India made history when the country’s first Ballistic Missile, Prithvi, was successfully tested in 1988. It meant that India had finally taken the first step towards becoming self-sufficient in producing wide-range ballistic missiles. On March 25, a scientist who played a vital role in development and flight evaluation for the project and a Defence Research and Development Organisation Fellow, D. Sreenivasulu Reddy of Hyderabad, was conferred with a Lifetime Achievement Award for four decades of his contribution to the organisation by the Defence Minister, Arun Jaitley. He was also instrumental in the successful flight test of the ship-launched Dhanush missile. “I’m honoured that the organisation decided to confer this rare award to me,” says 68-year-old D.S Reddy, recalling that the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (the umbrella programme which included the Prithvi project), would have been nothing without Dr Abdul Kalam. D.R. Reddy working on the missile “He initiated the programme in 1983 and I joined DRDO in 1973. Before Dr Kalam joined us, we had no great expectations. The vision and leadership was missing and we didn’t know what we were capable of. He turned it all around. I interacted with him for the first time when I was being interviewed for a promotion and Dr Kalam said I did well. I also felt gratified when he asked my teammates, ‘Can you launch this missile without Mr Reddy?’, indicating that my work was valued.” In the 43 years of his service in the field, he has also been conferred with the Agni Award for Excellence and the Self-Reliance and the DRDO Performance Excellence Award. He says that he got into this field by chance. “I had completed my MSc and in the ‘70s, finding a job was very tough. I saw an advertisement in a newspaper that said DRDO was hiring. I didn’t know much about it, but I applied. That was my first and last job, and I didn’t think of quitting because the work environment was excellent. Superiors would give us freedom and help us out if we got stuck,” he says, stressing that the Ballistic Missile Programme is important to defend ourselves. “Developing and under-developed countries are not allowed to import missiles but our adversaries have got them through clandestine means. It is all the more necessary now to be ready to defend ourselves,” he says and adds that he is grateful for his family’s support. “I would hardly be able to spend time with the kids, but they understood the importance of my job,” he says.

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