Achievements of Indians in Science & Technology | Science & Technology for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Introduction

• Science and technology have been an integral part of Indian civilization and culture over the past several millennia. Indians have played an important role in the field of science and technology.
• Few are aware that India was the fountainhead of important foundational scientific developments and approaches. These cover many great scientific discoveries and technological achievements in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, chemistry, metallurgy, medicine, natural philosophy, and other areas. A great deal of this travelled outwards from India.
• Equally, India also assimilated scientific ideas and techniques from elsewhere, with open-mindedness and a rational attitude characteristic of a scientific ethos.
• The Indus Valley Civilization, Vedic age and later periods saw great achievements by Indians in the field of Science and technology.
• In modern times many Indian scientists and mathematicians have done phenomenal work and some of them even received awards like Nobel Prize for their contributions to science in technology.
• India belongs to the select group of countries that have developed indigenous nuclear technology, achieving a capacity of 8,900 MW by 2025, with advancements in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). India is among the few countries which have developed ballistic missiles, including hypersonic capabilities like BrahMos-II. In the field of space science, India has the capability to launch GSLV satellites and has achieved milestones like Chandrayaan-3’s lunar landing in 2023 and Aditya-L1’s solar observation in 2024.
• Some Indian scientists have left indelible imprints on the world S&T arena.

Achievements of Indians in Science and Technology in Ancient and Medieval India

• Baudhayana was a mathematician who lived in ancient India around 800 BCE. His major contributions include:
  • He is considered the earliest author of Sulbasutras which was used for the accurate construction of altars needed for Vedic sacrifices.
  • He gave a near accurate value of Pi(π).
  • He gave the theorem today known as “Pythagoras theorem” before Pythagoras had developed it.
  • He also gave a near accurate value of the square root of 2 (577/408) which is correct to 5 decimal places.

Kanada Sage

• Kanada, a philosopher estimated to have lived in India between the 6th century to 2nd century BCE. His name Kanada means atom eater.
  • He was the first person to give the atomic theory. He gave the idea that Parmanu (Atom) was an indestructible particle of matter which cannot be divided further. Later on, Dalton made similar observations in Dalton’s atomic theory.

Charaka (300 BCE)

• Charaka is considered the “Father of Indian Medicine” who lived in around 300 BCE in India. His major contributions include:
  • He was among the principal contributors to the ancient system of medicine ‘Ayurveda’ and wrote his medical treatise the ‘Charak Samhita’.
  • He is known for his works on metabolism and the fundamentals of genetics.
  • He wrote about three doshas which the body contains i.e. Vata (movement), Pitta (transformation) and Cough (lubrication and stability). Diseases occur when the balance among these three doshas gets disturbed.

Sushruta

• Sushruta was the author of “Sushruta Samhita” an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery.
• Sushruta invented surgical instruments and worked on the dissection of dead bodies.
• Sushruta was aware of cataract operations.
• He is also known as the “father of surgery” and “father of plastic surgery”.

Aryabhatta (476- 550 CE)

• Aryabhatta also was known as Aryabhatta 1 was the first major astronomer and mathematician from the classical age of Indian astronomy and Indian mathematics.
• His major works include Aryabhatiya and Arya-Siddhanta.
• He calculated the orbits of planets, and scientifically explained the Solar and lunar eclipses.
• He calculated the distance between Earth and Moon. He proposed that Earth rotates on its axis.
• He gave the theory that the apparent motion of stars is due to the movement of Earth.
• He calculated the circumference of the earth and proposed that the shape of Earth is not flat.
• He worked on the place value system and zero as a symbol and concept.

Varahamihira (505- 587 CE)

• Varahamihira was born in the Avanthi region during the Gupta rule.
• He wrote the Pancha-siddhantika which summarises 5 alias astronomical treatises namely the Surya Siddhanta, Romaka Siddhanta, Paulisa Siddhanta, Vashishtha Siddhant and Paitamaha Siddhanta.
• He gave trigonometric formulas and improved the accuracy of sine tables of Aryabhatta.
• He explained the shifting of equinoxes and the nature of the scattering of light.
• He was also the author of Brihat Samhita and Brihat Jataka.
• He gave theories on earthquakes and explained that how the termites may indicate water underground.

