Department of Chemistry, University of Lucknow

The Chemistry Department of Lucknow University came into existence in the academic session 1920-21. The first Head of the Department was Prof. P. S. McMahon, FNI a brilliant academician from University of Oxford. Professor McMahon was also one of the y of Oxford. Professor McMahon was also one of the founder members of the Indian Science Congress. The department had been lucky in having on its roll a distinguished staff, to name a few, Prof A. C. Chatterjee, Prof A. B. Sen, Prof S. N. Shukla, Prof. S. H. Zaheer, Prof. G. S. Siddhu, Prof. T. N. Srivastava, Prof. Ram Gopal, Prof A.N.Bose (Former Chairman NCERT), Prof. M. P. Khare and many more. Prof S. H. Zaheer and Prof G. S. Siddhu rose to the chair of Director General, CSIR. The government of India awarded Prof S. H. Zaheer the third highest civilian honour of Padma Bhushan in 1972 for his contribution to science. Dr P. M. Bhargava, known as Father of Biotechnology, obtained his Ph.D under Prof A.B.Sen. Apart from this the Department had been fortunate to have short stints of some eminent personalities like Prof. R. C. Mehrotra who was Vice Chancellor of Delhi and Allahabad Universities and receipient of Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award in 1965. Prof. R. P. Rastogi, (Ph.D. student of Prof. A. C. Chatterjee) was Vice Chancellor, Banaras Hindu University for two terms and Chairman of Pay Commission and fellow of Indian National Science Academy . Prof R.P.Rastogi, Prof P.P.Rastogi and Prof P.C.Srivastava were honoured to be Humboldt fellows. Prof M. P. Khare obtained D.Phil in 1959 with Noble Laureate Prof T. Reichstein of Basel University. Since its inception the department had showed rigour in doing excellent research work in the research area such as carbohydrates in able guidance of Prof. M. P. Khare, main group organometallics in supervision of Prof. T. N. Srivastava and solution chemistry under the leadership of Prof. Ram Gopal. The legacy of these eminent faculty members had been continued by the next generation faculty members like Prof. Anakshi Khare, Prof. S. N. Bhattacharya, Prof. P. C. Srivastava, Prof. R. C. Srivastava, Prof. A. K. S. Chauhan, Prof. Naveen K. Khare, Prof. Arun Sethi, Prof. Anil Mishra and many more. Teachers who have occupied the office of Head of Department are as follows:Prof P.S.McMohan, Prof A.C.Chatterjee, Prof A.B.Sen, Prof S.N.Shukla, Prof Ram Gopal, Prof S.S.Tewari, Prof T.N.Srivastava, Prof V.S.Mishra, Prof M.P.Khare, Prof Y.D.Kulkarni, Prof M.I.Hussain, Prof (Mrs) Anakshi Khare, Prof V.K.Tandon, Prof P.C.Srivastava, Prof P.K.Mathur, Prof R.N.Pathak, Prof Sudha Jain, Prof Padam Kant, Prof Naveen Khare, Prof. Arun Sethi and Prof. Anil Mishra. Many Alumni of the department who are/were on prestigious positions in India and abroad include Dr K. C. Pant (Former Cabinet Minister, GOI), Justice Rajiv Sharma (Allahabad High Court, UP), Dr (Mrs) Sudha Shrotia (Former Secretary, GOI), Prof Kamal Kant Dwivedi (Science Adviser, GOI, Former VC AP University), Dr A. K. Saxena (Former Director, DMSRD, Kanpur), Mr P. C. Srivastava (Joint Chief Controller of explosives, Nagpur), Prof S. S. Parmar(Ex Charirman & Dean Ross University, Vice President Windsor University), Dr Rajiv Satsangi (President, RANN Research Corporation, USA), Dr Vipin Agarwal (Pesident and CEO, Northeast Bioanalytical Labs, USA) Though plagued by problems of infrastructure the Department has consistently endeavoured to raise its standards. Recently Department had successfully purchased 300 MHz NMR spectrometer and FT-IR spectrometer from DST-PURSE programme, UV-Vis spectrophotometer, Fluorescence Spectrophotmeter and ultracryostat circulatory chiller from Center of Excellence funded by UP State Government.