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. In March 2022, he was also honored with EduStar India’s Most Impactful Vice Chancellor Award for 2021-22. He has been recognized by outlook among few visionaries, who can lead India towards 5 Trillion Dollar Economy. He has been also honoured with Maharashtra Ratna Gaurav Puraskar by Shalini Foundation in 2024. He is also recognized among the top “100 Great IITians : Dedicated to the Service of the Nation”.

Rural technology helps fusion reactor!

During 1995-96, while trying to run ADITYA Tokamak (Nuclear Fusion Reactor), we used to find that nearly 80% of the discharges fail to go through. This was due to the fact that power supply control system used to stop the discharge due to some malfunctions. ADITYA power supply system was controlled by a PDP-11 computer. It was popularly believed that software in the computer has some problems due to which the control system was malfunctioning. This was frustrating as lot of effort went into running the machine but there was very little output.

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Netarhat Journey in May 2015

At our time in 1970s, Netarhat School, we used to have a variety of hobby clubs and one had to choose one of them each year. I had chosen French, Industrial Chemistry, Metal work. There were others like Bird watching, Aero-modelling, Ship Building etc. However since 1980s these started to go out of option and for all practical purpose stopped all together. Continue reading “Netarhat Journey in May 2015”

My Experience with the First “Greenfield” University of Reliance

As the social media went abuzz with the news about Jio Institute being given “Institute of Eminence”, my thoughts immediately went to 2001-02, when Reliance had set up its first “Greenfield” University in Gandhinagar – Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT). I was a scientist working as Project Leader at Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar on Nuclear Fusion. One day, on my office table, I saw a two page write-up about DA-IICT along with a Call for Faculty. Salary being offered at that time was nearly 2-3 times compared to what was being offered in Govt Systems. I looked at and ignored it since I was interested in carrying forward my work on Nuclear Fusion (I was probably the first person from India to have done PhD in Nuclear Fusion) and did not bother to respond to the call.