New Delhi: Renowned biochemist Govindarajan Padmanabhan has been honoured with the inaugural Vigyan Ratna Puraskar, the highest science accolade established by the government this year.
On Wednesday, the government declared 33 Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskars, encompassing 18 Vigyan Yuva Puraskars for young scientists, 13 Vigyan Shri Puraskars, and a Vigyan Team award bestowed upon Team Chandrayaan-3. Earlier in the year, the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar was introduced to acknowledge the exceptional and motivational contributions of scientists, technologists, and innovators in science, technology, and innovation.
The Vigyan Shri recipients include astrophysicist Annapurini Subramanian, agricultural scientist Anandharamakrishnan C, Avesh Kumar Tyagi (Atomic Energy), Professors Umesh Varshney and Jayant Bhalchandra Udgaonkar (Biological Sciences), Professor Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi (Earth Sciences), Professor Bhim Singh (Engineering Sciences), Professors Adimurthi Adi and Rahul Mukherjee (Mathematics and Computer Science), Professor Dr Sanjay Behari (Medicine), Professors Lakshmanan Muthusamy and Naba Kumar Mondal (Physics), and Professor Rohit Srivastava (Technology and Innovation).
The Vigyan Yuva honorees include Krishna Murthy S L and Swarup Kumar Parida (Agricultural Science), Radhakrishnan Mahalakshmi and Professor Aravind Penmatsa (Biological Sciences), Vivek Polshettiwar and Vishal Rai (Chemistry), Roxy Mathew Koll (Earth Sciences), Abhilash and Radha Krishna Ganti (Engineering Sciences), Purabi Saikia and Bappi Paul (Environmental Science), Mahesh Ramesh Kakde (Mathematics and Computer Science), Jitendra Kumar Sahu and Pragya Dhruv Yadav (Medicine), Urbasi Sinha (Physics), Digendranath Swain and Prashant Kumar (Space Science and Technology), and Prabhu Rajagopal (Technology and Innovation).
These awards, which will be presented annually, are set to replace the approximately 300 awards previously distributed by various science departments.
