Famous people's humbled abodes

Residential property in London where Dr B R Ambedkar lived while studying at the London School of Economics in 1921-22 is up for auction. Maharashtra government has written to the centre expressing its wish to acquire the property. The 2,050 sq ft property on King Henry’s Road, London, is expected to cost an estimated Rs 40 crore. The state has a huge following of the Dalit leader and wants its possession to salvage the house and retain its historic significance.

The state's Chief Minister is also in favour of acquiring Ambedkar's home. State Minister for Social justice has signed the proposal and now centre's intervention is required.

The Jinnah House also known as South Court has been in dispute for a long time. Pakistan had since 1979 requested that India sell the property, or at least lease it to its government as a tribute to its founder in order to convert it into their Consulate. Later Jinnah's daughter Dina Wadia came in to the picture. She wrote to the then Prime Minister demanding the house to be handed over to her.

Dina Wadia wishes to spend remaining years of her life in the house in Mumbai. The bungalow is located at 2, Mount Pleasant Road (now Bhausaheb Hirey Marg) in the upmarket Malabar Hill area of South Mumbai.

Sarat Chandra Bose's grandson Abhijit Ray today demanded that the property be taken over by the central government from the West Bengal government. He was appalled to see the poor maintenance of the house. Ray said that Bose's family had demanded that the central government's National Archives of India take over the property from the hands of the state government.

The three-storied Woodburn Park house was named "Sarat Bose Bhawan" when the erstwhile Left Front government under Chief Minister Jyoti Basu established the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies there in the 1970s.

'Mehrangir', the iconic bungalow of Homi J Bhabha, father of India's atomic energy programme, here was today sold at an auction for Rs 372 crore, despite demands to turn it into a museum. The property fetched Rs 115 crore more than the reserve price of Rs 257 crore.

The three-storey bungalow with a built-up area of over 15,000 sq ft on a plot measuring 1,593 sq m, offers a beautiful view of the sea. After Bhabha's death in a plane crash 1966, his brother Jamshed, a patron of art and culture, became the custodian of the estate. On Jamshed's death in 2007, the property was transferred to NCPA, an institution he had nurtured.