
The moment I told my friends that I am going to write an article about Dr.M.Natarajan, their first reaction was, “is this person a relative of your friend Preethi natarajan?”. Well, they went a step beyond by asking if this scientist is her dad (No offence intended). Subsequently I was arguing with my friends that the news about the Sir C.V.Ramam birth centenary award for this year, he got should have come in the first page of Hindu. When the news about the death of Sir Edmund Hillary was carried on the first page, I am sure that this news is worth being published on the cover page. We as Indians should be proud of his service towards the technological advancement of our country. India has rode on the tall achievements of such faithful government servants who work tirelessly to make India technologically self reliant.
Dr.Natarajan Manthiram has a B.tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras and M.tech degree in mechanical engineering with specialization in engineering design from IIT Mumbai. Both are one of the most prestigious institutions in the country for which over 10 lakhs students compete for 4000 seats. After this he joined the Defense Research and development organization in the year 1970. Later he obtained Master of Science degree from the RMCS, United Kingdom in 1975. Shri M.Natarajan has worked for over 30 years on several important project assignments relating to the design and development of tracked vehicles. He was an integral part of the MBT(main battle tank)Arjun program and later became its project director in the year 1987. He later assumed charge as the director of Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment(CVRDE), Avadi,Chennai in the year 1989. The continued hard work and dedication of the highest order shown by Shri Natarajan and his team for over 2 decades resulted in India having an indigenous state of the art MBT-Arjun and self propelled gun system BHIM (http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Army/Images-Bhim-SPG.html , refer this site for additional information on BHIM tanks). Shri Natarajan received the best scientist award for the year 1994 from the hon’ble minister of state of defense Shri Mallikaarjun, for his contributions for the success of MBT Arjun tanks.
Added to this, his laboratory was selected as the Best Systems engineering laboratory for the year 1995, for which he received the Rolling silicon Award in 1996 for outstanding professional excellence by the Institution of Engineers (India). He was made Distinguished Scientist in DRDO w.e.f. 12 Mar 1999. He has served in the capacity of CCR&D (ACE) at DRDO HQ looking after Armaments, Combat Vehicles and Engineering equipment w.e.f. July 2000. During this period, he ensured acceptance of Pinaka MBRLS (motorized howitzer technology), developed by ARDE (Armament Research & Development Establishment), by Army through exhaustive field tests. He became a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engg. with effect from Dec 2001. He received the award of Padam Shri from the Honorable President of India in 2003 for his contribution to the design and development of Combat Vehicles. He was awarded Technology Leadership Award for 2003 by DRDO for his contributions to the design and development of Combat vehicles and Mechanical Systems. He has been awarded Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Madras in Dec 2003. Shri M. Natarajan has taken over as Scientific Adviser to Raksha Mantri 31st August 2004.
Dear readers, in the preceding paragraphs I have highlighted few achievements of Shri M.Natarajan. I am sure that his outstanding achievements make every Indian proud. No wonder all the multinational companies are competing to hire Indian brains especially from the IIT's and NIT's. It feels bad when achievements by people like him are not made aware to the public by newspapers. They ought to carry his article on the first page of the newspaper rather than some unidentified corner of the paper. A little consolation one can take is that his achievement has atleast been recognized by the media. Thousands of achievements by our countrymen go unrecognized every year. This can seriously affect the morale of the person and badly bruise his ego. In the nation's point of view, achievements of such people if highlighted by the media can inspire so many youngsters to work hard and bring laurels to the country. Also new state of art technologies will become known to youngsters and fire their imaginations.
We should never forget that today’s youngsters grow to become citizens of the country and rule it. So its important that they grow up in the right frame of mind and ward off all the negative thoughts. To become a super power, our country needs a good government and unbiased media. I am sure that we will never fall short of manpower in our country. And the booming economy of ours will never explode. To achieve Sir Abdul Kalam’s target of becoming a developed nation by 2020, some serious measures have to be taken by India. A trend which is recent heartwarming is the reverse brain drain. The government has indeed done lots of things to woo these techies back to India but it can’t afford to be smug.