President gives away first-ever Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar

new delhi: president droupadi murmu on thursday conferred the first-ever vigyan ratna puraskar -- india's top most science award -- on noted biochemist and former director of the bangalore-based indian institute of science govindrajan padmanabhan. at an award ceremony in the ganatantra mandapam of rashtrapati bhawan, the president also conferred 13 vigyan shri puraskar, 18 vigyan yuva-shanti swarup bhatnagar prizes and one vigyan team award, marking the first investiture ceremony for science awards. the team of scientists and engineers who worked on the chandrayaan-3 mission were honoured with the vigyan team award, which was received by project director of the mission p veeramuthuvel. all the awardees received a medal and a citation for their outstanding achievements in their respective fields. annapurni subramaniam, director of bengaluru-based indian institute of astrophysics; anandharamakrishnan c, director of thiruvananthapuram-based national institute of interdisciplinary science and technology; avesh kumar tyagi, director of the chemistry group at the bhabha atomic research institute; prof syed wajih ahmad naqvi of lucknow-based csir-national botanical research institute were among the 13 recipients of the vigyan shri awards. biologist umesh varshney from bangalore-based indian institute of science; prof jayant bhalchandra udgaonkar of the pune-base indian institute of science education and research; prof bhim singh, emeritus professor of iit-delhi; sanjay behari, director of the sree chitra tirunal institute of medical sciences and technology; prof adimurthi adi of iit-kanpur, rahul mukherjee of iim-kolkata also received the vigyan shri awards. physicists naba kumar mondal of saha institute of nuclear physics and lakshmanan muthuswamy of the bharathidasan university, tiruchirapalli; prof rohit srivastava, iit bombay also received the vigyan shri awards. the vigyan yuva-shanti swarup bhatnagar awards were given to climate scientist roxy mathew koll of the pune-base indian institute of tropical meteorology; prof vivek polshettiwar of tata institute of fundamental research and prof vishal rai of iiser-bhopal; krishna murthy s l of indian institute of rice research and swarup kumar parida of national institute of plant genome research. prof radhakrishnan mahalakshmi of iiser-bhopal, aravind penmasta of iisc, bengaluru; abhilash of the csir-national metallurgical laboratory, jamshedpur; radha krishna ganti of iit-madras; purbi saikia of central university of jharkhand; bappi paul of the national forensic sciences university, gandhinagar were among the vigyan yuva awards. pragya dhruv yadav of the pune-based icmr-national institute of virology, who played a key role in development and evaluation of covid-19 vaccines; prof jitendra kumar sahu of postgraduate institute of medical education and research, chandigarh; mahesh ramesh kakde of iisc, bangalore were among the recipients of the vigyan yuva awards. urbasi sinha of the raman research institute, bangalore; digendranath swain of the vikram sarabhai space centre, thiruvananthapuram; prashant kumar of the space applications centre, ahmedabad; and prof prabhu rajagopal of iit-madras also received the vigyan yuva awards. these new sets of awards -- rashtriya vigyan puraskar -- were instituted last year by the government after scrapping all existing science awards.