Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi was a Sanskrit teacher and a Purohit at the village Kesath, which is approximately 20 miles southeast of Buxar in Bihar. He taught Sanskrit in the village middle school for thirty years starting in 1940’s. During the Quit India Movement of 1942, launched by Mahatma Gandhi, he was kept in captivity by the British in the central jail at Buxar. He got out of the jail by teaching Sanskrit to the daughter of the British jailor. The chair was launched on August 15th, 2006 to commemorate the freedom fighting spirit of the late Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi and his lifetime contribution to Sanskrit education.
The Chair
is meant to encourage excellence in education in India by supporting a distinguished
faculty member in any department of IIT Kanpur who has done research and/or
development in an area related to India's defense. This endowment has been financially
sponsored by Kamalesh Dwivedi, who graduated from the department of Electrical
Engineering at IIT Kanpur in 1979, in the memory of his late father. Kamalesh
holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada. He also graduated from the Harvard Business School's Program
for Management Development. Currently he resides in Greenwood Village, Colorado,
USA.
| Close |