Indian students win laurels at 4 academic Olympiads

Mumbai, July 31: Indian student contingents have emerged with flying colours at prestigious international Olympiads in Biology, Maths, Physics and Chemistry held this month, earning plaudits from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other bigwigs, officials said here on Wednesday.

The participating teams went through the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) here and bagged several medals and honours for the country, including seven won by Maharashtra students.

It started with the 35th International Biology Olympiad (IBO – July 7-13) held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

The Indian team bagged one gold (Vedant Sakre of Mumbai) and three silvers (Ishan Pednekar of Ratnagiri; Shrijith Sivakumar of Chennai and Yashaswi Kumar of Bareilly).

This was followed by the 65th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO – July 11-22) held in Bath, United Kingdom.

The Indian contingents bagged four golds (Adhitya M. V. Ganesh of Pune; Kanav Talwar of Greater NOIDA; Rushil Mathur of Mumbai and Anando Bhadur of Guwahati), while Arjun Gupta of Delhi got a silver medal and Siddharth Choppara of Pune secured an Honourable Mention.

Next was the 54th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO – July 21-29), held in Isfahan, Iran.

The Indian team secured 2 golds (Rhythm Kedia of Raipur and Ved Lahoti of Indore), plus 3 silvers (Akarshraj Sahay of Nagpur; Bhavya Tiwari of NOIDA and Jaiveer Singh of Kota).

Finally, the 56th International Chemistry Olympiad (IchO – July 21-30) was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Indian contingent secured a gold (Devesh P. Bhaiya of Jalgaon), 2 silvers (Avaneesh Bansal of Mumbai and Harshin Posina of Hyderabad) while Kashyap Khandelwal of Mumbai got a bronze medal.

The Mumbai-based HBCSE - a national centre of the TIFR – is a premier institution for research and development in science, technology and mathematics education.

It is also India’s nodal centre or Olympiad programmes in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and junior sciences which attract the participation of students from across the country.