No women amongst recipients of India's top science award
After almost a year's delay, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) announced the 12 recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for 2022, which is among the most prestigious awards for science in India. Scientists from IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, and IIT Delhi, are among the 12 award winners. The announcement came during the launch event of the 'One Week One Lab' program by CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR-NIScPR).
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award
The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award is awarded annually to exceptional researchers under the age of 45 in seven scientific disciplines: biology, physics, medicine, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, and Earth, atmosphere, and planetary sciences. Established in honor of the first Director-General of CSIR, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, the award includes a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh. Usually, the Bhatnagar awards are revealed on September 26, CSIR's Foundation Day. Notably, the awards weren't announced last year, and no official reason has been provided.
The 12 prize winners are all male scientists
Under the category of biological sciences, the award is shared by Dr. Ashwani Kumar of CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology and Dr. Maddika Subba Reddy of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting Diagnostics. The award for chemical sciences has been jointly awarded to Dr. Akkattu T Biju of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and Dr. Debabrata Maiti of IIT Bombay. The award for 'Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences' was given to Dr. Vimal Mishra from IIT Gandhinagar.
Check out the list of other winners
For engineering sciences, Dr. Dipti Ranjan Sahoo from IIT Delhi and Dr. Rajnish Kumar of IIT Madras received the Bhatnagar prize. For mathematical sciences, the award went to Dr. Apoorva Khare, IISc and Dr. Neeraj Kayal of Microsoft Research Lab. The award for medical sciences was given to Dr. Dipyaman Ganguli, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology. Lastly, the physical sciences award went to Dr. Anindya Das, IISc, and Dr. Basudeb Dasgupta of Physics Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.
