• President Droupadi Murmu conferred the National Geoscience Awards-2023 to 21 professionals and academicians from across the country for their contribution to the field of geosciences.

• The National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement was conferred upon Prof. Dhiraj Mohan Banerjee, Emeritus Scientist at the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). He is honoured for his distinguished and pioneering work on phosphorites, isotope geology, and organic geochemistry of Precambrian sedimentary rocks of India. His career spans decades of impactful research, contributing to our understanding of the complexities of the Himalayas and the genesis of phosphorites on a global scale.

• Geoscience (also called Earth Science) is the study of Earth, its oceans, atmosphere, rivers and lakes, ice sheets and glaciers, soils, its complex surface, rocky interior, and metallic core.

National Geoscience Awards

• The National Geoscience Awards were instituted by the ministry of mines in 1966.

• These awards were earlier called National Mineral Awards.

• The scope of the awards has been expanded and the name was changed to National Geoscience Awards (NGA) from 2009.

• It is to honour individuals and teams for extraordinary achievements and outstanding contributions in various fields of geosciences.

The awards are presented in the field of:

i) Mineral Discovery and Exploration

ii) Basic Geosciences

iii) Applied Geosciences

iv) Mining, Mineral Beneficiation and Sustainable Mineral Development.

• Any citizen of India with significant contribution in any field of earth sciences is eligible for the Award.

There are three categories of awards under National Geoscience Awards:

i) National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement (One)

ii) National Geoscience Award (Ten)

iii) National Young Geoscientist Award (One).

• For National Geoscience Awards-2023, as many as 240 nominations were received under different award categories and examined through a three-stage screening process. 

• After detailed deliberations, the Ministry of Mines finally selected 12 awards which include nine individual awards and three team awards. 

• The nine individual awards also include the award for National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement and award for the National Young Geoscientist Award.

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