Prof Chandrakant Kokate who shares his birthday with the nation symbolises the great strides of a country on the march. Hailing from a remote, backward village in Andhra Pradesh, he has reached the pinnacle that any teacher-scientist would aspire to reach —that of vice-chancellor of a university.

After serving as VC of Kakatiya University in Warangal of Andhra Pradesh, he took over as the first VC of the newly-set up KLE University of Health Sciences, Belgaum. He is the first pharmacist to become a VC and the first person ever to have won all the five awards in the pharmacy profession. In addition he has won 11 national and international awards.

Born in Bhainsa in the most backward Adilabad district, Prof Kokate studied in Nizamabad and Nagpur. He pursued MPharm in Mumbai and doctoral and post doctoral studies in Germany.

Prof Kokate is so blunt and unsparing that it left us wondering how he managed to get appointed to top posts since the norm is that without sucking up to politicians, without belonging to a particular community and without being related to a politician one does not go places.

As one of Indian’s midnight children, born on August 15, 1947, Prof Kokate is proud to share his birthday with the nation although it is not his achievement, he points out. He is proud that he is associated with two noble professions – of pharmacy which serves mankind through disease control and of teaching, which he considers noble and sacred.

Does he see India emerging as a super power by 2020? Sure, he responds, but how will that happen if the viruses of corruption and nepotism infect every aspect of our national life?  “These deadly vectors sap the country of its talent, introduce deadly pessimism into its bloodstream and slow down its race to the top of the world,” he says.

For example, thousands of crores of rupees have been spent on cleaning Ganga but it remains dirty. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh goes to Karnataka to sympathise with families of farmers who committed suicide and the route he takes is decorated with innumerable banners and posters giving a look of a wedding celebration.

Chamchagiri afflicts even scientific institutions. A national tendency that upsets Prof Kokate is the glorification of the quantity rather than quality. “We crow about the vastness of Indian Railways network but we ignore that there are lizards and cockroaches in our air-conditioned compartments,” he points out.

What would be one measure he would take to make a difference to the country? “When everybody in the government and outside has a retirement age why not for a politician?