Scientific community gives CNR thumbs-up

For the City’s scientific community, it is joy unlimited after the Centre announced the name of Prof C N R Rao for the prestigious Bharat Ratna award, along with that of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on Saturday.

For any sportsman, the award of Bharat Ratna is the most coveted. This makes Sachin a star in Indian sports. But, Rao’s selection is no less significant for the scientific community as this is the second award for pure science after Sir C V Raman.  

“This is indeed a great honour. He deserves it and we are all excited about it. It is a fantastic thing because he is just 80 years old, is passionate about science and is still going strong,” said professor U Ramamurty of the department of materials engineering at the Indian Institute of Science.

“If Sachin is the highest scorer of runs, Rao is the leading scientist in the country with the maximum number of papers published in his name. Sachin is 40 years old and has retired from cricket. But Rao is 80 and still going strong,”said a researcher.

“Sachin has retired from cricket after playing for 25 years, whereas Rao is contributing for the last fifty years. He too, like Sachin, started at a very young age,” said another researcher.

Says Dr Ramamurthy, “He has authored 1,540 papers in his 50 years as scientist, which is roughly 30 papers per year and one paper in two weeks,” he explained.

“Rao is the most cited scientist across the world. Of his papers, at least 54 are cited a thousand times, at least 30 of them are cited 200 times and 110 of them are cited a 100 times,” said Ramamurthy.  

 Institutes like Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Studies were set up by Rao, he said, adding that there are several departments and centres started by him. He is an academy by himself. “I feel Sachin is honoured to get Bharat Ratna along with him”.

D D Sarma, professor at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry department at IISc, said the award to Rao was a fantastic thing to happen for Indian science says. Rao is also the only Indian scientist to have received the highest accolades and maximum number of doctorates and awards.

“He is a fellow of various science academies, which includes Royal Society of Science, London, National Society for Sciences, USA, French Society of Sciences, Pontifical Academy of Science, Vatican City and Japanese Academy of Sciences. He has honorary doctorates from at least 60 universities, including Oxford, Purdue and St Angels and his prizes include Dan David award by the Government of Israel,” he said.  

An illustrious career

Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao or CNR Rao was born in Bangalore on June 30, 1934 to Hanumantha Nagesa Rao and Nagamma Nagesa Rao.

He did his bachelors degree from Mysore University in 1951, masters from BHU in 1953, and PhD in 1958 from Purdue University, Indiana, US.

In 1961, he received DSc from Mysore University and joined the faculty of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1963.

Rao is currently the National Research Professor and Linus Pauling Research Professor and Honorary President of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bangalore.

He is the founding president of JNCASR. He was appointed Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister in January 2005, a position which he had occupied earlier during 1985–89. He is also the director of the International Centre for Materials Science.

Earlier, he served as a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the IIT, Kanpur from 1963 to 1976 and as the Director of the Indian Institute of Science from 1984 to 1994. He has also been a visiting professor at Purdue University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He was the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor at the University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow at the King’s College, Cambridge during 1983-1984.

Awards:

Hughes Medal (2000); India Science Award (2004); Fellow of Royal Society (1984); Abdus Salam Medal (2008); Dan David Prize (2005); Legion of Honor (2005); Padma Shri
Padma Vibhushan (2013); Bharat Ratna (2013)