Professor C.N.R. Rao is a world-renowned authority in the field of Chemistry. He is the Linus Pauling Research Professor and Honorary President of the Jawarharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, as well as the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Science Academy. He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences and a Founding Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Professor C.N.R. Rao's contributions to the field of solid state chemistry and materials science are remarkable for their enormous diversity, their originality, and their extraordinary prolificity. He has published over 1000 research papers and edited or written 35 books in a career spanning over 40 years.