CONTENTS

Editorial Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Dr. Homi N. Sethna Dr. Raja Ramanna Dr. M. R. Srinivasan Dr. P. K. Iyengar Dr. R. Chidambaram Dr. Anil Kakodkar Dr. S. Banerjee V. K. Manchanda M. G. K. Menon S. C. Gupta R. K. Garg S. S. Kapoor P. D. Sharma B. A. Dasannacharya S. K. Sikka R. B. Grover T. K. Mukherjee 2 3 9 14 18 22 27 34 38 44

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Editorial

During the birth centenary year of Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder of the Department of Atomic Energy, it was thought apt to recall the contributions of various distinguished Scientists who steered the Atomic Energy Programme of India for more than five decades. Each one of them had made a gallant march to realize the dreams of Dr. Bhabha, who envisioned great potential of nuclear energy in transforming India from a developing nation to a developed nation. Each one of them added a new chapter for strengthening the indigenously developed Indian Nuclear Programme aimed at improving the quality of lives of his countrymen. However, soon it dawned that the task was stupendous to be achieved as the number of individuals who made significant contributions to nurture numerous facets of the programme were too large to be included in one volume. Consequently, it was thought prudent to deal with the subject in stages. In the first stage, it was decided to focus on people who were responsible to steer the Indian Nuclear Programme as Chairmen of Atomic Energy Commission. In all nine distinguished Scientists / Engineers occupied this position starting with the original architect of Indian Atomic Energy Programme, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, during the period 1948-1966. Other men of distinction who had served in this capacity are: Dr. Vikram Sarabhai (1966-1971) Dr. Homi Sethna (1972-1983) Dr. Raja Ramanna (1983-1987) Dr. M.R. Srinivasan (1987-1990) Dr. P.K. Iyengar (1990-1993) Dr. R. Chidambaram (1993-2000) Dr. Anil Kakodkar (2000-2009) Dr. S. Banerjee (2009- onward) It was a challenge to identify the close colleagues of each of these stalwarts who could not only write a brief biography of their mentors but also reminiscence their own experiences and thus allow the readers a peep into the multidimensional personae of these men of distinction. I am happy that I could reach the right persons eventually who responded promptly to my request in spite of their several commitments. I earnestly hope that ASSET members and others would enjoy reading this special ASSET bulletin which may also inspire youngsters to emulate these great sons of India , each one of whom have left foot prints on indigenous Indian Nuclear Programme in his own distinct way. I would like to acknowledge the prompt help of Dr. P.N. Pathak who interphased with printer and SIRD, BARC for providing pictures of dignitaries.

V. K. Manchanda President, ASSET & Editor

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Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha

Chairman, AEC, India (1948-1966)

At the Annual General Meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences held in Nagpur in 1941, Prof. C.V. Raman, while introducing Homi Bhabha said: Bhabha is a great lover of music; a gifted artist; a brilliant engineer; and an outstanding scientist . . . . . . He is the modern equivalent of Leonardo de Vinci. That was the person we lost when the Air India plane, the Kanchenjunga, scheduled to fly into Geneva on 24 January 1966, crashed into Mont Blanc, killing all the 117 passengers and crew on board. On his death, rich tributes were paid to Homi Bhabha from all over the world, by scientists, by scientific institutions and Academies, by international organizations, and by persons from all walks of life, from the highest to the lowest. They all paid tribute to great qualities of this many-splendoured genius. Amongst these spontaneous tributes, the most succinct was the one published in the New York Times. It was signed by many, including Prof. Victor Weisskopf, one of the great theoretical physicists of the world, who had been Director General of CERN (The European Council for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, perhaps the largest international organization for research in pure science and particularly devoted to the areas of high energy elementary particle physics that were closest to Homi Bhabhas heart. Other signatories included Dr. Jerome Wiesner who had been Scientific Advisor to the President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy; Dr. Oliver Cope, the well-known surgeon, who was Head of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; and others. This tribute included a sentence: When Homi Bhabha of India was killed in the air plane crash on Mt. Blanc on January 24, the world lost one of its greatest citizens. Since the Association of Separation Scientists and Technologists is bringing out a Special Bulletin regarding architects of the Indian nuclear program, it would be most appropriate if I focus in this article on the manner in which Homi Bhabha envisioned the concept of nuclear science for India. Not only does it bring out the visionary that he was, but also illustrates the manner in which he was an institution-builder, and a person able to overcome all hurdles that came in his way political, bureaucratic and administrative, as well as technical. Homi Bhabha was born on 30 October 1909 in Bombay at Kenilworth on Pedder Road. It was in one half of this bungalow, that the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was first located, when it was set up in Bombay; the bungalow has now gone and there is a multi-storeyed structure there; the property belongs to the Department of Atomic Energy and is used for housing its staff. Homi was brought up in a well-to-do family in an atmosphere of learning. He had access in his early days to the finest library that anyone could wish for - collected by his grandfather and father: of literature (particularly English and French), architecture, art and paintings. He also had the opportunity to develop his deep love for music from the excellent gramophone records belonging to his aunt which he, his brother, and close friends, would listen to with rapt concentration. Apart from his formal schooling, and his great interest in science and things mechanical, he acquired a well-rounded education through the atmosphere in his home. His paternal aunt was Lady Meherbai (Dorabji)
th

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Tata. He was, therefore, privy to many discussions, both of the Tata household, and on his mothers side of the Petit house, relating to the nationalist movement, and to issues of industrialization, energy needs and the like. His schooling was in the Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay and, later, briefly at the Elphinstone College and the Royal Institute of Science. It is a matter of great pride for me that on the marble slab, immediately inside this Institute, my name is there, with Homis name above it. He went to Cambridge to join Gonville and Caius College for the Mechanical Science Tripos, in which he obtained a First. This was as desired by his father, who thought that with a good engineering degree from Cambridge, Homi would do well in the House of Tatas, which was into activities connected with Indias industrialization. Thereafter, he did what he wanted to do most; which was to do his Mathematics Tripos in which he also got a First. He was in Cambridge as a student when Lord Rutherford was heading the Cavendish Laboratory. That was the time when Cambridge was the Mecca for nuclear physics. The Dirac Equation; Chadwicks discovery of the neutron; the counter-controlled cloud chamber of Blackett and Occhialini and discovery of electron-positron pair production from gamma rays; the first transmutation of light elements with the Cockcroft-Walton Accelerator; the discussions in the Kapitsa Club; and much else was the stuff that highlighted Cambridge of those days. Through a number of studentships and fellowships, he was able to spend time in Europe to work with Pauli in Zurich, with Fermi in Rome, with Kramers in Utrecht and with Neils Bohr in Copenhagen. This was the period when he became a theoretical physicist in the front rank: through the first calculations for electronpositron scattering, known after him as Bhabha Scattering; the Bhabha Heitler Cascade Theory, and the conclusion that the very penetrating particles, observed at ground level and underground, had to be of a mass, intermediate between the electron and the proton prediction of relativistic time dilatation effect in the measured lifetime of the meson; and much else. Homi Bhabha thus played a prominent role in the early history of the development of quantum electrodynamics and, later on, of meson theory following the work of Yukawa and others. In the fields in which he was engaged, he was right at the forefront. He had abilities in mathematics, which he could handle with great generality and with exactness. On the other hand, he was very close to experimental observations, and achieved great success in explaining these. Had he continued with his research in Europe or USA as he was then engaged on, I have no doubt that he would have won a Nobel Prize. In 1939, he returned to India on a short holiday. Because of the outbreak of the World War, he could not return to his research in Europe. He, therefore, accepted a position as a Reader in the Indian Institute of Science. There is the famous poem by Robert Frost The Road Not Taken which says: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both . . . . I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Indeed it did make a fantastic difference to India with his commitment to the growth of modern science in India, to developing the needed human resources over a wide range of the most advanced areas of science and technology and building institutions, administrative and management patterns and infrastructure to support all of this. India has cause to be grateful for the turn of events. In Bangalore his work was principally concerned with Cosmic Rays and Elementary Particles. On Cosmic Rays he continued his work on shower phenomena, particularly using powerful mathematical techniques, taking note of fluctuations from the mean. He and his colleagues worked on stochastic processes. He also did some experimental work by designing Geiger counter telescopes and flying them on American Air Force planes to measure the hard component of cosmic rays. In the area of theoretical physics, he worked principally on what is referred to as the Bhabha Equation. He dealt with the classical theory of point particles moving in the general field. While he was in Bangalore he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1941, at the age of 31; his name was proposed by C.V. Raman. It was while he was in Bangalore that he really established the great feeling of identity between himself and his country. He came to the realization that science and technology were key to the transformation of India to a developed country. He knew that knowledge through science, and its application through

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technology, would not only lead to economic prosperity but also social change. I am personally aware of the role he played in drafting the Scientific Policy Resolution which was introduced in Parliament by Jawaharlal th Nehru on 4 March, 1958 and expresses the various ways in which the nation can advance on the basis of knowledge gathered through science. It is a unique statement to have been adopted at the highest political level expressing the faith of a developing nation in science as the prime agent to bring about change. It represented the remarkable combination of the political vision of Jawaharlal Nehru and the practical vision of a brilliant engineer scientist. Homi expressed himself equally forcefully in his last public lecture, the invited talk he gave to the th International Scientific Union in Bombay on 7 January, 1966. This was shortly before he passed away. As he contemplated on these questions in Bangalore, the lack of adequate support for, and consequent shortcomings of science in India, impressed themselves on him. This was the motivation for his letter of August 1943 to Mr. J.R.D. Tata. He particularly appealed in this letter for the nurturing of pure or fundamental research. Encouraged by a positive response from Mr. Tata, Homi Bhabha wrote a formal proposal to Sir Sorab Saklatwalla, Chairman of Sir Dorab Tata Trust, in which he proposed the setting up of an institution, which has since become the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. It was in this letter that he said: Moreover, when nuclear energy has been successfully applied for power production, in say a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for its experts but will find them ready at hand. This was his vision of abundant economic nuclear power, which he felt was so vital for the development of India. I would like you to remember that this was written by one sitting in Bangalore in 1944; this letter was written more than a year before Hiroshima; the work on the atom bomb was being carried out with the greatest secrecy in the West; the only knowledge Homi Bhabha had was that nuclear fission had been discovered. I have had long discussions with Homi on what caused him to make such a prophetic statement. He said that he had become aware of the fact that the greatest of the nuclear physicists of the world were not publishing in recognized journals. He knew through friends that while some of them, like Lord Blackett, were working on the war front, on different aspects, many others seemed to have gone into hiding. He knew intuitively that they would all be working on releasing, through the relationship between mass and energy, the enormous stored energy in the nucleus. He had second guessed the possibility of Manhattan project. The story of development of atomic energy in India has been recorded in many different places. Its success was essentially because of close relationship between an enormously capable, clear sighted, tenacious and ambitious individual that was Homi Bhabha; and his friendship with the most powerful and charismatic figure of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he addressed as Bhai. A Board of Research on Atomic Energy was constituted with Bhabha as Chairman, and as part of CSIR, soon after Independence. He was clear that the field of atomic energy would call for international collaboration, as also a great deal of confidentiality. He felt that this could not be done under the auspices of CSIR or of a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which was then being proposed. He also did not want to be burdened with potentially argumentative individuals like Megh Nad Saha. Through Nehrus intervention, and JRD Tatas support, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust provided the wherewithal to M.N. Saha to build a cyclotron. Through Homis persuasion, Nehru piloted in Parliament the Atomic Energy Bill, creating the Atomic Energy Commission with Bhabha as Chairman. He later established a separate Ministry of Atomic Energy in August 1954, charged solely with the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Bhabha was appointed Secretary to this Ministry. Shortly before then, the AEC had decided to build a large establishment at Trombay, initially called the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay, which has been renamed after Bhabhas death as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. He had the headquarters of AEC and DAE located in Bombay on the grounds that the basic capabilities for the field lay at TIFR and AEET and the Department needed to be close to these. This example was followed, in less than two decades thereafter, where the Department of Space was set up, with its headquarters in Bangalore, closer to the great centers for Space Research and Technology in India. Bhabha sent huge numbers of scientists for training abroad in the initial stages. These, after returning, became the trainers for the new generation, for which a training school was set up. He used his personal
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influence and friendship with individuals like Cockcroft, W.B. Lewis, Glenn Seaborg, Francis Perrin, and many others; not for anything personal, but to benefit the program he had in mind for India. He was able to develop capabilities that covered the complete nuclear fuel cycle from prospecting for uranium, purification of nuclear materials, design and fabrication of reactors and their components, going on to the building of reactors from the first Apsara research reactor to power reactors of Indian design, handling of fuel rods and the extraction of highly radio active material from them, and in defining the three stage program which is the basis for Indias thrust at the moment. He also envisaged the applications of nuclear technologies in agriculture, food preservation, nuclear medicine, in material science and much else. Great capabilities and infrastructure was set up in each of these. In all of this, by his single-handed effort, in the incredibly short space of two decades, he converted his visions of the mid-forties to realities. He staked his entire reputation to achieve the most difficult tasks, and set up new traditions in administration, attitude and relationships among those concerned. For me, there are many personal reminiscences and memories over the short period of a decade that I intensely interacted with him. All I can conclude is that it was my good fortune to have known him as closely as I did; and to see the motivation that drove him restlessly to work with an urgency that had to be seen to be believed.

