Dr Ramanna’s dream turned to reality. The land of Bose, Saha and Raman now had a cyclotron to boast. It was a revolution quietly changing the rules of the game, from pages of theoretical physics, the City of Joy had arrived at the frontiers of experimental nuclear physics. That was a little over 40 years ago.
Gandhi has been worshipped but largely ignored in official policy-making in the fields of science, technology and industrialisation. Emotional outpourings, like describing him as the greatest Indian after Buddha or so, do not deepen or widen our understanding of the man. It is about time we read more of him. Only then a clearer image of this down-to-earth man ~ not against science or scientists ~ will emerge.
Robert Anderson in his book Building Scientific Institutions in India: Saha and Bhabha (Montreal: Centre for Developing-Area Studies, McGill University, 1975) analysed the historical context as also the social and educational backgrounds that shaped them.
Gandhi’s name was raised in 1924, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948 in around 100 nominations.
Scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, along with Albert Einstein, defined the general properties of bosons that occupy half the universe.
What could be common between the three? Guntur has been an important town in coastal Andhra, the district being famous…
Meghnad Saha was born 125 years ago in an obscure village in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, in a family where…
Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944), whose birth anniversary falls on 2 August, was the founding father of modern science teaching…
Satyendranath Bose was a very different type of person but a great friend of Mahalanobis, and helped ISI greatly. Reclusive,…
