1. It is the considered opinion of many of his students that RN excels in both one-on-one research interactions and classroom teaching. His lectures were meticulously organized and carefully delivered.
2. As a researcher, RN cares enormously about quality than quantity though the latter exceeds the norm in his field substantially: he has published steadily from the start of his career till now, often in the best journals of his field, spanning about 60 years. For him, writing is an integral part of doing research because it allows one to marshal one’s thoughts rigorously and express them attractively. He takes pride in seeing his work appear in print. Most of his papers are strong (some exceedingly so) but the key point is that none of them is poorly written. Recognition of his special standing in the community has come from far and wide. Among the prestigious visiting positions he held, reflecting this standing, we list only three: Clark B. Millikan Professor and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at Caltech, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University. He has been elected Member of the US National Academy of Sciences and of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of all the three prestigious science academies in India. He has the rare distinction of being elected Honorary Fellow of the Indian Institute of Science in 2008.
3. At the Indian Institute of Science, he was Dean of Engineering (1980–82) and the Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering (1983–84); he also served as the Convenor of the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (1982–89). As Dean, we recall that he refused to spend his time signing routine papers but chose to use the time on academic matters instead. When RN was the Director of the National Aeronautical Laboratories (1984–1993), the lab saw many new initiatives, including the lead role in the development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), parallel computers, civilian aircraft and numerical modelling of the monsoon, etc. He was President of the Indian Academy of Sciences during 1992–94 and the Director of National Institute of Advanced Studies (1997–2004). As Chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, he oversaw initial years of its evolution.
4. Among other things, he started the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at IISc in 1982 and the Engineering Mechanics Unit at JNCASR in 1989. He is the Founder-President of the Indian Society for Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation, and has been responsible for getting off the ground the Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics (in 1980). The journal Sadhana, published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, is his creation; see also (5) below. RN was instrumental in establishing the Ministry of Earth Sciences in New Delhi. Most people are unaware that the institute-wide Fluid Mechanics seminar at IISc was created by him.
5. His interest in higher education was behind the inception of the journal Resonance of the Indian Academy of Sciences. His main point, expressed to a few of us on more than one occasion, has been that Academies should not merely recommend action to the government but also constructively do things themselves.