SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN INDIA - 5 - ANSWERS

1. C. Subhash Mukhopadhyay

(Pankaj Kapoor in "Ek Doctor Ki Maut")

"Ek Doctor Ki Maut" is a 1990 award-winning Hindi film starring Pankaj Kapur, Shabana Azmi, Anil Chatterjee and Irfan Khan in lead roles by noted Bengali director Tapan Sinha, which depicts the ostracism, bureaucratic negligence, reprimand and insult of a doctor and his research, instead of recognition. The film is based on the story "Abhimanyu" by Ramapada Chowdhury and is loosely based on the life of Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay, an Indian Physician who pioneered the In vitro fertilisation treatment just around the same time when another leading scientist Dr. Robert Edwards was conducting separate experiments in England.

Subhash Mukhopadhyay (16 January 1931 – 19 June 1981) was an Indian Bengali scientist, physician from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, who created the world's second and India's first child (Durga) using in-vitro fertilization. Kanupriya Agarwal (Durga), who was born in 1978, just 67 days after the first IVF baby in United Kingdom. Afterwards, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was harassed by the then West Bengal State government and Indian Government and not allowed to share his achievements with the international scientific community. Dejected, he committed suicide on 19 June 1981.

2. C. Wipro

Wipro (formerly, Western India Palm Refined Oil Limited) is an Indian multinational corporation that provides information technology, consulting and business process services. It is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

(Azim Hashim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited)

The company was incorporated on 29 December 1945 in Amalner, Maharashtra by Mohamed Premji as "Western India Palm Refined Oil Limited", later abbreviated to "Wipro". It was initially set up as a manufacturer of vegetable and refined oils in Amalner, Maharashtra. In 1966, after Mohamed Premji's death, his son Azim Premji took over Wipro as its chairman at the age of 21. During the 1970s and 1980s, the company shifted its focus to new opportunities in the IT and computing industry, which was at a nascent stage in India at the time. On 7 June 1977, the name of the company changed from Western India Vegetable Products Limited to Wipro Products Limited. In 1982, the name was changed again, from Wipro Products Limited to Wipro Limited.

In 2013, Wipro separated its non-IT businesses and formed the privately owned Wipro Enterprises.

3. B. Chidambaram Subramaniam

Chidambaram Subramaniam (30 January 1910 – 7 November 2000), was an Indian politician and Independence activist who served as Minister of Finance and Minister of Defence in the union cabinet. He later served as the Governor of Maharashtra. As the Minister for Food and Agriculture, he ushered the Indian Green Revolution, an era of self-sufficiency in food production along with M. S. Swaminathan, B. Sivaraman and Norman E. Borlaug. He was awarded Bharat Ratna, Indian's highest civilian award, in 1998, for his role in ushering Green Revolution.

(American agronomist, ‘Father of the Green Revolution’ and Nobel laureate, Dr Norman Borlaug (left) advising a farmer on wheat development programmes during his visit to Bombay in 1971. Borlaug regularly visited India during the rabi season, checking on wheat development programmes.)

Along with M. S. Swaminathan and B. Sivaraman, Subramaniam was the architect of India's modern agricultural development policy, after the success of his programme which led to a record production of wheat in 1972 termed as the Indian Green Revolution. As Minister for Food and Agriculture, he introduced high-yielding varieties of seeds and more intensive application of fertilizers which paved the way for increased output of cereals and attainment of self-sufficiency in food-grains in the country.

4. B. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is a public technical and research university established by the Government of India in 1951. It is the first of the IITs to be established and is recognized as an "Institute of National Importance". In 2019, it was awarded the status of "Institute of Eminence".

(Main Building of IIT, Kharagpur)

The institute was initially established to train scientists and engineers after India attained independence in 1947 as result of recommendation by a Committee led by Sir Jogendra Singh. On the grounds that West Bengal had the highest concentration of industries at the time, Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, persuaded Jawaharlal Nehru (India's first prime minister) to establish the institute in West Bengal. The first Indian Institute of Technology was thus established in May 1950 as the "Eastern Higher Technical Institute". It was located in Esplanade East, Calcutta, and in September 1950 shifted to its permanent campus at Hijli, Kharagpur 120 kilometres south-west of Kolkata. Hijli had been used as a detention camp during the British colonial rule in India, to keep Indian freedom fighters captive.

The name "Indian Institute of Technology" was adopted before the formal inauguration of the institute on 18 August 1951 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

5. B. Super Computers

Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar is an Indian computer scientist, IT leader and educationalist. He is best known as the architect of India's national initiative in supercomputing where he led the development of Param supercomputers in early 1990s. PARAM is a series of supercomputers designed and assembled by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Pune, India.

Bhatkar is a Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri and Maharashtra Bhushan awardee. Bhatkar has been chancellor of Nalanda University, India since January 2017 for a period of 3 years.