Vishweshwaraiah Prakash

Vishweshwaraiah Prakash is an Indian structural biologist, food technologist and a former director-general designate of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He is a former director of the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore and was involved with the International Union of Food Science and Technology as the chairman of its International Academy during 2008-10. He received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology category in 1996. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2004,

Biography Prakash was born in the south Indian state of Karnataka on 23 November 1951, Later, he secured his doctoral degree (PhD) from University of Mysore in 1976 and, obtaining a fellowship, he moved to US in 1976 and did post-doctoral research at Texas Medical Centre in Houston and Brandeis University, Boston till 1980. In 2008, and other peer reviewed national and international journals. His researches are known to have wide-ranging applications in commercial food industry and he holds 50 patents, some of them on preserved sugar cane juice, coconut sap (Neera) and baked snacks. Besides, he has written six books and 20 review chapters; Leafy spices, a reference guide on the botanical and agricultural aspects of agro-products yielding essential oils of leafy spices, is one among them. During his tenure as the head of CFTRI, he established the Advanced School of Protein Chemistry and Technology, for advanced research. During his stint at CFTRI, he coordinated the activities of the United Nations University at the institution and chaired the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) panel on Food Losses and Food Wastes as well as the FAO High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). chairs the Advisory Board of the NuFFooDS Magazine, He is an IUoFST visiting faculty at Saigon Technology University and an adjunct professor of Nutrition at the Tufts University, Boston.

Awards and honours Indian Academy of Sciences elected Prakash as their fellow in 1995 and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences followed suit in 1998. The National Academy of Sciences, India honoured him with Fellowship in 2002 and the next year, the Royal Society of Chemistry elected him as a Fellow. Indian Academy of Social Sciences and the Association of Food Scientists and Technologists, India (2008). and Laljee Godhoo Smarak Nidhi Award of the Association of Food Scientists and Technologists, India in 1992. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize of the CSIR, the highest Indian science award, in 1996 and the Government of Karnataka awarded him the second highest civilian award of the state, Rajyotsava Prashasthi, the same year. He received the Indian Independence Golden Jubilee Award in 1997 and two awards, Prof. V. Subramanyan Industrial Achievement Award and CFTRI Best Alumnus Award, in 1999. All India Food Processors' Association (AIFPA) honoured him with Soilendra Krishna Mitra Memorial Award in 2000 and the year 2001 brought him two more awards, DuPont Protein Technologies International Award and FICCI Award in Life Sciences and Agriculture, followed by Kashalkar Memorial Award in 2003.

The Government of India included Prakash in the 2004 Republic Day honours list for the civilian honour of the Padma Shri. The Government of Karnataka honoured him again with Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of SCI, UK reached him in 2013, the same year as he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Union of Food Science and Technology. 38th B.C. Guha Memorial Lecture Award of the Indian Science Congress (2001), 6th Golden Jubilee Commemorative Talk Award of the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (2007), 19th Srikantia Memorial Lecture Award of Nutrition Society of India (2007), C. Ramachandran Memorial Lecture Award of NFI (2007) and Dr. Rajammal P. Devdas's Oration Lecture Award of the Avinashilingam University for Women, (2009) are some of the notable orations delivered by him.