The new Vice-Chancellor of Nalanda University, Rajgir, in Bihar has been appointed. He is none other than Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar, a technocrat who is considered the father of the Indian Supercomputer. President Pranab Mukherjee, in his capacity as Visitor to Nalanda University, named Bhatkar for this post. His office will come into effect on January 25.

The 70-year-old mastermind is replacing Gopa Sabharwal. He resigned on November 24 last year followed by the resignation of Chancellor George Yeo. The Mentor Group which functioned as the governing body of the university also dissolved before the resignation of Chancellor. As per the Nalanda University Act, Sec 11(3) he will be holding the office for a three-year period from the date of his appointment

Bhatkar was born on October 11, 1946, in Pune. He was an initial from IIT, Delhi. Further, he took education from Sir Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur and MS University, Vadodara. He is known as the architect of India’s initiative in supercomputing, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Pune founded in 1988, leading to the development of the first indigenous supercomputer Param 8,000 in 1991, followed by Param 10,000 in 1998.

Bhatkar has served as the member, Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet at the Centre, and a governing board of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. He has also been honoured with the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan, the fourth and third highest civilian honours in India.

 Nalanda University is established in November 2010. It spreads over a 443-acres campus and started offering academic programmes in 2014. It is a dream project of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

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