Osheroff was in Pune for the Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture Series to be held at the Cummins College of Engineering for Women (CCEW) on February 23 and 24. Osheroff’s remarks have come in the backdrop of criticism that not many students from India are choosing pure sciences. “Nobel Prize too honours researches only basic sciences,” he added. Osheroff, who shared the Nobel Prize with David Lee and Robert Richardson in 1996 for physics for the discovery of superfluidity in Helum -3, delivered a lecture on "How advances in Sciences are made’ on Monday and on ‘What really happens at absolute zero" at the CCEW on Tuesday. College principal Madhuri Khambete said that there are very few PhD holders from India as most students think research is not their cup of tea.

“However, initiatives like these will help in inspiring students for research in Physics and Mathematics,” she said.

The Honey-well Nobel Laureate Lecture Series India Initiative was launched in December 2007 with the visit of Dr Sheldon Glashow (1979 Physics Nobel Laureate) to Visvesvaraya technological University in Belgaum followed by Dr George Smoot, the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Physics to College of Engineering Pune (COEP) in March 2008.