India last won the Nobel Prize in Science more than 80 years ago.
India has opened its most intense dialogue with the winners of one of the world's most prestigious awards, the Nobel Prize. Nine Nobel winners attending the Vibrant Gujarat summit will interact with hundreds of students and others at the Science City in Ahmedabad.
Opening the event on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave his own mantra for a Nobel to students. "Be inspired and be daring, have courage and be your own person and don't imitate," he said.
"That is how our honoured guests succeeded and that is what you should learn from them," advised the Prime Minister.
India last won the Nobel Prize in Science more than 80 years ago, when CV Raman was honoured for his work in physics.
Nobel Laureates including India's Venkatraman Ramakrishnan are participating in a countrywide outreach program to engage with Indian scientists. This includes a five-week long exhibition on "ideas that changed the world" put up at the Science City by the Nobel Foundation.
About 150 schoolchildren specially selected after a countrywide contest will interact with the Nobel laureates.
India has won just four Nobel Prizes in the history of the award and in all, about 15 people of Indian origin have won, says Lars Heikenstein, Executive Director, Nobel Foundation, Sweden. Indian winners include Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman, Amartya Sen and Kailash Satyarthi.
Earlier, speaking at the Indian Science Congress in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu declared a huge reward for the first person to win a Nobel Prize from his state - an extra 100 crores in prize money besides about $1 million given by the Nobel Foundation.