India clinches four golds and a silver at astronomy Olympiad in Vietnam

India's squad captured four top prizes and a runner‑up award at the 19th edition of the worldwide astronomy and astrophysics Olympiad held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from September 25 to October 5. The five Indian students all earned medals. Pranjal Dixit of Hyderabad, Sumant Gupta of Delhi, Akshat Srivastava of Gurugram and Arnav Sehrawat of Faridabad each took gold, while Harshil Amitkumar Patel from Vadodara secured silver. With four golds, India tied with the host nation for third place in the overall table, behind Iran and South Korea, which each earned five golds. The contest featured 307 participants from 64 nations, the biggest roster ever for the event. Data from the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education shows that since India began competing in 1999, 49 % of its entrants have won gold, 35 % silver and 13 % bronze. In the past five years every Indian contestant has taken either gold or silver. This year the trend extended across all five senior science Olympiads, where 24 Indian pupils collected 16 golds and eight silvers – a first since the country’s debut in 1989. The astronomy contest tested theory (50 % of the score), observation (25 %) and data analysis (25 %). The team travelled with Prof Bhaswati Mookerjea of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and Prof Sanved Kolekar of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru; Prof Aniket Sule of HBCSE‑TIFR served as the IOAA president. ## Context The strong showing reflects India’s growing strength in international science contests and follows years of systematic training by HBCSE and research institutes.