Great Personalities Related to Science

Rakesh Sharma
Born: January 13, 1949 (age 63), Patiala
Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, AC (Ashok Chakra Award), Hero of the Soviet
Union, is a former Indian Air Force test pilot who flew aboard Soyuz T-11 as part
of the Intercosmos program.
Sharma was the first Indian to travel in space.
The Intercosmos Research Team was a program that was conducted by the
Soviet Union and included active participation from allied countries such as
India, Syria and France. Rakesh Sharma was chosen for this assignment and
ever since, he has been an inspiration to upcoming cosmonauts.
Early Life:
On January 13th 1949, Rakesh Sharma was born in the well-known district of Patiala located in the state
of Punjab. As a young boy, he enrolled at St. George's Grammar School in Hyderabad and received his
early education from there.
Sharma joined the Indian Air Force in 1970 as a pilot officer after joining the NDA as an IAF cadet in
1966.
Career:
In 1970, after joining the Indian Air Force as a test pilot, his passion for flying opened up several
opportunities such as being a part of war operations against Pakistan.
He flew various Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) aircrafts starting from 1971. Rakesh swiftly progressed
through many levels and in 1984 he was appointed as the Squadron Leader and pilot of the Indian Air
Force.
He was a squadron leader with the Indian Air Force, when he flew into space in 1984 as part of a joint
programme between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Soviet Intercosmos space
program.
He spent eight days journeying around the Earth's orbit in a space station called Salyut 7. He joined two
other Soviet cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft which blasted off on April 2, 1984.
Spaceflight:
Sharma joined the Indian Air Force and progressed rapidly through the ranks.
Sharma, then a Squadron Leader and pilot with the Indian Air Force embarked on a historic mission in
1984 as part of a joint space program between the Indian Space Research Organisation and
First Indian to
travel into Space

the Soviet Intercosmos space program, and spent eight days in space aboard the Salyut7 spacestation.
Launched along with two Soviet cosmonauts aboard Soyuz T-11on the 3 April 1984.
On 3rd April 1984 when the space flight took off, Rakesh had made history by being the first Indian to
travel in space.
Sharma was 35-year-old.Rakesh along with the Soviet Cosmonauts spend 7 days, 21 hours and 40
minutes (Appx. Eight days) in space and board the Salyut 7 space station, a low earth orbit space station,
conducting an earth observation programme concentrating on India. He also did life sciences and
materials processing experiments, including silicium fusing tests. He is also reported to have
experimented with practicing Yoga to deal with the effects of prolonged orbital spaceflight.
While Rakesh was in space, he was asked by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on a famous
conversation, who asked him how does India looks from space, Rakesh replied
"Saare Jahan se Achcha Hindustan Hamara"
Meaning 'Our land of Hindustan, is the Best in the world'.
A few years later he retired from the Indian Army as a Wing Commander.
He joined the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in 1987 and served as Chief Test Pilot in the HAL Nashik
Division until 1992.
He then shifted to National Flight Test Center (NFTC) in Bangalore and began to work on Light Combat
Aircraft program, along with a few others.
He retired from test flying in 2001.
In 2006, Sharma took part in a conference involving a gathering of the best scientists of ISRO, who were
responsible for one of India's space missions. Currently, he has retired from his services and is now the
chairperson for the Automated Workflow.
Honors:
He was conferred with the honor of Hero of Soviet Union upon his return from space.
The Government of India conferred its highest gallantry award (during peace time), the Ashoka
Chakra on him and the other two Soviet members of his mission.
Timeline:
1949: Rakesh Sharma was born in Patalia into a Punjabi family.
1966: He joined the National Defense Academy as an Air Force trainee.
1970: Appointed as a test pilot by Indian Air Force.
1971: Rakesh Sharma flew the Mikoyan-Gurevich, a Russian jet.
1984: He was a part of a space mission owing to which he became the first man to travel to space.
2006: He took part in a space conference held by ISRO.

Kalpana Chawla
Born: July 1, 1961, Karnal
Died: February 1, 2003, Texas
Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut who, was a mission
specialist on the space shuttle Columbia.
She first flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist
and primary robotic arm operator. Chawla was one of seven crew members
killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Kalpana Chawla was India's first women aeronautical engineer to travel into
space. She has been a role model to several women in terms of achievement
and contributions to the field of aeronautics.
Early Life:
Kalpana Chawla was born on the 1st of July, 1961 in a small town in Karnal located in the state of
Haryana. Her parents, Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanjyothi had two other daughters named Sunita and
Deepa and a son named Sanjay.
Kalpana was the youngest in her family and hence, she was the most pampered too.
She got educated at the Tagore Public School and later enrolled into Punjab Engineering College to
complete her Aeronautical Engineering Degree in 1982. In the same year, she moved to the US. She got
married to Jean-Pierre Harrison in 1983. He was her flying instructor and an aviation author.
In 1984, she completed her M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas in Arlington. In
1988, she obtained a Ph.D. in the same subject from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Career:
Kalpana Chawla was a certified flight instructor who rated aircrafts and gilders. She also held a
commercial pilot license for single and multi-engine airplanes, hydroplanes and gliders. Kalpana was a
licensed Technician Class Amateur Radio person certified by the Federal Communication commission.
Owing to her multiple degrees in Aerospace, she got a job in NASA as the Vice President of the Overset
Methods, Inc. in 1993. She was extensively involved in computational fluid dynamics research on
Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing
Chawla joined the NASA 'Astronaut Corps' in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996.
She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your
intelligence". She had traveled 10.4 million km, as many as 252 times around the Earth.
First Indian Woman
to Travel into
Space

First Space Mission:
Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997 as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew
the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87.
Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space, following
cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 in a spacecraft.
On her first mission Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than
372 hours in space. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which
malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite.
A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces
and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control.
After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical positions in the
astronaut office to work on the space station, her performance in which was recognized with a special
award from her peers.
Next Space Mission:
In 2000, she was again assigned on her second flight mission as a part of Flight STS-107. Kalpana's
responsibility included microgravity experiments. Along with her team members, she undertook a
detailed research on advanced technology development, astronaut health & safety, the study of Earth
and space science. During the course of this mission, there were several mishaps and cracks were
detected in the shuttle engine flow liners.
On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107
mission.
Death:
It was on February 1st 2003 that the space shuttle, STS-107, collapsed over the Texas region when it re-
entered the Earth's atmosphere. This unfortunate event ended the lives of seven crew members
including Kalpana.
Awards:
She was the first Indian woman to travel in a space shuttle for 372 hours and complete 252 rotations
around the Earth's atmosphere. Her achievements have been an inspiration to many others in India and
abroad. There are many science institutions named after her.
Posthumously awarded:
Congressional Space Medal of Honor
NASA Space Flight Medal
NASA Distinguished Service Medal

Memorials:
Asteroid 51826 Kalpanachawla, one of seven named after the Columbia's crew.
On February 5, 2003, India's Prime Minister announced that the meteorological series of
satellites, "METSAT", will be renamed as "KALPANA". The first satellite of the series, "METSAT-
1", launched by India on September 12, 2002 will be now known as "KALPANA-1". "KALPANA-2"
is expected to be launched by 2007.
74th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City has been renamed 74th Street Kalpana
Chawla Way in her honor.
The University of Texas at Arlington (where Chawla obtained a Master of Science degree in
Aerospace Engineering in 1984) opened a dormitory named in her honor, Kalpana Chawla Hall,
in 2004.
Kalpana Chawla Award was instituted by the government of Karnataka in 2004 for young
women scientists.
NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission has named seven peaks in a chain of hills, named
the Columbia Hills, after each of the seven astronauts lost in the Columbia shuttle disaster,
including Chawla Hill after Kalpana Chawla.
Her brother, Sanjay Chawla, remarked:
"To me, my sister is not dead. She is immortal. Isn't that what a star is? She is
a permanent star in the sky. She will always be up there where she belongs."
Novelist Peter David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after the astronaut in his 2007 Star
Treknovel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor.
Government of Haryana has made a Planetarium after her name called as Kalpana Chawla
Planetarium in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra.
Timeline:
1961: She was born on 1st July in Karnal.
1982: She moved to the United States to complete her education.
1983: Married a flying instructor and aviation author, Jean-Pierre Harrison.
1984: got an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas in Arlington.
1988: She received a Ph.D. in the same field and began to work for NASA.
1993: Joined Overset Methods Inc. as Vice President and Research Scientist.
1995: She joined the NASA 'Astronaut Corps.
1996: Kalpana was the mission specialist for prime robotic arm operator on STS-87.
1997: Her first mission on Flight STS-87 took place.
2000: Assigned on her second mission as part of Flight STS-107.
2003: Chawla got a second chance for the mission on Flight STS-107. On February 1st, she died when the
space shuttle broke down.

