Anil Kakodkar

 

Dr. Anil Kakodkar is a renowned scientist of India. He was the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay. But currently, he is the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India (AEIC) and also the Secretary 


Anil Kakodkar was born on 11 November 1943 in the Barawani village, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. He is the son of Mr. P. Kakodkar & Mrs. Kamala Kakodkar. His father and mother were the freedom fighters. He started his primary education in Barawani and also in Khargoan. After this, Anil Kakodkar went away to Bombay for Secondary education. He graduates from the D.G. Ruparel College Mumbai. After that he obtained his Mechanical Engineering degree from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) in Bambay University in 1963. He also obtained a masters degree in experimental stress analysis from the University of Nottingham in the year 1969. The life history of Anil Kakodkar’s career as nuclear scientist further saw him join the Reactor Engineering Division of the BARC. 

Anil Kakodkar graduated from the Ruparel College there. Kakodkar then joined VJTI in Bombay University in 1963 to obtain a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In the year 1964, Anil Kakodkar joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). He also notched a masters degree in experimental stress analysis from the University of Nottingham in the year 1969. The life history of Anil Kakodkar's career as nuclear scientist further saw him join the Reactor Engineering Division of the BARC.
Anil Kakodkar also has the credit of being a member of the core team of architects of India's Peaceful Nuclear Tests that were conducted during the years 1974 and 1998. He also led the indigenous development of the country's Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor Technology. In the year 1996, Anil Kakodkar became the youngest Director of the BARC after Homi Bhabha himself. From the year 2000 onwards, he has been leading the Atomic Energy Commission of India and playing secretary to the Department of Atomic Energy. Dr Anil Kakodkar has been playing a crucial part in demanding sovereignty for India's nuclear tests. Infact, he is known for being a strong advocate of India's self-reliance by employing Thorium as a fuel for nuclear energy. 


 

 


 

 


 

APJ Abdul Kalam

 

 


 

Bharat Ratna Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, was the eleventh President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007. During his term as The President, he was popularly known as the People's President. Before his term as India's president, he worked as an engineer with DRDO and ISRO and was awarded India's highest civilian honor Bharat Ratna in 1997 for his work with ISRO and DRDO and his role as a scientific advisor to the Indian government. He is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on development of ballistic missile and space rocket technology. In India he is highly respected as a Statist and as an Engineer.

Kalam played a pivotal organizational, technical and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear test in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974. He is a professor at Anna University (Chennai) and adjunct/visiting faculty at many other academic and research institutions across India. Although he is an engineer he has received many honorary doctorate degrees.

With the death of R. Venkataraman on January 27, 2009, Kalam became the only surviving former President of India.

Kalam's father was a devout Muslim, who owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul KalamAbdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street in Rameshwaram, and his brother's curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was thirty three. That was in 1964 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalam's native village, Dhanushkodi.   mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of

 


 

 


 

 





 

Birbal Sahni

 

Sahni was born on November 14, 1891, at Bhera (Punjab) now in Pakistan. His father was a chemistry teacher who was interested in the study of nature. During vacations the older Sahni used to take the boy on treks in the mountains. Together they used to collect rocks, plants and fossil-bearing rocks. The young Sahni became so interested in botany and geology that, against the wishes of his father, who was keen that he join the Indian Civil Service, he took them up as his career.

After graduating from Punjab University, Lahore, in 1911, Sahni went Britain. In 1919 he secured his D.Sc. From London University. Subsequently, he took up research on ferns, conifers and fossil plants under the guidance of a noted botanist, A.C. Steward. In 1929 he became the first Indian to get a D.Sc. from Cambridge University, a rare distinction then. In 1936 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Palaeobotany is a subject which needs knowledge of both botany and geology. It also calls for an adventurous spirit and a physique good enough for trekking on the mountains in search of rocks that contain plant fossils. Once the rocks have been collected and ground, the abilities of a detective are required to piece together the picture of that ancient plant from the scattered information available in the fossils. From childhood Sahni had acquired these qualities.

He was the first botanist to study extensively the flora of Indian Gondwana. He also explored the Raj Mahal hills in Bihar, which is a treasury of fossils of ancient plants. Here he discovered some new genus of plants. The important and interesting ones are Homoxylon rajmehalense, Rajamahalia paradora and Williamsonia sewardiana. Some of his discoveries have helped in understanding the evolutionary relationship between certain species of plants of the present and past ages.

He also discovered a new group of fossil gymnosperms (conifers and their allies) called "pentoxyleae," which attracted world-wide attention. Some of his palaeobotanical studies have even given support to the continental drift theory. According to this theory continents have always been drifting on the surface of the earth, just as a raft does on the surface of the earth, just as a raft does on the surface currents of a river.

Sahni was a geologist too. Using crude instruments and his vast knowledge of ancient plants, he estimated the age of some old rocks. He showed that the age of the Salt Range, now in Pakistan Punjab, is 40 to 60 million years old and not about 100 million years, as believed till then. He found that the Deccan Traps in Madhya Pradesh were of the tertiary period, about 62 million years old.

Besides, Sahni took a keen interest in archaeology. One of his investigations led to the discovery of coin moulds in Rohtak in 1936. For his studies on the technique of casting coins in ancient India he was awarded the Nelson Wright Medal of the Numismatic Society of India.

He was also good at painting and clay modeling and had a large collection of stamps and coin.