Science in India - doomed to obscurity?

-

So many of us love Science. It was our favorite subject in school. It made sense, it made us feel that this world is supposed to make sense. That it works on logic and is, to the extent determined by our understanding of it, understandable, estimable, maybe even predictable.

 [Don't raise incongruous voices saying one shouldn't try to understand life, just enjoy it. Or if you could predict life, wouldn't it be boring? I'm not addressing generations that frequently complain of "ennui" (it's quite fashionable nowadays) spoilt such that they crave an escape from the luxury of security. I'm talking of people who struggle for necessities, for whom the predictability that a certain medicine would fetch them a cure would be so very welcome. Or poor families that would like to derive peace from the knowledge that investing in education will someday bring them better standards of living.]

 Anyhow, the point was, that so many of us loved Science so much that when we had to make career choices, we promptly jumped into Engineering, Medicine or Administration. I'm not saying everyone needs to justify their interests in Science by delivering career-choices and life-impacting decisions based on it. I'm saying:

 If someone loves Science, and is willing to enter this arena cognizant of its pros and cons, please do not try to deter them.

 Especially for want of money, fame, or social consonance.

 [And more categorically, please try to stop thinking it's okay to over-ride anyone else's opinions regarding their own lives. Seriously, with such profound wisdom, why not try focusing on your own life?
But that's a sermon for another day.]

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize for Science and Technology


 I admit I'd never heard of it myself till I actually made an unadulterated venture into Science. However, never too late to bring to the public's notice that the Government of India awards the SSB Prize (along with an amount of INR 5 lakh) for outstanding contribution to Science and Technology. These awards are supposed to encourage innovation, intellect and basically just good, sound work. A look at the recipients for the year of 2015:
  1. Dr Balasubramanian Gopal: Indian Institute of Science Bangalore
  2. Dr Rajeev Kumar Varshney: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Hyderabad
  3. Dr D Srinivasa Reddy: CSIR National Chemical Laboratory Pune
  4. Dr Pradyut Ghosh: Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science Kolkata
  5. Dr Jyotiranjan Srichandan Ray:  Physical Research Laboratory Ahmedabad
  6. Dr Yogesh Moreshwar Joshi: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
  7. Dr K Sandeep: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Bangalore
  8. Dr Ritabrata Munshi: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai
  9. Dr Vidita Ashok Vaidya: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai
  10. Dr Bedangadas Mohanty: National Institute of Science Education and Research Bhubaneswar
  11. Dr Mandar Madhukar Deshmukh: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai
A big congratulations to all these scholars!

Have you heard of them? If you're not a part of the academia, probably not. But everyone hears of that one graduate every year from one or the IIT or IIM who has the biggest package of that year. 

Does that graduate not deserve that fame? - I'm sure he/she does! They must have worked hard for it and it is, by no standards, a mean feat.

Do the IITs and IIMs not deserve their reputation? - They do. But for their respective fortes only. I'm a graduate of IIT Roorkee myself, and I am not debunking the contributions of my alma mater. Nor can I generalize anything about the IITs because, simply, I do not know enough. But I do know that the IITs are not the only institutes one "should" aspire to join. Did you notice there is only one IIT mention in that list of 11 for this year? There is a simple reason: IITs might be a glorious place to study, but there are other centers of excellence for research in this country.

(On a related note)

So what's your point? - My point is, "reputations" are built on "popular (herd) opinions" - what makes headlines. And life decisions should be based on facts. 

And if you are an Indian who is even remotely interested in Science, it is worthwhile to know something about the centers of research in India.

Why does this bear any significance in our lives? It is important to know that there is no merit in the argument "Science is not a good career option".

When I was a young child, my interests in Science were often "tested" by questions like - "Oh, so are you going to win the Nobel Prize?" No, I don't think I can ever win the Nobel Prize. I am probably never going to win any public affection. And as for money, well, I will live by comfortable standards but will definitely not erect mansions or buy fancy cars. But I do know that I am in a profession that will reward me for the nobler of my qualities, and to anyone who has suppressed thoughts about venturing into Science, I will reaffirm:

Yes, I am happy I am pursuing a career in Science.



Psst...like such posts?

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Darwin's Lost World - Part II

-
<< Previous page So what do we (did Darwin) know by now (then) ? That living creatures from the very very ancient past (we're talking in terms of millions of years) were often found preserved in the rock record. That we could make out some things about the past environments from these fossils. Fossils showed specific associations: you saw only certain types and groups of fossils in certain suites of rocks (belonging to different periods of geological time). There came a dead end at the base of the Cambrian. Scientists like to call this the Cambrian Explosion today, but back then, many of them were more inclined to dismiss this either as a figment of the imagination of relatively smaller body of researchers, or simply, incomplete/inaccurate science. That the Creator had made us all, was the popular view. 3 theories emerged to explain why we see the Cambrian Explosion (if it even is a real thing!): Charles Lyell Interestingly, it is said that Lyell was
Read more

On Darwin's Lost World

-
Image
Martin Brasier was a prolific paleontologist. And from what little I know of him, he must have been a pretty cool guy. I recently read his book "Darwin's Lost World" and it was definitely one of the better decisions of my life. On Darwin Thankfully, even the most plebeian of science curricula finds it worthwhile to describe Charles Darwin's scientific accomplishments. To me, all through childhood, Darwin represented my superiority to the apes. When someone said Darwin, I would get a mental picture of an ape gradually turning human. That's an overly simplistic picture, but then again, there is so much to learn about everything  that one doesn't quite know where to start. Source The rock record is the only thing that can give us a picture of the ancient Earth. Most other branches of science can tell you what the Earth is like, and why it is the way it is. But it was Geology that first told us what the Earth was  like, and bits of why it w
Read more

What is ENSO? Page 2 - SSTs and trade winds

-
Image
  This is Page 2 of the sub-series "What is ENSO?". If you haven't already, please read Page 1 first. For convenience, keep that page open in a different tab. = = = What is ENSO? In the previous post , we learnt to identify ENSO phases from the perspective of sea surface temperature anomalies . In this post, I'm going to answer a question that no one really asked ―  What if I wanted to identify ENSO phases from the perspective of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) instead? What if, for no good reason but because I felt like it, I wanted to do away with the "anomalies" bit? Looking at SSTs instead of SST anomalies makes matters unnecessarily complicated, but we're going to do it anyway because it also teaches us a lot. In the image below, I've plotted SSTs from the HadISST dataset. These are mean SSTs for the months of December, January and February (DJF) over all years from 1872-2009. Why did we select the months of DJF? Because ENSO events can be seen
Read more