Mumbai: Friends, admirers and old colleagues
on Saturday bid a final farewell to former Atomic Energy Commission
Chairman P K Iyengar who was cremated here today.
Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Srikumar Banerjee,
NPCIL CMD S K Jain, Principal Scientific Advisor R
Chidambaram, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Director R K Sinha
were among those present at the cremation at the Chembur
crematorium in suburban Mumbai.
Iyengar, who played a key role in the first nuclear
explosion in 1974, died on December 21 at the age of 80.
Former Director of the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre,
Kolkata Bikash Sinha said Iyengar had also played a crucial
role in the run-up to the 1998 nuclear tests at Pokhran by
working out the details of the nuclear devices with top
scientists.
"He made an almost gallant attempt to merge Saha
Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Variable Energy Cyclotron
Centre, both situated in the same campus in Kolkata," he
recalled.
"The merging did not happen but he installed one common
Director against all criticisms, and, that was me," said
Sinha, who retired as Director recently.
He hailed Iyengar as a unique personality and "always an
extraordinarily outspoken person, which made him in some
quarters not a very popular person".
Iyengar provided inspiring leadership to many and it is a
great loss to the community, said S S Kapoor, a retired senior
nuclear scientist of BARC.
Iyengar had developed a world view after a long
experience of working in an atmosphere wherein external
restrictions were being placed in our scientific and technical
endeavours, said B A Dasannacharya, former Director, Solid
State and Spectroscopy Group, BARC.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, December 24, 2011, 22:33