In a small village in Odisha’s Subarnapur district, a younger Kirti Chandra Sahu would typically go to highschool with out meals or a correct change of garments. In his personal phrases, he had “no method apart from learning to get a job.”
He might hardly have imagined then that a long time later, he would stand earlier than the President of India to obtain one of many nation’s highest recognitions for academics — an honour for a profession formed by curiosity, analysis and a fascination with the physics of a falling raindrop.
Sahu, now a professor within the Division of Chemical Engineering on the Indian Institute of Expertise (IIT) Hyderabad, is amongst 21 college members from greater training establishments and polytechnics chosen for the Nationwide Awards to Lecturers 2026. President Droupadi Murmu will confer the awards on September 5.
For Sahu, the journey from a village in Odisha to the lecture rooms and laboratories of one among India’s premier institutes has been something however extraordinary. What started as a seek for a job ultimately grew to become a profession dedicated to asking questions and fixing issues that usually haven’t any apparent solutions.
When training was the one method out
Sahu’s father was a main college instructor — a devoted man who, as Sahu remembers, “all the time taught us by no means hand over.”
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Finding out, nevertheless, was not a ardour for Sahu at first. It was probably the most seen path to a job and, ultimately, a greater life. He cleared the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) and joined the Authorities School of Engineering, Burla, the oldest engineering faculty within the state, to review mechanical engineering.
After finishing his undergraduate diploma, Sahu took up a job. However he quickly realised he was not glad. Across the similar time, he cleared the Graduate Aptitude Take a look at in Engineering (GATE) and determined to pursue greater research.
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He informed his father about his plans regardless of realizing the household couldn’t simply afford it. His father agreed, however with one situation: he was resulting from retire in 2007, and after that Sahu must assist the household.
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Sahu went forward. He joined a grasp’s programme on a stipend of Rs 5,000, saving no matter he might to ship house.
It was solely a yr later that he found simply how a lot his household had sacrificed for his training.
His youthful brother, 4 or 5 years his junior, had quietly left his research after Class 12 and brought up driving a taxi to assist fund Sahu’s training. He had by no means informed his brother about it.
The revelation stayed with Sahu as his personal tutorial journey progressed.
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From searching for a job to discovering a calling
On the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Superior Scientific Analysis (JNCASR) in Bengaluru, Sahu found one thing he had not initially got down to pursue — a fascination with analysis.
He accomplished his PhD and moved to Imperial School London for a postdoctoral place in 2006. He had submitted his thesis earlier than leaving India and didn’t keep again for the formal defence.
In 2009, he returned to India and joined IIT Hyderabad because the institute’s first college member within the Division of Chemical Engineering. On the time, IIT Hyderabad was nonetheless working out of an outdated ordnance manufacturing facility college constructing. There was little of the infrastructure that might ultimately come to outline the institute.
Sahu helped construct laboratories and lecture rooms from scratch. At evening, when the campus had quietened down, he labored on analysis papers, usually writing single-author papers.
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“I deliberate and executed in a method that I’m very completely satisfied at present that I might do each,” he says.
The younger institute gave him one thing else: the liberty to determine issues he wished to pursue and construct analysis round them.
Chasing a falling raindrop
At first look, Sahu’s analysis could appear to revolve round one thing extraordinary — a raindrop. However because it falls from a cloud to the bottom, its measurement and form continuously change, affecting how climate radars measure rainfall.
Scientists have restricted data on how raindrops change between the cloud and the bottom. To check this, Sahu’s crew at IIT Hyderabad developed a facility that suspends droplets in mid-air utilizing upward-blowing air and recreates the altering temperature and humidity circumstances they expertise throughout their descent.
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Inaugurated in 2023, the ability is, based on Sahu, distinctive in India. The crew’s findings have matched knowledge from the federal government’s Cloud Aerosol Interplay and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX), elevating the opportunity of growing region-specific rainfall fashions as an alternative of counting on a single method for India’s numerous local weather.
Extra correct rainfall estimates might enhance climate and local weather fashions and contribute to higher early-warning programs for excessive climate. Sahu additionally hopes the analysis might ultimately assist work on synthetic rain expertise.
A profession constructed on questions
Wanting again, Sahu describes himself as fortunate to be paid to determine and pursue issues that no one assigns to him.
His mother and father, again within the village, by no means fairly understood what a analysis paper was. When he informed them he had revealed one, they assumed it had appeared in a newspaper.
It didn’t matter.
“Seeing me completely satisfied,” he says, “they really feel completely satisfied.”
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The assist of his household — from a father who inspired him to review to a youthful brother who quietly sacrificed his personal training — has remained woven into his journey.
And now, on Lecturers’ Day, the boy who as soon as noticed training merely as his option to safe a job will stand earlier than the President of India as one of many nation’s recognised academics — having spent his profession turning questions on one thing as extraordinary as a falling raindrop into analysis with implications far past the laboratory.
