Mumbai: India’s brightest young scientific minds have once again proven their mettle on the global stage, securing exceptional medal hauls at two of the world’s most prestigious science competitions for secondary school students. Showcasing unprecedented academic prowess, the Indian delegation brought home a historic all-gold sweep at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, alongside an impressive haul of one gold and three silver medals at the 37th International Biology Olympiad in Lithuania. These stellar performances cement India’s position as a powerhouse of STEM talent, reflecting the rigorous training and dedication cultivated by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) and a nationwide network of educators, said national coordinator of Science Olympiads Prof. Anwesh Mazumdar. In a landmark achievement, all four students representing India at the International Chemistry Olympiad, held in Tashkent from July 10 to 19, bagged gold medals. This marks India’s first-ever all-gold sweep in the history of the competition. The victorious quartet includes Debadatta Priyadarshi from Bhubaneswar, Harshit Singla from Mandi Gobindgarh, Kabeer Chillar from Delhi, and Sandeep Kuchi from Hyderabad. This year’s event was the largest to date, featuring 363 students from 93 countries. India’s flawless performance tied the nation for the top spot in the country-wise medals tally, sharing the first position with China, Vietnam, and an individual participant from Russia. The students navigated highly complex experimental and theoretical tasks, including decoding the composition of historical and natural artifacts, calculating the mass of uranium used in a 1966 detonation, and performing advanced pH-metric titrations. The team was guided by Head Mentor Professor Subhajit Bandyopadhyay, Mentor Dr. Indrani Sen, and Scientific Observers Dr. Anubendu Adhikary and Dr. Jayasree Gopalakrishnan. Running concurrently in Vilnius from July 12 to 19, the International Biology Olympiad saw the Indian team secure one gold and three silver medals against a highly competitive field of 307 students from 78 nations. Bhavyaa Gunwal from Mahendragarh clinched the gold medal, while Soumil Maity from Howrah, Nishit Kalani from Pali, and Anmol Kumar from Mansa each brought home silver. The biology competition pushed the boundaries of secondary education with a gruelling six-hour theoretical exam and an intensive six-hour practical laboratory test designed by the Vilnius University Life Sciences Centre. In the labs, students executed complex molecular biology tasks like restriction digestion, evaluated the pharmacokinetics of aspirin, performed precise insect morphology dissections, and utilized cutting-edge digital software for plant transcriptome analysis. The delegation was led by Professor Rekha Vartak and Dr. Anupama Ronad, alongside Scientific Observers Dr. Ranjithsinh Devkar and Dr. Siddhesh Ghag.
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