Dec 27, 1999

Vijay Kumar Saraswat, 49
Rocket Scientist

MISSILE MAN II

There is this joke about Vijay Saraswat that his colleagues at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad like to narrate with glee. It is how his girth kept pace with the Prithvi missile that he helped build. In the early '80s when India's first surface-to surface missile was on the design board. Saraswat was slim and wiry. As the missile's development gathered momentum Saraswat began to look as stocky as the Prithvi on the launch pad. Now at 49, having successfully overseen the induction of the missile into the army-no mean achievement- he has earned the reputation of being among the rare breed to technologists who deliver.

In the coming years, he will not only be building newer versions of Prithvi but also be in charge of India's most prestigious air-defence project : anti-ballistic missiles. For the uninitiated, ABMS are super fast rockets that destroy incoming missiles. As Saraswat jokes: " Now my mission is that whatever type of missiles I have built I have to kill them with faster ones." Saraswat is expected to inherit the title so reserved for his mentor A.P.J.Abdul Kalam : missile man.

 -Raj Chengappa

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