Following is a list of famous and notable Punjabi people, an ethnic group belonging to the Punjab region. It contains people mainly from what is today Punjab, Pakistan and Punjab, India, and people with Punjabi ancestry or people who speak Punjabi as their primary language.
Artists Allah Bakhsh Amrita Sher-Gil Anish Kapoor, sculptor Abdur Rahman Chughtai, painter Ahmed Parvez, painter Bashir Mirza, painter Manjit Bawa, painter Zubeida Agha, painter Rashid Rana, sculptor Quddus Mirza, art critic Sobha Singh, painter
Authors
Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu
Pakistan
Ali Haider Multani Baba Farid Shah Hussain Sultan Bahu Bulleh Shah Lutf Ali Waris Shah Hashim Qadir Yar Mian Muhammad Baksh Khawaja Ghulam Farid Ghulam Rasool Alampuri Jawayd Anwar Mohammad Hameed Shahid Zafar Ali Khan Muhammad Iqbal Hakim Ahmad Shuja Hafeez Jalandhari Faiz Ahmad Faiz Ustad Daman Saadat Hasan Manto Shareef Kunjahi Ahmad Rahi Habib Jalib Anwar Masood Aizaz Ahmad Azar Mazhar Tirmazi Ali Arshad Mir Mir Tanha Yousafi
India
Bhai Gurdas Amrita Pritam Rajinder Singh Bedi Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha Bhai Vir Singh Damodar Das Arora Dhani Ram Chatrik Ram Sarup Ankhi Hira Singh Dard Nand Lal Noorpuri Chaman Lal Chaman Giani Gurdit Singh Sampuran Singh Gulzar Harbhajan Singh Inderjit Hasanpuri Jaswant Neki J. S. Grewal Devendra Satyarthi Jaswant Singh Kanwal Jaswant Singh Rahi Kulwant Singh Virk Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi Nanak Singh Navtej Bharati Pandit Lekh Ram Pash Rajkavi Inderjeet Singh Tulsi Rajinder Singh Bedi Rupinderpal Singh Dhillon Sahir Ludhianvi Shardha Ram Phillauri Shiv Kumar Batalvi Surjit Hans
English
Ahmed Rashid Alamgir Hashmi Amrita Pritam Chetan Bhagat Deepak Chopra Jaspreet Singh Kartar Singh Duggal Khushwant Singh Manil Suri Mohammed Hanif Mulk Raj Anand Nadeem Aslam Neville Tuli Partap Sharma Rajiv Malhotra Romila Thapar Susham Bedi Tariq Ali Ved Mehta Vikram Seth Yuyutsu Sharma Zulfikar Ghose
Aviators Kalpana Chawla Air Commodore Ravish Malhotra Rakesh Sharma, first Indian in space
Architects Ahmad Lahori Ataullah Rashidi Bhai Ram Singh Sir Ganga Ram
Business
India
Pakistan
Anwar Pervez, founder of Bestway Ashar Aziz, founder of FireEye in Silicon Valley Bashir Tahir, former CEO of Dhabi Group Fred Hassan, director at Warburg Pincus James Caan, founder of Hamilton Bradshaw Malik Riaz, founder of Bahria Town, Mansoor Ijaz, founder of Crescent Investment Management Ltd Mian Muhammad Latif, founder of Chenab Group Mian Muhammad Mansha, founder of Nishat Group Michael Chowdrey, founder of Atlas Air Shahid Khan, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C., co-owner of All Elite Wrestling Zameer Choudrey, CEO of Bestway
Cartoonists Shekhar Gurera, editorial cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma, cartoonist of Chacha Chaudhary fame Farooq Qaiser
Doctors
India
Satya Paul Agarwal M. M. S. Ahuja Jasbir Singh Bajaj Dr Mukesh Batra Harpinder Singh Chawla Ram Nath Chopra Kirpal Singh Chugh Harbans Lall Gulati Gagandeep Kang Ved Prakash Kamboj Tarlochan Singh Kler Purshotam Lal Prithipal Singh Maini Ravinder N. Maini Jaswant Singh Neki Harvinder Sahota Baldev Singh Daljit Singh Khushdeva Singh Sahib Singh Sokhey Janak Raj Talwar K. K. Talwar Purshottam Lal Wahi Mahinder Watsa Khushwant Lal Wig
Educators and scientists
Nobel laureates
Abdus Salam, Pakistani theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the electroweak unification theory Har Gobind Khorana, Indian-American Medicine Nobel prize laureate
Pakistan