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Dr. Homi Bhabha with Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru

Dr. Homi Bhabha briefing the then Prime Minister Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri at Uranium Metal Plant, AEET. Also seen at rear is Dr. Raja Ramanna

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About the Author

Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Former Director, TIFR, Mumbai

Professor M.G.K. Menon is presently Advisor in the Department of Space/Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and President, India International Center, New Delhi. He is the President of Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, and Chancellor, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. Prof. Menon took his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, UK in 1953. He is Honorary Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Rome (1981), Honorary Fellow of The Institute of Physics UK (1997), a Founding Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences. He was President of the International Council of Scientific Unions (1988-93). Prof. Menon has been a recipient of many awards including those given by the President of India: Padma Shri in 1961; Padma Bhushan in 1968; and Padma Vibhushan in 1985. Prof. Menon has been Director of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay (1966-1975), and Secretary to the Government of India for 12 years (1971 - 1982). He was Member of the Planning Commission with the rank of Minister of State (1982-1989); Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister (1986-1989) and Chairman of the Science Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (1982-1985); Minister for Science & Technology, as also for Education in the Government of India; Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) during 1990-96.

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Dr. Vikram Sarabhai

Chairman, AEC, India (1966-1971)

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai (1919-1971) founding father of the Indian Space programme, continues to be the driving force behind all initiatives of ISRO. His memory remains evergreen in Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), inspiring the space community, to make more and more tangible contributions to societal applications. Vikram Sarabhai was a great living legend and a fountain of inspiration. Every event connected with him has a special significance for those who had the privilege of working with him. VSSC was his most favourite Karmabhumi, as may be deduced from many facts: he was the chief of a vast network of supercharged establishments all over India, some of them were engaged in the strategic areas of atomic energy and space research. It was not his wont to sit in his office and direct people to come in and present their progress report. Instead, he visited all the places of work under his charge as he wanted to interact directly with them. Notwithstanding his continuous travel to attend numerous international forums, he visited VSSC at least once a month and put in not less than 18 hours of work per day during a visit. Nonetheless, after every visit he reportedly told those extremely close to him that more than any other place here he felt mentally and bodily refreshed. Remarkably, the personnel here felt immeasurably inspired and began to look forward to his next visit. Such was the alchemy of mutual attachment between him and VSSC, named after his untimely death. Dr. Sarabhai was a keen detector of systemic deficiencies which impeded development and growth. In order to overcome the deficiencies, he built up appropriate institutions in an impressive variety of fields, to generate life enhancing skills and knowledge. For instance he founded and nurtured the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, for providing budding scientists a rare congenial environment. Having imbued his characteristic into PRL, he could trust it to be the caring nurse maid of the space program. Similarly, he founded the Ahmedabad Textile Industrys Research Association, AITRA, with the objective of improving the technology and management system in textile industry. Also he founded and nurtured Indian Institute of Management, IIM, Ahmedabad with the objective of developing modern education and research in the field of management. So did he set up the Community Science Centre, Darpan Academy for performing Arts, Nehru Foundation for Development, and a host of other institutions, all at Ahmedabad. Also he set up the Operations Research Group at Baroda. Setting up of similar institutions elsewhere in the country in subsequent years is proof of the appeal that these institutes evoked as well as of the strength of his concepts. Thus, he was a pioneer in institution building, besides being a role model. Attending to the needs of industry, education and research was his vocation, but getting rid of the backwardness in the basic infrastructure of India by harnessing modern science and technology was his passion. His vision was to develop space technology, which enabled services in the basic areas like, telecommunication, mass communication, weather observation and forecasting and remote sensing of the resources on earth. He was confident that the space technology route is both cost and time effective. He was sure that the country could leap-frog, skipping safely some of the steps trodden by the developed countries. This way India could save precious time and scarce resources.

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There were several approaches to achieve this result. Some countries like Indonesia bought and installed communication satellites and ground stations to establish satellite communication services. But, he was clear that this route will not satisfy the needs of the vast country like India, neither will this buy and operate mode be sustainable under the prevailing financial stringencies. Also, there will be an inevitable time gap between new developments and their availability in the country. Further, he was aware of the multitude of human resources in the country waiting to take on challenges. He had faith in them and would trust them to achieve self reliance in the entire spectrum of space technology, namely satellites, ground stations, application techniques, and satellite launch vehicles. Matching the breadth of his vision, he conceived the institutions needed to be built, the human resources to be organized and the work culture to be cultivated. He gave a time-line to the country by outlining profiles of the varied space systems to be deployed during a decade. Thus he earned the legitimate appellation, Father of Indias Space Programme. In order to instill confidence, he arranged to demonstrate the technological feasibility of direct to home television, which was still under validation even in the developed countries. He managed to borrow from NASA the ATS-F satellite, in geo-synchronous orbit for a period of one year. This made possible the holding of the path breaking experiment, SITE, Satellite Instructional Television Experiment. While the American satellite was moved for one year in its synchronous orbit to a location suitable for direct-reception by TV receivers in India, the TV sets employing advanced technology were developed and produced in India. About 1800 such TV sets were placed in the most inaccessible villages, located in six relatively more backward regions of India. SITE covered all aspects of development communication. It was a mix of a well designed experiment in arousing social consciousness, mounting successfully indigenous technological and managerial efforts and collaborative utilization of space assets of other countries. It was characteristic of Dr. Sarabhai to visualize all essential aspects of a program, and derive the maximum possible benefits. Similar demonstration of the technological prowess of satellite communication to interlink the country took place under Projects STEP with the use of a Franco-German satellite, SYMPHONY, and participation of the communication establishment of the country. Only doubts in the minds of some were about the reliability and longevity of satellites and thereby about their services. Dr. Sarabhai was aware of such valid apprehensions. He was confident that the self-reliance route will enable timely replacement of the ageing satellites in service and concurrently modernize them steadily, at affordable cost, thus ensuring uninterrupted and ever improving services. He sought to achieve self-reliance through a strong and growing organization to meet the technological and managerial challenges. His action was to form the Indian space organization and set up an impressive array of cohesive and coherent R&D Centers. These centers would specialize in a wide variety of disciplines encompassing space science and technology. In this context, he set up TERLS, SSTC, RFF, RPP, SHAR, ESCES, ESD, MASEG and DECU. Dr. Sarabhai had an uncommon faith in the abundance in our country of intellectual capabilities, resourcefulness and dedicated individuals, as already mentioned. Of course, there were some skeptics, who were over awed by the esoteric nature of the required technologies, complexity of the systems to be built, and the utter lack of commensurate industrial infrastructure. They also cited the absence of institutional role models in achieving such tasks. Even the academic community in the country was unfamiliar with the fast emerging disciplines which comprised space science and technology. So, they suggested outright import of needed space systems, and set up the services, to be operated at best by Indians. This is what the country had been doing in the fields like Civil Aviation, and most of the defense equipments. But, such skepticism did not deter Dr. Sarabhai from aiming at self-reliance. Secondly, in his quest for self reliance, Dr. Sarabhai was keen on collaboration with academics, R&D laboratories and industry in India. He recognized several benefits in tapping the existing intellectual, technological and manufacturing apparatus in the country outside ISRO. He worked to enlarge the pool of specialists, sophisticated facilities and manufacturing professionals in the country, whose area of work may have contiguity with space and technology. Due to their association with a vigorous and wide ranging space program of the country, they may be motivated to grow their expertise in fields relevant to the space program and contribute to the program by their independent critical reviews and research. Thus, a number of eminent professors of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the various Indian Institutes of technology and other premier academic institutions have since contributed significantly. A variety of special facilities,
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such as, wind tunnels, precision machine shops, special alloys production facilities, miniature electronic assembly shops became available to the space programme, without requiring huge investments, and within stipulated time frame from scarce resources. Indeed this association actuated by national interest has had a clear resource multiplier effect as envisoned by Dr. Sarabhai. He did not miss any opportunity to build up all-round capabilities of his colleagues to face challenges. He entrusted responsibility unhesitatingly to uninitiated persons provided they were of the self -generating type. The self -generating type requires to be told only the objectives. They themselves figure out the total effort that is needed to achieve the objective. An opportunity arose for building satellite communication earth station at Arvi near Pune for international service. The initial plan was to award a turnkey contract to a foreign company. Instead, he intervened and undertook to build the station indigenously. He seized this rare opportunity to organize an Indian team, comprising members of his own colleagues and personnel from other institutions in the country. Dr. Sarabhai visualized that this was a challenging opportunity to put up to a far reaching use the training received by his team during setting up of ESCES, with financial help from the UN. Eventually, the station was built on schedule and the international body declared it to be one of the best of its kind. Later, that team designed and built a large number of Earth stations for the space programme. He had his own enlightened management concepts of entrusting responsibilities and enabling his team to succeed, which proved to be sound time and again in the conduct of the space programme. His sense of assigning responsibility was unorthodox. Towards setting up a Space Science and Technology Centre, first he assembled a Rocket Research and Development Group and named it the Rohini Group. In the Rohini Group, he formed divisions, such as, Aerodynamics, Propellant, Propulsion, Structures, Materials and Quality Control, Mechanical Engineering, Control Guidance and Instrumentation, Electronics, Systems and Computers, without identifying their areas of technical jurisdiction. He named the head of each Division, but left it to the creating interpretation of each Division Head to identify their area of work. He also allowed them to organize the Division, form sections and propose additional manpower, budgets and plan of activities. Dr. Sarabhai built up numerous institutions, worked tirelessly to nurture them and created in them enabling working environment. He tried to assemble in these institutions highly impressionable, creative and energetic persons, who turned out to be largely young and uninitiated in the fields specific to the areas of the new institutions. He enunciated the mission, but did not impose his ideas about the pathway to achieve it. He gave complete freedom to choose the pathway. They configured the systems to be developed and the approaches to be adopted to realize them. However, he insisted on considering more than one approach and subjecting each one of them to rigorous peer reviews.

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Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Shri V. N. Meckoni with the then Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi at CIRUS

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai with the then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi

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About the Author

Dr. S. C. Gupta, Former Director, VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram

Dr. Suresh Chandra Gupta (born 1934) had his education at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He joined Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in 1965. Dr.Gupta rose to become Director VSSC in 1985 after holding a number of important positions: Technical Coordinator, Rohini Group; Head of Control, Guidance and Instrumentation Division; Director, Avionics Group and Associate Director, VSSC. He was also a Member of Space Commission (1993-94). He was Dr. Bramha Prakash Distinguished Professor ISRO from March 1994 to February 1997. He received a number of prestigious awards, such as, the National Systems Awards-1975, Shri Hari Om Ashram Prerit Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Research Award-1979, SICO-NaSci Award-1989, VASVIK Research Award for Electrical Sciences and Technology-1990, Aryabhatta Award-1996 for lifetime contributions. [The article is based on Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Lecture delivered by Dr. S. C. Gupta former Director, VSSC in August 2008. Editor would like to acknowledge the help of Dr. K. Krishnamoorthy, VSSC, for providing the manuscript.]

