V. Alladi Ramakrishnan's letters of 1959 to Education Minister
C. Subramanian regarding the need for a new institute
Mr. C. Subramaniam, who in 1959 was the Minister for Education in the Madras
Government, had association with Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer going back
to the days when the Constitution of India was being framed by
Sir Alladi and others. Thus Alladi Ramakrishnan and C. Subramaniam had
met during the 1940s. However, it was a chance meeting in 1959 between
Ramakrishnan and Subramaniam that led to a cooperation between the two
which resulted in the creation of MATSCIENCE. That chance meeting was
described by Ramakrishnan in his memoirs:
"I received an invitation to an international gathering of African and
Asian students at the Woodlands Hotel with C. Subramaniam as their chief
guest. He was then the Minister of Education and Finance at the same time.
I knew of him and had met him in Delhi when he was a handsome blackhaired
young Congressman during the momentous days of the Constituent Assembly.
But I did not know him personally. I did not feel enthusiastic about
going to this meeting since I felt he may not have real interest in
higher education or creative science. So that evening I decided to go
the beach and relax with my wife Lalitha. As the car was about to
take a turn towards the Marina Beach, she suggested that we should respond
to the invitation and attend the meeting for at least half an hour,
to which I consented most unwillingly."
At this meeting, when Ramakrishnan was asked to say a few words, he
talked about the need for opportunities for students to interact with
leading researchers in order to be exposed to the latest advances in
various fields. This speech by Ramakrishnan impressed Subramaniam very
much. At the end of the meeting Alladi Ramakrishnan invited Subramaniam
to Ekamra Nivas to meet the students of the Theoretical Physics Seminar,
and followed this with a letter (see attachment). Subramaniam consented
graciously and spent a relaxed evening with Ramakrishnan and his students.
Then Ramakrishnan wrote a letter to Mr. Subramaniam in which he proposed
the creation of a new institute (see attachment). This was how the
idea of a new institute was implanted in the mind of Subramaniam by
Alladi Ramakrishnan.
DOCUMENTS
The url of this page is http://www.krishnaswami-alladi.com/old-website/ar-important-letters/partV.html.
Created by
K. Alladi
(alladik@ufl.edu) on
Thursday, January 28, 2010.
Last update made Thu Jan 28 23:40:48 EST 2010.
alladik@ufl.edu
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