Date

Event

1930, October 21

Born at Bangalore

Schooling at St Joseph’s School, Bangalore

1946

Opening batsman and leg break bowler for the Madras University cricket team.

1947 September

Joined the student strike for responsible government in Mysore

1948

Met socialist leaders, was a student activist

1951

Married Vimala Pawar

Completed BSc (Honours) and MSc in Physical Chemistry from Central College, Bangalore

Chemistry lecturer at Central College

1955-1958

PhD from the Imperial College of Science & Technology, London, in Applied Physical Chemistry

Worked as a railway porter at Waterloo station, London

1958-1961

Senior Scientific Officer, Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu

1961-1966

Post-doctoral fellow at John Harrison Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

1966

Joined as Assistant Professor in Department of Inorganic & Physical Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore

1969

Co-author, with J.O’M Bockris, of the two-volume text-book “Modern Electrochemistry”

1973

Decided to quit  electrochemistry. Paper ‘An Asian science to combat Asian poverty’. (I argued that the industrialization-poverty nexus arises from the capital-intensive labour-saving nature of the pattern of industrialization, based on imported Western technology and that an attack on poverty required a different science and technology)

1974

F.A.Sc. (Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences)

1974

Convenor, Cell for the Application of Science & Technology to Rural Areas (ASTRA), founded at IISc.

1975

Involved in setting up the Karnataka State Council for Science & Technology (KSCST)  with M.Y. Ghorpade (then Finance Minister of Karnataka) and Satish Dhawan (then Director, IISc). 

1975-76

Sabbatical at Nairobi, Kenya, on UNEP 

1976

Back to IISc

ASTRA extension center at Ungra.

Blessings of the Commons - based on ASTRA experience.

1978

Met Jose Goldemberg (Institute of Electrical Engineering and Energy, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil), Thomas B Johansson (Department of Environmental and Energy Systems Analysis, University of Lund, Gerdagatan 13, 223 62 Lund, Sweden)  & Robert H Williams (   Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., 08544, USA). Amulya and they formed the ‘gang of four’.

1978

Rathindra Puraskar at Shantiniketan, India

1983-85

Sabbatical at Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

1985

Returned to IISc. Took over as chairman, Department of Management Studies

1985

B.D. Tilak Lecture Award of the Indian National Science Academy  

1986

Started work on the alternative energy paradigm called DEFENDUS (Development Focused END Use oriented Service directed)

1988

Book ‘Energy for a Sustainable World’ published

1988

Om Prakash Bhasin Award for Energy, India

1991

Retired from IISc

1991

Started International Energy Initiative (IEI), founder president

1992

Awarded the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy 1992 Champion of Energy Efficiency Award 

1994

Started ‘Energy for Sustainable Development (ESD), the journal of the IEI

1994-95

Co-edited books ‘The technology transformation of rural India’ and ‘Rural energy planning’

2000

Volvo Prize - The citation: The Volvo Environment Prize for the year 2000 has been awarded jointly to Professor José Goldemberg (Brazil), Dr. Thomas B. Johansson (Sweden), Professor Amulya K.N. Reddy (India) and Dr. Robert H. Williams (USA) for their outstanding collaborative achievement since the early 1980's of working out a new policy-driven approach to the technical analysis of world energy needs and how they could be provided for the early decades of this century. For details, see http://www.environment-prize.com/prev.e?year=2000)

2000

Retirement from many formal positions like President - IEI.

2004

Sir M. Visvesvaraya Award for Senior Scientists (Science and Technology) 2004 

2006, May 07