Recently, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research announced the winners of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards for 2022. The announcement was highly anticipated not only due to the nearly year-long delay in declaring the results, but also because it came amid the government’s plans for a major revamp of the structure of science and medicine awards.
In September 2022, the Ministry of Science and Technology discontinued nearly 300 existing science awards – with the exception of the SSB awards – while reports emerged of a draft plan to replace them with a smaller set of “highly deserving” awards.
