Who: Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar was appointed
What: Director of Hyderabad-based CSIR-Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT)
When: 9 June 2015
Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar on 9 June 2015 was appointed as the Director of Hyderabad-based CSIR-Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT). The appointment was made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is President of the CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research).
He is currently working as Chief Scientist at the IICT to which he was appointed in 2010.  He has made significant contributions in the field of organic chemistry, synthesis of active natural products and pharmaceutical products.
He has more than 250 publications under his name along with 5000 citations. He is also the fellow of all the three science academies of the country including National Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy.
Moreover, he developed PEG (polyethylene glycol) which has many applications from industrial manufacturing to medicines. He also invented technologies for anti-depressive compound, sertraline, Asenapine, anti-tuberculosis drug, etc.
For his contributions, Dr. Chandrasekhar was also awarded the Infosys Prize in 2014 in Physical Sciences, thus becoming the first synthetic chemist to be honoured with the Infosys science award.