Asad Abidi, professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Masud Ahmed, theoretical physicist and one of the leading figures of the Theoretical Physics Group - the group that developed the theoretical designs of Pakistan's nuclear weapons Ishtiaq Ahmed, professor of political science at the Stockholm University Nazir Ahmed, experimental physicist and first chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan, Pakistani nuclear scientist and engineer Samar Mubarakmand, Pakistani nuclear scientist and the head of the team that conducted the Chagai-I nuclear tests in 1998. Farooq Azam, professor of oceanography at the University of California, San Diego Tariq Ali, political activist, historian, writer, journalist and public intellectual Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry, nuclear physicist and pioneer of Pakistan's nuclear weapons research program Nayyar Ali Dada, architect in modernist architecture Fayyazuddin, theoretical physicist Mahbub ul Haq, economist and inventor of the Human Development Index (HDI) Tasawar Hayat, mathematician Shahbaz Khan, hydrologist and director of the UNESCO cluster office in Jakarta Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, nuclear engineer Salim Mehmud, rocket scientist Atif Mian, professor of economics, public policy and finance at Princeton University Zia Mian, physicist and co-director of the program on science and global security at Princeton University Ghulam Murtaza, theoretical physicist Qaiser Mushtaq, mathematician Adil Najam, dean of global studies at Boston University Ayyub Ommaya, neurosurgeon and inventor of the Ommaya reservoir Khalil Qureshi, physical chemist Muneer Ahmad Rashid, mathematical physicist Riazuddin, theoretical physicist and one of the leading figures of the Theoretical Physics Group - the group that developed the theoretical designs of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
India
M. M. S. Ahuja, Indian physician and endocrinologist Om P. Bahl, Indian molecular biologist Jasbir Singh Bajaj, Indian physician and diabetologist; conferred with the Padma Vibhushan award Hoon Balakram, Indian mathematician Indu Banga, historian at Punjab University, Chandigarh Lekh Raj Batra, distinguished mycologist and linguist Sabeer Bhatia, founder of the Hotmail email service and Jaxtr Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, first director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Praveen Chaudhari, Indian American physicist Kasturi Lal Chopra, Indian material physicist Ram Nath Chopra, Indian medical officer; widely considered the "father of Indian pharmacology" Virender Lal Chopra, Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, agriculturalist, former director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Kirpal Singh Chugh, Indian nephrologist Manoj Datta, Indian engineer Sukh Dev, Indian organic chemist Vinod Dham, engineer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist; popularly known as "Pentium Engineer" Meena Dhanda, philosopher and academic at University of Wolverhampton Satish Dhawan Baldev Singh Dhillon Vijay K. Dhir, Indo-American scientist Guru Prakash Dutta, Indian cell biologist and immunologist Khem Singh Gill, Indian academic, geneticist Piara Singh Gill, Indian nuclear physicist Sucha Singh Gill, Indian academic, economist Khem Singh Grewal, Indian pharmacologist Ravi Grover, Indian nuclear scientist Hansraj Gupta, Indian mathematician Sardul Singh Guraya, Indian biologist Ranjit Lal Jetley, soldier and scientist Gurcharan Singh Kalkat, Indian agricultural scientist Ved Prakash Kamboj Vijay Kumar Kapahi, Indian astrophysicist Narinder Singh Kapany, Indian-born American Sikh physicist Satinder Vir Kessar, Indian synthetic organic chemist Pradeep Khosla, academic computer scientist Vinod Khosla Indian American engineer and businessman Rakesh Khurana, Indian-American educator Neelam Kler, Indian neonatologist Nayanjot Lahiri, Indian historian and archaeologist at Ashoka University Purshotam Lal, Indian cardiologist Narinder Kumar Mehra, Indian immunologist Mridula Mukherjee, Indian historian specialized in modern India Jawaharlal Nehru University Manohar Lal Munjal, Indian acoustical engineer Yash Pal, Indian scientist, educator and educationist Janak Palta McGilligan, Indian Padma Shri recipient, social worker, and a writer of Indian educational curriculum books Mohinder Singh Randhawa, Punjabi civil servant, botanist, historian, art and culture promoter, prominent writer