Brahmagupta (598 – 670 CE)

• Brahmagupta was an Indian mathematician and astronomer. He was the first person to give rules to compute with zero.
• He was the author of the “Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta”, a theoretical treatise on mathematics and astronomy, and the “Khaṇḍakhādyaka”, which was a more practical text.
• He worked on mathematics and astronomy and he is supposed to have invented many astronomical instruments for his observations.
• He explained that the shape of the earth is spherical and worked on the calculation of eclipses.
• He worked on methods for calculating the distance of the heavenly bodies.

Bhaskara 1 (600 – 680 CE)

• He was a mathematician who first wrote numbers in the Hindu decimal system with a circle for zero.
• He was the follower of the Aryabhatta School of astronomy and was the author of “Mahābhāskarīya” and the “Laghubhāskarīya”.
• He worked on many trigonometric formulas and give a rational approximation of sine function.

Bhaskaracharya or Bhaskara II (1114- 1185)

• Bhaskaracharya was an Indian mathematician and astronomer born in Bijapur in Karnataka.
• His main work includes “Siddhanta Shiromani” which has four sections dealing with Arithmetics, Algebra, Mathematics of planets, and Spheres.
• He worked on differential calculus and algebra.

Nobel Laureates of India in Science

• C.V. Raman was one of the most famous scientists in India. Raman’s academic brilliance was established at a very young age. He had a pioneering work on scattering of light, C.V. Raman won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
• He was the first Asian and first non-White to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences. Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He was the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridangam.
• He discovered that, when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called the Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman Effect.

Raman effect, change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules. When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam. Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman effect.

Har Gobind Khorana

• Har Gobind Khorana was an American molecular biologist of Indian origin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in the year 1968 for his work on the interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.
• Dr. Khorana demonstrated how the genetic code determines all life processes by directing the synthesis of all cell proteins finally unravelled the secret of the DNA code of life.
• Dr. Khorana received numerous awards and honours such as the Novel Prize for his achievement. Distinguished Service Award, Watumull Foundation, Honolulu, Hawaii, American academy of achievement awards, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Padma Vibhushan, Presidential Award, J C Bose Medal and Willard Gibbs medal of the Chicago section of American Chemical Society.
• He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• In 1971, he became a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1974, an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society.

In the 1960s Khorana confirmed Nirenberg’s findings that the way the four different types of nucleotides are arranged on the spiral “staircase” of the DNA molecule determines the chemical composition and function of a new cell. The 64 possible combinations of the nucleotides are read off along a strand of DNA as required to produce the desired amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. Khorana added details about which serial combinations of nucleotides from which specific amino acids. He also proved that the nucleotide code is always transmitted to the cell in groups of three, called codons. Khorana also determined that some of the codons prompt the cell to start or stop the manufacture of proteins.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

• He was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. He did commendable work in astrophysics, physics and applied mathematics.
• Chandrasekhar has bestowed the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 Physics for his mathematical theory of black holes. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him.
• He was the nephew of CV Raman. Chandra became a United States citizen in 1953. Chandra was a popular teacher who guided over fifty students to their PhD including some who went on to win the Nobel Prize themselves.
• His research explored nearly all branches of theoretical astrophysics and he published ten books, each covering a different topic, including one on the relationship between art and science.
• His most famous work concerns the radiation of energy from stars, particularly white dwarf stars, which are the dying fragments of stars.

