By IANS
Visakhapatnam : Renowned scientists and technocrats-turned bureaucrats were honoured with special awards and gold medals for their contribution to the development of science and technology at the 95th Indian Science Congress (ISC) here.
Among the winners were Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) director-general M. Natarajan who bagged the C.V. Raman Centenary Award, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) director P. Balaram who got the Excellence in Science and Technology Award and eminent bio-technologist P.K. Seth who won the P.C. Ray Memorial Award.
Former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) U.R. Rao bagged the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award, while former secretaries in the department of science and technology Vasant Gowariker and V.S. Ramamurthy were given the Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Award and Homi J. Bhabha Memorial Award respectively.
Eminent scientists P.V. Arunachalam, S.S. Katiyar, P.C. Kesavan were honoured with the P.C. Mahalanobis Birth Centenary award, Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Award and J.C. Bose Memorial Award respectively.
IISc computer science professor L.M. Patnaik and Delhi-based molecular biologist Akhilesh Tyagi were given the Srinivasa Ramanujan Birth Centenary Award and B.P. Pal Memorial Award.
Noted scientists chosen for the presidential gold medals were National Farmers’ Commission chairman M.S. Swaminathan, M.G.K. Menon, K.C. Reddy, Nagendra Swarup, Satish Kastury, Uma Kant, V.M. Trehan, V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai and Nobel Laureates Paul Nurse, Robert Curl Jr. and Roger Kornberg.
The awards and medals were presented by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday at a glittering function after the inauguration of the five-day session.
Meanwhile, the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) and host Andhra University selected 14 professors and research scholars for the Young Scientist awards in different disciplines for their contributions.
Among the noted awardees are: research scientist G. Manjunath from the applied botany and biotechnology department of University of Mysore for agriculture and forestry sciences; Ravi Prakash Srivastava, National Geophysical Research Institute scientist for earth system sciences and Mukesh Jain, research scientist at the University of Delhi’s department of plant molecular biology, for plant sciences.