Q: Who was the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry after independence?  

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry after India's independence. Born in 1952 in Chidambaram, India, Ramakrishnan is known for his contributions to the field of ribosome structure determination. In 2009, Ramakrishnan, along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the structure and function of the ribosome. The ribosome is a complex molecular machine that plays a crucial role in protein synthesis in cells. Ramakrishnan's research involved using X-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structure of the ribosome. His work provided unprecedented insights into the mechanisms of protein synthesis and paved the way for the development of antibiotics targeting bacterial ribosomes.