Jagadish Chandra Bose

Jagadish Chandra Bose,[1] CSI,[2] CIE,[3] FRS[4] (/bos/;[5] Bengali pronunciation: [dgodd i tndd ro bosu]; 30 November 1858 23
November 1937) was a Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction.
[6]
He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions toplant science, and laid the
foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent.[7] IEEE named him one of thefathers of radio science.[8] He is also
considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He also invented the crescograph. A crater on the moon has been named in his
honour.[9]
Born in Mymensingh, Bengal Presidency during the British Raj,[10] Bose graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He then went
to the University of London to study medicine, but could not pursue studies in medicine due to health problems. Instead, he
conducted his research with the Nobel Laureate Lord Rayleigh at Cambridge and returned to India. He then joined the Presidency
College of University of Calcutta as a Professor of Physics. There, despite racial discrimination and a lack of funding and equipment,
Bose carried on his scientific research. He made remarkable progress in his research of remote wireless signalling and was the first
to use semiconductor junctions to detect radio signals. However, instead of trying to gain commercial benefit from this invention,
Bose made his inventions public in order to allow others to further develop his research.
Bose subsequently made a number of pioneering discoveries in plant physiology. He used his own invention, thecrescograph, to
measure plant response to various stimuli, and thereby scientifically proved parallelism between animal and plant tissues. Although
Bose filed for a patent for one of his inventions due to peer pressure, his reluctance to any form of patenting was well known. To
facilitate his research, he constructed automatic recorders capable of registering extremely slight movements; these instruments
produced some striking results, such as Bose's demonstration of an apparent power of feeling in plants, exemplified by the quivering
of injured plants. His books include Response in the Living and Non-Living (1902) and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants (1926).

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam ( /bdl klm/; born 15 October 1931) is an Indian scientist and administrator who
served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. Kalam was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, studied physics
at St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, and aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai.
i

Before his term as President, he worked as an Aerospace engineer with Defence Research and DevelopmentOrganization (DRDO)
and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).[1] Kalam is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the
development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology.[2] He played a pivotal organizational, technical and political role in
India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.[3]
Kalam was elected the President of India in 2002, defeating Lakshmi Sahgal, was nominated by Bharatiya Janata Partyand
supported by opposition Indian National Congress, the major political parties of India. He is currently a visiting professor at Indian
Institute of Management Shillong, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Management Indore, honorary
fellow of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,[4] Chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology
Thiruvananthapuram, a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Anna University(Chennai), JSS University (Mysore)
and an adjunct/visiting faculty at many other academic and research institutions across India.
Kalam advocated plans to develop India into a developed nation by 2020 in his book India 2020. He has received several
prestigious awards, including the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honor. Kalam is known for his motivational speeches and

interaction with the student community in India.[5] He launched his mission for the youth of the nation in 2011 called the What Can I
Give Movement with a central theme to defeat corruption in India

C. V. Raman

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS[2] ( 7 November 1888 21 November 1970) was an Indian physicist, born in the
former Madras Province, whose ground breaking work in the field of light scattering earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics.
He discovered that, when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes inwavelength. This
phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman effect.[3] In 1954, he was honoured with the highest
civilian award in India, the Bharat Ratna.[4][5]
He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (18921980[22]). They had two sons, Chandrasekhar and radioastronomer Radhakrishnan.
On his religious views, he was an agnostic.[23][24]

Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, Karnataka, a
year later. He served as its director and remained active there until his death in 1970, in Bangalore, at the age of 82.
Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1983) for his discovery
of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.

During a voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman noticed the blue colour of glaciers and the Mediterranean sea. He was motivated to
discover the reason for the blue colour. Raman carried out experiments regarding the scattering of light by water and transparent
blocks of ice which explained the phenomenon.
There is an event that served as the inspiration of the Raman effect. On a December evening in 1927, Raman's student K. S.
Krishnan (who later became the Director of the National Physical Laboratory) gave him the news that Professor Compton had won
the Nobel Prize for his studies of the scattering of X-rays. This led Raman to theorize that if the Compton effect is applicable for Xrays, then it may be for light also, and to devise some experiments.
Raman employed monochromatic light from a mercury arc lamp which penetrated transparent material and was allowed to fall on
a spectrograph to record its spectrum. He detected lines in the spectrum which he later called Raman lines. He presented his theory
at a meeting of scientists in Bangalore on 16 March 1928, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