By the early 1930s, scientists had concluded that, after converting all of their hydrogens to helium, stars lose energy and contract under the influence of their own gravity. These stars, known as white dwarf stars, contract to about the size of Earth, and the electrons and nuclei of their constituent atoms are compressed to a state of extremely high density. Chandrasekhar determined what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit—that a star having a mass more than 1.44 times that of the Sun does not form a white dwarf but instead continues to collapse, blows off its gaseous envelope in a supernova explosion, and becomes a neutron star. An even more massive star continues to collapse and becomes a black hole. These calculations contributed to the eventual understanding of supernovas, neutron stars, and black holes. Chandrasekhar came up with the idea for a limit on his voyage to England in 1930. However, his ideas met strong opposition, particularly from English astronomer Arthur Eddington, and took years to be generally accepted.

Venkataraman Ramakrishnan

• Venkataraman, Indian born American is a senior scientist in the Structural Division at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, England.
• He has worked in various fields of biology during the earlier part of his career. He is internationally recognized for the determination of the atomic structure of the 30s ribosomal subunit.
• Ramakrishnan received numerous awards such as he was elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2002 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2003.
• He was chosen a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2004. In 2007, Ramakrishnan has bestowed the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine and the Datta Lectureship and Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS).
• In 2008, he won the Heatley Medal of the British Biochemical Society. Since 2008, he is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.
• In 2009, Ramakrishnan was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath. He received India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2010.
• Ramakrishnan was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to Molecular Biology. In the same year, he was awarded the Sir Hans Krebs Medal by the FEBS. In 2013, he won the Spanish Jiménez-Diáz Prize.

Awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with American biophysicist and biochemist Thomas Steitz and Israeli protein crystallographer Ada Yonath, for his research into the atomic structure and function of cellular particles called ribosomes. (Ribosomes are tiny particles made up of RNA and proteins that specialize in protein synthesis and are found free or bound to the endoplasmic reticulum within cells.)

Achievements of Indians in Science & Technology in the Modern Era

• He was a Famous academician and chemist, known for being the founder of Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, India’s first pharmaceutical company.
• In 1889, Prafulla Chandra was chosen as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Presidency College, Kolkata.
• His publications on miraculous nitrite and its derivatives brought him recognition from all over the world. His role as a teacher was significant as he inspired young generation chemists in India to build up an Indian school of chemistry.
• Famous Indian scientists like Meghnad Saha and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar were among his students. Prafulla Chandra had contributed to developing industries in India.
• He set up the first chemical factory in India, with very minimal resources, working from his home. In 1901, this pioneering effort resulted in the formation of Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd.

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

• He was a notable Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918.
• Sir M. Visvesvaraya was one of the most eminent engineers of India.
• He maintained high principles and discipline in his life. He was best known for his contribution as the chief architect behind the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mandya which helped to convert the surrounding barren lands into fertile grounds for farming.
• Visvesvaraya was knighted as the Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) by the British for his contributions to society in 1915.
• He was a recipient of the Indian Republic’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna for his persistent work in the fields of engineering and education. He was also awarded several honorary doctoral degrees from eight universities in India.
• Sir M V suggested that India try to be at par with industrialized nations as he believed that India can become developed through industries.
• He has the credit of inventing ‘automatic sluice gates’ and ‘block irrigation systems’ which are still considered to be marvels in engineering. Each year, his birthday 15 September is celebrated as Engineer’s Day in India.

Jagdish Chandra Bose

• Jagdish Chandra Bose was an eminent scientist. He developed the use of galena crystals for making receivers, both for short-wavelength radio waves and for white and ultraviolet light.
• In 1895, two years before Marconi’s demonstration, Bose demonstrated wireless communication using radio waves, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder.
• He invented many of the microwave components such as waveguides, horn antennas, polarizers, dielectric lenses and prisms, and even semiconductor detectors of electromagnetic radiation in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
• He also proposed the existence of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun, which was confirmed in 1944. After that Bose focused his attention on response phenomena in plants.
• He presented that not only animal but vegetable tissues produce similar electric responses under different kinds of stimuli – mechanical, thermal, electrical and chemical.

