Rathindra Mohan Chakraborti, a legend in the science museum profession in India, was born in 1936 at Kolkata. He graduated in Electrical Communication Engineering from Jadavpur University in 1956 and joined the Birla Industrial & Technological Museum at Kolkata in 1961. Later he became the Director of Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum in Bangalore and Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai before retiring from the National Council of Science Museums as its Deputy Director General in 1998.

Mr Chakraborti specialized in design and development of participatory exhibits through which the people could discover science by themselves, and mobile science exhibitions for carrying the message of science to the deep interior of the country. In addition to the large science museums in Bangalore and Mumbai, he was instrumental in developing regional science centres in Gulbarga, Dharampur, Bhopal, Nagpur and Calicut. He had a prominent role in the design of exhibits for India's first two story-telling museums Kolkata Panorama in Town Hall and Ramakrishna Museum in Belur Math.

He was a true perfectionist in his thought, approach and work. A very active member of ICOM for a long time, Mr. Chakraborti served as the Chairman of Indian National Committee of ICOM during the period '96-'99. After he left this mortal world on 26 October, 2002, flowers were laid in his memory by his admirers from all over the world. On the occasion of the institution of R M Chakraborti Memorial Lecture we are laying this garland in memoriam of a great museologist of our time.
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This write up on Late Sri Rathindra Mohan Chakraborti is by Dr. Saroj Ghose, former DG, NCSM, former President of the International Council of Museum (Paris) and a life long friend and colleague of Shri R.M. Chakraborti.
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"Thank you for sharing your sentiments with us. He was a truly good Man who enjoyed life and enjoyed helping others to do the same.

I first met Chakraborti when I came to India in 1977. After visiting you in Calcutta, I went to Bangalore and spent several delightful days in his company, learning about the museum but also about that part of the country and the people in it. Subsequently I saw him as director of the museum in Bombay and at some of the meetings that you organized. A memory that has been etched into my mind for many years is when I arrived in Bombay in the early hours of the morning after one of those interminable flights, uncertain about where I was to go or even where I was staying, only to see this slightly rotund figure with (what I considered) its Mayan-like profile, with an enormous smile on his face.

One of my regrets was that I was never able to get him to Washington, to show him this city and its museums.

I am one among many who will miss him".

"I am so sorry to hear the sad news about R M Chakraborti. I feel very fortunate to have known him and, for a few brief but very rewarding periods of time, to have worked with him both in India and in the United States. He will be greatly missed." 

"Through this untimely loss all of us have lost a soul who lived and worked till his last breath for the cause which is so dear to all of us. No words can describe his contributions to the development of science museums and centres movement in India. He stood like a rock behind you, the driving force, in building a massive network of Science museums in India.

In this hour of grief I would like to inform you that entire Nehru Science Centre joined hands in bidding the final farewell for him. He started his long and untiring journey of building the NCSM most of part of which was spent at NSC Mumbai and it was Gods will that he bid his farewell from this centre which he established all by himself with your support. Every animate and inanimate things at NSC Mumabi the trees, herbs, exhibits and all the staff members remember him and joined his final farewell."