Panaji (PTI): The first 'Manohar Parrikar Yuva Scientist Award' instituted by the Goa government will be presented to Dr Mathavaraj S of the U R Rao Satellite Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) next month, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has announced.

The selection committee headed by Dr Anil Kakodkar selected Dr Mathavaraj, who designed the powered descent trajectory of Chandrayaan-3 Mission, for the award.

In his post on 'X', Sawant on Friday said, "First Manohar Parrikar Yuva Scientist Award is out. Dr. Anil Kakodkar who chaired the Expert Committee of selection of Yuva Scientist has handed over the results to me this evening. Happy to announce that the award has gone to the person who designed the powered decent (descent) trajectory of #Chandrayaan3 Mission that had successfully landed on the South Pole of the moon."

"The award recipient is Dr. Mathavaraj S of the U R Rao Satellite Centre @isro. There were 106 applicants out of which 14 were shortlisted," he said.

The award comprises Rs 5 lakh and a citation, which is currently the highest cash prize in science and technology, Sawant said.

"The award will be presented at Manohar Parrikar Vigyan Mahotsav at NIO on 13th December 2023 i.e. birth anniversary of our beloved Dr. Manohar Parrikar (Bhai)," the chief minister added.

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New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.

Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.

The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.

On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.

Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.

Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.

A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.