Bhatnagar Award: 3 Bengaluru scientists honoured

In total, 12 scientists received the award

Three Bengaluru scientists are among the 12 winners of the 2019 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award, considered one of India's most prestigious science awards.

Tapas Kumar Maji from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Aninda Sinha from Indian Institute of Science and Manik Varma of Microsoft Research India are the three Bangaloreans who won the award.

Maji received the award in the category of chemical science and shared it with Raghavan B Sunoj from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. In physical sciences, Sinha shared the prize with Shankar Ghosh of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Varma is the lone recipient in the category of engineering science.

In biological sciences, Kayarat Saikrishnan of Indian Institute of Science, Education, and Research, Pune got the award along with Soumen Basak of National Institute of Immunology, Delhi whereas Subimal Ghosh from IIT, Bombay is the lone recipient in the category of earth, atmosphere, ocean, and planetary sciences.

In mathematical sciences, the top science prize went to Dishant Mayurbhai Pancholi of The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and Neena Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Dhiraj Kumar of International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Delhi and Mohammad Javed Ali of the LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad share the prize in medical sciences.

Instituted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bhatnagar award carries prize money of Rs five lakh each and citation. The prize is handed over by the Prime Minister to the scientists.

The names of the 2019 winners were announced here on Thursday at the CSIR foundation day event where President Ram Nath Kovind was the chief guest. Kovind handed over several awards to CSIR scientists and launched India's first indigenous fuel cell system, developed by three CSIR laboratories in collaboration with Reliance Industries Ltd and Thermax Ltd.