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Chaudhari Devi Lal (1914-2001) was an politician, freedom fighter, Chief Minister of the state of Haryana and Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was born in a Jat Hindu family on 25 September 1914 in Teja Khera village of Sirsa district in Haryana, India. His mother's name was Shugna Devi and father's name was Lekh Ram. His son Om Prakash Chautala is also a former Chief Minister of the state of Haryana . While in power, Chaudhari Devi Lal is credited for having taken several decisions in the interest of the farming community and the rural people, among whom he is popularly known as 'Tau'. He died on April 6, 2001 at the age of 86. He was cremated at “Kisan Ghat” on the banks of the river Yamuna.

Chaudhary Bansi Lal (August 26, 1927 – March 28, 2006) was an freedom fighter, senior Congress leader, former Chief Minister of Haryana and considered by many to be the architect of modern Haryana. He was born in Golagarh village in Bhiwani district of Haryana. He served three separate terms as Chief Minister of Haryana: 1968-75,  1985-87, and 1996-99. Bansi Lal was considered a close confidante of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency era in 1975. He served as the Defence Minister from December 1975 to March 1977, and had a brief stint as a Minister Without Portfolio in the Union government in 1975. He also held the Railways and Transport portfolios. Lal was elected to the State Assembly seven times, the first time in 1967. He set up Haryana Vikas Party after parting ways with the Indian National Congress in 1996. Bansi Lal died in New Delhi on 28 March 2006. He had been unwell for quite some time.

Sh. Om Prakash Jindal was born on 7th August 1930 in the village Nalwa in the district Hisar in the state of Haryana. The son of a farmer, he started his industrial career with a small bucket-manufacturing unit in Hisar. In 1964, he started a Pipe Unit, Jindal India Limited, followed by a large factory in 1969 under the name Jindal Strips Limited. He died on 31st March 2005 in a helicopter crash. At present, there are twenty factories operatng under the flagship of the Jindal Organization. O.P. Jindal was the Chairman of the Jindal Organization. In November 2004, Jindal was awarded the prestigious "Life Time Achievement Award" for his outstanding contribution to the Indian Steel Industry by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry. According to the latest Forbes' List, he was ranked 13th amongst the richest Indians and placed 548th amongst the richest persons of the world. Jindal was appointed Minister of Power in the Government of Haryana. He won the Hisar Legislative Assembly seat of Haryana three times consecutively. He was also a Member of the Committee on Food, Civil Supplies and Public Distribution from 1996 to 1997. O. P. Jindal was elected to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha (the Haryana state government) in February 2005, and was the Minister of Power in the Government of Haryana at the time of his death. He was the Chairman of the N.C. Jindal Charitable Trust; Patron and Trustee of Agroha Vikas Trust and Agroha Medical College. His 4 sons, Prithviraj Jindal, Sajjan Jindal, Ratan Jindal and Naveen Jindal now run the steel and power empire. His widow Savitri Jindal is Minister of State for Revenue, Disaster Management, Rehabilitation and Housing in Haryana state government, while his son Naveen is a member of the Parliament of India.

Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003), was an Indian-American scientist and a NASA astronaut. She was one of seven crewmembers killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.Chawla was born in a Punjabi family in Karnal, Haryana, India. She was born in Model Town Karnal. Kalpana in Sanskrit means "imagination". Her interest in flying was inspired by J. R. D. Tata, a pioneering Indian pilot and industrialist.. There are a total of four children in the Chawla household including Kalpana. They are (eldest first) Sunita Chawla, girl, Deepa Chawla, girl, Sanjay Chawla, boy, and Kalpana herself. Being the youngest, the family members gave her the nickname “Montu”. She and her brother Sanjay shared the dream to fly. She met and married Jean-Pierre Harrison, a flying instructor and aviation writer, in 1983 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1990.

Education
Chawla completed her earlier schooling at Tagore Public School, Karnal. She earned her Bachelor of engineering degree in aeronautical engineering at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh in 1982. She moved to the United States in 1982 and obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington (1984). Chawla went on to earn a second Master of Science degree in 1986 and a PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Later that year she began working for NASA Ames Research Center as vice president of Overset Methods, Inc. where she did CFD research on V/STOL. Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multiengine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders. She held an FCC issued Technician Class Amateur Radio license with the call sign KD5ESI.

NASA career
Chawla joined the NASA astronaut corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1998. Her first space mission began on November 19,1997 as part of the six astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second person of Indian origin to fly in space, following cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 in a Soviet spacecraft. On her first mission Chawla travelled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 360 hours in space. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite. A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control. After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Kalpana was assigned to technical positions in the astronaut office, her performance in which was recognized with a special award from her peers.

In 2000 she was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners. On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission. Chawla's responsibilities included the SPACEHAB/BALLE-BALLE/FREESTAR microgravity experiments, for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science, advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety.

Chawla's last visit to India was during the 1991–1992 new year holiday when she and her husband spent time with her family.

Awards
Posthumously awarded:
Congressional Space Medal of Honor
NASA Space Flight Medal
NASA Distinguished Service Medal
Defense Distinguished Service Medal