India News | A K Mohanty Assumes Charge as AEC Chairman

New Delhi, May 3 (PTI) Senior physicist Ajit Kumar Mohanty on Wednesday assumed charge as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy.

Mohanty, who is also Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, succeeded Kamlesh Nilkanth Vyas, who superannuated from the twin posts on Wednesday.

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Speaking on the occasion, Mohanty stated that the benefits of atomic energy go beyond carbon-free electricity, with contributions to national security, health care management, food security, and water security being just as significant as energy security.

Mohanty will have a tenure up to the age of 66 years i.e. till 10.10.2025 or until further orders, whichever is earlier, said a government order.

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Born in Odisha in 1959, Mohanty completed his graduation in 1979 with Honours in Physics from the MPC College in Baripada and post-graduation from Cuttack's Ravenshaw College.

In 1983, he joined the Nuclear Physics Division of the BARC after graduating from the 26th batch of the BARC Training School. He obtained his doctorate from the Mumbai University.

Mohanty worked in several areas of nuclear physics, covering collision energy from the sub-Coulomb barrier to the relativistic regime using the Pelletron accelerator at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), PHENIX and CMS experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States and CERN, Geneva.

Mohanty held several honorary positions in various organisations. He served the Indian Physics Association (IPA) as its general secretary and later, as its president. He was the spokesperson fort the India-CMS collaboration, director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, and director, Physics Group, BARC. He has twice been the CERN Scientific Associate, first during 2002-2004 and again during 2010-2011.

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