Nagpur lad, 3 others to represent India at Chemistry Olympiad

Mumbai, May 30 (UNI) Nagpur boy Soham U Mehta and three other students will represent India at the 39th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO), to be held in Moscow from July 15 to 24.

This was announced by Pune IISER Director Prof K N Ganesh at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) during the valedictory ceremony of the orientation cum selection camp for IChO here today.

Sumit Somani from Jaipur, T Immanuel Ilavarasan from Chennai and Vikas Prajapati from Rawatbhata have also been selected for the prestigious event.

The team will be accompanied by two leaders Dr D K Maity, BARC, Mumbai and Dr S V Eswaran of St Stephen's College, New Delhi and one scientific observer Swapna Narvekar of HBCSE, Mumbai.

The preparations for selecting the Indian team began in November last year. Around 33,000 students from across India had registered in the first level examination conducted by Indian Association of Chemistry Teacher (IACT).

Three hundred students were selected for the second level examination, namely, the INChO examination, which was conducted across 15 centres.

In all, 31 students were selected to participate in an intensive training camp, namely, the orientation-cum-selection camp at HBCSE from May 21-30.

The event represents a type of ''celebration'' for the best in higher secondary school Chemistry and over 65 countries are expected to participate this year, HBCSE Chemistry lab Scientific Advisor Swapna Narvelakar told UNI.

IChO is a unique event designed to discover, encourage and challenge gifted young students from all over the world.

IChO was initiated in 1968 and India started participating in it since 1999. The HBCSE has been a nodal centre for training and selecting students for the Chemistry Olympiad since 1999.

HBCSE collaborates with the IACT and the Indian Association of Physics Teacher (IAPT) for implementing the programme. The Science Olympiad Programmes are funded by the Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology and Ministry of Human Resource Development.

UNI