Nine young research talents, selected from across the country, in different fields from biotechnology to medicine were honoured with the " SCOPUS - Young India Scientist Awards 2006" at a function here on December 7.

The awards were set up by Elsevier, a global publisher in science, technology and medicine, to honour and propel India 's young research minds towards furthering Indian science.

The winners of the awards were Dr Sunil Kumar Manna from Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad and Dr Rajesh S Gokhale from National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi for Biological Sciences. Dr Kumar Biradha from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur for Chemistry, Dr Shankar Doraiswamy from National Institute of Oceanography, Goa for Earth sciences, Dr Giridhar Madras from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for Engineering, Dr Abhay Gopal Bhatt from Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi for Mathematics, Dr Ganesan Venkatasubramanian from National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences, Bangalore for Medicine and Dr C P Safvan from Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi and Dr Tarun Souradeep from Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pune for their work in Physics.

Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, delivered the keynote address and Mr. Frank Vrancken Peters, Managing Director of Elsevier, gave away the awards to the winning scientists. The winners took home a crystal trophy and a cash award of Rs. 50,000 each.

The selection process involved senior academicians, subject experts and scientometricians from the eight subject areas in which the awards were given away. The function was attended by leading scientists, researchers, academicians and key people from the departments of education, biotechnology, science and technology from across the country.