Mission 21st Century: Living With Nature in the Modern World

Y.S. Rajan, one of the early pioneers of the Indian space programme, started his career in the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad in 1964. From 1968 to 1988, he held many important Positions in ISRO including Scientific Secretary, ISRO; and Director, Earth Observation Systems. He has also worked at NASA. He had made extensive contributions to India's first three major space projects- Aryabhatta satellite, Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) and SLV-3 and other later projects like INSAT, IRS, PSLV. He also led Indian delegations to UN. During 1988-1996, he worked as an Adviser, Deptt. Of Science & Technology, Government of India; and first Executive Director, TIFAC (1988-2002). He was Senior Adviser (Technology) of CII (1996-2000). He was also Scientific Secretary to Government of Idia from March 2000 to October 2002. Presently he is Vice-Chancellor and Chairman, Board of Governors, Punjab Technical University (PTU) as well as Scientific Adviser to the Chief Minister of Punjab with rank of the Minister of State.