Usha Ranjan Ghatak

Usha Ranjan Ghatak (26 February 1931 – 18 June 2005) was an Indian synthetic organic chemist, stereochemist and the director of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS). He was known for his contributions in developing novel protocols of stereoselective synthesis of diterpenoids. He was an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1974, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

U. R. Ghatak was born on 26 February 1931 at Brahmanbaria, a town of historic importance in the undivided Bengal of British India (presently in Bangladesh) to Hem Ranjan Ghatak-Soudamini Devi couple as one among their seven children. Later, he was associated with the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology as an INSA Senior Scientist. His work on the four possible racemates of deoxypodocarpic acid, deisopropyl dehydroabietic acid and the corresponding 5-epimers reportedly clarified some of the stereochemical uncertainties existed till then. The regio- and stereo-specific intramolecular alkylation rearrangements through diazoketones as well as new annulation reactions involving cationic and radical processes he developed widened the understanding of free radical cyclization chemistry. and a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals; ResearchGate, an online article repository, has listed 148 of them. He mentored several doctoral scholars in their researches and his works have been cited by several authors. He was associated with journals such as Indian Journal of Chemistry (Sec B), Proceedings of Indian Academy of Sciences (Chem Sci) and Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy as a member of their editorial boards and served as a member of the Indian National Science Academy Council from 1994 to 1996. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as a fellow in 1976 Among the several award orations he delivered were Professor K. Venkataraman Endowment Lecture (1982), Acharya P. C. Ray Memorial Lecture of Indian Chemical Society (1985), Professor N. V. Subba Rao Memorial Lecture (1986), Prof. R. C. Shah Memorial Lecture of Indian Science Congress Association (1986), T. R. Sheshadri Memorial Lecture of Delhi University (1987), Baba Kartar Singh Memorial Lecture of Panjab University (1990) and S. Swaminathan Sixtieth Birthday Commemoration Lecture of Indian National Science Academy (1994).