The Bharat Ratna is awarded rarely once in many years upon recommendation by the Prime Minister of India to the President of India. The honour acknowledges “performances of highest order in any field of human endeavour”. Rao was honored for his decades of work to promote and disseminate science in India, and in particular for his innovative research at the interface of chemical physics and materials chemistry. He is only the second scientist ever to receive the award. At present, there are only four Bharat Ratnas in India.
Rao’s initial pioneering research was initiated in the 1950s. He gave sound contributions to emerging fields such as solid-state chemistry, where he carried out innovative research on metal oxides, nanomaterials and graphene, a one-atom thick layer of graphite where carbon atoms assemble in a honeycomb structure.
His ever-flowing energy helped him carry on high-quality research even in times of hardship for India, when the country was suffering from the lack of facilities, scarce funding and heavy bureaucracy. “I started my career with a meager laboratory and this situation lasted for at least 20-30 years,” he recalls. Quoting a favorite Indian poem, he added: “But I never gave up, because I believe that ‘Everything is in your mind, the energy you talk about is in the mind; the intelligence and the creativity you talk about is also in the mind’”.
Today Rao leads an outstanding laboratory of (about 20 young people) with a scientific production of more than 25 papers per year. The high quality of his work has earned him a high H-index value of 108. The H-index is a recently established scientific indicator that measures both the productivity and the impact of a scientist’s published work. It is based on a scientist’s most cited papers and the number of citations received in other publications (58,000 in the case of Rao).
After completing his PhD at Purdue University in Indiana (USA) and post-doctoral work at University of California, Berkeley, Rao moved back to India, to begin his career in 1959. At that time he was a lecturer at the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore. A few years later, in 1963, he became head of the chemistry department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. There he started working on his dream: building a top-quality laboratory to carry out competitive research at the highest level, with his students.
“I spend much of my time with my research students,” he admits. “But I also have a strong commitment to producing high-impact research, so that I have done the best research from my laboratory after my 70th year.” Indeed, a consistent part of his research and the technical innovations he has introduced over the years represent a breakthrough contribution to science.
He has made innovative use of cutting-edge technologies such as spectroscopy and electron microscopy. He carried-out ground-breaking studies on new chemical synthesis methods, dissecting the formation of complex chemical molecules and exploring, for example, liquid-liquid interfaces to generate nanocrystals. His research opened up new avenues in several, even distant fields, such as communication and energy generation, drug delivery and technologies for water purification.
Rao is currently the National Research Professor, Linus Pauling Research Professor and Honorary President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, which he founded in 1989. He served as TWAS president from 2000 to 2007, where he established himself as a proactive force who made great contributions to the success of the Academy. Rao also played a central role in many governmental agencies and on committees in India, chairing the prime minister’s science advisory council since 2009.
His retirement from work, in 1999, didn’t mark the end of his activity.
In the last few years, he has worked on multiferroics, which are exciting materials of technological importance because they simultaneously exhibit several distinct physical properties, and also on colossal magnetoresistance, a property of some materials that enables them to change their electrical resistance in the presence of a magnetic field. “Now, I am also working on artificial photosynthesis to produce hydrogen,” he explained in an email interview. “And I continue to work on new materials, novel structures and properties where the future has no bounds. In the last two years, I have addressed artificial photosynthesis to produce hydrogen, with exciting results.”
Research is not the unique passion that Rao exhibits. Teaching and communicating science give him pure pleasure as well. “I find time to go to schools in different parts of India, to talk to children,” he said. “These direct-contact programmes are useful for promoting science. I give at least about 10 such programmes each year covering several thousands students”.
In his career, Rao has received more than 50 major awards, including the USD1 million Dan David Prize for materials research, given by Israel, and the Ernesto-Illy Trieste Science Prize for materials research, given by TWAS. When asked to comment on the latest award he has received, Rao said:
“To be recognized by my own country with the highest honour is something unique. Especially because I am the second scientist getting this in the history of India, the first one being C.V. Raman, who received the Nobel prize in physics in 1930. I feel highly honoured.”
The list of previous recipients includes such deeply influential leaders as Indira Ghandi, the third Indian prime minister; Mother Teresa of Calcutta; and Nelson Mandela. The second 2014 nominee is retired Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, considered by many to be the best cricketer in the sport's history.
Cristina Serra