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- H. (Hanumanthappa) Narasimhaiah (more popularly Hossur Narasimhaiah; 6 June 1920 – 31 January 2005) was an Indian physicist, educator, writer, freedom fighter and rationalist from Karnataka. Publicly known as "HN", he was the Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University and the president of the National Education Society. He was conferred the Padma Bhushan award by the Government of India in 1984. As there was no formal school in Hossur, where he was born, he attended the Government School in Gauribidanur, and continued high school at the National High School, Basavanagudi in Bangalore. He walked 85 km for two days to reach the city. A meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in 1936, in which he served as an interpreter to Gandhi, inspired him to follow Gandhism the rest of his life. While in his final year of BSc at the Central College of Bangalore, he gave up his education to join Gandhi's Quit India movement in 1942. He was arrested and imprisoned for about nine months. He finished his bachelor's degree with physics honours in 1944, and master's degree in 1946. He was immediately recruited to the faculty of physics at the National College, Bangalore, where he taught until 1957. He went for doctoral research in the United States and earned a PhD in 1960 in nuclear physics from Ohio State University. From 1961 he was Principal of the National College, Basavanagudi. He became the Vice-Chancellor of the Bangalore University in 1972, the post he held until his resignation in 1977. He went on to serve in the Karnataka Legislative Council. A self-proclaimed rationalist, he was a renowned sceptic. While in office, he constituted and chaired the "Committee to Investigate Miracles and Other Verifiable Superstitions" that led to public challenges of the miraculous claims of Hindu godmen, including Sathya Sai Baba and Sai Krishna. As a leader of the Karnataka legislators to investigate a black-magic curse called banamathi, he disproved the existence of such claims. He was the founder of the Bangalore Science Forum. He is so far the only Indian to become elected Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. (en)
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