Honarary degrees for TATA Steel director and Indian violin master

The University of Sheffield presented honorary degrees to Dr Tridibesh Mukherjee and Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam during this year's degree ceremonies.

Dr Mukherjee, who has played a major role in developing the Tata Steel group in India into one of the leading steel producers in the world, received a Doctor of Metallurgy on 24 July and Dr Subramaniam received a Doctor of Music in recognition of his achievements as a violinist and composer on 23 July.

Dr Mukherjee also recently picked up the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining 2008 Bessemer Gold Medal for services to the steel industry. The award was presented to Dr Mukherjee on July 2, 2008 in London.

Dr Tridibesh Mukherjee is well known to many people in Sheffield. After graduating in Metallurgical Engineering at Calcutta University in 1964, he came to Sheffield University completing his Master´s degree in 1965 and PhD in 1967. He then worked in the Development Department at British Steel Corporation, River Don Works in Sheffield, before joining TATA steel in 1971 as a Research and Development Engineer.

He rose to occupy key positions such as Chief Metallurgist and Director of Scientific Services, before moving to the Operations Department in 1988 where he progressed through senior appointments to Vice President (Operations)

Dr Mukherjee has been associated with major investment decisions and is credited with transforming the vision of cost competitiveness into reality, becoming an executive director of TATA Steel and Deputy Managing Director in 2001.

Tata Steel today is the world´s sixth largest steel producer with geographic footprints in India, South East Asia, UK and Europe. With the recent acquisition of Corus, which owns steelworks in Sheffield, the combined enterprise has a crude steel capacity of 28.1 million tonnes and over 82,000 employees across four continents.

Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam is an iconic Indian musician and master of the violin who has been described as the "God of the Indian violin."

Throughout his long career Dr Subramaniam has released more than 150 recordings covering many different genres such as traditional Indian music, jugalbandis with North Indian musicians, jazz, world music and global fusion.

His musical collaborations included work with well-known international musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, Stephane Grappelli, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Arve Tellefsen, Herbie Hancock, Joe Sample, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Al Jarreau, Jean Luc Ponty, Earl Klugh, Larry Corryel, Tony Williams, Maynard Ferguson and Ravi Coltrane.