Prime Minister Confers Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes

Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, today stressed the need for science, technology and innovation to be connected with the aspirations and requirements of society and said scientific institutions must be aligned with future needs and seek solutions for local problems.

Conferring the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prizes for 2016, 2017 and 2018, at Vigyan Bhawan here, he urged the scientific community to take advantage of the fourth industrial revolution that is on the anvil and develop technologies that will make India a global hub for manufacturing, knowledge and technology-based industries.

He emphasised the need for research and development in the new and emerging fields like big data, machine learning, blockchain and artificial intelligence. “The National Mission on Inter-Disciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems launched recently will foster research and development in these fields”, he added.

Congratulating the scientists who received the awards today, the Prime Minister lauded Indian scientific community for recording world-class achievements while working with limited resources. In this context, he drew attention to India’s space programs and the growth made by the country in the pharmaceutical sector.

He urged scientists and researchers do not work in silos. “Interdisciplinary approach will help in finding faster and better solutions for the various scientific questions”, he said.

Named after the founder Director of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prizes are given annually to recognize outstanding Indian work in various disciplines of Science and Technology. It carries a cash component of Rs. 5 lakh each.

The award winners for 2016 were Dr Rishikesh Narayanan, Dr Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, and Dr Sudhir Kumar Vempati of IISc, Bengaluru, Dr Suvendra Nath Bhattacharyya, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, Dr Sunil Kumar Singh, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, Dr Avinash Kumar Agarwal and Dr Subramaniam Anantha Ramakrishna of IIT, Kanpur, Dr Venkata Narayana Padmanabhan, Microsoft Research India, Bengaluru, Dr Amlendu Krishna, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Dr Naveen Garg, IIT, Delhi, and Dr Niyaz Ahmed A S, University of Hyderabad.

The award winners for 2017 were Dr Deepak Thankappan Nair, Regional Centre for Biotechnology, National Capital Region – Biotech Science Cluster, Dr Sanjeev Das, National Institute of Immunology, Delhi,  Dr G Naresh Patwari, IIT, Mumbai, Dr S Suresh Babu, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, Dr Aloke Paul and Dr Neelesh B Mehta of IISc, Bengaluru, Dr Amit Dutt ,Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, Dr Deepak Gaur, JNU, New Delhi, Dr Nissim Kanekar, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune, and Dr Vinay Gupta, National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi.

The award winners for 2018 were Dr. Ganesh Nagaraju and Dr. Ambarish Ghosh of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Dr. Amit Agarwal and Dr. Ashwin Anil Gumaste of IIT, Bombay, Dr.Rahul Banerjee and Dr. Swadhin Kumar Mandal of IISER, Kolkatta, Dr. Nitin Saxena of IIT, Kanpur, Dr. Amit Kumar of IIT, Delhi, Dr. Thomas Pucadyil of IISER, Pune, Dr. Parthasarathi Chakraborty of National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Dr. Madineni Venkat Ratnam of National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Tirupathi, Dr. G.Venkatasubramanian of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru and Dr. Aditi Sen De of Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. (India Science Wire)

By Sunderarajan Padmanabhan

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