Vikram Sarabhai

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (12 August 1919 30 December 1971) was an Indian physicist.
He is considered the father of India's space programme. Dr.Vikram Sarabhai was born on 12 August 1919 in the city
of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat state in western India. The Sarabhai family was an important and rich Jain business family.
His father Ambalal Sarabhai was an affluent industrialist, owned many textiles mills in Gujarat, and devoted his life to
poor people.
Dr.Vikram Sarabhai went to Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya for his high school studies. Dr.Vikram Sarabhai
matriculated from the Gujarat College in Ahmedabad after passing the Intermediate Science examination.
After that, he moved to England and joined the St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He received the Tripos in
Natural Sciences from Cambridge in 1940.[3]
The establishment of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was one of his greatest achievements. He
successfully convinced the government of the importance of a space programme for a developing country like India
after the Russian Sputnik launch.
Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely regarded as the father of India's nuclear science program, supported Dr. Sarabhai
in setting up the first rocket launching station in India. This center was established
at Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the coast of the Arabian Sea, primarily because of its proximity to the
equator. After a remarkable effort in setting up the infrastructure, personnel, communication links, and launch pads,
the inaugural flight was launched on November 21, 1963 with a sodium vapour payload.
As a result of Dr. Sarabhai's dialogue with NASA in 1966, the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was
launched during July 1975 July 1976 (when Dr.Sarabhai was no more). Dr. Sarabhai started a project for the
fabrication and launch of an Indian satellite. As a result, the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975
from a Russian Cosmodrome. Dr. Sarabhai was very interested in science education and founded a Community
Science Centre at Ahmedabad in 1966. Today, the centre is called the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science
Centre.
Sarabhai died on 31 December 1971 at Halcyon Castle, Kovalam, Kerala because of heart attack due to excessive
stress. He was visiting Thiruvananthapuram to attend the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Thumba railway
station being built to service the newly created Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.

Homi J. Bhabha

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (/bb/; 30 October 1909 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear
physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.[2][3] Colloquially
known as "father ofIndian nuclear programme",[4] Bhabha was the founding director of two well-known research
institutions, namely the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Trombay Atomic Energy
Establishment (now named after him); both sites were the cornerstone of Indian development of nuclear weapons
which Bhabha also supervised as its director.[2][4In January 1933, Bhabha received his doctorate in nuclear physics
after publishing his first scientific paper, "The Absorption of Cosmic radiation". In the publication, Bhabha offered an
explanation of the absorption features and electron shower production in cosmic rays. The paper helped him win the
Isaac Newton Studentship in 1934, which he held for the next three years. The following year, he completed his
doctoral studies in theoretical physics under Ralph H. Fowler. During his studentship, he split his time working at
Cambridge and with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In 1935, Bhabha published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal
Society, Series A, in which performed the first calculation to determine the cross section of electron-positron
scattering. Electron-positron scattering was later named Bhabha scattering, in honor of his contributions in the field.
In 1936, the two published a paper, "The Passage of Fast Electrons and the Theory of Cosmic Showers"[7] in
the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, in which they used their theory to describe how primary cosmic rays
from outer space interact with the upper atmosphere to produce particles observed at the ground level. Bhabha and
Heitler then made numerical estimates of the number of electrons in the cascade process at different altitudes for
different electron initiation energies. The calculations agreed with the experimental observations of cosmic ray
showers made by Bruno Rossi and Pierre Victor Auger a few years before. Bhabha later concluded that observations
of the properties of such particles would lead to the straightforward experimental verification of Albert
Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1937, Bhabha was awarded the Senior Studentship of the 1851 exhibition, which
helped him continue his work at Cambridge until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
When Bhabha was working at the India Institute of Science, there was no institute in India which had the necessary
facilities for original work in nuclear physics, cosmic rays, high energy physics, and other frontiers of knowledge in
physics. This prompted him to send a proposal in March 1944 to the Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata. Tata Trust for
establishing 'a vigorous school of research in fundamental physics'. The trustees of Sir Dorabji Jamsetji. Tata Trust
decided to accept Bhabha's proposal and financial responsibility for starting the Institute in April 1944. Bombay was
chosen as the location for the prosed Institute as the Government of Bombay showed interest in becoming a joint
founder of the proposed institute. The institute, namedTata Institute of Fundamental Research, was inaugurated in
1945 in 540 square meters of hired space in an existing building. In 1948 the Institute was moved into the old
buildings of the Royal Yacht club. When Bhabha realized that technology development for the atomic energy
programme could no longer be carried out within TIFR he proposed to the government to build a new laboratory
entirely devoted to this purpose. For this purpose, 1200 acres of land was acquired at Trombay from the Bombay
Government. Thus the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) started functioning in 1954. The same year the
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was also established.[9] He represented India in International Atomic Energy
Forums, and as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, in Geneva,
Switzerland in 1955. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
1958.[10] He died when Air India Flight 101 crashed near Mont Blanc on 24 January 1966.[14]

