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Raja RamanaRaja Ramanna (Dr) (b. 1925 - d. 2004) was one of India's foremost nuclear scientists and founding father of India's nuclear programme. After graduation in 1945, with a in B.Sc. (Honours) in Physics from Madras Christian College, Tambaram, he went to the United Kingdom to study nuclear physics at King's College, London, and received his Ph.D. in 1949 at the age of 24. He returned to India to joint the TIFR in Bombay, then at the Atomic Energy Establishment later renamed BARC. He served as Chairman of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, as Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, and had a brief stint as Minister of State for Defence in the 11-month V.P. Singh Ministry. In 1978, Saddam Hussein approached Ramanna for help to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb. The offer came while Ramanna was in Baghdad for a week as Saddam's personal guest. He was given a tour of the capital and Iraq's main nuclear facility at Tuwaitha. At the end of the trip, Saddam invited the scientist to his office and told him: "You have done enough for your country; don't go back. Stay here and take over our nuclear programme. I will pay you whatever you want." Shocked and scared by the Iraqi proposal, he reportedly could not sleep that night, worried that he might never see his homeland again. He took the next flight out, never to return to Iraq. A multi-faceted personality, Ramanna was a gifted musician, and could play the piano as dextrously as he could speak about atomic energy. Music was close to his heart, and one of the two books he wrote was The Structure Of Music In Raga And Western Systems (1993). The other was his autobiography, entitled Years Of Pilgrimage (1991). Ramanna's research interests included nuclear physics, European music and Buddhist philosophy. He remained director emeritus of the Bangalore-based National Institute of Advanced Studies until his last days. After his retirement in 1987 Ramanna became director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies NIAS on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Once asked whether he had any regrets in life hes responded "'Yes, I did not learn Sanskrit'. Ramana, Raja Ramana, Raja
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