Meghnad Saha

• Meghnad Saha belonged to the District of Dacca, now in Bangladesh. In 1920, Meghnad Saha had developed himself as renowned physicists of the time.
• Meghnad Saha has contributed in the arena of the thermal ionisation of elements, and it led him to formulate what is known as the Saha Equation.
• This equation is one of the basic tools for the interpretation of the spectra of stars in astrophysics. His theory of high-temperature ionization of elements and its application to stellar atmospheres, as expressed by the Saha equation, is fundamental to modern astrophysics; subsequent development of his ideas has led to increased knowledge of the pressure and temperature distributions of stellar atmospheres.
• By studying the spectra of various stars, one can find their temperature and that, using Saha’s equation, determine the ionisation state of the various elements making up the star. He also invented an instrument to measure the weight and pressure of solar rays.
• He was also the chief architect of river planning in India. He prepared the original plan for the Damodar Valley Project. He had a great role in the development of scientific institutions throughout India as well as in national economic planning involving technology.

Satyendra Nath Bose

• Satyendra Nath Bose was an outstanding Indian physicist specialising in quantum mechanics. He is of course most remembered for his excellent role played in the class of particles ‘bosons’, which were named after him by Paul Dirac to commemorate his work in the field.
• Basically, he is known for his work in Quantum Physics. He is famous for “Bose-Einstein Theory” and a kind of particle in an atom has been named after his name Boson.
• Bose adapted a lecture at the University of Dhaka on the theory of radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe into a short article called “Planck’s Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta” and sent it to Albert Einstein.
• Einstein agreed with him, translated Bose’s paper “Planck’s Law and Hypothesis of Light Quanta” into German, and had it published in Zeitschrift für Physik under Bose’s name, in 1924.
• This formed the basis of the Bose-Einstein Statistics. In 1937, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his only book on science, Visva–Parichay, to Satyendra Nath Bose. The Government of India awarded him India’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 1954.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

• Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician. He is extensively believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa Ramanujan made a major contribution to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. His published and unpublished works have kept some of the best mathematical brains in the world.

Vikram Sarabhai

• Vikram Sarabhai was among the distinguished scientists of India. He is considered the Father of the Indian space program. India’s first satellite Aryabhata launched in 1975, was one of the many projects planned by him.
• Like Bhabha, Sarabhai wanted the practical application of science to reach the common man. Therefore he saw a golden opportunity to harness space science to the development of the country in the fields of communication, meteorology, remote sensing and education.
• The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) launched in 1975-76, brought education to five million people in 2,400 Indian villages.
• In 1965, he established the Community Science Centre in Ahmedabad to popularise science among children. His profound cultural interests led him, along with his wife Mrinalini Sarabhai, to establish Darpana Academy, an institution devoted to performing arts and propagation of the ancient culture of India.
• Besides scientist, he had a combined quality as an innovator, industrialist and visionary. He was awarded the Bhatnagar Memorial Award for Physics in 1962, the Padma Bhushan in 1966, and was subsequently awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
• He was the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1966, Vice-President and Chairman of the UN Conference on peaceful uses of outer space in 1968, and President of the 14th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• The International Astronomical Union named a crater in the moon (in the Sea of Serenity) after him, in honour of his marvellous role in science.

Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha

• He is considered the originator of the Indian Nuclear Research Programme. India accomplished nuclear capability due to the extreme efforts of Homi, thereby avoiding certain conflicts simply through non-aggression treaties. This contribution of Bhabha augments the status of India on the world stage.
• He had a brilliant persona with multi-faceted qualities. He was fond of music, painting and writing. Some of his paintings are displayed in the British Art Galleries and the TIFR art collection today is rated as one of the best collections of contemporary Indian art in the country.
• He is the recipient of Adam’s Award, Padma Bhushan, an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

