Purushotham Lal Sachdev secured third rank in the Punjab University in his matriculation examination, enabling his further studies at Government College, Ludhiana. He obtained First Rank in MA (Mathematics) (1962) from Agra University and did his PhD from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore with PL Bhatnagar while working on shock wave phenomena. Thereafter, he worked as Lecturer and Professor in the Applied Mathematics Department at IISc. He was Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto (1970-71) and Cornell (1971-72), and Senior Fulbright Scholar at Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, New York University (1982-83). He was Visiting Professor at the Universities of Windsor, Calgary and Waterloo in Canada, universities of Oxford and St Andrews in UK, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. He was also Visiting Research Professor at the City University, Hong Kong (1996-97). As INSA Honorary Scientist at the University of Delhi, he trained DRDO scientists in the application of nonlinear science for defence research.

Academic and Research Achievements: Sachdev made extensive investigations on nonlinear phenomenon. He conducted a Nonlinear Studies Group, an inter-departmental programme at IISc (1997-2007) which was generously funded by DRDO and Space Department. He also guided a large number of PhD students/Postdoctoral Fellows/Research Associates. He has published more than 100 research papers. He authored seven books and edited another three. A Compendium on Nonlinear Ordinary Differential Equations (John Wiley & Co., 1996) is his magnum opus running to over 1000 pages.

Other Contributions: Sachdev encouraged considerable research activity in nonlinear phenomenon and organized several international conferences. He served as Member of many Advisory Committees of UGC and NCERT. He has served on the Editorial boards of several national and international journals including Studies in Applied Mathematics.

Awards and Honours: Professor Sachdev held the Mysore Sales International Special Chair in the Department of Applied Mathematics, IISc. He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad.