Indian physicist Deepak Dhar has been named a joint recipient of the 2026 Dirac Medal, among the most prestigious honours in theoretical physics. The medal was instituted in 1985 by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy. Dhar was the first Indian to receive the Boltzmann Medal, in 2022, and now joins a group of only 10 people who hold both the Dirac and Boltzmann Medals. His research examines how simple interactions give rise to complex behaviour in large systems.