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J. Indian Inst. Sci. | VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar (1955–2022): Mentor
and Public Health Advisor in India
Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar was a thorough gentleman
and India’s one of the top public health experts
who spent most of his career in New Delhi work-
ing for the World Bank, Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention, and USAID. His untimely
passing away on March 10, 2022, is a loss for
public health research and its leadership in the
country. He led several key public health-related
projects and facilitated fruitful dialogs with the
government officials, scientists, and other non-
governmental agencies that he represented, for
example, see1–4. He was a great mentor in public
health research, showed all of us how easy it was
to collaborate with a large group of researchers
and achieve the project goals. Not only the pro-
fessional side of our work, but we also owe a lot
to him for making us understand the importance
of communication, especially with public health
professionals, government officials, etc. (Fig. 1)
Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar was born on March 20,
1955, in the city of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh,
India to Kurapati Satyanarayana Murthy (Father)
and Vani Sundari (Mother). He was the third
Arni S. R. Srinivasa Rao1*, Bimal Charles2, Ramesh Bhat3 and J. V. R. Prasada Rao4
J. Indian Inst. Sci.
A Multidisciplinary Reviews Journal
ISSN: 0970-4140 Coden-JIISAD
OBITUARY
child after brother Mr. Suryarao and sister Ms.
Snehalata.
Arni S.R. Srinivasa Rao:
I first met Dr. Sudhakar in Singapore in 2002
when we both attended a closed group work-
shop organized by the World Bank for devel-
oping mathematical model-based costs and
consequences of the HIV/AIDS situation in India.
He was then working as a lead public health advi-
sor at the World Bank, New Delhi Office and
I was appointed as a consultant to the World
Bank, Washington D.C. office to build math-
ematical models for HIV/AIDS for the Indian
scenario. The group including Dr. K. Sudhakar
consisted of 6–8 members which includes cli-
nicians from India (Dr. S.K. Hira, JJ Hospital,
Mumbai), Economist in the World Bank (Dr. M.I.
Over), and another modeler (Dr. N. Nagelkerke,
Leiden, Netherlands). Overall, the team lead for
that workshop in Singapore was Dr. P. Haywood,
Public Health Specialist at the World Bank, New
Delhi. Dr. Sudhakar’s leadership skills, profes-
sional knowledge, work ethic, and friendly nature
were very attractive to all the members of the
team. We both developed a very good friendship
during that workshop, and the friendship and
collaborations, video meetings continued until he
passed away suddenly in 2022.
We have jointly co-authored eight research
articles/book chapters/monographs based on our
collaborations in HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, see
for example,5,6. Apart from our works, he was
appreciative of my other academic research, pub-
lications, books and always supportive of what a
best friend would do (Fig. 2).
The major India level public health projects
that we collaborated in which he was the team
leader were as follows:
1. Member of ird Round of National AIDS
Control Planning Team (2006–2011)
© Indian Institute of Science 2022.
1 Laboratory for Theory
and Mathematical
Modeling, Medical
College of Georgia,
Augusta, USA.
2 Fields Foundation,
Hyderabad, India.
3 NMIMS University,
Mumbai, India.
4 Government of India,
Mumbai, India.
*arrao@augusta.edu
Figure 1: Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar. Copyright: K.
Sudhakar.
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A. S. R. S. Rao et al.
1 3 J. Indian Inst. Sci.| VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
2. Member of Fourth Round of National AIDS
Control Planning Team (2012–2017)
3. Team Leader for District Level Modeling
of the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Tamil Nadu
(2008–2010).
Third and Fourth Rounds of National AIDS
Control Policy in India: From 2006 to 2011 and
2012 to 2017, I was asked to develop mathematical
models for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the coun-
try and study the impact of targeted interventions
prescribed by the national AIDS planning team,
Ministry of Health, GOI in which Dr. K Sudhakar
and Dr. Kurien Thomas (then at CMC, Vellore)
were the members. First time when I was invited
I was at the Mathematical Institute, University
of Oxford5. During the fourth round when they
have asked me to develop the models for study-
ing the impact of Anti-retroviral therapies I was
at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. I find
on both these projects of national importance,
Dr. Sudhakar provided much-needed public lead-
ership that was needed in the country. The meet-
ings were always lively and to the point. I had
participated in such kinds of meetings with other
public health experts across the world, but I saw
that Indian HIV/AIDS program-related modeling
was going in the right direction due to the deep-
rooted knowledge and brilliance that Dr. Sudha-
kar possessed. I gained knowledge about bridging
the gap between ground-level transmissions of
HIV in the country and mathematical models.