Vikram Sarabhai
Born: August 12, 1919, Ahmedabad
Died: December 31, 1971, Kovalam
Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was an Indian physicist.
He is considered to be the “father of the Indian space program”
Early Years & Education:
Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was born on August 12, 1919 at Ahmedabad in an
affluent family of progressive industrialists. He was one of eight children of
Ambalal and Sarla Devi. He had his early education in a private school,
“Retreat” run by his parents on Montessori lines.
Marriage and children:
In September, 1942, Vikram Sarabhai married Mrinalini Sarabhai, a celebrated classical dancer. The
wedding was held in Chennai without anyone from Vikram's side of the family attending the wedding
ceremony because of the ongoing Quit India movement led by Mahatma Gandhi.
Vikram and Mrinalini had two children - Kartikeya and Mallika. Vikram Sarabhai had a troubled
marriage and was in a long term relationship with Dr.Kamala Choudhary.
His daughter Mallika Sarabhai was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor for
the year 2010 and his son Kartikeya Sarabhai was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012.
After his matriculation, Vikram Sarabhai proceeded to Cambridge for his college education and took the
tripods degree from St. John's college in 1940. When World War II began, he returned home and joined
as a research scholar under Sir C. V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore His interest in
solar physics and cosmic ray led him to set up many observation stations around the country. He built
the necessary equipment with which he took measurements at Bangalore, Poona and the Himalayas. He
returned to Cambridge in 1945 and completed his Ph.D in 1947.
Physical Research Laboratory:
Vikram Sarabhai was instrumental in establishing the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad
in November 1947. The laboratory was established in a few rooms in M.G. Science Institute of the
Ahmedabad Education Society, which was founded by his parents. Subsequently, it got support from the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Atomic Energy.
At the young age of 28, he was asked to organise and create the ATIRA, the Ahmedabad Textile
Industry’s Research Association and was its Honorary Director during 1949-56. He also helped build and
direct the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad from 1962-1965.
Father of the Indian
Space Program

Indian Space Programme:
Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely regarded as the father of India's nuclear science program, supported
Dr. Sarabhai in setting up the first rocket launching station in India (TERLS)
at Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the coast of the Arabian Sea, primarily because of its proximity
to the equator. After a remarkable effort in setting up the infrastructure, personnel, communication
links, and launch pads, the inaugural flight was launched on November 21, 1963 with a sodium vapour
payload.
As a result of Dr. Sarabhai's dialogue with NASA in 1966, the Satellite Instructional Television
Experiment (SITE) was launched during July 1975 – July 1976 (when Dr.Sarabhai was no more).
Dr. Sarabhai started a project for the fabrication and launch of an Indian satellite. As a result, the first
Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975 from a Russian Cosmodrome.
Dr. Sarabhai was very interested in science education and founded a Community Science Centre at
Ahmedabad in 1966. Today, the centre is called the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre.
After the sudden death of Homi Bhabha in an air crash, Vikram Sarabhai was appointed Chairman,
Atomic Energy Commission in May 1966. He wanted the practical application of science to reach the
common man. He decided to acquire competence in advance technology for the solution of country’s
problems based on technical and economic evaluation of its real resources. He initiated India’s space
programme, which today is renowned all over the world.
Death:
Sarabhai died on 30 December 1971 at Halcyon Castle, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He was visiting
Thiruvananthapuram to attend the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Thumba railway station
being built to service the newly created Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.
Awards:
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1962)
Padma Bhushan (1966)
Padma Vibhushan, posthumous (after-death) (1972)
Distinguished Positions:
President of the Physics section, Indian Science Congress (1962),
He was the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1966,
President of the General Conference of the I.A.E.A., Verína (1970),
Vice-President, Fourth U.N. Conference on 'Peaceful uses of Atomic Energy' (1971)

Honours:
The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, (VSSC), which is the Indian Space Research Organization's lead
facility for launch vehicle development located in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), capital of Kerala
state, is named in his memory.
Along with other Ahmedabad-based industrialists, he played a major role in setting up of the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
In 1974, the International Astronomical Union at Sydney decided that a Moon Crater BESSEL in the Sea
of Serenity will be known as the Dr. Sarabhai Crater.

C V Raman
Born: November 7, 1888, Tiruchirapalli
Died: November 21, 1970, Bangalore
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Rāman, FRS, was an Indian physicist whose
work was influential in the growth of science in India.
He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for the
discovery that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the
light that is deflected changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now
called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman Effect.
Early Life:
Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888 in
Tiruchinapalli, Tamil Nadu. He was the second child of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Parvathi Amma. His
father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics, so he had an academic atmosphere at home. He
entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 passed his B.A. examination, winning the first
place and the gold medal in physics. In 1907, C.V. Raman passed his M.A. obtaining the highest
distinctions.
Career:
During those times there were not many opportunities for scientists in India.
Therefore, Raman joined the Indian Finance Department in 1907. After his office hours, he carried out
his experimental research in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at
Calcutta. He carried out research in acoustics and optics
In 1917, Raman resigned from his government service and took up the newly created Palit Professorship
in Physics at the University of Calcutta. At the same time, he continued doing research at the Indian
Association for the Cultivation of Science, Calcutta, where he became the Honorary Secretary.
He was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1924 and the British made him a knight of the British
Empire in 1929.
On February 28, 1928, Raman led experiments at the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science with
collaborators, including K. S. Krishan, on the scattering of light, when he discovered the Raman effect
that tells when light traverses a transparent material, some of the light that is deflected changes in
wavelength.
Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon, and Ernest Rutherford referred to it in his
presidential address to the Royal Society in 1929.
Raman was president of the 16th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1929. He was conferred
a knighthood, and medals and honorary doctorates by various universities.
Second Indian & First
Indian Scientist to Receive
the Nobel Prize

Raman was confident of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics as well, and was disappointed when the
Nobel Prize went to Richardson in 1928 and to de Broglie in 1929.
He was so confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards
were to be announced in November, and would scan each day's newspaper for announcement of the
prize, tossing it away if it did not carry the news. He did eventually win the 1930 Nobel Prize in
Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".
He was the first Asian and first non-White to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences.
Before him Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
During his tenure at IISc, he recruited the then talented electrical engineering student, G. N.
Ramachandran, who later was a distinguished X-ray crystallographer himself.
Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory
of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities.
He was also the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as
the tabla and the mridangam.
Raman and his student, Nagendra Nath, of Mim high school, provided the correct theoretical
explanation for the acousto-optic effect (light scattering by sound waves), in a series of articles resulting
in the celebrated Raman-Nath theory.
In 1934, Raman became the assistant director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where
two years later he continued as a professor of physics
He also started a company called cv Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1943 along with Dr.
Krishnamurthy. The Company during its sixty year history established four factories in Southern India.
In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent
India.
He retired from the Indian Institute in 1948 and a year later he established the Raman Research Institute
in Bangalore, where he worked till his death.
Sir C.V. Raman died on November 21, 1970.
Personal life:
He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (1892–1980) with whom he had two sons,
Chandrasekhar and Radhakrishnan.
On his religious views, he was said to be an agnostic.
C.V. Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in
Physics (1983) for his discovery of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the
nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.

Honours and Awards:
Raman was honored with a large number of honorary doctorates and memberships of scientific
societies.
• He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society early in his career (1924)
• The British made him a knight of the British Empire in 1929.
• In 1930 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• In 1941 he was awarded the Franklin Medal.
• In 1954 he was awarded the Bharat Ratna.
• He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1957.
• In 1998, the American Chemical Society and Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Science recognized Raman's discovery as an International Historic Chemical Landmark.
National Science Day:
India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February of every year to commemorate the discovery of
the Raman Effect in 1928.

Subrahmanyam Chandrashekar
Born: October 19, 1910, Lahore
Died: August 21, 1995, Chicago
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler
Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the
later evolutionary stages of massive stars.
after him.
Chandrasekhar was the nephew of
who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
Chandrasekhar served on the University of Chicago
his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a
the United States in 1953.
He did commendable work in astrophysics, physics and applied mathematics
Early life:
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born on October 19, 1910 in
His father, Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar
Audits and Accounts Department.
His mother Sita was a woman of high intellectual attainments.
C.V. Raman, the first Indian to get Nobel Prize in science was the younger brother of Chandrasekhar's
father.
Till the age of 12, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar had his education at home under his parents and private
tutors. In 1922, at the age of 12, he attended the Hindu High School. He joined the Madras Presidency
College in 1925. Subrahmanyan Chandrashekhar passed his Bachelor's degree, B.Sc. (Hon.), in physics in
June 1930. In July 1930, he was awarded a Government of India
Cambridge, England.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar completed his Ph.D. degree at Cambridge in the summer of 1933. In
October 1933, Chandrasekhar was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933
37. In 1936, while on a short visit to Harvard University, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was offered a
position as a Research Associate at the University of Chicago and remained there ever since. In
September 1936, Subrahmanyan Chandra Shekhar married Lomita Dorai
the Presidency College in Madras.
His first scientific paper, Compton Scattering and the New Statistics
of the Royal Society in 1928. On the basis of this paper he was accepted as a research st
Fowler at the University of Cambridge. On the voyage to England, he developed the theory of white
Subrahmanyam Chandrashekar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, FRS was an Indian-American
William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for
that led to the currently accepted theory on the
later evolutionary stages of massive stars. The Chandrasekhar limit is named
nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman,
who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until
his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of
He did commendable work in astrophysics, physics and applied mathematics
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born on October 19, 1910 in Lahore.
Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar was an officer in Government Service in the Indian
high intellectual attainments.
1922, at the age of 12, he attended the Hindu High School. He joined the Madras Presidency
June 1930. In July 1930, he was awarded a Government of India scholarship for graduate studies in
October 1933, Chandrasekhar was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933
1936, while on a short visit to Harvard University, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was offered a
September 1936, Subrahmanyan Chandra Shekhar married Lomita Doraiswamy. She was her junior at
Compton Scattering and the New Statistics, was published in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society in 1928. On the basis of this paper he was accepted as a research st
Second
Scientist to win Nobel
was an officer in Government Service in the Indian
1922, at the age of 12, he attended the Hindu High School. He joined the Madras Presidency
scholarship for graduate studies in
October 1933, Chandrasekhar was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933-
1936, while on a short visit to Harvard University, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was offered a
swamy. She was her junior at
, was published in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society in 1928. On the basis of this paper he was accepted as a research student by R.H.
Second Indian
Scientist to win Nobel
Prize

