List of Indian Nobel Laureates

Nobel Prize- Introduction:

The Nobel Prize includes five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel’s Will of 1895, are awarded to “those persons who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace

  • Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901
  • Nobel characterized the Peace Prize as “to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses”

In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in their respective fields.

Indian persons who received the prestigious Nobel Prize

List of Indian Nobel Laureates

Indian Nobel Laureates

List of Indian Nobel Laureates/Winners

 Abhijit Banerjee (2019)

Born and educated mostly in India, he is a recent addition to the Nobel Prize Winners’ List. He has won the Nobel Prize in Economics and shares it with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Their work was based on alleviating global poverty. He presently lives and works in the United States.

Kailash Satyarthi (2014)

He founded an NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, to strive against child labor and to secure the rights of children. He shared this Nobel Prize in Peace with Malala Yousafzai. Mr. Kailash Satyarthi got this award for the struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” He is a member of UNESCO and works towards providing ‘Education for All’.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (2009)

Ramakrishnan was born in Tamil Nadu. He has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is also a recipient of the Padma Vibhushana. His work includes distinguished contributions to RNA structural ribosomes.

Amartya Sen (b-1933)

Prof. Amartya Sen is the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics for the year 1998, becoming the first Asian to have been honored with the award. The Santiniketan-born economist who is a pioneer in Welfare Economics has to his credit several books and papers on aspects of welfare and development. An economist with a difference, Prof. Sen is a humanist.

He has distinguished himself with his outstanding writings on famine, poverty, democracy, gender, and social issues. The ‘impossibility theorem’ suggested earlier by Kenneth Arrow states that it was not possible to aggregate individual choices into satisfactory choices for society as a whole. Prof. Sen showed mathematically that societies could find ways to alleviate such a poor outcome.

Subramanian Chandrashekhar (1910-1995)

The Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 was awarded to Dr. S. Chandrashekhar, an Indian-born astrophysicist. Educated in Presidency College, Chennai, Dr Chandrashekhar happened to be the nephew of his Nobel forbear, Sir C.V. Raman.

He later migrated to the United States where he authored several books on Astrophysics and Stellar Dynamics. He developed a theory on white dwarf stars which posts a limit of mass of dwarf stars known also as the Chandrasekhar Limit. His theory explains the final stages of stellar evolution.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Mother Teresa in 1979. Albanian parentage, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje, now in Yugoslavia. She joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loretto in Dublin in 1928 and came to Kolkata in 1929 as a missionary, only to find the misery of the abandoned and the destitute. Concern for the poor and the sick prompted her to found a new congregation, Missionaries of Charity.

As an Indian citizen, Mother Teresa served the cause of dying destitute, lepers, and drug addicts, through Nirmal Hriday (meaning Pure Heart), the main center of her activity. Her selfless service and unique devotion, not only to helpless Fellow-Indians but also to the cause of world peace, earned her and India the first Nobel Peace Prize.

Hargobind Khorana (1922-2011)

Hargobind Khorana was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968. Of Indian origin, Dr. Khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan). He took his doctoral degree in Chemistry from Liverpool University and joined the University of Wisconsin as a Faculty Member in 1960.

His major breakthrough in the field of Medicine -interpreting the genetic code and analyzing its function in protein synthesis- fetched him the Nobel Prize.

Chandrashekhar Venkataraman (1888-1970)

India’s first Nobel Prize for Physics was claimed in 1930 by the renowned physicist Sir C.V. Raman. Born at Thiruvanaikkaval near Tiruchirapalli in Tamilnadu, Raman studied at Presidency College, Chennai. Later, he served as a Professor of Physics at Calcutta University. Recipient of many honors and awards, including the title of ‘Sir’.

Sir C.V. Raman received the Nobel Prize for important optics research, in which he discovered that diffused light contained rays of other wavelengths-what is now popularly known as the Raman Effect. His theory discovered in 1928 explains the change in the frequency of light passing through a transparent medium. The day of his discovery – February 28th, is celebrated as National Science Day in India.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian ever to receive a Nobel Prize. Popularly known as Gurudev, India’s Poet Laureate Tagore was born on 7th May 1861, in Kolkata.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his work Geetanjali, a collection of poems, in 1913. Tagore wrote many love lyrics. Geetanjali and Sadhana are among his important works. The poet, dramatist, and novelist is also the author of India’s National Anthem. In 1901 he founded the famous Santiniketan which later came to be known as Vishwabharati University.

Some other points

The following are Nobel laureates who were born in India or were residents of India when they became recipients of the Nobel Prize but were not Indian citizens.

Rudyard Kipling, born in Mumbai in 1865, was the author of “The Jungle Book”.

Ronald Ross, born in Almorha in British India, was the Nobel Prize winner in Medicine for his distinguished work on Malaria.

 

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