The National Space day is marked on 23 August, the date when Chandrayaan-3 landed on the south pole of the moon. This year government conferred awards for the great work done in the field of science. President Droupadi Murmu awarded the inaugural Vigyan Ratna Puraskar, the highest science accolade in India, to the biochemist and former director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Govindrajan Padmanabhan. During a ceremony held at the Ganatantra Mandapam of Rashtrapati Bhawan, the President also presented 13 Vigyan Shri Puraskar, 18 Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes, and one Vigyan Team award, signifying the first investiture ceremony dedicated to science awards.
The Vigyan Team award was bestowed upon the group of scientists and engineers involved in the Chandrayaan-3 mission, with the project director, P Veeramuthuvel, accepting the honor.
Each award recipient was honored with a medal and a citation in recognition of their exceptional contributions to their respective disciplines.
Awardees
Among the 13 individuals who received the Vigyan Shri awards were Annapurni Subramaniam, the director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru; Anandharamakrishnan C, the director of the National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram; Avesh Kumar Tyagi, the director of the chemistry group at the Bhabha Atomic Research Institute; and Prof. Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi from the CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute in Lucknow.
Biologist Umesh Varshney from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, along with Prof. Jayant Bhalchandra Udgaonkar from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, and Prof. Bhim Singh, Emeritus Professor at IIT Delhi, were among the recipients of the Vigyan Shri awards. Additionally, Sanjay Behari, the director of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Prof. Adimurthi Adi from IIT Kanpur, and Rahul Mukherjee from IIM Kolkata also received this prestigious recognition. In the field of physics, Naba Kumar Mondal from the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lakshmanan Muthuswamy from Bharathidasan University in Tiruchirapalli, and Prof. Rohit Srivastava from IIT Bombay were also honored with the Vigyan Shri awards.
The Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards were conferred upon climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, along with Prof. Vivek Polshettiwar from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Prof. Vishal Rai from IISER-Bhopal. Additionally, Krishna Murthy S. L. from the Indian Institute of Rice Research and Swarup Kumar Parida from the National Institute of Plant Genome Research were also honored.
Among the recipients of the Vigyan Yuva awards were Prof. Radhakrishnan Mahalakshmi from IISER-Bhopal, Aravind Penmasta from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Abhilash from the CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory in Jamshedpur, Radha Krishna Ganti from IIT-Madras, Purbi Saikia from the Central University of Jharkhand, and Bappi Paul from the National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar.
Pragya Dhruv Yadav from the Pune-based ICMR-National Institute of Virology, who significantly contributed to the development and assessment of Covid-19 vaccines; Prof Jitendra Kumar Sahu from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh; and Mahesh Ramesh Kakde from IISc, Bangalore were honored with the Vigyan Yuva awards. Additionally, Urbasi Sinha from the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore; Digendranath Swain from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram; Prashant Kumar from the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad; and Prof Prabhu Rajagopal from IIT-Madras were also recipients of the Vigyan Yuva awards.
Conclusion
This is a great initiative of the government as its very important to celebrate Science for any country to succeed. India had achieved a lot in Science considering the background of colonialism. It is among the front runners in frontrunner technologies, all due to great minds that this land is blessed with.
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