APJ Abdul Kalam

• Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is remembered as a great scientist, an inspirational leader and an extraordinary human being. As a scientist, Kalam made an effort to develop the Polar SLV and SLV-III projects between the 1970s and 1990s. Both of which proved to be a success.
• In the 1970s, Kalam also directed two projects, namely, Project Devil and Project Valiant, which sought to develop ballistic missiles from the technology of the successful SLV programme.
• Despite the disapproval of the Union Cabinet, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allotted secret funds for these aerospace projects through her discretionary powers under Kalam’s directorship.
• Kalam played a vital role in convincing the Union Cabinet to conceal the true nature of these classified aerospace projects. His research and educational leadership brought him great laurels and prestige in the 1980s, which prompted the government to initiate an advanced missile program under his directorship.
• Besides a distinguished scientist and engineer, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam served as the 11th President of India from the period 2002 to 2007.
• After post-presidency, Kalam became a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Management Indore; an honorary fellow of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology Thiruvananthapuram; professor of Aerospace Engineering at Anna University; and an adjunct at many other academic and research institutions across India.
• He taught information technology at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, and technology at Banaras Hindu University and Anna University.
• He played an intensive political and technological role when the Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted. Kalam served as the Chief Project Coordinator, along with R. Chidambaram during the testing phase. Photos and snapshots of him taken by the media elevated Kalam as the country’s top nuclear scientist.
• He had a brilliant and dominant personality and he was a man of vision, who always had novel ideas for the development of the country and is also popular as the Missile Man of India.

Dr. Koti Harinarayana

• He was a renowned genius scientist. It is recognized that the brain behind India’s first indigenously built combat aircraft. Tejas, which was the name given to the aircraft, saw its first flight in 2001.
• India’s first self-made light combat aircraft was built by HAL and developed by Dr Koti.
• It was a result of the weakening value of the country’s soon to be obsolete Mig-21 fighter jets and, true to its name, made our defence sector’s future a lot more healthy.
• Mangalyaan, or Mars-Craft, this program by its own space research organisation has been praised as one of the most low cost but high functioning space missions to date. With this scientific development, Indians can reach Mars orbit on their first attempt.
• The brain behind the operation is actually credited to 14 scientists of ISRO.
• India’s first moon probe was efficaciously inserted into the lunar orbit in 2008 and pushed India’s space program into the world map, putting India side by side with NASA and the European Space Agency.
• Chandrayaan’s greatest achievement was the discovery of the extensive presence of water molecules in the lunar soil. This was followed by Chandrayaan-3 in 2023, which achieved a historic soft landing on the lunar south pole, making India the first nation to do so, and Aditya-L1 in 2024, India’s first solar observatory, enhancing solar research capabilities.

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan

• Venkatraman belonged to a suburb of Chennai. He was a globally distinguished space scientist and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• He was an internationally acclaimed Astrophysicist and also known for his design and fabrication of ultralight aircraft and sailboats.
• His observations and theoretical insights helped the community in unraveling many mysteries surrounding pulsars, interstellar clouds, galaxy structures and various other celestial bodies.

Anil Kakodkar

• Dr Anil Kakodkar is famous as a distinguished nuclear scientist in India.
• He holds the post of chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India (AECI) as well as the Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy. He received Padma Shri in 1998 and Padma Bhushan in 1999.
• Under his leadership, India advanced its nuclear program, achieving criticality of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in 2024, a key milestone in the three-stage nuclear program, and initiated the Nuclear Energy Mission in 2025 to develop Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Abhas Mitra

• He is a distinguished Indian astrophysicist and famous for his distinct views on several front-line astrophysics concepts, particularly black holes and Big Bang Cosmology.
• His research has received extensive attention, especially in India, which is reflected by the fact that he is one of the most frequently mentioned Indian physicists on the web.
• Mitra is associated with the ‘Himalayan Gamma-Ray Observatory’, being set up at Han Leh jointly by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and Indian Institute of Astrophysics.
• He is also an Adjunct Prof. at Homi Bhabha National Science Institute since 2010.
• Dr Mitra is also a member of the International Astronomical Union.

Abhay Vasant Ashtekar

• He is an Indian theoretical physicist. He is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University. Ashtekar created variables and he is one of the founders of loop quantum gravity and its subfield loop quantum cosmology.

