Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious and acknowledged awards in the world. It was started in the year 1901 and is honored in memory of Alfred Nobel who was a Swedish scientist. The Nobel Prize is generally offered in six different fields, Economic Science, Literature, Peace, Medicine (Physiology), Physics, and Chemistry. Among the winners of the Nobel Prize, there are many Indian Nobel Prize winners.
The Nobel Prize winners are called Laureates. They are honored with a diploma, a gold medal, and a monetary award. It is usually awarded to those individuals who have contributed the majority of their lives for the benefit of mankind.
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Alfred Nobel signed off his will stating “remaining realisable assets” to be awarded as the Nobel Prizes. He is the one who invented dynamite and had 355 patents to his name at the time of his death. The assets he had amounted to more than SEK 31 million at that time. The estimate today would be approximately SEK 1,702 million. The monetary award with each Nobel Prize is about SEK 9,000,000 (Swedish Krona) which in Indian currency would be around Rs 7 crore 22 lakh rupees.
There are a few Indians who have been acknowledged and have been awarded this prestigious honor. Among the Nobel Prize winners in India, Rabindranath Tagore was the first Nobel Laureate who won the award in the year 1913 in the field of Literature. His writing skills, and his poems, expressed in his own words in different languages made a huge impact on the literature of the West.
Here we have Indian Nobel prize winner list from 1913 to 2023:
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Nobel Prize Winners in India
These Indian Nobel Prize winners are extraordinary achievers.
1. Rabindranath Tagore – Nobel Prize for Literature (1913)
Rabindranath Tagore is an Indian poet, painter, and musician. He was a multi-talented individual who was gifted in the field of Literature. Tagore is one of India’s most dignified people who is also called Gurudev. Rabindranath Tagore was the first Asian and the first Indian citizen to be awarded the Nobel Prize.
Year – 1913
Recipient – Rabindranath Tagore
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Category – Nobel Prize for Literature
Purpose –
“because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.”
2. C.V. Raman – Nobel Prize for Physics (1930)
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman also known as CV Raman was the awardee of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. His contribution to Science with the “Raman Effect” which refers to the phenomenon of change in wavelength in deflected light rays helped in the understanding of Physics. CV Raman is one of the greatest Nobel Prize winners in India.
Year – 1930
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Recipient – Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
Category – Nobel Prize for Physics
Purpose –
“for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him.”
3. Har Gobind Khorana – Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (1968)
Har Gobind Khorana was the third among the Indian Nobel Prize winners to be awarded the prestigious award. He was honored with the Nobel Physics for Physiology or Medicine in the year 1968 with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley. The Indian-American Biochemist, H.G. Khorana’s research work is related to the synthesis of functional genes outside the living organism.
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Year – 1968
Recipient – Har Gobind Khorana
Category – Nobel Physics for Physiology or Medicine
Purpose –
“for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis”
4. Mother Teresa – Nobel Prize for Peace(1979)
The first Indian woman to win the Nobel Prize was Mother Teresa. She is among the Nobel Peace Prize Indian winners. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in the category of Peace in the year 1979. Born in the Republic of Macedonia she moved to India at the age of 19. She dedicated the rest of her life serving the “poorest of the poor” in the city slums. She lived as a Roman Catholic nun and her humanitarian work led to the establishment of Missionaries of Charity.
Year – 1979
Recipient – Mother Teresa
Category – Nobel Peace Prize
Purpose –
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“for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity”
5. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – Nobel Prize for Physics (1983)
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is the nephew of Nobel Laureate, Sir CV Raman. S. Chandrasekhar is the awardee of the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 1983. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is an Indian-American mathematician whose invention is about the establishment of the physical process involved in the evolution of stars. Chandrashekar Limit is the upper limit of a dwarf’s mass.
Year – 1983
Recipient – Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Category – Nobel Prize in Physics
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Purpose –
“for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars”
6. Amartya Sen – Nobel Prize for Economics (1998)
Amartya Sen was born in a place called Manikganj when India was under British Rule. He studied and taught economics in esteemed institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom. Sen’s research papers on welfare economics, theories of famines, economics, and social justice, earned him many awards and recognitions. Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in the year 1998.
Year – 1998
Recipient – Amartya Sen
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Category – Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Purpose –
“for his contributions to welfare economics”
7. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan – Nobel Prize for Chemistry (2009)
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is an Indian-born American-British structural biologist. In 2009, along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gives the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Year – 2009
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Recipient – Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Category – Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Purpose –
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“for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome”
8. Kailash Satyarthi – Nobel Prize for Peace (2014)
Kailash Satyarthi was the Nobel Prize awardee among the Indian Nobel Prize Winners who is an activist. He dedicated his whole life to stop the practice of child labor and fought for the awareness of children’s rights and education. He opposed corporates that used child labor. Through his work with UNESCO, Kailash brought children’s right to education to the front. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2014 which he shared with the Young Pakistani Education Activist Malala Yousafzai.
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Year – 2014
Recipient – Kailash Satyarthi
Category – Nobel Peace Prize
Purpose –
“for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”
9. Abhijit Banerjee – Nobel Prize for Economics (2019)
Abhijit Banerjee is an Indian-American economist who was born in 1961 in India. He is presently an international Professor of Economics at MIT. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize. Abhijit Banerjee is among the Indian Nobel Prize winners who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with his wife Esther Duflo. Michel Kremer of Harvard University was also awarded along with them.
Year – 2019
Recipient – Abhijit Banerjee
Category – Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Purpose –
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“for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”
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