From the biography: How mathematician DD Kosambi envisioned higher education in science in India

When DD Kosambi was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in June 1945, he was 38 years old. His was the second appointment at the TIFR, the first being that of Homi Bhabha, two years younger than DDK. The two men found themselves in an exciting position at the start of a newly born institute for research at the forefront of physics.

Bhabha, well-known both nationally and internationally, had a lot going for him. Coming from an upper-class and influential Parsi family that was closely related to the Tatas, he had been educated at Cambridge University and had obtained his doctorate in theoretical high-energy particle physics. He was in the running for an academic position in England, but circumstances deemed otherwise – a trip home during the summer vacations of 1939 turned into an extended stay in India, the war in Europe having started. He found himself in the Physics Department at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where Raman, as Senior Professor at the IISc, arranged that Bhabha was appointed Reader. In the next few years, even as World War II was raging, he set up a cosmic ray group at the IISc and...

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