Author: Prabhat Ranjan

Prof. Prabhat Ranjan is Vice Chancellor, D Y Patil International University, Akurdi, Pune. He was heading India's Technology Think Tank, TIFAC(tifac.org.in) as its Executive Director since April 2013 to April 2018. Earlier he was Professor at Dhirubhai Ambani Institute for Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar (DA-IICT) since 2002. He was educated in Netarhat School(near Ranchi), IIT Kharagpur and Delhi University. He received his Ph D from University of California, Berkeley where he carried our research on “Nuclear Fusion” at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory during 1983-86. He immediately returned to India after this and carried out research in Nuclear Fusion area at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta and Institute for Plasma Research(IPR), Gandhinagar. He played a major role in India’s Nuclear Fusion program and was Project Leader of the largest operational Indian Fusion Reactor, ADITYA, at Institute for Plasma Research from 1996-2002. His current interests include applications of Wireless Sensor Network to Wildlife, Planetary Exploration (Chandrayaan mission), Nuclear Fusion, Healthcare, Agriculture etc. He has received National Science Talent Search Award, IBM Faculty Innovation Grant and HP Innovate 2009 award, NPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award 2012, Bihar Gaurav Samman 2012 etc.

Prof Prabhat Ranjan: Life Series on 60th Birthday

in 2020, I turned 60 years, which set my clock back to zero and new innings started. On this occasion, my University organized a set of live discussions from June 3 to June 8, 2020 covering my life from childhood to current days involving persons who knew me closely during that phase of life. I am sharing video links from that series here:
https://youtu.be/OjIKJLJ0IpQ – Social media Promotion Video
https://youtu.be/fcSCWAzylgI – a set of photographs from different stages

https://youtu.be/-fKRDvUXIXU – June 3, 2020 – (part 1 of 6) – Early Childhood, Education

https://youtu.be/Ik8Nmfqv4Lo – June 4, 2020 – (part 2 of 6) – Education at Netarhat, IIT Kharagpur, Delhi Univ, Univ of California Berkeley

June 5, 2020 – Part 3 of 6 – Nuclear Fusion Research at Univ of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Saha Inst of Nuclear Physics(SINP), Inst for Plasma Research (IPR)

June 6, 2020 – (Part 4 of 6): Disability Sector, Moon Mission, Wildlife tracking

https://youtu.be/pmkHT1APDOY – June 7, 2020 – (Part 5 of 6) – TIFAC, Technology Vision 2035, KIRAN IPR

June 8, 2020 – (Part 6 of 6) – D Y Patil International Univ, Akurdi, Pune and Holistic Health Experience

How Artificial Intelligence Got into India’s Curriculum

When I served as a member of AICTE Perspective plan committee in 2017, I did not know that I would become part of a sequence of actions that led to the introduction of AI on large scale in India!

While AI was being taught as a part of Indian Institute’s curriculum for long time, it got its deserved place as a separate stream more recently. As Facebook showed photo of a meeting held at AICTE in 2017, I thought it would be good to write out the story for others to know.
At TIFAC, we had worked upon Technology Vision 2035 ( a set of 13 documents, consisting of a Main Vision document for India along with road maps for 12 sectors of importance such as Education, Healthcare, Energy etc.). See my blog on this at Making and Launching of Technology Vision 2035.

In April 2017, a committee was formed by AICTE to help in “Preparing Short & Medium Term Perspective Plan for Engineering Education in India”. Here is the photograph of the first committee meeting in AICTE HQRS in Delhi in May 2017.

First meeting of AICTE Perspective Plan Committee in May 2017

My thoughts on healthcare and wellness

Nuclear Fusion in India : Past, Present and Future

This is video of a plenary talk that was given at Bihar Science Conference on Dec 3, 2020 held online. Talk gives overall progress of nuclear fusion in last 4 decades in India and where we need to go. The talk also makes historic announcement regarding a privately funded Nuclear Fusion project in India code named – Project Sanlayan. Here is the link to video – talk starts after 3:00 minutes.

DYPIU : National Science Day discussion on Nuclear Fusion

Prof Prabhat Ranjan, Vice Chancellor, D Y Patil International University, Akurdi, Pune leads a discussion on use of Nuclear Fusion for a clean energy for world. This was organized on the occasion of National Science Day (Feb 28, 2021). He is joined by Dr Akash Singh, Inventor and Investor and Mr Paul Mahal, a semiconductor expert and CEO, Stanford Ventures – both based out of Silicon Valley, USA.

Remembering Charu Khandal

This is story of Charu Khandal, Lead Animator of Shahrukh Khan’s movie Ra-One, who met with a terrible accident. I tried to help her through assistive technology and as she was about to get back to Bollywood, we lost her!

Facebook memory showed up a post of mine from Jan 17, 2017 where I had shared a sad news about shocking demise of Charu Khandal – Ra-One movie animator. I felt compelled to narrate her story as I know it.

Making and Launching of Technology Vision 2035

It is 5 years since launch of Technology Vision 2035 by PM on Jan 3, 2016. This series of blog is an attempt to remember the activitiees that happened before and after the launch. We plan to form a citizen centric intiative “Foundation 2035” to keep track of India’s progress with respect to TV2035. Contact me, if you are interested.

TIFAC (Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council) is an autonomous body of Dept of Science and Technology(DST), Govt of India based in Delhi. It was conceptualized in 1986 as Technology Think Tank of India by the then planning commission(converted to NITI Aayog few years ago). While giving approval to the formation of TIFAC, it was moved to DST by cabinet. It started functioning in DST, first as a group and in 1988, it became an autonomous body with Dr Y S Rajan as its first executive director(ED), who was also a scientist in DST. The group in DST continued to work in TIFAC even after it came into existence as a separate entity. For some time, it operated out of a temporary building in DST premises(which still exists and is called Old TIFAC bldg) then to a hotel next door and moved to a building inside IIT Delhi campus which is shared between TIFAC and IIT Delhi Dept of Management Studies.