Har Gobind Khorana

Har Gobind Khorana also known as Hargobind Khorana (January 9, 1922 November 9, 2011)[2][3] was an IndianAmerican biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W.
Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which
carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cells synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded
the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prizefrom Columbia University in the same year.[4]
He was born in Raipur, British India (today Tehsil Kabirwala Punjab Pakistan) and became a naturalized citizen of
theUnited States in 1966,[1] and subsequently received the National Medal of Science. He served as MIT's Alfred P.
Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry, Emeritus[5] and was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The
Scripps Research Institute.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Government of India (DBT Department of Biotechnology), and the Indo-US
Science and Technology Forum jointly created theKhorana Program in 2007. The mission of the Khorana Program is
to build a seamless community of scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.
The program is focused on three objectives: Providing graduate and undergraduate students with a transformative
research experience, engaging partners in rural development and food, security, and facilitating public-private
partnerships between the U.S. and India. In 2009, Khorana was hosted by the Khorana Program and honored at the
33rd Steenbock Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin.[citation needed]
Khorana died of natural causes on November 9, 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, aged 89.[11] A widower since 2001,
he was survived by his children Julia and Davel.[12]

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan FRS (pronunciation: /sri.ni.va.s ra.ma.n.dn/) (22 December 1887 26 April 1920) was
an Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary
contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. Ramanujan initially
developed his own mathematical research in isolation; it was quickly recognized by Indian mathematicians. When his
skills became apparent to the wider mathematical community, centered in Europe at the time, he began a famous
partnership with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy. He rediscovered previously known theorems in addition to
producing new work.
i

During his short life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3900 results (mostly identities and equations).
[1]
Nearly all his claims have now been proven correct, although a small number of these results were actually false
and some were already known.[2] He stated results that were both original and highly unconventional, such as
the Ramanujan prime and the Ramanujan theta function, and these have inspired a vast amount of further research.
[3]
The Ramanujan Journal, an international publication, was launched to publish work in all areas of mathematics
influenced by his work.[4] Ramanujan has been described as a person with a somewhat shy and quiet disposition, a
dignified man with pleasant manners.[77] He lived a rather spartan life while at Cambridge. Ramanujan's first Indian
biographers describe him as rigorously orthodox. Ramanujan credited his acumen to his family
goddess, Mahalakshmi ofNamakkal. He looked to her for inspiration in his work,[78] and claimed to dream of blood
drops that symbolised her male consort, Narasimha, after which he would receive visions of scrolls of complex
mathematical content unfolding before his eyes.[79] He often said, "An equation for me has no meaning, unless it
represents a thought of God."[80][81]
Hardy cites Ramanujan as remarking that all religions seemed equally true to him.[82] Hardy further argued that
Ramanujan's religiousness had been romanticised by Westerners and overstatedin reference to his belief, not
practiceby Indian biographers. At the same time, he remarked on Ramanujan's strict observance of vegetarianism.
The number 1729 is known as the HardyRamanujan number after a famous anecdote of the British
mathematician G. H. Hardy regarding a visit to the hospital to see Ramanujan. In Hardy's words:[89]

I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1

The two different ways are

1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103.
Generalizations of this idea have created the notion of "taxicab numbers". Coincidentally, 1729 is also
a Carmichael number.