After my move to the USA in 2012, we continued
the collaborations and met in India almost every
time I visited for various project-related meetings
or any other personal gatherings.
Outside research, we shared very warm dis-
cussions on Telugu and Hindi movies, comedy
punch dialogs in movies, and enjoyed several
fun moments, which I miss a lot. In 2018 I got an
opportunity to travel on the road with Dr. Sudha-
kar and his wife Mrs. Subha Rajyalakshmi from
Chennai to Pondicherry to present our NACPIII
collaborations at a symposium. I cherish such a
fun-filled trip that was and we both recollected
those on several occasions. Several lunch/dinner
meetings at his home in Delhi or at restaurants/
hotels, for example, Hotel Asoka in Delhi were
truly memorable and I miss them very much. I
am still not realizing he is not physically with us
as I keep remembering the beautiful conversa-
tions that we had over the past 20 years.
The last time I met Dr. Sudhakar in person
was in Atlanta when his family was visiting his
sister (Ms. Lata) and brother-in-law (Dr. Prasad)
during the 2019 summer. That was a memorable
time I and my family had lunch meeting with
theirs. He was the same warm and fun-loving
gentleman whom I had met the first time in 2002.
His wife Ms. Kurapati Subha, daughter Dr.
Sravya and son-in-law Dr. Varun who live in the
USA, and son Mr. Kurapati Siddharth who lives
with the couple in New Delhi always provided
great family support and bonding to him. He had
a lovely family life. My warm regards, thanks, and
best wishes to all.
Dr. Sudhakar garu, you will be always remem-
bered for the work that we have done, and for the
professional conduct that I learned from you.
Bimal Charles:
My first interaction with Dr.Sudhakar was in
1995 in an interview panel. I was being inter-
viewed for a position for a USAID-funded pro-
ject in Tamil Nadu. He was the project officer
with USAID then, developing HIV prevention
initiatives for the nation. Over some years he
became a good friend, a mentor, and a brother
to me. Beyond professional excellence as a man-
ager of complex projects, he was an excellent
architect of huge public health projects for the
country. He helped The Bank to incorporate
HIV in its design and helped design National
AIDS Control Program for India. His ability to
bring in consensus and garner the support of
diverse stakeholders helped the country to con-
tain the HIV epidemic in time.
Sudhakar was very good at including great
minds in public health programs to improve the
quality of technical interventions. I recall work-
ing with Indian Statistical Institute and Dr. Arni
Rao to evolve a mathematical modeling formula
Figure 2: K. Sudhakar with Arni Rao at his sister
Lata’s home in Atlanta during 2019 summer. Cop-
yright: Dr. Sudhakar.
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Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar (1955–2022): Mentor and Public Health Advisor in India
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J. Indian Inst. Sci. | VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
to calculate HIV infections averted using data
available at the district level in Tamil Nadu.
Later we worked with the same expert to model
the no of units of blood required at the popula-
tion level using modeling methods. He was very
good at introducing innovations to the field
programs and refining public health interven-
tions and scaling them at opportune times.
Besides being a professional he was a humble
human, sensitive to others’ concerns and needs,
and was generous in his motivation of younger
people. He was my reporting officer for the
USAID project, a colleague at CDC India, and
an advisor and life coach all through. However,
he was a consistent friend and mentor since our
first meeting.
Sudhakar was God-fearing spiritual, respected
every religion, and would pray at temples when
possible. A few years ago Sudhakar led a CDC India
group of friends to offer prayers to a Buddhist tem-
ple for Dr. Dick Keenlyside, a CDC Atlanta staff
and a friend of many who passed away.
The last meeting with him was in his home
in Delhi last October and he was recovering from
Covid, as cheerful as ever and full of life and the
usual jokes and hospitality. I never dreamt that I
would be attending his last journey in Hyderabad
so soon. It’s devastating.