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Dr. Homi N. Sethna

Chairman, AEC, India, (1972-1983)

Homi N. Sethna was the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1971 to 1983, the longest tenure for any chairman, after Dr. Bhabha. He has been one of the earliest pioneers of the Atomic Energy Programme in India with the greatest contribution, again only after Dr. Bhabha. He has the distinction of giving the country the capability to make the nuclear explosive device through the production of Plutonium. The period after the first Pokharan test in 1974 was very difficult in view of the sanctions imposed by the developed countries on supply of critical materials, components and equipments required for the programme. To continue with the progress of various projects in hand and even to sustain the on-going activities was indeed a challenging job. It was due to the leadership of Dr. Sethna, his personal relations with people at different levels in the country and abroad and his clear grasp of the problem and their solutions that the programme could make headway, although with some delays. He has been known as an eminent chemical engineer, an able administrator, a person with excellent project management skill, quick decision maker, one who always talks to the point and has confidence in himself and his colleagues. He obtained B.Sc.Tech. degree from the University Department of Chemical Technology (now UICT), Bombay University in 1944 and then M.S. from the University of Michigan, USA in 1946. He worked with the Imperial Chemical Industries in U.K. for some time. In 1949, on invitation from Dr. Bhabha, he joined the Atomic Energy Department. His first assignment was the setting up of the Rare Earth Plant at Alwaye, Kerala in 1952 for processing of monazite, to separate rare earths and thorium-uranium concentrate. This was followed by his setting up of the Plant at Trombay, Bombay in 1955 to produce thorium nitrate and a Uranium concentrate. The Uranium Metal Plant for producing uranium metal of nuclear purity was commissioned in 1959 under his supervision and guidance. This plant produced the material which after fabrication fuelled the research reactor (CIRUS). The spent fuel from this reactor was processed to produce plutonium, the core material for the nuclear explosive device. The Plutonium Plant to extract plutonium from the spent fuel, a technology considered very complex and developed by only five other countries, was commissioned in 1964. A uranium mill for processing low grade uranium ore available in Bihar (now Jharkhand) to obtain uranium concentrate was commissioned in 1966 in Jaduguda near Tatanagar. This plant supplied the basic fuel material for both the research reactors and the power reactors. The preliminary work on uranium enrichment studies was also initiated under his direction. All the above fuel cycle activities, including the development work on heavy water production processes and other isotopic separations, formed part of the Chemical Engineering Group of which Dr. Sethna was the Director, before he became Director, BARC after Dr. Bhabhas death. The Rocket Propellant Plant for the Space Programme was also set up at Thumba near Trivandrum by the Chemical Engineering Group. In view of his reputation for completing projects in time, he was also made Project Manager for the CIRUS reactor during part of the construction stage (1956-58). From 1966 to 1972 he was Director, BARC and during this period plan for the construction of another research reactor (DHRUVA), larger than CIRUS, was prepared. As mentioned earlier, during his chairmanship (1971-83), the Pokharan Test was conducted in 1974. Thereafter the nuclear power plant and other projects were delayed due to non-supply of materials and equipments by the Western Countries. However, this led to greater interaction between the local industry

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and the department and indigenous development of equipments and components got an impetus which proved to be a long term gain. My interaction with Dr. Sethna started from the first day of my joining the Uranium Metal Plant Team in 1956. On meeting him I found that he was also the Chairman of the Selection Committee which had interviewed me. This interaction continued for a long time, till his retirement as Chairman, AEC in 1983, and gave me the opportunity of knowing him as a professional as well as at the personal level and of observing his style of functioning. I am sure many others who worked closely with him would have similar observations. One distinct aspect of his personality was the handsome confidence he would repose in persons working with him. Once he had chosen a person for a particular job, he would give him full responsibility as well as complete freedom of action. Any matter which required Dr. Sethnas decision would never get delayed, provided the person seeking the decision was clear in his own mind about the matter. He had a remarkable grasp of a wide range of nuclear technology and general project engineering. Therefore, a person engaging in a Technical discussion with him had to be thorough and should have done adequate home work. He was gifted with a sharp memory. He would not like people to beat about the bush. He believed in hitting the nail on the head straight away. Meetings and discussions with him were never long drawn out. He was very punctual. Even at airports he would reach one hour before the departure of the flight. He would fully protect people, if they made genuine mistakes during their work, provided they did not try to hide things. It was a pleasure to work with him for those who could understand him.

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Dr. H. N. Sethna, Dr. R. Ramanna, Dr. P. K. Iyengar, Dr. R. Chidambaram at press conference on Pokharan-I, at Old Yacht Club (May 20, 1974)

Dr. H. N. Sethna with the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at BARC

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About the Author

Shri R. K.Garg, Former Director, Chemical Engineering Group, BARC

Shri R.K.Garg was born in 1930. He did his M.Sc. Tech from Punjab University in 1952 and Special Graduate Course at University of Missouri Rolla (USA) under IAEA fellowship in 1963-64. He was the Director of Chemical Engineering Group, BARC till 1986 and later held important positions, such as, Chairman and managing Director, IRE Ltd (1986-1990), Director UCIL (1971-1990), Chairman, Environmental Appraisal Committee (Industries) Ministry of Environment, Govt. of India (1990-1992), Member Environmental Research Committee, Ministry of Environment, Govt. of India (1994-1996). He continues to hold important positions, including, Chairman, Armament Research Board, DRDO, Ministry of Defence, Chairman, Advisory Committee for Project safety review, AERB, Chairman, registration Committee, central Pollution Control Board, etc. He is a fellow of national Academy of Engineers as well as Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers and is President Emeritus, national Solid waste Association of India.

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Dr. Raja Ramanna

Chairman, AEC, India (1983-1987)

In the passing away of Dr. Raja Ramanna on September 24, 2004, India lost one of its most eminent nuclear scientists. Being his Ph.D student and having had a close scientific and personal association with him for more than four decades, it is still very painful for me to accept the fact that Dr. Ramanna is no more amongst us. It was just about ten days before his death, when he had called me on phone to ask me to send him some overhead projections relating to his research interests in the areas of nuclear fission, heavy- ion reactions and super-heavy nuclei. When I asked him the purpose, he said he was planning to give lectures to students and research scholars to convey to them the excitement of basic research. He added that it is important that we motivate our young talents to opt for careers in the pursuit of science and technology. Dr.Ramanna was always concerned about how to attract the best talents to pursue research and development in science and technology. He truly believed that the most important input for our scientific progress is the quality of the manpower engaged in the research and development work. He himself had a great passion for basic research; so much so that he strenuously attempted to find time to pursue his own research interests, even while effectively shouldering the great responsibilities of scientific administration which go with the top positions he occupied in our Department of Atomic Energy . Soon after commissioning of our first reactor, Apsara in 1956, he had initiated and led the basic research in nuclear fission using reactor neutron beams from this reactor and also later from the Cirus reactor in the areas which were very contemporary in those days. I was fortunate to join his research group in 1959 after passing from the training school. A gridded ionization chamber-cum-scintillation detector system with 2pi detection capabilities of fission fragments enabled us to compete with similar research programs being pursued by scientists in USA and Europe, who had the benefit of having stronger fission sources. Dr.Ramanna had earlier done his Ph.D. work at Kings College London on a new kind of ion chamber which could measure not only energy of a nuclear particle but also its angle with respect to the chambers electric field direction. He had started his research program at Apsara based on this new technique coming from his Ph.D. work. Thus our research work during the sixties on prompt neutrons and gamma rays and also on occasionally emitted alpha particles in fission, which was carried out under his guidance by further developing this technique, had already put India in those early years on the world map in nuclear fission research. At that time if we could not only compete but even publish ahead of the other laboratories having better resources, it was mostly due to the ingenious experimental techniques involving gas detectors developed under his guidance and also the drive and motivation which he provided to his team. Often on holidays, he would pick us up to bring to Trombay in his official car. He always encouraged open and critical scientific discussions without any inhibitions with respect to hierarchy. In those early days, when some eminent scientist accompanying him, together with Dr. Bhabha, was being taken around the various experiments at the Apsara reactor, Dr Ramanna , always eager to project his students, would often ask me to explain what we were doing. He indeed knew how to encourage and motivate his young co-workers. His very presence was a source of great inspiration. Dr Ramanna had started his research career from TIFR and together with holding important other positions in the DAE, he continued to be a professor at TIFR till the end. In the early sixties he had utilized
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the 1MV Cascade Generator that had been set up by his group in the premises of the new TIFR campus at Colaba. With this machine, Ramanna and his group studied slowing down of neutrons and its diffusion in water and beryllium oxide. He also led a program to study occasionally emitted long range alpha particles in 14 MeV neutron induced fission using this accelerator. When the 5.5MV Van de Graaff accelerator was installed and commissioned at Trombay in 1962, he led challenging experiments to study correlations between fragment mass - asymmetry and anisotropy in the 4 MeV neutron induced fission of U-235, using the novel ion chamber techniques. While pursuing this work, he became deeply interested in the mechanism of the fission process responsible for the asymmetric mass distribution. He tried to understand this complex mechanism by choosing a line away from the beaten track. In the sixties, while reading Prof. S. Chandrasekhars paper on Random Walk, he applied those ideas to have a completely original approach to understand mass distributions in nuclear fission on the basis of Markovian process of nucleon exchanges between the two nascent nuclei evolving from saddle-to-scission in fission. This approach to understand the mechanism of nuclear fission was totally unconventional and new. When he wrote to Prof. Eugene.P.Wigner about this work, Prof. Wigner had replied with the comment that we should also see this nucleon exchange process in heavy-ion reactions and some years later when several heavy-ion accelerators became operational in the laboratories around the world, this process of nucleon exchanges between the two colliding heavy ions at medium energies indeed became an important subject of study. In India, the first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) was carried out in 1974 when Dr. Raja Ramanna was the Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and his pivotal role in this work is a common knowledge now. He had provided direct leadership also to so many of other important programs in nuclear science and technology, be it related to the Kolkata cyclotron Centre, DHRUVA reactor at BARC, Indira Gandhi Centre of Atomic Research (IGCAR), or the Centre for Advanced Technology at Indore, now renamed in his honor as Raja Ramanna Centre of Advanced Technology (RRCAT). About RRCAT, he often said that his vision was to see this centre grow in accelerator facilities to become like CERN for this part of the globe. It is now well realized that a concrete way of achieving the scientific manpower development in DAE came about by the setting up of the DAE training school in 1958, under the leadership of Dr.Ramanna. Over the last 50 years of the DAE training school, the school has produced more than 6000 scientists and engineers who have served as the core of the scientific manpower of the department. Raja Ramanna was born on 28th January 1925, in Tumkar, Karnataka, and his autobiography Year of Pilgrimage (Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1991) gives a vivid account of his life, particularly of early years. In the biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy, Vol. 28, Professor B.V.Sreekanthan, former Director, TIFR, has written on Dr. Raja Ramanna in more detail and I quote below a few selected lines from his write-up: Raja Ramanna was a rare combination of a scientist, technologist, administrator, philosopher, musician and musicologist who played a dominant role for over 5 decades in the advancement of science and technology in the post-independence era of India. His genial temperament, very positive and helpful attitude, extreme transparency in dealings made every one comfortable to interact with him both at professional and personal levels. He was a Colossus in terms of achievements, but very simple and modest in his daily life. A glance through the publication list of Dr. Ramannas research papers, books, convocation addresses, interviews, shows the versatile character of his involvement in science, technology, administration, politics, public welfare, sanskrit, music, spirituality and philosophy Dr. Ramanna held many important positions. He was Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai (1972-1978; 1981-1983), Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary to the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India (1983-1988), Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence, Director General, Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), Government of India (1978-82), President, Indian National Science Academy (INSA) (1977-1978), Minister of State for Defence, Government of India, (January-November 1990), Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha (August 1997-August 2003), Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore (August 1987-December 1989, December 1990-June 1997). He was decorated with many awards including Shantiswarup Bhatnagar Memorial Award (1963), Padma Shri (1973) Padma Bhushan (1983) and Padma Vibhushan (1995). The best tribute which we can pay to his memory is to strive hard to follow his footsteps to continue to excel in the field of nuclear science and technology with emphasis on achieving self-reliance in this important field.
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Dr. Raja Ramanna, with the then Prime Minister, Smt. Indira Gandhi at BARC

Dr. Raja Ramanna and Dr. P. K. Iyengar with the then Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi at VECC

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About the Author

Dr. S.S. Kapoor, Former Director, Physics and Electronics & Instrumentation Groups, BARC
Prof. S. S. Kapoor retired as Director, Physics and Electronics & Instrumentation Groups, BARC, in June, 2000 and later occupied the prestigious chair of DAE -Homi Bhabha Professorship at BARC. Presently from July, 2008, he is Emeritus INSA Honorary Scientist. He has a large number of publications in reputed international journals on his research work in nuclear physics covering areas of nuclear fission, heavy ion physics, accelerators and detectors. He has also co-authored a book on Nuclear Radiation Detectors. As Project Director, he was responsible for setting up of the BARC-TIFR nuclear physics facility based on 14 MV tandem Van de Graaff (Pelletron) accelerator at TIFR for research with accelerated heavy- ion beams, which has grown to become a major centre for heavy - ion based research in India, since its commissioning in 1989. He was the chairman of the co-ordination committee, which has worked out a road-map for the development of Accelerator Driven Reactor Systems with respect to the nuclear energy programs in the country. An internationally renowned nuclear physicist, he is recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Physical Sciences in the year 1983 for his outstanding contributions to physical sciences. He was also awarded the Goyal Prize for the year 1996 for his pioneering work in Nuclear Physics. He is a fellow of all three National Science Academies.

