner of the Sword of Honor, the highest accolade a graduating senior can achieve.^[5]

Deepak Chopra, physician, public speaker and New Age writer, Batch of 1963

• Kunal Nayyar, actor; best known for his role as "Raj Koothrappali" on the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.^[6]

Kunal Nayyar, known for his role as Raj Koothrappali on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, is an alumnus of St. Columba's School

• Keith Sequeira, actor and model
• Anubhav Srivastava, 2004, filmmaker (Carve Your Destiny)
• Arjun Mathur, actor
• Cyrus Sahukar, VJ/actor
• Mukul Dev, actor
• Palash Sen, singer (Euphoria)
• Rahul Dev, model/actor
• Sudeep Sen, author/poet
• Derek Bose, author/journalist
• Vinil Mathew, ad-filmmaker and Bollywood director
• George Chakravarthi, artist

Politics

• Rahul Gandhi, politician, General Secretary of the Indian National Congress, son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Vice President of the Indian National Congress and Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi^[7]
• Sanjay Gandhi, Indian National Congress politician and son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi^[8]
• Abhishek Manu Singhvi, 1975, politician, spokesperson for the Indian National Congress.^[9]
• Najeeb Jung, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, ex vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia^[10]
• Anil Shastri, politician, former member of Lok Sabha representing the Indian National Congress.^[11]
• Derek O'Brien,Indian television personality and Member of Parliament
• Mahesh Rangarajan, historian and political analyst
• Gaurav Gogoi, Member of Parliament
• Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Finance, Government of India, Member of Parliament

Law

• Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court,1975
• Badar Durrez Ahmed ,a senior Judge of Delhi High Court

Business

• Sharik Currimbhoy,1998, CEO of Shahnaz Herbal Group and Element Capital, Political Activist
• Piyush Gupta, 1976, CEO and Director of DBS Bank^[12]
• Lalit Suri, 1963, former Chairman/Managing Director of Bharat Hotels Limited.^[13]
• Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman of Naukri.Com
• Vivek Paul, former vice-chairman of Wipro, Consulting Professor of Radiology at Stanford University, and founder of KineticGlue, a cloud based computing company.
• Deep Kalra, founder of MakeMyTrip
• Sanjay Jain, Most sought out CEO Times Of India
• Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems (parent company of Java.)

Military

• Amreshwar Pratap Singh, Brigadier, 1967, recipient of the Sena Medal-Gallantry, Bar to Sena Medal-Gallantry and Vishisht Seva Medal medals, International yachtsman, member of the First Indian Sailing Expedition Around the World on Trishna 1985-87, National Coach and International Race Officer^[14]
• Rana Chhina, eminent military historian and ex-officer of the Indian Air Force.

Sports

• Ashish Bagai, former captain, and keeper-batsman of the Canadian Cricket team.
• Mansher Singh, 1985, sport shooter, Olympic athlete
• Arun Lal, cricketer and commentator

Senior School

The senior school building once housed the entire school. Today, the 11th and 12th classes are to be found here along with a library, science laboratories and the administration wing. On the first floor were the residences of the Christian Brothers, which were shifted to the Provincialate Wing in 2011.

Edmund Rice Hall

The Edmund Rice Hall (ERH) has an indoor basketball cum badminton court. It has a stage at one end, seating space to accommodate more than 2000 people and stadium-like step seating at the far end. It hosts the annual Christmas Play that is a major attraction, being organised entirely by the students and the faculty. It also hosts the Columban Jindal basketball tournament.

Columban Open Quiz

The Columban Open quiz is the premier school quiz of North India, with more than 200 teams participating every year. Started in 1984, The Columban open quiz is in its thirty third edition and is one of the most prestigious quizzes in the circuit. It is organised by the Quiz Society of St. Columba's consisting of students and a teacher in charge. The 2016 edition of the quiz was won by Modern School Barakhamba Road (Ayan Marwaha, Aatmik Gupta, Paavas Bhasin, Aniket Joshi) with Delhi Public School R.K. Puram as runners-up (Aryaman Dubey, Aveneel Waadhwa, Hibah Mirza, Aneesh Gupta).

See also

• List of Christian Brothers schools in India

References

External links

• Official website

Coordinates: 28°37′49″N 77°12′21″E / 28.6302°N 77.2057°E / 28.6302; 77.2057