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Bengaluru, Nov 7: Six eminent professors have won the Infosys Prize 2019 across different categories of science and research, the software major's science foundation announced on Friday.

The annual award includes a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize purse worth USD 100,000 or its equivalent in the Indian rupees, the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) said in a statement.

The winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 were announced across six categories -- Engineering and Computer Sciences, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences.

A panel of accomplished jurors comprising renowned scholars and professors shortlisted the winners from 196 nominations.

"The Infosys Prize continues to recognise exemplary work in scientific research and enquiry," S. D. Shibulal, President of the ISF said in a statement.

"Many Infosys Prize laureates have gone on to contribute significantly in key areas like healthcare, genetics, climate science, astronomy and poverty alleviation, amongst other things. Their work has immediate implications for the human race and the planet, he said.

N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder of Infosys and Trustee - ISF said, "We should start helping our youngsters pursue fundamental research enthusiastically.

"They should be encouraged and equipped to become contributors to solving huge problems that confront us every day. I want India to be a place where discovery and invention happen every month," Murthy said in a statement.

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Engineering and Computer Science is awarded to Professor Sunita Sarawagi from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay for her research in databases, data mining, machine learning and natural language processing, and for important applications of these research techniques, ISF said.

The foundation said Sarawagi's work has practical applications in helping clean up unstructured data like addresses on the web and in repositories which then helps in more efficient handling of queries.

In the field of Humanities, the prize has been given to Manu V. Devadevan, Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi for his original and wide-ranging work on pre-modern South India.

He critically reinterprets much of the conventional wisdom about the cultural, religious and social history of the Deccan and South India, ISF said.

Manjula Reddy, Chief Scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad bagged the prize in the field of Life Sciences for her "groundbreaking" discoveries concerning the structure of cell walls in bacteria.

Reddy and her colleagues have revealed critical steps of cell wall growth that are fundamental for understanding bacterial biology. This work could potentially help in creating a new class of antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistant microbes, according to ISF.

For Mathematical Sciences, the prize is awarded to Siddhartha Mishra, Professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, for his outstanding contributions to Applied Mathematics, particularly for designing numerical tools for solving problems in the real world.

Mishra's work has been used in climate models, in astrophysics, aerodynamics, and plasma physics. He has produced codes for complicated realistic problems such as tsunamis generated by rock slides, and waves in the solar atmosphere, according to ISF.

For Physical Sciences, the prize this year is awarded to G Mugesh, Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru for his seminal work in the chemical synthesis of small molecules and nanomaterials for biomedical applications.

ISF said his work has contributed to the understanding of the role of trace elements, selenium and iodine, in thyroid hormone activation and metabolism, and this research has led to major medical advances.

Anand Pandian, Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the US, won the prize this year in the for Social Sciences category for his imaginative work on ethics, selfhood and the creative process, ISF said.

Pandian's research encompasses several themes such as cinema, public culture, ecology, nature and the theory and methods of anthropology, it said.

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Melbourne (AP): A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney's Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, Australian police documents released on Monday allege.

The men recorded a video about their justification for the meticulously planned attack, according to a police statement of facts that was made public following Naveed Akram's video court appearance Monday from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury.

Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.

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The New South Wales state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred on Monday from a hospital to a prison. Neither facility was identified by authorities.

The statement alleges the 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode.

Police described the devices as three aluminium pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, black powder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.

Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.

The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia's worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.

The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.

The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.

Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.

Police said a video found on Naveed Akram's phone shows him with his father "reciting their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”

The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to the Islamic State,” police said.

Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.

“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.

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