dwarf stars, showing that a star of mass greater than 1.45 times themass of the sun could not become a
white dwarf. This limit is now known as the Chandrasekhar limit.
He obtained his doctorate in 1933. Soon after receiving his doctorate, Chandrasekhar was awarded the
Prize Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1937, he accepted the position of Research Associate
at the University of Chicago. Chandrasekhar stayed at University of Chicago throughout his career,
becoming the Morton D. Hall Distinguished ServiceProfessor in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1952. In
1952 he established the Astrophysical Journal and was its editor for 19 years, transforming it from alocal
publication of the University of Chicago into the national journal of the American Astronomical Society.
He became a US citizen in 1958.
Career:
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is best known for his discovery of Chandrasekhar Limit. He showed that
there is a maximum mass which can be supported against gravity by pressure made up of electrons and
atomic nuclei.
The value of this limit is about 1.44 times a solar mass. The Chandrasekhar Limit plays a crucial role in
understanding the stellar evolution. If the mass of a star exceeded this limit, the star would not become
a white dwarf. It would continue to collapse under the extreme pressure of gravitational forces. The
formulation of the Chandrasekhar Limit led to the discovery of neutron stars and black holes. Depending
on the mass there are three possible final stages of a star - white dwarf, neutron star and black hole.
Apart from discovery of Chandrasekhar Limit, major work done by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
includes:
• Theory of Brownian motion (1938-1943)
• Theory of the illumination and the polarization of the sunlit sky (1943-1950)
• Theory of the illumination and the polarization of the sunlit sky (1943-1950)
• The equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, partly in collaboration with
Norman R. Lebovitz (1961-1968)
• The general theory of relativity and relativistic astrophysics (1962-1971) and
• The mathematical theory of black holes (1974- 1983).
Nobel Prize:
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was awarded (jointly with the nuclear astrophysicist W.A. Fowler) the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983. He died on August 21, 1995.
Legacy:
• In 1999, NASA named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar. This
followed a naming contest which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty states and sixty-one

countries. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space
Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999.
• The Chandrasekhar number, an important dimensionless number of magneto hydrodynamics, is
named after him.
• The asteroid 1958 Chandra is also named after Chandrasekhar.
• American astronomer Carl Sagan, who studied Mathematics under Chandrasekhar, at the
University of Chicago, praised him in the book The Demon-Haunted World:
“I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan
Chandrasekhar.”
Awards:
Fellow of the Royal Society (1944)
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1949)
Bruce Medal (1952)
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1953)
Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1957)
National Medal of Science, USA (1966)
Padma Vibhushan (1968)
Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1971)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1983)
Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1984)
Honorary Fellow of the International Academy of Science (1988)
Gordon J. Laing Award (1989)
Humboldt Prize

Homi J Bhabha
Born: October 30, 1909, Mumbai
Died: January 24, 1966, Mont Blanc
Homi Bhabha, whose full name was Homi Jehnagir Bhabha, was a famous
Indian atomic scientist.
In Independent India, Homi Jehnagir Bhabha, with the support of Jawaharlal
Nehru, laid the foundation of a scientific establishment and was responsible
for the creation of two premier institutions, Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre(former name is the Trombay
Atomic Energy Establishment).
Homi Bhabha was the first chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission.
Colloquially known as “father of Indian nuclear programme”
Early life:
Homi Jehangir Bhabha was born on October 30, 1909, in Bombay in a rich Parsi family. He received his
early education at Bombay's Cathedral Grammar School and entered Elphinstone College at age 15 after
passing his Senior Cambridge Examination with Honors.
His name, Jahangir (Jehangir), is from Persian meaning “conqueror of the world.”
He then attended the Royal Institute of Science until 1927 before joining Caius College of Cambridge
University. This was due to the insistence of his father and his uncle Dorab Tata, who planned for
Bhabha to obtain a degree in Mechanical engineering from Cambridge and then return to India, where
he would join the Tata Steel Mills in Jamshedpur as a metallurgist.
Research in Nuclear physics:
In January 1933, Bhabha received his doctorate in nuclear physics after publishing his first scientific
paper, "The Absorption of Cosmic radiation".
In the publication, Bhabha offered an explanation of the absorption features and electron shower
production in cosmic rays. The paper helped him win the Isaac Newton Studentship in 1934, which he
held for the next three years. The following year, he completed his doctoral studies in theoretical
physics under Ralph H. Fowler.
During his studentship, he split his time working at Cambridge and with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In
1935, Bhabha published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, in which performed
the first calculation to determine the cross section of electron-positron scattering. Electron-positron
scattering was later named Bhabha scattering, in honor of his contributions in the field.
First chairman of
India's Atomic Energy
Commission

Return to India:
Due to outbreak of Second World War, Homi Jehangir Bhabha, returned to India in 1939.
He set up the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore under C. V. Raman
in 1939.
With the help of J.R.D. Tata, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Mumbai.
In 1945, he became director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
Apart from being a great scientist, Homi Bhabha, was also a skilled administrator. After independence he
received the blessings of Jawaharlal Nehru for peaceful development of atomic energy.
He established the Atomic Energy Commission of India in 1948 and was its chairman.
Under his guidance Indian scientists worked on the development of atomic energy, and the first atomic
reactor in Asia went into operation at Trombay, near Bombay, in 1956.
Under his guidance, nuclear reactors like the Apsara, Cirus and Zerlina were built.
Homi Bhabha was chairman of the first United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic
Energy, held in Geneva in 1955.
He advocated international control of nuclear energy and the outlawing of atomic bombs by all
countries. He wanted nuclear energy to be used for alleviating poverty and misery of people.
He was the President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics from 1960 to 1963.
Death:
Homi Bhabha died in an aeroplane crash in Switzerland on January 24, 1966.
Legacy:
After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre in his honour.
In addition to being an able scientist and administrator, Bhabha was also a painter and a classical music
and opera enthusiast, besides being an amateur botanist
The Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council has been giving the Homi Bhabha Fellowships since 1967 Other
noted institutions in his name are the Homi Bhabha National Institute, an Indian deemed university and
the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, India.
He is the recipient of the Adam’s Award, Padma Bhushan, an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

Jagadish Chandra Bose
Born: November 30, 1858, Bikrampur
Died: November 23, 1937, Giridih
Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS was an Indian Bengali
polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early
writer of science fiction.
He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very
significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations
of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent.
He was the first to prove that plants too have feelings. He invented
wireless telegraphy a year before Marconi patented his invention.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) named him one of
the fathers of radio science.
He is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction.
He was the first person from the Indian subcontinent to receive a US patent, in 1904.
He also invented the crescograph (A crescograph is a device for measuring growth in plants. It was
invented in the early 20th century by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian scientist)
Early Life:
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was born in Bikrampur, Bengal, (now Munshiganj District of Bangladesh) on
30 November 1858.
His father Bhagabanchandra Bose was a Deputy Magistrate. Jagadish Chandra Bose had his early
education in village school in Bengal medium. In 1869, Jagadish Chandra Bose was sent to Calcutta to
learn English and was educated at St.Xavier's School and College. He was a brilliant student. He passed
the B.A. in physical sciences in 1879.
In 1880, Jagdishchandra Bose went to England. He studied medicine at London University, England, for a
year but gave it up because of his own ill health. Within a year he moved to Cambridge to take up a
scholarship to study Natural Science at Christ's College Cambridge. In 1885, he returned from abroad
with a B.Sc. degree and Natural Science Tripos (a special course of study at Cambridge).
Joining Presidency College
Bose returned to India in 1885, carrying a letter from Fawcett, the economist to Lord Ripon, Viceroy of
India.
Father of the Bengali
Science Fiction &
Inventor of Cresco graph

On Lord Ripon’s request Sir Alfred Croft, the Director of Public Instruction, appointed Bose officiating
professor of physics in Presidency College. The principal, C. H. Tawney, protested against the
appointment but had to accept it.
Bose was not provided with facilities for research. On the contrary, he was a ‘victim of racialism’ with
regard to his salary.
In those days, an Indian professor was paid Rs. 200 per month, while his European counterpart received
Rs. 300 per month. Since Bose was officiating, he was offered a salary of only Rs. 100 per month. With
remarkable sense of self respect and national pride he decided on a new form of protest.
Bose refused to accept the salary cheque. In fact, he continued his teaching assignment for three years
without accepting any salary.
Finally both the Director of Public Instruction and the Principal of the Presidency College fully realized
the value of Bose’s skill in teaching and also his lofty character. As a result his appointment was made
permanent with retrospective effect. He was given the full salary for the previous three years in a lump
sum.
As a teacher Jagdish Chandra Bose was very popular and engaged the interest of his students by making
extensive use of scientific demonstrations. Many of his students at the Presidency College were destined
to become famous in their own right. These included Satyendra Nath Bose and Meghnad Saha.
Radio Research:
In 1894, Jagadish Chandra Bose decided to devote himself to pure research. He converted a small
enclosure adjoining a bathroom in the Presidency College into a laboratory. He carried out experiments
involving refraction, diffraction and polarization. It would not be wrong to call him as the inventor of
wireless telegraphy.
In 1895, a year before Guglielmo Marconi patented this invention, he had demonstrated its functioning
in public.
Bose wrote in a Bengali essay, Adrisya Alok (Invisible Light), “The invisible light can easily pass through
brick walls, buildings etc. Therefore, messages can be transmitted by means of it without the mediation
of wires.”
Jagdish Chandra Bose later switched from physics to the study of metals and then plants. He fabricated a
highly sensitive "coherer", the device that detects radio waves. He found that the sensitivity of the
coherer decreased when it was used continuously for a long period and it regained its sensitivity when
he gave the device some rest. He thus concluded that metals have feelings and memory.
In May 1897, two years after Bose's public demonstration in Kolkata, Guglielmo Marconi conducted his
wireless signaling experiment on Salisbury Plain.
In 1899, Bose announced the development of a "iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector" in
a paper presented at the Royal Society, London.
Sir Nevill Mott, Nobel Laureate in 1977 for his own contributions to solid-state electronics, remarked
that:

