Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for Professor Aparajith Ramnath

Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvarya (Penguin Random House India) by Aparajith Ramnath, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Sciences​​​​​​, Ahmedabad University, has been awarded the prestigious Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025. The jury, which included N. Chandrasekaran (Chairman, Tata Sons and Tata Group), Manish Sabharwal (Entrepreneur), Niraja Gopal Jayal (Political Scientist), Srinath Raghavan (Historian), Rahul Matthan (Eminent Attorney), Jawed Ashraf (Former Ambassador of India to France), and Yamini Aiyar (Public Policy Scholar), recognised it as the most outstanding non-fiction book on modern and contemporary India this year. The award will be presented on December 6, 2025 at the Bangalore Literature Festival.

In Professor Ramnath’s words, “Visvesvaraya was easily the most famous Indian engineer of the century, and yet much more than that description suggests.” His legacy, as the book shows, is not abstract but lived. If you have picnicked at Brindavan Gardens near the KRS Dam, studied at IISc Bengaluru or ICT Mumbai, drawn water in Hyderabad from Himayat Sagar or Osman Sagar, or used Mysore Sandal Soap at home, you have already encountered his work whether you realised it or not.

The biography is the result of seven years of extensive archival research across India and abroad, drawing from letters, technical papers, newspapers and official documents to reconstruct not only the life of a remarkable individual but also the story of a modern nation.

Congratulations to Professor Aparajith Ramnath on this extraordinary recognition.

Listen to Srinath Raghavan, Trustee, New India Foundation, on this year’s award