K Radhakrishnan Takes Charge as ISRO Chairman
Prominent scientist K Radhakrishnan has taken over as chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram and acknowledged the expectations from him in “carrying on the good work”.
“I have now taken over as the chairman and as I have said before this is going to be a huge responsibility and also a lot of expectation for me to carry on the good work with the help and support of all the employees,” Radhakrishnan told reporters.
Radhakrishnan took charge as chairman of country’s space agency from G Madhavan Nair, under whose chairmanship ISRO successfully launched 25 missions, including India’s maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 in October 2008.
Immediately after taking over, Radhakrishnan left for a function at the recently launched campus of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) on the outskirts of the city.
An electrical engineer from Kerala University of the 1970 batch, Radhakrishnan holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore and a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Starting his career at ISRO as an avionics engineer in 1971, he went on to hold key positions such as director of the Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres under the umbrella of the National Natural Resources Management System (1989-97).
During 2000-2005, he was with the Department of Ocean Development (presently Ministry of Earth Sciences) as the founder director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and project director of the Early Warning System for Tsunami and Storm Surges.