I have lost a personal friend, a great human
being, and an extremely good soul who thrived in
helping others succeed. May he rest in eternal peace
(Fig. 3).
Ramesh Bhat:
On the afternoon of 10 March 2022, I received a
shocking call from Dr. Thomas Kurien about the
untimely demise of Dr. Sudhakar. It was unbe-
lievable, and I felt devastated. I still have not
come to the terms that Dr. Sudhakar is not with
us. His signing off from life came very sudden
and so unexpected.
He was a dear friend, mentor, and like an elder
brother to me.
I met Dr. Sudhakar during the preparation
phase of the NACP III plan when I was deputed
from IIM Ahmedabad to work on the financial
plan and budget for NACP III Project2. Our asso-
ciation grew deeper and stronger after that. It
became a lifelong friendship that continued after
completing our NACP III project. We developed a
strong bonding at the professional level, and our
families celebrated our life events together. Along
Figure 3: With friends at Sudhakar’s daughter’s wedding in 2018. From Left Arni Rao, Ramesh Bhat,
Indu Bhat, Kurien Thomas, Pushpa Kurien Thomas, Sujatha Charles, J.V.R. Prasada Rao. Photo Courtesy:
Bimal Charles.
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A. S. R. S. Rao et al.
1 3 J. Indian Inst. Sci.| VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
with Dr. Kurien, we spend a lot of time together
working on our professional assignments.
Dr. Sudhakar, Dr. Kurien, and I share Pisces’s
birth sign. Our families celebrated our friend-
ship every year in the month of March. I had
no notion in my life ever that I would be visit-
ing his home on 20th March 2022, his birthday,
in Hyderabad to pay my last respects to him and
meet his family members in such tragic circum-
stances. I sat there, remembered our association,
and prayed for his noble soul to rest in peace. Our
lifetime friendship came to an end with his sign-
ing off on life.
Given his vast experience in public health, he
constantly guided us on various aspects of pub-
lic health policy and financing. His guidance and
support continuously helped me in my work
on the health budgets of various programs. His
technical insights and his constant focus on pre-
vention were the critical yardsticks that guided
the NACP III framework and financial plan2. He
ensured that a significant part of the total budget
was earmarked for prevention activities. The
result was that the project, when finalized, had a
67 percent prevention component.
Our association continued after the NACP III
plan preparation. For us, the final plan became a
reference book, and he used to refer to it as the
Blue Book. His profound insights into public
health and his contribution to HIV/AIDS will be
remembered.
He was a brilliant mind mapper, and, through
the approaches of brainstorming and mind map-
ping exercise, we spent a lot of time crafting the
mission of NACP III. Given the task and prepa-
ration of the plan, he came up with a brilliant
and crisp mission statement to "halt and reverse
the HIV epidemic in India." In a much shorter
period, this goal had percolated to state-level
implementing agencies. During one of our vis-
its to one of the States Aids Control Society, we
found everyone recalling this mission statement
with ease. I discovered the power of creating a
brilliant mission statement for a program from
Dr. Sudhakar.
At the writing stage of our report, he will
always pose challenging questions that used to
force us to think very critically, particularly from
a policy perspective. Given his illustrious career at
the World Bank and CDC India, his insights into
policymaking were vital and added a lot of value
to our writing the plans.
Throughout the implementation of NACP
in India, Dr. Sudhakar remained committed to
developing options and policy frameworks for
reducing HIV mortality, prevalence, and new
infections. By the end of NACP III, India had
made significant progress toward achieving this
goal. The goal statement developed by Dr. Sudha-
kar, "halt and reverse" the HIV epidemic in India,
was influential in guiding and mobilizing efforts
at all levels. Dr. Sudhakar played a pivotal role
in bringing together civil society organizations,
strengthening community involvement, and
developing strategies for reaching out to highrisk
and vulnerable populations. The interventions
developed benefited the program immensely7.
Our ministry work and meetings with the
ministry officials were full of surprises and
shocks. Many times, whatever work we had com-
pleted will take a sudden turn of not meeting the
ministry’s requirements. We were forced to go to
the drawing board and develop our narratives
fresh. He was a gentleman and never lost his cool.
