Scientist honoured for work on Agni missile tech

Tessy Thomas, the key defence scientist in the Agni series of missiles, was on Monday conferred the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award by President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi.

Thomas was given the award for her outstanding contribution for making India self-reliant in the field of missile technology. The award, given annually for excellence in public administration, academics and management, carries a Rs 5 lakh purse, a plaque and a citation.

Mukherjee said Thomas, through her dynamism, had made the country proud and self-reliant in the sphere of security.He underlined that India neither had the intention of aggression nor to further any commercial interest at the cost of others. Thomas said she was extremely humbled and honoured to receive the award.

Born in 1964 at Alappuzha in Kerala, Thomas has been associated with the Agni programme right from its development stage. She has desiged the guidance schme for long-range missile systems which is used in all Agni missiles. Thomas has also desiged and developed, for the first time in the country, an energy management guidance scheme used in solid-propelled long-range systems.

She is the project director for Agni-IV missile and project director (mission) for the long-range Agni V system. Scientists RA Mashelkar, Yash Pal and MS Swaminathan, activists Ela Bhatt and Aruna Roy, businessmen Sunil Bharti Mittal and NR Narayana Murthy are some of the recipients of the award.