"J.C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time" and "In fact, he had anticipated the
existence of P-type and N-type semiconductors."
Plants research:
Jagdish Chandra Bose showed experimentally plants too have life. He invented an instrument to record
the pulse of plants and connected it to a plant. The plant, with its roots, was carefully picked up and
dipped up to its stem in a vessel containing bromide, a poison. The plant's pulse beat, which the
instrument recorded as a steady to-and-fro movement like the pendulum of a clock, began to grow
unsteady. Soon, the spot vibrated violently and then came to a sudden stop. The plant had died because
of poison.
He founded the Bose Institute at Calcutta, devoted mainly to the study of plants. Today, the Institute
carries research on other fields too.
Science Fiction:
In 1896, Bose wrote Niruddesher Kahini, the first major work in Bengali science fiction. Later, he added
the story in the Abyakta book as Palatak Tuphan.
He was the first science fiction writer in the Bengali language.
Legacy:
To commemorate his birth centenary in 1958, the JBNSTS scholarship programme was started in West
Bengal. In the same year, India issued a postage stamp bearing his portrait.
On September 14, 2012, Bose's experimental work in millimeter-band radio was recognized as an IEEE
Milestone in Electrical and Computer Engineering, the first such recognition of a discovery in India.
Books:
Response in the Living and Non-living , 1902
Plant response as a means of physiological investigation, 1906
Comparative Electro-physiology : A Physico-physiological Study, 1907
Researches on Irritability of Plants , 1913
Physiology of the Ascent of Sap, 1923
The physiology of photosynthesis, 1924
The Nervous Mechanisms of Plants, 1926
Plant Autographs and Their Revelations, 1927
Growth and tropic movements of plants, 1928
Motor mechanism of plants, 1928

Honours:
Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE, 1903)
Companion of the Order of the Star of India (CSI, 1912)
Knight Bachelor (1917)
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS, 1920)
Member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, 1928
President of the 14th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1927.
Member of Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters in 1929.
Member of the League of Nations' Committee for Intellectual Cooperation
Founding fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India (now renamed as the Indian National
Science Academy)
The Indian Botanic Garden was renamed as the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic
Garden on 25 June 2009 in honor of Jagadish Chandra Bose.

Meghnad Saha
Born: October 6, 1893, Dhaka District
Died: February 16, 1956, Delhi
Meghnad Saha FRS was an Indian Bengali astrophysicist best known for his
development of the Saha equation ("ionization formula), used to describe
chemical and physical conditions in stars.
He was the first director of Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Science (IACS), the oldest research institute in India.
Early Life:
Meghnad Saha was born on October 6, 1893 in Sheoratali, a village in the
District of Dacca, now in Bangladesh. He was the fifth child of his parents,
Sri Jagannath Saha and Smt. Bhubaneshwari Devi.
His father was a grocer in the village. Meghnad Saha had his early schooling in the primary school of the
village. As his family could hardly able to make both ends meet, Meghnad Saha managed to pursue his
schooling only due to the generosity of a local medical practitioner, Ananta Kumar Das, who provided
him with boarding and lodging in his house.
In 1905, he joined the Dhaka Collegiate School. Here he not only received a free studentship, but also a
stipend. However he lost both his free studentship and stipend when he participated in a boycott
against the then British Governor of Bengal Sir Bampfylde Fuller when he came on a visit to Dacca.
He took admission in the Kishorilal Jubili School and passed the Entrance Examination of the Calcutta
University in 1909, standing first among the student from East Bengal obtaining the highest marks in
languages (English, Bengali and Sanskrit combined) and in Mathematics.
In 1911, he ranked third in the ISc exam while the first position went to another great scientist
Satyendranath Bose.
Meghnad Saha took admission in Presidency College Calcutta. In 1913 he graduated from Presidency
College with Mathematics major and got the second rank in the University of Calcutta while the first one
was taken by S.N. Bose.
In 1915, both S.N.Bose and Meghnad Saha ranked first in M.Sc. exam, Meghnad Saha in Applied
Mathematics and S.N. Bose in Pure Mathematics.
While studying in Presidency College, Meghnad got involved with Anushilan Samiti to take part in
freedom fighting movement. He also came in contact with nationalists like Subhash Chandra Bose and
Rajendra Prasad.
First director of Indian
Association for the
Cultivation of Science

Scientific Career
In 1917, Meghnad Saha joined as lecturer at the newly opened University College of Science in Calcutta.
He taught Quantum Physics. Along with S.N. Bose, he translated the papers published in German by
Einstein and Minkowski on relativity into English versions.
In 1919, American Astrophysical Journal published - "On Selective Radiation Pressure and it's
application" - a research paper by Meghnad Saha.
He put forward an "ionization formula" which explained the presence of the spectral lines. The formula
proved to be a breakthrough in astrophysics. He went abroad and stayed for two years. He spent time in
research at Imperial College, London and at a research laboratory in Germany.
In 1927, Meghnad Saha was elected as a fellow of London's Royal Society.
Back to India
Meghnad Saha moved to Allahabad and in 1932 Uttar Pradesh Academy of Science was established. He
returned to Science College, Calcutta in 1938. During this time Saha got interested in Nuclear Physics.
In 1947 he established the Indian Institute of Nuclear Physics (now known as the Saha Institute of
Nuclear Physics).
He took the first effort to include Nuclear Physics in the curriculum of higher studies of science. Having
seen cyclotrons used for research in nuclear physics abroad, he ordered one to be installed in the
institute. In 1950, India had its first cyclotron in operation.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics four times- 1930, 1937, 1939, and 1940."
In 1952 he stood as an independent candidate for Parliament and was elected by a wide margin. He
died on February 16, 1956 due to a heart attack.

M Visvesvaraya
Born: September 15, 1860, Chikballapur
Died: April 12, 1962, Bangalore
Sir Mokshagundam Visveswaraiah, KCIE was a notable Indian engineer,
scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore during 1912 to 1918.
He was a recipient of the Indian Republic's highest honour, the Bharat
Ratna, in 1955.
He was knighted as a Commander of the British Indian Empire by King
George V for his myriad contributions to the public good.
Every year, 15 September is celebrated as Engineer's Day in India in his
memory.
He was the chief designer of the flood protection system for the city of Hyderabad, as well as the chief
engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mysore.
Early Life:
Sir M. Visvesvaraya was born on September 15, 1860 in Muddenahalli village in the Kolar district of the
erstwhile princely state of Mysore (present day Karnataka). His father Srinivasa Sastry was a Sanskrit
scholar and Ayurvedic practitioner. His mother Venkachamma was a religious lady. He lost his father
when he was only 15 years old.
Visvesvaraya completed his early education in Chikkaballapur and then went to Bangalore for higher
education. He cleared his B.A. Examination in 1881. He got some assistance from the Government of
Mysore and joined the Science College in Poona to study Engineering. In 1883 he ranked first in the
L.C.E. and the F.C.E. Examinations (equivalent to B.E. Examination of today).
Career as an Engineer
Upon graduating as an engineer, Visvesvaraya took up a job with the Public Works Department (PWD)
of Mumbai and was later invited to join the Indian Irrigation Commission.
He also designed and patented a system of automatic weir water floodgates that were first installed in
1903 at the Khadakvasla Reservoir near Pune. These gates were employed to raise the flood supply
level of storage in the reservoir to the highest level likely to be attained by a flood without causing any
damage to the dam.
Based on the success of these gates, the same system was installed at the Tigra Dam in Gwalior and
the Krishnaraja Sagara (KRS) Dam in Mandya/ Mysore,Karnataka.
Visvesvaraya achieved celebrity status when he designed a flood protection system for the city
of Hyderabad.
Father of the Modern
Mysore State

Visvesvaraya supervised the construction of the KRS Dam across the Cauvery River from concept to
inauguration. This dam created the biggest reservoir in Asia when it was built.
Diwan of Mysore (1912-1918)
After opting for voluntary retirement in 1908, he took a foreign tour to study industrialized nations and
after, for a short period he worked for the Nizam of Hyderabad, India.
He suggested flood relief measures for Hyderabad town, which was under constant threat of floods by
Moosi river.
Later, during November 1909, Visvesvaraya was appointed as Chief Engineer of Mysore State.
Further, during the year, 1912, he was appointed as Diwan (First Minister) of the princely state
of Mysore. He was Diwan for 7 years.
He was rightly called the "Father of modern Mysore state" (now Karnataka).
During his period of service with the Government of Mysore state, he was responsible for the founding
of, (under the Patronage of Mysore Government), the Mysore Soap Factory, the Parasitoide Laboratory,
the Mysore Iron & Steel Works (now known as Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Limited) in Bhadravathi, the
Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic Institute, the Bangalore Agricultural University, the State Bank of
Mysore, The Century Club, Mysore Chambers of Commerce and numerous other industrial ventures.
Sir M. Visvesvaraya voluntarily retired as Dewan of Mysore in 1918. He worked actively even after his
retirement.
Awards & Honours:
• 1904: Honorary Membership of London Institution of Civil Engineers for an unbroken period of
50 years
• 1906: "Kaisar-i-Hind" in recognition of his services
• 1911: C.I.E. (Companion of the order of the Indian Empire) at the Delhi Darbar
• 1915: K.C.I.E. (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire)
• 1921: D.Sc. - Calcutta University
• 1931: LLD - Bombay University
• 1937: D.Litt - Benaras Hindu University
• 1943: Elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Institution of Engineers (India)
• 1944: D.Sc. - Allahabad University
• 1948: Doctorate - LLD., Mysore University
• 1953: D.Litt - Andhra University
• 1953: Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India
• 1955: Conferred ' BHARATH RATNA'
• 1958: 'Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal' by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of
Bengal
• 1959: Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
• He was president of the 1923 Session of the Indian Science Congress.

