Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya- The Great scientist of India

September 15 is a memorable day in the

annals of the engineering fraternity in
the country in general and of 'The
Institution of Engineers (India) in
particular as on this day 147 years ago,
Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, the
towering personality in the history of
Indian engineering, was born.

Honours

While he was Diwan of Mysore, Visvesvarayya was knighted by the

British for his myriad contributions to the public good. After India
attained independence, Sir M. Visvesvarayya was given the nation's
highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1955.

The Knight Commander Of The Indian Empire medal

The Bharat Ratna medal

Sir M.V. was honoured with honorary membership of London Institution

of Civil Engineers C.I.E. (Companion of Indian Empire); was made a
Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire etc,.

Bharata Ratna Sir M. Visvesvaraya, was without doubt one of the most
influential makers of modern India. He was a rare combination of
intellect, integrity, discipline, culture and vision who will continue to
inspire young professionals, centuries after his time.

His beginnings were humble

He was born in 1861 to a Sanskrit scholar Srinivasa Sastry
and hiswife Venkachamma in Chikkaballapur.
After completing his early education in Chikkaballapur,he came
to Bangalore for higher education. This period was fraught
with hardship as he lost his father at the age of 15.
Finances were strained, and there was a time when his
mother failed to dispatch the fees money in time for an
exam.
The young Visvesvaraya showed his resilience when he walked
55 kilometers to his hometown and somehow managed to get
enough money.He then worked as a tutor to earn his way
through college.

The Engineer

On completing his BA in Central College, Bangalore, he moved

to Pune to obtain an engineering degree from the College of
Science (Now Government College of Engineering).

He emerged in 1883 ranked first in L.C.E (equivalent to

todays BE degree) and went on to become one of the finest
Civil Engineers of his time. He devised innovative techniques
that were well ahead of his time.

One of his earliest contributions was the Block System of

Irrigation designed to optimize, control and evenly distribute
water supply to agricultural lands over a large number of
villages.

The supply was rotated within blocks in each village to

curtail misuse and waterlogging. This system, devised in 1899,
is still used in Deccan Canals.

The Engineer

Another early innovation was the collector well that he

implemented in Sukkur in Sindh province (present day Pakistan).

The project had multiple challenges the area was hot and arid,
and they had to manage with minimum funding. An initial plan to
pump water from river Sindhu to a hill nearby, filter it and
supply the water to the town through pipes had been adopted by
the municipality. However they did not have enough money for
the filters.

Visveswaraya solved this ingeniously by digging wells in the river

bed itself close to the river bank to obtain spring water through
percolation. Thus filtering was achieved without having to install
filters.

To increase the supply of water, a tunnel was driven from the

bottom of the well under the flowing river. This was a technique
rarely seen in those days, but is now standard textbook material
under the heading Collector Wells.

The Engineer

Most notably, he designed and later patented the Automated

Floodgates, which permit flood water to enter a reservoir
without the water level exceeding the full reservoir level,
thereby reducing the risk of submerging surrounding land.

The gates are automatic because they open and close at the rise
and fall of water in the reservoir. This was the first time that
thought was given to using reservoirs for flood control, not just
irrigation and power generation.

Visvesvaraya used 48 cast iron automated gates at the

Krishnarjasagar Dam, incidentally manufactured at the
Bhadravathi Iron and Steel Works, a factory that he
established.

Having established his credentials as the ablest of engineers, he

went on to design water supply schemes for a number of towns
in Bombay Presidency, Hyderabad and later as Chief Engineer of
Mysore State.

The Statesman

When it came to large scale engineering projects, Sir MV was known to think
beyond engineering. He would take up these projects only if he was convinced
that it was feasible economically, and that it served a social purpose.

As Dewan of Mysore State, he was instrumental in galvanizing the state into

progress. He established a number of rural industries and set up basic
education for small shop owners in the fields of book-keeping and commerce.

Agricultural schools were opened to help with modern agricultural practices

that reduced farmers overdependence on rain and good luck. A number of
industrial workshops and training institutes were set up. Public libraries were
established.

The Kannada Sahitya Parishat was formed, and many books on science were
published in Kannada. The University College of Engineering (now known as
University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering) and Maharanis College for
Women came into being.

