N Kalaiselvi CSIR's 1st woman Director General

New Delhi, August 7

Lithium-powered battery expert N Kalaiselvi has been appointed first woman Director General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Kalaiselvi, who was heading council lab Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Tamil Nadu, is the first woman chief of the CSIR in the institution’s 80 years of history and will lead a network of 37 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, three innovation complexes and five units with a pan-India presence. The CSIR has 3,460 active scientists supported by 4,350 scientific and technical personnel.

Kalaiselvi’s area of research interest includes lithium-powered batteries, a key to the achievement of India’s pledge of net zero carbon emissions by 2070 the PM made at the COP26 in Glasgow recently. She is expected to lead the transition, with the government mulling changes to the Mines and Minerals Act to permit private players to mine a range of atomic minerals, including lithium.