12 scientists bag CSIR Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards

New Delhi: Ahead of its foundation day, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on Monday announced the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards for 2022 to be distributed to 12 young scientists across the country.

Immunologist Dipyaman Ganguli of CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, astrophysicist Kanak Saha from the Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Kanishka Biswas from International Centre of Materials Science of the Bengaluru-based Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research were among the awardees.

The award is given every year to scientists under the age of 45 years and carries a purse of Rs 5 lakh and a citation. The announcement of the awards came amid a row over government's plans to prune National Science Awards.

Amit Singh, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology of the Indian Institute of Science and Arun Kumar Shukla Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering of Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur were awarded in the category of Biological Sciences.

Biswas and T Govindaraju of the Bio-organic Chemistry Laboratory of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research have been selected for the prestigious prize in the Chemical Sciences category.

In the Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences category, the Prize has been bagged by Binoy Kumar Saikia of the Coal and Energy Research Group of CSIR Northeast Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat.

In the field of Engineering Sciences, Debdeep Mukhopadhyay of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has bagged the Prize.

The prize in the Mathematical Sciences category has gone to Anish Ghosh of Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Saket Saurabh of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai.

In the field of Medical Sciences, Dr Jeemon Panniyammakal of the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies of Sree Chitra Tirunal lnstitute for Medical Sciences and Technology and Rohit Srivastava of the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay will receive the Prize.

Saha has received the Prize in the physical sciences category. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, instituted in the memory of the first Director General of the CSIR, are usually announced on the foundation day of the institution on September 26.