Eminent Scientist PM Bhargava Passes Away:- Dr PM Bhargava (89), the Founder-Director of Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), passed away on Tuesday.
For the last one month, the eminent Scientist was on dialysis and breathed his last at 5:45 p.m at his residence in Dharmapuri Colony near Uppal. Bhargava is survived by his son Mohit and daughter Vaneeta. Both of his kids are settled abroad, while his wife expired last year.
His close friends say Dr Bhargava’s had been suffering from multiple health problems for some time and his health started to deteriorate last year. Deep condolences were expressed by the staff of CCMB at the demise of Dr Pushpa Mitra Bhargava.
Dr Bhargava’s pioneering vision and efforts led to the founding of the CCMB in 1977 as an institution for research in basic biology and for seeking its application for the benefit of society. He belonged to the period of nation building scientists, who built the structure of Indian science. He was an internationally recognized molecular biologist, thinker, and institution builder. He was working in the Biochemistry division of the then Regional Research Laboratory (now the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology), when he convinced the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to establish a separate institute, and thus, CCMB was formed on April 1, 1977.
Bhargava was born in Ajaymeru in Rajasthan on 22 February 1928 in a middle-class family, to Dr Ram Chandra Bhargava, a public health professional and his wife, Gayatri Bhargava. His family shifted to Varanasi, when he was 10 years old. He was formally admitted to Besant Theosophical School in Varanasi for the first time at the age of ten, directly into class nine.
He did his UG (BSc), PG (MSc-Organic Chemistry) and PhD (Synthetic Organic Chemistry) from Lucknow University.
The remarkable thing was he obtained his PhD at the age of 21 after which he moved to Hyderabad.
In 1986, from the President, Bhargava had also received Padma Bhushan, but in 2015 he returned it as an act of protest against the Governments active erosion of spaces for dissent within the country.
SUPRAJA