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Dr. M.R. Srinivasan

Chairman, AEC, India (1987-1990)

Dr. M.R. Srinivasan, recipient of Padma Bhushan award for his immense contributions to nuclear science and technology was born in 1930 in Bangalore. He retired as Chairman Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary Department of Atomic Energy in 1990 as one of the towering personalities who ably guided Indian Nuclear Programme. Post retirement he has been inspired by his family and friends to pen down his experience. Compilation of his papers and experience have been published in the form of three books. He was member planning commission from 1996 to 1998. He played crucial role during three years of politically and technically exciting but tense period of Indo-US nuclear deal. Presently at the age of 78 he is member AEC, DAE. He is keenly interested in sports and nature. That perhaps explains the decision to settle in Ootacamund in Nilgiris in 1992. His father Mr. M.S. Ramaswamy was a school teacher. His early education was in schools in Bangalore, Madhurigi, Mandya and Mysore where he studied in famous Maharajas High School. The outstanding teaching faculty of the school instilled in him the desire to pursue excellence. On completion of his schooling with a high first class, he joined the Intermediate College, Mysore in science stream. He also elected to study English and Sanskrit. This proved to be very useful in later years of professional career when he demonstrated tremendous and unparallel command in English language in all its forms. I experienced it myself in early eighties when I was asked to write a draft of a keynote address on Material Problems in Nuclear Power Plant. As I did not receive any briefing to the extent of coverage, I produced a draft running into several typed sheets. My boss Mr. S.K. Chatterjee, Head Nuclear Design, had a quick look at the draft and decided we should meet Dr. M.R. Srinivasan, who was Deputy Director, PPED at that time. There was a mixed reaction from him. He used the draft to produce a wonderful handwritten presentation overnight that left a lasting impression on me about the nuances of writing a good technical paper with focus, good flow of language and continuity. During his college days he not only excelled in studies but also took keen interest in sports. Second year of his intermediate college he completed from Bangalore as his father was transferred there. Though his first love was physics, he deferred to the wishes of his elders and joined Engineering College started by that eminent son of Mysore State Dr. M. Visvesvarya. He chose mechanical engineering as his subject. He was amongst the best students in the college and received merit scholarships and also an endowment scholarship. Scholarship amounts were small, but he was thrilled with the thought that he was of help to his father who was burdened with bringing up a large family. He completed the Engineering Degree in 1950 securing various distinctions. During the final year of his college his interest was kindled to do his post graduation studies in gas turbines. He was sponsored for a scholarship under the Colombo Plan for studying at the McGill University in Canada. For the Master of Engineering Programme, he took course in Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Applied Mathematics, etc. He received his first exposure to nuclear science and technology at this college before he got engrossed in the Gas Dynamics Laboratory. His interaction with students of different nationalities and the requirements to design, fabricate and set up experimental facility, gave an all round development to his personality. Apart from spending long hours in the laboratory, he also indulged in tennis and badminton during spare time. His interest in sporting activities and cricket was also prominent and visible during his professional carrier; so
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much so that from his busy and long schedule of running PPED, he would get time to enquire about cricket score of an on-going test match. In late seventies I used to be his cricket correspondent also. There was nothing official about it! After completion of his masters degree in a period of one year or so, he was offered a research fellowship which enabled him to work for a doctorate. He completed his thesis and received the doctoral degree in September 1954. His thesis was rated Magna cum Laude. He had started working at Ruston & Hornsby in UK, when he was picked up by Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, Chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Bhabha was looking for young Indian Scientists and Engineers to join his newly created organization. He joined the department as Senior Research Officer in September 1955. He was immediately deputed to UK Atomic Energy Authority for an international course in reactor technology at Harwell. His first assignment with DAE on completion of training course was to work with the group responsible for the construction of first research reactor of Swimming Pool Type - later named as Apsara. In 1959 a project group was constituted for setting up our first nuclear power plant. He was appointed as the Principal Project Engineer. He very nostalgically narrated his experiences of site selection for this project during one of his road journeys to Tarapur when as a Director of NPCIL, I was escorting him for a function. Tarapur was one of the potential sites. He and M.N.Chakraborty, Head of the Group, made a reconnaissance visit and set off to Tarapur by road. Manor-Palghar stretch with middle hump posed a hazard to engine crack case. Eventually there was an oil leak and the car packed off. It was monsoon time and in that lonely stretch, they received help with great difficulty. From Tarapur, that is the ancestral home of Dr. Bhabha to the site near the light house, they had to use a bullock cart as it was the only way to reach destination. Tarapur was eventually selected as the site for our first nuclear power station as it fulfilled all the expectations and requirements. It was a revelation to learn that our first project did not have a foreign consultant from supplier country as was customary for new countries to appoint such a consultant to assist in the formulation of plant specifications, review of bids and in contract negotiations. It was because of immense initiative shown by this group and Dr. Bhabha reposing faith in their abilities to take up these challenges. He always backed them to the hilt. A contract with General Electric Company was finalized for setting up two Boiling Water Reactor type nuclear power plants of 210 MWe each. This was one of the largest single contracts entered into by India with any country at that time. Dr. Srinivasan met Geetha in 1961 on one of his visits to Bangalore. They got married in 1962 and have two bright and lovely children - Son Raghuvir was born on December 10, 1963 and daughter Shardha was born on January 16, 1966. In early eighties, when I was General Secretary of PPED Staff Club, Shardha gave a scintillating dance performance during an annual function. Dr. Srinivasan continues to enjoy a happy and healthy family life. In early 1967, he was appointed as the Chief Construction Engineer of Madras Atomic Power Project. It was the first indigenously designed Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor based on CANDU technology. The construction work at the power station involved many new and challenging techniques in civil engineering. A circular diaphragm wall as a cut off for ground water was built for the first time. The reactor building in pre-stressed concrete was the first such construction. Then there was this underground tunnel 150 feet below the ground to draw sea water for cooling the condenser. In a true Swadeshi spirit all these challenging tasks were performed by Indian Construction Companies. In 1973, the then Chairman of AEC, Dr. H.N. Sethna asked him to take up new position of Deputy Director, PPED. He moved to PPED, Mumbai in temporary sheds near TIFR Complex. Till that time he always considered that design and procurement hub at PPED, Mumbai was responsible for the delays in supply of materials that eventually got translated into overall delays in the project. It took him time to settle down and appreciate the difficulties of PPED Engineers who were most of the time tied down by bureaucratic procedures. He was made Director, PPED in 1974. Dr. Srinivasan never hesitated in giving the credit where it was due. In 1981, when I was heading Reactor Auxiliaries Section, a suggestion came from the highest authority to reduce perennial heavy water losses from our operating unit. I was asked to examine the suggestion. Since the studies involved principles of Chemical Engineering, I was taken to Dr. H.N. Sethna to explain the techno-economic relationships. I being a small log in the big wheel was apprehensive about facing the top boss. But Dr. Srinivasan provided me with support and courage to meet Dr. Sethna. I must admit the meeting turned out to be the most fruitful of my career which appeared crumbling to me at

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that time. On another occasion, when a senior of mine was explaining a proposal to Dr. M.R. Srinivasan on a subject I had developed some expertise, I intervened to make some improvements. Dr. Srinivasan got very angry and minced no words in giving me a piece of his mind. Though eventually my suggestions proved useful, I learnt a lesson of my life - never speak out-of-turn. Dr. Srinivasan, once convinced about the merit of a proposal, supported you to the hilt even when some of his colleagues may be having different opinion. In late seventies I had acquired some good knowledge about behavior of materials, corrosion problem and selection of materials for our nuclear power plants. I was asked to examine the need of Condensate Polishing Plant (CPP) for Madras Atomic Power Station based on techno-economic analysis. A CPP was considered essential for condensers cooled by sea-water. Based on an innovative approach for which I received lot of inputs from my colleagues, it was established that introduction of Condensate Polishing Plant is not only feasible but also a sound technical solution for long term economic benefits. The high cost proposal was reviewed by experts in the field. When the D-day came for giving final clearance to the proposal, the key-opponent of the proposal did not turn-up for the meeting chaired by Dr. Srinivasan. But he proceeded with the discussions and review as planned and the gathering gave its consent to implement the scheme. In hind-sight the scheme has been found to be very useful to manage sea water leaks through condenser tubes. In early 1987, Dr. Srinivasan was given the reign of DAE upon the retirement of Dr. Raja Ramanna. It was a difficult period for the nuclear industry in general because of the nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986. No other activity had shaken the public faith in nuclear power more than this accident. His main task was to restore public acceptance and faith. He is reported to have ushered in an era of glasnost in atomic energy affairs. He hastened the process of setting up Nuclear Power Corporation for giving momentum to the first stage of Indian Nuclear Power Programme which was on course to achieving maturity. He was appointed the first Chairman of the corporation when it was set-up on September 17, 1987. Dr. Srinivasan finished his formal association with atomic energy family in February 1990. He can claim to have had a highly satisfying and record breaking career of planning and executing eighteen nuclear reactors in all. Seven of these were operating, seven were under construction and four more reactors were in the planning phase. In 1984, he was awarded Padma Shri by President of India, Zail Singh. He was decorated with Padma Bhushan by President R. Venkataraman in 1990. He served as an advisor on energy and environment to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1990 to 1992. He was appointed member of planning commission from 1996 to 1998. Dr. Srinivasan has led a very active post retirement life. When he was not busy in answering the call from Government of India as member, planning commission, he was busy in lecturing and more importantly writing his memoirs. He wrote the story of Indian Atomic Energy Programme in his famous book From Fission to Fusion. The book was first published by Penguin Books India in 2002 and reprinted by NPCIL in 2008. The book presents the story of Indian Nuclear Power Programme through all its tribulations, hurdles and glory and tries to give credit where it is due. Dr. Srinivasan was very active from 2005-2008 in presenting his views to Secretary, DAE as well as PMO on now famous Indo-US Nuclear deal. He was always supportive of the deal which eventually emerged the winner and a defining moment in the history of Indian Nuclear Power Program. It opened the gates of nuclear commerce between India and the rest of the world after more than three decades of technology denial and nuclear isolation. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, the then Chairman of AEC and Secretary DAE received moral, technical support from many illustrated luminaries of DAE. Dr. Srinivasan was always in the forefront in supporting the deal. Even at the age of eighty when most will hang their professional tools, he continues to lead a professionally and physically active life. I saw him in full zeal and action during INSAC-2008 conference organized by Indian Nuclear Society from 24 to 26 November 2008. His association with Department of Atomic Energy is continuing. Today he is a member of AEC, DAE. I express my humble salute to this ever green personality of Indian Atomic Energy Establishment and nuclear power programme.

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Dr. M.R. Srinivasan with Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Prof. Virendra Singh and Dr. S.S. Kapoor, at TIFR during the inauguration of Pelletron accelerator.

