Poondi Kumaraswamy
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Ponnambalam Kumaraswamy (1930–1988), often referred to as Poondi Kumaraswamy, was a well known Indian engineer and hydrologist. He was a Periyar Ramasami follower, even during the periods of emergency (1975) when many of Periyar's followers suffered, some were afraid to be associated with Periyar or his movements due to the atrocities carried out at that time on the followers. He was a member of the Periyar's rationalist movement and a close friend of K. Veeramani.
Kumaraswamy's formal education was a civil engineering Bachelor's degree from the College of Engineering, Guindy, University of Madras. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1972. Before his death in 1988 he was the only one to have received both the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1967-69, he spent his time at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, doing research in groundwater modelling) and the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1975-77), two of India's top research awards.
During the period of the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship, he created the first comprehensive 20 volume hydrological atlas of Tamilnadu State, including mathematical models and details of hydraulic structures. He developed the double-bounded probability density function, now called the Kumaraswamy distribution, a probability density function suitable for physical variables which are usually bounded and is in use in civil, electrical, financial, and mechanical engineering applications. He gave the first practical hard-rock well theory for the commonly found large open wells in India which won him the Gold Medal award from Indian Geohydrolgists in 1974. He was a design and construction engineer of two major industrial works, namely, the Tiruchirappalli Boiler Plant, and the Tuticorin Harbour Project. In addition he was involved in the hydraulic design of numerous dams, canals, and other hydraulic structures throughout South India. He started at the Poondi Irrigation Research Station in 1951, which was then one of only two such research stations in India, as an assistant engineer and, following many stints on various deputations outside this station, retired as its Director after converting it to the Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology.
[edit] References
- Journal of Hydraulics Division (Vol 108(10), Oct 1982, pages 1194-1207) of the American Society of Civil Engineers for citation of his work on hard-rock well theory.