Narinder Singh Randhawa, Indian agricultural scientist Suresh Rattan Birbal Sahni, Indian paleobotanist who studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent Daya Ram Sahni, Indian archaeologist Harvinder Sahota, Indian American cardiologist Hargurdeep (Deep) Saini, Vice President and Principal of the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Sartaj Sahni, American-Indian computer scientist Harvinder Sahota, Indian American cardiologist Pritam Saini, English, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu writer; historian; literary criticPunjabi author Pritam Saini dead, Tribune News Service, Monday, November 10, 2003, Chandigarh, India, / http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031110/punjab1.htm Sanjay Saini, professor of radiology, Harvard Medical SchoolClinical Application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Abdomen, pp 111, Endoscopy and gastrointestinal radiology By Gregory G. Ginsberg, Michael L. Kochman, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2004 Subhash Saini, senior computer scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, USA P. K. Sethi Dheeraj Sharma, professor at IIM-Ahmedabad; writer Khushdeva Singh, Indian physician and social worker Manjit Singh, armament scientist Upinder Singh, Indian historian specialized in ancient India at University of Delhi Sahib Singh Sokhey, Indian biochemist Janak Raj Talwar, Indian cardiothoracic scientist B. K. Thapar, Indian archaeologist; Director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1978–1981 Kartar Singh Thind Surinder Vasal, Indian geneticist scientist Purshottam Lal Wahi Khushwant Lal Wig, Indian physician Bagicha Singh Minhas, Indian economist
Folklore
Heer Ranjha Mirza Sahiba Puran Bhagat Sayful Muluk Sohni Mahiwal Boysie Singh
Film industry Bollywood (India) The following is a list of famous Punjabi families and individual artistes who have worked in Bollywood:
Family ArtistesThe Sahnis Balraj Sahni, Bhisham Sahni, Parikshit SahniThe Anands Chetan Anand, Dev Anand, Vijay AnandThe Chopras - 1 Baldev Raj Chopra, Yash Chopra, Ravi Chopra, Aditya Chopra, Uday ChopraThe Chopras - 2 Priyanka Chopra, Parineeti Chopra The Deols Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Esha Deol, Abhay DeolThe BachchansTeji Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Shweta Bachchan NandaThe Malhotras Prem Nath, Rajendra Nath, Bina Rai, Prem KishenThe Roshans Rakesh Roshan, Rajesh Roshan, Hrithik RoshanThe Randhawas Dara Singh, Vindu Dara Singh, Randhawa, Shaad RandhawaThe Rajs Jagdish Raj, Anita RajThe Puris Chaman Puri, Madan Puri, Amrish Puri, Vardhan PuriThe Khannas - 1 Rajesh Khanna, Twinkle Khanna, Rinke KhannaThe Khannas - 2 Vinod Khanna,Parliamentary Biography Akshaye Khanna, Rahul KhannaThe Bedis - 1 Kabir Bedi, Pooja BediThe Bedis - 2 Narendra Bedi, Rajat Bedi, Manik BediThe Kapurs Pankaj Kapur, Shahid KapoorThe Kapoors - 1 Prithviraj Kapoor, Trilok Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor,Shashi Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Karishma Kapoor, Rajiv Kapoor, Karan KapoorThe Kapoors - 2 Anil Kapoor, Boney Kapoor,Sanjay Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Sonam KapoorThe Kapoors - 3 Jeetendra, Tusshar Kapoor, Ekta KapoorThe Ahujas Arun Kumar Ahuja, Nirmala Devi, Govinda Ahuja, Sunita Ahuja, Tina Ahuja, Krushna Abhishek, Ragini Khanna, Vinay Anand, Arti Sharma, Saumya SethThe Dhawans David Dhawan, Varun Dhawan, Rohit Dhawan, Anil DhawanThe Devgans Veeru Devgan, Ajay Devgan, Anil DevganThe Oberois Suresh Oberoi, Vivek OberoiThe Aroras Malaika Arora Khan, Amrita AroraThe Tulis Rajendra Kumar, Kumar GauravThe Dutts Nargis Dutt, Sunil Dutt, Sanjay DuttThe Mehras Vinod Mehra, Soniya Mehra, Rohan MehraThe Babbars Raj Babbar, Arya Babbar, Prateik Babbar, Juhi BabbarThe Goswamis Manoj Kumar, Kunal GoswamiThe Behls Ramesh Behl,Goldie Behl, Ravi Behl
Individual Actors
Achala Sachdev Aditya Roy Kapur Aditya Seal Akshay Dogra Akshay Kumar Akanksha Juneja Amrinder Gill Amrita Singh