New Delhi: Indian theoretical physicist Ashoke Sen is the 2026 recipient of the prestigious Oskar Klein Medal. He is the first Indian to receive this honour.Named after Swedish theoretical physicist Oskar Klein, this medal has been given every year since 1988 by the Stockholm University and the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Past winners include Stephen Hawking, Peter Higgs, Chen-Ning Yang, Steven Weinberg and Hans Bethe.As the winner, Sen delivered the Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture on the topic, ‘gravity from strings and strings from gravity’ at the Stockholm University’s AlbaNova Centre on October 22.The award recognises his pioneering contributions to string theory which seeks to explain the fundamental nature of the universe, black hole entropy and string field theory – ideas which have significantly shaped modern theoretical physics.Sen is a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. He studied at the Presidency College and Calcutta University, both in Kolkata.He is the current Infosys-Madhava Chair Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru.In 2015, Sen was one of the key signatories of the joint statement by the country’s top scientists expressing concern at the growing ‘climate of intolerance, and the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country’. Sen and the other signatories had criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the “highly vitiated atmosphere” in the country.Sen is also in the group of more than 4,000 scientists from across the world who in 2025 wrote to secretary general of the United Nations Antonio Guterres and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They artificial shortage of food is “unbearable”, they said, as is the complete denial of healthcare, education and basic well-being.Sen was along among top Indian string theorists who earlier this year shared a statement of solidarity with academics and citizens of Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon in the wake of educational institutes in these countries coming under attack from the United States and Israel.The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the government has congratulated Sen in a social media post. There has been no official note from Prime Minister Narendra Modi yet.