The Council

Aluru Seelin Kiran Kumar (born 22 October 1952) is an Indian space scientist and chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, having assumed office on 14 January 2015.^[1] He is credited with the development of key scientific instruments aboard the Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan space crafts.^[2][3][4][5] In 2014, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for his contributions to the fields of science and technology.^[6] Kiran Kumar previously served as Director of Ahmedabad Space Applications Centre.

Ronen (Ranendra) Sen joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1966. He served between 1968 and 1985 in the former USSR (twice), the USA and Bangladesh as Third/Second/First Secretary, Counsellor and Minister; as Deputy Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy & Secretary to the Atomic Energy Commission, and as Deputy Secretary and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He was foreign and defence policy advisor to successive Prime Ministers of India from 1986 to 1991 and had several assignments as Special Envoy of the Prime Minister for meetings with Heads of State/Government.

Sen had consecutive appointments as Ambassador of India to Mexico (1991-92); to the Russian Federation (1992-98); to the Federal Republic of Germany (1998-2002); as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (2002-04); and as Ambassador to the USA (2004-09).He is the only Indian so far to serve as ambassador in three P-5  and five G-20 capitals. He also participated in 182 bilateral and multilateral summit meetings in six continents.

Among other preoccupations, Sen has been  a  Jury member of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament & Development (2009-date); member of the track 2 India-US Strategic Dialogue (2009-date); Independent Director on the Board of Tata Motors Limited (2010-12), President, Federation of Indo-German Associations in India (2014-date); Independent Director, Tata Sons Private Limited (2015-19), etcIn 2012 he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan, by the President of India for his contributions to foreign and defence policy. He also received honorary doctorates, degrees and special citations from universities and other institutions.

His wife, Kalpana, was closely involved in India’s national adult literacy mission in the 1980s and a  number of philanthropic activities in India and abroad, especially those focussed on under-privileged children.

Narendra Damodar Jadhav (born 28 May 1953) is an Indian economist, educationist, public policy expert, professor and writer in English, Marathi and Hindi.

Currently he is a Member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament. He previously served as member of the Planning Commission of India and the National Advisory Council. Prior to this, he worked as Vice Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and headed economic research at the Reserve Bank of India.

Jadhav is a recipient of 67 national and international awards including four Honorary D.Litt Degrees and the title Commander of the Order of Academic Palms by the Government of France.

Anil Sahasrabudhe did his Bachelor of Engineering from Karnataka University securing the first rank and a Gold medal, followed by a Master’s and a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru. He worked in Tata Consulting Engineers, and was faculty in the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology, and IIT, Guwahati holding several administrative positions such as HoD, Dean and Deputy Director. He then joined the College of Engineering, Pune as its Director, turning around the college before assuming the charge of Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education.

Govindan Rangarajan obtained his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He then worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, University of California, Berkeley before returning to India in 1992. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics in Indian Institute of Science. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics and chaos, time series analysis and computational neuroscience. He is a J. C. Bose National Fellow, a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He was knighted by the Government of France: Knight (Chevalier) of the Order of Palms. He was also a Homi Bhabha Fellow.

Umesh Varshney obtained his PhD from the University of Calgary, Canada in 1985, and then continued there as an AHFMR fellow. He moved to MIT in 1988 and then joined IISc in 1991. He is currently a J N Tata Chair Professor. He teaches molecular biology and studies protein synthesis and DNA repair in eubacteria. He is a fellow of INSA (New Delhi), IAS (Bangalore), NAS, India (Allahabad), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and a recipient of JC Bose Fellowship and various other awards including SS Bhatnagar Prize and G. N. Ramachandran Gold Medal for Excellence in Biological Sciences & Technology.