Kesav Vithal Nori joined
the Computer Group, TIFR, in 1970. He had studied for his B. Tech. at IIT, Bombay and for his master's at IIT Kanpur. He had then
worked there for a couple of years after his M. Tech. He was one of the first
Indians to get deeply interested in Structured Programming and in developments
in programming languages. He was a pioneer in compiler technology. At
TIFR, Kesav did research and taught. He rose to be a Research Scientist.
I was deeply involved with
initiating and running part-time courses in software technology from the
seventies. Kesav was a great partner in this effort. From TIFR, he went back to
IIT Kanpur as he always enjoyed teaching. He was a very friendly person,
generous to a fault for sharing knowledge.
He had worked with Nicklaus
Wirth, one of the world’s leading computer scientists. Kesav had spent some
time at the Technische Hochschule in Zurich and had contributed to the work on
a Pascal Compiler, P2. He also spent some time as Visiting Faculty at
the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
He was an academic who
interacted with colleagues in software companies with ease. At a time when the
software industry in India was seeing unprecedented growth, he joined Tata
Consultancy Services. He worked with the Tata Research Development and Design
Centre (TRDDC) and rose to be executive Director and executive Vice President
of TCS. Kesav shared with Dr FC Kohli a deep commitment to adult education. Kesav’s
contributions to the Computer Society of India (CSI) are well-known. CSI
honored him with a Fellowship in 2010.
An interesting titbit was
mentioned to me by Prof V Rajaraman after he reviewed this article. While at
TCS, Kesav had fashioned tools for scanning thousands of pages of code to
identify places where Y2K problems lurked. This vastly speeded up the work of
TCS teams working on client software.
After retiring from TCS,
Kesav worked with educational institutions, and in particular, with International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. His interests
here were mainly in software engineering and in Technology for Education.
Kesav was a great teacher,
colleague, and a great human being.
Srinivasan Ramani
4 comments:
Thank you so much for this tribute. Means a lot to Anant and me to hear about this side of our father that we knew so little about. 🙏🏽
Prof. Nori used to teach at Poona University (I was a student there between 1988-1990). He had a legendary status in the department (which at that time had HV Sahasrabuddhe and R Sankar also as professors). He also used to get others from TRDDC to teach there.
I had a photocopy of the Pascal compiler code he wrote with Wirth et.al. for a long time but seem to have lost it.
I wish to add something special here: Kesav was a great teacher, and you must read about an example of the kind of student he taught. I quote his comments on one of his students.
On June 11, 2009, 6:35 pm
Kesav V. Nori commented:
I remember Rajeev from the first CS course he took, TA 306 on Principles of Programming. I taught it in the first semester of 1980-81 academic year. He was from the first batch of CS undergraduates from IIT K. To say that he was outstanding is stating the obvious. I can still see his answer paper to the exams papers I set. His answers were amazingly clear, brief and to the point. Nice clean handwriting, no scratched lines, clean as a whistle, as they say. All this can only come from clarity in the mind, and he had it in abundance.
Rajeev was a generous person. He thanked me for setting him on the road, and I was flabbergasted, as I only had simple programming in my course. I met him a few times at Stanford, and over the years saw him transform from being chubby to rugged. The first tie I met him there, he had just spent a summer with Google, and said that he did it because he had moved to Palo Alto where the rents were higher!
It is a rare honour to have students like Rajeev Motwani. His office was next to Knuth's, and that is how I think of him. May his soul rest in peace and may his family find strength and courage to remember him for the best things he stood for in these dark times.
Regards
Kesav
Rajeev Motwani went a long way in the world. Read about him at
https://www.iitk.ac.in/new/index.php/rajeev-motwani
Another news item about Rajeev Motwani who had been a student in Kesav Nori's class:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Google-mentor-Rajeev-Motwani-dies-in-drowning-accident/articleshow/4627659.cms
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