Pancheti Koteswaram obtained his DSc degree (1939) from the University of Madras and was awarded the DSc (hc) (1972) from Andhra University. His areas of specialization were meteorology, atmospheric physics and hydrology. He was Director General of Observatories, India Meteorological Department, Government of India. He was also Research Associate and Professor at the Universities of Chicago, Hawaii, Miami, and at the Hurricane Research Laboratory, Miami, USA, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Colorado, USA and Tehran University, Iran.

Academic and Research Achievements: Koteswaram detected hydrogen bond formation in associated liquids with the aid of Raman effect. He identified westerly jet stream over North Indian and the tropical easterly jet stream over South Asia and North Africa. He postulated the formation of a meridional monsoon cell in the Asian summer monsoon and a break monsoon cell in the 'break' monsoon, and identified the cold tops of Atlantic hurricanes. Koteswaram found long period trends in the rainfall over the Indian west coast and analyzed the structures of tropical cyclones, monsoon depression and north-westerly thunderstorms over India.

Other Contributions: Koteswaram organized and expanded the India Meteorological Department. He presided over the World Cyclone Panel and prepared the tropical cyclone project of WMO. He set up the regional centre of WMO at New Delhi and initiated Numerical Weather Predication in the tropics. Koteswaram decentralized IMD to state levels and set up meteorological centers. He was Member, Executive Committee, WMO (1969-75); Chairman/Member of various international committees of WMO, and International Civil Aviation Organization. He served as Editor of Indian Journal of Meteorology and Geophysics and was on the Editorial Boards of several other journals.

Awards and Honours: Koteswaram received the Padma Bhushan (1975). He was a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and Andhra Pradesh Academy of Science. He was Vice-President, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Geneva; and President, Indian Meteorological Society and Association of Hydrologists of India.