Pancheti Koteswaram

Pancheti Koteswaram (25 March 1915 – 11 January 1997) was an Indian meteorologist, hydrologist, atmospheric physicist and the Director-General of Observatories of Government of India. He was a professor at University of Chicago, University of Hawaii, University of Miami and Tehran University and served as a research associate at National Hurricane Research Laboratory, Miami, and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Colorado. A former vice-president of World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Geneva, he was an elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1975, for his contributions to science.

Biography Pancheti Koteswaram was born on 25 March 1915 in Nellore, a coastal Andhra Pradesh town, to Pancheti Subbarayulu Davar and Venkatasubbamma but lost his father before he turned one and was brought up amidst limited financial means, by his mother and grandmother, both widows. for his thesis, Molecular association as studied by the Raman Effect, thus becoming the first non-Brahmin to receive the degree from Madras University.

Legacy Scientific achievements The discovery of Easterly Jet Stream is one of the principal contributions of Koteswaram to metereology.

During this period, he was also involved in research on the variability of monsoon rainfall over India, partnering S. M. A. Alvi, one of his colleagues. and presented at various seminars including the Inter-Regional Seminar on Tropical Cyclones of Tokyo in 1962. his articles were published in many national and international peer-reviewed journals and were cited in several texts on the subjects. He was also a member of the editorial boards of several journals and was the editor of Indian Journal of Meteorology and Geophysics. A year later, the Government of India included him the Republic Day Honours list for the civilian award of the Padma Bhushan for the year 1975.

Selected bibliography