R. A. Mashelkar

It is hard to believe that Prasad Rao, my dearest friend, is no more. But to me, he is everywhere, such was his influence through his amazing warmth, charismatic personality and true human qualities. Everything about him was genuine. His compassion, courage, commitment and collegial informality is incomparable.

Prasada rao was a remarkable scientist, top class science leader and he also believed in and practiced science led entrepreneurship.

Prasada Rao combined these three traits in a remarkable way. As a scientist he did cutting edge research in heterogeneous catalysis science and technology. As a science leader, he led some premier research institutions to great glory. As a science led entrepreneur he set up great startup.

It was in early nineteen eighties that I met Prasada Rao for the First time. It was love at first sight. I was then the head of the chemical engineering division at NCL, Pune. Prasada Rao was the head of the Catalysis Division at IPCL, Baroda. I saw Prasada Rao playing a pivotal role in collaboration with NCL in commercialising it’s encilite catalysts, the zeolite catalysts developed by NCL for isomerization at the aromatics plant of IPCL in 1985.

I was the Director of National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) during 1989 to 1995. Prasada Rao was the Director of Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) during 1990 to 1999. So we interacted as fellow CSIR Directors for five years during 1990 to 1995. In our annual Directors’ meetings, Prasada Rao stood up as a unifying inspirator.

IIP a was not in good shape, when Prasada rao took it over as it’s Director. There were long standing union problems. There were staff related grievances. He resolved all of them, so that they could focus their energies on science. Indeed, with his charismatic personality, he inspired not only the scientists but also every member of the IIP family. IIP reached new heights.

His empathy, his kindness, his transparency, his ability to put a hand around everyone, his ability to reach the heart were phenomenal. And therefore, he became one of the best ‘People’s Director’ in the CSIR chain of laboratories.

I have had many visits to IIP over the years.I could see a new sense of pride and confidence that Prasada Rao had brought to the laboratory.

I assumed the responsibility as DG, CSIR from 1995 and continued as DG till 2006. But the relationship between me and Prasada Rao was always that of very close friends, with extremely brotherly relations. In fact I would say that Prasada rao and I formed a a great mutual admiration society. There was a competition between two of us as to who admired whom, more.

As DG of CSIR, I proudly watched Prasada Rao’s leadership in terms of development of several petroleum refining and petrochemical technologies. Worthy of special mention are the production of benzene/toluene through sulpholane extraction, bi-metallic Pt–Re reforming catalyst, process technology for food-grade hexane, sulpholane production technology and soaker visbreaking technology.

He personally brought credibility to the table and used his amazing convening power for building partnerships with not only Indian but also global oil, gas and petrochemical companies. His contribution in building the image of CSIR as a global R and platform in diversity of areas in petroleum and petrochemical industry was enormous.

What are today’s buzzwords? First is Atmanirbhar Bharat. The second is Startup India. I want to show that Prasada Rao was ahead of its time and did this several years ago.

Take first Atmanirbhar Bharat, selfreliant India. Prasada Rao led this movement four decades ago, in an area, where there was a complete monopoly of multinational companies with closely guarded technologies with prices fully controlled by them. His team at IPCL broke these monopolies in many areas.These ranged from catalyst for paraffin dehydrogenation for the manufacture of linear olefins to catalyst for toluene disproportionation to xylenes to ammoxidation catalyst for converting propylene into acrylonitrile to adsorbent for removal of aromatics from food-grade hexane. A wide variety indeed.

Take now Startup India. Prasada Rao founded a startup way back and that too in an area of patent analytics. Let’s see the background first.

I drove very hard the Intellectual Property Rights Agenda, first of NCL, then of CSIR and then of the nation in many different capacities.

I was so passionate about patents that in my C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture in 1998, I had said

Judicious management of patent information will require well-structured functioning of information creating centres, information documenters and retrievers, information users, IPR specialists and information technology experts.

Prasada rao saw the meaning of this all along. In fact I would say that he was a pioneer in that he saw a business opportunity in building the economic benefits of knowledge and building this with the cost arbitrage that affordable yet high-quality talent offered in India to build a globally competitive business.

Prasada rao co-founded (along with his daughter Harita and son-in law Srinivas) a startup SciTech Patent Art in Hyderabad. The company offered services in patent search, Patent analytics and building big data/machine learning tools for the global R&D communities. This startup had one client in 2002. It now has over 300 global clients.

So Prasada Rao has been not only a great thought leader but also a great action leader.

Prasada Rao rose from very humble beginnings and achieved some of the highest positions in research and development sector, both in private sector and public institutions. But he never forgot his beginnings and kept  giving back to society through many of his generous philanthropic acts, too numerous to count. His big heart is what made him so special.

Prasada Rao remained a quintessential family man. He would often phone me up and tell me with great about the great progress that his son Uday was making. Also about how the startup by Harita and Srinivas was growing by leaps and bound. There is not a single message from him, where he has not asked about my wife and children.

I have referred to Prasada Rao as a ‘unifying inspirator’ in CSR directors’ meeting.

He continued this role even after retirement. I had always said that ‘Once a CSIR, always a CSIR’. In other words, one can take anyone out of CSIR, but not CSIR out of anyone. So after retiring from CSIR, how does one keep in touch?

New technology allows newer ways of getting together. There is a WhatsApp group called CFG, meaning CSIR Family Group. It has more than 700 members, all retirees from CSIR. It is a wonderful platform, where the members of the CFG share so many things. Sometimes there are differences too. Prasada Rao played a huge role in keeping this group together with his affectionate nudge so that CFG stayed together.

After the news broke out that Prasada Rao was no more, there was a huge outpouring of emotions from everyone in CFG. There was a desperate effort to place a collective CFG wreath.

I was so moved that I sent a message to CFG.

“I am deeply touched by this most spontaneous, most amazing outpouring for this amazing leader of the CFG parivar who left us for his heavenly abode…

Never saw this phenomenon before…

Good man being applauded by genuinely good human beings in one voice”.

Finally I end by quoting below Prasada Rao’s last communication with me in late March 2022.

“We are organising Arangetram of my Grand Daughter Ananya( Daughter of Srinivas and Harita ) on Wednesday 30th March 2022 at 5PM in Ravindra Bharati at Hyderabad. This is our invitation to you and Vaishali . If you can make it to attend and Bless Ananya you both will be Guests of Honour For the event and it will be immense pleasure for us.”.

Prasada Rao left us for his heavenly abode on 7 April 2022, just a few days after I received his last communication.

I could not make to the event as I was proceeding for my annual stint as Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Professor in Monash University . How I wish I had not missed the Arangetram. And besides missing the opportunity to give our choicest blessings to little Ananya, there is another reason to that

Whenever I and Prasada rao met, we did not shake hands. We gave a big big affectionate hug to each other. It will remain the greatest regret of my life that I missed giving that last big hug to my most beloved friend, Prasada Rao.

As we mourn his demise, we should also celebrate Prasada Rao’s life for the qualities that he enshrined and lived, a life full of purpose, zest, void of empty pretences, commitment to eternal values and humility.