Mulk Raj Sahni did his DSc from University of London, UK. He worked as Superintending Geologist and Palaeontologist, Deputy Director and Acting Director, Geological Survey of India.

Academic and Research Achievements: Sahni made extensive contributions to palaeontology and stratigraphy. He carried out field work in the Shan State of Burma and discovered highly fossiliferous Lower Triassic beds. This discovery brought him recognition as one of the foremost palaeontologists of India. He argued that earlier concepts of an effective barrier separating the Indian and the Burmese regions during the early Palaeozic (deduced from the so-called faunal disparities between the two regions and the presumed absence of graptolites from the Indian region) was untenable. Later (1964), he discovered graptolites from Kashmir. His other researches related to: morphology and zonal distribution of British Chalk Terebratubids, and brachial appratus of British Chalk Terebratulids, evolutionary studies on Jurassic and Cretaceous Terebratulids, Mesozoic brachiopods of Baluchistan, discovery of Eurydesma and Conularia from Eastern Himalayas; Argentine and Australian affinities of Lower Permian faunas from Central India, discovery of Cretaceous nautiloid mandible from South India and first record of Orbitolina from the Indian subcontinent. He also authored the monograph Terebratulidae of The British Chalk (Palaeontological Society of London, 1929).

Other Contributions: Dr Sahni served as Member of the INSA Council (1963-65); President, International Palaeontological Union, International Geological Congress (1968) and Vice-President, Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute of India; Member, Board of Research in Nuclear Science, Atomic Energy Commission, Government of India and UNESCO Committee on Arid zone.

Awards and Honours: Dr Sahni received Tata Memorial Gold Medal of Palaeontological Society of India. He was its Founder President (for life) also. He was also President, Geology Section of the Indian Science Congress (1941), Honorary Member, Palaeontological Society of USSR and Dentsche Geologische Gessellochaft, Germany and Foreign Representative, Palaeontologists Association, London.