• He was the most popular person from Karnataka, in a newspaper survey conducted by Praja
Vani
Recognition
The Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, a museum in Bangalore is named in his honor.
Books
Reconstructing India
Planned economy for India
Memories of my working life
Unemployment in India, its causes and cure
Speeches

Satyendra Nath Bose
Born: January 1, 1894, Kolkata
Died: February 4, 1974, Kolkata
Satyendra Nath Bose was an outstanding Indian physicist. He is known for his
work in Quantum Physics. He is famous for "Bose-Einstein Theory" and a kind
of particle in atom has been named after his name as Boson.
A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was awarded India's second highest civilian
award, the Padma Vibhushan in 1954 by the Government of India.
Early Life
Satyendranath Bose was born on January 1, 1894 in Calcutta. His father Surendranath Bose was
employed in the Engineering Department of the East India Railway. Satyendranath was the eldest of his
seven children.
Satyendra Nath Bose had his schooling from Hindu High School in Calcutta. He was a brilliant student.
He passed the ISc in 1911 from the Presidency College, Calcutta securing the first position. Satyendra
Nath Bose did his BSc in Mathematics from the Presidency College in 1913 and MSc in Mixed
Mathematics in 1915 from the same college. He topped the university in BSc. and MSc. Exams.
Career
In 1916, the Calcutta University started M.Sc. classes in Modern Mathematics and Modern Physics. S.N.
Bose started his career in 1916 as a Lecturer in Physics in Calcutta University. He served here from 1916
to 1921.
In 1921, he joined as Reader of the department of Physics of the then recently founded University of
Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) by the then Vice Chancellor of University of Calcutta Sir Ashutosh
Mukherjee,
In 1924, Satyendra Nath Bose published an article titled Max Planck's Law and Light Quantum
Hypothesis. This article was sent to Albert Einstein. Einstein appreciated it so much that he himself
translated it into German and sent it for publication to a famous periodical in Germany - 'Zeitschrift fur
Physik'.
The hypothesis received a great attention and was highly appreciated by the scientists. It became
famous to the scientists as 'Bose-Einstein Theory'.
Indian physicist

In 1926, Satyendra Nath Bose became a Professor of Physics in Dhaka University. Though he had not
completed his doctorate till then, he was appointed as professor on Einstein's recommendation.
In 1929 Satyendranath Bose was elected chairman of the Physics of the Indian Science Congress and in
1944 elected full chairman of the Congress. In 1945, he was appointed as Khaira Professor of Physics in
Calcutta University. He retired from Calcutta University in 1956. The University honored him on his
retirement by appointing him as Emeritus Professor. Later he became the Vice Chancellor of the
Viswabharati University.
In 1958, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Although several Nobel Prizes were awarded for research related to the concepts of the boson, Bose–
Einstein statistics and Bose–Einstein condensate—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics given
for advancing the theory of Bose–Einstein condensates—Bose himself was not awarded the Nobel Prize.
Honours
In 1937, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his only book on science, Visva-Parichay, to Satyendra Nath
Bose.
Bose was honored with title Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 1954.
In 1959, he was appointed as the National Professor, the highest honor in the country for a scholar, a
position he held for 15 years.
In 1986, S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences was established by an act of Parliament,
Government of India, in Salt Lake, Calcutta in honor of the world-renowned Indian scientist.
Bose became an adviser to then newly-formed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was the
President of Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science.
He was elected General President of the Indian Science Congress. He was the Vice President and then
the President of Indian Statistical Institute.
He was nominated as member of Rajya Sabha.

Anil Kakodkar
Born: November 11, 1943 (age 68), Barwani
Anil Kakodkar is an eminent Indian nuclear scientist and mechanical
engineer.
He is the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India and the
Secretary to the Government of India, he was the Director of the Bhabha
Atomic Research Centre, Trombay from 1996-2000.
He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian
honour, on January 26, 2009.
Early Life
Kakodkar was born in 1943 (November 11, 1943), in Barwani Princely State (present day Madhya
Pradesh state) to Mrs. Kamala Kakodkar & Mr. Purushottam Kakodkar, both Gandhian Freedom Fighters.
He had his early education at Barwani and at Khargone, until moving to Mumbai for post-matriculation
studies.
Kakodkar graduated from Ruparel College, then from VJTI, University of Mumbai with a degree
in Mechanical Engineering in 1963. He joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in 1964. He
obtained a masters degree in experimental stress analysis from the University of Nottingham in 1969.
Career in BARC
He joined the Reactor Engineering Division of the BARC and played a key role in design and construction
of the Dhruva reactor, a completely original but high-tech project.
Anil Kakodkar also has the credit of being a member of the core team of architects of India's Peaceful
Nuclear Tests that were conducted during the years 1974 and 1998.
He also led the indigenous development of the country's Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor Technology.
Anil Kakodkar's efforts in the rehabilitation of the two reactors at Kalpakkam and the first unit at
Rawatbhatta is noteworthy as it were about to close down.
In the year 1996, Anil Kakodkar became the youngest Director of the BARC after Homi Bhabha himself.
From the year 2000 onwards, he has been leading the Atomic Energy Commission of India and playing
secretary to the Department of Atomic Energy.
Dr Anil Kakodkar has been playing a crucial part in demanding sovereignty for India's nuclear tests. In
fact, he is known for being a strong advocate of India's self-reliance by employing Thorium as a fuel for
nuclear energy.
Indian nuclear scientist

Awards:
National Awards
Padma Shri in 1998.
Padma Bhushan in 1999.
Padma Vibhushan in 2009.
Other Awards
Highest civilian award of the Maharashtra state-Maharashtra Bhushan Award(2012)
Highest civilian award of the Goa state-Gomant Vibhushan Award(2010)
Hari Om Ashram Prerit Vikram Sarabhai Award (1988)
H. K. Firodia Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (1997)
Rockwell Medal for Excellence in Technology (1997)
FICCI Award for outstanding contribution to Nuclear Science and Technology (1997-98)
ANACON - 1998 Life Time Achievement Award for Nuclear Sciences
Indian Science Congress Association's H. J. Bhabha Memorial Award (1999-2000)
Godavari Gaurav Award (2000)
Dr. Y. Nayudamma Memorial Award (2002)
Chemtech Foundation's Achiever of the Year Award for Energy (2002)
Gujar Mal Modi Innovative Science and Technology Award in 2004.
Homi Bhabha Lifetime Achievement Award 2010.
Acharya Varahmihir Award (2004) by Varahmihir Institute of Scientific Heritage and Research, Ujjain
(M.P.), India

APJ Abdul Kalam
Born: October 15, 1931 (age 81), Dhanushkodi
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam is an Indian scientist and
administrator who served as the 11th President of India.
He is a man of vision, who is always full of ideas aimed at the development
of the country and is also often also referred to as the ‘Missile Man of
India’ for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch
vehicle technology.
People loved and respected Dr APJ Abdul Kalam so much during his tenure
as President that was popularly called the People's President.
Kalam was elected the President of India in 2002, defeating Lakshmi
Sahgal and was supported by both the Indian National Congress and
the Bharatiya Janata Party, the major political parties of India.
He is the first Indian person to win the Hoover Prize.
Early Life & Education
Kalam was born on 15 October 1931 to Jainulabdeen, a boat owner and Ashiamma, a housewife,
at Rameswaram, located in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
He came from a poor background and started working at an early age to supplement his family's
income. He was brought up in a multi-religious environment but did follow a religious routine.
After completing school, Kalam distributed newspapers in order to financially contribute to his father's
income.
In his school years, he had average grades, but was described as a bright and hardworking student who
had a strong desire to learn and spend hours on his studies, especially mathematics.
"I inherited honesty and self-discipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness
and deep kindness as did my three brothers and sisters."
—A quote from Kalam's autobiography
After completing his school education at the Rameswaram Elementary School, Kalam went on to
attend Saint Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli where he graduated in physics in 1954. He then moved
to Madras in 1955 to study aerospace engineering at the MIT Madras, India.
While Kalam was working on a senior class project, the Dean was dissatisfied with the lack of progress
and threatened revoking his scholarship unless the project was finished within the next two days. He
worked tirelessly on his project and met the deadline, impressing the Dean who later said:
"I [Dean] was putting you [Kalam] under stress and asking you to meet a difficult deadline".
Missile Man of India

Career as a Scientist
After graduating from Madras Institute of Technology (MIT – Chennai) in 1960, Kalam
joined Aeronautical Development Establishment of Defense Research and Development
Organization (DRDO) as a chief scientist.
Kalam started his career by designing a small helicopter for the Indian Army, but remained unconvinced
with the choice of his job at DRDO.
Kalam was also part of the INCOSPAR committee working under Vikram Sarabhai, the renowned space
scientist.
In 1969, Kalam was transferred to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)where he was the
project director of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully deployed
the Rohini satellite in near earth orbit in July 1980.
Joining ISRO was one of Kalam's biggest achievements in life and he is said to have found himself when
he started to work on the SLV project.
Kalam first started work on an expandable rocket project independently at DRDO in 1965. In 1969,
Kalam received the government's approval and expanded the program to include more engineers.
In 1963–64, he visited Nasa's Langley Research Center in Hampton Virginia, Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and Wallops Flight Facility situated at Eastern Shore of Virginia.
During the period between the 1970s and 1990s, Kalam made an effort to develop the Polar SLV and
SLV-III projects, both of which proved to be success.
Kalam was invited by Raja Ramanna to witness the country's first nuclear test Smiling Buddha as the
representative of TBRL(Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory), even though he had not participated in
the development, test site preparation and weapon designing.
In the 1970s, a landmark was achieved by ISRO when the locally built Rohini-1 was launched into space,
using the SLV rocket.
In the 1970s, Kalam also directed two projects, namely, Project Devil and Project Valiant , which sought
to develop ballistic missiles from the technology of the successful SLV programme.
Kalam and Dr. V. S. Arunachalam, metallurgist and scientific adviser to the Defense Minister, worked on
the suggestion by the then Defense Minister, R. Venkataraman on a proposal for simulataneous
development of a quiver of missiles instead of taking planned missiles one by one.
R Venkatraman was instrumental in getting the cabinet approval for allocating 388 crore rupees for the
mission, named Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (I.G.M.D.P) and appointed Kalam as
the Chief Executive.
He was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of Defence Research and
Development Organisation from July 1992 to December 1999.
The Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during this period where he played an intensive political
and technological role. Kalam served as the Chief Project Coordinator, along with R.
Chidambaram during the testing phase.

