City scientist among Infy Prize winners

BENGALURU: The Infosys Science Foundation, on Monday, announced the winners of the 2015 Infosys Prize. Each prize carries a cash award of Rs 65 lakh and a gold medallion.
Bengaluru-based scientist Umesh Waghmare of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) has won the prize in engineering and computer science, while five others won in categories like humanities, life sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences and social sciences (see list).
From a monk to an ex-army officer, the award winners are a mix of people. Even their works cover a good range from analytical Indian philosophy to the atomic structure of the killer malaria parasite and India's foreign and security policies to geometric group theory. But no woman has made the cut this time.
The winners were selected by six jury committees headed by experts in their fields. The jury chairs are Prof Pradeep K. Khosla (University of California, San Diego) for Engineering and Computer Science; Prof Amartya Sen (Harvard University) for Humanities; Inder Verma (Salk Institute of Biological Sciences) for Life Sciences; Prof Srinivasa S R Varadhan (New York University) for Mathematical Sciences; Prof Shrinivas Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology) for Physical Sciences; and Prof Kaushik Basu (The World Bank) for Social Sciences.
The six winners were selected from 206 nominations -44 in engineering; 32 in humanities; 42 in life sciences; 27 in mathematical sciences; 40 in physical sciences and 20 in social sciences.
S D Shibulal, president, Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundation, said, “We set up the Infosys Science Foundation and instituted the Infosys Prize to restore the romance of research. As we move into our seventh year, the Infosys Science Foundation continues to foster a culture of scientific thinking through various initiatives.“
Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy said: “Today, Infosys Prize is the prize for science and research. There is a lot of influence that this lends and we are happy to be encouraging people to do better. Some of the people who were recognised first by us have gone on to win international awards.Manjul Bhargava, for example, went on to win the Fields Medal.“
The awards will be handed over on February 13, 2016, at a function in New Delhi.
THE IGNITED MINDS
PROF UMESH WAGHMARE | Engineering
and Computer Science A professor at the Theoretical Sciences unit of JNCASR, Umesh Waghmare has been researching on designing new materials, among other things. He has been awarded for his innovative use of theories and models in probing microscopic mechanisms responsible for the way materials like topological insulators ferroelectrics, multiferroics and graphene behave. The materials are then suitably designed for better use.
AMIT SHARMA | Life Sciences
He is a Group Leader, Structural and Computational Biology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. Amit Sharma has been awarded for his pioneering contributions towards deciphering the molecular structure, at the atomic level, of key proteins involved in the biology of pathogenesis of the deadly malarial parasite.
PROF MAHAN MAHARAJ | Mathematical Sciences
Mahan Maharaj, monk and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math, Howrah, has been honoured for his contributions to geometric group theory, low dimensional topology and complex geometry. He established a central conjecture in the Thurston programme to study hyperbolic 3-manifolds and introduced important new tools to study fundamental groups of complex manifolds.
PROF JONARDON GANERI | Humanities
A Global Network Visiting Professor of Philosophy, New York University, and Recurrent Visiting Professor at the Department of Philosophy, King's College London, Jonardon Ganeri has been honoured for his outstanding scholarship and originality in interpreting and scrutinizing analytical Indian Philosophy. His efforts in shedding light on shared ground as well as the dichotomy between Indian and Greek traditions of philosophical reasoning have been acknowledged as well.
PROF G RAVINDRA KUMAR | Physical Sciences
Ravindra Kumar, professor in the Department of Nuclear and Atomic Physics (DNAP), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, has been awarded for his pioneering experimental contributions to the physics of high intensity laser matter interactions.
SRINATH RAGHAVAN | Social Sciences
Srinath Raghavan is an ex-army officer and Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
He has bagged the award for outstanding research that synthesizes military history, international politics and strategic analysis into powerful and imaginative perspectives on India in global context. He has written three books focusing on foreign policy and military history in South Asia.