In fact, he established the Mysore University, as until then, all the colleges
in Mysore State were under the Madras University. Interestingly, he had a
tough fight on his hands to achieve this. His clinching argument was If
Australia and Canada could have universities of their own for a population of
less than a million, cannot Mysore with a population of not less than 6 million
have a University of its own?

The Statesman

Pandit Nehru was well aware of Visvesvarayas extraordinary abilities

both as engineer and statesman. In fact, economist Vinod Vyasulu
highlights the legacy that Nehru inherited from Visvesvaraya,
comparing his achievements in the princely state of Mysore to those
of Nehru on a larger canvas fifty years later.

Nehru had keenly read Visvesvarayas proposals for nation building

that the latter had submitted to the Congress members of Bombay
legislature in 1936.

As President of the Indian Economic Association, and member of the

Planning Commission, Visvesvarayas abilities were utilized towards
nation building. He presided over the first session of the Indian
Science Congress in 1923, and the Indian Economic Conference a year
later.

His 1934 book, Planned Economy for India talks about the
importance of estimating national income and achieving a society with
a minimum level education, healthcare and opportunities for productive
work. And he saw Industrialization as a means to achieve this.

Achievements and Efforts

To this end, he established the Bhadravati Iron and Steel

Works, The Sandal Oil Factory, the Soap Factory, the Metals
Factory, the Chrome Tanning Factory.

He was also associated with the Tata Group of companies,

helping them in the management Tata Iron and Steel Company
(TISCO).

He stared the Bank of Mysore (Now State Bank of Mysore) and

The Mysore Chamber of Commerce. He provided a list of 36
industries to be established in the country in industrial
engineering and applied chemistry.

A very noteworthy aspect of Sir MVs professional dedication is

that he would go to great lengths to gain firsthand knowledge. In
1925, when the Bhadravati Iron factory was in danger of being
shut down due to dismal performance, he toured Sweden,
England, America and Germany, most times at his own cost, to
understand the iron manufacturing process firsthand.

Engineers Day

He used the knowledge to modernize the plant, reorganize

departments, and make their heads accountable. This led to steady
improvement in output and profits, and soon the Works became a
national asset. Legend has it that when on tour on official business,
Sir MV carried a set of candles bought with his personal money, and
used them for personal work like reading etc in the night after he
was finished with official work. This may or may not be true, but it
indicates the high reputation he had for personal integrity.

This is a very brief glimpse into the life and works of this
extraordinary man. There are innumerable other ways in which he has
shaped modern industrialized India, and no profile can fully
chronicle the far reaching and lasting nature of his contributions. At
the end of this reading if one is left with the feeling, Wow, One
man did all this?, then the chroniclers mission is accomplished.

As a tribute to his genius, not only as an engineer but as an

administrator, statesman and planner, the Institution of Engineers
(India) celebrates 15th September, his birthday, every year as
Engineers Day. The Mysore centre of the Institution has even a
Navaratri approach to the celebration by sponsoring technical
lectures and other programmes over nine days leading up to his
birthday.

He once said:
"Remember, your work may be only to sweep a
railway crossing, but it is your duty to
keep it so clean that no other crossing in
the world is as clean as yours."

PrafullaChandraRoyTheGreatScientistofIndia

Prafulla Chandra Roy Founder of

Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals,
India's first pharmaceutical
company.

Life Sketch

Prafulla Chandra was born on August 2, 1861 in RaruliKatipara, a village now in the Khulna district of
Bangladesh.

Educated in Calcutta, he inherited his love for

literature from his parents especially Harish Chandra, his
erudite father and friend.

He was much influenced by reformers and nationalists like

Keshab Chandra Sen and Surendranath Banerji who taught
him in school and college.

At that time chemistry was a compulsory subject in the

first arts course (FA). Prafulla Chandra studied it in
Presidency College since his own college, Metropolitan
Institution (now Vidyasagar College), did not have the
facilities.

The chemistry lectures of Alexander Pedler fascinated

him - 'I began almost unconsciously to be attracted to
this branch of science'.

