P. K. Kelkar
Purushottam Kashinath Kelkar | |
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Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai | |
Website | pkkelkar |
Purushottam Kashinath Kelkar (1909-1990) was an Indian scientist who is best remembered for being the founding director of the
Education
PK Kelkar (PKK) was born on 1 June 1909, in Dharwar, Karnataka, India. His father, Kashinath Hari Kelkar, was a professor of philosophy. He was, therefore, subject to transfers within the area. As a result, PKK received his elementary and secondary education in both Mumbai and Pune.
He graduated with honours in Physics in 1931 from the then
He joined the University of Liverpool as a PhD student. This was possible because of a scholarship from the Ichalkaranji Trust, which was established for financing deserving students. His subject for PhD involved acoustical measurement and the performance of synchronous machinery on load. He completed his Doctorate in Electrical Engineering in 1937, under the guidance of Dr. J.C. Prescott. Just before finishing his doctoral work there was a fire in the laboratory. He lost a lot of his data and had to do the work all over again. After getting his PhD, he worked at Metropolitan-Vickers as an intern in power systems.[5]
Career
PKK returned to India soon afterwards and joined his alma mater, IISc., as lecturer in Electrical Engineering from 1937 to 1943. While he was there, he edited a newsletter for the electrical engineering department. Among his colleagues were well known physicists like Nobel Laureate
In 1943, he accepted the post of Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the
His involvement with the planning of the
According to Prof. M.V. Hariharan of IIT Bombay,
Kelkar was a teacher–philosopher, able to see years ahead. He said that if engineering were the muscle for development, science was the brain. And that only with humanities could engineering education have a heart. Because then the instruction imparted to students became, in some sense, relevant to social needs.[5]
When Kelkar moved to IIT Kanpur in 1959 as its first director, he set about infusing that institute with the same characteristics: accomplished faculty from diverse schools of thought, and a healthy curricular presence for the sciences and the humanities. By the mid-1960s, just a few years into its operations, as much as 40% of the B Tech curriculum at IIT Kanpur was given over to these foundations. According to a book on IIT Kanpur's history, Prof. Kelkar's influence helped IITK in ‘breaking out from the dark clouds of traditional systems in technical education’.[5]
After a completing his tenure at Kanpur, Dr. Kelkar returned to Mumbai as the 2nd director of IIT Bombay from 1970 to 1974.
Death
Dr. Kelkar died in October 1990. IIT Kanpur, in 2002 renamed its central library as the P. K. Kelkar Library.
References
- ^ "History of IIT Kanpur". iit.ac.in. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
- ^ http://www.iitb.ac.in/about/directors.html
- ^ "Convocation Address by Dr. P.K. Kelkar". iit.ac.in. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
- ^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d e Madhura Gopinath. "Info Page on PK Kelkar". Dr. P.K. Kelkar. iPage. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
- ^ "Introduction to Kelkar Memorial Lecture Series". IITKAA Lecture Series. iit.ac.in. Archived from the original on 12 June 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
- ^ Kelkar, B. S.; Kelkar, G. R.; Kelkar, Y. S. (1993). Kelkar Kulavruttanta. Thane: Yashodeep Typesetting. pp. 75, 84, 89.