Aditi Pant

• She is an eminent Indian oceanographer. She was a part of the Indian expedition to Antarctica in 1983 and became the first Indian woman to visit Antarctica (along with Sudipta Sengupta).
• Dr Aditi was bestowed the Antarctica award with Dr Jaya Naithani and Dr Kanwal Vilku by the government of India for her excellent contributions to the Antarctic program.

Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri

• He was a famous Indian physicist, well-known for his research in general relativity and cosmology.
• His most noteworthy contribution is the eponymous Raychaudhuri equation, which demonstrates that singularities arise inevitably in general relativity and is a key ingredient in the proofs of the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems.

Arvind Bhatnagar

• He made significant contributions to Solar Astronomy and founded several planetaria across India. He was the founder-director of the Udaipur Solar Observatory, and the founder-director of Nehru Planetarium of Bombay.

Arun N. Netravali

• He is an Indian-American computer engineer accredited with significant contributions in digital technology including HDTV. He conducted seminal research in digital compression, signal processing and other fields.
• Netravali was the ninth President of Bell Laboratories and has served as Lucent’s Chief Technology Officer and Chief Network Architect. Netravali was honoured with numerous awards and honorary degrees such as the IEEE Jack S.
• Kilby Signal Processing Medal in 2001 (together with Thomas S. Huang), the IEEE Frederik Philips Award in 2001, the U.S. National Medal of Technology, and the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India.

Anna Mani

• She was popular as an Indian physicist and meteorologist. She held the position of the Deputy Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department.
• She made great contributions in the field of meteorological instrumentation. She conducted research and published numerous papers on solar radiation, ozone and wind energy measurements.

Birbal Sahni

• Birbal Sahni was a famous paleobotanist of India, who studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent. Sahni is accredited for establishing the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
• He was a pioneer in palaeobotanical research in India and was also a geologist who took an interest in archaeology. He received several awards.
• He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1936, the highest British scientific honour, becoming the first Indian botanist to be accorded this honour.
• He also received the Barclay Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal the same year. He was honoured with the Nelson Wright Medal of the Numismatic Society of India in 1945 and Sir C. R. Reddy National Prize in 1947.

Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar

• Dr Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar was a notable Indian scientist. He had an interest in science and engineering during his early years of life. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar had a great contribution along with Homi Bhabha, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Vikram Sarabhai and others to build post-independence Science & Technology infrastructure and in the formulation of India’s science policies.

Komaravolu Chandrasekharan

• He belonged to Andhra Pradesh. He attained his M.A. in Mathematics from the Presidency College, Chennai and was a Research Scholar in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Madras during 1940-1943. In 1949, he was invited by Homi Bhabha to join the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
• With his brilliant quality as an organiser and administrator of science, he transformed the fledgling School of Mathematics of TIFR into a centre of excellence respected the world over.
• He initiated a very successful programme of recruitment and training of Research Scholars at TIFR.
• The programme continues to the present day along with the same principle that he set down. He put to outstanding use his contacts with the leading mathematicians of the world, encouraging many of them to visit TIFR and deliver courses of lectures over periods of two months and more.
• The lecture notes prepared out of these lectures and published by TIFR has a great reputation in the world mathematics community to the present day. He worked in the fields of number theory and summability.
• His mathematical achievements are of a high standard, but his contribution to Indian mathematics has been even greater.

Raja Ramanna

• Dr Raja Ramanna was a renowned physicist and nuclear scientist in India. He had a multifaceted personality and played the roles of a technologist, nuclear physicist, administrator, leader, musician, Sanskrit literature scholar, and philosophy researcher.
• His interest was in Nuclear Physics and particularly attention to Atomic Research and he became the head of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay, Bombay.
• Dr Ramanna held several important positions in the course of his scientific career. These included the roles of Director in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Director-General in the Defence Research and Development Program, Chairman in the Atomic Energy Commission, Vice President in Indian National Science Academy, and Director in the National Institute of Advanced Studies.
• He played a pivotal role in India’s first nuclear test in 1974 (Smiling Buddha) and contributed to the development of India’s nuclear energy program, which by 2025 achieved a capacity of 8,900 MW with advancements in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
• He was awarded the Padma Shri (1968), Padma Bhushan (1973), and Padma Vibhushan (1975) for his contributions to Indian science and technology.

