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Professor Yash Pal has been conferred with UNESCO award for popularising science. The annual Kalinga Prize was given to the Indian professor along with a Vietnamese professor, a Tunisian expert in water management and the organisation responsible for Spain's national park system.
Kochiro Matsuura, director-general of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), presented the prizes in Budapest, Hungary, where the three-day World Science Forum has opened, the UN news centre said in a statement.
Yash Pal was recognised for his participation in many Indian television programmes that deal with popular science, including "Turning Point" and "Science is Everywhere". He also helped establish the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune and the Centre for Educational Communication in Ahmedabad.
Unesco said in a press release that the annual Kalinga Prize for the Popularisation of Science has been jointly awarded to Yash Pal of India and Trinh Xuan Thuan of Vietnam.
Co-winner Trinh is a world-renowned astrophysicist who in 2004 discovered the youngest known galaxy in the universe.Bellachheb Chahbani was awarded with the Great Man-Made River International Water Prize for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones. The prize is given every two years.
The Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation, handed out every two years on the recommendation of the Bureau of the International Coordinating Council of Unesco'S Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, has been given to Spain's Autonomous Authority for National Parks, known by its Spanish acronym OAPN.
