Eminent scientist PM Bhargava passes away

A versatile scientist and empathetic educationist Pushpa Mittra Bhargava passed away on Tuesday. He was 89. He headed the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, when the government first set it up. CCMB is a research organization in areas of modern biology.

Bhargava was born in Ajaymeru in Rajasthan on 22 February 1928 in a middle-class family, to Dr Ram Chandra Bhargava, a public health professional and his wife, Gayatri Bhargava. When he was 10 years old, his family shifted to Varanasi. He was formally admitted to Besant Theosophical School in Varanasi for the first time at the age of ten, directly into class nine.

After school, he completed intermediate from Queen's College, one of the best institutions in UP at that time. He received his B.Sc. in 1944 with Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and then obtained a M.Sc. degree in 1946 in Organic Chemistry and Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Lucknow University.

Bhargava had also received Padma Bhushan from the President in 1986, but returned it in 2015 as an act of protest against the Governments active erosion of spaces for dissent within the country.

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