PROF. MEGHNAD SAHA, who, as is recorded elsewhere in this issue, has been elected president for the current year of the National Institute of Sciences of India, is among the foremost of Indian physicists. He is chiefly known for his theory of stellar spectra, Which he put forward in 1920 during a period of research with Prof. A. Fowler at the Imperial College of Science, London. In that theory, which began with a consideration of the solar spectrum and was afterwards extended to the spectra of the stars in general, Saha brought together the thermodynamical theory of ionization of atoms, at that time little known in England, and the observational indications of various degrees of ionization in stellar atmospheres found by Prof. Fowler and others. This formed the starting-point of a vigorous attack on the problems of stellar atmospheres, in which Profs. R. H. Fowler and E. A. Milne in England, and H. N. Russell in America, have taken a prominent part. The result of this work has been not only a partial solution and the establishment of a definite viewpoint for the further examination of stellar atmospheric problems, but also the creation of a closer relationship between laboratory and astronomical physics, for in the light of Saha's theory certain atomic properties, for example, the duration of the excited state of an atom, can be determined from astronomical observation as well as, if not better than, from terrestrial experiments. Prof. Saha has also made other useful contributions to theoretical physics, and is the author of an imposing text-book on the subject.