He was a visiting scientist at Columbia University during 1979−82 and Visiting professor at the University of Pernambuco in Brazil in May 2001. He is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and a Silver Medalist of the Chemical Research Society of India. His research interests include cycloadditions, radical-mediated C−C and C−heteroatom bond-forming reactions, multicomponent reactions, and heterocyclic synthesis. Forty students have completed Ph.D. degrees under his supervision, and he has published nearly 200 papers in major international journals. Ani Deepthi was born in Kollam, Kerala State, India, in 1980. She obtained her B.Sc. degree from Kerala University (Fatima Mata National College, Kollam) in 2000 and her M.Sc. degree (First Rank) from the Cochin University of Science and Technology in 2002. She did her doctoral research under the guidance of Dr. Vijay Nair in the Regional Research Laboratory (CSIR) Trivandrum, working in the area of multicomponent reactions and has submitted her Ph.D. thesis to the