Nearly 200 scientists and academicians have raised concerns about “non-academic considerations” in the selection of recipients for the newly instituted Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP), India’s top science award. In a recent letter to Principal Scientific Advisor Professor Ajay Sood, scientists, including former IISER Kolkata director Soumitra Banerjee and former IUCAA director Naresh Dadhich, warned that giving the Science and Technology Minister the final say on awardees undermines the core principles of scientific practice and could hinder the country’s research development. The scientists urged immediate action to address these issues. This is the second letter written by the scientific and academic community expressing concerns over the selection criteria for RVP. The first was written last month by 26 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardees. The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar — which replaced many well known scientific awards including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize — was awarded for the first last month. A total of 33 scientists were awarded under four categories this year. The government, at the time it announced the newly-constitute Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar had said that a Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar Committee (RVPC), headed by the Principal Scientific Advisor, would identify the awardees. As first reported by The Indian Express on September 17, at least three of the names recommended by the committee were dropped from the final list. This included: Suvrat Raju, a physicist at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research; Prateek Sharma, physicist at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; and Suman Chakraborty of IIT Kharagpur, who won the Infosys Prize for Engineering and Computer Science in 2022. Incidentally, two of the three scientists, Raju and Sharma, were critical of IISc for its last-minute cancellation of a discussion on UAPA last year, which was to be led by student activists Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita. Both physicists had also signed open letters on the Citizenship Amendment Act and NIA action in the Bhima Koregaon matter. The latest letter dated September 24, by 176 scientists and academicians, states: “procedures and criteria for determining Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskars should be, and seen to be fully fair, transparent and free of extraneous considerations.” The letter asks for possible reasons for excluding the names of some of the scientists from the final list of awardees. Further, the missive highlights that after the first communication from the 26 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardees, the government made changes to the awards website, updating the selection criteria to say that the recommendations of the RVPC will be sent to the minister of Science and Technology. The latest letter states that while it is understood that the selection committee recommends the names of winners to the president or the prime minister’s office. “What is new however, is names getting dropped at the discretion of the minister – something that has been unheard of for all these years,” says the letter, adding that it indicates that the selection of awardees henceforth will be based on non-academic consideration as well.” They further added that this raises a larger concern, setting precedent for ministers to use unrestricted vetoes to overrule any recommendations of expert committees. The letter says: “Academics disliked by the government for any reason may be sidelined from not just awards, but also scientific grants, recruitments, promotions.” The letter has been signed by former directors of several top scientific institutions as well as Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award winners such as former director of IISER Kolkata Soumitro Banerjee, who is an SSB awardee and was also one of the organisers of March for Science in India to promote scientific temper. It also includes Jayant Murthy, former director of Indian Institute of Astrophysics and former director of Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics Naresh Dadhich. It also includes well-known mathematicians and SSB awardees SG Dani and Dipendra Prasad.
