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Prof. R.C.Sekhar had a distinguished career in Government and in the corporate sector, prior to joining IRMA. He was an officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Services, a qualified cost accountant, (with a  a gold medal?), and had served in policy positions in the corporate sector - with the public sector Coal India, and the private sector EMI (the earlier gramaphone company HMV). He joined IRMA in 1983, and was probably the first full time faculty member of IRMA, who had mainstream business management  experience( the other faculty at that time being raw FPMs/PhDs or full time academics). We can still hear the booming laugh that he used to punctuate all his sentences with. He was a warm person, ready to share his views without any inhibition.

He came from an equally distinguished family. There were two Nobel laureates in his paternal family. His paternal uncle was Sir.C.V.Raman. A paternal cousin was Subramanyan Chandrasekhar. The joke was that of the three brothers, (Sir. C.V.Raman, Chandrasekhar's father Subramanyam, and Sekar's father, C. Ramaswami), Sekhar's paternal family  was the only one not to win the Nobel prize. His father C.Ramaswami was a distinguished meteorologist. After retiring from the position of  Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department, at the age of sixty, he enrolled as a postgraduate, and finished his doctorate, and continued to do serious research till the age of eighty.

Prof. R.C.Sekhar seemed to have imbibed these values from his family. He was a prolific writer and teacher. His choosing to join the then unknown IRMA after serving as a General Manager in Coal India and EMI/HMV - when he could have easily retired or lived a life of sinecure serving on corporate boards. His commitment to the teaching profession, was there to see for his students in IRMA - who whether they loved him or hated him, could not ignore his classes.  He fulfilled Plato's conditions of theorising - beginning to teach and write only after having gained actual experience in the subject he chose to teach - which was costing, law, and management control systems.(apart from business ethics). He wrote two well used text books - "Management Control System - Texts and Cases" and "Ethical choices in Business".  Till the road accident he suffered a couple of years ago, he was an active participant in  Indian management teaching and research

Abraham Lincoln said, that "the nation that does not remember its heroes will not long endure". THis could be extrapolated to educational organisations like IRMA. If it wishes to be known as an educational institutional of repute - it could start by remembering its heroes. Prof. R.C.Sekhar was one of the heroes of IRMA, who should be remembered.

May God rest his soul in peace.

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