Time to capitalize on rural India’s extraordinary children, says Bharat Ratna Prof. CNR Rao

Prof. CNR Rao, Bharat Ratna awardee and Honorary President & Linus Pauling Research Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore shares his seven decade long journey in science...

I joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as a faculty member in 1959, after my studies in the US. In those days, we had very meagre facilities and little money available for science. I decided to try my best to somehow improve the standard of science and research in India. I left IISc in 1963 and joined the new IIT Kanpur which was supported by a consortium of American universities. I was 29 years old then, but had written two books and published many papers with my students in Bangalore. Building the chemistry department at IIT Kanpur as its first head was a great experience. Even today, there is a general feeling that it was the best chemistry department ever that we have had in India. Every member of the faculty did extremely well and became famous. The students equally contributed to the department. In 1973, I received an invitation from Oxford University to be Commonwealth Visiting Professor for a year. I could do many things in research in Oxford and that experience prompted me to build a laboratory in India which was as good as the one in Oxford in the area of solid state and materials chemistry.

During the early 1970’s, I was a member of the National committee for Science and Technology (NCST) with Mr. C. Subramaniam as the Chairman. We initiated many new programmes on science. Based on the proposals I used to make, the Science and Engineering Research Board for funding science and Regional Sophisticated Instrument Laboratories were set up. I had proposed establishment of a national science university, but that could not be done. NCST was responsible to establish the department of science and technology of the Government of India.

I came back to IISc Bangalore in 1976 from IIT Kanpur at the invitation of Prof. Dhawan to build a new Unit devoted to solid state and structural chemistry (SSCU) and also a new materials research laboratory. Every today, SSCU contributes the most cited papers in IISc. I was a Jawaharlal Nehru Professor in Cambridge University during 1983-84 and became Director of IISc in 1984. This gave me an opportunity to change the research and education programmes and infrastructure, recruit a large number of young faculty and create new facilities which were contemporary. This was a satisfying effort. During 1985-90, I was Chairman of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (SAC-PM) and we could do many things to help science and education at that time. Major contributions to education and science were made during 2004-14 by the SAC-PM. We could establish the Indian Institutes of Science, Education and Research (IISERs). These institutes are doing extremely well and seem to be fountains of research in India. In 1989, I was asked to build a new science institute to commemorate Pandit Nehru’s Centenary. Today, this Centre in Bangalore (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, JNCASR) is a leading Centre for higher education and research.

In the last 15 year or so, I am giving lectures to children all over India, particularly in rural India from Urrarkhand to Kerala. Talking to children has been a wonderful experience and they give hope. It is important to excite the imagination of young children to promote both science and education. Beside the Hall of Science in the JNCASR campus, we have set up similar facilities in few other places to promote outreach activities for school children. Science outreach is as important as any other thing that I have done. Amongst the millions of children in rural India, there must be some extraordinary minds. We must capitalize on them.