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| Professor Dipankar Chakraborti |
Dipankar Chakraborti, (H-index
50) is the former Director at School of Environmental Studies and
currently Professor at Arsenic Research Unit of Jadavpur University,
Kolkata. It is very difficult to narrate a person like Professor Chakraborti.
He is a scientist, researcher, activist and crusader,
Dr. Dipankar Chakraborti has donned many hats in his two decades of work on
arsenic contamination of ground water. His work in this domain started with a
focus on West Bengal, way back in 1988 when he first sounded the alarm. Ever
since, he has been single-minded in his pursuit of raising awareness and
effecting mitigation of this problem, a task that has been far from easy.
Widely referred to as the 'Arsenic Man of
India' for his blunt observations in the face of denial by state governments,
this epidemiologist and internationally recognized annalist of the problem
across Asia has a penchant for courting debates with a series of
ground-breaking reports. His compassion for the arsenic affected people, his
unabated work and personal support, has however, endeared him to villagers
affected by arsenocosis in India, Bangladesh and elsewhere in Asia.
Prof.Chakraborti is an example of reverse brain drain. Research students from many countries including Harvard
University, USA, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA, Asia Arsenic
Network, Japan, have come to SOES for doing research under his guidance. He was
invited by Harvard, MIT, UCL and many other world's top universities for
academic and research collaborations.Currently Prof.Chakraborti is an Adviser
of American Chemical Society. Dipankar Chakraborti's greatest contribution
to humanity is to save Rs 1.22 crore ( INR 12.2 million) from his own consultancy earnings and kept the sum in a fixed deposit jointly with the Jadavpur
University. The interest earned funds several SOES activities. Recently the
university has decided to set up a trust - 'Dipankar Chakraborti Research
Foundation' - with this corpus for continued research.
BLDE University is fortunate to have him as a collaborator in 'Project Fluoride' and as an Editorial Adviser of BLDE University Journal of Health Sciences.
