Former Finance Minister and Member of Parliament, Dr Manmohan Singh presented the Down To Earth Green Scientist Award 2001 to Mr VINOD PRAKASH SHARMA, consultant with the World Health Organisation and former head of the Malaria Research Centre, here today.

Instituted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation, the award acknowledges Dr Sharma's path-breaking efforts to develop bioenvironmental strategies to control the malaria-bearing mosquito, one of the biggest health problems in India and other developing countries. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and a citation.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Singh said: "We have to create a world order that is sensitive towards the environment and where development is modelled on ecological concerns. Our orientation for our science and technology should be devoted towards social and ecological security. Unfortunately, these concerns are not reflected in our budget allocation in the science and technology sector. Moreover, excessive bureaucratisation remains a major hindrance. Therefore, we need to rethink our strategies." The entire exercise to rate the efforts of India's environmental scientists threw up some alarming facts. CSE chairperson Anil Agarwal said: "The 21st century is going to be the century of the environment. We will have to move away from the dinosaur technologies of the past and learn from the way nature uses its forces." Agarwal added that India spends very little on Science for Ecological Security -- and then spends it poorly. The award seeks to recognise and honour commendable scientific efforts in this crucial, but ignored area of environmental science, he said. "This is the challenge of Science for Ecological Security." The Green Scientist Award is an effort to measure up to this, he added.

Accepting the award, Mr Sharma said: "With the population pressure, there is an urgent need to focus our attention on long-term planning for vector-borne diseases."CSE director Sunita Narain said that this award is a reminder to the scientific community that India is in need of their expertise. Science and technology plays a very critical role given the environment conditions we face today. There are people in our society who are doing inspiring work and this award seeks to recognise people such as V P Sharma.
Awardee 2001Vinod Prakash Sharma has worked on controlling malaria without the use of harmful pesticides -- a common sense approach called bioenvironmental control of vectors. The chemical pesticides used to combat the disease in the past 50 years or so pose grave dangers to the environment and human health. That is what bioenvironmental vector control does -- control malaria without damaging the environment. That's why Sharma's work is important. He has made an alternate strategy of malaria control operationally feasible.His work ranges from malariology, epidemiology and malaria control, entomology, genetics, vector biology to control of vector-borne diseases. It isn't that he invented techniques for bioenvironmental vector control -- they were there before he began his work. His major contribution has been to integrate these approaches. His work as the founder-director of the Malaria Research Centre (MRC) helped take the message of bioenvironmental control across the country. After projects were carried out to validate the bioenvironmental system, several state governments have taken it up, including those of Maharashtra and Goa. Among the awards he has won are the Padma Shree, bestowed by the government of India, and the Darling Foundation Award given by WHO, which recognises his approach.The Problem: Malaria kills 3,000 people every day across the world, over one million people each year. Three out of four victims are children. Over 275 million cases occur each year. The disease is a serious public health problem in India -- over three million cases are reported each year.