Education

In 1881, he won the Gilchrist Scholarship in 1882 and

proceeded to study science at Edinburgh University.
Alexander Crum Brown - a distinguished chemist, a
linguist and a man of vast erudition - became his
favourite teacher and guide. After completing B.
Sc in 1885, he became a D. Sc in inorganic
chemistry in 1887 working on double sulphates
In-between he found time to write critical
patriotic articles like 'India Before and After
Mutiny' and 'Essay on India'. He won the Hope
Prize, became the Vice President of the University
Chemical Society and continued his research work
for one more year before returning home in
August 1888. The Edinburgh experience made him
'passionately fond of chemistry '.

Discoveries

The pioneering work by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray

in the early twentieth century in Kolkata was
responsible for the great turn of events in
chemistry in the Indian subcontinent.

The discovery of a stable mercurous nitrite

composed of two relatively unstable ions, unfolding
of the interesting chemistry of hypo nitrite ion,
synthesis of a large number of organic sulphur
compounds, coordination chemistry of heavy
transition metal ions, iridium, platinum and gold are
some of the notable contributions of Prafulla
Chandra Ray.

He established the Bengal Chemical and

Pharmaceutical Works in 1902 to manufacture mineral
acids and pharmaceuticals through his own earnings
and this forms the earliest entrepreneurial
endeavour of Research and Development in the
country.

Other Interests

A lover of literature, history and

biography, one who read half-adozen languages,

Prafulla Chandra claimed that he

'became a chemist almost by mistake'.
In practice he became the initiator of
chemical research in India and the
all-inspiring guru of the first
research school of chemistry in the
country.

He is the author of A History of

Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest
Times to the Sixteenth Century
(1902).

A History of Hindu Chemistry

He published the first volume of his

autobiography Life and Experience of
a Bengali Chemist in 1932, and
dedicated it to the youth of India.

He became a celebrated historian of antiquarian chemistry,

a champion of chemical industry and much more. Yet he
remained a symbol of plain living.
In Gandhiji's words, "it is difficult to believe that the
man in simple Indian dress wearing simpler manners could
possibly be the great scientist and professor'.

The scientist and professor was, in the same breath, a

patriot and a social worker given to ceaseless service, an
ascetic and a philanthropist who gave away his all in
charity. A bachelor, a small man in feeble health, a
confirmed dyspeptic, his was a case of the mind far
overtaking the body.

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1904: Honorary Membership of London Institution of Civil Engineers for an unbroken
period of 50 years
1906: "Kaisar-i-Hind" in recognition of his services
1911: C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire) at the Delhi Darbar
1915: K.C.I.E. (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire)
1921: D.Sc. - Calcutta University
1931: LLD - Bombay University
1937: D.Litt - Benaras Hindu University
1943: Elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Institution of Engineers (India)
1944: D.Sc. - Allahabad University
1948: Doctorate - LLD., Mysore University
1953: D.Litt - Andhra University
1953: Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India
1955: Conferred ' BHARATHA RATNA'
1958: 'Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal' by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of
Bengal
1959: Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalor

122nd birthday of Sir Chandrasekhara

Venkata Raman (7th Nov. 2010)
(7 Nov. 1888 21 Nov. 1970) In 1928, C.V. Raman
and K.S. Krishnan observed that if monochromatic
light is passed through a transparent medium, the
scattering light is accompanied by other colours. He
was the first Indian scholar who studied wholly
in India received the Nobel Prize for Physics in
1930. He was the first scientist to explain the blue
color of the sea. He was elected as FRS in 1924.
The discovery was later termed as "Raman Effect".
He was awarded with Bharat Ratna in 1954.
Sir C V Raman delivering the convocation address
on 3rd Convocation (30 July 1966) at IIT Madras

The 1930 Physics Nobel prize winner Sir C.V.

Raman explains a point to a group of scientists

Dr. C.V. Raman, Nobel Laureate, opening the

Centenary Science Symposium, Madras University,
Chennai, 1957 (Inset : The Historic Senate House
completed in 1873

Sir C.V. Raman (second left) with other Nobel

Laureates of 1930, (back row) M. Svedberg, M.
Euller, M. Dahlein, Hans Fischer, (front row)
Sir Clair Lewis, S. Lagerlof, Karl Landsteiner
and M. Barany, after the presentation of the
prizes in Stockholm.