Amrutha Avasarala, Pune
Three distinguished scientists’ names were excluded from the final list of potential awardees of the newly constituted Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP). They have filed petitions questioning the credibility of the selection criterion. This comes after the announcement of the awardees on August 7th, 2024. The controversy challenges the integrity of the process adopted to shortlist distinguished scientists for the awards.
The three include Suvrat Raju, a physicist at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research; Prateek Sharma, a physicist at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; and Suman Chakraborty from IIT Kharagpur.
The awards are a recent introduction where 33 awardees are honored under four categories of awards namely Vigyan Ratna; Vigyan Shri; Vigyan Yuva; and Vigyan Team.
According to the processes and procedures laid, an apex body invites recommendations and shortlists candidates for the felicitation. The apex body is called the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar Committee headed by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister. The final list will then be produced by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The apex body members too have questioned the government on the influential factors of finalizing the recipients of the awards basically, the exclusion of the three scientists from the list produced.
After the results were announced on the 7th of August, the recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award wrote to PSA Ajay Sood expressing concerns over the credibility of the whole process.
Prateek Sharma, one of the scientists removed from the list, told The Indian Express that he wasn’t aware of his name being recommended by the RVPC and did not wish to comment.
Suvrat Raju, another scientist, said it came to his notice that his name was recommended by the apex committee on receiving “a congratulatory message from a senior scientist involved in the selection process which assumed, in good faith, that the decisions of the scientific committee would be honored by the government.”
Suman Chakraborty of IIT Kharagpur, exclaimed that he did not know if my name was indeed in the final list. Nevertheless, any or every award has an element of subjectivity. He further added that he respects the final decision and all winners are deserving of the honor.