Dr raghunath anant mashelkar biography examples

Raghunath Anant Mashelkar. He was elected as the foreign associate of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is the first Indian to have received this honour. Twenty-six universities have honoured him with honorary doctorates, which include University of London, University of Salford, University of Pretoria, University of Wisconsinand Delhi University.

Mashelkar was honoured with the Padmashri and Padmabhushan by the President of India. Mashelkar is presently the president of Global Research Alliance, a network of publicly funded research and development institutes from Asia-Pacific, South Africa, Europe and USA with over 60, scientists. From Mashel to Raghunath Mashelkar tell us something about your journey, any particular incidents that you would like everybody to know.

A: I was born in Mashel, that is how I draw my name Mashelkar. I was born into a very poor family. My father died when I was six and my mother moved to Girgaon, Prarthanasamaj, in south Bombay. I went to a municipal school where I studied in Marathi, until the 11th standard, which used to be the SSC. Getting two meals a day was a big challenge for me.

So I had to go to an ordinary school; but it had really great teachers, very enlightened teachers. One of them changed my life, Principal Bhave, who taught us physics. That was how I could study.

Dr raghunath anant mashelkar biography examples

I used to go to that Bombay House in Bombay, Tatas had all their offices there. Today, I go there as a member of Board of Directors of Tata Motors, so the wheel has turned a full circle. But that happened because of the Rs. I think there is a lesson there, that there are hundreds of thousands of Mashelkars; if they are given the support, then they can definitely do something.

I did my PhD with Dr. His paper with late C. His other contributions amplify the concept of More from Less for More. The report generated controversy when editorials published simultaneously in the Times of India [26] and The Hindu [27] alleged parts of the report had been plagiarised. Mashelkar subsequently withdrew the report due to the alleged plagiarism, [28] admitting to flaws in the report [26] [29] whilst stating, "This is the first time such a thing has happened.

Mashelkar begins the interview with the start of his professional journey as a scientist at CSIR. Returning to the country after teaching Chemical Engineering in the UK, he outlines the initial challenges that he encountered in a pre-liberalized India from regulatory barriers to the lack of foreign exchange which limited access to laboratory equipment.

Despite the constraints, Dr. He views this achievement as progress in both scientific and industrial research, highlighting how they go hand-in-hand. We had filed for a US patent by that time, and it was even granted. They were very surprised, and they saw that despite being market leaders, they had never thought of this process, but who was this person who had put a flag in their territory?

They were impressed but they also wanted to validate the results. They sent a team of four people to NCL and they were amazed to see the capacity we had. Then they wanted to give us a contract for doing research, and they thought that since India is a poor country, they could do this very cheaply. I quoted a number. They were shocked.

They had come via Russia. USSR was crumbling at that time. They said that for that price, they could buy a Russian lab. I said please go buy it. You will not get what I am offering, and I said I charge not by man hours, but by brain hours. I sent them back, yet they came back. We then partnered, and licensed a three years patent to them in , for close to 1 million dollars.

This was the first instance of reverse transfer of technology. We had always been beggars and borrowers of technology until then. For the first time, we started exporting our technology. When GE came, others started coming. In fact, on the inauguration day, Jack Welch had asked me to join him. That flight of imagination of wanting to turn NCL international, of taking on the world leader and creating something which they had not thought of, that is what I meant.

If you aim at Hanuman Tekdi, you will remain where you are. It was very rough. My father died when I was six years old. I was born in a village called Mashel. My mother could barely read or write. She brought me to Mumbai, and did odd jobs like stitching to bring me up. Two meals a day was a challenge. I walked barefoot till I was 12 years old. CC: How did your mother have the vision to take you and come to Mumbai?

I had a maternal uncle who used to work at a paint shop and painted buses in Mumbai. He brought us there. Sometimes, I got I was happy. She made me sit and asked me where I lost the three marks. That was the kind of standard she set for me. This was a Marathi medium school. After 7th standard, I went to a secondary school called Union High School.

Union High School was a school for the poor. I got admission there, but that school had very rich teachers and one of them changed my life. This is the importance of teachers. He later became the Principal. He believed in his students, not rote learning. He advocated learning by observing, doing, and listening. He would take us on a tram to the Hindustan Lever factory.

At that age, we saw how soap was made. We went to a company called Vimco in Ambernath to see how matchboxes were made. This was my first time travelling by train and he paid for my ticket because I had no money. One day, he took us out in the sun and said that he wanted to show us how to find the focal length of a convex lens. The experiment he did was a simple one.

He took a convex lens, he waved it around in the sun, and where light concentrated the brightest, he explained that that was the focal length. We tried this on a piece of paper and after some time the paper burnt. It showed me that Science was so powerful. So I would become a scientist. Secondly, it gave me the philosophy of life, that no matter what happened, you had to focus, concentrate.

But the lens makes them meet. So I coined the term convex lens leadership. Convex lens leadership is one where you are dealing with different languages, religions, and cultures, basically a divided society. Then you get a convex lens leadership which gets people together. Unfortunately, concave lens leadership is what we are seeing today.

You must make science enjoyable. You must show that science is not all about mugging up formulae, but about having fun. Education is all about learning, doing, and being, and there is no substitute for doing things by hand and exploring. This has been extended to hundreds of schools now. Children have the opportunity of enjoying what they do.

The most important part is the School. Children are moulded in schools. Science must be made an attractive career to encourage budding scientists. Let us not forget that Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a scientist. Scientists have occupied the highest positions in this country. This sends a good signal to students. CC: We have such excellent scientists in this country, but do you think that the government and the media do not do a good job of highlighting them?

The fault lies on both sides. Scientists are poor communicators. I have seen this.