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Remembering the Late Dr. Prakash
Chandra
By: Dr. P. K. K. Nair*
It
was with a feeling of shock and
disbelief that I received the news of the sad and sudden demise of
Dr. Prakash Chandra. Dr. Chandra was a charming personality with
impeccable integrity, and academic acumen, as I knew him personally
for nearly 3 decades. An event of significance has been his
performance of a totally new assignment of developing a unit at NBRI
on “Aquatic botany” which he built up, demonstrating the value of
aquatic plants to science and Society. At that time he might not have
realized that he was founding an area of Wetland research, which
today is a high priority theme in Environment Research and
Development all over the world.
An
academic aspect of aquatic
plants is in the evolution of plant kingdom as a whole and there is
much new knowledge that needs to be generated from the area of
reproductive biology, as for example the Podostemaceae. The aquatics
are the only plant group that survived through geological time and
continued to the present day, which alone explains the importance of
the aquatic system in the survival of biological resources.
The
economic value of aquatics is
yet not fully understood and this offers opportunities for new
research, although the presently available information on the value
of blue green algae in nitrogen fixation, and of other plants in food
and medicinal product development provide information on the
beneficial value of the resource.
With
the rising awareness on
climate change and its impacts on human living, the wetland system
and its resources are of key interest. The system is the reservoir of
pollutants from run-off agro-residues, at the same time as forming
the site for the emission of noxious gases like methane, a
constituent of the trace gases associated with the climate change
phenomenon.
The
coastal districts of India are
vulnerable to marine water flooding as a result of sea rise, and to
the human sufferings in its aftermath. The index value of aquatics
including bryophytes should not be underestimated as an index of the
mechanisms for tiding over the climate change phenomenon. Thus, the
dimensions of the research base laid by Dr. Prakash Chandra at a
premier institution like the National Botanical Research Institute,
at least two decades back could be a pioneering contribution of
inestimable magnitude in the agenda of sustainable development in an
era of climate change. I offer my prayers for the late Dr. Prakash
Chandra, who, in effect will continue to be a living module for all
the time to come.
*Director,
Environmental Resources
Research Centre, (former Deputy
Director &
Area Co-ordinator, Morphology & Palynology Division NBRI)
P. B. No: 1230,
P. O. Peroorkada,
Thiruvannthapuram-695 005, E-mail - [email protected]
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