Ramanlal Chhaganlal Shah did his PhD (1931) from University of London, UK. He was Development Officer (Antigas) and Deputy Director of Chemicals, Government of Bombay; Assistant Director, Deputy Director and Head, Organic Chemistry Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune; Professor of Organic Chemistry, Institute of Science, Mumbai; and Head, Department of Chemistry, Ismail Yusuf College, Mumbai.

Academic and Research Achievements: Shah’s researches covered imidochlorides; coumarins and chromones; ?-substitution in the resorcinol nucleus; fixation of the Kekule double bonds; chemistry of natural products (oroxylin, wogonin, calycopterin, anacardic acid, etc); saccharin chloramines-T and synthetic drugs; DDT and synthetic insecticides. Of special significance were his use of dry ether as a solvent for anhydrous aluminum chloride in Prechmann reaction, which made 5-hydroxycoumarins readily available. His studies on ?-substitution made available ?-substituted resorcinol derivatives like ?-resorcylaldehyde, and ?-formulated polyhydroxy ketones, compounds which were not readily available earlier. He also did some outstanding work in applied chemistry. He invented a new process for the manufacture of chloramines-T, which was taken up by the Government of India for the manufacture of Antigas Ointment No. 2 for use by Defence Services.

Other Contributions: Shah was Member of the Indian Chemical Society (sometime President) and Gujarat Parishad (President, 1949).

Awards and Honours: Professor Shah was conferred the Acharya PC Ray Medal by Indian Chemical Society; KG Naik Gold Medal by MS University of Baroda; and Government of India’s Reward for Chloramine-T Process. He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; and was President of the Chemistry Section, Indian Science Congress (1951).