Biochemist Govindarajan Padmanabhan to be awarded 1st Vigyan Ratna award

Celebrated biochemist Govindarajan Padmanabhan has been selected for first Vigyan Ratna Puraskar, the top most science award instituted by the government this year.

The government on Wednesday announced 33 Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskars, which include 18 Vigyan Yuva Puraskars for young scientists and 13 Vigyan Shri Puraskars and a Vigyan Team award that went to Team Chandrayaan-3.

Earlier this year, the government had instituted the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar recognizing outstanding and inspiring scientific, technological and innovation contributions of researchers, technologists and innovators in the field of science, technology and innovation.

The Vigyan Shri awardees are astrophysicist Annapurini Subramanian, agriculture scientist Anandharamakrishnan C, Avesh Kumar Tyagi (Atomic Energy), Prof. Umesh Varshney and Prof. Jayant Bhalchandra Udgaonkar (both in the field of Biological Sciences), Prof. Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi (Earth Sciences), Prof. Bhim Singh (Engineering Sciences), Prof. Adimurthi Adi and Prof. Rahul Mukherjee (Mathematics and Computer Science), Prof. Dr Sanjay Behari (Medicine), Prof. Lakshmanan Muthusamy and Prof. Naba Kumar Mondal (Physics) and Prof. Rohit Srivastava (Technology and Innovation).

The Vigyan Yuva awardees are Krishna Murthy S L and Swarup Kumar Parida (Agricultural Science), Radhakrishnan Mahalakshmi and Prof. 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 Space and Prashant Kumar (Space Science and Technology) and Prabhu Rajagopal (Technology and Innovation).

The awards will be given every year and replace the 300-odd awards that were given by various science departments.

President Droupadi Murmu is expected to confer the awards on August 23, the National Space Day, to mark the landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the south pole of the moon.