Raghunath Anant Mashelkar - Life and Work

Life and Work

Mashelkar had a difficult childhood and his mother could not support his college education. Mashelkar went to school barefoot and almost gave up studies. Still he managed to be a rank holder in the Matriculation examination. During his science experiments, his principal and science teacher Mr. Bhave was doing experiment on concentration of magnifying lens upon a paper until it burns. When it started burning he pointed Mashelkar and told, "Mashelkar, this lens is you if you concentrate on studies then one day you will reach the sky".His personal experience of ascendance from dire circumstances, improvements in India's infrastructure, and changing patterns of scientific emigration and immigration have convinced him that India is fated to become one of the world's greatest intellectual and economic engines.

Mashelkar studied at the University of Bombay's Department of Chemical Technology (now the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai) where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Chemical engineering in 1966, later on a Ph.D. degree in 1969.

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 60,000 scientists. He is also the President of India's National Innovation Foundation.

Mashelkar is the former President of the Indian National Science Academy and the UK Institution of Chemical Engineers (2007-8). He served for over eleven years as the director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,world's largest chain of publicly funded industrial R&D institutions, with thirty-eight laboratories and about 20,000 employees. He is the third Indian engineer to have been elected as fellow of Royal Society (FRS), London in the twentieth century. He was elected foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2005, only the 8th Indian since 1863 to be selected. On 28 April 2008, 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. He was elected foreign fellow of US National Academy of Engineering (2003), Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, UK (1996), and Fellow of World Academy of Art & Science, USA (2000). Twenty-six universities have honoured him with honorary doctorates, which include University of London, University of Salford, University of Pretoria, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Delhi University.

In August 1997, Business India named Mashelkar as being among the 50 path-breakers in the post- Independent India. In 1998, Mashelkar won the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award, the first scientist to win it. In June, 1999, Business India did a cover story on Mashelkar as "CEO OF CSIR Inc.", a dream that he himself had articulated, when he took over as DG, CSIR in July 1995. On 16 November 2005, he received the BusinessWeek (USA) award of Stars of Asia’ at the hands of George H.W. Bush, the former President of USA. He was the first Asian Scientist to receive it. He has been a much sought after consultant for restructuring the publicly funded R&D institutions around the world; his contributions in South Africa, Indonesia and Croatia have been particularly notable.

When Mashelkar took over as the Director General of CSIR, he enunciated "CSIR 2001: Vision & Strategy." This was a bold attempt to draw out a corporate like R&D and business plan for a publicly funded R&D institution. This initiative has transformed CSIR into a user focussed, performance driven and accountable organization. This process of transformation has been heralded as one of the ten most significant achievements of Indian Science and Technology in the twentieth century, by eminent astrophysicist Prof. Jayant Narlikar, in his 2003 book, Scientific Edge: The Indian Scientist from Vedic to Modern Times.