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Early Life and Education

Early Life

Dr. Deo Shankar Navin was born on  02.08.1962 in a humble family of village Mohanpur, Nauhatta Block, Saharsa District, Bihar. His mother Radha Devi was a farmer's daughter of a famous Indian origin Paliwar Mahisi. She passed away on 14th June 2005. Father Padmanad Jha was a very popular and esteemed teacher in a secondary school in a nearby village, Muradpur. At the age of eighty-six, he died on 25th December 2011.

Although the tiny agricultural landholding was not enough to bring him a square meal and his family was entirely dependent on the salary of his father, upbringing of Deo Shankar Navin took place in an agricultural milieu that might be the cause of his peasant attitude. His parents were of peculiar conventional temperament but despite illiteracy his mother was relatively progressive. Despite all devotion to his parents he used to confront them on issues of progressiveness off and on. Dr. Deo Shankar Navin's stubborn nature is inherited from his parents.  

Blessed with three younger sisters - Saroj, Punita, and Anisha (Noona) Deo Shankar Navin lost two of them, Saroj and Anisha (Noona), in dowry harassment in their early age.

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Early Life and Education

Education

The early age of Deo Shankar Navin was spent in miserable condition. The worth grain from negligible farming of his father hardly sufficed for rites and rituals so the maintenance was carried out by salary only. Due to continuous sickness of father much of the salary always was consumed in his treatment. Therefore, since the age of his eighth grade, he started giving tuition. After retirement of his father in 1983, with short-term service to fulfill the increased family responsibilities he had to be dependent on tuition only. In a series of floating educational upbringing he got degrees of MA (1984), Ph.D. (1987) in Maithili from Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Darbhanga. In 1986, he was awarded Junior Research Fellowship by UGC but didn't join as his research was almost completed. On 29th January 1985, joined GLA College Daltonganj (the then Bihar) as ad-hoc lecturer in Department of Maithili. From there only he got M.Sc. (Physics) and MA (Hindi) degree from Ranchi University, Ranchi. Seeing the irregularities at the university there, he saw his future insecured and in 1991 he left Daltonganj, came to Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and got PhD (Hindi) degree in 1997. During the period he was convener of the literary club, JNU also. In the evening courses he got PG Diploma (Translation) from Kendriya Hindi Sansthan,  Delhi and PG Diploma (book publishing) from Delhi University, Delhi during this period only.

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