The Visionary

Bhabha whose foresight and vision were responsible for our country reaching an enviable position on the world map of atomic energy. Within a decade of launching its atomic energy programme in 1948, India became one of the first ten most advanced countries in this new and complex technology. India achieved the distinction of commissioning Asia's first research reactor Apsara in1956.This reactor was built with indigenous know-how excepting the fuel elements. (Conid) andhis vision come true Today there are 10 nuclear power reactors in operation in India, which totally produce about i800 MW(e) of power. Although it represents about3%of the country's total electrical power generation, work is on hand to increase it to about 10 % by the year 2020. With the advent of breeder reactors, nuclear power generation is bound to increase significantly in the coming years. Generating electricity is only one of the many applications of nuclear energy. Radioisotopes produced by our nuclear reactors are widely used in medicine, industry, hydrology, agriculture, healthcare, water resources development and management. Dr Homi Bhabha was born on October 30,1909. His birthday every year is observed ai'the Founders Day in BARe. On this occasion, the entirefraternity of DAE family remembers with gratitude this great Son of india and a distinguished scientist. This special issue of BARC Newsletter is being brought out as a homage to the great visionary Dr Homi Bhabha, the architect and founder of india's atomic energy programme, This issue contains some of the research papers authored by BARC scientists and engineers, and which have won awards on various occasions in the earlier years. A few papers which won awards in1999are also included. With a large number of papers to be checked and re-formatted within a tigh