vikram sarabhai rockettil oru jeevitham

Vikram Sarabhai (1919-71) the renaissance man of Indian science thought up the impossible and often made it happen. Founder of Indias space programme (ISRO) Vikram dreamed of communication satellites that would educate people at a time when even a modest rocket programme seemed daring; of huge agricultural complexes serviced by atomic power and desalinated sea water. He envisioned research technology that would free Indian industry from foreign dependence and of a world-class management college that would train managers for the public sector. Between 1947 and 1971 he built a thriving pharmaceutical business conducted research into cosmic rays headed the Atomic Energy Commission; set up Indias first textile research cooperative ATIRA the first market research organization ORG the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and the dance academy Darpana. Handsome charismatic married to pioneering classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai and closely associated with the most influential figures of his time—everyone from C.V. Raman and Jawaharlal Nehru to Bruno Rossi Louis Kahn and John Rockefeller III—Vikram led what seemed like a charmed existence. Yet his personal life was troubled and his strong resistance to Indias move towards a nuclear explosion in the late 1960s put him at odds with powerful lobbies and fellow technologists.