Achievements of Indian Scientists in Recent Time

• Space Science: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has achieved global recognition for its cost-effective and innovative space missions. Chandrayaan-3 (2023) marked a historic milestone with India becoming the first nation to achieve a soft landing on the lunar south pole, confirming the presence of water ice and advancing lunar exploration. Aditya-L1 (2024), India’s first solar observatory, was successfully placed in a halo orbit at Lagrange Point 1, enabling continuous solar studies and contributing to global space weather forecasting. The Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission) in 2014 made India the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and its longevity has provided valuable data on Martian atmosphere and surface. ISRO’s Gaganyaan program, aimed at human spaceflight, is on track for its first crewed mission by 2026, showcasing India’s growing capabilities in manned space exploration.
• Nuclear Technology: India is among the select group of nations with indigenous nuclear technology. By 2025, India’s nuclear power capacity reached 8,900 MW, with significant progress in the three-stage nuclear program. The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam achieved criticality in 2024, a crucial step toward sustainable nuclear energy using thorium. Additionally, the Nuclear Energy Mission launched in 2025 focuses on developing Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to meet India’s growing energy demands while reducing carbon emissions.
• Defence Technology: India has developed advanced missile technology, including the Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of over 5,000 km, and the BrahMos-II hypersonic cruise missile, capable of speeds up to Mach 7, enhancing India’s strategic deterrence. The Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, indigenously developed by HAL, has been integrated into the Indian Air Force, with the advanced Tejas Mk-1A variant entering service in 2024. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) also successfully tested the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) in 2024, positioning India among a handful of nations with hypersonic capabilities.
• Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence: India’s IT sector continues to be a global leader, contributing significantly to the economy with a market size exceeding $250 billion in 2025. The National AI Mission, launched in 2024, aims to position India as a global AI hub by fostering innovation in healthcare, agriculture, and education. Indian tech giants like TCS, Infosys, and Wipro are driving advancements in AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. Additionally, India’s 5G rollout, completed in 2024, has enabled faster connectivity and supported the growth of IoT and smart cities.
• Biotechnology and Healthcare: Indian scientists have made significant strides in biotechnology, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The development of Covaxin by Bharat Biotech showcased India’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities. In 2025, India launched the National Biotechnology Mission to advance gene editing, synthetic biology, and personalized medicine. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission has digitized healthcare records for over 500 million citizens, improving access to medical services through AI-driven diagnostics.
• Renewable Energy: India’s commitment to renewable energy has led to a solar power capacity of 100 GW by 2025, making it a global leader in solar energy. The International Solar Alliance (ISA), headquartered in India, has facilitated solar projects across 120 countries. Innovations in green hydrogen technology, with pilot projects launched in 2024, position India as a pioneer in sustainable energy solutions.

Conclusion

• India’s contributions to science and technology span millennia, from the mathematical and astronomical advancements of ancient scholars like Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta to the modern achievements of ISRO, DRDO, and IT innovators. In 2025, India continues to emerge as a global leader in space exploration, nuclear energy, AI, and renewable energy, driven by its scientific talent and innovative policies like the National AI Mission and Nuclear Energy Mission.
• The legacy of Indian scientists, from Nobel laureates like C.V. Raman to visionaries like APJ Abdul Kalam, inspires future generations to push the boundaries of knowledge. With milestones like Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1, and advancements in hypersonic and nuclear technologies, India is poised to shape the global scientific landscape while addressing domestic challenges in energy, healthcare, and sustainability.
• As India invests in education, research, and international collaborations, its scientific community remains committed to fostering innovation and contributing to the global good, ensuring that the nation’s scientific heritage continues to thrive in the 21st century.