Dr Kota Harinarayana was the Programme Director (LCA) at Aeronautical Development Agency.  His legendary leadership skills in inter-disciplinary team building, and forging partnership with educational institutions and industry, and his natural aptitude for systems design saw the LCA spring out of the drawing board and take wings.  LCA Story began in 1984 and reached its peak on 4th January 2001 when LCA TD-1 took off on its maiden flight.  LCA (Tejas) was given Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) in January 2011 paving its way into IAF.

Dr Kota is ME from IISc and PhD from IITB.  He was decorated by GoI with Padma Shri and is a distinguished alumnus of IIT Bombay and is currently Distinguished Professor at IIT Bombay.