The Doon School was one of India's first public schools.

It owes its existence to the vision and foresight of Mr. Satish Ranjan Das , one of pre-independence India's most eminent barristers and a member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India. The Doon School was founded on the September 10, 1935, when seventy two boys moved into the ivy covered, red brick buildings of what had once been the Imperial Forest College and Research Institute in the Chandbagh Estate at Dehra Dun, approximately 250 km north-east of Delhi.

Today the school spans 69 acres (280,000 m²), and has approximately 500 students between grades seven and Senior Cambridge. A goal of the school is to provide young Indians with a rounded education, and to instill in them a respect for the ideals of secularism, discipline and equality.

The school counts among its old boys the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as well as a long list of members of parliament including Sanjay Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Mani Shankar Aiyar, and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Alumni include the ex-Governor of Pakistani Punjab Lt.Gen. Jilani Khan, as well as the former secretary general of the government of Pakistan Rafiq Akram. The writers Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, news anchor Prannoy Roy, film actors Roshan Seth and Chandrachud Singh, Academy Award nominated director Ashvin Kumar, and renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor, are all Doon School graduates (a.k.a. ex-doscos ).

Doon School Trivia

• Jana Gana Mana by Tagore was chosen as The Doon School's school song in 1935, well before it was adopted by India as the National Anthem in 1947

External links

• Official Website of the Doon School
• All Things Doon