Pillai, Kalam to pen books on nanotechnology

Chennai, July 9: Two renowned missile scientists of the country will come together to provide a major fillip to Nanotechnology, one of the fastest growing scientific disciplines in the world.

Dr A Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Controller (R and D), CEO of Brahmos Aerospace, would partner with President A P J Abdul Kalam to produce a series of books on nanotechnology and strategic industries, after Mr Kalam's tenure at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan ends later this month.

''Nanotechnology is emerging as one of the world's biggest scientific disciplines and is one of Mr Kalam's critical missions.

There are five important missions that need attention agriculture and agro food processing, education and healthcare, infrastructure development, IT development and promotion of critical technologies'', Dr Pillai told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here yesterday.

India should be able to leverage the expertise available with other countries in nanotechnology, now a two billion dollar industry,'' Dr Pillai, who wanted to put to good use his more than three-decade-long association with Mr Kalam, said.

Painting a rosy picture about India's potential in nanotechnology applications, which was growing by 50 per cent every year, even more than IT and biotechnology, he said worldwide a race was on for acquiring leadership in this field.

Dr Pillai noted that the Department of Science and Technology was taking efforts to build synergy among various players.

Another common passion for the two scientists would be space research. With inputs from Indian remote sensing satellites, cutting-edge natural resources management was now possible.

''The Indian Space Research Organisation is now completely self-reliant and we are now in a position to share our expertise with countries that don't have that expertise. With the global thought now being on devising cost-effective means to go to other planets, we need to develop technologies for reusable launch vehicles,'' he said.

UNI