Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray

In News 

  • Ministry of Culture along with Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi and Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA) organised a curtain raiser for  two days International Conference on the “Contributions of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray as a Chemist and Freedom Fighter” at University of Delhi.

About Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray

  • A Professor of Chemistry, a pioneer in the field of pharmaceutical industry in India who started making chemicals at home
  • He was born on 2nd August 1861 in Rural-Kathipara, a village in the District of Khulna (now in Bangladesh). 
  • He set up Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals as an individual initiative in a laboratory in 1892 to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship among the youth of Bengal.
  • Contributions 
    • His contribution to Indian industry was great.
      • Directly or indirectly he helped to start many other factories.
        • Textile mills, soap factories, sugar factories, chemical industries, ceramic factories and publishing houses were set up at the time with his active cooperation. 
  • He was the driving force behind the industrialization of the country, which began at that time.
  • Literary Works 
    • He authored, among other books, the ‘History of Hindu Chemistry – From the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century AD’.
    • He published a paper in 1896 on the preparation of a new stable chemical compound: mercurous nitrite. 
      • It made way for a large number of investigative papers on nitrites and hyponitrites of different metals, and on nitrites of ammonia and organic amines.
    • In 1932 he wrote his autobiography in English and named it ‘The Life and Experience of a Bengali Chemist’. 
  • Death
    • He passed away on the 16th of June 1944.

Source:PIB

 
Previous article One Health
Next article Manthan Symposium