Every body blames politicians for present day economic
crisis. I differ, I think it is the high level scientists enjoying
all comforts and honor and doing nothing to find appropriate
substitute for petrol, diesel, conventional power supply source are
to be blamed. All our economic problems stem from these basic things.
If any one of them can develop, invent suitable alternative for these
things our economic condition shall improve considerably. Scientists
of great reputation are demanding large sums of money for most
unimportant issues and do nothing even in them at all. These
so-called great scientists do not allow any other person, not coming
in their group, to get the benefits from government facilities. I say
why not allow other people who can work but are not so reputed as
these so-called great scientists from such reputed houses as TIFR,
BARC, and Science & Technology etc. Journalists should
investigate into these matters and expose these scientists. Most of
the time of these scientists goes in giving lame excuses to explain
their failure in not solving these national problems. To site an
example I remember a senior level scientist was appointed to
undertake a project to develop appropriate technology for harnessing
sea waves and produce electricity from that kinetic energy. He chose
Tamilnadu seashore to set up the pilot plant for the purpose. Time
proposed for reaching the result level was decided to be 30 years. A
foreign scientist was also appointed to associate this scientist from
BARC. I happened to be going to BARC for some other work and there I
came across this scientist. While discussing that project the foreign
scientist told that Bengal Sea does not have strong waves so much, so
that any reasonable quantity of electricity can be recovered from
them and so he suggested that the project be shifted to western shore
on Arabian Sea. Moreover, he pointed that the time allotted is also
very long, as per his calculations time required to complete the
project need not be more than 5 years if funds are provided in time.
BARC scientist refused to shift the place and insisted that it must
be on Tamilnadu seashore and period also to be about 30 years.
I asked the scientist why he objected to that suggestion
even though it was most appropriate to shift such sea wave based
projects to the shore where waves are highest and strongest. The time
proposed was also not proper when a project can be completed in just
about five years why delay it to 30 years? He told me the reason for
his objection. He told me that he is retiring after 20 years and he
wants to be in his home state for the work hence, these conditions.
He further told me that he was not interested in the project
excepting for doing some work. Whether the project becomes successful
or not, he was only interested in securing his position and for that,
he wanted additional time so that the project will continue after his
retirement. Therefore, even if it does not work he is free from the
responsibility of that project.
Later on, I came to know that this is not the only
project that BARC is working on. In most of them scientists involved
are not interested in project excepting for securing their job
guarantee. Almost all scientists in such research centers are having
this mindset! Therefore, they all knowingly connive at such
provisions put up by head scientist and the fraud continues without
any check. No scientist works for doing some dynamic work to help the
country, most are more bothered about their job security, benefits,
promotions, suitable transfers etc. Desire to shift blame for
failures is a very common experience. That showed to me that these
highly trained scientists are of no use for our country. I noticed
lesser-qualified personnel in these research places are found to be
more interested in results while their superiors more interested in
delaying the projects so that they can shift blame on new scientist
and escape the responsibility for failures of such projects. Many of
them are surer of failures than success of these projects!
One more defect I noticed amongst Indian scientists of
senior level is that they are good in theory but very bad in practice
of those theories. They lack confidence and very often, they admit of
that weakness. When he sees that, he is not going to be successful in
the work, he instead of striving to get results prefers to get
transfer on any conjured excuse and run away from the project. This
is similar to our Judges, they also get transfer when case under them
becomes more complicated. Apparently, every thing appears to be
normal. Newly appointed scientist is also of the same type and the
project continues to suffer. In some cases we see that if a scientist
is genuine and gives results, other incompetent fellow scientists try
to sabotage his work so that they are not to work like him. There is
so much politics in our research institutes that somebody should do
come with serious situation in those institutes. Concerned officers
show their displeasure on such occasions but never take any action
against those scientists.
Another important problem with our new formed scientists
who get Doctorate and qualify for PhD certificate is that their
research is not backed by actual experiments in most cases. We have
so many research papers being published every year but none is of any
material use. One professor told me some years back that getting PhD
is not a very difficult job. Some experienced readers are doing
business of preparing the research paper and the student has to only
pay him his fees and the paper is published in his name and he/she
gets the Doctorate. Viva is not a serious work, every thing is cooked
up nicely so long as they are paid their charges. These ready made
PhD holders then get job as scientists in our research institutes,
what research they can do? Anybody can visualize. One estimate
suggests that about sixty percent or more PhD holders are coming in
this way, we may say our scientists are not true research people.
Some claim that India is producing maximum research papers in the
world but they are prepared in this fashion and so at the end of the
day we see no sensible research is happening. Things in other
countries are not so bad. There students have to do real work to get
their Doctorate. Unless we change all these things; we shall never
come to the international standard in research work.
Time has come that we investigate
into these research scientists and find out how many are real
researchers and how many are bogus. I am putting it here because Mr.
Modi, our PM is expecting them to perform real research work and
solve our technical problems. Recently we witnessed ISRO shooting
Mangalyan successfully. Let us not take that as answer to this
problem. These ISRO scientists do not represent all scientists of
other institutes.
You may contact me on my Email ID given below,
You are invited to visit my other blogs
You
may visit blog, Ideas
and tips on any subject,
http://kotharay.blogspot.in/
for intelligent discussions.
No comments:
Post a Comment