Two Indian scientists, both from Bangalore's prestigious Indian Institute of Science were today conferred with the Palmes Academiques (Order of the Academic Palms) French award for excellence in their respective fields and contribution in education, at the Alliance Francaise here today.
While Prof Govindan Rangarajan, Chairman of the Mathematics Dept, was conferred the Chevalier rank, Prof K J Rao from the SSCU Dept was given the Officer rank.
These are among the oldest civilian awards in the world. The order was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808 to recognise accomplishment in teaching, scholarship and research. Initially bestowed only on members of the French universities, since 1955 the scope was widened to honour eminent personalities all over the world for their contributions in education.
Prof Rao has had a long association with various French institutions and universities, especially with the university of Bordeaux having co-published many papers. In 2002 he was instrumental in setting up a Indo French laboratory for Solid State Chemistry between IISc and CNRS (ICMCB, Bordeaux). This virtual lab, funded by the DST, has seen participation by IITs in India and French universities.
Prof Rao is a well-known figure in the field of material science, having pioneered structure and properties of ceramic and glass, besides providing an understanding of electrical propagation in glass.
Prof Rangarajan has been working on non-linear dynamics and chaos and the application in neuroscience and geoscience. In a recent study he had shown some interesting results in the mass extinction of species where he showed that they had to be synchronised rather than in isolation.
Prof Rangarajan played a crucial role in conceptualising an Indo-French cyber university project (Ficus). Basically to create a cyber-platform for information exchange between IISc and University of Touluse, it has been concentrating so far on pots grad level courses in applied mathematics using satellite communication.
The awards were handed over by Prof Bernard Heulen, scientific counselor, French Embassy. The recipients thanked their respective departments and colleagues at IISc while expressing their happiness.