Dr. M.R. Srinivasan and Shri K.S.N. Murthy with the then Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi at MAPS

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About the Author

Shri P. D. Sharma, Former Sr. Ex. Director, NPCIL, Mumbai

Shri. P.D. Sharma retired from NPCIL in 2005 as Distinguished Scientist and Senior Executive Director (Projects and Procurement). During his long and meritorious career of nearly 36 years he held various positions in design, procurement, safety review, project execution and commissioning of PHWR based nuclear power plants. He was a key member of the engineering team constituted to design First-of-its-kind 500 MWe PHWR from its inception. Project was also executed under his guidance, which set a record of achieving criticality in less than 5 years in March 2005. He made significant contributions in the en-masse coolant channel replacement at RAPP-2 and helped in completion of the project ahead of schedule for which he was given award by NPCIL. Internationally he has carried out expert missions for IAEA; been consultant to them for writing TECDOC on infrastructure requirements. Mr.Sharma is a Fellow of Indian Institution of Engineers. He was advisor to Larsen & Toubro and Sargent & Lundy till recently.

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Dr. P. K. Iyengar
Chariman, AEC, India (1990-1993)

My Mentor, Padmanabha Krishnagopal Iyengar, started his scientific career as a young Research Assistant at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in 1952 when he was about twenty years. He retired from his formal scientific, technical, administrative career in 1993 as Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission. He was the first Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission who was entirely trained within the country, except for a short stint of eighteen months with B.N. Brockhouse at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories in Canada. Indigenisation of the atomic energy programme started by Dr. Bhabha in the fifties was, in a way, completed with his becoming the Chairman, AEC. That this article was written in the centenary year of one of the great sons of India, Homi Jehangir Bhabha, is truly appropriate since Bhabha was young Krishnagopals motivator and inspiration. Looking back, I have a feeling that this was because the values which were dear to Iyengar in a semi-conscious or latent way were externalized and confirmed by HJB. Love of ones country, need for confidence in oneself and conviction in the ways in which basic science plays out in nature were all common traits of the two. In an interview he gave to the news paper HINDU he said this about Bhabha, He was more Indian than any Indian I have seen, confident of Indian culture and Indian spirit. This applies to Dr. Iyengar aptly. In his talk on the occasion of his retirement from the Chairmanship of Atomic Energy Commission he has adduced to the early part of his life. Born in 1931 he went through schooling at a time when our independence movement was at its peak. I, some six years younger, have felt the atmosphere at that time which crept into the lives of people in Banaras Hindu University. They were charged with an indescribable, indeed unimaginable, national feeling and urge to accomplish something - anything - in the cause of India. No one was untouched by the atmosphere pervading the whole country. Around 1940 he read a book by a congressman from Chennai, which left a deep impression on his mind. The book said, The dhotis I wear are made of Indian cotton, but manufactured in Manchester; the pencil with which I write is made in Germany; the needle with which my wife sews clothes is made in Birmingham; the bicycle I ride is manufactured in England; the books I read are printed in Oxford and Cambridge; the kerosene lamp which I use for light is made in Sheffield and the glass comes from Belgium. Iyengars talk continues by saying that these striking facts are the result of colonial rule for over two hundred years. Inspite of India having had a civilisation with excellent technology, whether in producing muslin cloth or huge lamp posts in the temples (deepastambams), by systematic policy the colonial government had reduced society to depend on foreign manufactured goods even for day-to-day requirements and thus destroyed the local economy . fascination for foreign goods resulted in the inhibition of creativity and consequently in a continuous dependence on foreign technology, goods and even methodology, which exists even today. Gandhian insistence on self-sufficient village-style life and this utter dependence on foreign goods and technology made Iyengar come to believe that if India has to survive, it has to provide for itself through its own science and technology. Krishnagopal passed his M.Sc in Physics (1952) from Trivendrum (now Thiruvananthapuram) and immediately thereafter got an appointment as a Research Assistant at TIFR. The appointment letter, unlike the terse ones which one normally received from government offices (laboratories included) was a friendly one in tone and made his friend remark, this must be a very different kind of institution to have written such
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an inviting appointment letter, even though you are just a raw university graduate. Iyengar attributes this to Bhabhas eagerness to attract the best talent for science and one of Bhabhas ways of showing confidence in his coworkers, which, in turn, enthused them in their work. My personal experience is that Raja Ramanna and P.K.Iyengar had similar characteristics. They had this common trait of standing by their colleagues even while standing up to their critique and scrutiny in scientific and technical matters. This, to my mind, is somewhat a western trait which often does not exist in our feudal minded universities and laboratories. Iyengar started his career as a Research Assistant in Dr. Ramannas Group at TIFR, Bombay. A 1million-volt Cockroft-Walton accelerator had been installed at the Institute, which then existed in old military barracks by the Arabian Sea at the southern tip of Bombay in the Naval area. The new TIFR building had still not started to be built. This is where he got his initial training in detection of nuclear radiation and in building electronics required for counting nuclear particles and in fabricating pulse-height and time analyser for measurement of slowing down of 14 MeV neutrons in different media. This period of about five years of learning and experimentation instilled in him a style of working which became a part of his personality in years to come. Apsara, Indias first nuclear reactor became critical on Saturday, August 4, 1956. The neutron measurements at TIFR were a preparation for the utilisation of neutrons from Apsara. However, even before the criticality of Apsara India had signed an agreement with Canada for building a bigger reactor at Trombay similar to their NRX reactor at Chalk River, Canada. A large team of engineers and a few scientists were sent to Chalk River for training. Iyengar had the good fortune to be chosen to work with B.N.Brockhouse -an extraordinary scientist who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics (with C.G.Shull) in 1994. Brockhouse was a scientist who had an intuitive approach and could get to the heart of a problem without getting embroiled in details of the mathematical tools, necessarily used in Physics. Iyengar was of similar type and there was a complete match in their approach to science; the eighteen months in 1956-58 that he spent with Brockhouse turned out to be a period of great value as it consolidated his belief in himself and kindled his innovative sprit for developing new methods and devices for doing novel and better experiments. Let it be recalled that Brockhouse was given the Nobel Prize, among other things, for introducing the method known as constant-Q method which led to highly accurate measurement of phonon and magnon dispersion relations in materials. Brockhouse and Iyengar did a very important measurement of dispersion relations of phonons in Germanium - a landmark in the field. Impressed by Iyengars abilities and independent nature, Brockhouse decided to ask him to stay longer at Chalk Rivers expense. However, Iyengar had different plans. He explained to Brockhouse that he had obligations to his parent institution and to his parents and siblings in India. While at Chalk River, Bhabha had provided for his living expenses there and salary in India. He had impressed upon the team members that it was they who had to establish new science and technology in the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (now BARC). Therefore, for Iyengar it was a duty and an obligation to stand up to the expectations reposed in him. Brockhouse appreciated his deep commitment and Iyengar returned to India in March 1958. Iyengar was full of confidence and ideas about starting a full fledged neutron scattering programme at Trombay. He was encouraged and fully supported by Ramanna in this. Here, it is worth quoting from an article by N.S.Satya Murthy in Pramana where, in connection with the growth of neutron beam research in magnetism in India he writes, . We were encouraged and given a free hand for determining the course of our work by Dr. Ramanna, whose primary interests were in the study of nuclear fission using reactor neutrons. He clearly saw neutron beam research as a fertile training ground for scientists in the broader context of mastering reactor and nuclear technologies and left the details to the interests and predilections of the individual groups. Today (~1984), if the neutron scattering accomplishments at Trombay are recognised in India and abroad, it is because of pioneering roles played by Dr Ramanna and Dr Iyengar. Satya Murthy and I joined him in August 1958, after graduating from the first batch of the Training School of the Department of Atomic Energy. An automatic neutron diffractometer was the first to be built and installed at Apsara in less than two years. This was soon followed by an inelastic scattering spectrometer. Measurements on magnetic structure of an alloy of iron and tin and lattice vibrations in iron crystal were the first to be reported in less than three years from start. In parallel more neutron instruments were built for using neutrons from Cirus reactor. When Cirus became critical neutron spectrometers from Apsara were shifted there and some new ones were installed for experiments; inelastic scattering measurements on magnesium and ammonium chloride were reported at an international meeting at Chalk River, Canada in 1962. By 1962 the
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Trombay group for studying condensed matter with neutrons had more than half a dozen scientists including V.P.Duggal, N.Umakanth, G.Venkatraman, K.Usha Deniz, N.S.Satya Murthy, B.A.Dasannacharya, K.R.Rao, C.L.Thaper, and A.P.Roy in addition to technical support personnel like J.N.Soni, C.S.Somanathan, Virendra Singh, Y.D.Dande, P.R.Vijayaraghavan, and M.R.L.N.Murthy. R.Chidambaram joined BARC in 1962 and built the neutron crystallography group with A.S.Sequeira and S.K.Sikka. In recognition of this growth, IAEA accepted our invitation to hold the next international meeting on inelastic scattering of neutrons by solids in winter of 1964 at Bombay. By the time of the meeting several new instruments, including a window-filter spectrometer and a multi-arm spectrometer which had interesting innovative features introduced by Iyengar, were in place. Then on, Iyengar and his group contributed extensively to measurements of phonon dispersion relations and other inelastic scattering studies in several materials. In the area of magnetism the contributions included studies of anti-ferro-magnetic alloys and dynamics of magnetic spins by neutron scattering. The group was well established and many of Iyengars colleagues were recognized in their own right as leading workers in the field. On the way Iyengar got a PhD and also the Bhatnagar Award. Iyengar expanded his area of investigations in late-sixties to the studies of magnetic alloys and spin relaxation in ferrites using the technique of Mossbauer effect; this led to some innovations in instrumentation and a number of publications. Following the 1964 IAEA meeting, a progarmme for introducing neutron scattering at nuclear reactors in south-east Asian countries was initiated by IAEA at the suggestion of Dr Ramanna & Dr Iyengar. India initially built a neutron diffractometer for the Philippines and a number of physicists from the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan were trained. Some of them visited BARC for further advanced training. Under the Regional Cooperation Agreement (RCA) of IAEA, BARC supplied spectrometers to most of these countries and neutronic study of condensed matter was started. This RCA became a template for other regional collaboration programmes of IAEA. This initiative may be therefore be said to have substantially contributed to establishing the field of neutron scattering for the study of condensed matter in the south-east Asia. The next phase in Iyengars scientific career concerns with the development of the fast reactor assembly, PURNIMA-I (short form for Plutonium Reactor for Neutron Investigations in Multiplying Assemblies). It is well known that Bhabha had enunciated the three stage atomic energy programme early in the history of Atomic Energy in India. This would need development of fast reactors for breeding Uranium into Plutonium239 and Thorium into Uranium-233. Homi Bhabha unfortunately died in an aeroplane crash in January 1966. However, he had already laid the foundation for the overall indigenous development of atomic energy. The first Plutonium plant for separating Plutonium from used fuel rods of Cirus reactor was ready by end of 1964 and thinking was active about fast reactors. Vikram Sarabai, took charge in May 1966 after the death of Dr. Bhabha. A decision was taken to start a centre at Kalpakkam near Madras for specialising in research, development and growth of fast reactors. Internationally, sixties saw the development of pulsed neutron sources with a view to using them for neutron scattering experiments. USSR had built a pulsed fast reactor in early sixties and Italy was contemplating one. Accelerator based photo-neutron and spallation sources were being developed. A team of scientists under Iyengar, who by then was Head, Nuclear Physics Division, BARC, was sent to Italy and USSR in 1967 to learn about their programmes. It was felt that a pulsed fast reactor could be a possibility for installation at the then proposed reactor research centre for fast reactors at Kalpakkam. However, there was little experience in building fast reactor systems and it was instead decided to set up a critical-facility for neutronic experiments at Trombay. This would provide valuable experience for handling fast neutron prompt critical assemblies which incidentally is also very relevant in connection with nuclear explosive systems. This was obviously one of the considerations as following events would prove. With Ramanna guiding the overall physics programme at BARC, Iyengar spear-headed the programme to design and build PURNIMA 1. How this system was engineered is described in some detail in the book Atomic Energy in India - 50 years by C.V.Sundaram, L.V.Krishnan and T.S.Iyengar. Important roles were played by several teams headed by M.Srinivasan for reactor physics and design, P.R.Roy for fuel fabrication and S.N.Sheshadri for control system. Indias first fast neutron reactor assembly went critical on May 18, 1972. PURNIMA group went on to build PURNIMA II, a critical assembly with solution of uranyl (U-233) nitrate as the core. After the required

