MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Rajagopala Chidambaram, India’s foremost nuclear weapons designer and an vital participant in each of India’s Pokhran nuclear tests — Smiling Buddha in May 1974 and Operation Shakti in May 1998 — handed away at Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital at 3.20 am on Saturday following well being issues. He was 88.
According to these near him, Chidambaram had sustained a head harm after a fall at BARC in Nov 2024 and had been admitted to Jaslok Hospital. He was discharged however was readmitted due to well being points.
Chidambaram, usually referred to as the “Indian Oppenheimer”, was given a state funeral.
The particulars of the Pokhran-2 checks had been fine-tuned on the marriage ceremony of Chidambaram’s second daughter at a corridor in Mumbai attended by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Chidambaram himself instructed an viewers of almost 2,000 in Sion in 2015 that as the marriage rituals had been in progress, he and Kalam had slipped unnoticed into a close-by room and finalised preparations for the nuclear check.
Referring to Chidambaram’s position in Pokhran-2, Col Gopal Kaushik (Retd), described as the perfect secrets and techniques keeper of the nuclear checks after he hoodwinked the spy satellites, instructed TOI that in the course of the checks Chidambaram’s code identify was “Maj Gen Nataraj”. “Chidambaram was well-versed with the nuances of a nuclear experiment of this magnitude and was instrumental in guaranteeing solely indigenously sourced nuclear materials was used for the checks,’’ Col Kaushik (Retd) mentioned.
In 1967, Chidambaram joined the nuclear weapon designing effort, dealing primarily with the metallurgical and bodily facets of nuclear weapons. As a nuclear scientist, his major focus was on excessive stress physics, crystallography and supplies science.
For India’s first nuclear weapons check, on May 18, 1974, he and his colleague carried the plutonium machine in a army truck from Mumbai to Pokhran. He writes in India Rising. Memoir Of A Scientist: “Nobody besides us knew which field contained the plutonium. During the whole journey, we might have the beds introduced within the truck and slept contained in the truck. Since we halted at army officers’ messes en route, the army folks thought there was one thing flawed with us.’’
Born within the erstwhile Madras Province in 1936, Chidambaram, who was an alumnus of Presidency College, Chennai, and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, held a number of prestigious roles all through his illustrious profession, together with being principal scientific adviser to the Union Govt (2001–2018), director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (1990-1993), Atomic Energy Commission chairman, and secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy (1993-2000). He was additionally International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors chairman and served as a member of IAEA’s Commission of Eminent Persons, contributing to the organisation’s imaginative and prescient for 2020 and past. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1975 and Padma Vibhushan in 1999.
“Deeply saddened” by his demise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned in a put up on X, including, “Dr Rajagopala Chidambaram was one of many key architects of India’s nuclear programme and made ground-breaking contributions in strengthening India’s scientific and strategic capabilities. He can be remembered with gratitude by the entire nation and his efforts will encourage generations to come back.”
As a world-class physicist, Chidambaram’s analysis in high-pressure physics, crystallography and supplies science considerably superior the scientific neighborhood’s understanding of those fields. His pioneering work in these areas laid the muse for contemporary supplies science analysis in India.
Chidambaram was additionally instrumental in initiating India’s indigenous growth of supercomputers and conceptualising the National Knowledge Network.
On Saturday, his physique was taken from the hospital to his residence at Deonar the place guests paid their final respects. From there it was moved to the Barc conference centre at Trombay the place extra folks paid homage. At round 6 pm it taken to the Deonar crematorium for the ultimate rites. Top scientists and officers from the nuclear fraternity attended the funeral.
AEC chairman Ajit Kumar Mohanty mentioned: “Dr Chidambaram was a doyen of science and know-how whose contributions furthered India’s nuclear prowess and strategic self-reliance. His loss is an irreparable one for the scientific neighborhood and the nation.’’
Two months after Pokhran-2, Chidambaram confronted an issue. The US State Department denied him a visa to attend a gathering of the American Crystollographic Association in Washington DC as a result of he was a key participant in Pokhran-2.
The 41,000-member American Physical Society protested in opposition to the choice and Irving A Lerch, director of the society’s worldwide affairs division, was quoted by NYT as saying that even in the course of the peak of the Cold War Soviets had been granted US visas. After this Chidambaram made numerous journeys to the US.
Rajagopala Chidambaram, India’s atomic weapons man, passes away at 88 | India News – Times of India
