Professor Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao has achieved a phenomenal scientific research output: 1,400 research papers, over 40 books written or edited, over 100 PhDs supervised and over 160 other collaborations built up. He is among the world’s most decorated scientists: fellowships of all Indian Science Academies, the Royal Society (London), the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the Royal Society of Canada as well as French, Spanish, Brazilian, Japan and Pontifical Academies, the first India Science Prize and several other Indian and international prizes. Space does not allow listing of all his accomplishments and honours. He is the premier Indian scientist, the unparalleled doyen of modern Indian science.
How did one individual achieve so much? Nor does he seem finished yet! Why does he not rest on his laurels? What is the secret of his unstoppable drive? Can any young Indian scientist working in India again achieve what Rao proved can be achieved?
We can glean some answers to such questions from his recent autobiography, fondly dedicated to his wife Indumati, a pillar of support at home and beyond, and collaborator in his projects to interest children in science. A natural narration, written in simple prose, it makes compelling reading. Several other personalities from family and professional circles also find appropriate mention in the autobiography. And it carries instances reflecting his guileless sense of humour. There is not one jarring note in it.
C N R Rao was born and raised in the 1930s Bangalore by orthodox parents, a well-educated and disciplined father and a mother steeped in prayer. They encouraged him to pursue what interested him. Initiated into research in chemistry at BHU, Rao did doctoral research at Purdue University — both significant events in his life. The next stage was equally significant: a post-doctoral stint at the Berkeley chemistry department established by Gilbert Lewis, regarded as the father of modern chemistry. The research ambience at Berkeley was charged: the likes of Glenn Seaborg (NL), Edward Teller (NL) and Robert Oppenheimer walked its corridors. Deeply influenced by it, Rao sailed home in 1959, although the decision to leave America was not easy to take. In the event, his aspiration to build his own comparable research school in India proved to be the fuel that fired his many-splendoured scientific life.
In search of a suitable place in India for his work, Rao picked the Indian Institute of Science where “even a lecturer could have a larger research group than a mighty professor”. After four productive years of research, in 1963 he moved to the newly established IIT Kanpur as an associate professor. Director of IISc Satish Dhawan, who was unhappy to see him go, asked: What will it take to bring you back to the IISc? Rao said: Being allowed to build a new school of research. Dhawan agreed. Thus was founded in 1976 India’s first Solid State and Structural Chemistry research group. The centre Rao envisioned was a momentous initiative, enabling him to keep pace with the mind-boggling rate at which new materials were being discovered: high-temperature superconductors, materials exhibiting giant magneto resistance, amazing carbon-based solids and nano-materials.
In 1986, Rao came close to winning the coveted Nobel Prize. A pair of scientists at IBM’s Swiss lab found a known insulating metal oxide was indeed a high-temperature superconductor. Rao had worked on an identical family of metal oxides a good 15 years earlier. Alas, his work did not concern exactly that aspect the IBM researchers happened to investigate, winning the Nobel in 1987. Rao agonised over this incident but did not let up in his unrelenting pursuit of excellence, going on to make important contributions to high-temperature superconductivity and to several other facets of the new chemistry of materials.
The campsite his research caravan was actually looking for materialised in 1989: the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientific Research (JNC, Bangalore). The JNC’s research record is enviable: for instance, the highest number of research papers per faculty among India’s universities and research labs. Equipped with some of the most advanced research facilities, in 2008 it established the International Centre of Materials. Founding and shaping the JNC may yet prove to be the crowning glory of Rao’s monumental dedication to science.
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He also occupies a prominent, influential place in India’s corridors of power, having been chairman of Science Advisory Councils to four prime ministers: Rajiv Gandhi, Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh (since 2004). Rao’s Councils made notable contributions, one of the latest being a new family of institutions, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research.
Rao has known some of the world’s most distinguished scientists at numerous international conferences as well as during visiting professorships at Cambridge, Oxford, Santa Barbara and other universities. Having earned his place amongst a great fraternity of world scientists, and being able to talk to giants in science as their equal, he can also walk with “infants” in science, writing books for them and demonstrating scientific principles via experiments. His letter to young students — reproduced in Appendix 1 of the book — regarding Chemistry of Materials is a masterpiece. This highly readable autobiography establishes that although Rao has already scaled many a pinnacle in his field of research, he is not inclined to cease his labour. Indeed, now he gazes at other and greater heights.
The reviewer is former secretary, Department of Science and Technology, and former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
CLIMBING THE LIMITLESS LADDER
A Life In Chemistry
C N R Rao
IISc Press-WSPC Publication,
2010, Singapore
222 pages; Rs 895