  We recall the path breaking contributions of the nuclear theory group of the
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata. From a beginning of just one person
in 1970s, the group has steadily developed into a leading group in the country
today, with seminal contributions to almost the entire range of nuclear
physics, viz., low energy nuclear reactions, nuclear structure, deep inelastic
collisions, fission, liquid to gas phase transitions, nuclear matter, equation
of state, mass formulae, neutron stars, relativistic heavy ion collisions,
medium modification of hadron properties, quark gluon plasma, and cosmology of
early universe.
