BANGALORE: Six eminent scientists from different streams were conferred with the Infosys Prize 2011 by the Infosys Science Foundation in the city on Monday. Former President and scientist Dr A P J Abdul Kalam presented the awardees with a citation, a gold medallion and Rs 50 lakh cash reward for their contribution to science.
The award ceremony, in its third year, has a distinguished selection of jury members incluing Nobel laureate (Economics) Amartya Sen among others.
Speaking on the occasion, Abdul Kalam said that these awardees must be roped in to teach at universities to promote science.
Research culture in academics and research institutions are crying need, he said and added that they should be ‘deployed’ in university studies.
Speaking on the topic, ‘Applied and fundamental research,’ Kalam emphasised the need for research and also suggested the setting up of a Research and Development (R&D) facility at a cost of $1 billion , which would promote research and also attract researchers to India.
The science foundation’s incumbent president also announced that they would add Humanities as an additional category from 2012. He shared that this would include Philosophy, History, Archaeology, Linguistics and Literary Sciences.
S D Shibulal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Infosys Technologies also stated that executive co-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan would be the new president of the Infosys Science Foundation from 2012.
The winners of the awards are
■ Engineering and Computer Science
Prof Kalyanmoy Deb, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
■ Life Sciences
Dr Imran Siddiqi, Scientist at Centre for Celluar and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad
■ Social Sciences (Political Science and International Relations)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President and Chief Executive of Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
■ Social Sciences
(Economics) : Prof Raghuram G Rajan, Charles M Harper Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Booth School
of Business, USA (His wife received the award on his behalf)
■ Mathematical Sciences
Prof Kannan Soundarajan, Director of Mathematics Research Centre, Stanford University, USA
■ Physical Sciences
Prof Sriram Ramaswamy, Professor at Centre for Condensed Matter Theory, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore