Mumbai, October 6, 2026: Indian students won laurels at the 19th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) 2026, which concluded in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Monday, with four members of the five-member team winning gold medals and one winning silver.
Pranjal Dixit from Hyderabad, Delhi's Sumant Gupta, Akshat Srivastava from Gurugram and Arnav Sehrawat from Faridabad won gold medals, while Harshil Amitkumar Patel from Vadodara won a silver medal.
They were among 307 students from 64 countries who participated in this year's IOAA. In the final medal tally, India was placed third jointly with the guest team from Vietnam, behind Iran and South Korea, both of which won five gold medals.
Students Share Olympiad Experiences
The students, who were felicitated on Tuesday by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, shared their experiences at the competition, describing it as an academic programme that also offered opportunities to form lifelong connections with like-minded people.
Sumant, a Class XII student preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), has been participating in Olympiads for three years. He had won a silver medal at the previous Olympiad held in Mumbai. "I could pursue astrophysics and physics in my future studies," he said.
Interest In Astronomy And Astrophysics
Like Sumant, Arnav and Harshil also evinced an interest in astrophysics and astronomy. Pranjal said a question on the surface brightness of galaxies caught his interest in the theory test.
Akshat, who joined the felicitation programme online, said one question in the theory test that he found interesting involved data analysis of galaxies and black holes and the models that predict the evolution of such phenomena.
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Team Led By TIFR Professor
The team was led by two leaders — Prof Bhaswati Mookerjea of TIFR and Prof Sanved Kolekar of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru. They were also accompanied by scientific observers Prof Abdul Rahoof K A of Sullamussalam Science College, Kerala, and Adarsh Reddy Madur of Virtu Financial, Singapore.
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