With patience, he constantly supported the revi-
sions, reworkings. He provided the side of logic
that convinced us about the ministry view and
why we needed to rework the report and create
fresh narratives. We experienced many difficult
moments, but to this day, I am amazed by his
power of building the logic that would powerfully
convince the stakeholders. He had this incredible
skill.
On the personal front, Dr. Sudhakar and his
wife Shuba became good friends with my family
and my wife, Indu. We together took a ten-day
break and visited Kerala, and we shared a number
of our life stories. After that, whenever we met,
we used to remember the days we spent together
fondly. We celebrated the marriages in each other
families and had a wonderful time celebrating the
events in our families.
After I pulled the picture in Fig. 4 from my
album, I felt his hand on my shoulder, a hand that
was always there to guide me and help me navi-
gate the complex environment of the policy-mak-
ing world.
We are going to miss Dr. Sudhakar dearly.
J.V.R. Prasada Rao:
Sudhakar, the man I knew and admired.
When I joined the national AIDS control
organization as Director in 1997, I realized that I
will be interacting with a large international com-
munity of donors and UN agencies who were
concerned about India’s spiraling HIV epidemic.
In one of those interactions, I met a young and
tall public health professional from USAID who
later came and introduced himself as K. Sud-
hakar, working on HIV/AIDS programs of the
agency. That became the starting point of a long
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Dr. Kurapati Sudhakar (1955–2022): Mentor and Public Health Advisor in India
1 3
J. Indian Inst. Sci. | VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
period of friendship spanning more than two
decades.
But, only after he moved to World Bank as
team lead for WB health projects that we came
into closer contact. His approach was always to
help the program technically and not just to drill
holes into how we were implementing the pro-
gram. His affable nature has endeared him to my
technical colleagues also and very soon we found
him representing various committees providing
support to the national programs. His under-
standing of the epidemiology of HIV was not
in a narrow technical sense but in a much larger
framework providing alternatives to the govern-
ment on where interventions will produce maxi-
mum impact. The social contracting of NGOs for
focused interventions with key populations was
a unique feature where Sudhakar’s inputs were
extremely useful. Even now this remains a unique
feature of the national AIDS control strategy in
India.
After I moved out of NACO in 2002, we
started planning for the third phase of the
National AIDS Control Programme (NACP III)
and Sudhakar played a major role in getting the
Project Implementation Plan (PIP) ready in
record time2. After I moved out of government
on retirement in 2004, I joined UNAIDS regional
team in Bangkok, but we were in constant touch.
My successors in NACO continued with his inti-
mate association not just as a WB professional
reviewing the implementation but as a technical
resource who understood the country’s problems.
I returned to Delhi after completing my
assignment with UNAIDS and started living in
Gurgaon, a Delhi suburb. I was appointed as the
Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on
AIDS and continued my association with the
global program. My interactions with Sudhakar
became more informal and personal and with
each of them, my admiration for him both as a
public health professional and as a warm and
friendly individual grew more and more. By that
time, he had moved to the India country office
of CDC Atlanta. Contrary to many such associa-
tions with professionals of foreign agencies, Sud-
hakar’s friendship took a more personal turn as
we started discovering many common traits and
tastes. We became family friends and my wife
who normally never liked much of socializing was
feeling at home in the company of Subha, Sudha-
kar’s wife who was a genial hostess. Coming from
Andhra Pradesh we shared many common likes
and dislikes. He used to regale us with jokes about
his interest in movies and reality shows on film
music. People from Andhra Pradesh are fond of
spicy food and love some very special dishes like
Gongura which both of us shared. A couple of
rounds of whiskey were always non-negotiable in
his company (Fig. 5).
After I moved to Bangalore, we continued our
association and a visit to his house was a must on
every visit to Delhi. We used to share our frustra-
tion at the slowing down of the AIDS response
in India and the slow progress of NACP IV. But
his credibility and acceptability to the higher
echelons of management in NACO were never
in question. He was a trusted friend to many of
them for his wise counsel.
