ASIAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICS

Prof Rajpal Sirohi has been my Gurubhai as we both have been graduate students of Prof. M S Sodha in late 1960s and early 1970s, respectively.  However, since Professor Sirohi had graduated much earlier than me, I have had not much interactions with him as he used to work at IIT Madras till he joined IIT Delhi as its Director. Once in a while we would meet at conferences/professional events.  During his Directorship @ IITD, at his request, I had accepted to serve as the Head of the Computer Services Center (CSC) for 3 years and hence has been a member of his team of HoDs and HoCs.  I must say I have never encountered any problem during his Directorship and he never thrust on me any decision although the Directors of IITs enjoys enormous power. During my three-year stint as a HoC, I could organize two rounds of interviews for CSC’s academic staff colleagues and have had success in getting promoted a large number of stagnating backlogs for elevation to next higher level of the academic ladder. Without Prof. Sirohi’s support as Chairman of the Selection Committee it would not have been possible to benefit the CSC staff.  As a scientist, Prof Sirohi is highly respected globally for his numerous and sustained contributions to Applied Optics education and research expertise in e.g. speckles, interferometry and instrumentation, for which he has also earned several awards including Distinguished Alumni award from IIT Delhi. One of his most prestigious scientific recognitions from abroad has been the coveted Alexander von Humboldt Prize from AvH Foundation (Germany) besides several awards from SPIE, UNESCO, ICO, etc.  As Director he had introduced an innovative award for MTech students in the form of “Perfect 10” Gold medal award to a deserving graduating MTech student who scores CGPA of 10/10. This in my opinion has been an important student-oriented decision taken by him as Director of the institute. Interestingly, there were no such awards for Master of Technology students that existed till his Directorship though there existed a Presidents’ Gold Medal for a graduating B.Tech. student scoring highest CGPA.

                More recently at his persuasion, I agreed to jointly guest edit with him his proposal for a special issue of Asian J Physics dedicated to Prof Sodha’s 89th birthday, which I enjoyed and the issue has already seen light of the day last month on February 8th when Prof Sodha was presented a soft copy of the special issue.

                That Prof Sirohi still continues to teach (in USA) in spite of his age is an excellent news and I wish him many more years of active life for disseminating his knowledge to more and more students and young researchers in optics and photonics.

Bishnu Pal

Dean Engineering

Ecole Centrale School of Engineering

Mahindra University, Hyderabad, India

22 March, 2021