| Prof. CNR Rao is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister; President Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore; Chairman Indo-Japan Science Council and the list goes on and on. But the most apt address for him is a pioneer for science in India. |
| (Prof. CNR Rao-file photo) |
How Prof. CNR Rao came to IT-BHU is a story worth telling.
It all began with Pushpendra Kumar, a student of fourth mechanical in IT-BHU, facing technical difficulties while working on a hydrogen genset project. Feeling perplexed he decided to seek help from some of India’s renowned professors at the IITs and other renowned universities, e-mailing them his problem and requesting suggestions. However, he was greatly disappointed when he didn’t receive even a single reply. So, Pushpendra carried on the best he could.
Meanwhile, one of his papers titled “Safety Aspects of Hydrogen” was selected in the International Conference on Hydrogen held in Jaipur in November 2006. While going through the brochure of the conference Pushpendra saw that CNR Rao was the national advisor to the board. Being an optimist he decided to e-mail him as well, though previous experiences told him that any help would be unlikely. So he was naturally very surprised when he received a response, referring him to Dr AK Shukla, Director Central Electrochemical Research Institute Karaikudi, who conducted research in a similar field. With Prof. Rao’s reference he contacted Dr AK Shukla and promptly received his assistance.
Pushpendra recalled Prof. Rao’s statement in the newspapers that “Science in India will die within the next few years”. He had several questions for Prof. Rao regarding this statement, so he requested him to deliver a seminar on the “Science Scenario in India” in IT-BHU. Prof. Rao had surprised Pushpendra once before when he took time to assist him with his technical problem, but he was absolutely astounded when Prof. Rao, despite his very busy schedule, agreed to his request. Prof. SN Upadhyay, Director IT-BHU gave Pushpendra’s suggestion the thumbs up and a seminar was scheduled during Prof. Rao’s visit to BHU in March 07.
On 12th March at 4.00 PM, Prof. Rao delivered his seminar in G-11 before a huge audience comprising of students and faculty members of IT-BHU. He talked of how the contribution of India to global research has fallen over the past ten years. He encouraged the audience to shrug off mediocrity and produce high quality research and asked the youth of India to step forward and lead the country to better things.
For more about Prof. CNR Rao, please read http://www.jncasr.ac.in/cnrrao/