V. Narayana Rao

Vakkaleri Narayana Rao (20 December 1921 – 13 August 2009) was an Indian defence scientist and radar technologist who was among the earliest developers of electronic warfare capabilities in India. He served as the first and founding Director of the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad, from its establishment in 1962 until his retirement at the end of 1981.

Biography

Early life and family Narayana Rao was born on 20 December 1921 in Kolar, in the south Indian state of Karnataka, to Kamalamma and Sripathi Rao, a government accounts officer, as the third of their eight children. The family name Vakkaleri is a hereditary toponym, indicating the family's ancestral origins in the village of Vakkaleri in the Kolar district of Karnataka. The family later settled in Bangalore.

He did his early schooling at Chamrajpet and Vishweshwarpuram, Bangalore, and completed his secondary education at Shimoga High School and Fort High School, Bangalore.

Career

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and IISc (1945–1946) After completing his MSc from Mysore University, Rao briefly joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as a trainee in the Radio department. He then joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where Prof. S. P. Chakravarti, Head of the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, assigned him a research project on fading problems in short-wave communications.

Founding Director, Defence Electronics Research Laboratory, Hyderabad (1962–1981) Prof. S. P. Chakravarti, who joined DRDO in 1959 as Deputy Chief Scientific Officer upon request of Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, is credited with conceiving and establishing three major defence electronics laboratories: the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) in Bangalore, the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL) in Hyderabad, and the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL). In this capacity, Chakravarti was responsible for establishing DLRL as part of India's defence electronics programme. Chakravarti and Rao had a prior professional association dating to the mid-1940s, when Chakravarti had headed the ECE Department at IISc during Rao's early research career there.

V. Narayana Rao receiving the Padma Shri from President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, 1982. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1982, in the Science & Engineering category, in recognition of his contributions to defence electronics and electronic warfare in India.