Gujarat girl wins gold at 27th International Biology Olympiad

VADODARA: A Surat girl has brought laurels to the country by winning a gold medal at the 27th International Biology Olympiad (IBO) held at Hanoii in Vietnam.
Lajja Patel from Surat has won the gold medal while Tanish Modi from Haryana, Spandan Roy from West Bengal and Vidushi Varshney from Rajasthan have won silver medals at the IBO that concluded on Sunday.IBO is a competition for secondary school students.
All participant countries send their top students, who are winners of their respective National Biology Olympiad.
The four students were selected from more than 12,000 students through a series of tests and selection camps.
Students from 72 countries had participated in the IBO which was organized by Hanoi National University of Education and supported by Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training in terms of administration and finance.
Patel has obtained the highest score among all the participants in the first practical exam which dealt with plant anatomy and physiology.
Patel, who aspires to do research after completing her MBBS. had bagged silver medal in the 25th IBO that was held at Bali in Indonesia in 2014. Patel has previously been a Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana scholar and has also won the prestigious National Talent Search Examination scholarship.
"This performance by the Indian students equals the best performance by an Indian contingent at any IBO in the past," said Dr Dharmendra Shah, assistant professor at M S University's Department of Botany who was nominated by the national steering committee for science and astronomy olympiads of Government of India as delegation leader for the Indian team.
Shah has been involved with the biology Olympiad movement in India since 2011 and this was the third occasion in which he was part of the Indian team. India started participating in the IBO since 2000.