Mamata Banerjee pays tribute to Mother Teresa on her 110th birth anniversary

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday paid tribute to Mother Teresa on her 110th birth anniversary.

Fondly remembering Mother Teresa "Saint Teresa of Calcutta" on her birth anniversary, the TMC supremo tweeted: "Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love."

Born in a family of ethnic Albanians in Skopje in 1910, Teresa left her home at the age of 18 and later joined the 'Sisters of Loreto' located in Irelands's Rathfarnham.Mother Teresa, whose actual name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, moved to India in the late 1920s and taught history and geography for 15 long years at Calcutta's St Mary's High School.In 1948, Teresa decided to leave the church and adopted a lifestyle in slums to aid the poor and the needy in Kolkata.In 1950, she laid the foundation stone of the Roman

Catholic religious congregation which is now popularly known as the Missionaries of Charity.Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, but she refused to accept it and urged the jury to contribute the prize money of USD 192,000 for helping the poor people of India.In September 2017, Mother Teresa was declared Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Calcutta by the Vatican Pope for her selfless service towards helping the underprivileged and poor in Kolkata.