Raja Ramanna

Raja Ramanna (28 January 1925 – 24 September 2004) was an Indian physicist. He was the director of India’s nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which culminated in Smiling Buddha, India’s first successful nuclear weapon test on 18 May 1974.

Ramanna obtained his bachelors in Physics at Madras University and PhD from King’s College, London. He joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and later the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to work on nuclear physics. Ramanna worked under Homi Jehangir Bhabha, whom he had met earlier in 1944. He joined the nuclear program in 1964, and later became the director of this program in 1967. Ramanna expanded and supervised scientific research on nuclear weapons and was in charge of the team of scientists at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) that designed and carried out the testing of the first nuclear device in 1974. Ramanna was associated with India’s nuclear program for more than four decades, and also facilitated research for the Indian Armed Forces.