I recently came across a special listing of the most powerful Indians in 2012 by Indian Express. Surprisingly, it also carried the name of top ten Indians in different fields such as administrators, opinion makers, sports persons, economists, ad gurus, entertainers, fund managers, legal luminaries, activists, doctors, philanthropists. However, I could find a list of top ten scientists, technocrats, or mathematicians in the issue.

Infosys however, had initiated Infosys Prizes since 2008. Infosys Prizes are given every year for the scientists and technocrats for their outstanding contributions and carry a gold medal, a citation and a purse of Rs 50 Lakh. Those award winners are certainly the best and icons in their fields.

1.Prof. Kalyanmoy Deb, winner of 2011 in Engineering and Computer Sciences category, a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1985: Deb got his award for for his contributions to the emerging field of Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization (EMO) that has led to advances in non-linear constraints, decision uncertainty, programming and numerical methods, computational efficiency of large-scale problems and optimization algorithms. (Infographic to understand it a little more)

2.Prof. Sriram Ramaswamy, winner of 2011 in Physical sciences category, had his schooling at the Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi. He is currently Professor of Physics at the Center for Condensed Matter Theory in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science.His award was for his pioneering work in the field of active matter that enables a detailed exploration into several aspects of the collective behavior of living systems as interacting mechanical entities with distributed input and dissipation of energy. (Infographic)

3.Dr. Imran Siddiqi, winner of 2011 in Life science category, M.Sc. in Chemistry by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1981 is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. His award was for his breakthrough contributions to the basic understanding of clonal seed formation in plants which can be applied to revolutionize agriculture, especially in the developing world. (infographic)

4.Prof. Kannan Soundararajan, winner of 2011 in mathematical sciences category, for his path breaking work in analytic number theory and development of new techniques to study critical values of general zeta functions to prove the Quantum Unique Ergodicity Conjecture for classical holomorphic forms.(Infogrphic)

5.Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, winner of 2010 in Engineering and Computer Science category, of Chemical Engineering Department,Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur It was in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the fields of surfaces and interfaces, adhesion, pattern formation, nanocomposites, materials science, and hydrodynamics, which have practical applications in such areas as energy storage, filtration, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and optoelectronics.

6.Prof. Sandip Trivedi, winner of 2010 in Physical Sciences category, of Theoretical Physics Department, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. got the Infosys Prize for finding an ingenious way to solve two of the most outstanding puzzles of Superstring Theory simultaneously: What is the origin of dark energy of the Universe? Why is there no massless scalar particle?

7.Dr. Chetan E. Chitnis, winner of 2010 in Life Sciences category, of Master of Science degree in Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Principal Leader Malaria Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Delhi He was awarded for his pioneering work in understanding the interactions of the malarial parasite and its host, leading to the development of a viable malaria vaccine.

8.Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare, winner of 2010 in Mathematical Sciences category, Mathematics Department,University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in recognition of his fundamental contributions to Number Theory, particularly his solution of the Serre conjecture.

9.Prof. Thanu Padmanabhan, winner in 2009 in Physical Sciences category, Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India.

10.Prof. K VijayRaghavan, winner in 2009 in Life Sciences category, Senior Professor in Developmental Genetics and Director of National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bangalore India.

11.Prof. Ashoke Sen, winner in 2009 in mathematical sciences category, currently a Professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. His area of research is String Theory and was recognized for his important contributions to String Theory, which is a vital part of Mathematical Physics today.

12.Prof. Manindra Agrawal, winner in 2008 in Mathematical sciences category, his outstanding contribution in the field of complexity theory, a branch of mathematics and computer science concerned with the study of algorithms for solving mathematical and related scientific problems, and especially their efficiency and running times.

Can these distinguished scientists and technocrats be the icons to the students’ community going for higher education in reputed institutions such as IITs, NITs or BITS to allure them to the business of R&D and contribute to make India a knowledge economy? Let me assure them that most of them will not be disappointed about their achievements from the career.

