Prof. Indiresan passes away

26 February, 2013

We pay our humble homage to Prof P.V. Indiresan, former Director of IIT Madras, who passed away in Pune on Sunday (24th Feb, 2013) morning hours before he was to chair the Election Commission's technical committee meet on EVMs. He was 85, and is survived by his wife Jaya, two daughters and a son.

Prof. Indiresan was educated in Presidency College, Madras; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the University of Birmingham, UK. He taught in IITs for forty years. He started his career at the University of Roorkee and then joined IIT Delhi. He served as the Director of IIT-Madras for twenty years from 1978 till his retirement in 1998. He is considered as the best ever director, the Institute had. His students have built a hostel in his name in IIT-Delhi.

Every Prime Minister from P.V.Narasimha Rao onwards would seek his advice and respect his views even though he had been critical of each one of them in his writings. Perhaps that was because there was no rancour in his dissent.

He was extremely close to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, before, during and after his Presidency. Kalam was a passionate votary of Indiresan’s pet programme PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas), which he felt was the only way to decongest our cities. With a lot of passion he would tell me how it was so easy to implement his scheme.

He is one among the two dozen Honorary Members of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers, USA among whom a dozen are noble prize winners. Prof. Indiresan was twice awarded the highest prize of the Inventions Promotion Board, by Govt. of India. He has also been conferred the Padma Bhushan by the President of India.

Prof. Indiresan is a prolific writer on societal, economic and development issues. He is also a regular columnist with national dailies like Business Line, The Hindu and The Indian Express. He has authored books "Vision 2020 - What India Can Be, and How to Make That Happen" and "Managing Development: Decentralisation, Geographical Socialism and Urban Replication."