In 1998, along with cardiologist Dr.Soma Raju, Kalam developed a low cost Coronary stent. It was
named as "Kalam-Raju Stent" honouring them.
In 2012, the duo, designed a rugged tablet PC for health care in rural areas, which was named as "Kalam-
Raju Tablet".
Tenure as President (2002-2007)
Abdul Kalam served as the 11th President of India, succeeding K. R. Narayanan. He won the 2002
presidential election defeating Lakshmi Sahgal. He served from 25 July 2002 to 25 July 2007.
Kalam was the third President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna, India's highest
civilian honour, before becoming the President. Dr. Sarvapali Radhakrishnan(1954) and Dr. Zakir
Hussain (1963) were the earlier recipients of Bharat Ratna who later became the President of India.
He was also the first scientist and the first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhawan.
During his term as President, he was affectionately known as the People's President.
In his words, signing the Office of Profit Bill was the toughest decision he had taken during his tenure.
Article 72 of the Constitution of India empowers the President of India to grant pardon, suspend and
remit death sentences and commute the death sentence of convicts on death row.
Kalam acted on only one mercy plea in his 5 year tenure as a President, rejecting the plea of rapist
Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was hanged thereafter. The most important of the 20 pleas is thought to be
that of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist who was convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on
the Indian Parliament and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India in 2004. While the
sentence was scheduled to be carried out on 20 October 2006, the pending action on the mercy plea
resulted in him continuing in the death row.
Frisking by American security authorities
Abdul Kalam was frisked at the JFK Airport (John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York, while
boarding a plane on 29 September 2011. He was subjected to "private screening" as he does not come
under the category of dignitaries exempt from security screening procedures under American
guidelines.
He was frisked again after boarding the Air India aircraft with the US security officials asking for his
jacket and shoes, claiming that these items were not checked according to the prescribed procedures
during the "private screening", despite protests from the airline crew confirming him as India's
president.
India threatened retaliatory action as there was a "general sense of outrage" around the country. The
Indian Ministry of External Affairs protested over this incident and a statement by the ministry said that
the US Government had written a letter to Kalam, expressing its deep regret for the inconvenience.
Kalam was previously frisked by the ground staff of the Continental Airlines at the Indira Gandhi
International Airport, New Delhi in July 2009 and was treated like an ordinary passenger, despite him
being on the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security's list of people exempted from security screening in India.

Popular Culture
In May 2011, Kalam launched his mission for the youth of the nation called the What Can I Give
Movement with a central theme to defeat corruption. He also has interests in writing Tamil poetry and
in playing veenai, a South Indian string instrument.
He was nominated for the MTV Youth Icon of the Year award in 2003 and in 2006.
In the 2011 Hindi film I Am Kalam, Kalam is portrayed as an extremely positive influence to a poor but
bright Rajasthani boy named Chhotu (role played by Harsh Mayar), who renames himself Kalam in
honour of his idol.
Awards & Honours
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's 79th birthday was recognized as World Students' Day by United Nations.
He has also received honorary doctorates from 40 universities.
The Government of India has honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1981 and the Padma
Vibhushan in 1990 for his work with ISRO and DRDO and his role as a scientific advisor to the
Government.
In 1997, Kalam received India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, for his immense and valuable
contribution to the scientific research and modernization of defence technology in India.
Year of Award Name of the Award Awarding Organization
2012 Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) Simon Fraser University
2011 IEEE Honorary Membership IEEE
2010 Doctor of Engineering University of Waterloo
2009 Hoover Medal ASME Foundation, USA
2009 International von Kármán Wings Award California Institute of Technology, U.S.A
2008 Doctor of Engineering (Honoris Causa)
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore
2007 King Charles II Medal Royal Society, U.K
2007 Honorary Doctorate of Science University of Wolverhampton, U.K
2000 Ramanujan Award Alwars Research Centre, Chennai
[
1998 Veer Savarkar Award Government of India
1997 Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration Government of India
1997 Bharat Ratna Government of India
1990 Padma Vibhushan Government of India
1981 Padma bhushan Government of India

Books & Documentaries
Kalam's writings
Turning Points: A journey through challenges by A. P. J Abdul Kalam is a sequel of wings of Fire,
2012.
Wings of Fire: An Autobiography by A. P. J Abdul Kalam, 1999.
India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium by A. P. J Abdul Kalam, 1998.
Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 2002.
The Luminous Sparks by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 2004.
Mission India by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 2005
Inspiring Thoughts by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 2007
Developments in Fluid Mechanics and Space Technology by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Roddam
Narasimha; Indian Academy of Sciences, 1988
Biographies
Eternal Quest: Life and Times of Dr. Kalam by S. Chandra, 2002.
President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam by R. K. Pruthi, 2002.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam: The Visionary of India by K. Bhushan, G. Katyal, 2002.
A Little Dream (documentary film) by P. Dhanapal, 2008.
The Kalam Effect: My Years with the President by P.M. Nair, 2008.
My Days with Mahatma Abdul Kalam by Fr.A.K. George, 2009.

Hargobind Khorana
Born: January 9, 1922, Raipur
Died: November 9, 2011, Concord
Har Gobind Khorana is an American molecular biologist.
For his work on the interpretation of the genetic code and its function in
protein synthesis, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in the year 1968. This
award was, however, also shared by Robert W. Holley and Marshall
Warren Nirenberg.
The very same year, he received another award ‘Louisa Gross Horwitz
Prize’ along with Nirenberg that was presented to them by the Columbia
University.
He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966 and subsequently received the National
Medal of Science.
He served as MIT's Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry, Emeritus and was a member of
the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute.
Khorana was born to Hindu parents in Raipur village in West Punjab, British India, currently Pakistan. His
father was the village "patwari" (or taxation official).
He was home schooled by his father until high school. He earned his B.Sc from Punjab University,
Lahore, in 1943, and his M.Sc from Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan in 1945. In 1945, he began
studying at the University of Liverpool. After earning a Ph.D in 1948, he continued
his postdoctoral studies in Zürich (1948–1949). Subsequently, he spent two years at Cambridge
University. In 1952 he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and in 1960 moved to
the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1970 Khorana became the Alfred Sloan Professor of Biology
and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked until retiring in 2007.
Khorana married Esther Elizabeth Sibler, of Swiss origin, in 1952.
They had three children: Julia Elizabeth (born May 4, 1953), Emily Anne (born October 18, 1954; died
1979), and Dave Roy (born July 26, 1958).
Death
Khorana died of natural causes on November 9, 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, aged 89. A widower,
he was survived by his children Julia and Dave.
Nobel laureate,
Medicine, 1968

Verghese Kurien
Born: November 26, 1921, Kozhikode
Died: September 9, 2012, Nadiad
Verghese Kurien was an Indian engineer and renowned social
entrepreneur, best known as the "Father of the White Revolution", for
his 'billion-litre idea' or Operation Flood — the world's biggest
agricultural development programme.
The operation took India from being a milk-deficient nation, to the
largest milk producer in the world, surpassing the USA in 1998, with
about 17 percent of global output in 2010–11, which in 30 years doubled
the milk available to every person.
He founded around 30 institutions of excellence (like AMUL, GCMMF, IRMA, NDDB) which are owned,
managed by farmers and run by professionals.
As the founding chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), Kurien was
responsible for the creation and success of the Amul brand of dairy products. A key achievement at
Amul was the invention of milk powder processed from buffalo milk (abundant in India), as opposed to
that made from cow-milk, in the then major milk producing nations.
His achievements with the Amul dairy led Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to appoint him founder-
chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in 1965, to replicate Amul's "Anand model"
nationwide.
He was also known as the "Milkman of India".
Personal life:
Born on 26 November 1921 at Calicut, Madras Presidency, British India (now Kozhikode, Kerala) into
a Syrian Christian family, he would later turn an Atheist. His father was a civil surgeon in Cochin (Kochi,
Kerala). He went on to marry Molly, the daughter of a friend of his father.
He graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and then obtained his Bachelors in
mechanical engineering from the University of Madras. After completing his degree, he joined the Tata
Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946.
He did however train for dairy technology later on, on a government sponsorship to New Zealand, a
bastion of cooperative dairying then, when he had to learn to set up the Amul dairy.
Father of White Revolution
& Milkman of India