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neutronic studies with this assembly, PURNIMA III, a small reactor with U233-Al alloy fuel was built at the same position. This was a 30 KW reactor which was shifted to Kalpakkam after its criticality, named KAMINI (Kalpakkam Mini Reactor) and used for neutron radiography. Sixties were an interesting period for another reason. After the inauguration of Plutonium plant Bhabha, on being asked whether India can produce an atom bomb, had mentioned that India was in a position to do so in eighteen months. This was relevant in the context of China having tested their nuclear devices just then. At the IAEA General Conference in 1965 Bhabha referred to Indias difficulty in sustaining a policy of restraint in the face of these developments. Both USSR and USA were doing experiments with nuclear explosives to find their peacetime applications. The results were discussed at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. At the same time that Iyengar was sent to Dubna, Ramanna asked Chidambaram to follow this development and examine areas where this could be useful to India. Indias interest in a Peaceful Nuclear Experiment (PNE) for leaching of copper ores was presented at IAEA. Ramanna was clearly building up the preparedness for a nuclear device. When the time came and Indira Gandhi gave the signal to go ahead towards the end of 1972, Ramanna chose Iyengar as the team - leader to oversee and guide the PNE project. The PURNIMA teams of neutronics, controls, fuel fabrication and mechanical engineering were given similar responsibilities in view of their experience, Chidambarams responsibilities included device-design, coordination with DRDO, etc and specialist teams were created for specific tasks as necessary. The whole effort of the team, each working part-time and in a well coordinated way is too well documented to warrant repetition. PNE was conducted successfully on 18th May 1974 about twenty months after the go-ahead signal. The Peaceful Nuclear Experiment was, as Iyengar put it, the most exhilarating experience of my career This involved building up a group, inculcating a spirit of cooperation and jointly achieving results. Dr Ramanna had taken over as Director, BARC in 1972. The mantle of the Directorship of the Physics Group was handed over to Iyengar. Over the years, from 1972 to 1983, he was given expanding responsibilities of other Groups in BARC, culminating in the Directorship of BARC in 1984. He became the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission in 1990 for a three year term. Naturally, his administrative responsibilities and scope of work continually expanded during this period. Iyengar played important leadership role in planning for new accelerators at VECC, CAT and TIFR. The company of the best in any area of endeavour propels one to do better than the best. Collaboration with other laboratories and scientists shows us their different styles of working and allows us to make realistic estimates of our own caliber vis--vis our peers and gives us confidence in accomplishing our goals. Realising that exposure to worlds best facilities is necessary for our scientists, he established collaborative programmes with laboratories like CERN Geneva, Fermilab - Chicago and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory - UK. These collaborations not only allowed our scientists access to the laboratories but provided us opportunity to develop front line technologies; they in turn substantially contribute to our own programmes. It is this type of thinking which he brought to bear on all programmes which were undertaken at BARC, be they in physical sciences, biological sciences, or engineering and technology. And in matters of importance to BARC like, for example, the commissioning of Dhruva, he would get involved personally and lead from the front. I also remember his unstinted support and encouragement to the superconductivity programme after the discovery of high temperature superconductors in late seventies. However, his support was not confined to generating some research papers alone, but to overall development of both science and technology emerging out of the effort. Another programme which he supported in late eighties, and was personally involved in, was that of cold fusion which now goes under the name of condensed matter nuclear science. A controversial area of research at any time, his involvement, in my view, was basically because of his strong belief in experimental science, in the power of observation as against over dependence on existing theories to predict all phenomena (accept Vedas as last word!). In this context I am particularly reminded of Prigogines book entitled The End of Certainty which discusses our inability to explain several physico-chemical and biological processes within the framework of well established laws and the need for their extension to boundaries beyond their areas of validity. It is a moot point that in spite of it being given many negative adjectives the subject refuses to die after two decades. Many developmental programmes were undertaken at BARC when he was the Director and at DAE when he was the Chairman, AEC. In his decision making during this period he would not allow nibbling procedural issues to come in the way of important scientific and technological progress. This too is one of his
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hallmarks. P K Iyengar retired in 1993; he continued to be a member of the Atomic Energy Commission for the next five years. After his retirement he was Advisor to Kerala Governments Department of Science and Technology between 1993 and 1997. During this period he established the Rajiv Gandhi Institute at Thiruvananthapuram, which has become a first rate scientific research establishment. He has continued to take keen interest in rural science education through his involvement, as a Trustee, in the NGO, Agastya Foundation, whose nerve centre is in a rural area in Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh. This account would be incomplete if it did not mention his recent critique of the Indo-US nuclear deal. The issue has been discussed threadbare both in public and among scientists and engineers; this is not the place to discuss its pros and cons. However, it is interesting to look into the person behind the comments. I have already alluded to Iyengar being moulded by the value Institutes and ways of working of Bhabha and Ramanna, both having tremendous sense of pride in being an Indian. He has developed a world view after a long experience of working in an atmosphere wherein external restrictions were and are being placed in our scientific and technical endeavours so as to keep us denied of a place that a country of our size, population, culture and knowledge-base ought to be in. The ways utilised to make progress in strategic applications of atomic energy and space-missile programmes in spite of these restrictions is well recorded. If the country wants to retain its ability to make overall scientific and technological progress in the interests of its citizens, it has to retain its independence of choice and options. Future is never predictable. Independence of thought and action is a necessity in this context. Perception and understanding that basic science and technology are two sides of a coin. The ardhanarishwara of modern civilization, is fully integrated in the personae of P.K. Iyengar and his career has been a balance between the two.

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Dr. P. K. Iyengar with the then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi

Dr. P. K. Iyengar with the then Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi at VECC

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About the Author

Dr. B.A. Dasannacharya, former, Director, Solid state and Spectroscopy Group, BARC
The author after graduating from BARC Training School (1957-58) joined BARC to work with P.K.Iyengar at Apsara on neutron scattering from condensed matter. He has contributed extensively to areas of neutron diffraction, quasi-elastic and inelastic scattering and small angle scattering experiments in addition to innovative instrument development. In his career of 38 years in BARC he has been also interested in several other areas touching on development and technology. After being Director, Solid state and Spectroscopy Group (1990-96) and also Multi Disciplinary Technology Group (1993-96), BARC, he was Director, Inter University Consortium for Department of Atomic Energy Facilities, Indore (1996-2002). He is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore and Indian National Science Academy, Delhi and Past President of Indian Physics Association, Mumbai.

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Dr. R. Chidambaram
Chairman, AEC, India (1993-2000)

Dr. R. Chidambaram took his B.Sc.(Hons.) degree from Madras University in 1956 with first rank in the university and completed his Ph.D in 1962 from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, from where he also later got his D.Sc. Degree. His Ph.D thesis was adjudged the best one that year and he was awarded the Martin Froster medal for this. For his Ph.D, he built the first nuclear magnetic resonance instrument in the country and addressed to some challenging problems with it. Although, the non-linearity of hydrogen bonds was postulated some times earlier, the real attention on this was given only after his paper on the bent hydrogen bond model for the structure of ice-1. In 1962, he joined Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and started his school of work on neutron diffraction and crystallography. His choice of problems was very appropriate for the power of the neutron diffraction technique for locating hydrogen atoms. The first paper published by his group on the Neutron diffraction study of the structure of potassium oxalate monohydrate: lone-pair coordination of the hydrogen-bonded water molecule in crystals is now a citation classic. He was the first one to introduce automation for data collection with neutron diffractometers. He was also instrumental in introducing crystallographic computing in India. In fact, his efforts to develop crystallography in India mirror the developments of the field of crystallography in the world. He was elected Vice-President of International Union of Crystallography for the term 1986-2000. In 1968, he was asked to work on the design of nuclear explosives. He was the first one to work out the equation of state of Pu which is still classified by all the nuclear weapon states. He chose the implosion method for the device which was tested at Pokharan in 1974. For this, he initiated shockwave research at BARC in very close interaction with TBRL of DRDO. For the tests of 1998, he introduced a very compact implosion system, which could be weaponised. For all this, he was recognized by award of Padma Vibhushan in 1999. In fact, his designs for the various nuclear devices were based on sound scientific principles and not on borrowed ideas from other nuclear weapon states - a fact acknowledged by western experts. After the test of the nuclear device at Pokharan in 1974, Dr. Chidambaram started open research in the area of high pressure physics. For this, a complete range of instrumentation like diamond anvil cells, gasgun for launching projectiles, with complete diagnostic facilities was built indigenously. He also laid the foundation of theoretical high pressure research for calculation of equation of state, phase stability of materials etc. Today, these capabilities involve first principles calculations. The papers published by his group are also well cited. The one on omega phase in materials is like a text book for researchers in Condensed Matter Physics/Materials Science. As Director of BARC, he initiated the development of super-computers, which now have acquired teraflop speed capability. During his Chairmanship of Atomic Energy Commission, he accelerated the development of nuclear power by persuading the Govt. of India to set up more nuclear reactors. He also diversified the power programme by acquiring light-water reactors from Russia. Also, during his chairmanship, the speeding up of 500 MW fast breeder reactor construction was a crucial step in the second stage of the three stage nuclear programme enunciated by Homi Bhabha for India. He was honoured by the International

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Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by electing him as the Chairman of its Board of Governors during 19941995. Only, Homi Bhabha was the other Indian who had been elected earlier as Chairman. He was also appointed in 2008 by the Director-General, IAEA as a member of the Commission of Eminent Persons to prepare a report on the role of IAEA to year 2020 and beyond. More recently his initiatives as Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India, including the setting up of the Core Advisory Group for R&D in the Automotive Sector (CAR) to increase academia-industry interaction, the creation of RuTAGs (Rural Technology Action Groups) for effective need based technology delivery in rural areas, the establishment of SETS (Society for Electronic Transactions and Security), headquartered in Chennai, etc. are making significant impact. He has emphasized the need for Coherent Synergy (a phrase he has coined) in Indias S&T efforts to help out India on a sustained fast-growth path. Currently, he is also President of Shree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad. He is a Member of the Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change and Chairman of the High-Level Committee for the National Knowledge Network. In short, Dr. Chidambaram is a home grown scientist. In fact, all his S&T work has been done in India. He is a very original thinker, an inspiring leader, an institution builder and a sound administrator. He has won many awards and laurels including the INS-Homi Bhabha Lifetime Achievement Award of the Indian Nuclear Society(2006). He has been awarded D.Sc. degrees (Honoris Causa) by many universities in India and abroad. He is a Fellow of most of the scientific academies in India and also of the Third World Academy of Science (TWAS), Trieste (Italy). He is a recognised Research Guide of Bombay University for four decades. More than 20 students have taken Ph.D. under his guidance. He has been a super mentor to his students and his co-workers. He is an avid sports lover, especially of cricket and plays tennis regularly. He has also deep interest in classical music and is a Honorary Patron, Shanmukhananda Fine Art and Sangeetha Sabha, Mumbai and Chief Patron The Fine Arts Society, Chembur Mumbai.

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Dr. R. Chidambaram presenting memento to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at BARC

Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting the Pokharan-II site with Dr. R. Chidambaram and Dr. Abdul Kalam (May 20, 1998)

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About the Author

Dr. S. K. Sikka Former Director, Atomic and Condensed Matter Physics Group, BARC
Dr. Satinder Kumar Sikka joined BARC through its Training School in 1960 and rose to become a Distinguished Scientist and Director of Atomic and Condensed Matter Physics Group. From 2002 to 2008, he was the Scientific Secretary to the Principal Scientific Adviser to GOI. Dr. Sikka is at present DAEHomi Bhabha professor at BARC. His Ph.D. work on the important phase problem in neutron diffraction has been cited by some Noble Laureates. Some of his highly cited works are: to phase transition in Ti, Zr and Hf, discovery of a unique primitive hexagonal phase in Si at 14GPa and crystal to amorphous transformations under pressure. He has worked for Indias nuclear weapon programme since 1969 and was a prominent member of the team which conducted the 1974 Pokharan test. He led the design team for the 1998 test series. Dr. Sikka was awarded Padma Shri in 1999. He is a Fellow of all the three National Science Academies. Among the other prominent awards received by him are: H.K. Firodia Award for Excellence in Science & Technology (1998), MRSI-ISCS Superconductivity and Materials Science Annual Prize (2001), M.M. Chugani Award for Excellence in Applied Physics of IPA(2002) and The Homi Jehangir Bhabha Medal for Experimental Physics of INSA (2005).

