Bengaluru Scientist appointed as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Govt

Bengaluru-based biologist K Vijayraghavan on Monday has been appointed as the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the government for the next three years.

Vijayraghavan, who retired as Secretary, Department of Biotechnology(DBT) earlier this year, would take over from nuclear scientist Rajagopala Chidambaram, who remained the PSA since 2001, serving under three Prime Ministers.

One of India's finest biologists, Vijayraghavan was director of Bengaluru-based National Centre for Biological Sciences for a long time before he took over as the DBT secretary in January 2013.

Interestingly, in the last five years, he headed at least four other scientific departments- DST, CSIR, MoES and ICMR- when those bodies were without their regular heads.

Born in 1954, the 64 year old scientist is a member of several Indian and international science academies including the Royal Society and US National Academy of Sciences.