Career:
Kurien arrived back on 13 May 1949, after his master's degree, and was quickly deputed to the
Government of India's experimental creamery, at Anand in Gujarat's Kheda district by the government
and rather half-heartedly served out his bond period against the scholarship given by them. He had
already made up his mind to quit mid-way, but was persuaded to stay back at Anand by Tribhuvandas
Patel (who would later share the Magsaysay with him) who had brought together Kheda's farmers as a
cooperative union to process and sell their milk, a pioneering concept at the time.
Patel's sincere and earnest efforts inspired Kurien to dedicate himself to the challenging task before
them, so much so, that when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was to visit Anand later, to
inaugurate Amul's plant, he embraced Kurien for his groundbreaking work. Meanwhile, Kurien's buddy
and dairy expert H. M. Dalaya, invented the process of making skim milk powder and condensed milk
from buffalo milk instead of from cow milk.
This was the reason Amul would compete successfully and well against Nestle which only used
cow milk to make them. In India, buffalo milk is the main raw material unlike Europe where cow milk is
abundant.
The Amul pattern of cooperatives became so successful, that in 1965 Prime Minister Lal
Bahadur Shastri, created the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to replicate the program
nationwide citing Kurien's "extraordinary and dynamic leadership" upon naming him chairman.
As the 'Amul dairy experiment' was replicated in Gujarat's districts in the neighbourhood of
Anand, Kurien set all of them up under GCMMF in 1973 to sell the combined produce of the dairies
under a single Amul brand.
Today GCMMF sells Amul products not only in India but also overseas.
He quit the post of GCMMF Chairman in 2006 following disagreement with the GCMMF management.
When the National Dairy Development Board expanded the scope of Operation Flood to cover the
entire country in its Phase 2 program in 1979: Kurien founded the Institute of Rural Management
Anand (IRMA).
Kurien's life story is chronicled in his memoir I Too Had a Dream.
Interestingly Kurien, the person who revolutionized the availability of milk in India did not drink milk
himself.
Film and its use in enlarging movement:
Veteran film-maker Shyam Benegal, then an advertising executive whoed Manthan (the churning of the
'milk ocean').
Not able to finance it, Benegal was helped by Kurien who hit upon an idea of getting each of his half a
million farmers to contribute a token two rupees for the making of the movie.

Manthan hit a chord with the audience immediately when it was shown in Gujarat in 1976, which
impressed distributors to release it before audiences, nationwide.
The movie's success gave Kurien another idea. Like shown in the film, a vet, a milk technician and a
fodder specialist who could explain the value of cross-breeding of milch cattle would tour other parts of
the country along with the film's prints, to woo farmers there to create cooperatives of their own.
UNDP would use the movie to start similar cooperatives in Latin America.
Books:
1. I Too Had A Dream, co-authored with Gouri Salvi
2. An Unfinished Dream
Awards and honours:
YEAR
NAME OF AWARD AWARDING ORGANISATION
1999 Padma Vibhushan Government of India
1993 International Person of the Year
Award
World Dairy Expo
1989 World Food Prize World Food Prize, USA
1986 Wateler Peace Prize Award Carnegie Foundation, The
Netherlands
1986 Krushi Ratna Award Government of India
1966 Padma Bhushan Government of India
1965 Padma Shri Government of India
1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award Ramon Magsaysay Award
Foundation

Birbal Sahni
Born: November 14, 1891, Porbandar
Died: April 10, 1949, Aga Khan Palace
Birbal Sahni was an Indian paleobotanist who studied the fossils of the Indian
subcontinent, was also a geologist who took an interest in archaeology.
He founded the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in Lucknow (U.P), India.
His greatest contributions lie in the study of botany of the plants of India as
well as paleobotany
Apart from writing numerous influential papers on these topics he also
served as the President, National Academy of Sciences, India and as an
Honorary President of the International Botanical Congress, Stockholm.
Early Life
The third son of Ishwar Devi and Lala Ruchi Ram Sahani, Birbal Sahni was born in Behra, Saharanpur
District, West Punjab, on 14 November 1891. Among the frequent guests of his parents were Motilal
Nehru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sarojini Naidu, and Madan Mohan Malaviya.
He was also influenced into science by his grandfather who owned a banking business at Dera Ismail
Khan and conducted amateur research in chemistry. He got his early education in India at Government
College University, Lahore (where his father worked) and Punjab University (1911). He learnt botany
under S. R. Kashyap. He graduated fromEmmanuel College, Cambridge in 1914. He later studied
under Professor A. C. Seward, and was awarded the D.Sc. degree of the University of London in 1919.
In 1920 he married Savitri Suri, daughter of Sunder Das Suri who was an Inspector of Schools in Punjab.
Savitri took an interest in his work and was a constant companion.
Career
Birbal Sahni then came back to his native country India to work as the professor of Botany at the highly
esteemed Banaras Hindu University at the holy city of Varanasi.
Sahni returned to India and served as Professor of Botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
and Punjab University for about a year.
He was appointed the first Professor and Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow
University in 1921. The University of Cambridge recognized his researches by the award of the degree of
Sc. D. in 1929. In 1932 Palaeontologica Indica included his account of the Bennettitalean plant that he
Pioneer of
palaeobotany

named Williamsonia Sewardi, and another description of a new type of petrified wood, Homoxylon,
bearing resemblance to the wood of a living homoxylous angiosperm, but from the Jurassic age.
Sahni maintained close relations with researchers around the globe, being a friend of Chester A. Arnold,
noted American paleobotanist who later served his year in residence from 1958-1959 at the institute.
He was a founder of The Paleobotanical Society which established the Institute of Palaeobotany on 10
September 1946 which initially functioned in the Botany Department of Lucknow University but later
moved to its present premises at 53 University Road, Lucknow in 1949.
On 3 April 1949 the Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the new
building of the Institute. A week later, on 10 April 1949, Sahni succumbed to a heart attack.
Honours
Sahni was recognized by several academies and institutions in India and abroad for his research.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1936, the highest British scientific
honor, awarded for the first time to an Indian botanist.
He was elected Vice-President, Palaeobotany section, of the 5th and 6th International Botanical
Congresses of 1930 and 1935, respectively; General President of the Indian Science Congress for 1940;
President, National Academy of Sciences, India, 1937–1939 and 1943-1944. In 1948 he was elected an
Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Another high honor which came to
him was his election as an Honorary President of the International Botanical Congress, Stockholm in
1950, but he died before he could serve.
Contributions & Influences
In their book Historical perspective of early twentieth century Carboniferous paleobotany in North
America, William Darrah et al have mentioned multiple interactions of scientists with Birbal Shani
regarding fieldwork.
In his speeches, former President of India Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan has mentioned Birbal Sahni in
several contexts' including science, religion etc.
In the English Newspaper The Hindu, Dr. Sahni has been called Pioneer of palaeobotany (in India).
In their paper "New interpretations of the earliest conifers", Rothwell have cited from Revision of
Indian fossil plants: Part III. Monocotyledons by Dr. Sahni.
In their paper Seed plant phylogeny and the origin of angiosperms: An experimental cladistic
approach, Dayle and Donohogue have included sections from A petrified Williamsonia by Dr. Sahni.

Srinivasa Ramanujan
Born: December 22, 1887, Erode
Died: April 26, 1920, Chetput
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician par excellence. He is widely
believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa
Ramanujan made significant contribution to the analytical theory of
numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite
series.
Ramanujan was said to be a natural genius by the English
mathematician G.H. Hardy, in the same league as mathematicians
like Euler and Gauss.
Early Life
Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu.
His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop. At the of five Ramanujan went
to primary school in Kumbakonam. In 1898 at age 10, he entered the Town High School in Kumbakonam.
At the age of eleven he was lent books on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by two lodgers
at his home who studied at the Government college. He mastered them by the age of thirteen.
Ramanujan was a bright student, winning academic prizes in high school.
At age of 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled "A Synopsis of Elementary
Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics" by G. S. Carr. The book was simply a compilation of
thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. The book
generated Ramanujan's interest in mathematics and he worked through the book's results and beyond.
By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake deep research. He investigated the series (1/n) and
calculated Euler's constant to 15 decimal places. He began to study the Bernoulli numbers, although this
was entirely his own independent discovery. He was given a scholarship to the Government College in
Kumbakonam which he entered in 1904. But he neglected his other subjects at the cost of mathematics
and failed in college examination. He dropped out of the college.
Ramanujan lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking
patrons to support his work. In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where he entered Pachaiyappa's
College. His aim was to pass the First Arts examination which would allow him to be admitted to the
University of Madras. Continuing his mathematical work Ramanujan studied continued fractions and
divergent series in 1908. At this stage he became seriously ill again and underwent an operation in April
1909 after which he took him some considerable time to recover.
Indian Mathematician

On 14 July 1909 Ramanujan marry a ten year old girl S Janaki Ammal.
During this period Ramanujan had his first paper published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that
appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. In 1911 Ramanujan approached the
founder of the Indian Mathematical Society for advice on a job. He got the job of clerk at the Madras
Port Trust with the help of Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao.
The professor of civil engineering at the Madras Engineering College C L T Griffith was interested in
Ramanujan's abilities and, having been educated at University College London, knew the professor of
mathematics there, namely M J M Hill. He wrote to Hill on 12 November 1912 sending some of
Ramanujan's work and a copy of his 1911 paper on Bernoulli numbers. Hill replied in a fairly encouraging
way but showed that he had failed to understand Ramanujan's results on divergent series. In January
1913 Ramanujan wrote to G H Hardy having seen a copy of his 1910 book Orders of infinity.
Hardy, together with Littlewood, studied the long list of unproved theorems which Ramanujan enclosed
with his letter. Hardy wrote back to Ramanujan and evinced interest in his work.
University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship in May 1913 for two years and, in 1914, Hardy
brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an extraordinary collaboration. Right from
the start Ramanujan's collaboration with Hardy led to important results. In a joint paper with Hardy,
Ramanujan gave an asymptotic formula for p(n). It had the remarkable property that it appeared to give
the correct value of p(n), and this was later proved by Rademacher.
Ramanujan had problems settling in London. He was an orthodox Brahmin and right from the beginning
he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder
and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems.
On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. He
had been allowed to enrol in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan's
dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in
England.
Illness & Return to India
Ramanujan fell seriously ill in 1917 and his doctors feared that he would die. He did improve a little by
September but spent most of his time in various nursing homes. On February 18, 1918 Ramanujan was
elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and later he was also elected as a fellow of the
Royal Society of London. By the end of November 1918 Ramanujan's health had greatly improved.
Ramanujan sailed to India on 27 February 1919 arriving on 13 March. However his health was very poor
and, despite medical treatment, he died on April 6, 1920.
In 1918, Hardy and Ramanujan studied the partition function P(n) extensively and gave a non-
convergent asymptotic series that permits exact computation of the number of partitions of an
integer. Hans Rademacher, in 1937, was able to refine their formula to find an exact convergent series