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Dr. Anil Kakodkar

Chairman, AEC (2000-2009)

Anil Kakodkar was born on 11th November 1943 in the Barwani village located in the present day Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. He is the son of Mrs Kamala & Mr. P. Kakodkar, both Gandhian freedom fighters. His early education was at Barwani and at Khargone. Anil Kakodkar came to Bombay to pursue his post-matriculation studies. After passing out from Ruparel College, he joined VJTI and obtained a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from Bombay University in 1963. He studied nuclear engineering at the Training School run by the then Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay and joined the Reactor Engineering Division (RED) in 1964. While working with RED, he was deputed to UK and there he received a Master in Experimental Stress Analysis from Nottingham University in 1969. While at RED, he was associated with the Research and Development work related to nuclear reactors. Dr Kakodkar played a key role in the design and construction of the research reactor Dhruva, a 100 MW high flux reactor, a completely original concept and where several new technologies related to electron beam welding, reactive material fabrication and joining of dissimilar metals were deployed on a large scale for the first time in India. Dr.Kakodkars decades of dedication and pioneering efforts in the indigenous development of a large number of critical systems of Indian Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors, his contribution to safety-related research and his piloting of several new state-of-the-art technologies for this reactor system have significantly contributed to Indias self-reliance in the area of nuclear power reactors. His work in rehabilitation of nuclear reactors, Kalpakkam-1, 2 and Rajasthan-1, all of which at one stage appeared to be on the verge of being written off, are important examples of his engineering capabilities to solve difficult problems. Dr Kakodkar continues to be actively involved in the programme related to augmentation of thorium utilization in our nuclear power programme. During his career spanning four and a half decades, he has built competent teams of highly specialized scientists and engineers in the reactor engineering programme. Aware of Indias nuclear fuel resource position, he advocated development of technologies for the use of thorium, which is available in plenty in the country and can provide long term energy security to the country. Considering significance of thorium in nuclear power generation, Indian and global reserves of uranium and thorium, he always felt that very few people realize that while thorium is Indias necessity today, it will become the worlds necessity tomorrow. To gain industrial scale experience in the use of thorium, he conceptualized Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, which aims to derive two-third of its power from thorium. It also incorporates several passive safety features and will be a platform to enable India to test Generation IV technology features. Anil Kakodkar was appointed Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in 1996 at the age of 53 years. During his tenure at BARC, he conceptualized part of the 9th Five Year Plan dealing with research and development sector and made several important changes in the organization structure of the Centre. Nuclear tests at Pokhran were conducted in 1998 during his tenure as Director BARC. He was also associated with the peaceful nuclear explosion experiment at Pokhran in 1974. He has been a member of the core team of architects of Indias nuclear weapons programme. He gave new direction to the programme to develop a compact reactor for propulsion and to reprocess spent fuel.
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In December 2000, he was appointed Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He continued to hold this position till 2009 and his tenure was quite eventful . He is a strategic thinker and it is demonstrated by the way he steered the Department during his tenure as Secretary and Chairman AEC. Within a few days of his joining, he set up a Strategic Planning Group in the DAE Secretariat. Another early initiative was formulating Key Drivers for Major Programmes, which was instrumental in bringing efficiency in formulation and monitoring of five year plans for research and development and also brought a change in the format of the annual report of the Department. Dr Kakodkar is an institution builder. India has been working on development of fast reactor technology for a long time and he took the next bold step to launch the construction of a 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). This is a mega project both from the point of view of investment and complexity of technology and required sound planning before its launch. Research and development for fast reactor technology is done at Indira Gandhi Centre for Advanced Research (IGCAR), but an industrial project cannot be launched on the basis of strength in R&D alone. It also requires strength in project management and execution, which is available with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a Public Sector Unit of the DAE. He directed setting up of a new Public Sector Unit, Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam (BHAVINI) to combine the strengths of IGCAR and NPCIL. BHAVINI is now constructing PFBR at Kalpakkam, near Chennai , which is expected to attain criticality in 2012-13. Realizing the increasing demand of uranium for fuelling the nuclear reactors, Dr Kakodkar launched an intense effort to augment indigenous uranium resources. This included motivating Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD) to accelerate its efforts to explore more uranium in the country and Uranium Corporation of India Limited to open new mines. This resulted in increasing production of uranium from Singhbhum belt in Jharkhand by opening new mines and setting up a new mill and opening of new mines at Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh. It is to be noted that it was for the first time that uranium mining moved out of the Singhbhum belt. AMD was also able to identify more uranium resources in the country. It was noted that country lacked expertise to locate uranium reserves located deep in the earth as the necessary instrumentation was not available. He launched the development of instrumentation for this purpose which has now been completed and deployed. Uranium has to be fabricated into fuel and this is done at Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), Hyderabad. For the expanding nuclear power programme, it was necessary to expand operations of NFC, and for this purpose, Dr Kakodkar vigorously pursued setting up of additional facilities of NFC at Pazhayakayal near Tuticorin. To pursue spent fuel reprocessing at industrial scale he visualized the setting up of a Nuclear Recycle Board and all ground work was carried out during his tenure. It was soon apparent that indigenous uranium resources cannot meet the growing demand of nuclear power programme. Therefore, a policy initiative was launched by the national leadership to open up international civil nuclear trade and he played a very prominent role in the entire process. His strategic thinking became a boon for the country and opening up of the international civil nuclear trade took place in a manner that fully protects the indigenous R&D and strategic nuclear programme, and India was recognized as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology.. Opening up of civil nuclear trade was made possible by the strengths acquired by the country based on research and development in the laboratories of DAE and other academic institutions in the country and the manufacturing capability developed by the Indian industry. This became obvious when a few months after the IndiaUS Joint Statement of July 18, 2005, India was invited to participate in the ongoing six-party negotiations to launch a mega project in the area of fusion technology. This project called ITER aims to demonstrate generation of energy based on fusion reaction and is coming up at Cadarache, in the South of France. India became the seventh Party to this mega project in December 2005, other parties being China, EU, Japan, Russia, South Korea and USA. To ensure that India is able to meet its obligations arising out of being a party to ITER, an agency called ITER-India was set up as a part of Institute for Plasma Research during his tenure. DAE has taken notable initiative in the area of human resource development. This includes setting up of a Training School to train young graduates in nuclear science and engineering at the time of their induction in DAE, launching programmes such as Diploma in Radiological Physics to train Radiation Safety Officers, Diploma in Radiation Medicine to train medical doctors in nuclear medicine. In addition, units of DAE have
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been encouraging its employees to pursue research leading to Ph.D. and also making research facilities available to a limited number of students to do the same. However, expanding the nuclear programme needs matching expansion of human resources trained in nuclear science and engineering. During the early part of the previous decade, it was apparent that more needs to be done in this area. So once again, strategic thinking of Dr Kakodkar resulted in a directive to start work towards setting up an institute having the status of a deemed university. This institute called Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) was notified as a deemed-to-be-University by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in June 2005 and launched its academic programme in 2006 and already has more than 1000 students pursuing research towards Ph.D. A unique Ph.D. programme, conceptualized by Dr Kakodkar, has been launched by HBNI. This programme aims to combine strengths of faculty of HBNI in a unique manner. A research scholar pursuing Ph.D. under this programme pursues his research under two supervisors, one having strength in basic research and the other having strength in applied research or technology development. The basic aim of the scheme is to accelerate translation of research into technology development. There are students pursuing research in the area of cyber security under the guidance of a mathematician and an electronics engineer, or in the area of separation technologies under the supervision of a chemist and a chemical engineer and so on. In many cases, the supervisors are from two different constituent institutions of HBNI. When the Government of India launched the initiative to set up several institutions devoted to research in science, DAE was given the responsibility to set up one such institute at Bhubaneswar. This institute, called National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), has been set up and Dr. Kakodkar continues to guide its working as Chairman, Council of Management. He also conceptualized setting up of a Centre for Basic Sciences at Kalina Campus of Mumbai University. He was always conscious of the fact that the country has invested in mega research facilities in the research and development centres of DAE. To ensure that these facilities are available to university students, an arrangement was established with University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1989. He gave it a new direction by creating DAE-UGC Consortium of Scientific Research. Funding of extra-mural research from DAE is channeled through Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS). In order to obtain increased benefit of expertise available with the universities and national laboratories in the country, Dr Kakodkar worked to provide enhanced funding to BRNS. He paid equal attention to non-power applications of nuclear technology and programmes aimed at improving quality of life were given due importance. It was during his tenure as Chairman Atomic Energy Commission that a new campus for BARC was conceived and a site was selected. This new campus is now coming up at Vizag. From the above brief narrative, one can observe that Dr Kakodkar looked at all issues in a comprehensive manner and during his tenure, DAE took several initiatives. His comprehensive approach is evident from what he said during his speech on 17th January 2011 while accepting lifetime achievement award from Indian Nuclear Society. He said, We are poised for a rather rapid and large scale expansion of our programme. In the process we would have to handle a variety of challenges spanning R&D, technology, policy, management, human resource, international co-operation, safety & environment, security, public acceptance and several other domains. During the acceptance speech, he further said, It is important that as we pursue several parallel tracks, be it in terms of technology or fuel cycle and supply chain or management or whether we are pursuing a particular project as a domestic effort or through international cooperation; we remain clear in our mind about our philosophy, strategy and objectives. We have seen in the past that adoption of wise approaches in these respects have lead to dividends eventually although in the short run such approaches may have appeared to be relatively difficult and inconsistent with the general trends worldwide. Adherence to self reliance, closed fuel cycle and undeterred pursuit towards thorium utilization are shining examples of our time tested principles. His wide ranging contributions towards nuclear science and engineering were recognized by the Government of India, which conferred on him the Padma Shri in 1998, Padma Bhushan in 1999 and Padma Vibhushan in 2009. He has been bestowed with academic honours by several universities and is a recipient of several national and international awards. A partial list follows.

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International recognitions: Recipient of Rockwell Medal for Excellence in Technology 1997 Member, International Nuclear Energy Academy Hon. Member, World Innovation Foundation Member, International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) 1999-2002 2009 USIBC Award for Expansion of U.S.-India Trade Relations

Major National Honours & Awards Hari Om Ashram Prerit Vikram Sarabhai Award 1988 MRSI ICSC Superconductivity & Materials Science Annual Prize 1997 HK Firodia Award for Excellence in Science & Technology 1997 FICCI Award for outstanding contribution to nuclear engg. & technology - 1997-98 ANACON Life Time Achievement Award for Nuclear Sciences 1998 NAFENs Excellence Award (Best R & D Man) 1998 The Indian Science Congress Association HJ Bhabha Memorial Award 1999-2000 Shriram Scientific & Industrial Research Foundation Golden Jubilee Award for Outstanding Contributions to Indian Technology 2000 Godavari Gaurav Award 2000 National Citizens Award 2001 Chemtech Foundation Achiever of the year Award for Energy 2002 GM Modi Innovative Science & Technology Award 2004 Rotarys Vocational Excellence Award 2006 INAE Lifetime Contribution Award in Engineering 2006 General Presidents Award, Indian Science Congress -2007 Ram Mohan Missions Ram Mohan Puraskar 2007 Yeshwantrao Chavan Prathishtans Science & Technology Award 2007 South Indian Education Societys Shri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi National Eminence Award for Science & Technology 2007 Lakshmipat Singhania IIM Lucknow National Leadership Award 2007 Maharashtra Bhushan Award of the Maharashtra Times 2008 Maharashtra Academy of Engineering and Educational Researchs Bharat Asmita Shreshtatva Award 2009 Indian Physics Associations M.M. Chugani Memorial Award 2009 Tejas Puraskar Lokamanya Tilak Vyakhyanmala -Dombivali-2009 INS Homi Bhabha Life Time Achievement Award 2009 Suryadatta Lifetime Achievement Award 2010 Dr. ASG Jayakar Award, Science India Forum Oman 2010 Gomant Vibhushan award by State of Goa 2010 Swatantryaveer Savarkar Vidnyan Puraskar 2010 Maharashtra Ratna (Zee 24 Taas & DNA) 2010 Priyadarshini Academys Global Award 2010 Wartsila Mantosh Sondhi Award 2010

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Dr. Anil Kakodkar with President Dr. Abdul Kalam at BARC

Dr. Anil Kakodkar and Dr. R. Chidambaram with the then Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Pokharan (May 20, 1998)

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About the Author

Dr. R.B.Grover, Principal Adviser, DAE and Director HBNI

Ravi Grover graduated in mechanical engineering from Delhi College of Engineering in 1970 and joined Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Training School to study nuclear engineering. After graduating from Training School, he joined BARC and started working in the area of reactor engineering. Simultaneous with working in BARC, he obtained a Ph.D from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1982. Presently, he is working as Principal Adviser, DAE and Director Homi Bhabha National Institute. In the early part of his career, Dr. Grover was responsible for thermal hydraulics of fuel and core of the research reactor Dhruva a job which was done for the first time in India. Later, he did similar work for a compact nuclear reactor. In recent past, Dr Grover along with his colleagues formulated a scenario for growth of electricity demand in India by taking into consideration economic growth, population growth, and improvement in energy intensity of GDP and formulating a possible supply mix considering Indias fuel resource base in order to delineate niche area for nuclear energy. This was the first such long-term forecast of electricity demand in India. Dr Grover is now working on human resource development and on issues related to nuclear policy of India. He is passionate about both the topics and his passion has resulted in success. He was involved in conceptualizing the setting up of Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), a deemed to be university under the Department of Atomic Energy. As its founder director, he has given shape to the institute. HBNI is a graduate school and already has over 1000 students registered for Ph.D., a couple of hundred students pursuing M.Tech and other courses. Dr Grover has played a stellar role as a negotiator with some of the worlds most knowledgeable professionals. Dr Grover has functioned either as a key member or as head of the technical groups of the negotiating teams that have helped to conclude draft agreements with USA for cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, similarly with France and Russia; so also the India-specific Safeguards agreement and an additional protocol thereto with the Secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Dr. Grover is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and some recent awards won by him include INS Award-2006 for Nuclear Reactor Technology, including Nuclear Safety; Dhirubhai Ambani Oration Award in 2008; and Distinguished Alumni Award by Delhi College of Engineering in 2009. He was elected President of Indian Society of Heat and Mass Transfer in January 2010 for a four year term.