Satish Dhawan

Satish Dhawan (25 September 1920 3 January 2002) was an Indian aerospace engineer, widely regarded as the
father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India. Born in Srinagar, Dhawan was educated in India and further
on in the United States. Dhawan was one of the most eminent researchers in the field of turbulence and boundary
layers, leading the successful and ingenious development of the Indian space programme. Dhawan was a graduate
of the University of the Punjab in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan), where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in
mathematics and Bachelor of Science in physics, followed by a Master of Arts in mathematics from the same
institution. In 1943, he moved to the United States to further his education. He attended the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis and completed a Bachelor of Engineering in mechanical engineering. In 1947, he completed a Master of
Science in aerospace engineering and Aeronautical Engineers Degree from the California Institute of
Technology followed by a double PhD. in mathematics and aerospace engineering under the supervision of his
advisor Dr. Hans W. Liepmannin 1951. He succeeded Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme,
as Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1972. Dr. Dhawan took over as Chairman of
Space Commission and Chairman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)and Secretary to the Government of
India at the Department of Space. In the year of 1975, when APJ Abdul Kalam was the director of a SLV mission, the
mission failed to launch the satellite in the orbit. Instead it was put into Bay of Bengal. The team of Abdul Kalam knew
that there is a leakage in the fuel of the system. Hoping that the leakage is negligible as they thought they have

enough fuel in the system. This misinterpretation lead to the failure. At this moment, Abdul Kalam was afraid to attend
the press conference. But Satish Dhawan being the chairman at the time, called Abdul Kalam and conveyed to press
"We failed! But I have a very good trust in my team that next time we will be succeeding for sure". This surprised
Abdul Kalam as the blame of the failure was taken by the Chairman of ISRO. The next mission was prepared and
launched successfully on 1980. At this moment of success, Satish Dhawan told Abdul Kalam to attend the press meet
without his presence. When the team failed, he took the blame. But when the team succeeded, he redirected the
success to his team. This shows the great leadership of Satish Dhawan.

Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar

Sir Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar OBE, FRS[1] (Hindi: ) (21 February 1894 1 January 1955) was a
well-known Indian scientist, a professor of chemistry for over 19 years. He was the first director-general of the Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and he is revered as the "father of research laboratories".[2] He was also
the first Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC).[1][3][4]
To honour his name and achievements, CSIR instituted an award Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and
Technology, since 1958 for outstanding scientists who made significant contributions in various branches of science.[5]
[6]

Bhatnagar's first industrial problem was developing the process for converting bagasse (peelings of sugarcane) into
food-cake for cattle. This was done for Sir Ganga Ram, the Grand Old Man of Punjab. He also solved industrial
problems for Delhi Cloth Mills, J.K. Mills Ltd. of Kanpur, Ganesh Flour Mills Ltd. of Layallapur, Tata Oil Mills Ltd. of
Bombay, and Steel Brothers & Co. Ltd. of London.
His major innovation was improving the procedure for drilling crude oil. The Attock Oil Company at Rawalpindi
(representative of Messers Steel Brothers & Co London) had confronted a peculiar problem, wherein the mud used
for drilling operation got hardened upon contact with the saline water, thereby clogging the drill holes. Bhatnagar
realised that this problem could be solved by colloidal chemistry. He added an Indian gum, which had the remarkable
property of lowering the viscosity of the mud suspension and of increasing at the same time its stability against

the flocculating action of electrolytes. M/s Steel Brothers was so pleased that they offered Bhatnagar a sum of Rs.
1,50,000/- for research work on any subject related to petroleum. The company placed the fund through the university
and it was used to establish the Department of Petroleum Research under the guidance of Bhatnagar. Investigations
carried out under this collaborative scheme included deodourisation of waxes, increasing flame height
of kerosene and utilisation of waste products in vegetable oil and mineral oil industries. Acknowledging the
commercial success of the research, the company increased the fund, and extended the period from five years to ten
years. Bhatnagar persistently refused personal monetary benefit from his research fundings, and instead advocated
for strengthening research facilities at the university. His sacrifices drew wide attention. Meghnad Saha wrote to
Bhatnagar in 1934 saying, You have hereby raised the status of the university teachers in the estimation of public,
not to speak of the benefit conferred on your Alma Mater.
Bhatnagar wrote jointly with K.N. Mathur Physical Principles and Applications of Magnetochemistry which is
considered as a standard work on the subject. For his excellent contributions to pure and applied chemistry,
Bhatnagar was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1936 New Year Honours List.
[10]
He was knighted in the 1941 New Year Honours List for his contributions to the advancement of science.[2][11] In
1943 the Society of Chemical Industry, London, elected him as Honorary Member and later as Vice President. On 18
March 1943 he was elected as fellow of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom.[1][5]
In independent India, he was the President of the Indian Chemical Society, National Institute of Sciences of India and
the Indian National Science Congress. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by the government of India in 1954.[8]
The prestigious award in science in India, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology was created in
his honour.[5]

