Economic Plants of India, Volume 1

Professor K Ramamurthi obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal. He worked for about 35 years on the development of solid propellant rockets, liquid propellant rockets and spacecraft propulsion in the Indian Space Research Organisation before joining the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on thermodynamics, air-breathing engines, rocket propulsion and explosions and safety at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and carries out both fundamental and applied research in combustion, explosion and propulsion. He has served on several committees and panels on combustion and propulsion and is currently the chairman of the panel on 'Detonics and Shock Waves' of the Armament Research Board.

Dr. M.P. Nayar, Botanical Survey of India received M.Sc. degree from the University of Kerala (1955) with a First Class and First Rank and Ph.D. from the University of London (1966).  He worked as Botanist at Kew, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, U.K. from 1961-1967.  He visited several Herbaria and Gardesn inj Europe during 1961-1967.  He monographed the family Melastomataceae for South East Asia.  He is the author of five books and a book on "The Names of Flowering Plants" is under publication.  He has about 150 original scientific papers to his credit and he described about 110 new species in the above-mentioned publications.  He represented the Department of Environment as the leader of the Indian Team on Plant Working Group for the Convention of International Trade on Endangered Species in Fabruary 1984 at Tuscon, U.S.A.  He is also working as Consultant and Chairman, Indian Subcontinent Plant Specialist Group, Species Survival Commission of IUCN.