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Dr. S. Banerjee
Chairman, AEC (2009- )

Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was born in West Bengal in the year 1946 and had his early education at Ballygung Govt School, Kolkata. Subsequently he completed B. Tech. in Metallurgical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur in 1967. It was in July, 1967 when I met him for the first time in a Mumbai bound train leaving Howrah station. Along with Srikumar, I was one of the 20 odd young engineers and scientists from universities and colleges of Eastern part of the country who boarded the train to join 11th Batch Training School of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre(BARC) located at the famous tourist spot Band stand of city suburb- Bandra. All of us including Srikumar himself, were nervous young men in early twenties looking for fruitful research and development carrier in a city far from our home towns and hardly had the clue that one day one of us would inherit the top most job of DAE. At the first year of our association in Training School and as our friendship grew over the years Srikumar appeared to me as an intelligent, kind hearted and jovial person with analytical bend of mind. Right from our Training school days he showed his preference for the subject of physical metallurgy and after successful completion of the 11th batch course joined Physical Metallurgy Section of Metallurgy Division. Dr. R.Krishnan leading Electron Microscopy group of the Division took him under his wing and the stage was set for Srikumar to build in the next three decades or so his outstanding carrier in the area of physical metallurgy of zirconium and titanium, the two metals of great interest to Indian Atomic Energy Programme. In 1976, Srikumar received his Ph.D. (Metallurgical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India with a thesis on Martensitic Transformation in Zirconium Alloys In fact solid state phase transformations in metallic materials have constituted Dr. Banerjees prime area of research. Transformation processes in zirconium, titanium and nickel based alloys and their influences on the thermodynamical and mechanical properties have formed his favourite hunting ground, where he has achieved many successes. His seminal contributions in this field include crystallography of martensitic transformation, thermodynamic prediction of metastable phase reactions and their experimental confirmation, strengthening mechanisms and mechanisms of hybrid transformation processes which combine features of displacive and replacive transitions. His highly cited work in this area has helped in rationalizing the microstructural evolution in zirconium alloys during heat treatment and fabrication steps and in structureproperty correlations of these alloys. Dr. Banerjee has also applied this approach in successfully optimizing the fabrication parameters for Zr-2.5 Nb pressure tubes for nuclear reactors. The manufacturing process for the Zr-2.5 Nb pressure tubes for Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors adopted at Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad is a rare example of a highly academic research work directly leading to a fabrication flow sheet. Concentration waves, displacement waves and their combinations have formed the basis for Dr. Banerjees description of several transformation processes. His approach has been acknowledged worldwide. His experimental studies have proved that it is such waves that formed and grew in amplitude to lead to the occurrence of first order phase transitions. His work relating to the superimposition of clustering and ordering instabilities can explain the early stages of the precipitation process in which an ordered intermetallic phase

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emerges continuously from a supersaturated solid solution under irradiation. This work provides a basis for analyzing the radiation stability of structural materials strengthened by ordered intermetallic phases. The nature of the short range order in Ni-Mo alloys and the mechanism of the transition from the short range to the long range ordered state were the subject of longstanding controversies. His work on the orderdisorder transition in nickel- molybdenum alloys has settled these issues. The time evolution of the ordered structure in the Ni-Mo system, as seen from the experiments, has been interpreted from first-principles thermodynamic calculations done by him and his colleagues. From the calculated formation energies of competing ordered superlattice structures, it has been shown that the Ni-Mo system represents a very unique case, wherein several first order transitions, associated with different wave vectors, compete with a second order ordering transition. The concomitant evolution of the structure can be explained on the basis of instabilities and minima of the free energy order parameters space. He and his colleagues have made several contributions on shape memory alloys: determination and rationalization of the reversion stress which develops during the spring back action of shape memory components, identification of the role of self accommodation of transformation strains associated with a group of neighboring martensite crystals and reporting and explaining a new phenomenon named the thermal arrest memory effect. His work in this area has led to the development of shape memory alloy couplings for the Light Combat Aircraft. This is another example of how science can fructify in very high level technology. Dr. Banerjee has attached a lot of importance to the communication of his research and authored hundreds of technical and review papers He has always published his work in journals of very high repute. An outstanding feature of his papers is their scholarly depth combined with lucidity of presentation. The vast body of work carried out by him in the area of phase transformations has therefore been disseminated to a wide audience. Over the years he had to take on the responsibility of editing in various capacities in well known scientific journals like Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A (2006-) Acta Materialia/Scripta Materialia (1999-2002) Bulletin of Materials Science (1995-2003) and Phase Transitions (1985-86) The book entitled Phase Transformations: Examples from Titanium and Zirconium Alloys (Elsevier, 2007) coauthored by Dr. Banerjee is unique in several ways. It is a magnum opus by a man who spent his entire professional life investigating phase transformations. It is like a travelogue detailing his innumerable travels into the microscopic world, sitting at the electron microscope, often accompanied by a younger colleague by his side, unraveling mysteries of materials. A distinctive feature of this book is that it covers the entire gamut of phase transformations observed in inorganic materials, illustrated almost exclusively using the work on titanium and zirconium alloys carried out at Dr. Banerjees laboratory. Over forty years Dr. Banerjee nurtured and mentored a very bright and distinguished group of materials scientists whose body of work supports this treatise. Titanium and zirconium alloys taken together exhibit almost all the phase transformations known so far and, unlike in the more popular ferrous alloys, the crystal structures of the phases are much simpler to visualise. This fact has helped this book to cover the whole range of phase transformations in a manner easy to grasp. Phase transformations induced by pressure changes, radiation, deformation and those occurring in nanoscale multilayers are also given some prominence, without disturbing the pre-eminent position held by the temperature-driven ones. Through all these, the book achieves depth and clarity, the two hallmarks of Dr. Banerjees scientific communications, and indeed of his scientific career. Dr.Banerjee is a recipient of many national and international awards and honours like Young Scientist Medal (1976), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship (1979-80), Best Metallurgist Award of IIM (1981), Acta Metallurgica Outstanding Paper Award(1984), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engg.Sciences (1989), Materials Research Society of India (MRSI) Medal (1990), G.D.Birla Gold Medal of The Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) (1997), Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Prize for Materials Science (2001), MRSI-Superconductivity and Materials Science Prize (2003), Indian Nuclear Society (INS) Award (2003), Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2004). Prof. Brahm Prakash Memorial Medal, INSA (2004),Padma Shri (2005), Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, (2005), Elected Fellow of West Bengal Academy of Sciences, (2005), Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), Burdwan University,West Bengal (2005), MRSI Distinguished Materials Scientist of the Year Award (2008) and Doctor of Science, Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chattisgarh (2010), Doctor of Science, Sathyabama University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (2010), Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), Bengal Engineering and Science University,

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(2010), Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (2010) Indian Science Congress Associations Excellence in Science and Technology Award (2010) and National Metallurgist Award from Ministry of Steel and IIM (2010). Dr.Banerjee had a number of professional interactions involving visiting positions overseas such as the University of Sussex,Brighton, UK (as senior visiting Fellow), Max-Planck Institut fuer Metalforschung Institut fuer Physik, Stuttgart and Forschungszeutrum, Juelich, Germany (as Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow and Awardee), University of Cincinnati and the Ohio State University, USA (as visiting faculty). Dr.Banerjee is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences India, Indian National Academy of Engineering and Third World Academy of Sciences.With the growth of the scope of his area of active research, Dr.Banerjee took on parallely the responsibility of scientific administration with equal success.Starting with a post of Scientific Officer in 1968 he rose to the positions of Head, Metallurgy Division, BARC (May,1990), Associate Director, Materials Group and Head, Materials Science Division, BARC (Sept.1996), Director, Materials Group, BARC (Feb.2001), Director, BARC, Mumbai (May.2004), and eventually Chairman, AEC & Secretary, DAE,Government of,India (Dec.2009). During his Directorship of BARC the Centre has achieved many successes in the area of front line science and technologies with immense societal and strategic implications. As Director, BARC, Dr. Srikumar Banerjee has led and motivated teams with experts from widely varying streams of science and engineering to achieve all these milestones. His passion for finding an application for every research project has paved the way for strong linkages between the scientific community at BARC and the user base, be it the society at large, or the industrial users. Today Dr.Banerjee as Secretary,DAE is at the helm of affairs for peaceful uses of nuclear energy for our country and spends an incredible busy life with great humility, sincerety and foresight. It is indeed a pleasure to introduce my dear friend Srikumar to the young readers of Special bulletin of ASSET and wish him on my behalf and all my DAE colleagues the very best in his assignment. Last but not the least I would fail in my duty if I forget to mention the contribution of his wife Ranjana in providing him equally peaceful home life so that he could concentrate on his never ending task with a smiling face.

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Dr. S. Banerjee and Dr. Anil Kakodkar with President Dr. Abdul Kalam at BARC

Dr. S. Banerjee explaining the salient features of superconducting facility to the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh

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About the Author

Dr. T. K. Mukherjee, Former Chairman & Managing Director, IRE

Dr. T.K. Mukherjee (born in 1945) after graduation in Metallurgical Engineering from Bengal Engineering College in 1967 joined Metallurgy Division of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai in 1968 after successfully completing 11th Batch Training School Course. Subsequently he did his M.Sc. (Tech) and Ph.D. from Bombay University and DIC from Imperial College, London. During his long R/D career of 28 years at BARC, he specialised in extraction metallurgy of refractory, nuclear, base, precious and rare earth metals. In 1991, he became Head, Uranium & Rare Earths Extraction. Div. of BARC and looked after the production of uranium metal for the Centres research reactors. In 1996, he joined Indian Rare Earths Ltd, a PSU, under the administrative control of Dept. of Atomic Energy as Chairman & Managing Director. During his tenure, IRE has recorded profit for seven consecutive years. In recognition of this outstanding effort, IRE has received Silver Trophy of SCOPE Awards for excellence in the turn around category and IIIE Award for Enterprise Excellence for three years. He has received BRALCO, BINANI, BEST METALLURGIST AWARD and HIDUSTAN ZINC GOLD Medal of IIM, MRSI GOLD Medal as well as VASVIK INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH AWARD for his outstanding contribution in the area of extraction metallurgy of non-ferrous metals He is a fellow of National Academy of Engg. and member of a number of professional bodies like Indian Institute of Metals, Materials Research Society of India, Magnetic Society of India and Rare Earths Association of India.He served Indian Institute of Metals as President during the year 2004-05.He has to his credit more than 200 technical papers and four books including two volumes on Hydrometallurgy in Extraction Processes published by CRC Press, USA.

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August 2011