After nearly a year’s delay, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has publicised the list of awardees for the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards for 2022, considered among the prestigious prizes for science in India.
While usually announced on September 26 – CSIR’s Foundation Day – the prizes weren’t announced last year, without any official reason being ascribed. Last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs constituted a committee to review all the national awards administered by various science and medical ministries and whittled down some of them. The SSB awards were however retained.
This year’s awardees constitute 12 scientists below the age of 45 and they include Ashwani Kumar, CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology; Maddika Subba Reddy, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting Diagnostics, Hyderabad (Biological Sciences); Akkattu Biju, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; Debabrata Maiti, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (Chemical Sciences); Vimal Mishra, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences); Dipti Ranjan Sahoo, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; Rajnish Kumar, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Engineering Sciences); Apoorva Khare, Indian Institute of Science and Neeraj Kayal, Microsoft Research Lab India (Mathematical Science); Dipyaman Ganguly, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata (Medical Sciences); Anindya Das, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and Basudeb Dasgupta, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Physical Sciences) .
