Bal Phondke is the nom-de-plume of Dr Gajanan Phondke, a leading writer in Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

. His specialty is science literature (fiction and non fiction).He is credited along with Dr Jayant Narlikar to have started the science fiction genre of writing in Marathi literature. He has worked as a nuclear biologist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is India's primary nuclear research facility based in Mumbai. It has a number of nuclear reactors, all of which are used for India's nuclear power and research programme.- History :...

 from 1962 to 1983. From 1983 to 1989 , he was with the Times of India group serving 2 stints as the Editor of Science Today magazine and also as the science editor of The Times of India broadsheet.

He later on served as the director of the Publications and Information Directorate of CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) from where he retired in 1999.

After retirement, he continues to be active serving as a guide for various Universities and also writing popular science articles in Marathi for several publications

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