In 2018 Sudhakar celebrated his daughter’s
marriage and many of us, his friends, and well-
wishers from different parts of the country con-
verged in Gurgaon and enjoyed the function and
his warm hospitality. We were all treated like
Baraatis even though we represented the bride’s
side!
It was on one of those evenings at his house
that Sudhakar brought up the matter of me
writing a book on my long experience in AIDS
programs8. In the beginning, I didn’t take it seri-
ously as I never had the orientation of a book
writer. I used to write short Op-eds in newspapers
and journals but never thought of writing a book.
But Sudhakar persisted with his advice. He felt
that the institutional memory of the past two dec-
ades and what succeeded in earlier years was very
much essential to be put on record. He promised
to get me past documentation and talked to his
friends, Dr. Kurian and Dr. Ramesh Bhat. Each
of these discussions gave me confidence that I
can write my memoirs of the past two decades
on AIDS response in India and the Asia Pacific
region. I used to constantly keep in touch with
him and send draft chapters for his reading and
review. Finally, I published the book “Celebrating
Small Victories” in November 2020 amid another
Figure 4: Dr. Sudhakar and Ramesh Bhat during
the Kerala Trip in 2013. Photo Courtesy: Ramesh
Bhat.
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A. S. R. S. Rao et al.
1 3 J. Indian Inst. Sci.| VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2022 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
raging epidemic, the Covid 19. Because of Covid
we could not do a physical launch and opted for
a webinar for the release. Sudhakar was one of
the principal participants and spoke passionately
about my contributions. I was very much moved
by his words of appreciation.
Covid19 has kept us physically apart with me
getting stuck in Bangalore with no travel to any
national or international destinations. But we
were in regular contact by phone and email. I
was disturbed when I heard about his illness due
to Covid. He recovered well and was his usual
self. Therefore, when I heard the news of his col-
lapse from a massive cardiac arrest, I was totally
shaken. This was beyond any expectation. Sujatha
Rao, my former colleague in the Health Ministry
sent a message from Hyderabad about the whole
tr agedy.
Sudhakar is one of those persons who believed
that the work must speak for the person and not
vice versa. Despite his professional competence
and achievements, he always remained a humble
person who preferred to stay in the background
and shunned publicity. The public health com-
munity suffered an enormous loss with his depar-
ture. And I lost a true friend and confidant. I
am sure he must be keeping great company ‘Up
There’ regaling people with his jokes and quick
repartee.
Rest in Peace, Sudhakar garu! We love you for
what you were and what you stood for.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and insti-
tutional affiliations.
References
1. Targeted Interventions Under NACP III, Migrants and
Truckers (2013) NACO, Ministry of Health, Government
of India
2. Program Implementation Plan (PIP) (2007) NACP III,
NACO, Ministry of Health, Government of India
3. Thomas K, Thyagarajan SP, Jeyaseelan L et al (2002)
Community prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases
and human immunodeficiency virus infection in Tamil
Nadu, India: a probability proportional to size cluster
survey. Natl Med J India 15:135–140
4. Bhat R, Thomas K, Rao, Arni, and Sudhakar K (2020)
Addressing immediate challenges in controlling COVID-
19 in India
5. Rao ASRS, Thomas K, Kurapati S, Bhat R (2012)
Improvement in survival of people living with HIV/AIDs
and requirement for 1st- and 2nd-line ART in India: a
mathematical model. Not Am Math Soc 59(4):560–562
6. Rao ASRS, Thomas K, Sudhakar K, Maini PK (2009)
HIV/AIDS epidemic in India and predicting the impact
of the national response: mathematical modeling and
analysis. Math Biosci Eng 6(4):779–813
7. Bhat R, Sudhakar K, Thomas K, Rao ASRS (2022)
Strengthening India’s response to HIV/AIDS epidemic
through strategic planning, innovative financing and
mathematical modelling: key achievements over the last
three decades. J Indian Inst Sci (to appear)
8. Prasada Rao JVR (2020) Celebrating small victories: my
journey through two decades of AIDS response, Notion
Press; 1st edition (13 November 2020)
Figure 5: JVR Prasada Rao with Sudhakar’s fam-
ily at his daughter’s wedding in 2018. Photo cour-
tesy: JVR Prasada Rao.
