Dr L R A Narayan, the first Head of Applications, National Remote Sensing Agency, has several significant contributions to his credit. He carried out extensive survey and mapping in the difficult north eastern parts of India, and developed new methods for wasteland mapping and ground water assessment, which provided much needed information for undertaking a variety of development programmes. He was instrumental in introducing various R & 0 activities in the use of satellite data at the Indian Photo Interpretation Institute (now the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing), Dehradun, where he taught Photogrammetry. He is the recipient of the Edward Dolezel Award of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.