I recently came across a special listing of the most powerful Indians in 2012 by Indian Express. Surprisingly, it also carried the name of top ten Indians in different fields such as administrators, opinion makers, sports persons, economists, ad gurus, entertainers, fund managers, legal luminaries, activists, doctors, philanthropists. However, I could find a list of top ten scientists, technocrats, or mathematicians in the issue.

Infosys however, had initiated Infosys Prizes since 2008. Infosys Prizes are given every year for the scientists and technocrats for their outstanding contributions and carry a gold medal, a citation and a purse of Rs 50 Lakh. Those award winners are certainly the best and icons in their fields.

1.Prof. Kalyanmoy Deb, winner of 2011 in Engineering and Computer Sciences category, a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1985: Deb got his award for for his contributions to the emerging field of Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization (EMO) that has led to advances in non-linear constraints, decision uncertainty, programming and numerical methods, computational efficiency of large-scale problems and optimization algorithms. (Infographic to understand it a little more)

2.Prof. Sriram Ramaswamy, winner of 2011 in Physical sciences category, had his schooling at the Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi. He is currently Professor of Physics at the Center for Condensed Matter Theory in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science.His award was for his pioneering work in the field of active matter that enables a detailed exploration into several aspects of the collective behavior of living systems as interacting mechanical entities with distributed input and dissipation of energy. (Infographic)

3.Dr. Imran Siddiqi, winner of 2011 in Life science category, M.Sc. in Chemistry by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1981 is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. His award was for his breakthrough contributions to the basic understanding of clonal seed formation in plants which can be applied to revolutionize agriculture, especially in the developing world. (infographic)

4.Prof. Kannan Soundararajan, winner of 2011 in mathematical sciences category, for his path breaking work in analytic number theory and development of new techniques to study critical values of general zeta functions to prove the Quantum Unique Ergodicity Conjecture for classical holomorphic forms.(Infogrphic)

5.Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, winner of 2010 in Engineering and Computer Science category, of Chemical Engineering Department,Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur It was in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the fields of surfaces and interfaces, adhesion, pattern formation, nanocomposites, materials science, and hydrodynamics, which have practical applications in such areas as energy storage, filtration, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and optoelectronics.

6.Prof. Sandip Trivedi, winner of 2010 in Physical Sciences category, of Theoretical Physics Department, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. got the Infosys Prize for finding an ingenious way to solve two of the most outstanding puzzles of Superstring Theory simultaneously: What is the origin of dark energy of the Universe? Why is there no massless scalar particle?

7.Dr. Chetan E. Chitnis, winner of 2010 in Life Sciences category, of Master of Science degree in Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Principal Leader Malaria Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Delhi He was awarded for his pioneering work in understanding the interactions of the malarial parasite and its host, leading to the development of a viable malaria vaccine.

8.Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare, winner of 2010 in Mathematical Sciences category, Mathematics Department,University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in recognition of his fundamental contributions to Number Theory, particularly his solution of the Serre conjecture.

9.Prof. Thanu Padmanabhan, winner in 2009 in Physical Sciences category, Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India.

10.Prof. K VijayRaghavan, winner in 2009 in Life Sciences category, Senior Professor in Developmental Genetics and Director of National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bangalore India.

11.Prof. Ashoke Sen, winner in 2009 in mathematical sciences category, currently a Professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. His area of research is String Theory and was recognized for his important contributions to String Theory, which is a vital part of Mathematical Physics today.

12.Prof. Manindra Agrawal, winner in 2008 in Mathematical sciences category, his outstanding contribution in the field of complexity theory, a branch of mathematics and computer science concerned with the study of algorithms for solving mathematical and related scientific problems, and especially their efficiency and running times.

Can these distinguished scientists and technocrats be the icons to the students’ community going for higher education in reputed institutions such as IITs, NITs or BITS to allure them to the business of R&D and contribute to make India a knowledge economy? Let me assure them that most of them will not be disappointed about their achievements from the career.