solution to this problem. Ramanujan and Hardy's work in this area gave rise to a powerful new method
for finding asymptotic formulae, called the circle method.
He discovered mock theta functions in the last year of his life. For many years these functions were a
mystery, but they are now known to be the holomorphic parts of harmonic weak Maass forms.
Ramanujan’s Notebook
While still in Madras, Ramanujan recorded the bulk of his results in four notebooks of loose leaf paper.
These results were mostly written up without any derivations.
Mathematician Bruce C. Berndt, in his review of these notebooks and Ramanujan's work, says that
Ramanujan most certainly was able to make the proofs of most of his results, but chose not to.
The first notebook has 351 pages with 16 somewhat organized chapters and some unorganized material.
The second notebook has 256 pages in 21 chapters and 100 unorganised pages, with the third notebook
containing 33 unorganised pages. The results in his notebooks inspired numerous papers by later
mathematicians trying to prove what he had found. Hardy himself created papers exploring material
from Ramanujan's work as did G. N. Watson, B. M. Wilson, and Bruce Berndt. A fourth notebook with 87
unorganised pages, the so-called "lost notebook", was rediscovered in 1976 by George Andrews.
Ramanujan – Hardy Number 1729
The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number after a famous anecdote of the British
mathematician G. H. Hardy regarding a visit to the hospital to see Ramanujan. In Hardy's words:
“ I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number
1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was
not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest
number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. ”
The two different ways are
1729 = 13
+ 123
= 93
+ 103
.
Generalizations of this idea have created the notion of "taxicab numbers". Coincidentally, 1729 is
also a Carmichael number.
Recognition
Ramanujan's home state of Tamil Nadu celebrates 22 December (Ramanujan's birthday) as 'State IT
Day', memorializing both the man and his achievements, as a native of Tamil Nadu.
A stamp picturing Ramanujan was released by the Government of India in 1962 – the 75th anniversary
of Ramanujan's birth – commemorating his achievements in the field of number theory, and a new
design was issued on December 26, 2011, by the India Post.

Since the Centennial year of Ramanujan, every year 22 Dec, is celebrated as Ramanujan Day by
the Government Arts College, Kumbakonam where he had studied and later dropped out.
On the 125th anniversary of his birth, India declared the birthday of Ramanujan, December 22, as
'National Mathematics Day.' The declaration was made by Dr. Manmohan Singh in Chennai on
December 26, 2011. Dr Manmohan Singh also declared that the year 2012 would be celebrated as
the National Mathematics Year.
In popular Culture
A film, based on the book The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert
Kanigel, is being made by Edward Pressman and Matthew Brown with R. Madhavan playing
Ramanujan.
Another international feature film on Ramanujan's life was announced in 2006 as due to begin
shooting in 2007. It was to be shot in Tamil Nadu state and Cambridge and be produced by an Indo-
British collaboration and co-directed by Stephen Fry and Dev Benegal. A play, First Class Man by
Alter Ego Productions, was based on David Freeman's First Class Man. On 16 October 2011, it was
announced that Roger Spottiswoode, best known for his James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, is
working on the film version, starring actor Siddharth. Like the book and play it is also titled The First
Class Man; the film's scripting has been completed and shooting is being planned from 2012.
A Disappearing Number is a recent British stage production by the company Complicite that
explores the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan.
The novel The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt explores in fiction the events following Ramanujan's
letter to Hardy.
On 22 March 1988, the PBS Series Nova aired a documentary about Ramanujan, "The Man Who
Loved Numbers"
Ramanujan is mentioned in the Hollywood Blockbuster Good Will Hunting starring Matt Damon a
film based on an orphan genius living in the rough part of South Boston.

Ganapathi Thanikaimoni
Born: January 1, 1938, Chennai
Died: September 5, 1986, Karachi
Ganapathi Thanikaimoni, a successful botanist of his days, is remembered till
date for his widespread contribution in the field of palynology. His researches
and projects not only helped India to make its presence felt on the world stage
of botany, it also furthered public relations between two countries. Ganapathi
Thanikaimoni gradually established himself in the role of India's ambassador to
other countries to promote the research made in botany in our country. Thani, as he fondly came to be
known as, specialized in the research of pollen morphology and phylogeny of the palm tree. After
completing his preliminary education in Madras, Ganapathi Thanikaimoni visited Pondicherry to earn his
doctorate degree. His research work is still held in high regard. A project that he had started and which
had to be put on hold because of his untimely demise is still being pursued by the French Institute in
Pondicherry.
Early Life & Education
Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was born on New Year's Day in the year 1938 in Madras. He spent his entire
childhood in the city of Madras and passed his school and college years from the same. Madras, at that
time, was very important geographically, because of the proximity of ports. He earned a Master's of
Science degree in Botany from the University of Madras in the year 1962. Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was
taking lessons under Professor B G L Swamy, a famous plant morphologist during that time in the
University of Madras. It was in the same year that he received the Fyson Prize for his contribution in the
field of natural science. It was after his college years that Ganapathi Thanikaimoni started work on his
research paper that eventually earned him a doctorate degree from the University of Montpellier. In
1970, the University authorities decided to grant him the doctorate degree because of his research in
pollen morphology and the classification of the evolutionary stages of the palm tree.
Career
Armed with a doctorate degree from the University of Montpellier and the Fyson Prize, Ganapathi
Thanikaimoni went ahead to establish himself as a botanist. He joined as a scientist at the French
Institute of Pondicherry, joining the palynology laboratory that was set up inside the institute in the year
1960.
Thani worked in Pondicherry under the guidance of Dr Professor Guinet. His hard work and dedication
were soon identified by the teachers at the institute, who did not waste time to promote Thani to the
post of director of the palynology laboratory. Reports claim that Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was not only
scientifically sound, but also very organized in his work. It was his administrative capabilities coupled

with his huge store of learning that drew the attention of all his seniors and teachers at the French
Institute of Pondicherry.
During his initial years at the French Institute of Pondicherry, Thani worked on the Clusiaceae, Araceae,
Mimosaceae, Menispermaceae and Sonnera species of plants. His researches with the enlisted species
were published in journals that were brought out by the French Institute of Pondicherry from time to
time. Though Ganapathi Thanikaimoni worked on a particular set of species within the plant kingdom
and based his research on the pollen morphology of this species, he did not flinch from working on all
other plants from the large collection in the plant kingdom as well. Thani insisted that all species must
be studied if accurate results are to be achieved for a particular set of plants because behavioral
patterns of different species are interrelated.
Thani never believed in limiting his research work to only the modern flora. Although pollen morphology
as done by him chiefly dealt with the pollen of modern flora, he made it a point to extend his research
to fossil pollen as well. It was on the insistence of Thani that a tertiary pollen study was organized at the
7th IPC held in Brisbane, Australia. In the year 1972, he received worldwide recognition when his
compilation of morphology of angiosperm pollen was published as the 'Index Bibliographique sur la
Morphologic des Pollens d'Angiospermes'. This introduced his studies to a worldwide audience. In the
year 1983, as a representative of the French Institute of Pondicherry, Ganapati Thanikaimoni became
the head of a workshop that was held in Pondicherry to share botany concepts and pollen morphology
ideas with Indian and French palynologists. Thani studied the pollen of plants derived from regions in
Africa and India. He had a collection of about 20,000 slides of tropical palynomorphs, which were used
for further research work.
Role in Society
Dr Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was not only involved in the study of pollen, but also tried his best to
contribute to the wellbeing of the society. Thani tried his best to educate government authorities to
take proper care of coastlines and to rehabilitate arid areas across India. It is well known that mangroves
play a very important role in balancing the eco system; therefore Thani took steps to educate the society
and the government on the necessity of a mangrove. He was also one of the masterminds in the
UNESCO developed 'Asia and Pacific Mangrove Project'. There is hardly any doubt about the fact that
Ganapathi Thanikaimoni's contribution to the field of pollen studies is immense and all his contribution
is recorded in the book 'Palynology Manual' that was printed after his death.
Death
It is sad that Dr Ganapathi Thanikaimoni had to die a sudden and unexpected death. Reports claim that
he was on his way to the United States to attend a lecture organized by UNESCO when disaster struck
him in the form of a plane hijack. The Pan Am Flight that he was in was hijacked midway in Karachi on
September 5, 1986. The Pakistan government had sent commandos on the site to bomb the plane and
the terrorists inside and it was reportedly one of the bullets fired by these commandos on duty caused a
fatal injury to Thani. The doctor was taken unawares by bullets and shrapnel from a grenade when he

was busy helping a child into the covers of safety. Dr Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was supposed to attend
the Second International Conference on Paleo-oceanography that took place in Massachusetts, USA
from the 6th to the 12th of September, 1986. His studies and unfinished research work are still stored at
the French Institute of Pondicherry and further research on his theories is to take place.
Timeline
1938: Ganapathi Thanikaimoni was born on January 1.
1962: Earned a Master of Science degree in Botany from University of Madras.
1962: Won the Fyson Prize.
1970: Earned doctorate degree from University of Montpellier.
1972: Received worldwide recognition for his compilation of morphology of angiosperm pollen.
1983: Convened workshop for Indian and French palynologists at French Institute of Pondicherry.
1986: Died on September 5 in a plane hijack

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