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Karim, Abdul soil scientist and educationist, was born
in the district of comilla
in 1922. He passed the matriculation examination in 1939 from Homna High
School and ISc examination in 1942 from Dhaka College. He obtained BSc
(Hons) and MSc degrees in Chemistry from Dhaka University in 1945 and
1946 respectively.
Abdul Karim started his career as a lecturer of Chemistry in
Dhaka University in 1947. He was then offered a UNESCO Fellowship
for studying in the University of Adelaide in 1949 leading to
PhD degree in Soil Science. He obtained his Doctorate degree in
1951. Since his return in 1951 Dr Abdul Karim joined the newly
established Department of Soil Science of the University of Dhaka
as an Assistant Professor. In this capacity he conducted researches
on various aspects of soils and published them in national and
international journals.
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Abdul Karim |
He became reader in 1957 and continued as Professor
and Head of Soil Science Department in 1963. Later he became the founder
Head of Agricultural Chemistry Department at bangladesh
agricultural university (BAU). In addition to his teaching
assignment, he had been the Dean of Faculty of Agriculture and Syndicate
member for a considerable period of time.
A Karim had been a reputed Soil Scientist and worked
on a method for producing high quality glass from Sylhet sand and was
the pioneer in Bangladesh to develop a technology for producing biogas
in rural areas. He also worked on producing edible oil from rice bran.
His fields of research specialization were soil chemistry, pedology and
agricultural chemistry. He developed a new method for determining free
iron oxide, also presented a classification of soils of the world in the
International Congress of Soil Science.
In recognition of his services to the cause of Agriculture,
Professor Abdul Karim was awarded President's Gold medal (posthumous)
in 1980. Professor Karim prepared a paper on 'Agricultural research, Food
Science and Technology in Bangladesh' for presenting at the IDRC Symposium
at Singapore in 1974, but his premature death on 22 December 1973 deprived
his participation. [Tanjina Khan Munni]
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