At the first-ever Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar ceremony, Prof. Jayant Bhalchandra Udgaonkar of the Pune-based Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) was awarded the Vigyan Shri Puraskar for his outstanding contributions in biophysics.
Additionally, Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, received the Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for his work in climate science. Pragya Dhruv Yadav from Pune's ICMR-National Institute of Virology was also recognized with the Vigyan Yuva award for her role in developing and evaluating Covid-19 vaccines.
These new sets of awards -- Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar -- were instituted last year by the government after scrapping all existing science awards.
