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Homi J. Bhabha | Homi Jehangir Bhabha | Homi Jehangir Bhabha birth | Homi Jehangir Bhabha birth 30 Oct | Homi J. Bhabha birth centenary |  Homi J. Bhabha birth centenary 30th October 2009 | Jehangir Hormaji Bhabha

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS was an Indian nuclear physicist who played a major role in the development of the Indian atomic energy program and is considered to be the father of India’s nuclear program. Bhabha was born into a prominent family, through which he was related to Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Homi K Bhabha and Dorab Tata.

Bhabha was born on 30th October 1909 in Bombay to Jehangir Hormaji Bhabha , an Oxford-educated barrister, and Meherbai Framji Panday, a wealthy Parsi family living in Bombay, India. Bhabha, at his birth, was directly linked to India’s most prominent mercantile families. Through his mother, Bhabha was the great-grandson of Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, a textiles entrepreneur noted for his philanthropic efforts, and therefore distantly related by marriage to Muhammad Ali Jinnah through the latter’s second wife, Rattanbai Petit, who was the elder Petit’s granddaughter. Through his father, Bhabha was the grandson of Hormusji Bhabha, CIE, the Inspector-General of Education in Mysore, and the nephew of Meherbai Hormusji, who was married to Dorab Tata, the eldest son of Jamsetji Tata. He is also a distant relative of similarly named post-colonial theorist Homi K Bhabha.He died in an air crash invloving an Air India Boeing 707 near Mont Blanc in 1966. Conspiracy theories point to a sabotage by the CIA intended at impeding India’s nuclear program, but his death still remains a mystery.

After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. Bhabha also encouraged research in electronics, space science, radio astronomy and microbiology. The famed radio telescope at Ooty, India was his initiative, and it became a reality in 1970. Bhabha has since become known as the “Father of India’s Atomic Energy Programme”. The Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council has been giving the Homi Bhabha Fellowships since 1967  Other noted institutions in his name are the Homi Bhabha National Institute, an Indian deemed university and the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, India.