Hands-off approach: On the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar awards

The government has announced a list of 24 individual scientists and a team as recipients of the second edition of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) awards, conferred by the Centre for scientific achievement. As in 2024, this year too has four broad categories: the Vigyan Ratna, Vigyan Shri, Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award and Vigyan team award. The Vigyan Ratna and Vigyan Shri are for scientists who have made distinguished contributions over their lifetime, and recent distinguished contributions respectively. The Yuva is for individuals under 45 and the final one for a team endeavour in technology development.

In theory, the total number of awards, under all categories, is capped at 56; though this year, there are fewer than the 33 awarded last year. The award announcement has been delayed by several months, but this could indicate greater scrutiny of potential awardees. It is important to note that unlike earlier editions of national science awards, for instance the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards, there is no cash component given for the RVP, to align with the spirit of the Padma awards. But scrutiny is a double-edged sword. Last year, it emerged that some scientists were told about being recipients, only to be informed later that their names had been dropped. Several prominent scientists across India wrote to the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA), demanding transparency in the process of award selection. There were concerns that factors other than scientific merit — for instance, criticism of government policy and political ideology — may have played a role. The PSA has not categorically responded to these demands except to point out that the selection committee, called the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar Committee (chaired by the PSA and which includes Secretaries of Ministries and members of scientific academies), “recommended” awardees to the Minister of Science and Technology. It is not explicit whether the Minister can overturn a recommendation made by the committee. The RVP awards were instituted after the Ministry of Home Affairs and heads of science departments concluded in 2022 that there were too many awards being given out by individual scientific departments and, hence, necessary to trim them and raise their ‘stature’ to national awards. While awards such as the SSB awards too were finalised in consultation with the Science Minister, the centralisation and the explicit attempt to make the RVP ‘Padma-like’, means that they appear far more politicised than they ought to be. If the aim of the RVP is to increase ‘stature’, the government must be seen to have an explicitly hands-off approach and let scientists judge the excellence of their peers.