Vaidyeswaran Rajaraman

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Vaidyeswaran Rajaraman
Born (1933-09-08) September 8, 1933 (age 90)
Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation Computer engineer
Academic
Author
Years active Since 1961
Known for Computer science academics and literature
Awards Padma Bhushan
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
Om Prakash Bhasin Award
Homi Bhabha Prize
IISc Rustom Choksi Award
INAE Lifetime Contribution Award
IISc Distinguished Alumnus Award
CSI Lifetime Achievement Award

Vaidyeswaran Rajaraman (born 1933) is an Indian engineer, academic and writer,[1] known for his pioneering efforts in the field of Computer Science education in India.[2][3] He is credited with the establishment of the first academic programme in computer science in India, which he helped initiate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1965.[4] An elected fellow of many major Indian science academies, he is a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in Science and Technology category and several other honors including Om Prakash Bhasin Award and Homi Bhabha Prize. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1998, for his contributions to science.[5]

Biography

IIT Kanpur.

Born on 8 September 1933 in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, V. Rajaraman graduated with honors in Physics from St. Stephen's College of the University of Delhi in 1952 and did his higher studies at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) to obtain a Diploma in Electrical Communication Engineering in 1955.[6] He continued at IISc for research on non-linear units of analogue computer which he completed in 1957 and moved to the US to join Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge from where he obtained his master's degree in electrical engineering in 1959.[7] Thereafter, he enrolled himself at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his doctoral studies and on receiving his PhD in 1961, he started his career as an assistant professor of statistics at the university.[8] In 1963, he returned to India to work as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) but continued his US connection as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley during the period 1964–65. It was during this time, he shifted his focus to the then nascent discipline of computer science.[4]

In 1965, Rajaraman initiated a new program for MTech with Computer Science as an option; the first time the subject was being offered as an academic discipline in India.[4] Later, he helped introduce a doctoral program, too, and the group led by him pioneered the use of decision tables in the development and optimization of complex computer programs. He stayed with IITK till 1982 when he moved to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and it was here he developed low-cost parallel computers and a super computing facility of which he served as the chairman.[9] During his tenure at IISc, he also mentored 30 students in their doctoral studies. He published over 70 scientific papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals[4][10] and 23 text books, including Computer Oriented Numerical Methods,[11] Theory of parameter-perturbation adaptive and optimizing control systems[12] Effects of Parameter Variations in Linear Amplifiers,[13] and History of Computing in India: 1955-2010,[14] the last one a monograph detailing the history of Information Technology in India.[2]

Rajaraman, besides developing parallel computers, contributed in the development of real-time control system for Bhilai Steel Plant, designed the training modules for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and introduced educational curriculum for All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the national council for technical education in India. He sat in the Electronics Commission during 1979–82 and was involved with the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) as its council member from 1986 to 1988.[4] He served as a consultant to Bharat Electronics (BEL), TCS, Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Kerala Venture Capital. He also served as a professor at Tata Chemicals from 1991 to 1994 and as the IBM Professor of Information Technology at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCAR) from 1994 to 2001.[9]

Awards and honors

Rajaram received Shati Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian science award, in 1976, for his contributions in optimizing the use of decision tables and his pioneering work in computer science.[15] This was followed by Homi Bhabha Prize in 1984 and the Indian Society of Technical Education Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1988.[4] He was awarded Om Prakash Bhasin Award of the Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation[16] and Rustom Choksi Award of the Indian Institute of Science in 1993.[4] The Government of India included him in the Republic Day Honours list in 1998 for the civilian award of the Padma Bhushan.[5] The Indian National Academy of Engineering honored him with the Lifetime Contribution Award in Engineering in 2005[6] and he received the IISc Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Science in 2014.[17] He has also delivered several award orations including the ZH Zaheer Medal (1998) of the Indian National Science Academy and is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Computer Society of India.[3]

The Indian Academy of Sciences elected Rajaraman as its fellow in 1974[18] and the Indian National Science Academy[19] and the National Academy of Sciences, India followed suit in 1982 and 1990 respectively.[20] He is also an elected fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering,[21] and has held the fellowships of the Computer Society of India (1974) and the Indian Institute of Science (1976).[22] The Bengal Engineering and Science University has conferred the degree of Doctor of Science (honoris causa) on Rajaraman.[3]

See also

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References

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External links

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