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Recently, the Vice Admiral Vinay Badhwar, Chief Hydrographer to the Govt. of India received the Alexander Dalrymple award from the British High Commissioner.
Award to Vice Admiral Vinay Badhwar
- He has been awarded the Alexander Dalrymple award in recognition of his unparalleled dedication, professionalism and leadership in the disciplines of hydrography and nautical cartography, not only as the Chief Hydrographer to the Government of India but throughout the Indian Ocean region.
- The Admiral’s unrelenting enthusiasm in continuing the skills and output across the Indian Ocean has increased safety, security, economic sustainability and development and environment protection for the whole region.
- Vice Admiral Badhwar joined the Indian Navy in 1982
- He has extensive hydrographic surveying experience, including work in the Gulfs of Kutch and Khambhat, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands widely recognised as some of the most challenging environments to survey in the world.
- He has been a key member of the International Hydrographic Organisation’s capacity building sub-committee since its creation.
About the Award
- The Alexander Dalrymple award has been named after the first hydrographer of the Admiralty and was instituted in 2006.
- It was first awarded by the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) in 2006.
- Recipients are selected for their efforts in raising the standards of hydrography, cartography and navigation around the world.
About Alexander Dalrymple
- He was born on 24th July 1737 in New Hailes, Midlothian, Scotland.
- He was the first hydrographer of the British Admiralty and proponent of the existence of a vast, populous continent in the South Pacific, which he called the Great South Land.
- Dalrymple spent most of the time between 1757 and 1764 in the East Indies trying to further trade for the East India Company and became the company’s hydrographer in 1779.
- Recommended by the Royal Society of London to lead an expedition to the South Pacific to observe a transit of Venus (1769), Dalrymple hoped to find the Great South Land in the course of his voyage.
- In 1770–71 Dalrymple published his two volume Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, in which he continued to assert the existence of the continent.
Source: PIB
