Ranjit Nair

Ranjit Nair, intellectual and founder of Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science (CPFS), died of cardiac arrest on April 14, 2025, at his residence in New Delhi. He was 70.

Passionately committed to popularising science, the CPFS - led by Dr Nair - played a key role in getting world-renowned scientists to lecture in India.

Cambridge astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who lectured in New Delhi and Mumbai in 2001, came after an invitation facilitated by the CPFS. In 2005, the CPFS organised lectures here by Roger Penrose, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2020. These were in a large way possible due to the personal relationships and contacts Dr Nair nurtured during his years in the UK.

A writer himself, among Dr Nair’s works were Mind, Matter and Mystery and The Republic of Science.

Dr Nair edited the voluminous, collected works of E.C.G. Sudarshan, the Kerala-trained physicist who then worked in several leading American universities. Despite significant contributions to the fundamental physics of matter, Dr Sudarshan was said to have been denied a Nobel Prize twice.

“He was somebody who was strenuously engaged, indefatigable I would say, in getting top quality minds to India. There are few people who are as committed to the cause of science dissemination as Professor Nair,” K. Vijay Raghavan, biologist and former Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA), told The Hindu.

Earlier this month, Dr Nair hosted an online conversation on ‘Cosmic Conundrums’ with Dr Penrose, said a note by the former’s family.

A lifelong champion of Indian science and its history, Dr Nair played a key role in getting a bust of Jagadish Chandra Bose installed at Christ College, Cambridge, of which he was an alumnus.

His interest in science went back to his undergraduate days in the University College, Trivandrum, where he played a driving role in the student-organised Science Society of Trivandrum. Members of the society included the late celebrated astrophysicist Thanu Padmanabhan and V Parameswaran Nair of the City University of New York.

Dr Nair’s close friends at Cambridge included the late historians Mushirul Hasan and Hari Vasudevan and neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran.

Dr Nair is survived by wife, the noted poet and linguist, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, who studied with him at Cambridge, daughter Professor Vijayanka Nair, son Viraj Nair, brother Arun Kumar, former senior official in the Obama administration, and sister Shailaja Sreekumar, a businesswoman based in Trivandrum.