G. Madhavan Nair

G. Madhavan Nair (Malayalam: . ; born October 31, 1943) is the former Chairman of Indian Space
Research Organisation and Secretary to the Department of Space, Government of India since September 2003 and
was also the Chairman, Space Commission. He was succeeded by K. Radhakrishnan.[1] He was also the Chairman of
Governing Body of the Antrix Corporation, Bangalore. Madhavan Nair was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's
second highest civilian honour, on January 26, 2009.[2][3] He also served as the Chairman, Board of Governors, Indian
Institute of Technology Patna until he stepped down voluntarily due to his alleged involvement in Antrix-Devas deal.[4]
As the Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization, Nair is entrusted with the responsibility for the development
of space technology and its application to national development. During his tenure as Chairman, ISRO/Secretary,
DOS, twenty seven successful missions were accomplished i.e., INSAT-3E, Resourcesat-1, Edusat, Cartosat-1,

Hamsat-1, INSAT-4A, PSLV-C5, GSLV-F01, PSLV-C6, Cartosat-2, INSAT-4B, SRE-1, PSLV-C7,PSLV-C8, GSLV-F04,
INSAT-4CR, PSLV-C10, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1,PSLV-C9, Chandrayaan-1, PSLV-C11, PSLV-C12, RISAT-2, ANUSAT,
PSLV-C14 and Ocensat-2 . He has taken initiatives towards development of futuristic technologies to enhance the
space systems capabilities as well as to reduce the cost of access to space. Nair has given major thrust for evolving
application programmes such as tele-education and telemedicine for meeting the needs of society at large. As
Chairman Space Commission, Nair is responsible for chalking out the future plan for space research in the country.
Major thrust are in scientific exploration of outer space using the Astrosat and Chandrayaan (moon) missions apart
from implementing schemes for telemedicine, tele-education and disaster management support systems. He is also
providing guidance and leadership in undertaking new technology developments related to launch vehicle, spacecraft
for communication, remote sensing and applications programmes to meet societal needs. In the international arena,
Nair has led the Indian delegations for bilateral cooperation and negotiations with many Space Agencies and
Countries, specially with France, Russia, Brazil, Israel, etc., and has been instrumental in working out mutually
beneficial international cooperative agreements. Nair has led the Indian delegation to the S&T Sub-Committee of
United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS) since 1998. His main focus has always
been to achieve self-reliance in the high technology areas and to bring the benefits of space technology to India's
development, specially targeting the needs of the rural and poor sections of society. Mr.Nair has won several awards
such as National Aeronautical Award, FIE foundation's Award, Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Award, Swadeshi Sastra
Puraskar Award, Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Gold Medal of the Indian Science Congress Association, Dr.Yelavarthy
Nayudamma Memorial Award-2004, HK Firodia Award-2005, Fifth "Shri Balvantbhai Parekh Award", Lokmanya Tilak
Award from Tilak Smarak Trust, "Sree Chithira Thirunal Award" from Sree Chithira Thirunal Trust, "MP Birla Memorial
Award 2009", "Bhu Ratna Award", "Mohamed Abdu Rahiman Sahib National Award", "AV Rama Rao Technology
Award", "Chanakya Award" etc., He has also received Gold Medal from the Prime Minister at the 94th Indian Science
Congress at Chidambaram in 2007. He received M M Chugani award for 2006, conferred by Indian Physics
Association at IIT Mumbai during March 2008. He was also conferred with "Raja Rammohan Puraskar" award on the
236th birth anniversary of Raja Rammohan Roy at Kolkata during May 2008. The Government of India conferred
Madhavan Nair the highly coveted awards Padma Bhushan in 1998 and Padma Vibhushan in 2009 in recognition of
his services to the country and society.