Abstract: About three decades ago, the era of global email connectivity began in India. Funding was a lot more scarce then, and scepticism about the utility of such connectivity was in plenty. This talk will attempt to reveal how a bunch of "Young Turks" from TIFR made a difference and got it rolling. TIFR was the first Indian institute to be connected to the outside world, to BITNET, in 1989 and a trickle of email exchanges outside TIFR started. It has since grown exponentially, and become so ubiquitous now that one wonders
what then was the scepticism about.
Bio: Prof. Rajiv Gavai earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from IIT Bombay and TIFR/Mumbai University respectively. Prof. Gavai has distinguished himself both internationally and nationally as a leader in the field of lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and quark-gluon plasma (QGP). He has authored over 170 research articles, edited books, and is on the editorial boards of Pramana as well as Nuclear Physics A. Prof. Gavai was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. He is an elected Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi as well as Indian Academy of Science, Bengaluru. He was selected as a J.C. Bose National Fellow. He has been a Visiting scientist/professor at CERN, Geneva, University of Minnesota, USA, University of Tsukuba, Japan, Service de Physique Theorique, Saclay, France and University of Bielefeld, Germany.
