When Dr V Sumantran, the renowned automotive and aerospace technologist, was a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, he was shown an aircraft engine that was being developed. That was the Kaveri engine that was meant to be fitted into the indigenously-developed Tejas Light Combat Aircraft. “Forty-five years down the line, the engine is still in the test-bed,” Sumantran observed while delivering the keynote address at the 186th annual day of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was held on July 22.
